Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery (8 page)

Janita peered over my shoulder, focusing maybe on the yard through the blinds and maybe nothing at all. There was always the woods. They loomed over everything now, literally and metaphorically, and I was continuously thinking of them. I suspect that Janita Laveau thought of them now quite a bit herself.

I knew how frantic the mind becomes when somebody dies, how it scrambles through mental archives, pulling and storing the most important ones for later and immediately dumping those without any real meaning. There wasn't a memory of my mother's life that I hadn't compromised. Time and drink and just life in general had ravaged the old file system, made my mother into a representation of the real thing instead of the real thing itself.

"The way he died," she said, "that was no accident."

"No, it wasn't. His life was taken from him." Offering her solace was all I could do. Parroting her words back to her was more helpful to the situation than risking upsetting her.

But she saw through it. She hadn't come here for an easy conversation.

"That's not what I mean. Of
course
he had no control over that. What is obvious is that somebody had it out for him, and they took it out on him. What I'd like to find out - what I
must
find out - is what in the world somebody would want in doing that to him."

"I understand that," I said.

"It'd be different if it was some kind of accident, if he got sick or fell off a roof or tried to break up a robbery. Even if he took his own life, it would be
different
from the way it happened. Better or worse, I don't know. I keep thinking about that, would that change my opinion on how it ended up, would I be more at peace, but I can't. It's just one of those things that your mind works up to keep you from going slap damn crazy."

This time, I held her gaze firmly. "Won't change a thing, I can promise."

"But it
was
no accident. And it wasn't no coincidence that you found him, either. You realize what that would mean, if it was just a coincidence?" I shook my head, but she kept on talking. "It'd mean the universe was random, that nothing means anything, and I don't want to live in a world like that. I'm a believer in fate."

"Uh-huh," I said.

"What I'm getting at is, maybe you were pulled into my orbit for a reason, like a planet from some other place in the solar system. I don't
like
you much, but if you was meant to help me and you get carted off to jail, then you can't help me find my son's killer, now can you?"

"What if that was fate, too?" I asked.

She stared at me, reaching one hand up and smoothing down loose strands of hair. "I can't take my chances on that idea."

"I can't in good conscience take this on if you haven't contemplated all the possibilities."

"Not for nothing, Mr. McKane, but what do you think I've been
contemplating
since the accident, since my son disappeared and didn't come home? Do you think I am taking this lightly?"

"It's something I had to say."

She rolled her eyes. "You are one stubborn-ass man."

We sat in silence. I picked my cell phone off the table and fidgeted with it, flicking it open and closing it and twirling it absentmindedly. Nervous habit.

Finally, Janita said, "I hope you're not expecting I pay you."

I laughed, and it sounded more like a bark than human emotion. "I ain't exactly rolling in the dough, Mrs. Laveau," I said.

"Neither am I," Janita said patiently. "And I won't be any richer two days or two weeks or two months from now, when you call in the dogs."

"Call in the dogs. Huh."

"And you won't be any richer, either, Rolson McKane, because you are going to do this for free."

"Wait a second," I said. "You come in here, asking me to help you-"

"Uh-unh. I am not
asking
you to help me. I am
telling
you,
requiring
you, to help me."

"Really?" I wasn’t actually angry, but I wanted to see where this conversation was headed, and also to push a little bit to see if she would let anything out during this conversation that I could hang onto for a while.

"I need your help, no doubt about that. But I can’t ask for it."

"And I get what in return for this?"

She leaned back. "You get your life back. Maybe. Maybe this fate thing is true, and you’ll get some, I don’t know, spiritual reward. And you should be hoping for that most of all. Piece of mind, or something close to it."

"I don’t mean to squabble, Mrs. Laveau, but-"

"Something's broken in you, son, and I believe you know that. You're off-balance. Maybe not mentally, maybe not even that much. But there is something wrong with you, and this may fix it."

Her eyes returned to the window over my shoulder. She continued, "I don’t have any faith in the rednecks they got up there at the police station. They don’t care a bit for my boy, especially that grizzly bear-lookin’ one.”

“Bullen.”

“Mmm-hmm. Some of them talk about you like they’d like to see you end up the same way.”

"They resent me marrying Vanessa, Chief's daughter. Thought I was kissing ass somehow. We dated a long time before I thought I wanted to be a cop. But you know how rumors are: doesn't matter when or where they start."

She sighed. "I just don’t trust them to do what’s best for me, for my baby’s memory. There’s something to it.”

