The Devil went down to Austin

CHAPTER 17

Faye DoeblerIngram's house was a small folk Victorian on an unmarked residential half block, tucked behind a vegetarian restaurant and a lesbian gift shop. I drove past, Uturned, and parked across the street at the base of one of the city's moonlight towers.

The front porch was outlined with lacy white trim. The screen door was peach, the porch swing green. Her sidegabled roof had recently been sheeted in galvanized steel. Her yard was a quarteracre garden-every square foot cultivated with herbs and wildflowers, pathways made from broken flagstones. A good deal of money had gone into making the house look quaint and rustic. It didn't look like the kind of place where the resident was accustomed to being rocked by tragedy.

Maia opened the passenger's side door, bringing in the scents of the neighbourhood-cut grass and garden herbs.

"Tu es pres?" she asked.

"Just like old times."

Even a hint of her smile gave me more pleasure than I wanted to admit.

Maia led the way. The white cotton straps of her dress made an X across her shoulder blades. Her hair had grown longer than I'd realized. Gathered in a white scrunchietie, her glossy chocolate brown ponytail didn't look so much girlish as formidable-like the mane of a T'ang warrior.

The garden was hazy with the smells of catmint, thyme, and sage. We climbed the front steps, ducked under a trellis of grapevines.

The lady of the house opened her screen door before we reached it. "May I help you?"

She was a slight woman in her sixties-stick arms, a pleasantly wrinkled face surrounded by enormous permed hair the bright colour of new pennies. Her jeans and blouse were covered with a gardener's apron, but she wore full makeup and silver jewellery. She looked like a friendly earth gnome who'd just been to the beauty parlour.

Maia said, "Mrs. DoeblerIngram?"

"Just Ms. Ingram," the woman replied gently. "Yes?"

She held a spade, a clod of mud stuck to the point.

I said, "We spoke on the phone. I'm Tres Navarre. This is Maia Lee, a friend."

Faye Ingram's eyes got smaller, more wary. "I don't… you mean about Jimmy's death?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "There've been some developments since we spoke, Ms.

Ingram. We thought you'd want to be prepared if the police contact you. May we come in?"

She wavered, but refusal wasn't really an option, the way I'd phrased it. She let us in.

The house had the same wildly cultivated look as the front garden, clumps of floralpattern sofas, sprigs of end tables blooming with houseplants, tall pedestals topped with artwork, even one of Jimmy's large ceramic pieces. The smell of freshbaked cinnamon bread wafted from the kitchen. Somewhere in the back rooms, Dylan's Blood on the Tracks was playing. Faye Ingram may have looked nothing like her nephew, but being in her house, I could believe they were related.

Yet something struck me as out of character-something that told of fear. There was a blinking sensor by the door, discreet wires running up the sides of the windows, a keypad next to the light switch. Laidback Ms. Ingram had one of the finest security systems money could buy.

She led us through a hallway, out into the backyard.

The sun was filtering through the branches of an enormous oak tree. On the sidewalk, a circle of five sun tea jars glowed like some weird, translucent Stonehenge. Lining the fence were tomato and pepper cages, mansized sunflowers slouched in their last weeks of life-leaves curled brown and seed faces blasted from heat and the work of birds.

We sat in patio chairs under the oak.

"So," Ms. Ingram said uneasily. "You have something to tell me?"

"We wanted to ask about Clara's suicide," I said.

If I was expecting a strong reaction, I didn't get it. Ms. Ingram's smile stayed polite, colourless, wavering no more than her hairdo. "I'm sorry. I don't understand what this has to do with Jimmy."

"In the weeks before he got murdered," I said, "Jimmy was researching his mother's past. I know he called you and W.B. and several other relatives. He also called the police, asking for the files on Clara's death. I know Clara's relationship with the Doebler clan was… rocky. It may have nothing to do with Jimmy's death. It just strikes me-"

Ms. Ingram's eyes were watery, unfocused, courteous. I suddenly felt guilty, as if I were forcing something unpleasant into a fragile container.

"It unsettles us," Maia said. "The way Clara died, the place. Jimmy dying in the same spot, the same way."

Faye Ingram laced her fingers together, set them like a little igloo on the mint green patio table. "The police tell me they are close to an arrest."

"They are," I agreed. "And once they have a convincing possibility, they won't look elsewhere unless they have their arms twisted. The rest of the Doebler family isn't likely to twist, are they?"

"Your brother-he is the one they will arrest. Yes?"

"Yes."

"And would it surprise you greatly if I refused to help you?"

