The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (13 page)

A red light blinked on the tiny LED panel on her phone and the incoming call, screened by Chloe, who had obviously taken a short break from her self-abuse, scrolled across the screen. Constable Crowe, line one. Speaking of squirrels.

She picked up the phone. “Dr. Riordan.”

“Hi, Dr. Riordan, this is Theo Crowe. I just called to tell you that you were right.”

“Thank you for calling, Constable. Have a nice day.”

“You were right about Bess Leander not taking the antidepressants. I just got a look at the toxicology report. There was no Zoloft in her system.”

Val stopped breathing.

“Doctor, are you there?”

All her worries about the drugs, this whole perverse plan, all the extra sessions, the long hours, the guilt, the friggin' guilt, and Bess Leander hadn't been taking her medication at all. Val felt sick to her stomach.

“Doctor?” Theo said.

Val forced herself to take a deep breath. “Why? I mean, when? It's been over a month. When did you find this out?”

“Just today. I wasn't given access to the autopsy report. No one was. I'm sorry it took so long.”

“Well, thank you for letting me know, Constable. I appreciate it.” She prepared to ring off.

“Dr. Riordan, don't you have to get a medical history on your patients before you prescribe anything?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Do you know if Bess Leander had any heart problems?”

“No, physically she was a very healthy woman, as far as I know. Why?”

“No reason,” Theo said. “Oh yeah, I never got your thoughts on the information I shared at breakfast. About Joseph Leander. I was still wondering if you had any thoughts?”

The whole world had flip-flopped. Val had stone-walled up to now on Bess Leander because she had assumed that her own negligence had had something to do with Bess's death. What now, though? Really, she didn't know much about Bess at all. She said, “What exactly do you want from me, Constable?”

“I just need to know, did she suspect her husband of having an affair? Or give you any indication that she might be afraid of him?”

“Are you saying what I think you are saying? You don't think Bess Leander committed suicide?”

“I'm not saying that. I'm just asking.”

Val searched her memory. What
had
Bess Leander said about her husband? “I remember her saying that she felt he was uninvolved in their family life and that she had laid down the law to him.”

“Laid down the law? In what way?”

“She told him that because he refused to put the toilet seat down, he was going to have to sit down to pee from now on.”

“That's it?”

“That's all I can remember. Joseph Leander is a salesman. He was gone a lot. I think Bess felt that he was somewhat of an intrusion on her and the girls' lives. It wasn't a healthy relationship.” As if there is such a thing, Val thought. “Are you investigating Joseph Leander?”

“I'd rather not say,” Theo said. “Do you think I should be?”

“You're the policeman, Mr. Crowe.”

“I am? Oh, right, I am. Anyway, thanks, Doctor. By the way, my friend Gabe thought you were, uh, interesting, I mean, charming. I mean, he enjoyed talking with you.”

“He did?”

“Don't tell him I said so.”

“Of course. Good-bye, Constable.” Val hung up and sat back in her chair. She had unnecessarily put an entire town in emotional chaos, committed a basketful of federal crimes as well as breaking nearly every ethical standard in her field, and one of her patients had possibly been murdered, but she felt, well, sort of excited. Charming, she thought. He found me charming. I wonder if he really said “charming” or if Theo was just making that up—the pothead.

Charming.

She smiled and buzzed Chloe to send in her next appointment.

Mavis

The phone behind the bar rang and Mavis yanked it out of its cradle. “Mount Olympus, Goddess of Sex speaking,” she said, and there was a mechanical ratcheting noise as she cocked a hip while she listened. “No, I haven't seen him—like I would even tell you if he was here. Hell, woman, I have a sacred trust here—I can't rat out every husband who comes in for a snort after work. How would I know? Honey, you want to keep this kind of thing from happening? Two words: long, nasty blowjobs. Yeah, well, if you were doing them instead of counting words, then maybe you wouldn't lose your husband. Oh, all right, hold on.”

Mavis held her receiver to breast and shouted, “Hey! Anyone seen Les from the hardware store?” A few heads shook and a fusillade of “nopes” fired through the bar.

“Nope, he's not here. Yeah, if I see him, I'll be sure and tell him that there was a screeching harpy looking for him. Oh yeah, well, I've been done doggie-style by the Better Business Bureau and they liked it, so say hi for me.”

Mavis slammed down the phone. She felt like the Tin Man left out in the rain. Her metal parts felt rusty and she was sure that her plastic parts were going to mush. Ten o'clock on a Saturday, live entertainment on the stage,
and she still hadn't sold enough liquor to cover the cost of her Blues singer. Oh, the bar was full, but people were nursing their drinks, making them last, making goo-goo eyes at each other and slipping out, couple by couple, without dropping a sawbuck. What in the hell had come over this town? The Blues singer was supposed to drive them to drink, but the entire population seemed to be absolutely giddy with love. They were talking instead of drinking. Wimps. Mavis spit into the bar sink in disgust and there was a pinging sound from a tiny spring that had dislodged somewhere inside of her.

Wusses. Mavis threw back a shot of Bushmills and glared at the couples sitting at the bar, then glared at Catfish, who was finishing up a set on the stage, his National steel guitar whining as he sang about losing his soul at the crossroads.

