by Dane Hartman
“I thought geography was your department.”
“It was from up there,” Turk said ruefully, gesturing to the sky.
They began walking south which, Turk said, was the direction most likely to take them back to Russian River. And in fact, they could hear the river itself, cascading through a gorge below, although they had not gotten to a point where they could actually see it.
It was a difficult trek, made worse because of the two men’s injuries. From time to time, Turk would halt and apologetically explain that he had to rest for a minute. He’d then slump down in whatever convenient place he found and remain there for a while, breathing heavily from his exertions. The blood had ceased flowing from the gash in his head, which was now a raw caking slit across his brow.
“You have any idea who would want to shoot us down?”
Turk shrugged. “Lots of people.”
“But no one in particular?”
Turk didn’t answer directly. All he said was: “As soon as I get back to town I am going to collect as many John Doe warrants that I can lay my hands on and assemble as many men as I can find and I am coming back here, this time to blow everything wide open. Now, you see, I have an excuse. Armed assault like this, the murder of four men, that’s something people can understand. We’re not talking about trafficking in illicit drugs, we’re talking murder.”
“You think an operation of the scale you’re talking about is feasible?”
“Hell, I know it’s feasible. I’ve been yearning to do something like this ever since I came to Russian River. Before today I never had the opportunity.”
Harry sensed that, apart from the terror of being shot out of the sky and the peril to his life, Turk welcomed the incident; it gave him publicity, it gave him his opening.
As Harry started to say something else to the nark, something caught his eye and he raised his head.
Turk noticed the fixity of his gaze. “What is it?” He looked up too. And quickly saw what it was.
Way high up in one of the trees, hung the outstretched body of Henry Beller, his chest speared by a long sharp branch that had stopped his fall.
C H A P T E R
F o u r
“Then you don’t look at it the way Turk does?”
Davenport vigorously shook his head. “Not at all. See, the problem with Turk is that he is so fanatic about wiping out the marijuana gardens that he can’t see the forest for the trees. In this case. I mean that literally. He isn’t particularly worried about who in hell shot down the chopper. Just like he told you, he’s searching for a pretext. Now he’s got one. I get the dirty work.” He sighed. “I always get the dirty work.”
Harry and Davenport were walking along Butterworth Street, which trailed off of Van Buren. The houses on this route were shabbier than those in the middle of town, attesting to advanced age and falling real-estate values. Some, however, were being restored, as Davenport was quick to point out. “Refugees from San Francisco and Eugene, places like that, come here, looking for peace and quiet.”
“And dope.”
“Of course, and dope.”
But as the street narrowed and became rutted, less and less evidence of any kind of restoration, civic or private, could be seen. There were more tenements and structures that looked like they’d been fashioned entirely of corrugated tin and cardboard.
“This,” declared Davenport, almost with perverse pride, “is Russian River’s slum.”
The street gave way altogether, becoming something less than a street but not quite a lot in which were clustered several miserable crammed structures. The sun glared harshly off their insubstantial metal roofs.
“And why have you taken me here?” Harry inquired.
“This is where most of our snitches live. I figured that one of them might have an idea who it was that shot down that chopper. You see, there are a great many people who rely on us, they pass us some information, we give them a few bucks, it helps them feed their habits. We know what they’re doing. So does the sheriff’s office. But there’s just too much shit around to try and bust every single one of them. Our jail isn’t that big, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“What does Turk think of this?”
“Turk’s got his eyes on those hills. He doesn’t give a goddamn about what goes on here in town.”
“I imagine people don’t take kindly to being seen with you even so.”
Those few people Harry had observed in the vicinity in fact did not appear pleased to see either of them encroaching on what they believed was their turf. They had the depleted looks and the pallor of those who have dropped one tab of acid too many along the way.
“Well, ordinarily, that’s the case,” Davenport admitted. “But in something like this, with the helicopter, they know that we’re not fooling around. Four counts of murder, destruction of government property, nobody does that kind of shit unless they’re willing to take on the Feds. These people here, they’re not up to a scam like that.”
“So you’re convinced they’ll cooperate?”
“Convinced? Hell, I’m not convinced of shit, Callahan. But I think there’s a reasonable chance we might pick up a few leads.”
Two days had passed since the Sikorsky was downed over Rain Mountain. Turk was still laid up in the hospital where he was supposed to be undergoing further tests, specifically a CAT scan of the brain to determine whether he had sustained serious injury to his head. The D-Day invasion of marijuana country was going to have to be delayed a bit. Not that Turk wouldn’t abandon his hospital bed if he could, but Wardell Marsh had sent someone to watch him, ostensibly to protect him in the event that those parties interested in his demise struck again. Marsh, of course, didn’t like the way things were developing at all.
Davenport said, “Marsh realizes that as soon as Turk is back to normal, he’ll take the whole case out of his hands and deal with it himself. You watch, he’ll pull it off. It might not be successful, this little blitzkrieg of his, but hell, he’ll make it happen. That’s how Turk is.”
In spite of Davenport’s assessment of the slum dopers’ mood, none of them proved particularly forthcoming. Davenport may have had an inflated idea of his capacity to acquire information.
