The houseboat, p.13
The Houseboat, page 13
Know where I can find the sheriff? Ness asked.
He’ll be up there, the reporter said, turning to point. You might want to park sooner than later. The whole state’s out here today.
Ness parked and stepped lightly through the mud, holding his paper coffee cup as though trekking through waist-high water. A big crowd had formed and Ness tried to press his way through but no one would let him pass. There were several police cruisers with their lights going in the haze like lighthouses on a stricken coast. The stout coroner was there and Ness glimpsed Fielding and Clinton, talking between themselves with their arms crossed looking down at something horrible. Ness went around to the far side and called to Fielding. Fielding looked up and went to the crowd and told them to make a path for the detective. Ness shifted the cup and shook Fielding’s hand.
What say yeh, Ed? Fielding asked.
I was going to ask you the same question.
They came around the trunk of the black sedan and Ness spotted the legs of a man prostrate in the mud. He looked there and then looked up at Clinton.
Deputy, Ness said, nodding.
Mornin there, Ed, Clinton said, shaking Ness’s hand. How bout this? Got us anothern.
Ness looked down at the dead man. Half his face was hidden in a puddle of brown water and the water leached into his open mouth. Pawmarks of a raccoon where the critter might have tested the opening at the man’s neck.
Ness stepped between the man’s legs and peered into the back seat. Dark smears of dried blood as if someone had been pulled across and out. Ness leaned in. Looked in the front seat. Looked on the floor. A pair of women’s panties balled up and shoved under the passenger seat. Ness took out his handkerchief to grab them.
There was a lady? Clinton asked.
Unless he wears women’s panties, Ness said.
Where’d she go? Clinton said.
That’s a good question, Deputy. Who found them here?
Clinton raised a finger to a young couple sitting in the back of a police cruiser, urged with his chin, said, Them kids there did. Come out to do some kissin I reckon and come across this.
You ask them about it? Ness said.
Sure did, said Clinton.
What did you get out of them?
About what you’d expect.
They say if there was a gal with him?
No.
They say if they passed anyone driving down the highway? Maybe walking?
Nope, Clinton said. Did say the radio was runnin.
Was the engine on?
Nope.
Ness nodded. Well that tells us something. He sipped his coffee. Was the car registered to this guy? he asked, nudging the dead man’s foot with the toe of his shoe.
It is, said Clinton. He pulled out a pad of paper. The man’s name is Arthur Foss. Dubuque, Iowa. Aged thirty-eight. Five foot nine inches. Weighted a hundern seventy pounds.
Was there any money on him? Ness asked.
A little over a hundern and fifty, Fielding said.
And it was still in his wallet?
Yep.
Ness glanced about. Could see the fog moving above him, tumbling like sea current. He walked out to the lip of the quarry and looked down into that depthless void, the surface of the water down there somewhere. Nudged a rock off and waited for the sound. Then he looked out into the gray field behind the quarry where a few dead trees stood like bones. A narrow road led through it and in the middle of the road the grass had begun to grow there. The sheriff and the deputy were watching him. Ness pointed.
Anyone check out there? he called. Scratched his chin.
Without a word Ness pressed through the crowd of people and walked out the road till he was standing alone. Grass coming to his waist, beads of dew the size of pearls bending each blade. Looked back at the crowd, looked like a shoal in a bay. No one turned toward him save Fielding and Clinton. Camera flashes exploded without a sound through the fog. Ness looked at the ground, something catching his eye. What he saw was a faint track of footprints, small footed and spaced as though in a hurry. Ness followed them into the tall grass. Disappeared like smoke.
Yeh might have a little bloodhound in yeh, a voice said.
Ness turning to find Fielding kneeling over the tracks in the road.
Fielding said, Just heard he wasn’t alone.
Foss?
A girl from Violet’s. Miz Rose just called in. Said she’s missin a girl.
What’s Violet’s?
Cathouse on the edge of town.
Who’s the girl?
Name’s Caroline Tyre.
Tyre?
Like a car, Clinton said.
