Authors: Mark Nykanen
I gave Ring Ding copies of several reviews that made the point for me, and because he worked in television and therefore probably has the attention span of a popeyed slug, I highlighted in yellow the statements that he should consider the most. I noted in as casual a manner as possible that a number of critics have “savaged” me for the “representative” nature of my art, as if portraying the world in its vicissitudes were not challenge enough for an artist. But the highlighted passages say it best, particularly the critic who wrote that my “gaunt, ghastly subjects are rife with metaphorical implications. Their hunger speaks of the wantonness of appetite even as it denies its reach, bestirring a recognition of the barren emptiness of so many lives, an inescapable truth writ powerful in the uncompromising art of the world’s foremost genius of form.” Thank you.
Top that,
Laurie
, with your plaster dust and negative space, your art that’s all about “body,” though no sane person could ever see a body in that morass of plaster. Better Rodin’s peasant than the penury of
your
eye.
I turn from June, no longer daring to look, so distracted have I become by thoughts of these lesser lights. I recognize that I’ve grown too splenetic to work, yet I must return to the cellar.
Family Planning #9
is so close to completion. I want Jolly Roger’s skin lying by his wife’s side. Then Sonny-boy’s. Then the bronzes will be born.
That will leave me with Her Rankness, whose fate could not interest me less, and Diamond Girl. I am still seized by the sight of her, and for this she should be grateful. The species endows most relationships with about three years of intense physical fascination, which is just long enough in most cultures for a man and a woman to meet, mate, and reproduce, to avail the curse of family. As for all the years that follow, that form nothing but harrowing footnotes to this initial passion, the species cares not a whit, for once the breeding is done, they might as well be dead. I could not possibly agree more.
T
HE REMAINS OF
L
AUREN’S OMELETTE
looked passably obscene, and she turned from them as she would a leer or a curse. Old Al Jenkins was right about the Moab cuisine, but did “cuisine” have to include breakfast? Might it have the addled decency to apply only to those meals in the post meridiem? And couldn’t Ry stop making so much sense? Lauren had been intent on driving directly to Stassler’s to see where Kerry had been staying, tour the house the girl had described so vividly in her email, the barn and foundry too. Get some sense of the compound where she’d been seen last. And most important, talk to Stassler himself, get some sense of
him
. No matter how faithfully Ry reported his encounters, it could never substitute for her own need to see the sculptor, talk to him, eke out even the thinnest details about Kerry that might help them find her.
But Ry was proving persuasive. Since their first sip of coffee he’d been insisting that based on Stassler’s brusqueness with her on the phone, and his well-deserved reputation for obnoxiousness, she’d probably get one chance with him, so why not gather as much information as possible first?
“Fine,” she said, more shortly than she would have liked. “I see your point. I just thought if I went out there, I might find something out.”
“But you might find out more if you wait.”
“Patience,” she said in an exaggerated drawl, “is a vastly overrated virtue.”
Ry laughed, but he also grabbed the check and rose, as if to forestall any further discussion.
Bad Bad Leroy Brown began to wave his stump as soon as they stepped outside. Lauren untied his leash from the parking meter, and had him hop into the back of Ry’s Land Rover for the drive to the kennel.
Leroy had finished his meds, and it seemed safe to leave him in someone else’s care for the day, especially at the Canine Castle. The “concierge,” as the owner had referred to himself on the phone, had explained that they had three levels of “accommodations.” Lauren had rolled her eyes when she’d heard this, but she was new to the world of pampered pets and had agreed to take the tour that he’d promised.
Yaps, barks, and howls greeted them even before the owner himself appeared in a crisp, new tuxedo T-shirt. He smiled, toothy as a horse, and hurried them past a basic chain-link run, barely noting that it was available for the “budget-minded.” Then he flicked his wrist at a kennel with access to a heated outdoor concrete slab.
“It keeps them toasty,” he said with the same horsy grin.
“It’s hot,” Lauren said. “Wouldn’t they be happier on a block of ice?”
“At night,” he snapped. “At night.”
His pace slowed only for the top of the line, which featured a private suite with a bed and a doggie “bar” (liver snacks, chew toys, rawhide bones).
