The Quiet Streets of Winslow (25 page)

“Kevin Rainey goes to PT's fairly often,” I said. “The owner told me that. Maybe you've seen him there yourself. Now I understand you're having memory problems, but is it possible you've seen him there talking with Jody? They knew each other, according to the owner.”

Bowman put a hand to his face.

“I might have seen him there, now that you mention it. I can't say for sure, but it's possible. As for seeing him talking to Jody, no. I don't believe so.”

“How about other men talking to her?” I asked.

“Well, that happened often enough. Though I don't recall anybody ever getting out of line with her. Nobody was ugly. I don't know of anybody who would have hurt a woman.”

That struck a chord with me, and I wanted to give myself a minute to think why. I excused myself, went to the counter for a coffee refill, then visited the restroom, which was when I remembered Paulette Hebson using the same sentence:
I don't know of anybody who would have hurt a woman
. Did either or both of them know of somebody who would have hurt a man but not a woman? Were they talking about the same person? And if so, how was it they both knew the same person, and why were they trying to protect him?

An investigation is like a jigsaw puzzle: when you look at the pieces separately, you can't see the picture; when you look at the picture, you can't see the pieces. But now it came together. If I hadn't been tired, I might have seen it sooner.

I went back to the booth with my coffee.

“I gather that you and Paulette Hebson go way back,” I said. “She's the woman you had an affair with at one time?”

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“Three decades ago.”

“And Paulette was married then?” I said. “And married when she had the baby? That's why your name's not on the birth certificate?”

He put his hands on the table and placed one over the other. He was shaken.

“Polly was never married,” he said. “It's her mother's maiden name she used. Her mother was the one who raised Kevin.”

“But he lives with Polly now?”

“No.”

“Where then?” When he hesitated I said, “You've already impeded an investigation, Mr. Bowman. And I'm going to find him soon enough anyway.”

Two children behind us started laughing, and he waited until they had quieted.

“In the Holbrook Court Trailer Park,” he told me quietly. “Number 17.”

“And Kevin knows you're his father?” I said.

“Suspects. Doesn't know. Polly had kept a photograph of me.”

“And you thought it was Kevin who broke into your house and stole the keys to your rentals?” I said. “That's why you didn't report the break-in?”

“There were tags on those keys, with the addresses, and I had the locks changed right away, so I figured, why add to his troubles? If you've figured out this much, Deputy Sheriff, you're aware that Kevin has had a few problems. They're small ones, but for Polly's sake I didn't want to add to them.”

“And you didn't want your wife to know.”

“Would you have?”

“Why didn't you want your son to know where your other rentals were?” I said.

“I didn't want him coming to my house, maybe telling my wife who he was.”

Bowman looked down at the table, then up at me.

“I have contributed to his support over the years, Deputy Sheriff, just so you know.”

“And you lied to me about knowing Kevin because you knew he knew Jody?”

“Kevin wouldn't have hurt her.”

“But how did you know he knew her?”

“He mentioned her to his mother.”

“So that's why she didn't tell me she had a son,” I said. “The two of you were nervous. Is that it? You two talked about it?”

“We worried how it might sound.”

“When was it you had this conversation?” I said.

When he didn't respond, I said, “I can check phone records. You're better off telling me.”

He looked down at his hands.

“We met at the Little Antelope Tavern in Holbrook,” he said. “Shortly after my wife and I got back from Amarillo. We discussed Kevin, thought it best not to mention him. That's all. You have kids, you protect them. But as I said, neither of us felt he was involved.”

He put a hand to his waist, on the heart monitor.

“Then why so nervous?” I said.

“My wife. She's made threats. If I talked to Polly, if I saw her, that kind of thing. She won't believe that we stopped sleeping together all those years ago.”

“Did you?”

He looked out at the blue sky over Winslow, then at me. His expression gave him away.

“So you and Polly have been friends all these years,” I said. “More than friends. You see her and you tell her things, and maybe you tell her about Jody Farnell and you mention details about this boyfriend Jody has in Chino Valley, whose family lives in Black Canyon City.”

“No. I never did. First, I didn't know much, and second, there was no reason for me to tell her. Why would I? We had other things to talk about.”

“Clear this up for me,” I said. “I'm just curious. You tell your wife that Kevin is your son, that you still see Polly, and your wife leaves you, making you free for Polly. Doesn't that make your life happier?”

“Yes. If she wanted me. But she doesn't. I've asked.”

He looked at the door opening and three lively teenagers walking in.

“One final thing,” I said. “I can't stop you from making a phone call, but I'm asking you not to. As I've said, you've impeded the investigation, held back crucial information—not just you but Polly as well. Don't talk to her until I do. She would be in serious trouble if she helped Kevin leave the state.”

“I understand. I don't want to make things worse for her or for me.”

“You all right?” I asked. “You need help out to your truck?”

