The Do-Re-Mi Page 14

  Pop said, “Let’s go sit somewhere.”

  When he touched Lola’s arm to lead her out, she snapped, “Back off, pervert,” and ducked outside on her own.

  Mama rose and stood by me. “Did the motorcycle boys hurt her?”

  “She hurt herself,” Ava said, in a harsh voice that didn’t seem to be hers. “Why’s she here?”

  I said, “Maybe she’ll turn on them. Maybe she’ll clean up and be your sister again.”

  “Yeah. We should expect miracles.” Now she sounded like a cynical unbeliever.

  I followed her outside. We saw Pop and Lola at a park bench beside the playground. Ava caught my elbow and tugged. We let Mama walk ahead.

  “Just before you came into the yurt,” Ava whispered, “not this time but last, before the shots at Phil Ochs, Wendy said, ‘X is nearby.’ Who is X? I asked her but she’d already spaced out.”

  “X is my brother, Alvaro Xavier Montoya Gomez Hickey.” I spelled out Xavier.

  Mama had stopped to wait for us. We caught up. In the playground sandbox, a little brown girl held a bucket of water and taught three younger ones to make drip castles. Pop motioned for us to sit in the lawn chairs beside the bench, as though he preferred having Lola to himself.

  We obeyed, but listened and overheard.

  He asked why Vic had let her go without a fuss. She said, “ ‘Cause he’s got a hard-on for these two sluts Boomer dragged up from the Bay.”

  “Boomer’s the scar-faced guy.”

  “He carved it himself.”

  “You like Vic?”

  “Do you?”

  “I hardly know him.”

  “He doesn’t get any better. Hey, what’s the deal here? Am I like a POW? You’re gonna torture me with my pants down like you did with Hound Dog?”

  Pop gave me a look that meant he’d be asking about the pants down part.

  “You better torture me, Grandpa,” Lola said, “or I’m clamming up. I don’t feel like talking anymore.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Ava remarked.

  Lola turned toward me and pointed to her sister. “Thinking about Jesus is the only thing makes her come.”

  “Stop it, Lo. Help us out.”

  “Why should I?”

  “For Jimmy.”

  “Give it up, bitch.”

  Ava walked over, knelt in front of Lola and laid a hand on her sister’s knee. “Okay, what’d I do to make you hate me?”

  Lola only sneered, though her face clouded.

  While Pop gave her a minute to answer, Mama and a scrawny child in the sandbox waved at each other. Then Pop asked, “You knew Jimmy Marris?”

  Lola pinched her lips with her thumb and middle finger as though clamping them shut until the glue dried.

  “Brady Barker, you know him?”

  She began to hum and Pop said, “My son figured out who killed Jimmy, and why. Care to hear?”

  Lola reached for her Marlboros, lit one, and sucked on it while she stared at me.

  I said, “Jimmy found out, maybe from you, that his uncle Brady was in the Cossacks’ pocket. And Jimmy hated the bikers because they terrorized his town. He thought he could pressure his uncle into chasing them out. And what made him wild was, he thought you were special. The way he saw things, Vic and the speed he turned you on to were killing you off. With the Cossacks gone, you’d get clean and healthy and beautiful again. But word got back to Vic, who then sent one some of his boys out hunting. They dropped Jimmy off the bridge into Whiskey River.”

  During my story, she had sucked a whole Marlboro, made hissing sounds, and wiped her dribbling nose. She tried to laugh. It didn’t work. A silver spot glistened beneath her left eye. “Bullshit.” She lit another Marlboro. “Hey, Grandpa. Some fool told me the real Cossacks, the ones from Russia, you know, were famous for eating their buggers. That true?”

  Pop smiled. “We’ve got appointments. Stick around, would you please, Lola?”

  “You gonna make me?”

  “Nope.” He stood and came to Ava and squeezed her hand. Then he then kissed Mama gently and turned toward his car. I said goodbye to the women and followed him.

  In the car, Pop said, “Poor kid.” If Pop had a tragic flaw, it was compassion for women in trouble. “I could use a sedative. Know any bars close by?”

  I pointed up River Road. “Ava told me that a few minutes before the shot at Ochs, Mama said Alvaro was nearby.”

  “God tell her?”

  “Maybe. She didn’t say.”

