The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

  Rebecca used a gloved hand to point north.

  “Look,” she said.

  Fifty yards to starboard, silhouetted against the pale yellow slope of south Whidbey Island, a sea lion poked his glistening head through a carpet of kelp. His thick neck twisted nearly in a circle as he sought whoever had disturbed his afternoon nap. I watched as his bright blue eye fixed us in space and, as he then rolled onto his side, he made what I took to be a dismissive gesture with his flipper and slid silently beneath the surface. I threw an arm around Rebecca’s shoulder and pulled her close.

  On the rusted car deck below, Misty McMahon stood clutching the yellow safety rope, her back to the forwardmost cars, staring out over the onrushing waters of Puget Sound as if she were expecting something familiar to come floating by at any moment. The stiff wind puffed the red ski jacket around her small frame and caused the new blue jeans to flap and snap in the breeze like pennants.

  “The jeans are a little big,” I commented.

  “It’s the style,” Rebecca said. “Baggy’s all the rage.”

  Misty had spent what was left of last night and most of this morning in our guest room. I say spent because I was certain she hadn’t slept. Maybe I was afraid she was going to make a run for it, or maybe it was just a matter of having a stranger in the house. Either way, I spent the night with the sound of her shiny little shoes rolling through my head like claps of thunder.

  Around ten A.M., while I was calling Constance Hart, Rebecca ran downtown to The Bon Marché and bought the kid some new duds. She was right. No way we could bring the girl home to grandma in the Lolita outfit. While she was gone, I segued into domestic mode. I don’t know why, but whenever I’m feeling bad, I like to feed people. God knows I’m no Julia Child, but stress me out and I start inviting people to dinner. People we haven’t seen in years. Rebecca claims it’s my twisted way of nurturing people. Way I see it, hassles make me hungry. I warmed four poppyseed muffins, toasted a couple of cinnamon-raisin bagels, set out some butter and some raspberry preserves, sliced up a cantaloupe and some fresh strawberries. Crystal tumblers for the OJ. Place mats. Napkin rings. The whole nine yards. Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart.

  It was eleven-fifteen before the three of us sat down at the kitchen table. After a dozen increasingly feeble attempts at conversation, I was forced to consider the possibility that the kid was still too stoned on whatever she’d been taking to make conversation. She’d answer yes and no if you asked her direct questions. She’d mumbled a thanks for the half a bagel she’d torn to pieces but hadn’t eaten and at one point asked if it would be okay if she went to the bathroom, but that was about it.

  When Misty finally left the breakfast table and went upstairs to get dressed for the trip, Rebecca crossed the kitchen to the sink where I was rinsing the dishes, spun me around toward her and put both arms around my neck. She gazed deep into my eyes. I hate it when they do that.

  “You can’t fix it for her, Leo. I know how badly you want to, but you can’t.” She pulled me close and kissed me on the neck. “You’ve already done everything you’re good at. Leave her alone.”

  She was right, but it didn’t matter; something inside of me wanted to do something more. For whom? I don’t know. At that point, I didn’t much give a shit. Rebecca let me go and took a step back.

  “Know what she said when I brought her the new clothes?”

  she asked.

  “What?” I growled.

  I was being crabby, so she made me wait.

  “She looked down into the bag”—Rebecca sighed—“and then she asked me if this meant she should take off all her clothes now.”