“The only thing I need help with is telling my wife,” he said.

chapter thirty-seven

NATE ASPENALL

I
T WAS LONELY
where Lee and Julie lived, with the wind and dust, the looming mountains, the long stretches of desert. Every morning I woke in the Airstream before dawn, knowing that I could leave before the saguaros and the outline of the ridge behind the house were visible, and that if Sam wanted to come after me, he could. Yet I couldn't move. I'd hear the far-off sound of the interstate. I'd hear the boys outside, walking the dogs. Sounds of life, sounds of normalcy. It was reassuring, even though I was outside of it. There was also how it would look, if I left. I suppose that was the bigger factor.

Then I looked back at the weeks I had been there, and it was like looking at a graph at what it had cost me, and now it was costing too much. I have trouble making decisions, but once I make one it becomes the only thing I see. I've always been that way. I stayed up late packing what little I had brought with me, leaving behind the shirts and jeans that Julie had bought me, none of which I had asked for and none of which I needed or wanted. Once you had more than you needed you had to make decisions, had to find places for things. I liked my life small, clean, and orderly: here is what I wear, here is the pot I cook in,
here is where I live. Better to fill a small space than lose yourself in a larger one. I had read that somewhere and believed it.

After I packed, I scoured the sinks in the kitchen and bathroom, cleaned the toilet, swept and washed the floors, stripped the sheets off the bed, and left them folded on the mattress next to my towels. Just like I'd never been there. Nothing of me left behind. I sat on the couch for a while with the television on; then I turned it off and sat in silence. I turned off the lights and sat in dark silence. I thought about notes I could leave:
We don't know each other anymore
, or
You'll never see me again
, or
Nate Aspenall was a figure of your imagination
. They were overly dramatic; I saw that. What bothered me more was that they were an attempt to connect, and I felt I had to leave that urge behind. Therefore, I tried not to think about the boys. I had been nineteen when Lee married Julie, and had watched the family form itself, which for me had been like watching a second heart or liver begin to grow on the outside of my body; but for the boys, I was a natural presence. They had always known me. Don't think about them, I told myself. They don't belong to you.

I got into bed and tried to sleep. On the nightstand was the address of the Sisters of the Good Shepherds Catholic Church in Holbrook, where Jody was buried. I had looked it up on the Internet. The photograph was of a plain, white building that had probably at one time been something else, and there was a glimpse of a cemetery behind it, sheltered by cottonwoods. Jody under the trees, I thought when I saw it. That was better than I had imagined. I heard coyotes howling, and some time later I fell asleep.

I
LEFT WHILE
it was still dark, turning off my cell phone and keeping my lights off until I was on Canyon Road, and not breathing normally
until I was on the interstate. It wasn't as if I expected Sam Rush or Lee to appear behind me, or as if I thought of myself as a criminal. But I liked the secrecy. I understood what a refuge it could be. Withhold, and people wanted to know what you thought. Stand back, and people wanted you to come closer. It had taken me a long time to learn that; it didn't come naturally. My tendency was to be too much out there, although not socially. I had always been solitary. I meant that I needed to keep feelings reigned in, not lose control within myself to what I had lost in the past.

Once I was farther north, in the high desert, it was colder than I had expected, with a quarter moon hanging low. Just beneath the darkness you could sense the light, and when the red disk of sun appeared I could feel the shivering of the pickup as the wind hit it sideways. In Camp Verde I got off the interstate and had a sausage biscuit at McDonald's, sitting in the bright restaurant, watching teenagers behind the counter pour coffee and hand early birds their food. I recalled my first job, which was at a Taco Bell where nobody sufficiently explained to me how to use the computer/cash register and I walked out after an hour and a half. I was intelligent, yet I often had difficulty figuring out what came easily to others. I never expected things to be obvious; therefore the obvious eluded me.

I got onto I-40 and drove through Flagstaff, where the traffic was heavy. People going to work, was what I thought about. I kept my mind off the university. It was just a matter of practice, I thought, just a kind of mind control. Then I was east of the city and in the flat desert, with the sun in front of me, just openness and wind and air. Winslow was ahead, and I decided I would keep my eyes on the highway as I drove through it. That I wouldn't look at the town that lay just to the south,
where Jody had grown up and made her good and bad decisions, the town she had moved away from and moved back to, lived with pain and caused pain to others, more than she knew. But who would want to admit that to themselves? I saw that simultaneously she had protected herself and left herself open. It was a weird kind of balancing act she had performed. She made herself unlovable and yet was lovable in spite of herself. I had liked her better for what I didn't know she was.

I felt my breathing ease as I left Winslow behind. I didn't look at it in my rearview mirror.

I told myself it was a town I had never seen before. I had learned that you could change how you felt by changing what you thought, even by changing what you knew. Things were not this or that, this fact or some other fact; things were what you told yourself you believed.

H
OLBROOK WAS A
small, dusty, loosely held-together town of houses and trailers, vehicles up on blocks, broken toys in broken yards. The Catholic church was on East Florida Street, one of the first streets you came to after getting off the highway. A plaque on the outside of the church read:
I BIND MYSELF TO THE LABOR FOR THE CONVERSION OF FALLEN WOMEN AND GIRLS NEEDING REFUGE FROM THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE WORLD
, which struck me as ironic, unfair, true, and untrue, this iron plaque of worn letters on the white siding of the church.