Lone Wolf

12

AS I DROVE DAD to the lawyer’s the next morning in his pickup, he said, “I feel a bit bad, talking to Bert Trench about evicting the Wickenses, when they had us to dinner last night and all. I mean, it’s not much of a way to show one’s gratitude.”

I glanced away from the road long enough to look at him. “Are you kidding me? Were you at the same dinner I was at?”

“It just doesn’t seem very grateful, that’s all.”

“Dad, we’ve been over this. You think they had us for dinner because they like us? They were putting on a show. It was like opening night on Broadway. How many times did someone remind us that Dewart was killed by a bear? The whole fucking family was in on it-well, May didn’t really have that much to say. But even the kid mentioned how Dewart had been killed by a bear. It’s like they were trying to implant memories. By the time the evening was over I was convinced I’d seen Morton Dewart head out to kill that bear. And why do you figure they wanted to do that?”

Dad gazed out the window.

“Dad?”

“Well, it could still be because he was. And they need to talk about it. Wouldn’t you feel the need to talk about it? I mean, from the very beginning, ever since those damn dogs chased you back over the fence, you’ve been just bound and determined that those dogs killed that man, that they’ve been covering it up. It’s like you think Wickens meant to kill that man with those dogs, that it was deliberate, and you’re basing that on what? Betty’s glance at a corpse, and some feelings you’ve got, and a missing rifle.”

“Oh, and while we’re on the subject, what the hell were you thinking?”

“What?”

“Last night? Bringing up that thing about the rifle? Were you out of your mind?”

“What are you talking about? You’ve been going on like it’s a big deal, so I thought I’d mention it, see what they thought.”

I took a deep breath. “Dad, if there’s no rifle, that’s because Morton wasn’t out hunting for a bear, and if he wasn’t out hunting for a bear, that means everything Timmy Wickens and his family of nutcases is telling us is a lie, which is exactly why we don’t bring up the thing about the rifle, because it tips them off.”

“Oh,” Dad said. He tapped his fist lightly on the dashboard. “Well, okay, let’s say we go on your theory. Why the hell would Wickens want his own daughter’s boyfriend ripped apart by those dogs?”

I thought of my daughter Angie, now in her second year at Mackenzie, majoring in psychology. I could imagine releasing the hounds on some of her boyfriends.

“I don’t have an answer for that,” I said. “Maybe that’s something we should start looking into.”

“We?” Dad said, glancing over at me. “That’s something that we should look into? We should start looking into why the Wickenses would have wanted to kill that man? You know, that’s why they have police forces, Zachary. They look into that sort of thing.”

“Okay, let’s turn on the Bat signal and Orville’ll get right on it,” I said.

Dad clenched his fist tighter. “Stop picking on him,” he said.

“What do you care? What’s he to you that you defend him? Is this because he’s Lana’s nephew? You don’t want to point out what a doofus he is because it’ll hurt your chances of getting between the sheets with her?” Dad’s eyes widened. The angrier he looked, the more I felt egged on. “And you never did tell me whether you two are taking precautions. The last thing I want is a little baby brother.”

“Shut up! For God’s sake, just shut the hell up! Pull over! Pull over! I’m getting out!”

“Dad! You’re not getting out! You’re on crutches, for Christ’s sake!”

“I don’t care. Stop the car!”

I wanted to point out that, technically speaking, we were not in a car, we were in a truck, but did not. “I’m not stopping,” I said. “Look, I’m sorry. I won’t make fun of Orville anymore.” Dad eyed me warily, perhaps to see whether I looked sincere. I was not sure just how convincing I looked. The truth is, I was trying very hard not to laugh, not unlike when Sarah stubs her toe, and I try to look concerned, but she sees something in my eye and says, “You think this is funny, don’t you?” At which point, I pretend to have a coughing fit.

I said, “I’ll behave myself. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but I’ll do my best. I’ll treat the uniform with respect, even if I have some reservations about the guy inside it.”

Dad looked at me for another second, decided, I guess, that that was the most he could expect for now, and turned his eyes front. We came down the hill into Braynor, traveled through the three blocks of downtown and came out the other side, and parked along the street outside a beautiful, old, three-story, if you counted the dormers, Victorian home that had been turned into a law office.

I got out, went around to help Dad step down, and noticed staple-gunned to the wooden light standard by the truck more Braynor fall fair flyers, listing, in print too small to see unless you went right up to it, some of the big events, including a parade, the lawn tractor races Dad had already warned me about, a massive roast beef dinner, various rides and games.

“This is what you want to involve me in?” I said, nodding my head at the flyer.

