The Other Shoe Read online

  Detective Flaherty’s skill—his only professional enthusiasm—was sufficient in Conrad County to clear many cases. Flaherty made people confess themselves. When the detective succeeded in capturing these performances on videotape, Meyers often had all he needed to dictate terms, but watching the tapes again and again, as might be necessary with evidence, was not pleasant work. Flaherty was far from deserving his good opinion of himself, and his wormy methods were hard to see in operation. His report made mention of such interviews with the Brusetts, but said of them only that tapes and transcriptions were soon to follow for further review by the county attorney. In accordance with the sheriff’s order, he’d written no charges.

  Now, of the unknown traveler who had dropped into nowhere, from out of nowhere, and been found wet and weirdly wounded and dead, Hoot Meyers would be expected to make an official story, a case. Some sense must be made of this, however artificial. Often these days he was called upon to tell courts of law and tell the victims proliferating in this county like ants at a picnic that he no longer knew why people did the things they did, that purely pointless crime was often hard to solve. Motives unknown and unknowable. Facts insufficient. So it may be for his old friend Henry, a man whom Meyers had known as a simple and immaculately sane boy. What a nightmare. Poor Henry had got himself mixed up in yet another death by misadventure.

  Unless Meyers was mistaken, however, and he was willing to be a little mistaken in this, the Brusetts were harmless. There was a body, which would be admissible as evidence, and Henry Brusett’s silence, which was not, and it would be that silence that should be most suggestive and most damning in the affair, but it was nothing Meyers could use to convict him. Meyers thought that probably someone had done something out of sudden necessity up on Fitchet Creek, or out of character—and he was curious about it, but he would this once spare himself the search for the damning detail. He held about a pair of deuces for his hand, and he would stand pat. They were meek people, Henry and his woman. It was hard to imagine how in the course of their normal affairs they might ever again hurt anyone. Between the lines of these spare reports what was there to be read? A desolation. Meyers knew the lives that were led in the deep woods. The Brusetts were already confined there, and probably chastened, and all at no cost to the Department of Corrections. He’d passed on stronger cases than this, hadn’t he? He’d been handed another muddle, and there were good and practical reasons to believe it might never be anything else.

  His phone began to wink.

  “County attorney. This is Meyers. Hello? Nelda, did you . . . ? Hello? I’m on the line here, Nelda, if . . . ”

  “Hello.” A man’s voice, reluctant.

  “You’d be Mr. Teague. From Iowa?”

  “Sorry, my wife’s sort of distracting . . . Midge. Midge, just wait a second. Yes, well anyway, I’m, or we were . . . Midge, just wait a second, will you please?”

  “Is this Mr. Teague? Teague, is it?”

  “Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Teague, we were told to call you, I forgot about the time zones. So—your secretary told you? I called before, before you came in. I think she might have been a little annoyed with me. It was quite early there.”

  “Nelda lives at that desk, Mr. Teague, and she always likes talking to people. That’s why I keep her around. She tells me you might have some information for us.”

  “No information. Oh no. No. I’m sure we don’t know anything that might be of use to you. Or that anybody could want to know. We’re just, we don’t know anything ourselves. I mean, what would we know? About? From here? You’re in Montana? But we did have a few questions. We debated whether we should call you at all, but we are curious now.”

  Meyers, a father himself, knew exactly the species of curiosity that springs forth full-blown at the birth of a child to stalk a dad’s head forever, the bull in the china shop, the greatest love of all, and all for a creature who, after you’ve only just taught it not to eat its own shit, is off somewhere, somewhere out of sight, making its own decisions. Though his trade was in bad news of every kind, Meyers had never delivered news as bad as this. “There’s been an accident here.”

  “Oh, I doubt we’d know anything about that. My wife took the message, spoke to some young lady. Or it might have been a real young boy, she thinks. Didn’t get her name, or his name. No, I guess she wouldn’t give her name. But she did insist, this girl or whatever she was, she said we just had to call you, and she gave us this number and everything, and told us to ask about the boy from, what was it? ‘Up on Bishop Creek’? What would that mean? On Bishop Creek? That’s a place somewhere?”

  “Do you think she might have said ‘Fitchet Creek’?”

  “Maybe. Midge? Midge? My wife won’t come to the phone. This young woman, this young woman spoke very fast. She was hard to understand. There was something funny in the, maybe some static in the line. But, anyway, it happens our son is off on a trip right now. He was gone on a vacation, I guess you could call it. At first he was saying Austin, Texas, but then he changed his mind and said he was just going, and he left it at that, and he left.” Teague’s voice issued through a long, tinny tube, fear overmastering him. “He said the whole idea was to get away for a while, completely away. He wanted to go off and think. And you can’t really discourage that sort of thing. That was fine with us. Fine. So he’s been . . . we didn’t know how it was supposed to go. When children went off like that. Off on their own vacations. Should they be expected to call home? You’d like them to check in, but I suppose it gets to be too late in the day.”

  “Your son is how old, Mr. Teague?”

