The Deader the Better (17 page)

“The Black Bear,” Claudia said. “They redid it last year.”

“That’s right next to that little downtown park, isn’t it?”

Rebecca asked. Claudia said it was. I started up the
Springers’Blazer and followed them to town. I saw the big bruin
sign from two blocks away. It was lit up like an airfield. I blinked
my lights and stuck my arm out the window, pointing to a dark area
across the street from where we were now. Powers Saw Shop.

She turned hard; I followed. Rebecca got out with me.

“No point letting anybody see who’s in the car,” I said. She
hugged me, told me to be careful, not to run with scissors and to eat
my vegetables. She handed me her cell phone, walked around the
Explorer’s passenger side and opened the glove box, pulled
something out and returned to my side.

“Here’s the charger,” she said. “If you’re going to
leave it on all the time, then you’ll have to charge it whenever
you get the chance. It charges better if you run the battery all the
way down.” She hugged me again. For a long time.

“You know, we work pretty well together,” I said. She nodded.
“I just wish it were something else we were working on.”

I watched until the taillights disappeared and then drove the
block and a half up to the Black Bear. A TV was blaring from another
room.
The X-Files
. The sign said to ring the bell, so I did.
An old man limped around the corner on a leg so stiff it had to be
artificial. “I’m right here, dammit,” he said. He wore a
Hawaiian shirt outside of his pants in the Philippine dictator mode
and a pair of chinos. Seventy-five if he was a day. Last combed his
hair sometime in early spring. Still owned every other tooth, which
stood spaced like pickets in his retreating gums. He looked me over
and then looked over me out into the parking lot. I confirmed his
worst fears.

“Just what you were hoping for,” I said. “No luggage…one
night.”

“Cash or major credit card?”

“Which do you prefer?” I asked.

“Cash,” he said. “Forty bucks even.”

He picked up a registration card. “You want to—”

“Not unless you insist,” I said. The card disappeared.

“Goddamn government…rob you blind,” he muttered. From the
next room, sound effects rose toward a crescendo. The old man limped
over to the doorway and peered intently around the corner. He stayed
that way until it went to commercial.

“You watch
The X-Files
?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“It’s true, you know.”

“You think so?”

He waved with his hand. “Hell yeah. They had ’em for years.”

“Ah…you mean like paranormal…” I hedged.

“Aliens. They had one since ’.”

“You mean like Area Fifty-one and all that.”

“Damn right. Roswell, New Mexico, July eighth, . Bastards
covered it all up. But I seen the pictures on the Fox Network.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. I’d seen them, too, and at first thought
I was on the Comedy Channel.

“They’re watchin’ us right now,” he said.

“We better look busy, then.”

“Spend two weeks every year down in Roswell, working at the
museum and research center. Been doin’ it for eighteen years.” He
gave me a sly wink. “Earnin’ my points for when they come back.”

“Smart,” I said, tapping my temple.

“Damn right.”

We spent a full five minutes commiserating on the evils of big
government, the failure of the welfare state and the brilliance of
Rush Limbaugh. I kept a straight face. In the next room, a short
electronic fanfare announced that
The X-Files
was back from
commercial. He clapped me on the shoulder and slid a key across the
counter.

“Room nine,” he said. “It’s the best one we got.”

When I turned for the door, he said, “I’m up early. I make
coffee.”

Nine was at the east end. I grabbed a couple of Pepsis from one
machine and two packs of cheese and crackers from another.
Standard-issue roadside motel. Decent-sized room. Itsy-bitsy
bathroom. I pulled the cord and the drapes slid back to reveal what
appeared to be half a dozen RV hookups scattered among the trees
behind the building. I turned on the tube and made a lap of the dial.
Sure enough, Channel Fourteen was SFTV, your ticket to scenic Stevens
Falls. Got bad brakes…see Junior at Martin’s Muffler and Brake.
Looking for that piece of retirement property, Harv Leonard will fix
you right up. I switched to ESPN, then sat down on the bed, dialed
eight for an outside line and called my attorney at home. The maid
answered.

“Marie, it’s Leo Waterman.”

