Day One (7 page)

“When was the last time you saw your husband, Mrs. Gillespie?”

“First, he’s not my husband. I divorced that piece of shit ten years ago.”

“Okay. So when did you last see him?”

“Last night. But you already know that.”

“What did he want?”

“A blow job, more than likely. He’s lucky I wasn’t in the mood. I’d have bit his dick off.”

“What about the kids? Did they talk to him?”

“I wasn’t about to let him near my kids.”

“And he didn’t tell you why he was in town?”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“So all he wanted was ...”

“Jesus. How the hell do I know?” She tried to light a cigarette, but she was no Sharon Stone and Susan made her snuff it. “Listen,
he just showed up pretending to be a human being. I figured he wanted to get laid and maybe a free place to sleep, though why he thought I was offering either I can’t tell you.” She blew air through her over-dyed bangs. “He also pretended he wanted to see the kids, but I wasn’t buying that bullshit. He hasn’t seen the kids or paid child support since we split.”

“Did he mention anything about a woman, maybe someone he was traveling with? A name, anything?”

“A woman would have to have the brains of a dog turd to take up with Big Ed Gillespie.”

The prosecutor, a buzz cut from Astoria named Witt Deiter, urged us to keep working on Eager and Charm. Eager held his silent ground while Charm screamed lawsuit and demanded a smoke. Eventually Deiter let them go. The word to us was to keep digging. CPS would be spending some time with the Gillespie clan, so if we did turn something up, we’d know where to find him.

Deiter was a recent transfer to Multnomah County anxious to make a name for himself. “I like the little brat for it.” He had a rep for drawing his dialog from television cop dramas—not the good ones on cable either.

Susan pointed out the obvious. “If he shot her, where’s the gun?”

“It’s there. Find it, or get him to talk. I don’t care which. He did it, or knows who did.”

I was thinking about Charm. “He’s just a kid.”

“He’s a thug in training. Make the case.”

But there was no case to be made. The dearth of evidence left us with only the thinnest of working theories.

Theory one: Eager shot the girl. Simple enough, for what it was worth, but we had no weapon and Eager’s lone statement suggested someone else had been at the scene. Until he started talking, we could only guess who. The paraffin test of his hands for gunshot
residue might have cleared some things up, but with the help of the CASA rep, Charm tied us up long enough to ensure the test came back inconclusive.

Theory two: Eager came across an argument, a husband or boyfriend and the woman. This unknown subject shot the woman and fled the scene with the gun. Eager saw it, for some reason thought the shooter was a cop. Which, hell, maybe he was, though it wasn’t a popular notion in the Homicide pit.

Theory three? Who the fuck could guess? We took a number of runs at Eager, especially after we learned Big Ed Gillespie had been a cop himself once upon a time. A few years earlier he’d voluntarily separated from the Klamath County Sheriff’s Department rather than face an investigation into questionable activities on the job. We didn’t learn much, but the thrust was that he was linked to a protection racket in some remote corner of the county. Since he’d left of his own accord, the investigation was dropped. No doubt the department down there was glad to get clear of a problem with minimal ruckus.

But even that piece of info failed to break Charm’s resolve, or Eager’s. He’d been in enough trouble during his short life that Charm knew the system, countered us at every turn. She had a way about her, a kind of reptilian ruthlessness. She didn’t display maternal instincts so much as a dogged combativeness toward all who challenged her.

Three years later, we still don’t know who the woman is. Jane Doe. Sister of John, daughter of mystery, mother of frustration. She was buried on the county tab, what little evidence we had stored in paper bags. Susan and I kept digging, and we found a few candidates among the Missing Persons files, both local and statewide. Female, early- to-mid-twenties, dark hair, fair skin, full figure. One by one we ruled them out, either through dental records or because the missing turned up again. Her prints weren’t in the
regional AFIS, her DNA profile wasn’t in CODIS. No criminal record, no government service, no first responder or job requiring a background check. The woman was vapor until someone showed up to claim her.

After three years, you gotta figure no one will.

November 12

MERRILL, OR: Oregon State Police in cooperation with the Klamath County Sheriff’s Department are investigating the beating death of Teller Bowes, owner of the Union 76 Qwik Mart on Klamath Falls-Malin Highway just north of Merrill. The victim was found late Monday evening by a store customer.

Investigators initially suspected robbery, but the day’s receipts remained in the cash register and there was no evidence anything was stolen. Police are considering other motives for the killing.

Anyone with information pertaining to this investigation is asked to contact the Klamath County Sheriff’s Department.

Five and Some Years Before

I
t was hot for so early in the morning so late in the year. Sweat shot off the flanks of the horse beneath her like spray off a waterfall, but Ellie didn’t let up. She drove the horse along the path between a hedgerow and a gully overgrown with weeds, jumped cut banks and outcrops of rotted blueschist. A shoulder of sun shone over the round hills behind her. The smell of pig hung thick in the air, the stink clinging to her like an oily rag. She found a gap in the hedge, headed downhill with the heedless speed of a fugitive. Only when the horse leapt the stream at the foot of the hill and stumbled did she rein in. Far enough, for now. She slipped off of the weary animal. Her feet were bare and the soft mud at stream’s edge oozed between her long toes.

