Obsidian

by Thomas King

  He had put two quarts of vanilla ice cream into the cart, wheeled them around the store for a while, and then put them back, a somewhat astonishing triumph of self-restraint and good sense that he would mention to Beth the next time she asked him about his diet.

  THE RV WAS GONE.

  Thumps considered driving out to the Mustang to make sure that Leon had made it there safely and was not annoying anyone unduly. He was reasonably sure that a retired deputy sheriff was not going to impress the regulars who called the bar home. There was something about club colours and motorcycles that made such men feel invincible.

  If Big Fish was back at work, Thumps could call and ask him to look after his friend. Or Leon could try taking out his silver dollar and flipping himself out of trouble.

  Thumps took his time putting the dry goods into the cupboards and the perishables into the fridge. Tomorrow, he’d make an omelette. Onions, peppers, a little sausage meat, tomatoes, Swiss cheese. Multi-grain toast. A pot of black coffee.

  Then he and Leon would open the boxes, spread the files out, and go back to work as though they had just caught the case that morning.

  Twenty-Five

  Thumps was up with the sun. He had wanted to sleep in, had pulled the covers over his head, had rolled himself up in the blankets, had even taken a stab at that technique where you relax your toes and work your way up.

  But in spite of his best efforts, here he was, standing in front of the refrigerator with the morning light at the window, trying to decide whether Leon was a bacon or sausage man.

  The RV was back. So, Leon had survived an evening at the Mustang, though in what condition remained to be seen. Thumps shredded the potatoes and began cooking them in olive oil and butter. He laid the bacon strips on the grill, arranged the sausages in the fry pan, and turned the oven on to 200. The meat would beat the potatoes done, and he’d put the bacon and sausages on the lower rack while he waited for Leon to appear. Then he’d fold the eggs into the skillet and put the toast down.

  The other day at Al’s, working the grill, had been fun. And it had reminded him of Eureka. Anna and Callie. He had been the primary cook in the relationship. Dinners, for the most part. Always at his place. They had never moved in together, and Anna had never offered to have him stay overnight.

  He had thought it had been because of Callie.

  Thumps took two plates out of the cupboard and set them on the counter when he heard the back door open.

  “Hope you made enough for two, Tonto,” Leon shouted from the laundry room. “’Cause we are hungry.”

  “Yes, we are,” Thumps shouted back.

  Leon was partially dressed, pants, T-shirt, no socks, no shoes. His hair was stuck against the side of his face as though he had spent the night with his head in a steam press. Thumps had seen better-looking eyes on a dead rat.

  “Bacon and sausage.” Leon crowded in against the stove. “You must be my mother.”

  “I thought I was your mama.” Ora Mae Foreman was standing in the doorway, looking as though she had just stepped off the pages of Forbes or Elle.

  It took Thumps a moment to digest the scene.

  “Your mouth is open.” Ora Mae pinched two fingers together. “Two eggs over easy, dry toast, and coffee. Please.”

  “I’ll take the works,” said Leon. “Got to recharge the old battery.”

  “The man’s an Energizer Bunny,” said Ora Mae. “But his taste in movies stinks.”

  “The Naked Prey. 1965,” said Leon. “Cornel Wilde as a big-game hunter in Africa.”

  Ora Mae rolled her eyes.

  “He’s captured by the natives, and they give him a chance to run for his freedom.”

  “This is where it gets really stupid,” said Ora Mae. “They shoot an arrow and where it lands is the guy’s head start. You believe that?”

  “Soon as he reaches the arrow, the chase begins.” Leon notched an imaginary arrow into an imaginary bow. “Indians ever do that?”

  Thumps got out two more eggs.

  Ora Mae shook her head. “Ain’t no way some skinny White guy outruns that tribe. Those men were in great shape.”

  “The foreman here tells me you going to sell your house.”

  Ora Mae slugged Leon on the shoulder. “I told you not to call me that out in the open. Thumps here will get the wrong idea.”

