Dead Silver hd-2

by Neil Mcmahon

  22

  That got my thoughts spinning in a very different direction from where they'd been most of the day.

  Of course, that crush was a long time ago. Renee was barely a teenager then.

  I headed into the kitchen to clean up. It wasn't much of a job; she was a tidy housekeeper, and there were only the dinner dishes.

  The more I learned about her and the circumstances surrounding the murders, the more I sympathized with her psychological quagmire. Now I was starting to see the heavy burden of guilt she must be carrying. She'd never had a chance to talk to her father about the event that had ruined his life. No doubt she'd harbored resentment and jealousy toward Astrid, the interloper who'd stolen him away, broken up their family and home-and was closer in age to Renee than to him. Then came the nightmarish crime itself, probably bringing the irrational fear that her anger was somehow to blame.

  All that was seething beneath the surface, along with the tangible troubles crowding in on her. She was holding up a hell of a lot better than I would have.

  As I finished up in the kitchen, drying the dishes and swabbing the counters, I was aware of the sound of the shower running upstairs. Then that ceased, and the old house was quiet.

  Until I heard Renee's voice say, "Ohhhhh"-almost a groan, faint and far away but still conveying horror.

  I went up the stairs three at a time and ran to her open bedroom door. She was wearing a bathrobe, her hair damp-backed up against a wall, arms drawn tight against her chest and fists clenched, staring at her open lingerie drawer.

  Inside it was a dark bristly mass that looked loathsome even from fifteen feet away-a big pack rat, shot through the body.

  I pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped it around Renee, then held her for a minute, trying to calm her shivering and my rage. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the work of Ward Ackerman. I hadn't even thought about him still having a key to this place, but of course he would. Maybe he'd killed the rat somewhere else, maybe in the woods right here; after living in this house for years, he'd know where their dens were. In fact, he was probably on a first-name basis with them.

  The only time he could have done it was while we were in Phosphor. I wondered if he'd just been driving around and realized we were gone, or if he'd been watching more actively. The Ackerman clan certainly might own an SUV like I'd seen up on the overlook earlier today.

  Or maybe it was Boone who was watching.

  The corpse had leaked blood and fluids on some of the garments; others might have been salvageable.

  "You want to keep any of this?" I said.

  "I-couldn't."

  That was what I'd figured.

  I carried the drawer downstairs, wrapped the rat and garments in a plastic trash bag, and took that out to the garbage cans. Then I just stood there, with my gaze searching the dark, suddenly hostile surroundings.

  I had to let the sheriffs handle Ward, and stay out of it myself. I had to.

  Back in the kitchen, I scrubbed the drawer out thoroughly with a Brillo pad and dried it with paper towels, making sure there wasn't so much as a hair left from the rodent's hide. I took it back upstairs and fitted it in place.

  Renee watched me, sitting on the edge of the bed still huddled in the quilt. It struck me that she had that solemn expression I remembered from when she was a little girl.

  "Will you hold me again, just for a minute?" she said.

  I was more than happy to.

  But the minute stretched longer, and when the holding turned into shy kissing and then went on from there, I swear it wasn't entirely my doing.

  23

  I was late for work at the Split Rock Lodge next morning. When I got there, Madbird was sitting on the steps of the motel cabin we were currently remodeling. That was not at all like him. His style was to hit the job running, and if you wanted to talk to him, you ran with him.

  He scrutinized me critically. "You look like you ain't slept much."

  "I never sleep good on Sunday nights."

  "This is Tuesday." He watched me for a few more seconds, then jerked his thumb toward the cabin's interior. "We got a problem."

  I exhaled. I didn't want a problem. I didn't want to be there. I'd been reluctant to leave Renee, but she'd gently shooed me out, reminding me that she had to go shop for underwear and didn't need my help on that. It was clear that she wanted some time alone. Even so, I had only come to work to tell Madbird I was going to take off again.