  “Twenty-four last May. Getting on up there. They get so . . . they need a little bit of independence, so you just have to say . . . Well, there isn’t much you can say. But Calvin is, believe me, he’s just as reliable as they come. Almost too reliable, if you can believe that.”

  “You say the name was Calvin?”

  “Yes. Calvin. Calvin Winston Teague,” said the father. “But . . . do you . . . ?”

  “You didn’t know where he was going?”

  “No.”

  “How he was going?”

  “Oh, he was driving. He took his car, of course. He’s a great one for those roadside monuments, points of interest.”

  “And you’re calling from Iowa, wasn’t it? Have I got that right? Mind if I put you on the speaker phone so I can take some notes?”

  “Yes. I mean, I don’t mind. Yes, Iowa.”

  “You don’t know who called you? Who that was?”

  “No,” said Mr. Teague. “We don’t know how she got our name, but we know she did, and that’s a little funny, don’t you think? That this young woman, or boy—this person—that they should have our names? How would they? Our telephone number? How would they get that? This person told my wife we were supposed to get in touch with you immediately. But we weren’t sure. It sounded like a hoax. What kind of accident?”

  The armored beast got up to pace Hoot Meyer’s gut. “Fatal. We’ve got a body we can’t identify.”

  “What, drowned? Because that wouldn’t be Calvin. He had years and years of swimming lessons. I mean, that’s the whole reason for maintaining a municipal swimming pool, to . . . ”

  “Drowned? Oh, Fitchet Creek. No, that’s just where we found him. Near Fitchet Creek, would be more accurate, or off in that drainage somewhere.”

  “Found?”

  “Did this woman, or this girl, say how she knew to call you?”

  “No. I don’t understand. Drainage? No, I don’t think . . . Why would she be calling us? Do you think? Did she call you?”

  “Sir, does your son have blond, dirty-blond hair? He’d be about five-nine, five-ten, a hundred and sixty-five pounds?”

  “No. Calvin’s one-seventy. At least. At least. Sometimes quite a bit heavier, I think. It’s nothing, I think this might be a practical joke. Is that what they call them? Some of these kids don’t always use the best sense. But we did think we should call when we’r
e . . . what? Not knowing.”

  Meyers put best evidence into play. “Has your boy got a slight deformity of his left ear? Ear lobe is kind of withered, looks like a—say, a pale raspberry?”

  There was scraping, a bump in the line. Wesley Teague said nothing then, but Meyers heard Mrs. Teague hovering near behind him, her sudden keening.

  ▪ 8 ▪

  THIS WAS THEIR third call in an hour, and it was developing that Midge just could not bring herself to fly and that she wasn’t about to let her husband go through something like that by himself, and so the Teagues had decided they would drive up to see about identifying the remains if that was all right with Meyers. Meyers told Mr. Teague to come as best he could, as soon as he could.

  “I’ve got a pretty serious form of night blindness,” Teague explained. “My license actually prohibits me from driving after dusk or before full dawn, so it’s going to be a minimum of thirty hours, I think, and maybe forty-eight, maybe even a little more. Midge gets tired. So, would that be all right? If we took that long to get there?”

  Always inclined to want the promptest answer, Hoot Meyers could not understand how anyone might let this, of all doubts, linger. Could the man be asking about the rate of his son’s decay? He must know the boy was refrigerated. “That’ll be fine. There’s no practical reason to hurry.”

  “Couldn’t you just tell us . . . something?”

  “There are a lot of things I need to look at. They just delivered me some tapes—I’ll show you what we’ve got when you get here.”

  “Tapes? Wasn’t this an accident? Did someone? Tapes?”

  “There were some interviews done. Some interviews with some of the people involved. With any luck, they’ll be on tape, and maybe those’ll tell me something.”

  “Involved? Involved how?”

  “We don’t know. That’s why I want to watch these tapes now.”

  “Someone was involved, though?”

  “Yes, but we don’t know how much or in what way.”

  “We’re thinking,” said Mr. Teague, “that it’s probably not even, that this has to be a—what? A mistake, really. We’ll be leaving our daughter Luana right here by the home phone while we’re gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets a call from you-know-who. So we’re leaving her there, just in case.”

  Meyers was not given to wishful thinking and was always surprised at the force it could exert in others’ lives.

  “Could you at least tell us something?” Teague lapsed in and out of hopefulness. “What you think happened at least?”

  “I’ve got bits and pieces, and they don’t make much sense. Yet. When you get here I’ll show you everything we’ve got. You’ll draw your own conclusions.” Meyers was not accustomed to dissemble or parse. The bluntest kind of honesty was the one luxury he’d bought himself with his small influence, but now with his integrity on leave he’d gone to the funhouse, bought a ticket, and was groping for the way out. “You want me to call you back when I’ve watched these things?”

  “No,” said Mr. Teague. “Please don’t. We’ll know everything soon enough.”