  Constance Hart stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. The house looked more like a commercial hunting lodge than a single-family dwelling. A rambler. River rock and polished logs spread out for what seemed like a quarter mile along the rim of a small butte. Behind the house, the land sloped quickly away, pulling the eye down toward a five-acre mountain lake and the valley beyond, where an unbroken series of natural meadows and first-growth forest ran all the way to Puget Sound, shimmering like a black mirror some three or four miles in the distance. I hadn’t expected her to return so quickly. After the bizarre scene in the driveway, I figured we were going to be a while. Not once during the hour-and-a-half journey had Misty McMahon uttered a syllable. Just sat there staring out the side window, picking at her fingers and humming something under her breath…until we drove up to the back of Constance Hart’s house, that is. I heard her stop humming. Suddenly she sat forward in the seat, and I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. Before Rebecca managed to bring the Explorer to a complete stop, Misty had jumped out onto the pavement, pushed her way through her grandmother’s outthrust arms and disappeared into the house without so much as a word. I stood, one foot on the asphalt, half in, half out of the passenger seat. Constance Hart shot me a puzzled look. When I merely shrugged, she followed the girl inside. I’d figured getting Misty settled would take maybe a half hour, so I was stretching my legs around the yard; Rebecca sat in the Explorer, listening to Frank Sinatra pledge his love to Chicago while she read the Seattle Weekly. Ten minutes later, however, I’d just gotten started checking out the spectacular scenery when Constance Hart reappeared. She walked slowly. Looking down at the flagstone path. A thick shock of gray hair had escaped the tortoise shell clip and now flitted about in the wind like a silver web. She lifted her chin as she spoke.

  “Misty wants to be alone.”

  Her voice said it matter-of-factly, but her eyes frisked me for an explanation. I didn’t have one, so I kept my mouth shut.

  She looked back over her shoulder toward the house.

  “I had hoped…” she tried again.

  “I know,” was the best I could manage.

  Constance Hart folded her arms across her chest and paced in a small circle. A hundred feet above us, the wind rushed through the treetops like traffic.

  “I’m not going to hurry her. About anything.” She said the lines as if she’d rehearsed them. “I’m going to let her get settled into her new environment. Move at her own pace. After that…” She let it ride.

  “Give it time,” I offered.

  “She’s been through a great deal.”

  Despite all she knew, she wanted me to tell her I’d found the kid in church, but there was no way I could help her. Instead, I stood there in the driveway listening to the wind, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, hoping that Constance Hart wasn’t reading me as easily as I was reading her.

  I unzipped my jacket and pulled out the envelope that had been resting against my ribs. The paper was warm as I held it out.

  “I wrote you up a report,” I said.

  She shook her head. Stiffened her spine. “No,” she said. “I have no need to know what’s in there. I already have everything I want. You found my granddaughter.” She waved her hand. “As far as I’m concerned, Misty’s life starts over today. Right here, right now.” I returned the report to my ribs and zipped the jacket.

  Her earlier words still rang in my ears. “After that…” she’d said. Yeah, what about after that? They sit down to a nice heart-to-heart talk? Some bizarre version of how I spent my summer vacation? What then? Then they go down to the school district and register Misty for the eighth grade? She tries out for cheerleading? Becomes Homecoming Queen? Marries Brad from Microsoft. Births Tyler and Courtney. Maybe I was having eye trouble, but I just couldn’t see it working out that way.

  She wasn’t going to read my report. This meant I wasn’t going to be able to appease my conscience by telling myself that my recommendations had been right there in black and white. No such luck. I was going to have to step up to the plate and come out with it. I was sorting through my mental euphemism file when she reached into the patch pocket of her red jacket. Two checks folded in half. She unfolded the checks, separated the two, held one of them out toward me.

  “What we discussed on the phone for expenses an
d your fee,” she said.

  While I took it from her hand and put it into my jacket pocket, I used my other hand to wave off the other check.

  “There’s no need—” I began. She cut me off.

  “I insist,” she said. “You did what others failed to do. You returned my granddaughter to my side.”

  Reluctantly, I stuck the check in with the other. I knew what was coming. Above us, the wind was building. Bits of tree debris ticked off the roof of the house. Behind me, one of the massive trunks groaned inside its silver bark. I shivered.

  “Misty’s probably going to need to—” I began. She met my eyes with a granite stare. “Yes?” she interrupted. I’d seen the look before. Happens when you bring kids home. I’d done my duty. I’d been well paid. I was now supposed to show some class and get my act up the road. Preferably move away…say, to the planet Neptune. One minute Saint George. Next minute the dragon.

