Last Chants (11 page)

“Well, I don't believe in that, either.”

I turned toward the sink, rinsed my glass, then splashed water on my face.

When I finished toweling my face, Arthur said, “I had a remarkable revelation when I was in Bowl Rock, Willa. I felt an iciness in my abdomen as if I'd been hollowed out. I had an impression of Billy . . . ” He blinked away tears. “I would say disemboweled rather than shot. If I didn't know otherwise.”

Until this afternoon, I hadn't known Billy Seawuit had been stabbed. And theoretically, Arthur hadn't known.

Either he'd lied to me about his level of complicity or he'd found some other-dimensional informant.

I could believe his hocus-pocus, or I could believe he'd lied to me.

“The people at Cyberdelics told me Seawuit was disemboweled, not shot.”

Arthur's face crumpled. He began to shake.

Overloaded and confused, I left him alone. I went into the bathroom and stood under a hot shower.

Perhaps if I made it through the night without seeing a UFO or the Loch Ness monster, the rest of this would seem manageable again tomorrow.

I
awakened to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of clattering dishes. For a few seconds, I willed myself to ignore my grieving bones and the perfume of sleeping-bag filth. I tried to believe I was at my parents' house, about to be pampered with espresso and their latest health-food chaff.

I sat up, knowing that I wasn't home, but taking cheer in imminent caffeine. I looked around, expecting to find Arthur. Instead, I saw Edward Hershey crouched before a cupboard, frying pan in hand.

He cast me a quick, over-the-shoulder glance. “Up and at 'em,” he said in his deep, I'm-a-jock voice.

“What time is it?”

“Seven
A.M.”

I made a sound indicating how I felt about seven
A.M.

He snickered. “I gather the years didn't turn you into a morning person.”

“Where's Arthur?”

He turned to face me, still crouching. “What did you do to your hair? Scared the crap out of me—I come in here and find a brunette in my cabin.”

“I ran into someone I'd met before.” I felt silly saying so, but, “I'm in disguise.”

“Will it wash out?”

“Forget my hair.”

He grinned. “Okay, Natasha. So you don't know where Arthur is?”

“No.”

“But he was here last night?” He waved the frying pan toward the other sleeping bag, unrolled and still rumpled.

“Yes.” I climbed creakily out of mine. Had I really spent my youth gypsying around to demonstrations? I must have had more yielding bones. “He spent all day yesterday out at the rock where Billy Seawuit died. Edward?”

Edward rose from his crouch.

“Edward, how did Seawuit die?”

He averted his eyes. “The news said he was shot.”

“Did the police put out a call for information? Ask people to phone in with tips?”

“Yeah, I think they did. What are you driving at, Willa?”

“I think Seawuit might have been stabbed, not shot. Did the news reports mention a particular caliber of weapon?” I surveyed the stove for coffee. Seeing a pot, I stepped straight over to it.

“It may have.” He watched me pour coffee into one of three cups he'd set on the counter. “What's up?”

“The person who handed Arthur a gun, he must have heard Seawuit was shot. But maybe that's not true; maybe the cops just want to weed out false tips.”

“Maybe they do.” Edward sounded noncommittal. “But bullets can be traced. It wouldn't do any good for someone to hand Arthur any old gun. Everybody knows that. Every guy, anyway.” I watched his chest expand as if he meant to pound it, Tarzan-like. “So why are you asking about Seawuit getting cut? What did you hear?”

“Do you know the people at Cyberdelics?” When he shook his
head, I explained, “Seawuit was working on a project with them. They told me he was slashed. Pretty much disemboweled.”

Edward scowled. “How did they know that?”

“I assume the police told them.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. He was unshaven this morning, in a flannel shirt and jeans jacket: the Marlboro Man. “But you haven't had confirmation.”

“Well, maybe in a way. Although Arthur can be pretty out-there.” I sipped coffee, surprised to find it strong enough. “He spent the day inside the rock where Seawuit died. And he came back here convinced Seawuit was disemboweled, not shot.”

