Sinister Shorts

“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 di

“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 go

“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 wi

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 wi

“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 go

“Condemned to real life,” she said, laughing a little. “Forced to grow up.”

“I could love you now,” he said. “We've both been through it.”

“Quit kidding yourself,” she said. “You could have loved me years ago, when we were kids and drunk all the time, but not now. You can't fall in love unless you can get out of your head.”

“Normal people do it.”

“They're just born insensitive. Born lucky. So we sobered up, and you turned into a depressed cop. And I turned into an unhappy housewife. We're big successes now.”

“There was something brave about what we were doing,” Tim said. “You know? And now we don't even have that.”

“We are the driest of dry drunks,” Valerie said. She got up and came around the table to him. She took his big head in her hands and drew him to her breast, and his arms went around her little waist. “Maybe this will help,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“We could give it a try, anyway. Even if it only lasts a minute.”

“Count on it lasting a little longer than that.”

“Sobriety sucks, it really does,” she said.

“Yeah. The whole situation. Take your panties off, okay?”

Tim put Bodie on Ed Strickland for the next couple of days. Bodie reported that Strickland sat in on three or four regular floating poker games at Camden and at Timberlake. He seemed content to hang around town, like he was waiting for something to happen.

After the second day, Tim got another search warrant, and he and Bodie tore up Strickland's room at the Placer Hotel. But they didn't find anything. The Strickland bank account contained about enough money for next week's groceries.