Authors: Virginia Swift
“I wonder which corrupts us more,” Delice mused, “money or sex? I mean, I’ve probably done some despicable things to get my bottom line where I think it ought to be, but then maybe I’ve done even worse stuff when I’m thinking with my ya-ya.”
Charlene cocked her head, absently wetting a finger and wiping up the last crumbs on her plate, the nail clicking faintly against the paper plate. She licked the finger, then nodded, her poodle hair bouncing back and forth. “I definitely think sex is harder than money. I mean, I was a real idiot when it came to that damn ex-husband of mine. Haven’t any of you just had those times when you were really really stupid, just because of something in a pair of pants that got you juiced?”
Charlene was staring at a spot behind Sally’s head. Sally twisted in her chair and saw the backside of Scotty Atkins. Right on cue, Scotty turned and looked right at her, smiled a little, and beckoned to her with a forefinger. She knew she was blushing.
“I think Hawk
will
have to shoot him,” Delice muttered.
“Police business,” said Sally, rising, giving them all a brisk nod. “I’ll see you guys at the paint-a-thon tomorrow afternoon.”
How many pairs of eyes scrutinized Sally as she threaded her way between tables to the walkway where Detective Atkins stood waiting? She felt like a hologram at Disneyland, something visible and moving but not solid, the center of attention. Dickie Langham was looking at her with an expression of polite interest. And she knew Hawk was watching, not simply because she could feel his eyes boring into her, but because she knew exactly what spot they bore in on. He’d commented in the past on how well the black skirt she was wearing fit across her hips. She looked over her shoulder and saw that she was right about where he’d been glaring. Even as pissed as he was, a hip man to the end.
“Detective,” she said, looking up into Atkins’s pale eyes. “You want to talk to me?”
“As I believe I indicated last night,” Atkins answered, in as noncommittal a tone as she’d used on him. “This obviously isn’t the place. I’m hoping that you’re free later this afternoon. I’ve got some things to do right now, but I’d like to come by your place in an hour. Would that be convenient for you?”
Courteous, professional, and . . . something else. What else did she see in his face? Anger? Worry? Heterosexuality? Not that!
Stick with courteous and professional. “An hour from now would be fine,” Sally replied in her best scheduling-a-meeting voice.
“Good. That should give you time to change,” he said, looking at his watch and shuffling his feet, a man getting ready to take his leave. Why did talking to Scotty Atkins always feel like interrupting somebody hurrying between much more important things?
“Change?” she asked. “What difference does it make what I’m wearing?”
Atkins’s eyes traveled down, slowly, lingering on the skirt and then lighting on her high-heeled shoes. “I don’t think those are a good idea.”
“Gosh, Scotty. I hadn’t realized you doubled as a fashion consultant.”
“I’m a man of hidden talents,” he said ambiguously. “But in this instance I’m just making a practical suggestion. You and I are going for a ride. And I think you’ll find pants and hiking boots more comfortable where we’re going.”
Sally and Hawk sat side by side on their bed, tightening up the laces on their hiking boots. “So did Atkins tell you where you’re going?” he asked her, finishing up with a double knot.
“He didn’t say. But I’ve got a bad feeling,” she answered, not meeting Hawk’s eyes.
“Are you sure you can handle this?” he wanted to know.
“No. But I don’t see that I’ve got much choice. For whatever sadistic reason of his own, Scotty must have decided he wants to drag me back up there and give me the third degree. Without you being present,” she added unnecessarily, looking up from her shoelaces to see his reaction.
Hawk shrugged. “He called this morning while you were running. We went over everything that’s happened, again. Looks to me like Atkins will keep after both of us to see if we remember anything about that scene that the police might have missed. But he wants to talk to us separately. Scotty told me he thinks you’re an egotistical busybody with a bad reputation you’ve undoubtedly earned, but that you’re also a smart woman who might be able to tell him something he couldn’t figure out on his own.”
