Chandler ordered us each a Snake River ale, recommended the pasta special as “Always the way to go,” and settled down to filter foam through his mustache. He waited for me to speak.
“Listen,” I began, trying to sip at my water rather than swill my beer on an empty stomach, “I came here to ask you about someone we know … ah, knew in common. Or at least, I think you knew her. I only just met her—” I stopped, realizing what little sense I was making, “I’m talking about Miriam Menken.”
Chandler’s eyes went blank, the way a cat’s do when it realizes you’re playing for keeps. For a moment, I was afraid he’d get up and leave, or that he was already in some sense gone. “Miriam …” He whispered her name as if trying to remember the melody to a half-forgotten song.
“Yeah, Miriam Menken. I guess you, ah, knew her in college as Miriam Benner,” I said, trying as always to be diplomatic.
“Yes, of course.” He glanced right and left, then back at me, his eyes shining with moisture.
Embarrassed at the sight of such obvious emotion in a grown man, I said, “Well, you see, I’m a friend of the family’s, and I’ve been trying to learn some things about her, and—”
Chandler suddenly leaned toward me across the table, almost a lunge and grabbed my nearest hand. “No. First you have to tell me about you.”
Me? I almost squeaked, my mouth sagging open. You want to know about me? I’m Em Hansen; this totally confused lost child from Chugwater who’s out tilting at windmills. I’m supposed to be a geologist, see, and—I forced my mouth to make words. “Ah, what do you want to know?”
“Why do you care?” It was almost a plea.
“About what? About Miriam?”
“Yes, about Miriam. About living. About whatever.” Save me from this sadness, his eyes said.
“Well, ah …” Looking into his crazy, mourning, deeply intelligent eyes, I made one of those snap decisions that go like this: tell the truth. But then I had to hurry to catch up with him, as I suddenly wasn’t at all sure that the truth I’d been holding on to so fiercely—whatever that was—was in fact the truth. Or more than a partial truth. Or a limited truth. In short, I was a mess. I took a breath. I opened my mouth I began to speak. “Her husband asked me to do this, to look into her death. He used to be my boss. He’s even crazier than you are, but in different way. Hell, I didn’t know any better; I was in the middle of hiding out on my folks’ ranch out there in Chugwater when he found me. Like I said, I hadn’t worked—or not as a geologist—in over a year. Hadn’t wanted to. Yeah, I was hiding. And like I said, Dad died awhile—after I got unemployed, but before—and anyway, yeah. To tell the truth, I’d hoped Mom would totally auger in and leave the ranch to me and I could hide out there forever. But no, she’s feeling much better now, and the calves had all dropped, and there you have it: I had to go. And just then Menken comes along and reaches out his big hook and says he can find me a job and gets me snarled up in all of this.” Once I’d gotten rolling, the words came easily. It’s amazing what you can say to a madman.
“And did he find you a job?”
“Yes. Or no, that’s not being altogether honest, either. I started reading Miriam’s journals, you see, and I just got hooked on, well, her life. The only problem was, she didn’t have any more of it, being dead now, and I just couldn’t reconcile that. Is this making any sense to you?”
“Perfect.” Chandler kept leaning toward me as the waiter served his salad, forcing the man to set it to one side. I stared numbly as mine was placed in front of my hands.
“I liked her,” I said miserably.
“So did I,” he said huskily.
“Yeah, well, that’s what her journals kind of said. That you—” What? Ate her, the way a fire consumes oxygen? “That you showed her a pretty good time.” I felt immediate remorse for the understatement, and for saying that I knew anything about their intimacy. What was I thinking of, launching into such a naked conversation with a man like this? Was I crazy, too? “I mean, God, man, didn’t you care what you were doing to her? Didn’t you care about her?”
Those eyes now consumed me. “I worship women,” he whispered. His words licked past my ears like a hot wind from the desert as he reached out one large hand and wrapped it around both of mine. His was warm and dry, like my father’s. I wanted to cry. I looked up at him, the tears brimming, fury rising in my breast. This was wrong; totally, absolutely wrong. What I had felt for my father was sacred, a daughter’s love. What was this man thinking, stealing feelings from me like this? Worship women? What kind of a religion was that, to put women on an altar? Wasn’t he confusing his idol with his object of sacrifice? And he wasn’t my father; he was an animal, a sexual predator—
I jerked my hand away.
His hand followed, braked my escape, drew mine back, now with infinite tenderness. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
My whole chest constricted with the tenderness of his words, his voice. I clenched my teeth, willing myself to escape the raging hell of my feelings.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
I looked. In his eyes, I knew he meant it. He was sorry. Sorry for things he had never even done. Sorry for not knowing me sooner. Sorry that the storm had almost eaten me.
Glancing miserably away, I looked around the room, at the hanging sculptures of eagles, at the wall-mounted TV sets that were broadcasting a sporting event full of gaudily clad athletes and flying sweat, at the heads of the diners down below. The weight and terror of the day, the week, and all the weeks that had come before it loaded in on me, and I felt like I was floating. Hovering over a sea of darkness. Could I trust this man with this level of feeling? And was trusting him the issue? For a moment, I gazed inward at that dark expanse of water, and realized that some days when you fly that far out over the ocean, you have to dive in.
