The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards (9 page)

Officer Patty said, “Your aunt thinks maybe you spoke with your father back five or so years ago.”

“She never said that to me,” Conrad replied. His aunt wanted to find her little sister. She wanted justice when there could be none.

“Something in your behavior tipped her off.”

“My aunt is a peculiar kind of conspiracy nut,” he said. “She believes every detail of my behavior has its roots in a single bed. But the world is full of unpleasant catalysts.”

“She’s always putting two and two together,” Officer Patty acknowledged, “and sometimes gets five. Or seven. Still, she says you went into a shell.”

“I had an accident in a car. I haven’t seen my father since I left the farm.”

“
Seen
is a tricky word,” Officer Patty said. “
Contact
might be the better word. Any contact whatsoever?”

“None,” Conrad said.

“It may seem like ancient history, but if this turns out how we expect,” she continued, “talking with him and not telling us, that could be interpreted as accessory after the fact.”

Conrad said nothing in response to this, but shook his head contemptuously.

“I’d just hate to see that happen to you,” she said.

At Motel 6 he said, “I appreciate the gloves.”

Sheriff Mallon appeared at Conrad’s motel room the following morning. A white square of gauze covered one side of his face. White tape held it in place.

“You’re gonna have to drive,” he said. “I’m taking Percodan.”

“You look like a deer kicked you in the face,” Conrad replied.

They had to take alleys to the edge of town. The chains on the tires would gouge the asphalt, Mallon explained.

“Policy is twenty miles an hour max with chains. I may lose vision in the eye.”

“I can get someone else to take me,” Conrad said.

The sheriff began to shake his head again then stopped himself. “I’m supposed to keep my head still. Had to pay a kid to put the chains on. My doctor will be in Chapman on Thursday, anyway. No point staying here.”

At the highway, Conrad kept the vehicle on the shoulder until they came upon a stalled snowplow, a man in a fat coat examining its smoking engine. Sheriff Mallon studied the scene as they passed.

“This is an idiotic place to live,” he said.

Once they had the chains on the appropriate terrain, the men rode in clanking silence. After a while, the sheriff said, “You know what I kept thinking the whole time they messed with my face? They didn’t put me under. I wish to god they had. I kept thinking about that deer. She’s out there wondering what the hell is going on. Pain’s got to be a different experience if you don’t know what it is, you know what I mean?”

“No,” Conrad said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Maybe it’s the Percodan talking, but it seems to me humans must feel pain differently because we can point to the source of it. A deer gets hit by a truck and it hurts. Fine. She knows the source of the pain—that great green metal monster that tried to eat her. That’s what she’d think.” He gestured with his hand, the open palm hesitating in the air. “But then, she gets up and runs away, sleeps through the night. Now it’s morning, and she wakes up feeling real bad. What’s the deal now? she wonders. There’s no green metal monster—well, she wouldn’t know what
metal
meant—there’s no roaring green monster here to bash my leg. Why do I feel this pain? Me, I know why and I know what can happen. I can wind up needing cosmetic surgery, which my insurance won’t cover. I can wind up blind in one eye, which’d mean I’d have to quit sheriffing. Hell, I’m not even sure this will be taken as an ‘in the line of duty’ injury. In which case, I’ll owe the hospital a fortune. But that’s not the point. What was I talking about?”

“The deer.”

“She’s got to be thinking there’s something inside her, like a rat—not that she’d know what a rat is. A forest animal, a squirrel or something. Maybe she’d think her thigh is frozen. That’s my point. She can’t know. It’s like lightning striking when you don’t even have a word for the sky.”

“How many Percodan did you take?”

“Several. This thing hurts like hell. I just was trying to tell you what I thought was this profound thing. How a deer can’t know what we know.”

“Do you think deer have a concept of death?”

