Nameless Dame, page 5
I watched the old police-detective-turned-poetry-priest mix himself another bloody and then take a long, slow sip. “So, we have a little change of plans on the home front,” he said.
“I didn’t know we had any plans.”
“Well, it turns out that our wife’s arriving early.”
“Your wife?”
“Yeah, Blossom thought it’d be wise for us to hire a wife, what with the Galley opening next week and no day care for Milosz.”
“You’ve hired a wife?”
“Yeah, an old friend of Blossom’s.”
I chuckled. “Where did she meet her, in prison?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Come on, you’re going to entrust your child to an ex-con?”
“Blossom’s an ex-con.”
“That’s different. She’s Milosz’s mother and she’s been fully vetted.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sabbatini said between gulps of his bloody, “and I really enjoyed the vetting process.”
“I bet you did. So now you’re going to have two wives, huh, Bobby?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like that. We’re not doing the Mormon thing. Quince’s just providing domestic support.”
“Quince?” I asked.
“Yeah, like the fruit.”
I stood up off my stool and began pacing. Sabbatini was making me nervous.
“Have you even met her?” I asked.
“Haven’t met her yet.”
“What was she in for?”
“Armed robbery.”
“Come on, Bobby, have you gone soft? Has the Fuck Face fucked with your reason?”
Sabbatini went to the double sink and washed out his cocktail glass. “Oh, you know these young women, like Blossom, they fall in with the wrong crowd and next thing you know they’re holding up a chain of dry cleaners in Duluth.”
“Yes,” I said, disgusted, “and some of them end up like the dead girl out at the Christian campground.”
Sabbatini waved me off. “I’ve always believed in giving people second chances. It certainly worked out with Blossom.”
I lifted my head off the bar. “It’s a hell of a chance to take with your own child.”
“Augie, when we project good energy, that’s likely what we’ll get in return. I see it every day. It’s hard to appreciate in Minnesota, surrounded by all that stoic negation. Always a hanging cloud of suspicion. But here, we don’t have to live our lives with our shoulders hunched in fear.”
I listened to this new age drivel and considered the possibility that I’d lost my friend. What about Ruthie Rosenberg, the nameless dame, who actually had a name but no longer a life? Hadn’t she gotten shot in the head, right in the middle of Shangri-La? Had she lost her feelgood exemption? Had she met up with an outsider like me who was still clouded in suspicion, who didn’t subscribe to the West County good life?
Sabbatini had been living in Northern California for a year and a half, but he’d already been fully converted. He grinned at me as if to confirm my suspicions.
I swiveled on my stool. “And how exactly does the arrival of your new wife affect me?”
“Well, turns out she’s coming today and she’ll be sleeping on the rollaway.”
“So, you’re kicking me out of your house before I even get there, Bobby?”
“It’s not like that, man,” Sabbatini said, lighting up what was left of his fatty. “You can sleep on the floor or the ratty couch if you like. But I thought it might be best if you stayed with Jesse. He needs you now, man, he really needs you.”
“And what do I need, Bobby?” I shouted. “I come across the country and you toss me out for the sake of some felon. What do I need?” I repeated, this time as a hiss.
Sabbatini grinned at me. “Now that’s a key existential question, but I’m afraid you’re the only one who can answer it.”
“Fuck you, Bobby.”
Sister Everlast
Before I could storm out of the Galley in minor tantrum mode, a tall man, wearing a leather halter with fake boobs, strolled in. The guy had an enormous pair of biceps to go with his boobs and wore a black stocking cap branded in large letters with the EVERLAST logo. It was a lot to take in. I focused on his stocking cap and found myself remembering the Gillette Friday Night Fights. I’d watched them every week with my father, a normally meek man who became animated as he downed a half-dozen cans of Schlitz. Toward the end of the evening, my father would have me up shadowboxing with him as the pugilists on the flickering screen boxed in their Everlast trunks.