“I can believe that,” I said.

There was another long pause, and she said, “I’ve been having bad dreams, McKane. Unsettling dreams. How about you? How are you sleeping these days?”

“Fine,” I squeaked.

“Coroner tells me my son's been dead for five days. Five days ago, I dreamed about white horses grazing in a field. I was always told dreaming about white horses means somebody close to you was going to die. I knew even in that dream who it was supposed to be for. And it wasn't a
dream
dream, the way most dreams are.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Walking through the field, I saw somebody standing off with the horses, petting them, keeping them company. When it came time for the person to turn around, show me her face, she did, but I woke up."

"Who was it?"

"Me, Rolson McKane. Me in the flesh. Well, maybe, future me. Wearing the very clothes I am going to be wearing to my son's funeral."

"Wow," I said. It was all I could manage. My mouth had gone dry, and the words got lodged in my throat. I coughed and said, "That's a vivid dream."

"It was and it wasn't. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Now, the clothes I was going to wear, I haven't put them on in years, haven't even really thought about them since buying them, but I know for a fact I am going to press them and wear them for the funeral."

"So your dream helped you decide what to wear?"

"I don't know. That's why dreams do matter. You understand? I'll never know whether I chose to wear those clothes, or if I was bound to wear them anyway, if the whole thing was out of my hands. All because of a dream."

I nodded. "I've been thinking about dreams lately myself."

She smiled knowingly. "Dreams are powerful things."

"But they aren't reality, Mrs. Laveau." I sounded like I was trying to convince myself.

The woman shook her head, disappointed in me. "Just because you're not awake doesn't mean it isn't real."

"I don't know, Janita. I’ve gotta think about this."

"What's there to think about?" She glanced at the empty liquor bottles. "What else is burning up your schedule? You need to look for a probation officer? There a highway needs garbage picked up?"

"I'm trying to clear everything out. I'm no longer a cop. This is my opportunity to have a clean break from the force."

"Well, you are just about there. After you help me, you can have that clean break. You can pack up and get the hell out of this town and never see me again. But for the time being, you need to be a cop again."

"Seems to me I wasn't ever meant to be a police officer in the first place."

"What you were meant to be isn't up to you. Haven't you listened to a word I've said?"

"Cops don't take up personal causes. I'd be a vigilante, an unlicensed PI. Working for free, no less."

She got to her feet and shrugged. “And some things are worth more than money,” she said. “Think about it. But I think the choice has already been made for you.”

Fifth Chapter

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning my filthy house, thinking about the ways I’ve failed at being a good man. I’ve always tried, but I think everybody tries, and I can’t always see the line well enough to stay on it.

But cleaning helped me think. Beyond feeling embarrassed at Janita Laveau seeing my house, with bottles and cans propped like family heirlooms everywhere, I was melancholy in a way that sitting still was only going to make worse. I broomed down spiderwebs in the corners of rooms, and because I couldn’t remember what my bedroom floor looked like, I did two loads of laundry.

But mostly I thought. Why did she need my help? Why did she
need
my help?
My
help? She was a strong woman, and who was I? I could barely take care of myself, and I was no one’s savior. In fact, I had ruined more lives than I had enhanced, and my armor, it should be known, has never been shiny.

What it made me think was, chances were, I’d end up being the fool who dragged the whole thing over the side of the cliff as I went down. Somebody else would have to save me to then save everything else.

I even squirted some WD-40 on the window latches in the kitchen and the living room. Some windows had no screens and I usually don't let them up except for when the mosquito and gnat populations are down. If good and greased up, most of the windows opened at least three-quarters of the way.

I saved the bedroom windows for later. They were nearly impossible to open anyway, and it took extra work to loosen them up. The locking latch on each caused major problems. The bedroom ones had been painted over, and when I bought the house I managed to get all the paint off, but underneath, the latches had rusted. I was too lazy to replace them, so I just let them be.

Afterward, I showered and dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans and hopped in the truck. The sun was incapable of killing off the chill, but it was a beautiful day, and the ride revealed a wide expanse of finely-manicured farmland. Once you turned off the road which ran by my house, the stands of trees sat back from the road like feral dogs, sparse and ragged-looking. In other places, expansive stretches of cotton blanketed the land, the dirty white sea stretching out until it was overtaken by trees.

