The Deader the Better (18 page)

She made a rueful face. “Does this mean that love really won’t
conquer all?”

“Better not tell Wayne,” I said. This time we shared a real
laugh.

She released my arm and dropped her purse inside the car. She had
a gleam in her eye that I hadn’t seen before. “And I don’t want
you to think you sold me into bondage or anything,” she said. “I
knew perfectly well what Biggy Bigelow was going to want in return.
Lord knows he’s been clogging up my phone lines for months.” She
looked down at the pale streak on her finger. “I had been refusing
all social invitations. I thought Misty and I would…”

“She’s where she belongs,” I said.

She took a deep breath. “Yes, she is.” I held the door as she
seated herself in the car. “I was thinking this morning, after you
called, and I’d heard Wayne panting on the phone. This is my first
date in thirty-nine years. I believe I’ll buy myself a new dress.”

I allowed how it was a girl’s right, closed the door and watched
as she drove off.

THE STEVENS FALLS CITY BUILDING SPOKE OF A MOREprosperous time,
back when nearly thirty thousand people had used the town as the hub
of their daily lives. The kind of public edifice that spawned a sense
of pride and solidarity in those whose labors had made it possible.
Designwise, it was more or less a brick mockup of Monticello,
complete with the classical portico, the columns and the dome on top.
The sign in the lobby said the city attorney’s office was down the
hall to the left. Beneath the sign, a tray of brochures.
Your City
Government
. I took one and stuffed it in my pocket.
One-twenty-four was the office at the end of the hall. Big gold
letters outlined in black. MARK TRESSMAN. Underneath, CITY ATTORNEY.

I’d started the day early. A six-thirty cup of sludge with
Monty, the guy who owned the Black Bear Motel. Monty now saw me as a
coconspirator, another citizen-soldier demanding that his government
come clean about alien lifeforms. Monty and I parted with the secret
handshake, and then I drove the Blazer down to the Chat and Chew for
a slab of ham and pile of flapjacks, which could be expected to
linger in my colon well into the next millennium. By ninethirty, I’d
shanghaied an electrical contractor by the name of Jensen and dragged
him out to the homestead, so he’d be sure to know what he needed
for parts. Then back to town and Beaver Building Supply, where I’d
bought what I figured I’d need to clean up the cabin. About the
time I got back to the homestead, Constance Hart called back to say
we had an appointment with the judge at noon, and I’d had to drop
everything and start on the two-hour drive to Port Townsend. I
checked my watch now. Three-thirty. Too late for the Kiwanas lunch.
Too early to go home for the day. I liked my chances.

He kept me waiting for twenty minutes and then came out into the
receptionist’s office rather than inviting me back into his. He was
about forty or so. Dressed Nordstrom from head to toe. The hair along
the front of his head seemed to grow in rows, like the hair on an
old-fashioned doll. Transplants, I guessed. He was trim but losing
the battle of the love handles anyway. From the way he held his
mouth, you could tell his pride and joy was the thick mustache, which
he wore waxed and curled up at the ends. “So,” he said without
introducing himself, “what is of such import as to require my
personal attention?”

I held out my hand. “Leo Waterman,” I said. He took my hand,
gave it a single perfunctory shake and then stuck his hand in his
pants pocket as if it were now diseased and would require
sterilization before being used again. I handed him a copy of the
restraining order and watched as a line of white started at the front
rank of his grafted-on hair and worked its way down his face until he
was the color of the paper he was holding. “Is this some kind of
joke?” he asked.

“I don’t see anything funny about it,” I said.

“He can’t do this,” Tressman said with a sneer. “No judge
would ever—”

“He can and he did,” I interrupted. I reached over and tapped
the last paragraph with my fingertip. “You’ll notice that I’m
required to get a signed receipt.”

I thought I saw a slight tremor in his hand as he read the order
again. Top to bottom. “Where do you come into this?”

I handed him a copy of my power of attorney. “I’m Mrs.
Springer’s duly certified agent,” I said. “If you’ll read
carefully, you’ll find I’ll be needing a receipt for that
document as well.”

