Shoot the Moon (13 page)
“Now why would you say that?”
“Hear you and Ivy went out to Arthur’s trailer couple of days ago. You want to tell me about that?”
Ivy said, “He wanted to see where—”
“I’m not talking to you, Ivy.”
“Ivy drove me out, we looked around,” Mark said. “I walked through the trailer, then we left.”
“Did you find anything of interest?”
“No.”
“Have you been back out there?”
Mark shook his head. “Once was enough.”
“Well, won’t be much reason for you to go back now. Someone set fire to it a couple of hours ago.”
“Set fire to it? Why in the hell would anyone want to . . .”
“I think whoever torched that trailer was sending you a message.”
“Which is?”
“Someone wants you gone.”
April 5, 1968
Dear Diary,
Martin Luther King was killed yesterday evening. It was on television all night long. Today in study hall we were talking about it and I started crying. Richard Graham who is a senior asked me what was wrong. When I told him, he laughed and said, “So another nigger bit the dust.”
I got so mad I hardly remember slugging him in the stomach, but Row said I hit him so hard he threw up. I got sent to the principal’s office, but Mr. Gordon didn’t do anything to me. He said if he’d been there, he might’ve hit Richard, too.
Spider Woman
M
ark had seen plenty of press conferences on TV; still, he wasn’t prepared for the pandemonium awaiting him as he and Hap stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk in front of Hap’s office.
More microphones than Mark could count had been mounted onto a lectern, and there was constant movement from the crowd that spilled into the street as people with cameras and minicams jostled for position.
Reporters began shouting questions as soon as Mark and Hap appeared, and when the crowd surged forward, two policemen stepped in to escort Mark to the lectern.
When Hap raised his hand and said, “Good morning,” the gathering quieted. “My name is Hap Duchamp, attorney of record for Dr. Mark Albright, who has asked me to announce that a reward of fifty thousand dollars is being offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers of his mother, Gaylene Harjo, in 1972.”
A murmur ran through the crowd, someone whistled and a few actually applauded.
“Now, Dr. Albright will read a brief statement he has prepared, but he will decline to answer questions at this time.”
Hap moved aside, allowing space for Mark at the lectern, but his feet wouldn’t budge. His mouth had gone dry, and an unsettling sensation low in his stomach was threatening some kind of rebellion.
“Mark?” Hap whispered. “You ready?”
Mark nodded, stepped reluctantly to the lectern, then looked over the crowd, where he saw Arthur McFadden and O Boy Daniels shoulder to shoulder.
Hap tried again. “Go on.”
Mark studied a typed statement he held in a trembling hand, the statement he’d read several times in Hap’s office, but the words were now indecipherable, the characters seeming to belong to another language.
Mark cleared his throat, then said, “I’m glad,” but his voice failed him, so that the words came out sounding like “Ham gad.”
When someone laughed, he glanced up once again, but this time he spotted Ivy standing near the back of the throng. She winked and gave him a thumbs-up.
Finally, he placed the sheet of paper flat on the lectern, then focused on the typed lines until the words emerged as English again.
“I’m glad to have the opportunity to speak to you this morning,” he said, his voice growing stronger.
“A short time ago, I discovered that I was adopted when I was ten months old. Curious about my birth mother, Gaylene Harjo, I came here to DeClare, intending to meet her. But soon after my arrival, I discovered she had been murdered and I was presumed to be dead. As you can see, that is not the case.”
Two teenage girls on the sidewalk giggled but were quickly silenced by a stern-looking woman beside them.
“I plan to remain here, welcoming the chance to talk to someone, anyone, who might have information important to me and the family I’ve recently met.
“Please, if you think you can help at all, in any way, come forward. You can reach me through Mr. Duchamp’s office.
“Thank you.”
As they planned, Mark and Hap retreated immediately into Hap’s office, where Frances locked the door as soon as they were inside while a barrage of questions echoed from the street.
“I’ve never seen so much traffic on this road,” Ivy said. “Nothing much out here but the Green Country Plant Farm, a small nursery.”
“Maybe there’s a sale on roses,” Mark said.
“I have a sneaking suspicion we’re not the only ones driving fifteen miles from town just to see a trailer.”
“A burned trailer at that.”
“Well, the story was in today’s paper, along with that dorky picture of you in a tuxedo. And with your press conference, there’s bound to be a lot of curiosity.”
