Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) (21 page)

At this moment, two Sherriff's Deputies reveal themselves, young men in their thirties, ex-Marines. Hard knows them both, nods hello as he and Vonda Jean walk past them and on to their scrubby lawn. The Deputies greet them neutrally. There won't be any fraternization this morning.

The Marvins are standing on the street looking toward their house. The sun is still low in the sky but it's not as hot as it was yesterday. Hard sees a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead, searching for prey. He can feel Vonda Jean looking at him.

“You want to tell me what the hell this is about?”

 

The District Attorney's Indio office is usually empty on Saturdays but Jimmy comes in to start getting caught up. He is seated in his basement office sifting through the files when Oz Spengler appears at his desk and wants to know if he would like to get something to eat. Although Jimmy is not hungry, Oz is his new boss and he has vowed that he is going make more of an effort to get along with his superiors so he says he'd be happy to take a break.

To make conversation on the drive to the restaurant in Oz's Ford Taurus, Jimmy asks if he's got a wife and kids. When Oz answers in the affirmative, Jimmy asks if the family owns a dog. “Hairball,” Oz says. “A rescue.” A smile creases Jimmy's lips and he tells Oz about
The Book of Dogs.
Oz says his young sons would like to see it. This is encouraging to Jimmy who allows himself to think, however briefly, that they might actually connect on a human level.

Now the two men are seated across from each other at Cactus Jack's, a desert chain restaurant just down Highway 111, Oz saying “I believe in second chances, all right?” Jimmy would have preferred if Oz had not mentioned the circumstances of his arrival at the District Attorney's office but he was determined to make it to his pension without further turbulence so he let it slide.

The place is half-filled in the middle of the afternoon, families and workers getting off hotel shifts. The two of them seated in a rear booth. Jimmy chewing his jalapeno burger when Oz asks him what went wrong up in Desert Hot Springs.

“It's all in the record,” Jimmy says. Wishes Oz would just let it go.

“I read the record. I know what's in there. Prior to the incident did you and Chief Marvin have a personal beef?”

Jimmy takes another bite of the jalapeno burger, chews, swallows. Oz not one of those guys that have to fill a silence with the sound of his own chatter. Jimmy likes that. But he feels the first inkling of temper. Takes a sip of his soda. Remem­ber to breathe, one count in, two counts out.

“I don't have personal beefs with anyone. People might have them with me. If they do, I can't control it. It's their problem.”

“Chief Marvin wrote some stuff in your record, something about a dog.”

Jimmy tells Oz the story and his new boss says makes sympathetic noises. Jimmy doesn't want to continue the conversation at this point, just wants to finish his lunch, go back to the office and resume working his way through the files.

Breathe in, one, two. Breathe out, three, four. Starts to worry he looks like a balloon losing air, wonders if Oz notices.

“You freed him down in the Anza-Borrego Desert?”

Looks directly at Oz, unblinking: “That's right.”

“What about bailing out of the anger management. The report said they mandated ten sessions, you went to three.”

“I got out of it what I needed to.”

“Sure about that?”

“I seem angry to you?”

“Average for a cop.”

Jimmy had thought he had a lid on this but all the talk about Hard and the dog lit his fuse. The breathing is not getting the job done, because while he's hiding his roiling interior, it's a sandstorm in there. He drains the rest of his soda, cracks the ice cubes with his teeth.

“Can you do your job on an even keel?”

The anger again rises but Jimmy, relying on the techniques he's been practicing, observes it for a moment, watches it crash like an ocean wave against the shore and then recede. “You can put me on anything.”

“Yeah, well, this conversation's about what I'm not gonna put you on.” Jimmy looks at him quizzically. In all of his years in law enforcement, no one had ever taken him aside for the express purpose of informing him about a case to which he wasn't going to be assigned.