  Detective Flaherty’s interview with Henry was flawlessly produced in accordance with the manual on police interrogations, with Henry sitting very near the camera and frontally lit so that his face filled much of the screen and was amplified until the slightest movement of his eyes might be tracked; his eyes moved only rarely and then only to roll a little upward. He blinked at long intervals. The detective’s voice was the disembodied voice of the camera, and it sounded as if a microphone had been implanted in his very mouth, and he said that they were in the squad room of the Conrad County Law and Order Complex and that the time was zero zero thirty hours. The subject, he said, was Henry Brusett. “Now, Mr. Brusett, I’m giving you more rights than you actually got coming to you, because you are not under arrest. You understand that, don’t you? We’re just working our investigation here.” Flaherty described for Henry the several civil liberties as if they came of his personal benevolence.

  Henry’s mouth worked as he waited this out—he was chewing the insides of his cheeks. Henry, though he was a little younger than Hoot Meyers, had gone gray even in the flesh and had got a blasted pair of eyes. He had turned still more scarce in the years since the trees had taken their revenge on him and butchered him in his boots, and there had been years on end when Meyers hadn’t so much as glimpsed him, though they were living in the same county, trading in the same little towns all the while. Meyers knew, of course, always knew that Henry was probably somewhere nearby. They’d gotten old, apparently. Gotten old, never speaking to each other.

  “Do you understand these rights I have read to you?”

  Henry’s face remained set, closed.

  “Mr. Brusett, I have to ask you, ’cause it’s important that I make sure—do you understand these rights I have read to you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Say your name for the audio, please.”

  “You just said it. It’s Henry Brusett.”

  “We like to know we’re saying it right. Middle name?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “And how old are you, Mr. Brusett?”

  “You know how old. I gave you my driver’s license.”

  “That’s right. Okay, so . . . do you think you’d need the services of a lawyer tonight? ”

  “No.” Henry was seeing something not presently before his eyes.

  “Oh, great. You know, you can certainly call one in any time you want, but right now that would have to be at your own expense. Because, until you’re arrested—unless you’re arrested—anyway, I’m glad you feel like you can talk to me.”

  “No.” There were deep vertical seams in Henry’s lips, places he’d shaved badly the last time he’d shaved.

  “It’s all right,” said Flaherty. “I think I know how you must feel.”

  “No.” His tongue swept his lips.

  “Would you like some water?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  “’Cause, it’s not a problem. Pop. Coffee. We’d like to try and make you comfortable if we can. There’s no reason for anyone to be uncomfortable here, Mr. Brusett, ’cause, personally, I don’t really think anyone has done anything wrong. Of course, I don’t know for sure. But I just have this idea that the man I’m talking to here is not the kind of man who does things wrong. Am I right?”

  “No,” said Henry.

  “If there’s something you need to tell me—feel free.”

  Henry pinched his nostrils as if to stifle a sneeze, but then, distracted, he held them so for several minutes.

  “Whatever you need to tell me,” Flaherty offered again.

  Henry released his nose. “I better go.”

  “Sure, if you like. Any time. But can you wait just a second? I need to step into the other room. Just give me a couple minutes, all right? I’ll be right back.”

  Flaherty could be heard leaving the room. Henry remained for a long while before the camera, and he waited almost completely still. He disappeared from the screen for a time, then returned to the frame in a black T-shirt. There were mumblings made too far from the microphone to be heard distinctly on tape; Henry’s half of these exchanges was to nod. He did or said nothing else. Eventually a new, well-amplified voice was heard off camera, a new presence in the tape, and this announced itself as Sheriff Utterback, and it gave the time and date again, and wondered, “How we doing, Mr. Brusett?”

  Henry didn’t seem to know.

  “Me and Detective Flaherty have just been chatting with your wife.”

  Henry sighed in disappointment and continued looking out upon the long view.

  “She’s told us everything we need to know. So, I guess we won’t need your help after all. Course, after what she said, you might kinda want to give us your own version of what happened up there. You don’t come out too good, Mr. Brusett, the way your wife tells it. She says you clobbered that guy, says she doesn’t even know why. Kind of an
odd story, if you ask me, but that’s the one she’s been telling us.”

  “She has?”

  “She’s young, probably scared out of her wits. But her version of this is the only one we’ve got to work with so far. We’d sure be happy to hear what you had to say about it, hear your side of it.”

  “If that’s what she said, then why don’t you arrest me?”

  “There’s always time for that. And it’s just her word so far, and the way we found you, which, you’ll have to admit, was kind of odd, and I mean real unusual. Right now, it’s just mostly a matter of trying to make everything go together with what she’s telling us. Put a case together, you know. But, Mr. Brusett, we always like to try and go with the truth if we can get it. I bet everybody involved would be a lot happier if the truth came out.”

  “What’d she tell you I did?”

  “Well—she told us you killed the guy.”

  Henry made a grin as from spare parts. Never at any age had he been prone to this expression. “You think I don’t know her any better than that?”

  The sheriff seemed to understand that he’d been outflanked. “So, that’s all you got to say to us? A thing as bad as this is, and that’s all you can tell us about it? Does that seem right to you?”

  “If I said anything at all, I said too much, and that’s how I feel about it all the time, not just when I’m in trouble.”

  Meyers had been raised in and had lived by the same principle, but somehow less righteously than his old neighbor. The interview had been concluded without Flaherty, or the sheriff, or Henry himself having done Henry any harm.