Tussinland (4 page)

“Tina, no. As for Pisko—I’m pretty sure that dude’s always been shady. Apparently he was kind of famous in both high school and college for being a dirty, violent football player. I looked it up. They used to call him ‘the hammer’ after some famous NFL guy. He eventually got kicked out off the Fresno State team for getting too many penalties or some such shit. ”

“The hammer?”

“Right.”

“Yeah, I think I remember that. Long time ago. Anyway, in spite of the fact that he owns a used car lot, we can’t find anything on him so far. He doesn’t have a criminal record. He’s never been sued, which is rare for guys in that profession. He’s never even been investigated by the DMV or the State. The guy was clean.”

“He wasn’t clean. Smart for sure, but not clean. I’d been watching him and asking around ever since she started seeing him. I just think he had a real knack for staying out of trouble.”

“Until last night.”

“Right.”

Pause. Paul thought about Tina and tried not to picture her with shotgun wounds. There was one thing he knew about her that would probably help the investigation, but he didn’t want to say something that would make Tina look bad.

“I’m sure that car lot was just a front,” Paul said. “I bet if you investigated you’d find that he didn’t sell that many cars.”

“I’ll look into it.”

Paul shrugged. “I’m just saying, the guy was totally sleazy. Scary. You should’ve seen the kind of people he hung out with.”

“Really? Like who?”

“I don’t know … just dudes who looked like they’d been in prison, you know? The kind of guys I don’t mess with.”

“Do you have any names?”

“Check out his partner at the lot. Guy named Rincon. Jorge Rincon. I bet
he
has a record. In fact, back when I knew Tina was seeing Mark in secret, my whole stupid family was together for Christmas. I overheard my sister Bethany whining—as usual—about how her and her husband Pete had no cash and were going bankrupt or some such shit and Tina said, ‘I know this guy Rincon that owns a car lot who also makes quick loans if you have some collateral like a house or vehicle.’ ”

“So?”

“So when I asked Tina about it she denied the conversation ever happened, told me I was crazy.”

“Did you ask your sister?”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“I hate that bitch. Plus, she’s incapable of telling the truth about anything. Same for her husband.”

“So it’s Jorge Rincon? Like J O R G E?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“And your sister and her husband? What’re their names?”

“Bethany and Pete Fish. They have a real estate company. Or had, I’m not sure what’s going on with that. And Pete started his own church a couple of years ago, after leaving Big Valley Grace. So now he’s
Reverend
Pete Fish. What a joke.”

Fagan was writing. “So, their last name is Fish?”

“I know, weird, huh?”

Fagan wrote the name down. Stood up. Looked like he was done with Paul, at least for now.

“But don’t worry man,” Paul said. “I know of a couple of more people that might know something about Mark and Rincon. That might talk now that Pisko is dead, you know? I’ll look into all of this, and get back to you.”

Fagan was opening the door. Looking sheepish.

“There’s no need for you to do any … uh … investigating, Mr. Dunn. But, of course, if you think of anything, please contact me.”

He handed Paul his card. Paul took it and left.

EIGHT

Miranda Fish woke up just before nine a.m., when she felt her right tit vibrating. She opened her eyes and saw Logan passed out at her feet, his fingers still touching the laptop keyboard. The screen saver was on: all the best pictures of Miranda alone and Miranda with Logan floating by in an endless young suburban Kama Sutra slide show.

It was her grandmother calling. She kicked Logan.

“Dude,” she said. “This is it.”

Logan opened one eye briefly.

“Hello? Grandma? What? Say that again? What? No. Way. Aunt Tina is dead? Shot? No shit? Oh, that is so awful. Her boyfriend too? Oh oh. Both of them together?”

Miranda cried uncontrollably. She kicked Logan again.

“Dude, my Aunt Tina and her new boyfriend are dead. Someone shot them with a shotgun.”

Logan rolled his eyes.

“Oh my God, grandma. I am
so
sorry. This is
so
awful.”

