Nothing much I could say to that. She was right. The problem was, I wouldn’t want to be any other way. “You’ve been fair to me, Ms. Graves. I owe you for that.”
“I’m doing my job. You don’t owe me anything. The person you owe is yourself. And if you screw up, don’t blame the law. Blame yourself.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
“Anytime,” she said.
I walked back to the Blazer, cursing myself for considering her opinions important, for even listening to someone appointed by the law to chain my stride. My curses rang false, because Terry Graves was the only person I’d listened to consistently since I’d been released from prison.
Ben eyed the envelope when I stepped into the car.
“Get your pass?”
“Got my pass.”
“She give you a hard time to go with it?”
“Do I look like she gave me a hard time?”
Ben started the engine and pulled into traffic.
“My parole officer is worse than God. She doesn’t let me get away with anything. At least God turns a blind eye every now and then.”
“It’s her job to sit on you, don’t forget,” he said. “If you don’t feel her weight on your back, she’s not doing her job.”
“If I felt any more weight, I wouldn’t be able to stand straight.”
I held on to the Rott’s neck and squeezed, let his animal warmth and the hum of tires on asphalt calm me. Ben talked about arrangements for the funeral, how long it would take me to drive out to Douglas, and where I’d stay. I didn’t do much to hold up my end of the conversation, and he must have tired of talking at me, because after a while he tuned the radio to a country-and-western station.
“You like this music?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” I said.
Ben flicked off the radio, and an angry look crossed his face, at least I thought then it was angry. He said, “You’re wrong about God, about turning a blind eye. I know something about crime, something more about guilt, and most of all, I know about punishment. God never turns a blind eye. Everything you do and that’s done to you is seared into your soul. Some people, you don’t even have to be God to see the marks burned into them.”
He reached out unexpectedly and touched the lowest scar on the skin of my forearm, where a man had once methodically stubbed out a half pack of cigarettes into my skin.
“Sometimes we feel invisible, thinking no one can see who we are or what we’ve done. That’s wrong. People we don’t know by name, they see us walking down the street, they recognize us, see what kind of person we are by the way we move, the way we dress. Think about all the people you know without saying hello to. You get an idea what most of ’em are about, don’t you? We forget that people see us a lot more often than we see ourselves. We’re not invisible, not to somebody who has the time and inclination to look. You don’t even have to look that hard to tell about some people. Some marks, everybody can see.” He moved his hand from my arm and wrapped it around the steering wheel. “But maybe only God can read what those marks say, understand what they mean.”
He tugged the wheel to the right and pulled the Blazer to the red zone across from my building, tires squeaking against the curb. I thanked him for the ride and stepped out of the car. He was right. I did think myself invisible, at least those hard and dark parts of myself that shamed and scared me the most. I didn’t mind his being right, because he spoke about himself, too. We were both scarred individuals, and more stoic than might be good for us. As his headlights washed across my bark and down the street. I remembered his confession from two nights before. I had told him very little about myself, nothing that he couldn’t have learned from researching the news archives, and just as I approached the steps to my building the car door ahead of me winged into the sidewalk and out stepped Detective Claymore.
“You must feel pretty good about yourself tonight,” he said.
The edge of the car door gouged into the concrete on opening, and when he tried to kick the door closed nonchalantly, with the back of his foot, the resistance knocked him off balance. He swore furiously, whirled, and flung it shut with both hands, the violence of his effort throwing him again off balance. When he righted himself a second time, he glowered at me as though I was somehow responsible.
“You think it’s funny?”
The Rott growled, his body tensing against my knee. I grabbed his collar and moved toward the steps. Claymore leapt onto the third stair to cut me off. The Rott lunged forward. I clamped his sides between my knees and hitched the leash to his collar.
“Get out of my way,” I said.
“Or what? You’ll call the police? Or maybe you’re planning to loose that toothless dog on me?”
I backed the dog down, away from the stairs. Claymore planted his feet broadly, fists on his hips in a Superman stance, but still he swayed, his head inscribing subtle arcs, like a bumped lightbulb hung from the ceiling on a cord.
“You don’t know anything about me or what I’m thinking,” I said. “Every time you make a guess about me, it’s wrong. No, I don’t feel particularly good about myself tonight. No, I don’t think anything about you is funny. No, I’m not going to call the police. And no, I’m not going to let my dog anywhere near you. What I am going to do is wait here until you decide to leave.”
His unbuttoned sport coat fell open to the butt of an automatic in a holster beneath his left shoulder. “You want to know why I came?”
I let what passes for silence at night in Venice answer for me.
“I came to apologize,” he said.
“For what?”
“For misjudging you.”
That didn’t sound right. I figured he hated me. I never gave him good reason to hate me. His reasons for hating me lay in his head and nowhere else. Those reasons could disappear as capriciously as they appeared. “I understand the way the system works. I was the most logical suspect,” I said.
He nodded, as though contrite about it. “You’re much more clever than I gave you credit for. I thought you’d set the fire to photograph Ms. Doubleday running to escape and nearly got caught in your own trap, which would be a stupid thing to do. I was wrong about that, and I apologize.”