  “You should think about an RV,” said Leon.

  “No, he shouldn’t,” said Ora Mae. “They’re no better than a car. Drive it off the lot and you lose half the value.”

  “Less than a third,” said Leon. “And there’s no guarantee that a house will appreciate. I have friends in Arcata who bought at the top of the market. They won’t get their money back.”

  “Sure,” said Ora Mae. “Shit happens. Difference is an RV is guaranteed to depreciate.”

  Leon tried to peel his hair off his face. “You got indoor plumbing?”

  “Down the hall,” said Thumps. “First door on the left.”

  Thumps could feel Ora Mae looming behind him.

  “I expect you’ve got some questions,” said Ora Mae.

  “Nope.” Thumps stayed at the stove and kept his head down. “I’m good.”

  “For instance, what’s a good-looking lesbian doing with a junkyard dog?”

  “Opposites attract?”

  “That the best you can do?”

  “Food’s almost ready.”

  “Psychology 101,” said Ora Mae. “Sexual activity depends on the availability of a partner.”

  Thumps put the potatoes and the meat on the table and began buttering the toast.

  “And he’s a good dancer,” said Ora Mae. “He ain’t much to look at, but the man has got some moves.” Ora Mae helped herself to a taste of the hash browns. “And he makes me laugh.”

  Leon was back, and he didn’t look much better. His hair was still stuck to the side of his face, and now it was wet.

  “A yellow sink?”

  Thumps shrugged.

  “And a yellow toilet?” Leon shook his head. “Enough to put a man off his business.”

  “It’s lime-green,” said Ora Mae. “All the rage in the ’60s.”

  “Food’s ready,” said Thumps.

  “What happened to those over-easy eggs and dry toast?” said Ora Mae. “Hell of a world when a gorgeous woman can’t get over-easy eggs and dry toast.”

  CONSIDERING THE PEOPLE sitting around the kitchen table, breakfast was a quiet affair. It was Ora Mae who finally broke the silence.

  “Is that the serial killer stuff?” Ora Mae nodded toward the stack of banker boxes.

  “That’s it,” said Leon.

  “And you two think you’re going to catch this guy.”

  Thumps sighed. “We don’t even know whom we’re trying to catch.”

  “Leon told me there was an ex-husband.”

  “Not ex,” said Thumps. “They were still married.”

  “Anna Tripp,” said Leon, as though this explained anything. “And Raymond Oakes.”

  “There’s married,” said Ora Mae, “and then there’s married.”

  “He may have nothing to do with the killings.”

  “So, you’re chasing a husband,” said Ora Mae, “or you’re chasing a ghost. This husband own real estate?”

  Leon looked at Thumps.

  “’Cause if he owned any real estate before he went into prison,” said Ora Mae, “he may still own it.”

  Thumps poured himself another cup of coffee. “Oakes was nineteen when he went to prison. No family. Grew up in foster care. Doubt he owned much of anything.”

  Ora Mae helped herself to the last sausage. “There was this old woman in the neighbourhood. Us kids thought she was crazy and maybe she was. Anyway, she always wore this blue sweater. Robin’s egg blue. Button-up with a little collar. Wore that damn sweater every day of the year. Hot. Cold. Didn’t matter. You see what I’m saying?”

  Thumps looked at Leon.

  “Well, that sweater got real ratt
y. Moth holes. Falling apart. Didn’t smell so good either. And one night, when she was asleep, her son sneaked that sweater away from her and threw it out. Figured that she’d forget about it over time.”

  “But she didn’t?” said Leon.

  “Nope,” said Ora Mae. “Every day after that, she’d wander through the neighbourhood looking for that sweater.”

  “Her son get her a new sweater?”

  “He did,” said Ora Mae. “But he wasn’t fooling his mother, and she just kept on looking until the day she died.”

  There were a few hash browns left and one piece of toast.

