Dead Meat (15 page)

“You don’t have to put a name on it.”

“Phil,” she said thoughtfully after we had been silent for a minute. “He was a nice guy.” She was staring out through the pine trees at the glitter of the lake. Her voice was soft. “So was Ken. Both nice guys.”

“Ken,” I repeated. “Ken Rolando, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“You knew Ken, too?”

She tilted her head and made a tight line of her mouth. After a moment I nodded slowly. I guessed that she got to know him intimately.

“Yeah,” she said. “I knew Ken. He wasn’t here long. But I knew Ken real well. And I’ll tell you this. If he and Phil were brothers, then I’m Joan of Arc.”

“Why? Why do you say that?”

“You met Phil, right? Dark, stocky, moody. Quick moving. Those eyes of his, always darting around. Ken—you never did meet him, did you?—Ken was the opposite. He was tall and fair and kinda awkward. He had this shy kind of easygoing smile that really turned me on. And this funny, almost hillbilly sense of humor. Ken was like a big old St. Bernard dog. Phil, he was a cat. They were nothing alike.”

“Brothers can be different like that. My two sons are opposites.”

She shrugged. “It’s more than that, even. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Did they talk about each other? Or their families?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s part of it. They didn’t. Not at all. I asked them, you know, the usual questions. If they were married. Well, they said no, of course. But Ken, he might’ve been married. Ken, when he was here, he never talked about Phil at all. Never mentioned having a brother. But when Phil came up here, all he talked about was Ken. Not like he cared about him, exactly. Not like they had grown up together, had shared experiences or anything. Just how much he wanted to find him or figure out what had happened to him. There didn’t seem to be what you’d call brotherly love there. At least it didn’t seem that way to me. Oh, he kept saying he had to find out what had happened to Ken. It was Ken this, Ken that. Did somebody say something bad to Ken, he’d ask me. Who did Ken talk to up here? What did he do, where did he go, questions like that, over and over, the same questions asked a little different. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“It was an obsession with Phil. He really had to do this thing. Find his brother. It was all he was interested in.” She smiled quickly and looked away. “Well, I mean…”

“Okay,” I said. “I know what you’re saying. So did Phil have a theory about what might’ve happened to his brother?”

She shrugged. “If he had a theory, he didn’t tell it to me.” Polly cocked her head and stared up into the pine trees. “He was funny, though,” she said. “I mean, not on purpose. He didn’t really seem to have much of a wit. Not like Ken. Ken was real witty. But Phil—he was strange. So serious. He’d say funny things in this serious way, and at first you’d think he had this dry wit, you know, like Lew Pike and some of those guides, and then you’d look at him and realize he was dead serious. He’d make you laugh—he made me laugh, I mean—and then he’d stare at you, not as if he was angry but more puzzled, when you’d laugh. Like, what did I say? Why are you laughing at me? Except he’d never say that. It was just his look. That damn dark scowl of his.” She shook her head back and forth a couple times. “Oh, he was a sexy man.”

Polly didn’t cry this time. She shifted her gaze to look at me. She touched my face with her fingertips. “My mother thinks you’re a sexy man.”

“I think she’s a sexy woman. But that doesn’t mean we have that kind of a relationship.”

“Why don’t you? Maybe you should.”

“Come on, Polly.”

“That’s what you mean by discreet, huh?” She shook her head. “No. You’re right. I’m wrong. I’m the one who’s wrong.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She laughed abruptly. “He called himself Wyatt Earp. Asked me if I wanted to be his deputy. He said we’d ride into town and be a posse of two. We’d round up all the bad guys and find the one who killed Ken and—”

“Did he say that? The one who killed Ken? Did he say ‘killed’?”

Polly frowned at me. “Yes. I mean, I think so. Sure. That’s what he said. Because he said we were going to string him up. The bad guy, that is, not Ken. And instead it was Phil who… Aw, dammit. Here I go again.”

One tear popped out of each eye like eggs being laid. Large and round and perfectly shaped tears. They rolled down her cheeks in perfect synchrony with each other. She brushed them impatiently away with the back of her hand when they reached her jaw. “I don’t want to go in there,” she said, jerking her head at the door to the cabin. “I’m supposed to go in and clean up.”

“This was Rolando’s cabin?”

She rapped her knuckles on the step where she sat. “Yes. This one.”