"No."

Ms. Ingram read my eyes, then looked toward her garden-the giant, ruined heads of sunflowers. Ms. Ingram nodded, as if she'd made a decision.

"Excuse me a moment," she murmured.

She rose, almost trancelike, and wandered inside.

Maia and I looked at each other.

I shook my head doubtfully, by no means sure Faye Ingram would be coming back without the police.

Inside the house, a Bob Dylan track played through. Faye Ingram reappeared. She carried a brown leather binder the size of an Oxford English Dictionary volume. Two sweaty glasses of tea sat on top.

"My manners need polishing," she apologized. "Except for the herb society, I don't entertain many guests."

We thanked her for the tea.

Ms. Ingram's smile started to reform as she ran her fingers over the old brown binder, smearing the rings of condensation.

I finally realized why her face seemed familiar. She looked like the picture Jimmy had kept on his mantel-her sister Clara. The resemblance wasn't much-a faraway look in the eyes, frailness in the smile, features too delicate to maintain much emotion.

She opened the binder, carefully extracted a photograph.

"This is Clara and James-Jimmy's father."

The photograph paper was parchmentthick, the colours hand tinted in late 1950s pastel. Clara Doebler wore a satin bride's dress. Her smile was perfunctory, her hair done in a beehive the same unnatural copper colour as Faye's hair today. At Clara's side was the groom-a roughcut man with unruly Elvis hair and a rakish face that reminded me pleasantly of Jimmy's.

"James died of tuberculosis when Jimmy was only three years old," Faye Ingram told us. "More than anything, that event fractured Clara. She'd always been… brittle.

Prone to depression. She'd allowed the family to arrange her marriage with James, and then she blamed them for leaving her a widow. She refused to remarry, took back her maiden name for herself and her son-something you just didn't do in Travis County in 1960. She became extremely possessive of Jimmy, how he would be raised.

She became… contrary. Erratic. The family was concerned enough to bring legal action to gain custody of Jimmy. It was W.B.'s father, William B. Senior, who pulled most of the reins of power back then. It was a horrible mess, but finally, of course, the Doebler money won. Clara couldn't compete."

From her tone, I couldn't tell if Faye admired her sister, or was simply expressing fascination, the way a child is fascinated by peeling off BandAids.

She pulled out a second photo, handed it across. "That is the man Clara called her second husband, although they were never actually married. His name was Ewin Lowry."

Lowry-the name Jimmy had specified as the father's name on his search for birth certificates.

Ewin Lowry was as different from James Doebler, Sr., as two men could be. Lowry was small, slightly potbellied, darkcomplexioned. His hair and moustache were thick and black, his eyes predatory. The gypsy charmer. The man you watched carefully at poker, never introduced to your wife, and certainly never let marry one of your daughters. In the photo, Ewin and Clara stood together in front of a red '65 Mustang.

The two of them looked happy.

"Ewin was charming," Faye continued. "Something of a poet. Affectionate when it suited him. Sometimes violent, though never with Clara. The rest of the family-our parents, our grandparents, the aunts and uncles on W.B.'s side of the family-they tolerated Ewin and Clara, but only barely, and only for a while. When Clara became pregnant for a second time-this was in '67-she announced her intentions to marry Lowry."

"Pregnant," I repeated.

Faye nodded. "The family went into war mode. To make a long story short, Clara lost.

William B. Sr. drove Ewin Lowry away by a combination of threats and bribes. Clara was convinced to have an abortion. She never recovered from that. She cut all ties with the family, did a lot of travelling to the West Coast and to Europe, but she couldn't bring herself to leave Austin for good. She and I kept in touch, but I'm ashamed to say-Clara scared me. She was so… intense, so sad and angry. When she killed herself, I wasn't surprised. Reuniting with Jimmy was her only comfort for all she'd lost, and in the end, even that wasn't enough."

Daylight filtered through the oak tree, the leaves a mesh of green and yellow. Looking up, I felt like I was under the weight of a giant gumball machine.

Maia said, "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Ingram."

The older woman smiled. "My loss is nothing, Miss-"

"Call me Maia."

"I'm used to being alone, Maia. I hope you have many happy years with your soul mate, dear, but that just doesn't happen for some women. I accepted that long ago. My sister never did. Compared to Clara, I lost nothing."

I concentrated on the heat vapour rising from the flagstones, the reflections of the sun tea jars.

"When Jimmy called," Faye murmured, "I told him I couldn't help him. He was so insistent."

"He didn't believe the abortion happened in '67," I said. "He thought Clara had the child."

