Death of an Artist (29 page)

“I'll get some water,” she said.

She brought the water and held out both tablets. “It isn't too much for now,” she said when he shook his head slightly.

He took the codeine and she helped him get his jacket off. He fumbled with his holster, and she helped remove that, then took off her own jacket.

“I could use a drink,” he said in a faint voice.

“Later. I'll put on coffee.” Half an hour, she thought, it would take half an hour for any relief. While the coffee was dripping, she hurried to the linen closet and brought out two pillows. Back at the couch, she told him to lie down and eased his legs up, took off his shoes. She slipped one pillow under his knees, raised his head, and placed the other one under his head and shoulders.

The pillow under his knees helped, Tony thought. Being off his feet, stretched out, helped. He drew in another deep breath. “Van, thanks.” His voice was weak. “Not enough. Nothing would be enough. But thanks. I wasn't going to make it.”

She nodded. “Don't try to talk now. Rest.” She knew he would have fallen, crawled, dragged himself, then exhaustion, pain, would have made even that impossible. She knew.

“He's dead,” Tony said in that low, faint voice. “It's over.”

“Shh. You'll feel better in a few minutes. It can wait.”

“I didn't shoot him. But he's dead.” Tony closed his eyes.

Van poured coffee for them both and sat on the floor by him sipping hers, waiting for him to want his.

An hour later, propped up with two pillows behind him, sipping coffee, he told her about it, leaving out nothing. “How did you know? Why did you come?”

“You froze me out, Tony. You said you wouldn't do it again, but you did. You sounded strange when I talked to you, you sounded resigned. I got suspicious and came home. To cover your back? Be backup? Something like that.”

“You have a handgun in that pocket, don't you?” he said, motioning toward her jacket, which she had tossed over a chair. “What in God's name were you thinking?”

She had been thinking that this might be her chance to shoot Dale Oliver, to kill him. She said, “To cover your back if you needed help. Why didn't you tell me what you were up to?”

“I went down that trail to kill him. Shoot him dead. I didn't want you to see me kill anyone.”

“But you didn't shoot.”

“No.”

Would she have shot him? She shook her head. She would never know. She hadn't been put to the test. Tony had.

She put her cup on the coffee table and looked directly at him. “That was a second thought, to help you. I was going to shoot him on sight, Tony. I saw that autopsy, and I know what it means. I was going to kill the man who did that to my mother. That's been my plan for a long time, to shoot him on sight.”

Tony groaned. “Put the damn gun away. I want a drink now.”

She shook her head. “No alcohol, not with that codeine in your system. Do you have any more of it in your apartment?” He would need it, she knew. In three or four hours, he would be hurting badly. It was going to be a long night for both of them.

“My suitcase.” He winced as he reached into his pocket to bring out his keys.

“I'll put the gun away and then get that codeine,” she said. “I won't be long. Lie down now, try to relax until I get back.”

They had not turned on a light, and it was getting dark as he lay on the couch and watched starbursts in the sky and even lapsed into a drug-induced stupor, only to wake with a jerk, not knowing where he was or why the sky was lighting up like that.

*   *   *

W
HEN
V
AN
HEARD
Marnie's car in the driveway, she went to the door to meet her. They held a whispered conversation there, and afterward Marnie went to the couch. Tony opened his eyes at her approach. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Bless you, Tony. Bless you. We want you to move to my bed, where you will be more comfortable. I can use Josh's bed for the night.”

He shook his head. “This is good. Fine. Better than moving, anyway.”

The night passed. Tony dozed a little off and on or slipped into the stuporous state that wasn't really sleep, and Van gave him another codeine at intervals. They didn't talk.

 

22

T
ONY
WOKE
WITH
a start, again forgetting where he was, why he was wherever he was. He had heard a siren. He was sure he had heard a siren. Slowly his head cleared. He really was awake, not in a drugged, crazy dream, he decided. In an easy chair near the couch, Van was sleeping. Her hair had come out from the ribbon and looked like a black river flowing over her shoulder. He wanted to touch it, to sink his hands in that black river. He watched her sleep, then slowly eased himself up and cautiously moved his legs off the couch. He stifled a groan. Van stirred but did not wake up. Moving with deliberate one-by-one decisions, he finally stood, keeping his weight off the bad hip, holding on to the arm of the couch.

