At Ease with the Dead Read online

  He looked up at me and scowled. “How the fuck I know? Had some buck for a husband, I reckon.”

  “Did you know Jordan Lowery?”

  He blinked, confused. “Who?”

  “Taught oil geology at the school. Took over Lessing’s job.”

  He grinned, nodded. “The pussy hound. Met him, is all. Never knew him.”

  “How’d he get along with Lessing?”

  “Fine, far as I know.” He cackled. “Expect he wanted to jump Lessing’s wife.”

  “He ever get past wanting?” It seemed unlikely after what Alice Wright had told me about her mother.

  He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Were you in El Paso when Lessing was killed?”

  He shook his head. “Pennsylvania.”

  “But you heard about it?”

  He looked down at the ten, looked back up at me, narrowed his eyes and smiled. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

  I took out my wallet, started to slide the ten back inside.

  “I heard,” he said, “I heard.”

  “You have any idea who might’ve killed him?”

  “Gimme the ten first.”

  I held out the ten. A yellow claw reached out from beneath the blanket, snatched away the bill, disappeared.

  “Figured it was the buck,” he said.

  “The woman’s husband?”

  “Who else?”

  “Someone suggested recently that it might’ve been Lessing’s wife.”

  He cackled. “Fuckin’ crazy.”

  “Did you know Mrs. Lessing?”

  Another cackle. “Drilled her, didn’t I?”

  9

  Surprise, or disbelief, must’ve shown on my face, because DeFore said, “You think it’s bullshit? I’m here to tell you, son, I drilled that bitch. Drilled her good. And I wasn’t the only one, either, not by a long shot.”

  “When was this?” I asked him.

  “Bertie Prentice, he had her too. And Bobby Dekker, he’s the one tole me about it.”

  “When was this, Mr. DeFore?”

  He sucked at his gums. “You look at her, you think butter wouldn’t melt between those legs. Came from back east. Massachusetts, Connecticut. Looked down her nose at ever’body out here. But when Doc Lessing was outta town for the summer, she used to take ole Bobby Dekker up to her room and let ’im put it to her. She liked her fuckin, son. Liked it down and dirty.”

  “And you say you slept with her too?”

  He snorted. “Slept with her, shit. Drilled her. Bobby tole me how she was. So I figured I’d get me some too. Why not? Good-lookin’ quim she was, nice big bouncers, I figured why should Bobby be the only one? So I go over there one afternoon and I tell her Bobby couldn’t come, he sent me instead.” He cackled. “You get it? Couldn’t come?”

  “Bobby was one of Lessing’s students?”

  He nodded. “Bertie, too.”

  For the first time in years, I wished that I still smoked cigarettes. “And when was this?” I asked him again.

  This time he answered. “Summer before I went to Philadelphia. ’Twenty-five. So anyway, I’m standin’ there in her doorway and she’s just lookin’ down her nose at me, the bitch. I’m sorry, Brian, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  It was a cruel impersonation: head back, voice nasal, the words precisely enunciated, sharp as razor blades.

  “So I tell her, see, I tell her Bobby tole me the whole story, and if she don’t want the Doc to know, well then, she better get down off her high horse right quick. I tell her not to worry, she’s gonna like it just fine. She just stands there for a minute, thinkin’, and then she says, Come along. Bold as brass.”

  The clouds had passed from his eyes; they were bright, shining with an interior light. Between his lips, the gray tongue flicked quickly, once, twice.

  “So we go upstairs to her room. She closes the door and turns to me and just stands there again. Queen of the May. So I reach out and I tear open the front of her dress. Buttons go flyin’ everwhere. Lie down, I tell her, and she does. And I pull down my pants and I get onto the bed and I give it to her. I mean to tell you, son, once she got wound up, she was an animal. An animal. And I made her beg for it. You like this? I say. You want this? I say.” He cackled, shook his head. “I made that bitch sing for her supper. Didn’t I though.”

  I suddenly found myself wanting, very badly, to ram a fist into the weathered old face.