  When I walked inside the cabin, that jerked me down to reality fast. All of our most expensive power tools-compound miter and table saws, his Hole-Hawg and our cordless drills, compressor and nail guns-were gone.

  I came back out and sat down heavily beside him. We both knew what most likely had happened. We'd left the place locked and there were no signs of a break-in, but at Split Rock, anybody could have a key to anything. We probably wouldn't have to look far for the perp.

  "Let's see what we can find out," Madbird finally said. We walked across the parking lot to the main lodge. The residents here didn't tend to get active until later in the day, and the place looked like a ghost town, with nothing moving across the vista but last year's dead underbrush sticking up through the melting snow and swaying in the fresh breeze. A couple dozen vehicles were scattered around, most of them in perilous condition and many looking like they'd never move again.

  I spotted Darcy's car among them, parked around the side of the lodge. So she was here working. I wondered if Madbird had seen her arrive or if he'd talked to her, but he didn't say anything.

  Split Rock's owner, Pam Bryce, was in the kitchen setting up the lunch menu. Pam was a pretty earth mother with a big heart; she was pushing fifty but possessed an enduring youthfulness, with hennaed hair in a Little Orphan Annie mop, big hoop earrings, and enough bracelets for a gypsy caravan.

  Her goal in operating the place wasn't profit, but to provide a home for fifteen or twenty lost souls who had nowhere else to go and few skills for surviving in straight society-drunks and small-time dopers, old hippies, a couple of vets who were disabled physically or mentally, and other such castaways. They helped out here and there and paid Pam what they could, and while there was incessant squabbling, everybody got by.

  The operation had been tottering along for years, but finally there were so many plumbing and electrical malfunctions that something had to be done. Pam, saddled with mountains of unpaid back rent and bar tabs, was in no position to hire a mainstream contractor. She'd asked Madbird and me for advice. We didn't have much else going on then and it would be a decent way to get through the winter. So we'd offered to do it for rock-bottom wages-straight time and materials, cash under the table. Pam could manage that, although our payday usually came late. We didn't like lowballing other contractors, but the alternative was for her to lose the place, which would have meant her clientele being pushed out into a world where they couldn't cope.

  When she saw us come in, she took on a sassy look and put her hands on her hips. The bracelets tinkled like mini-wind chimes.

  "I told you guys, one at a time," she said.

  Madbird grinned. "Careful what you wish for."

  "What fun would that be?"

  "Good point." He lifted a coffeepot off its burner, poured two cups, and shoved one at me. "Anybody around here get rich in the last couple days?"

  Pam's face turned serious. "Uh-oh."

  "A bunch of our stuff's gone. We ain't out to bust anybody's balls, we just need it back."

  She sighed. "Artie drank in the bar until late last night, and bought two cases of beer when he left. I'd had him cut off because of his tab, but this time he paid cash."

  That synched in precisely with the scenario. Artie Thewlis was a longtime Split Rock resident who more or less redefined the term "loser"-a shifty little guy who ran endless petty schemes to buy, sell, or swap stuff that he hauled around in his beater pickup truck. As often as not, the deals fell through completely or segued into something else that would.<
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  Our expensive tools would have been a sore temptation for Artie, and he'd probably convinced himself that he could lie his way out of it.

  "If he's not in his cabin, try Elly May," Pam said. "They left the bar together."

  I thanked her and started to leave.

  But Madbird said, "Darcy around?"

  "She's setting tables." Pam pointed at the swinging doors that led to the dining room.

  Madbird walked to the doors and shoved them apart theatrically, like a gunfighter in an old Western going into a saloon. Darcy was standing over a table, taking silverware from a wheeled cart and laying it out. Her head was bowed, and even in that brief glimpse, I got the sense that she was moving very slowly.

  "Hey, pretty girl," Madbird said. "How about I buy you a drink later?"

  She kept right on with what she was doing, never so much as glancing at him.

  He stood there another fifteen seconds. Then he stepped back and let the doors swing shut.

  "Let's go take care of our bullshit," he said to me.

