Strangers (11 page)

“What you know about what happened?”

“That you were attacked in your home six weeks ago. I'm sorry about that, too.”

The shotgun's barrel dipped some; she made a disgusted clicking sound with her tongue. “Another one,” she said. “Poking around, asking questions. When you people gonna leave me alone?”

You people. The law. She'd jumped to the wrong conclusion, taken me for somebody from the sheriff's department or the D.A.'s office. The false notion made it easier for me to direct the conversation and I was not about to disabuse her of it. Impersonating a law enforcement officer is a felony, but if a person mistakes you for one, and you don't say anything that could be construed as confirmation, you haven't committed a crime.

I said, “Do you believe Sheriff Felix arrested the right man, Mrs. Allen?”

“He says so. Everybody says so.”

“They could be wrong. Cody Hatcher could be innocent.”

“I'm not taking any chances,” she said, and waggled the lowered shotgun slightly for emphasis. “I sleep with this now. Anybody comes around here again I'll blow his fucking head off.”

“Yes, ma'am. Do you know the Hatcher youth?”

“Don't know him, don't want to. Same like all the rest of the young ones nowadays. Treat women, Indian women, like dirt. Rape, steal, what do they care?”

“The man who attacked you stole money from your purse, is that right?”

“Forty-two dollars. Bad, but what I lost the other time was worth plenty more.”

“Other time?”

“Broke into my car one night, somebody. How I don't know, door and trunk locks weren't busted. Two new vests, some moccasins and parfleche bags for a shop in Battle Mountain—all gone.”

“When was this? Before you were attacked?”

“Before. Same one, maybe, come in my bedroom with his knife and his stink. How do I know?”

“Stink? You mean the attacker smelled bad?”

“Made me want to puke.”

“Bad in what way? Body odor?”

“His breath,” she said. “Sour like he never brushed his teeth. Liquor, tobacco stink, too.”

“Marijuana?”

“Cigarettes. You think I don't know the difference? Slobbered and pig-grunted in my face. At least it didn't take him long to finish. Wham, bam, like a rabbit.” She laughed suddenly, a humorless seal-like bark. “Rabbit screwing a dove,” she said.

“Dove?”

“My name. Haiwee. Shoshone word for dove.” She tapped herself on the chest, gave another of the counterfeit laughs. “Some dove, huh?”

I asked, “Did you tell the sheriff about the man's breath?” It hadn't been in the reports in Parfrey's file.

“Sure I told him. He said I'll get my forty-two dollars back, the sheriff. Bullcrap. Never see that money again. Or the other things got stolen.”

“Is there anything else you remember about the man, Mrs. Allen? Anything that might help identify him?”

“Told the sheriff everything I remember. Told you.” She grimaced, shook her head. “Pig-grunting, poking me with his knife and his cock. What if he had a disease? Huh?” Another grimace. “Wham, bam, like a goddamn rabbit, and then he wouldn't get off. Just lay on top of me panting and stinking—”

The memory images were too much for her. All at once she lost her rigid composure. The tight-drawn skin of her face loosened, seemed to crumple inward; she swayed as though a sudden weakness had invaded her legs. I took a reflexive step forward, but she didn't need or want my help. She groped sideways to a stool by the workbench, sank down on it with the shotgun clenched tight in one hand, the barrel pointed at the floor now.

“Go away, mister,” she said without looking at me. “I don't have anything more to say to you.” Then, vehemently, “Go away!”

Her face was still crumpled, aged like a gourd left too long in the sun. Haiwee Allen was a strong, self-reliant woman, but she was also a Native American trying to survive alone in a world she'd never made, among a ruling class that considered her a racial inferior. Poor dove at the best of times, now soiled by a young white man's vicious sexual assault. Coping with it well enough, her spirit only temporarily damaged, but still on the ragged edge; now and then the remembering and the pain would become too much to bear and she would break down for a little time. But not in public, not in front of a stranger. Her pride, her heritage would never permit it.

I went away quietly, feeling sorry for her and a little ashamed of myself for making her wounds bleed again.

