Tussinland (10 page)

TWENTY-THREE

After searching Paul’s room, Fagan had Mavis and Miranda come out to the porch with him and officer Plant. On his way from the hallway to the front door, he smelled marijuana and looked over at the bong sitting out on the coffee table. He looked at Mavis and grinned. She looked away.

“Where do you think your son could be?” Fagan said. He sat down in an old couch located to the left of the door. He took out his notebook and a pencil.

“I really have no idea.”

“What about friends, relatives?”

“Dude doesn’t have friends anymore,” Miranda said.

“Really? Why is that?”

“A lot of them moved away I guess, and I think people are just sick of his shit, right Mom?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Miranda,” Mavis said. “Paul has always been very well liked.” She sat down next to Fagan.

Miranda laughed. “Okay … if you say so.”

“So, no friends then?” Fagan said. “What about his kids, girlfriends, that sort of person?”

“Maybe,” Mavis said. “It’s hard to say, really.”

“You two are
not
helpful,” Fagan said. “Let’s try to go through this step by step.”

Miranda looked at her phone. “Can I go inside? Like, do you really need me?”

“Detective?” Mavis said.

“I’m just his niece, right?” Miranda said. “Why do I need to be involved in all this?”

“Sure, I guess, but don’t leave. Got it?”

“Duh, where am I going to go without a car or license?”

Fagan pulled a card from his shirt pocket. “Here, take this just in case you think of something important, it has my cell number.”

Miranda took the card and went into the house. Fagan looked over at Plant.

“Why don’t you take off? We got the bulletin out on Mr. Dunn. I’ll add whatever I find out here when I’m finished with Mavis.”

Plant looked at Fagan and grinned before going out to his cruiser. Mavis leaned in to the detective.

“I need a drink,” Mavis said. She stood up. “Would you like something?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he said.

“We’ll
I’m
having vodka,” Mavis said. She stared down at him and lightly licked her lips.

“Sounds good to me,” he said.

“Aren’t you supposed to say something like, ‘no ma’am, I can’t, I’m on duty?’”

“Fuck that,” he said. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and leaned back. “Make it a double.”

“Well, well,” Mavis said. “Coming right up.”

Fagan watched her as she walked into the house. While he waited, he took out his phone and found the photo of Paul Dunn he took that morning. He stared at it hard until Mavis came back. She carried a bottle of Smirnoff, a green Tupperware bowl full of ice, and two glasses. She sat, and put everything on the porch floor in front of them. She filled both glasses with ice and handed one to Fagan.

“One double vodka coming right up,” she said. She unscrewed the cap of the Smirnoff and filled his glass, then her own. They touched glasses and each took a sip. Mavis put her drink down. She took off her jacket and put it on the seat beside her. She rolled up her sleeves. She looked down at her chest, at the top of her silk blouse. She pulled it open as far as she could. She reached behind her back, lifted her long blonde hair up off of her shoulders, then dropped it so it all fell behind the couch. She leaned back, resting her bare neck on the top of the couch. She crossed her legs.

“What do you need to know, Detective?”

Fagan stared at her. He leaned forward, perhaps to kiss her or touch her breasts, but he stopped.

“I need to know everything I can about your son so I can find him and keep him safe.”

“Could you hand me my drink?”

Fagan gave her the glass. She took a long swallow.

“You don’t think he did it, do you?”

Fagan thought about his answer. He really shouldn’t say anything to this woman, but, wow, she was so hot.

“No. But it doesn’t look good for him at this stage in the investigation. The DA wants him brought in. I also think he might be in danger from whoever did do it.” He put his right hand between her legs, on the inside of her right thigh. He ran his nails upward and stopped when he got to the bottom of her skirt.

“Well,” Mavis said. She spread her legs slightly. “Like me, he was born in Nacogdoches, in East Texas.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Paul had a hard time walking through the orchard. His ribs ached, and his swelling nose, cheeks, and eyes stung from the blows of the homophobic Christians. His groin hurt so much that when he stopped to pee he pulled his pants down all the way to get a good look. He wasn’t surprised to see that his testicles were swollen and bruised. The pain reminded him of his vasectomy, when he learned to his great dismay that almost any movement in the body involves the use of some muscle near the nuts.

One good thing, his back loosened up and stopped spasming after about ten minutes, and he could stand somewhat straight.

A short walk up the road was a house Paul new very well. Part of an olive farm, it was large and luxurious, custom-built to the owners’ exacting and tasteful instructions. The two residents were retired, and Paul hoped they were home, rather than on one of their nearly constant world-wide trips.