  He was frowning now. “But then I get off her,” he said, “and pullup my pants, and the bitch goes and spoils it all. I look down at her and goddammit if she ain’t cryin’. I say, what’s the matter with you? You got what you wanted. She pushes down her dress, covers herself up, and she just keeps cryin’. Real quiet-like, with her hand over her eyes. She says to me, Would you please go now. So I go. Who needs that whiny shit? But first I tell her that maybe I’ll be back, drill me some more of that nice sweet cooze.”

  “Did you?”

  “Fuck no. Like I say, don’t need the whiny shit.” He shook his head sadly. “They get you ever’ time. One way or the other.”

  “So this was this summer of Nineteen twenty-five?”

  He was looking off, toward the neat suburban homes. “I tole Bertie about it, though, and he tole me later he had some of it himself.”

  I needed to take a shower. Preferably with lye. “This was the summer of Nineteen twenty-five?” I asked him.

  He nodded without looking at me. “Summer of ’twenty-five.”

  I asked him, “Did you know anything about some remains that Lessing brought back from his last field trip?”

  Still looking thoughtfully off at the houses, he said. “I’ve had me a good life, son. Good food, good drink, heaps of good pussy. I don’t owe shit to nobody, man or woman. I got no one to worry about but myself, and I got no regrets a-tall.” He turned to me. “No regrets a-tall. I’ve had me a damn good life.”

  “Do you know anything about the remains Lessing brought back that summer? The body of an Indian?”

  Blinking, he frowned. “What? Indian? How the fuck I know about an Indian? I was in Philadelphia.”

  He looked off again at the houses.

  The local elementary school had just ended its day. A few tiny forms were walking down the sidewalk, arms swinging earnestly; others ran across green lawns with the jerky unself-conscious zeal of childhood. I could hear the thin distant sound of their cries and shouts and laughter.

  Brian DeFore sucked silently at his gums and watched them.

  I left him there.

  It was a place that had seen better days, but couldn’t remember exactly when. Even at five-thirty, prime time in the alcohol business, it was nearly empty. To the right, there were padded stools along a dark wooden bar that was still, despite years of neglect, a handsome piece of carpentry. To the left, tables, chairs, a jukebox playing Tammy Wynette. Behind the bar, a wide cloudy mirror in a chipped antique cherrywood frame. Below this, on cherrywood shelves, liquor bottles lit with that soft amber glow that gives them, in the dimness, the glitter and shine of bright new unsullied hopes.

  By the door, two middle-aged men in gray uniforms, Jerry and Steve by the oval nametags embroidered on their shirts, sat explaining the universe to each other over bottles of Budweiser. Farther down, an old woman in widow’s black sat staring into a highball glass as though it were a photo album. At the far end, Grober sat nursing something in a rocks glass and talking to the bartender, a big, round-bellied, sandy-haired guy wearing a red waiter’s jacket two sizes too small.

  Grinning, Grober got off his stool to shake my hand. “Hey, Josh. How’s it goin’?”

  I told him it was going fine. He introduced me to the bartender, whose name was Jim, then asked me if I were still drinking Jack Daniels. I told him I was, on the rocks, and Jim poured one for me and another scotch for Grober.

  “So how’s Rita?” Grober asked me as the two of us sat down.

  “She’s fine.”

  �
��She still in the chair?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grober took a sip from his drink, then shook his head. “A real shame, man.”

  I nodded.

  Grober was in his mid-forties. About five feet ten, he was stocky and seemed soft and sloppy, but I’ve seen him take a punch to the gut, one that would turn a weightlifter green, and merely grin. He grew his graying hair long on the left and combed it over the bald spot at the top, something I’ve always hoped, if my time ever comes, that I’ll have the courage not to do. His face was square, his nose had been broken at least once. He wore a plaid sportscoat, a white shirt, gray Sansabelt slacks, white socks, and spiffy white loafers with leather tassels. He looked like an overnourished, underemployed golf pro.

  He said, “Whatever happened to the guy who shot her? Martinez?”

  “Still doing time.”

  “He get out soon?”

  “Five more years.”

  He drank from his glass. “I heard you nearly offed him when you ran him down.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He nodded, smiling. “Yeah, right.”

