"N" Is for Noose (3 page)

For my stay in Carson City, I'd packed my tweed blazer for dress up and a blue denim jacket for casual wear. Both were too light and insubstantial for this area. I cruised the streets downtown until I spotted a thrift store. I nosed the rental car into a diagonal parking space out front. The window was crowded with kitchenware and minor items of furniture: a bookcase, a footstool, stacks of mismatched dishes, five lamps, a tricycle, a meat grinder, an old Philco radio, and some red Burma-Shave signs bound together with wire. The top one in the pile read DOES YOUR HUSBAND. What, I thought. Does your husband what? Burma-Shave signs had first appeared in the 1920s and many persisted even into my childhood, always with variations of that tricky, bumping lilt. Does your husband… have a beard?… Is be really very weird?… If he's living in a cave… Offer him some… Burma-Shave. Or words to that effect.

The interior of the store smelled like discarded shoes. I made my way down aisles densely crowded with hanging clothes. I could see rack after rack of items that must have been purchased with an eye to function and festivity. Prom gowns, cocktail dresses, women's suits, acrylic sweaters, blouses, and Hawaiian shirts. The woolens seemed dispirited and the cottons were tired, the colors subdued from too many rounds in the wash. Toward the rear, there was a rod sagging under the burden of winter jackets and coats.

I shrugged into a bulky brown leather bomber jacket. The weight of it felt like one of those lead aprons the technician places across your body while taking dental Xrays from the safety of another room. The jacket lining was fleece, minimally matted, and the pockets sported diagonal zippers, one of which was broken. I checked the inside of the collar. The size was a medium, big enough to accommodate a heavy sweater if I needed one. The price tag was pinned to the brown knit ribbing on the cuff. Forty bucks. What a deal. Does your husband belch and rut? Does be scratch his hairy butt? If you want to see him bathe… tame the beast with Burma-Sbave. I tucked the jacket over my arm while I moved up and down the aisles. I found a faded blue flannel shirt and a pair of hiking boots. On my way out, I stopped and untwisted the wire connecting the Burma-Shavc signs, reading them one by one.

DOES YOUR HUSBAND

MISBEHAVE?

GRUNT AND GRUMBLE

RANT AND RAVE?

SHOOT THE BRUTE SOME

BURMA-SHAVE

I smiled to myself. I wasn't half-bad at that stuff. I went out to the street again with my purchases in hand. Let's hear it for the good old days. Lately, Americans have been losing their sense of humor.

I spotted an office supply store across the street. I crossed, stocked up on paper supplies, including a couple of packs of blank index cards. Two doors down, I found a branch of Selma 's bank and came out with a wad of twenties in my shoulder bag. I retrieved my car and pulled out, circling the block until I was headed in the right direction. The town already felt familiar, neatly laid out and clean. Main Street was four lanes wide. The buildings on either side were generally one to two stories high, sharing no particular style. The atmosphere was vaguely Western. At each intersection, I caught sight of a wedge of mountains, the snow-capped peaks forming a scrim that ran the length of the town. Traffic was light and I noticed most of the vehicles were practical: pickups and utility vans with ski racks across the tops.

When I arrived back at Selma 's, the garage door was open. The parking space on the left was empty. On the right, I spotted a late-model blue pickup truck. As I got out of my car, I noticed a uniformed deputy emerging from a house two doors down. He crossed the two lawns between us, walking in my direction. I waited, assuming this was Tom's younger brother, Macon. At first glance, I couldn't tell how much younger he was. I placed him in his late forties, but his age might have been deceptive. He had dark hair, dark brows, and a pleasant, unremarkable face. He was close to six feet tall, compactly built. He wore a heavy jacket, cropped at the waist to allow ready access to the heavy leather holster on his right hip. The wide belt and the weapon gave him a look of heft and bulk that I'm not sure would have been evident if he'd been stripped of his gear.

"Are you Macon?" I asked.

He offered me his hand and we shook. "That's right. I saw you pull up and thought I'd come on over and introduce myself. You met my wife, Phyllis, a little earlier."

"I'm sorry about your brother."

"Thank you. It's been a rough one, I can tell you," he said. He hooked a thumb toward the house. " Selma 's not home. I believe she went off to the market a little while ago. You need in? Door's open most times, but you're welcome to come to our place. It sure beats setting out in the cold."

