Bad Country: A Novel

by CB McKenzie

  That means I am probably looking for a manuscript that he hid, said Rodeo.

  I am assuming so.

  Did Professor Burke have any friends you knew of, Mrs. Miller? asked Rodeo. Anyone he would have confided in about the memoir you’re looking for or who could have seen him hiding it?

  He would confide in no one but me, the woman said. But he was dating someone. And she had been in his apartment.

  How would you know that, Mrs. Miller?

  I just know it.

  But you don’t know who it was?

  She shook her head.

  Did your brother have a lot of other houseguests?

  Rarely. He was a very private person. Very reserved. He could be sociable when he was drinking but he did not like many people. He did not let many people inside his world, if you know what I mean?

  I understand that, Rodeo said.

  Will you work for me? the woman asked.

  Rodeo turned and looked at A-Mountain then looked back at Sisely Miller. I wouldn’t mind looking into this case for you, Mrs. Miller. Though it’s no guarantees in this sort of thing. If this manuscript is just hidden I can probably find it but it could be a needle in a haystack deal and take days or weeks or months. Or it could be an elephant in a room and only take me an hour to find.

  If it was stolen? Sisely Miller asked.

  If this memoir was stolen by someone who wants to do harm to your husband’s political career it’s too late already, Mrs. Miller. They would have scanned it and it’s already all over the Internet right now and there’s nothing I can do for you about that.

  I don’t have a lot of options, Sisely Miller said. I have to try and find it.

  Why don’t you look for it yourself or have some of your husband’s people do it? asked Rodeo.

  It’s not my husband’s affair, she said.

  Rodeo narrowed his eyes at her.

  Judge Miller doesn’t know what’s in the memoir, does he? he asked.

  The judge’s wife held her tongue and also seemed to be holding her breath.

  Judge Miller knows you’re looking for something that was in your brother’s apartment, said Rodeo. Something that might damage Judge Miller’s political career if it got out. But Judge Miller doesn’t know what it is, does he? Rodeo wrinkled his brow. He might even think it’s just something incriminating about your brother, his brother-in-law, like a heroin stash or kiddie porn or illegally owned Indian artifacts. Rodeo looked at Mrs. Randy Miller. Does he even know it’s a memoir about your family that you’re desperately seeking?

  No, she said. So you understand why I can’t get my husband’s “people” involved.

  Rodeo nodded.

  Sisely Miller studied Rodeo carefully. I was told you are “efficacious” as we discussed before. And generally trustworthy.

  She stared at Rodeo but he did not move or say a word.

  And since you clearly need the money, and as money is no object to me in this matter, I would suggest you take the job and get started.

  Rodeo pulled a standard contract out of his back pocket and placed it on the table. Sisely Miller examined the contract cursorily as she tried to smooth the wrinkles out of it.

  I … She started and stopped. Do we actually have to have a contract?

  Not if you got cash money on you, Mrs. Miller, and like handshake deals.

  When the woman spilled her Louis Vuitton handbag on the table it disgorged a box of Gitanes and a gold cigarette lighter, a tampon, keys, a pacifier, a cell phone, a condom, Tic Tacs and a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills bound with a rubber band. Sisely Miller raised her well-groomed eyebrows at her prospective hire.

  Two thousand to get started, Rodeo said.

  Sisely Miller peeled hundreds off the roll and then stacked it on the table and flattened it with a slightly shaky hand.

  I just need your word that when you find the memoir you bring it directly to me. Not to Judge Miller or any of his minions. Certainly not to the Press in any version. And you don’t copy it or read it. You don’t show it to anyone. You don’t use it to blackmail me, us, Judge Miller. You don’t even speak about this, to anyone. Period.

  If I turn up something that’s to do with Law Enforcement, I’d have to let the police know about that, Mrs. Miller or I could lose my PI license.

  I’m sure there’s not anything like that in the manuscript, she said. This book, these ramblings are probably just my deluded brother’s fantasies of what our relationship was and what our family was like. And his death by overdose is going to be enough to manage. For me. For our twins. For Judge Miller’s campaign for Congress.

