Mary laughed. “I thought I already was a preferred customer, Joe.”
The woman had no need of repairs, and so the conversation had slipped to the air crash, and then to the missing twins.
“All that fuss,” Mary said. “But maybe what happened to them is for the best. Those two never belonged here to begin with. A miracle they survived as long as they did.”
“So you think they’re dead?”
Mary hesitated for just an instant. Radio Joe imagined that if this were a polygraph test, the needle would be pinned in the red. He could almost feel the electric charge of her lie. “Yes, they must be, don’t you think?” she said.
Joe took off his baseball cap, revealing his thin, sweaty hair. He brushed his hand across his forehead, wiping off the sweat.
“Would you like something to drink, Joe? Maybe a piece of berry cobbler?”
She swung open the screen door, and as she did, Joe stole a look into her eyes—the same look he had stolen from each of his neighbors today. Although several had invited him in, he had turned them down. Until now.
“Yes, Mary, I’d appreciate that.”
Mary Wahomigie’s house was both spotless and cluttered. The shelves and walls were polished and dusted, but several lifetimes’ worth of dime-store trinkets sprouted from every surface like fungus on a stump. No shelf space remained for future memories— perhaps because all of Mary’s memories were behind her. Phil, her husband, had died of a heart attack five years before, and their only daughter lost her battle with breast cancer shortly thereafter.
Mary had had her eye on Joe for a few years now, but Joe had no interest in her. His solitary life had always suited him fine. However, now he turned to whatever charm he had, complimenting her on her sun tea and cobbler.
“I grew the berries myself. Only enough for a couple of cobblers a season, but every bite’s worth a dozen.”
Joe took the last bite, and set down his fork. “I see you still keep Phil’s guns out.”
He was referring, of course, to the glass showcase cluttered with a preponderance of hunting weapons and accessories.
“Never dream of selling them,” Mary said. “He’d roll over in his grave”—which was a curious expression, considering the man had been cremated.
“Ever consider loaning them to a friend?”
“Planning a hunting trip, Joe?”
“Been thinking of it.”
She unlocked the case for him, and he pulled down a shotgun. “Phil’s pride and joy,” she told him. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind it being used again.”
It was a Winchester 1300—a sleek, 12-gauge pump, far superior to his own.
“My shotgun’s evidence now, you know.”
Mary shifted uncomfortably. “So I heard. The twins went to kill those cougars.”
“Did the job, too.”
“Imagine that.”
“The police wonder if I had anything to do with their disappearance.”
Mary came over to him, and put a hand on his shoulder, as if she had been waiting for an excuse to do so. “I know you didn’t, Joe.”
“No,” admitted Joe. “But I do know more than I tell. . . . Just like you.”
She recoiled for a moment, but he smiled, and she softened, smiling back. “Just what does that mean?” she said coyly.
“You tell me, Mary . . . and then I’ll tell you what I know.”
Mary glanced out of her living-room window, as if they might be under surveillance, then she pulled the shades. “If you know about the cousin,” she said, “then you know it’s for the twins’ own good.”
“The cousin,” said Joe. “Yes, I know about the cousin.”
“Spitting image of them, don’t you think?” Mary sat down on her couch, patting the space next to her. Joe stayed where he was.
“And you helped him?” Joe prompted.
“He was robbed, you know. They took his car, the clothes off his back. He said he was here to take the twins away to a special hospital where they could be taken better care of.”
“You believed him?”
“Why shouldn’t I? Anyway, I gave him some of Phil’s old pants, and a shirt. He was practically busting out of them, but they had to do.
Radio Joe’s eyes wandered back to the gun case. He strode over, and grabbed the rifle that was her dead husband’s pride and joy. He opened a drawer beneath the case, and as he expected, found boxes of shells in various calibers. Phil Wahomigie never kept his ammunition too far away.
“They’re five years old,” Mary said. “You might want to get new ones.”
“They’ll be fine as long as they’re dry.”
“So you saw the cousin, too, didn’t you?” asked Mary. “Now it’s your turn—tell me what you know. Did he go to your place after he left here?”
Joe slipped cartridges into the shotgun. Eight, and it was full. “Actually, he came to my place first.”
Mary looked up at him, confused. “You didn’t help him? Joe, that’s not like you.”
“I offered him nothing and he took nothing from me. Because he was nobody’s cousin. Nobody’s child. It was a Quíkadi.”
She stood up. “What are you talking about?”
There were tears now clouding his eyes, but he quickly flipped them away. Then he pumped the gun, loading the chamber. “It took more from you than your clothes, Mary.”
The woman began to back away. “Joe, you’re scaring me. Are you drunk, Joe? Put that rifle down.”
Joe looked at the rifle. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. He leaned the rifle gently against the sofa. Then he advanced on Mary with his bare hands.
“No! Stop!”
But there was no sense in responding to Mary Wa- homigie now, because she was not there to hear. She had been dead for three days now, her soul devoured, leaving behind an empty shell to mimic life.
Radio Joe grabbed the slight woman, and hurled her to the ground, breaking the coffee table, sending knick- knacks scattering across the faded green carpet. She tried to scream again, but he wedged his boot firmly under her chin, cutting off her cries. “I mourn Mary Wahomigie. She was a good woman,” he said. “Her body deserves the peace of the grave.” He turned his ankle and shifted his weight forward onto her neck. The body of Mary Wahomigie struggled, but that, he knew, was merely a reflex, like the twitching nerves of a fly on the face of a swatter. This body would have continued to twitch and talk and mimic life for years. It could not be allowed. With a grimace, he lurched forward, feeling the crumbling of glottal cartilage, and the final crunch as her neck snapped beneath the weight of his heel.
The body stopped struggling, and came to rest. Then, when he looked in her eyes, he knew he had done the good and proper thing, because they looked no different now than they had five minutes before. Death was death, even when it walked.
He gently laid Mary on her bed, covered her with one of her handmade quilts, then returned to the living room, taking as many weapons as he could carry.
Although he didn’t know where the Quíkadi had gone, he knew he’d have more luck than the bloodhounds in tracking it, for he knew what he was searching for. And if he listened, attuning his soul to the dark, his ears to the silences, and his heart to the void, he would be able to trace its footsteps.
6. House Of The Rising Sun
Sometime before dawn, five buses snaked south down the Pacific Coast Highway, hugging the cliffs of California’s central coast.