When the guy spotted Sabbatini behind the bar, he hollered, “Did you get it, Sister Poesy?”
“Sister Everlast,” Sabbatini said, “come meet my old buddy, Augie Boyer. I think he may be ripe for the order.”
“Oh, Augie,” the breasted man said, “Sister Poesy’s told us so much about you. We’d love for you to become a member of our order.”
I didn’t know what the fuck Sabbatini and the busty muscle creature were talking about, but before I could resist, Sister Everlast put quite a hug on me.
She repeated her question to Sabbatini, “So have you got it, Sister Poesy?”
“Not yet.”
“I told you we’re going to boycott you until you get it.”
Sabbatini rolled his eyes and said, “Ça ne pisse pas loin. ”
“What are you saying, Sister?”
“That doesn’t piss far.”
I stood up from the stool, ready to get the hell out of Sabbatini’s joint. My quotient for bizarre local color had exceeded my capacity to absorb it. But before I could slip out, Sister Everlast made a florid apology.
“Augie, forgive me for barging in here and interrupting. You look confused. You’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?”
I nodded meekly.
“You don’t know about us, do you?”
I shook my head.
“He doesn’t know about us, Sister Poesy.”
“No,” Sabbatini said, “but I figured it was only a matter of time.”
“We’re members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. I’m Sister Everlast, as you’ve heard, and this is Sister Poesy of the Rose. The order’s been around for years. We do a lot of charity work.”
I swallowed hard. “I see.”
“Even though we like to dress in drag, we’re a hell of a lot more transparent than the brethren up at the Bohemian Grove. You’re hip to the Bohemian Grove, aren’t you, Augie?”
I nodded, though my awareness of the elite men’s club, made up of Republican captains of industry, politicians, academics, and defense contractors, was very limited.
“Don’t get started on the Bohemians, Sister,” Sabbatini said.
“Don’t you think we should give a fuck when the leaders of the so-called free world are engaging in mock human sacrifices to sixty-foot wooden eagles?”
“Sounds like good wholesome fun to me,” Sabbatini said, with a wink.
Sister Everlast wiggled her nose at Sabbatini. “Augie, you should see how lovely Sister Poesy looks in drag. Sister Tart of the Tattoos really does a fine job making him up.”
Sabbatini shrugged.
“You’ve come a long way, Bobby,” I said. Although I wanted to get out of there, I stood frozen on my spot as Sister Everlast hectored Sabbatini for not acquiring any songs by the Singing Nun for his karaoke machine.
“Changer de refrain, Sister Everlast.”
“But Sister Poesy, you’re denying satisfaction to an entire community,” Sister Everlast bellowed. “Just get one song. We can be satisfied with Soeur Sourire’s ‘Dominique.’”
The well-muscled nun began to sing the catchy ditty, but stopped abruptly. “Remember, I have the power to keep the whole order from patronizing your establishment.”
Sabbatini wasn’t intimidated. He simply shrugged. “I’m not doing songs, Sister, I’m doing poems.”
“But the Singing Nuns are poets at heart.”
“We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Sister Everlast nodded, suddenly solemn. “Yes, I heard they found Ruthie’s body out at Last Judgment. How’s Jesse doing?”
“Ask Augie. He spent the night at his place.”
Both sisters turned toward me.
“I think he’s taking it hard.”
The muscled sister closed her eyes and nodded. She pulled off her stocking cap and, with a handkerchief, mopped at her shaved head. Circling the top of her forehead were the tattooed letters P-E-N-E-T-R-A-T-I-O-N.
“What a thing,” she said, “to happen in our community.”
CHAPTER SIX
Spud and Derek in the Rain
I WAS COLD and I was starving. I’d made the mistake of eating nothing more than a demure chicken Caesar salad for lunch. A cold rain had been falling all afternoon, and even to my freeze-dried Minnesota body and soul, the dampness seemed particularly penetrating. It was fucking rheumatism weather. Still, I’d wanted to see if there was any news on the Ruthie Rosenberg murder and hoped to have a look at the Last Judgment Campground during daylight. As my car was still back at his cabin in Cazadero, Sabbatini agreed, against his wishes, to take me out to the murder site.
