Going Nowhere Fast Page 3

  "Joe, let the child go," I said quietly.

  "Moms! He's not playin'!" Bad Dog gurgled, forced up on his tippy-toes by the huge, iron-like hand around his throat.

  "Joe, that's enough," I said. "You're scaring him."

  Joe turned, keeping his grip on Dog, and said, "He's crazy, Dottie. A lunatic. We've been talking to him now for a whole day, and he hasn't made a lick of sense yet!"

  "Of course he hasn't. This one never does. This is our baby, Joe. Theodore. Remember Theodore?"

  He couldn't help but remember, eventually. Over the years, he and I had come to attach a specific profile to each of our five children, and we both knew them all by heart: Edward had always been the paranoid one, Delila the most impulsive; Walter was insensitive, and Mo was smart.

  And Theodore, God bless him, was slow.

  Only Snow White ever shared a home with a more diverse band of little numbskulls.

  "Besides," I went on, "we all have to stay at the park until they tell us otherwise. You know that."

  "But, Dottie—"

  "Baby, it's only for a few days, all right? Not even a week. We can stand to be around the boy for that long, can't we?"

  Big Joe looked at his son and considered the question. It was like asking a Shiite Muslim if it wouldn't be too much trouble to share his toothbrush with a Christian for a day or two.

  But he let Bad Dog go.

  At last. A "baby" that worked.

  3

  Early the next morning, Big Joe and I went for our daily run, moving it up by several hours from the day before in the hope that an earlier starting time might change our luck a little, and this time, I checked to see that the door to our hotel cabin had locked behind us. Joe made a point of watching me do it, just as I thought he would, and mumbled something about the horse having already left the barn. I wanted to slap him silly, but I didn't; I knew I had his mistrust coming. After all, if I'd only locked Lucille's door the afternoon before…

  Bad Dog wanted to stay in the room and sleep in until our return, but his father wouldn't have it.

  "Get the hell out of that bed and go find something to do," Joe told him.

  "Why? Why can't I just stay here?" Dog whined.

  Joe crossed his arms and puffed up his chest. "Number one, because I don't want to find any more dead folks using my bathroom. And number two, because I said so. That's why."

  "Man, that's cold."

  "No it's not. Telling you to get out and stay out, that would be cold. Or begging you to get out of my life and never come back, that would be cold. Or asking you to leave this room—"

  "All right, all right. I get the idea." Bad Dog rolled reluctantly out of bed and onto his feet, yawning. He reached down into the waistband of his shorts to scratch himself absently, looking me straight in the eye, then smiled and said, "Mornin', Moms."

  My son, the gentleman's gentleman.

  Outside, the sky was a perfect, milky blue at eight in the morning, marred only by a slow parade of cumulus clouds as white and wispy as stretched cotton balls. On the earth below, meanwhile, tourists of all nationalities streamed about the national park grounds like bees in a giant hive, either following the established trails or blazing new ones of their own, lugging infants and diaper bags, backpacks and lunch boxes—and cameras. Hundreds upon hundreds of cameras, all humming and clicking incessantly, and all focused upon a common target: the Grand Canyon. The great colossal void in the arid Arizona earth that stretched for miles in all directions, its jagged, burnt-orange walls carved and sculpted by time into cliffs and columns of every conceivable shape and size. Two hundred and seventeen miles long, the brochures said it was, and in some places as much as eighteen miles wide and 5,700 feet deep. It looked much larger than that.

  We had been here three days now, and I still couldn't quite get over it. The colors, the lines, the seemingly limitless array of plateaus and precipices, all bathed in an ever shifting wash of sunlight and shadow—the place simply took my breath away.

  As for Big Joe, I think he had seen enough that first day, when he learned that a party-size bag of Baconettes was going for almost four dollars at the only market/liquor store on the park grounds.

  "So what do you think?" he asked me a good ten minutes into our run along the Canyon's south rim, without any kind of lead-in to the question. "Now that you've had some time to sleep on it?"

  "What do I think about what?"

  "About what? About him! That brain surgeon son of yours. Who else?"