Faye Ingram stiffened. "How did you know?"

I told her about the paperwork at Jimmy's house, the birth certificate search.

She folded her hands in her lap. "Jimmy was quite irrational about it. His mood reminded me-I hate to say this-he reminded me of Clara. He claimed someone had told him about her pregnancy, told him the child had been given away for adoption."

"Who told him?" Maia asked. "How recently?"

"Jimmy wouldn't say. But I was with Clara in 1967, dear. I know the abortion happened." Ms. Ingram turned a page in her binder. "It would've been better for Jimmy if he hadn't dug into all that," she said softly.

She brought out a yellowing document with a rusty paper clip mark at the edge. She studied the paper, then looked up at Maia and me. "We kept Clara's suicide out of the press, but naturally I was curious. I asked for the police report. Take it. W.B. can hardly crucify me now."

Maia took the report, thanked her. "Ms. Ingram, would anyone want to kill Jimmy?"

"I didn't know my nephew very well, I'm afraid. Not since he was a child."

"Whatever happened to Ewin Lowry?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. There was a time, back in the mid1980s, when Clara got a scare. She thought he'd resurfaced, but nothing ever came of it."

"A scare," I said.

"Ewin called her-1987, this would have been, the twentieth anniversary of the day he left her. It was a horrible call. He caught Clara at a vulnerable moment. Ewin threatened to kill her, demanded money. He said he would be coming to find her. It was the last time Clara ever came to me for help."

"You went to the police?"

"Clara didn't trust them to help. She said she needed money, wanted to hire a private investigator to find out where Ewin was.

We tried that, had no success. A few weeks later, a letter from Ewin arrived in the mail.

And that was the last we heard from him."

Ms. Ingram sighed, fished around in her binder again. "You'll think me a ghoul, but here it is, that letter."

Sure enough, it was postmarked May 1987 from Waco, Texas. It was typed-no signature, no return address. It said,

Clara,

Don't think I have forgotten you. Soon we'll discuss retribution.

Simultaneously, Maia and I said, "May we keep this?"

We glanced at each other.

Faye Ingram looked amused. "You may keep it. You two are an interesting pair."

"Ms. Ingram," Maia said, "is there anyone else in the Doebler family who might be willing to help us? Anyone who might've spoken with Jimmy about your family history?"

Faye reached toward her oak tree, plucked a brown pod from the creeper plant. The berries inside the pod were splitting out, fat and neon orange as jawbreakers. She cracked the pod, held up one orange orb.

"Coral bean," she said. "Can you imagine anything prettier? Hard to believe they use these as fish and rat poison, isn't it?"

"Ms. Ingram?" Maia asked.

"I don't know, dear. You could try to speak with W.B. He would merely refer you to his lawyers. I'm afraid that unlike Jimmy, unlike me for that matter, W.B.'s very much a Doebler. He's become just what the family wanted him to be."

There it was again, the undertone of fear I'd heard the first time we spoke on the phone.

Maia said, "How old would Ewin Lowry be now, Ms. Ingram?"

"I don't think Ewin is still in the world, dear. I can't imagine he would've lived to be this old, with his knack for causing trouble. The private eye we hired took our money and vanished, stopped returning our calls. He never told us a thing of importance, though he did seem a rather incompetent sort." She looked at me. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Maia assured her. "Most of them never complete a proper training."

We traded collegial smiles.

Faye Ingram said, "You two work well together, don't you? Despite the bantering."

Neither of us responded.

Faye closed her old leather binder. One hand still gripped her bean pod full of poison.

"I have a sense for these things. You're very pleasant people. Thank you for having tea with me."

I looked at the tea glasses, which neither Maia nor I had touched.

We thanked Ms. Ingram for her time, left her sitting at her patio table, arranging coral beans into a loose necklace on its surface.

As we walked through Faye's house, Blood on the Tracks was winding down to the final, desolate chords of "Buckets of Rain."

Maia and I went out to my truck, Maia reading the police report as she walked. She got into the Ford. I got into the driver's side.

"Supposedly we work well together," I said.

"An amateur's deduction."

Maia flipped to the back page of the police report, scanned it, then handed it to me.

"The first officer at the scene of Clara Doebler's death-how do you read that signature?"

I looked at the bottom of the paper. The signature stood out like a familiar spider-one I'd hoped I'd squashed. "Looks like Deputy Victor Lopez."

"That's what I thought," Maia said.

We sat there, watching dragonflies going giddy above Faye Ingram's sage plants.