DR17 - Swan Peak

  Reverend Sonny Click wasn’t very good at dealing with cops. Like all people who are afraid or who have something to hide, he continued to provide extraneous information we didn’t ask of him, filling the air with words, controlling the conversation so others couldn’t talk. In the meantime, Clete said nothing, his eyes roving over the farmhouse and the yard and the unwatered plants in the window boxes and flower beds.

  “Can you take a look at the pictures of these two kids?” I said.

  Click cupped the photographs of Cindy Kershaw and Seymour Bell in his palm and studied them. Studied, not glanced at or simply looked at. He studied them long enough to give himself time to think about his next statement and time enough to make me believe he was doing everything in his power to help us.

  “No sir, I can’t say that I’ve seen them,” he replied. “They could have sat in my congregation at one time or another, but I don’t remember them.”

  He tried to return the photos to me, but I didn’t take them. Instead, I continued to look into his face without speaking.

  “Wish I had more information for you, but it doesn’t look like I do,” he said.

  “You’re sure about that?” I said.

  “Nobody can be absolutely sure about anything, except faith in the Lord. But in this case, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen these people.”

  I removed the photos from his hand and placed them in my shirt pocket. The wind was blowing through the canyon, stiffening an air sock at the end of the mowed runway. Clete had not spoken. He stuck a cigarette in his mouth but did not light it. His gaze was fixed on the front doorway of the farmhouse. “That your daughter?” he said.

  “No, she’s an assistant. In our campus ministry program,” Click said.

  “We’d like to talk with her,” I said.

  “She’s a mite shy. She’s had an unfortunate life. Her father was a drug addict and died in prison, and her mother became a street person in San Francisco. I created a little job for her helping out with my paperwork and such. She takes care of the yard and the plants while I’m gone, too. She’s a good kid, and I hate to see her drug into something like this.”

  “Where’d she get that little wood cross around her neck?” Clete asked.

  There was a beat like wheels stopping for an instant behind Sonny Click’s eyes. “A number of youth ministers wear them on the UM campus,” he said.

  “Ask her to come over here, sir,” I said.

  “Fay, these gentlemen are here about that tragedy at the university. I’ve told them everything we know, but they thought maybe you—”

  “At this point you need to be quiet, Mr. Click,” I said.

  “You don’t need to take that tone. It’s ‘Reverend,’ too, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Look, this other man here didn’t show me his identification.”

  Clete took out his gold PI badge, which, like most of them, was bigger, more baroque, and more visually impressive than any state or county or federal law enforcement ID. “Have you ever visited Louisiana?” Clete said. “We’ve got the most famous faith healer in the country right there in Baton Rouge. Know what I can’t ever figure? Instead of curing people onstage, why doesn’t this guy go to emergency wards and hospitals and sanitariums where people are really in need of help? You know, rip the oxygen masks off their faces and tell them to get up and boogie? Walk over to my car with me, will you? My cigarette lighter must have fallen out on the seat.”

  In the meantime, I walked to the porch, into the shade, where the girl was watching us. She wore cutoff blue jeans and a plain T-shirt and Indian moccasins with soles, the kind sold to tourists in reservation stores. She was heavyset and plain and big-breasted, with no expression at all, wearing a cross and leather cord that was exactly like the one Seymour Bell had probably worn the night of his death. She said her name was Fay Travis, and she lived in a dormitory on the university campus.

  I showed her the photos of Bell and Cindy Kershaw. Then one of those strange and unexpected moments occurred, the kind that makes you feel every human being carries a secret well of sorrow whose existence he or she daily denies in order to remain functional. When she lifted her eyes to mine, I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I could see right into her soul. “You knew them?” I said.

  Her eyes looked in Click’s direction. “I saw them around the campus. Maybe in the Student Union sometimes.”

  “Did you see them other places?” I asked.

  “You mean on campus?”

  “No, I don’t mean that at all. I think you know what I mean.”

  “What are you saying to me?” she asked.

  “Don’t be afraid of this man.”

  “I’m not. He’s good to me.”

  “Don’t look at him, look at me. Reverend Sonny Click is a fraud and a bum. I think you’re a good person, Miss Travis. Don’t let this man use you. Were Cindy Kershaw and Seymour Bell here at the reverend’s house?”

  I saw her swallow. I stepped into her line of vision so that she was facing me and not Sonny Click.

  “At the end of the spring semester, the campus ministers met a few times for coffee at the Student Union. Brother Click was there as a guest. But I don’t remember Seymour or Cindy coming out to the house.”

  “But he knew them?”

  “Yes sir. He talked with them. He’s real good with young people.”

  “Where did you get the wood cross?” I asked.

  “From Brother Click.”

  “Did he tell you not to talk about Seymour and Cindy?”

  “He just said we should pray for them.”

  I bet he did, I thought.

  I removed one of my Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department business cards from my wallet and made an X through the printed information on it, then wrote my cell number and Albert Hollister’s home number on the back.

