How Town

by Michael Nava

  “Muchas gracias, señora. Smells good in here.”

  She smiled broadly at the compliment, gold shining dully in her mouth. “Pues, cuando acabas en la escuela vuelves aqui y comes algo.”

  I went back out and followed her directions, walking alongside the cemetery to Walnut Street. I could see the school from the corner, an Art Deco building. Around it square concrete bunkers huddled like a squatter’s camp.

  School was out for the day. The corridors smelled of chalk and Lysol. In the registration office I asked to see the principal. The woman to whom I spoke raised ribboned glasses from her ample breasts, fixed them on her face and looked at me, then got up and went into an adjoining room. A minute later, she reappeared with Santa Claus in tow.

  Santa said, “I’m Mr. Hendricksen, did you want to see me?”

  “Yes, my name is Henry Rios. I’m a lawyer.”

  The silver-haired, red-faced fat man looked alarmed. “Why don’t you come into my office, Mr. Rios.” He held open a swinging door to let me in behind the counter.

  I sat down and surveyed the room. Faded pep posters on the wall and drawn blinds gave the place a look of indescribable sadness. Slats of light glanced across the cluttered desk and dusty bookshelves. Atop one of the bookshelves was a framed picture of football team, circa 1950-something.

  Observing my interest in the picture, Hendricksen said, “That was the year we were number one in the valley.”

  “You in that picture?”

  He smiled, creasing his double chin. “Running back.” He patted his gut. “That was a long time ago. So what can I do for you, Mr. Rios?”

  “I’m interested in Howard Thurmond. I think he used to teach here.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Is that right?”

  “Mr. Hendricksen, I’m a criminal defense lawyer,” I said. “I represent a man in Los Robles named Paul Windsor. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

  He nodded. “I read something about it in the papers. He killed someone, didn’t he?”

  “So they say,” I replied. “What’s important is that I believe the dead man was Howard Thurmond.”

  Hendricksen stared at me. In the other room, someone was sharpening a pencil.

  “That’s not the name I saw in the paper,” he said, finally.

  “No, he changed his name, because of what happened here fifteen years ago. I don’t think my client killed him,” I said. “I think someone else did. I think he was killed by the boys he molested.”

  “If it was them,” he said, “it served him right.”

  “Maybe so,” I replied, “that’s not for me to say. I’m just interested in clearing Paul Windsor. If you’ll help me informally I can be discreet, but if I have to start subpoenaing records and witnesses, people could be hurt all over again.”

  After a moment’s thought, his face formed a decision. Slowly, he picked up the phone, pushed a button and spoke. “Get me a 1973 yearbook.” Phone still in hand, he asked, “You want some coffee, Mr. Rios? We might be here awhile.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He pushed another button and said, “Mary, bring me a pot of coffee and two cups. Cream, sugar. Any cookies left from lunch? Bring those too.”

  A few minutes later, a cafeteria worker brought in a tray with a pot of coffee, a couple of mugs and a plate of thick brown cookies.

  “Help yourself,” Hendricksen said.

  I poured a cup of coffee and picked up a cookie. “These bring back memories,” I said. I bit into it and nearly choked.

  Hendricksen grinned. “It helps if you dip ’em,” he said, demonstrating.

  “I’ll pass,” I replied. “Nueces doesn’t look like it’s prospering these days.”

  “Useta be there were a lot more people, with the braceros and all,” he said. “Now all the big farms are mechanized and they don’t need as many workers. Plus, a lot of the canneries have shut down. We’re drying up. We’ve closed classrooms.”

  “What about those bunkers outside?”

  He swept crumbs from his shirt front. “They went up in the sixties when the place was packed with kids.” He squinted at me. “I guess that woulda been your generation, Mr. Rios. The whole bunch of you were smart-ass troublemakers and I never thought I’d miss those days, but I do.” He poured me more coffee. “You kids were alive. Nowadays, the students, they seemed kinda depressed.”

  “It’s a harder world to be young in,” I said.