“You’re not going to find anything out there, Augie,” he’d protested.
“You might be right, Sister Poesy,” I said, winking at the former police detective, “but if you’re selling me down the river and pawning me off on Coolican, then I’m going to poke around on his behalf. Tomorrow I’ll have my rental car, but today I’m stuck with you.”
The campground remained closed. A TV news crew was packing up their truck after shooting some atmosphere.
“Anything breaking?” I asked a sandy-haired man who looked like the television reporter.
“They’re not talking.”
Two sheriff’s department cars were parked in the lot. Police tape now stretched in all directions.
Sabbatini introduced me to one of the deputies, a cheerful character named Spud who sported a huge red blotch of birthmark across the left side of his face. I tried not to stare, but couldn’t get over how closely the birthmark resembled the shape of Idaho, hence the man’s nickname. Spud couldn’t have been much more than thirty.
“So this is Augie?” Spud said with a grin.
Sabbatini nodded. “The Augster.”
Spud’s eyes opened wide. “How’s Rose? I’m a real of fan of hers.”
Sooner or later everybody got around to asking about my famous daughter.
“She’s fine,” I said. “She’s on some kind of an all-star tour with the Boss.”
We stood in the rain with Spud and the other deputy, whom Spud introduced as Derek, a gangly fella with a thin black mustache, no older than his partner.
“I think Rose is hot,” said Derek, bouncing boyishly on his toes.
“You don’t tell a man that you think his daughter’s hot,” Spud said.
Derek apologized to me. I shrugged.
I noticed Spud wink at Sabbatini. “Hey, Poesy, I’ve been memorizing some Gary Snyder.”
“Good man.”
“But it’s kind of hard for me to keep the lines straight.”
“What are you smoking these days?” Sabbatini asked.
“Just a little Fuck Face.”
“Maybe you should switch to Monte Rio Brio. Coolie tells me that’s the best for the memory.”
“I do have one down, Poesy,” Spud said proudly.
“Yeah, give it to us, man.”
The deputy blushed, and the map of Idaho seemed branded a little deeper into his face. “It’s a short one. Called ‘On Top.’”
“Excellent choice,” Sabbatini said.
Spud stood up straight and took off his sheriff’s cap.
ON TOP
BY GARY SNYDER
All this new stuff goes on top
turn it over turn it over
wait and water down.
From the dark bottom
turn it inside out
let it spread through, sift down,
even.
Watch it sprout.
A mind like compost.
“Fantastic,” Sabbatini raved. “I’ve never thought of the mind the same way since learning that poem. Gives you a new respect.”
Deputy Spud had a big grin on his face. Then he nodded over to his colleague, Derek. “He’s jealous ’cause he doesn’t have a poet.”
Derek protested, “I’m not jealous.”
“We can find him a poet,” Sabbatini said. “What kind of stuff do you like to do, Derek?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t know. Hunt.”
Sabbatini mused for a moment. “I’m thinking Richard Hugo. I don’t know if he hunted, but I’m thinking he’s the poet for you. I’ll bring some by.”
I stood a moment longer in the dripping rain, not believing that we were standing at a murder scene. Trying to get myself back on task, I caught Spud’s eye. “So, tell me, has the sheriff’s department made any discoveries out here?”
“Nothing much,” Spud answered, too quickly. I watched his birthmark stretch as he grimaced for effect and shook his head.
“Nothing, huh?”
“No.”
I expected Sabbatini, the veteran homicide detective, to jump in, but apparently he’d abdicated, leaving the initiative to the small-time P.I. I glanced around the expanded crime scene. “How come there’s so much more cordoned off than there was last night?”