Catfish told the story of the great Robert Johnson, the haunting Bluesman who had met the devil at the crossroads and bargained his soul for supernatural ability, but was pursued throughout his life by a hellhound that had caught his scent at the gates of hell and finally took him home when a jealous husband slipped poison into Johnson's liquor.

“Truth be,” Catfish said into the microphone, “I done stood at midnight at every crossroad in the Delta lookin' to sell my soul, but wasn't nobody buyin'. Now that there is the Blues. But I gots me my own brand of hellhound, surely I do.”

“That's sweet, fish boy,” Mavis shouted from behind the bar. “Come over here, I gotta talk to you.”

“'Scuse me, folks, they's a call from hell right now,” Catfish said to the crowd with a grin. But no one was listening. He put his guitar in the stand and ambled over to Mavis.

“You're not loud enough,” Mavis said.

“Turn up your hearing aid, woman. I ain't got no
pickup in that National. They's only so high you can go into a mike or she feed back.”

“People are talking, not drinking. Play louder. And no love songs.”

“I gots me a Fender Stratocaster and a Marshall amp in the car, but I don't like playin 'lectric.”

“Go get them. Plug in. Play loud. I don't need you if you don't sell liquor.”

“This gonna be my last night anyway.”

“Get the guitar,” Mavis said.

Molly

Molly slammed the truck into the Dumpster behind the Head of the Slug Saloon. Glass from the headlights tinkled to the tarmac and the fan raked across the radiator with a grating shriek. It had been a few years since Molly had done any driving, and Les had left out a few parts from the do-it-yourself brake kit he'd installed. Molly turned off the engine and set the parking brake, then wiped the steering wheel and shift knob with the sleeve of her sweatshirt to remove any fingerprints. She climbed out of the truck and tossed the keys into the mashed Dumpster. There was no music coming from the back door of the Slug, only the smell of stale beer and the low murmur of conversation. She scampered out of the alley and started the four-block walk home.

A low fog drifted over Cypress Street and Molly was grateful for the cover. There were only a few lights on in the park's trailers, and she hurried past them to where her own windows flickered with the lonely blue of the unwatched television. She looked past her house to the space where Steve lay healing and noticed a figure out-lined in the fog. As she drew closer, she could see that it
was not one person, but two, standing not twenty feet from the dragon trailer. Her heart sank. She expected the beams of police flashlights to swing through the fog any second, but the figures were just standing there. She crept around the edge of her trailer, pressed so close that she could feel the cold coming off the aluminum skin through her sweatshirt.

A woman's voice cut the fog, “Lord, we have heeded your call and come unto you. Forgive us our casual attire, as our dry cleaner did close for the weekend and we are left sorely without outfits with matching accessories.”

It was the school prayer ladies, Katie and Marge, although Molly wouldn't be able to tell which was which. They were wearing identical pink jogging suits with matching Nikes. As she watched, the two women moved closer to Steve, and Molly could see a rippling across the dragon trailer.

“As our Lord Jesus did give His life for our sins, so we come unto Thee, O Lord, to giveth of ourselves.”

The end of the dragon trailer lost its angles to curves, and Molly could see Steve's broad head extending, changing, the door going from a vertical rectangle to a wide horizontal maw. The women seemed unaffected by the change and continued to move slowly forward, silhouetted now by Steve's jaws, which were opening like a toothed cavern.

Molly ran around her trailer and up the steps, reached in and grabbed her broadsword which was leaned against the wall just inside the door, and dashed back around the trailer and toward the Sea Beast.

Marge and Katie were almost inside of Steve's open mouth. Molly could see his enormous tongue snaking out the side of his mouth, reaching behind the church ladies to drag them in.

“No!” Molly leapt from a full run, slamming between Marge and Katie like a fullback leaping through blockers
to the goal line, and smacked Steve on the nose with the flat of her sword. She landed in his mouth and rolled clear to the ground just as his jaws snapped shut behind her. She came up on one knee, holding the sword pointed at Steve's nose.

“No!” she said. “Bad dragon.” Steve turned his head quizzically, as if wondering what she was so upset about.

“Change back,” Molly said, raising the sword as if to whack his nose again. Steve's head and neck pulled back into the shape of a double-wide trailer.

Molly looked back at the church ladies, who seemed very concerned with having been knocked into the mud in their pink jogging suits, but oblivious to the fact that they had almost been eaten. “Are you two okay?”

“We felt the call,” one of them said, either Marge or Katie, while the other one nodded in agreement. “We had to come to give ourselves unto the Lord.” Their eyes were glazed over and they stared right past her to the trailer as they spoke.

“You guys have to go home now. Aren't your husbands worried about you or something?”

“We heard the call.”

Molly helped them to their feet and pointed them away from Steve, who made a faint whining noise as she pushed the church ladies away toward the street.

Molly stopped them at the edge of the street and spoke to them from behind. “Go home. Don't come back here. Okay?”

“We wanted to bring the children to feel the spirit too, but it was so late, and we have church tomorrow.”

Molly smacked the speaker across the butt with the flat of her sword, a good two-handed stroke that sent her stumbling into the street. “Go home!”