Lauren chose the chain-link run. The concierge shuddered.
• • •
They parked outside the county building a little after ten. The sun now burned right above them, and glinted painfully off the loops of concertina wire that crowned the second floor. Even in tinted glasses, Lauren had to shield her eyes as they approached the jail and sheriff’s office.
“He’s friendly enough,” Ry said in a hushed voice as they started up the stone steps, “but the real reason he’s talking is he’s politically ambitious. He figures if it’s a big book, he’s big news. But he’s not the type of guy you’d ever want to burn.”
Ry opened the door, and Lauren escaped the glaring sunlight. The sheriff’s office was on the ground floor at the end of a hallway filled with vending machines, a water fountain, and blond wood benches.
Sheriff Holbin welcomed them into his office and showed them to a pair of fat-backed chairs that faced his desk. Ry made the introductions, and the sheriff said he was pleased to meet Lauren. Perfunctory, but polite, and in the moments to follow she saw that he was also quick to the point.
“We got one of those good news bad news things come up early this morning,” he told them in completely even tones. She watched his blue eyes take them in, and decided he was wary but willing to trust them. Handsome too, despite his big belly, lantern jaw, and prodigious nose, outsized features that would be natural targets for political cartoonists if he ever realized his ambitions.
“A couple of guys riding near King’s Rock found her bike. They didn’t know it was hers, but they saw some signs of a struggle, and had the almighty good sense to keep their hands off of it. They called us on a cell phone, and I sent my evidence guys up there pronto.”
“When was this?” Ry asked.
“Early, about six.”
“What kind of struggle?” said Lauren.
The sheriff pursed his thick lips and shook his head. “The kind you don’t want to see when a young woman turns up missing. We found what appears to be the crotch,” he said with evident distaste, “of her bike pants. It looks like it was ripped right out of them.”
Lauren moaned.
“We’re definitely considering this an abduction now.”
“Any tire tracks? Any indication of who might have done it?” Any anything? she pleaded in silence.
“There’s nothing but tire tracks out there. Bicycle tire tracks. SUV tire tracks. Jeep tire tracks. Tire tracks on top of tire tracks. My guys looked for a single clean track, but there was no way. And it’s exposed up there too. Gets lots of wind. There’s no telling if the tracks of the vehicle that took her are even up there anymore. That’s if it
was
a vehicle.”
He looked at Ry, then at her. She asked the obvious: “What else could it have been?”
“Could have been someone she was with. Another mountain biker could have dragged her off. That’s why I’ve got the rest of my deputies scouring the whole area, fanning out in stages. You want to speed through town today, there’ll be no one here to stop you, though I’d appreciate it if you’d take my point and stick to the limit.”
Lauren sat there feeling sick, expecting the sheriff’s phone to ring at any moment with the news that they’d found Kerry’s body.
“Wait a second,” she looked up. “If there’s so much traffic around there, somebody must have seen something. Don’t you think?”
“You’d like to think so,” said the sheriff with a pronounced weariness, “but people don’t notice much. They think they do, but they don’t. We’ll publicize this, just in case, but I’m not going to be holding my breath. You think an eyewitness is good? An eyewitness is a nightmare, if that’s all you’ve got. Eyewitness has come to mean I-witless. Bad pun, but the sad truth.”
“So what’s the good news,” Ry said. He’d been taking notes, and paused long enough only to look up.
“The good news is that she might still be alive. If she’d fallen into a mine shaft, the chances are she wouldn’t be alive by now. Most times these creeps don’t bother abducting them just to kill them right away.”
“No, they do it so they can take their time,” Lauren blurted.
“Sometimes,” Sheriff Holbin allowed. “But sometimes it’s the abduction itself that they’re after. The thrill of it. An abduction, bad as it is, gives you hope.”
“How much?” Lauren said.
The sheriff shrugged, then leaned forward as if to apologize for his body’s sudden candor. “It’s hard to say. It really is. Is she still in Moab? Is she even in Utah? Who knows? She could be anywhere by now. He says she’s a strong girl,” his eyes landed on Ry, “so did Stassler, so maybe she’s going to be okay. That’s what I told her parents this morning when I called them. If she was your daughter, you’d rather hear this than nothing at all. That’s what I’m telling you too. Maybe she’s alive.”
