A Stranger Lies There (4 page)

“There's not much to tell. I woke up this morning about six, made some coffee and went out to the front porch with it. The body was lying there. There was nobody around. We called you guys—my wife did—and that's it. We already told the deputies all this.”

Branson tapped his cigarette and I watched the wind carry the ash into the gutter.

“Uh-huh. Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“How long you've lived here. What you do. Like that.”

Another pull, another tap, more drifting ash. Seemed to accelerate as it neared the ground. I couldn't help thinking of the boy's life in the same way—a fragile thing carried off by a killing wind. Figured what happened was just starting to hit me.

“Well … we've lived here about three years, been married for two. I do carpentry, woodworking, furniture refinishing and repairing. Most of it here at home in my garage. My wife works in a clinic—”

“What kind of clinic?”

“Drug rehab.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Young people?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. You think this is drug related?”

“She know him?”

“No, of course not.” Silence.
You sure?
“Look, we have nothing to do with it. Neither of us has ever seen him before. I'm sure he could have ended up next door just as easy.”

Branson frowned. “That's entirely possible. Either way, we'll need you and your wife to make an official statement down at the station. Tomorrow morning? We'll say eight o'clock.” He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and held it out for me. “Ask for me.”

I took the card. Branson started walking toward the crime scene.

“Do you know who the victim is yet?” I said to his back.

Branson stopped, turned around and told me, “That kind of information will be released at the appropriate time. See you tomorrow morning.” Then he continued towards the blinking red and blue lights, the uniforms, the milling spectators, and the news van that had just pulled up.

I followed him back to the house. Snatches of conversation billowed out: official talk, questions from reporters, cops interviewing the neighbors, conjecture about the crime. Across the street, a TV reporter live on camera. My house was dwarfed by the San Jacintos rising behind it—if it were an animal, it would have been trembling, ready to bolt. I wanted to go inside, lock the door, and never come out. But first I had to get through the rabble on my front lawn. A deputy cleared a path, and I stopped a moment before going inside.

The body was being lifted onto a stretcher. Someone hadn't zipped the body bag all the way closed. They wheeled it over to the back of the white van and slid it inside. Just before the doors were slammed shut, one of his hands slipped out. Gloved with a brown paper bag and a rubber band, it dangled over the edge of the pallet, a parting gesture that only I seemed to notice. Then the van was gone and the space it had occupied was quickly filled with people, some of them here to investigate, some to keep order, and others to package the event and sell it.

I turned away. Deirdre had cleaned up the mess on the front porch and was sitting alone in the living room.
Face the Nation
on TV with the sound too low. I closed the curtains and sat beside her on the couch. We didn't speak for a long while.

“What are you thinking about?” Deirdre finally said.

I shook my head slowly.

“I mean, I know what you're thinking about, but…”

“How much we could get for the house. Where I would put my tools.”

She put down the remote she'd been holding for the last twenty minutes. “Why?”

“Been too long in the desert,” I answered, half to myself.

“You want to move.”

Ten years here, three of them with Deirdre. So the desert was only outside.

“No.”

*   *   *

That night was a night of release, desperate and life-affirming. We slid against each other, salty and slippery, our pores joining through a feverish sheen of sweat. Deirdre's breath was hot in my ear, her heart thumping against mine, and the end made us forget for a while what had happened that morning.

Afterwards, we lay on top of the damp sheets and listened to the night outside our open window: the clicking of the palm fronds in the warm night wind, the intermittent chirping of the crickets, and the electronic buzz of our neighbor's halogen security lamp in the backyard next door.

Deirdre spoke first, her voice small and hesitant in the dark bedroom. “I saw a dead body once, a long time ago.”

I could feel her head turn toward me on the pillow, and I let her take her time.

