"Who’s going to be listing this place, do you know?" she asked Nina, ignoring him.
"Listing it?"
"For sale. I’ve had my eye on this property for years. That’s going to make the cutest little guest house." She gestured toward Terry’s studio. "I’d love to put in an offer before they turn it over to a realty. I’d make a very decent bid."
"Did you know the woman who lived here was murdered?" asked Paul.
"Yes. They certainly can’t hope to make full price on this one. That ought to guarantee it’ll go dirt cheap," she said, practically rubbing her hands together in her delight at the anticipated bargain. Hecker stopped whistling long enough to escort her to her car.
Paul started up the van and turned it around, craning his head. "Still thinking about that coat?"
"Yes." That luxurious silver coat. Terry had treated it as if it were a live thing.
Nina remembered Terry’s face months before at the courthouse after the first hearing. Her face had slipped, revealing the private expression she probably didn’t want seen. Her expression had been—fey, that was the word, almost teasing, sexually aware, as if she saw life as an obscene joke.
What had she said? Women want to bury their faces in it. Men want to ...
What the hell was that all about?
Jasper passed him the envelope in social studies, just before noon. Bob had used Jasper’s address, and Jasper had been checking the mail at home over the weekend. Jasper was his friend in the war against Taylor Nordholm. He wasn’t going to tell anyone that Bob had a letter from the jail.
When the bell rang, Bob didn’t go out to the tree where he usually ate lunch with his friends. He trotted as fast as his heavy backpack allowed to the damp gully on the far side of the soccer field.
From here, he could hear some of the girls scream while they played, but the sounds seemed to come from far away. Rocks lay along the edge, where they had tumbled zillions of years before. The air was cool and damp, the tops of the trees far away above him.
He picked a smooth rock with no spiders or ants and sat down, wrestling his arms out of the backpack. He pulled the envelope out of the front pocket and his lunch from the main part, squashed as usual by his books.
He held the envelope. The return address was mostly numbers. He imagined his father in striped pajamas, with "66759" on the back. Maybe they had shaved his head so he wouldn’t get lice, and only fed him once a day.
Bobby had biked over to the jail after school one day, telling everyone he was staying after school to use the library. The guard wouldn’t let him in without proof of who he was, and he hadn’t brought his birth certificate with him. He had left the note to his father there, with the people at the jail. He hadn’t copied the note he had written, but he pretty much remembered it, because it had been so hard to write. There hadn’t been much time, and the guard watching him had made it hard to think. Too bad he couldn’t have just gone in and visited right then and there. He would be done with feeling like he had the flu all the time. He could sleep again at night.
"Dear Kurt Scott," he had started out.
Then:
My name is Robert Brendan Reilly and I am your son. I know it because I have my birth certificate with your name on it. My mother is Nina Reilly. She doesn’t know I’m writing you. Here’s the story. I went over to the jail and they wouldn’t let me in, so I wanted to at least let you know I’m alive. I don’t believe you killed anybody. You can write me at my friend Jasper’s.
He had chewed on the pencil a long time, thinking about how to sign below Jasper’s address, until the guard said, "Hey, you’ll get splinters in your mouth, chewing on that thing."
Finally, he wrote "BOB" in big letters, so his dad would know what to call him when he wrote back. Then a P.S.: "What do you look like? I have black hair and green eyes. I get pretty good grades. I like to swim and skateboard. This year, I won a blue ribbon during field day."
His father had written back, must have been the same day. That was good. All he had to do now was just tear open the letter and read it.
He took a few bites of his sandwich, but it felt so dry that he put it down next to him on the rock, picking up the envelope from his lap. He opened it carefully, thinking, this might be the only one he would ever get. You never could tell.
A sheet of notebook paper said "Dear Bob" in pencil, printed. His father probably wasn’t sure if he could read his cursive. He ignored the stones knocking against the ham in his stomach.
I got your note. It is a wonderful surprise to find out that you’re my son. I never knew. It makes me very happy.