The older of the two, Clyde Pike, was sixty. He was Paul’s first and longest-term stepfather. The younger resident, Scott Love, was just fifty, and when his dead father, Billy Joe, was married to Mavis, he was Paul’s stepbrother. But now that the two of them had gotten married in Vermont, he wasn’t sure what to call Scott. Either way, he loved that someone he once thought of as a step-brother was now married to someone who was once his stepfather.

One thing he did know for sure: Scott Love and Clyde Pike were the two best people he knew and he adored them both without limits.

Paul and Bethany were born in Nacogdoches, a piney woods East Texas town located just past halfway between Houston and Shreveport, Louisiana. Both Mavis and their father, Jason Dunn, were born there and met in high school in the 1970s, and, in the early days of their marriage, neither could ever imagine living anywhere else, or with anyone else. With Bethany and Paul, they attended the same Baptist church they’d grown up in; Jason was a deacon and Mavis taught Sunday school to junior high school girls and helped out in the nursery during the sermons.

Jason worked on offshore oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico. He was gone for months at a time. He was killed when Paul was five and Bethany seven. For years, Paul believed Mavis’ story that his father died in an accident at work. His mother described how he’d heroically climbed to the top of one of the rigs way out in the water to help rescue a co-worker who’d been trapped by fire after an explosion. As Mavis told it, the friend was saved, but Jason had been blown out into the sea and drowned after a second explosion occurred. But, in the summer after high school, Paul traveled back to visit his maternal grandmother and found out the truth that his father had been beaten to death in a New Orleans hotel room by the husband of his mistress. This news thrilled Paul, and he told Bethany as soon as he returned to Modesto. Bethany, who’d turned her father into a near fundamentalist saint in her memory, didn’t handle the news very well.

Though she still dropped Bethany and Paul off for Sunday school, Mavis stopped attending church after Jason’s death. She took up smoking and drinking for the first time in her life and began responding to the constant advances from men she’d gotten since she’d first blossomed in seventh grade. She found a job as a secretary to a prominent local attorney, and began to travel in his social circle, though she also frequented local honky tonks and dive bars and learned to love smoking weed while dating a student from local Stephen F. Austin University. After two years as a widower, she found herself broke and in debt despite her salary. She told her boss that she’d tell his wife about their sexual relationship if he didn’t give her ten thousand dollars. Instead, he offered her a thousand dollars cash and a month’s vacation in Cabo San Lucas, a trip that cost him next to nothing since a local travel agent who owed him substantial legal fees took care of all the arrangements.

While shopping in Cabo, she met another American, Clyde Pike. She was impressed with Clyde’s expensive and tasteful clothes, his sophistication and education, and his knowledge of wine, food, and fine art. She also loved that he was from California—a place she’d wanted to relocate to for several years. Clyde, who was still trying to mask his homosexuality, found Mavis fascinating and was taken by her beauty and flamboyant style in clothes and behavior.

Clyde owned an art gallery and frame shop Modesto, and also had a thriving business as an interior designer for some of the up and coming homeowners in the growing town. After a wedding in Las Vegas, Mavis had no problem gathering up Paul and Bethany and relocating to the California Central Valley. At first, it was a shock to learn that Modesto, located in the flatlands ninety miles east of San Francisco and ninety miles west of Yosemite, was just another small town, not unlike so many in Texas. It was surrounded by ranches and vineyards and dairy farms and orchards and was not the land of beaches and surfers, movie stars and Beverly Hills mansions that she expected. There were even rednecks, rodeos, oil wells, and county fairs—again, just like Texas. But she got used to it quickly and enjoyed the chance to remake herself in a new place where no one knew who she was or used to be. Plus, San Francisco and all its great beauty and wonderful shopping was less than two hours away, and Clyde let her go off to LA whenever she wanted.

Paul took to Clyde right away and had no problem calling him Daddy. Bethany didn’t like him and never seemed to forgive her mother for marrying him and taking her away from her friends in Nacogdoches. She continued to go to church in Modesto even though Paul stopped and she was now the only person in her family attending and the only one who still believed. Clyde, the child of atheist teachers at Modesto Junior College, had never attended church. Later, when he came out and made his relationship with Scott Love public, Bethany told her church friends, “I always knew there was something evil behind that smile and those nice suits.”