  24

  We stopped first at Artie's cabin and looked in the uncurtained windows. The mess inside would have given the Callisters' pack rats a run for their money, but there didn't appear to be any humans embedded in it.

  Then we walked a ways farther to the home of blowsy, unnaturally blond Elly May. I was reasonably sure it wasn't her real name, but I had no idea what that might be. She was sweet-natured and not overly bright, which made her popular, and she got a monthly allowance from her parents, which made her even more so. Her windows were covered so we couldn't see in, but they had to be here. If they'd been drinking hard and late, they wouldn't have gotten any farther.

  Madbird raised his fist to pound on the door, then hesitated.

  "I kinda hate to do it," he said.

  I knew what he meant. These kind of transitory unions weren't uncommon out here, but Elly May was a plum, especially for Artie. Lucky days like this were a long time apart in his life.

  "Well, the course of true love never runs smooth," I said. "Fate's bound to test it, and we're just the delivery boys."

  Madbird nodded and let the door have it, a half-dozen blows that sounded like he was using a sledge. We waited. Nothing happened. He pounded again, and I stepped to a window and gave it a sharp tattoo with my knuckles.

  "Drop your cock and grab your socks, Artie," Madbird yelled.

  The curtain of my window twitched, and I thought I glimpsed an eyeball peering out before it fell back into place.

  That left us without much in the way of options. Forcing our way in would have necessitated damage. They'd have to come out eventually, but as long as they had beer, that could be a while.

  "How long you figure those two cases will last them?" I said. "Long enough to fuck up our day. But that just gave me a idea, if we can get in there."

  I studied the cabin's exterior for possible points to breach. After a minute, it struck me that the door opened outward, with the hinges exposed; the pins could be removed from the outside. Security hinges to prevent that were available, but around here, back when this place had been built, nobody would have dreamed of such a need.

  "Be right back," I said, and went to my truck for a hammer and nail set. It took us about thirty seconds to knock out the hinge pins and set the door aside.

  Elly May was sitting up in bed in the classic pose of a woman caught in flagrante delicto, with the sheets clutched to her ample bosom. But instead of seeming scared or outraged, she looked interested.

  "Wow, I didn't know you could do that," she said.

  Artie was backed up against the far wall, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe too big for him; it must have been hers. He looked so doleful that my ire evaporated. Madbird kept a stern face, but I could see that he was working at it.

  "I hate to tell you this, Artie, but that ain't exactly your color," he said.

  "You got no right to come busting in here," Artie quavered.

  "Where are they?"

  Sudden innocence crossed Artie's face. "Where are what?"

  Madbird shook his head in exasperation and walked through the cabin to the kitchenette at the back. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out four six-packs of Schmidt beer and a few singles. Then he popped a top and upended the can over the sink, emptying out a frothing amber stream.

  Artie stared at him in shock, then rushed to the kitchenette doorway.

  "What the fuck are you doing?" he yelled.

  "Party's over," Madbird said. He tossed the can aside and opened another one.

  Artie turned agitatedly to Elly May. "Make him stop."

  "You make him stop."

  "This is your place."

  That impelled her to get out of bed, wrapping a sheet not very effectually around herself.

  "At least leave us a couple to get started on," she said pleadingly.

  Madbird shook his head. "Sorry. This is a take-no-prisoners mission."

  I glanced outside and saw that Pam was walking across the parking lot toward us. There was something ethereal about the sight, like a '60s album cover with a pretty hippie chick drifting across a symbolically stark landscape.

  When Pam arrived, she paused to gaze at the displaced door. "Don't worry, we'll put it back," I said. "What's going on?"

  "Artie's playing hard to get. Would you try talking to him? We just want to know what he did with our tools."

  She stepped inside and paused again, this time at the sight of Artie in his flamboyant pink bathrobe, the Junoesque, bed-sheet-draped figure of Elly May, and Madbird calmly emptying beer down the drain.

