At Ease with the Dead

by Walter Satterthwait

“So,” he said. “What can I do for you? Alice said you wanted to know something about her father’s connection to Halbert Oil.”

  For the third or fourth time now, this time adding an edited version of what Alice Wright had told me yesterday, I went through my missing-body story.

  Between chapters, I enjoyed the breakfast. Strong coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, cold and sweet. Crisp English muffins, nicely browned Canadian bacon, perfectly poached eggs beneath a glossy lemon-yellow Hollandaise. It was the kind of meal that ultimately provides work for the surgeons who specialize in liposuction.

  “Amazing,” he said when I wrapped it up. “More coffee?”

  “Please.”

  He poured each of us a cup. “An amazing story. And Alice genuinely believes that her mother was responsible for her father’s death?”

  I nodded.

  He shook his head slightly. “Funny, isn’t it, how you think you know someone, and then suddenly you learn something like this.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Must’ve been a hell of a burden for her to carry.”

  “But maybe she’s wrong. It all happened a long time ago.” I took a sip of coffee. “She said that Lessing sent regular reports to your father. I was wondering if I could take a look at them.”

  “Certainly. I’ve got them here, with the rest of my father’s papers.”

  “Did you ever read them?”

  “A long time ago.” He smiled. “Not the most thrilling reading in the world. Synclinal troughs, fossilliferous limestones, Permian deposits. The characters are weak, the plot’s rather thin.”

  I smiled. “Nothing personal in them, nothing about the woman Lessing was involved with.”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Did your father ever get any personal letters from Lessing?”

  “Probably, but if he did, he never kept them.”

  “Aside from the woman, was there any good reason for Lessing to be looking for oil on the Navajo Reservation?”

  He nodded. “People have known about oil in that area since the late Eighteen hundreds. The first wells were sunk north of the San Juan at Goodrich, just off the Reservation, around Nineteen ten.”

  “Why weren’t more oil companies out there looking for it?”

  “Two reasons. The quality of the Goodrich crude was high, but the quantities were low. There just wasn’t enough of the stuff down there to justify additional drilling. And more importantly, the Navajos didn’t want to lease out their land. To anyone, for any reason.”

  “Then why would your father bankroll Lessing’s trips?”

  He sipped at his coffee. “By Nineteen twenty-one, when Lessing came to him with the idea, my father had already done pretty well for himself. He could, afford to speculate. How much would it’ve cost him to outfit the trips? A couple of hundred dollars? A thousand? If Lessing came up empty, then the loss was insignificant. And if Lessing found a promising location, then maybe my father could talk the Navajos into letting him drill.”

  “And Lessing found a promising location?”

  He nodded. “A seep. A surface flow.”

  “Where?”

  “West of Many Farms.”

  “Did your father ever get his leases?”

  He nodded. “Finally. It took him two years to convince the Tribal Council that he wouldn’t do any damage to the land.”

  He took another sip of coffee and relaxed against his chair, getting comfortable with the story. “Back then,” he said, “most of the drilling work was an ecological disaster. Wildcatters would stomp into an area, strip away the ground cover, and drill their holes. They’d toss the mud and debris off to the side, along with their garbage. If the well came in, they’d wait too long to cap the flow, and then they’d pump it out too quickly, beyond its capacity. And if it didn’t come in, or when the well dried up, they’d just move on, leaving their mess behind them.

  “My father hated that. In his own way, he was probably just as ruthless as the rest of them, but he always had a love for the land. And he always had a high regard for the Navajo and their culture. He probably knew more about them than most anthropologists of the time.”

  “How did the well at Many Farms do?”

  “Wells. Three of them. They were producers. High quanties of good crude. And because my father did respect the land,” he said, smiling, “and maybe, too, because he gave the Navajo a larger share of royalties than most wildcatters would’ve done, they granted additional leases to Halbert Oil. We still do business with them. At the moment we’re negotiating some geothermal leases north of Gallup.”

  I nodded. “Getting back to Lessing. Did your father ever say anything to you about his death?”