  “I won’t have to worry about it after next semester. I’m retiring.”

  The woman from the counter bustled in and laid a large book on Hendricksen’s desk. He thanked her, opened it and flipped through the pages until he found the one he wanted. He passed it across the desk to me, saying, “The top picture.”

  A group of boys, arranged according to size, stood in a semicircle facing the camera. Some of them wore track suits and others running shorts and singlets with Woodlin High Track printed across their shirt fronts. United in their extreme youth, their faces were almost indistinguishable, one from the other, and they looked out, startled, self-conscious, at the camera. I could imagine the photographer trying to coax smiles out of them, but they were having none of that; smiling was for sissies. I searched the faces and found the dark visage of a seventeen-year-old whom the caption identified as D. Morrow. Standing in front of him was a much younger boy, with the face of a Caravaggio cherub. B. Vega. And then I saw the man, standing at the end of the first row, almost completely eclipsed by a tall senior, only part of his face showing. I glanced at the caption: Coach Thurmond.

  I handed the book back to Hendricksen. “What grades do you have, here?” I asked. “Nine through twelve?”

  He shook his head. “We combine junior and senior high. From seven to twelve.”

  “So how old were Ben and Dwight?”

  He looked at the picture. “Dwight was a senior, maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen. Ben was in eighth grade, so he was what? Thirteen? Fourteen?”

  “That’s kind of young for the track team.”

  “He was a sprinter, fastest little guy I ever saw. I know because back then I was head of athletics. The other kids called him Speedy Gonzalez, some kind of cartoon character, I guess.”

  “A mouse,” I volunteered. “How did he know Dwight?”

  Hendricksen broke a corner of the last cookie and put it in his mouth. “They were neighbor kids, I understand. Ben’s father was kind of a drifter and there was a whole passel of little Vegas for mom to take care of. Dwight’s dad was no prize, either, a crazy, drunk Indian, but that boy was real responsible. Went to school, worked, always had time for younger kids.” Decisively, he picked up the rest of the cookie and took a bite out of it. “The way I understand it, Dwight stepped in and became like an older brother to Ben. He’s the one that got Ben started on running.”

  “And Thurmond?”

  He tilted his head back, narrowing his eyes, remembering. “Howard,” he said, finally. “Howard was a model teacher, Mr. Rios. He taught English, coached track, chaperoned dances, was faculty advisor to the student council, to the Honor Society. He couldn’t do enough for the kids. Nights and weekends, he was always out there doing something.” He rolled his big head back toward me. “Of course, it didn’t seem strange at the time that most of the kids he spent time with were the boys. Seemed only natural—a male teacher who hung around girls, now that would have caused a stir. I never gave it a second thought when I heard that Howard liked to take some of his boys up to the Sierras for weekend campouts. It just seemed like another good-hearted thing he was doing, especially since he chose kids like Dwight and Ben, kids who didn’t have dads to do that kind of stuff with them.”

  “How was he found out?”

  It was getting dark in the office. Hendricksen switched on a desk lamp, illuminating a sagging, pale face as soft as dough.

  “Ben showed up with some cankers in his mouth,” he said, “and one of his teachers sent him to the nurse. Turned out to be gonorrhea. Had it in his anus, too.�
��

  “And Dwight Morrow?”

  Hendricksen rubbed his eyes. “Now that’s the funny part, Mr. Rios. Seems like there was something going on between him and Howard for a couple of years, but he never said anything until it came out about Ben. Then he wanted to kill Howard.”

  “You think he didn’t know about Ben and Thurmond?” I asked.

  “That’s what I think,” he said, nodding. “He maybe thought he was the only one Howard was pulling that stuff with. It must have hit him pretty hard when he found out about Ben, because he was the one that got Ben together with Howard in the first place.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “I mean, I know the trial was eventually moved to San Francisco, but what happened before that?”