Molly was winding up to smack the other one when she turned and held up her hand as if refusing a refill on coffee. “No thank you.”

“Then you're going and you're not coming back, right?”

The woman didn't seem sure. Molly turned her grip on the sword so the edge was poised to strike. “Right?”

“Yes,” the woman said. Her friend nodded in agreement as she rubbed her bottom.

“Now go,” Molly said. As the women walked away, she called after them, “And stop dressing alike. That's fucking weird.”

She watched them until they disappeared into the fog, then went back to where Steve was waiting in trailer form. “Well?” She threw out her hip, frowned, and tapped her foot as if waiting for his explanation.

His windows narrowed, ashamed.

“They'll be back, you know. Then what?”

He whimpered, the sound coming from deep inside, where the kitchen would be if he were really a trailer.

“If you're still hungry, you have to let me know. I can help. We can find you something. Although there is only one hardware store in town. You're going to have to diversify your diet.”

Suddenly an electric guitar screamed out of the fog, wailing like a tortured ghost of Chicago Blues. The dragon trailer became the dragon again, his white skin went black, then flashed brilliant streaks of red anger. The bandages Molly had spent all day applying shredded with the abrupt shape change. His gill trees hung with tatters of fiberglass fabric as if toilet-papered by mischievous boys. The Sea Beast threw back his head and roared, rattling the windows through the trailer park. Molly fell in the mud as she backed up, then rolled and came up on her feet with the broadsword poised to thrust into the Sea Beast's throat.

“Steve, I think you need to take a timeout, young man.”

Theo

Such a short period of time to have so many new experiences. In just the last few days, he had coordinated his first major missing person search, including talking to worried parents and the milk carton company, whose people wanted to know if Theo could get a picture of Mikey Plotznik where he wasn't making a contorted, goofy face at the camera. (If they found a better picture, Mikey would end up with great exposure on the two percent or nonfat cartons, but if they had to go with what they had, he was going on the side of the buttermilk and would only be seen by old folks and people making ranch dressing.) Theo had also had to deal with his first major fire, the hallucination of giant animal tracks, and opening a real live murder investigation, all without the benefit of his lifelong chemical crutch. Not that he couldn't nurse at his favorite pipe, he'd just lost the desire to do so.

Now he had to decide how to go about investigating Bess Leander's murder. Should he pull someone in for interrogation? Pull them in where? His cabin? He didn't have an office. Somehow he couldn't imagine holding an effective interrogation with the suspect in a beanbag chair under a hot lava lamp. “Talk, scumbag! Don't make me turn the black light on that Jimi Hendrix poster and light some incense. You don't want that.”

And amid all the other activity, he felt a nagging compulsion to go back to the Fly Rod Trailer Court and talk to Molly Michon. Crazy thoughts.

Finally he decided to drop by Joseph Leander's house, hoping he might catch the salesman off guard. As he pulled into the driveway, he noticed that weeds had grown up around the garden gnomes and there was a patina of dust on the Dutch hex sign over the front door. The garage door was open and Joseph's minivan was parked inside.

Theo paused at the front door before knocking and made sure that his ponytail was tucked into his collar and his collar was straight. For some reason, he felt as if he should be wearing a gun. He had one, a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver, but it was on the top shelf of his closet, next to his bong collection.

He rang the bell, then waited. A minute passed before Joseph Leander opened the door. He was wearing paint-spattered corduroys and an old cardigan sweater that looked like it had been pulled out of the trash a dozen times. Obviously not the sort of attire that Bess Leander would have allowed in her home.

“Constable Crowe.” Leander was not smiling. “What can I do for you?”

“If you have a minute, I'd like to talk to you. May I come in?”

“I suppose,” Leander said. He stepped away from the door and Theo ducked in. “I just made some coffee. Would you like some?”

“No thanks. I'm on duty.” Cops are supposed to say that, Theo thought.

“It's
coffee
.”

“Oh, right, sure. Milk and sugar please.”

The living room had bare pine plank floors and rag rugs. An antique pew bench took the place of a sofa, two Shaker chairs and a galvanized milk can with a padded cushion on the top provided the other seating. Three antique butter churns stood in the corners of the room. But for a new thirty-six-inch Sony by the fireplace, it could have been the living room of a seventeenth-century family (a family with very high cholesterol from all that butter).

Joseph Leander returned to the living room and handed Theo a hand-thrown stoneware mug. The coffee was the color of butterscotch and tasted of cinnamon. “Thanks,” Theo said. “New TV?” He nodded to the Sony.

Leander sat across from Theo on the milk can. “Yes,
I got it for the girls. PBS and so forth. Bess never approved of television.”

“And so you killed her!”

Leander sprayed a mouthful of coffee on the rug. “
What
?”

Theo took a sip of his coffee while Leander stared at him, wide-eyed. Maybe he'd been a bit too abrupt. Fall back, regroup. “So did you get cable? Reception is horrible in Pine Cove without cable. It's the hills, I think.”

Leander blinked furiously and did a triple-take on Theo. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw the coroner's report on your wife, Joseph. She didn't die from hanging.”