She listened to Mavis for several minutes.

Logan started to suck on her right big toe. She tried not to giggle as she listened to Mavis.

“Oh, Grandma. This is so sad, you know? And he’s still in with the detective? Wow. Hey, does anyone else know? Oh, you told my mom? Okay.”

Logan made his way up past her knees and licked both inner thighs. She looked down at him and reached out her right hand to run her fingers through his hair, before she remembered that he’d shaved his head right after the killings. Logan’s tongue flicked her clit and he stuck a finger inside. She was so wet.

“Hey, Logan and I will go over to your place and wait for you okay? So you don’t have to be alone in case he’s arrested or something. No, no, no. It’s no problem. We’ll be right over.”

Miranda ended the call. She leaned back on the headboard and stretched out her legs. Reached out to the computer and hit a key to stop the screen saver. Up popped the paused murder video. She positioned it so the webcam pointed basically between her legs and at her torso. Set it to take a photo every five seconds. Hit play on the video. Grabbed Logan by his armpits, pulled him up, took his cock and guided it inside her pussy. She stared at the video as he fucked her.

“Hurry up,” she said. “We got to get to Grandma’s before she gets home from the jailhouse.”

NINE

Paul couldn’t believe he was free. He’d only been at the police station a couple of hours and had already gotten sort of used to it. Used to being a prisoner, under someone else’s control. He never wanted to feel that way again.

Mavis waited on a bench by the door. She wore a little black suit with a super short skirt, black fishnet stockings, and spike-heeled black pumps. As usual, there was massive cleavage bursting out of her mostly unbuttoned white silk blouse. Her legs were crossed demurely, and she spoke to a policeman who stood over her, staring down at her tits.

Paul didn’t want to walk up to them. He felt ashamed and embarrassed about what the Modesto Police Department thought he’d done, and he didn’t know if this guy was aware of what he’d been accused of or not. But, since Mavis had no verbal filter, he was pretty certain she’d told him. He didn’t want to risk seeing the man’s eyes when he realized who he was. So, he just walked past his mother to the door, making sure she saw him.

He found her latest brand-new Cadillac out on the street and waited by the passenger side. Probably 90 degrees already. He began to sweat immediately. Stared at the police station doors. Nothing.

This was not a new thing, but it’d been a while since he’d had to wait for his mother while she finished up some serious flirting. He’d learned years before to always have an out of his own. Now, he was stuck, and his back was killing him.

The door opened and out she stepped. Now with a different, younger cop. He was in jeans, boots, and a tight t-shirt, but he was definitely a cop. Looked like an actor from one of the TV shows like
NCIS
or something, or maybe more like one of those USA shows like
Burn Notice
. Dude was hard looking, but pretty. They were both going to smoke out front. Paul knew this was going to take forever. It didn’t matter that her daughter-in-law of nearly six years was just viciously murdered, it made no difference that her son was standing out in the burning Modesto sun wearing silly yellow sweatpants and a grimy t-shirt and flip flops with horrible bed head waiting for her outside the police station after he’d been accused of the two murders and suffered some nasty brutality. No, all that mattered to Mavis was that some cute guy might be fascinated with her and her tits, her body, her sexy hair, and would hopefully want to come over and fuck her sometime.

Mavis would never change. Paul hoped for years to see her looking too old and wrinkled and dried up to attract new cock, but so far it hadn’t happened. She sure smoked and drank like she wanted to grow old fast. Maybe fucking was her fountain of youth.

The weird thing was, lately it had gotten even worse. More men, more drinking, more smoking. He was sure of that. There seemed to always be men lurking around—some of them pretty scary. One day after some jail-bird-looking guy left, Paul walked up behind her while she leaned over the kitchen counter. She appeared to be snorting something up her nose. That was something new as far as Paul could tell. When he asked her about it, she told him to mind his own business.