Spud shrugged.
“All due respect,” Sabbatini said, “these guys don’t know anything. They’re not detectives. The detectives have already come and gone.”
I couldn’t tell if Sabbatini was playing with the deputies or not, but I made a point of contradicting him. “I think these guys know a whole lot more than they’re letting on. Okay, what happened here? Did your perp go in more than one direction? Or was the victim still alive out here?”
Spud shook his head, still trying to play poker.
“Are they thinking there might have been more than one killer?” I asked.
Derek picked up the pace with his toe bouncing.
“That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“Too early to say for sure,” Derek volunteered, “but they’ve isolated two distinct sets of footprints, one set in shoes, the other barefoot.”
Spud glared at his colleague.
“So,” I continued, “that would suggest that we’re dealing with both a man and a woman, the assumption being that the barefoot tracks belong to the victim. . . .”
“We can’t assume,” Spud said.
I winked at Spud. “Unless we’re dealing with a pair of killers, one barefoot, who brought the victim here already dead. Anything come back on the weapon?” I asked.
Both deputies shuffled their feet.
“Look, I’m staying with Deputy Coolican and I think it’ll be best for everybody involved if we keep him out of this. But he’s going to want to know some things as they develop. What did they find on the weapon?”
Stalling, Spud poked his birthmarked cheek with his tongue so the mark took on dimension. The map of Idaho suddenly had topographical scale. I watched it rise and fall. “We’re not supposed to know this stuff,” Spud said, finally.
“But you do.”
“It was a .45 caliber rifle, the same kind used in the 2004 double murder.”
“Is it the same weapon?” I asked.
“That we don’t know,” Spud said, nodding now, his marked cheek falling back into place.
“Anything else?”
Both deputies shook their heads.
Walking to Sabbatini’s car, I turned back to the deputies. “Hey, Derek, I’ll see if I can get you a signed photo of Rose.”
Derek grinned. “Would you?”
“I’ll take one, too,” said Spud.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
As we drove away, Sabbatini said, “I think you’ve got those boys where you want them.”
Cold rain in the redwoods—
the old detective perks up
like a fresh shoot.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Wife and the Bloodhound
THE MOMENT I set eyes on Blossom and Sabbatini’s new wife, I wanted her to be my wife. Once I saw her bent over the ancient O’Keefe and Merritt in the small kitchen, she captured my heart.
Of course, my hunger had grown gigantic by the time I witnessed Quince, the ex-con, murmuring with her lips, in breathy concentration, as she pulled an earthenware casserole from the oven. I stood in the kitchen doorway while she pivoted with the casserole, noticing me for the first time. Her nostrils flared and she grinned at me, the dimple on each cheek deepening, as if she’d been expecting me.
Sabbatini had walked in ahead of me and was now in the main room with Blossom and Milosz. The aroma from the stove had lured me into the kitchen. I stood flat-footed, most likely with my mouth open. But at least I hadn’t come empty-handed. I held a large bouquet of red tulips, having forced Sabbatini to stop on the way back through Guerneville. I wanted to leave something for the house from which I’d already been expelled, a curious way of thumbing my nose at my hosts’ hospitality.
Quince placed the casserole on a trivet. “You must be Augie. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“It’s all true.”
“I’m Quince,” she said with a laugh.
“I’ve heard hardly nothing about you, except that you’re taking my bed.”
“Oh, no.”
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t look like much of a bed.”
Quince was facing me now, a tall, pretty woman in her early forties. Her eyes were a silvery green you could swim in, and her dark hair was cropped short. She wore a beguiling pair of conical earrings, each one with matching single dots that suggested dominoes, a pair of double ones. God, how I wanted to plant a little kiss on each of her ears. I bit my lower lip to keep myself in line. Quince had a sweet nose with a little bump on the bridge, and a pair of generous lips. And, of course, the dimples.
