The Deader the Better (38 page)

Robby dialed the phone. “Is this Alice?…Oh…oh…I’m
sorry.” Hung up.

“She’s still at the office,” he said to me.

“Do your stuff,” Carl said.

“I have a nice collection of latex condoms,” Narva offered.
Robby growled. “Sic ’em tiger,” he said.

“Some in lovely pastel colors.”

“How much time do you need?” Robby asked.

“Something with studs?” she persisted.

“Two hours minimum.”

Narva held up a hand. “Careful, now. Don’t put that kind of
pressure on him.”

THE EXPRESSION ON RAMONA HAYNES’S FACE REMINDED me of how the
other cartoon characters look at the moment when they realize Casper
is a ghost. She stopped in her tracks and then reached out and put
one hand on the doorframe.

“What in hell…?”

“I’m like the bad penny,” I said.

“But…,” she sputtered “they said you’d been…”

“I was, but it didn’t stick.” I read her the
Reader’s
Digest
version.

“Two murders in as many months. I mean, this just doesn’t
happen around here…maybe in…” She moved the hand to her throat.
“Kind of makes that mush I was pedaling about small-town life sound
ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

A bit too much color had returned to her cheeks. Her chin was
pink.

“Not really,” I said. “That scene at the supermarket the
other day would never happen in Seattle. Most people wouldn’t want
to get involved. They’d be afraid of getting sued or shot or
something.”

She walked out into the outer office and leaned her elbows on the
counter. “What is going on around here?” she said. I winked.
“Don’t worry. Unless I’m sadly mistaken, we’re about to find
out.”

Her forehead wrinkled. She straightened up. “What makes you say
that?”

“Oh…just a premonition,” I said in my best conspiratorial
tone.

“Come on,” she snapped. “Don’t be so damn mysterious.”

“Us detectives are like that.”

She waved a hand at me. “You’re just blowing smoke.”

I grinned for all I was worth. “Whatever you say.”

She hated it. I had her going I could tell. So I jumped in.

“If you let me take you up on that invitation for dinner,” I
said, “maybe you could worm it out of me.”

She looked me over. “So…you’ll sing for your supper, will
you?”

“The cuisine at the Peninsula County Jail left a great deal to
be desired.”

She laughed. “I’ll bet,” she said.

“I decided that ‘previously eaten’ was the best description
of the fare.”

She pulled the corners of her mouth down. “That’s awful.”

“How’s about it?” I said.

She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

“Worm it out of you, huh?”

“An unfortunate turn of phrase,” I said.

“Let me finish up here. You can follow me.”

She swirled the remaining wine in her glass. “It’s what
happens when people get desperate,” she said. “They can’t see
any further than tomorrow.”

“But,” I countered, “it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
For as long as I can remember, the world has been telling the timber
industry that the party was about to be over.” I’d had a bit too
much merlot and was babbling. “I mean…the rise of the
environmental movement alone should have told them…”

“It’s not just an industry. That’s what outsiders don’t
get. It’s an entire way of life. In my high school class, there
were a hundred forty kids. Know how many of them went off to
college?”

“How many?”

“Eight.” She let it sink in. “Because they’re backward?
Stupid?”

“Don’t forget inbred,” I suggested.

She sneered at me. “Because the rest of them knew where their
lives were going. They knew who they were going to marry and who they
were going to work for. And what area of town they wanted to build a
house in when the time came.”

“Sounds absolutely terrifying,” I said.

She got to her feet and began to clear dishes from the table. I
joined in, and in two trips we managed to get everything into the
dishwasher. I was leaning back against the kitchen counter. Ramona
was wiping her hands with a black-andwhite-striped dish towel. She
rested her hip on mine as she draped the towel over the faucet.
Outside, the wind had something squeaking. Slanting rain hammered
directly on the windows. She stepped in between my feet and looked up
at me. I could see the faint hair on her cheeks and smell scented
soap.

“So…what’s this big secret you’re harboring?”

I tried to look offended. “Is that all you think of me? You
think a great steak dinner and a couple of bottles of good wine will
loosen my tongue?”

She reached around me and pulled the chain on the overhead light.

“I had something else in mind for your tongue,” she said,
sliding her arms around my neck, pulling me down toward her face and
the smell of flowers.