Again, he didn’t want to attract attention to himself by yelling or walking up to them, but he wanted out of there. In addition to
Longmire
, he was way behind on both
Pawn Stars
and
Storage Wars
. He was hungry and was pretty sure there was enough Sugar Frosted Flakes and milk at home to satisfy him. Plus, he needed to get to his phone and his laptop. See what people were saying about Mark and Tina. And him.

He needed to figure out who’d done this. And, he needed to make sure the blame stayed as far away from him as possible.

When Mavis finally came to the car she was all smiles. Paul knew that smile. Then, she looked at her son and frowned.

“You are in a lot of trouble, Paul,” she said when they were both in the car.

“Mom, you know I didn’t do it. Right? It had to be somebody after Mark Pisko.”

She didn’t say anything. Just turned on the car and pulled away.

“Come on, Mother. Do you really think I’d do something like that?”

Paul watched as tears fell down her checks.

“I don’t really know what to think anymore with what all you kids get into. But I really didn’t need to sit in the police station and hear the detective accuse you.”

“Well, please accept my apologies for being accused of murdering Tina and that asshole. I’m sorry it’s bringing you down.”

She just kept crying. Sometimes he didn’t like his mother at all.

“And thanks a lot for providing Fagan with so much helpful information. Jeez, I think he almost arrested me after he talked to you.”

“Well … you can’t expect me to lie to the police. Plus, they would’ve found out sooner or later.”

“Luckily, I think I was able to convince him I didn’t do it.”

“Really? I hope you’re right.”

“He tried to pull one of those deals like we always see on
Dateline
or
The First 48
, you know what I mean?”

“What?”

“He said they found a witness who saw me go in and out of the house carrying a shotgun. Even said they ID’d my Honda.”

“Oh, no!”

“He was lying, Mom, jeez. When I called him on it he finally gave up.”

“Thank God.”

“I know. Right?”

TEN

As they turned the corner onto their street, Paul could see his sister Bethany’s fancy car parked in front. It was a Lexus or a Mercedes or a BMW or something like that. As they got closer, they saw Bethany banging on the front door. She yelled something toward the house, got into her car and pulled away quickly. Mavis honked the horn and waved and Bethany waved back. Bethany glared at Paul. She looked really pissed. Then, she started talking on her cell phone. Typical, Paul thought, what a bitch. Must’ve known his wife had just been killed and couldn’t even pretend to look sad for him.

Paul’s niece Miranda was in the house. Bethany, her mother, must’ve come over to see her or something. Weird. Miranda had a room in the house but hadn’t used it much since she was usually at her boyfriend’s. Unlike Bethany, who’d always treated her daughter like shit, Mavis loved Miranda and did anything she asked. The girl was nineteen years old, but most of the time still acted like a child. Mavis had spent a fortune on her the last two years or so: rehab, clothes, rent, bail bondsmen, cash.

Mavis ran into Miranda’s arms as soon as she walked in the door.

“I know, Grandma,” Miranda said as she patted Mavis on the back. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Hey, what about me?” Paul said. He grinned, or at least tried to grin. He loved Miranda. She was a stupid dumbass, but he loved her.

“Oh, Uncle Paul.” She approached him with wet eyes and hugged him tight. “I’m so sorry. This is so awful. I mean, are you, like,
kidding
me right now?”

“No, not kidding.” Paul said.

She pulled back and looked at him. “Wow, Grandma said you’re the number one suspect or something. Like you would ever, like,
kill
Tina. That shit is rid
ic
.”

“I was a suspect, at first. Somehow, I just got downgraded to ‘person of interest’ according to the detective guy. Such an asshole. Dude even smacked me around a little.”

“No shit? Fuckin’ po-po, right?”

“Right. Hey, what was your mom doing here a minute ago?”

“What?”

“Your mom, she was just banging on the door and yelling. Just now.”

“Weird. Didn’t hear her.”

