N Is for Noose

  There was one of those silences that sounded like it contained an exclamation point. "If you don't want to finish the job, why don't you come right out and say so?"

  "I'm not saying that."

  "Then when are you coming back?"

  "I'm not sure yet. Next week. Maybe Tuesday."

  "Next week?" she said. "What's wrong with today? If you got in your car now, you could be here in six hours."

  "What's the big hurry? This has been going on for weeks."

  "Well, for one thing, you still owe me five hundred dollars' worth of work. For that kind of money, I would think you'd want to get here as soon as possible."

  "Selma, I'm not going to sit here and argue about this. I'll do what I can."

  "Wonderful. What time shall I expect you?"

  "I have no idea."

  "Surely, you can give me some idea when you might arrive. I have other obligations. I'll be gone all day tomorrow. I go to ten o'clock service and then spend some time with my cousin down in Big Pine. I can't sit around waiting for you to show up any time it suits. Besides, if you're coming, I'll need to make arrangements."

  "I'll call when I get there, but I'm not going to stay at the Nota Lake Cabins. I hate that place and I won't be put in that position. It's too remote and it's dangerous."

  "Fine," she said, promptly. "You can stay here at the house with me."

  "I wouldn't dream of imposing. I'll find another motel so there won't be any inconvenience for either one of us."

  "It's no inconvenience. I could use the company. Brant thinks it's high time he moved back to his place. He's already in the process of packing up. The guest room is always ready. I insist. I'll have supper waiting and no arguments about that, please."

  "We'll talk about it when I get there," I said, trying to conceal my irritation. I was rapidly reassessing my opinion of the woman, ready to cast my vote with her legions of detractors. This was a side of her I hadn't seen before and I was churning with indignation. Of course, I noticed I'd already started revising my mental timetable, preparing to hit the road as soon as possible. Having consented, in effect, I now found myself wanting to get it over with. I shortened the fare-thee-wells, trying to get her off the phone while I could.

  The minute I replaced the receiver, I picked it up again and placed a call to Colleen Sellers. While the interminable ringing of her line went on, I could feel my impatience mount. "Come on, come on. Be there..."

  "Hello?"

  "Colleen, it's Kinsey here."

  "What can I do for you?"

  She didn't sound that thrilled to hear from me, but I was through pussy-footing around. "I just spent thirty minutes with Pinkie Ritter's daughter Dolores and her husband. Turns out Pinkie has another daughter in Nota Lake, which is why he and Alfie went up there in the first place."

  "And?"

  "This is someone I've met, a woman named Margaret who works for the sheriff's department as a clerk. I'm going to have to go back up there and talk to her again, but I can't go without knowing what I'm up against."

  "Why call me? I can't help."

  "Yes, you can..."

  "Kinsey, I don't know anything about this and frankly, I'm annoyed you keep pressing the point."

  "Well, frankly, I guess I'll just have to risk your irritation. What's the matter with you, Colleen?"

  "Does it ever occur to you that I might find this painful? I mean, I'm sorry as hell for Selma, but she's not the only one who's suffered a loss. I was in love with him, too, and I don't appreciate your constantly picking at the wound."

  "Oh, really. Well, it's interesting that you should say so because you want to know what I think is going on? I think it pisses you off that you never had any power or any control in that relationship. Tom may have taken the moral high ground, acting from his lofty-sounding principles, but the fact is he left you with nothing and this is your payback."

  "That's not true."

  "Try again," I said.

  "What's to pay back? He never did anything to me."

  "Tom was a tease. He was willing to flirt, but he was quick to draw lines you couldn't cross. He could afford to enjoy your attention because it didn't cost him a thing. He accepted the tribute without taking any risks, which meant he got to feel virtuous while you were left like a kid with your nose pressed to the glass. You could see what you wanted, but you weren't allowed to touch. And now you're thinking that's the best you'll ever have, which is really bullshit because you didn't have anything. All this talk about pain is an attempt to sanctify a big, fat, emotional zero." I knew I was only ragging on her because Selma had ragged on me, but it felt good nonetheless. Later, I'd feel guilty for being such a bitch, but for now it seemed like the only way to get what I wanted.

