Shoot the Moon

by Billie Letts

  “I think before you say anything more,” Arthur said, “you should know that I’ve already spoken to my attorney, Paul Perkins. As Kyle’s guardian, I am filing legal action against you on his behalf, for harassment and mental anguish.”

  “I’m curious. Did the nursing supervisor tell you why I went to see Kyle?”

  “I doubt the ‘why’ of it has any merit.”

  “Then I don’t suppose you know that I went to the hospital to ask Kyle about Gaylene Harjo’s arrest for DUI on June 28, 1970.”

  Arthur’s response was silent but palpable. His skin glistened with a sheen of perspiration, his breathing accelerated and his upper body slumped, just slightly, such a subtle gesture that it was barely discernible. When he made his way to the chair behind his desk, he took a monogrammed handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket and dabbed at his forehead.

  “I don’t see how that concerns Kyle or me.”

  “Oh, I believe you do. I know that Gaylene was jailed for driving drunk, but she didn’t stay behind bars very long because O Boy Daniels called you to pick her up and take her home.”

  “Why would I take her home? She worked for me, but that was it. I never took her to dinner, never took her on a business trip. Never bought her a birthday present. And I never took her home.”

  “But you took her to bed, didn’t you.”

  “No, of course not!”

  “I have proof that you picked her up at the jail.”

  After hesitating just a moment too long, Arthur shrugged. “Okay. Say I did. She didn’t want her parents to see her drunk, made me swear I’d never let them know, then asked me to drive her to Rowena Whitekiller’s.”

  “And you did. But not before you drove her to your cabin, where you raped her.”

  Arthur took a deep, steady breath, made a quick switch from defense to offense, then said, “Mr. Harjo, in addition to the charges I’m filing on behalf of Kyle, I will be charging you with defamation of character. Mine.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to damage your character.”

  “You know, I don’t believe, have never believed, that you are Gaylene Harjo’s son. I think he was murdered at the same time his mother was.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “Two reasons come to mind. The first: blackmail. I suspect you stumbled onto what happened here in 1972. You did some research, found out who the major players were and how they fit into the events that took place here and figured you could pull this off. Easy pickings, you thought, because you’re a con man and because you’re about the right age. You assumed your threat to expose me as the bad guy who got sweet little Gaylene Harjo pregnant would induce me to hand over a substantial amount of money.

  “Well, wake up, genius. We’re about to enter the twenty-first century. No one gives a damn anymore about a girl who screwed half the men in town and got knocked up by one of them.”

  Mark could feel his rage building, wanted more than anything to put his fist through Arthur’s mouth, feel teeth splintering, a jaw cracking, a tongue gushing blood. But he held himself back, knowing the relief of hurting Arthur would come later. He just had no idea that he wouldn’t be the one to inflict the pain.

  “Who would care? My ex-wife? No. The hicks who listen to my station? Why, they’d love it. A hint of Jerry Springer right here in DeClare, Oklahoma. And a scandal would ultimately result in increased advertising revenue.”

  “All publicity is good publicity, huh?” Mark said.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “And the second reason?” Mark asked. “You said you could think of at least two reasons for my coming here. The first was blackmail. I’m waiting for you to tell me about reason number two.”

  “If,” Arthur said, “and I repeat if, you could prove what you have alleged—”

  “Which wouldn’t be that much of a stretch since I was born nine months after you raped Gaylene.”

  “Then you could lay claim to being my son.”

  “And how would I profit from that?”

  “You would be my next of kin, the only child of a single man without living parents, my only sibling a half-brother. Oliver. When I die, you would be in a position to inherit my entire estate.”

  “What estate? A two-bit radio station? Or maybe you own a collection of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books? Would I also inherit your phony accent? Or perhaps I’d get Kyle.”

  “Oh, that would be a nice payback, wouldn’t it? Yes, I rather like that notion.”

  “Do you like it enough to submit to a DNA test to determine paternity?”

