Last Chants (26 page)

“I thought Fred was a therapist.” Only doctors got medicine samples. The label read: Tylenol with codeine.

“Psychiatrist. Which brings me to the first thing I want to talk to you about: Fred's not sure Arthur really went under.”

I tried to unscrew the cap. “What do you mean? Of course Arthur went under. We were there, we saw him.”

“His responses were pretty elaborate for a guy under hypnosis, that's what Fred thought. He just phoned to tell me. That's why I came out here to talk.”

“I assumed you were just being rude.”

“Thanks.” He pulled the container out of my hand, opening it. “Take a couple—in case you need to ‘rescue' someone later.”

“Of course Arthur was under, Edward. You could see that, couldn't you?” I glanced behind me. Arthur was slumped in the front seat, sleeping. I hoped he wasn't hurting his neck. “His answers were elaborate because he's got that kind of brain. He's not your average man on the couch.”

“That's true, too.” Edward spilled two pills onto his palm, offering them to me.

I swallowed them without water. The way I felt this morning, anything would help.

“Fred did bring that up. And he admits there's a range in what you get from people under hypnosis.” Edward shrugged, recapping the pain pills. “But he wanted me to know there was a significant possibility, as he put it, that Arthur was scamming us.” He held up his hand to forestall my defense. “Just a possibility. Fred's no dummy—he's had a lot of experience. So I wanted to put it to you. It's no use me knowing something you don't.”

“Well, I don't believe it.” The pills had left a sour taste in my mouth.

“Okay. Subject change: We've got a choice to make, Willa. Either we go for it—go back up the mountain, cops and all, maybe bugger everything up so there's no talking our way out of it . . . ”

“Or?”

“We get ourselves a lawyer right now and go that route.”

A lawyer would pave the way for our surrender, negotiating limits to the charges against us. A man had been murdered, and a woman was missing; we might have information that would help the police investigate.

On the other hand, our futures would be at the mercy of San Francisco's district attorney, Mr. Law-and-Order himself, against whom my mother had organized rallies and about whom my father had written scathing cyberpamphlets.

Edward watched me. “I think it should be your decision, not Arthur's or mine.”

I didn't disagree, but I wondered, “Why?”

“You're a vessel of grace, remember?”

“Ha ha.”

“Because Arthur chose to trust you. In a weird way, you're his lawyer; he's put himself into your hands. And me, well, I came into this late.”

I thought he was being uncharacteristically generous. “They'll throw charges at you, too, Edward. And your PI license will hang in the balance; you know that.”

“Yeah, I do know that. I'm just telling you, I'll back you up either way.”

I stared across the meadow at a cantering horse. Edward wasn't acting like himself. He was being overtly . . . well, loyal and kind. He might be those things at heart, but he usually kept them off the surface.

“Look, Willa, we've had a lot of hassles over the years. Especially over all that stuff . . . ” He paused. We'd had a rough breakup, years ago. And he'd lied to me recently, using me to help an old girlfriend. “But, you know, I've always liked you a lot. I've always wished we could get past the bullshit and be friends.”

This was a hell of an olive branch. He could end up in jail with no means of support when he got out.

“Okay,” I said. “As far as I'm concerned, there's no choice. If
we go to a lawyer, we're screwed. A little bad luck and Arthur's in prison forever.”

He nodded. “That's what I thought you'd say. Well, today's going to be very interesting.” He swung his legs over the fence and jumped off. “Arthur will be happy. We're going back up the mountain.”

He walked toward the Jeep without offering me a hand down.

The engine was warming up when I climbed back in. Arthur was yawning behind his hand.

“Are we going to Bowl Rock now?” he nagged. “I know I can find out—”

“Yes,” Edward said, backing the Jeep up. His head was turned as he looked through the rear windshield. I'd never seen him quite so somber. “But our first stop is Martin-Joel's. Assuming he's still in the same place.”