  She was silent for a moment. I could hear the intake of cigarette smoke, followed by the exhale of her breath. "Maybe."

  "Maybe, my ass. It's the truth," I said. "Everybody sees him as noble, but I think he was supremely egotistical. How honorable was he when he never had the courage to tell his wife?"

  "Tell her what?"

  "That he was tempted to be unfaithful because of his attraction to you. He didn't act on his feelings, but it's no bloody wonder she ended up feeling insecure. And what did it net you? You're still hung up on him and you may never get yourself off the hook."

  "Look, you really don't know what you're talking about so let's skip all the homegrown psychology: Tell me what you want and get it over with."

  "You have to level with me."

  "Why?"

  "Because my life may depend on it," I snapped. "Come on, Colleen. You're a professional. You know better. You sit there doling out little tidbits of information, hanging on to the crumbs because it's all you have. This is serious damn shit. If Tom were in your position, do you think he'd withhold information in a situation like this?"

  She inhaled again. "Probably not." Grudgingly.

  "Then let's get on with it. If you know what's going on, for god's sake, let's have it."

  She seemed to hesitate. "Tom was facing a moral crisis. I was the easy part, but I wasn't all of it."

  "What do you mean, you were the easy part?"

  "I'm not sure how to explain. I think he could do the right thing with me and it was a comfort to him. That situation made sense while the other problem he was facing was more complicated."

  "You're just guessing at this or do you know for a fact?"

  "Well, Tom never came out and said so, but he did allude to the issue. Something about not knowing how to reconcile his head and his gut."

  "In regard to what?"

  "He felt responsible for Toth's murder."

  "He felt responsible? How come?"

  "A breach of confidentiality."

  "As in what? I don't get it."

  "Toth's whereabouts," she said. "I gave him the address and phone number of the Gramercy. Tom thought someone used the information to track Toth down and kill him. It was driving him crazy to think the man might have died because of his carelessness."

  I felt myself blinking at the phone, trying to make sense of what she'd said. "But Selma tells me Tom was always tight-lipped. That was one of her complaints. He never talked about anything, especially when it came to his work."

  "It wasn't talk at all. He thought someone took an unauthorized look at his notes."

  "But his notebook is missing."

  "Well, it wasn't back then."

  "Who did he suspect? Did he ever mention a name?"

  "Someone he worked with. And that's my guess, by the way, not something he said to me directly. Why else would it bother him if it wasn't someone betraying the department?"

  I felt myself grow still. I flashed on the officers I'd met in Nota Lake: Rafer LaMott; Tom's brother Macon; Hatch Brine; James Tennyson; Earlene's husband, Wayne. Even Deputy Carey Badger who'd taken my report on the night of the assault. The list seemed to go on and on and all of them were connected with the Nota Lake Sheriff's Department or the CHP. At th
e back of my mind, I'd been flirting with a possibility I'd scarcely dared to admit. What I'd been harboring was the suspicion that my attacker had been trained at a police academy. I'd been resisting the notion, but I could feel it begin to take root in my imagination. He'd taken me down with an efficiency I'd been taught once upon a time myself. Whether he was currently employed in some branch of law enforcement, I couldn't be sure, but the very idea left me feeling cold. "Are you telling me one of Tom's colleagues was involved in a double homicide?"

  "I think that was his suspicion and it was tearing him apart. Again, this wasn't something he said. This is my best guess."

  This time I was silent for a moment. "I should have seen that. How stupid of me. Shit."

  "What will you do now?"

  "Beats the hell out of me. What would you suggest?"

  "Why not talk to someone in Internal Affairs?"

  "And say what? I'm certainly willing to give them anything I have, but at this point, it's all speculation, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes. I guess that's one reason I didn't call myself. I've got nothing concrete. Maybe if you talk to Pinkie's daughter up there, it will clarify the situation."

  "Meanwhile alerting the guy that I'm breathing down his neck," I said.

  "But you can't do this on your own."

  "Who'm I gonna call? The Nota Lake Sheriff's Department?"

  "I'm not sure I'd do that," she said, laughing for once.