  "Artie, why don't you just tell these guys," she said.

  "I don't know what you're talking about, man. Make them leave our beer alone and get out of here."

  Pam folded her arms and glared like a scolding mother.

  "Honest to God, you are so hopeless. We know you blew a wad of cash at the bar last night. Do you think we're that dumb?"

  I could just about see Artie calculating through his half-drunk, half-hungover state whether it was worth trying to keep up the bluff. Finally, he lowered his head in remorse.

  "I only hocked them," he said. "You guys weren't around yesterday, I thought you'd be gone a while longer, and I got a deal set up to sell some car parts. Then I was going to buy them back."

  Right.

  "Where?" Madbird said again.

  "Bill's Bail Bonds."

  I turned away, shaking my head. Wouldn't you fucking know it.

  We rehung the door on its hinges and headed for my truck. But when we got there, Madbird kept on walking toward the restaurant.

  "Hang on a minute, huh?" he said. "I better find out what's going on with Darcy."

  That didn't take long; it seemed like he'd hardly gone inside before he came back out again. His face had an expression I only saw occasionally. It told me he was unhappy, but satisfied that things had turned out as they should.

  "Fraker pulled the pin on her," Madbird said. "Told her he couldn't afford to have crazy motherfuckers like me lurking around. That was the way he said it-'lurking.'"

  "Well, that's got to be tough for her, but I know you're not sorry to hear it."

  "Things only would of got worse. But it's all my fault, of course."

  "I guess she has to blame somebody."

  He nodded curtly. "Hannah will start working on her and smooth her out."

  "You're probably going to need help moving that couch back out of her apartment."

  I was glad to see him grin.

  "I think the two of us can handle it this time," he said.

  25

  Bill Latray, proprietor of Bill's Bail Bonds (Got Jail Trouble? Help on the Double! Call 445-BILL), also operated a pawnshop out of the same storefront-a convenient accomodation for clients who couldn't raise the cash for a bond, but could lay hands on something valuable. Bill would acquire items for a fraction of their worth-nominally, he took them in hock, but very few were ever reclaimed-and resell them at
a tidy profit. He was known for never asking where the merchandise came from. By his lights, that wasn't his concern.

  Guns, jewelry, guns, musical instruments, and guns were his top moneymakers. But power tools in good condition were also welcome, and ours were on display when Madbird and I arrived at his shop. They weren't supposed to be on sale for the duration of the pawn ticket, another twenty-nine days, but Bill was also known for being flexible about that sort of thing. At least we'd gotten there before somebody beat us to it.

  Bill was tending the glassed-in counter, where he kept pistols, rings, and other expensive items that might be easily pocketed. A rack of rifles and shotguns lined the wall behind him. At the room's far end, there was a small office where he ran his bail business. The rest of the space was filled with tables of used merchandise. Everything reeked with the smoke of the rum-soaked Crook cigars he favored and his brand of cologne, which would have broken up a riot faster than tear gas.

  "How's it going?" he said, lumbering over to give us hearty handshakes. He was mostly Indian, built like an oil barrel on a pair of tree trunks, with a scarred, pitted face and a stare that made you want to shrivel down into your socks. In his younger days, he'd been the kind of barfighter that the toughest guys would take care to avoid-even now when he walked into a place, things tended to get noticeably quieter-and he'd done a couple years in Deer Lodge for assault. He even made Madbird nervous.

  But he'd become my new best friend several months ago, when I'd done a little business with him. Since then, the situation had been somewhat like with Gary Varna. Bill made a point of being genial because he expected that one of these days, I was going to be in the market for another, much more expensive, bail bond, and he had his eye on my property as collateral.

  "You guys looking for firepower?" he said. "I just got in a real sweet Glock forty-caliber. Just one owner, he hardly used it, and he ain't gonna be needing it again."

  "Actually, Bill, the reason we're here-it's a little delicate," I said, and pointed at the tools. "A guy named Artie, you probably know him-he sold you those yesterday?"