  When we parked outside Louella’s Lounge, on Manhattan Avenue halfway between the jail and the Safeway mall, I told Pop about the proprietor having been enjoined by Barker and Knudsen to report to them if I showed up there. Inside, Pop found the place most congenial for its jukebox that featured Benny Goodman, the Ink Spots, and Billie Holiday, and because it was dark and smoky like he thought a bar ought to be, or else you might as well drink at home.

  I ordered a Moosehead, Pop called for his usual double shot of Dewar’s on the rocks. I spotted the owner who looked like my English profs. When he glanced our way, I waved him over and asked him to please call Barker and Knudsen like they asked him to, because we wanted to talk to them.

  The man nodded and left but didn’t go near a phone.

  “What now?” Pop asked.

  “Go back to the crime scene?”

  Our drinks came. Pop asked the bartender if we could use the phone. The bartender said no. Pop still tipped him. We drank fast then traded the dim blue light of Louella’s for a blast from the sun as it approached the western horizon. “We’ve got a little better than an hour of daylight,” Pop said on our way to a pay phone outside the Safeway.

  He called the Riverside Lodge. The desk clerk rang Knudsen for him. The Fed picked up. “My son told me you’re a good man,” Pop said, and asked for an hour of his time.

  When they hung up, I asked, “Did I say he was a good man?”

  “If not, you’re learning what a godawful liar I am, which is a lousy fact for a guy to know about his old man.”

  “I’ll need therapy.”

  “Send me the tab. Should we tell Knudsen we figure he’s FBI?”

  WE found Agent Knudsen outside his cottage across Moonshine Road from the lodge office, pacing the riverbank and peering into the water, his aviator sunglasses in his hand. As he walked toward our car, he hitched the glasses on. We had climbed out of the car. Pop stepped forward to shake his hand. I didn’t.

  “Tom Hickey. I believe you know my boy here.”

  “We’ve talked.”

  “I’ve heard,” Pop said, “that you’re not what you say but a G-man who’s taking notes on my other boy. Tell me it isn’t so, would you?”

  Knudsen’s little smile flashed into a big one. “Proud to know you, Tom.”

  “Want to show some ID?”

  “Either that, or we could try to cooperate.” Knudsen motioned toward the Caddy. “Shall we?”

  He rode shotgun. “Nice wheels.”

  I sat in back watching for motorcycles or other enemies, hoping they would descend upon us while our team included a federal agent. Unless, I thought, Knudsen was corrupt and on the payroll of killers. For all I knew, he might have conspired with Brady Barker and the Cossacks to rip off a thousand-kilo sinsemilla harvest from Quig, Simon, or whomever. Jimmy could have learned from Barker and tried to cash in by blackmailing the Fed, giving Knudsen no other option but to waste Jimmy, since cops knew better than to pay extortion.

  Though I reasoned the odds against that scenario might run as high as several billion to one, the past three days had driven me to a place beyond reason. I had arrived in Evergreen dreaming of the big break, maybe a kiss from Mimi Fariña and some carefree days with my brother. But I’d gotten jailed and maimed, had my car mutilated, kidnapped a guy, seen my brother get chased into the mountains, gone with Pop into the lion’s den to snatch Ava’s sister, and met and found myself in danger of falling for Ava, all in four hours short of three days.<
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  Up front, Knudsen questioned Pop. Having read Alvaro’s military and criminal records, he knew my brother was adopted, that he had graduated from high school, spent two years at community college, gotten busted at the border with amphetamine pills, and joined the army in preference to serving a year in road camp, an option the judge suggested. Knudsen knew Alvaro had earned three bronze stars and two purple hearts, one for the M-16 shell that nearly sliced his Achilles tendon and one for the shrapnel that chipped the bone above his left eye. Knudsen knew such details but not my brother’s mind or heart. After mentioning some of those facts and alluding to others, he asked, “Alvaro came to the redwoods hoping to strike it rich panning for gold?”

  “Naw,” Pop said. “Whoever told you that is mistaken.”

  “It’s the line he used on the locals.”

  “He was putting them on then,” Pop said. “Alvaro doesn’t give a fig about rich. He just loves the woods. So, how do you figure this shooting? Any specifics on the location, the distance, how many shots were fired, how many hit Jimmy?”

  The Fed glanced back at me. “I guess Alvaro’s at home in the out of doors. A hunter.”

