Idaho Code

by Joan Opyr

  I tapped the side of my nose. “I saw an advance copy of the autopsy report.”

  “Ruth?”

  “Shhh,” I said, with a pointed look at Helen. “The walls have ears. Between you and me, I don’t think Frank had anything to do with Burt Wood. I think he left town because he’d embezzled all of that money, and he came back because he thought he could cash in on someone who’d helped him.”

  “An accomplice?” Granny whispered.

  “I think so.” I got up and drained the last of my tea. “Anyhow, I’ve got to be going. Things to do. I just wanted to check on you, see how you were after last night.”

  Granny nodded, as if I checked on her all the time. “Thank you, I’m fine.” Then she added, “You know, Wilhelmina really doesn’t suit you. It’s good that they call you Bil.”

  This was as close as I was going to get to an apology. “I think so.”

  “You were named after me. The Wilhelmina, not the Eleanor. I don’t know where they got your middle name.”

  “Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “No, I remember. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Your mother loved The Lion in Winter. Katharine Hepburn was one of her favorite actresses. You were nearly Wilhelmina Katharine, with a ‘K.’ It might have been Catherine with a ‘C’ but then your initials would have been WC, and that’s what the English call their toilet . . .”

  “I think,” I said, “that I’d better be going.”

  My grandmother looked at me. “I like people, all people. I’m not really a misogynist.”

  “Perhaps,” Helen suggested, “you mean misanthrope.”

  “No,” Granny continued, “I mean curmudgeon.”

  And they let you drive, and they let you vote, I thought to myself. Terrifying. I put my empty glass in the dish drainer. Granny would never mention my sexual orientation to me directly. She’d talk about me behind my back, but she wouldn’t take a chance on me telling her to go to hell.

  “Was there anything else?” Helen asked.

  “Just visiting my grandmother. No crime in that.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Helen said, staring pointedly at the bandage on my forehead. She rocked back and forth in her chair, smiling. I stared back at her until she started to hum. Though my knowledge of eighties music was far from comprehensive, I recognized the first bars of “Tainted Love.”

  I leaned close to her, resting the palms of my hands on the table. “And what would you know about that, Mildew?”

  Helen stopped humming and looked down at my hands, still pressed against the table in front of her. “You said someone tried to kill you. They must have had a reason.”

  Before I could ask her if she knew exactly what that reason was, she looked back up at me and said abruptly, “You’re my cousin’s lover, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “My mother thinks it’s genetic,” she said, “like eye color or hemophilia. I don’t. I think it’s a sin and that you’re both going to hell. Book of Leviticus.”

  My grandmother watched this exchange in silence but her ears were flapping. As soon as I was gone, she’d be on the phone to my mother like a shot. I smiled at Helen. Righteous anger wasn’t genetic, it was nurtured, and I’d learned how to use it at the knee of a master.

  “Hmm,” I said, “do you eat shellfish, Helen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Leviticus forbids that.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t lecture me,” she said. “It’s better than what you eat.”

  “My goodness, Helen, could you possibly be referring to . . . oral sex? Ah well, I like shrimp, too. I suppose that doubles my chances of a hot hereafter.” I turned to smile at my grandmother. “Thanks for the tea, Granny, but I have to be on my way. Mustn’t keep a lady waiting.”

  And with that, I spun on my heel and headed out the door, not wanting them to see that my cheeks were burning. I didn’t know where my grenades would land, but I felt I’d lobbed them in the right direction. Helen would tell her parents, and Granny could be counted on to cite chapter and verse to anyone who would hold still long enough to listen. Now, I just had to find Sylvie and wait for all hell to break loose.

  Chapter 31

  The drive to Kate’s house gave me time to think. My money was on Fairfax as Frank’s accomplice. Sylvie had asked her mother point blank about blackmail, and Kate admitted that Frank had come by twice in the days before he died to ask her for money. He hinted that he could make life uncomfortable for her. She called his bluff. Frank knew Burt hadn’t left town with him; he didn’t know anything else.