 

10

There were a handful of customers in the Horseshoe's Saddle Bar when I walked in at four-thirty, two couples clustered around a table and a lone drinker bellied up to the plank on a cowhide-covered stool shaped like a saddle. The man at the bar, big body hunched over a mug of beer, was Matt Hatcher. The bartender, muscled and mustached, dressed in a red and gold vest over a white shirt, looked young enough to be Derek Zastroy.

Hatcher turned his head as I came in. Recognition put a scowl on his rugged-ugly face; he kept looking at me as I approached, in a belligerent kind of way. Ignoring him was an option, but not a good one given his relationship with Cheryl and her son. I went over and said hello and climbed onto the stool next to him.

“The hotshot detective. Cheryl's old lover,” he said. He wore work clothes, as he had last night, only these were dusty and sweat-stained; he looked tired, as if he'd had a long, hard day. Just off shift at the Eastwell Mine, I thought—the reason why his belligerence was not particularly sharp-edged.

“Why not be civil?” I said. “I'm in Mineral Springs at her request, to do what I can to help her and Cody—no other reason or intention.”

“Yeah? I heard what happened Tuesday night, the fire and busted window. Not from her, though. You spend the night at her place?”

“No. Nor last night, either.”

“She ask you to anyway?”

“Look, Hatcher—”

“No,
you
look. Be making a big mistake if you start up with her again. Do both of us a favor, don't fuck her.”

I let him see what I thought of that comment, then waggled my left hand in his face so he couldn't miss seeing my wedding ring. “I'm happily married and I don't cheat on my wife, ever. That satisfy you?”

If it did, Hatcher gave no indication of it. He dragged a cancer stick out of his shirt pocket, lit it, added a stream of smoke to the thin layer hovering in there and the casino beyond. I waved it away; my chest already had a constricted feel. He saw the look on my face, showed me a sour half smile. “You don't smoke, huh?”

“No. Not for a long time.” I didn't add that a bad cancer scare was the reason I'd quit; it was none of his business and he probably wouldn't care anyway.

“Make Cheryl happy,” he said. “She don't allow smoking in her house.”

“Good for her.”

“Yeah. Says it's the reason for Glen's heart attack—my brother smoked three packs a day. Maybe she's right. I ought to quit, too, I guess,” he said, and gave lie to the words by taking a deep drag and blowing more smoke my way. Then, “But she's wrong about you finding out anything that'll save the kid. Just wasting your time.”

“People keep telling me that.”

“And you don't believe it.”

“I'm keeping an open mind. Yours seems to be closed.”

“… What's that mean?”

“Last night you said there's a good chance Cody is guilty as charged. You seem to be trying to convince his mother and me.”

“Like hell. I just don't want her hurt any more.”

“There's still a chance she won't be.”

“Maybe you think so. Not me.”

“Why not? What makes you so sure Cody's capable of serial rapes?”

Hatcher snorted. “The kind of kid he is. And the damn evidence.”

“The evidence is circumstantial,” I said, “and open to legal question without a DNA match. The knife and ski mask could have been planted in his Jeep, and Max Stendreyer's not the most reliable witness.”

“Don't matter. A jury'll convict him, DNA match or not.”

“You don't like your nephew much, do you?”

“So? What difference does that make?”

“I'm just curious as to why.”

“You heard me say it last night. Wild kid. Booze, fights. Lazy, too. Rather race around all hours in that Jeep of his than hold down a job, help out his mother.”

“No job in some time. Where does he get his spending money?”

“From her, where else? She'll do anything for that ungrateful little pissant.” Hatcher jabbed out his cigarette, stared at his image in the backbar mirror for a few seconds before he said, bitterly and a little forlornly, “But she won't take any help from me. Other guys, you and that loser Parfrey, but not me.”

“Maybe because you come on too strong with her.”

“Too strong. What the hell do you know about it? What'd she tell you?”

“Nothing I couldn't see with my own eyes.”

“Yeah. Smart guy.”

He had it bad for Cheryl, all right. Any male close to her, including her son and an old flame twenty-some years removed, was a perceived threat. Jealousy and unrequited passion—those were the reasons he wanted Cody to be guilty. With his nephew in prison and her alone, he'd have—by his reckoning—a better chance with her.

