The Quiet Streets of Winslow (16 page)

“Like I expected to get a C when I didn't write the paper I was supposed to. Like I think people and countries should be smarter than to get into wars. Like I think I'm better than everybody else, self-righteous or whatever, because I know these things and other people don't.” She looked down at the rocky wash, and her dark hair fell forward and she was close to tears.

“Maybe there's nothing wrong with you at all,” I said.

“Right. Like I'm perfect.”

“No. Like, I like how you are.”

“Why?” she said.

“I just do.”

“There has to be a reason.”

“I don't care what the reason is,” I said.

I said it too confidently, or else she just didn't believe me. You never say what you really mean to say, I thought. You try to, but the words never fit. Your real meaning stays locked inside you.

chapter twenty-four

SAM RUSH

L
EE AND
I sat at Byler's Amish Kitchen, just the two of us in the restaurant, with the waitress behind the counter, some distance away. They were due to close for the night. Lee wore a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had a fresh scratch on his right hand.

“A boxer,” he said. “Scared of everything, apparently. Jumped out of a second-story window at the sound of a truck backfiring, the owner told me, and now he's thinking he doesn't want her anymore.”

“So you're taking her?”

“I might. Pete's thirteen, and we lost the other two dogs this past year. I don't want the boys losing Pete without having another. Anyway, the dog needs a home.”

We drank our coffee and looked out the wide window at Old Black Canyon Highway, which was dark and empty under the streetlights. Occasionally a flash of headlights went past.

“So where are we now?” Lee said.

“There's Nate's neighbor, Mike Early,” I said, “whose alibi remains somewhat unconfirmed, that is, his sister and brother-in-law say he was
there when he said he was. But they live out of town a ways—nobody living close by, no one to verify his vehicle.”

“Maybe this Mike Early left the sister's house after supper,” Lee said, “killed Jody Farnell, brought her here, then went back to his sister's.”

“Unlikely. His alibi is stronger than that.”

“But possible.”

“Meanwhile we know that Nate was in the vicinity of Winslow twelve hours or so before Jody was killed.”

“You're sure?”

“Positive.”

“He said so?”

“Yes, finally. I need to go back up there and check out a few things, and I'll do that as soon as I can.”

“Nobody tells the whole truth,” Lee said. “Hell, people don't tell me the truth about their animals—what they've fed them, how often they exercise them.”

“This is different,” I said.

Lee rested his forearms on the table. It was almost unsettling how much he and Nate resembled each other.

“If you think Nate might have done this,” he said, “you must think that anybody is capable of anything.”

“I don't think he did it,” I said. “I just don't know. But depending on the circumstances, yes is the answer. Anybody is capable.”

“You think that you and I are psychologically capable of breaking a woman's neck?”

I watched the waitress at the counter. She was waiting for us to leave, and I was hoping she would come over and tell us that, save me
from the question. But she wouldn't. She knew me, and she knew Lee. She would let us sit an extra ten or fifteen minutes.

“What I believe is this,” I said. “Anybody becomes a murderer the second he performs that action. So a murderer is not a type. A murderer is a human being on a really bad night.”

“But you see Nate as being more likely to kill somebody than we would be.”

“Is that a real question or an argument?” I said.

“Both, maybe.”

“Then yes,” I said. “I do. Nate's solitary. He's an underachiever. He's never had a real girlfriend and has had few if any friends. Then there's the fact that he cared a great deal about Jody Farnell, enough to buy her a ring—that was the day before she was killed—and she gave back very little. She gave a lot more to others.” When Lee was silent I said, “You asked.”

“Nate knew about Jody and other men?”

“He knew enough,” I said. “There was nothing about her he didn't take note of. And she was a troubled person. From what I can see, there was a lot to notice.”

Lee sat back against the booth.

“It's hard for me not to blame her,” he said. “I don't suppose you can see it that way.”

“You find out what you can about a victim's life,” I said, “and the more you find out, the more alive she seems, and the more alive, the more human. Except that she's dead, and whoever killed her isn't. So it focuses you, wins your sympathy. Plus she didn't kill anybody, no matter what else she did.”

“At least not that you know about,” Lee said.

“You mean, she might have ruined somebody's life, somehow.”

“You don't think so?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Sure. Maybe. But that's not against the law. And nobody is predictable. You think you know what you would do in an emotional situation. I think I know what I would do. And we're both wrong.”

“I know what I would do sober,” Lee said. “I'll add that condition to it.”

“What makes you sure you'd stay sober?”

“The number of years since I've had a drink.”

“So you'd just leave out the years before that.”

