The Question
Eternal
Old brown leather looked back at him from the rear-view mirror. Old brown leather, cracked by the sun and washed in a film of sweat that never seemed to fade away. His eyes had, though; faded, that is. The old Tahoe's air conditioning worked as hard as it could, but it was hopelessly outmatched by the 108 degree Arizona sun.
He wouldn't have complained even if there'd been anyone there to hear it, not Sheriff Roy Espinson, Jr. Those faded blue eyes narrowed against the memory of old Roy, Sr., instructing his son at the end of a switch that you take what life deals you, and you either use it or put it away and use it later. But the one thing a man don't ever do is complain.
The old Tahoe's brakes did a little complaining, though, as Roy eased her to a halt in front of the Donaldson house. He ambled up to the front door, his portable radio swinging easily in his left hand. He sighed as a light breeze kicked up along Fremont Street. "Cal?" he sang out. "Brenda? It's Roy! You all in there? I got your call! Who's hurt?"
"I'm here, Roy!" a woman's voice floated out of the sun-worn house to him at the sound of his characteristically raspy voice; her voice carried a wavering quality that he took an instant dislike to. Espinson found that old familiar adrenaline thrill charging into his arms and legs, into the pit of his stomach and up his spine into the base of his skull at that tone in the woman's voice.
Without any conscious decision on his part, the creaking wooden planks of the porch were under his boot for one quick, heavy step before the rickety screen door slid past the edge of his vision without his even realizing that he'd opened it just as she rushed out past him, her face a sick degree of pale, her eyes wide and full of tears and panic. He didn't even notice her slip past him; which was fortunate for them both as he took in the sight before him.
#
What greeted Espinson as he stepped into the dark, shabby living room was the aftermath of a pitched battle. Aged eyes flickered over an overturned and partially shredded couch, destroyed lamps, a shattered and splintered end table and an ancient television set that looked for all the world as if it had exploded.
He stepped over the broken skeleton of a magazine rack and onto the jagged remains of a coffee mug still bleeding French Roast into the carpet. "Brenda, you step in here with me, where I can see you."
"Do I have to?" her voice was still high, sounded like the voice of a little girl who's in the worst kind of trouble.
"I don't want to tell you twice."
A muffled whimper was her only answer to that, and the weary screen door creaked again, then softer footsteps sounded on the littered floor. She knew better than to babble to a peace officer; she and Cal and Roy had been friends a long time; in his cups with them of a Saturday evening was a place where he'd gotten comfortable enough to impart a few nuggets of whiskey wisdom more than once, that being one of them. You find yourself dealing with a lawman on the job, you answer every question he asks and not a single one that weren't.
Still, she was sad and afraid, and sadness and fear don't much heed wisdom, and so she couldn't really help it when her quivering lower lip parted and words started escaping. "I didn't do it, Roy. I didn't! I came home from the Rexall and this was -- I don't know who -- how --"
"You shush that, now." Espinson didn't turn to look at her, leaving her to tearfully stare up at the back of his Stetson hat. "Where's Cal?" He did turn to see what her face would do when he asked that.
She opened her mouth, but this time only a choking sob escaped. She pointed toward the bedroom. He turned to follow her trembling finger, then started his dogged journey over the trail of debris. He found himself tugging her along by the upper arm, not a bit as carefully as a small, petite woman getting on in years ought to have been tractored. He forced himself to slow his pace and cast the occasional glance over his shoulder. The job said keep her with him; long friendship said be gentle about it.
"Please, Roy," she sobbed. "Please don't make me look at it again." He could feel the small, age-softened muscled under her skin recoil as if her entire body right down to the bones was horrified and revolted by what she'd seen, and it seemed only to build a fire of anger in his gut -- but not at her, he reminded himself. Impartial is for the Magistrate, and you been told plenty how you ain't the Magistrate. But whoever did this...
He broke from his relentless march, turned and took her gently, almost tenderly, by both arms. "I need you to be strong now, Brenda. I got a piece of work to do, and you have to help me get it done. Whatever happened here, and I got a feeling already for what it is, we're gonna make them settle it up, whoever done it." He fixed her frightened brown eyes with his hard blue ones. "You and me. You do your part. Can you? If you can't, I have to cuff you to something and call Dusty down here to take you to the station to get your statement." Carrot and stick both, but the way she was shaking and still choking in sobs, it was the hand he had to play. After a little more of that, she nodded slowly, still gulping back tears, and pushed to lead him into the bedroom. He nodded, not happy, but satisfied with her show of spine.
