And Leave Her Lay Dying (15 page)

Leaving the aircraft at San Antonio airport, McGuire walked through endless shades of brown: chocolate-brown tiles on the floor, sand-brown stucco on the walls, coffee-brown complexions on the people he passed. Through the windows, the outside world shone dusty brown in the sun.

He collected his bag at the luggage carousel and quickly located a young police officer dressed in a starched sepia-brown uniform grinning in his direction and waving a red file folder like a semaphore.

“My name's McGuire,” he said, approaching the officer and showing his badge. “Boston Police Department, Homicide Division. You looking for me?”

“Sure am!” the younger man chortled. “Knew it was you. Said to myself, now there's a police officer, soon's you come through the door.”

The constable was pink-cheeked, crew-cut and so unfailingly cheerful that McGuire knew he wouldn't be able to tolerate the man's company for more than an hour.

Constable First Class Melvin Pernfus,” the officer said, seizing McGuire's hand and shaking it like an instrument in a rhythm band. “It's my pleasure to welcome you to Texas and to the great city of San Antonio!”

He led the way through the terminal and out into the heat of the day, where McGuire shrugged out of his tweed jacket and loosened his tie.

“Days like this, my daddy used to say the air was too thick for a dog to bark,” Pernfus grinned as he wheeled the car out of the airport. “This your first visit to San Antonio?”

“First time in Texas,” McGuire replied. A rivulet of sweat beneath his shirt was beginning to wend its way down his back.

Pernfus slapped his thigh, accelerating into the freeway traffic skirting the airport. “Hell, I can't imagine living anywhere else but Texas,” he said. “My daddy, he said there's everything you need to see here. No matter where you go, people still chew their grits the same and instead of travelling for long days on a slow train, he'd rather stay in Texas and watch his dog grow old—”

“You know this man, Ernest Snyder?” McGuire interrupted. He was damp with perspiration.

“All's I know is what's in there,” Pernfus said, removing the red file folder from the dashboard and handing it to McGuire. “Read a bit of it while waiting for you. Hope you don't mind. Mr. Snyder, he sounds like he's got two kinds of diseases. They're called too many women and too much alcohol. We get epidemics of both in Texas.”

McGuire opened the folder and studied the photocopies of official police reports.

Ernest Snyder had been born fifty-five years earlier in Brady, Texas. One of six children, he had drifted in and out of trouble as a juvenile, finally leaving school in grade eight. He spent two years in the US Army and received a conditional discharge after serving time for two AWOL charges. While in the service a son, Andrew, had been born to Snyder and his wife, a fifteen-year-old runaway from Abilene who divorced him five years later and settled with the boy in California.

McGuire flipped the page to Snyder's arrest record.

He counted four convictions for D.W.I., including one laid as a result of the accident in which his second wife was killed, plus three charges of assault on women, five convictions for being drunk in a public place and two of common assault. In the most recent assault case, which occurred four years earlier, the attack was so vicious that his victim had been in a coma for two weeks. For this conviction, Snyder had been sentenced to two years in a state penitentiary. McGuire's pulse quickened as his eyes skipped ahead to read:

Subject was released on parole with conditions:

a) He is to refrain from alcohol for the duration of his sentence;

b) He is to enroll in an alcohol-abuse control group, preferably church-oriented;

c) He is to reside with his son, Andrew Ernest Snyder, who accepts responsibility for the care of his father. Subject is not to change his place of residence without prior approval of Texas Department of Corrections and notification to the San Antonio Police Department.

McGuire looked up from the file to see Pernfus swinging off the freeway at an exit. “Where's this old boy live?” Pernfus grinned at McGuire from under a haircut so close­cropped even a Marine boot camp sergeant would approve. “Westfield Road, is it?”

McGuire read the address aloud. He hitched up his flannel pants, scratchy in the heat, and pulled his tie further away from his collar.

“Got yourself all dressed up for winter there,” Pernfus laughed. “If you're down here for longer than a day, better invest in some good old Texas chinos and a T-shirt. I tell you, you get yourself a cold Lone Star to sip and a cool place to relax along River Walk tonight, watch some of those nice ladies promenade along there, you might never go back north again. Lot of folks have done that. Wheel you by the Alamo later if you like.”