Ness, pocketing his hands and kicking the grass, said, Suppose we need some real dogs.
45
The night before the crime and the reporters and all the cameras. All of it yet to come. And Rigby haunting the countryside. His breath a kind of whiskey fume. Despite the heat of the night, he exhaled plumes. Like a slathered skeleton horse, his skin steamed into the fog. The moon and the stars swung in a heaven’s dance. He stopped in the middle of the road, took a blade from his pocket, and swiped it at the moon. Then he uncorked his hip bottle of whiskey and sank a long drink. Faded deeper. Howled up at the sky.
He went to the whorehouse that had thrown him out to watch Caroline again. It had become a bit of a habit of his. One of many nights, hidden away like some lesser animal, he watched her, knew her room. Some nights she didn’t leave at all and he’d watch her move about the clapboard room like a tin target at a carnival arcade. Some nights there were men, some nights there were none. Some nights there were multiple men. Sometimes he’d curse her name, others he’d vow to keep her from harm. Often he’d fall asleep and wake in the gray dawn, cold in the damp leaves, hearing her voice collide with the chittering of birds. He’d peer through the limbed skeleton of the bush as Caroline and another girl walked to their car and watch the red taillights fade in the exhaust and haze, and sometimes he’d shoulder his gun and take aim at her head behind the dewed glass until the car swung out of sight.
Tonight in his preferred bush of thorns, he stayed quiet as a shadow on a cloudy day. When her lamp came on he pushed through the bracken and hunch-loped through the moon-damp grass toward the light. His back against the house. Heart like a timpani drum on his rib bones until the courage arrived. He peered through the thin slit between the curtains and watched her. Naked in the room. Door closed. Naught but a pale thing with her auburn hair tied up, standing before the mirror. Her small breasts weightless with her arms upheld. Dancing like a sock hop. Rigby whispered her name. A whippoorwill sang into the night air as though something might be listening.
Rigby watched five minutes more until she pulled on a light blue dress, did her hair properly, and left the room. A voice, then another, coming out to the porch sent him scuttling back into the undergrowth. His fingernails black with dirt. Dust caked in his palms.
Later, a faceless john escorted her from the house. He’d heard the word quarry as they crossed the dirt lot to his car. Then he heard her giggle and this almost made him cry. A giggle reserved for him. So he had thought. The car passed in the drive, headlights swinging across the bushes, held him in a sickly yellow glow for a fleeting moment then went dark again. He came from the bushes like an emaciated dog, picking the twigs and fodder from his shirt. Gripped the wadded bills he’d brought for her in his pocket like a child does when charged with an important task. He heard the car turn out onto the highway. Saw the lights go spilling into the darkness.
46
He went out toward the quarry road, taking a short cut through the forest. The fog grew thicker and there the moon went out completely. He’d nearly gone the length of the road when he caught the first glimpse of the black sedan.
The engine was not running and despite the heat of the night the windows were rolled up, fogged completely. The car shifted about softly on its tires, a whispering issued from the shocks. An asthmatic wheeze. Rigby stopped in the middle of the road. Let a long moment pass. Then he took a few steps closer.
The outline of a hand suddenly lurched against the inside of the glass and then smeared away. He watched some more. The excitement of the act filled him. Again the hand clapped against the glass. The thin fingertips curled, trying to grip the smooth surface.
Rigby began to make out the faint outline of a shirtless man leaning back into the seat and the cool shape of the girl facing him. The silhouette of her breasts, her exposed neck as she threw her head back. He pulled at her auburn hair. Through the window Rigby could hear the girl squeal and then she laughed crazily. The motion of the car grew. One of them must have nudged the window handle for a narrow line opened and the girl’s moans carried into the night, set off the yip of a distant dog. Rigby squatted on his hams, his heart hammering against his sternum. A strong desire to be closer overcame him and he did just that.
He worked his way to a vantage not ten feet away where the grass was tall and sat back on his heels and clutched his arms around his knees and rocked gently. He had a thin wooden smile and he breathed through his mouth like his lungs were tired. The girl said, Ooh, said, Yes. She called the man’s name. Rigby undid his pants. And then for a reason beyond his control, Rigby started toward the car.
