The Deputy (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Our cramped living room led right into the cramped kitchen, so Doris could stand at the counter making coffee and still see the television. She had a rerun of
The Real World
on with the sound down almost to nothing. Some dude was yelling at the
Real World
kids because they were all supposed to be up early for some project thing, but they slept in instead. What the hell was the big deal?

I said, “You’re staying up?”

She shrugged, watching the coffee drip. “I can’t go back to sleep now.” “I’ll take a cup of that.” “When it’s finished.” “Pour me a cup now,” I told her. “It’s only halfway through. It won’t taste right.” “I don’t mind.”

“
I
mind.” She
tsked
, shook her head. “Damn it, who’s making this fucking coffee?”

“There’s a cut off if you take the pot out before it’s finished. So it doesn’t spill.” I put that obnoxious patient sound in my voice, like I was talking to a little kid. “The coffee maker is designed specifically so you can do that.”

“We’ve had this conversation already.”

And there you pretty much had the whole marriage. We fit together good in bed, worked together nice, folding laundry together or doing the dishes, her washing and me drying and putting them back in the cabinet. My mom had been big on companionable silence. Needless talk only causes trouble, she’d told me once. Maybe she was right because Doris and I sure got into it whenever one of us opened our yaps. Something was always eating one of us.

I decided I’d better say something nice. “You don’t look so fat.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Your ass, I mean.”

“Fuck you, Toby.”

“Shit, that’s not how I meant it, okay?” She stood there in plain white panties and my Green Day t-shirt, and I thought she looked fine. “You were looking in the mirror the other day, remember? And you said you thought it was getting big. I’m just saying I think it’s fine.”

“Whatever. You want this coffee now?”

“Okay.”

She poured two cups and brought them to the couch. She didn’t sit close to me but not so far away either. She handed me a plain white cup of black coffee. Her mug was bigger and with a sunset clouds scene and some scripture on the side. John 3:16, I think.

I sipped. She sipped. We watched
The Real World
with the sound down.

I tried some more conversation like this: “When do you go into work?”

“You know what time. Seven like always.”

Then I tried this: “How’s your sister?”

“You don’t even like her.”

I sipped coffee and shut up.

Real World
ended and
Super Sweet Sixteen
came on. Little girls having fancy birthday parties. This show made me pissed off and depressed at the same time. That these spoiled kids could have it so good and it still wasn’t enough. This one girl got a brand new BMW for her sixteenth birthday but pissed and moaned it was the wrong color. Jesus. Slap that bitch.

“Oh, cool,” Doris said. “I wish I’d had a big party like that when I was sixteen.”

We watched a few minutes.

Finally she asked, “What was the problem?”

I looked at her. “With what?”

“What do you think? Taking off at midnight with your pistol, that’s what. What did the chief want?”

“Oh.” I sipped coffee. “Somebody killed Luke Jordan.”

I saw the blood drain from her face. Like somebody pulled a plug and it all leaked right out, her eyes round with startled confusion. I wasn’t sure what surprised me more. Her reaction or that fact she was trying to hide it.

“Dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did—” She paused, cleared her throat. “How?”

“Wayne said he was making a play for some Mexican chick in Skeeter’s. Jealous boyfriend maybe. Shot the crap out of him.” I didn’t tell her the rest of it, losing the body and all. I didn’t have the heart for that conversation, maybe never would.

Maybe I could get a job at the fertilizer plant. That was an hour drive each way, but I’d be full time with benefits too. Maybe I could go over there and get the job and then even tell Doris I quit the department on purpose to bring in more money. She’d be glad about that. Hell, it might even work. And if I made enough she could quit the waitress job and take care of the boy full time.

“Maybe it was some kind of mistake,” she said.

I blinked. “What?’

“Maybe he was just talking to that Mexican girl, and it was some kind of misunderstanding.”

I shrugged, didn’t see what difference that made. “Luke Jordan’s just as dead either way.”

She got up and went into the kitchen. I thought about asking her for more coffee but didn’t. The Super Sweet Sixteen girl was pissing and moaning because her daddy got the wrong boy band to play at her party. It should be legal just to punch these people. No jail time. Case dismissed.

