Burn Out (13 page)
Today there were few boats on the lake, and its surface was flat and glassy. The weather had changed: dark clouds hovered over the distant hills—storm clouds that looked to be coming this way. Depression stole over me again, reminding me of all the things I didn’t like about my business: the long solo drives and flights; the empty nights in hotel and motel rooms in strange cities; the waiting. Particularly waiting for facts to surface that would allow other facts to materialize and establish the final connection. When that happened, the rush was unbelievable—better, even, than the first time my former flight instructor had put the plane into a controlled spin and the earth had seemed to rush up at us as we plummeted down. . . .
It was an addiction, plain and simple. And addiction, unless it’s treated, inevitably ends up in self-destruction.
I wasn’t going to become victim to mine. Never again.
So what the hell am I doing here in Nevada?
You promised Ramon you’d find out what happened to Amy.
Carson City: the state capital, and a pleasant town. Not much of a gambling mecca; its big casino, the Ormsby House, had closed down well over a decade ago and since then cast a derelict shadow over the downtown. Renovation by new owners had seemingly been under way forever, as the project hit delays and snags of all kinds. If it hadn’t been so late in the afternoon I’d have driven by to see how much progress had been made, but I was more concerned with locating the law firm of John Pearl, on Fairview Drive, a couple of blocks from the state office building where Hy and I had said our vows before a judge.
At first, when I stepped inside John Pearl’s office in a two-story stucco house that had been converted into suites for attorneys, I thought no one was there. But when I called out, a high-pitched, nasal voice that reminded me of a cartoon character—I couldn’t place which one—answered. With a voice like that, Pearl couldn’t have been too successful at trial work.
He emerged from his inner sanctum: a short, chubby man in a rumpled blue suit. His face was round, his hair a grayish-brown mop that flopped over his forehead; his eyes were too soft and kind for a criminal defense attorney.
“Ms. McCone,” he said, pumping my hand heartily, “Warren Mills said you’d be stopping by, so I stayed to catch up on some paperwork. Come in, sit down, please.”
I followed him into his office. It was in minor disarray, like his clothing.
“I’d offer you coffee but my secretary drank the last cup and forgot to turn the machine off. The carafe’s scorched. You can probably smell it.”
Now that he mentioned it, I did. “That’s okay,” I said. “I had lunch at McDonald’s and I’m still recovering. Coffee could cause a serious relapse.”
“McDonald’s.” His eyes—so help me—became nostalgic. “I haven’t had one of their burgers in years. When they first opened up in the town where I was born, I was in my teens. My friends and I used to go there and order two or three each, and before we’d eat them we’d splat the pickles.”
“Do what?”
“You know, splat. Take the pickles—they were terrible—out of the burgers and try to drop them out the car window so they’d land flat on the pavement. You never did that?”
“Uh, not that I recall.”
“Oh, well.” Pearl leaned back in his chair. “It was pretty stupid, but so were we at the time. Amazing, though: one of the splatters is now a state supreme court justice; another invented some gizmo that allowed him to retire at thirty-five; a third is a big financial planner in Reno. Then there’s me: I was the best pickle splatter, but I’m just a small-time lawyer.”
It was a set and well-practiced speech, but I couldn’t figure what it was designed to accomplish.
“I doubt that,” I said. “You have your own practice; you’re your own boss. What type of litigation do you do?”
“Whatever comes my way. Family law, mainly.” He paused. “No criminal law. I quit the public defender’s office down in Mineral County after the Herbert Smith case. Which, Warren Mills told me, is why you’re here.”
“Yes.” I explained why I was interested in speaking with those who were involved in it.
When I finished, Pearl said, “The opinions of Herbert’s friend and Warren Mills are essentially the same as mine. Herbert—Bud, as he was called—struck me on first impression as a badly frightened but innocent young man; he stood by his confession with the tenacity of a bulldog. He resisted all my efforts to help him. Tried twice to fire me.”
“And this confession came how long after the rape?”