She looked up the path behind her. The house was there, at the far end of the gully hidden from view by the trees. And Stuart. She looked away, ran her fingers through her hair. Allowed the dress to slide off her shoulders and drop around her feet, heedless of the mud. Felt the pig-sodden air on her bare skin. No underwear. She’d only had time to grab the dress, quickly, before Stuart knew she was leaving. He’d have stopped her if he’d known, maybe even stood
watch over her while she did her morning chores, just to make sure she didn’t go anywhere. He’d caught her in the Cup ‘n’ Saucer with Luellen the day before.

The horse snorted behind her and she turned. “Thank you, Jack.” She patted the animal’s long, wet neck. “Go ahead and drink. You did good.” She kicked her dress into the bushes. Jack led her along the stream, dipping his head and gently nuzzling the water. She entered downstream from the horse. She didn’t want to muddy water he was so careful not to muddy himself. She moved with care across rocks slimy on the bottoms of her feet. In the blistering heat, the cold water offered the only indication winter would soon be upon her. Last season’s finisher hogs had been sold. Only the gilts, sows, and boars remained in her father’s barn. Work around the farm would slow down. Stuart would have more energy.

He’ll want to fuck all the time now.
She gazed down at her body, at the round smoothness of her stomach, at her heavy breasts, at the tangle of pubic hair below her navel. “You got more hair down there than a gorilla.” Stuart had offered this keen observation a week before the wedding. He’d demanded an inspection, insisted they try things out, “just so we know the plumbing works for the big night.” Romantic. She didn’t think she’d ever forget her first glimpse of his long, thin penis. Twisting, purple veins stretched along its length like a disease, a violent worm. She had seen other penises, her brothers’ penises. They had seemed smooth and healthy in contrast, not so cruel and thin. Of course, she’d seen her brothers’ under the most harmless circumstances: down at Little Liver Creek swimming, in the bath at night. Stuart’s penis strained tall while she and he lay on a blanket under the moon outside her house, and it wanted inside her. All it wanted was inside.

“I don’t think we should, Stuart.”

“What do you mean? Come on.” He moaned and slid up closer to her, stroked her hair, ran a hand over her breasts. She caught it, pinned it to her side.

“Wait till we’re married.” She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the house.

“It’s just a stupid ceremony. This is the real stuff. Come on.”

The penis gleamed in the moonlight, almost seemed to stare at her. She wanted to turn her head away. “I can’t. Not yet.”

“You like Luellen better than me.” He sat up. “You’re not a lezzie, are you?”

His eyes lost their gleam, and she moved away from him. “I have to go.” She tried to climb to her feet, but he reached out and grabbed her.

“Wait. I’m sorry.” He gripped her hand, but she twisted away from him and ran into the house. Later that night she made her way to Luellen’s and told her about her decision not to marry Stuart after all. Luellen was supportive, but the next morning at breakfast Ellie’s mother had little sympathy.

“You shouldn’t have led him on.”

“I didn’t lead him anywhere. Stuart finds his own way.”

Her father chuckled from behind his cup of coffee, but her mother frowned at him.

“Immanuel, you’re too indulgent of this girl.”

“Hiram thinks I’m more likely to sell if we’re in-laws. Maybe just as well if—”

“Don’t interfere.” She turned her frown on Ellie. “What were you doing out late at night when you’re not even married then?”

Ellie had no response. She sat with her hands in her lap, quiet and brooding, glancing only at her father in time to catch his tightlipped submission before he pushed away from the table and left. Her mother ignored her, accustomed to her silences. Finally Ellie spoke up. “I’m not going to let you force me into this.” She stalked off, secure in her decision.

It didn’t last. Over the next few days the whispers started: strange goings-on between Ellie and that friend of hers, Jewellen. Elli
walked into the church kitchen during Wednesday soup supper just in time to hear the pastor’s wife tell her mother, “It must be so hard having a child so willful. No one blames you, of course.” The words knocked the air out of her, and in that moment she knew it would never end. These people, these fine church folk—her mother included—would never free her from the cage of words they’d conjured to confine her.
Bad girl. Lizzie the lezzie.
Somehow her sister Myra’s sins, the smoking and drinking that started in middle school, the endless string of boys, were never discussed. But Myra had always been an afterthought—an accident according to Rob and Brett—yet fair like the rest of the Kerns. Ellie stood out, dark-haired and large-breasted. Different.

She considered running, leaving the valley for good. But she knew there was nowhere she could go. Even Klamath Falls, only forty miles down a winding county road, seemed a world away. When Luellen left for Southern Oregon University in the fall, an option never even considered for her, Ellie would be alone. Helpless. And so, come Saturday, her father escorted her down the aisle in the Victory Chapel sanctuary, pausing only to squeeze her arm and sigh before moving to his seat in the front row. It took all she had to hold back her tears as she and Stuart spoke their vows. That night the worm found its home.

Ellie sat in the brook, allowed the water to fill the smooth valley between her legs and draw away the heat. A sense of chilly calm crept up her back. The wedding had been two years before, a lifetime ago. A sharp boundary between Ellie Kern and Lizzie Spaneker, two different girls. After the wedding, she and Stuart moved onto a small farm, a joint gift from the Spanekers and the Kerns. The water rights were restricted, but adequate to run a small crop of field corn and another of barley. Ellie cared for the house while Stuart split time working on her family’s hog ranch and for his old man. In time, Stuart hoped his efforts on behalf of the Kerns
might earn him a portion of the plentiful Kern water. Another foot or two per acre would enable him to plant mint or peas or potatoes, real cash crops.