  “She’s probably going to need to see a doctor,” I said. For a moment, I saw hatred in her eyes. “If there’s something—” she began. Quickly I interrupted. “Nothing specific.”

  I kept my eyes on hers. They were black and filled with denial. The strained silence swallowed the sounds of trees and wind. I forced myself to maintain eye contact. No blinking allowed. It took a while. After what seemed like minutes, her eyes suddenly lost their luster and her face turned the color of custard.

  “Oh…you mean…”

  “Yeah. You ought to get her tested for AIDS,” I said. “Just as a precaution.”

  She opened her mouth to deny that anything so unspeakable could possibly have entered her realm and then slowly closed it again.

  “Yes,” was all she said, before turning on her heel and starting back toward the house. I stood in the driveway until she disappeared.

  4

  IN MY BOOK, THERE’S NOTHING WORSE THAN SOMEBODYtrying to cheer you up when you’re down. When I’m feeling bad, I want to roll in my sorrow like a pig. I want to hear Buddy Guy shout the blues or Tom Waits sing songs about old men in wheelchairs and waitresses with Maxwell House eyes, marmalade thighs and scrambled yellow hair. I want to drink bourbon till I spill a couple drinks on the carpet. Maybe shed a tear or two for the miserable state of the human condition. Then maybe, if nobody’s looking, shed a few more about the state of my own miserable ass. Most of all, though, I want to be quiet…quiet and alone. I kept telling myself it was one of those Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus kinda things. For the past twenty minutes, Rebecca had been rambling nonstop. Early on, it was about how I should be proud of my role in returning Misty McMahon to the bosom of her family. How there was nothing to be depressed about. After that…could a been anything. I zoned her out.

  She poked me in the arm. We were pulled over on the side of the road at the junction of Routes and 1. Home was left.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “To what?”

  I heard her sigh. “Have you been listening to me?” she asked.

  I figured I’d save myself Act One wherein our hero denies all.

  “No,” I said. “I was somewhere else.”

  She took one hand off the wheel and put it on my shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Tired, I guess.”

  She made her “poor baby” face and asked, “Did she give you a bonus?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “How much?”

  I shrugged. “Haven’t looked.”

  I fished in my jacket pocket for the checks. First one made out for fifteen hundred and sixty dollars. My bill. Opened the other. Blinked. Counted zeros. Whistled.

  “How much?” Rebecca asked.

  “Ten grand.”

  Next thing I knew, she was enthusing again. About god knows what. Making a conscious effort not to sigh, I stuck both checks back in my jacket pocket and picked up the conversation the last place I could remember.

  “Do I what?”

  I should have known better.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  God, how I hate the old “never mind.” Always makes me feel like a circus animal. Cue the calliope music. Jump, Leo. Roll over. Good boy.

  “No…really,” I tried. “What is it you asked me if I wanted to do?”

  She sighed, but cut me some slack. “Take the long way home. Maybe spend the night over at Ocean Shores or Grayland or someplace like that.”

  I thought it over. I’d wondered when she volunteered to come along today. Wondered more when she’d practically insisted. On her off weekend, too. Officially, her hours as a forensic pathologist for the King County medical examiner were nine to five, Monday through Friday. Three weekends a month, however, she was on call and seldom got all the way to Monday without having to make at least one guest appearance at the morgue. Way I figured it, after failing to cheer me up, she’d probably feel compelled to resort to gratuitous hotel sex. What could I do? Might as well go along with the program, huh? Wadda guy.

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  She turned right onto heading west toward the edge of the world. The long way back to Seattle meant circling the Olympic Peninsula, driving all the way down to Aberdeen, cutting across to Olympia and then driving the freeway for the last sixty miles home. Maybe eight hours of driving instead of an hour on the road and twenty minutes on the ferry. An odd choice for a woman who detests driving in general and freeway driving in particular. Like she explained to me years ago, you see enough folks who’ve extruded themselves through the windshield, you develop a terrific urge to walk.

