“You look like a deer kicked you in the face,” Conrad replied.
They had to take alleys to the edge of town. The chains on the tires would gouge the asphalt, Mallon explained.
“Policy is twenty miles an hour max with chains. I may lose vision in the eye.”
“I can get someone else to take me,” Conrad said.
The sheriff began to shake his head again then stopped himself. “I’m supposed to keep my head still. Had to pay a kid to put the chains on. My doctor will be in Chapman on Thursday, anyway. No point staying here.”
At the highway, Conrad kept the vehicle on the shoulder until they came upon a stalled snowplow, a man in a fat coat examining its smoking engine. Sheriff Mallon studied the scene as they passed.
“This is an idiotic place to live,” he said.
Once they had the chains on the appropriate terrain, the men rode in clanking silence. After a while, the sheriff said, “You know what I kept thinking the whole time they messed with my face? They didn’t put me under. I wish to god they had. I kept thinking about that deer. She’s out there wondering what the hell is going on. Pain’s got to be a different experience if you don’t know what it is, you know what I mean?”
“No,” Conrad said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe it’s the Percodan talking, but it seems to me humans must feel pain differently because we can point to the source of it. A deer gets hit by a truck and it hurts. Fine. She knows the source of the pain—that great green metal monster that tried to eat her. That’s what she’d think.” He gestured with his hand, the open palm hesitating in the air. “But then, she gets up and runs away, sleeps through the night. Now it’s morning, and she wakes up feeling real bad. What’s the deal now? she wonders. There’s no green metal monster—well, she wouldn’t know what metal meant—there’s no roaring green monster here to bash my leg. Why do I feel this pain? Me, I know why and I know what can happen. I can wind up needing cosmetic surgery, which my insurance won’t cover. I can wind up blind in one eye, which’d mean I’d have to quit sheriffing. Hell, I’m not even sure this will be taken as an ‘in the line of duty’ injury. In which case, I’ll owe the hospital a fortune. But that’s not the point. What was I talking about?”
“The deer.”
“She’s got to be thinking there’s something inside her, like a rat—not that she’d know what a rat is. A forest animal, a squirrel or something. Maybe she’d think her thigh is frozen. That’s my point. She can’t know. It’s like lightning striking when you don’t even have a word for the sky.”
“How many Percodan did you take?”
“Several. This thing hurts like hell. I just was trying to tell you what I thought was this profound thing. How a deer can’t know what we know.”
“Do you think deer have a concept of death?”
“Sure, they do,” Sheriff Mallon said. It began to snow. “They know there’s something that happens to the others—the deer they run with. The ones that die. They know that a body asleep and a dead body are two whole different things. I don’t imagine they guess it could ever happen to them personally.” He grew quiet again. The snow fell lazily like the snow in dreams. “I have a friend used to work in a slaughterhouse down in Iowa. Cows marched along this ramp to the killing floor where it was my friend’s job to shoot them in the head with a rifle. Says those cows knew. They were scared as hell. Lowing like all get-out. Christ, I hate to think about it.” He started to shake his head again, but put his hand to his chin to hold his head in place. “Iowa’s an awful place. My buddy is my age, but you’d think he was fifty. How old are you?”
“Thirty-two,” Conrad said.
“I shouldn’t have revived that deer.” The patch on his face made him appear unfinished, missing a piece. “It’s out there somewhere in pain. There’s a kind of code about this. You don’t leave an animal to suffer.”
The Suburban descended into the valley they had visited the day before, the white fields and hazy defoliated forest.
“I shouldn’t be laying all this on you. You’ve got your own burden. Your mother found after all these years.” He unbuckled his shoulder belt and shifted in the seat to lay the good side of his head against the headrest. “Had to clean out the freezer to store her parts. Everybody at the station took home venison. We don’t get much actual crime. Graffiti. If it’s summer, Mrs. Morrison’s likely to run up the street in her nightie. But murder…”
“It was a long time ago.”