Miranda was a great student in elementary and junior high. Her IQ was in the superior range and she was always in the gifted programs and classes. Back then, her mother never shut up about her achievements. Then, at some point in high school, she got into drugs and boys and sex. Her grades got worse and worse. She flunked out and still hadn’t taken the GED. Didn’t do much of anything except get high and fuck her boyfriend.

When she was younger, she was kind of cute. But now, what a mess. Paul knew she and that crazy Logan thought she was some kind of superstar because they posted photos of her on Facebook constantly (the albums were entitled Modeling Portfolio 1, Modeling Portfolio 2, etc.). But the sad truth was she was ugly as hell. She was tiny and thin, with the body of a little boy, and awful tattoos covered most of her exposed skin. Her head was shaved on the sides and the hair that grew out of the top of her head was different lengths and colors: pink, orange, purple. She had horrible pale skin, her face covered with acne scars, which she tried to cover up with thick applications of makeup. She was not good with cosmetics. For some reason, she and Logan thought she should have a completely blank expression in the photos. She looked hideous.

Paul always felt especially close to Miranda. He loved the kid, but she was just getting weirder and weirder. He didn’t have a good feeling about what she was up to and how she was going to end up.

Mavis sat down in her chair and loaded her bong.

“Would you like a drink, Grandma,” Miranda said. “Beer? Vodka?”

“Just give me a vodka in one of the big glasses with lots of ice, okay honey?”

“Could me and Logan have a beer?”

“Sure sweetheart.”

Shit. That meant Miranda’s drug-addict boyfriend was somewhere in the house. That was some scary human. Paul didn’t like it when he couldn’t see Logan. He didn’t own very many valuable things but wanted to keep what he had. The guy had about nine personalities and all of them were thieves.

He went back into the hallway to look for him just as Logan, with his hair inexplicably completely shaven, was coming out of the bathroom.

“Hey, Uncle Paul,” he said. He held out his arms. Kid always wanted to hug, except for those times he was threatening to kick Paul’s ass if he had inadvertently hurt his feelings. About a year earlier, Paul’d returned one of Logan’s friendly hellos with just a nod that the kid didn’t catch and he got so pissed he slammed Paul against the wall and said, “You ignore me again you sonofabitch, I’ll cut your tongue out.” After Paul apologized with all his might and Logan let go, he noticed Logan had a nasty, razor-sharp knife in his left hand the entire time. Later, he looked the weapon up on the internet and it was called a Karambit. Scary.

“Sorry for your loss,” Logan said. He held tight and stroked Paul’s back. “But fuck that asshole Mark Pisko.”

Logan was at least six foot six. He was lean, but had long arms with huge biceps and wide, firm deltoids. Big, body-builder chest too. As usual in the hot Modesto summers, he was shirtless and his body slick with sweat. Before he’d shaved his head, he had a thick thatch of black hair. He still had his heavy, black, close-cropped beard that matched his black eyes. There was a dime-shaped patch on his right cheek where no beard grew. His eyebrows were thick, and black as well, and were only a couple of inches below his incredibly low front hairline. Before shaving his scalp, he’d always reminded Paul of a werewolf. Now, he looked like a contemporary Genghis Khan.

He was born in Sarajevo, when it was still a part of the former Yugoslavia. He and his twin brother Dagmar were the rejected offspring of a Bosnian teenager who was the constant victim of rape by Serbian soldiers during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. At six, the boys were adopted by Sharon and Bobby Swift, who’d been moved by a TV news report on the plight of the thousands of war orphans. Dagmar was in Corcoran State Prison for life plus ten years (without parole) for the rape and drowning of the Swift’s eight-year-old biological daughter, Molly. He was found in their backyard hot tub with Molly’s corpse floating next to him. Had his iPod headphones on and was smoking a joint.