She wore blue teal corduroys and a yellow apron that featured a small pile of plum stones and William Carlos Williams’s famous lines, “I have eaten the plums . . .”
“I didn’t know we had any plans.”
“Well, it turns out that our wife’s arriving early.”
“Your wife?”
“Yeah, Blossom thought it’d be wise for us to hire a wife, what with the Galley opening next week and no day care for Milosz.”
“You’ve hired a wife?”
“Yeah, an old friend of Blossom’s.”
I chuckled. “Where did she meet her, in prison?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Come on, you’re going to entrust your child to an ex-con?”
“Blossom’s an ex-con.”
“That’s different. She’s Milosz’s mother and she’s been fully vetted.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sabbatini said between gulps of his bloody, “and I really enjoyed the vetting process.”
“I bet you did. So now you’re going to have two wives, huh, Bobby?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like that. We’re not doing the Mormon thing. Quince’s just providing domestic support.”
“Quince?” I asked.
“Yeah, like the fruit.”
I stood up off my stool and began pacing. Sabbatini was making me nervous.
“Have you even met her?” I asked.
“Haven’t met her yet.”
“What was she in for?”
“Armed robbery.”
“Come on, Bobby, have you gone soft? Has the Fuck Face fucked with your reason?”
Sabbatini went to the double sink and washed out his cocktail glass. “Oh, you know these young women, like Blossom, they fall in with the wrong crowd and next thing you know they’re holding up a chain of dry cleaners in Duluth.”
“Yes,” I said, disgusted, “and some of them end up like the dead girl out at the Christian campground.”
Sabbatini waved me off. “I’ve always believed in giving people second chances. It certainly worked out with Blossom.”
I lifted my head off the bar. “It’s a hell of a chance to take with your own child.”
“Augie, when we project good energy, that’s likely what we’ll get in return. I see it every day. It’s hard to appreciate in Minnesota, surrounded by all that stoic negation. Always a hanging cloud of suspicion. But here, we don’t have to live our lives with our shoulders hunched in fear.”
I listened to this new age drivel and considered the possibility that I’d lost my friend. What about Ruthie Rosenberg, the nameless dame, who actually had a name but no longer a life? Hadn’t she gotten shot in the head, right in the middle of Shangri-La? Had she lost her feelgood exemption? Had she met up with an outsider like me who was still clouded in suspicion, who didn’t subscribe to the West County good life?
Sabbatini had been living in Northern California for a year and a half, but he’d already been fully converted. He grinned at me as if to confirm my suspicions.
I swiveled on my stool. “And how exactly does the arrival of your new wife affect me?”
“Well, turns out she’s coming today and she’ll be sleeping on the rollaway.”
“So, you’re kicking me out of your house before I even get there, Bobby?”
“It’s not like that, man,” Sabbatini said, lighting up what was left of his fatty. “You can sleep on the floor or the ratty couch if you like. But I thought it might be best if you stayed with Jesse. He needs you now, man, he really needs you.”
“And what do I need, Bobby?” I shouted. “I come across the country and you toss me out for the sake of some felon. What do I need?” I repeated, this time as a hiss.
Sabbatini grinned at me. “Now that’s a key existential question, but I’m afraid you’re the only one who can answer it.”
“Fuck you, Bobby.”
Sister Everlast
Before I could storm out of the Galley in minor tantrum mode, a tall man, wearing a leather halter with fake boobs, strolled in. The guy had an enormous pair of biceps to go with his boobs and wore a black stocking cap branded in large letters with the EVERLAST logo. It was a lot to take in. I focused on his stocking cap and found myself remembering the Gillette Friday Night Fights. I’d watched them every week with my father, a normally meek man who became animated as he downed a half-dozen cans of Schlitz. Toward the end of the evening, my father would have me up shadowboxing with him as the pugilists on the flickering screen boxed in their Everlast trunks.
When the guy spotted Sabbatini behind the bar, he hollered, “Did you get it, Sister Poesy?”