  "Yeah, well if I figure it out, I'll let you know," I said. "Any other comments or advice while we're on the subject?"

  She thought about it briefly. "Well, one thing... though you may have already thought about this. It must have been general knowledge Tom was working on this case, so once he dropped dead, the guy must have thought he was home free."

  "And now I come along. Bad break," I said. "Of course, the guy can't be sure how much information Tom passed to his superiors."

  "Exactly. If it's not in his reports, it might still be in circulation somewhere, especially with his notes gone. You'd better hope you get to 'em before someone else does."

  "Maybe the guy already has them in his possession."

  "Then why's he afraid of you? You're only dangerous if you have the notes," she said.

  I thought about the search of Tom's den. "You're right."

  "I'd proceed with care."

  "Trust me," I said. "One more question while I have you on the line. Were you ever in Nota Lake yourself?"

  "Are you kidding? Tom was too nervous to see me there."

  I replaced the receiver, distracted. My anxiety level was rising ominously, like a toilet on the verge of overflowing. The fear was like something damp and heavy sinking into my bones. I have a thing about authority figures, specifically police officers in uniform, probably dating from that first encounter while I was trapped in the wreckage of my parents' VW at the age of five. I can still remember the horror and the relief of being rescued by those big guys with their guns and nightsticks. Still, the sense of jeopardy and pain also attached to that image. At five, I wasn't capable of separating the two. In terms of confusion and loss, what I'd experienced was irrevocably bound up with the sight of men in uniform. As a child, I'd been taught the police were my pals, people to turn to if you were lost or afraid. At the same time, I knew police had the power to put you in jail, which made them fearful to contemplate if you were sometimes as "bad" as I was. In retrospect, I can see that I'd applied to the police academy, in part, to ally myself with the very folks I feared. Being on the side of the law was, no doubt, my attempt to cope with that old anxiety. Most of the officers I'd known since had been decent, caring people, which made it all the more alarming to think that one might have crossed the line. I couldn't think when anything had frightened me quite as much as the idea of going up against this guy, but what could I do? If I quit this one, then what? The next time I got scared, was I going to quit that job, too?

  I went up the spiral stairs and dutifully started shoving items in my duffel.

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  The ocean was white with fog, the horizon fading into milk a hundred yards offshore. The sun behind clouds created a harsh, nearly blinding light. Colors seemed flattened by the haze, which lent a chill to the air. A quick check of the weather channel before I'd departed showed heavy precipitation in the area of California where I was headed and within the first twenty-five miles, I could already begin to sense the shift.

  I took Highway 126 through Santa Paula and Fillmore until I ran into Highway S, where I doglegged over to Highway 14. I drove through canyon country balding, brown hills, tufted with chapparel, as wrinkled and hairy as elephants. Power lines marched across the folds of the earth while the highway spun six lanes of concrete through the cuts and crevices. Residential developments had sprung up everywhere, the ridges dotted with tract houses so that the natural rock formations looked strangely out of place. There was evidence of construction still in progress – earth movers, concrete mixers, temporary equipment yards enclosed in wire fencing in which heavy machinery was being housed for the duration. An occasional Porta-Potty occupied the wide aisle between lanes of the freeway. The land was the color of dry dirt and dried grass. Trees were few and didn't seem to assert much of a presence out here.

  By the time I'd passed Edwards Air Force Base, driving in a straight line north, the sky was gray. The clouds collected in ascending layers that blocked out the fading sun overhead. The drizzle that began to fall looked more like a fine vapor sheeting through the air. Misty-looking communities appeared in the distance, flat and small, laid out in a grid, like an outpost on the moon. Closer to the road, there would be an occasional outbuilding, left over from god knows what decade. The desert, while unforgiving, nevertheless tolerates man-made structures, which remain – lopsided, with broken windows, roofs collapsing – long after the inhabitants have died or moved on. I could see the entire expanse of rain-swept plains to the rim of hushed buffcolored mountains. The telephone poles, extending into the horizon ahead of me, could have served as a lesson in perspective. Behind the barren, pointed hills, rugged granite out-croppings grew darker as the rain increased. Gradually, the road moved into the foothills. The mountains beyond them were imposing. Nothing marred the featureless, pale surface – no trees, no grass, no mark of human passage. At higher elevations, I could see vegetation where low-hanging clouds provided sufficient moisture to support growth.