Van came awake in time to see him holding on to a chair at the dining table. She started to go to him, to help, then made no further movement. He was making it. When he went into the small lavatory off the kitchen, she stood with every muscle in her body protesting. Her legs and back ached. Coffee, she thought. And another codeine for him. She went to the kitchen and put on coffee. It was fifteen minutes after eight. The last time she had looked it had been seven o'clock. She was grateful that they both had slept a little, after all.

He came out and again she watched as he made his way back to the couch alone, limping badly, holding any support within reach, but doing it.

“Do you need another codeine?”

“No. No more. I have mush between my ears.”

“We'll try something else. Be right back.” She forced herself to move more briskly than she wanted and went up the stairs to the bathroom on the second floor. The medicine cabinet held ibuprofen and Tylenol. She swallowed a Tylenol and slipped both containers into her pocket. She dashed cold water into her face, ran a brush through her hair and tied it back, and went down again.

“One Tylenol, two ibuprofen,” she said, shaking out the tablets. “Not as powerful as an opiate, but it will take the edge off and won't mess up your head.”

“I have to call Will,” he said, after swallowing the tablets.

“After coffee.” She went to pour the coffee. He accepted it with both hands, and she sat opposite him again. They were quiet as they sipped the coffee. She waited until his was almost gone, then asked, “What are you going to tell Will?”

He put his cup down and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't thought that far ahead and felt incapable of thinking ahead at all.

“Tony, I stayed home, skipped the fireworks to keep you company, to let you rest a little. To take turns watching and resting. He never showed. He didn't come here.”

“And I came home and just went to bed,” Marnie said indignantly, entering the room as Van spoke. “Neither of you even hinted that you were watching for him.” It was not true. She had sat with Van for hours, keeping watch on Tony's drugged sleep.

“Tony?” Van said. “Isn't that right? We waited and he never showed up.”

He rubbed his eyes again and knew that was the way. She was doing his thinking for him. He nodded.

Van took his cup to refill, and slowly he began to feel as if he was coming out of a strange state of mind, not asleep, yet not awake. “I'll call him now,” he said.

“Give it a few more minutes,” Van said, handing him the cup.

“I'm going to start breakfast,” Marnie said in the kitchen.

There were more sirens in the distance, and no one moved until the sound cut off abruptly. It had stopped in the village below.

“Sausage and scrambled eggs,” Marnie said, “coming up. Unless you both are starving and don't want to wait, I'll make some biscuits.”

Van said biscuits would be great, although she doubted that much of anything would be eaten that morning.

As long as he sat still, it wasn't too bad, Tony decided, and the coffee was helping clear the fuzz in his head. Tell Will no one had come, wait to see what was going on below. Simple enough even for a mush brain.

When he finally made the call, Will was so excited his voice was high-pitched and tremulous. “You still up at the house, partner? Stay there. Stay put and wait for me. All hell's broken out down here! I'll be up as soon as I can get away. You hear me, just wait.”

“They found the body,” Tony said after he disconnected.

*   *   *

W
HEN
THEY
SAT
down for breakfast, Tony chose the chair facing away from the bright windows. He had seen his face in the mirror over the sink in the lavatory and didn't want Will to see the ravaged look and the pallor.

The biscuits were steaming, sausage still sizzling, and Marnie served him and Van as if she fully expected them both to have appetites. They were still at the table, as was most of the breakfast food, when they heard a car in the driveway. Van got up to admit Will Comley.

“Tony, partner,” he exclaimed, rushing past her, entering the dining area, “you were right on the mark! Right on the money! I know he didn't show up here. Forget that. Let me tell you!”