I’m sorry you couldn’t come in the day you came to visit. You probably shouldn’t come to the jail again unless you have cleared it with your mother, but I’d like it if you wrote. I’d like to know all about you. You must be a brave guy, coming over on your own to see me. When this mess is all over, I promise, we’ll meet face-to-face. I have black hair and green eyes too. I’m a kind of forest ranger, and sometimes I play the piano in an orchestra. Do you like music?
I’m glad you wrote me, Bob.
He had signed it, "Much love from your dad," with a P.S.: "I was on the track team in college."
Bob read the note several times, blinking. The bell rang, distantly. He would have to run but luckily he was a fast runner, fastest in the entire fifth grade. His nose was running and his eyes were probably all swollen up. He folded the note carefully back into its envelope and tucked it into his pocket. Then he rubbed his face on his gym shirt, packed up, and ran for his class.
22
"WE MET ONCE WHEN I CAME TO SEE TERRY, REMEMBER?" Nina said to Jerry Kettrick later in the week.
On this first clear day after three days of rain, shoots of new plants had finally broken the surface of the long frozen soil. Even at the Kettricks’ unkempt house, the world looked almost perfect on the outside. On the inside, windows were blocked from the light and dust floated heavily in the air, creating an entirely different universe.
"I remember," Kettrick said.
He lounged on the musty striped couch in his living room, his legs crossed. Terry’s black dog chewed on a tennis ball at his feet. Paul had sat down at a scarred pine table against the wall. The wood floor had been swept but was dark with grime, as though it had never felt a wet mop.
On the way there, Nina had listened to Paul’s colorful background report. "He’s half country boy, half old hippie," Paul told her. Jerry Kettrick’s parents had fled the back-breaking stoop labor of the San Joaquin fields for the uncertain welcome of Tahoe. They had both found jobs cooking at a small restaurant called Mom’s Kitchen in the fifties, and as soon as their five kids were old enough they, too, had gone to work at the restaurant after school and on weekends. Many thousands of griddle cakes and scrambled eggs later, they had taken over the place from its sickly owner, and Jerry spent his formative years up to his elbows in dishwater.
By the late sixties, the winds of change had hit Tahoe, and Jerry floated onward to San Francisco. He moved into a run-down Victorian near the Tenderloin with a dozen other teenagers, and learned to play guitar on a Silvertone somebody left in lieu of rent. He discovered he had fast and precise fingers. Soon, he was gigging with the Airplane and the Dead.
He and his girlfriend could afford all the speed they could shoot, and in due course they had a baby, born Rimbaud but known forever after as Ralphie.
By 1972 Jerry’s personal cultural revolution was over. His girlfriend OD’d, and all the savvy docs at SF General couldn’t put her together again. Jerry suffered from painful ulcerations at his favored injection sites, and nobody would hire him because he’d gotten so irritable. Ralphie was placed with a Mormon foster family. Grace Slick went into alcohol rehab and the Dead went on a permanent road trip.
Jerry moved back to Tahoe and started cooking again. By this time his father had died and his brothers and sisters had moved on from the restaurant and Tahoe. He moved in with his mother, and one day he got Ralphie b
ack. His mother took care of the toddler, and Jerry managed Mom’s Kitchen.
When she died too, he slipped back into using speed again: But it was no fun anymore. He was forty, and it kept him awake and made him paranoid instead of buoying him up. After his arrest and a diversion program, Jerry sank into a middle-aged stupor and stayed there. He worked at the restaurant, made sure Ralphie had clean socks, and watched reruns. Sometimes the old fury would still strike him, and he would go out on the porch with the scratched-up white Telecaster and his Peavey amp, and turn it up as high as it would go, with lots of distortion, and for a while he’d be back at the height of his life, fingers churning out the vicious ear-splitting notes for which he had been so briefly famed.
Then the phone would ring, and Terry London, his neighbor, would scream that if he didn’t shut the fuck up, she’d splinter the Telecaster over his head.
And that was how he’d gotten to know her, way back when.
Looking around, Nina saw why the place was so dark—threadbare blankets had been tacked up on the low windows as a substitute for curtains. Cinderblocks and boards held a large number of tattered books. A couple of sleeping bags were piled in the corner. Following her eyes, Kettrick said, "My buddies. Up from L.A. to do some fishing."
