I laughed. His acknowledgement of human frailty was amusing. “Didn’t you guys invent karate?”
“Helps us stay open minded.”
My laughter broke wide open.
Akira fumbled with the alternator a bit more while I caught my breath. “You knew my father pretty well?” I finally asked, redirecting to the original point.
“I did. A good man underneath that salesman exterior.” The warmth in his voice softened him.
I shuffled lightly in place, feeling the hairs on my neck rise. My natural affection for Akira was suddenly contaminated by envy. He’d been close with Dixon. Close enough to be the first beside his dead body. “You found him.”
“I did.”
“Do you have any ideas on how he came to die?”
He tipped his head downward, and then tilted it to stare at the alternator. “You and your sister ask a lot of questions.”
“But, you found him that morning?” I could feel the tension in my voice pushing him.
“I was just trying to get him to come to the early Church service.” He picked up the alternator and held it between us, peering into its casing. “We did the same every Sunday.”
“You’d get him for church?”
“For a couple of months. I thought he might be having some problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
He shot a glare at me. “The kind of problems that took him out of this world.” It was apparently regretted as soon as he spoke. Personal agony showed in his eyes. “Dixon helped me out of a jam, Connor. I don’t have anything bad to say about him.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just trying—”
Akira raised his palm again. That stub of finger reminded me that he knew pain as well as anyone. “I knew he was wrestling with Jesus over the bottle.”
My envy vanished.
He looked me right in the face, penetrating my loss. “I didn’t expect Dixon would lose like he did, though.”
I watched my boot toe kick against a seam in the concrete floor. Akira’s kindness had plowed my heart. It pushed a knot upward and choked me.
“Say, maybe you come by my house. Before you leave,” he said. “I’ll show you where my family is from.”
My head popped up to grab the moment. “I’ve never been to Idaho.”
He hefted the greasy alternator, and I saw a broad grin behind it. “My dad’s home. In Okinawa.”
“Oh.”
He bowed suddenly, deeply, and briefly. “I must fix.” He nodded at the 4-runner. Akira harbored a special sense of humor in that aging, mystifying frame.
I bowed. “You’re right. I am taking up too much time.”
His quick steps whisked him toward the far end of the workbench.
I watched, distracted by the missing pinky. It bothered me more than it should. A cousin of my father’s had cut his arm off with a pocket knife one harvest, in order to free himself from a rotating combine header. Heroic or tragic, I was never sure. But he lived to tell it.
What about Akira? What story hid behind that missing finger? I shivered. Rubbing my triceps, I said, “I’ll stop by to see that map.”
Akira smiled his kind smile.
I left him and his mysteries for the boy who would be king.
Zach pulled himself out of the engine compartment so he could greet me.
He stood taller than Akira, but only an inch or two. The warm light of the working auto bay tempered the “rad” in his tightly curled, close-cropped blonde hair. The arms of his jumpsuit were tied around his waist, revealing an oversized, grungy T-shirt hanging loosely from his shoulders.
I stuck out my hand.
He showed me the black stripes on his own grimy palms.
I put my glove back on. “What you working on?”
“Tightening belts.” One eyebrow shot high, like he’d discovered a new wax for his board. “You must be cranked about taking over.”
A squint of surprise showed before I could check myself. I smirked and glanced around the repair bay.
Its general neatness, only a few parts including the alternator that Akira had just removed, told me Dixon hadn’t worked here in years. His was a method of access, not tidiness. The workspace around my airplane mimicked Dixon’s style— everything where I could reach it— order out of chaos. It hadn’t occurred that with my father gone, this shop might be at least partly mine.
I scrutinized Zach’s ocean-blue eyes. “Not happy, really. It’s a hard way to get a business going. Anyway,” I released his gaze and stared over his shoulder. “I still belong to Uncle Sam’s Air Force.”