  “You call me if you have any other information about Seymour and Cindy,” I said. “My wife and I will do whatever we can to help you. Do you understand what I’m saying? You get away from this guy, Miss Travis. He’s a predator, pure and simple. He’ll continue to hurt you as long as you allow him to.”

  “Why are you saying that? He hasn’t hurt me.”

  In her eyes I could see the lights of shame and denial and self-resentment, and I tried to remember Saint Augustine’s admonition that we should never use the truth to injure. “What I’ve told you is in confidence. Reverend Click didn’t hear us. You don’t have to be afraid — not of me, not of him, not of anyone.”

  She turned her face to the wind, pretending to brush at something that had caught in her eye.

  “What are you majoring in?” I asked.

  “Pre-veterinary, but I might have to drop out. My student loan didn’t come through.”

  I wanted to wish her well and pat her on the arm, but I didn’t want to send a signal to Click that one of his youth ministers had cooperated with the investigation at his expense. I put away my notebook and said goodbye to Fay Travis and walked back toward Click, trying to keep my emotions at bay. But how do you do that when you encounter a grown man who is probably sexually exploiting a young woman who can barely scrape together enough money to pay her college tuition?

  “Before we go, Reverend, did you ever visit that religious store downtown?” I asked.

  “I may have, but not recently.”

  “You didn’t buy one of those little crosses for Seymour Bell?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “A Mercury.”

  “What color is it?”

  “Midnight blue. Why?”

  “No reason. Have a good day. We’ll be checking back with you later.”

  “I think you’re wasting your time. I don’t think I need to have any more conversations with you, either.”

  The wind changed and seemed to become colder, smelling of animal dung and dead fish in the cottonwoods down on the riverbank. I stepped closer to Sonny Click, as though we were intimates, as though I
feared my words would be smudged by the wind, their meaning lost on a man who long ago had abandoned moral nuances.

  “I don’t want to offend you, Reverend, but I despise men like you. You hijack Christianity and use it to manipulate trusting souls who have no other place of refuge. If I find out you’re sexually abusing that young woman over there, I’m going to come back here and shove you into your own airplane propeller. It’s not personal. It’s just one of those situations when the shit really needs to hit the fan.”

  Clete lit his cigarette with his Zippo and snapped the lid shut. A bloom of white smoke rose from his mouth and broke apart in the wind. “Dave is probably exaggerating. But on the other hand, Streak gets out of control and goes apeshit sometimes. I’d err on the side of safety, Preacher. Keep your stiff one-eye on a short leash. We know you can do it.”

  THAT AFTERNOON, AT a shady roadside filling station and convenience store just south of Swan Peak, Candace Sweeney was gassing up the SUV while Troyce was inside buying a quart of chocolate milk and a bagful of Hershey bars, which he claimed thickened his blood and contributed to the healing of the wounds in his chest and face. Earlier that morning he had bought her a new pair of Acme cowboy boots, a snap-button western shirt that shimmered like pink champagne, and jeans stitched with roses on the pockets. It was a lovely afternoon, and she wanted to lie on the beach at one of the chain lakes that fed into the Swan Drainage, like other couples did on the cusp of summer in western Montana. Then she and Troyce could have dinner in a steak house built of logs and, later, dessert and drinks on the terrace, under a sky bursting with the constellations. It wasn’t a lot to ask, was it? To have a normal relationship?

  Or maybe it was. Troyce treated her with respect; his words were always tender. She seemed incapable of doing wrong in his eyes. But were his tolerance and patience and understanding a disguise for indifference? This morning she had gotten up early, brushed her teeth and gargled with mouthwash and combed her hair, then gotten back in bed with him, caressing his cheek, rubbing her hand down the length of his hip, feeling her internal organs melt when his sex hardened under her touch.

  “Hi, little darlin’,” he said sleepily.

  “You sleep okay, baby?” she said.

  “You never called me that before.”

  “You mind?”

  “I’ve answered to a lot worse.”

  She propped herself on her elbow and looked straight into his face. “You want me to rub your back?”

  “I think the world of you, Candace. I just got problems sometimes.”

  “Did you get hurt in the war?”

  “I worked at a jail outside Baghdad. The army sent me back home ’cause of some things I did there. It wasn’t a dishonorable discharge but right close to it.”

  “What things?”

  “Giving some prisoners the worst day I possibly could.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  He picked up a pack of cigarettes from the nightstand, then replaced it. “I was raised by an uncle who ran a truck-repair shop on the highway outside Del Rio. When I was about eleven years old, him and a couple of his friends come back from drinking all night in Coahuila. One of the friends took me in the bedroom and entertained me proper while my uncle and the other guy was playing cards. Then my uncle and the other guy had their turn. I can still smell them in my sleep sometimes. It’s like a fog in the darkness, like stale sweat and mechanic’s grease. I run away the next day, but my uncle brought me back, and the next week two different guys did it to me.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder and picked up his right hand in hers. “You like me?” she said.

  “Sure I do.”

  “You trust me?”

  “Ain’t many like you, Candace.”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “I trust you ’cause you don’t want anything. ’Cause you accept folks for what they are.”