Logan held the hug for a very long time. Paul knew better than to try to stop it before he was ready. When Logan and Dagmar first got to Modesto and the Swift’s home, they could barely speak even their native language, and they’d never been to school. They’d never even been outside of the orphanage room they’d shared since just after birth with a hundred other pathetic children. Both boys lashed out at everyone around them with a violence so consistent and cruel that they even frightened the administrators and teachers at their local elementary school. Diagnosed with ‘attachment disorder’ at twelve, the Swifts immersed both boys in a controversial therapy that included requiring them to stay within one foot of their new mother for days at a time; to sit in the laps of each parent maintaining constant eye contact while being spoon fed gobs of ice cream; and, to refrain from ever asking either parent for anything, until they learned that all their needs were being met. This process was designed to create the parent/child bond that Dagmar and Logan had not gotten in Bosnia.

The results were mixed. Both boys calmed down enough to attend and participate in school and church relatively successfully, and they became easier to manage. But Dagmar acted out his rage in sexually violent ways and became a serial rapist the next three years—something that until the murder of young Molly he kept a secret by threatening his victims. Logan put on a pretty good act of being a nice, even sweet, young man, even though over the past several years he kept returning off and on to the violence of his youth, while also honing his skills as a burglar. Plus, he was addicted to heroin. Completely devoted to Miranda, he obeyed her without question. Paul felt sorry for anyone who Logan rightly or wrongly thought had insulted or mistreated his niece.

“Tina was a sweet lady,” Logan said, letting go of Paul finally. “But she never should have left you. That pissed me off.”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “Me too. But I’d pretty much gotten over it.”

Paul didn’t say anything else. Just looked into Logan’s damp eyes until the kid walked away to join Miranda.

He found his phone still connected to its charger. It was on the old cardboard box his radio/cd player had come in that he used as a bedside table. He checked: no messages; no calls. Not even from his kids. That was good.

He took a shower. Then put on some shorts and a polo shirt and went back into the living room.

Logan was gone. He saw Miranda and Mavis out back on the deck, smoking pot, drinking and talking. A common sight.

He went to the kitchen, got a box of Frosted Flakes (pleased to see that it was unopened—people were always stealing his cereal), a gallon of milk, a plastic Tupperware container the size of a mixing bowl, and a large spoon. Sat in front of the TV in his usual chair and placed everything on the coffee table. Checked the recordings in the DVR queue and after much thought, picked the oldest unwatched episode of
Storage Wars
. He ate bowl after bowl of cereal, careful to keep adding cereal and milk with practiced timing to make sure he never had to take a bite of a gross, soggy Frosted Flakes. He couldn’t eat them unless they were still crispy.

He loved Jarrod and Brandy (she had such great legs and nice tits) and Barry Weiss (“the Collecter”). He couldn’t stand Dave Hester (“the Mogul”) or Darrel Sheets (“the Gambler”). He thought the auctioneer’s blond assistant was cloyingly annoying (the one who always said “Don’t forget to pay the lady” for some inane reason), but he liked to look at the cleavage she always showed.

As usual, he didn’t stop eating until he felt so full he was ashamed of himself. This is why he weighed 245 rather than his healthy weight (according to his doctor) of 180. He was glad to see that Brandy and Jarrod made the highest profit from a unit Brandy was convinced had cost too much.

He felt so out of it. Groggy, confused, still anxious from the DM. He was seeing strange things out of the corner of his eye: lizards and dragons, and rivers of vomit and shit. He was also seeing Detective Fagan, hovering over him with the chair held high above his head, or, just his fist. Couldn’t believe Tina was dead and that someone would do such a thing. He was glad Mark Pisko was dead. He hated that guy.

He wondered if he was supposed to do something. His wife was dead. They didn’t have any kids together but she had two of her own. Paul’s kids, up until lately, had thought of her as some kind of mother figure, he guessed. But he didn’t want to call them. He also didn’t want to deal with Tina’s family in trying to figure out arrangements because they were pretty sick of him, and for all he knew they could already be thinking he’d killed her. He’d hoped it was their problem since it was their daughter and he wasn’t with Tina now.

He just wanted it all to go away. But, since it wouldn’t, he wanted to help the police figure out who’d killed his wife.