Possession (34 page)

"Pick a spot. Name it; it hurts."

"Lower back. Lower back is the first to go. Turn around and lift up your shirt."

"Come on, Max. I didn't come to arrest you or haul off your merchandise—or to see the medicine man."

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"Lift your shirt."

Sam let Max daub some of the oily, clear liquid along his spine. It burned within seconds and he jumped away. He tasted garlic and oysters in his mouth and spat. "What the hell is that?"

"DMSO. Put that on three times a day and you'll walk again."

"God. But nobody is likely to kiss me. That's disgusting!"

"Taste it? That shows how quickly it moves through your system. The big drug companies are fighting it. It's too effective and too cheap. Scares the shit out of them—but all the big leagues use it. Whole damn Kingdome stinks of it, but those athletes stop hurting."

"I hope it sells better than your fleet of classy cars. They don't seem to be moving."

"They will." Max's clear blue eyes leveled on Sam's. "Where's your partner? Where's old Danny?"

He could not say it again. Not yet. He tucked his shirt into his jeans, feeling the sandpaper burn of the solvent on his back. "I still don't believe you're an Indian, Max. I think your name's really Abraham Stein, and you're hiding here on the reservation from three previous wives in New Jersey."

"My father's name was Blum. Morris Blum. Ahh, but my mother was Mary Toohoolzote Ling, a Coeur d'Alene, once removed. That's enough. An eighth, a sixteenth, is enough. You've decimated us. The Jews don't need me; the tribe does. Now, Marcella's a Tuscarora. Niagara Falls. Beautiful people."

"She is that."

Max Ling was a good six inches shorter than his wife, compact to the point of squareness, muscled like a wrestler. Sam had no idea how old he was. He could be anywhere from twenty to forty, and his hair was Indian black and fine in startling contrast to the pale eyes. "A lot prettier than you are."

"Where's Danny?" Max would not allow him to change the subject again.

"Dead."

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Max screwed the top on the jar of solvent and did not speak for so long that the word hung on the air, bounced around the room, and came back to Sam full-blown. Finally, the little Indian looked up, his face quite bland but his eyes darkening.

"Was that him? There was something on the radio this morning, but I only caught part of it—something about some deputy who died up at Stehekin. I figured it was somebody from Chelan County."

"That was him."

"He was O.K. I always liked him better than ... the rest of you."

"Everybody did."

"What happened?"

"I can tell you what I think happened, and I can tell you what the searchers and the rangers and the Chelan County Sheriffs Office said happened, but I don't believe that either version is completely accurate. I'm prejudiced in favor of mine."

"So tell."

"What makes you think she's alive?" Ling's voice betrayed no doubt, only listening.

"I've answered that before and nobody believed my reasoning."

"But what?"

"Some things I can explain—some I can't. Danny was stabbed. I saw the wounds before the coroner destroyed them. Joanne's gone, and so are her sleeping bag and her backpack. And ... she's not alone. I found the piece of a shirt in a tree up there that wasn't hers and wasn't Danny's. Somebody's got her. There was no damned bear, except in some fools' imaginations."

Ling looked thoughtful. "So what do you want with me?"

"Your sign says SEARCH. Danny said you could find things. And frankly, you're about my last chance. Chelan County ran me out this morning on a rail. I'm probably going to get canned here because I took off without permission.

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I'm what you call a person with very low credibility, and I am strictly no-talent in the wilderness. I cannot find my way from Point A to Point B."

"I believe that."

"I want you to go with me."

"You got any money?"

Sam looked up sharply. "You don't strike me as a mercenary."

Ling laughed. "Look around you. Look at everything for sale and tell me I'm not a mercenary."

"Are you?"

"In this case, no, but you just told me you are not exactly sanctioned by your fellow piggies. That means that it's unlikely that any county is going to loan you a helicopter or any other gear we might need. So have you got any money?"

"I've got about two thousand dollars in savings."

"You'll put that up?"

"Hell yes, I'll put that up."

"Do you believe that I can find her?"

"I'm not sure."

