by Rose Beecham
She had only made it three paces when Hawke took the bait, “You new to Colorado, Detective?”
Jude stopped walking and offered a polite smile. “You guessed that right. Originally from D.C.”
“What brought you out West?”
He’d hear the official version sooner or later, if he hadn’t already. May as well use it to her advantage. “I needed a change. I was working for the FBI but I, er…I wasn’t comfortable with certain aspects of my work for personal reasons, so I quit. Figured local law enforcement might be a better place for me.”
Her disenchanted fed act seemed to play pretty well with Hawke. Caution vied with curiosity in his expression. “Those aspects you’re talking about wouldn’t have anything to do with depriving Americans of their right to privacy, would they?”
“I really can’t discuss that. All I can say is recent changes didn’t sit well with my personal views and there comes a time when you have to stand up and be counted.”
“Which is something I pride myself on,” her subject promptly asserted. He ran a hand over his naked head, smoothing back imaginary hair.
Jude blurted, “My dad didn’t fight for this country to have it taken over by—” She broke off in a display of professional prudence. “I need to be getting along now, sir.”
Amazingly, Hawke went for it and actually took a step outside his fortress. Jude couldn’t imagine he would be suckered so easily by a man. But it seemed like a combination of loneliness and sexism was working against him. The guy was obviously starved of female company, not to mention being so damned ugly even the most deluded sycophant in his movement probably wouldn’t get naked with him. It had to get old, sitting out here all day examining your navel lint and trying to come up with astute new ways to sell theories about international Jewish financiers running America. Especially since nowadays anyone who bothered to read the newspapers knew the Chinese funded the deficit and big oil called the shots.
“Detective, listen,” he was emboldened to declare, “you’re not alone.”
Jude greeted this gesture of solidarity with an innocent smile, like his meaning had gone right past her. Guys like Hawke knew their organizations were targeted by undercover agents and were paranoid by nature. She didn’t want to appear too eager to bare her soul.
“I appreciate that, sir. If everyone in the community took such a supportive attitude it would make my job a whole lot easier. Bye now.”
Their subject was full of surprises. He walked her to the Dakota and gallantly opened the door for her.
Acting like she was fighting off a girlish flutter, she touched her hair, checked the buttons at her collar, and said, “Well, thank you. Mr.”—she consulted her notebook—“Mr. Hawke?”
“Correct. Harrison Hawke.” He watched her face closely for a reaction.
Jude gave him a smile she hoped fell somewhere between coy and unaware and got into the truck. “It was a pleasure, Mr. Hawke.” She started the motor.
He bared his teeth in an uneasy version of a smile. “Come by again if you’re in the area, Officer.”
She waved cheerfully and drove off, wondering if it could possibly be this easy. Bureau wisdom held that even the most cynical and unappealing males were easily convinced that a woman might find them irresistible. Hawke, it seemed, was no exception, her badge notwithstanding. But it was equally possible that he had made her as a fed the moment he set eyes on her, and was merely playing along to see what she was up to, keeping the enemy close. Jude smiled. She enjoyed chess, especially with an arrogant opponent. The win was so much more satisfying.
*
When she got back to the station, Smoke’m was howling and Tulley was in tears. Her colleague had hauled out their small television and was watching a film in an apparent bid to distract himself from the source of his upset. Jude pretended not to notice the soggy Kleenex piled on his desk. Clearly, congratulations on a successful date were not in order.
She eyed the TV screen and groaned at the sight of subtitles. Still, it made a change from Fargo, his regular fix. “Foreign movie?” she asked, unbuttoning her shirt and stripping down to her white tee.
As a detective, she spent a fair amount of her time in civilian attire, but she wore a uniform when she wanted to make her presence felt. The canyon residents seemed to appreciate having visible law enforcement for a change.