“Convinced by what?” Edward's tone was guarded, if not outright suspicious. “Blood patterns on the rock?”

“No.” I felt a throbbing in my temples. “No. In fact, when I looked inside the rock, it seemed like the stains were behind where Seawuit's head would have been.”

“So the blood stains suggest a shot in the head. Why would Arthur think he got disemboweled?”

“He had a vision.”

Edward squinted. “A vision? Like Elvis at Lourdes or something? That kind of vision?”

“Basically. He didn't ‘see' the murder. But he felt, I forget how he put it, a hollowness in his abdomen. It made him think Seawuit was disemboweled.”

Edward put down the frying pan and poured himself a cup of coffee. “If Arthur knew that, he didn't find out from any vision. You know where he was before you saw him in the city?”

“No.”

A surprised glance. “All this time, you never asked?”

“I've had a few things on my mind!” I hated being made to feel like a dummy—especially since it happened fairly often. “Besides, I knew you guys discussed it.” When I came out of the shower Monday night, Edward was putting away his notebook.

“Yesterday evening, for instance. You two sat here for hours and it never came up?”

“Let's just say we were covering other ground.” I finished the coffee and poured another cup. I was almost awake enough to shower. “I've known Arthur since I was a teenager. If you're thinking something sinister, forget it. There's just no way.”

“I wouldn't take too much for granted if I were you.” Edward looked as cynical as years of private detection would make a person. “For one thing, I happen to know Seawuit
was
disemboweled. Or at least, cut deep and long.” He mimicked stabbing in and pulling down. “Enough for . . . some organ spillage, shall we say?”

“Please. No details.” Not at seven in the morning. “Why didn't you tell me? Why so damn cagey?”

“I wanted to know how you found out first.”

“Why? You know I didn't kill him.”

“But I don't know Arthur didn't.” He raised a hand to shush me. “I'm supposed to believe he learned about it from sitting in a rock?”

I wanted to defend Arthur, but there wasn't much I could say to that. “Okay, so who told you?”

“I am a private eye. I do know how to get hold of police records.”

“How long have you known?”

“I checked yesterday morning.”

I must have glowered ferociously; Edward made a cross of his index fingers, stepping back. “What was I supposed to do—send you a carrier pigeon?”

“So,” I said grudgingly, “where was Arthur last weekend?”

“He was here—early Saturday, anyway. He and Seawuit did some kind of dawn ritual thing together. Arthur had a rental car; says Seawuit loaded his trunk up; was going to meet him in San Francisco midweek.”

“Ah ha!”

“Ah ha, what?”

“Toni Nelson—wife of the guy that runs Cyberdelics—she thinks her husband made off with Seawuit's stuff.” Some or all of it might be in Arthur's trunk. Should I tell her? “Seawuit was staying with the Nelsons.”

“Oh.” He didn't seem to find this as interesting as I did. “Anyway, Arthur
says
he left here before ten, then stopped someplace called Fern Grotto, just north of Santa Cruz. The problem is, he didn't get into San Francisco, didn't get checked into a hotel, till Saturday night.”

“So no alibi.”

“No alibi.”

“That doesn't mean you should suspect him. Arthur's not like that.” I'd lived with him these last two days. I'd seen him wracked with grief, not guilt.

Edward didn't say anything. He put the frying pan on a burner and turned on the gas.

“What time was the body found? Who found it?”

“Someone phoned 911 from BC, from a phone booth. Sunday, a few minutes after noon. Said he found it when he was hiking. Didn't identify himself; hasn't come forward.”

“Seawuit was inside the rock all night?”

“Yup.”

“Arthur would never have left him like that.” I repeated, “He's not that kind of person.”

Edward dropped a dollop of butter into the skillet.

“You're going to say something snotty, aren't you?”

“What I'm going to do,” he corrected me, “is fry us up some eggs and spuds. Then, we'll take a hike to Bowl Rock and look for Arthur.”

After a moment, I said, “I'll be out of the shower in five.” Why argue with breakfast?