  "Oh."

  "You don't still think he's telling the truth, I know."

  "You mean about the dead man yesterday?"

  "I mean about everything. All that stuff about being offered a job with the Raiders, and needing a thousand dollars for clipboards and stopwatches—everything."

  "Well…"

  "Aw, Jeez Looweez, Dottie. Who the hell would hire that boy to be an assistant trainer? Only thing he knows about giving somebody a rubdown is how to use baby oil to put a Laker Girl in the mood."

  "Yes, but…"

  "But what?"

  "But the boy's not a murderer, Joe. He might be a lot of things—"

  "Like a liar."

  "Yes."

  "And a womanizer."

  "Yes. That too. But—"

  "And a perpetually unemployed sociopath who takes advantage of his parents' kindness whenever the mood strikes him."

  "Yes, yes, of course. Theodore is all of those things, it's true. But a murderer?" I shook my head. "No. Not Theodore."

  "Okay. So he's not a murderer," Joe conceded. "I'll grant you that. But he for damn sure knows more than he's been telling. I'd bet money on that. There's no way it's just a coincidence, him turning up inside Lucille at the same time as a corpse. No ·way. Tragedy doesn't strike the same family like that, one right after the other."

  That was basically how I felt about it too, but Big Joe didn't need to know that.

  "All right," I said. "So maybe he hasn't told us everything he knows. But he will, given time. Once his conscience starts to bother him a little. Don't you think?"

  My husband looked over at me like I'd finally lost the last marble in my head. It was his way of reminding me that, while it was true I could always manage to squeeze the truth about something out of our son eventually, more often than not, I had to tear a switch from a tree first. Our front yard's constant state of defoliation was perfect testament to this fact.

  "Okay," I said, "so we have to make him talk."

  "Yes."

  "And we do that by… ?"

  "By threatening to turn his behind in. That's how we do it. We go back there and tell him if he doesn't come clean, we're gonna call Crowe and Bollinger and tell 'em about the gun the boy had on him yesterday, like we should have done in the first place."

  I shook my head. "He knows we'd never do that."

  "You mean, he knows you'd never do that," Joe said.

  I stopped running. Big Joe continued on for a few yards, acting like he hadn't missed me, then turned around and rejoined me, his legs still pumping away as he jogged in place.

  "Baby, that isn't funny. Those detectives find out Theodore had a gun, you know what they'll do. They'll take the boy in. Bullets or no bullets."

  "And get the truth out of him in fifteen minutes," Big Joe said.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I think you and I had better hear what the truth is before the law does. Don't you?"

  There wasn't a whole lot he could say to that. I'd made too much sense.

  "We're talking about a murder here, Dottie. Not a jaywalking ticket," Big Joe said.

  "I understand that."

  He was surprised to learn that that was all I was going to say. I'd already told him what I thought we should do, and I wasn't going to sell him on the idea by arguing with him. Not when a wifely stare-down could do the job equally well, and without all the emotional muss and fuss.

  "Twenty-four hours," Big Joe said flatly, daring me to reject the offer. "We'll
give him just twenty-four hours to 'fess up. He hasn't changed his tune by then, told us why he's really here and how that dead man ended up at our doorstep, we tell Crowe and Bollinger about the gun. No ifs, ands, or buts. Understand?"

  I nodded my head and tried to look brave. "I understand," I said.

  And with that, we ran the rest of our three miles in silence, at least one of us praying for the soul of our youngest son every inch of the way.

  * * * *

  "Okay, now. Say cheese," Bad Dog said.

  He was squinting through the viewfinder of a 35-mm camera, preparing to take the photograph of two blond, teenage girls standing before the curio-shop-in-pueblo's clothing known as Hopi House. As Joe and I watched, Dog pressed the shutter button, then exchanged the camera with the shorter of the two girls for four quarters, accepting their lavish thanks with shamefully bogus humility. The hand-lettered sign he retrieved from the ground at his feet afterward read:

  YOUR PICTURE TAKEN WITH YOUR CAMERA!