He wore a gold Rolex watch and a diamond ring on his left hand. “I
hope you won’t mind if I call the county before I begin issuing
receipts?” He turned and disappeared through the door. The
receptionist was about thirty or so, with a wide expressionless face
as open and bland as a cabbage. A nameplate on her desk read June.
She pretended to shuffle papers, all the while watching me from the
corner of her eye as if someone had left a baboon in the reception
area. Tressman was gone for exactly eighteen minutes. When he came
back, his color was bad again. He huddled in the corner with June.
Right away, their mutual body language caught my eye. Something about
sex changes the manner in which adults share space. They stood a
little too close together, at times touching at the hip, and on two
occasions, as he whispered in her ear, his hand drifted to the
shoulder of her brown flowered dress. I’d have bet a finger they
were boinking one another.

I stayed in the baboon section twirling the Blazer’s ring of
keys while they worked it out. When he came over to the counter, I
set the keys down and ambled over.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” he said
calmly, “but this Widows and Orphans tripe is never going to hold
up.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “And what I’m doing here is looking
for a little equity for a grieving widow and two small children.
Which, if you don’t mind me saying, seems to be an issue that’s
lacking around here.”

“This office was perfectly within its legal rights.”

“Maybe it was. But what about the human issue? What about a
woman who just lost her husband? Who’s left with two small children
to care for? What about that end of it? I mean, I know it sounds
corny, but doesn’t anybody care?”

“That property should have been returned to the public trust
years ago. Homesteads are a relic of another age.”

“And that makes evicting widows and orphans acceptable to you?”

He rearranged himself inside his suit coat. “Leadership often
requires that one distance oneself from individual concerns for the
good of the community as a whole.”

It was everything I could do not to reach over the counter and pop
him in the mouth. Instead I put my elbows on the counter, getting as
close to him as I could. I strained to maintain control of my voice.
“Well then, Sparky,” I said.

“How’s about you get me those receipts…for the good of the
community as a whole.”

Now, generally, if you lean in on a guy and start calling him
Sparky or Scooter, you’re going to get some kind of physical
reaction. He’s at least going to step back and retrieve some space.
Not this guy. He just stood there for a moment and then eased himself
back through the nifty glass door, with June in hot pursuit.

Ten minutes later, June reemerged. Her eyes were puffy and lined
with pink. Red finger marks nearly encircled her left arm. She slid
me the documents and then quickly turned away, taking her seat,
swiveling around to face the wall while she wiped her nose with a
tissue. I took a moment to satisfy myself about the documents and
then I stepped out into the hall.

If I’d stopped for long enough to scratch an itch, I would have
missed her. As I stepped onto the second-floor landing, an elderly
couple crossed in front of me and started down the stairs; behind
them, a woman walked quickly down the hall in my direction. Her purse
hung from one arm, her coat from the other. She had a narrow face and
a severe shortage of chin. She wore her brown hair long, in the
manner of much younger women. Something about the way she tugged at
herdress while she walked reminded me of what Rebecca had said about
Nancy Weston trying to stay in single-digit dress sizes.

“Excuse me,” I said, when she reached the stairs. I made it a
statement. “You’re Nancy Weston, aren’t you.”

Her face said she didn’t know whether to be flustered or
flattered.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “But you’ll have to excuse me, I—”

I went into my Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter, routine. “Boy, it’s
a good thing I caught you,” I said with as much teenage earnestness
as I could muster. “I have some Peninsula County legal papers to
deliver to you. Just another second and…” I managed not to say,
Gee whiz
.

She started down the stairs. “If you have business, Carmen can
help you.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” I said. She turned
back with an annoyed grammar-school teacher look. “And why would
that be?” I skipped down several stairs to get closer to her. I
could make out a line that ran down her cheek where her foundation
makeup ended and her neck began. She sniffed and pulled at the waist
of her dress.

“Because you’re specifically named as the person to whom they
should be delivered. And because we’re well within the official
hours of the city clerk.”

First she tried outrage. “Do you presume to tell me—”

I cut her off. “And because we wouldn’t want Judge Bigelow to
think that an elected official had willfully disregarded a
restraining order.”

