The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

  I’d started the day early. A six-thirty cup of sludge with Monty, the guy who owned the Black Bear Motel. Monty now saw me as a coconspirator, another citizen-soldier demanding that his government come clean about alien lifeforms. Monty and I parted with the secret handshake, and then I drove the Blazer down to the Chat and Chew for a slab of ham and pile of flapjacks, which could be expected to linger in my colon well into the next millennium. By ninethirty, I’d shanghaied an electrical contractor by the name of Jensen and dragged him out to the homestead, so he’d be sure to know what he needed for parts. Then back to town and Beaver Building Supply, where I’d bought what I figured I’d need to clean up the cabin. About the time I got back to the homestead, Constance Hart called back to say we had an appointment with the judge at noon, and I’d had to drop everything and start on the two-hour drive to Port Townsend. I checked my watch now. Three-thirty. Too late for the Kiwanas lunch. Too early to go home for the day. I liked my chances.

  He kept me waiting for twenty minutes and then came out into the receptionist’s office rather than inviting me back into his. He was about forty or so. Dressed Nordstrom from head to toe. The hair along the front of his head seemed to grow in rows, like the hair on an old-fashioned doll. Transplants, I guessed. He was trim but losing the battle of the love handles anyway. From the way he held his mouth, you could tell his pride and joy was the thick mustache, which he wore waxed and curled up at the ends. “So,” he said without introducing himself, “what is of such import as to require my personal attention?”

  I held out my hand. “Leo Waterman,” I said. He took my hand, gave it a single perfunctory shake and then stuck his hand in his pants pocket as if it were now diseased and would require sterilization before being used again. I handed him a copy of the restraining order and watched as a line of white started at the front rank of his grafted-on hair and worked its way down his face until he was the color of the paper he was holding. “Is this some kind of joke?” he asked.

  “I don’t see anything funny about it,” I said.

  “He can’t do this,” Tressman said with a sneer. “No judge would ever—”

  “He can and he did,” I interrupted. I reached over and tapped the last paragraph with my fingertip. “You’ll notice that I’m required to get a signed receipt.”

  I thought I saw a slight tremor in his hand as he read the order again. Top to bottom. “Where do you come into this?”

  I handed him a copy of my power of attorney. “I’m Mrs. Springer’s duly certified agent,” I said. “If you’ll read carefully, you’ll find I’ll be needing a receipt for that document as well.”

  He wore a gold Rolex watch and a diamond ring on his left hand. “I hope you won’t mind if I call the county before I begin issuing receipts?” He turned and disappeared through the door. The receptionist was about thirty or so, with a wide expressionless face as open and bland as a cabbage. A nameplate on her desk read June. She pretended to shuffle papers, all the while watching me from the corner of her eye as if someone had left a baboon in the reception area. Tressman was gone for exactly eighteen minutes. When he came back, his color was bad again. He huddled in the corner with June. Right away, their mutual body language caught my eye. Something about sex changes the manner in which adults share space. They stood a little too close together, at times touching at the hip, and on two occasions, as he whispered in her ear, his hand drifted to the shoulder of her brown flowered dress. I’d have bet a finger they were boinking one another.

  I stayed in the baboon section twirling the Blazer’s ring of keys while they worked it out. When he came over to the counter, I set the keys down and ambled over.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” he said calmly, “but this Widows and Orphans tripe is never going to hold up.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “And what I’m doing here is looking for a little equity for a grieving widow and two small children. Which, if you don’t mind me saying, seems to be an issue that’s lacking around here.”

  “This office was perfectly within its legal rights.”

  “Maybe it was. But what about the human issue? What about a woman who just lost her husband? Who’s left with two small children to care for? What about that end of it? I mean, I know it sounds corny, but doesn’t anybody care?”

  “That property should have been returned to the public trust years ago. Homesteads are a relic of another age.”

  “And that makes evicting widows and orphans acceptable to you?”

  He rearranged himself inside his suit coat. “Leadership often requires that one distance oneself from individual concerns for the good of the community as a whole.”

  It was everything I could do not to reach over the counter and pop him in the mouth. Instead I put my elbows on the counter, getting as close to him as I could. I strained to maintain control of my voice. “Well then, Sparky,” I said.

  “How’s about you get me those receipts…for the good of the community as a whole.”

  Now, generally, if you lean in on a guy and start calling him Sparky or Scooter, you’re going to get some kind of physical reaction. He’s at least going to step back and retrieve some space. Not this guy. He just stood there for a moment and then eased himself back through the nifty glass door, with June in hot pursuit.

  Ten minutes later, June reemerged. Her eyes were puffy and lined with pink. Red finger marks nearly encircled her left arm. She slid me the documents and then quickly turned away, taking her seat, swiveling around to face the wall while she wiped her nose with a tissue. I took a moment to satisfy myself about the documents and then I stepped out into the hall.