“It was in a tenement off St. Mark's Place in New York City. I was looking for one of my friends in the basement of the building. She'd had a fight with her boyfriend and I hadn't seen her in a couple days. Somebody told me she might be there.” She paused and went on. “Terrible place. You had to get past the drug dealers and gang members out front, and inside was even worse. Piss all over the floors, graffiti covering the walls. I stepped over a few drunks passed out in the hall before getting downstairs. It was another world down there, like an anteroom to hell. Rats scratching around in the shadows, their eyes shining red in the flickering candlelight. People sprawled all over the floor, lying in filth. I started looking around, hoping to find her quick and get out of there, but I didn't see her. I could hear someone sobbing a few feet away and I went in that direction, trying not to trip over anybody. Some of them hardly looked human, Tim. Teeth rotting out. Hair and beards like wild animals. One guy had just fixed and his eyelids were fluttering like … like dying moths. And the stench was unbelievable. The smell of disease, hopelessness. And then I saw him, over in a dark corner. Separated from the rest, like they were afraid of catching something. I got closer and saw that his eyes were wide open, just staring at the ceiling. Young guy, like today. Not as far gone as some of the others in the room. Except not one part of him moved, Tim. Not one. His body was so still, it seemed to suck the life from the room.”

Silence, then the breeze came in and lifted the curtain in the window.

“How come you never told me that story before?”

“I don't know. Maybe I felt like talking about it would rob him of whatever dignity he had left.”

“What about your friend?”

“I didn't find her. And I never went back there.”

CHAPTER TWO

The Palm Springs Police Department is just south of downtown near the airport. The sprinklers were on when we arrived, feeding lush green grass and spraying the walkway at our feet. Two enormous palm trees flanked the entrance. Golf carts and tennis rackets wouldn't have looked out of place. The heavy plate glass doors were spotless, the lobby a good fifteen degrees cooler than outside. Not even May yet, and I wondered how much hotter it could get before summer.

Deirdre and I hadn't spoken much on the drive over, still avoiding the particulars of yesterday's murder. As if by not talking about it, it would just go away. Now we had no choice.

We were greeted at the front desk by a young officer. I told her why we were there, and she led us around the counter into a short corridor. On one side was a heavy steel door with reinforced glass that probably let into the jail; we took a right into a large room under fluorescent lights. Ten or twelve battered metal desks paired off with each other. A low hum of conversation, phone-work and form-filing, some rolled-up sleeves and loosened ties even at this early hour. A few desks were unmanned, with sport jackets slung over the chair backs. One had a purse sitting on the desktop. Around the perimeter of the room were several windowed offices with room for coatracks and trophy cases. In the far corner, a coffee machine with three detectives gathered around it. An empty conference room behind glass contained a large table and chairs, and a TV and VCR on a stand.

Branson was sitting at one of the middle desks, opposite another detective who was on the phone. Branson looked up when we entered, then approached, hand extended.

“Good morning. Thanks for coming in. My partner should be done in a second,” he said, shaking our hands. The words were friendly, but the manner was all business. He introduced himself to Deirdre as his partner finished his call and our escort left. “This is Detective Tidwell,” Branson said, leaving it at that.

Tidwell was about my height and slim. Late thirties, with short, curly brown hair that was slicked back from his forehead. He wore glasses and an open expression that felt reassuring. A sharp contrast with his partner. Tidwell shook both our hands, apologizing for the inconvenience. Led us out of the squad room to a series of small, windowless rooms with straight-backed chairs and a table visible in each.

“This shouldn't take long,” he assured Deirdre as they entered the room on the right.

Branson seated me in the one next to it. Shut the door and sat down across from me in front of a large mirror on the back wall. After switching on a small tape recorder that sat in the middle of the table, he recited both our names, the date and time, and the case number. Then he began the interview.

We started with the night before I found the body. I repeated the same things I'd told the officer that morning about working in the shop and then going to bed.

“Why do you think your neighbors didn't hear anything?”

You kidding?
I wanted to say. People in their homes with the AC blasting and the TV on, you could scream your ass off and nobody'd hear. And a small gun wouldn't make much noise.