  I need your contact information.

  The woman slid a calling card onto the tabletop.

  I’ll start as soon as I can, Rodeo said.

  You could start in his apartment immediately, Sisely Miller said.

  If it’s a crime scene I won’t have access for a while.

  It will not be a crime scene, the woman said. I will make Judge Miller see to that.

  It’s Eryn Hage’s place. But I’ve known Eryn most of my life, said Rodeo. I could talk to her about getting into her place.

  The rent is paid through the end of the year, said Sisely Miller. So the Hage woman has nothing to say about it.

  Rodeo reached for the money on the table. When Sisely Miller removed her hand the hundred-dollar bills curled themselves back up into a loose but tidy roll that fit perfectly in Rodeo’s pocket.

  * * *

  Rodeo went directly to Old Pueblo Credit Union and deposited most of Sisely Miller’s cash into his almost-empty bank account, keeping only enough in his billfold to pay his motel bill and have some spending money for the next week and pay down his debt at Twin Arrows Trading Post pawn shop by ten percent. He then drove the several blocks back to his old neighborhood.

  * * *

  Eryn Hage had bought the long adobe building she lived in during the 1970s, partly in order to preserve a Territorial-Era building when whole blocks of derelict but classic houses and stores, schools and small businesses were being razed to make room for the Tucson Convention Center complex, but mainly because back then the Barrio Historico or neighborhoods surrounding it were a place where a big house could be bought for a small price.

  Eryn’s domain was an old-fashioned quadruplex of four shotgun-style units built side by side by side by side. Each unit had a front room, a middle room and a back room that was a kitchen/pantry. Originally the residences had all housed whole families or extended families who shared bathroom facilities in the backyard but Eryn had remodeled over the years. She had combined two apartments to create her own residence and kept the apartment nearest her for her seven kids or one of her two dozen grandkids to use when they were between school semesters, prison stints, jobs or marriages and needed a free fall-back place in which to collect their thoughts for a few months before moving on to their next phase of annoying Eryn. Sometimes one of her four ex-husbands lived there as well.

  The other apartment she rented at exorbitant rates to visiting professors or managers of the Major League Baseball teams who camped in Tucson for Spring Training or Gem and Mineral show vendors or buyers who needed a base of operations close to the interstate. Her place covered a double city lot with access in the back from Main Street as well as from the front on Convent. The swimming pool was directly behind the rental apartment and the whole compound was surrounded by a corrugated tin fence that was more decorative than protective.

  Rodeo pressed the door buzzer and heard the cranky voice of Eryn Hage crackle through an intercom.

  Lift up your hat and smile for the security camera.

  Rodeo did as bid.

  Johnny Jesus, the landlord said. You look old as dirt, Little Rodeo.

  Rodeo tilted his hat back down as the gate buzzed open. He pushed through into a small courtyard and walked to the landlord’s front door where half a dozen locks unlatched and a big hacienda door made of steel opened.

  Howdy Eryn, he said.<
br />
  The woman did not offer her hand but beckoned Rodeo to pass inside her adobe abode with the wave of a big plastic tumbler. She locked the door behind them and walked unsteadily toward her expansive living room.

  Have a seat, the woman said. But don’t sit on the couch, I just had it cleaned.

  Rodeo headed toward a straightbacked, carved Mexican chair near the dead fireplace. On the huge rough-timbered mantelpiece were museum quality Indian artifacts and even a whole human skull, many firearms, some vintage and some still in the packing grease. Random Christmas decorations were forgotten alongside dozens of antique photographs and tintypes. Rodeo stopped to study the photos. He was in a couple since he had been bosom buddies with one of Eryn’s several sons, Tank. A particularly interesting photo on Eryn’s mantel was the grainy photo taken of his own father, Buck Garnet, astride his paint pony facing Black Mountain. Eryn plopped down on the couch and took a noisy drink from her tumbler. She didn’t offer Rodeo anything. Rodeo took off his hat as he sat.