Marie was a substantial Norwegian grandmother of eight and the
true power behind the throne. “You want the mister, I better hurry,
he’s on his way out.”

“Please,” I said. The phone banged in my ear. It was a couple
of minutes before Jed came on the phone. “Leo, you just caught me.
I was—”

I interrupted him. “I need five minutes,” I said. He read my
tone of voice. “Go,” he said. I ran the whole scene down for him.
He interrupted me once to tell me that, quotation marks, in the long
run, evictions never hold up in court. In Jed’s parlance, this
meant that the cost of winning the case would, however, approximate
the national debt of Bosnia.

“What can I do for you?” he asked when I’d finished.

“I want to start fighting the eviction.”

“You want my best advice, find a local attorney. Those rural
counties don’t like it when city sharpies show up in their
courtrooms. I once went two weeks without having an objection
sustained. If you want, I’ll make some calls. See if I can’t find
you a good man. Somebody who’s familiar with the judges.”

“See what you can find out,” I said.

Then, somewhere in the extinct crater of my mind, a smoldering
ember suddenly flared. I’d have told him to forget about it, that
I’d had a better idea, but by that time he was gone.

PENINSULA COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE WAYNE Bigelow frowned as he
laced his fingers across his ample middle and leaned back in his
chair. He had a round pink face and a serious set of jowls. “I am
not
being difficult, Constance. You simply must realize the
gravity of what it is that this young man is asking me to do. He’s
asking me to overrule a decision by a colleague.” He pointed to his
right. “The man who occupies the chambers at the other end of this
very hall. A man with whom I’ve played golf every Thursday for the
past eleven years.”

“Frank always said he cheated on his score,” Constance Hart
said.

When the judge chuckled, he shook all over like Jell-O.

“Let us say that Milton often renders somewhat liberal
interpretations of the rules of golf,” the judge corrected. “A
habit much in keeping with his general judicial proclivities.”

“Do you necessarily have to reverse the decision?” I said.

“What would you suggest?” he asked affably.

“Just delay the eviction?”

“The insult to my esteemed colleague would be the same in either
instance.”

Constance Hart chided him like a schoolboy. “Wayne, if you can’t
or won’t do it, just say so,” she said. “But for gosh sake,
let’s skip the song and dance.”

The judge pursed his lips and then sat forward with a twinkle in
his eye. “Constance…your choice of words reminds me…” He
looked over at me. “I hope you’ll forgive me, Mr. Waterman, if I
conduct a bit of private business. It’s a rare day indeed when Mrs.
Hart graces my chambers.”

“By all means,” I said.

He turned his attention her way. “As to the aforementioned
matter of song and dance…” He began to redden. Her eyes narrowed.
“Yes,” she said.

The judge began to sweat. “The country club is having its…the,
ah…annual New Year’s Gala,” he said. He spread his hands. “As
a board member…it is somewhat de rigueur that I attend. I was
wondering if you…perhaps would do me the honor of…”

She bailed him out. “Why, Wayne,” she said. “Are you asking
me for a date?”

He sat forward quickly, harrumphed twice and said, “Yes, I
believe I am.” He was the color of a beet, working his way toward a
concord grape.

She shot me a look I didn’t care to interpret. Wayne slumped
slightly.

“Under no circumstances will I occupy a table with that
Macdonald woman,” she said finally. She looked my way.

“You have never heard such prattling.”

The judge perked up like a terrier. “She shall be banished to
the farthest reaches of the building,” he assured her.

“Well, in that case…it would be my pleasure, Wayne,” she
said.

He sputtered a bit, but for the most part managed to look like he
knew all along she was going to say yes. They agreed he’d call
later in the week to work out the specifics. He got to his feet and
began to pace. His color was down to a good sunburn. “Legally,
they’re within their rights,” he said. “I looked up the case
and the citation when Connie called me this morning. The action
conforms to the letter, if not the spirit of the law. That particular
statute was intended to allow municipalities to recover property from
homestead ers who found the rigors of Northwest life too taxing and
deserted their claims.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“You do understand, don’t you, that any competent law firm,
given, say, a year and a half and several hundred thousand dollars,
could undoubtedly overturn this or any other eviction order?”