  He shook his head “No. But remember, Lessing died a long time before I was born.” He shrugged. “Sorry. I wish I could be more helpful.”

  I’d never had the owner of an oil company apologize to me before; I doubted that many of them would do it as amiably as Martin Halbert. “You’ve already been helpful,” I told him. “And I appreciate it. Thanks.”

  I had used up all my questions and Halbert had evidently used up all his answers. I looked over the railing, out across the two cities, the two countries, spread beneath us.

  “What’s your next step?” Halbert asked me.

  I shrugged. “Try to locate some of the students from the field trips. Maybe one of them can tell me something about this woman.”

  He nodded again. “Now there, maybe, I can help. One of our geologists, man named DeFore, Brian DeFore, he was a student of Lessing’s. I don’t know whether he went on any of the trips, but he might be worth talking to. He’s in his eighties, retired now, but I’ve got his address somewhere. I can dig it up for you, if you’d like.”

  “Yeah, I would. Thanks.”

  He placed his napkin on the table. “Let me see if I can find it. And I’ll grab those reports for you.”

  He was back within ten minutes, carrying an old cardboard file and a slip of paper. Handing both of them over, he told me I was welcome to take the file with me so long as I returned it in good condition. “The reports don’t really have any intrinsic value,” he said, “but they belonged to my father, and I’d rather that nothing happened to them.”

  I said I’d be careful, and that I’d return them tonight or tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, he told me, would be fine.

  As he walked me to the front door, I thanked him for breakfast and, once again, for all his holp. He said it had been his pleasure. Just as I was about to leave, another question occurred to me.

  “After Lessing’s death,” I said, “did your father keep sponsoring field trips for the university?”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “He did. One of the other geology professors took them over. Jordan Lowery.”

  8

  I stopped at the motel to make sure the Subaru was driveable, then turned the Chevy around and dropped it off at the rental place. I walked back to the motel.

  In the room I glanced through the cardboard file. The paper sheets were yellow and dry, so fragile I was afraid they might crumble in my hands. Dennis Lessing’s handwriting was tiny but immaculate. I read a sentence or two at random. “The shales throughout the Chinle formation are arenaceous and calcareous. They have a noticeable argillaceous content only in division C.”

  I flipped carefully through the reports. Lessing had neglected to scrawl clues for me in the margins. I decided to put off reading the rest till later. When I could pop some corn, crack open a beer, kick back, and really enjoy that prose.

  The address Halbert had given me for Brian DeFore was a retirement home. I found its number in the phone book and dialed it. A woman with a pleasant voice, very Texas, said that I could visit Mr. DeFore any time before “fahve P.M.” I asked how to get there and she told me.

  I looked at my watch. Twelve o’clock. If I wanted to close this thing out today, I was going to need some help. I looked in the yellow pages, found Grober’s number listed under “Private Investigators.”

&nb
sp; When I dialed it I reached a recording. A woman’s voice, sultry and smoky, magnolias and mint juleps: “This is the Grober Detective Agency. At the sound of the tone, please leave a message. One of our operatives will return your call as soon as possible.”

  One of our operatives: a nice touch. Into the phone I said, “Phil, this is Joshua Croft. I’m here in town for a day or two and I thought—”

  A sudden whining noise knifed through the receiver, and then buttons clicked, and then Grober’s voice came tumbling over the wire, bluff and hearty. “Hey, Josh, how you doin’? Where you at?”

  I gave him the name of my motel and asked him, “When did you get the answering machine, Phil?”

  “While ago. Great, huh? Hey, listen to this.”

  Suddenly I was on hold and a merry Muzak version of “Dixie,” piccolos and violins, was tinkling in my ear.

  Grober came back on the line, chuckling. “Great, huh? Redneck assholes around here, they love that shit.”

  “Great,” I said. “Listen, Phil, you working on anything right now?”

  “Uh-uh. Was. Runaway. Fourteen-year-old. Found him too, but when I bring him home, kid’s father decides he doesn’t want him back.” He chuckled. “Had to muscle the guy to get the rest of my cash. Whatty ya got?”

  “I need some records checked.”