  “Except in Vietnam and a few trout,” Pop said, “he never killed a living thing bigger than a mosquito, as far as I know. I wouldn’t be surprised if over there, he shot to miss. He’s a delicate boy.”

  Knudsen made a wry face. “An innocent.”

  “That’s the word. Now, since you and Mister Hoover are fascinated by Alvaro, do you suppose I’m one of those parents who’s always the last to know?”

  After a long time scratching behind his ear, Knudsen said, “I can tell you he bought a dredge, suitable for nothing I know except sluicing gold out of creeks and rivers. From McNees Emporium two weeks ago. Thursday morning, the dredge wasn’t in Alvaro’s camp, even though we picked up a sieve and a gold pan there, and the lab found a clean set of Marris’ fingerprints on the pan.”

  Pop stared up the road, probably groping for an explanation, like I was. He shook his head. “Clifford, you have questions for the man, don’t you?”

  “For starters,” I said, “if Pop wants to be your friend, that’s peachy. But I don’t, and I want to see your ID and hear why an FBI agent would masquerade as another kind of Fed.”

  Knudsen chuckled.

  I considered asking what he knew or thought about the Alvaro and Phil Ochs connection. But that might clue him to something he didn’t yet know.

  WE drove past Alvaro’s camp and a mile or so farther east to a riverbank site where Knudsen pointed out foot tracks, several of them colored gray from the casts investigators had made.

  “Army boots,” Knudsen said. “No doubt Alvaro kept his. Mighty comfortable footwear when broken in.” He swept his hand as though scattering grass seed to point out the course of the tracks leading down and into the water. “Deep tracks for a guy Alvaro’s size. What’s he weigh?”

  “About one-fifty,” I said.

  “One-fifty. Then he must’ve been carrying either Marris or one of these redwoods to make tracks that deep. Now, tell me if I’m right — Alvaro wears size eight.”

  I said, “And you’ll tell us how many Cossacks wear size eight army surplus boots, right?”

  He pursed his lips. “I may do that.”

  He led us, backtracking the route he claimed Alvaro took carrying Jimmy. It looped to the west of Alvaro’s camp, over mosses and ferns, through vines and into and out of tracts of composting needles and bark, soft as quicksand. By the time we had followed the boot-prints to a creek, the sky’s complexion had gone bone gray.

  The boot tracks started at the edge of the creek near a wooden frame. Knudsen pointed. “Alvaro’s dredge fit into this thing. Look, let’s say Jimmy happens to see Alvaro buying the dredge. He thinks a few nuggets could pay his college tuition. Why not give it a go. He’s got a beef against Alvaro for hitting on his girl. So he and a partner come out here to snatch the dredge.

  “In the right vehicle, you can get from Moonshine Road to here. They call this one Wild Turkey Creek. It runs between the south and middle forks of Whiskey River. Late night, Jimmy and a partner are loading the dredge when somebody starts shooting.”

  “Who’s the partner?” Pop asked.

  Knudsen gave us a cryptic smile.

  “Who says he had a partner?”

  “A couple reasons. One, Jimmy didn’t have a vehicle.”

  “Two?”

  “I’ve got my ideas. But you’re going to have to come up with your own, Mister Hickey.” He looked over at me. “And son.”

  We tromped through the woods toward the Caddy, each of us absorbed in his own thoughts. Mine regarded the partner. If somebody had accompanied Jimmy into the woods, the shortest route to the truth was to find the partner.

  A picture of Simon flashed in my brain. Then came one of Ava.

  Knudsen saved the rest of his story until we were back in the car and rattling along Highball Trail. “Look, say Jimmy and his partner are a little tipsy and pumped with adrenaline, and they’re laughing loud enough to wake somebody like Alvaro who learned to sleep light when he was in Vietnam and out on patrol. He jumps out of the tent, picks up his rifle, runs up the trail to his dredge, and catches them stealing the thing. Look, these aren’t your Boy Scout type woods. They’re one of those places where criminals come to score big or die trying.

  “Who knows, maybe Jimmy or the partner take a shot at him. However it played, the partner gets away, Jimmy doesn’t.”

  “Who’s this partner?” I demanded.

  Knudsen turned to me and spoke softly, like someone trained to act patient even when he didn’t feel that way. “We’re going to find more footprints and casings from Alvaro’s gun and whatever else is out there. We’ll find the rest of the pieces of the puzzle after we free up some men, after they bring in Alvaro. It’s a done deal.”

