Iron River

14

Hood introduced himself to Owens Finnegan through the security screen door of her El Centro home. He held up his shield wallet and said her father had asked him to look in on her. He couldn’t see her through the small perforations in the steel. Her voice was pleasant and soft.

“Dad’s okay?”

“He’s in the hospital in Buenavista.”

“Please come in.”

She was on the tall side and slender, just as her father had said. Her hair was brown and wavy and cut above the shoulders, with bangs almost to her eyebrows. Her eyes were light gray and calm. She wore a crisp blue pin-striped dress shirt over a pair of jeans and she was barefoot, with a silver or stainless steel chain around one ankle. There was a pearl on each ear. Her skin was pale. She was beautiful and she had neither the air nor the appearance of joy.

The living room was small and had two director’s chairs with blue canvas seats and backs facing the door. There was no other furniture and no pictures hung or plants growing. There were half a dozen cardboard boxes against one wall. The carpet was dark green and old.

“Just moving in?” asked Hood.

“I’ve been here two weeks. I don’t have a lot.”

“Do you move around?”

“When it’s time. I’d offer you coffee, but I don’t have any. There is water.”

“Please.”

Hood looked around the barren room and listened to the water running in the kitchen. She came back with two cups, and when she handed him one, he saw inside her shirt cuff the end of a scar that wrapped out of sight beneath her wrist. The cups were foam and the water was room temperature.

She regarded the room. “I dislike confined spaces. There’s a picnic table in the backyard and it’s in the shade this time of day. We can sit out there.”

The lawn was a stubble of tan crabgrass, but a peppertree shaded the table and benches. Hood sat across from her and told her what had happened to her father, and how he was doing now at Imperial Mercy, and how they had found ninety thousand dollars in cash in a tool chest in his truck.

She nodded as if she had heard all this before. “Did he tell you the bathroom products story or the wealthy family from Napa County story?”

“Bathroom products.”

“There are other stories, too.”

“Any of them true?”

“Everything he says is partially true. You haven’t really seen him, have you-his face as he speaks to you, I mean.”

“No. His whole head is wrapped up.”

“Well, to understand my father, you have to see him. I learned to watch his face as he talked to me. When you do that, something about him slowly becomes evident. It can take quite a while to realize it.”

“And what’s that?”

“He’s insane.”

Hood considered. He had once browsed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and been impressed by the sheer number of them, and the way they were classified and differentiated. He thought again of his sister, whose sanity seemed to be dwindling until her brain tumor was discovered, and how quickly her sanity was salvaged when the tumor was removed. He thought of the bullet taken from behind Mike Finnegan’s cheek and wondered if it could have caused mental disturbances.

“What’s his diagnosis?”

“Paranoid schizophrenia. He’s been treated for it most of his adult life.”

“In institutions?”

“Occasionally. He’s not a danger to himself or others. No violence.”

“Does he take medications?”

“I truly don’t know. He’s always been sensitive and secretive about his condition.”

“What can you tell me about the bullet in his head?”

In the outdoor sunlight, the gray of her eyes looked like polished nickel, and Hood had never seen eyes of this color.

“You said he was hit by a car,” said Owens.

“They found a bullet lodged behind his cheekbone, below his left eye. They said it looked like it had been there quite a while.”

“He never told me he was shot. That’s Dad for you.”

“That’s just a little hard to believe, Ms. Finnegan.”

“You don’t know how many things about my father are hard to believe, Deputy Hood.”

“He must have a facial scar.”

“There is a small scar below his cheek. But he always said it was caused by a boyhood injury in the vineyard in Napa.”

“Did your father and mother get along?”

“She died of a heart attack not long after I was born. My father remembers her fondly. He loved her.”

“Did he ever take you to her grave?”

“She was cremated and scattered in the Pacific.”

“What was her name?”

“Bernice.”

She looked away and Hood found her scar, a raised and jagged thing lying in wait inside the buttoned cuff.

“Where did they get the name Owens?”

“Family. Way back.”

“Where’d the ninety grand come from?”

“I don’t know. I would ask him, then believe ten percent of what he says. As a starting point. I don’t mean to be facetious or dismissive of him. But I do find it necessary to keep some distance between us. Madness is contagious. Truly it can be.”

Hood looked out at the small backyard. There was a concrete-block wall on three sides, and the tree was the only living thing in the yard. Far overhead, three vultures circled perfectly like a baby’s mobile hung high in the blue.

“So you pack up and leave when you need to,” said Hood. “That’s the distance you’re talking about?”