I filled Arthur in: “He moved his lean-to after we saw him on Wednesday.” Because we'd mentioned Billy Seawuit? “I guess that's the advantage of living like the local Indians—”

“No, no, Willa.” Arthur turned to me, shaking his head. “The Costanoan tribes, including the Awaswas, lived in rucks, not lean-tos. They were much admired for their cleverness and mobility, as well as the durability of their ceremonial roundhouses.”

“Oh. Galen Nelson thought he built the lean-to to impress Billy Seawuit. You know, with his knowledge of native culture.”

“Nelson couldn't have understood Billy if he thought that. Billy used to lament that people expected him to be some kind of living monument,” Arthur mused. “That historical interest in aboriginal cultures is just another way of rejecting today's natives.” He sighed. “The problems they have now—no one knows how to deal with them. It's so much simpler to create exhibits and documentaries about who they used to be.”

“Aren't you doing that, too, somewhat?” Edward glanced over. “Keeping alive shamanic practices native people have walked away from?”

“Ah, but they haven't walked away from them, Edward. We persist in believing they perform rituals—rain dances, celebratory dances. But they really aren't ‘dancing,' you know. They are journeying, just as they did thousands of years ago. Granted,
many have converted to Western religions. And some just go through the motions, adopting the white man's misconception of a ritual reenactment. But shamanism is the one facet of the culture that fully survives. We simply have a blind spot about it. Perhaps I can show you a bit more of what I mean? When we go to Bowl Rock?” Arthur wasn't through lobbying for our return there.

“First things first. If Joel-or-Martin's around, you can ID him, and I can muscle him. We'll try to get the story on him. In the meantime, I've pulled in some favors. We'll get some information from Cyberdelics's bank, see how flush they are.”

“Then we'll go to Bowl Rock?”

“Try to.” With police combing the mountain for Toni Nelson, who knew how far we'd get.

Edward sped us up the mountain over dew-slick roads, occasionally hitting the windshield wipers. He took a different route this time, past a university that, from here, looked more like a ranch. We continued past smatterings of houses and fenced meadows onto a serpentine forest road.

As we wound through dark, wet redwoods, the pain pills began to silence my nagging body parts. I could spare the scenery the attention it deserved.

We began taking fire access roads, bumpy and muddy, so narrow in spots that limbs and vines scraped our doors. But we didn't see any other vehicles on the path less traveled.

Edward parked in a pocket of brush.

“Okay, brownie troop, we're here,” he announced. “Time to win us a few more badges.”

We hiked down a brambly ravine to a creek bed.

“Look familiar?” Edward asked me.

I murmured noncommittally.

“Well, it shouldn't. We're taking the back way in. Less visible from the chaparral; hopefully, Baker won't spot us.”

Arthur, despite being twice our age and arthritic to boot, had no trouble keeping up. He seemed very much in the habit of covering rough ground.

Twenty minutes later, we climbed out of the ravine, through impossibly steep forest. We had to stop a time or two. I needed
to catch my breath, though Arthur kindly pretended it was for his sake.

Eventually, the forest thinned to oak and pine and madrone. We started seeing stands of tough-leafed shrubs Arthur identified as coyote brush and ceanothus.

“It should be right over there.” Edward picked up speed.

He pushed through the coyote brush, several yards ahead of us. I knew something was wrong when he said, “Oh, Jesus!”

I hurried. He'd already crossed to the lean-to by the time I saw it. He was squatting in front of it, waving his arm extravagantly.

He was waving away flies. I knew from the smell why he had to do it.

I stopped, staring at his back, at the cloud of black flies around him.

He turned. “Watch where you walk. We don't want to be messing up the scene.”

Arthur had reached my side. “The scene?” he repeated.

“He's found a dead body.”

“Who is it?” Arthur had good reason to sound alarmed.

“Martin Late Rain—Joel Baker. I assume.” No other possibility had occurred to me. “Edward?” I could hear the fear in my voice. “Edward? It's not Toni, is it?”

“No.” He appeared to be touching the body, looking beneath it. “No.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “It's Pan,” he said.

Arthur moaned.

“Pan?” It didn't make sense. I approached slowly, as if verification would lead to understanding.

“Watch where you walk. Don't step on anything, don't scuff any footprints.”