  Arthur found enough humor in the question that he actually smiled.

  “You know,” Mark said, “it’s possible to have the test performed even without your consent.”

  “Well, let’s say you do that. And let’s say the test reveals that Gaylene and I fathered a child. You. Nick Harjo. Then here’s a scenario you should perhaps consider.

  “I picked her up at jail, took her to the cabin, we had a couple of drinks. We screwed, had a good time, and as a result, she had a baby. I don’t think that’s a crime. I believe that’s called consensual sex.

  “Now, let’s consider another scenario. The one you came up with. I picked her up, took her to the cabin and raped her. Problem is, I could never be charged with that crime. The statute of limitations has expired.”

  “You bastard.”

  “That, I believe, would best describe you, Mr. Harjo.” Arthur, with a smug grin, leaned back in his chair. “Of course, there could be one other reason you came here to confront me with these allegations.”

  “What would that be?”

  “After all this time, you’ve suddenly decided you want to know your daddy, your papa. Your loving father. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but all you’ve gotten for yourself so far is unsubstantiated evidence, some unreliable theories and just a little more truth than you were prepared to handle.

  “Now, get your slimy ass out of my office. Son!”

  Lantana, who’d driven Mark from the Haven to the radio station, was sitting in the front office, the space that served as a waiting room. She was using a four-year-old edition of Radio Journal as a prop to create the impression that she hadn’t moved from her chair since she and Mark had arrived. In truth, she’d been on the prowl all over the building and even managed to eavesdrop just outside Arthur’s door for a good part of the conversation between the two men.

  When she heard Mark coming down the hall, she could tell from the sound of his crutch hammering the floor that he was furious.

  “You okay?” she asked as he passed her without a word, going for the front door.

  Outside, she had to hustle to keep up with him, a man on a crutch, followed by a woman wearing a ridiculously high pair of heels.

  After they got in the car, she started the engine, turned on the air conditioner and said, “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. What do you want to do?”

  He stared straight ahead, curling his hands into fists.

  “Huh-uh,” she said. “Don’t even think about punching my dash. That would make two lawsuits filed against you. One by Arthur, and one by me.”

  “You were listening?”

  “Of course. Didn’t you expect me to?”

  “No. Yeah, I suppose. I don’t know.”

  “So, is the DNA test on or not?”

  Suddenly, his anger spent, he turned to look at her. “God, I forgot. The ashtray was right there on his desk and I forgot. I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “I was.” She pulled a plastic bag from her purse. Inside was a cigar stub.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “In the control room while you two were dancing around one another at the beginning of the bout, like two boxers, each eager to throw the first punch.”

  She took a second plastic bag from her purse and a rubber glove. After she put it on, she opened the
bag and took out a swab.

  “Open your mouth,” she said.

  He did; she ran the swab along his inner cheek, then dropped the swab in the bag and sealed it.

  “Where did you get this stuff?”

  “A DNA kit.”

  “What happens now?”

  “I take this to Tulsa, to a lab where I have a special friend. He’ll begin testing today.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d better call him so he’ll wait for me. Then, with the right kind of luck, we should have the results by tomorrow.”

  “Then let’s go to Tulsa.”

  “You don’t want me to drop you off somewhere?”

  “Nope.”

  Neither spoke until they were on the Broken Arrow Expressway to Tulsa, but once they hit the four-lane, Lantana said, “Mark, you remember when we were at the Haven today and you said I seemed to know my way around?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “I spent some time in a psychiatric hospital much like the one Kyle was in. But now, after seeing where he was, I suppose they’re all pretty much the same. People with invisible damage go in; people with invisible cures come out. Sometimes.”

  “Lantana, are you sure this is something you want to tell me?”

  “It’s okay. It has to do with what happened here a lifetime ago. My lifetime.

  “I got mixed up with O Boy Daniels. I was a girl, twenty-one that winter. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was no virgin, but I didn’t really know much about men. Not much about sex, either, but I thought I did.