The road from the freeway passed through a prosperous business district that quickly declined to a seedy commercial area. Soon they were passing blocks of empty stores and gasoline stations separated by small ranch homes, weedy lawns and abandoned cars.

“Not the best part of town,” McGuire observed.

“Not the worst, either,” Pernfus added, turning onto a narrow residential street.

They entered an area of cheap tract housing, each home identical in size and layout to its neighbour, differing only in the colour of its trim and the degree of pride its owners took in its appearance.

“Everybody in Texas drive a pickup truck?” McGuire asked after two blocks.

“Just about,” Pernfus offered. “Most folks around here have a pickup in the driveway, a hound dog in the yard and a shotgun in the kitchen.” He stopped the car, squinted through the windshield, then accelerated again and wheeled into a dirt driveway. “This would seem to be Mr. Snyder's place of residence,” he said with mock formality.

The house facing them was so neglected it appeared abandoned. Flakes of paint hung from the window shutters like dead leaves. Sheets of cardboard had been tacked over broken windows, a heavy blanket of moss grew along the edges of the roof, and the lawn was more brown than green, more weeds than grass.

At the end of the driveway a gap in the weathered picket fence indicated where a gate had once hung. Beyond the fence a hammock was strung between a dead tree trunk and a second tree, which clung to life and provided the only shade in the yard.

The hammock swayed gently. A country music song, thin and tuneless, floated in the still air.

“Looks like our boy is smart enough to take it easy on a hot day,” Pernfus said, stepping out of the car. In spite of his non-stop grin, Pernfus dropped his hand to his holster. McGuire followed the officer through the gap in the fence and into the yard.

The man was sprawled on his side in the hammock, his back to the road and his eyes closed; one hand was behind his head, the other dangled and almost touched the ground. Three empty Lone Star bottles lay beneath him, along with a near-empty pack of cigarettes and a cheap transistor radio.

He appeared older than fifty-five, his face lined and leathery, hair thin and white like the stubble on his chin. He wore an oversized cotton shirt, greasy trousers cinched with a plastic belt, and heavy socks.

Pernfus settled on his haunches beside the hammock. Getting wind of the man's foul breath, he winced and grinned back at McGuire.

“Hey, old timer,” the constable said, touching Snyder lightly on the shoulder. “Got a man here to see you. You Mr. Snyder?”

The older man's eyes sprung open like traps; they flashed from the kneeling Pernfus to the standing McGuire and back again. He mumbled something.

“What's that?” grinned Pernfus. “Didn't quite catch your drift.”

“I said haul your asses off my property!” Snyder spat at the men, looking at each in turn. “Go on! Git!”

Pernfus stood up and took a step backwards as the man swung his feet to the ground and rested his elbows on his knees. Snyder scratched himself with a curious concentration before looking up at the two men. “You still here?” he demanded. “Told you to git. Now git!”

His eyes remained in constant motion. Watery, red­rimmed and a surprisingly deep blue, they darted between the two standing men, the beer bottles on the ground, the cloudless sky, the police cruiser in the driveway, and back to the men again.

“You Ernest Snyder?” McGuire asked calmly.

Snyder's eyes rested on McGuire for a moment before resuming their motion. His mouth twitched and he rubbed his chin.

“This man's come all the way down from Boston just to talk to you,” Pernfus said in his cheerful manner. “Probably just take a minute or two, then we'll let you get back to that siesta you were having. Looked like a pretty good one, too.”

Snyder's eyes became less animated. “Got nothing to say to you sons of bitches,” he muttered, holding each of the beer bottles up to the light in turn. He tilted the third to his mouth and swallowed its dregs.

“Relax,” McGuire said, his back to the sun. “It's not you we want to talk to. It's your son.”

“Who?” Snyder barked, shielding his eyes against the bright sky to look up at McGuire.

“Andrew Ernest Snyder,” McGuire replied patiently. “Your son.”

Pernfus, hands on his hips, looked from Snyder to McGuire and back again. He seemed quietly amused.