Then her feelings were hurt. “How can you say such a thing?”
Apparently she could make her lower lip tremble on demand. “I would
never—”

I pulled one of the Authorization to Pay Delinquent Taxes forms
from the folder I was carrying and held it under her nose. “I know
you wouldn’t,” I said in a soothing voice. I pointed to the
bottom of the page. “See…down in the last paragraph.”

She looked down for long enough to see her own name. Whatever
Tressman had said when he’d called her wasn’t enough to overcome
her unwillingness to cross a superior court judge. We marched in
lockstep back up to the clerk’s office. Five minutes later, my
checking account was fifteen hundred and fifty-five dollars lighter
and I was back at the head of the stairs with an official-looking
receipt resting in my sweaty palm.

Four-twenty and it was nearly dark. I had one of those
disassociated moments in the parking lot. My brain had not yet logged
that I was driving J.D.’s Blazer. For about a minute and a half, I
ran around like Chicken Little, sure my car had been stolen. Then it
hit me. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed my panic and
then hurried toward the car. Imagine my consternation when I realized
I’d left the keys on the magazine table in Tressman’s office. I
gave the stairs another workout. In the second-floor hallway, June
was feeding quarters into the candy machine as I walked by. She
flashed me a wan smile. As if anybody who could cause Tressman that
much anxiety deserved a grin, however tentative.

“I knew you wouldn’t get far,” she said. “They’re on the
counter.”

As I picked up the keys from the table, I heard voices from
Tressman’s office. The connecting door was closed. They were
yelling back and forth, and unless I was mistaken, I recognized both
voices. I pocketed the keys, stepped around the counter, opened the
door a foot and peeked. A ten-foot hall, a couple of bathrooms on the
left and then Tressman’s open door. Nancy Weston stood in
Tressman’s office with her hands on her hips. “I told you, Mark.
What was I going to do? I couldn’t just leave. I had the Dickinsons
in my office. They wouldn’t go. What was I going to do, just get up
and walk out on them? You know how—” She looked over and saw me
standing there. She clapped her hands on her sides and gestured
toward the door. Tressman’s head poked around the corner. His eyes
were wide and his mouth open. I jiggled the keys. “Came back for my
keys,” I said. “Thanks a lot for looking out for them.” I
turned and left in a hurry. June was still loitering in the hall as I
scurried past. My guess was that Tressman had told her to get lost
while he and Weston talked. I had a thought and stopped.

“What’s a good place for lunch around here?” I asked. She
didn’t hesitate. “The Country Corner down on the highway,” she
said. “The courthouse cafeteria is…” She poked a finger at her
throat.

I thanked her and started down the stairs for the third time.

I dropped some more paperwork by Sheriff Hand. I didn’t bother
about receipts; I’d annoyed enough people for one day. Hand seemed
genuinely pleased that Claudia and the kids were safe and generally
amused about what I was doing. He shook his head.

“I’ll bet you’ve even got Mark Tressman’s bloomers in a
bunch,” he said with a laugh. “Ain’t that right, Bobby?”

His deputy laughed and said, “Heck, Sheriff, I’d pay good
money to see that.”

I gestured toward the door with my head. “Can I speak to you
outside for a minute, Sheriff?” I turned to the deputy.

“Just something personal,” I said. He seemed like a nice kid,
and I didn’t want to annoy him. He waved me off. “That’s how
come he’s the sheriff and I’m not,” he said with a smile. I
followed Nathan Hand out the door. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t
want it to sound like I’m questioning either your methods or your
results…” I hesitated.

“But,” he said.

And I told him about how I was sure the car had been fully
engulfed in flame before it hit anything and about the two hundred
gallons of gas back at the cabin. He was surprised, but not like I
figured. “You and the doctor are pretty darn good,” he said with
a smile. “I missed that the car was on fire, but heck, when I was
out there it was pitch-black and it seemed like everything was on
fire. I’ll get out there and have a look for myself first thing
tomorrow. But the gas…” He ran a hand over the stubble on his
cheek. “Now, the gas always bothered me. Bothered that insurance
guy, too. I didn’t say anything to him—heck, insurance companies
got most of the money already—and I sure as heck didn’t want to
say a thing to the widow…but if you were to ask me how that man
died, I’d have to bet he took it over the edge on purpose.”