KURTIS SIPPED COFFEE FROM A WHITE MUG. “THIS thing with the
cameras is creepy,” he said. “There’s something about watching
people who don’t know they’re being watched…”

He waved a hand. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

Boris added what I thought to be a particularly Russian idea. “Vat
eef de people doing de surveilling are also under surveillance?”

“Stop it,” Narva said.

“Lotta tape,” said Robby.

“You have no idea,” said Carl with an evil grin. “Every
tanning parlor, every locker room, dressing room, bathroom. Every
bridal suite in every hotel…hell, they’re all wired. Have been
for years.”

Narva looked at Robby. “He’s kidding, right? Tell me he’s
kidding.”

“If that’s what you want to hear, I’ll tell you,” he said.

“Nooooooooo,” said Kurtis. “You can’t be—“Countdown,”
Robby said above the conversation. “Ten, nine, eight…”

Carl reached up and switched on a monitor.

“…three, two, one.”

Chanel Fourteen. Stevens Falls TV. Time: seven A.M. The date. A
community calendar began to scroll by. What had begun the morning as
thick mist now pounded the metal roof of the RV.

“We didn’t start right off with the good stuff,” Carl said.

“A little of them, a little of us,” Robby added.

“The shit hits the fan in four minutes,” Carl said.

“Everybody ready to roll?” I asked. They said they were. I’d
already paid everybody but Carl. “What about you?”

Floyd asked.

“I’m gonna take a quick swing by the homestead and then head
out.”

“I’m staying with you. Boris can take the car,” said Floyd.
I started to argue, but he wasn’t having any of it. “Everybody in
this crew did what they signed on to do. Am I right? I signed on to
get your ass back to Seattle in one piece, so I hope you don’t mind
if I earn my money.” When he put it that way…On the screen,
Redwood Farm and Garden, for all your landscaping needs. Family owned
and operated for fifty-three years. The whole Brady clan smiling into
the camera.

“You find the switch?” I asked Robby.

“Big as life. We’re broadcasting all over the peninsula.”

“Here it comes,” said Carl. “You seen this one before.”

MONDAY 8: A.M.

CAMERA 1—TRESSMANThe lower half of Nathan Hand paced in and out
of camera range. “I don’t like it,” he said. Mark Tressman sat
at his desk and began rolling a paper clip around in his fingers.
“It’s just a burglary.”

“You haven’t been up on the roof.”

“Don’t start any conspiracy theory with me,” Tressman said.

“No conspiracy. It’s that Waterman and those hardcases he’s
got out there with him. I think they’re trying to queer the deal.”

“He admits as much. So what? He’s got nothing. And there’s
nothing in this building that would advance his cause in any way. If
I was going to worry about anybody, I’d be more inclined to worry
about Loomis.”

Hand leaned down and put both hands on the desk. “I don’t get
it. Loomis wants the deal to go through as bad as we do.”

“Maybe they’re getting nervous. Maybe they’re checking up on
us. We blew it once before. Maybe they don’t trust us to get it
done.”

Eight-fifty-four A.M. Another voice. June the receptionist.

“Is Sheriff Hand back there?”

“Be right out,” Hand called.

“Ten days,” Tressman intoned. “Just ten days.”

Dewitt Davis of the Davis Funeral Home, looking somber, as a
mortician should. Recommending the Purple Cross program so your loved
ones won’t be burdened with the bother of giving you a decent
burial.

The next insertion was a split screen. Tressman on the left,
Weston on the right.

“How cool,” Narva said.

TUESDAY 9:03 A.M.

On the screen, Nancy Weston looked older than I recalled.

“He’s out of control, Mark. You know he had an accident. Hit
some man out in front of the Country Corner.”

“I heard.”

“Something has to be done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She put a hand to her throat: her voice rose. “What it means is
that I’ve spent some of my prime years here. Doing my end. Putting
this together.”

“As have we all,” Tressman said.

“Which is why something has to be done. I’m not getting stuck
here, Mark. Loomis is my ticket out of here and I’m taking it.”

On one side of the screen, Nancy Weston banged the phone down
hard. On the other, Mark Tressman winced, depressed the button and
dialed. Robby zoomed the camera in. Last four numbers were .

MONDAY : A.M.

CAMERA 4—POLSTERPolster is pacing back and forth. Weston is
trying to calm him down. “It’s not esoteric like bridges or sewer
systems. They’re going to know right away.”

