The Long Count (13 page)

Dr Beale was in his office listening to the tapes he had made in the Fannin County motel room when his secretary buzzed through. On the desk before him lay a stack of other tapes in cardboard cases that were numbered and inscribed
Trinity
. Ignoring the flashing light at the base of his phone, he rewound the spool, listened to the last part of the tape again then shut it off. Finally he picked up the phone.

‘Yes, Alice, what is it?’

‘Mr Briers, sir, and Nurse McClain. They want to see you, sir. They’re out here in the office.’

For a moment Beale just sat there staring at the reels of tape. Then he asked his secretary to give him a minute before she showed them in. Removing the reels from the spools he put them in the bottom drawer of his desk then unplugged the tape recorder and placed it on top of the file cabinet. He was turning for his desk when there was a knock on the door and the nurse and orderly came in.

Beale gestured for Briers to close the door then he indicated the couch. He remained standing. Hands behind his back he stepped up to the window and looked out across the dividing wall to the women’s section where another orderly followed Miss Annie as she pushed a metal stroller. For almost a minute Beale watched her, the way she walked with her head down, gnarled little fists bunched around the handle, glancing left and right as if she expected the other patients to try and snatch her baby from her.

‘I see you’re making sure Miss Annie gets plenty of fresh air, Nancy,’ he said, without turning. ‘That’ll do her good, she’s not happy when she’s cooped up.’

‘She’s never happy,’ Nancy said. ‘None of them are happy. They don’t know what happiness is.’ Lifting a palm she gestured. ‘It takes a lot of organizing to have her outside like that. She can’t be there with anyone else around unless there’s an orderly watching her every move, but that’s what you wanted so that’s what we’ve done.’

‘And I’m grateful.’ Beale looked round. ‘Miss Annie needs to be among the other patients, she can’t always be on her own. With the progress she’s been making since she came here I think it’s worth the extra manpower, don’t you?’ He took a seat across the coffee table. Young in the face with his hair oiled back from his forehead, he shifted his attention to Briers. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What did you want to see me about?’

Briers seemed a little nervous. He sat on the edge of the couch with his heels tucked back and his hands clasped between his legs.

‘Texas, Doc. The newspapers – I spoke to a friend of mine and …’

Lips pushed out Beale looked from him to Nancy and back. ‘You’re talking about Mary-Beth. I heard about that and I’ve been meaning to talk to both of you. It’s a tragedy of course, but it’s merely a coincidence. It’s not connected with anything that happened at Trinity.’

For a long moment Nancy seemed to study him. Sitting back in the seat with her head resting against the wall she looked far from comfortable. Next to her Briers shifted his weight.

‘It’s all right,’ Beale said. ‘We can talk freely. This office is soundproofed so nobody’s going to overhear. If you have something to say then I’d rather you said it so it’s out in the open and we can discuss it properly.’ He turned to Briers again. ‘What’s on your mind, Charlie?’

Briers glanced sideways at Nancy.

‘We’re worried,’ Nancy stated. ‘Doctor, Mary-Beth was murdered. Strangled, the papers said. You talk about coincidence, but she took off right after the fire and she didn’t tell any of us
where she was going.’ Pausing for a second her expression darkened. ‘There’s only one reason she would’ve done that and we all know what it is.’

Beale considered her with his fingers pressed together under his chin. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘She was scared. I accept that. And it’s a fact he was very threatening, but he has no history of violence and threats like that are almost always empty.’ Smiling then he gestured. ‘Look, it’s a sad fact but lots of people get murdered in this country and an awful lot of them in Texas. You know how it is, the wrong kind of glance in the wrong place, a housebreak that turns into something else. It happens, and especially, I’m afraid, to women. We cannot assume this is anything to do with what happened at Trinity.’

‘You really figure that’s how it is?’ Briers spoke with his eyebrows arched. ‘Come on, Doc: what went on before the fire, the way he was and everything – hell of a coincidence, don’t you think? And we still don’t know how that fire started, do we?’ His gaze drifted to the window. ‘The way that night turned out, the treatment you were hoping would trigger whatever it was you wanted to trigger – it’s not what you thought would happen. You were as shocked as the rest of us. I remember the look on your face when you hollered for me to come in.’