Ling slapped his hand on the table in front of Sam, the splat of it making Sam jump back. "For that, I'm charging you my standard rate as an Indian guide, $100 a day, payable when we find her. You know why my fee just went up? Because if I don't charge you an arm and a leg, you're not gonna believe in me. If you have to pay me, you'll think you got somebody exceptional."

Sam winced. "I believe in you."

"Too late. Doubting me cost you. You bet your ass you believe in me. Every time you get all wishy-washy, my price goes up another $25 a day. Dragging you along isn't going to be easy. You are not exactly what I call fit."

"I'll hack it. If I die going uphill, you can cover me with pine cones and call the meat wagon—or the meat sled, or whatever. And sue my estate, you little fucker, for your consulting fee."

"You can't drink up there."

"What makes you think I drink?"

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"When you came in you smelled like a week of firewater; now you smell like stale booze, garlic, and oysters."

"That's so you won't keep trying to hug me."

"It's even possible you have a few cogs missing."

"Several."

"Marcella's not going to like it. She doesn't like to have me leave her."

"And you aren't going to like to leave her. Will she be safe here by herself?"

"The dogs won't let anybody close to her."

"They let me in."

"Sheriff Sam. Believe it or not, that's one of the main reasons I'm throwing in with you. Those hounds like about one sucker out of a hundred. They evidently saw something in you that your own mother wouldn't recognize anymore. I was watching you when you drove up, and I saw those dogs laughing and bouncing and licking your hand. I trust dogs."

"Then you've never had your ass bit."

Max stood up. "Nope. When did you eat?"

"What day is it?"

"Monday."

"Friday. Maybe Saturday. I can't remember."

"Then you're going to eat and you're going to keep eating." He strode to the stove and lifted the lid on a pot simmering there. "Vbila! Chicken soup."

"You're kidding."

Max laughed. "It's really lamb stew."

"I have to make some phone calls."

"After you eat. I'm going to tell Marcella that we're taking off this afternoon. She may not forgive you soon, but she'll forgive you." While Sam spooned up food, he could see them together, through the several doorways, framed silently in the underwater parlor. Max leaned over the couch where she sat, his hands tender on her face, soothing. She shook her head and Max lay one finger on her lips. Then he spoke to her with b°th his hands. After what seemed a long time of mute conversation, she nodded and bent her head.

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Marcella rose and walked down the corridor of doorways toward him, and Sam looked up and smiled at her. She did not acknowledge him. Her face was troubled as she turned into her studio. When he walked past her room toward the phone in the living room a few minutes later, he saw her at her easel, filling the canvas with white daisies against a purple-black sweep of rugged peaks. It jarred him in its familiarity. She must have begun it long before he came into her house; she could not have painted so much in a few minutes.

Fletch's voice on the other end of the line was chastened with shock and sorrow with no hint of his raucous humor and Sam felt a somber returning of loss. He listened to Fletch's disbelief, to his questions that had no clean answers, and tried not to let the emotions touch him. He had called Fletch at home, allowing himself harbor for a while longer from Fewell's wrath, and he could hear Mary Jean in the background, whispering questions for Fletch to pass on. Then shushing, quiet, and more questions.

"They brought him back here this morning," Fletch said in the same hushed tone. "Mrs. Crowder's taking care of the arrangements. Then she's going up to that place—the lodge place in Stehekin—with Sonia Kluznewski."

"She can't do any good up there!" He was angry, and then softened. Elizabeth Crowder deserved her own chance at futile vigil.

"We're not going to set the date for the services—until, until—they find Joanne."

"Yeah, that's good. She'd want to be there."

There was a painful pause on the other end of the line.

"Geez, Sam. I thought she was de—, er, gone too."

"We don't know that, Fletch. There is no evidence at a that she's not going to be found alive."

He could not convince Fletch of something he could truly convince himself of.

"Fletch, there are some things I want you to do for And I don't want anyone else to know about it—nobody especially not Fewell. Have you got a piece of paper?"

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Fletcher sounded better, given something to do. "Gotcha. No problem with confidentiality. Shoot."