  “Crap,” I said. “More likely a Cossack in size eight army boots swiped Alvaro’s dredge and carried it on his back through the forest, making all those tracks.”

  Pop glanced over his shoulder and flashed me a look he had used often enough when I was a mouthy kid. Which made me want to yell, What, do you expect me to think and ask questions, or don’t you?

  AFTER Pop turned onto the highway, he asked Knudsen, “If you’re so sure Alvaro’s the killer, why are you handing us your theory? Makes me suspect you’re telling us to find a crafty lawyer who can shred your evidence.”

  “Actually, I’m hoping you’ll recognize the truth and back off. Mister Hickey, you might love this boy, but he’s not your blood. In the nature versus nurture controversy, you might find the answer’s a little of each. Even if you raised the kid to be a model citizen, he might’ve grown out of a bad seed.”

  “Bad seed,” my brain echoed. Just yesterday, when I met Little Vic in the jail, I had thought of a movie with that name. Knowing too many dubious Christians, mostly at college, had dimmed the beliefs Mama taught me, yet I retained enough faith to wonder if God just might have sent me the recall of the movie Bad Seed and later fed Knudsen the phrase, to clue me Vic was the killer.

  Knudsen said, “I’m hoping you and Clifford will look at the facts and quit stirring up what’s already a volatile brew. Before it explodes all over you and other people, like Marris’ girlfriend.

  “Look, the bottom line is, you two can either leave Evergreen with a son going to prison where he ought to go and serve his debt or find yourselves invited to a whole string of funerals. Which will be on your conscience, provided you are decent men.”

  Pop filled and lit his briar. “You’re okay, Mister Knudsen.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Pop shook his head and blew a chain of smoke rings.

  I wracked my brain for ideas about Jimmy’s partner. Nobody talked until we pulled up at the Riverside Lodge and Pop said, “We’re not disregarding your advice, Agent Knudsen of the FBI. We’re going to sleep on it, and take a new look at things in the morning.”

/>   Knudsen saluted. “You might want to add this to the brew. Phil Ochs is a revolutionary. And your boy is closer to Phil Ochs than you may know. Whether he came to the woods to forage or to get rich, he spent the bulk of his time snooping around. Just like you two. Good night.” He turned and marched off toward his cottage.

  I climbed into the front. As Pop swung a U-turn and back-tracked to Cognac Lane, the Fed’s accusations stabbed me like a poisoned dart between the eyes. For the first time I allowed the possibility that Alvaro might be the killer. All my reasoning had begun with presuppositions. Everything I knew about Alvaro was tainted with love. And similar thoughts plagued Pop, I suspected, when he pulled up at the curb outside Frosty’s Liquor.

  He handed me a twenty. “Dewar’s for me,” he said.

  As I came out of the store with quart of Scotch and a six pack of Oly, I saw Pop closing a pill box and dropping it into his breast pocket.

  “Headache?” I asked.

  “Heartburn,” he said, and sat still for a minute with his eyes closed before he started the car.

  Sixteen

  ON the way to the commune, Pop asked, “How about we chat with Quig this evening?”

  We found Mama and Ava on the deck behind the Chattagua Hall. They were on a bench, feet hanging over the edge of the deck, watching the jamboree site and river beyond. Mama loved rough water. In Tahoe, every few days she and Claire used to hike up Mount Rose and sit beside one of the mightier streams the way other women met for coffee or tea. When we lived in our shack on San Diego Bay, Mama often tagged along when Alvaro and I toted our boards a mile each way up the sidewalk of Pacific Beach Drive, going to surf beside Crystal Pier. She would sit on the damp sand, her feet in the tide, looking enchanted.

  She gave me a happy smile. “Ava will take us to church tomorrow.”

  “You got here just in time,” Ava said. “Another five minutes, the leftover food gets composted. We’d better hurry.”

  “Where’s your sister?” Pop asked.

  “In the yurt, crashed out.”

  Ava led us into the Chattagua Hall where diners sat cross-legged on rugs that looked woven out of rags, or on the plank floor, or lounged in bean bag chairs, plates on their laps. Simon and a girl who could’ve passed for a grown-up Raggedy Ann sat facing each other on a mat in front of an out-of-service fireplace. People saw us and backed away as if we all had mumps.