Tussinland (5 page)

ELEVEN

After
Storage Wars
, Paul started to watch the previous night’s episode of
Longmire
. He loved it that the sheriff-hero was dark and depressed with some awful, bloody secret yet to be revealed. Loved it that he drove around in his rural Wyoming jurisdiction often drunk, with empty cans of Rainier beer rolling around in the bed of his pickup.

First though, he needed to catch up on the internet. He paused the show and got his laptop from his room. Checked his email. Nothing but spam. On
The Modesto Bee
site, the headline read “Modesto Man and Women Found Dead in Man’s East Modesto House” over a large picture of Tina. Under the picture: “Modesto natives Tina Dunn and Mark Pisko were found early Monday morning by Pisko’s business partner Jorge Rincon. Police said the two were killed by shotgun blasts to their chests.”

He recognized the photo of Tina. It was one of her Facebook profile pictures. She’d had it done professionally back when they were still married. A beautiful shot from the waist up of her looking directly at the camera. She wore a low-cut white lacy blouse and her brown hair was long and straight, with newly cut bangs. It was just after her double mastectomy followed by two saline breast implants. She did the shoot to show the world that she was still a beauty.

Paul clicked on the headline to read the story:

Former Downey High School and Fresno State University star defense back Mark Pisko, 43, was found dead at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in his Modesto home on 1321 Del Monte Avenue. With him was his companion, Tina Dunn, 39. According to Modesto Police Department Homicide Detective Anthony Fagan, both Pisko and Dunn were each killed by a double shotgun blast to their midsections.

The bodies were found by Jorge Rincon, Pisko’s business partner in their used car lot on Crow’s Landing Road in West Modesto.

Fagan estimated that the pair had been dead since early Monday evening. “At this point we have no clues and no real leads regarding these murders,” Fagan said.

The 48-year-old Rincon is also a former local star athlete in both football and baseball at Downey High School and at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He and Pisko opened P&R Select Vehicles in 1998.

Rincon said that both Mark Pisko and Tina Dunn were estranged from their current spouses and had recently begun a romantic relationship. He refused to talk further about the incident or the dead couple except to add, “I have a pretty good idea of who did this terrible thing, and I will do everything in my power to assist the police in bringing him to justice.”

Shit. Rincon’s quote gave Paul chills along his arms and shoulders and to the top of his scalp. So what if Fagan had lost interest in him as a suspect—he still had that thug to scare the shit out of him. This fear, blended with the DM still coursing through his veins, caused the room around him to look sinister and dark, just like the night before. Felt like Rincon was lurking in the shadows in the house or outside in the bushes, ready to pounce on him, take him off to some hideaway, torture him for days. For all he knew, Rincon could’ve done the killing, maybe because of some business dispute, and would like nothing better than to put the blame on Paul.

The article was clearly written early in the morning, probably before Fagan questioned Paul. He was certain Rincon told Fagan about his threats, though Fagan acted all vague about the guy (such a liar). He was glad his name wasn’t mentioned, but he knew that throughout the day, and maybe over the next several weeks or months,
The Bee
would find out more about the story.

He heard Miranda and Mavis talking outside. They should at least try to
act
sad. He imagined the sound of the ice cubes tinkling in Mavis’ drink.

Paul wanted a drink too. A stiff vodka would be just the thing right now. Put a warm soft light and feeling over all his dark visions and anxiety. It’d be so easy, too. Just go into the kitchen and grab one of Mavis’ many bottles of Smirnoff and take a couple of nice long swigs. Boom. Instant cure for all of his ailments.

But no. Unfortunately (or fortunately, he didn’t know for sure) for him, that’s not what would happen. In real life. What would happen was that as soon as he took the first swallow he’d be gone and free floating into a rapid river of alcohol and drunkenness leading to blackout after blackout and one bad decision after another. He’d proven this to himself time and again. He’d lied to himself just like he wanted to so many times that it had stopped working. Could no longer conjure up the ability to believe that whiskey-loving voice inside his head. He may have been a loser and a total failure the way Fagan said, but he wasn’t a complete fool. For him, alcohol was poison. End of story.

He wasn’t some perfect clean and sober AA guy. For the first three years or so he was: he’d had sponsors (went through about six before he quit trying), and bullshitted his way through all twelve steps like a good little sober gentleman. But, once he’d discovered it, he couldn’t stay away from his beloved Robitussin (though he kept promising himself he would quit), and he could never keep himself from compulsively overtaking pain pills like Oxy or Vicodin if they were prescribed by a dentist after a toothache or by a doctor for his back pain. And he wasn’t above a bump of coke if presented in a casual, natural manner, in just the right setting. No weed or speed for him, though. That shit’d
never
worked for him as advertised.

The best he could do was not drink. He still went to meetings from time to time—they were kind of fun, and there was something going on in those rooms that he couldn’t seem to stay away from even if most of the people were full of shit with all their talk of rigorous honesty and their
higher power
—while still being just as big a liar as they ever were. A lot of them were still thieves and swindlers and the sex between members in the groups, whether married or not, was rampant as hell. He went because he wanted to be reminded as often as possible of why he’d stopped drinking in the first place. Forgetting that could be fatal.

He looked back at the computer screen and clicked on the message board at the end of the article.

First comment from some young guy name Pete Scorra: “Soon as I seen this I knew it was gang-related.”

Paul thought it was drug or gang-related too. Though he really had no idea. Just some kind of Pisko fuck-up was all he really knew for sure. That was a no-brainer. No way anyone went there to kill Tina.

He clicked back to the article. Two more comments.