“I don't know. You'll have to ask them.”

“Your tools aren't that loud are they?”

“No, they're not. And my shop is pretty well sealed up.”

Branson glanced at his notepad. “Where are the Hagstroms?”

Neighbors next door. “They're retired. Clear out every year before the spring breakers arrive. Not to mention the heat.”

A skeptical look.

“You always park your car in the street?”

I wondered where that came from, until I realized it had shielded the body from the street. “Mostly. Deirdre takes the driveway. Garage is occupied.”

He nodded. “Let's go to the next morning.”

I didn't get too far before Branson interrupted. “You brought your coffee out to the front porch?”

“Yeah.”

Branson didn't say anything for a while, just tapped his pencil against his cheek. I waited.

“Here we are in the middle of a heatwave, and you're bringing hot coffee outside?”

Now it was my turn to pause. “So what?”

“Seems a little strange to me. Why would you drink it outside in the heat when you could relax with it inside, in the air-conditioning?”

“I don't use the air conditioner. I like the heat.”

“You seem pretty comfortable in here.”

“I prefer the heat.”

“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “Go on.”

“Where was I?”

“Tell me about the body.”

“He was just lying there.”

“You touch him?”

“No.”

“Check for a pulse?”

I just said I didn't touch him.
“No.”

“How did you know he was dead?”

“There were flies all over him.”

“You didn't think you should make sure?”

He was making a simple story very complicated. “They were crawling on his eyeballs, for Chrissake. That seemed like a pretty good sign.”

“Just answer the questions, Mr. Ryder.”

“What's the problem, detective? Somebody just got killed and you're hassling me about nothing.”

“I have to pursue whatever doesn't sound right to me.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

“That's up to you.”

I tried to read him and didn't get anywhere. “We almost done here?”

“You know he's out, don't you?”

For a second I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. Then my mind made the connection, the blood rushing to my face, and I could tell Branson knew he'd scored a direct hit. “Who's out?” I managed.

He leaned forward, zeroing in on me. “Turret.”

“You checked me out?” I croaked, trying to recover and not doing a very good job of it.

Branson sat back, not blinking. “Somebody shows up dead on a guy's front lawn, it tends to pique my curiosity about that guy. Yeah, I checked you out. So what about Turret?”

“Sounds like you know more about him than I do right now,” I answered. “When was he released?”

“Last Monday, a week ago. Have you had any contact with him since the trial?”

“None whatsoever. Not in thirty years. I'd like to wipe him from my memory completely.” That would never happen. I'd gotten involved in what was supposed to have been an anti-Vietnam War action back in the early '70s. Several people died. Turret was the ringleader. He and I survived, and both of us went to prison.

Branson pushed on. “No letters, no phone calls, no contact with friends of friends?”

“Nothing. And he wasn't a friend.”

A hard stare.

“You think he's mixed up in this?” I asked.

“Does seem kind of coincidental. Turret gets out of prison and not a week goes by before this happens right on your doorstep.” He paused. “What I really think, though,” he said while reaching over to shut off the tape recorder, “is that you and your friends and everybody like you fucked everything up back then. What do you think of that?”

I sat there speechless, not believing this was happening. “I think you have a serious chip on your shoulder,” I finally answered.

Branson leaned forward, his voice lowered. “My father died in a helicopter at Ap Bac, before anybody in this country could even find Vietnam on a map. He didn't question the integrity or motives of the country he grew up in, just did his duty like a man in that piss-poor jungle halfway around the globe. And then people like you, too cowardly to do the right thing, come along and crap all over their memories. Bunch of over-educated, protest-marching, flag-burning, pot-smoking, free-loving little pricks. Spoiled brats going to college on Daddy's dime, who didn't even know how damn lucky you were. You should have been grateful, but instead, all you did was divide this country and mock the hardworking Americans who took their responsibilities to this nation seriously.”