“We were talking about Cody,” I said. “You ever have words with him about his behavior?”

“Couple of times, yeah. He told me to go screw myself. Smart-ass, no respect.”

“So the two of you have never gotten along.”

“Hell, no. I tried on account of Cheryl, but he didn't like me coming around to see her. Thought I was trying to take his old man's place.”

I didn't say anything.

Hatcher said through a scowl, “That's what you think, too, right?” When I still didn't answer, he grabbed up his mug, drained it, slammed it down on the bar, and swung off his stool. “Remember what I said about starting up with her again. Don't do it, no matter what.”

He went stomping out. I stayed put, swiveling toward where the young bartender was standing with his arms folded at the other end of the bar. He'd ignored me the whole time I was sitting there with Hatcher; he kept right on ignoring me until I called out, loud enough for the other customers to hear, “How about some service here?”

That stirred him in my direction, but indolently, in slow motion. He stopped a few feet away and looked at me without speaking.

“IPA,” I said. “Draft, if you have it.”

“No IPA, draft or bottles.”

“What do you have on tap, then?”

“Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Light.”

Yeah, that figured. “Bottled beer? Heineken? Dos Equis?”

They had Dos Equis. He opened one, slop-poured it so that the glass was about half full of overflowing foam when he set it and the bottle down in front of me. No napkin, no coaster, no wipe-up of the spill. And the price he quoted struck me as too high, as if he'd artificially inflated it. Service deluxe in the Saddle Bar.

I put money down and he let it sit. Stood with his arms folded across a broad chest, watching me. He was big enough to double as the house bouncer, which was probably the case, and the brushy mustache, along with shaggy black hair and a thin-lipped, aggressive mouth, gave him a don't-mess-with-me look—one that he probably worked at cultivating.

He said, “I know who you are, mister.”

“I figured you did.”

“And why you're here. Frisco detective.”

“Since long before you were born. Derek Zastroy, right?”

He took his time answering. “Who gave you my name?”

“I've been given a lot of names the past twenty-four hours. Talked to several and now here I am talking to you.”

“Won't do you any good. Nobody's got anything to tell you.”

“You'd be surprised,” I said, “at what I've been told so far.” A half sneer said he didn't believe it, so I added, “The trouble you had with Cody Hatcher, for instance.”

“Uh-uh. Wrong. No trouble between Hatcher and me.”

“Over Alana Farmer, the way I heard it.”

“Whoever told you that's a liar.”

“She used to be your girlfriend before she hooked up with Cody, didn't she?”

“So what?”

“So you didn't like the fact that he took her away from you and you let Cody know it. Threatened to get him for it.”

Zastroy unfolded his arms, let them hang fisted at his sides; muscles wriggled and knotted along his jawline. Working hard at keeping his cool. “He never took her away from me. Nobody ever took anything away from me.”

“Then how did Alana end up with him?”

“Her and me busted up, but not over Hatcher. She's stupid, that's why she hooked up with a punk like him.”

“And you don't hold any grudge?”

“Not me. Alana's not the only piece around.”

“Then why did you fight with Cody, threaten him?”

“Who says I did? Alana?”

“Not important. True or not that you threatened him?”

“I might've told him I'd kick his ass if he messed with me. So what? I don't take shit from anybody and I let people know it. He left me alone after that, I left him alone.” Zastroy's mind churned up a belated thought that made his jaw muscles knot again. “What's all this about, old man? You trying to make out I had something to do with those rapes?”

Well, I'd had enough of the “old man” crap. Popeye had it right: you can stands so much, you can't stands no more. I said, hard and fast, “If I ever have any cause to accuse you of anything,
sonny boy,
it'll be straight out in no uncertain terms.”

“… What'd you call me?”

“The opposite of what you called me. You want to prove you're a
man,
come on over the bar and start pushing me around. You'd win out, but not before I gave you a hell of a scrap. And then you and the owners of this place would have an assault charge and a personal injury lawsuit to deal with.”