The sight was nothing Espinson had ever wanted to see, himself. Standing in the doorframe of the bedroom, he was at first outraged at the sight that greeted him: there was his long time friend Calvin Donaldson -- caucasian male, age 57 years, height 6 foot 4, weight 260 pounds, his clinical, official mind's voice recited before he slapped it back -- hanging by the neck, his lips blue, tongue protruding, eyes bulging. The noose had cut partially into his generous neck hard enough to unleash needle-thin trails of blood down into the sleeveless, neckless undershirt. His right arm sported a shocking bruise, a solid knot of black with what looked like tendrils reaching up, down and around; they gained purples and blues and yellows farther from their epicenter; it looked to Espinson like a serious fracture. Donaldson's erect penis partially protruded from the fly of his soiled boxer shorts in what Espinson had heard called, "Angel lust."
Espinson looked away in a mixture of revulsion, horror, grief and -- and that was when he noticed it. His eyes fixed on the bed. He turned back to Brenda Donaldson with narrowed eyes. "Did you touch anything in here?"
She shook her head vigorously, "No."
He looked back at the bed, nearly overturned and resting where it had apparently been thrown against the wall, then looked back. "You're sure?"
She gave him a sour look.
"You're sure." He released her arm. "You go on out on the porch now. Don't you go any further, I still need your statement. But I don't need you in here now. Go on, get." She nodded, her throat full of new tears, and disappeared out of the room as quickly as she could negotiate the wreckage of her and her late husband's home, while Espinson reached for the mic fixed to the shoulder of his uniform shirt.
#
The first thing Deputy Dustin Guzman did, even before he stepped out of his truck, was deliver more bad news. After Brenda Donaldson had been settled into the cab of the truck, her head falling to rest and then shaking with silent sobs in both hands as Espinson fastened her seatbelt, he stepped around the front over to his Deputy, who had motioned him over with a finger wagged beyond the sunburned, sobbing face of the newly widowed woman.
"Dusty?" Espinson leaned close, kept his voice low.
"Been out of your car awhile, ain't you, boss?" the casual tone of the question was belied by the grim look on the Deputy's face.
"Cut the shit, son." Espinson said not unkindly.
"There's another one over on Terrace and 4th."
Espinson shook his head slowly and sighed. "Two deaths in one day."
This time the Deputy shook his head. "You ain't readin' me, boss. Another hanging. Matches what you called in, to the letter. Broken arm, busted up place and all. How does a guy break his arm hanging himself? Or hang himself with a busted arm?"
Espinson flicked his gaze to the newly minted Widow Donaldson and back. "I s'pose we're gonna find out. You get her to the station and get her sorted. Her sister lives out on Silver Road; you see she gets there when you've got what she can give us, I don't expect much. Be easy."
"Yes, sir."
"Terrace and 4th?" Just then, the sound of an engine and rolling tires glided to a halt on Espinson's other side; that'd be the Medical Examiner.
Guzman nodded. "Yes, sir."
Espinson slapped the driver's side door. "All right, go." Guzman nodded and reversed the truck back onto Fremont, then pulled away, leaving Espinson to deal with a perpetually cranky M.E. who would already confirm that which he already knew; that a one hundred twenty pound, 50 year old woman could not have lifted a two hundred sixty pound man into a noose and then kicked a fifty pound iron bed out from under him hard enough to nearly flip it over; nor could a two hundred sixty pound man have hung himself with only one good arm. Whatever was happening here was certainly homicide; but the how tugged at his mind like a child pulling a lone loose thread.
#
The corner of Terrace Avenue and 4th Street lay under the bald blue sky and gave every appearance of wanting to die there. Trevor Parker had never amounted to a squirt of shit, as his father Donovan had often made clear down at the Number Ten, and the dusty, grimy Quonset hut that served as Parker's Auto Repair looked every bit the part of home to someone of like character.
The old Tahoe grumbled to a halt as a gust of arid wind lifted a shower of dust from the vacant lot and carelessly tossed it at the grille and door with a thin hiss, as if warning Espinson to turn around. He paid it no mind, swinging a long leg out while the door of the truck swung before him like a shield.
The short walk from the parking lot to the open double doors of the hulking aluminum structure wasn't as short as usual; Earl Brown, whose antiquated Ford pickup sat three-quarters dissected on the grime-spattered shop floor, had apparently thought himself Union's newest source for late-breaking news. Espinson "Excuse me'd" and "Coming through'd" his way through a modest throng of gawkers who stared, stunned, at something his eyesight hadn't quite caught hold of.