“Sister Everlast,” Sabbatini said, “come meet my old buddy, Augie Boyer. I think he may be ripe for the order.”
“Oh, Augie,” the breasted man said, “Sister Poesy’s told us so much about you. We’d love for you to become a member of our order.”
I didn’t know what the fuck Sabbatini and the busty muscle creature were talking about, but before I could resist, Sister Everlast put quite a hug on me.
She repeated her question to Sabbatini, “So have you got it, Sister Poesy?”
“Not yet.”
“I told you we’re going to boycott you until you get it.”
Sabbatini rolled his eyes and said, “Ça ne pisse pas loin. ”
“What are you saying, Sister?”
“That doesn’t piss far.”
I stood up from the stool, ready to get the hell out of Sabbatini’s joint. My quotient for bizarre local color had exceeded my capacity to absorb it. But before I could slip out, Sister Everlast made a florid apology.
“Augie, forgive me for barging in here and interrupting. You look confused. You’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?”
I nodded meekly.
“You don’t know about us, do you?”
I shook my head.
“He doesn’t know about us, Sister Poesy.”
“No,” Sabbatini said, “but I figured it was only a matter of time.”
“We’re members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. I’m Sister Everlast, as you’ve heard, and this is Sister Poesy of the Rose. The order’s been around for years. We do a lot of charity work.”
I swallowed hard. “I see.”
“Even though we like to dress in drag, we’re a hell of a lot more transparent than the brethren up at the Bohemian Grove. You’re hip to the Bohemian Grove, aren’t you, Augie?”
I nodded, though my awareness of the elite men’s club, made up of Republican captains of industry, politicians, academics, and defense contractors, was very limited.
“Don’t get started on the Bohemians, Sister,” Sabbatini said.
“Don’t you think we should give a fuck when the leaders of the so-called free world are engaging in mock human sacrifices to sixty-foot wooden eagles?”
“Sounds like good wholesome fun to me,” Sabbatini said, with a wink.
Sister Everlast wiggled her nose at Sabbatini. “Augie, you should see how lovely Sister Poesy looks in drag. Sister Tart of the Tattoos really does a fine job making him up.”
Sabbatini shrugged.
“You’ve come a long way, Bobby,” I said. Although I wanted to get out of there, I stood frozen on my spot as Sister Everlast hectored Sabbatini for not acquiring any songs by the Singing Nun for his karaoke machine.
“Changer de refrain, Sister Everlast.”
“But Sister Poesy, you’re denying satisfaction to an entire community,” Sister Everlast bellowed. “Just get one song. We can be satisfied with Soeur Sourire’s ‘Dominique.’”
The well-muscled nun began to sing the catchy ditty, but stopped abruptly. “Remember, I have the power to keep the whole order from patronizing your establishment.”
Sabbatini wasn’t intimidated. He simply shrugged. “I’m not doing songs, Sister, I’m doing poems.”
“But the Singing Nuns are poets at heart.”
“We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Sister Everlast nodded, suddenly solemn. “Yes, I heard they found Ruthie’s body out at Last Judgment. How’s Jesse doing?”
“Ask Augie. He spent the night at his place.”
Both sisters turned toward me.
“I think he’s taking it hard.”
The muscled sister closed her eyes and nodded. She pulled off her stocking cap and, with a handkerchief, mopped at her shaved head. Circling the top of her forehead were the tattooed letters P-E-N-E-T-R-A-T-I-O-N.
“What a thing,” she said, “to happen in our community.”
CHAPTER SIX
Spud and Derek in the Rain
I WAS COLD and I was starving. I’d made the mistake of eating nothing more than a demure chicken Caesar salad for lunch. A cold rain had been falling all afternoon, and even to my freeze-dried Minnesota body and soul, the dampness seemed particularly penetrating. It was fucking rheumatism weather. Still, I’d wanted to see if there was any news on the Ruthie Rosenberg murder and hoped to have a look at the Last Judgment Campground during daylight. As my car was still back at his cabin in Cazadero, Sabbatini agreed, against his wishes, to take me out to the murder site.