Nobody knew a thing. They could not imagine who would have been so idiotic as to try to shoot down a helicopter carrying three detectives and a federal narcotics officer, they said. They were fearful of a giant bust in retaliation; accordingly, they were far more interested in obtaining Davenport’s assurance that this wouldn’t happen than in providing him with any useful leads.
They wanted Davenport to think that they could be counted on, however.
“You know me, Frank,” they’d say, “you know how I’ve helped you in the past.”
But Davenport was disheartened. “Either there’s something going on that they truly don’t know about, or else they are too scared to say what they do know.”
As they were proceeding back toward Van Buren, Davenport stopped. He said, “You remember I told you that Turk had a girl?”
“I remember.”
“She doesn’t live so far from here. I was thinking you might go pay her a visit.”
“And what good would that do?”
“I have my reservations about the woman, you understand. Turk thinks the world of her, but there’s no telling how much he’s told her.”
“You’re saying that she might be the leak?”
“Just supposing he mentioned the outing a couple of days ago, maybe in passing? She might have passed word on to certain friends. I’m not saying it’s so. I’m saying maybe. Now for obvious reasons I can’t question her. She’ll only get right back to Turk on it, and it’s my ass. You, you’re from outside, you are working on an ongoing investigation. So what if she bitches to Turk. What’s he going to do? And anyhow, the way I see it you two aren’t exactly the best of friends. Am I right?”
Harry wasn’t certain how much good seeing this woman would do, but he was willing to
take a gamble. At the very least his curiosity was peaked. He couldn’t imagine what Turk’s girlfriend looked like. He wasn’t expecting very much.
“What is her name and how do I find her?”
“Her name is Elsie Cranston and she lives right down that street over to your right, fourth house on the left.”
“Anything pertinent I should know about her besides the attraction she exerts on Turk?”
“Well . . . ,” Davenport wasn’t quite sure how to put it. “Well, she does lots of drugs. That seems to be her profession and avocation as it were. I know, it doesn’t make sense, what with Turk being a nark, but there it is. That’s how they met. She was busted once along with several others, released with a fine and a reprimand as I recall. She wasn’t carrying so they didn’t want to press charges against her. But she was consorting with known dealers who were carrying. Turk liked the looks of her. He figured he could straighten her out. You ask me, I honestly think that he believes he’s done just that, straighten her out I mean. But take it from me she’s not straight. I know straight, and she’s not it.”
This case is getting stranger by the minute, thought Harry as he began in the direction of Elsie Cranston’s home, a rambling structure with pink paint and crumbling plaster.
The wooden stairs rattled loudly as Harry ascended them to the capacious porch.
Only a screen door guarded the entrance. Harry knocked. Hearing no response, he opened the screen door and walked in.
“Elsie? Hello?”
There seemed to be a great many rooms, each with furnishings that you might expect to find at a Salvation Army store. He wondered if she lived by herself.
From somewhere in the rear of the house there came the steamy odors of food cooking. There was also the sound of music, which grew louder and more identifiable the farther back Harry went. Linda Rondstadt was belting out her version of “Heatwave.” An old song though not nearly as old as “Viper Mad.”
Her back was turned to him. Obviously, she’d not heard him with the music so loud. She was either putting a pie into the oven or removing it.
Elsie was wearing a man’s checkered shirt and jeans as faded as the walls of the kitchen. Her hair was concealed by a red kerchief. From Harry’s vantage point, by the doorway to the kitchen, there was no way of determining whether her face was as intriguing as her body. But she did move nicely.
Perhaps the intensity of his stare was what alerted her. In any case, she turned, started, then studied Harry long and hard as though she were trying to place him in her mind.
Not beautiful but pretty, and probably not more than twenty-five, not at all what Harry had anticipated. Moreover, her skin had the color and texture that intimated at a life of health and regular hours. No matter what Davenport had said, she did not give one the impression that she relied heavily on drugs. But then Harry was skeptical enough not to dismiss Davenport’s words out of hand.
“Who are you?”
He identified himself, displaying his credentials.
“Ah, you’re one of those,” Elsie said, making it sound like Harry had just emerged from a leper’s colony. “Turk told me they were bringing in cops from the south.” She held out the pie which she’d just finished baking. “Apple-peach, are you interested?”
It struck Harry as odd that she reacted so impassively to his presence.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know what you want,” she said. “I’ll cut you a piece, and you can at least try it. Sit down. I’ll put on some tea. Earl Gray all right with you? Or Thundercloud? Lots of caffeine in Thundercloud so don’t take it if you’re planning on a siesta this afternoon.”
“Just water.”
“I’ll make you the Earl Gray. You look like you need the sleep too much.” As she went about doing this she asked Harry if Turk had sent him. “He likes to check up on me. He calls me three or four times a day from the hospital. It’s like he’s jealous or something.”
“That seems strange to you?”
She gave Harry a questioning look. “He should know better.”
“No, Turk didn’t send me. He might be upset if he knew I came as a matter of fact.”