  It also seemed to me that there might be two blackmailers at work. Kate and Agnes had a joint account at Pioneers Bank, and Kate transferred money into it regularly. But would twenty thousand a year be enough for Agnes if she really knew something about Burt’s disappearance? I didn’t think so. Agnes had been written out of her father’s will, and Kate had gotten everything, or close to it. Agnes was bound to be bitter. Why not take it all?

  Fairfax was another possibility, a blackmailer who was also being blackmailed. He certainly had access to Kate’s accounts at Pioneers Bank. The question in my mind was whether or not the embezzlement conspiracy had spread out beyond him, Burt, and Frank. For all I knew, maybe half the town knew about it. Maybe my father was right, and the money was stuffed in someone’s mattress.

  When I reached the top of Kate’s driveway, the dogs raced over to sniff me. Priscilla wagged her tail. Elvis stood back warily. I swallowed my fear and held my hand out to him. He edged closer until his nose was touching my fingers. Then he wagged his tail as well.

  I reached down and scratched behind his ears, and he licked my hand. “You big fraud,” I said. We walked in a heaving, tail-wagging mass to the front door, and I knocked. Sylvie appeared around the corner of the house, wearing a baseball shirt and a pair of cut-offs. She was barefoot.

  “Why didn’t you go to the kitchen door?” she said. “No one ever uses this one.”

  “As this is my first formal call as your official girlfriend, I thought the front door was more suitable.”

  “Idiot,” she replied, putting her arms around me. I kissed her.

  “You’ve got to quit going around barefoot,” I said, breaking away to catch my breath. “You know I’ve got a thing for naked feet.”

  She laughed. “Remind me to throw away all of my shoes. Do you want to go inside?”

  “Sure. Where’s your mom?”

  “Running around town. At two, she has a coffee and a cigarette date back here with your mother.” I lifted an eyebrow at this information. Sylvie just shrugged. “Why not? Now that we know, maybe that old barrier is gone for good.”

  “And now that we’re together, they’ve got to start behaving like in-laws instead of outlaws.”

  “Something like that.”

  I followed her around the side of the house and into the kitchen. An open book lay on the table in front of her chair. I picked it up and read the title: No Fond Return of Love.

  “Have you read it?”

  I nodded. “I love Barbara Pym. Generally, though, I have pretty debased tastes. When I’m not reading something highbrow for class, I prefer paperback mysteries and lesbian trash. You got any issues of On Our Backs?”

  “You’ll have to check under my bed. Why don’t we go through to the living room? We can neck on the sofa.”

  “You really are my kind of woman.”

  I propped my feet up on the coffee table, resting them on a magazine so my heels wouldn’t make black marks. I put my arm around Sylvie and she leaned against me, her head resting on my shoulder. Then I told her about my visit with Granny.

  “Did Helen really say that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s dreadful. I’m glad you called her on it. So you lobbed your grenades. Now what?”

  “Now we wait to see what happens.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “That sounds dangerous, especially considering what happened last night.”

>   “Maybe. I didn’t know what else to do. We’ll just have to be extra careful.”

  “Right,” she said, “that’s certainly a word I associate with you.”

  “That’s me, careful and shy.”

  We sat there happily quiet for a long time. Eventually I said, “So, what did your mother have to do in town?”

  “She went to see Lieutenant Young.” I sat up at this news. She pulled me back down. “Don’t get upset. We decided that the best thing for her to do was to go in of her own free will and say that she’d made a mistake. Burt and Frank were the same age, they were the same height and weight and hair color, and she hadn’t seen either of them for nearly two decades. She could have made a legitimate mistake, and it was clear that Young was pressuring her. He didn’t wait for the autopsy report. He didn’t check dental records . . .”

  “I’ve been wondering about that. Why not?”

