Hawk Moon (6 page)

We all grew up here, on the settlement, I mean — David and me and the two Moore sisters, although they were quite a bit older than us. They left here when they were still in their teens, I think. They were very, very beautiful and they made their looks their stock in trade."

"Prostitutes?"

"Probably. But not for very long, I don't think. They were more "kept" women than anything. You know, for rich men. They spent a lot of time in Vegas and then in Los Angeles and then they came back here. Even in their forties they were beauties. They really took care of themselves. But of course their rich men started wanting younger women nonetheless. And that's when the sisters went into procuring. I know they steered a couple of girls from the settlement into prostitution."

"And your husband knew them?"

The sisters lived and worked out of Cedar Rapids and that's where David liked to drink and run around. Over the past few years, he had relationships with both of them, I'm pretty sure."

"Why would he want to kill them?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. Just all of a sudden, he became enraged when you just mentioned their names."

"But he never said why?"

"Never."

"He has a drinking problem, doesn't he?"

"Bad one. He's been through detox in Cedar Rapids twice in the past three years."

"Did he ever beat you up?"

"Pushed me around a little, but not beat me up."

"You think he's capable of murdering somebody?"

She hesitated. "I suppose. That's the only way I can answer honestly. Under most circumstances, no. He's a brawler but he's not a killer. But under the right circumstances . . ."

"If he was drinking, you mean."

"Yes, and if he'd been hurt badly enough."

"Hurt?"

"He's one of those rough, tough men who is very vulnerable. He doesn't want to be but he can't help it. He feels betrayed very easily. And if he's been drinking on top of it . . ."

"You have any idea what the sisters could have done to make him hate them so much?"

"Not really. He came over to my place one night real drunk and put his head down on my kitchen table and just started sobbing. I'd never heard him cry like that before. It was really sad and sort of scary, too."

"How so?"

"All the crying — I saw how desperate he was. He was really lost."

"Did he give you any hints about why?"

"Just that he had been going to get married and she broke it off. He was devastated." She sighed, glanced out the window again. "It's funny how you can smell rain coming, isn't it?"

"I was just thinking the same thing."

"I had a dog on the settlement — a teeny tiny puppy. He got lost in a rainstorm one night when I was a little girl. In the morning my father found him drowned in a storm sewer. Even now, when I know it's going to rain, I get scared. I can't help it."

I studied her a moment. I liked her. Ever since my wife died I've come to have a special appreciation of women, their patience, their courage, their gentle wisdom. My wife was like that, too. I just hope I told her enough how much she meant to me.

"You're a damned nice woman, anybody tell you that lately?" I said.

She smiled. "No, I guess not." Then she laughed. "But I guess I wouldn't mind hearing it every now and then."

"Well, somebody should tell you that at least once a day." Her puppy and the miscarriages and loving a husband who was long past loving her — and enduring it all with intelligence and dignity and even some humor. You can keep your movie stars and politicians. It's the brave everyday people who impress me the most. They don't have any agents or consultants to keep them from colliding with reality. They just have to do the best they can by themselves.

But I was getting choked up over my wife again. This was how it usually manifested itself, in a sudden gushy sentimentality that could get sticky if I wasn't careful. So I said, "What does your boss think about the murder?"

"If David killed her or not?"

"Uh-huh."

"He's sure David killed her."

"Why's he so sure?"

She tapped the report that sat on the edge of her desk. "He doesn't believe in any of this. He'll fly off to a crime conference or two every year but basically he thinks the whole scientific approach to crime is just a way of keeping the Washington bureaucrats in big salaries."

"In some cases, he's probably right."

"But in this case, he's wrong. He's sure David did it because David is a drunk and has a bad temper and because he was seen arguing with the sisters several times."

"How about crime-scene evidence? Anything to tie David in there?"

"Unfortunately, yes. There were some cotton-and-polyester fibers found under the fingernails of Sandra Moore's right hand. They match the fibers of the shirt David was wearing that night. The problem is, Sears was having a sale that week and they sold around one hundred shirts just like it."

"So the Chief needs a little more evidence?"

"Yes. And he's getting around to it. He's interviewing a farmer who claims to have seen David near the woods the night Sandra was killed."

"Where was this?"

"There's a block of old retail stores that went out of business ten years ago when the mall came in. That's where she was killed. Behind there. And that's where the woods are."

"Anybody figure out what she was doing there?"

"No. But I think she was probably meeting somebody."

"Any idea who?"

"Not yet."

"Could it have been David?" I said.

"Could have been, I suppose."

"How about David? What's he say about all this?"

"Says he didn't kill her," she said. "And that's all he'll say. Even when I scream at him, try to make him see that he's just making everything worse by not cooperating — all he'll say over and over is that he didn't kill her."

"Does he have an alibi for the approximate time of her death?"