“Sure, they do,” Sheriff Mallon said. It began to snow. “They know there’s something that happens to the others—the deer they run with. The ones that die. They know that a body asleep and a dead body are two whole different things. I don’t imagine they guess it could ever happen to them personally.” He grew quiet again. The snow fell lazily like the snow in dreams. “I have a friend used to work in a slaughterhouse down in Iowa. Cows marched along this ramp to the killing floor where it was my friend’s job to shoot them in the head with a rifle. Says those cows knew. They were scared as hell. Lowing like all get-out. Christ, I hate to think about it.” He started to shake his head again, but put his hand to his chin to hold his head in place. “Iowa’s an awful place. My buddy is my age, but you’d think he was fifty. How old are you?”

“Thirty-two,” Conrad said.

“I shouldn’t have revived that deer.” The patch on his face made him appear unfinished, missing a piece. “It’s out there somewhere in pain. There’s a kind of code about this. You don’t leave an animal to suffer.”

The Suburban descended into the valley they had visited the day before, the white fields and hazy defoliated forest.

“I shouldn’t be laying all this on you. You’ve got your own burden. Your mother found after all these years.” He unbuckled his shoulder belt and shifted in the seat to lay the good side of his head against the headrest. “Had to clean out the freezer to store her parts. Everybody at the station took home venison. We don’t get much actual crime. Graffiti. If it’s summer, Mrs. Morrison’s likely to run up the street in her nightie. But murder…”

“It was a long time ago.”

“People remember your dad,” he said. “Not till we found this body did people think he literally killed her, just that he made her run out into the cold, where she froze. A man matching his description in Saskatchewan operates a diner. Had a run-in with local authorities. They faxed a photo, but after twenty years who could say? I
will
ask you to take a look.” He settled his head back and shut his good eye. “Nobody much recalls your mother. I hope there’s enough that you can ID her.” He remained silent for several minutes. “That poor creature,” he said. “Out there in the cold. In pain. And not a clue.”

In another moment, the sheriff began to snore. Conrad noted the place where the deer had been hit. The emergency gear still rested on the shoulder, covered now in snow. He did not consider stopping to retrieve it. As for the deer, Conrad believed she likely knew as much about death as he did. He would be able to identify his mother if they had the lower jaw. Her slanting teeth would make the identification.

The idea that his father might run a diner amused Conrad. His father had cooked for him exactly once. Conrad had stepped into the kitchen one morning and found his father frying an egg.

“Your mother run off,” his father said. He put the egg on a plate and handed it to Conrad. “From now on, cook for yourself.”

“Is she coming back?” Conrad asked.

His father had said all he was going to say. Conrad ate the egg, fearing what his father would do if he didn’t. He had never actually hit Conrad, nothing more than a cuff or slap, but his mother had always been there to intervene, to put her body between the man and the boy. Conrad ate the egg and climbed the ladder to the second floor to look for her, but he never saw his mother again.

He recognized almost nothing of Chapman, yet the general contours of the town were still familiar. The school had been remodeled, but he could make out the old shape hiding beneath the stucco. The county sheriff’s office took up a corner of a strip mall.

“Oh, my heavens,” the secretary said.

She put her hands to her face, as if she wanted Conrad to count the painted nails. She was a vaguely pretty woman. It might have been just her concern that made her attractive. She reached out to Sheriff Mallon but pulled her hands back. Blood had soaked through the bandage, and the sheriff’s cheek was swollen.

“I’ve got to get him home,” she said and then introduced herself. Abigail. Her fingernails were the pink of salmon. “Could you hold down the ship for me?” she asked. “There’s only the two of us, and a deputy who’s been on duty since Sheriff Mallon left to get you. Everybody and his dog has slid off the road. He’s got his hands full with vehicular. I won’t be more than an hour.”

Minutes after arriving, Conrad found himself alone in the sheriff’s office. He seated himself at the sheriff’s desk and went through the sheriff’s drawers. None of the reports he found related to the body. One drawer held a Polaroid of the sheriff with two people who might be his parents. They had chalky skin and prim smiles.

Conrad tried the deputy’s smaller desk. The drawers held almost nothing—loose paper clips and cellophane-wrapped post-its, a can of soup, a motorcycle magazine. The cover of the magazine showed a woman wearing a bikini on a chopper. The photo centered on her buttocks, her bathing suit the same chrome as on the motorcycle.