What Oz tells him: “They caught a double on your old stomping grounds. Male convenience store clerk and a female were killed last night. The coroner put the deaths at around 11:00
P.M.
There's a hinky detail turned up, so someone from our office has to check it out. You might want to work it, and I have to tell you, that's not gonna happen. I'm assigning Glenn Korver.” Korver had been the DA's investigator on some of Jimmy's cases. A guy with ten years at the DA's office. Thorough. By the book. Jimmy doesn't like him. Korver, in Jimmy's view, too careful about what he thinks will stand up in court.

“Is this cause Hard Marvin might have a problem with me?”

“Not exactly.”

“What's that mean?”

“They're calling him a person of interest.”

Jimmy looks at Oz as if he had suddenly begun speaking Farsi. “Harding Marvin?” The granite-like expression on his new boss's face lets Jimmy know that, ludicrous as it sounds, this is not a joke. His mind ranges back over the ten years he's known Hard. The man loves guns, loves to shoot, but a double murder where one of the victims is a clerk in a convenience store doesn't hit the right notes. And it's not only that he can't place Hard in the scene. The whole idea of Hard having anything to do with it seems crazy.

“They tossed his house this morning and he's been put on administrative leave.” Jimmy asks what else he knows and Oz tells him it looks like the female victim might have been Hard's girlfriend. This information causes a surge in Jimmy's adrenal glands that continues for the next hour. After lunch he tries to concentrate on his new files but this proves impossible. Because the more he considers the events at the convenience store and the more he thinks back over the years he's known Hard Marvin, the more he is willing to entertain the possibility that Hard might be the shooter. For starters, the man is turpentine in human form, abrasive and toxic. And as a man who wrestled with anger, Jimmy is acute when it comes to observing the problems it can cause.

 

Princess drove Odin to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in San Bernardino. They arrived in the middle of the night and it took the emergency room team three hours to treat Odin. They shot him full of painkillers then cleaned the wound, pulling out several pieces of buckshot that House Cat had been unable to remove, and told him he was lucky he hadn't lost an eye. Princess spent the time in the waiting room filling out forms and tending to Chance King. She dutifully reported that she had accidentally shot Odin while cleaning the gun and her signature was on the paperwork the hospital was required to file with the police. She didn't bother asking Odin what happened to the “hunting accident.”

“You put our real address down?” Odin incredulous.

“They ask to see my drivers license.”

Princess and Odin are standing in their kitchen. Chance King sits in front of the television in the next room watching cartoons. Odin dressed in nothing but bikini briefs. The shredded half of his face is covered with a bandage. He takes one of his agoraphobia pills and chases it with a glass of water.

“That wasn't real smart.”

“I lie like you want me to.”

“They could still send someone around to talk to us.”

“I'm sorry, Odin. I don't know what to do, you come home all shot up.”

“Was out working for us.”

“I know.”

“Come here.”

She moves toward him and he drives a fist into her face, snapping her head back and knocking her to the floor. Lying there, hand to her cheek, she can hear the high-pitched voices of the cartoon her son is watching. Odin stands over her, the visible side of his face going red.

“I risk my life for you and you're leading the cops right here.” He waits for her to respond, but she says nothing. The pure hatred she feels for him, for their life in this stain of a town, for everything in the world but her son is overwhelming. She only wants to leave the house alive.

When he determines she is not going to fight back, Odin turns away. Princess remains on the floor. She glances at the drawer that contains the kitchen knives, thinks for a moment she might get up and go for one, let Odin try and stop her. But she knows there are better options available. The survival instinct that led her to leave the Philippines, to strip when she had to, to get a job working for Fed-Ex because of the benefits, tells her to remain where she is.

There will be time.

She watches Odin take two painkillers and without saying another word to her he lumbers into the bedroom. Didn't he just dose himself half an hour ago? Another ten minutes pass before she gets up from the floor. She takes a hand mirror out of her purse and checks her reflection. There is already swelling around her left eye. Chance King enters the kitchen wearing
Sponge-Bob
pajamas and she gives him small bowl of potato chips. With no sense anything is amiss, he wanders back to the television.