“I thought I looked quite debonair.”
“I thought you looked dorky.”
After Ivy negotiated a turn, she put her hand low on her abdomen and said, “Okay, kid. Settle down.”
“The baby?” Mark asked.
“Feel right here.” Ivy took Mark’s hand and placed it flat against her belly.
“That’s quite a kick. Girl or boy?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had an ultrasound, right?”
“Sure, but I asked my doctor not to tell me the sex.”
“Any particular reason?”
Ivy’s expression changed, but Mark couldn’t read it. “Yeah,” she said. “A very particular reason.”
When the van topped a hill, they saw two dozen slow-moving vehicles stretched out ahead of them.
“This is incredible,” Mark said.
“Lets you know what an exciting place DeClare is. A trailer burns and half the town comes out to gawk.”
Movement was slow but steady. And the nearer they got to the trailer, the stronger the smell of smoke. Several blackened tree stumps still smoldered, and wooden fence posts burned away at the bottom, hung from strands of barbed wire.
Crime scene tape had been stretched across a wide area, and the fire chief’s bright red SUV was blocking the turnoff to the trailer; standing just off the shoulder of the highway, a man in a baseball cap was waving cars on by.
Ivy said, “That’s Matthew.”
When she pulled up and parked behind the SUV, Matthew yelled, “Sorry, ma’am. You’ll have to keep moving. No one’s allowed . . .”
As she rolled down her window, he grinned, said, “Hey, Ivy,” and tipped his cap.
“Thought you retired, Matthew.”
“Yeah, I have. Just rode out here with the chief, see if I could lend a hand.”
“I think you two have met,” Ivy said, gesturing to Mark.
“Hello again,” Matthew said. “I didn’t know until this morning who you were. Hap’s real closemouthed about this business.”
“I didn’t get a chance to thank you for brunch.”
“Why don’t you come back next Sunday? You, too, Ivy. I’m doing something with tofu and curried figs.”
“I appreciate the invitation,” Mark said, “but—”
“Looks like there was a hell of a grass fire out here,” Ivy said.
“I’d say it burned off four, five acres, but it started in the trailer. Of course, everything’s so dry, it all went up. Chief’s back there now with the fire marshal and a couple of state boys, but it’s arson, that’s for sure.”
“Any idea who started it?”
“Kids, maybe. Doesn’t look professional. Found the empty gas can, box of kitchen matches. We’ll have to wait to see if they can get any prints.”
“O Boy came by last night,” Ivy said. “Seemed to think somebody might be sending a message to Mark.”
“Must be easier ways than this.”
“You think someone was trying to get rid of some evidence out here?” Mark asked.
“Can’t imagine there’d be anything left to find. The law went over this place with a fine-tooth comb. More than once, too. Been a number of transients in and out of the trailer for years. I understand a homeless family lived here for months. And kids discover it all the time. A good place to have sex, do some drugs. What in the world would have been left to find?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
When a car pulled up behind Ivy’s van, Matthew waved them off. “You can’t park here,” he yelled. Moments later, the car drove away.
“We’d better get out of your way,” Ivy said.
“Sorry I can’t let you all back there.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “We’re just like everyone else. Curious.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think you’ve got more than curiosity invested in this.”
“Matthew, you take care.” Ivy started the van.
“Will do. By the way, construction isn’t finished at Tinker Junction,” Matthew said.
“They’ve been working on that junction for over a year.”
“Yeah, but it’s a real bottleneck out there now with all this traffic. If you’re headed back to town, I’d take Sowell Road.”
“Thanks, Matthew.”
As Ivy pulled away, Mark said, “You’ve no idea how close we came to danger.”
“What kind of danger?”
“Tofu and curried figs.”
“Gosh, I haven’t been on this road in years,” Ivy said. “I think the last time I was out here was for Kippy’s welcome home party.”
“Welcome home from where?”
“He had heart surgery when he was eight or nine. Spent weeks in the hospital. When he got out, Carrie had a party for him. Most of the kids in our church came.”
“So, the Daniels lived out here.”
“Yeah. That was their house.” Ivy pointed to a clapboard house with peeling paint, a sagging roof and a broken window covered with masking tape. A rusted-out hull of a pickup shared the yard with a few chickens and some hounds.