  “Anyway, I slept with O Boy to get what I wanted—the story. Unfortunately, I also got what I didn’t want—a pregnancy.”

  “Did he know?”

  “Yeah. I needed money for an abortion, so I went to him, asked him to help me.”

  “Let me guess,” Mark said.

  “The son of a bitch laughed at me. Flipped me some coins, told me to buy a bottle of quinine. Said that would fix my problem.

  “Long story short: I took two hundred dollars to a door marked ‘Private’ in the back room of a resale shop. Got my abortion, along with a perforated uterus, hemorrhage, peritonitis and septicemia. I think my ‘specialist’ used a rusted corkscrew.”

  “Lantana. I’m sorry.”

  “P.S. Eight months later I had to have a hysterectomy. Twenty-one years old. No kids for this gal. None. Nada. Never.”

  With that, she pressed her foot down on the gas pedal, watching the needle on the Porsche’s speedometer race toward a hundred.

  That night, just after eleven, Mark crawled into the bed Ivy had vacated for him.

  He and Lantana had gone to dinner in Tulsa after they left Future Diagnostics, the lab where Lantana’s “friend,” Harold Madrid, worked as a geneticist. He had explained that his lab work was not certified, which would have required a signed consent form by the alleged father.

  But Mark didn’t care if it was certified or not. He just wanted an answer. Just one definitive answer.

  By the time he and Lantana had returned to DeClare and she dropped him off at Teeve’s, Ivy was asleep on the Hide-A-Bed and Teeve was snoring behind her closed bedroom door.

  Just as Mark was reaching to turn off the lamp beside the bed, he heard a phone ring once, answered, he supposed, by Ivy in the den. A minute later, she came to his open door wearing what she’d worn the night they’d met—a SIERRA CLUB T-shirt and cotton underpants. The only difference was that the shirt was tighter across her belly now and the underpants didn’t bag as much as they had ten days ago.

  “Mark.” Something in her voice told him bad news was on the way. “That was Hap on the phone. Kyle Leander just killed Arthur McFadden.”

  September 8, 1969

  Dear Diary,

  Mrs. Dobbins, my art teacher, is encouraging me to devote more time to my sketch book, so I’ve promised myself to draw every day no matter how busy I am. Sometimes, when there’s nothing to do at the radio station, I work on my drawings.

  Becky Allan quit the basketball team today. When she turned her suit in to Coach Dougless, she told her she’s too busy to play this year because she’s a senior, but the real reason is she’s pregnant. Everyone in school knows, I guess, because Danny told it just before he dumped her.

  Spider Woman

  Chapter Thirty

  If the folks of DeClare thought they’d had enough of the deployment of the media’s forward units after word of Nick Harjo surfaced, then they were certainly ill prepared for the battalion that infiltrated town after Arthur McFadden’s murder.

  An hour after the shooting, both sides of the street leading to Arthur’s condo were bumper to bumper with satellite trucks, vans and SUVs, all bearing logos of radio and TV stations as well as newspapers from cities and small towns.

  The entrance to the grounds was closed, crime scene tape stretched between two granite towers topped with carriage lamps. Several of the TV stations had already set up with lights and cameras trained on the reporters being filmed, a guard pacing behind them.

  The only other way to get into the Lakewood Garden Estates was to scale the six-foot rock fence surrounding the condos or know the Turtle Creek Road that ran half a mile away and would require a dark walk through rattlesnake-infested rock gullies and ridges.

  Even so, the area was alive with the residents, a few fearless souls who’d walked from Turtle Creek Road and several young people who’d scaled the wall. They were all milling around Arthur’s condo, which was also cordoned off by yellow police tape.

  When O Boy drove up to the gate, the guard lifted the yellow crime tape so the cruiser could drive beneath it, and even though O Boy had already investigated the crime scene, viewed the body and set up the crime units, he roared from the gate to Arthur’s place as if the killing had just been called in.