Zach ducked his head. The gesture pushed a wave of musk cologne and alcohol at me. “Yeah. Sorry.” He tipped his head up an inch, glanced under his blonde eyebrows, and tried a sheepish grin that must have worked well for his mother. And the high school girls he dated. “I guess I wasn’t thinking there,” he mumbled.
“You and Dixon got along alright, I take it?” I said, leveraging the advantage of his shallow concern.
“We weren’t drinking buddies, or nothing.”
“But he treated you well?”
“Sure. Like I said before, he let me catch a wave now and then. Folks who worked around here he treated good. Customers too. Never heard a complaint out of nobody.” Zach laid two fingertips on the fender of the car, as if trying to define a reference point. “Dixon was a good guy. Friendly. Help you out when you needed.”
“He wasn’t acting odd in the couple of days before he, uh, died?” It sounded wrong, out of place, saying the word.
“I don’t know about that,” Zach said, his words coming quick and defensive, his eyes still watching his own fingers trace the line of the Acura.
He seemed more suspicious in here than he had earlier. “Did you see him the day before?”
“Dixon? He was around, I guess. I mean, he’d come and go, and like I didn’t really think about it.”
“Saturday?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I mean,” he lifted his head. “I was out sick for a day. Thought I had the flu.”
“You didn’t have the flu?” I began to wonder if I’d need to clarify every word he spoke.
“Doc said it was something else.” His fingers flicked at the car’s body.
“Something like the flu.”
“Yeah.”
“But not the flu?”
“Said it looked like poison. He hadn’t seen this in a while. T-T-C, or something.” Zach’s smile grew to show the ivory smoothness of his top front teeth, that superior attitude shining through. Expensive teeth that increased his surfer mileage with the ladies, I imagined. “My wife liked to kill me when I told her. She thought I had the clap or something. Damned near clocked me with a frying pan before I could get my arms around her.”
I grinned, but not because he’d given me a pretty picture of romance. “So it was a poisoning?”
“Doc said so.”
“But you don’t know?”
“Yeah. I think I know.” His eyes held a tinge of red I’d missed before.
Maybe he was a pothead. But it seemed more like he just couldn’t give a straight answer. Then again, the two things might go together— dope and dopey. I waited to see if he’d get to the point.
“I didn’t mention it to nobody. I mean, I would have said something to Dixon, but, well, you know,” he had lowered his voice even though Akira was now loudly rapping on some metal with a ball peen hammer, fifty feet down the bench.
I leaned closer, with my ear turned in Zach’s direction.
“I had to clean up some old weed killers out back of the shop a couple of days ago, for Dixon, you know. When the Doc said this stuff, the T-C-T, or whatever, was illegal, and wherever I’d run across it, I ought to tell the police, and get it cleaned up, well, I didn’t want to get Dixon into trouble. Figured I’d just tell him when I got back to work. Only—” He returned to staring at his fingers, now dancing on the metallic blue surface.
“Don’t worry about i
t, Zach. I’ll talk to Renée about compensating you for the lost day.” The words came out of nowhere. How was I going to do that?
Zach’s eyes got wider and their blue deepened. “Really, man? That’d be great.”
“It’s the least we can do.” Again, like I was channeling the uncontrolled generosity of Dixon Pierce, my words ran out ahead of my thinking.
Zach’s brow wrinkled. “You sure you’re not taking this place over?”
I gave him a look of open astonishment this time. “Not soon. Renée will take care of you.”
Zach’s expression darkened. “Well...”
I squinted. “You think Renée will have a problem?”
He shook his head vigorously. “I wouldn’t say that, sir. Not a bit. It’s just that she’s not always,” he stopped and looked at me sideways. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Pierce, but Miss Renée ain’t always real stable.”
I kept my personal assessment of my sister’s emotional state to myself and tried to appear nonchalant. “Not stable? How’s that?”
