Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery (29 page)

W
hen Jellyroll saw me come in the back door, he pronked straight up in the air. His tail helicoptered, and, tongue trailing, he surged to the end of his short rope. He went up on his hind legs and waved his forepaws.

“You stop right there!” Dick Desmond shouted at me. He held a machete or some other kind of long, flat-bladed knife cocked above Jellyroll’s skull. The blade was rusty.

I froze two steps inside the door. “Good dog,” I said with a reassuring smile. Actually, the sight of him there moved me, a lump rose in my throat, but I pinched it back to concentrate on saving his life. I had to look away—

Desmond’s eyes were wild. His khaki pants and polo shirt were caked with mud. He had slid the wicker couch against the rear wall so we couldn’t sneak up behind him. He crouched on it with his knees drawn up under him in a prissy way. He was barefoot, having abandoned his Topsiders, like two lumps of earth, under the couch. He gave Jellyroll’s rope a yank, and I caught myself on the verge of diving for his throat. My broken finger would prevent me from strangling him effectively, and he still might get Jellyroll.

I crouched down on the floor because Jellyroll always likes it when we’re at his level and because I wanted Desmond to see how nonthreatening I could be. Who was this guy? What was going on inside his brain, and how did I address it? “I love that dog, Mr. Desmond,” I began, feigning calm. “I don’t want you to hurt him. I’ll do whatever you want so he doesn’t get hurt. Okay?”

“Everything’s different now. Everything.” There was finality in his voice. He pushed it theatrically. You could picture him running his lines in front of the mirror, liking what he saw.

“What do you mean different?”

“My son is dead. Well, he wasn’t really my son, but he was
like
my son—I still had to kill him.”

I nodded, jaw agape. I had no idea what to say, and I didn’t dare look at Jellyroll, the sadness of his pose, head between his paws at the end of the rope.

“I had to!”

“Sure you did. It’s a complicated relationship,” I babbled.

“I didn’t want it to be like this. Killings. I didn’t want all these killings. Killings weren’t my plan.”

“What was your plan?”

“I was desperate. I had a series once, now I have shit. I had esteem once. Esteem, I’m telling you, esteem! Now I have none. The word for that is has-been!”

“Okay, take it easy—”

“You don’t know what it’s like! You live off your dog! I’d go up for parts, parts I was perfect for. Perfect! Nothing, not a smell. Not even a callback. ‘Here comes that old fossil from
Ten Pins
,’ which everybody thinks was just a rip-off of
The Waltons
in a bowling alley! I can see it in their eyes when I walk in! And some of these kids today, hell, they never even heard of
The Waltons!
My health insurance expired two years ago, and now I’m losing my hearing. I’m going deaf! Do you know what it’s like to go deaf?” he shouted. Then he began to cry. He lowered the knife to rest on his thigh.

I considered rushing him.

But he cocked it again. “I needed something, a shot in the career arm, something a little quirky, a little offb eat to get their attention. But I never meant for anybody to get hurt. And I never meant to hurt the dog. I was going to make a big show out of letting him go. Then say on TV how I was having this drinking
problem, break down a little, be real. It’d make every news and entertainment spot from coast to coast. Five weeks at the Betty Ford Center and I’d be working again. But he started killing! Always the killing!”

“Who did he kill?”

“Besides, he tried to make an independent deal with the studios. You can’t do that! Hell, it was my concept!…Who did he kill? Those people in town, he killed them. Your friend Sid Detweiler, he killed him. For no reason. For kicks! That’s not the kind of attention I seek, Mr. Deemer.”

“Call me Artie. I know how you feel. It’s a tough business. I’ve seen it, from the outside, of course, but I can empathize. Look, this dog right here can help you get work. You know Clayton Kempshall?”

“The actor?”

“Yes, he was just in a Jellyroll movie, juicy role, an evil high school principal. I couldn’t guarantee anything, but I could set up a serious audition for his next feature.”

“Oh, was that the movie young Kevin James directed down on the piers?”

“Yes.”

“He rejected me. Young James rejected me, too.” Desmond wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve like a little boy.

Poor Kevin. But I wanted to stay away from that, I didn’t want to inject the reality of a murder rap. “What do you want right now?” I asked. “So we can end this.”