“The widow doesn’t have either,” I said. He stroked his
chin. “Yes…I gathered that from your tale.”

I’d laid the whole thing out for him in detail. Everything I
knew. How, at this point, accident, suicide or murder all seemed
about equally likely.

He rubbed his hands together. “Well…in that case”—he gave
Constance an impish grin—“we fight fire with fire. One old law
deserves another.”

He crossed to a bleached oak table on the far side of the room,
picked up a lawbook and opened it to the page indicated by a red
leather bookmark. He read. “Washington statute number
twenty-seven-forty-three, dated June nineteen and seventeen,
otherwise known as the Widows and Orphans Act of .” He snapped the
book shut. “Shorn of its arcane legal trappings, the act says that
widows and orphans shall be given special consideration when it comes
to such things as delinquent taxes or even legitimate suits from
third-party creditors.”

“Sounds awfully sensible, for the law,” I said. The judge
agreed. “That’s because it’s bad law. One of the
spur-of-the-moment Band-Aid statutes that, in all probability, should
have been dealt with at some level other than the law. The intent was
to protect widows of the First World War. As I understand it, there
was a rash of carpetbaggers buying up paper, preying upon the
unfortunate survivors to the extent that some oaf felt a statute
should be enacted.”

He crossed to his desk and sat. “I’m going to ask the state
Supreme Court to rule on the obvious conflict between the Homestead
Act and the Widows and Orphans Act of . In the meantime, I am going
to issue a restraining order forbidding further action against the
property until such time as our state’s highest court can see fit
to rule on the matter.”

He pushed a button on his desk. “The widow or her authorized
agent must, of course, immediately pay the taxes.”

“I have her power of attorney,” I said.

He held out his hand. I passed it over. A light knock and then the
door opened. Young guy, under thirty, with bad skin and wiry black
hair. The judge introduced him as his clerk, Robert Downs. They
huddled at the judge’s desk; Robert took notes on a small
spiral-bound pad. Constance Hart was leafing through an old
Arizona
Highways
. As Robert started for the door, the judge got to his
feet.

“I certainly hope I can persuade you two to join me for lunch.
Robert will have your paperwork ready by the time we’ve finished.”

“That would be lovely,” she said.

I guess judges are like baseball umpires; they’re always right.
An hour and a half later I stood in the courthouse parking lot with
Constance Hart. I had in my possession a restraining order forbidding
any and all legal action on the property. A Peninsula County
authorization to pay delinquent taxes, which demanded the signature
of the city clerk herself, and a county document declaring that I was
the registered agent for one Claudia Teresa Springer. Six copies of
everything. All of it on file with the county.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said to Constance.

“No need,” she replied. “You made Wayne’s day.”

“His year,” I corrected. We shared a strained laugh. When I’d
called her early this morning and told her I needed her help, she
hadn’t hesitated, but had merely asked for my number and said that
she’d call me back. I hadn’t mentioned Misty. I figured if she
had something she wanted to share with me, she would.

When she pushed the button on her electronic key ring and popped
the Caddy’s door locks, I thought the subject was dead. I opened
the door for her. Thanked her again. She started to slide into the
seat but stopped, regained her balance and met my eyes with her
predator gaze. “I’m on my way to see Misty,” she said.

“How’s she doing?”

She searched the clouds for a moment. “A little better, I
think,” she said finally. “I…she’s living in a residential
center in Edmonds. She has full-time counseling there…young people
her own age…some of whom have had similar…”

She let it ride. She put her hand on my arm. “When last we met,
Mr. Waterman, I’m afraid our parting was somewhat less than
pleasant.” I assured her it came with the territory, but she wasn’t
through. “You tried to tell me…but I wasn’t willing to listen.
All the way along the line, you tried to tell me.” Her grip was
powerful on my arm. The diamond as big as the Ritz was gone. “She
needed so much more than I could give her,” she said.

“You made a wise choice,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
“The situation she’s in now is probably her best chance.”