“About three days, after the investigative officers identified the tire tracks at the scene as having been made by his truck. When they took him in for questioning, he gave them a plausible explanation: he’d been out there taking photographs of the munitions bunkers for an article a friend was writing on the history of the depot. But no one could locate the friend—if he ever existed—and when the sheriff obtained a search warrant for Bud’s home, there was only one camera, in a closet, covered in dust and containing no film. And in the trash was a bloody shirt with a piece ripped from it that matched the fabric the girl had torn from her rapist’s clothing.”
“So they arrested him—”
“Not immediately. The shirt was a size smaller than most of Bud’s, and his brother, Davey, had been seen talking to the girl in town that day. The investigators began to focus on Davey and that’s when Bud confessed. He didn’t ask for an attorney, so the public defender’s office assigned him to me. From the beginning he was stubborn and uncooperative. I voiced my doubts to the DA and Warren; Warren was willing to listen, but the DA at that time—he’s deceased now—was a real hardnose. I arranged for the best plea bargain I could, but it was still too much prison time for an innocent man.”
Like Warren Mills’ eyes when he spoke of his regrets, John Pearl’s were bleak. “That was the end of my illustrious career as a crusading defender of the poor and powerless. I couldn’t stomach the hypocrisy. So here I am.” He spread his arms out at his disheveled office.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about the case?”
He considered. “Not really. Except that Davey Smith acted the wide-eyed innocent throughout, and as soon as his brother went to prison, he took off for some college where he’d been given a full scholarship. One thing I do know: if he ever shows his face around here again, I myself may be in need of a public defender.”
The rain broke as I was passing the munitions depot. There were a number of motels in Hawthorne, and the man in the newspaper office had recommended a casino that served a great chicken-fried steak—a favorite of mine—as well as an old-time saloon. I’d stowed a small travel bag in the Land Rover, in the event I’d have to stay over.
Well, why not? First the motel, next a good meal, and then a chance to elicit some gossip from the townspeople.
Slim’s Tavern, across the street from the casino where I ate, was definitely old-time—decorated with genuine mining, railroad, and military artifacts from the town’s colorful past. At ten o’clock it was reasonably crowded and noisy from both the patrons’ voices and the clank and whir of the small bank of slot machines. I chose a seat at the bar between two lone men in cowboy hats who looked to be in their midforties, and ordered a beer. You don’t drink wine in a place like that, not if you want any of the locals to talk with you.
The man to my left stared straight ahead, hunched over his glass of whiskey. Not a talker, I thought, and probably brooding about something. The man to my right gave me a friendly glance, then threw a few dollars on the bar and left.
Well, hell.
I nursed the beer, trying not to breathe too deeply of the smoky air—one of the drawbacks of Nevada casinos and drinking establishments—and checking out the place in the backbar mirror. It was mostly an older crowd, forties on up—my target age group. The brooder ordered another whiskey and continued to stare. A leather-faced, strong-jawed man in a baseball cap squeezed onto the vacated stool to my right and ordered a beer and a shot, calling the bartender by name. Then he looked at me and asked, “You new here, or just passing through?”
“Passing through. How can you tell?”
“I know all the locals who come to Slim’s. You want another beer?” He motioned to my empty glass.
“Sure. Thanks. Sierra Nevada.”
He waved at the bartender and pointed at my glass, turned to me and, after giving me a long, slow look, said, “I’m Cal McKenzie.”
“Sharon McCone.” We shook hands as our drinks arrived.
“Where you from, Sharon?”
“I’ve been staying over at Tufa Lake, trying to figure out where to go next.”
He knocked back his shot. “Kind of a wanderer, are you?”
“Kind of. I came up here to Hawthorne looking for an old friend, but I can’t find a trace of him.”
“Well, I’ve lived here all my life. Maybe I can help you.”
“His name is Herbert Smith, but everybody calls him Bud.”
Cal McKenzie’s expression became guarded. “How long since you’ve seen your friend, Sharon?”
“I hate to admit how many years. We lost touch, but I thought since I was in the area . . .”
“Well, Bud’s long gone. How close a friend of his were you?”
“Oh, it was just one of those summer things. You know.”
“You’re lucky that’s all it was. Your friend Bud’s a criminal. Raped and sodomized the little Darkmoon girl and left her for dead out by the munitions bunkers. She survived and they put him away for a good long time. He hasn’t been back here since.”
