The Totem 1979 (13 page)

Plus, he didn’t have much strength to do it. He was sick again. He tried to think back to a night when he had not been sick, and with his lack of memory, he was doubly fearful. How much longer could he keep doing this? He’d sat and watched the reruns on the TV set behind the bar downstairs from eight o’clock until the place had closed. He had no way of telling just how much he’d drunk, except that near the end the barman had looked strangely at him, and the programs were a blur of ads and station breaks. And don’t forget the stock reports. Oh, my, yes, not the stock reports. But out here stock was not the closing points of Xerox, Kodak, or the rest of them. No, stock was cattle, and the market prices came on first at eight and then at ten and then again at sign-off time. Hey, he could not have drunk too much if he could recollect all that in detail. No? Then why was he shaking? Why was he so sick that breakfast was a thought he couldn’t tolerate? He had to have a drink before he dared go down the hall and shave, and then another when he came back, before fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. It scared him. This much he could recollect, a time when he had not required one drink in the morning just to function. Now, this morning, he had needed two, and if he weren’t careful, he would soon need a third. But there’s a difference, he was thinking. Needing one and taking one. Let’s make sure you keep in mind the difference. Dunlap picked up his tape recorder and his camera where he’d set them by the television. Vowing to himself that he would clean his life up, feeling virtuous, determined, he didn’t pick up his pint of bourbon when he walked out the door.

The hall went to the right, then left, then right again, then opened on three sides to show the lobby down there, a moose head on the wall-from thirty, forty years ago, no doubt; the thing looked shabby enough for that-gray tile floor, discolored wooden checkin counter, a bald wrinkled man in denim clothes behind the counter. Dunlap took a breath and instantly regretted it: the must was even worse up here. He asked himself again what he had ever done to deserve being sent to Potter’s Field, then trudged down the stairs, crossing the lobby toward the street.

The sun was like a knife jabbed into his eyes. Eight o’clock, and how hot would the day be with the sun so fierce this early? He didn’t want to think about it. Eight o’clock, but he’d been awake since well before dawn, and that was something else his drinking had affected. Now he hardly slept at all, and when he did, not deeply, waking often, drifting back and forth from grotesque dreams. He didn’t want to think about that either. Not the image that had constantly been coming to him. He walked toward the corner, concentrating on the coffee he was going to taste. Sure, you could buy a drink back at the hotel, but there wasn’t any place to get some coffee. “Try the Grub-steak at the corner,” he’d been told, and hell, they either didn’t know the way to spell it, or they maybe were more clever than he thought. The one thing he at least was getting was a mess of local color. You don’t talk like that, he told himself. You’re here one day, and they’re infecting you. You’d better keep your mind on what you’re doing. Which was fine with him because he didn’t want to think about a lot of things, but work was hardly one of them. He sensed that he was on to something.

Dunlap entered the diner. The counter was a horseshoe, the curved end in the middle of the room, and sure, what else did you expect? he thought. He looked at all the men in cowboy hats who in turn were looking at him, and he passed them to sit in a far corner booth where, quicker than he had expected, a waitress-her hair pinned up beneath a net-came over to him. Haifa minute later, he was sipping coffee, but although he’d been eager for it, he had to drink it slowly lest he throw up. Yes, he was on to something. “Christ, he’s dead, all right,” the voice had blurted through the static on the two-way radio. “Lord, he doesn’t have a-” The only thing that Dunlap had been able to discover was that two kids had been playing in a field where they had stumbled upon the body of a man named Clifford whose face had been so mutilated that policemen couldn’t tell at first exactly who he was. The woman who had sat behind the radio had tried to avoid Dunlap’s questions and had finally suggested that he leave-the chief would see him in the morning. Dunlap had lingered even so, but when policemen from the day shift had begun to come in for debriefing, they had made it clear that he should leave, and he’d had no choice but to go out on the street. He had hoped to talk to Rettig and a new recruit named Hammel whom Dunlap gathered were the men assigned to this investigation, but they hadn’t come in yet, and he had quickly gotten the picture that unless he had the chief’s permission, no one would be talking to him.