“People remember your dad,” he said. “Not till we found this body did people think he literally killed her, just that he made her run out into the cold, where she froze. A man matching his description in Saskatchewan operates a diner. Had a run-in with local authorities. They faxed a photo, but after twenty years who could say? I will ask you to take a look.” He settled his head back and shut his good eye. “Nobody much recalls your mother. I hope there’s enough that you can ID her.” He remained silent for several minutes. “That poor creature,” he said. “Out there in the cold. In pain. And not a clue.”
In another moment, the sheriff began to snore. Conrad noted the place where the deer had been hit. The emergency gear still rested on the shoulder, covered now in snow. He did not consider stopping to retrieve it. As for the deer, Conrad believed she likely knew as much about death as he did. He would be able to identify his mother if they had the lower jaw. Her slanting teeth would make the identification.
The idea that his father might run a diner amused Conrad. His father had cooked for him exactly once. Conrad had stepped into the kitchen one morning and found his father frying an egg.
“Your mother run off,” his father said. He put the egg on a plate and handed it to Conrad. “From now on, cook for yourself.”
“Is she coming back?” Conrad asked.
His father had said all he was going to say. Conrad ate the egg, fearing what his father would do if he didn’t. He had never actually hit Conrad, nothing more than a cuff or slap, but his mother had always been there to intervene, to put her body between the man and the boy. Conrad ate the egg and climbed the ladder to the second floor to look for her, but he never saw his mother again.
He recognized almost nothing of Chapman, yet the general contours of the town were still familiar. The school had been remodeled, but he could make out the old shape hiding beneath the stucco. The county sheriff’s office took up a corner of a strip mall.
“Oh, my heavens,” the secretary said.
She put her hands to her face, as if she wanted Conrad to count the painted nails. She was a vaguely pretty woman. It might have been just her concern that made her attractive. She reached out to Sheriff Mallon but pulled her hands back. Blood had soaked through the bandage, and the sheriff’s cheek was swollen.
“I’ve got to get him home,” she said and then introduced herself. Abigail. Her fingernails were the pink of salmon. “Could you hold down the ship for me?” she asked. “There’s only the two of us, and a deputy who’s been on duty since Sheriff Mallon left to get you. Everybody and his dog has slid off the road. He’s got his hands full with vehicular. I won’t be more than an hour.”
Minutes after arriving, Conrad found himself alone in the sheriff’s office. He seated himself at the sheriff’s desk and went through the sheriff’s drawers. None of the reports he found related to the body. One drawer held a Polaroid of the sheriff with two people who might be his parents. They had chalky skin and prim smiles.
Conrad tried the deputy’s smaller desk. The drawers held almost nothing—loose paper clips and cellophane-wrapped post-its, a can of soup, a motorcycle magazine. The cover of the magazine showed a woman wearing a bikini on a chopper. The photo centered on her buttocks, her bathing suit the same chrome as on the motorcycle.
Conrad found the file on the unidentified remains in Abigail’s desk. She also had the most comfortable chair. Blanched photographs showed a stand of trees, the yellow ribbon of official business, and a vague shape on the grou
nd, which must have been a piece of the body. It had been found by a farmer’s son, the report said. Conrad already knew this. The boy’s dog had brought in a bone with a scrap of clothing chewed into the marrow. The boy followed the dog’s tracks through the snow to a wooded ravine where other bones lay scattered. The sheriff had found shot in the splintered pelvis.
The unidentified victim appears to have been blown in half by the discharge of a shotgun at very close range. Or animals may have separated the body after the shooting.
The report was full of pen scribbles—someone, likely Abigail, making grammatical suggestions, revising for clarity. The county coroner had attempted to reach Chapman but had been stopped by the weather. By the coroner’s name, Abigail had written prima donna! State investigators would arrive at week’s end, weather permitting. A fax explained to what extent presumed relatives could examine the remains to identify the body.