“I read about you in her journals,” I whispered.
Chandler wrapped his other hand around mine, looked into my eyes with a gentleness I hadn’t seen in a man’s eyes since I’d left Frank, and said, “Em Hansen, if there’s anything I know that can help you, it’s yours for the asking.”
Okay, there it was—I had to ask for something, but what? What was it I wanted so badly that I was willing to fly hell bent in bad weather across Wyoming, risking a mountain passage when I didn’t know yet how to fly one safely, and walk right into the lair of the lion? I didn’t know what I was going to ask, but when I opened my mouth, I said, “Did you kill her?”
Chandler dropped my hands and rose halfway from his seat. “What?” He loomed over the table, eyes aflame.
I started to cringe, but something in his action made me wonder if he was acting, not reacting. Something different in his eyes. Something … sane. “Well, hell, man, she died of an overdose of cocaine. What am I supposed to think?”
The crazy, lost look returned to Chandler’s eyes. He dropped back into his seat. “Cocaine?”
“That surprises you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t do drugs. Never did. Even back in college, when everybody did. A little alcohol, maybe, but … well …”
“But what?”
“Shit! I was wondering where that packet went.”
“What packet?”
He gave a dismissive wave with one hand. “Nothing. Just a business matter.”
“You came back from visiting her one delivery short?”
Chandler looked at me out of one eye, feigned indignance. “Mind your own business.”
We didn’t say anything to each other for a while, each thinking our own thoughts. I picked up my fork, tried to eat a little more, then gave up. I realized his eyes were on me once again. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.
My thoughts. What were my thoughts? “Why’d she have to die?” I said, and in so saying, I noticed that this was the question that had brought me here. Not how, but why. Why Miriam, who was just beginning to discover life?
He s
at back, his chest caving. “I don’t know.” He shook his head, as if scolding himself. “No, that’s not good enough. No, the thing is, I don’t know who killed her. And while I think I might know why …” His eyes suddenly shifted, flicking inward toward an internal anger. His shoulders tensed for the first time since I’d met him.
“Then why? Don’t run away! You said you’d tell me anything!”
Chandler’s mustache stiffened. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I guess I lied. This is something I can’t tell you. At least not yet. But don’t worry.” He patted my hand resolutely, his eyes focused somewhere toward the middle of his inner space.
I stared at him, wondering where he’d gone. Suddenly, his eyes flicked back toward me, a quick glance, gauging me. Then he gave me that look again, the hungry lion asking me to distinguish myself from prey, and said, “Ask me more.”
Ask a madman for the answer to the riddle of the stars, and sometimes all you get is stardust. “What about Cecelia?” I said.
“Cecelia Menken?”
“Yes, damn it! Cecelia the underaged kid with the problems.”
He knit his brow, thought. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“What did you think were you doing, visiting her? She’s a child!” My heart turned in my breast. I had almost said my child.
Chandler looked somewhat affronted. “I take it you’re talking about the times I’d run into her around the neighborhood.”
“Yeah, sure. You ‘ran into her’ at the stables. A bit off your track, aren’t they? What were you thinking of?”
Chandler took a long, visible breath in and let it out. “I’m afraid this borders on those things I can’t tell you about.”
“What the—”
“Okay, then I’ll say this: I did go to those stables, and yes, fairly often, but it wasn’t to meet Cecelia.” He gave me a look, one of those “read between the lines and shut up” looks.
“Oh. Mrs. Wentworth.”
His eyes flew wide open in bemused surprise. “You have been busy.”
“And the others.”
Chandler’s look now held irritation. “Mind your own business.”
“Cecelia is my business. Looks to me like you paid her a little more than passing attention.”
“Why not? She’s an interesting girl. Besides, she’s—”
“Her mother’s daughter,” I said, finishing his sentence for him. “A way to keep tabs on Miriam.”
“That, too.” Chandler nodded, smiling, one warrior saluting another. “Smart kid, aren’t you?” Then his eyes clouded. “But think also, here’s this kid who needed some attention.”
“The hell. She didn’t need drugs.”
Chandler knit his brow, affronted. “You’re accusing me of giving that child drugs?”
“Yes. Maybe you didn’t do it directly, but you brought them into the neighborhood. You think you can mess with the mothers without messing up the daughters? Who did you think was going to be left to care for them? Or be a good example for them?” I seethed. “So maybe you didn’t turn her on to cocaine, but let’s talk about marijuana. Or some other downer.”
“No.”
“You had them in your car, didn’t you?”
He just looked at me.
“Well?”
Chandler managed to look almost hurt. “Cecelia is a very nice girl.”
Ignoring this, I said, “You’ve just said you had at least one delivery go missing. Nice uncut cocaine, the hot stuff, the kind you only get when you deal direct. You think those nicely reared girls knew to stay out of your stash when you left your car parked by that barn unlocked?” I was guessing, spinning a surmise, but he wasn’t answering, which meant that maybe I was right. Cecelia and what’s-her-name Wentworth, lighting up behind the barn while mommy gets the hard stuff up in the hayloft.