"First, I sent some evidence over to Seattle, to the Crime Lab. I want you to watch for any response on that. When it comes, you take it home and keep it. I'll check in with you. Second, I've got two names here—let's see—I want you to run them on the computers—NCIC, WASIC, and SEA-KING. Whatever hits you get, clear the machine after you write down the info. Then, I want you to take these two names and—this is a little tedious, Fletch—I want you to go through all the FIRs in the county since August first and look for a match. If you don't get an exact match on names or vehicles, I want you to look for 'sounds like,' or similarities. Make me a packet of anything you find. Don't even tell Mary Jean."

Fletcher was transparent as cellophane; his voice lowered confidentially as he whispered, "O.K. Our secret." Immediately Mary Jean's voice rose suspiciously behind him. He could hear Fletch cover the receiver and say something to placate her. Then he was back on the line.

"Fewell say anything about me?"

"Oh, Sam—he's raving. He's frothing. Your butt is in a sling; he wants you like a baby wants milk. Some brass from Chelan got him on the horn. What'd you do up there?"

"Nothing important. I'll tell you when I see you."

"Where are you?"

"No place where I'll be for long. You ready for the names?"

"Lay them on me."

"O.K. Number one: Steven or Stephen Curry. Birthdate roughly 1958 to 1963. White male adult. Five feet six to nine. Blond. No eye color. Possible birthplace, California."

"The computer won't do much with no firm birthdate."

"It can scan a couple of years in either direction. Give it a shot. Next: David Dwain. No birthdate. Address, Portland, Oregon."

^, Sam. You're dreaming." Try it. Try the FIRs. Maybe you'll get more that you can

t into the computer."

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"O.K. What do you want this for?"

"I'm not sure I can tell you. A hunch. Maybe nothing."'

"Good luck. You want anything else?"

"Yeah. Feed my cat."

26

Duane had never expected to be angry with her. In thea perfect companionship, there were to have been no negativl emotions. No anger, no jealousy, no doubt, no rejection, no annoyance. She had opened up her mind finally and allowed; him to slip into it. And he had drawn her back into his. She was in him and of him and part of him.

But she had lost the goddamned map.

It had to have been her fault. It had been next to his hands He could still place it there in his memory, feel it rustling against his wrist when he fell asleep. And now, it was gone]

"Don't cry. Try to think. Try to remember what you did with it."

"I can't. I didn't have it." She began to cry again.

"But you saw what it looked like? It was a big sheet, all folded up, blue and green and red."

"I remember that, but I don't know what happened to it."]

"You can remember anything if you clear your mind and concentrate. Close your eyes and try to picture it."

She closed her eyes. "I can't see it."

"Think. Dammit!"

"You're mad at me."

She was a child. She had always been a child-woman. He reached out to touch her shoulder and she flinched and! pulled away from him. He should not have trusted anything important with her. But he was still so easily fatigued,') slipping suddenly into naps, each of which he expected to reward him with the return of his usual vigor. Any renewals were short-lived. He had slept most of the day away, his

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blood sluggish in his veins and seeming to carry no oxygen. And they had made love again all during the night until he finally slept only fitfully toward dawn. She was draining the life out of him.

"Are we lost?" She sounded like some other woman now.

"No."

"Are you sure? I look back and it looks the same as any other direction. Everything looks the same. Rocks and mountains and trees. It would be easy to get lost up here."

"We're not lost. I simply need the map to pick the best way out."

"I feel lost."

"You're with me. You cannot be lost."

He closed his eyes and saw the map in his mind, all the trails spread across its face, arteries and veins of escape. He remembered Copper Pass, and Stiletto Peak, and Twisp, and something else—McAlester Pass. But they would not fall into place; they twisted like snakes, doubling back into a maze. Without the map he would have to make forays himself and construct a new one.

She moved close to him and massaged his neck, her fingertips sliding gently around the cartilage of his ear, her breasts pressing against his shoulder. She made it difficult for him to think.

"I made the fire," she whispered. "I didn't want you to wake up and be cold. It's so warm and sunny all day. And then it gets cold all of a sudden."