  If I’d stopped for long enough to scratch an itch, I would have missed her. As I stepped onto the second-floor landing, an elderly couple crossed in front of me and started down the stairs; behind them, a woman walked quickly down the hall in my direction. Her purse hung from one arm, her coat from the other. She had a narrow face and a severe shortage of chin. She wore her brown hair long, in the manner of much younger women. Something about the way she tugged at herdress while she walked reminded me of what Rebecca had said about Nancy Weston trying to stay in single-digit dress sizes.

  “Excuse me,” I said, when she reached the stairs. I made it a statement. “You’re Nancy Weston, aren’t you.”

  Her face said she didn’t know whether to be flustered or flattered.

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “But you’ll have to excuse me, I—”

  I went into my Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter, routine. “Boy, it’s a good thing I caught you,” I said with as much teenage earnestness as I could muster. “I have some Peninsula County legal papers to deliver to you. Just another second and…” I managed not to say, Gee whiz.

  She started down the stairs. “If you have business, Carmen can help you.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” I said. She turned back with an annoyed grammar-school teacher look. “And why would that be?” I skipped down several stairs to get closer to her. I could make out a line that ran down her cheek where her foundation makeup ended and her neck began. She sniffed and pulled at the waist of her dress.

  “Because you’re specifically named as the person to whom they should be delivered. And because we’re well within the official hours of the city clerk.”

  First she tried outrage. “Do you presume to tell me—”

  I cut her off. “And because we wouldn’t want Judge Bigelow to think that an elected official had willfully disregarded a restraining order.”

  Then her feelings were hurt. “How can you say such a thing?” Apparently she could make her lower lip tremble on demand. “I would never—”

  I pulled one of the Authorization to Pay Delinquent Taxes forms from the folder I was carrying and held it under her nose. “I know you wouldn’t,” I said in a soothing voice. I pointed to the bottom of the page. “See…down in the last paragraph.”

  She looked down for long enough to see her own name. Whate
ver Tressman had said when he’d called her wasn’t enough to overcome her unwillingness to cross a superior court judge. We marched in lockstep back up to the clerk’s office. Five minutes later, my checking account was fifteen hundred and fifty-five dollars lighter and I was back at the head of the stairs with an official-looking receipt resting in my sweaty palm.

  Four-twenty and it was nearly dark. I had one of those disassociated moments in the parking lot. My brain had not yet logged that I was driving J.D.’s Blazer. For about a minute and a half, I ran around like Chicken Little, sure my car had been stolen. Then it hit me. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed my panic and then hurried toward the car. Imagine my consternation when I realized I’d left the keys on the magazine table in Tressman’s office. I gave the stairs another workout. In the second-floor hallway, June was feeding quarters into the candy machine as I walked by. She flashed me a wan smile. As if anybody who could cause Tressman that much anxiety deserved a grin, however tentative.

  “I knew you wouldn’t get far,” she said. “They’re on the counter.”

  As I picked up the keys from the table, I heard voices from Tressman’s office. The connecting door was closed. They were yelling back and forth, and unless I was mistaken, I recognized both voices. I pocketed the keys, stepped around the counter, opened the door a foot and peeked. A ten-foot hall, a couple of bathrooms on the left and then Tressman’s open door. Nancy Weston stood in Tressman’s office with her hands on her hips. “I told you, Mark. What was I going to do? I couldn’t just leave. I had the Dickinsons in my office. They wouldn’t go. What was I going to do, just get up and walk out on them? You know how—” She looked over and saw me standing there. She clapped her hands on her sides and gestured toward the door. Tressman’s head poked around the corner. His eyes were wide and his mouth open. I jiggled the keys. “Came back for my keys,” I said. “Thanks a lot for looking out for them.” I turned and left in a hurry. June was still loitering in the hall as I scurried past. My guess was that Tressman had told her to get lost while he and Weston talked. I had a thought and stopped.

  “What’s a good place for lunch around here?” I asked. She didn’t hesitate. “The Country Corner down on the highway,” she said. “The courthouse cafeteria is…” She poked a finger at her throat.

  I thanked her and started down the stairs for the third time.

  I dropped some more paperwork by Sheriff Hand. I didn’t bother about receipts; I’d annoyed enough people for one day. Hand seemed genuinely pleased that Claudia and the kids were safe and generally amused about what I was doing. He shook his head.

  “I’ll bet you’ve even got Mark Tressman’s bloomers in a bunch,” he said with a laugh. “Ain’t that right, Bobby?”

  His deputy laughed and said, “Heck, Sheriff, I’d pay good money to see that.”

  I gestured toward the door with my head. “Can I speak to you outside for a minute, Sheriff?” I turned to the deputy.

  “Just something personal,” I said. He seemed like a nice kid, and I didn’t want to annoy him. He waved me off. “That’s how come he’s the sheriff and I’m not,” he said with a smile. I followed Nathan Hand out the door. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t want it to sound like I’m questioning either your methods or your results…” I hesitated.

  “But,” he said.