“How long did they live here?” Mark asked.
“Years. I think they were living here when Kippy was born. And they didn’t move until after his surgery.”
“And this road’s less than a mile from the trailer?”
“Aunt Gaylene’s trailer?”
Mark nodded.
“Well, it’s a lot less than that if you go by foot,” Ivy said. “Cross the creek and it’s probably no more than a quarter mile.”
“So they were neighbors when she was killed.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I don’t know.” Mark stared at the house until they were well past it. “But it’s interesting.”
T
eeve waited for Lonnie Cruddup to shuffle out so she could put the
CLOSED
sign in the window and lock the door. As he walked past her, he was still grumbling about being “evicted” before closing time.
He was always the last of the domino boys to leave and always the one who complained about the pool hall shutting down at six o’clock, which he called “the shank of the evening.” He often whispered to his gang that Teeve, twenty years his junior, was “an old manless woman” who went to bed with the chickens for want of something better to do, whereas, he pointed out, his libido was just waking up when the sun went down.
Lonnie wanted his acquaintances to think he was a man for whom the night was long and full of lusty adventure. Unfortunately, all he had to look forward to at home was drinking a glass of Metamucil, injecting insulin in his thigh, scooping poop from the cat litter box and watching an hour of
Matlock
before bed.
But he was especially upset at being turned out today, not because it was ten till six, but because Ivy had, only a few minutes earlier, arrived with Nick Harjo, causing Lonnie to turn up his hearing aid. He recognized this as an opportunity to redeem himself with the community after having spread the erroneous news of a stranger in town with rabies.
He’d been able to catch a bit of the whispered conversation between Mark and Teeve taking place at the counter, something about O Boy Daniels’ old house on Sowell Road. But before Lonnie could discover the point of the discussion, Teeve had sent him packing.
She watched him push his way through some reporters outside the pool hall, then she joined Ivy and Mark in the café, where Ivy was washing out the coffeepot and Mark was attempting to sweep, though it was obvious he was a stranger to the broom.
“I’ve been thinking about your question, Mark,” Teeve said, “and I don’t remember Gaylene ever mentioning O Boy coming to her trailer. Now, Kippy came by from time to time when he managed to slip away from Carrie. She tried her best to keep him home, but he escaped every once in a while and crossed the creek.”
Mark nodded, thoughtful as he made jabbing swipes with the broom.
“Be honest with me, Mark,” Teeve said. “Do you think O Boy had something to do with Gaylene’s murder?”
“He might. When Ivy told me he’d lived near the trailer back then . . .”
“No more than a stone’s throw,” Teeve said. “I’ve thought from the beginning that he was involved.”
“Whoa! Hold on, you two,” Ivy interrupted. “He’s scum all right, but I can’t see what reason he’d have to kill Aunt Gaylene unless he was the one who got her pregnant and she threatened him with blackmail.”
“Ivy, trust me. If the man who made her pregnant is the same man who killed her, Oliver Boyd Daniels is the last guy I’d want it to be. I just can’t quite imagine calling O Boy ‘Dad.’”
Teeve began to cough as she fanned at the cloud of dust rising in the room.
“You’re not much with a broom, are you, Mark.”
“Am I doing something wrong?”
“Have you ever swept before?”
“Sure,” he said defensively. “I’ve vacuumed. Once or twice.”
Teeve coughed again.
“Here,” Ivy said to Mark. “I’ll sweep; you take out the trash. Mom, go home! We’ll finish up in here.”
“I think I will,” Teeve said. “This cold just keeps hanging on.” She retrieved her purse from beneath the counter, then started for the door. “Don’t forget to—”
“Empty the cash register, turn off the air conditioner, unplug the microwave and make sure both doors are locked,” Ivy said in a singsong voice, a monologue long memorized.
“See you all at home.”
“Bye.”
“Where do I take these?” Mark held up two plastic garbage bags.
“That Dumpster.” Ivy pointed through the kitchen window, then watched as Mark went out the back door and crossed the narrow strip of grass behind the café to the alley.
He didn’t want to touch the closed Dumpster, which was filthy and reeked with the smell of decay, but he didn’t have much choice. Making a face that projected his distaste, he tossed in the bags, then returned to the café bathroom and scrubbed up like a surgeon preparing to perform a transplant.