Odin is lying on his back snoring when Princess enters the bedroom. The grubby plastic shades are drawn and the room is in shadow. The painkillers should keep him out for a while. She starts by looking in his drawers. Rifles his underwear, his socks, his tee shirts. Nothing. She goes into the closet and takes out the cardboard boxes on the floor. The boxes have been there since she and Odin moved into the place and she had never wondered what they held. Now she sees: Odin's baseball card collection, some military papers she quickly leafs through and determines are of no interest, and pornography. Odin mumbles something and she turns around, expecting him to get up from the bed. Relief washes over her when she realizes he is talking in his sleep. Back in the closet, she peers into two pairs of beat-up leather sneakers, a pair of military issue combat boots, and a pair of scuffed black loafers.

Chance King doesn't look away from the television when Princess ransacks the living room, searching under the cushions of the stained brown couch, even checking to see if the cheap carpet had been lifted and something hidden beneath. There is only dust.

Frustrated, she walks through the kitchen and out into the backyard. She can see the distant mountains and would like nothing more than to fly above them and away from this place, but she knows that will happen soon enough so returns to the task at hand. Odin had built a small plywood playhouse for Chance King and Princess sticks her head in there. She sees nothing inside but a plastic chair and a toy gun.

Two garbage cans stand against the side of the house. Princess opens them and looks in. People here cart their refuse to a landfill so this would be an excellent hiding place. She lifts one lid, then the next, sees nothing there but bagged trash. She moves each can, and looks beneath. Empty ground.

The only place left to search is Odin's car. The Impala is parked in the driveway and Princess glances at the house as she walks toward it, wanting to make sure Odin doesn't catch her by surprise. Placing her hand on the door handle she pulls and realizes the car is locked. She had driven it last, but Odin had asked for the keys when they returned home. They were probably in his pants pocket.

In the bedroom Odin has rolled on to his side but still appears to be asleep. Princess sees his blood-spattered jeans lying in a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. Crouching down, she thrusts her hand into the front pocket. The floor creaks as she tiptoes out of the room. She freezes, looks over at Odin. His mouth hangs open and saliva dribbles to the pillow.

Princess lets herself into the car and immediately opens the glove compartment: a pair of sunglasses, two maps, a flashlight, the registration and the insurance card. She looks under the driver's seat and the passenger seat and sees a few empty beer bottles, a Homer Simpson toy Chance King liked to play with and a broken pencil. In the backseat are more bottles and a couple of car parts.

Her last hope is the trunk. Again she glances at the house. If Odin is watching her from the window, she will say she is looking for something that belongs to their son. The sunlight illuminates a perforated tire, some old newspapers, a wrench and a fire extinguisher. She is about to lower the trunk lid when she remembers there is a compartment for the spare tire. And the spare tire wasn't in it since it is currently in use. Quickly she lifts the grease stained carpet that lines the bottom of the trunk and then the lid of the spare tire compartment.

It's empty.

Princess is overcome with a familiar sense of desolation. The sun is climbing into the sky and the day will be hot again. In a few hours Odin will awaken and she doesn't want to deal with him. Her mind goes to the knife drawer in the kitchen. Then she remembers the abandoned camper, lying in the backyard weeds. The camper is a sleeping unit that fits on the back of a pickup. Odin occasionally talks about fixing it up and taking them on camping trips, Odin, Chance King, and Princess in the mountains, fishing, swimming, being a family.

She opens the door to the camper and peers inside. The place reeks of mold. There are two bunks and a cabinet with three drawers and it doesn't appear as if anyone has been inside here in years. Her heart sinks but she knows she has to keep looking.

More nothing.

Princess walks back into the house where her son is waiting for her.

“Hungry,” he says.

The two of them are in the kitchen now. She reaches into the refrigerator and hands the boy a jar of peanut butter. Normally, she would make him a sandwich but she is feeling too discouraged. She notices the Buddha statue smiling enigmatically on the kitchen counter. On a whim, Princess lifts the Buddha and examines the bottom to see if there is a hidden cavity. She runs her fingertips along its solid wood base and up its back. There is no hidden compartment. Dejected, she returns the statue to its place on the counter and tries to decide what to do next.