Nonetheless, the symmetry appealed to him. A murder twenty-three years ago, and now another as he arrived to do the retrospective. The contrast would be worth reporting, how the separate murders had been handled, if this second killing were indeed a murder. Well, a dead man with no face, that surely wasn’t ordinary, and as far as Dunlap cared, the difference was the same. That first murder had been something he hadn’t counted on. There hadn’t been a mention of it in the files that he had looked through in New York. When Parsons mentioned it in passing-yesterday in Parsons’ office-Dunlap had required all his discipline not to show his interest. He had just kept sitting there and nodding as if vaguely bored by all this ancient news, but really he had felt his heartbeat quicken, felt that tug inside him as he guessed that there was more here than he had anticipated. He had kept his guard up all the time he and Parsons made their bargain. He had still looked bored when he had gone down to the paper’s morgue and asked the man in charge to bring the microfilm. But when he was alone, he’d squinted in suspense for it, and in an issue twenty-three years ago, the first week in October, he had found it.

It was pretty much the way that Parsons had described it. The town had evidently feared another rush of hippies coming through, especially if reporters showed up, publicizing what had happened. Once the town had adjusted to its shock, it must have worked to keep the news from going farther. And the tactic was successful. As much as Dunlap knew, the story had been strictly local, a headline the first day, a third-page feature the next day, then a few paragraphs buried near the sports section. A rancher had wakened to find that his eighteen-year-old son was missing. At first the rancher wasn’t bothered, thinking that his son had gone out with some friends and simply stayed the night. He’d made some calls but couldn’t find him, waiting through the afternoon until at suppertime the boy was still not home, and he got worried. On a chance he phoned the state police, fearing that there’d been an accident or maybe the boy had gotten in trouble and was too afraid to call. The police hadn’t heard a thing about him, doing what the father had already done, however, checking with the young man’s friends. The friends, though, didn’t know a thing about him either, hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. He’d been moody, staying to himself. He’d even broken up with his girlfriend. Someone thought of suicide, and then they really did get worried. This was sure-no vehicle was missing from the ranch. The son had either walked off or had gotten a ride. Had he run away? The father spoke of arguments that they’d been having, and as Dun-lap had gone through the story, he had sensed that the arguments were severe. Small town rancher’s son who wanted something more. Father who repressed him. Reading through the microfilm, Dunlap had been puzzled why it took them so long understanding. But it did. Indeed it took them several days. But then a friend remembered how the boy had hung out with those hippies when they’d caused that trouble in the town. The friend had even seen him smoking marijuana. The son had talked about the hippies often after they had left. The father and the state police considered this for a while, and then they finally had it figured out. The father wanted to go up and get him, but the state police insisted that they go alone. They evidently saw how furious the father was and concluded that they’d save some trouble if they went up on their own. Besides, there wasn’t any guarantee that the boy was up there. This was just a chance. No point in making judgments until they knew.

The next few details Dunlap had to guess because, while there was plenty of space devoted to the missing son to start with, once the murder occurred the lid came over the story. Dunlap was impressed by someone’s thoroughness. That was Parsons, he suspected, working to protect the town. There wasn’t any way to know exactly what went on. The rationale was obvious. To guarantee that the trial was fair. To keep the jurors free from bias. After all, a small town, if the trial took place here, news about the murder had to be subdued and dignified. Oh, it was dignified all right. Hell, it was almost non-existent, and back in 1970, a small town in the boonies could get away with that. There hadn’t been those recent major court decisions about freedom for reporters at a trial. Not that any local newsman would have worked against the blackout. No, the point was to keep outside newsmen ignorant of what had happened here. Conspiracy is what some people call it, Dunlap thought and sipped his coffee. Now you’re thinking like a Woodward or a Bernstein. Let’s not make too much of this. Well, make too much or not, he sure as hell was going to find out what went on up in that compound.