Features a little taut Beale’s gaze drifted to the tape recorder on top of the file cabinet.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘His reaction was neither what I was hoping for nor what I was expecting.’ Glancing at Nancy he sighed. ‘I can’t tell you exactly what I thought would happen because this is the coalface, right? There are no givens when it’s the mind you’re treating, and especially someone with his condition.’

‘A condition very few other doctors even accept exists,’ Nancy said.

‘Nancy, just because someone doesn’t accept something does not mean it doesn’t exist. History is littered with examples. Pushing the
boundaries is the very nature of what we do. He was upset, of course he was. I knew there would be a reaction, and if there had been even the slightest indication of violence in his past I would never have made the suggestion.’ With an open palm he gestured. ‘Look, I know how this appears but it’s nothing more than a tragic coincidence. You’ve nothing to be concerned about. None of us do. Mary-Beth’s death was nothing to do with what happened at Trinity.’

There was silence between them after that, the only sounds those that lifted from the grounds outside. Nancy was fidgeting a little where she sat. Next to her Briers was staring at the floor.

Finally Nancy spoke. ‘Nothing to worry about, is that what you really think? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it at all. Mary-Beth was murdered, and however you want to try and dress it up we all know who it was that killed her. You heard him that night. You heard what he said. He meant it, all of it, and he’s making good on his promise.’

When they were gone Beale went back to his desk where he sat staring into space. Eventually he seemed to come to and retrieved his keys from the top drawer. Fetching the address book from the safe once more, he dialled the number he had called a couple of days previously. His eyes were hooded, brow cut in fine lines; he worked a hand through his hair.

‘I’m sorry to call you again,’ he said when she answered the phone. ‘But I had to. Something’s happened. There’s something you need to know.’

It was a little less than two hundred miles from the Bowen house to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the skies were dark by the time Quarrie hit the city. A little cooler than in Texas, he had the address Austin had given him written on a slip of paper posted in his wallet.

Leaving the highway, he drove the downtown area on North
Main Street and from there he was on the old part of the road coming up on Cain’s Ballroom. Usually anybody driving this way could see the neon glittering from way back where, but for some reason the sign on the roof wasn’t lighted.

He had been to Cain’s once before, just after he got home from Korea when he and Mary-Clare had only recently started dating. The ballroom was world famous for swing and honky-tonk, and Mary-Clare could swing dance better than anyone. Not much more than a warehouse really, a facade constructed in adobe brick, inside it was one large room under a shallow pitch with a polished wooden floor and a bar. Driving all the way up from Amarillo one Saturday, they had danced into Sunday morning.

The old place had not changed. It looked no different now to how it had back then, only then the street had been heaving with people and that roof sign could be seen from a mile away. Tonight there was nobody on the street and only the red-and-white livery out front indicated that the place was open.

Quarrie pulled over just a couple of buildings south and he was weary after driving from Louisiana to the Bowen house and from the Bowen house all the way up here. On the sidewalk he stretched his legs, wearing his Carhartt with the Ranger’s star still pinned on the breast. For old time’s sake maybe, he pushed open the saloon style doors.

Only a handful of couples on the floor, the walls decked with old photos of jazzmen and country stars from the thirties. Two people were serving behind the bar, a younger guy in a black shirt with rhinestone stitching and a woman of around fifty with dark hair she had tied in a plait. A little lined around the eyes, there was something about her that felt familiar but Quarrie could not say what it was. With a smile he took a seat on a stool and indicated the coffee pot on the warmer.

‘Been a long drive,’ he said. ‘How about pouring me some of that coffee?’

The woman wiped the patch of bar space in front of him and glanced at the star in a wheel on his breast. She did not say anything. She just fetched a cup for the coffee.

Taking a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket Quarrie shook one out, tamped the inscribed end against the heel of his thumb and the woman passed him an ashtray.

‘Not so busy tonight?’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘The last time I was here was fifteen years back and you couldn’t move for people bopping.’