"I should be fine. I expect she'll be home in a bit and if not, I can find ways to amuse myself. I would like to talk to you sometime in the next day or two."

"Absolutely. No problem. I'll tell you anything you want, though I admit we're baffled as to Selma 's purpose. What in the world is she worried about? Phyllis and I can't understand what she wants with a private detective, of all things. With all due respect, it seems ridiculous."

"Maybe you should talk to her about that," I said.

"I can tell you right now what you're going to learn about Tom. He's as decent a fellow as you'd ever hope to meet. Everybody in town looked up to him, including me.,,

"This may turn out to be a short stay, in that case."

"Where'd Selma put you? Some place nice, I hope."

" Nota Lake Cabins. Cecilia Boden's your sister, as I understand it. You have other siblings?"

Macon shook his head. "Just three of us," he said. "I'm the baby in the family. Tom's three years older than Cecilia and close to fifteen years my senior. I've been trailing after them two ever since I can remember. I ended up in the sheriff's department years after Tom hired on. Like that in school, too. Always following in somebody else's footsteps." His eyes strayed to the street as Selma 's car approached and slowed, pulling into the driveway. "Here she is now so I'll leave you two be. You let me know what I can do to help. You can give us a call or come knocking on our door. It's that green house with white trim."

Selma had pulled into the garage by then. She got out, of the car. She and Macon greeted each other with an almost imperceptible coolness. While she opened the trunk of her sedan, Macon and I parted company, exchanging the kind of chitchat that signals the end of a conversation. Selma lifted out a brown paper sack of groceries and two cleaner's bags, and slammed the trunk lid down. Under her fur coat, she wore smartly pressed charcoal slacks and a long-sleeved shirt of cherry-colored silk.

As Macon walked back to his house, I moved into the garage. "Let me give you a hand with that," I said, reaching for the bag of groceries, which she relinquished to me.

"I hope you haven't been out here long," she said. "I decided I'd spent enough time feeling sorry for myself. Best to keep busy."

"Whose pickup truck? Was that Tom's?" I asked.

Selma nodded as she unlocked the door leading from the garage into the house. "I had a fellow from the garage tow it the day after he died. The officer who found him took the keys out and left it locked up where it was. I can't bring myself to drive it. I guess eventually I'll sell it or pass it along to Brant." She pressed a button and the garage door descended with a rumble.

"You met Macon, I see."

"He came over to introduce himself," I said as I followed her into the house. "One thing I ought to mention. I'm going to be talking to a lot of people around town and I really don't know yet what approach I'll take. Whatever you hear, just go along with it."

She put her keys back in her purse, moving into the utility room with me close behind. She closed the door after us. "Why not tell the truth?"

"I will where I can, but I gather Tom was a highly respected member of the community. If I start asking about his personal business, nobody's going to say a word. I may try another tack. It won't be far off, but I may bend the facts a bit."

"What about Cecilia? What will you say to her?"

"I don't know yet. I'll think of something."

"She'll fill your ear. She's never really liked me. Whatever Tom's problems, she'll blame me if she can. Same with his brother. Macon was always coming after Tom for something-a loan, advice, good word in the department, you name it. If I hadn't stepped in, he'd have sucked Tom dry. You can do me a favor: Take anything they say with a grain of salt."

The disgruntled are good. They'll tell you anything, I thought.

Once in the kitchen, Selma hung her fur coat on the back of a chair. I watched while she unloaded the groceries and put items away. I would have helped, but she waved aside the offer, saying it was quicker if she did it herself. The kitchen walls were painted bright yellow, the floor a spatter of seamless white-and-yellow linoleum. A chrome-and-yellow-plastic upholstered dinette set filled an alcove with a bump-out window crowded with… I peered closer… artificial plants. She indicated a seat across the table from hers as she folded the bag neatly and put it in a rack bulging with other grocery bags.

She moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. "What do you take in your coffee? I've got hazelnut coffee creamer or a little half-and-half." She took out a small carton and gave the pouring spout an experimental mental sniff. She made a face to herself and set the carton in the sink.

"Black's fine."

"You sure?"

"Really. It's no problem. I'm not particular," I said. I took off my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair while Selma rounded up two coffee mugs, the sugar bowl, and a spoon for herself.