“I can still kill this dog,” he assured me.

“I know it. That’s why I’m asking.” I could feel Jellyroll’s eyes on mine.

“But if I did, then I’d no longer have any protection, would I? You’d probably kill me then, you and your friends.”

“Look,” I said, “it sounds like we can work this out without any more killing. Let’s not get sidetracked with killing. You said yourself there was too much of that.”

“That lobsterman type, he’d kill me.”

“No, he won’t—”

“How do you know what the fuck he’ll do? He’s obviously insane!”

“He promised me he wouldn’t.”

“Promised. Right.”

“Look, I can guarantee nobody will hurt you. Nobody has a reason to hurt you. He’s my dog, and
III
don’t want to hurt you.”

“People are funny about dogs…When I was on
Ten Pins
, people used to send me bowling sheets as a kind of fan mail. So I used them, give it some identity, some character to the whole thing, for the media. They love that kind of thing. But what happens? It turns into a bloodbath because of my no-good stinking son. He was always that way. Incorrigible. He was incorrigible from birth. The wife and I always—Did that fisherman find my son’s camcorder?”

“Oh yeah, do you want it?”

“What do you think?”

“I’ll bet you do. And I’ll get it for you, but why don’t you release my dog first? You let Jellyroll go, and I’ll give you a boat. I saw your boat—it’s a total wreck. You get in my boat and go as far and as fast as you can. There’s nothing to connect you to any of the killings. Somebody’ll eventually find the body out in the woods, but nobody will know about you.”

“Jellyroll? That’s his real name?”

“Yes.”

“That’s cute. You mean that boat right out there?”

“Sure, take it.”

“Let me be sure I have it. I take the boat and vanish. Somebody finds the boy’s body—No, it won’t work. The cop has seen us together, thanks to that crazy fisherman. As soon as they find the body—”

“Well, suppose they never find the body? It’s a big ocean.”

“You’d get rid of it?”

“I would.”

“I’d have to take the dog as insurance that you wouldn’t try—”

“Nope.”

“Nope? What do you mean, nope? You do what I tell you to do. You can’t reject me!”

“You can’t take Jellyroll.”

“What can you do about it?”

“Look,” I reasoned, “you said yourself that everything’s different because of your son’s murderous tendencies. If you try to go on with your plan, they’ll connect you with the murders. I’m offering you a way out completely. Look, the guy who did the killings is himself dead. But taking Jellyroll from this room is going to fuck up the balance.”

“Yes, but how will you stop me?”

“Why, I’d murder you. Eventually.” Maybe on some level this is what he wanted to hear, so I laid it on. “But I wouldn’t do it quickly. My friends and I would sit down and think up the most hideous possible ways to torture you—”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I get the video camera—and the tape. You get Jellyroll.”

“Sure. I have some personal effects I want out of the boat. When I come back, I’ll give you the camera, then you give me Jellyroll, and I give you the boat. Is it a deal?”

“What about the others?”

“What about them?”

“They’ve got to go up in the woods. I don’t want them around to attack me.”

“They won’t bother you. They want this to be over, just like me. Okay?”

“…Okay.”

“It’s okay,” I told Jellyroll. “I’ll be back in two minutes,” I said to Desmond and dashed out the door.

Trying to hear, Hawley, Clayton, and Crystal had gathered in a semicircle around the stoop. I skidded to a stop before running over them.

“He’s coming out. He’s going to give up Jellyroll, and then he’s leaving in the boat. I told him I’d give him the camcorder and that you’d move back away from the house.” I wanted to stop and hug Crystal and have her tell me that I was doing the right thing, but I barely paused before sprinting down to the boat. The wind was dying. My pants were stiff with dried mud. It fell from me in clods as I ran.

The ebbing tide had left the boat up on the flat rock. Cradling my wrecked hand to my chest, I planted my feet, leaned against the side of the boat, and shouldered it off the rock…I looked out across the water as I strained. Poor Sid was down there somewhere. Maybe the tide had already swept him into the deep water beyond, maybe he’d never come up. The hagfish would have him. Even as a pro, he didn’t recognize the level of psycho he was dealing with when he went aboard their boat. I went aboard mine…

When I returned to the house, my friends were standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the little screen on the back of the camera. Their faces were ashen.