The Brickmeyer house, too, was a sight to behold. I pulled into a driveway a half-mile long and coasted between rows of recently planted pecan trees, all while admiring the building’s sheer immensity. It was a two-story neocolonial set off by a wide-open field. Leland had bought the land for pennies on the dollar with his daddy's money, and the estate was now in the awkward teenage years. Once the sod took root and the trees grew up around the house, it would become an even more impressive view.

For years - decades - the Brickmeyers had lived in a withered, vine-covered mansion, but that had since become a little museum of no importance, even in the town’s city limits. Day travelers with a distorted sense of history visited, but otherwise it was a forgotten legend of a house. Leland wanted to make his own shadow, not live in the darkness of his father’s.

A Hispanic woman in a modern-day maid's outfit opened the door when I knocked. "Leland here?" I asked. She made no reply, stared at me as if she didn't know who I was asking for. "Guy who owns the house? No?"

I saw her start to take a step back, and then she stopped. She was debating whether or not Leland would abide having me in his house. She shook her head, and just when I thought she was going to slam the door, a voice in the background said, "I got it, Mahaila.”

I had met Leland Brickmeyer on a few unnotable occasions as an officer, but the light of recognition wavered in his eyes until we had shaken hands. "Rolson, right," he said, his voice managing certitude and inquiry simultaneously. His handshake was firm, and he maintained level eye contact, even as he asked, "What can I do you for?"

Leland, rather than asking me in, stepped out onto the top step of the front portico and closed the door behind him. He was a tall man, late forties, clean-shaven and crisply dressed. He was mostly svelte, though a slight paunch pushed against his aqua-colored Oxford shirt. He didn't smell like money but his cologne certainly did.

I took an appreciative glance of the house. "This is what my Aunt Birdie would have called rare air," I said.

"That’s a saying I ain't ever heard." He was southern but disconnected, and it showed in the way he carried himself. Even the people who had known him for decades couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he had snuck down here from some northern state.

"Probably not. Birdie had quite a few. Rare air's just a phrase for something most folks don't get to see up close. Like climbing a mountain, I suppose. The view's something else."

"Ah," Leland said, sort of feigning interest. He was a busy man.

I decided not to waste his time with trivialities. "The man who was found on your land. I'm the one found him. He looked awful. Neck broke, grisled and stinking like old hamburger meat." I watched him, watched his gestures, his facial expressions.

His lips curled back, revealing teeth straightened by God or money. You could picture him in front of a podium, flashbulbs erupting around him. "I heard about that. It's a shame, huh, and out there in that old juke joint, no less.
Real
shame, I tell you what."

"Looked like he'd been tortured something awful, a real hate crime-type situation. You seem like the kind of man who could get that situation solved in a hurry."

Leland unfolded his arms and placed them on his hips, looking away from me for the first time. The sun had begun to turn the sky into a fluorescent pink splatter, and sunset wouldn’t come officially for another hour.

A hint of impatience crept into his posture, yet the smile remained. "Let's take a stroll, shall we? Awful close here on the steps, isn't it?"

The steps seemed fine to me, but I said, "Yeah, sure."

He led me around the side of the house to a gated wooden fence, eight or so feet high and painted a subtle shade of brown. Through that gate a small enclosure featured a hole being covered in concrete. "My whole life, I wanted an in-ground pool. My father was too damned cheap for one."

I wandered over to it and peered inside. "Looks deep," I said.

"Thirteen feet down by where the diving board will be. I am going all out for this thing." He paused. "I'm putting a hold on finishing it until this whole Laveau business is squared away."

"Why is that?"

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks and said, "Well, it's distracting, and I can't work distracted. It’s like trying to have a conversation with somebody who’s got something stuck in their teeth. I can’t do that. I want to oversee the mixing of every inch of concrete."

"Seems like a pain in the ass."

His face changed under the glow of the fading light, the expression turning toward some manner of self-interest. "It's interesting, especially laying the concrete. The concrete seals the pool. It is the foundation, keeps the water and earth separate. Something bout
it
speaks to me."

"Otherwise you've got a pond."

"Otherwise, I've got a giant, slopping mess. And it's the concrete that does it, something that transforms completely. Starts soupy and wet and ends up able to withstand hundreds of pounds of water pressure."

"Listen, I-"

"You know how many people died building the Hoover Dam? A hundred. You know how many were buried in the concrete?"

"No." Frankly, I didn’t fucking care.