She nodded.

“Then I can tell him that you’re all right and that you will be in contact with him when you’re ready?”

“Yes.”

“He asked me to tell you that you are loved beyond-”

“My wildest dreams. Beyond them. He’s been telling me that since I was a little girl.”

Hood’s turn to nod now and he saw the faint lines of a smile at the edges of Owens Finnegan’s mouth, then they were gone.

“Can you give me the name of his doctor?”

“He doesn’t refer to them by name. He rarely refers to them at all. He’s ashamed of his illness.”

“How does he support himself?”

“He does have the bathroom products business, which he works at only part-time. When he’s clearheaded. He has family money, though his father was not a wealthy Napa County viticulturist. It appears that he grew up in San Bernardino County and that his father sold new General Motors cars.”

“Appears?”

“Dad’s history is vague and subject to Dad. He was adopted, an only child. His father and mother died before I was born. As for his birth mother, Dad never knew her. He never cared to know her. He loved the parents who raised him and that was enough.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“None.”

Hood looked up and saw the vultures gliding in synchronized orbits, orderly as the works of a wristwatch. When he looked back to Owens Finnegan, she was watching him with nickel eyes.

“Why don’t you just go see him?”

“I might. You ask lots of questions.”

“It’s part of the job.”

“I’ll bet you always did, even as a boy.”

“Yes. Asking questions was a way to avoid answering them.”

“A personality flaw?”

Hood nodded. “Luckily, in my line of work, it can be a plus. Are you going back to college in the fall?”

“Oh, that’s another one of Dad’s beliefs that is independent of the facts. I’ve never set foot on a college campus except for the theaters. I’m an actor. Sometimes I do various work to support myself.”

“What kind of work?”

“Cocktails. Pet sitting. Personal shopper.”

“Not much acting work here in El Centro.”

“I always wanted to live in a desert. I can still make auditions in L.A. I like driving.”

Hood stood and she walked him back inside. In the kitchen, Hood noted the emptiness of the place, not a dish or a dish towel or a bowl of fruit or a toaster or a coffeemaker.

“Look at this,” she said. She led him down a hallway to the door at the end. She swung it open and Hood looked in. The shades were drawn, but a lamp with a pale orange shade cast a warm glow over the room. The dresser and mirror looked expensive. So did the area rug. The sleigh bed was blond maple and high, with a rich leather-and-fabric spread and matching pillows piled against the sloping headboard. The air coming at him smelled sweet.

“I have a few nice things,” she said.

“Very nice.”

“There is always more than meets the eye, Deputy Hood.”

“You are right, Miss Finnegan.”

She walked him out to his car. The neighborhood looked like it was built in the late fifties, small identical houses with attached garages. There were For Sale signs, and the home across the street had boarded windows. Hood noted the black late-model Mercedes convertible in her garage.

“May I see your cell phone?” she asked.

He worked the little holster off his belt and handed the phone to her. She opened it and began pressing buttons expertly, and Hood watched her fingers and the scars. A moment later, she snapped the phone shut and gave it back to him. “I want you to call me.”

“Why?”

She stepped to him and took his face in both her cool hands and turned it so Hood was looking away from her. Then she turned his face the other way. He felt like an animal being examined. She came closer and turned him back to her, and Hood stood before her metallic eyes.

“You will have a reason.”

Dr. Petty intercepted Hood at the nurses’ station and veered him away from the ICU.

“He’s taken some kind of turn. He’s having seizures and talking nonsense-murders and criminals and God knows what. He says he saw Bobby Kennedy die at the Ambassador. He talked about Manson and the beautiful smoggy sunsets at Spahn Ranch. We gave him sedatives and a dose of steroids and ran an MRI. The swelling is pronounced.”

“Can I see him?”

“He’s finally stable, so don’t wear him out. Come.”

Hood and Beth Petty stepped inside the privacy curtain drawn around Finnegan’s bed. The monitor readout showed a pulse of seventy and normal blood pressure.

“Charlie. Hello, doctor. I’m so glad you came to visit.” Finnegan’s voice was a drawl and slightly lower than usual. Hood figured the sedative.

“They finally hung him in San Jose,” said Finnegan.

Hood looked at Petty and she glanced at him but said nothing.

“Who?” asked Hood.