The couple was sideways in the back seat. The girl was on her knees with her hands on the glass. The man had moved behind her. Rigby’s image grew over the window like a cloud blocking out the sun. For a second his face and her face were paired, laid upon each other like layers of printed silk. She wore his glasses, her lips were his own. Then she lifted her face, at first not comprehending, then quickly, like fire catching, saw the hazed hairless figure behind the glass and screamed.
The man, pulling out of her, shouted, Who the hell is that!
Rigby, instead of running, opened the door and the girl on her knees attempted to cover herself. The dome light caught them strangely. The hot reek of the act spilled from the car. She glanced once at his waist, his pants undone, but it was his face, she seemed to remember him. The snaggled teeth, the cartoon glasses. Her mouth opened as if trying to recall a name. All she could come up with, said, You.
The man pulling on his pants, reaching for the opposite door handle, said, You’re a fucking dead man!
Rigby moved closer.
I got yer money, he said. He pulled out the wad of bills to prove it. I told yeh I’d owe it to yeh.
The girl screamed again and recoiled, sliding back into the seat, trying to pull up her skirt.
It sent Rigby into a hiss. He lunged like a cat. She screamed beneath him. The warmth of a body new to him. He tried to kiss her but her head kept snapping away. He tried to hold her. Tried to lift her skirt.
But I got yer money, he said. He almost sounded frightened.
He got her legs apart and was about to drive into her when a hand clasped down on his shoulder and wrenched him from the car. A voice spitting venom, You’re a fucking dead man!
In one motion, as he was reeling around, stumbling to get his balance, Rigby snapped open the blade and swiped once, catching the man’s throat. At first, innocent as a paper cut, a thin line appeared. The man stepped back, eyes wide as dinner plates. He touched his neck softly like he was feeling his glands. Then the two edges of skin became dark and the blood began to purl like oil. The man tried to say something. Only a choked, bubbling sound. Could only stare at Rigby as though waiting for an answer. Rigby too, staring in disbelief at what he’d just done. The man staggered once, going to a knee, trying to stand, and falling again. With the blood all but out, he tipped forward a final time. The girl screamed. Scared Rigby out of it, and he turned and without a thought sank the blade into the girl’s stomach. The girl gasped, went quiet. Rigby sank the blade once more and then a third time. On the third he missed the stomach and landed between the ribs where the blade caught and jammed and then snapped off inside of her. Her lips went red. A stream of blood ran like candle wax down her pale cheek and into her auburn hair. Rigby stood back, watched. Stood there until she went still. Like sleeping with her eyes open, he thought. He reached out to tickle her foot to see if she was faking it. He fastened his pants and leaned into the car and pulled her out. Hauled her like a bag of grain onto his shoulder. Carried her like that all the way home.
That night he laid her on his mattress. Got her undressed. He stared at the body for a long time. Her nipples had gone gray, her freckles looked silver. He brushed his fingers lightly over the wispy hair between her legs. Went to his box of cosmetics and uncapped the red lipstick. Painted her lips garishly, circled them over and over. He laid her on her side and went out the door and looked at her there on his bed, the lamp flame behind the soot-choked glass bringing a little life to her. Watched her for a long while, shivering with excitement. Then he went back in and turned off the oil lamp, lay down beside her, and fell asleep.
Later, he awoke to the sound of rain. The sight of her almost startling. Her naked back was blue in the darkness. Not quite cold beside him, but cool. The tips of her fingers stiff as twigs. Red nail polish gleaming like candy. Her buttocks were pressed into him. He grabbed her hips and pressed back.
I had yer money, he muttered.
It was not making love, exactly, but when it was over Rigby had fallen to tears.
That night he dragged her by the arms into the woods. Her bones loose under the skin. Her head lolled like a dog’s tongue. Through the thorns and catbrier, sounded like a bear pulling a carcass. A drizzle was falling. Deep in the woods he set her down. Covered in dirt, her breasts looked like spoiled flowers. He arranged her with her arms at her sides, squared up her feet, said, I’ll be right back.