“Can’t your mother clean it?”

Polly turned down the corners of her mouth. “What am I supposed to say to her? ‘Hey, Mom, dear, I know that this cabin is the one that I’m supposed to do, but, see, I was in here just last night making love with the man who was staying in it, and he’s dead, and except for the person who killed him I’m the last one to see him alive, and right now I’ve got his sperm swimming around inside of me, and it’s a good thing I’m on the Pill, if you only knew, so how about if you cleaned up this cabin, okay? Don’t mind the messy bed. It’s just where Phil and I were rolling around. And those candles on the table, that was so we could see each other in the dark when we were lying there naked. He had a nice body, Mother. You’d have liked it. Dark and strong, and you should have seen how the shadows moved on it in the candlelight. Once I picked up a candle and held it over him as he lay there so I could examine him. He liked that. He was proud of his body, Phil was. So you can see why I don’t want to go in there and clean up.’” Polly arched her eyebrows at me.

“Did the police go in, do you know?”

She shrugged. “I was up at the lodge, just like everybody else. I don’t know.”

“So why don’t you leave it for a day or two? You don’t have another guest coming right in, do you?”

“No. It’s rented for the week. Nobody’ll be coming before Sunday. I guess you’re right. I can do it tomorrow or the next day. I’ll feel better by then.”

I touched her arm. “You may not feel better for a long time.”

“Oh, I’ll be okay. I’m feeling better already. Talking to you. It helps.”

“Good.” I stood up. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s head back to the lodge. Let’s get away from here.”

I held my hands to her, and she took them and let me help her stand up. Then she grinned at me and squeezed my hands before letting them go. “You’re a nice man,” she said.

“In an avuncular sort of way,” I added.

“If that means fatherly.”

“It doesn’t. But close enough.” We started up the path toward the lodge.

“I can trust you, can’t I?” she said after a moment.

“Sure. We’re friends, remember?”

“Because if my parents ever find out…”

“Don’t worry, Polly.”

“Or Gib, either. Gib’s got a wicked temper.”

I stopped and held Polly by her shoulders. “Polly, I will tell no one. Trust me.”

“Even my mother?”

“Especially your mother.”

“Because I know that you and my mother—”

“Your mother and I are friends. That’s all.” I spoke quickly, interrupting her. Too quickly, I thought. Protesting too much, it sounded like, which was silly. I had nothing to protest against.

Polly grinned sideways at me as we resumed walking. “Sure,” she said.

We walked slowly. When we came in sight of the lodge, she stopped. “Why’d he have to scalp him?” she said.

“To make it look like Woody did it,” I said.

“And you don’t think he did.”

“No.”

We started walking again. “Why does someone like Phil have to die?”

“I know you’re not asking me for an answer,” I said.

“Because there isn’t one,” she mumbled. She looked up at me. “He deputized me, you know.”

I shrugged.

“He called me Bat Masterson. Promised I’d always get my man. I thought at first he meant a little joke. You know, how a girl gets her man. But he never joked, like I told you. He meant get the man who killed Ken, get the bad guys.”

She started to sniffle. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and smiled up at me through tear-sparkled eyes. “Some joke, huh? He didn’t get anybody. That old Indian got him first.”

T
HE DAY AFTER HE
had left with Woody as his prisoner, Sheriff Thurl Harris returned. We heard the drone of the plane while we were gathered around the big breakfast table in the lodge, eating beans and eggs and ham and biscuits fresh baked by Bud Turner.

“That’ll be Harris’s plane,” said Gib without looking up.

“How’n hell do you know that?” asked one of the sports from Boston.

Gib paused, his fork, with a hunk of ham impaled on it, poised in front of his mouth, and regarded the Boston guy balefully. Then he leaned toward Polly, who was sitting on his left, and whispered something to her out of the corner of his mouth. Polly glanced at the sport and then quickly returned her attention to her food. She was fighting a losing battle against the smirk that was storming her good manners.

“I say something funny?” said the sport.

“The sound of the engine, man,” said Gib.

The sport shrugged.

Tiny got up from the table and walked out onto the porch. He returned a few minutes later and resumed his seat. “It’s Harris, all right. He’s taxiing in toward our dock. Expect he’ll want to talk to some of us again.”