Doris came back, stood at the end of the couch.

“Toby?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go to Houston. My sister will put us up until we get work. I can waitress anywhere. We have to try something different.”

That was my chance right then. I could tell her okay, let’s sell the trailer for moving money and go to Houston and remake our lives from the ground up. I was going to get shit-canned anyway. I had no prospects. Even my idea about the fertilizer plant seemed pretty feeble now. Molly would be gone soon. No reason in the world not to give Doris’s idea serious consideration.

But for some reason I said, “I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“You never liked my sister.”

“This again.”

She balled up one of her little fists and hit me in the arm. It didn’t hurt. Much. She went back into the kitchen.

I could feel her fuming in there. You could almost see the

anger radiating around her, like heat waves off hot asphalt.

“Don’t be like that.”

“You’re stupid.” Her voice sounded funny, kind of shaky.

“I don’t need this.”

“Fuck you.” Plenty of venom. Doris never did need much of an excuse to start some shit, but this was sudden even for her.

“What’s eating you?”

“I’m, like, all trying to better our life and stuff, and you’re just not even being cool about it. You never listen to me.”

Bullshit. All I ever did was listen to her run her mouth, complaining about anything and everything. She’d get home from work and start right in and wouldn’t shut it until she fell asleep or I left for work. She was like some kind of Energizer Bunny nonstop bitch machine. Or she’d drop the boy in the playpen with a few toys and sit in front of the TV for hours and hours. Or on the phone with her sister for a million hours at a time. She needed three more husbands, so we could all take shifts listening to her.

“We’ll talk about it later. Just keep it down for now, okay? You’ll wake the boy.”

“The boy!” She scoffed. “You don’t have that brat hanging on you every damn minute when you get home from work. I’m
tired
, Toby. I’m tired of everything. Tired of this shit town.”

Tired of this shit town. Everyone sang the same song. Molly. Doris. Every other stud fresh out of high school with more balls than brains, off to conquer the world. They didn’t know what it was like out there. None of them did.

I pushed myself off the couch, went to the bathroom and took the tin star off my dirty Weezer shirt. It wasn’t really tin, I guess. That’s just something the chief said when he gave it to me.
Here’s your tin star, Deputy
. Back in my bedroom, I went into the closet, came out with a clean khaki uniform shirt, patch on the sleeve. I pinned the star over the right pocket. I put on a clean pair of jeans. Sweat socks and hiking boots.

I went back into the kitchen. Doris stood with her hands on the counter facing away from me. I took down one of the travel mugs with a lid, filled it with coffee and snugged the lid on.

“I’m going back out. Forgot to do a few things at the station.” And I couldn’t stay around when she was like this. Anywhere was better than here.

She didn’t say anything.

I went back in our bedroom, grabbed the straw cowboy hat off the dresser and wore it back on my head. Now I looked like the law.

Doris still leaned on the counter when I went back in the kitchen. By now she was usually yelling something at me. I didn’t know if I should be grateful or not. I put a hand on her shoulder to turn her around, and she let me.

Her eyes were wet and red, face snotty from crying.

“I want to go to my sister’s.” She said it like she hardly had any breath left. Like she might fall down any minute.

“I promise we’ll talk about it when you get off work. We’ll make some kind of plan.”

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t believe me.

I headed for the door. She worried me. “I’ll be back before you go to work.”

I left, closed the trailer door quietly, so I didn’t wake the boy. After I got into the Nova, I remembered I didn’t have my gun. Then I remembered it was under the seat. I fished it out and put it on the passenger seat. Hell, I had-n’t even locked the car door. I’d have to be more careful. I needed to pay more attention to things. And when the boy got older too. Can’t leave a gun around where a kid can find it.

The kitchen light didn’t go out, and I knew Doris was still up. The TV lights flickered. Maybe I should go back in there. I hated leaving her so upset, but what could I do? I couldn’t fix anything. Maybe that’s why she was crying. Maybe if we could just earn a little more money somehow. Maybe if I was a better man.

Maybe if I’d been a better musician. Maybe a lot of things.