  How’s your daddy? Eryn Hage asked this as her first question. Hear from Buck lately?

  Best I can figure from various sources, Eryn, is that Buck’s still alive and either back in West Texas living with an old army buddy and still cowboying on a rich man’s hobby spread in Hudspeth County or up in the ’handle or near Sweetwater working on a windmill farm.

  Cowboy Buck Garnet working on a windmill farm in Texas? Good Lord, what’s the world coming to.

  I couldn’t say, Eryn.

  The hostess sunk herself deeper into the leather couch and her reverie.

  Buck’s an old man now, she said. She assumed a wistful look. And I doubt he’s much good at work anymore but he sure was a Hand back in the day.

  Buck’s only sixty-six, Eryn. How old are you these days?

  I quit counting at seventy, she said. Her rheumy eyes searched the museum of memory on the mantel until they stalled on the photo of Buck on his pony near Black Mountain.

  Those were the days, she said. I remember you riding sheep in the Indian Rodeos back then.

  I remember falling off sheep and Buck yelling at me and Grace bawling, Rodeo said.

  We all have our burdens, little cowboy, said the old lady. Don’t whine about it.

  Rodeo placed his hat crown-down on the floor.

  Tank said he saw you lately? Eryn said.

  Yes ma’am. Saw him yesterday at the bar.

  You remember when we moved down here? Eryn asked. She gestured with her tumbler toward the photos and memorabilia as if with this wand she could recreate the past. When I divorced Tank Senior? You and Little Tank were so little. She took a drink and looked at the mantel trying to locate another specific image. I loaded up all those kids and all those animals and all our crap and moved lock stock and barrel off the ranch and into town and roasted a whole beeve for this goddamned neighborhood for my divorce celebration.

  It was some party, Eryn.

  The woman grimaced.

  I was finding drunks around this place for days seemed like. Lost two of my kids for a week and one dog never did come back.

  I remember, Eryn.

  The woman focused on him. How you been, Little Rodeo Man?

  Fine, said Rodeo. How you been, Eryn?

  Better’n you from the looks of it. Looks like a couple of colostomy bags hanging up under your pretty eyes. Not hitting the bottle like your mother are you?

  No ma’am.

  All that High Indian on your mother’s side and the Low Irish on your daddy’s … who knows what Buck was, she said. Mexican probably though he looked for all the world like an Italian opera singer.

  Rodeo said nothing.

  Just a wonder you turned out good’s you did, Eryn Hage said.

  I take that as a backhand compliment, said Rodeo. From you, Eryn.

  The old woman squinted at him then laughed but then her face turned serious.

  You know Tank, Jr. and Annabeth are divorcing?

  Sorry to hear about that, Eryn.

  The woman drank from her tumbler as if she were alone.

  Where’s your dogs at, Eryn? Rodeo asked.

  Well, about two weeks ago MacArthur got loose in the garden and drank up all the saucers of beer I’d left out for the slugs to die in then he keeled over and never got righted again. So I guess you could say MacArthur drank himself to death just like a good Irishman. Skinny’s in the hospital with some kinda liver troubles. But not from drinking. Still her liver is swelled up like a pate goose’s. Some kind of intestinal worm or something.

  Pookie?

  Pookie died last year. When you were here on Convent, living across the street with that awful Molina girl.

  Rodeo stared at his hands.

  I don’t care how good-looking that girl is or how much money her daddy has, Sirena Rae Molina is just trash, Little Rodeo. And now her daddy’s been murdered. The old woman looked cross-eyed at Rodeo. I guess you heard about Apache Ray?

  I did, Eryn, Rodeo said. It was bad news to me.

  The pair sat still and silent. Rodeo waited.

  What can I do for you, Rodeo? Eryn finally asked. What’s your business?

  Let me in the far apartment, the one Tinley Burke was renting from you, Eryn.

  Eryn nodded her chin into her chest. His sister talked to me about that, the landlord said. Told me you were working for her. Working for the Judge, actually is what she said. She likes to hold that Miller dagger on a thin string over your head, doesn’t she. The question was rhetorical.