Most of us had finished eating and were sipping coffee when we heard the clomp of feet on the porch. Then the door opened, and Thurl Harris entered, looking even more gaunt and pale than he had before, if that was possible. Behind him stood two other men. One was the same cop who had flown the plane before. The other wore a pin-striped charcoal-colored suit that looked as if it had been custom tailored for a Neopolitan gigolo. This man carried a lightweight leather attaché case in his hand and, judging by the glare in his eye, a heavyweight chip on his shoulder.

“Ah, sorry to barge in like this,” said Harris to Tiny, speaking carefully, as I had seen him do before, so as not to show his teeth. “Afraid we’re going to have to bother some of the folks here with more questions.” He shrugged, as if it weren’t his idea. He jerked his head at the nattily dressed man behind him. “This here’s Mr. Danforth,” he added. Mr. Danforth acknowledged the introduction by scowling.

“Well, for Christ’s sake, Thurl,” said Tiny, “at least pull up a chair and have some coffee. You boys are up early this mornin’.”

“Ain’t got time for socializin’, afraid,” answered Harris.

Danforth shifted his weight back and forth as if his legs were cramped. Then he spoke into Harris’s ear.

The sheriff nodded. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to use your office again.”

Tiny shrugged. “He’p yourself.”

Danforth whispered to Harris again. “We wouldn’t mind if you brang us some coffee,” the sheriff said, forgetting himself momentarily and showing his blackened teeth.

Marge, who was sitting beside me, muttered, “The urn’s right beside you.” But Harris and Danforth had already disappeared into Tiny’s office. The policeman remained standing awkwardly outside the door, as if he were on sentry duty.

Marge pushed herself away from the table and went over to the policeman. “Like some coffee?” she said to him.

“Sure would, ma’am.”

“Well,” she said, “if you’re not afraid those two men in there are going to escape, why don’t you help yourself.”

The cop looked first confused, then grateful, and went over to the coffee urn.

A moment later Harris opened the door and pushed his head out of Tiny’s office. “Mr. Coyne, would you mind coming in?”

“Sure,” I said.

When I got into the office, I saw that Danforth had taken the seat behind the desk. His attaché case lay atop it, unopened, suggesting to me that he carried it as part of his wardrobe—for decoration rather than for function. He rose as I entered and extended his hand to me. His smile was well practiced. “Asa Danforth,” he said. He had a baritone voice that would sound great on television.

“Brady Coyne,” I replied.

“Mr. Danforth is the district attorney,” said Harris, much as if he were introducing me to a monarch or a movie star.

“Assistant
D.A.,” said Danforth with just the right note of humility and good humor. “For now,” he added, twitching his eyebrows at me. “Do have a seat, Mr. Coyne.”

I sat as instructed. Danforth shook a pack of Kools at me. “Smoke?”

I shook my head. “I’m not trying to quit.”

He frowned. “Come again?”

“If I were trying to quit, I’d smoke those things. I’ve got my own here.” I did not light a Winston at that time, as I normally would have done, no cue being too insignificant to call for a cigarette under ordinary circumstances. But for some reason I didn’t want this assistant district attorney to think he could make me smoke if he wanted to. It would suggest he had put me ill at ease, that I was acknowledging I was about to be the object of his clever and probing interrogation.

Hell, I was just being childish.

“Thurl says you were a big help to him the other day,” Danforth said, making a show of lighting his cigarette with a silver-plated butane lighter.

I nodded. He expected me to say something self-effacing. I decided not to.

He cleared his throat and glanced at Thurl Harris. “May I be frank with you, Mr. Coyne?”

“Up to you.”

“Yes. Well, all right, then. Thurl, here, tells me that you have expressed some reservations about the viability of our case against Woody Pauley.”

Danforth cleared his throat several times. He tapped his cigarette against the edge of the ashtray on Tiny’s desk. I watched him without speaking. “Well, Mr. Coyne? How do you answer that?”

“It wasn’t a question, Mr. Danforth.”

“You don’t think the Indian did it, he means,” said Harris.

I turned to the sheriff. “I did understand what he said. Viability, reservations—tough words, but I got ’em. I’m just waiting for him to ask me a question. He said he wanted to be frank. Then, I suppose he was. At least he was trying to give that impression. I’m not sure why it was important that I witness his act of frankness, but I did. Now what?”