  I changed the subject. “So how do you like El Paso?”

  “Hey. Great little city, man. Things happen here. You got half a million people this side of the river, a lot of ’em with cash. You got two million on the other side, none of ’em with cash. Coming this way, you got drugs, illegal aliens, smugglers, scammers. Going that way, you got guys making weapons drops, or picking up a pound of weed, or maybe getting their asses hauled in the cathouses.” He grinned. “Some great cathouses in Juarez, we can check ’em out, you got the time.”

  “What do the cops say about all this?”

  Grober grinned. “Which cops? The DEA? FBI? Customs? Immigration? The MPs outta Fort Bliss? The locals? Five or six different flavors here, and they’re all pissed off at each other. Steal each other’s snitches, fuck up each other’s busts.”

  “What about the locals?”

  “I read somewhere, some guy said the El Paso cops couldn’t find the bend in a pretzel. Half the money in town, half of it, easy, comes from one scam or another. Grass, coke, smack, women. Whatever.” He grinned happily. “Great little town.”

  “How’re you making out?”

  “Great, great. I got the P.I. work and I do a little security consulting. Alarm systems. Got a kickback deal with a guy who makes ’em. Big thing here in town, alarms. People who got the cash don’t wanna share it with people who don’t.”

  “The American way.”

  “Hey. I’ll drink to that.” He raised his scotch in salute, took a gulp. “So what’s the deal with all these stiffs you got me tracking down? You gonna open up a cemetery?”

  “They’re all dead, all the students that went on the field trips?”

  “All but two. And the other guy, that you said. Whatsis. DeFore.”

  “Who was alive?”

  “Guy named Brewster. Lamont Brewster. Lives in Michigan somewhere. You wanna call him, I got the phone number. Wasn’t there when I called. And another guy, here in town. David Passmore. Him, I talked to.”

  “Did he remember Dennis Lessing?”

  “This guy remembers everything ever happened in his whole entire life. Twice, he remembers it. Also, he’s a holy roller, one of those born-again bible-bangers got a personal direct line to God. Lotta stuff about God’s plans for the sinners. Brimstone and fire, good shit like that. I’ll take all of it, every second, over another five minutes with a jerk like him.”

  “This was on the phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He give you anything useful?”

  “Hernia of the ear, he gave me.”

  “Anything about Lessing, anything about the woman on the Reservation?”

  “A first name. Elena. That help?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Anything else?”

  “She was married, but he doesn’t know who to.”

  “Description?”

  “He only saw her once. Says she was a blond Jezebel. A blond daughter of Satan. Means he probably wanted to pork her himself.”

  Grober, I realized, would’ve had a better afternoon if he’d been the one talking to Brian DeFore. I said, “No address for her?”

  “Somewhere near Piñon, he says.”

  “Did he know anything about Lessing’s death?”

  Grober shook his head. “He was outta town. But he thinks it was God punished Lessing. For humping the blond Jezebel, see. Musta been a slow day, no earthquakes, no floods, God was killing some time.” He sipped at his drink. “So listen, Josh, what’s the skinny? What’re you into?”

  I went through the story again.

  Grober shook his head. “Forget it, man. Sixty years ago, you’re not gonna find diddly now. I’d milk it for a couple more days and then fold.”

  I swallowed some bourbon and nodded. “I’ll probably pack it in tomorrow.”

  “Listen,” he said, “while you’re down here, why don’t we hook it over to Juarez, check out the action?”

  “Can’t,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet some people for dinner.”

  “Well lookit, let’s get together afterwards. I got a new squeeze, Connie, she can call a friend. The four of us can go out, do the town.”

  “I don’t think so, Phil. I’m beat.”

  He grinned. “You still got a thing for Rita, right? What’re you guys, Mr. and Mrs. North?”

  I smiled. “Really, Phil, I’m tired.”

  “Josh, you got to break loose now and then. I mean, hey, it’s a crummy thing happened to Rita, a tragedy and all, I feel terrible about it personally, but you got to remember that life goes on. You got to go for the gusto. World’s gonna pass you by.”