“Tiburcio Vasquez. He was a bandit and a good guy. Ladies’ man, gambler, hell of a shot. I stood in the crowd, way in the back, and I could see the gallows in the shafts of sunlight filled with the dust the horses kicked up. A free drink for every white adult male at Henderson ’s Saloon, Henderson himself an ass, but a free drink is a free drink. You should have seen the women. They were dressed up, hundreds of them, the ladies loved Tiburcio. He had his way with them, that’s for sure. Dr. Petty, you look very much like one of those women and I think you brought this whole memory on. Beauty is changeless. Only the bodies that house it change. Tiburcio’s buddy Abdon Leiva was the betrayer. He ratted out Tiburcio after catching him with his wife. I told Tibby it would happen, but he didn’t listen. They almost never do. There were a bunch of kids inside General Livery and you could see their faces lined up along a crack in the door, getting a look at the hanging. And Sheriff Brewster, he asks Tibby if he’s got any last words and Tibby says, ‘Oh yes, yes yes.’ See, he’s got a little statement all ready to go. I encouraged him to do this, but the composition was all his own. He said, ‘A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I believed to be my rights and those of my country-men. I believed we were unjustly deprived of the social rights that belonged to us.’ And Brewster says, ‘Anything else, Tiburcio?’ And Tibby says, ‘Pronto!’ and the hangman springs the trap. It’s hard to write a story with a better ending than that.”

“That is a good story,” said Hood.

“He’s been talking on like that all morning,” said the doctor. “Frank James and Sirhan and Manson and even O.J.”

“Vasquez and Manson had revolutionary potential. Vast egos and the indispensable ability to believe their own lies. Foundation of the statesman and the dictator. Actually believed they were righting wrongs by robbing and murdering people. Otherwise, there would have been no reason to monkey around with them, now would there?”

“Explain,” said Hood.

“When you choose a friend or an enemy, don’t you look for the strong?” drawled Finnegan. “For people with ambition? People with appetites and talents and profound, profound energy?”

“Sure.”

“Dr. Beth hit me hard with steroids and Seconal.”

Hood glanced at the monitor. Finnegan’s pulse was up to ninety, but his blood pressure hadn’t changed. “I saw Owens this morning. She said she’d come see you. She didn’t say when.”

“Bravo, Charlie. Thank you so much. Quite a woman, isn’t she?”

“She’s lovely, but she didn’t smile, not one time.”

“She’s never been happy.”

“I saw the scars on her wrist.”

Beth Petty looked at him, and Hood held her look for a moment.

“They found her just in time,” said Finnegan. “No note. It was a serious attempt, not a cry for help.”

“Why?”

“She genuinely believed she had no reason to live. She loved nothing and was interested in nothing.”

“Didn’t she love you?”

No one spoke for a long moment. Hood could see the shine of Finnegan’s eyes deep within the bandages. “I wasn’t a good father. I was gone a lot. Bathroom products. Family affairs in Napa County. My father and mother… well, that’s a long story. Owens felt abandoned. She was thirteen, terribly overweight, bad acne. She was almost totally inscrutable to me, a man lost to commerce and pleasure and to his own demons. After that dark day when she tried to end it all, I tried my hardest to be there for her. Gradually, she found herself. As if she were born again into the world. It was a long and sometimes painful awakening. So, all the more difficult for me when her vanishing acts began. Which is why it was so important to me that I know she’s all right. Thank you, deputy. Now please describe her home to me.”

Hood described the house and yard and asked about Owens’s acting career.

“Well, not much of a career because she’s still in school. But she’s gifted in that way. It took us some years to discover those gifts… I just had the thought that, Dr. Petty, you also remind me of a prostitute who worked for Ida down in the old San Diego red-light district. They called it the Stingaree. Ida ran the ladies around town in horse-drawn buggies, and the johns would come to Wyatt’s saloon on Sixth and go upstairs. Nice place. Fantastic sin zone then, the cat’s pajamas. San Diego was really the place to be if you had a wicked streak. A busy port means horny sailors. Still true today. I don’t know what it is about you, Beth, maybe that nice round forehead and cute little nose, or maybe something in your eyes, just makes me think of women I’ve met before. I guess if you get old enough, everyone reminds you of someone else.”

“I’m so happy to remind you of a whore.”

“Please don’t take offense. The canvas is limitless and impersonal. It is a meeting of time and space, and your place on it is not much larger than a dot and not much longer than a moment. The prostitute’s name was Marie. She carried someone’s beauty and you carry hers and someone will someday carry yours.”

“Oh.”

“How old are you, Mike?” asked Hood.

“Fifty-one. Did Owens appear to be well fed? She’s prone to letting her nutrition go and simply living on energy drinks.”

“She looked healthy.”