  “That’s a sad story,” said Leon. “Flip you for that last piece of toast.”

  “You eat the toast,” said Ora Mae. “I got to get back to selling houses. They don’t sell themselves, you know.”

  “You never told me how much you thought my house is worth.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re not serious,” said Ora Mae. “You’re just feeling sorry for yourself and looking for sympathy.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You want a bunch of strangers coming through your house, opening drawers, checking closets, turning the taps on and off, asking questions about heating and cooling costs?”

  Thumps could feel a shot of sharp panic shoot through his body.

  Ora Mae stood and brushed off her suit. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I thought.”

  “We going dancing again tonight?”

  Ora Mae smiled her bright smile at Leon. “A walk on the wild side?”

  “Call it.” Leon flipped the silver dollar into the air and caught it on his wrist.

  “See.” Ora Mae turned to Thumps. “He makes me laugh.”

  Twenty-Six

  Thumps carried the dishes to the sink.

  Leon stayed at the table, relaxing in the chair. “She’s right about the depreciation,” he said. “But what you get with an RV is the freedom to go wherever you want to go, whenever you want to go. With a house, you’re staked to the ground.”

  “Not sure that I want a house or an RV.”

  “Some people think that renting is the best of all worlds. No mortgage, and the landlord is stuck with the leaky roofs and the wonky appliances.”

  Thumps slipped the dishes into the soapy water.

  Leon picked up a banker box and set it on the table. “But, if you ask me, living in an apartment is like wearing someone else’s underwear.”

  “So, what do you want to do today?”

  “What I want,” said Leon, “is to go back to bed. I’m not as young as I used to be and that woman is a pistol.”

  “You know she’s a lesbian.”

  Leon took the lid off the box. “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Wouldn’t have taken you for a puritan.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You sound as though you don’t approve.”

  “I’m just surprised,” said Thumps.

  “With all the shit that happens, that’s the one thing that makes life bearable,” said Leon. “Being surprised.”

  Thumps wiped his hands and sat down. “So, what surprises do you have for me today?”

  Leon pulled out a file. “Well, let’s start with Raymond Oakes. This Maslow of yours and Shipman-what’s-his-name say they can place Oakes in the area at the time of the murders.”

  “Nina Maslow,” said Thumps. “Harry Shipman.”

  “Whatever.” Leon opened the file. “These are the records for every motel from Crescent City to Garberville. And there’s no record of Raymond Oakes. So the question is, how did Maslow and Shipman find Oakes when the entire Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, the state police, and the FB of I could not?”

  “We didn’t know about Oakes at the time.”

  “Sure.” Leon tapped the file. “But we know about him now, and surprise, surprise, his name still doesn’t appear anywhere.”

  “Maybe we should talk to Mr. Shipman.”

  “Cop 101. See?” said Leon. “It’s like riding a bike.”

  “They’re staying at the Tucker.”

  “Already called.” Leon held up a cellphone. “It appears your movie people are up with the chickens and on the move.”

  “On the move?”

  “Nice woman at the front desk said they were asking directions to the reservation.”

  “She have anything more than that? Reservation is a big place.”

  “Moses Blood,” said Leon. “The name she heard was Moses Blood.”

  THE FIRST PART of the trip was made in silence. Leon leaned against the door and went to sleep. Thumps would have done the same thing, except he was behind the wheel, and cruise control had its limits.

  “We there yet?” Leon’s eyes were still closed, but the rest of him was awake.

  “You have a nice sleep?”

  “I think you hit every pothole in the road.”

  “Missed the big ones.”

  Leon straightened up. “You got any idea why the movie folks want to see this Blood guy?”

  “Nope.”

  “You think Oakes is Indian?”

  “You mean Blackfeet?”

  “He doesn’t look Indian,” said Leon. “But you can never tell. Maybe he was originally from around here.”

  “Maybe.”