  I'd tucked my semiautomatic in the duffel. The gun experts, Dietz among them, were quick to scoff at the little Davis, but it was a handgun I knew and it felt far more familiar to me than the Heckler and Koch, a more recent acquisition. Given the condition of my bunged up fingers, I doubted I'd be capable of pulling the trigger in any event, but the gun was a comfort in my current apprehensive state.

  Little by little, I was giving up my initial irritation with Selma. As with anything else, once a process is under way, there's no point in railing against the Fates. I regretted that I hadn't had time to contact Leland Peck, the clerk at the Gramercy Hotel. I'd taken his coworker's word that he had nothing to report. Any good investigator knows better. I should have taken the trouble to look him up so I could quiz him about his recollections of the plainclothes detective with the warrant for Toth's arrest.

  In the meantime, secure in my ignorance of events to come, I thought idly of the night ahead. I truly hate being a guest in someone's home. The bed seldom suits me. The blankets are usually skimpy. The pillows are flat or made out of hard rubber that smells of halfdeflated basketballs. The toilet refuses to flush fully or the handle gets stuck or the paper runs out so that you're forced to search all the cabinets looking for the ever so cunningly hidden supply. Worst of all, you have to "make nice" at all hours. I don't want someone across the table from me while I'm eating my breakfast. I don't want to share the newspaper and I don't want to talk to anyone at the end of the day. If I were interested in that shit, I'd be married again by now and put a permanent end to all the peace
and quiet.

  By the time I arrived in Nota Lake at 6:45, night had settled on the landscape and the weather was truly nasty. The drizzle had intensified into a stinging sleet. My windshield wipers labored, collecting slush in an arc that nearly filled my windshield. My guess was the people of Nota Lake, like others in perpetually cold climates, had strategies for coping with the shifting character of snow. From my limited experience, the freezing rain seemed extremely hazardous, making the roadway as slick as a skating rink. In moments, I could feel the vehicle slide sideways and I slowed to a snail's pace. At the road's edge, the dead grass had stiffened, collecting feathery drifts of whirling snow. Selma had bullied me into having supper with her. I'm easily influenced in food matters, having been conditioned these past years by Rosie's culinary imperiousness. When ordered about by any woman with a certain autocratic tone, I do as I'm told, largely helpless to resist.

  I parked out in front of Selma's, snagged my duffel, and hurried to the front porch, head bent, shoulders hunched as though to avoid the combination of blowing rain and biting snow. I knocked politely, shifting impatiently from foot to foot until she opened the door. We exchanged the customary chitchat as I stepped into the foyer and dried my feet on a rag rug. I shrugged off my leather jacket and eased out of my shoes, conscious of the pristine carpet. The house was toasty warm, hazy from the cigarette smoke sealed into the winterproofed rooms. I shivered with belated relief at being out of the cold. I padded after Selma, who showed me to the guest room. "Take whatever time you need to freshen up and get settled. I cleared some space in the closet and emptied a drawer for your things. I'll be out in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on supper. You know your way around, but don't hesitate to holler if you need anything."

  "Thanks."

  Once the door closed behind me, I surveyed the room with dismay. The carpet here was hot pink, a cut-pile cotton shag. There was a four-poster bed with a canopy and a puffy, quilted spread of pink-and-white checked gingham. The same fabric continued in the dust ruffle and ruffled pillow shams, stacked three deep. A collection of six quilted teddy bears was grouped together in a window seat. The wallpaper was pink-and-white stripes with a floral border across the top. There was an old-fashioned vanity table with a padded seat and a pink-and-white ruffled skirt. Everything was trimmed in oversized white rickrack. The guest bath was an extension of this jaunty decorative theme, complete with a crocheted cozy for the extra roll of toilet paper. The room smelled as though it had been closed up for some time and the heat here seemed more intense than in the rest of the house. I could feel myself start to hyperventilate with the craving for fresh air.