I remembered when the band broke up. The lead singer’s dad got tired of his son screwing off. That’s what he called our band. Screwing off, like we weren’t serious about our music. Jerk. But he told his son he’d pay for college and there went our singer. The drummer joined the Army, and the bass player met some girl. A new course at the local police academy was about to start, and the idea of me with a gun on my hip and mirrored sunglasses suddenly seemed pretty sweet. Fourteen weeks of pushups and regulations. I graduated at the bottom of my class, but there I was ready to clean up some city like fucking Serpico, baby. All that stuff I learned about codes and violations flew out of my head an hour later. Pretty much how I got through high school.

Six days later I got the letter about Mom.

Hell.

I put the Nova in reverse and backed out. I drove out of the trailer park, back toward town. Maybe I could find the chief, apologize for my screw-up. He liked me. He wouldn’t protect me too far if I screwed up bad enough. He was a by-the-book man, and I’d have to take my lumps. But maybe we could work something out.

Thirty seconds later the headlights were back in the rearview mirror.

Perfect.

CHAPTER FIVE

Now I was getting pissed off. No way this was a coincidence. Somebody was fucking with me.

I kept it at the speed limit all the way into town, the car on my tail about two hundred yards back. I couldn’t tell if it was the same car as before, but my gut told me it was. I drove along Main Street and parked in front of the station. As I got out of the car, I saw the Mustang turn right a block back.

I tried the stationhouse door. Locked. The lights were on, so I knocked, but nobody answered. I found the right key on my ring, unlocked the door and went inside. I called for Billy but didn’t get a reply. I thought about calling him or the chief on the radio but figured that might piss them off since I was supposed to be home. A car passed outside, headlights seeping through the blinds. I waited a minute but the headlights didn’t come back.

I went out the back door and into the alley, shut and locked the door behind me. I wondered if that dog was still around. Probably off someplace sleeping peacefully. Smart dog. I walked down the alley behind the hardware store and the fire house, all the windows dark. I cut up the next street and crossed Main after looking both ways to make sure it was deserted. I walked the couple blocks to Molly’s.

This time her stepdad’s Peterbilt sat in front of the house. Not the trailer, just the cab. He must’ve delivered his load ahead of schedule and come home. I hesitated under the big scrub oak in her front yard and wondered if it was safe to knock on her window. If her old man followed his routine he’d either be blitzed on Jim Beam in front of the TV or sleeping it off by now. Probably he was ragged out from a long haul, so I was guessing bed. I crept up to Molly’s dark window and knocked.

I gave her twenty seconds and knocked again. I almost gave up when she came to the window and lifted it open.

“Go on, Toby. Roy’s back.”

Roy. Didn’t that just sound like a drunken redneck stepfather name?

“He’s asleep, ain’t he?”

She glanced over her shoulder back into the dark of her room, thought about it. “Okay, but just for a little bit.”

She stepped back from the window, and I crawled in.

The clove smell had faded some. The room was air-conditioner cold and felt nice after being outside, but I could see gooseflesh on Molly’s arms in the light of the streetlamp, her nipples straining against the fabric of her black tank top. She wore that and white cotton panties. Her hair was a little mashed on one side, so she’d probably been sleeping a while.

“I’m getting back under the covers.” She crawled into bed.

I stayed at her window, wondering if the Mustang would come down her street any moment, but I didn’t see anything.

“What do you want, Toby? I don’t want to fuck anymore.” Her voice drifted from a vague lump under the comforter. Her fat stepdad liked to crank the air down arctic style.

“I just need to hide out a minute.” I hesitated. “I think I’m in deep shit, Molly.”

“Why?”

“Remember, I told you Luke Jordan was dead?”

A pause. “You killed him?”

“No! Hell. Come on.”

“What then?”

“I lost the body.”

She laughed.

“It’s not very Goddamn funny.”

“Yes it is.”

“There are some guys after me, I think. They keep following me.”

She stopped laughing. “Maybe it’s Luke’s brothers.”

“What for?”

“Well, if you … Toby, if you killed Luke Jordan, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Why the hell would I kill Luke, for fuck’s sake?”

Her voice got real small. “No reason.”

“Anyway it’s some car I’ve never seen in town before. Big-ass, tricked out Ford Mustang. Mach 1 with a V-8 like a fucking rocket engine.”