  ONLY $1.00 PER SHOT

  GET THE HOLE FAMILY IN THE PICTURE!

  GUARANTEED PROFESSIONAL RESULTS!

  "What the hell are you doing?" Big Joe asked him, his face reddening with embarrassment. "You want to get us all thrown out of here?"

  "What? You told me to go out and find somethin' to do!"

  "You know what I meant! A dollar to take somebody's photograph. Boy, that's highway robbery!"

  "No it isn't. It's free enterprise."

  "It's bush. That's what it is. You're taking advantage of these people, plain and simple. And you left the w out in 'whole'!"

  Bad Dog glanced at his sign to see that his father was right, then started to defend himself further, only to find my hand clamped firmly across his mouth. "Your father's right, Theodore. You should be ashamed of yourself."

  His jaw went slack, his eyes fell, and he nodded, duly ashamed.

  "But tell me something. Just for the record. What's your take so far?"

  "Thirty-seven bucks," Bad Dog said.

  "In forty-five minutes?"

  "Yes ma'am."

  "Gimme that sign," I said.

  Big Joe wheeled around and Dog and I both broke up.

  You want 'em to stick around awhile, girls, you've got to keep 'em on their toes.

  * * * *

  I didn't have any money, but I went shopping anyway. We women can do that.

  I hate to say it, but it's an art form that simply escapes most men. That's why they almost always refuse to come along. Joe says going shopping without money is like going fishing without a pole. You can watch all the fish swim by you want, but you can't take a single one home.

  He doesn't get it.

  Women like to shop because it's fun, not because it's profitable. As they say in the romance game, the chase is the thing, not the catch. Inspecting the goods, feeling an object's texture and weight, assessing its value compared to its price—it all makes for a very sensual experience. Finding a bargain you can blow some of your money on is just a bonus.

  I told Joe and Bad Dog to entertain themselves for a while, then went straight to Hopi House, empty purse and all.

  Hopi House is a wonderful little gift shop at the Grand Canyon's south rim—next to the EI Tovar Hotel—which was modeled after the pueblos of the Native American village of the same name. The shop specializes in genuine Native American arts and crafts, primarily those of the Hopi and Navajo, and I had never seen more beautiful items in my life. Jewelry, pottery, woven rugs, and wood carvings—the color and craftsmanship of everything was simply exquisite. I had a field day.

  Despite the fact that I couldn't shake the feeling I was being watched the whole time.

  I'd round a corner, or be talking to a salesperson, and suddenly sense someone's eyes upon me. But when I'd turn to look—there'd be no one there. No one who showed the slightest interest in me, anyway.

  It was odd, to say the least.

  The last time it happened, I was stepping out a side door to leave. Again the feeling came over me that someone, somewhere behind me, was shadowing my every move. Ranger Cooper, or one of his brethren, I thought to myself, immediately resenting the idea. I was going to turn around one more time to look—and then I thought better of it, and stepped through the door and out of the building instead.

  I stood just outside the door and waited to see who would be the next one through.

  It was a clever plan, but it fell flat on its face when the door opened and a mass of humanity poured out. Or six people, to be more exact: two male/female couples and two individuals, a man and a woman, all grouped together like kids during a school fire drill. I couldn't make out the pairings until they split off in different directions, but by that time, I'd lost any chance I might have had to see if either of the two individuals had been surprised to find me standing there. I didn't think the woman had, but I wasn't so sure about the man. All I'd noticed about him was that he had a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck.

  And now he was gone.

  Less than a minute later, so was I.

  * * * *

  "His name was Geoffry Bettis," Ranger Cooper said. "Geoffry Lamar Bettis. That name mean anything to any of you?"

  One by one, we all shook our heads for his benefit. First Big Joe, then Bad Dog, then me. We were in his office at the ranger station in the village, sitting in various chairs around his desk. We were all a little nervous, but I was even more than that, as I had the additional pressure of having to keep my eyes off Cooper's face in general, and his mustache in particular. Big Joe was watching me like a hawk.