Conrad closed the file. He found the freezer in the hall, long and white, large enough to hold an intact body. The lid of the freezer had a lock with the key in it. Conrad raised the freezer’s hood. Frost covered Tupperware containers. The first he lifted held a bone shard, as did the second. The third had discolored skin and gray gristle attached to the bone. As he snapped the lid back on, he spotted a label and wiped frost from it. BONE, it read. Conrad laughed, and the laughter continued long enough to make him nervous. He squatted with his back against the freezer and slowed his breathing. What amateurs these people were. Yet he liked them. The cold air from the open lid slipped over the side of the appliance and chilled the back of his neck.
He took the containers from the freezer and stacked them on the floor. They were as tall as a person. He wiped frost from the labels, working his way down the stack until he found one that said JAWBONE. He pried off the plastic lid. The bone was in three pieces, but the angle of the teeth was clear enough. This was not his mother’s body.
Conrad returned the containers to the freezer. He closed the freezer door and settled himself at Abigail’s desk. He felt neither elated nor discouraged, merely fatigued. He lowered his head onto the desk and fell asleep.
“It’s not good coffee,” Abigail said, “but it warms you up.”
He looked at his watch. He had slept almost two hours. True to her word, the coffee was terrible, but it felt good in his throat and warmed his stomach. Abigail had changed clothes. Conrad was certain of this, although he couldn’t recall what she had worn before. She now wore a dress and black leggings. Earrings. Makeup. She looked ready for a date.
“I’d let you sleep longer,” she said, “but it’s time for me to lock up.”
“The sheriff’s office shuts down?”
“We have call forwarding,” she said. The part of her lips revealed teeth as white as the snow. “The sheriff was gonna put you up, but he’s passed out from Percodan and in no condition to entertain.”
“Is there a motel?” Conrad asked.
“In Chapman? Are you serious? Have you made eating arrangements?”
“Can I sleep here?”
“There’s only the cot in the cell, and that’s just too ghastly.” She sighed. “I suppose you’re my guest.”
“You have plans. You’re all dressed.”
“Oh,” she said. “This is nothing.”
In her car, navigating the frozen parking lot, she revealed that the deputy had turned up another bit of evidence.
“You should have seen the sheriff when I told him. He hates anything happening while he’s gone.”
“I looked in the freezer,” Conrad said. “It’s not my mother.”
“Well,” Abigail said, deflated.
Snow pelted the windshield. She slowed for a pedestrian standing at an intersection. He was bundled in black—shoes, pants, parka, woolen hat. Only his scarf had any color, a red like the lipstick from old advertisements. She brought her car to a full stop and waited while the pedestrian crossed the road.
“I guess I shouldn’t be disappointed,” Abigail said. “You can still have hope she’s alive somewhere.”
“No,” said Conrad. “I don’t have any hope of that.”
The car slowly accelerated. “Who could this be?” She put her fingers to her mouth and tapped a tune on her teeth, pausing to add, “We just don’t have people unaccounted for.”
“What’s the new evidence?”
The tapping ended. Her hand returned to the wheel. “The murder weapon. We think. A rifle. Right there with the bones. The handle was chewed up some, like an animal had dragged it about.”
Conrad took a deep breath. He felt a specific, small elation, like being the first at a party to get the joke.
“It was a sawed-off shotgun,” he said.
Abigail slowed the car and looked at him.
“It’s my father you’ve found.” He crossed his arms against a shiver in his chest. “You can show me tomorrow, but I’m certain.”
“Who would have killed your father?”
“He himself,” Conrad said.
Her gaze made her face naked. She stared so long that he had to reach over and correct the wheel. Her house was small and painted red, nestled among larger houses, hardly more than a cottage, but warm inside. She boiled spaghetti and heated sauce from a jar. Conrad told her a few things.
After his mother disappeared, his father gave up language almost completely. In the past, he and his father had never been alone in the house—only in the vegetable garden or in the woods hunting for game.
“I know it sounds implausible,” he said to Abigail, “to people raised in a house with a television and stereo, whose home was in a neighborhood, whose parents held jobs, but it’s the truth. My mother never left me alone in the same room with my father for more than a matter of seconds. When she went to the bathroom, she took me with her.”