  Grimly, Hendricksen said, “You can see this is a small town. We tried to keep things quiet, but the story got out. The boys got it almost as bad as Howard. Not Dwight so much because he could take care of himself, but Ben was still a little guy. He got called queer for a long time after it was over.”

  “But Thurmond was convicted,” I said. “Didn’t that count?”

  “He pled guilty without a trial as soon as they moved it down to San Francisco.” He smiled without humor. “They had to get him out of town, for his own safety, but it was a bad deal for Ben. The other kids didn’t understand why there wasn’t a trial. Too much Perry Mason, I guess. They figured it meant Howard was innocent. Kids have dirty minds. You can imagine what they called Ben.” He sighed. “I think about those boys sometimes. I wonder what became of them.”

  23

  IT WAS DUSK WHEN I left the school and headed back to my car. The few shop lights on Main Street only drew attention to those shops that remained darkened, and the gorgeous sunset in the big sky only made the town seem poorer. One of the places lit up was the cafe where I’d sought directions. The woman I’d spoken to was taking an order from a table of straw-hatted, plaid-shirted laborers. She nodded at me as I entered. The four men at the table looked me over, taking in my suit, and went back to their Tecates. I sat down at the counter. The woman came over and laid a soiled, hand-typed menu in front of me.

  “Algo a beber?” she asked.

  “A Coke,” I replied. Scanning the menu quickly, I added. “Un plato de pozole.”

  She grinned her golden grin. “Muy bien.”

  A few minutes later she brought the bowl of pozole, a stew of grits and pork, some tortillas, and my Coke. I thanked her and set about eating a dish I’d last tasted years ago in my mother’s kitchen. My mother was a wonderful cook, but there had always been too much of everything. Even then I understood that this was how she apologized and so I ate very little, no matter how hungry I was, pretending an indifference to food that in time became real. Eating the stew reminded me of her and touched a tiny corner of forgiveness somewhere.

  I thought about my interview with Hendricksen. The question in my mind was how to use the information he had given me. I could spring it on the prosecution at trial, but this would implicate Morrow and Vega, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. As I’d told Hendricksen, my job was to get Paul acquitted, not bring McKay’s killers to bay. That function belonged to the police, the courts and other lawyers. But then there was Sara. Had her drowning really been accidental? Could Morrow and Vega have had something to do with that? Yet, even if they had, Paul’s trial would not be the proper forum to uncover facts about her death.

  That brought me to a second option, to confront the DA with what I’d learned and bargain for a dismissal. If I could persuade him, Paul would not have to stand trial and face the possibility, however slight, that we might lose. At the same time, the DA would have to at least investigate Morrow and Vega, and that might yield information about Sara’s death. I paid my bill, thanked the proprietor for the meal and walked out to my car, still undecided.

  On my way back to Los Robles, I drove past the motel where McKay had been murdered, and pulled into the parking lot. Across the street, in an otherwise vacant lot, was a billboard advertising soup. Another piece of the puzzle slipped into place.

  When I got back to the hotel, the registration clerk gave me three message slips, all from Peter Stein. I called from the lobby.

  A woman answered the phone. I asked for him and she put him on the line.

  “Peter? This is Henry. Was that your wife?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Where have you been, Henry?”

  “I had to go down to the city yesterday. I just got back. What’s up?”

  “Phelan called us into court this afternoon,” he said. “He granted the motion.”

  It took a moment for this to sink in. “You mean he transferred the case?”

  “That’s right,” Peter said, gleefully. “Said he was convinced that Paul couldn’t get a fair trial up here and was ordering the whole kit and caboodle to San Francisco superior court. Rossi was shitting bricks. Congratulations.”

  “We need to talk, Peter,” I said. “Can I come over?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there. Where do you live?”

  Home for the Steins was a gray tract house just outside the city limits in a development called Fairhaven. Half the streets dead-ended into fields and there wasn’t a tree to be seen for miles. I rang the bell and waited, smelling the earth in the air.

  “Henry,” he said, boisterously, opening the door, in jeans and a 49er T-shirt. “Come on in.”

