The Girls He Adored

71

The yellow bricks for the Umpqua County Courthouse had been fired in the first brickyard in the state of Oregon, according to the plaque on the wall outside the frosted-glass door of the Umpqua County Probation Department-a plaque Pender had become all too familiar with by the time he wangled Cazimir Buckley's current address out of Penelope Frye, the lone and harried receptionist/secretary/clerk who seemed to be holding down the fort while everybody else in the department was either off on vacation or out sick.

The problem, Miss Frye explained, was that only Mr. Harris, Buckley's case officer, could authorize her to give out personal information on the parolee. Pender tinned her, reasoned with her, begged her, and badgered her until she finally agreed to make a few phone calls-but only if he in turn agreed to wait outside: she was getting a stiff neck looking up at him.

So he paced the hall and read the plaque until Miss Frye opened the door to inform him that according to Mrs. Harris, Mr. Harris was at that moment somewhere in the middle of Crater Lake with a fishing rod in one hand and his first cold Bud of the morning in the other.

Another round of reasoning, begging, and badgering; another few phone calls; another wait in the hall until Miss Frye finally reached one of the department higher-ups. But eventually all the pacing and badgering paid off: Pender left the courthouse with an address-304 Britt Street, in Umpqua-and the distinct impression that if Penelope Frye had been in charge of security at the Department of Energy, the Chinese would never have made off with any of our nuclear secrets.

Lovely morning-there'd been no fog in the valley. The sky was clear, the air was cool, the surrounding mountains picturepostcard perfect above the quaint old town. Pender walked the thirteen blocks to Britt Street-the brand-new boots had his dogs howling by the time he reached the handsome blue Victorian.

He double-checked the address in his notebook: either 304 had been divided into apartments or converted to a halfway house, or else Caz Buckley was one wealthy parolee. Remembering Buckley's predilection for aggravated assault, Pender unsnapped the flap of his shoulder holster as he started up the steps. Before he could ring the bell, the door was opened by an attractive black woman in a white uniform, her graying hair pulled back into a severe bun under a peaked nurse's cap.

“Yes?”

“I'm here to see Caz Buckley.”

“Well, thank the good Lord,” said the nurse, her face softening as she reached out to take Pender's hand between both of hers. “Bless your heart, you're the first visitor he's had since he's been here. Come in, please.”

Encouraged but puzzled, Pender forgot to duck as he went through the doorway, and nearly knocked his hat off. He reached up to catch it, and was thankful for Alvin Ralphs' knowing tailoring- his old jacket would have revealed his shoulder hoster for sure.

Once he was inside, a glance at the entrance hall cleared everything up. On a side table was a display stand with brochures-Your Hospice and You; Patient's Bill of Rights; You Are Not Alone-and on the wall was a bulletin board listing various support groups and grief workshops.

Pender weighed his options briefly, and decided that when the law enforcement gods drop a gift like this into your lap, it would be bad luck to throw it back. “I'm glad I'm still in time. How long does he have?”

The nurse shrugged, her usual response to that particular question. “Why don't you wait in there?” she told Pender, indicating the parlor to his left. “I'll see if he's still awake.”

“I'd rather surprise him,” said Pender. “I can't wait to catch the look on old Caz's face when he sees me.”

“I really shouldn't, Mr…?”

“Pender. Look, I give you my word of honor, if he's asleep, I'll tiptoe right on out.” Then he looked down at his boots. “Well, maybe not tiptoe-I just bought these yesterday and they're not broke in yet.”

The confidence had two purposes. First, it was a confidence, and confidences always invite trust. Second, it was a good way to get the woman's sympathy. Like cops, nurses knew all about sore feet.

“Well, I suppose it would be all right, if you promise not to wake him…”

“Word of honor. If he's asleep, I'll sit quietly by the bed.”

“It's room 302. I'll take you back to the elevator.”

Pender ducked through the low doorway and shut the door softly behind him. The room was tiny, with a downward-slanting roof. According to the printout, Buckley was a hundred-andeightypound African American, but the skin color of the man in the bed was a sickly yellowish gray, and he couldn't have weighed much over a hundred pounds.

His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. He appeared to be asleep, but Pender never for a moment considered keeping his promise to the nurse. There was a wooden chair next to the bed; Pender sat down with his hat in his lap, leaned over, and whispered into the dying man's slightly cauliflowered ear.

“Cazimir Buckley, do you believe in an afterlife?”

“Who wants to know?” whispered Buckley, without opening his eyes.

“Pender, FBI.”

With his left hand, the one that wasn't hooked up to the IV, Buckley reached for the buzzer to summon the nurse. Pender grabbed his wrist.

“I need some information about somebody you might have done time with in Juvie.”

“Fuck you,” said Buckley, with an effort.

“You're dying, Caz. You're gonna need all the good time you can get, when you're called to the Lord.”

Buckley didn't have another fuck you in him. He raised the middle finger of his right hand weakly instead.

“At the moment, he's averaging two murders a day.”

Finger.

“Black women.” One black woman, anyway.

But the finger stayed up. So much for appealing to the man's sense of religion, humanity, or racial identity. On to self-interest, which was where Pender would have started with any con but a dying one.

“Listen up, Caz. Here comes the deal, and it's only coming by once. This is a sweet setup you have here. I don't know how you wangled it, but it's a helluva nice place to die. Only maybe you don't deserve a nice place to die. I've already talked to Mr. Harris, and if I don't get full cooperation from you, starting with my very next question, I can have your parole revoked by tomorrow afternoon.”

The upraised finger wavered. Buckley's nostrils flared from the effort of breathing. Pender went on: “It's your choice, Caz. You get to decide whether you want to die here or in the hospital wing of the state penitentiary. Now, do you understand me?”

Slowly the gaunt gray man opened his eyes; the whites were yellow as egg yolks. “He killin' black women, you said?”

“The last one was named Aletha Winkle. I found her body. He fractured her skull, raped her repeatedly while she was dying, then hacked her to pieces with a butcher knife.”

“You got a pitcher of him?”

Pender showed him Casey's mug shot.

“I dunno. Juvie, you said? Thass goin way back, man.”

“He said you taught him some trick, some martial arts trick for getting the jump on somebody?”

Buckley looked at the picture again. He started to smile, then a spasm of pain wracked him.

“Leggo my hand,” he said. Pender unpinned the call button from the sheet and moved it out of reach, but that wasn't what Buckley was going for. He found the handset that controlled the morphine infuser and jabbed the button with his thumb.

Pender waited a full minute. He could afford to be generous. He now had an even surer way of guaranteeing Buckley's cooperation: he could take the morphine button away from him. Ends and means. “Feeling better now?”

“Hurt less. Shit don' get me high no more.”

“Sorry to hear that. You have a name to give me?”

“Might have.”

“Well then, I might let you have that magic button back next time you need it. Now who are we talking about?”

“Max. We talkin' 'bout little Max. And you know what's really fucked up?”

“What?”

“I made up all that shit about countin' backwards and all. Flat made it up.”