He pulled out a chair and sat opposite Tony, where Marnie had already set a place for him. She poured his coffee and he picked up a sausage link and took a bite, then said, “See, this morning early a bunch of kids decided to take a hike up to the waterfall. And they found a body in the creek. They hightailed it back down, called 911, and I got the call on the car radio just as the sheriff and the rescue team were coming in. I got Morgan to spell me and followed the sheriff. That body was him, Tony! It was Oliver! They hauled him out, had to cut his boot laces to do it. Leather swollen, like that. His boot was wedged in so tight they took a crowbar to move a rock and get it out of there. They found his ID and said it was what's his name, Olson, and I set them straight. It was Oliver, all right.” Will was chewing the sausage, talking fast, all at once. His eyes were bright with excitement and his hands shook as he raced on.

“What we didn't think of, you and me, partner, was that he would come up here on foot, on that trail. City dude with his fancy clothes, I never gave it a thought that he might hike in. And no reason for you to even know about that trail. He had a sack, Tony. With a nine-millimeter semiautomatic in it!” His voice became hushed with the words, and he cast a significant look at Tony. To Marnie he added, “It's not what you use to pot crows. Gun like that's meant to kill people. That's what it's for, and that's what they figure he meant to do.”

Marnie stood and went to the sink to put on another pot of coffee, and Will stopped talking for a moment, then said awkwardly, “God damn, Marnie, this is tough on you. But that's what he intended and you've got to know about it. You'll be hearing about it and might as well hear it straight up front. We figure he meant to break and enter up here, wait for you, Van, and the boy, and take you all out. He had latex gloves, probably meant to pick up a few things, some jewelry, silverware, whatever, and make it look like you walked in on a burglary.”

“But he ended up in the creek?” Van said. “Have they figured that out? Why, how?”

“We think he waited too long to start up. It could of been getting dark already. He had a flashlight, but it was still in the sack. You know how ground fog forms sometimes, mist from the water? What did he know about things like that? Hurrying up, make a mistake, found himself in the water all at once, and he was stuck. He must have tossed his sack back to the trail, you know, to keep the gun dry, and then tried to get loose, and he slipped. Hit his head so hard it's really bashed in.”

Marnie, still at the sink with her back turned, bowed her own head. Again Will seemed aware that his words were having an effect. “Marnie, I think your guardian angel was watching out for you. Or fate or karma. Maybe God Almighty stepped in and said, ‘Enough.'” Will helped himself to more coffee and took another sausage. “Tony, that was damn fine detective work you put in. How'd you finger him for Stef's killing?”

In a distant voice Tony told him what he had told Van earlier. Will nodded several times as Tony repeated his reasons.

“And while everyone else was jumping off the deep end, you applied some brainpower and came up with the real goods. Mighty fine detective work. Gotta hand it to you, partner. Mighty fine work.”

“Will,” Van said then, “last night was really bad for Tony's hip. You know he has a problem with it, don't you? It's been very hard on him, sitting up all night like that. Do you think he can be spared questioning by the sheriff or anyone else, let him have a day to rest?”

For the first time Will really looked at Tony. “Damn, partner, you look beat. Me, too, but I'll get in a nap a little later on. Yeah, I can hold them off a day or two. I can tell them what they need, and they already are talking about searching his Portland apartment. We think there's a sister somewhere they'll want to get in touch with, just to confirm the identification by family.”

“I have her name and telephone number,” Van said with a swift glance at Tony. “I'll get it for you.”

“Good,” Will said. “Seems enough on their plates for now. I'll tell them you need to rest today, partner. Retired on disability, bum hip. You need to get some rest, some shut-eye. You go on home and climb into bed. That's the thing, a little sleep.”

There was nothing Tony wanted more than a long, soaking bath and a bed.

“I'll go on to my apartment now,” Tony said as soon as Will bounced out again.

“I'll bring your car down,” Van said. He handed her the keys. Minutes later she was back. “Come on, I'll drive you.”

Tony started to protest, but held it. He didn't want to drive.