“You’re not going to find anything out there, Augie,” he’d protested.
“You might be right, Sister Poesy,” I said, winking at the former police detective, “but if you’re selling me down the river and pawning me off on Coolican, then I’m going to poke around on his behalf. Tomorrow I’ll have my rental car, but today I’m stuck with you.”
The campground remained closed. A TV news crew was packing up their truck after shooting some atmosphere.
“Anything breaking?” I asked a sandy-haired man who looked like the television reporter.
“They’re not talking.”
Two sheriff’s department cars were parked in the lot. Police tape now stretched in all directions.
Sabbatini introduced me to one of the deputies, a cheerful character named Spud who sported a huge red blotch of birthmark across the left side of his face. I tried not to stare, but couldn’t get over how closely the birthmark resembled the shape of Idaho, hence the man’s nickname. Spud couldn’t have been much more than thirty.
“So this is Augie?” Spud said with a grin.
Sabbatini nodded. “The Augster.”
Spud’s eyes opened wide. “How’s Rose? I’m a real of fan of hers.”
Sooner or later everybody got around to asking about my famous daughter.
“She’s fine,” I said. “She’s on some kind of an all-star tour with the Boss.”
We stood in the rain with Spud and the other deputy, whom Spud introduced as Derek, a gangly fella with a thin black mustache, no older than his partner.
“I think Rose is hot,” said Derek, bouncing boyishly on his toes.
“You don’t tell a man that you think his daughter’s hot,” Spud said.
Derek apologized to me. I shrugged.
I noticed Spud wink at Sabbatini. “Hey, Poesy, I’ve been memorizing some Gary Snyder.”
“Good man.”
“But it’s kind of hard for me to keep the lines straight.”
“What are you smoking these days?” Sabbatini asked.
“Just a little Fuck Face.”
“Maybe you should switch to Monte Rio Brio. Coolie tells me that’s the best for the memory.”
“I do have one down, Poesy,” Spud said proudly.
“Yeah, give it to us, man.”
The deputy blushed, and the map of Idaho seemed branded a little deeper into his face. “It’s a short one. Called ‘On Top.’”
“Excellent choice,” Sabbatini said.
Spud stood up straight and took off his sheriff’s cap.
ON TOP
BY GARY SNYDER
All this new stuff goes on top
turn it over turn it over
wait and water down.
From the dark bottom
turn it inside out
let it spread through, sift down,
even.
Watch it sprout.
A mind like compost.
“Fantastic,” Sabbatini raved. “I’ve never thought of the mind the same way since learning that poem. Gives you a new respect.”
Deputy Spud had a big grin on his face. Then he nodded over to his colleague, Derek. “He’s jealous ’cause he doesn’t have a poet.”
Derek protested, “I’m not jealous.”
“We can find him a poet,” Sabbatini said. “What kind of stuff do you like to do, Derek?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t know. Hunt.”
Sabbatini mused for a moment. “I’m thinking Richard Hugo. I don’t know if he hunted, but I’m thinking he’s the poet for you. I’ll bring some by.”
I stood a moment longer in the dripping rain, not believing that we were standing at a murder scene. Trying to get myself back on task, I caught Spud’s eye. “So, tell me, has the sheriff’s department made any discoveries out here?”
“Nothing much,” Spud answered, too quickly. I watched his birthmark stretch as he grimaced for effect and shook his head.
“Nothing, huh?”
“No.”
I expected Sabbatini, the veteran homicide detective, to jump in, but apparently he’d abdicated, leaving the initiative to the small-time P.I. I glanced around the expanded crime scene. “How come there’s so much more cordoned off than there was last night?”
Spud shrugged.
“All due respect,” Sabbatini said, “these guys don’t know anything. They’re not detectives. The detectives have already come and gone.”