  “I want you.” She took off her top and placed his hand on her breast. “You feel my heart? You feel how it beats when your hand touches my skin? It’s going too fast to count the beats, isn’t it?”

  She could see the surprise, the puzzlement, in his face as he held his hand to her breast.

  “You know what that means? It means I can never lie to you,” she said.

  “No, I don’t believe you ever will.”

  “People like us are different, Troyce. It’s in our hardwiring. It doesn’t mean we’re bad. We didn’t get to vote about the kind of homes we grew up in. But here’s the big joke. People taught us the homes we grew up in were normal. It’s like somebody doing a double mind-fuck on you.”

  “What’s that got to do with you and me?”

  “It means I’m here whenever you want me.”

  He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I ever tell you you’re always pretty when you wake up in the morning?”

  “I got to ask you something, Troyce.”

  “About Baghdad?”

  “Did you come out here to kill a man?”

  “There’s things I keep hid around a corner in my mind. When I get to them, I can make my choices and do what I need to do. It beats fretting your mind about events that ain’t real yet. Would you not like me if I told you I got a long memory for people who do me harm?”

  “Who hurt you so bad, Troyce?”

  “A fellow who’s right around the corner, just waiting for me to get to the end of the street.”

  Now she was in a breezy gas station shaded by pine trees, filling up the SUV, gazing at mountain peaks that looked like they belonged on a postcard. Twenty feet away was an unshaved man filling a five-gallon plastic fuel container. He was wearing a flannel shirt and laced boots and canvas work pants, obviously overdressed for the mild weather in the way that men deliberately overdress to indicate their indifference to their own discomfort. “Can I help you with something?” he said, catching her stare.

  She didn’t reply. She glanced through the window of the convenience store, where she could see Troyce counting out coins next to the cash register.

  “Did you hear me?” the unshaved man asked.

  She could feel the gas humming through the hose and handle into the SUV’s tank. She heard the unshaved man drop his five-gallon fuel container onto the floor of his vehicle and slam the door. But he was still standing on the concrete slab, his eyes probing the side of her face, his hand squeezing his scrotum. Troyce came out of the store eating a candy bar. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Check it out,” she said, her eyes on Troyce’s.

  “What?”

  “The guy from the revival.”

  “What about him?”

  “Nothing. He’s here, that’s all.”

  “He crack wise or something?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He’s a jerk. Who cares?”

  Troyce dropped the paper bag containing his candy bars and chocolate milk through the open window of the SUV and walked over to where the man named Quince stood by the pump. “You make some kind of remark to Miss Candace?” he said.

  “She was eyeballing me, so I asked if I could help her.”

  “You been in the pen?”

  “What?”

  “You said she was eyeballing you. That’s an expression that convicts on the hard road use.”

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “At the revival I showed you a photograph of a man I’m looking for. You said you’d never seen him. But that’s not the truth, is it?”

  Quince brushed at his nose and huffed air out of one nostril. Then he surprised Troyce Nix. “Maybe it’s the truth, maybe not.”

  “How am I supposed to read that?” Troyce asked.

  “What’s in it for me?” Quince asked.

  Troyce looked around and seemed to think about it. The breeze was blowing through the pine trees. His face looked cool and untroubled inside the shade. “I don’t like talking out here. Go
in the restroom and wait for me.”

  “You hold your negotiations in the shitter?” When Troyce didn’t reply, Quince said, “I’ll move my car.”

  Quince went inside the convenience store, looking once over his shoulder.

  “Troyce, don’t get in trouble. Not because of me,” Candace said.

  “Ain’t gonna be no trouble, darlin’,” he replied.

  “Troyce, I don’t want to lose you.” She said this without emotion, as a fact, in the way women know facts that men do not, and he knew he had entered a new stage in his life. “You’re a good man. You just don’t know how good you are.”

  He looked at her for a moment, as though seeing her more clearly than he had ever seen her before. Then he winked and went inside the restroom. Quince was relieving himself in a urinal.

  “You seen the man in the photograph?” Troyce asked.

  “What kind of finder’s fee we talking about?”

  “Finder’s fee?”

  “Yes sir,” Quince said, zipping his pants. He began touching at his face in the mirror, feeling the stubble, without washing his hands.

  “How about you don’t get charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive?” Troyce said.

  “You aren’t a cop.”

  “No, I’m not. But can I tell you a secret?”

  Someone tried to open the door. “I got a sick man in here. You’ll have to wait,” Troyce said, squeezing the door shut again, shooting the bolt.

  Quince stopped touching at his face and looked at the locked door.

  “You know why you don’t get a finder’s fee?” Troyce said. “It’s ’cause you’re for sale. A man who’s for sale suffers the sin of arrogance. What he don’t understand is that nothing he’s got is worth the spit on the sidewalk. You remind me of the tramps down at the blood bank. The blood you sell has disease in it, but you pass it on to other people to put wine in your stomach. You ain’t no different from a whore, except your skinny ass ain’t worth the time it’d take to kick it around the block… Where you think you’re going?”