She poured coffee and replaced the glass carafe on the heating element of the coffee machine, heels taptap-tapping on the floor as she crossed and recrossed the room. Her energy was ever so faintly tinged with nervousness. She sat down again and immediately flicked a small gold Dunhill to light a fresh cigarette. She inhaled deeply. "Where will you begin?"

"I thought I'd start in Tom's den. Maybe the answer's easy, sitting right up on the surface."

I spent the rest of the afternoon working my way through Tom Newquist's insufferably disorganized home office. I'm going to bypass the tedious list of documents I inspected, the files I sorted, the drawers I emptied, the receipts I scrutinized in search of some evidence of his angst. In reporting to Selma, I did (slightly) exaggerate the extent of my efforts so she'd appreciate what fifty bucks an hour was buying in the current market place. In the space of three hours, I managed to go through about half the mess. Up to that point, whatever Tom was fretting about, he'd left precious little in the way of clues.

He was apparently compulsive about saving every scrap of paper, but whatever organizational principle he employed, the accumulation he left behind was chaotic at best. His desk was a jumble of folders, correspondence, bills paid and unpaid, income tax forms, newspaper articles, and case files he was working on. The layers were twelve to fifteen inches deep, some stacks toppling sideways into the adjacent piles. My guess was he knew how to put his hands on just about anything he needed, but the task I faced was daunting.

Maybe he imagined that any minute he'd have the clutter sorted and subdued. Like most disorganized people, he probably thought the confusion was temporary, that he was just on the verge of having all his papers tidied up. Unfortunately, death had taken him by surprise and now the cleanup was mine. I made a mental note to myself to straighten out my underwear the minute I got home. In the bottom drawer of his desk, I found some of his equipment-handcuffs, nightstick, the flashlight he must have carried. Maybe his brother, Macon, would like them. I'd have to remember to ask Selma later.

I went through two big leaf bags of junk, taking it upon myself to throw away paid utility stubs from ten years back. I kept a random sampling in case Selma wanted to sell the house and needed to average her household expenses for prospective buyers. I kept the office door open, conducting an ongoing conversation with Selma in the kitchen while I winnowed and pitched. "I'd like to have a picture of Tom."

"What for?"

"Not sure yet. It just seems like a good idea."

"Take one of those from the wall by the window."

I glanced over my shoulder, spotting several blackand-white photographs of him in various settings. "Right," I said. I set aside the lapful of papers I was sorting and crossed to the closest grouping. In the largest frame, an unsmiling Tom Newquist and the sheriff, Bob Staffer, were pictured together at what looked to be a banquet. There were several couples seated at a table, which was decorated with a handsome centerpiece and the number 2 on a placard in the middle. Staffer had signed the photograph in the lower right-hand corner: "To the best damn detective in the business! As Ever, Bob Staffer." The date was April of the preceding year. I lifted the framed photo from the hook and held it up to the fading light coming in the window.

Tom Newquist was a youthful sixty-three years old with small eyes, a round bland face, and dark thinning hair trimmed close to his head. His expression was one I'd seen on cops ever since time began-neutral, watchful, intelligent. It was a face that gave away nothing of the man within. If you were being interrogated as a suspect, make no mistake about it, this man would ask tough questions and there would be no hint from him about which replies might relieve you of his attention. Make a joke and his smile in response would be thin. Presume on his goodwill and his temper would flash in a surprising display of heat. If you were questioned as a witness, you might see another side of him-careful, compassionate, patient, conscientious. If he was like the other law enforcement officers of my acquaintance, he was capable of being implacable, sarcastic, and relentless, all in the interest of getting at the truth. Regardless of the context, the words "Impulsive"' and "passionate" would scarcely spring to mind. On a personal level, he might be very different, and part of my job here was determining just what those differences might consist of. I wondered what he'd seen in Selma. She seemed too brassy and emotional for a man skilled' at camouflage.

I glanced up to find her standing in the doorway, watching me. Despite the fact that her clothes looked expensive, there was something indescribably cheap about her appearance. Her hair had been bleached to the texture of a doll's wig, and I wondered if up close I could see individual clumps like the plugs of a hair transplant. I held up the picture. "Is this one okay? I'd like to have it cropped and copies made. If I'm backtracking his activities for the past couple of months, the face could trigger something where a name might not."

"All right. I might like to have one myself. That's nice of him."