One from an older women bemoaning how all the BATS (Bay Area Transplants) had ruined Modesto and this crime was just another example.

The last was from Bethany’s husband Pete Fish, who usually only used his Facebook page to promote his fledgling church and the real estate sales company he owned with Bethany: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Great. What a stupid asshole.

He grabbed the remote and hit play.
Longmire
was investigating the death of a young Mennonite woman living nearby with other Mennonite kids while on Rumspringa—the time they take like the Amish to explore the bad old outside world before deciding whether to keep playing video games and listening to rap music and smoking weed, or go back home to their parents and the community. Apparently the murder victim was working as a stripper, which, of course, meant that Katee Sackoff had to go to the strip club and get all sexy by taking of her khaki sheriff shirt and dancing at the pole wearing just her white tank top. Just like any cop would do. So dumb.

The show got Paul thinking more about Pete Fish and his sister Bethany and all the religious people in Modesto. There was a local group called the Dunkard Brethren who were a lot like the Amish or the Mennonites with their rules and dress. Paul didn’t think they had Rumspringa. The women had to wear dresses and blouses that completely covered their skin, and they kept their long never-cut hair all tucked into this weird hard, square cap that tied under their chins. The men dressed normally except that once married they had to wear a beard with no moustache. While most Dunkards were (famously to local Modestans) well-off farmers like the Amish, they had no problem with using electricity and plumbing. They didn’t go around in horse-drawn carriages, but instead usually had big fancy pickups for the men and slick minivans for the wife/mothers. And the wives could wear sexy underwear because they were notorious for buying up all the lingerie at the Victoria’s Secret at the mall. There was something hot about that.

Modesto also had one or more of each of the mainstream-type churches. Google “Churches Modesto” and you’ll get 481 listings.

For years, Bethany and her husband Pete Fish attended Big Valley Grace. Pete had started his own church and taken to calling himself Reverend Fish. It sickened Paul how much being a pastor’s wife seemed to thrill his stupid sister. He’d brought with him a couple dozen other Big Valley congregants who agreed with Pete that their former church was just too liberal and too tolerant. Pete was one of those assholes who was not only against same-sex marriage (instead of hate the sin, love the sinner, he was ‘hate the sin, hate/bash/kill the sinner’), and he thought the moderate and establishment-oriented President Obama was a socialist Muslim born in Africa out to nationalize businesses and take everyone’s guns. Pete had a
lot
of guns. Miranda told him that Fish’s church had been growing too big to meet in the Fish house and was about to expand to a bigger facility. Paul couldn’t believe how any human could ever think Pete Fish had anything worthwhile to say. Dude was an evil bastard and full of shit.

All this thinking caused Paul to lose concentration on the show. No problem. He rewound back to Officer Vic writhing on the stripper poll, trying to get male patrons to identify a suspect from a photo. Hit play and tried to relax and get lost in the plot.

Mavis and Miranda came in giggling. It was time for Miranda’s AA meeting. Miranda didn’t have a driver’s license or a car, and since Logan had left in his own vehicle to do some of his unholy mischief, Mavis volunteered to drive. Miranda was ordered to go to three meetings a week for six months, following a DUI arrest. She didn’t think she was an alcoholic and if she was, she didn’t care. Mavis didn’t think Miranda had a drinking problem either, but then Mavis had no idea about all the shit Miranda was into.

Couple of minutes after they left, Paul’s phone rang. He looked and saw that it was Mavis. The show was really getting good now, so he let it go to voice mail. About ten minutes later, the phone beeped that he had a new message. With the mystery still unsolved, Paul paused the show and listened to the voicemail.

At first, all he heard was rumbling and static. He laughed. It was Mavis, once again purse-dialing. She did it all the time when she was driving.

He kept listening. Sometimes what he heard could be pretty funny.

“Grandma, what’s the name of the Detective that talked to Uncle Paul?” Miranda said.

“Fagan,” Mavis said.

“And what did he say to you?’

“Well, he mostly asked me questions about Paul. You know, about his finances, his debts, his workers’ comp claim, and what he’d said about Tina and Mark and whether I’d heard him make any threats. Stuff like that.”

“Wow. What didja say?”

“Well, I told him about Paul’s credit card debt and—”

“No shit? You told him?”

“Sure, what was I going to do? They’d find out sooner or later anyway.”

“True, I guess.”

“What else? Just that he had a lot of debt and child support and was behind in everything. And, that, yeah, sure, I’d heard him threatening Tina and Mark. I mean, when he moved out of her house and in with me that was all he talked about for weeks.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh. But I told him that after a while he stopped. He seemed still hurt, but resigned to the divorce, lately.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“Don’t be silly, it’s Paul you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I know, Grandma, but he did say he was going to, right? And, he was so pissed when she left him for Mark, wasn’t he? I know you think he was over it, but people can do some strange shit, you know what I mean? You should know that better than anyone, right Grandma?”

“But Paul said that after Detective Fagan talked to him he decided he wasn’t really a big suspect.”

“But that’s what they’re telling him now, see what I mean? Who knows what they’re really thinking. The police lie. All the time.”

“He also asked if Paul had a shotgun and I told him it just wasn’t possible. I really think Paul is afraid of guns. I can’t see him getting one or firing it. No way.”

“Grandma?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Don’t tell Uncle Paul I told you this, okay?”

“Of course. What is it sweetheart?”

“Paul doesn’t know I know, but a couple of weeks ago Logan and I were driving down Yosemite, you know out there past the Gallo Winery, there’s this gun shop?”

“Uh huh …”

“We saw Uncle Paul coming out of there with a long cardboard box. Could’ve been a shotgun, right?”