Muller, Marcia - [09] There's Something In A Sunday [v 1.0] (htm) (42 page)

"I'm trying to reach Alissa Hernandez at Allstate." I gave her both of Alissa's numbers, since she was in and out of her office at as many strange times as I was. "Keep trying her for me. Ask her to check the computer for auto policies on Frank Wilkonson"—I spelled it and gave her the Hollister P.O. box—"or Burning Oak Ranch, same address. I want to know if Wilkonson has his own coverage or if it's under a group policy for the ranch. Ask her to pull all the particulars within the last, say, two years. Got that?"

"Just a second." I pictured Rae, hunched over the beat-up desk in my old office, writing down the details. "Anything else?"

"Try to track down Jack Stuart. I want to know about a will for one of his clients, Rudolf Goldring. Ask him if it's been entered into probate, and if so, what's in it."

"Okay. I think he may be down at the Remedy with Hank."

That surprised me; since his marriage, Hank's visits to the Remedy had been infrequent. More trouble at home? More drunken commiserating with Jack? "There's another thing," I said, "but it's a personal favor."

"No problem."

"Thanks. Would you call this number"—I recited it —"and ask whoever answers to stick some food for my cat on the back deck."

"Your neighbors, huh? What if there's nobody home?"

"There will be." The Curleys next door were a large, boisterous family, with big hearts—especially when it came to neighbors and cats.

"When are you coming back?" Rae's voice was a shade wistful, as if she could do with some commiserating at the Remedy, too.

"Soon. Tomorrow, probably." Suddenly I wished she were here, so we could kick around the things I'd found out over a few drinks. I read off the phone number of the motel, told her I'd be there until noon the next day, in case she got hold of Alissa or Jack, and hung up.

Then I said aloud, "McCone, what the hell are you doing?"

"Shut up," I replied.

Reflecting on how talking to oneself is a sign of creeping middle age, I got up and went to freshen my hair and makeup. I wanted to look presentable when I arrived at Walt's Tavern in Tres Pinos, for a couple of drinks and perhaps some gossip about the area residents.

Walt's was a typical country tavern, with none of the frills that would have made it attractive to tourists en route to or from the Pinnacles. A number of work-soiled pickups were parked out front. When I stepped inside I found a barroom with a wood floor, a mixed and mostly unmatched collection of tables and chairs, and moldy-looking stuffed animal heads on the dingy beige walls. The smoke was thick, the music on the jukebox country, and the decibel level of the voices high.

Most of the tables were taken, and some of the people at them were eating food from varicolored plastic baskets; what was in the baskets had been fried beyond recognition, but I guessed it was mainly chicken, since a sign behind the bar proclaimed it the specialty of the house. As I stood scanning the room, I became aware that people—mostly men—were giving me appraising glances. Any stranger, particularly a woman alone, was liable to attract attention in such a place.

As I started for the bar, a fellow in a Stetson hat said, "Buy you a drink, honey?"

"No, thanks," I replied and kept going.

"What'sa matter, honey? Too good for a cowhand?"

I stopped, turned, and said, "No. And no, thanks," more firmly. The look I gave him quieted him—and warned his companions to leave me alone.

I sandwiched myself on a stool at the bar between a trio of middle-aged men with weather-toughened faces who were rolling dice and a young fellow with jug ears who was telling two women who looked like cowgirls about his marital problems. Although the back-bar was laden with liquor bottles, only the more common varieties looked to have been poured from within recent memory; the exotic types, such as a two-foot cone of Galliano, seemed to have been purchased for their decorative value, and were layered with grime. I thought fondly of a cool glass of white wine until I spotted a jug of a particularly vile supermarket brand. When the bartender—the same man I'd seen leaning against the porch pillar earlier— finally got around to me, I asked for a Bud. I suspected it was the kind of place where you didn't get a glass unless you requested it—and I was right.

When he set the bottle in front of me, the bartender's eyes flickered in recognition. I smiled, about to speak, but a great roar of laughter went up from the dice players, and one of them hollered for another round. The man picked up my money and went to serve them, and I sipped my beer and relaxed, waiting to hear something interesting.