"Is your son at school?"
"Ralphie? He don’t go to school no more. He’s all grown up, twenty-eight. He drives a monster truck. Travels around the West to race."
"Now, there’s an unusual job," Paul said.
"Dangerous," Kettrick said, rolling himself what Nina hoped was a cigarette. Wearing the same red chamois shirt Nina had seen him in before Terry was killed, over blue jeans streaked with dried brown liquid, he sported a baseball hat with a Valvoline logo. The furious, long white hair and beard, invisible eyelashes, and pink-rimmed eyes in his creased face made Nina wonder if he was albino. "But it’s showbiz, Ralphie says. He’s got aspirations." He reached in his pocket and handed Paul some grubby tickets from a thick roll. "Here," he said. "Ol’ Ralphie’s racing at the Reno Livestock Events Center on Saturday. Have a ball."
"No work today?" Paul said, leaning back in his chair. He had that wonderful easy lounge to him, relaxed anywhere, an attitude that relaxed others and encouraged them to kick back and say something they’d regret later.
"Hell, I went in at five to open at seven at the Kitchen, " Kettrick said. "I put in my eight hours. My niece runs the place until closing time. This is the hard-work season. I make the biscuits and gravy, play short-order cook, and run the register. Sometimes I have to hop the tables too. It ain’t rock ’n’ roll, but it pays the property taxes. Come on in sometime. Make you a sunnyside egg in thirty seconds, over easy in thirty-two. Best home cookin’ in Tahoe."
"Oh yeah?" Paul looked interested.
"Yeah. Mom’s Kitchen is second to none," Kettrick said, as if trying to convince himself. He laid down his hand-rolled cigarette, got some more Zigzag paper and tobacco from a pouch, and kept rolling.
"Lived here long?" Paul said.
"Almost twenty-five years. It’s a rat hole, but it’s my rat hole."
"I heard around town that you play some fine lead guitar too."
"I used to. I’m retired now. I played with the Dead, the Airplane. You name ’em, I got down with ’em. I used to be famous. A rock star. They said I was the spittin’ image of Edgar Winter. See?"
He pointed to a peeling poster tacked on the wall in the kitchen, a psychedelic extravaganza announcing a 1969 concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Jerry Kettrick’s wild white locks floated around his face, metamorphosing into one-eyed snakes. Nina and Paul nodded encouragingly.
He smiled. "You folks read the Bible? My parents used to quote Scripture at me. ’How are the mighty fallen ... the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away.’ That says it all. Now I read, watch TV, take care of Ralphie. Oh, once in a while someone who remembers me calls and I make a few bucks playing backup. But I make more cooking."
"Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today," Nina said.
"Time’s what I got in abundance," Kettrick said. "I’d rather be on your side, if I could. Better witness fee, I hear. But I seen what I seen."
"I guess you’d known Terry for a long time. Her family moved here, what, about twenty years ago?"
"Except for when she was married or traveling, she always lived at that house, though we didn’t really socialize. Her parents both died a long time ago, and she was a loner. Invited her to some of the neighborhood parties, but she couldn’t be bothered. She called me over now and then when she needed work done, you know, toilet stopped up, so forth, and every spring Ralphie and me would climb on the roof and sweep the pine needles off, and Ralphie would do her chimney. He’s skinny and he’d get right down there in it. He’d turn so black, the dog didn’t know him, damn near took a bite out of him once....
"Actually, Terry was a real pain in the ass," Kettrick went on. "To be honest. Complained about noise, said my dog bit her dog, didn’t like the dust we raised going in and out of the driveway. She put a gate up five years ago, and I quit going over. Ralphie went instead."
"I see you took Terry’s dog," Nina said.