  “The autopsy took longer than expected, and once the results arrived, Young didn’t have anything to compare them to. There was no real investigation into either my father’s disappearance or Frank’s, so he’d never asked for medical records. Besides, he thought he knew whose body it was. Remember that anonymous tip? Someone called Young and said they’d seen my father wandering around town.”

  “Yes,” I said, “and I wonder just who that was. The nosy Helen?”

  Sylvie shrugged. “Who knows? It wasn’t until Young learned that the dead man had three kidneys that he asked for my father’s records. Having three kidneys is weird, and Frank had mentioned it to people. Anyhow, it took quite a while to locate them. My father’s doctor was ancient—he was the same doctor who’d delivered him. When he died, his practice was sold to another doctor, and that doctor in turn sold it to someone else. The files were a mess, all stacked up in boxes in a back room, waiting to be transferred to computer.”

  “So he thought he had a well-known corpse on his hands, and he pushed your mother to identify him. It was probably the most excitement he’s had in years.”

  “He’s running for sheriff. A splashy case would get his name in the newspaper. Alice Campbell is running for re-election, and I’m sure that’s the reason she was so determined to nail your brother. She wanted to be seen cleaning up the streets of Lewis County.”

  “Do you think they’ll believe your mother?”

  “I hope so. She really didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death, I’m sure of that.”

  “You’re not worried then?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No one was blackmailing my mother. She told me last night that she’s been giving Agnes twenty thousand a year since my grandfather died. My mother didn’t approve of the will, and she wanted to make amends. At first, Agnes refused. Then she changed her mind. For some reason, she didn’t want a lump sum, and she didn’t want anyone to know about the payments. There might be a connection between Agnes and Frank, but there’s nothing between him and my mother. Bil—are you listening to me?”

  I kissed the spot just behind her ear where her pulse throbbed. Then I worked my way down her long, smooth neck, around the line of her jaw, and, finally, back to her mouth.

  “It’s getting late,” she said eventually. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “Who cares?”

  She laughed. “You’re supposed to be resting. Remember your head?”

  “I’m young and resilient. I’ll let you know if I feel like my head is going to explode or something.”

  “Gee, thanks. That might be messy.” She leaned back against the sofa cushions and stayed there for several seconds with her eyes closed. Then suddenly she stood up. “Come on,” she said, reaching a hand down to help me up.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To my apartment. Just because our mothers are going to be here at two doesn’t mean we need to. I’ll leave a note, and they can call us. Right now, I need music, television, and something to read besides Mother Jones. Not to mention the fact that there’s nothing to eat in this house, and none of the pizza places deliver outside city limits.”

  “Pizza sounds like a very good idea, pepperoni and lots of mushrooms.” She was pulling me forward, but now I stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “Mushrooms,” I said. “Did you ever ask your botany professor about jimsonweed?”

  She shook her head. “He was useless, so I talked to the agricultural extension agent on campus. Jimsonweed grows all over town. That thing you picked by Lilac Trailer Court is actually a variety called Angel’s Trumpet.”

  I sighed. “Well, that doesn’t reduce our number of suspects then, does it? I suppose Frank was an only child?”

  “He was. Why?”

  “Just wondering if I missed a suspect.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with your grenades,” she said, pulling on my arm again. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait a second.” I fished the keys out of my pocket and handed them to her. “Would you mind sailing my mother’s boat? I feel a little dizzy.”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  I pulled her to me. “Do you have a cure?”

  “Wake up. Bil, wake up.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s after six. My mother just called. Your mother’s there and they want to talk to us.”

  My eyelids felt glued to my corneas. “Shit, I’ve slept in my contact lenses again.”

  “I’ll get the saline from Nancy’s room. Your clothes are around here somewhere. Sit up, Bil.” I felt an arm behind my back, lifting me up. “Try to get dressed. It sounded important.”

  “Okay, I’m awake.”

  When Sylvie and I pulled into the driveway, Hugh’s car was parked next to Kate’s.

  “They’re probably in the kitchen,” Sylvie said, using her foot to push a dancing dog out of her path. “Elvis, behave yourself. Get down.”