Yes, and maybe the phone’s going to ring any second now, thought Lauren.
“What about Jared Nielsen?” said Ry. “Have you talked to him about this?”
“I found out a little after six, and we had someone over there at seven. You bet. He knows he’s not to leave town under any circumstances.”
“What’s to prevent him?” Ry continued.
The sheriff tilted his head and smiled. “Now Mr. Chambers, you say you’ve been a reporter for quite a few years, right?”
Ry nodded.
“Do you really think we’d put ourselves in the position of letting him climb into that two-ton SUV of his with the vanity plate
EXTRMBK
and take off?”
“So he’s under surveillance?”
“So you could conclude.” Holbin offered all this without rancor, and so it was received.
“How much of a suspect is he?” Lauren said.
The sheriff propped his hands on his belly. “I have an agreement with him,” he glanced at Ry, “that because he’s writing a book, and he’s not some pain in the fanny reporter, I’ll talk to him with the promise that none of this background stuff comes out until
after
the investigation is over, no matter how long that is. If it isn’t over for ten years, then he doesn’t use any of it for
ten
years. Do I have the same understanding with the girl’s professor?”
He stared at her.
“Yes, you do.” She felt as if she’d been sworn in.
“Okay, then. You bet he’s a suspect. Number one on a very short list. That bike was found way the hell up there, a good four-thousand-foot-elevation gain. To ride that far you’d have to be in super shape. He’s a strong rider. To rip her pants open like that, you probably have to be male. He’s male. To get that close to her, you got to know her. He knows her. To commit that kind of violence, that
personal
kind of violence, ripping apart her bike pants, you got to be invested in her emotionally. He’s invested in her emotionally. He said so himself. Said he was ‘crazy’ about her. We want to know how crazy.”
“Who else is on that very short list? Stassler?” Lauren asked quickly.
The sheriff made a brief clicking sound with his tongue before he spoke.
“He’s a strange one, but why would he do it? You got to look for motivation. That’s why Jared Nielsen is getting such a hard stare. What’s Stassler’s motivation? None that I can see. Nothing like the things that have us looking at Nielsen. Stassler’s associated with her, she was living in his compound. Okay, those are pretty strong links. And he was the one who reported her missing. It’s not unusual for the perpetrator to make the initial call, although I got to tell you that in abductions that’s kind of strange. But anyway, he did call. But then he never missed a beat when we told him we wanted to come out there right away, and he let us search his place. He didn’t have to, but he did. So, to answer your question, Stassler is on that very short list, but I have to ask myself, what’s in it for a world-famous sculptor to abduct some girl?”
“He’s obsessed with pain,” Lauren answered.
“Is he? Enough to snuff some young woman?”
Lauren recoiled at his words.
“I didn’t mean to put it so coldly, but what I’m driving at is the absence of any motive on Stassler’s part. In your basic financial-type crime, you follow the money. In a murder, abduction, you follow the motive. Who’s got it? Who doesn’t? With Stassler, we come up with goose eggs.”
“Have you seen his sculpture?”
“I sure have.” The sheriff raked his dark hair with his hand. “He had a show here a few years ago. I’ll grant you, it was pretty strange stuff. A whole family that looked like they’d died in the belly of a beast. I didn’t much care for it myself. My wife hated it. But I’m not your artsy-fartsy type either, so what do I know? I like pictures of sunsets, and elk with seven-point racks. The kind of stuff you probably think is garbage,” he said with considerable good nature.
“The reason I ask,” Lauren said, “is that
all
of his work is concerned with pain, terrible pain.”
“I know, but all of it’s also concerned with family. Everything he does is about family. He’s got that whole series of his,
Family Planning
one, two, three, all the way up to eight. My chief detective spent a whole day looking at his website and reading up on him. See, we’ve thought about all this stuff, but where’s the family here? The girl’s mother and father will be coming in here any second to see me. And besides, you can’t confuse the artist with his art, right?”
“Sometimes you can’t separate them,” Lauren replied.