  “What records?”

  I told him about the UTEP yearbooks, the photographs of the geology field trips.

  “Shit,” he said. “Nineteen twenties? They’re all snuffed by now, probably.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But if they’re not, the Alumni Office may have their addresses.”

  “That’s what you want? The addresses?”

  “If you find the addresses, and you’ve got the time today, you could talk to some of them.”

  “What about?”

  I told him I was trying to locate the woman with whom Dennis Lessing, the field trip leader, had been having an affair.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Guy gets a hard-on in Nineteen twenty-three, and someone wants to know about it now?”

  “It’s a long story, Phil.”

  “I’ll bet. ’Kay, anything else you want from these guys? I mean, assuming they can talk.”

  “Ask them if they know anything about Lessing’s death.”

  “When’d he die?”

  “Nineteen twenty-five.”

  “Jesus. Hold on. I’m writing this all down. ’Kay. That it?”

  “Yeah. If the name Brian DeFore comes up, don’t worry about it. I’m covering him myself. We can get together later and see what we’ve got.”

  “’Kay. What kind of rates we talking here?”

  “Phil, you owe me one. As a matter of fact, you owe me a couple.”

  “Hey. I know that. I know that. Just checking. What time you wanna meet?”

  I was due at Alice Wright’s at seven. “Let’s say five-thirty. Someplace near the motel.”

  “There’s a bar up the street.” He gave me the name. “Catch you then.”

  “All right. Phil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who’s the woman? The voice on the answering machine?”

  “Edie. Cleaning lady here. Great voice, huh? I got guys calling just to get their rocks off. You should see what she looks like. Face like a bucket of worms. But what a voice, huh?”

  “A great voice, Phil.”

  “Okay. See ya.”

  Off to my right, about seventy yards away across the swath of emerald lawn, three men were performing a strange ritual in the shade of a big cottonwood. Two of them stood to the side and watched the third. This one stared ahead at something invisible. And then, smoothly, as though it were a movement in a minuet, he bent forward at the waist, drawing back his right leg and his right arm. He paused for a moment, then brought up his arm in a quick, strong, graceful sweep. He remained frozen, arm poised upright, as a tiny black object sailed from his hand in a long slow arc and swooped to the ground, all in utter silence. He stood straight and bobbed his head as his two friends clapped his back. A moment later I heard the sweet faraway clang of metal and the muffled music of their laughter.

  Horseshoes.

  There were more men, and women too, out here in the sunshine. Some sat on the wooden benches, swaddled in blankets, throwing bread crumbs to the pigeons—and, in the case of one muttering red-haired woman, at them. Others traveled the cement sidewalks, a few pacing upright, most shuffling along below bent backs on unsteady legs.

  All those lives, each a separate universe of experience—wishes, hopes, and dreams; foods tasted, flowers scented, lovers kissed, friends embraced, children raised, battles won and lost, jobs left done and undone. All of them moving now with a wound-down slowness while they waited to slip, gentle or not, into that good night.

  I started wondering—as I had before, more than once—which would be the better way to go. Hard and fast—an automobile, a bullet, a burst vessel at the back of the brain. Or long and slow—watching the skin turn to parchment, feeling the strength ebb from the fingers; becoming dull, slow, worn; fading, fading, till the flame flickered finally out.

  Getting morbid. I was spending too much time lately in the Dead Letter Office of the past. Too much time rooting through the brittle brown memorabilia of other people’s cluttered lives. Too much time listening to stories of the dead.

  I found Brian DeFore where the nurse had told me I would. Under another cottonwood, sitting in a wheelchair on a rise of ground at the end of the cement walkway. From here he could see over the white picket fence, twenty yards away, that marked the boundary of the property. Beyond was a suburban neighborhood much like Alice Wright’s—single-story homes, paved streets, clipped square hedges, tidy lawns.

  Facing his wheelchair was an empty wooden bench. I sat down on it and said, “Mr. DeFore?”