“Unbelievable,” Abigail said. Then, “I believe you.”
Conrad and Abigail slept in the same bed. The shared bed was not about sex. The electricity in the house died shortly after dinner. They built a fire and lit candles. They kept each other warm.
“I’m tempted to entertain myself with your body,” Abigail told him, her painted nails touching his neck. “But I shouldn’t while you’re here on official business.”
Conrad recognized his disappointment in this dismissal. He hardly knew her, but he felt uncommonly alive in her bed. She fell asleep, the warm air from her nostrils ruffling the slight, bleached hair on her upper lip, her eyes moving beneath their thin sheathing.
He was too agitated to sleep. He ran a finger over the textured chambers of her insulated shirt. He traced a nipple, and it changed shape beneath the material. He thought of the emergency equipment left by the side of the road. He placed his hands just where the disks would go. She stirred but did not wake. The memory that had been summoning him for years blew against the dark windows.
His father had come into the kitchen where Conrad was building a fire in the stove. “Leave it,” his father said. He made a gesture with his shotgun, the buttstock pointing to the door.
Midday, a dim sun lit the snow on the ground, the sky cloudy and cold, wind lifting the skirt of recent snow up and into the freezing air. Conrad carried the shotgun. According to his mother, a dog had made the teeth marks in the gun’s buttstock. His father denied ever owning a dog. At the time of the walk, his mother had been gone four weeks.
The neighbor’s livestock seemed their most likely prey, but they did not head in that direction. His father said nothing. The teeth of the cold air gnawed at the soft places on Conrad’s face. He had to take two steps to his father’s one, but he felt a pathetic surge of glee. He had been terribly lonely without his mother, and the only time he felt comfortable with his father was when they were hunting.
At the edge of the woods, they stopped. Conrad needed to pee but it was his custom to wait, out of modesty, until they were among the trees, even though there was no one within miles to see. It had begun to snow. His father gestured for the shotgun. Their far
mhouse, in the distance, seemed to have a hole of light in it. It took Conrad a moment to understand the front door was open. He shifted his gaze to his father’s face. His father appeared to be studying him.
He said, “You know what that word means?”
Conrad had spoken no word and, except to ask the question, neither had his father. His father seemed to think Conrad was privy to his thoughts. Conrad opened his mouth but only breathed. The cold air found his tongue, and he tasted winter. His father turned quickly. The barrel of the shotgun swung around. It would have hit Conrad had he not moved. He stumbled and fell, but got up quickly and dusted snow off his knees.
His father said, “It’s what you do to a woman.” He breathed heavily, the exhaust of his nostrils white and furious. “And there’s no pleasure in it.” He pointed to a tree stump covered in snow. “Over there.” He wanted Conrad to sit on the stump. His father evidently had more to tell him.
Conrad shoved the snow off the tree stump. A thin layer of ice covered the wood, but he sat anyway and looked up to his father, who gestured for him to turn, to face the other way. Snow animated the sky and painted the world about him. He heard the shotgun crack open behind him, heard his father load one shell and then the other. It was then that he understood. The frozen world paused for him, the woods still and orderly under their white quilt. Even the snow coming from the heavens became stationary in midair, a white organism Conrad had never before seen whole, but only in its million parts.
The shotgun reunited with a snap. Conrad sensed creatures in the forest going about their lives, refusing to be his witness. The fabric of his father’s coat made a little cry as he raised his arms. Conrad lost control of himself. Urine soaked though his pants and ran out onto the stump. It made a spirit of steam.
“You wet yourself,” his father said, his words startling and heavy. “Get up or you’ll freeze to the stump.” He lowered the shotgun. “You’d best hurry.”
The urine began to ice Conrad’s legs as they retraced their steps. He tried to run. His pants froze to the fine hairs on his legs. He stumbled and continued. He fell to his knees, got up, and fell again into the crusted snow, which embraced him, held him as his mother had, a comfort and protection. Conrad tried, but he could not get back to his feet. The snow was no longer cold but warm, and the warmth spread throughout his body.
The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards Page 8