He returned with a shovel and dug a deep grave. He knelt at her side, leaned in to kiss her, and then rolled the body into the hole where she landed facedown. He began to fill the grave back in. Took more than three hours, thought about digging her out again but reconciled the urge. Sat against a tree finally in his exhaustion and fell asleep thinking about her. When he awoke again the sky was the color of woodsmoke and he was shivering.
47
Tyre? Ness asked.
Like a car, Clinton said.
Ness put his hands in his pockets and kicked the grass, said, Suppose we need some real dogs.
Later that morning the baying hounds careened through the woods outside of Oscar like specter calls in a dream. A steady rain was falling. By ten the dogs had picked up the scent and their handlers had to haul back on the leather leashes to restrain them. A mob of men had joined in. A line like hunters after quail. Some of them carried rifles on their shoulders or at their hips and Ness watched their tempers as much as he did the dogs. There was fevered talk. This was not lost on the sheriff.
I don’t need a jury to tell me it was him, said one man.
Yer right there, Chester, said another.
A third man said, I heard Jimmy had to throw him out one night. That he was gettin rough with that girl. That’s how he knew her. It was from that night. Was stalkin her like a animal.
Another said, He’s gotten away with too much by God. We’ve let this go on too long.
Sheriff Fielding looked over at the group of men, their fingers hooked through the trigger guards, and said, Yeh all settle down.
They looked at him like scolded teenagers.
In fact, Fielding said, give me them bullets.
Yeh cain’t take our bullets, Sheriff.
The hell I can’t. Give em over.
Fielding put the bullets and shells in his breast pocket. What he couldn’t fit he gave to Clinton.
Yeh all can have these back when we’re done.
By noon the rain had picked up and slowly the dogs lost the scent. They started tracking off in every which way until all the men began to eye one another. Fielding stopped and called them together and stood there with his arms crossed and the rainwater peeling off the brim of his hat.
What do yeh want to do, Sheriff? Clinton said.
Well. He looked up at the trees and had to squint into the rain.
I say we go to Rigby’s, said a man. See what the sumbitch got a say about it.
There was jeering from the other men. A hot thrum of aggression.
Now hold it, said Fielding. I ain’t about to let a posse run off and string him up.
If yeh ain’t goin to do it we will.
The hell you will, Fielding said. Bill, you take yourself home. Take these others too. Last thing I need is more men to arrest.
Yeh cain’t jest let him git away with this, Sheriff.
No one’s lettin anyone get away with anythin. I just ain’t goin to allow yeh all to go out there like a pack of shiftless animals. Now get on home. We thank yeh for comin out and helpin like yeh done.
The men stirred about, looking from one to the next. Kicking at the mud.
Go on! Fielding said, shouting at them and clapping like one would a pack of dogs.
Reluctantly, they broke away in pairs. They looked like ghosts in that damp wood, wandering on, evaporating in the mist. Ness, Fielding, and Clinton stood in a loose circle facing each other. Fielding closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. The rain was loud on the leaves.
You know they’re just going to go see him for themselves, Ness said.
Fielding spat to the side. Yeah, I know.
What do yeh want to do, Sheriff? Clinton asked.
Fielding looked around, said, I want a get out a this rain.
That same afternoon, July the twenty-fourth, 1960, Sheriff Amos Fielding issued a statement to the town of Oscar, Iowa, calling for the arrest of Rigby Sellers in conjunction with the suspected murders of Caroline Tyre, Arthur Foss, and the boy, Billy Rose. Within the hour the sheriff’s office had calls coming in from townspeople claiming they saw Rigby trying to hitch out of town. Saw Rigby tramping down the railroad tracks. Saw Rigby heading for the state line. Some calls differed so greatly that they put him some forty miles apart at the same time. The state police got involved and troopers from as far south as Fort Madison patrolled the highways and the back roads. Even had a patrol cruiser stationed out front of the berm of rubble leading to Rigby’s place in case he was foolish enough to return.