“It’s just, well,” He looked around the shop, searching for an answer in the equipment. Something must have struck him. He jacked his head back and started to talk to the ceiling. “Like we had a ten-year-old Honda come in that needed a head gasket. 120,000 hard miles. The guy used it for an irrigation buggy, drove it through the mud and tore it all to hell. He drops it off, acting like he doesn’t care, just get it back before next season. Renée lit up over that. Like we’d done something to it here in the shop. Akira don’t mind nothing. The guy’s like water rolling down a hill. But I got a little teed off. Dixon finally came by and cooled things down. He’d do that when she’d go off like an MTV gangster. He was good that way.” He pulled his gaze from the ceiling to stare at me. “Who’s going to run interference, now?”
“I’ll talk to her,” I said, a little out of breath just listening to him.
“It’s nothing bad on her,” Zach added quickly. “I’m not trying to make her out to be evil at all. She and Dixon didn’t take well to each other sometimes. Maybe them times she got mad, she was having a fight with him or something. I’m just saying.”
“I get it, Zach. I’ll keep it from sounding bad for you.” I smiled and felt oddly compelled to reach up and grip his shoulder briefly. Talking to this kid made me feel like a high school soccer coach. “It’ll be fine.”
“Okay. I’ll take your word. Dixon always talked pretty straight to me. That’s why I’m still here.”
“I appreciate your staying, too. I’ll let you get back to work.” I turned and started to walk away.
“Mr. Pierce,” Zach said.
I looked back.
“I didn’t do it proper before, but I am sorry about your pa.”
A trickle of electricity zipped around my heart. I smiled. “Thanks, Zach.”
Ambling toward the office, thinking on Zach’s evaluation of Renée changed my mind. Her state before I’d come out here detoured me toward Mother’s Chrysler New Yorker.
As I rolled that big American boat away from the curb, my facial hair slowly thawing in the shadowy overcast of a Montana lunch hour, I momentarily forgot my way home. The realization scared me and I almost pulled over for a drink.
It was a stop I should have made. I was halfway through town and parked in front of Jasia’s cottage bungalow on Pearl Street before I realized it. I pulled out the address she had given me. Sure enough, I’d driven into a bad dream.
Her house was small, just enough room for a mother and young daughter. Partially exposed toys waited for spring melt to set them free. A child’s snow-covered bicycle lay on its side by the single elm tree. Brittle ragweed and thistle, frozen into wilted memories of indestructibility, poked through the snow at unexpected moments around the perimeter.
Jasia’s yard reminded me of my life. If I exploded right that second, this would be the result.
What compelled me to twist and turn the streets of Miles City until I wound up in front of this house? A lingering desire to regain youth? A chance to correct mistakes made by running away?
Any answer might provide an intellectual sense of morality. More likely, my internal compass apprehended me and guided me to my worst temptation.
My hand remained on the key, unable to twist it and re-start the car. Isolated inside the automobile, disconnected from responsibility, my blood warmed as I thought of entering the snow-bound cottage, sipping coffee with Jasia, touching her, meeting her little girl. Butted up against that emotion, the comfort of holding Nansi’s hand, listening to her low tones tell me of a nice, quiet, suburban home, where our kids chased each other in the wooded area out back.
These longings pulled me in opposite directions.
But a tsunami loomed when the women in these fantasies closed in on one another. Nansi’s quiet fire against Jasia’s raging determination. An atmospheric disturbance that killed us all.
I decided to make my escape, bearing down on that key. Movement at the doorway caught in my peripheral vision.
Jasia stepped out and waved.
I sucked a breath. A thunderhead built inside my torso, desire for the past colliding with my present responsibility. I squeezed my chest muscles to get it under control. Then I climbed from the car.
Frozen air numbed my lips.
“What a surprise!” Jasia called from her protected position behind the half-opened door.
The sidewalk shrank visibly as I shuffled toward her.
Jasia’s yard was even more unkempt up close. A small garden overgrown with weeds had morphed into a gnarled collection of tiny moguls.