  He wheeled the chair around to look at me. A plaid blanket circling thin shoulders. Sunken cheeks, a toothless mouth, sallow papery skin. Permanent bruises beneath the cloudy brown eyes, wattles beneath the narrow jaw. Just a few wisps of yellowish white hair, swaying slightly in the breeze atop the freckled pink scalp.

  He buried his hands back in the blanket and peered at me, screwing up his face. “I know you?” A heavy Texas accent. Ah know yew?

  “No,” I said. “My name is Joshua Croft. I’m a private detective.”

  He sucked his gums. “I got that memory thing. What you call it?”

  “Alzheimer’s?” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Memory’s all fucked up.” He screwed up his face again. “Private detective?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to ask you some questions about Professor Dennis Lessing.”

  He frowned. “I watch that show with the two brothers. Rick and A J. In San Diego. I been to San Diego.” He grinned at me suddenly, showing pale pink gums, a gray tongue. “You get as much pussy as Rick and A J., son?”

  “I doubt it. Do you remember Dennis Lessing? He taught oil geology at the School of Mines.”

  “I did,” he said, and cackled. “More, probably. Women ever’where, son. El Paso. Dallas. Houston. Used to be, I was hip deep in pussy.” He closed his eyes, savoring the image.

  “Mr. DeFore?”

  His eyes snapped open. “Not one of them worth a damn. Bitches, ever’ one. They want your money or they want your balls. Stick with the ones want your money. Safer. My Daddy used to say, you want you some talk, get a bartender. You want you some company, get a dog. You want you some cooze, get a hoor.” He nodded firmly, having made his point, then sucked again at his gums.

  “Mr. DeFore, do you remember Dennis Lessing at the School of Mines?”

  He frowned. “Course I do. Good man. Knew his geology.”

  “He used to make field trips to the Navajo Reservation.”

  “He surely did. Didn’t I go on two of ’em myself? ’Twenty-two and ’Twenty-three. I was there when he found a seep for ole man Halbert. Twenty-three that was. I mean, shit, there we were, out in the middle of the f
uckin’ desert. Hotter’n shit, son. And dryer’n a nun’s twat. S’posed to be looking for awl, right? We got no magnetometer, we got no torsion balance, but goddammit, we’re lookin’ for awl. And goddammit, we find it.” He cackled, shook his head. “Didn’t we though.”

  “You know anything about a woman Lessing was seeing at the time?”

  “Sweet stuff,” he said. “Paraffin base. Comin’ out so high in gas hydrocarbons—your pentane, your hexane, your octane—you coulda pumped it straight into your car. Fucker woulda run.”

  “Lessing,” I said, “was seeing some woman on tne Reservation.”

  “Elaine,” he said. He shook his head, looked off. “No. Spic name. Elena?” He nodded. “Elena. Wasn’t a spic, though. White woman.”

  “Not an Indian woman?”

  “Shit, what’d he want with a fuckin’ Indian? Little blond quim she was. Blue eyes. Cute as a bug. Cute ones, son, they’re the ones fuck you over worst.”

  “You saw her?”

  “Came by in a Ford one day. This was at Many Farms. Cute as a bug. Nice pair of bouncers.”

  “Do you know where she lived?”

  “S’pose to be a big ole secret, Doc Lessing’s got himself some strange.” He cackled. “Shit. Ever’body knew ’bout it. Didn’t he sneak out most ever’ night and go drill himself some of that sweet blond pussy?”

  “Do you know where she lived, Mr. DeFore?”

  “Piñon. Round Piñon. What ever’one said.”

  “Why would an Anglo woman be living on the Reservation?”

  His eyes narrowed suddenly and he said, “How come you’re askin’ all these questions?”

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to Dennis Lessing.”

  “He died, is what happened. Someone bashed his brains in.”

  “The question is who.”

  “You payin’ me for this? Cash money?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Rick and A.J., sometimes they pay twenny dollars.”

  “Rick and A.J. don’t have my overhead.”

  “Gimme ten then.”

  I took out my wallet, slipped a ten from it, put back the wallet. Held the ten.

  DeFore eyed it.

  “Why would an Anglo woman be living on the Reservation?” I asked him.