“I don’t want you doing any damn thing you don’t want to do,” Dad said.

We mounted the steps of the old house and walked right in, since it was an office and not a residence. Inside, the charm and architectural significance I imagine must have once been there had been eradicated. The place looked more like, well, a lawyer’s office, with a receptionist’s station, some chairs and magazines.

I approached the middle-aged, slightly frumpy woman at the desk and told her we had an appointment to see Bert Trench, and she said he would be right with us. Dad plopped awkwardly into one of the chairs and I took one next to him.

“Look how old these magazines are,” Dad complained. “Hey, look, they’re going to impeach Nixon.”

A heavy wood door opened and a short, mostly bald man in glasses strode out, hand extended toward Dad. Bert Trench looked to be in his mid-forties, and judging by the lopsided roll of flesh that hung over his belt, spent more time behind his desk than at the fitness club, if Braynor even had a fitness club.

“Hey, Arlen, how nice to see you,” he said. His voice squeaked. “I don’t think you’ve been in here since we did the paperwork on your place. Good heavens, what’s happened to you?”

Dad struggled to his feet to shake hands. “Just something stupid,” he said. “Slipped.”

“Let’s help you into the office here.”

“This here’s my son Zachary,” Dad said.

“Nice to meet you,” I said as the three of us went into the office. Bert made sure Dad was comfortably settled in one of the two leather padded chairs opposite his desk before he went round and took his spot. I sat down, glanced at a framed photo on Bert Trench’s desk of a stunningly beautiful, dark-haired woman I guessed was in her late thirties.

Trench saw how the picture had caught my attention, then looked back at Dad. “Arlen, I read the piece in the paper today, by that Tracy girl, about the trouble at your place. A bear?”

Dad glanced at me, looking for a signal as to whether we were going to get into this. I did a small shake of the head. That wasn’t why we were here, exactly.

“Awful thing,” Dad said. “Just terrible.”

“I can’t imagine,” Bert Trench said. He turned to me, reached for the framed picture. “This is my wife, Adriana. Arlen, her picture wouldn’t have been here when you were last in.”

Dad smiled, sort of shrugged. “I don’t exactly remember, Bert.”

“Adriana and I got married a year ago. This is number four! One of these days I’m going to get it right, and I think she’s the one. Although I said that with numbers one, two, and three! Had you seen my other wives, Arlen?”

Dad shook his head, so Bert got pictures out of his desk, displayed them for us. They all looked like beauty queens. Bert must have had something that appealed to the ladies, besides his lumpy tummy, bald head, and squeaky voice, that was not immediately evident.

“Anyway,” Bert said, gathering up the photos of his exes and tucking them away, “it’s good to see you. Exciting times all around, huh? You see the paper today? Looks like they’re going to let the gay boys into the parade. Council couldn’t find a way to say no. Either let ’em in, or cancel the parade altogether, and if you ask me, it would have been better to take a stand and cancel the parade.”

“What’s the story here?” I asked, recalling Timmy’s remarks about this, and the manager of the grocery store with the petition he wanted me to sign.

“Oh, sorry,” said Bert Trench. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“The city,” I said. Dad and Trench shared a glance, as though this would help explain a lot of things that might come up later in the conversation.

“There’s always a fall fair parade,” Dad said. “Beecham’s Hardware, the high school band, the local cattlemen’s association, the racing lawnmowers, 4-Hers, Henry’s Grocery, Braynor Co-op, that kind of thing, they’re all in it. There’s these homo activists want to put a float in the parade, or march, or do synchronized wrist flicking, I don’t know. The town council said no, so the gay boys were going to make a civil rights case out of it, so the town backed down, decided to let ’em in.”

“They were going to go to court to be allowed into a parade like that?” I asked. “You’d think you’d do everything in your power to get out of a parade like that.”

Bert Trench cocked his head, offended. “Pardon?” He eyed me curiously. “The fall fair parade is a tradition around here.”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Dad said to Bert. “He makes fun of everything. The whole world’s a joke to him.”

“Listen,” I said, turning to Dad, not Bert Trench. “I have a very good friend, a private detective, who just happens to be-”

“So, Bert,” said Dad. “I wonder if you could help me with a little problem I got.”

“What would that be, Arlen?” He wasn’t even looking at me now. I’d mocked the fall fair parade. Even now, he was probably pressing a silent alarm button under the desk, summoning Orville.

“Uh, it’s about my neighbors, Bert. My tenants, actually.”

Bert squinted. “Refresh my memory.”

“You wouldn’t probably even know. It’s just been in the past couple of years, I’ve been renting out the farmhouse, fixed up the best of the cabins for myself. Rented it to some folks named Wickens. They moved down from Red Lake way.”