“It’s called Osama. It’s about this girl in Afghanistan. She had to pretend to be a boy so she could work, otherwise she and her mom were going to starve.” Tulley got all choked up. “Then the mullahs made her go to their weird religious school and chant the Quran and all. But they found out she was a girl because she got her period.”
“Ugly, huh?”
“Now they’ve buried this foreign doctor up to her neck and they’re going to stone her to death.”
“Fucking barbarians.”
“I can’t watch it anymore.” Tulley gathered the used tissues and consigned them to the trash.
Jude turned off the DVD and flipped through the latest stack of movies her sidekick had ordered off Netflix. “For Chrissakes, can’t we get some normal films for a change?” she grumbled. “This stuff is so depressing.”
“I want to learn about other places. Not everyone is like us.”
“What about Kill Bill Volume Two? I bet that’s a blast.”
But Tulley was still hating the mullahs. “We did the right thing going in there. Those guys are evil.”
“Yeah, well, we put them in power. Bin Laden and his asshole buddies got their start on our dime. This is called pigeons coming home to roost. Or, in this case, Stinger missiles.”
Tulley absorbed this fact with the skepticism of a true patriot. “I think you’re mistaken about that.”
“I’m sure you do.” Jude didn’t want to get into it. Why disillusion the guy? She had to work with him. “So, how was the picnic?” It seemed safe to ask now that he’d regained control of his emotions.
“She liked the scarf.”
That was a start. “You’re back sooner than I expected.”
Tulley looked uncomfortable. “She…Something happened.”
Jude pictured an awkward grope and Tulley getting his face slapped. Personally, she wouldn’t be sobbing over the likes of Alyssa Critch, but then she wasn’t a born-again Christian male who thought he’d have to wait until his wedding night to get any. “Want to talk about it?”
“She was very…aggressive.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know what to do, her being smaller and a woman.” He said this with a catch in his voice that emphasized something odd Jude had noticed in his speech pattern, a halting rhythm that seemed almost singsong at times. “If I’d pushed her, I might have hurt her.”
“Are you saying she tried it on?” Jude felt stoned. This had him sobbing in his beer?
Mutely, he opened his collar and pointed to a dark purple mark. It was more than a hickey. The virgin had gnawed on him.
Jude managed not to laugh. “Guess you weren’t expecting that.”
“She handled me. You know—there.” Unlike 99.9 percent of the straight male population, Tulley, it seemed, did not count crotch grabs by young females among his daily fantasies.
Jude reminded herself that unwanted sexual fondling was not a joke, even if the victim was a six foot male. “So how did you deal with these advances?”
“I told her it was too soon for hanky-panky.”
Hanky-panky. The last time she’d heard that expression was from her grandmother, who made pronouncements about teen promiscuity and venereal disease throughout Jude’s childhood.
“Maybe she was just trying to let you know she’s not as uptight as her old man,” she said, finding that hard to believe.
A more likely explanation was some form of entrapment, her suspicious mind suggested. Were there still people who believed a man had to marry a girl he’d “compromised”? In this backwater, anything was possible. Was it her place to warn Tulley? She felt li
ke a big sister to him at times, but this was the kind of situation that called for a man-to-man conversation, a talk with a guy he could look up to. She was puzzled that he seemed to have no buddies. He had plenty of brothers, but none he was close to. From what Jude had observed, his family had issues with him leaving town and getting an education. She had the impression that instead of being proud of him, they felt betrayed on some level.
“So, how did you leave things with her in the end?” she asked, resigning herself to the role of mentor.
“She still wants me to come to church with them on Sunday.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Okay, I guess.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“Tell me something. Are you interested in this girl? As in, attracted.”
“Well, she’s decent and from a good family. She’s—”
“I’m not asking about her qualifications as a prospective wife. I’m asking if you want to kiss her.”
The ears changed color. “Not really.”
“Well, I have to tell you, that probably means she’s not the right girl for you.”
“The book says look beyond the flesh.”
“Okay. But it doesn’t say ignore the flesh entirely, does it? Listen, think about other girls you’ve dated. How did you feel about kissing them?”