“Then it must be that clown he’s got working for him, Davenport. Am I right? Don’t answer. I know I’m right. Davenport suspects me of giving away all of Turk’s secrets. Do I look to you like a femme fatale? Mata Hari of Russian River? Believe it or not I am an innocent. I really am.”
“What do you do for a living?”
She gestured to the potholders she had hanging over the kitchen sink. “I make those. I do macramé. I do pottery. There’s a kiln I use not far from here. You want to see it, I’ll show you some time. I do a lot of things. Artsy-craftsy most of them. But all legal.”
“No drugs?”
“A couple of joints now and then, no big deal. Generally I’m a good girl. Nothing stronger than Thundercloud.”
“I thought it was Earl Gray.”
“For you, Earl Gray. For me, Thundercloud. I suffer from narcolepsy. Fall asleep at the drop of a hat.”
“Narcolepsy and not narcotics?” Harry realized that he didn’t believe a word Elsie Cranston was telling him and, further, that he didn’t mind.
She found this amusing and laughed. “That’s right. Each to his own.”
“What do you and Turk talk about then?”
“Is that in the nature of a professional inquiry, sir?”
“Absolutely.”
“We talk about what all young lovers talk about. Plans for the future that will never reach fruition, what he’ll do when he’s laid waste to all the marijuana fields, a beautiful life for the two of us in Washington. He hasn’t gotten it through his head that I am not going to Washington with him. I am not marrying him. On the other hand, he’s never going to lay waste to the marijuana fields either.”
She leaned forward to pour out another cup of tea for Harry, but with such a pronounced motion that she succeeded in separating the opening of her shirt more than it already was. There was no break in her tan, it was even down to the rounded surfaces of her breasts.
“You know that for a fact?”
“Let’s just say that I know Turk well enough to have an idea of his limitations. He’s crazy, that one.”
“Then why do you stay with him?”
“You have it wrong. I don’t stay with him. He comes to see me, he calls me, he carries around this fantasy of me. But it’s not what you’d call tight. Not on my end anyway. When it gets too cumbersome then—” She made a snipping motion with her fingers. “Then I cut him off.”
“You’re fairly ruthless for someone who says she’s an innocent.”
“That’s me. A ruthless innocent. How do you like my pie?”
“Excellent. I’m impressed.”
“What did I tell you? I am a woman of a thousand skills.”
One of those skills might be deception Harry considered, upon leaving Elsie Cranston. But she was so ingenuous, so self-assured, that it was difficult to decipher the precise nature of the deception. He could see why Turk liked her. He could see why a great many men would like her. He could even see why he would like her if he allowed himself to.
He was walking. The town of Russian River could be traversed in half an hour. His car was parked back in front of the county courthouse.
In fact, walking, at least on the narrow side-streets, was the primary form of locomotion. A car, particularly one going in excess of fifty miles an hour, could excite some attention in these parts.
A dented pale green Chrysler that had one side window missing and fitted with cardboard to keep out the elements sputtered as it passed Harry, at the same time stirring up dust and pebbles from the potted roadbed.
It drew to a sudden stop directly in front of Elsie Cranston’s house. Harry turned and watched. The driver of the Chrysler shortly emerged. Without looking in either direction, he advanced up the stairs to the porch and went right in.
Now what was he do
ing there? Harry wondered. Because Elsie Cranston’s guest was none other than Mike Kilborn.
Kilborn wasn’t at home. Home for Kilborn was a trailer van situated in a park designed expressly for such homes. His was a white bulbous-shaped thing crowned by a domelike formation with two symmetrical triangular windows up front; from a distance they looked like the eyes of some prehistoric creature that, had it wings, would long ago have taken to the air.
It was night, past ten but still prime time, and Harry could hear coming from the nearly two dozen vans sequestered in this place the sound of televisions in operation. What light there was originated mostly from various van windows. In providing this park, the town of Russian River seemed to have skimped on expenses for public illumination.
Kilborn had left the door open. Either he was coming right back or else he was a more trusting person than Harry had any reason to expect. Lights blazed in the interior. A Clash record was revolving endlessly on the turntable, stuck somewhere in the last cut. The sound system Kilborn possessed, Harry noted, was expensive. He even had a machine that measured the quality of the sound. He should take better care of his records, Harry thought, with all that good equipment.
The television was on too, although the audio was off. The screen projected a faltering image, one that kept going out of focus. The mountains interferred with the signal, Harry guessed. Hundreds of dollars for a good set and there were still the mountains to deal with.
By Kilborn’s bedside was a clutter of porn magazines, as sleazy as the man who’d purchased them. There was nothing socially redeeming about any of them. The bed was unmade. An uncorked half-gallon jug of Gallo was on the floor within reach of the bed. To complete the impression of disarray, ashes and cigarette butts had been strewn about and then trampled on.
But the one thing that Harry would have expected was missing. There was no evidence of dope. No pipes, no bongs, no roach clips. If there was a stash somewhere, Kilborn kept it well hidden. Not that Harry would necessarily do anything should he discover a stash, it was just that it might go far to substantiate Davenport’s allegations. And he was hoping not for half an ounce of grass but something sizable and more felonious: cocaine or heroin, something that would indicate Kilborn was deeply involved in the business.