All he said in his own defense was a cryptic and matter-of-fact “I can see you don’t understand the true nature of my business.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” I replied, parrying his parry. “So why don’t you just explain it to me?”
We ate our salads in silence. Mine was good—something classy with tiny olives and walnuts. His disappeared into his mouth like nectar, each merciful morsel lacing his tongue with ecstasy.
My mind bogged down with fatigue. This is not the mastermind who killed Miriam, it told me. This is just a mad errand boy who thinks he is a businessman.
Our pastas came. The sun set. The lights of the brew pub shifted to a nighttime radiance. A water skier on the television crashed horribly in competition. I ate. Chandler ate. My brain spun along in neutral, stunned, exhausted.
When we were done, we divvied up the bill, I insisting and he arguing just enough to indicate that he had manners. Somehow I knew he was the type who would pay his own way only, and maybe. I put a large-denomination bill on the salver, knowing also that Chandler would wait for the change and pocket the excess from a reasonable tip, giving me time to slip off to the women’s room. By the bathrooms, I found a telephone and called Sergeant Ortega.
“You disappeared off the radar!” he said, barging across my greeting.
“Radar?”
“I had them tracking you, like you said. You disappeared.” It was an accusation. Carlos was hurt.
“I’m sorry. No, wait; I did try to stay in touch. Listen, flying is not simple. Surely they told you that I just fell into the radar shadow.” Why was I arguing this?
“You are where now?” he continued huffily.
“Jackson, Wyoming. I found Chandler.”
“You what?”
“He’s right here in the restaurant with me. He’s—”
“What!”
“And I’m, um, trying to figure out what to do next.” It sounded just as foolish to me as it must have sounded to Ortega.
“‘Do’?” he said, his voice softer and more deadly than I had ever heard it. “You are asking my advice?”
“Well, like as in how do we get an arrest warrant?”
“For what? Murder? Trafficking? Shall I choose?”
“Trafficking will do nicely. I really don’t think he killed her, Carlos.”
The phone line filled with choice Spanish insults, all directed to enhance his sense of self-pity. I let him rave onward, get it out of his system. When he was done, he said simply, “Give me the particulars.”
I told him where I was, and where Chandler was staying. “We walked over here. I’ll walk back there with him. I’ll stall as long as I can before leaving here, give you time to move some local guys into position, or whatever it is you guys do.”
“Ai-yi-yi!”
“Okay? I really think I’m safe here, or as safe as I am anywhere these days. When I get back to my car, I’ll just leave and drive somewhere else, call you when I get a room. I’m tired, Carlos.”
“You crying on my shoulder? You think I slept last night?”
All I could think to say was, “I’m sorry.” It never occurred to me to tell him about Po and the hired killer. That was too far away, and in another reality.
Chandler and I wandered up the streets of Jackson through the cold breath of snow that still flowed down off the ski slopes, passing all the chichi shops jammed in cheek by jowl next to T-shirt emporia and postcard dens, turned left past the park with the arches made of elk horn all covered with twinkly lights, threading our way between the few stray clusters of upscale tourists who had wandered into town between seasons, posing as health nuts and athletes while they dripped with windbreakers and Rolexes purchased in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and points overseas. As we neared the Rambling Rose, a sadness swept over me. Sadness mixed with another wave of the jitteriness that had followed me into town from the tiny airplane that now sat mute and cold, chained down in a row between rich people’s wings, waiting like an unspoken accusation for me to pull myself together and fly it home.
I felt let down. What was I doing here? What had I learned, and what more had I neglected to ask? I had chased this ma
n all over the universe, or my known universe at least, and here I was next to him without the wit or the know-how to lure his precious information from him. I considered leaving him there, parting company on the square and just sneaking back to fetch my car later, after I’d arranged a room in some lonely motel where I could rest my screaming bones for the night, but I did not. I rationalized that I had to keep him in sight until Ortega communicated with the local authorities and got their men into position. The truth was that I wasn’t ready to let him go.
As if he sensed this, he let his near hand drop from his hip pocket, then reached out and drew me close, just as if we’d been friends forever and had always wandered thus of an evening. I stopped, confused by the sudden closeness, and he turned fully toward me and put his other arm around me.
There was something incredibly tender in his embrace, a softness, and gentle curiosity, all mixed up with the potent seduction of some need of his own. The last cynical cell in my brain asked giddily, Why stop him? He is so good at this.
He sighed, squeezed my back and shoulders with his enormous hands, like a cat working its paws while you stroke its fur.
“Did you ever see any of Miriam’s journals?” I asked the warmth of his chest. Do you know what you do to people?
He nodded dreamily, his hand now sliding cozily down my spine.
The last journal. How I needed it now, needed to climb down into the warmth of its candor. What would Miriam have done just now? What had she done?
Only Flesh and Bones Page 28