“Anita's going to need money. I doubt she'll be getting any of the life insurance he was loaded up with.”
“She can always file bankruptcy,” the Gibraltar man said breezily. “Can we go inside? It's freezing out here.”
Anita came to see him the next day. She had fixed herself up, but the old spark had been replaced by something just old. Events like losing a husband could make a woman cross the line into age in one night. Tim had seen it before.
“Let's talk frankly, Anita,” he said. Her eyes burned at him for a minute, then extinguished again. “I've been listening to the gossip. I heard some things I need to check out with you.”
“Like what?”
“For example, that you were getting ready to leave Roy, take Ginny and Kyle.”
“So what if I was?” she said. “So you've been listening to the women in this town, stabbing you in the back when your husband's just died…” She started crying, lightly and easily, like the rain falling outside the door. “He'd gambled away our savings. He didn't care about me anymore. Yes, I was thinking about leaving while I still had some self-respect. Of course, he's taken even that away from me now.” But the lift of her chin into the air said, he can take everything else, but he won't take my pride.
“Did you know he was going to steal the money?”
“Of course not-”
“Marriage is an odd state. We let another person come so close, they can read our minds,” Tim said. “I think you knew.”
“I can't believe you're saying this. You're accusing me of killing him so I could have the money, like I dressed him in a wet suit and tossed him over the bridge? He weighed over two hundred pounds. I don't have to listen to this. I'm going home.”
“You might want to wait another few minutes,” Tim said.
“Wh-why?”
“Because Bodie's out there searching your house and yard. I'm sorry, we have to be sure.” He handed her a copy of the search warrant.
“That woman is so broke all we found was letters to her sister asking for loans,” Bodie said later. “We dug around the backyard, knocked holes in the walls, tossed the garage. Found a family of skunks. There's no money there.”
“We had to try,” Tim said. “You want to eat over at the hotel restaurant tonight? My treat.”
“My grampa's in town,” Bodie said. “My mom's making a turkey. You're more than welcome…”
“No, you go on. I've got my heart set on a piece of apple pie from the restaurant,” Tim said.
He locked up at five. It was a warm clear night, and the street was lined with the cars of the isolated cabin owners from miles around who didn't get into town that often. He saw some loggers from Camden he knew, said hello, walked up the wooden steps to the Placer Hotel Restaurant.
After dinner Tim was trying to make up his mind whether to drive to Camden for a movie or to go home, when he saw Valerie's husband out front, careening toward his car. He hustled over and took his arm, saying, “Oh no you don't.”
“Leggo,” Ed Strickland said. He was a strong boy, but Tim got him over to the porch and half-threw him into the wicker chair.
“Stay there while I call a taxi. You can't drive like that,” he said. Strickland's disheveled blond hair fell across his eyes and he blew out cheap Scotch vapors.
“I'll just walk back to the hotel, if you're gonna make a federal case out of me having a few,” he said.
“You need to go home.”
“The hotel is my home, Mr. Deputy Sir,” Strickland said. “I moved here recently.”
“Valerie and you…”
“It's all her fault,” Strickland said. “She wanted to buy the damn place. Then the tourists stayed away because of the rain. I got laid off. Then she threw me out because I couldn't find any other work. It's not my fault. She's a hard-hearted b-”
“Watch your mouth,” Tim said, cutting him off. “If you don't have any money, how are you paying to live at the Placer Hotel?”
Strickland gave him a sly look from under the hair. “You ever played poker with me? I have had one humongous streak lately. Best of all, she hasn't got any paycheck stub to look at, so she can't come after me for some of it. Can I go now?” He got up and wove across the street, waving away the traffic. Tim sat down, watching.
The next morning, early, he drove back to the portage point. Gray mist seeped around the dripping trees. Valerie opened the door to the motel office, looking surprised and maybe pleased to see him. She still wore her robe, a long blue silky thing. Her hair was wet from the shower. She hastily took off the specs she was wearing, invited him in.
“The kids just left for school,” she said. “They left some eggs in the pan.”
“Sounds good,” Tim said. While he ate in the warm little kitchen, she washed the dishes. Finally, she sat down across the table from him with her coffee. She said, “I know you have some business or you wouldn't have come. So go right ahead.”
“It's about Ed,” Tim said.
“Ed? Did he do something?”
“I don't know. He says you and he have split up.”
“Trust Ed to tell everybody in town,” Valerie said.
“When did this happen?”
“Oh, I guess it was the day after I found Roy. Ed and I, we never were suited for each other. We were party pals, you know what I mean? When I sobered up, I found out there was nothing else between us.”
“He's got a fancy room at the Placer Hotel,” Tim said. “How does he pay for it?”
“Well, I can tell you he doesn't pay on credit. We have no credit,” Valerie said. “He isn't working around here, or I'd know it. I suppose he's having a winning streak.”
Her robe softened the hard planes of her face. Her damp hair shone like satin. He wanted to touch it. He drank some more coffee, and said, “I didn't know there really were such things.”
“You stop believing in all that nonsense when the drinking stops,” she said. “Yeah. He might be winning this week, but next week is another thing entirely. He doesn't think that way, though.”
“Not like us,” Tim said. “Upright and sober. I'm thinking maybe Ed found the body with the money before you got out there, picked a fight with you, and left.”
Valerie's jaw dropped. She shook her head. “You mean he might have two hundred fifty thousand dollars socked away somewhere? I can't believe it. He could never keep it a secret. He'd just have to brag about it.”
“Now that you think about it, did you notice anything in his behavior that day, you know, going outside for a long time, anything like that?”
“Just the usual foul mood when he has a hangover,” Valerie said. “I slept late that morning and didn't go out with Ginger for her walk until ten. But I still-”
“I hate being sober,” Tim said. He rubbed his jaw, wondering what brought that comment on. She would understand, that was it. He could talk to her, and she would understand. “You ever feel that way?”
She stayed right with him, as if he hadn't suddenly changed the subject. “I know what you mean,” she said. “It's like, you went to the optometrist, and he fit you with powerful glasses, and the whole world springs into this vivid focus. And it's the same old ugly world you drank to escape from, and you can see every dirty crevice again…” She looked around the shabby kitchen, at the cracked linoleum and the broken high chair in the corner.
“Yeah. Like you used to love riding the Ferris wheel, and now all you notice is the operator's tired and mean, hates his job, and doesn't like you,” Tim said.
Valerie nodded. “I look back, and it's like we used to live in the night, under those romantic hazy-colored lights, and now it's daylight. It's too sharp and bright, isn't it?”
He sat there looking at her. She had that ironic, crooked smile he'd seen on so many drunks at so many meetings. “Yeah. They keep trying to convince you it's better,” he said. “It's worse, but you can't escape anymore. You're gonna die if you keep boozing, shooting up, whatever you're doing.”