  That all right if I snoop around then, Eryn?

  You’re a private investigator, aren’t you? So that’s what you do, I guess. Snoop around and annoy people. She shrugged. Since I know you, it’s fine for you to go in there soon’s the police are done. Hell, stay till the end of the year, I don’t care. Rent’s paid and I could use some help around here now that that Burke fella’s gone.

  I appreciate it, Eryn, but I got my own place now.

  Piece of shit house in the middle of no place, what I heard, she said.

  Rodeo glared at the old woman but she did not notice. He started to work.

  Mrs. Miller said you let her in the apartment this morning, Eryn? he asked.

  That’s right. I usually wouldn’t intrude on my renters like that but the little woman insisted, so I let her in.

  Where was Burke when y’all found him, Eryn?

  On the bed in the middle room, Eryn said. Choked to death on his own vomit I imagined from the looks of him. I didn’t get too close but I have seen like before.

  Did Sisely Miller get close to him? Rodeo asked. Did she go in the house?

  She didn’t get close to him. In fact that woman went right past her brother in the middle room and looked all over the front room then she ran past me and out back and started dialing her phone, calling her husband from the sound of it. Didn’t even call the police.

  Who did call the police?

  I did, Eryn said. I went back over to my place and called 911 and I just stayed right here in my own house after that. I don’t know what she did over there and I do not care to know.

  Did she say anything memorable to you?

  Said something to me about something being stolen but I can’t protect everything in the neighborhood, said Eryn Hage. There’s a thief in almost every house around here, you know that. Most of them lawyers or doctors these days, so there’s probably less retail theft now that the Mexicans are mostly gone but more wholesale theft now that the lawyers have moved in. The old woman took another drink. I tell my renters to get renter’s insurance. That’s what it’s for.

  How’d you feel about him, Eryn? Rodeo asked. Professor Burke?

  The landlady shrugged. Not one way or the other, Eryn Hage said. He was real quiet at first when he moved in. Stayed inside his place mostly. Lately he’d been drunk a lot from what I see in the recycle bin but he never gave me any troubles that way and you know I lived around drunken cowboys and drunken Indians my whole life, so he wasn’t any bett
er or worse than any other man I ever had staying with me. He was houseproud and kept the place really nice what I could see of it. Kinda anal about keeping the place nice actually and even worked in the yard and kept up the pool. The woman wrinkled her brow. I thought at first that he was probably just queer. But then he had some woman over there time and again and I think they were going at it pretty good.

  Do you know who this woman was, Eryn?

  I didn’t care, she said.

  He took care of the property you said, Eryn? The in-law house and the storage sheds and such?

  I don’t get outside much anymore, so I gave him the run of the place, Eryn Hage said. He was cleaning up the outbuildings for me, he said. You know I got sixty years of accumulated junk around this place. His rent was paid upfront and he left me alone and I left him alone. You can’t hear nothing much through this adobe, you know, so whatever he did or didn’t do over there was none of my business as long as he didn’t damage my apartment.

  You have no ideas about who visited him?

  I had some ideas but I don’t know or care about any business that went on over there that’s not my business.

  Anything else you can think of, Eryn? asked Rodeo. Anybody been lurking about or any yelling in the days or screaming in the nights?

  General Patton could be shooting mules in my living room and I wouldn’t stir after I take my pills in the evening.

  What are you taking, Eryn?

  Oxycodone, she said. You want some? Your broke back still acting up on you?

  She reached to the side table and picked up an unlabeled prescription bottle and shook it at Rodeo as if it were a rattle.

  No thanks, Eryn, Rodeo said. He waited a beat. You give any Mexican oxys to Tinley Burke?

  The woman looked at the pharmacy bottle. Oh, you know. Now and again. She shrugged and put the orange plastic bottle on her side table. I saw him out back last week or so and he complained he couldn’t sleep lately and his back was stiff from carrying something or other, so I gave him a little handful.

  Anything else about him, Eryn?

  Like what?

  Like anything peculiar, said Rodeo.