Conrad found the file on the unidentified remains in Abigail’s desk. She also had the most comfortable chair. Blanched photographs showed a stand of trees, the yellow ribbon of official business, and a vague shape on the ground, which must have been a piece of the body. It had been found by a farmer’s son, the report said. Conrad already knew this. The boy’s dog had brought in a bone with a scrap of clothing chewed into the marrow. The boy followed the dog’s tracks through the snow to a wooded ravine where other bones lay scattered. The sheriff had found shot in the splintered pelvis.

The report was full of pen scribbles—someone, likely Abigail, making grammatical suggestions, revising for clarity. The county coroner had attempted to reach Chapman but had been stopped by the weather. By the coroner’s name, Abigail had written
prima donna!
State investigators would arrive at week’s end, weather permitting. A fax explained to what extent
presumed relatives
could examine the remains to identify the body.

Conrad closed the file. He found the freezer in the hall, long and white, large enough to hold an intact body. The lid of the freezer had a lock with the key in it. Conrad raised the freezer’s hood. Frost covered Tupperware containers. The first he lifted held a bone shard, as did the second. The third had discolored skin and gray gristle attached to the bone. As he snapped the lid back on, he spotted a label and wiped frost from it. BONE, it read. Conrad laughed, and the laughter continued long enough to make him nervous. He squatted with his back against the freezer and slowed his breathing. What amateurs these people were. Yet he liked them. The cold air from the open lid slipped over the side of the appliance and chilled the back of his neck.

He took the containers from the freezer and stacked them on the floor. They were as tall as a person. He wiped frost from the labels, working his way down the stack until he found one that said JAWBONE. He pried off the plastic lid. The bone was in three pieces, but the angle of the teeth was clear enough. This was not his mother’s body.

Conrad returned the containers to the freezer. He closed the freezer door and settled himself at Abigail’s desk. He felt neither elated nor discouraged, merely fatigued. He lowered his head onto the desk and fell asleep.

“It’s not good coffee,” Abigail said, “but it warms you up.”

He looked at his watch. He had slept almost two hours. True to her word, the coffee was terrible, but it felt good in his throat and warmed his stomach. Abigail had changed clothes. Conrad was certain of this, although he couldn’t recall what she had worn before. She now wore a dress and black leggings. Earrings. Makeup. She looked ready for a date.

“I’d let you sleep longer,” she said, “but it’s time for me to lock up.”

“The sheriff’s office shuts down?”

“We have call forwarding,” she said. The part of her lips revealed teeth as white as the snow. “The sheriff was gonna put you up, but he’s passed out from Percodan and in no condition to entertain.”

“Is there a motel?” Conrad asked.

“In Chapman? Are you serious? Have you made eating arrangements?”

“Can I sleep here?”

“There’s only the cot in the cell, and that’s just too ghastly.” She sighed. “I suppose you’re my guest.”

“You have plans. You’re all dressed.”

“Oh,” she said. “This is nothing.”

In her car, navigating the frozen parking lot, she revealed that the deputy had turned up another bit of evidence.

“You should have seen the sheriff when I told him. He hates anything happening while he’s gone.”

“I looked in the freezer,” Conrad said. “It’s not my mother.”

“Well,” Abigail said, deflated.

Snow pelted the windshield. She slowed for a pedestrian standing at an intersection. He was bundled in black—shoes, pants, parka, woolen hat. Only his scarf had any color, a red like the lipstick from old advertisements. She brought her car to a full stop and waited while the pedestrian crossed the road.

“I guess I shouldn’t be disappointed,” Abigail said. “You can still have hope she’s alive somewhere.”

“No,” said Conrad. “I don’t have any hope of that.”

The car slowly accelerated. “Who could this be?” She put her fingers to her mouth and tapped a tune on her teeth, pausing to add, “We just don’t have people unaccounted for.”

“What’s the new evidence?”

The tapping ended. Her hand returned to the wheel. “The murder weapon. We think. A rifle. Right there with the bones. The handle was chewed up some, like an animal had dragged it about.”

Conrad took a deep breath. He felt a specific, small elation, like being the first at a party to get the joke.

“It was a sawed-off shotgun,” he said.