When he came out, Ivy said, “Think you need a tetanus shot?”
“Hey, that thing is a receptacle for germs that don’t even have a name yet.”
She grinned, then bent to put a can of Comet into the low cabinet, but when she stood up, she lost her balance.
“Ivy?”
She grabbed the counter for support but was unsteady on her feet.
In two strides, Mark was across the room. He wrapped her in his arms and led her to a chair at one of the dining tables.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I got dizzy,” she said, her face beaded with sweat, her skin the color of eggshells.
He placed his fingers on her wrist to check her pulse. “Has this happened before?”
“No.”
“What about your blood pressure?”
“It’s been normal. One twenty over eighty.” When Mark let go of her wrist, she said, “What do you think, doc? Will I live?”
“It wouldn’t hurt for us to get you to the hospital, have you checked out.”
“Nah. I just stood up too fast.”
“Ivy . . .”
“Really. I’m feeling better.”
“Truth?”
“Truth.”
“Well, you look better.” He wet several paper towels at the sink, then sat beside her and began to sponge her face and neck.
“Oh, that feels good,” she said, letting her head roll toward him. And suddenly their faces were only inches apart.
Later, he would wonder how it happened, why he leaned forward those few inches separating them, why he kissed her . . . and why she kissed him back.
But at that time, he didn’t have any questions. He didn’t stop to think it through. The kiss was, pure and simple, the thing he wanted most to do.
Then, several moments later, the reality of what was happening hit him: he was kissing his cousin. Not a “hi, cuz, how you doing” kind of kiss; not a “haven’t seen you in ages” kind of kiss; not a family reunion kind of kiss. This was a passionate kiss between a woman and a man.
When he pulled back, he seemed on the edge of panic. “Oh, my God,” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
He jumped up then and backed away from the table. “Ivy, I don’t know what to say.”
“About?”
“I’m so sorry.” He began to pace, avoided looking her in the eyes. “So sorry.”
“Hey, Mark, it was just a kiss.”
“No, it wasn’t just a kiss and you know it.”
“Then what was it?”
He put his palms together, raised his hands beneath his chin, a prayerful gesture, like a sinner asking for forgiveness. “We can make ourselves forget this ever happened.”
“Why? I enjoyed it! And I don’t know why you’re so upset.”
“I think you do.”
“No, dammit, I don’t!”
Mark started to speak but changed his mind. When Ivy stood, he offered her a hand for support, but she shook it off.
He followed her from the café, through the pool hall and out the front door, which she locked, the only one of her mother’s instructions she followed.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m just fine.”
When she started toward her van, Mark said, “Good night,” causing her to turn back to look at him.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“No, I’m going back to the motel.”
“Until . . . ?”
He shrugged.
Ivy studied him for several moments, then said, “Why? Because we kissed?”
“Can you think of a better reason?”
“No,” she said, sounding less angry than sad. “I guess not.”
Mark knocked on Lantana Mitchell’s door shortly after ten that night. He’d been in his room since leaving the pool hall, debating whether or not it was time for him to go back to California, back to his practice, back to his life.
This trip had turned into a nightmare. He was no closer to learning who his father was than when he’d arrived; his mother’s death remained a mystery; and he was beginning to have weird feelings for his cousin. His
pregnant
cousin.
When he’d returned to the motel earlier in the evening and read the note Lantana had slipped beneath his door, his first thought had been to ignore it. He figured his life was complicated enough already.
But later, his curiosity kicked in, so he decided to take her up on her invitation.
“Thanks for coming,” she said as she led him inside. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Why? Because you ambushed me yesterday?”
“Well, just so you know, I don’t make a habit of hiding in motel bathrooms.”
“I doubt you’ve even been in many motel bathrooms.”
“More than you can imagine, dear.” She smiled, revealing a set of porcelain veneers that had cost her—or somebody—a hefty price. “Drink?” She held up her own glass, which was almost empty.
“Sure.”
She was wearing a blue silk
peignoir
, but she hadn’t removed her makeup, which had been artfully applied and recently touched up, an indication that she’d been pretty confident Mark would show up. When he’d seen her the previous day, her hair—the color of champagne—had been swept back and held in a tight chignon. But now it was loose, falling gently around her face.
She was just one side or the other of fifty, but either way, he thought, she made fifty look good.