  We made our way past the dogs and entered the kitchen. Kate and Emma were sitting at the table, cups of coffee in their hands and guilty looks on their faces.

  I sniffed the air, which was filled with sickly sweet smoke. “What is that smell? Oh my god!”

  “Relax,” Emma said, waving her hand to dissipate the smoke. “I found it in the pocket of your brother’s jacket this morning. It’s no big deal.”

  “In his jacket . . . so you thought you’d just toke up? What the hell has gotten into you?”

  Sylvie was staring at her mother in disbelief. Kate at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. My mother was shrugging it off.

  “Sorry,” Kate said. “I haven’t done it since college.” She cast a puzzled look at my mother. “Funny, it doesn’t seem to have the same kick, does it? I don’t feel a thing.”

  “You’re telling me,” my mother agreed.

  I drew myself up. “If I’d known the two of you were going to be hopped up on Mary Jane, I’d have stayed in town. Come on, Sylvie.”

  Emma gave me a sour look. “Don’t be such a prude. We only had one puff each, and then I stubbed it out. It was just a whim.”

  All things considered, I would have preferred a mother who was a little less human. In the last few weeks, I’d learned more about her than I’d ever wanted to know. Still, Sylvie wasn’t nearly as bent out of shape as I was, so when she sat down, I relented.

  “One puff and then you stubbed it out? I just hope that thing smoking under the toe of your shoe isn’t burning a hole in the tile, Emma.”

  “Christ on a cracker,” she said, knocking her forehead on the table as she bent down to retrieve the burning roach.

  “Don’t worry about it now, Em,” Kate said, leaning back in her chair. “We need new tile in here anyway. My father put this linoleum down when he built the place. It’s probably asbestos.”

  “Lucky old you,” I said to Emma. She ignored me. I took a seat at the table, and Sylvie and I waited. After a minute or so, Kate spoke.

  “Complications,” she said, holding her hand out to Sylvie. “Fortuitous complications. I think t
hat’s why we were feeling a little frivolous. I learned something down at the sheriff’s office that I hadn’t expected. A bridge maintenance crew has found your father’s motorcycle.”

  “They found it four months ago,” Emma interrupted. “They were doing a routine inspection on some pylons, and a couple of bridge divers for the highway department came across it. The bike was wedged under some rocks. Urban sprawl hasn’t reached that far yet, so it was just sitting there.”

  I looked first at Emma, then at Kate, and then back at Emma again.

  “What are you talking about?”

  My mother reached into her purse and pulled out two cigarettes, lighting both and handing one to Kate. “He was always a lunatic on that bike, even his mother said so. He’d had several accidents. We thought they’d find it sixteen years ago. They wouldn’t find a body, of course, but that could have been swept down river, eaten by coyotes . . .”

  “Please,” I said. “Spare us the details. Why would you want them to find his bike?”

  “An accident,” Emma said. “We didn’t plan to make him disappear without a trace—we expected someone to look for him. When the bridge crew found it, they dragged it out of the river and read the number on the license plate. Then, they reported it to the highway patrol. The bike was clearly old, and it seemed to have been junked, so the highway patrol reported it to the Department of Motor Vehicles. They, in turn, sent the paperwork to Boise because it was an Idaho tag. That paperwork wasn’t processed until the first of last week; it was treated as a low-priority title search.”

  “Bureaucrats,” Sylvie snapped. “That’s been sitting on someone’s desk all summer long. They could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “I’m still not getting this,” I said. “Why are you feeling frivolous? Aren’t the police going to look for a body to go with the motorcycle?”

  Kate smiled, and it lit up her entire face. She looked ten years younger.

  “They don’t expect to find one, not after all this time. They assume that Burt ran off the highway sixteen years ago and drowned. When I went in today and told them that I knew I’d made a mistake, they believed me. I said it looked enough like him to actually be him, and I just wanted some closure. I said after all this time, I thought we deserved it.”