"… and so she says to me, 'Get outta the apartment.' And I say, 'Where the hell do you think I'm gonna sleep?' And she goes, 'I don't give a rat's ass. Bunk in with the other cowboys out to the ranch.' And I go…"

The jug-eared fellow had his problems, all right, but I tuned them out and concentrated on the men on my other side.

They were rolling dice again, the leather cup smashing down on the well worn surface of the bar. I glanced over there and saw they were drinking shots of whiskey and beer chasers. Although their red faces and loud camaraderie said they'd been at it for some time, I sensed they were practiced drinkers, the kind who take themselves home with just so many drinks and no more under their belts. Their conversation was mainly about the Forty-niners' performance the previous Sunday, and after a while I tuned them out, too.

At the end of the bar, around the corner from the dice players, was a sort of takeout counter. From time to time people would come in and the bartender would deliver sacks to them, which I assumed contained the house special. The chicken couldn't be all that bad if it was so popular, and I was trying to decide whether to order some and move to a table where I could better mingle with the clientele, when a sheriff's deputy came in. As he went up to the takeout counter and signaled to the bartender, I realized a silence had fallen among the dice players.

After a moment one of them said to the deputy, "How you doing, Larry?"

"Can't complain."

"Buy you a beer?"

"Thanks, but I'm on duty."

"Heard you were on duty down to the Burning O the other day."

"You heard right."

"Something about Wilkonson, wasn't it? And a murder up in San Francisco?"

"Now, you know I can't be talking about department business."

"Come on, Larry, fill us in."

The bartender approached with an extra large sack. The deputy took it, nodding thanks. To the dice players, he said, "Nothing
to
fill you in on. Just routine, that's all. And if I don't get back to the substation with this"—he motioned with the sack—"they'll have my tail."

In silence the dice players watched him leave. I was aware of a hush at the nearby tables. Even the bartender stood still for a few seconds. Then it was as if someone had flicked a switch, and everything started up again.

The first words from the dice players that caught my attention were "Just what they need—more trouble down at the Burning O." I leaned forward, my elbow on the bar, slipping my hand under my hair and cupping my ear in a way that looked like I was merely resting my head.

"… Shit, man, he'll make himself crazy. The booze isn't going to ease it, not the way he's going at it."

Was it Wilkonson they were talking about? Jane had said nothing about him drinking.

"You've got to admit, though—young Harlan's picking up the slack."

Young Harlan? Hal Johnstone?

"Yeah. Fancy education, fancy car and all, the boy knows ranching."

Yes, Hal Johnstone.

"You wouldn't have thought it, the way he went off to that college back east, rather than a good California ag school like Davis. But the boy's holding his own, in spite of his father being so dog-shit drunk that he can't tend to business."

Then Harlan Johnstone, Sr., was the one who was "easing" his troubles with alcohol.

One of the men laughed, ruefully. "Something, isn't it— what a woman can do to you?"

"Sure is. But this is a peculiar thing. You got to remember, Irene's been gone for over two years. The divorce is final, for Christ's sake. Irene was one hell of a woman: got out fair and clean. Waived any settlement or claims to his property. So why start with the drinking now?"

"You got to remember that Irene wasn't Harlan's first wife. When a man loses a young piece like that—"

"She wasn't all that young."

"Late thirties, I'd say, to his sixty-some."

"Sixty-odd's old enough to know better."

Silence. A sigh. A sheepish, "When did any of us ever know better?"

More silence.

"None of us got the kind of ranch Harlan's got there, though. Man's got a lot to lose if the Burning O goes to hell."

"But like you said, the boy's doing okay. And they got a damned good manager in that Wilkonson—"

"Don't mention that son of a bitch to me!"

I leaned further to my right, straining to shut out "The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty."

"You got some beef with Wilkonson?"

Silence again.

"Well?"

"Let's just say that I don't like what he's done at the Burning O. Leave it at that. And now I better haul my ass home. The missus promised me a couple of steaks to grill."

The trio finished up their beers, paid their tabs, and left to a chorus of good-byes from their fellow patrons. As they went toward the door, I watched them, wishing I could place each man with each voice I'd heard. And wishing that the last speaker could have been persuaded to explain his dislike of Frank Wilkonson.