“Somebody from out of town.”

“Yeah.”

And that didn’t help me a damn bit. Why would somebody randomly breeze into town and take a sudden interest in freaking me out? The answer: it wasn’t random, I was just too thick to know why. Okay, if I wanted to be a deputy so bad, then it was time to start thinking like one. Think smart. Okay, dipshit, what’s the only other thing of interest that’s happened? A dead Luke Jordan. So what’s the connection? You don’t know, do you, you dumb motherfucker?

Hell.

“You went quiet,” Molly whispered. “You okay?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Solve anything?”

“Thinking’s not my main strength.”

“Come get in bed.”

I went to the bed, stood at the edge. If I got in, I’d have a hell of a time getting out again. I wanted sleep. I wanted to stretch out next to Molly, pull that comforter over our heads and forget about everything else. But I was-n’t supposed to sleep here, and I for damn sure wasn’t supposed to wake up here.

She sat up, took my hand. “Come on.”

I shook my head. “Can’t do it. Oh, man, I want to, but I can’t.”

She let go of my hand, her fingers dragging across my crotch. I felt the spark of electricity, things stirring to life. “I bet I can change your mind.”

“Really, Molly. I’d better go. I have to find out what’s going on.”

Her hands worked my zipper, reached in and fished me out. I was semi-erect. She started fondling. It took a minute or so, but I managed another erection, found myself thrusting against her fist. I didn’t think there was anything left after the night I’d had, but the thought of getting inside Molly again made me dizzy. Her head leaned in, and I felt her hot breath as her mouth edged closer.

The banging fists on her bedroom door sent my heart into my throat. “Open this Goddamn door!” Roy.

Molly shoved me away. “The closet!” Her whisper was a frightened hiss.

I scooted to her closet, my erection wagging and deflating but not fast enough. I closed the door, saw the light leak underneath. Molly had gotten up, switched on the light, probably slipping into her robe. The banging on the door increased.

“Okay!” she yelled. “Two seconds.”

I heard the door creak open, the heavy slouch of Roy pushing his way in.

“What the fuck’s going on in here?” A booze slur in Roy’s voice.

“What do you mean?”

“You talking to somebody?”

“I was on the phone.”

“Who with?”

I lost track of the interrogation, realized my pecker was still dangling out of my fly. I reached to zip it up fast, caught the tip in the zipper.

I bit my lip to keep back a yelp, tears quickly filling my eyes. Oh, fucking shit! Felt like a hot match head on the end of my dick. I tried to work the zipper down slowly, sweat bubbling on my forehead and behind my ears. The argument between Molly and Roy was getting louder, but I tuned it out, still trying to work my zipper without ripping a hole in my dick.

There was a smear of warm blood on my fingers when I finally unjammed the skin from the zipper. I wanted to weep, but the blinding hot pain slowly subsided. I had to stop myself from moaning relief.

I heard “Goddamn little cunt” and the smack of skin on skin so loud it made me jump. Sounds of a struggle, grunting. I put my hand on the closet doorknob, hesitated, not quite ready to explain what I was doing in this underage girl’s closet. It was difficult to just stand there and listen, but I made myself be patient.

Then I heard Molly scream, “Leave me the fuck alone!” and storm out of the room.

Roy chased after her with, “Don’t turn your back on me!”

I waited another moment, heard the muffled argument elsewhere in the house. I pushed the door open and headed for the window when I saw the coast was clear, bumped my shin on the way out. I tumbled down, sprawled in a pile on her yard.

“Shit.”

I stood slowly, still a vague sting at the tip of my dick, my right shin throbbing.

I looked at the house, telling my body to turn around and go about the business of the night, but I knew I could-n’t do that. Molly had told me she’d caught her stepdad looking at her a bunch of times, and not a good kind of look. Sort of creepy and licking his lips, so Molly locked her door every night before bed. If I walked away, and anything happened to her, it would be my fault.

I went up the front steps, knocked, waited, knocked some more.

The porch light came on, and I heard the rattle of chains and locks and then the door opened. Roy stood swaying, looking at me with one eye closed. A cloud of bourbon almost knocked me back down the steps.

“What do you want?”

