“About two or three hours later, at home, I got a phone call, just a voice … I think it was that redheaded bastard … sayin’ if I opened my mouth, I’d get thrown so far back in the jug they’d have to shoot pinto beans in my mouth with a pea shooter to feed me. It was a stupid threat and I just laughed at it, and hung up on him; but a couple days later, my pop heard from the sheriff-Sheriff Wilcox-that I was in some kind of hot water out at the base. The sheriff told my father to tell me to keep my mouth shut about what I saw out there.”
“Why would Sheriff Wilcox be the one to convey that message?”
“Maybe because he and my pop were old pals. The sheriff said military personnel came around asking about me and my whole family, including my brother, who’s an Army fighter pilot. The implication was, my whole goddamn family was in trouble ’cause of me.”
“Anything come of it?”
“No. I heard about people getting threatened, and even hauled out to the base and questioned; but me? Nothing. I’d have probably forgot about it-except for being called an S.O.B., which I don’t think anybody much likes-if Maria hadn’t told me what she told me, the next morning.”
“Did she call you, or did you call her?”
“She called me. She said, ‘We need to talk.’ Urgent, upset. We decided on the officers’ club, and we met out there around eleven Sunday morning, had the place pretty near to ourselves. She was crying, very distraught. She looked … different, like if you said ‘boo,’ she’d go into shock. I asked what had happened out at that base last night, and she said she’d seen something no one else on this earth ever had.”
“Tell me what she said she saw.”
And he did. I would be hearing this firsthand, from her lips; but it might be helpful to compare the story she had told Dennis to the one she would tell me. Too many inconsistencies could indicate she was “remembering” a delusion, possibly unconsciously enlarging and enhancing it; no inconsistencies at all could mean her story had been learned by rote, government misinformation being fed, first to the mortician and then to me, a cover-up of some other incident and/or an effort to discredit Drew Pearson by planting a false, ridiculous story.
So I took it all down in my spiral notebook, and Dennis concluded with, “You think she really saw that, Nate? Or is she insane?”
“What do you think, Glenn?”
His frown drew the two thick dark streaks of eyebrow into one. “It was real weird out at that base hospital, that night; something big happened that afternoon, no question about it. And Maria saw something strange, no question about that, either. You know, bodies that been exposed to the elements for days on end, to predators and everything else out in the desert, they could look pretty darn weird.”
“Yeah,” I said, putting my pen down, “but could they grow suction cups on their fingertips?”
12
As cooperative as Roswell’s friendly neighborhood mortician had been, I felt almost guilty, giving him the bum’s rush with a side of baloney.
“Pity about Maria,” Glenn Dennis said, as I walked him out into the Lodge’s moonswept parking lot, the cool night air pungently tinged by the surrounding pines, whose silhouettes made a decorative pattern against the deep blue sky. “If she don’t feel good, she can stretch out in my backseat and I’ll get her back to Roswell, lickety-split.”
I figured getting stretched out in the mortician’s backseat-lickety-split or otherwise-was exactly what Maria wanted to avoid; but I didn’t tell him that.
“She’s feeling nauseous,” I said. “Having all these unpleasant memories stirred has really upset her. And the idea of a long car ride is something she just can’t handle.”
He nodded, chin crinkling. “Maria is kind of delicate … sensitive. You know, she was raised in a very religious family. She told me she’s going to become a nun, when her tour of duty’s up.”
That was disappointing news, but then again, maybe that had been her way of trying fend off the mortician’s advances.
“Well, Glenn,” I said, “I’ll get her a room, and then drive her back to her car, at that lake, first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I’d stay and help you out,” Dennis said, as we reached his car, a blue Buick, “but I gotta be into Ballard’s by nine. We got two big funerals tomorrow.”
“It’s a living,” I said.
He laughed gently. “That’s one thing about my trade-you never run out of customers.”
We shook hands. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I had a hunch Maria had misread his natural friendliness for lechery. On the other hand, who knew what any man might be tempted to do, at night, in the desert, with Maria?
He drove off, kicking up gravel dust, and I headed back inside, stopping at the front desk for a word with my pal the assistant manager.
“You have any little complimentary toiletry kits,” I asked him, “for guests who got separated from their luggage?”
He raised the shrapnel-scarred eyebrow. “Male or female?”
“Female.”
He smiled just a little, said, “I’ll have housekeeping stop by with what you need.”
“Thanks.”
“Uh, it doesn’t include Trojans.”
“It’s not like that. Really. Anyway, I’m a Sheik man.”
I knocked at Suite 101, and her musical alto said, “Mr. Heller?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Maria. I’m alone.”
She cracked the door open, sneaking a peek at me-she didn’t know me well enough to recognize my voice, I guess-and then let me in.
“He’s gone?” she asked eagerly, hands clasped to the lucky white embroidery decorating her bosom.
I nodded, taking off my hat, holding it over my heart briefly. “To another, better place.” I tossed the straw fedora onto a coffee table as I took in the joint.
The Governor’s Suite was really something-even more steeped in Victorian ambiance than the lobby, with just as high a ceiling, and an open stairway leading to a balcony off which the bedroom could be glimpsed; tucked under the stairway was a wet bar and the bathroom. The rest of the downstairs was a sitting room, or a living room, really, with a cozy scattering of mahogany and satinwood antiques; the lighting was subdued-she’d turned on a single amber-shaded table lamp-and a golden hue suffused the handsomely appointed suite, with its yellow-and-white brocade wallpaper, white marble fireplace overhung with gilt-framed desert landscape, and green-and-yellow-and-gold floral carpet.
Maria noticed me taking in this opulence-the clue may have been my mouth hanging open-and, glancing up, she said, “There’s even a chandelier.”
There was; a crystal one.
“Not very big,” I said. “Still, it’s one of the larger chandeliers I’ve run into in a hotel room.”
She laughed at that, just a little, enough to show me that her laughter was as musical as her voice.
“Thank you for … getting rid of him.”
I shrugged. “Glenn doesn’t strike me as such a bad egg. Seemed genuinely concerned that you weren’t feeling well.”
Now she seemed mildly embarrassed. “I probably overreacted … but the way he looks at me, things he says, I know he’s holding out hope for something that’s …”
“Hopeless?”
She nodded, shivered, and sat in the middle of a floral-upholstered love seat angled toward the fireplace, smoothing the skirt of the powder-blue dress, both feet on the ground, knees together, prim, proper … provocative. I moved to an easy chair opposite her, similarly angled. She sat hugging her bare arms.
I nodded toward the fresh wood in a brass bin. “Want me to make a fire?”
“I do feel a chill.”
As I built the fire, we made casual conversation. I asked her if she’d gotten herself a room.
“No. You don’t think there’ll be a problem …?”
“Not as underbooked as they are. I stopped by the desk, to get you some complimentary toiletries. Somebody ought to be around with ’em, soon.”
Her expression was warmer than the fire I was lighting. “Are you always so thoughtful, Mr. Heller?”