  I sipped at my bourbon. “Thanks, Phil. I’ll bear that in mind.”

  Smiling, he shook his head. “Jesus, Josh, you probably still help little old ladies cross the street.”

  “Whether they want to go or not,” I said. “Kicking and screaming, some of them.”

  He laughed, picked up his glass, saw that it was empty. He turned to me. “One more?”

  I shrugged, smiled. “You’ve got to go for the gusto.”

  10

  Plump roast duckling in a brandied orange sauce. Wild rice. Buttery baby peas. Spinach salad tossed with a tart vinaigrette and sprinkled with crisp bacon bits. Icy white wine as dry as the desert air. All of it arranged on china and crystal atop a table spread with glossy white linen, beneath a crystal chandelier.

  I was living well lately. Too well. If I wanted to work off all these carbohydrates, I’d have to swim the Rio Grande back to Santa Fe.

  This evening I was sporting a tie, something I usually do only at funerals, but I still felt underdressed. Alice Wright wore a black velvet shift, simple and elegant, and a single strand of pearls. Lisa wore an Oriental-looking pantsuit of red brocaded silk. I had determined, early on, that the round breasts beneath the material were loose and free. The uncanny eye of the trained detective.

  Lisa, it transpired, was an artist. The painting that hung over the sofa in the living room was one of hers, a view through a pair of ruddy sandstone buttes toward an elaborate sunset. So was the painting here in the dining room, a night scene looking up the length of a deep gorge. Moonlight draped the dark rocks, glazed the pale white sand and the black ribbon of river. The area looked vaguely familiar, and I said so.

  “It’s the east gorge of the Grand Canyon,” she said from across the table, and sipped at her wine. “I spent a few weeks there two years ago. Do you like it?”

  The chandelier was wired to a dimmer switch, and Alice had adjusted it to a level just above candlelight. In its pale yellow glow, Lisa’s long black hair had the same liquid sheen as the river in the picture.

  “The painting?” I said. “Sure. But I’m the wrong person to ask about paintings. What I know about art would fit in a Dixie cup.”

  Alice Wright, who sat on my left at the table’s head, smiled and said, “Now, Joshua. You ought
n’t give a compliment with one hand and take it away with the other.”

  Lisa laughed. “Oh, let him be, Alice.” She turned to me and said, “I’m sure Joshua’s able to use both hands at once.” She was smiling, and those extraordinary blue eyes of hers seemed to be glowing.

  If this was a come-on, and to the base of my belly it sounded like one, I wasn’t sure how to react while Alice Wright was there. And I wasn’t sure how I’d react if she hadn’t been.

  Alice herself solved the problem, temporarily, by taking up the conversational slack. “Lisa had a show just last month. Very successful too, wasn’t it, dear?”

  Lisa looked at her with mock severity and said, “Cool it, Granny.”

  Alice smiled. “Ignore her, Joshua. She’s one of those artists who refuses to toot her own horn. She has galleries all over the southwest begging for her work. Even one in Santa Fe.”

  I nodded to Lisa, acknowledging the achievement. “Santa Fe’s a tough market to crack.”

  She smiled, and her young face actually flushed. “I haven’t actually cracked it yet. I’m supposed to fly up there next month and see some people.”

  Despite myself, the machinery of my mind started clanking. Lisa Wright in Santa Fe: an interesting prospect.

  Holding her wine glass lightly with the fingertips of both hands, Lisa said, “How do you like living there?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. All the thing needed was a casual suggestion. Why not give me a jingle when you get into town? We’ll do lunch.

  Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Only okay? Most of the people I’ve talked to are crazy about it.”

  I shrugged. “Most of them probably see only one side of it. The galleries and the glitz.” Rita, this is Lisa Wright. From El Paso? Remember I told you about her? Except I hadn’t told Rita about her.

  “I’ve been there a few times,” Alice said, “and I must say I wasn’t very taken by the place. It’s lovely, of course, all those adobes, the mountains in the background, but it seemed terribly rich and terribly incestuous. Like high school, with money.”

  I smiled. Not a bad description.

  Lisa took a sip of wine. “When are you going back?”