Half an hour later, I was stuffed with scrambled eggs and home fries—Edward had obviously acquired cooking skills in the many years since we'd lived together. We set out toward Bowl Rock.

It was a cool, misty morning. Trailside leaves cupped moisture, sprinkling us as we brushed against them.

“How long have you had this cabin?” I asked Edward.

“Year or so. It's important to get up early if you fish—saves me a drive. The place was cheap enough.”

Six hundred square feet of raw wood, with indoor plumbing as its main selling point: I could believe it had been cheap. “Have you mingled much?”

“With the mountain folk? Nope. Defeats the purpose of getting away from it all.”

“You haven't heard about Pan?”

“Pan?
Spanish word for bread?”

I took that as a no. “The goat-footed demigod. Arthur says there's a local legend about him.”

“Hm.” He swatted some shrubbery, raising a spray of dew.

“I saw a man last night sitting on Bowl Rock playing panpipes.”

“What are panpipes?”

“You know, they're shaped like a little xylophone, only they're hollow reeds tied together. You blow into them.”

“Okay, panpipes.”

“I don't know if he chased me or I just”—I didn't want to use the word
panicked
—“freaked out. He was sitting with his back to me, and he was undressed.” Trying to be delicate, I'd implied nearby clothing. “He was naked, with his legs dangling into the hollow part of the rock.”

“Well, be careful. The woods are crawling with weirdos—homeless, tweaked, survivalists, local militia, mushroom hunters. There are self-proclaimed tribes living like gypsies from one state park to another. And lots of bikers, Harley-Davidson types—they love the winding roads.”

We continued in silence. The sky was white above dark tree-tops. The ground frequently plunged into lush ravines, some with streams trickling through them.

“It wouldn't be hard to live out here,” Edward mused. “Plenty of fresh water and edibles—fish, game, berries, miner's lettuce, 'shrooms. It's damp, but it doesn't freeze very often.”

I glanced at him, striding comfortably in his boots. At least I'd thought to grab jeans and a warm jacket before fleeing my apartment. No use being jealous of Edward's hiking duds; I could be worse off.

“The police must have combed the woods looking for witnesses and suspects.”

“I imagine so. That doesn't mean they'd find any. The folks who live up here know the land, know where to go to keep out of sight.” He grinned at me. “I could find them,” he boasted.

“You know these woods that well?”

“Pretty well. I know where some of the favorite campsites are.”

Though it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do: “Maybe we should talk to them. The police might have missed something important, something that could exculpate Arthur.”

“You're assuming he's a suspect.”

“They've got to be looking for him.”

“Speaking of looking for: You made the TV news. They've got police drawings.” His grin broadened. “Not much of a likeness of Arthur, but pretty close to you. They didn't mention you by name, so they're keeping it under wraps about you not showing up for work. Probably the thing with Judge Shanna works in your favor. If you'd been Miss Predictable, they might have broadcast your photo.”

“What ‘thing' with Judge Shanna?”

“Quitting on him twice in two weeks for no known reason.”

No known reason! He, better than anyone, knew why I'd quit. The favor I'd done Edward, intervening in a family squabble, had resulted in Judge Shanna recusing himself from a big case. My rapport with the judge went downhill fast from there.

“Then there's—” Edward glanced at me. I must have looked angry. He stopped talking.

I walked in silence. Unfortunately—or fortunately, in this situation—he was right. If a woman with a perfect résumé failed to show up for work on the morning a hostage fitting her description was taken, the police might be more concerned. But I had a history of short-lived jobs. And I had quit my clerkship early and often.

“It's probably because of my father,” I insisted. “I talked to him on the phone; he knows what happened. He probably told them I'd had my doubts about starting work, something like that.”

“Mm-hmm.” Edward's tone was a little too neutral.

We stepped into the tiny clearing around Bowl Rock. I heard no chanting, none of Arthur's
waa oo ah waa nee
this morning.

I crossed quickly to the other side of the rock, looking into its bowl. It was empty.

Edward stepped up beside me, touching the encrusted red blotch near the bowl's edge.