“Neighbors called in a domestic dispute. I need to know the trouble.”

“Shit.” Roy snorted. “I know you. I know why you’re here.”

“Been drinking tonight, sir?”

“Fuck you.”

“Roy, maybe you’d better spend the night with a friend so there’s no problem here after I leave. Grab somebody’s couch and sleep it off.”

Another snort. “You think I take that star on your chest seriously? You think anybody does?”

“This is serious police business, Roy.”

“Kiss my ass.” He started to close the door.

I shoved my leg in, pushed the door open again. “Hold on.”

“Get your fucking hands off—”

He came at me, a sloppy leap, and I stepped aside. He stumbled down the porch steps, tried to turn and punch at me while he was falling and he ended up on his ass at the bottom. He winced, rubbed a bruised elbow.

“Settle down, Roy.”

“You little—you fucking—prick.” He heaved out the words between breaths, wheezing and red faced, made a grab at my pants.

I put a boot against his shoulder and kicked him back. He sprawled, looked straight up in the sky, still muttering curses. I didn’t feel like a hero picking on a drunk fat man twice my age, but I wasn’t broken up about it either. I was-n’t looking to defend Molly’s honor with some kind of a fair fight, and if Roy was too blitzed to hit back that was all right by me. Frankly, it felt good to dominate the situation for a change.

“You want me to call Chief Krueger? Maybe you’ll listen to him.”

Roy sighed out a groan.

“Maybe you’d take the chief more seriously. What do you say about that, Roy?”

He didn’t say anything.

“How about it? Get the chief on the horn?”

“Okay, I fucking get it,” Roy said. “I’ll go to Howard Boyle’s house. It’s only two blocks.”

“Hand over your keys.”

“Oh, now what the fuck for? Jesus.”

“I can’t have you sneaking back five minutes after I’m gone,” I told him. “You can pick up the keys at the station house in the morning.”

He fished the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to me.

I turned back to the house, the open front door. “Molly, you lock up after we leave.”

“Okay.” Her voice floated closer than expected from the dark innards of the house. I supposed she’d been listening the whole time.

“Come on, Roy. I’ll walk you.” I offered my hand.

He took it, and I pulled him up. He dusted himself off with clumsy ham hands. All the fight had gone out of him, and I think if I’d told him to lie down right there on the lawn and go to sleep he’d have done it. All I wanted was for him to get to sleep somewhere.

We walked in and out of dim blotches of street light on the way to Howard Boyle’s house. Roy smelled like booze and sweat. He put one foot in front of the other like he couldn’t believe he was alive, like sooner or later gravity would just say
that’s enough of you
and drag him right down.

“Her mother takes off, and I’m left to do everything. I mean, what the hell. I married her and she had a kid and all. I took her in. Both of them. Then Molly’s mother just fucking takes off. And now I got this girl on my hands like some kind of alien, the way she dresses and that freaky, dark-ass music she listens to.”

I already knew Roy’s story, but he told it so sad I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“She’s going to be out of your hair soon,” I said. “You know once she’s off to college she’ll never come back. Not here.” Saying it out loud like that hit me right in the gut. “Anyway, you can behave yourself until then.”

“Can’t be soon enough,” Roy said. “Get my friggin’ life back.”

Some life.

Howard Boyle’s house was at the end of the street where the neighborhood petered out and blended into open field, and a half-wrecked windmill beyond. There were a hundred places like this in Oklahoma where a town suddenly stopped and you stood staring into wide open nothing. Boyle’s house wasn’t much more than a shabby shotgun shack, but it still had more room than my trailer. We climbed the steps, knocked on the door. It took a long time for Howard to flip on the porch light and open up.

Howard ran the tire and lube store in town. He’d inherited it from his daddy and hit the skids in the late eighties. Some rich guy from Tulsa who made a habit of snatching up troubled businesses for a song bought the place but kept Howard on to run it. Looking at the slackbellied, balding fifty-something wreck in front of me, I saw a man who didn’t have a damn thing to look forward to when he got up each morning. No family. No legacy. No talent for anything accept changing a tire. Even his boxer shorts looked like they weren’t hiding much. Probably the perfect drinking buddy for old Roy. Sure.