"Not a single one. The old rumors aren't true, not one of them. But it’s still interesting to think about, men encased in concrete. Or dumped into the harbor wearing concrete shoes. Hell, I reckon I’ve got about enough concrete in my shed to bury ten men down in that hole I dug."

He smiled and winked. It was a gesture meant to seem completely harmless, but I got what he was saying, even if he didn’t mean exactly what he was implying.

He continued: "You’re not out here for official business, Mr. McKane, and though I don’t know you very well, I'd have to be living in a cave to be unaware of your recent troubles."

"That you would," I replied.

"But if you think coming around here, sniffing at my ass, is going to get you back on the force - or worse, some kind of financial reward - then you're sadly mistaken."

Brickmeyer's hair was a thick black mat, a genetic wonder, and he used this opportunity to smooth it down. It was almost subconscious for him, a simple yet distinct mannerism.

I tried to reel it in a bit. I'd taken it as far as I cared to this afternoon. I said, "No need to skip that far ahead into the conversation. I promised someone I'd take a minute to speak with you, maybe poke my head around and see if I could make some progress."

He rolled his eyes.

I said, "You know who it was that was found out there, on your land?"

He sighed. Here was his dealing-with-the-political-opposition tone. "Emmitt Laveau. Twenty-six years old. African-American. Mere facts, that's all I got. Listen, just because some black kid got himself killed on my land-"

"I'm not accusing you of anything. That kid’s mother has asked me to help out. Coming out here, I was undecided. Didn't know if I was up to playing Sam Spade for that poor woman."

"Uh-huh."

"Looking at you know, way you're acting, I'm convinced I need to help her. I feel I owe her something, since I almost caused her son to bury her, instead of the other way around. I'm sure you don't like me coming out here, but I figured the least I could do is ask some questions on her behalf."

"That's illegal, being as you're no longer a police officer.”

“I’m not investigating. I’m just talking to you, man to man.”

“Besides,” he said, ignoring me, “though Mrs. Laveau is a fine citizen, has no one entertained the idea that, conceivably, the son set himself up for a fall?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Looks pretty awful, doesn't it? Sure it does. S'posed to. What if it was, I don't know, a drug deal gone bad?"

"Seems like a jump to make."

"No, no. Not saying anything hard and fast at all. Not whatsoever. Don't know the first thing about him. I am elaborating on the
possibilities
of what
could have happened
. Nobody wants the murderer found more than I do, but vigilantism is not the way to go. You were a police officer. Don't you have any trust in their abilities?"

"Ability has nothing to do with it. All it takes is a single dishonest officer, even in a small town, for a case to go unsolved."

"If you're wrong, you could make a complete fool of yourself."

I shrugged. "I don't really give a shit."

We stood there for a moment. I glanced at him and saw the muscles in his jaw working up and down. "Let's head back up front," he said, moving stiffly back toward the gate door.

When we got around to our starting place, he said, "Expect to be contacted about a restraining order, Mr. McKane. And if you want to play detective, you best go looking for the people who did this, the people who
actually
did this. Sobering up might help, as well."

"If you have nothing to hide-"

"I don't
have
to have anything to hide in order to want my privacy. I'm an elected official. If I give off the impression of being defensive here, it's only because it can seriously hurt my career. I’ve got aspirations beyond this town. You understand that?"

I nodded.

"See? Right, I knew you'd get that. These things tend to have a, well, a, um, snowball effect. One person gets it into his head that there's something fishy about a dead body being found on his land, pretty soon the whole town's going to whispering about me having somebody offed behind my back."

"I understand that," I said.

"Me even having to deny such a rumor is beneath my contempt. I don't want to do it. Shouldn't have to do it. The longer I entertain the people digging around for dirt, the more absurd and far-fetched the claims become. It's just the last thing I need right now."

"I get that. But if I find anything that places you in a bad light, I won't hesitate to come back out here and have this conversation again."

He stared at me with a hard, lawyerly air, trying with some difficulty to come up with a retort. When it became obvious he wouldn't, he stepped back inside and said, "Have a good one, Mr. McKane."

“Being cold to a member of your constituency is a rookie mistake,” I said. “If you want to move up higher on the political food chain, you need to figure out how to kiss everybody’s ass.”

He gave me one final nod and disappeared inside. I stood on the portico for another few minutes, surveying the expanse of land stretching out around me. Through a stand of trees, the sky looked electric, as if backlit by neon lights. The first truly clear day we'd had in a week. The wind had died and it was humid outside and the air smelled of burnt dust, but at least the rain was gone.