"He didn't smile much?"

"Not often. Especially in social situations. Around his buddies, he relaxed… the other deputies. How's it coming.

I shrugged. "So far there's nothing but junk." I went back to the masses of paper in front of me. "Too bad you weren't in charge of the bills," I remarked.

"I'm not good with numbers. I hated high school math," she said. And then after a moment, "I'm beginning to feel guilty having you snoop through his things."

"Don't worry about it. I do this for a living. I'm a diagnostician, like a gynecologist when you have your feet in the stirrups and your fanny in the air. My interest isn't personal. I simply look to see what's there."

"He was a good man. I know that."

"I'm sure he was," I said. "This may net us nothing and if so, you'll feel better. You're entitled to peace."

"Do you need help?"

"Not really. At this point, I'm still picking my way through. Anyway, I'm about to wrap it up for this afternoon. I'll come back tomorrow and take another run at it." I jammed a fistful of catalogs and advertising fliers in the trash bag. I glanced up again, aware that she was still standing in the door.

"Could you join me for supper? Brant's going to be working so it would just be the two of us."

"I better not, but thanks. Maybe tomorrow. I have some phone calls to make and then I thought I'd grab a quick bite and make an early night of it. I should finish this in the morning. At some point, we'll have telephone records to go through. That's a big undertaking and I'm saving it for last. We'll sit side by side and see how many phone numbers you can recognize."

"Well," she said, reluctantly, "I'll let you get back to work."

When I had finished for the day, Selma gave me a house key, though she assured me she generally left the doors unlocked. She told me she was often gone, but she wanted me to have the run of the place in her absence. I told her I'd want to look through Tom's personal effects and she had no objections. I didn't want her walking in one day to find me poking through his clothes.

It was fully dark when I left and the streetlights did little to dispel the sense of isolation. The traffic through town was lively. People were going home to dinner, businesses were shutting down. Restaurants were getting busy, the bar doors standing open to release the excess noise and cigarette smoke. A few hardy joggers had hit the sidewalks along with assorted dog owners whose charges were seeking relief against the shrubs.

Once I was out on the highway, I became aware of the vast tracts of land that bore no evidence of human habitation. By day, the fences and the odd outbuildings created the impression the countryside had been civilized. At night, the mountain ranges were as black as jet and the pate slice of moon scarcely brushed the snowy peaks with silver. The temperature had dropped and I could smell the inky damp of the lake. I felt a flicker of longing to see Santa Teresa with its red-tile roofs, palm trees, and the thundering Pacific.

I slowed when I saw the sign for Nota Lake Cabins. Maybe a crackling fire and a hot shower would cheer me up. I parked my car in the small lot near the motel office. Cecilia Boden had provided a few low-voltage lights along the path to the cabins, small mushroom shapes that cast a circle of dim yellow on the cedar chips. There was a small lighted lamp mounted by the cabin door. I hadn't left any lights on for myself, sensing (perhaps) that the management would frown on such extravagance. I unlocked the door and let myself in, feeling for the light switch. The overhead bulb came on with its flat forty-watt wash of light. I crossed to the bed and clicked on the table lamp, which offered forty watts more. The digital alarm was flashing 12:00 repeatedly, which suggested a minor power outage earlier. I checked my watch and corrected the time to its current state: 6:22.

The room felt drab and chilly. There was a strong smell of old wood fires and moisture seeping through the floorboards from underneath the cabin. I checked the wood in the grate. There was a stack of newspapers close by meant for kindling. Of course, there was no gas starter and I suspected the fire would take more time to light than I had time to enjoy. I went around the:, room, closing cotton curtains across the windowpanes. Then I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the. shower. I'm not one to waste water, but even so, the hot began to diminish before my four minutes were up. I rinsed the last of the shampoo from my hair a split second before the cold water descended full force. This was beginning to feel like a wilderness experience.

Dressed again, I locked the cabin and headed back toward the road, walking briskly along the berm until I reached the restaurant. The Rainbow Cafe was about the size of a double-wide trailer, with a Formica counter with eight stools running down its length and eight red Naugahyde booths arranged along two walls. There was one waitperson (female), one short-order cook (also female), and a boy busperson in evidence. I ordered breakfast for dinner. There's nothing so comforting as scrambled eggs at night; soft cheery yellow, bright with butter, flecked with pepper. I had three strips of crisp bacon, a pile of hash browns sautéed with onion, and two pieces of rye toast, drenched in butter and dripping with jam. I nearly crooned aloud as the flavors blended in my mouth.