At first, Mavis and Clyde tried to have a normal marriage, but as his homosexuality and her constant need for male attention became apparent, the two developed a tense agreement—as long as each was discreet, they were free to engage in relationships outside of the marriage. But, when Mavis met the very wealthy local dairy farmer and cheese manufacturer Bobby Joe Love after both Bethany and Paul had grown up and left the home, the arrangement, and the marriage, ended.

Clyde and Mavis remained relatively close (he never lost his basic fascination with her; he later told Scott: “The truth is, I didn’t want to marry Mavis, I wanted to
be
her”), and when Bobby Joe died eight years later, he attended the funeral in support of his ex-wife. Bobby Joe’s son, Scott, who had lived in Hollywood for years, also attended the service. For Clyde and Scott, it was love at first sight.

TWENTY-FIVE

When Paul got back out to McHenry, he walked north until he got to Bangs Road, where he turned left. He made sure to hide in the trees if he heard a car coming. After about a half mile, he could see the driveway leading into Clyde and Scott’s property. He went back into the orchard and sat down, leaning his back against an almond tree. He found the card that Detective Fagan had given him and dialed the number.

It rang for a very long time. Paul was about to give up when Fagan finally answered. He heard a “what?” then banging. He could hear laughter and it sounded like Mavis. Figures.

“Detective Fagan here.”

“This is Paul Dunn.”

“Where are you? We need to talk again.”

“I didn’t do it, you know, right? At least I thought you knew it.”

“Right, but, still, you need to let me bring you in, clear a couple things up.”

“I saw the newspaper. Online.”

Fagan didn’t say anything for a moment.

“So?”

“There’s an update saying I’m the prime suspect. It has that low-life Jorge Rincon talking all about my motives, the insurance, and the pension and my debt and all that.”

“What?”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t tell Rincon any of that shit. What the fuck?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, then you know why we need to talk to you.”

“I’m pretty sure Miranda and Logan Swift planted that gun and called you guys. Do you know my niece, Miranda Fish?”

“I just met her, as a matter of fact.”

“You know her boyfriend is Logan Swift, right? I was hoping you could figure that out on your own. You aren’t much of a detective, are you Fagan? I imagine real investigating involves more than smacking people around.”

“Look, man, I’m on your side, really. We need to figure this thing out so we know the truth, okay?”

“Will you let me help you?”

“Of course.”

“’Cause you need all the help you can get.”

“Look, I’m sorry about earlier, I thought I explained all that.”

“I guess you know I got beat up today?”

“You
what
?”

“I got the shit kicked out of me by three men from my bother-in-law Pete Fish’s Church. He’s some kind of minister now in addition to being a failed real estate mogul.”

“Shit. Where was this?”

“Out behind Mr. Tokyo’s. You know that donut shop on Sylvan and Oakdale?”

“Yeah, I know the place.”

“My mom and Miranda didn’t tell you?”

“Not a word.”

“I got into an argument with the church boys about Prop 8, and they fucking beat me. I want them arrested.”

“Like I said, let me come get you, and you can make a statement.”

“I just made my statement.”

“Where’s the shotgun, Dunn?”

“Oh, that’s the main reason I called. Logan Swift is sitting in his pickup in an almond orchard just off of McHenry between Kiernan and Bangs. He’s passed out on heroin and he has the shotgun.”

“Logan Swift, huh?”

“Yes, and he has this big bag of the shit, I don’t know how much it’s all worth but it’s got to be a lot, it’s like fifteen big bricks of the stuff. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“I do, actually.”

“Before I walked away I made a video of him in the truck with the bag of heroin. I’m going to send it to you. Plus, when he ambushed me out off of Carver Road, he just happened to have two shells in his pocket that fit into the shotgun. He knew how to use it too.”

“What? He ambushed you?”

“That’s right, Miranda sent him.”

“She sent him?”

“Yeah, he’s like her knight, her slave, her little puppy dog. He’ll do anything for her. Anything.”

“I see.”

“So someone better go find Logan, I’m not sure if he OD’d or not. Are you going to send someone?”

“Yeah, yeah, but where are you, exactly? Are you still with Logan?”

Paul wanted to tell him where he was—he thought he might be safer in custody. But he needed a little more time first. He wanted the police to find Logan and he needed to talk to Clyde and Scott.

“I gotta go, Detective, I’ll call you later. We’ll talk again very soon, I promise.”

“Dunn!”

Paul hung up. He had a hard time standing because his back had stiffened up,
again
. He used the tree branches for support. He forwarded the video of Logan to Fagan’s cell and walked up Clyde and Scott’s driveway.