  I stepped into a little foyer. Off to one side was an immaculate living room that looked seldom used. Off to the other side was a narrow kitchen where a slender, plain woman stood over the sink, tap water running, steam rising around her head.

  “This is my wife, Gina,” Peter was saying. “She’s a court reporter.”

  The kitchen smelled of tomato sauce and garlic. Gina shut off the faucet and dried her hands on a kitchen towel.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” she said. “Peter’s been talking about what a good lawyer you are.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “No, thank you. I ate. Smells good, though.”

  She smiled. “It was Pete’s night to cook. On my nights we eat Lean Cuisine.” She poked his stomach. “He eats two.”

  “Come on into the den, Henry,” Peter said, and steered me through the kitchen to the next room. Furnished with odds and ends of chairs and tables, a lumpy couch partly covered with an afghan, a bookshelf filled with legal treatises and a plain wooden desk, this room evidently was where the Steins did most of their living. A TV was going in the corner, the sound shut off. A rust-colored cat lay in front of it, watching.

  Peter saw me looking at the cat. “That’s Calico,” he said. “She sits in front of the TV for hours, just like a kid. Her favorite channel is MTV. Have a seat.”

  On the screen, a man in red latex tights with big hair pranced around a stage, thrusting a microphone toward the camera like a penis. Calico was mesmerized.

  “So, what’s going on?” Peter asked.

  “I know who killed John McKay,” I replied. “And it wasn’t Paul.”

  “I’m listening,” he said, in a tone I’d come to respect.

  I laid out my theory of the murder: telling him what I’d discovered about McKay in the last two days and about my conversation with the high school principal.

  When I finished, he said, “Now it’s my turn. Your first problem is explaining how they tracked McKay down.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought about that,” I said. “And then I remembered that Paul first met McKay through a computer bulletin board for pedophiles. The cops monitor those things because they know if they wait long enough there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll come up with something illegal. Morrow worked Sex Crimes, remember? He’d have access to information all over the state about pedophiles.”

  “But how would he have known it was McKay?” Peter insisted. “Morrow knew him as Thurmond.”

  “You have to assume
that finding McKay was an obsession with Morrow and that he was willing to take whatever time it took. Working Sex Crimes gave him a perfect cover. Maybe he subscribed to some of the publications these pedophile organizations put out, maybe he went to their conventions.”

  “Conventions?” Peter asked incredulously.

  “There’s nothing illegal about an organization that advocates changing the age-of-consent laws, Peter. NAMBLA advertises in a lot of the gay papers. Finding McKay would have been difficult, but not impossible. Especially for a cop.”

  Gina Stein came in and went over to the desk, sitting down to a stack of transcripts. “Will it bother you if I work in here?” she asked.

  Peter said, “Nope.”

  “Fine,” I said, and picked up the thread of my thought. “At some point, Morrow found McKay.”

  “What about Vega?”

  “From what I’ve seen of Ben, I doubt he’s smart enough to have contributed much to the search. Maybe he came in later.”

  “You think he’s the killer?”

  I thought about Ben. “I don’t know, Peter. I kind of hope not. I like the kid.”

  “Tell me how they got McKay up here.”

  “They tell him they have a kid,” I replied.

  “What kid?”

  “The girl that Paul Windsor thought he was buying from McKay.”

  “That’s really weird,” he said.

  From her corner, Gina said, “Honey, I just reported a case in district court where the defendant was bringing babies in from South America to sell to couples who got turned down for adoption.”

  “Think of the Steinberg case in New York,” I added. “The little girl he murdered had been placed illegally. Look at the back of your milk carton. What do you think happens to some of those kids?”

  “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “What kind of world do we live in?”

  “A world where both Paul and McKay thought they were dealing with a bona fide offer.”

  “Windsor will have to testify,” he said, “and once he’s done that, he’s waived the Fifth and you’ll open him up to the DA.”

  “Yes,” I conceded, imagining how all this would sound to a jury. “That’s a problem.”