He walked toward the counter and paid fifty cents for his coffee. As he left, he glanced back toward the elderly waitress who was staring puzzled at him, then down at the two-dollar tip he’d put on the table. What now? Showing off? Well, why not? If he felt like being a big-time spender from the city, he was maybe condescending, but at least he didn’t hurt somebody, and besides it made him feel good. He might be a boozer, but at least he wasn’t stingy. He went outside, and once again the sun stabbed his eyes. It was even worse, though, hotter, more intense, and his elation as he left the diner suddenly was gone. He felt nervous and impatient. He had planned to go back to the newspaper’s morgue, but he was doubtful that he’d learn much more. He’d tried to get in touch with the police chief several times last night, but Slaughter had been neither at his home nor at the station when he’d called, and Dunlap was determined now to speak with him. He hitched the straps of his tape recorder and his camera around his shoulder and marched through the glaring sunlight up the street.

The time was half-past eight. He noticed lots more traffic, mostly pickup trucks with people crowded in them, come to town on Saturday to shop or merely look around. He noticed that the stores were open, and he was thinking that he maybe ought to stop at one and buy a hat. Oh, that would look just great. A city suit and a cowboy hat. Well, keep your pride then, but before long, out here in the sun like this, your face’ll be as parched and leathered as those people in the pickup trucks. He passed the newspaper’s office, wishing he could hail a taxi, but he hadn’t seen a taxi since he’d come here, and he trudged on, beginning to sweat. Well, this would be the last time he would let them send him to a jerk-off town like this. He sensed that there was some good story here, and when he put it all together, he would show them he was just as good as he had once been, and he wouldn’t have to take this kind of job. But then an odd dilemma started working on him. Dunlap was anxious to get out of here, but if he meant to guarantee that he would never find himself this low again, he’d have to take more time than he could tolerate. He might be here a week from now. And that was too much for his mind to bear as he walked underneath the trees at last and up the front steps to the police station.

Of course, the chief had not come in yet. What was worse, the chief had phoned to say that he didn’t plan to come in at all.

He’d had some kind of trouble. “And what am I supposed to do?” Dunlap asked the policeman on duty.

“Well, maybe if you told me why you had to see him.”

Dunlap slumped in a chair. He’d gone through this the day before, but there had been a different person then, a woman, and Dunlap studied the policeman, sighed, then passing through frustration told him very calmly what it was he needed.

“That’s no problem.”

Dunlap blinked. He didn’t think he’d heard correctly. “What?”

“If you had told me who you were to start with. When the chief called in this morning, he explained you might be stopping by. Just hold on while I call him back.”

And fifteen minutes later, Dunlap stood across from a row of dingy houses, staring at a barren field with stockpens up at one end and a bar, the Railhead, down at the other. He had carefully avoided mentioning his interest in the recent killing, concentrating only on the compound twenty-three years ago. As a consequence, when he had found out where the chief was sending him, he’d been astonished by his luck. The Railhead. He had heard that name on the two-way radio yesterday. This was where the mutilated body had been found. Dunlap looked at the two policemen who were standing in the middle of the field. They turned to study him when the cruiser that had brought him here pulled away. The sun was stark. A wind hurled bits of sharp, hot sand at him. He licked his gritty lips and started through the field.

The two policemen met him halfway. “Yes, sir, may we help you?” one of them asked.

And Dunlap thought that things might just be getting better as he told them. But the one named Rettig didn’t want to talk.

Chapter Five.

Oh, that’s wonderful. Just goddamned great. I’m out here in the middle of this stupid field, and this guy Rettig doesn’t want to talk. Well, what else did you think would happen? Dunlap asked himself. Just because it got a little easier a while ago, you figured everything would be simple now? Hell, you’re the one who’s simple. Wake up, do your job. Dunlap knew that Rettig wasn’t just the man in charge of this investigation: Rettig had been with the state police back then. Dunlap had learned that from the man on duty at the station. He had learned as well that Rettig was the one who’d spent the most time with Wheeler. Twenty-three years ago. “Look, way back then. I don’t see what the problem is.”

But Rettig didn’t want to talk.