Officer Rhodes shook her head. "No. He told the casino boss that he wasn't feeling well and took off early that night." She paused and then said, "I can't afford you."

"I know."

"But if I paid you two hundred dollars, would you look over the reports and give me your assessment?"

"You know how to cook?"

"Not very well. Except for red snapper, I guess. Red snapper I'm pretty good at."

"How about a red-snapper dinner instead of the two hundred dollars?"

"God, I couldn't do that, Mr. Payne."

"Robert."

"I really couldn't, Robert."

"Sure you could."

"I could buy a cake or a pie for dessert, I guess."

"That sounds great."

"You like spinach?"

"Very much."

"The woman upstairs has a nice little garden in the back. She's always after me to take some spinach."

"How about tomorrow night?"

"I still want to pay you something."

"A home-cooked meal and the company of a pretty woman is a very handsome reward, believe me."

Rain affected me the way it did her. I felt lonely now, bereft of my wife, and I wanted to sit in a lamp-lit living room in the comforting presence of a graceful and gracious woman, both of which Cindy Rhodes a.k.a. Morning Tree offered in abundance.

"Here's my address."

I picked up the report she'd given me then stood and walked over to the window.

You could hear the night animals settling in for the summer rain that was just now getting underway, hiding under porches or in the car-smelling darkness of garages, or on back porches if they were cats or dogs and lucky enough to have masters who treated them like human children.

When I turned back to her, she had tears in her eyes. She said quietly, "He didn't kill her, Robert. He really didn't."

On the way out, Clarence looked away from his radio console and gave me a frown. Both of his donuts were gone.

I
drove back to the casino in the rain. All the neons looked like watercolors through the steam on my windshield. Parking spaces were still tough to find. I had to settle for a very tight slot next to a Dumpster. Before going in, I checked on the black Jag. Still there. In the dampness, you could smell all the trees. I wanted to stay outside, even if it meant getting wet.

They were all in there, waiting for me. All the tourists who wanted me to join them in losing some more at the slot-machines, all the waitresses who wanted me to ruin my stomach-lining with tacos and hot dogs, and all the dealers who wanted to take my money.

But there was only one dealer I was willing to drop a few bucks with.

David Rhodes didn't seem to recognize me as the man who'd broken up his beating. For just a moment there was a tiny spark of something in the dark eyes but then it vanished.

He took my bet and started dealing the cards. We were alone at the table.

I said, "Why'd those guys want to pound on you tonight, David?"

Except for a slightly puffy left eye, he looked pretty good. New white shirt. New dark slacks. Hair slicked back. An air of anger and hot quick intelligence about him.

"Who are you supposed to be, man?"

"Payne — if it matters. I'm helping Cindy a little."

"Cindy don't run my life."

"She's worried about you."

He grinned and it was an arrogant grin and I realized that I didn't like him at all. This was the guy Cindy had waited all her life for and he smirked when I mentioned her name. A real sweet guy, this one.

"She's been worried about me since we were kids, man. And it hasn't done her much good, has it?"

The smirk was still in place.

Unfortunately, it probably always would be.

He hadn't had money or name or promise to cling to while growing up, so he'd invented himself as a cool street dude. There were millions and millions like him in the inner cities. They played the hard-ass role long enough, they actually became hard-asses and convinced themselves, just as they tried to convince you, that nothing meant anything to them, that they'd just as soon kill you as talk to you. There's an old French saying about beware of what you wish for . . . it just might come true. Prisons and Death Rows are filled with guys who just couldn't wait to become heartless punks. I wanted to feel at least a little sorry for him, growing up on the reservation and all, but somehow I couldn't. Not quite.

"How come they hate you so much?"

"That's none of your business. Now, you want to play blackjack or not?"

I nodded.

We went three hands. House won every one of them. "You have something on them?"

"Why don't you take a hike, man — all right?" But for the first time anxiety was present in his voice. There was something he didn't want me to know, and when I pushed him he got scared. Fear shone in his eyes: I took some satisfaction in putting it there.

"You shaking them down?"

He started dealing another hand.

"Or maybe you're bopping one of their wives."

Rhodes made as if to come at me — right across the table — but then he saw the suit walking about twenty yards away, glad-handing everybody he met.

The suit would undoubtedly be unhappy if he saw one of his blackjack dealers try to punch out one of the paying customers. Suits are funny that way.

"You're gonna pay," he hissed. "Believe me you are. Now get the hell away from me, man."

I hated to think of Cindy Rhodes with this guy. All those years. All that waiting and heartbreak. For him.

He looked as if he wanted to say something more but then a customer came up. He glowered at me and then asked the customer what his pleasure was.

I roamed around for a while. The human noise of it all calmed me down. David Rhodes had been a real disappointment. I'd been under the illusion that maybe I could help Cindy prove that her husband really was the great guy down deep she seemed to think he was. But all I wanted to do was push his face in.