“I guess I would.”

“That's the thing,” I said. “You can't leave out any possibility.”

“You don't think there's such a thing as having character?”

“What I think is that everything can suddenly change. We tell stories to ourselves about who we are, and we think that's the final word. What we think about ourselves doesn't necessarily mean shit.”

“You believe that.”

“Yes,” I said. “But so what if I believe it?”

“It's another story, you're saying.”

“Yes.”

“So nobody and nothing is trustworthy.”

“Rain is trustworthy,” I said. “Heat and cold. Snow and ice.”

“You have zero faith in people. That's what you're saying?”

“No
villain need be. We are betrayed by what is false within.
”

“Philosophy 101?” Lee said.

“Literature 101. George Meredith.”

Lee looked outside at the lit-up
BYLER'S AMISH KITCHEN
sign going off. The night was black without it; the moon was hidden by clouds.

“Sandra called,” he said. “She wants to hire a lawyer she knows from the dealership, but Nate has been telling her no. I don't know if Nate doesn't trust the lawyer or if he doesn't want one or if he doesn't want to involve his mother or all three. I don't know what's going on with him. We drive to the clinic and back, most days, and we don't talk. I try, and he doesn't. He looks out the window or turns on the radio. He listens to old stuff, for the most part. He listens to our music.”

“I wonder why that is.”

“Sandra always played it.”

“Sandra called me, too,” I told him. “I didn't return the call. I'm already going out on a limb keeping you updated.”

“I haven't told her anything,” he said, “and I know that Nate hasn't. The one thing he has told me is that he usually doesn't answer her calls. Well, you know Nate and questions. He doesn't like them. To him they're invasions.”

“I've noticed,” I said.

A
FTER WE PAID
the check we went out to the parking lot and stood between our vehicles.

“I want to tell you this, so you'll know,” I said, “so you'll be prepared. After spending the night in Flagstaff, I believe Nate went back to Winslow in the morning. I have pretty good proof of it. But he hasn't admitted it.”

“So he doesn't know you have any proof.”

“He does know,” I said. “And he's lied to me before.”

Lee looked across Old Black Canyon Highway at the desert, which stretched west to the mountains. The mountains were very faintly visible, as if outlined in charcoal.

“I don't know what to do,” he said. “I don't know what to do or what to think. The situation doesn't feel real, and I don't like that feeling.”

“Nobody would,” I said.

“If you were in my place, you'd believe in his innocence?” he said. “Unless or until you knew for an absolute fact otherwise?”

“What else is there to do?” I said.

chapter twenty-five

NATE ASPENALL

J
ODY LEFT ON
a blustery, gray morning before breakfast. She had told me the night before that she was going, that she would stay with her mother until she found a job and a place to live. It turned out she had already packed most of her things, without my knowing. That was a betrayal, her doing that secretly. It wasn't necessary. I wasn't somebody she needed to tiptoe around.

We were in a restaurant when she told me, a steak restaurant down the highway from the RV park, which she had chosen; it reminded her of a restaurant she used to go to with her father. When she was in the fifth grade her father took her there, ordered her a Shirley Temple, and told her that he and her mother might not stay together. Things didn't always work out in families, he said, and he wanted her to know that, beforehand, just in case. Then he said, “Cheer up, honey. I might be wrong. I might be at your mother's side when I'm an old man.”

Tears slid down her face as she told me the story, and I knew they were manipulative, as was her choice of restaurant. Everything had been set up to be about her. But I'm not saying she was aware of that. To the extent that she took care of herself—and I suppose you could
call it that—she did it instinctually. She was a genius in that respect. You almost had to admire it. But you couldn't trust what guided her.

We ordered drinks, then two more. Jody was sweet to the waitress, said she was one, too, she knew what hard work it was. The waitress was an older, stout, let's-stick-to-business type who didn't seem to care for Jody, as many women didn't, and it bothered Jody. The more the waitress ignored her, the harder she tried. “Give it up, Jody,” I said. “She's busy. She doesn't have time to be nice,” and Jody looked at me resentfully, knowing it was more than that. She chose to be irritated with me instead of with the waitress.

We drank and ate too much, which saved us from having to talk.

B
ACK AT THE
RV I didn't sleep most of the night. I tried to hear her breathing without going closer, tried to get a sense of what it would be like, not having her there. I wanted to go behind the partition and beg her to sleep with me.
Please, honey
—putting into motion the maneuver I had almost but not tried with her. What did I have to lose? My self-respect, my dignity, and any chance I might have in the future, which was the only thing that stopped me. I would have sacrificed the rest.