Hawk paused, obviously considering how to phrase what he was going to say next. “I think Scotty’s decided you need a little reminding of what some asshole is doing to women in this town, so that maybe you’ll stop trying like hell to make yourself a target.” He put a hand on her arm. “I have some sympathy for that point of view.”
She looked at him, blank-faced. “I’m well aware of what somebody did to Monette, not to mention one or two things that have happened to me. What kind of cretin do you take me for?”
Hawk squeezed her arm. “My kind,” he said. “I worry. I mean, I’m even to the point where I like the idea of you going off to the mountains with some stud who clearly wants to jump your bones. At least you won’t be home alone.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Oh yeah, Hawk. Let me tell you, my idea of a perfect setup for wicked sex is to put on my boots and go straight to the place I saw a dead body three days ago. And I especially love it when a guy calls me an ‘egotistical busybody.’ Boy, that really gets me hot.”
He tossed her a half grin. “So I suppose there’s no cause for jealousy.”
She tossed the other half of the grin back. “I didn’t say that.”
He frowned.
“Hey,” she said. “I have the strength of ten because my heart is pure.”
“And I have the intelligence of a gnat if I believe that,” he countered.
“Okay then,” she said. “Pure enough for the foreseeable future.”
“Guess it’ll have to do,” he allowed, shouldering his daypack and giving her a kiss sweet enough to push the foreseeable a little further into the future.
Hawk took off, and ten minutes later Scotty Atkins showed up in a dusty brown Toyota 4runner. He’d changed into Dockers and sneakers and one of those trademark polo shirts, bright green this time. “Hard to believe you’re a Wyoming boy, Scotty,” she told him as she climbed into the truck. “You always look like somebody who’s heading out to Forest Hills to watch a tennis match.”
“We Wyoming boys don’t have to dress up to cowboy up,” he said flatly. “We can leave that to the tourists.”
“Speaking of tourists,” she asked, “what’s with the Natrona County plates on this thing?” The Toyota was sporting a license plate that began with the number one, indicating that it had been registered in the state’s most populous county (certainly an irony; perhaps an oxy-moron).
“I just moved back down here from Casper at the end of last year,” he answered. “I’ll reregister the truck when the plates expire. Let’s remember, I’m a police officer. We’re famous for being cheap,” he explained as they buckled in and drove away.
“What were you doing up in Casper?” she asked.
“Living. Working. Getting divorced. My wife’s from there,” he answered shortly.
Presumably he meant ex-wife. The scars still showed. “Were you there long?” Sally didn’t know why she was pressing the point—maybe to postpone other subjects? Acting, uh, like a busybody?
“Ever since I graduated from the law enforcement academy, over in Douglas.” Again, not much elaboration.
“I thought you went to UW,” she said. “I did.” He turned onto Grand Avenue, saying no more.
Sally searched. “What was your major?” she finally asked. This was beginning to feel like a first date. What next—hobbies?
“Biology. I was pre-med.”
“How come you’re not a doctor?”
He looked at her without expression. “I got sidetracked.”
“Yeah,” she conceded. “Me too.” But not on the same path, and not by the same things. Boy, it was a lot of work dragging information out of Scotty Atkins.
They got onto the interstate, heading east, uphill into the pink granite and the pines, in silence. At last Scotty spoke. “Tell me,” he said, “about honky-tonk angels.”
She considered the question. “Are you asking me to answer as an expert on country music, or as a member of the species?”
“Either,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “The music first. As it happens, I’ve performed the song ‘(It Wasn’t God Who Made) HonkyTonk Angels’ probably two hundred times, here and there, in different versions. You’re aware, I suppose, that it’s a takeoff on a song called ‘The Wild Side of Life.’ ”
“I wasn’t,” said Scotty, “until Dickie mentioned something about it. I’m not exactly a fan of hillbilly music.”
“You’re more the Mantovani type,” Sally taunted.