“It was okay. I’ve never had a steady girlfriend. Guess that would be different.”
“You haven’t? Not even in high school?”
“I was friends with some girls. But we weren’t serious. Then I was at the police academy and then I moved out here.” Tulley shook his head in sober resignation. “There’s a woman shortage. Seems like all the nice girls already have boyfriends.”
Listening to these feeble excuses, Jude tried not to leap to the obvious conclusion. Some people were late starters. Tulley’s lack of interest in women and the odd lilting way he spoke did not have to mean he was gay. And since she wasn’t about to pop that particular question, she said, “You could maybe let Alyssa know you’d like to be her friend but you’re not looking for more than that right now.”
“I don’t think she’ll take that real well.”
“They never do.”
Tulley’s expression said he could buy that. “Why aren’t you married? Never met the right guy?”
“Can’t see that happening, I’m afraid.”
“Ever get lonely?”
Jude contemplated the grinding hollowness she felt fairly often these days. “Sometimes. How about you?”
“It’s been better since I got Smoke’m.”
“Maybe you should think about spending social time with some of the guys. Isn’t there a poker game Tuesday nights?”
He shifted restlessly. “Yeah, but they’re not looking for anyone else.”
Jude wondered what the deal was with Tulley and the other deputies. She’d heard a few remarks about him being a loner and sensed puzzled tolerance rather than hostility in their manner toward him. Come to think of it, they treated her much the same way. Maybe it was do with their unique status as a remote office. The Cortez crowd plainly envied them the perks of a cozy situation away from the sheriff’s eye, not to mention their glamorous new profile, operating the only K-9 unit with a specialist cadaver hound. Some people got all the breaks.
Which was another reason she’d taken the Huntsberger case. She wanted to show the department that she and Tulley were willing to go the distance on a tough investigation. Which was exactly what this had been so far.
The Montezuma sheriff had assigned five deputies and two detectives to the case, under Jude’s control, and six additional staff had been committed by the Cortez PD. Montrose and San Miguel preferred to be left out of the real work, since they had plenty to do getting ready for the Sweet Corn Festival on top of Telluride’s annual shindig, and besides, Darlene was a Montezuma girl. Digging deep, they had helped put up Information Wanted posters.
Jude had the team sifting leads from the public and searching the databases going back twenty years for any other killings involving a biter or a stake through the heart. She and Tulley had been systematically interviewing every householder from Slip Rock to Muleshoe Bend and Big Gypsum. Now they were working their way south to Cahone. No one had seen any unusual activity near the river in the past several weeks.
She’d spent most of the previous day in Towaoc, discussing the facts of the case with several members of the Ute tribal council and cops from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Helpfully, the council members had informed her that this was a white man’s crime and no one on their reservation had the kind of snaggleteeth she was looking for. They had offered one significant fact. A young woman without a tongue had caught a ride with a local potter named Eddie House six years earlier, around the time of the Bear Dance. She was in a bad way and had stayed with him for several months. One day, while he was working in the pottery factory, she had hanged herself. Now her spirit was free to fly.
Jude had an appointment to speak with Mr. House in a couple of hours’ time. Meanwhile, she wanted to look up the local pottery on the Internet so she could make a couple of educated remarks about his chosen art form.
“Did you get those posters up in Disappointment Valley?” she asked Tulley.
He nodded. “Mr. Huntsberger’s coming in later to help with that some more.”
“I think he’s taken a shine to Smoke’m,” Jude said. Clem Huntsberger usually showed up with a beef bone or a bag of liver treats he could ill afford.
The hound looked up at the sound of his name.
“That’s one intelligent animal,” Tulley said. “He knows that family’s grieving. Every time he sees their truck, he makes a special noise like he’s real sorry for them. It’s the only time he whines like that.”