  "He was a shoe salesman from Flagstaff," Cooper went on. "Forty-six years of age, married, with a couple of kids, both grown. No criminal arrest record, no outstanding warrants. Wife reported him missing two days ago—that's how we ID'd him." He looked up from the little notebook in his hand to face us again. "None of this sounds familiar to anybody?"

  Once more, he watched as three heads swiveled from east to west. Nothing about the expression on Bad Dog's face gave me reason to believe the ranger's questions were making him particularly uncomfortable.

  Cooper sipped a cup of coffee, pausing, I thought, to mull over his next move, and then consulted his notebook again. "His wife says he should have been driving a late model Chevy subcompact, license number DMK four-two-six, but so far we haven't found it. Of course, he could have entered the park in a rented car or on a bus, or merely as a passenger in someone else's vehicle, but if he did, that's been difficult to prove. Just as it's been difficult to prove when, exactly, he arrived here. We're working on the assumption he got here yesterday, the same day he died, because we've found nothing to indicate he spent Monday night here—we've checked with all the hotels, and every guest is accounted for. Again, that doesn't rule out the possibility that he slept overnight inside a rental car, or inside somebody's motor home, et cetera, et cetera, but…" He shrugged and shook his head. "For now, we don't think so."

  He finally closed the little notebook for good and looked up again, openly surveying our faces.

  Suddenly, his mustache didn't look so adorable to me anymore.

  "Folks, I'll be frank with you," he said. "I have no business calling you in here. This case belongs to the boys in the Sheriff's Department now, it's out of my hands. But since they've been kind enough to keep me abreast of how their investigation's going, I thought it would only be fair of me to do the same for you."

  He paused, presumably waiting for one of us to thank him. We just let him wait.

  "You see, it's like this. They don't think Mr. Bettis came all the way out here just to see the Canyon. The man had lived in Flagstaff for over twenty years—he and the family probably saw all of this place they could stand to see a decade ago."

  "So he came out here to meet somebody," Big Joe said.

  Cooper turned, impressed, and nodded his head. "Yessir, Mr. Loudermilk. That's their guess."

  "And they think that somebody is one of us."

  "I didn't
say that, sir."

  "But that is what they're thinking, isn't it?"

  The ranger thought carefully about his answer, then said, "Let's just say, sir, that they find themselves wondering why Bettis died in your trailer, using your facilities, when he had so many other options available to him. Why break into a stranger's trailer to use the can—" He glanced at me, blushing, and said, "'Scuse me, Mrs. Loudermilk. I meant to say the bathroom, of course." He turned to Joe again. "Why break into a stranger's trailer to use the bathroom when there are public rest rooms all over the park?"

  "Maybe he couldn't find a public rest room," I suggested.

  "Or maybe he couldn't wait to find one," Big Joe added.

  "Hey. When you gotta go, you gotta go," Bad Dog said, throwing in his two cents.

  Cooper gave our son a disapproving look, momentarily forgetting Dog's father and me altogether. "Maybe," he said, without a trace of warmth in his voice.

  "I mean, man, I can remember more than a few times when I couldn't find a public head, and I had to—"

  "You been traveling with your parents long?" Cooper asked abruptly, cutting Dog off.

  "What?"

  "I asked if you've been traveling with your folks here long. The three of you have been together, what—a few days? A few weeks? What?"

  Dog stole a pitifully conspicuous glance at me, all but admitting that he had forgotten how the three of us had agreed to answer Cooper's question if it happened to come up.

  "Come on, son," Cooper snapped. ''I'm asking you a simple question. You don't really need your mother's help to answer it, do you?"

  "He's been with us for three weeks," Joe said, surprising all of us.

  "Pardon me, Mr. Loudermilk, but I'm talking to the boy here."

  "The 'boy' here is twenty-two years old, officer. And he's my son. Which means as long as I'm in the room to hear it, you're gonna show him some respect when you talk to him. You got that?"

  "I was merely—"

  "You were merely talking to him like a four-year-old you'd caught taking cookies from a jar," I said, backing my husband up. "Theodore is a man. If you treat him like one, he'll tell you anything you want to know. Won't you, Theodore?"