“Pink Floyd,” he retorted. Yeah, she could see it. Scotty was definitely “Dark Side of the Moon” material. All cynicism and attitude and undertow.
“To continue,” she said. “The original song, ‘Wild Side,’ was a huge hit for Hank Thompson, back in 1952. One of the kings of country, that Hank. Famous for immortal songs like ‘The Blackboard of My Heart’ and ‘A Six Pack to Go.’ ”
“How do you know this stuff?” he asked.
“I am a historian and a musician,” she said haughtily, “a professional. Anyhow, ‘Wild Side’ is some old boy’s lament to his wife, who’s ditched him in favor of the glamour of going to bars and drinking and picking up men. Hank’s real torn up about it—can’t believe God would make an angel like her, who fell so far that she ended up in the honky-tonk life.”
“Think about it,” Scotty said. “Dude had a point.”
“Believe me, I have,” said Sally, wondering if Scotty’s divorced-off Casper wife had opted for rowdy barrooms over his patented long silences. “I had years to think about it. And of course, I feel Hank’s pain, and that of all the men who’ve been laid low by honky-tonk angels.”
“Laid low,” said Scotty. “Nice choice of words.”
“Just my stock in trade,” Sally said. “Hank’s too. He was a hell of a songwriter. But all in all, I’m more partial to the girls’ reply. Kitty Wells recorded it in 1953—it was her breakthrough smash record, made Kitty the biggest thing in country music and proved women could make money in the business. The gist of the song was that God didn’t have a damn thing to do with making honky-tonk angels. The culprits were all those men who cheated on their wives and forced the women to give tit for tat.”
“Nice words, once again,” said Scotty.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Sally replied. “But really, you need to hear the music to have a true appreciation for the songs.” And as Scotty drove on up the mountain, Sally sang both versions. She felt vaguely perverse, singing merrily along toward a crime scene, but that was just the way she was and always had been. Put her in a motor vehicle, and pretty soon she was bursting into song.
When she stopped singing, he was nodding. “I get the picture,” he said. “And it’s just as I suspected. All country tunes fall under three headings: jail songs, dog songs, and cheatin’ songs. These are in the third category.”
And here she thought she’d given a virtuoso performance. “That’s totally unfair to country music. You forgot mother, moonshine, and car wrecks,” she said. But then a thought struck her. “It’s strange. I mean, if the guy who raped and murdered Monette was the one who busted into my house and wrote on the mirror, why quote the girls’ version?”
“Not everybody has your exhaustive command of country music trivia,” Scotty observed. “People get confused and mix up quotes. Especially people who are, shall we say, somewhat disoriented to begin with.”
“Or maybe the guy’s just gone into Hank Thompson overdrive, and he’s decided that God might have made honky-tonk angels, but they’re working for the devil now. Which makes your murderer the avenging angel with the flaming sword.” It made sense to Sally.
Scotty considered her theory as they crested the top of Sherman Hill, the highest spot on the interstate, 8,870 feet above sea level on what had once been known as the Lincoln Highway. The summit was marked by a huge bust of Abraham Lincoln, mounted on a thick pillar of pink granite blocks surrounded by a split-rail snow fence. Sally and her friends thought the monument looked like Lincoln had stepped into an outhouse that was sturdy enough to protect those urinating from Wyoming’s famous wind, but built a little too short. Even the slope of Lincoln’s shoulders was right.
At last the detective spoke. “So our killer has a problem with fallen angels. That’s certainly a possibility. But it’s not the only one. It’s also conceivable that the guy who did Monette isn’t the same person who’s been harassing you.” He darted a narrow glance at Sally. “Why do you suppose somebody cut up your underwear and pushed you into that bucking chute?”
Sally’s eyes must have shown the bafflement, and the fear. “I don’t have a clue. I mean, let’s face it, I’ve given plenty of people reason to be pissed at me over the years. At least a few may even hate me. But that stuff . . .” She shook her head.