This would be Jasia’s attempt at artistic statement based on her love of snow skiing, no doubt. A need to stop by and clean it up, rake out the leftover weed farm, and prepare it for spring planting stirred within me. As soon as the idea bubbled to the surface, guilt swallowed it. My mind searched for avenues of escape back into marital bliss, and then just as quickly twisted its thinking toward ways to endear myself to the love I had tossed aside so many years ago. I stumbled a step, my feet unable to go forward or turn around and run for the car. When I looked up from this internal conflict, Jasia stood holding the door for me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
You Never Know Another
“Come in,” she said, her broad, sensuous lips shining with invitation.
I smiled and stepped inside.
Jasia wore a pastel green silk blouse and gray wool slacks. A shimmer of light rippled over the swell of her breast and clung to my vision after I’d passed. Musky and tender floral scent drifted along beside as I stepped through the foyer and entered the front room.
The outfit definitely accentuated her femininity. And played hell with my self-control.
A young girl, I guessed about ten-years-old, poked her head from the kitchen long enough to go into shock.
I pasted a grin on, in case she peeked again.
Jasia took my arm and led me to a couch that matched the color of her blouse. “I’ll get you some coffee,” she said, and slipped into the kitchen.
I heard her chastise someone in a biting whisper. “Don’t be rude!”
My eyes widened. Did I ever sound like that toward my children? I stayed on the edge of the cushion. I didn’t know enough to judge.
A young girl’s voice said something that sounded like “Dixon” before Jasia shushed her.
My heart burned with shame as the thought of his philandering washed over me. What foolishness had brought me here? I searched the room for distraction.
Laying haphazardly beneath a couple of cooking magazines on the coffee table, I found a horticulture book. I pulled it out and studied the cover. A linen-clean, middle-aged woman in a wide-brimmed, straw hat knelt among radiant garden blooms.
Maybe Jasia actually believed she could grow something in dirt. Or maybe she just liked the idea of getting dirty.
Jasia rushed in and yanked the book away, shoving a steaming cup of coffee in its place. She scooped the mess of magazines u
p with the book, and stuffed them behind a sliding door beneath the cabinet style coffee table— all in a single motion.
“You might try reading that gardening book,” I joked.
She grimaced. “Yeah. I’m Queen Mab.”
I laughed. “I think she’s a dream-fairy, not a blossom fairy.”
Her hand disappeared into the coffee table again and reappeared with a coaster. She slapped it down. “There, smart guy,” she said. “And I wouldn’t rely on our single Shakespearean high school play for a debut on Jeopardy!”
“Hey, that wounds my literary soul,” I countered, immediately wondering at my motive. It sounded like adolescent flattery before a prom date.
Jasia ignored it, and faced the kitchen. “Come on out, Lindsay.” This time her tone was gentle, coaxing.
A tiny copy of Jasia stepped tentatively beyond the threshold. She clasped her hands in front of her. Her outfit matched her mother’s.
It was like seeing into a past I’d often mused on when Jasia and I had dated. My smile flowered naturally.
“Say hello to Connor, Lindsay. Don’t pretend you’re shy, either.” Jasia turned to me. “She likes to play coy with men. I’m not sure I like it.”
“It’s cute,” I said.
“That’s the problem.” Jasia stood to beckon Lindsay.
The youngster moved a bit closer. “Hi,” she said in a murmur.
Weren’t most ten-year-old’s filled with energy and voice? I stood halfway up, and reached across the table to shake her hand. “How are you, young lady?”
She gave it a quick shake, and then whisked her hand back. “Nice to meet you,” she said in a breathless mumble.
“Likewise.” I looked up at Jasia. “Did I hear Dixon’s name out there?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lindsay shoot a fearful look toward her mom, her mouth forming a perfect O.
“It’s all over the news around town, Connor. And you do look a lot like him.”
“Oh!” I turned my most persuasive twinkle on the girl. “Well, I must have seemed like a ghost when you first saw me, Lindsay. Especially compared to a news photo.” I tried a bigger smile. It only made me feel crazier. Tipping my head, I removed the wild grin. “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Murder of the Prodigal Father Page 8