  O Boy knew the technicians had finished dusting for fingerprints, the photographers had finished taking their shots and others in the units had collected fibers, hair and suspicious particles. Still, he drove like a fireman trying to save children from a blaze.

  Mark wasn’t quite sure why he was riding in the front seat beside O Boy. He was clearly not a suspect in the murder, as Kyle had called the sheriff’s office to report the shooting minutes after Arthur died. And Kyle was waiting when the first deputies arrived and ordered him outside, their guns trained on him as he followed their instructions, walked across the narrow porch and down the steps with his fingers interlocked behind his head. When he reached the ground, he spread-eagled himself on the lawn as the younger deputy demanded; then, with their guns aimed at his head, they approached him and the young one forced his knee into Kyle’s back. As he clamped the handcuffs on, the flesh was torn on Kyle’s wrist, so that blood ran down his fingers and onto the cheap leather as he was placed into the back of the cruiser.

  But Mark hadn’t seen any of this. He had just heard about Arthur’s death when O Boy and a deputy pulled into Teeve’s drive, siren wailing, lights flashing, O Boy telling Mark to come with him.

  On the drive to Lakewood Garden, the radio crackled with static, but Mark could occasionally hear a woman’s voice, causing him to wonder if the dispatcher was Olene Turner, Amax Dawson’s old flame.

  The overpowering odor of stale cigar smoke that met Mark at the door of Arthur’s condo gave him a sour taste at the back of his throat. But it was going to become worse.

  The living room was comfortable looking. Not much clutter. Yesterday’s paper folded carefully, recent mail stacked orderly, ashtrays emptied and wiped clean.

  The kitchen, open to the living room, was small, compact, neat. Bright blue canisters, a dish towel hanging from a hook, a washed coffee cup turned upside down in the dish drainer.

  But as he passed down the hallway from the living room to the bedroom, Mark’s dread began to build. He followed O Boy past the bathroom—lights on, towels folded neatly on a shelf, shaving equipment lined up near the sink. The room smelled of scented soap.

  Bu
t as he approached the next doorway, the smell of soap gave way to another smell, a familiar odor Mark had encountered many times in surgery after he’d cut into a dog’s abdomen to take out a ruptured spleen, or sliced into a cat to remove a cancerous tumor, or amputated the legs of an old and beloved pet whose hindquarters had been crushed beneath the wheels of a car.

  Blood. The smell of warm blood.

  Mark had known, of course, that O Boy was taking him to the place where the killing had occurred, but he had certainly not expected to see the body.

  Apparently Arthur, wearing pajamas, had been in bed when Kyle walked in; the covers of the bed had been disturbed, and a small TV was still on. But the shots that killed Arthur had not come as he was sleeping, had not come from a shotgun at the back of his head. He had not enjoyed the luxury of a quick death, that one final instant of knowing. Then not knowing.

  No, that would have been too easy, too swift, to satisfy Kyle.

  Having lived a life of sweet compassion, a sometimes drug-induced sense of love for his fellow creatures, Kyle couldn’t stand to see suffering. If a fly was struck but not killed by the slap of a swatter, if a wasp was living in agony from the poison of a fogger, Kyle would give them the gift of death.

  But that was not his intention when he killed Arthur. No, from the looks of the scene, Arthur had been in bed watching TV when Kyle came into the room with the shotgun. He had then, most likely, confronted Arthur with what he’d learned about Gaylene’s ride from jail, a ride that detoured by the cabin and led to her rape and humiliation.

  Arthur, certain by then that Kyle was going to pull the trigger, had jumped out of bed to wrestle for the weapon. But he was too late.

  Kyle, who’d never handled a shotgun before, fired one round into Arthur’s belly. A shot that tore open his flesh, freed his intestines from their confinement of skin, muscle and bone, causing him to cradle his guts in his arms as he slipped off the bed, onto the floor, more or less sitting up, his back resting against the mattress.