“So we have to go with the little we do know. Somebody wrote that message on your mirror, and it makes sense to assume that they weren’t addressing your vast knowledge of musical history. What about the personal experience part?” Scotty asked her. “What does make honky-tonk angels?”
The seriousness of his tone steadied her enough to think, and to answer. “Music. Dancing. Booze. Company. Sex. Up here, maybe just getting the hell out of the house on a slow night in a long winter. Or celebrating the fact that it isn’t winter at the moment. In Monette’s case, it seems like she was looking for any old kind of human contact. From all she’d learned growing up, a girl like her couldn’t be real choosy about what kind of attention she got. There are probably a lot of girls who end up in bars for similar reasons.
“Then again, try to see it from her point of view. The guys she picked up could have made her feel like she was at least getting treated better than her mother. Plus, in a strange way, Monette was ambitious. She wasn’t satisfied with just being promoted from shelf stocker to checker. I had the feeling, from what she said to me at the Lifeway Monday morning, that she was aiming a lot higher. You probably can’t imagine how anybody would believe that going to bars is some kind of self-help strategy, but I bet plenty of people think that’s exactly the case.”
Scotty reflected on what she’d said. “So how about you? Why would a woman who obviously has as much on the ball as you do waste her nights closing down the honky-tonks?”
Sally gave him the easiest explanation. “In my case, the music was the main attraction. I was getting paid to spend my time in bars. I figured that sooner or later I’d get discovered as the songwriting genius and charismatic performer I was, and then the golden doors would open.”
Scotty snorted.
“Come on, Scotty. You must have had a dream or two. Every gym rat who ever shot a thousand free throws at a time, and kept score, thought he was headed for Michael Jordanville.”
“I got over it,” he said.
Mr. Conversation strikes again. Sally carried on. “I also did my share of just hanging out, listening to bands I liked, and plenty I didn’t like. Plus, remember, the bars were the places I got together with my girlfriends. Delice and I have been known to have a few beverages and laugh until our stomachs hurt.”
She dug a bottle of water out of her backpack, twisted the top, took a drink, and slanted a glance at him. Now it was time for a little harder story. “I’d be a liar if I said the whiskey and the boys had nothing to do with it. And the music was a part of that too. I said Monette wanted the attention. Hell, so did I.” She fiddled with the bottle cap. “At some point, you get to where there’s nothing left to prove. If you’re lucky, sooner or later you figure out there’s something better you could be doing. For my part, I’ve come to prefer spending my time in silent rooms, reading and writing about the dead. When I get tired of that, I go into big noisy rooms full of college kids and talk about the dead. It’s my calling.”
She took another swig of water and looked him over, wondering. “You’re a Laramie boy. Didn’t you ever indulge in party time?”
“Only when my friends dragged me out. Even heard you sing a time or two,” he admitted. “But I was a jock and a grind. I was a fanatic about staying in shape, and keeping up with my studies. I didn’t even know what scotch was until I was thirty-five.”
“It’s a thirty-fivish kind of drink,” said Sally, who only ordered scotch when she felt both jaded and snobbish. “As you can probably figure, I’ve heard people talking about what a jock you were. And I heard about your knee. It’s kind of surprising that you’re still playing basketball,” she offered in sympathy.
“What Hawk and I play,” Scotty said, “isn’t basket-ball. Half court. No D. If we took on the scrubs from the UW women’s team we might not score a point. Granny hoops.”
“Beats eatin’ donuts and smokin’ cigarettes,” said Sally. “I worry about Dickie.”
“So do I,” said Scotty.
“Maybe you could get him to consider working out a little,” Sally told him.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Scotty answered. “You and the sheriff have been buddies a long time. I just started working with him.”
“You grew up here. You must have known the Lang-hams.”
“Knew who they were. Especially Delice,” he said, the shadow of a grin ghosting across his mouth and disappearing. “I probably bought a beer or two from Dickie. But we didn’t have much in common, considering the other line of work he was in, and the fact that I was a real straight arrow.”