I couldn’t tell if Sabbatini was playing with the deputies or not, but I made a point of contradicting him. “I think these guys know a whole lot more than they’re letting on. Okay, what happened here? Did your perp go in more than one direction? Or was the victim still alive out here?”
Spud shook his head, still trying to play poker.
“Are they thinking there might have been more than one killer?” I asked.
Derek picked up the pace with his toe bouncing.
“That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“Too early to say for sure,” Derek volunteered, “but they’ve isolated two distinct sets of footprints, one set in shoes, the other barefoot.”
Spud glared at his colleague.
“So,” I continued, “that would suggest that we’re dealing with both a man and a woman, the assumption being that the barefoot tracks belong to the victim. . . .”
“We can’t assume,” Spud said.
I winked at Spud. “Unless we’re dealing with a pair of killers, one barefoot, who brought the victim here already dead. Anything come back on the weapon?” I asked.
Both deputies shuffled their feet.
“Look, I’m staying with Deputy Coolican and I think it’ll be best for everybody involved if we keep him out of this. But he’s going to want to know some things as they develop. What did they find on the weapon?”
Stalling, Spud poked his birthmarked cheek with his tongue so the mark took on dimension. The map of Idaho suddenly had topographical scale. I watched it rise and fall. “We’re not supposed to know this stuff,” Spud said, finally.
“But you do.”
“It was a .45 caliber rifle, the same kind used in the 2004 double murder.”
“Is it the same weapon?” I asked.
“That we don’t know,” Spud said, nodding now, his marked cheek falling back into place.
“Anything else?”
Both deputies shook their heads.
Walking to Sabbatini’s car, I turned back to the deputies. “Hey, Derek, I’ll see if I can get you a signed photo of Rose.”
Derek grinned. “Would you?”
“I’ll take one, too,” said Spud.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
As we drove away, Sabbatini said, “I think you’ve got those boys where you want them.”
Cold rain in the redwoods—
the old detective perks up
like a fresh shoot.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Wife and the Bloodhound
THE MOMENT I set eyes on Blossom and Sabbatini’s new wife, I wanted her to be my wife. Once I saw her bent over the ancient O’Keefe and Merritt in the small kitchen, she captured my heart.
Of course, my hunger had grown gigantic by the time I witnessed Quince, the ex-con, murmuring with her lips, in breathy concentration, as she pulled an earthenware casserole from the oven. I stood in the kitchen doorway while she pivoted with the casserole, noticing me for the first time. Her nostrils flared and she grinned at me, the dimple on each cheek deepening, as if she’d been expecting me.
Sabbatini had walked in ahead of me and was now in the main room with Blossom and Milosz. The aroma from the stove had lured me into the kitchen. I stood flat-footed, most likely with my mouth open. But at least I hadn’t come empty-handed. I held a large bouquet of red tulips, having forced Sabbatini to stop on the way back through Guerneville. I wanted to leave something for the house from which I’d already been expelled, a curious way of thumbing my nose at my hosts’ hospitality.
Quince placed the casserole on a trivet. “You must be Augie. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“It’s all true.”
“I’m Quince,” she said with a laugh.
“I’ve heard hardly nothing about you, except that you’re taking my bed.”
“Oh, no.”
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t look like much of a bed.”
Quince was facing me now, a tall, pretty woman in her early forties. Her eyes were a silvery green you could swim in, and her dark hair was cropped short. She wore a beguiling pair of conical earrings, each one with matching single dots that suggested dominoes, a pair of double ones. God, how I wanted to plant a little kiss on each of her ears. I bit my lower lip to keep myself in line. Quince had a sweet nose with a little bump on the bridge, and a pair of generous lips. And, of course, the dimples.
She wore blue teal corduroys and a yellow apron that featured a small pile of plum stones and William Carlos Williams’s famous lines, “I have eaten the plums . . .”