On the way back to my cabin, I paused to use the pay phone outside the office. This consisted of an oldfashioned glass-and-metal phone booth missing the, original bifold door. I used my credit card to call Dietz. "Hey, babe. How's the patient?" I said when he answered.

"Dandy. How are you?"

"Not bad. Now on retainer."

"In Nota Lake?"

"Where else? Standing in a phone booth in the piney woods," I said.

"How's it going?"

"I'm just getting started so it's hard to tell. I'm assuming Selma talked to you about Tom."

"Only that she thought he had something on his mind. Sounds vague."

"Extremely. Did you ever meet him yourself?"

"Nope. In fact, I haven't even seen her for over fifteen years. How's she holding up?"

"She's in good shape. Upset, as who wouldn't be in her shoes."

"What's the game plan?" he asked.

"The usual. I spent time today going through his desk. Tomorrow I'll start talking to his friends and acquaintances and we'll see what develops. I'll give it until Thursday and then see where we stand. I'd love to be home by the weekend if this job doesn't pan out. How's the knee?"

"Much better. The PT's a bitch, but I'm getting used to it. I miss your sandwiches."

"Liar."

"No, I'm serious. As soon as you finish there, I think you ought to head back in this direction."

"Uh-unh. No thanks. I want to sleep in my own bed. I haven't seen Henry for a month." Henry Pitts was my landlord, eighty-six years old. His would be the cover photo if the AARP ever did a calendar of octogenarian hunks.

"Well, think on it," Dietz said.

"Oh, right. Listen, my Florence Nightingale days are over. I have a business to run. Anyway, I better go. It's friggin' cold out here."

"I'll let you go then. Take care."

"Same to you," I said.

I put a call through to Henry and caught him on his way out the door. "Where you off to?" I asked.

"I'm on my way to Rosie's. She and William need help with the dinner crowd tonight," he said. Rosie ran, the tavern half a block from my apartment. She and Henry's older brother William had been married the previous Thanksgiving and now William was rapidly becoming a restaurateur.

"What about you? Where're you calling from?"

I repeated my tale, filling him in on my current situation. I gave him both Selma 's home number and that of the office at the Nota Lake Cabins in case he had to reach me. We continued to chat briefly before he had to go. Once he rang off, I placed a call to Lonnie's office and left a message for Ida Ruth, again giving her my location and Selma 's number if she should have to reach me for some reason. I couldn't think of any other way to feel connected. After I hung up, I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets, vainly hoping for shelter from the wind. The notion of spending the evening in the cabin seemed depressing. With only two forty-watt light bulbs for illumination, even reading would be a chore. I pictured myself huddled, squinting, under that damplooking quilt, spiders creeping from the wood pile the minute I relaxed my vigilance. It was a sorry prospect, given that all I had with me was a book on identifying tire tracks and tread marks.

I crossed to the motel office and peered in through the glass door. A light was on, but there was no sign of Cecilia. A hand-lettered sign said RING FOR MGR. I let myself in. I bypassed the desk bell and knocked on the door marked MANAGER After a moment, Cecilia appeared in a pink chenille bathrobe and fluffy pink slippers. "Yes?"

"Hi, Cecilia. Could I have a word with you?"

"Something wrong with the room?"

"Not at all. Everything's fine. More or less. I was wondering if you could spare a few minutes to talk about your brother."

"What about him?"

"Has Selma said anything about why I'm here in Nota Lake?"

"Said she hired you is all. I don't even know what you do for a living."

"Ah. Well, actually, I'm a field investigator with California Fidelity Insurance. Selma 's concerned about the liability in Tom's death."

"Liability for what?"

"Good question. Of course, I'm not at liberty to discuss this in any detail. You know, officially he wasn't working, but she thinks he might have been pursuing departmental business the night he died. If so, it's always possible she can file a claim." I didn't mention that Tom Newquist wasn't represented by CFI or that the company had fired me approximately eighteen months before. I was prepared to flash the laminated picture ID I still had in my possession. The CH logo was emblazoned on the front, along with a photograph of me that looked like something the border patrol might keep posted for ready reference.