“My God!” I feigned shock, gulping some beer. “When was this?”
“Twenty-six years ago.”
“Hard to believe Bud was capable of something like that, even as a kid.”
“Some folks around here don’t believe it to this day. Nice guy, never in trouble before, everybody liked him. But the evidence was all there, and he confessed.”
“This Darkmoon girl—does she still live here?”
“Family moved away right after. Paiutes.” He looked more closely at me. “You Paiute, too?”
“Shoshone.”
“Well, the Darkmoons were really a nice family. Very religious, too. One of those strict, small sects—I forget which one. Shame what happened to their little girl.”
“How old was she?”
“Thirteen.”
“D’you recall her first name?”
He thought, shrugged. “No, I don’t. They had a bunch of kids, I can’t remember what any of them were called.” He gestured at my glass. “Another beer?”
“No, thanks. This has been . . . quite a shock, and I think I’d better be getting back to my motel now.”
“The evening’s young—”
“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow night, Cal. It was good to meet you.” I slid off the stool before he could protest and made my exit.
A Paiute family named Darkmoon who’d lived in Hawthorne twenty-six years ago couldn’t be too difficult to find. If the Internet couldn’t lead me to them, I’d use the moccasin telegraph.
The moccasin telegraph beat out the Internet.
After I drove home from Hawthorne that morning, I found plenty of listings on Google in the name of Darkmoon—a magazine, a design company, a publisher, even a Wiccan temple—but none of them individuals. There were three on the search engines the agency subscribed to, two in Washington State and one, coincidentally, on the Flathead reservation in Montana, where my birth father, Elwood Farmer, lived.
I could have run more sophisticated searches, but on the moccasin telegraph I could access far more detail. The listings for the three Darkmoons hadn’t revealed much about them, other than their whereabouts, and that wasn’t surprising: a great many Indians are out of the mainstream and don’t own property, have credit ratings, or hold real jobs.
My friend Will Camphouse, creative director at an ad agency in Tucson whom I’d met while searching for my birth parents, had explained the moccasin telegraph as a coast-to-coast Indian gossip network that worked with amazing speed. It was an accurate description. I’d gotten a lead to Elwood from a Shoshone man in Wyoming, and by the time I reached the Flathead Reservation everyone, including my birth father, knew not only that I was on my way, but also the basic facts about me. Phone calls, interfamilial connections, accidental meetings in such places as the grocery store, and a background check on the Internet had told them a private investigator from San Francisco was coming to town.
For this investigation, George Darkmoon in Arlee, a town near St. Ignatius, where my birth father lived, would be the obvious person to start with. The problem was, I would have to call Elwood.
Elwood was not an easy man to deal with on the phone—or in person. The first two times I’d tried to talk with him he’d rebuffed me—telling me to come back to his house when I’d had time to “assemble my thoughts.” Then he’d grudgingly allowed me into his simple log home and acknowledged that I was his daughter. Since then we’d established a tentative relationship, but it had its rough edges: on my part because he’d suspected all along he had a child, but had made no effort to locate me; on his part because I’d disrupted his quiet, traditional life as an artist who volunteered to fund and teach art workshops in the schools at various area reservations.
I steeled myself and dialed his number.
“Elwood, it’s Sharon.”
“Yes.”
“How are you?”
“Doing well. How are you?”
“Doing well.”
Long silence. I asked, “How are the workshops going?”
“Excellently.” Excitement lightened his voice. “Those young people are amazing. Their enthusiasm . . . it makes me feel young again.”
And where were you, when my enthusiasm could have made you feel young?
Not fair, McCone. At the time he wasn’t even certain that you existed.
“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” he added. “Are you sure everything’s all right? Those bombings . . .”
Did he really want to know? I decided to lay it on him; talked about my burn-out and my flight to the ranch, my doubts about my professional future.
He didn’t speak immediately. I heard puffing sounds—he was lighting a cigarette.
“It may be a time for change, Daughter. That kind of empty feeling is a signal that we need to use our gifts in different ways. Me, when I was making all that money from my art in New York City and living high, I felt the kinds of pressures you were feeling. When I met Leila and we came here, I could let go of the things I thought were important back there, and get on with what really counted.”