  “His prison record lists him as White,” said Leon, “but that doesn’t tell you much. He could be part Indian and doesn’t want to admit it. You remember that seminar on race and gender we had to take?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dr. William Brock,” said Leon. “He said that race and gender were constructs. That they didn’t really exist.”

  “What about him?”

  “Man was White,” said Leon. “And he was male.”

  “I think he was speaking theoretically.”

  “Problem is we don’t live in a theoretical world.” Leon took out his cellphone and snapped a photo of the passing panorama. “If he had been Black and female, he might have had a different theory.”

  The road to Moses’s place had been graded not too long ago by an oil company that was trying to run a pipeline through the reservation. The pipeline had stalled in a series of court cases, and the road had been left to its own devices. Thumps picked his way through the ruts all the way to the bottomland along the river that Moses called home.

  There was a black SUV parked in front of the house. Moses and Cooley were sitting at the big picnic table. Along with Mercer, Gerson, and Shipman.

  “That Blood?”

  Thumps eased the car into the shade of a big cottonwood. “Moses Blood and Cooley Small Elk.”

  “I got to get me a name like that,” said Leon. “What do you think of Leon Shadow Runner?”

  “Not much.”

  “Leon Dark Wolverine?”

  “Even less.”

  Anthony Mercer was holding court at the table. Moses and Cooley were looking on gravely, nodding and grunting every so often to let Mercer know that they hadn’t fallen asleep.

  Cooley got up and stretched. “You guys can sit here,” he said, gesturing to the bench. “I’ll get a chair.”

  “Yes,” said Moses. “You’re just in time for the big finish.”

  “Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Shipman. “Mr. Blood said you’d be along.”

  Thumps had given up trying to figure out how Moses seemed to know what was going to happen before it did.

  “This is Leon Ranger,” said Thumps. “Leon’s a Humboldt County sheriff.”

  “Retired,” said Leon.

  “The Leon Ranger,” said Cooley. “That’s a really cool name.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely,” said Cooley. “And since you’re Black, you could wear a white mask.”

  “Shit,” said Leon. “That’s a good idea.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Thumps.

  “Mr. Mercer wants to use my house for the big shootout,” said Moses. “Maybe even have a car chase along the river.”


  “Nina had talked about Mr. Blood,” said Shipman. “I think she was planning on using him on camera.”

  “Then I could watch TV,” said Moses, “and see me.”

  “I’ll have to be there with him,” said Cooley. “Moses might get nervous when the director says, ‘Action!’”

  “I think we can find a place for the both of you,” said Gerson.

  Moses turned to Thumps. “Maybe they could find a place for you and Claire and the baby.”

  “Everybody likes babies,” said Cooley.

  Shipman looked surprised. “You have a baby?”

  Thumps let the question slide by. “So, you’re going to have a shootout?”

  “And a car chase,” said Cooley.

  “The serial killer lures our hero to a place like this,” said Shipman. “Somewhere secluded. Primeval.”

  “Prime Evil,” said Cooley. “That would be a pretty good title for the film.”

  “It would,” said Shipman, “but we’re going to call the movie Obsidian.”

  “That’s a good name too,” said Moses. “Some of the tribes farther west used obsidian for arrowheads and knives.”

  Cooley nodded. “And the Aztecs used obsidian knives to cut the hearts out of people they didn’t like.”

  “Jesus,” said Leon. “You guys got any vampires in this film?”

  Gerson smiled. “And no zombies.”

  Shipman shifted on the bench. “But I don’t think that Mr. DreadfulWater and Deputy Ranger came all the way out here to check on the film.”

  “Loose ends,” said Leon.

  “Ah,” said Shipman. “Raymond Oakes.”

  “The husband?” said Mercer. “The ex-con who disappeared.”

  “Let’s walk and talk,” said Shipman. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  “Go ahead,” said Gerson. “Tony and I will wrap up the details with Mr. Blood.”

  “Maybe Moses can run the bad guy down on a horse,” said Cooley. “That would be a surprise ending.”