“Apology accepted,” I said. I wanted to let him off the hook, if that was what it took to get him out of my life. Give him the dignity of an apology and the illusion that I harbored no resentments.
He wagged his head; I misunderstood. “I was wrong to think you were stupid. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I understood how clever you were. Your job gave you a perfect reason to be on the hill, but that wasn’t why you were really there, was it?”
“Why else?”
“You set the fire. I’m right about that. But you didn’t set the fire to photograph Ms. Doubleday. I was wrong there. You set the fire to kill her.”
I backed the dog again, afraid this time I’d be the one to lunge.
“Bingo,” he said, then threw his hands into the air as though signaling defeat. “Knew I was right, but I can’t prove it now. You’re too smart for me. Maybe I’m not as sharp as I used to be. Maybe that’s part of the reason you got away with it. Who’s in it with you? I know you didn’t act alone. It’s Doubleday’s niece, isn’t it?” He glanced up to the sky as though trying to snatch a suspect from the stars. “Arlanda Cortes. Sure, it’s her. She’s going to be a rich woman now, and you two got so close so fast. Why is that? You can tell me. I’ve already shot my bolt. Nothing will happen to you.”
“You’re drunk,” I said.
“Tell me the truth!” He stumbled down the stairs, no fear of the dog, no fear of me, but the sound of footsteps brought one steadying hand to the rail while the other discreetly closed the top button to his sport coat.
“She is telling you the truth, Detective.”
I took my eyes off Claymore long enough to glance over my shoulder. The voice was Ben’s, and I welcomed the sight of his slow, angry stride with a nod.
> “Maybe if you sobered up, you’d see it.”
Claymore extended his forefinger and stabbed at the air. “You’re the one used to be a patrol deputy, aren’t you?”
“And you’re the arson investigator who’s been dodging my calls since the day of the fire.”
Claymore reached a slow hand into the side pocket of his sport coat to withdraw a stick of spearmint gum. He unwrapped the stick carefully, first pulling the green covering apart at the seam and then lifting the corners of the tinfoil, nodding all the while. “You spent how long as a patrol deputy?”
“Twenty-five years.”
He folded the stick of gum in half, wedged it between his teeth, and bit down hard. “All those years, and you never made it out of a patrol car. Must have been frustrating, not to mention humbling as hell.”
Ben folded his arms across his chest. The comment had been meant to wound him, and maybe it had, but with his arms across his chest and his eyes cloaked in sunglasses, I couldn’t tell. “You’ve already made yourself into an ass, Detective. Don’t add a hole to the end of it. Go home. Let the lady do the same.”
Claymore’s gum popped rapid fire, jaws pounding it to pulp. “My mind’s just going now, flat out fast as it can, trying to connect the dots. What’s an ex-cop doing with an ex-con? What’s the attraction here? Wait a minute.” His jaw stalled, the gum a slight bulge in his cheek. Then his teeth flashed white in the streetlight. “I get it now. You’re Doubleday’s godfather. Any chance you’re mentioned in the will?”
“He was written out three months ago,” I said, as though that proved something.
“Angry that she wrote you out, aren’t you?” He smiled again. He’d already known.
“Don’t give a damn,” Ben said.
“Wouldn’t expect you to admit you did. But it makes a nice motive for murder, doesn’t it? Particularly if the niece cuts you into the will on the back end.”
“After today, they’ll give you just enough time to clean out your desk, so I’m not gonna worry about your wild-ass theories.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Deputy, except up the chain of command.” Claymore backed a step toward his car. “Twenty-five years and never made it out of a patrol car. That has to be some kind of record, doesn’t it? Most cops, they get stuck behind a wheel all those years, they’re smart enough to take their twenty years and get out. But you went nowhere for twenty plus five.” He opened the door to his cruiser, the gum snapping in his mouth, and pointed at his head. “At least I know who’s not the brains of the outfit.”
He gunned the engine and jetted from the curb, tires squealing and back end fishtailing down the street, not too drunk to drive but too drunk to drive well.
“Word is, he’s going to be placed on administrative review,” Ben said. “He won’t last out the month.”
“Let’s hope we live that long,” I said.
The deputy behind the desk of the Cochise County sheriff station took a long look at me when I walked through the door. For a moment, I regretted that I hadn’t washed my face and run a brush through my hair to make myself seem more respectable. I’d crossed the border into Arizona at sunrise, the Colorado River flowing blood-red below me, and the couple hours of road sleep I’d managed on a highway spur outside of Yuma hadn’t much refreshed me. Then I noticed the decor. On the wall at the far end of the lobby hung the portraits of county sheriffs past, twelve of them dating back to the early twentieth century, all hard men who looked like the only smile they enjoyed was a rictus one. Little wonder the deputy stared at me. He didn’t have much else to look at. Pinned to the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, he probably didn’t see many women walk into the station, let alone ones with a nose stud and six hundred miles of road dust. He was young and beefy, about two hundred pounds and not an ounce of it hair. He didn’t look at me the same way L.A. cops did either. His glance was less wary and a lot more curious. I flashed my press pass.