“You really think he’s got state inspectors coming in on
Friday?”

“Damn right I do.”

“I think he’s bluffing.”

Polster paced the room, biting on his thumb. “It’s pretty
goddamned easy for you to think that. It’s not your ass in the
wringer.”

“Will you relax?”

Polster raised his voice. “No, goddammit, I won’t. You damn
well better get behind me on this one, you hear me. I’m not going
to be anybody’s whipping boy here, Nancy. You and Mark and the rest
of them better get that straight right now.”

“Rest of them?” Carl said.

I shrugged.

Back to our regular programming. Doug’s Auto Repair and the
Steelhead Tavern.

“You haven’t seen this next one,” Robby said. “This is the
one where the clerk melts down.”

THURSDAY 4: P.M.

Split screen. Tressman left. Weston right. “Is that what you
told Emmett Polster?” she asked. Tressman massaged his forehead.

“Will you just—”

“If you think I’m going to wait around until Nathan Hand puts
a bullet in my brain, you better think again.”

“Nancy, come on, now…”

“I’ve got all the checks.” She pulled open the drawer in
front of her and pulled out a handful of checks. She fanned them out
on the desk. “Springer, Manson, Enos, Howard, McNulty. Every one of
them. Every one of the people we claimed didn’t pay their taxes.
I’ve got them all. If the authorities want proof, I’m the one
who’s got it. And don’t you think I won’t, either.”

“Nancy…,” Tressman started again. “We’re almost there.
All we have to do is stay calm.”

“Calm?” she screamed into the mouthpiece. “Calm like
Emmett?”

“We—”

She hung up on him. Stuffed the checks into the pocket of her
dress and disappeared from view. Tressman laced his fingers together
over the top of his head and sat all the way back in his chair.

A loud knock on the RV door. Everybody flinched. Boris stepped
behind the door. Floyd opened it a crack. Monty.

“Ya said I should tell ya if the sheriff drove by.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Just went roarin’ off for all the car was worth. Fire truck
hot on his heels.”

We were twenty minutes into the tape. I was guessing that by now
phones were ringing all over the county. The later it got, the more
they were going to ring.

“I’d love to see their faces,” said Kurtis, “when they see
that steamroller parked in front of the door.” He hoisted his mug
at me. “A stroke of genius, Leo.”

“What if they have extra keys?” Narva asked.

“They do,” I said. “They’re on a board inside the
station.”

“They’ll have to go in through a wall,” Floyd said.

“Steel-reinforced concrete,” Kurtis said. “Crew of four…six
hours.”

“Ta-da,” sang Robby. “The main attraction.”

The screen is black for a moment and then slowly lightens into the
interior of room number nine at the Black Bear Motel. Narva and Mark
Tressman. In living color. Narva’s face is electronically blocked
out. Mark Tressman’s is not. They’re standing at the foot of the
bed. He’s all over her like a cheap suit. Slobbering into her neck
while he gropes behind her, trying to figure out how her dress is
fastened.

“You’re wonderful,” he gargles. She squeals and begins to
unbutton his shirt, which she then yanks from his trousers and pulls
from his torso, until it hangs from his wrists. He’s haired all
over like a gibbon. While Tressman is busy trying to unbutton his
cuffs without putting the shirt back on, she undoes his belt and
drops his trousers to the floor. Briefs, not boxers. Black. She
squeezes him. He closes his eyes and groans piteously. She takes him
by the shoulders, twirls him around and sits him down on the bed. One
foot at a time, she maneuvers the pants over the wingtips, so, in
less than a minute, he’s sitting there wearing brogans, briefs and
black socks. More or less every man’s nightmare. She pulls him to
his feet. She takes him in her hand. Nods toward the bathroom. Her
voice is breathy. “You go put a helmet on that soldier. I’ll be
waiting for you.” With those words she loosens the top of her dress
and folds it down. Tressman makes a dive for her cleavage but is
rejected. He kicks his pants off, finds his wallet and scoots for the
toilet. Quickly, Narva gathers both of their clothes. Pulls open the
dresser drawer, produces a folded piece of paper, which she leaves on
the bed. Hustles over to the door to the adjoining room, opens it and
steps out of sight. Two minutes of an empty room nine.