“Wickens,” Bert Trench said quietly. “Wickens. That’d be Timmy Wickens, and his boys.”

“Stepsons. There’s his wife, and he’s got a grown daughter, and her boy. It was the daughter, her boyfriend that got killed.”

“I see,” Bert Trench said, picking up a pen and making circles on a yellow legal pad.

“Bert, they scare the shit out of me. They’re shooting guns up there, they’ve got No Trespassing signs all over the place, and these pit bulls, they’re eating my guests’ fish right off the stringers, and they’re running the place down, it’s going to cost me a fortune to get it back in shape when they leave.”

“They’re leaving, are they? Packing up?’ Trench swallowed. “That’d be a load off, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, that’s what I’m here to see you about. I want them out. And I wanted your advice on how to go about that. How would I go about evicting them? How much notice do I have to give? And can I tell them, I don’t know, that it’s because I want to fix the house up and move into it, so they don’t think it’s personal? Because, I don’t want them getting angry with me. I don’t have a good feeling about them.”

Bert Trench was studying his doodles. “Well, I don’t know, Arlen, I don’t exactly know…”

“Can you write them a letter, sort of a friendly eviction notice?” I tried not to roll my eyes. Dad went on. “Something kind of official? I’ve got the right to do this, right? I mean, it’s my place and all.”

“Sure, sure, you’ve got rights, Arlen. But, what have they actually done?”

“Done?”

“I mean, have they threatened you? Caused any significant property damage?”

Dad paused. “Not exactly. But it’s a lot of little things, they add up, you know?”

Trench doodled a bit more, and then, in what looked like a staged gesture, glanced at his watch. “Oh my, goodness, I wonder if you could excuse me for a moment.”

He got up, left the room, and closed the door behind him. Dad and I sat in the office, alone, nearly a minute, before Dad said to me, “The hell’s wrong with him?”

“He started looking a bit pasty from the moment you mentioned the name Wickens,” I said.

“He did seem a bit funny, didn’t he?” Dad said. “I wonder what-”

The door opened again, and Bert Trench strode in, but he didn’t head for his spot behind the desk. He had his hands in his pockets, and tried to look at us, but mostly was looking at the floor.

“Listen, Arlen, and Mr. Walker, Zachary, is it?”

I said nothing.

“I feel terrible about this, but I should have told you when you booked your appointment that I’m just not in a position to take any new business on at this time. I’m really pretty swamped with things, I’ve got a very large client base, and what you’re asking for, what you’d want me to take on for you, that could run into a lot of hours, and I just don’t think I could give you the kind of service that you deserve.”

“I’m just talking about a letter,” Dad said. “You haven’t got time to write them a friggin’ letter?”

“Like I said, I’m just not able to take on new clients at the moment,” he said, trying to smile.

“I’m not a new client,” Dad said. “I’ve already done business with you.”

Bert Trench pretended not to hear. “There are some other law offices in Braynor, or you might want to try in Smithfield, or Jersey Falls, maybe someone there would be able to help you, I’m sure.” He’d moved to the door and was holding it open for us.

We stood. Dad got his crutches under his arms and as we were going out the door he stopped and looked Bert Trench square in the eye. “Where are your balls, Bert?”

I noticed beads of sweat on Trench’s forehead.

“I’m sorry, Arlen,” he said. “I can’t do this for you.”

“Why not?”

Trench swallowed, bowed his head. “Couple years ago, there was a lawyer in Red Lake, he had this client, a plumber, did a lot of work at this house where the Wickenses used to live, before they moved this way and rented your place.”

We watched him.

“So he’d done at least a thousand dollars’ worth of work, gave the Wickenses their bill, they never paid, so this plumber, he goes and sees this lawyer, asks him to take care of it for him. And the lawyer, he sends them a letter.”

“The Wickenses,” I said.

“Yeah. So he sends them this letter. And the next night, his house burns down.”

Dad and I said nothing.

“Nearly lost his family. Got them out just in time. Nearly lost his daughter, she’s paralyzed, fell off a horse when she was fifteen, can’t move on her own, and he carried her out just in time.”

“It could have just been a coincidence,” I said.

“The plumber, he gets a phone call the next day. Caller asks him, does he want his place to be next?”

Dad, shuffling on his crutches, and I moved for the door.

“I’m real sorry,” said Bert Trench. “I just don’t need that kind of thing. But, Arlen, any time you’ve got a basic real estate deal, you call me and I’ll look after you.”

“Sure, Bert,” said Dad. “You’ll be the first.”