The men's stools were quickly taken by a couple in jeans and western shirts. They began talking about the woman's younger sister who was "running wild." Apparently they'd already had a few drinks, because the man kept saying monotonously, "We got to do something about your sister, Patty. We got to do
something
."

To my left, the fellow I'd started thinking of as "Ears" had had three beers in quick succession and now switched to bourbon. The cowgirls' interested expressions looked as if they were molded in plaster of Paris. After a few more minutes they exchanged exasperated looks, signaled the bartender, and ordered baskets of chicken to be brought to a nearby table that had just been vacated. A man and woman promptly claimed their stools and leaned close together, exchanging the little pats and smiles that come with new love. Ears gave them a venomous, envying look that neither of them noticed.

The bartender stopped in front of me and looked questioningly at my empty beer bottle. I nodded yes, pondering the situation at the Burning Oak. It explained, perhaps, why Jane Wilkonson had called it "a sad place."

Ears sighed deeply.

I ignored him, taking the bottle of Bud and pushing money across the aged patina of the bar.

Ears said, "Oh God, what am I gonna do without her?"

I thought, Oh God, leave me alone.

Ears said, "Excuse me, miss. Never seen you here before. You new in the area?"

Now
I
sighed deeply and turned to look at him. Face on, he was even more jug eared; the damned things stuck out like Dumbo's. But he had a sweet downcast mourn, slightly crossed eyes that gleamed wetly, and he looked as if he'd only begun shaving yesterday. I am a sucker for helpless young things that need me. And this one so obviously required attention.

I said, "Yes, I am. My name's Alissa Hernandez." For a moment I held a forlorn hope that he might have some prejudice against Hispanics.

No such luck. His eyes brightened and he said, "Join me in a basket of chicken?"

It took the young man—who was rather ignominiously named Jim Smith—nearly three hours to pass out. After the bartender delivered our chicken and fries (surprisingly good, or I wouldn't have eaten most of Jim's, too), we moved to a table. There I listened with half an ear to the saga of how Sherri ("She spells it with an i at the end, and she always dots the
i
with a little heart") had made him move out of their apartment in Hollister and was now seeing some "jerk" who worked at a gas station. The story was complicated by various rambling asides, and it took me a while to work the conversation around to the Burning Oak Ranch. When I did, Jim allowed as how it was a "hell of an impressive spread," but said he didn't know anything about it or anyone who worked there. He and Sherri, he explained, had only come down from Wyoming a few months ago.

"And now that we're here, our marriage has gone bust," he added. "Folks warned us about California." Then he continued with his story. It didn't matter that I was only half listening; by the end of the evening I knew his tale of woe well, because he told it three times—each at greater length, but with the consistency that comes from a great many rehearsals. I murmured and nodded at appropriate intervals, didn't protest when he ordered us more drinks, and listened to the conversations eddying around us. About the only thing I heard concerning the Burning Oak Ranch was that Frank Wilkonson had had a "visit from the sheriff" earlier in the week, but that the problem had been "cleared up." The group discussing him appeared to be ranch hands, and something about the way they spoke told me Wilkonson was the type of manager who didn't mingle socially with the help. When the place began to clear out at around ten, Jim Smith leaned forward, put his head on his arms—as a schoolchild does during quiet time—and went to sleep.

I finished my beer, nodded at the bartender for another, and then patted Jim's limp brown hair. The sad young man was curiously appealing; he reminded me of my neighbors'—the Curleys'—mongrel puppy. I hoped Sherri would come to her senses and break it off with the jerk at the gas station.

The bartender was about to bring the beer over, but I motioned for him to stay put and went back to the almost deserted bar. "Let me pay the tab for Jim and me," I said.

He shook his bald head. He was portly, with lively brown eyes and healthy pink skin that pulled smooth over his layers of extra padding. "You don't have to do that, miss. Jim's in bad shape—but I guess you know that. I run a tab for him every night, and I'll collect later."

"Nice of you." I looked around at the few remaining patrons. "They go home early around here."