Clay handed it to me and shook his head. “Desmond did it. He killed them all, and his son took the pictures. Jesus, you should see what they did to Kevin James.”

“Desmond did it all?” I whispered.

“It’s all in here,” said Crystal, tapping the video recorder, her eyes wide.

Then I went back into the house. I remembered Desmond’s face, his young face, not his present lined and lifted face. He was handsome then, and he had a quality about him, he had a presence. The good qualities of masculinity. I remembered thinking of that when I saw the program on a black-and-white TV mounted on the wall in the officers’ family rec room on an air force base
in the California desert, a cinder-block and linoleum room full of orange molded chairs. And remembering, a fog of depression rolled over me, but I snubbed it off. I couldn’t give in to it now. Later. I put the camcorder on the floor beside my dog. “I’ve held up my end of the deal,” I said. “Now let him go.”

“Believe me, that fisherman is a killer. You better not turn your back on that man,” said Desmond.

“He won’t hurt you,” I said.

And then he released Jellyroll, who sprinted into my arms. He yapped and jumped at my legs as I beat it out the back door. He tangled in my legs and tripped me halfway to the woodpile, and there in the mud we cuddled. I hugged his body to me, while he twisted around to lick my face. His whole being beamed with delight. “Let’s go see Crystal,” I said, but here she was. He jumped to kiss her until she dropped to her knees, and then they cuddled in a mass. I love dog delight. Then he spotted his old pal Clayton and went to him for further cuddling.

Desmond, having gone out on the porch and down the stairs, peeked from around the house at a scene of joy. Wordlessly, he turned away and hurried down the sloping rock to the boat. We could see the boat from the woodpile through sparse but thick red pine tree trunks. We couldn’t see Desmond until he emerged from behind the house. Desmond sat on the gunwale and pivoted his legs aboard.

“Come on,” I said to Crystal, taking her arm. “Come, Jellyroll. Come on, everybody,” I said, leading the way toward the rear of the house.

Clayton came right along, but Hawley lagged, watching poor insane Dick Desmond start up the boat.

The shock wave hit the house before the sound arrived. Windowpanes rattled in the French doors. One pane near the top collapsed and tinkled to the floor. One instant Hawley was standing up, the next he was sitting down. I guess that’s the way of it with gasoline explosions, things happen fast, but luckily no debris
made it through the trees to take his head off. I guess you could say things worked out.

When Crystal, Clayton, Jellyroll, and I looked around the corner of the house, the fireball had already formed and risen with an air-sucking whoosh. The rich red flame dissolved into a broiling black mushroom cloud that lingered in the air. Wooden pieces of the poor Hampton boat still pirouetted in the blue sky above the mushroom cloud. They seemed to hang up there as if in slow motion. The big stuff came down first, some of it on the boathouse roof, then the smaller stuff landed, peppering the surface of the water and clattering the porch.

I knelt to reassure Jellyroll. “Want some water?” I asked him. He views cold water as a treat, so I always keep some in the refrigerator. “I’ll get it,” Crystal said. We went inside. Hawley and Clayton went down to the flat rock to see what was left of Desmond.

“Let me see your hand.”

I held it palm up for her, and she examined it without touching. My hand was grotesque. I looked into Crystal’s eyes for a measure of just how bad it was. She gasped through barely parted lips. Then she asked me to turn it over.

My finger flopped like a dead eel.

“Let’s wash it off and see what we have here.” She held her own hand under the water as she regulated the temperature for my comfort. I was getting dizzy now. Jellyroll stopped drinking, watched me. The sink ran black for a while. The mud looked like blood going down the drain.

Crystal held my wrist and looked again, brow furrowed with concentration. When Crystal concentrated, only her right brow furrowed. I loved that. I felt like weeping with the power of my love for her brow—

“Let’s go in the bedroom,” she suggested. She led me gently by the wrist. She closed the door, then sat on the edge of the bed. I stood before her, and she gently cradled my hand in hers.

“It’s very painful now, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I was regressing. Mommy would make it stop. I stared at her moist eyes as they examined my injury.

“I don’t think it’s fractured. I think it’s dislocated. It’s always best to reduce dislocations right after they happen before everything has time to tighten up in there, get all angry. By the way, how did this happen?”