  Mercifully, she didn’t make me figure it out. “I thought if we got to Stevens Falls early enough…maybe we could stop and visit J.D. and Claudia.”

  While pretending to check my watch, I searched my memory banks. J.D. and Claudia? J.D. and Claudia? I was pretty sure they weren’t related to me. Yeah, definitely, her family, not mine. An image of a couple flashed on my inner screen, and I had it. Claudia O’Connor, Rebecca’s goddaughter. Yeah. Daughter of the late Muriel O’Connor, Rebecca’s long-ago med school friend from the East Coast. The one who was always going to come and visit but never quite made it. Since Muriel’s death last year, Rebecca had been making a concerted effort to keep in touch with Claudia. Trading cards and calls. I felt better. At least now I had an explanation why the good Dr. Duvall would want to spend her off weekend traipsing about the wilderness. I hate it when she’s more than three steps ahead of me.

  In my mind’s eye I could see a blurry image of Claudia. A pretty blond girl with long hair parted down the middle. Oversized brown sweater, long skirt and combat boots. And the wiry little guy who stood beside her. Very neat and preppy. All angles, cheekbones and wire-rim glasses.

  “The fisherman,” I said.

  She nodded and smiled. I was awarded style points for remembering.

  “You liked J.D.,” she said.

  She was right. I had liked the guy. The one time I’d met him—a Thanksgiving dinner, as I recalled, a couple of years ago—he’d seemed several cuts above most of the thirtysomethings I meet. I remember we were standing on somebody’s back porch. Screaming kids had driven me outside. After the football game but before the dinner. It was raining like hell, and nobody had cleaned the gutters. A solid wall of water ran off the porch roof. Like standing behind a waterfall. He’d stuck out his hand. J.D. Springer. He’d handed me a business card. Neat little picture of a guy with a fish on the line, standing at the bow of a drift boat. Underneath J. D. SPRINGER, FISHING GUIDE.

  As with most people who love what they do, he was more than willing to tell his story. Originally from the eastern part of the state. Tri-Cities area. Dad a high school English teacher. Mom the town librarian. Grew up fishing the Columbia and the Snake with his dad. Rainbow trout, cutthroat, salmon, sturgeon. All two quarters at Washington State taught him was that, architecture be damned, what he really wanted to do with his life was to fish. Used his savings to buy a used sled boat, got himself
some business cards printed and went into the fishing guide business. I recalled what he said to me.

  He said, “I figured, what the heck, I’m nineteen years old. If a nineteen-year-old can’t take a chance, can’t follow his bliss, who can? Got plenty of time to be Dilbert later.” I remember how he’d laughed at the idea of life in a cubicle. Within a couple of years he’s the most popular guide in the area. Booked months in advance. Making a good living. Meets Claudia at an Outdoor Show in the Kingdome. Love at first sight. She moves over to Richland to be near him just about the time he applies to the state of Montana for a guide license on the Yellowstone River. The state, of course, informs him that they have a waiting list of six-thousand-someodd souls who want the same thing and that his only chance would be to pay his five-hundred-dollar fee for the right to take part in the annual lottery. Seems one guide license per year is awarded to the lucky so and so whose name is drawn from the barrel. Proceeds go to fish habitat management. A good deal all around. He sends his dough. First year, damned if he doesn’t win. “God protects fools and drunks,” he’d told me with a twinkle. He and Claudia get married. Move to Montana. Takes him a full year to learn the river. After that, same deal. Booked one hundred percent of the time. Two years in advance. Making more money following his dream than he ever imagined possible. Five years of guiding European royalty, pro athletes, Hollywood stars and, for a week in ’, former president George Bush. And…Two kids change everything. J.D.’s mom and dad want to be able to see their grandkids more often. Start a low-key propaganda campaign. No way he’s moving back to eastern Washington, so they compromise. Agree on western Washington. Parents retire and move to this side of the Cascades. Somewhere up by Marysville. J.D. and Claudia and the kids move back from Montana.