  And I told him about how I was sure the car had been fully engulfed in flame before it hit anything and about the two hundred gallons of gas back at the cabin. He was surprised, but not like I figured. “You and the doctor are pretty darn good,” he said with a smile. “I missed that the car was on fire, but heck, when I was out there it was pitch-black and it seemed like everything was on fire. I’ll get out there and have a look for myself first thing tomorrow. But the gas…” He ran a hand over the stubble on his cheek. “Now, the gas always bothered me. Bothered that insurance guy, too. I didn’t say anything to him—heck, insurance companies got most of the money already—and I sure as heck didn’t want to say a thing to the widow…but if you were to ask me how that man died, I’d have to bet he took it over the edge on purpose.”

  I didn’t realize it until that moment, but the voice inside of me that had been pressuring me to imagine J.D.’s last moments had known what it was doing.

  “Sheriff,” I said. “You know, I just had a thought. About ways to die.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well. Let’s assume you’re right and leaving his family with the insurance money was the only way out that J.D. could see.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Now, you and I are in the kind of business where, I think it’s safe to say, we’re probably as brave as the next guy. Maybe we’re not heroes or anything, but I figure the truly timid find something to do in life that doesn’t involve sticking their nose in other people’s business like we do.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “So, I’m asking you…kind of like man to man. You think you’ve got the stones for it? Think you could do what he did?”

  Hand whistled softly. “You mean to…like Mr. Springer?”

  “Yeah,” I said. He rubbed his chin but didn’t speak, so I went on. “’Cause I’ll tell you, Sheriff, last couple of days I’ve searched my soul, and I know damn well I don’t. No way, no how do I have what it takes to pour ten gallons of unleaded all over myself and then flick my Bic. Period. End of story.”

  Hand was still mulling it over when I waved goodbye and began walking to my car. For the first time in twelve hours, my to-do list was empty. Got in, buckled up and gave her the gas.

  I kept driving, past the motel, down to the Steelhead. I took the stool at the end of the bar, keeping as far away from the Davis brothers as possible. Glen fetched the waitress from the kitchen, straightened his apron and walked down to me.

  “You gonna behave?” he asked.

  “Depends,” I said. “Can you put me together a couple of cheeseburgers and an order of fries?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the dozen or so degenerates who were milling around, taking notice of my presence.

  “To go.” A statement.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “In that case”—he held out a hand—“good to see you.” I shook it and watched as he motioned to the waitress, gave her my order and then turned back my way. “Didn’t figure I’d see you again.”

  “I had a few questions and I thought you might be the guy to answer them.”

  “About?”

  “Some of your local luminaries.”

  “Like?”

  “What do you know about Mark Tressman?” I asked. He thought it over. “Just about everything, I guess.”

  “Except who he’s sleeping with this week.”

  “Hell, he’s always been like that. Wanted to screw now and talk later.”

  “Kiss and tell?”

  He laughed. “With Mark, it always seemed to me that the telling was more important to him than the kissing was.”

  “You know his parents?”

  “Just a mama. Fran worked for the mill about the same time as my old man. Ramona’s daddy’s secretary for something like thirty years. Died a couple of years back.”

  Turned out they were all lifers. Tressman, Weston and Polster. Small-town kids who’d gone off to other places and then returned to their rural roots. Polster about ten years ago. The rest of them in the past three or four years.

  “What about Sheriff Hand?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. He’s not from these parts. Hand’s from back in the Midwest someplace. Used to be a corporate security guy of some sort.”

  “Doesn’t seem like the small-town sheriff type,” I said.

  “Probably why most folks can’t stand his ass.”

  “How’s that?”

  Over his shoulder, Mickey Davis strained to make eye contact with me as he carried a pair of empty pitchers up to the bar to be refilled. The vibe pulled Glen’s head around. He pointed a thick finger at Mickey. “You just get you
r beer and go on about your business,” he said. “You start any more trouble in here, you all are gonna need to find a new place to do your drinking.” I resisted the urge to smile and wave.

  “You were saying folks weren’t fond of the sheriff.”

  “Yeah…some because of the way he took over from Buddy Brown, the old sheriff. Some cause he’s a hard-ass. He busts drunk drivers. He enforces the speed limit. He makes sure you’ve got fresh tags and insurance.” He chuckled. “We had guys who hadn’t renewed their registrations in fifteen years until Nathan Hand took over. Hadn’t ever had insurance, most of them.”

  “What about this Sheriff Brown?”

  “Buddy Brown was sheriff around here since maybe the late fifties. He and the town kind of fit each another like an old pair of jeans.”

  “And?”

  “And one day…what, two years back…the City Council just up and fired him. Next thing anybody knew, they’d appointed Nathan Hand. And then Hand decided he didn’t like his chief deputy, Sam Williams—the guy most folks thought would replace Buddy Brown—so Hand pushed Sam into early retirement and hired that crazy Russell kid, whose only law enforcement experience was from the other side of the bars.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Hell yes…” He pointed over at the pool players. “Three years ago, you’d have found Bobby Russell right over there with the rest of those lamebrains. Hell, he was the worst of the lot. At least Dexter and Mickey are stupid.”

  The waitress was headed our way with a bag.

  “Nice seeing you again,” I said to him. I reached into my pocket.