Snyder parted his lips, exposing a mouth full of yellow and broken teeth. “Son?” he said. He hiccupped with laughter. “My son? You see a son around here? Do you? Huh? I ain't got a son. What the hell you talking about, my son?”

McGuire waved the file folder. “Cut the bullshit, Snyder. We know you have a son. This is his house and you were sent here to live with him as part of your parole agreement.”

“Bastard's dead.” Snyder lay back in the hammock and closed his eyes.

“When?” McGuire demanded. He knelt on his haunches and winced at the cracking sounds from his knees. “Where? How did he die? Give us some facts.”

The older man ignored him.

“Sure would be nice to give the man here some information,” Pernfus suggested. “Otherwise, might have to ask you to come downtown with us. No hammock or Lone Star down there, Mr. Snyder. 'Course, you already know that.” Pernfus stared off in the distance as he spoke. “Now, if I was you, I'd rather be having my siesta out here than down there. That's only my opinion, you understand.”

Snyder remained silent for a moment before shifting his body sideways and raising a hand to cover his eyes. “I don't know where he's at.”

“Well, which is it?” McGuire asked. “Is he dead? Or has he gone off somewhere?”

“Took off two years ago. Haven't seen him since.”

“Where was he going?” McGuire demanded.

“West.”

“That's all you know? West?”

“That's all I fucking know. Now both of you get the hell away from me.” He rolled further onto his side, his back to McGuire.

“Well, we appreciate your time, Mr. Snyder,” Pernfus said. “We'll let you get back to your business now.”

McGuire seized Pernfus by the shoulder as the constable walked past him towards the cruiser. “That's it?” McGuire snapped. “I come all the way down here for some drunk to tell me he doesn't know where his own son is?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Pernfus shrugged. “If we take him downtown, he might say even less. Probably get a legal aid lawyer.” Pernfus glanced at McGuire's hand on his shoulder as though it were an insect he was about to brush away. His cheeriness had disappeared; in its place was a sense of quiet scorn. “Didn't bring a warrant with you, did you? One that's good in the state of Texas?”

McGuire saw the shrewdness and hint of contempt behind the expression in the other man's eyes. “No,” he said, dropping his hand. “No warrant. Just questioning.”

Pernfus opened the car door. “Guess I could have done this myself. Saved you a trip.” McGuire entered the car and fell back angrily in the passenger seat.

Pernfus started the engine and twisted his body to back out of the driveway. “Long as you're here, I could give you a tour of old San Anton'. Get you into the Alamo free. Watch while you sip a Lone Star or two.” But the offer was empty and McGuire knew it. Pernfus slipped the car into drive and pulled away. “Lordy, I'd give a good huntin' dog to join you on a day like today, sitting in the shade just watching the ladies. Not in uniform, though. I mean, even in Texas, there comes a time you just have to pass up a cold beer.”

McGuire stared at the man in the hammock who lay with his hands across his eyes. He could see those steel-blue eyes, wide open behind the splayed fingers, watching the police car pull away.

“How's that sound?”

“How's what sound?” McGuire asked as Snyder disappeared from view.

“Having a cold one at the Alamo?”

McGuire shook his head. “No sense wasting any more of your time or mine,” he said. “Take me back to the airport. I'll catch a flight north.”

Pernfus shrugged.

On the way, Pernfus told tales of his father's hunting dogs, his mother's garden, his sister's children and his wife's talent as a Tennessee clog dancer. “Won ‘Best of County' three years running,” he boasted as they arrived at the terminal building. “You get up in the Great Smokies, where Peggy's from, they're all clog dancing in their diapers practically. Well, here we are, Lieutenant.”

McGuire grabbed his bag from the back seat and turned to shake the constable's hand.

“Bet you're not looking forward to going back, facing all that snow and cold in Boston,” Pernfus said.

“You're right,” McGuire replied. “I'm not looking forward to it at all.”

He closed the door, nodded to Pernfus as the cruiser pulled away from the curb, and entered the terminal. Then he stopped, looked casually around and turned to the nearest car rental booth.

He was thinking about the weakness of the spoken word.