“You here to cover the memorial service?”
“Yes, sir, I am.” I slipped the parolee release form from its envelope and laid it flat on the desk. “My parole officer told me I should check in with you first thing.”
He twisted his head sideways to read the print, and when he finished, he read it a second time. When he felt sure he had it, he looked at me again, still curious. “Okay,” he said. “Good thing you stopped by.” He carefully copied my name on a pad of paper. “What did they put you away for?”
“Manslaughter.”
He thought that over. Manslaughter covered a wide range of crimes. I could have killed my husband with a thrown flowerpot, missed the apple low when playing William Tell, or chased a car going sixty miles per hour into a gas pump.
“Voluntary or involuntary?”
“Voluntary.”
He thought that over, too. “Drug related?”
“The only drugs I have any use for are ibuprofen and hard alcohol.”
“Okay, then.” That was apparently what he wanted to know. Not too many felons come to Douglas to rob the bank. “Where you going to be staying?”
“The Gadsden Hotel.”
“It’s full up, I hear. You have a reservation?”
“A friend made one for me.”
“Okay, then.” He wrote the hotel down next to my name. “Keep yourself out of trouble.”
As though I’d come to town looking for it.
I found Ben sitting on a stool at the Saddle and Spur, the Gadsden Hotel’s house bar, his back straight and a bottle of Corona standing slope shouldered next to an empty glass. I’d come into the bar through the lobby, startled to find a magnificent turn-of-the-century hotel with a white marble staircase and stained glass ceiling in a town that looked like it would have trouble supporting a Motel 6. The Gadsden seemed far too grand for Douglas, except for the few telling details that pinned it in place, such as the row of cowboy codgers sitting on the lobby furniture and the mountain lion stuffed at the top of the stairs, which had been shot, a brass plaque read, by the hotel proprietress.
“The old Gadsden, she’s got quite a history,” Ben said, dipping his head at the bartender to order another beer. “She was first built during the days of Pancho Villa, before Arizona became a state. You see the marble staircase?”
I nodded.
“Imported all the way from Italy. Douglas was an important town when the copper mines were booming. The original hotel, she burned down in the ’20s. The owners rebuilt, bigger and better, and some time after the mines failed they discovered not all their guests were strictly living.”
I said, “Huh?”
“This place is haunted. You didn’t know that?”
I said I didn’t.
“One night, when I was a kid, I spent the night beneath one of the tables in the restaurant. A buddy of mine, he dared me, so I said, Fine, I’ll do it. The only ghosts I saw were a couple of drunken guests with sheets over their heads, trying to scare the hell out of each other. Maybe that’s the secret. If I drink enough tonight, maybe I’ll finally see one. You believe in ghosts?”
“I have a hard enough time believing in the living, let alone the dead.”
“Maybe we’ll both get smashed tonight, see some ghosts. What you drinking?”
The bartender cracked a bottle of Corona, set it on the bar, looked at me like I was just another thirsty cowgirl. That’s one of the things I like most about bartenders; as a breed, they’re nonjudgmental.
“Just coffee,” I told him.
Ben said, “Since when did you join the sisters of sobriety?”
“I didn’t get more than two hours’ road sleep. If I start drinking now, I won’t make it through the memorial service.”
He hid a bitter grin behind the lip of the bottle and just before he sipped said, “I should be so lucky.”
I pulled the Nikon from my camera bag, thinking about Ben and why he dreaded the service. When I focused on his face the expression wasn’t friendly.
“Don’t point that thing at me
.”
“You nervous?”
“Just camera shy.”
“I mean about being here. About the memorial service.”
“I hate this town. Just hate it.”
Pain fused with anger in the glance he turned to me. I took his photograph, the parabolic lens bending the bar away from him like a reflection in a mirrored globe.
“What’s to hate? A few streets, the desert, an old hotel? It’s not like L.A., where it’s hard to pick out what you hate the most, because there’s so much to choose from. There’s not much here to react against.”
“Other than a good hotel, that’s about all this town has. Nothing. Plenty of that to go around. You like nothing? This town’s for you.”
“At least it’s quiet.”
“So’s the grave.”
“You got out, didn’t you?”
“I’m back now.”
His bitterness surprised me. He was sixty-something. I thought people were supposed to mellow with age. It didn’t leave me hopeful about my own future. I said, “People know what happened between you and Pete?”
“It’s a small town,” he said. “I’d be surprised if people didn’t.”
“You still know anybody here?”
He raised his glass to his own reflection in the bar, said, “Just ghosts.” He took a long swallow, but his thirst must have abandoned him, because he asked for the bill and left the beer half finished on the bar. I followed him out to his car, parked on the town’s main drive. Black ribbons festooned the lampposts and swaths of black crepe paper hung from the balconies. Many of the windows bore messages of condolence to Doubleday’s family and appreciation for her contributions to the town. In a few places, residents confused by tradition had tied yellow ribbons instead of black ones, but even that error seemed heartfelt.
Burning Garbo Page 13