“Eyes like the moon, eh?”

“Somewhat.”

“I’d like a full report on Holdstock, but I’m too tired right now to remember anything. Later, Charlie? This evening or tonight, maybe?”

Hood now felt something that he had felt only one time before. It was like surprise and like recognition and like dread, but he didn’t know a word for it or if there was a word. Once when he was a boy in Bakersfield, walking to school, he watched a tiger cross the street in front of him and trot off toward the park. It glanced back at him. Its size and coloring and movement were not within his experience of the world. Later he learned it had escaped from a private collection. He felt now as he felt then, and it was indescribable.

“You can’t know about Holdstock,” Hood said.

“I can’t know or you can’t tell?”

“I’ve never said his name to you,” said Hood. “Nothing has been written about him recently and he hasn’t been mentioned in any news media. How do you even know his name?”

“Sources.”

Hood racked his brain. He wondered if Finnegan’s source who had supplied Hood’s new home address was a USPS employee and had gotten his hands on Hood’s recent letter home. Had he been lax enough to use Jimmy’s last name in that letter? The nurses could tell him if Finnegan had had a visitor.

“When you tell me your sources, I’ll tell you about Holdstock.”

“Don’t be boorish, Charlie. Butting heads is never good policy. When you come back to see me we can discuss Holdstock as he deserves to be discussed. My number one concern, if I were you, would be that the Zetas will simply storm the hospital and take him again. Now, you come back and bring a good zinfandel, something peppery. It will cut right through the hoof-and-mouth disease I feel developing. I like the Bonterra organic. Of course I’ll need a straw.”

“You know nothing about Jimmy but his name.”

“A Badger tight end. Lapsed student of divinity. Married the waitress. Took the Blowdown gig for a shot at better weather. El Centro. My. It’s all available.”

Hood considered. “Then you can tell me about the bullet, too.”

“I was wondering when that would come up. You did not have my permission to remove it, Dr. Petty.”

“We judged it best,” said Petty.

“I wonder what caused the swelling in my brain to increase. My enormous intellect? The removal of the bullet? Really, I don’t feel right. Where do these false memories come from? They’re obviously only fantasy and hallucination. Dr. Petty, maybe you can discover in me a new mental illness. Can you name it after me? Finnegan by proxy? Mike’s syndrome? Well-it’s exhausting to see Tiburcio dangling again. Doctor, it’s not your fault you look like a whore from another century. There is no expiration date on the kind of beauty you possess. This has been an exciting day, but I’m very tired now.”

Hood looked at Petty, who swung back the privacy curtain and followed Hood out.

“Don’t forget my straw,” called Finnegan.

Hood took the elevator up to the sixth floor but one of the uniformed deputies outside Holdstock’s room said that Jimmy was sleeping. The deputy said Jimmy was doing okay-his wife and kids were in earlier. He looked okay. Right now Holdstock was in dreamland.

Hood asked to just peek in and when he did, he saw Jimmy on his back with his hands bundled into gigantic white appendages that lay beside him. His face twitched and it was a color between white and blue and covered with sweat. Hood got the nurse to look and she said it was good, always good when they can sleep through pain like that.

Hood took the stairs down, and on the third level he saw two U.S. marshals standing guard at the landing door. The stairwell air was hot and still, and Hood’s footsteps echoed flatly. The marshals recognized Hood and stood in deference as he came down the steps.

“Deputy Hood,” said one.

“What’s this?”

“A Gulf Cartel heavy who got himself shot up last night. We have to give the creeps top-notch medical care and protect them from their enemies, right?”

“When did he come in?”

“Early this morning. Hey, terrific work down there. I heard your guy had it pretty hard.”

“Yeah. They tell me he’s doing better.”

“When they start letting marshals join the war parties, I’m signing up. Take some scalps. What are you guys going to do next-Blowdown, I mean?”

“Just our jobs.”

“Keep up the good work.”

Hood nodded and headed down the stairs. He called his mother and they talked for a few minutes, then Hood asked her to get the two letters he had written and read them out loud to him.

Standing in the shade of the Imperial Mercy entryway, Hood listened to his mother’s voice as she read. He remembered that same voice reading stories to him when he was young, remembered the Bakersfield living room in which they sat, remembered his mother as the young woman she no longer was.

The name Holdstock was not in the letters.

Then Hood talked briefly with his father, who sounded clear and rational and before hanging up said, “I love you, Anderson,” Anderson being his father’s friend shot down over Khe Sanh in 1968 and never heard from again.