‘Fifteen years is a long time.’ The woman stated. ‘A lot can happen in fifteen years, and that was before Elvis and Jerry Lee.’ Looking beyond him to the all but empty floor she wagged her head little sadly. ‘Nobody wants to dance like they used to anymore, not even in Oklahoma.’

Swivelling round on his stool Quarrie too gazed across the empty floor. And for a moment his wife was in his arms, back in the days when she had still been his girlfriend. He allowed the memory to cling as he sipped the coffee.

‘They used to tell us that floor right there had springs under her, the way she seemed to move so much when we were dancing.’

The woman shook her head. ‘That was just a rumor. The floor isn’t sprung, it’s regular hardwood; the way it moved was on account of the weight of the people.’

‘That all it was? No kidding.’ Lighting his cigarette, Quarrie snapped his Zippo closed then laid it on top of his package of Camels.

The woman indicated his badge as somehow he knew she was going to. ‘You’re from Texas and this is Oklahoma. Not that it’s any of my business, but what’re you doing up here?’

Quarrie held her eye. ‘Actually I’m looking for someone.’ He glanced down at the star. ‘Guess I forgot to take this off when I crossed the state line.’ Shifting his weight he sought the wallet in his jeans pocket and took out the slip of paper. ‘I have an address
right here and I don’t think it’s too far away so maybe you could help me find it?’

The woman considered the address and tugged her lip with her teeth. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s just a few blocks from here. Carry on up North Main and take a left at the light. Keep going and you’ll come to it.’

She left him to his coffee, making her way down the bar to the guy in the rhinestone stitching. Quarrie saw them exchange a few words and the young man peered at him over the woman’s shoulder. Spinning the slip of paper around with the tip of his finger, Quarrie slipped it back in his wallet.

Outside he turned up his collar, climbed into the car and drove the underpass on North Main as far as the red light where the woman had told him to make the turn. Locating the block, he switched off the engine and considered his surroundings. Small properties, single-story, they were built in fading clapboard and he was reminded of the street where Mary-Beth had been murdered.

1433 was set back from the road, not much more than a cottage really with a tiny yard out front and in close proximity to its neighbor. No lights in the house, though one was burning above the stoop. Checking the address against the slip of paper, he got out of the vehicle.

Crossing the pitted asphalt he walked the lawn to the stoop. A solid front door, there were curtains drawn across all the windows. He knocked but received no answer. Knocking again he still got no answer so he walked around to the back, found the kitchen door and knocked again. He could see no lights in any of the windows: the whole place was in darkness. Back at the car he scribbled a note then slipped it under the kitchen door.

With Cain’s not busy enough for both bartenders, the woman left just a few minutes after Quarrie. Buttoning her coat, she went out the back way to her eleven-year-old VW Bug, pale blue with a vinyl section to the roof that folded to let the sun in. She drove home, taking the long route up North Main to the light and another block from there. When she got to her street she parked a few houses away. Sitting behind the wheel with her hands clasped in her lap, she watched the Ranger walk all the way around her place before going back to his car. Perched on the edge of the driver’s seat with the door open, he seemed to be writing something down. She watched him walk around back of the house again, disappearing from view before he returned to the car. This time he started the engine. He drove right past the VW but she was lying across the front seats so he could not see her. She lay there until she could no longer hear the sound of his car and then she pulled into her driveway.

In the kitchen she saw the note he had left pushed half under the door. She stared at it, fingers stiff and her eyes puckered at the corners. She did not pick it up. Instead she opened the freezer compartment on her Frigidaire and took out a bottle of vodka. Collecting a tumbler from the closet above the sink, she poured a shot and drank it down and then she poured another. From her purse she took a pack of Lucky Strikes housed in a snap-to wallet and lit one. Finally she picked up his note and read how he needed to talk to her. He would try and call on the phone later and be back again in the morning.

Taking her glass through to the living room, she made sure the curtains were pulled all the way across so there was no gap at all before she switched on the lamps. Placing the note on the coffee table she sat down on the couch where a multi-colored throw was gathered. For an age she stared at the fireplace, the room adorned with Native American symbols, dream catchers and medicine wheels hung as if to ward off evil spirits.