"Hitchcock, she called him. She watched his movies over and over. He’s a good pup, never does business in the house." At the mention of his name Hitchcock raised his shaggy head and the red tongue Nina remembered came lolling out in a wet grin. "He was mooning around her place, hungry, and our old dog had just passed on, so I took him in. Poor ol’ Betsy. She lasted fifteen years. Ate some poison plant or something out there, keeled over and died last year." His voice lowered. "Actually, I kind of wondered if ... Terry might’ve done something to our dog. She was ... you know, deedeedeedee deedeedeedee...." Kettrick fluttered his fingers and rolled his eyes, singing the old TV theme from The Twilight Zone. The house, surrounded by forest, stayed gloomy even though Nina could see the sun breaking through outside. She felt itchy, and hoped her chair wasn’t Hitchcock’s favorite.
She pulled out Kettrick’s statement from the briefcase, passed it over to him, and said, "We’d like to talk to you about this."
He looked it over, said, "Yes, ma’am, that’s my statement to the cops about what I seen."
"According to this, you were watching television in your living room when you heard a noise at about eleven that night," Paul said. "What kind of noise?"
"Yelling, screaming, so forth," Kettrick said, licking his cigarette paper and twisting the ends tight with a practiced motion. "Him yelling, her screaming."
"How many people were at her house?" Paul said.
"I only know about the two. Terry, and him. I stayed right there, looking out the window, ’cause it sounded bad. I thought she’d plugged him."
"Why’s that?"
"Well. She was one righteous motherfucker. She had her rifle, threatened to use it on me once."
"What kind of rifle was that?" Paul said.
"A thirty ought six Remington, an oldie but a goodie."
"How many times have you seen that rifle in her possession over the last twelve years?" Nina said.
"Just that once, about five years ago. That’s when I stopped goin’ over. But Ralphie, he’s a fool for punishment. ’Don’t go over,’ I’d say, but he wanted to make a few extra bucks. I tried to stop him. I knew she was a bad influence. But that boy’ll hump a grizzly for a dollar cash."
Terry had been forty, so Ralph was twelve years younger. Had they been lovers?
Nina glanced at Paul, and their eyes met. They had also both registered that they now had proof that Terry had kept Kurt’s rifle. This was a big break for them. Terry had the rifle, she got it out, threatened Kurt, there was a struggle, he ran.... Nina turned her attention back to Paul, who was asking, "Mr. Kettrick, could you understand what this man you saw and Terry were saying to each other?"
"No. But she was plenty pissed. He was soft at first, then he got into it too."
"Why don’t you tell us all about what you heard and saw," Pau
l said. "Forget about the statement you made to the police. We’d like to hear it fresh from you."
"Well, there was the noise, arguing, for about five minutes. Then there was two shots, one right after the other. And he come running out the studio door, his shirttail to the wind.... In the moonlight, I could see his face plainly—"
"Could you see the studio door from your window?" Paul said.
"C’mon over here," Kettrick said. They all walked over to the window. "Stand here, in the left corner." He pushed a blanket to the side, letting in a golden shaft of sun that slashed through the dingy interior.
Nina took the opportunity to crack open the window and get some air into the room. She could see the front of the studio, the path up to it, and the porch where she had stood with Collier the day they found the body. Kettrick had a ringside view of the door, there was no doubt about it.
"He come running out—"
"Did you see any blood on his clothes?"
"Nope," Kettrick said. "Can’t see colors too well by moonlight. His clothes were dark, that much I seen."
"Mr. Kettrick," Nina said. Standing right next to her, not much taller than she was, Kettrick was not looking out the window with her and Paul. He was looking at her. In a balmy summer breeze that raised and dropped the blanket over the window suddenly, she smelled him, a sour smell. His face wore an amiable smile, showing off several teeth gone over to brown, but he reeked of fear.
"Are you positive you heard two shots, not one, before Mr. Scott ran out the front door?"
"Positive," Kettrick said. "And if I’m lying may God strike me dead." She connected with his white-lashed eyes, and didn’t take hers away, but looked deep, deeper, and observed his pale irises contracting to a point. Nothing else on his face moved. He edged away from her.
"Then what happened?" asked Paul. He had taken in the scene without seeming attentive, everything about him casual except those narrow hazel eyes.
"He lit out for his car and took off. That’s about all. Next day, I saw the commotion over at her house and went over, and they had me go down to the station house and give a statement, and then they called me back when they busted him, and I went back over and picked him out of the lineup. There was no question," he said. "Sorry about that."
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