He stood, stepping away from the fly-infested lean-to.

Pan lay there as if arranged in a glass coffin. His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes were closed, his feet were side by side. His pipes lay atop his chest.

He hardly looked real, he was so wide and powerfully built for his height. He looked like a blend of man and beast, with his ragged head and thick body hair.

And there were flies, more flies than I'd ever seen in one spot.

“He's cold as hell. He's been here awhile.” Edward pointed to
something strewn on the ground. “Smashed up mothballs. Camphor. Hikers carry it to keep animals out of their campsites. It kept the body from being snacked on. He looks like Sleeping Beauty, huh?”

There were withered manzanita blossoms at his feet and around his head.

“How did he die?”

Edward swatted away flies, covering his nose. “Let's back up a bit. But watch what you step on.”

“Shouldn't we check how he died?”

“You're just not close enough to see. There's a huge wound under his hands. He was stabbed.” Edward drew a line across his belly to indicate where. “Or rather, sliced open.”

Arthur had walked slowly toward us, eyes glued to the sight. He seemed near tears.

“But he was magnificent,” Arthur whispered. “Who would take such a person out of the world? Who would slaughter someone so unique?”

“I could hazard a guess,” Edward said grimly.

The smell was nauseating me. “Who?”

“The tenant of this estate. You'll notice he's packed his bags and vacated.”

“Why kill someone, then leave him in your own place? God, Edward, we're in a huge forest. He could have buried him someplace out of the way. Why beg the police to suspect you?”

“To suspect who? This guy doesn't realize we took his picture. He doesn't know Galen Nelson identified him.” He wiped his hands on his jeans, looking disgusted. “He could count on it being a while before anyone stumbled across this body. Decomposed, it wouldn't show cause of death. The cops would assume this was the dead man's camp; that he died in bed, so to speak.”

“Someone might find the body too soon.” I shook my head. “Why take a risk you don't have to take?”

“Well, here's another possibility. Last night you sent Baker out to look for Toni—and Pan. Maybe he found Pan dead and carried him up here.”

I must have looked shocked.

“Don't ask me why. Show him to you?” Edward sounded perplexed.
“Perform some kind of native death ceremony?”

“Actually,” Arthur offered, “the Awaswas and other Costanoans, like most Pacific Northwest tribes, cremated their dead.”

“Maybe he was planning to do that. Maybe he laid Pan out, and then got spooked. Just picked up and ran.”

I looked around. Martin's drying racks were dismantled, and his potatoes were scattered. The campfire ring stones were nowhere to be seen.

I stepped a little farther from the body. Perhaps the police would discover Pan's earlier identity now. Perhaps they'd be able to notify family members who'd long ago despaired of hearing news of him.

Would he turn out to be a scholar, a younger Arthur who'd crossed the line between reality and mythology?

“Or maybe the Pan thing was an act.” Edward sounded more confident. “Maybe Baker knew him. They might have been working together. Or in competition. Hell, for all we know, ‘Pan' was Toni's ex-husband.”

“No, no,” Arthur assured him. “This gentleman certainly believed himself to be Pan. Wouldn't you say so, Willa?”

“Yes.” I'd almost believed him myself.

Arthur covered his eyes. “A brilliant musician.” His voice was heavy.

“Why hasn't Toni gone home?” I fretted.

“Maybe Nelson's lying. Maybe she did go home.” Edward brushed a fly from his cheek.

“Can you tell by looking at the body if Pan, you know, if he—”

“Raped Toni?” His brows climbed. “I did kind of look him over. I didn't see any fresh scratches. Not that she'd necessarily have struggled. I gather some women get paralyzed.”

I touched my swollen eye. I couldn't imagine Toni freezing up under attack.

“What are you thinking, Willa? She went home and got a knife? Or told her husband—or maybe her ex—what Pan did to her? Nelson came up here and killed him?”

“Did you describe the lean-to when you talked to Nelson?”

“At the sheriff's office, yeah; it was in the photograph. But hell, it's not like I gave Nelson coordinates. Not to mention the camp
got moved a quarter-mile. He would have had to look pretty hard for it.”