“You don’t say.” Jude gazed at a pottery bowl on her screen. A band of dull turquoise encompassed the base. Above it a precise geometric pattern was painted in black. The colors made a striking contrast against the fine pale ivory clay. It was actually beautiful.
“I believe one reason his breed makes such fine cadaver hounds is because of their emotional sensitivity,” Tulley said.
“The olfactory receptors probably help too.”
Tulley took her teasing in good humor. “Another great thing about him—animals never lie.”
*
Jude contemplated that fact as she drove to Eddie House’s place, a few miles out of Towaoc. Her own life had been punctuated by liars. Most notable in the recent past was the girlfriend who’d cheated on her and the close buddy on the job who’d spent a year not mentioning that he was the jerk she was cheating with. But top billing belonged to her father, decent in so many ways but unable to tell the truth in his personal life if it meant unpopularity. He wanted to be his children’s hero, the man who promised them the world. When he reneged, he blamed their mother for the broken promises, a habit duly adopted by his offspring. Mary Devine was still held responsible by Jude’s brother and sister for almost everything that went wrong in their lives.
Jude had weaned herself from that particular crutch in her twenties when she finally caught on that her mother’s one big dream in life had also fallen prey to Patrick Devine’s need to look good without having to deliver. Mary had yearned to set up her own business making gourmet chocolates, and as far back as Jude could remember, her father had promised each New Year’s Eve that he would buy her the equipment to get started. Instead he would trade in the car, or the house would require new paint, or they would have a family vacation because he needed time out from the stress of his job, and his wife’s dream would be deferred yet again. Their worst fights were over her wanting to get a job so she could pay for the chocolate project herself. Patrick Devine said he saw firsthand what happened to latchkey kids and he wasn’t going to do that to his own. His wife was a stay-at-home mom. Period.
Not long before they moved to Mexico, he’d commented on the lean retirement they were facing and said what a pity it was that Mary
had never done anything about her chocolate idea.
Occasionally, when Jude found herself telling women what they wanted to hear instead of being honest, she thought about her father and felt sick. She still had a way to go with that behavior pattern, which meant she needed to phone Mercy soon and ask to see her again. They had concluded their passionate episode on good terms, both agreeing that it would be better if they didn’t sign up for a repeat performance. Neither could afford to be outed and Cortez was way too small for them to conceal a liaison for long.
But Jude had lied through her teeth about being cool with that. It was not like she imagined love at first sight, or anything. But she thought Mercy was being overly paranoid. Why not arrange the occasional weekend out of town? They were smart enough to see one another every now and then without the locals finding out, weren’t they?
She unclipped her cell phone and dialed Mercy’s office number. No answer. She tried her cell and left a message. “Hey, Mercy, it’s Jude. I’ll be in Lands End one day next week following up on a few leads. Maybe we could have a meal. Hope you’re well. Phone me when you get a minute.”
As she ended the call, she exhaled sharply and realized she had not drawn breath as she made it. She felt like a teenager who’d worked herself up to phoning a crush, only to feel a weird mix of relief and anticlimax that she’d had to talk to a machine instead.
She drove through Cortez and took U.S. 666 south. Soon after she’d arrived in Paradox, Jude had worked an attempted murder at a dude ranch out this way, interviewing Ute Indians and skinny cowboys with leather faces beneath a vast blue sky. She’d been stunned, then, by the contrast between life in these wide open spaces and the torrid city maze that was D.C. That awe, the sense of being remote from the world she had once known, was always present. Even more so on the lonely drive to Towaoc.
The Devil’s Highway didn’t earn its nickname for being pretty. A pothole-ridden band of gray asphalt cutting through a desolate landscape, the route to the casino could easily pass for the road to hell. On either side, broken glass and aluminum cans glinted in the merciless sun and a few sad sagebrush clung to life in the sulfurous yellow earth. No one had bothered to “adopt” this miserable stretch of road, unless you wanted to count Oliver Stone, who’d immortalized it in his movie Natural Born Killers.