“What would you like?” She gestured to the top of the TV console, where she’d set up a small bar—vodka, Scotch, bourbon, a bucket of ice.
“Scotch, please.”
Mark took a seat on the far side of the coffee table, which held a basket of fruit and a vase of long-stemmed yellow roses. A desk at the side of the room held a laptop, several leather-bound notebooks and a couple of Mont Blanc pens.
When she handed him his drink, she said, “So, how are you dealing with this Oklahoma culture?”
“Not particularly well.”
“You’re pretty much a fish out of water here, aren’t you.”
“There’ve been a few surprises.”
“Like discovering that ‘public transportation’ here means pickup trucks?”
“Well, in Beverly Hills it means Jaguar convertibles.”
“I know. I lived in L.A. for several years.”
“Where are you from?”
“Eldorado.”
“Just east of Sacramento. Right?”
“No. Just east of Elmer.”
Mark looked puzzled.
“Eldorado, Oklahoma,” she said. “Born and raised.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed you were from this part of the country.”
“’Cause I don’t speak Okie?” she asked, switching to a dialect marked by drawn-out vowels and a nasal twang. She went back to the bar, where she poured herself another drink. “Now that voice didn’t cost a penny,” she said, reverting to the delivery she had cultivated years earlier after working with a voice coach. “But this one cost my ex-husband some money.” She laughed then, a deep, throaty laugh fueled—in part—by vodka.
“Do you have two personalities as well?”
“Of course. I’m a Gemini. And I happen to know you’re an Aries.”
“You seem to know a lot about me.”
“I’ve done some research.”
“Then I’m at a disadvantage. All I know about you is that you’re a writer and you have an ex-husband.”
“Actually, I have two ex-husbands, but one of them didn’t have any money, so he doesn’t count.”
“Tell me about yourself,” Mark said.
“How far back do you want me to go?”
“Why not start with Eldorado.”
“Hardscrabble town. Population five hundred, give or take a few dozen. More churches than bars, but more drunks than preachers. My dad was both. I couldn’t wait to get out.
“After graduation, went to Tulsa, got a job as a secretary at a television station, worked my way up to the evening news. Stayed with that until I found a man with money and power.
“He moved me to L.A., remade me for big-time TV, put me on the air, and I was a hit. When he dumped me for a twenty-year-old, I came back to Oklahoma and started to write. End of story.”
“And now you’ve had three books published.”
She faked a look of chagrin and held up one finger.
“You told me yesterday that you’d—”
“I lied. I was just trying to impress you.”
“Why did you feel the need to impress me?”
“Because I want you to agree to let me write your story.”
“Well, I don’t suppose I could prevent that. Not legally. Besides, you seem pretty damn intent.”
“You can’t . . . and I am. But I’d prefer your cooperation. It’s easier to write true crime when someone involved is willing to help.”
“I’m curious.”
“About what?”
“Why are you so determined to write this story?”
She took a deep breath, then leaned forward and put her hand on Mark’s, a gesture intended to convey comfort. “Mark, what happened to you, your mother . . . that’s a tragedy. I’m sympathetic to that.” She withdrew her hand, drained the last of her drink, then returned to the bar. “But from a writer’s point of view, this is a hell of a story. Sure to be a best-seller.”
“So it’s the money?”
“It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with money.”
“Then what?”
“O Boy Daniels.” She filled her glass, took a long, slow swallow. “I’ve despised the man longer than most marriages last.”
“Do you want to tell me why?”
“Have you ever hated anyone, Mark? Hated with pure, sweet passion?”
“No.”
“Well, you should. It’s fun. You can entertain yourself for hours thinking up the most punishing schemes.”
Mark smiled, shook his head, then put his unfinished drink on the table. “Look, Ms. Mitchell, I don’t know what kind of game you’ve got going on in your head, but I’m not going to play it. Whatever your reason is for wanting to get even with O Boy Daniels—”
“Oh, I don’t want to get even. I want to get ahead.”
“Then you’d better count me out.” He stood, started for the door.
“But you want to know who your father is, don’t you?”
She spoke softly so that Mark, unsure of what he’d just heard, stopped and turned to face her.
“Gaylene Harjo was arrested nine months to the day before you were born.” She looked, for the moment, like a woman accustomed to conquest. “She spent some time in jail, Mark. O Boy Daniels’ jail.”