The wind gusted again, setting up a high, forlorn howl in the arcs of cheap metal and old wood of the structure as he followed their gaze toward the crossbeams, and his blood went cold. Yes, there was Trevor Parker. "All you people!" Espinson turned and shouted, "Get out! Right now, go on! This ain't no carnival show!" The crowd fell back and began to scatter in a lazy amble; all but one. But that one was the boy's father, Donovan, so that was all right -- for now.
Unlike old Cal, Trevor was a bantam one-thirty, a bean pole of a man hardly a minute out of boyhood. Espinson cast his eyes back to the floor, where a faded Reebok sneaker lay tilted on its side as if drunk. About a foot to the left of that was -- Espinson turned and looked back at the elder Parker. "Let me guess. You found him just like this."
The elder Parker gave back a level stare with old green eyes. "Boy, you know I cain't get up that high in the rafters."
Espinson nodded. "That don't mean you didn't touch anything. Change a few things? We all know how you felt about the youngster."
"And you know if you wasn't wearin' that tin badge, I'd give you a good smack in the kisser for that." Old Donovan bristled. "I was tough on him, but he was my boy, my own flesh. And if you think I could do that --" he pointed to the object just west of the boy's shoe "--then you ain't got no more brains than a cactus plant."
Espinson merely shrugged. "You know it's my job to ask, Don."
"You call me Mister Parker after that shot." the old man spat.
He wouldn't have complained even if there'd been anyone there to hear it, not Sheriff Roy Espinson, Jr. Those faded blue eyes narrowed against the memory of old Roy, Sr., instructing his son at the end of a switch that you take what life deals you, and you either use it or put it away and use it later. But the one thing a man don't ever do is complain.
The old Tahoe's brakes did a little complaining, though, as Roy eased her to a halt in front of the Donaldson house. He ambled up to the front door, his portable radio swinging easily in his left hand. He sighed as a light breeze kicked up along Fremont Street. "Cal?" he sang out. "Brenda? It's Roy! You all in there? I got your call! Who's hurt?"
"I'm here, Roy!" a woman's voice floated out of the sun-worn house to him at the sound of his characteristically raspy voice; her voice carried a wavering quality that he took an instant dislike to. Espinson found that old familiar adrenaline thrill charging into his arms and legs, into the pit of his stomach and up his spine into the base of his skull at that tone in the woman's voice.
Without any conscious decision on his part, the creaking wooden planks of the porch were under his boot for one quick, heavy step before the rickety screen door slid past the edge of his vision without his even realizing that he'd opened it just as she rushed out past him, her face a sick degree of pale, her eyes wide and full of tears and panic. He didn't even notice her slip past him; which was fortunate for them both as he took in the sight before him.
#
What greeted Espinson as he stepped into the dark, shabby living room was the aftermath of a pitched battle. Aged eyes flickered over an overturned and partially shredded couch, destroyed lamps, a shattered and splintered end table and an ancient television set that looked for all the world as if it had exploded.
He stepped over the broken skeleton of a magazine rack and onto the jagged remains of a coffee mug still bleeding French Roast into the carpet. "Brenda, you step in here with me, where I can see you."
"Do I have to?" her voice was still high, sounded like the voice of a little girl who's in the worst kind of trouble.
"I don't want to tell you twice."
A muffled whimper was her only answer to that, and the weary screen door creaked again, then softer footsteps sounded on the littered floor. She knew better than to babble to a peace officer; she and Cal and Roy had been friends a long time; in his cups with them of a Saturday evening was a place where he'd gotten comfortable enough to impart a few nuggets of whiskey wisdom more than once, that being one of them. You find yourself dealing with a lawman on the job, you answer every question he asks and not a single one that weren't.
Still, she was sad and afraid, and sadness and fear don't much heed wisdom, and so she couldn't really help it when her quivering lower lip parted and words started escaping. "I didn't do it, Roy. I didn't! I came home from the Rexall and this was -- I don't know who -- how --"
"You shush that, now." Espinson didn't turn to look at her, leaving her to tearfully stare up at the back of his Stetson hat. "Where's Cal?" He did turn to see what her face would do when he asked that.
She opened her mouth, but this time only a choking sob escaped. She pointed toward the bedroom. He turned to follow her trembling finger, then started his dogged journey over the trail of debris. He found himself tugging her along by the upper arm, not a bit as carefully as a small, petite woman getting on in years ought to have been tractored. He forced himself to slow his pace and cast the occasional glance over his shoulder. The job said keep her with him; long friendship said be gentle about it.
"Please, Roy," she sobbed. "Please don't make me look at it again." He could feel the small, age-softened muscled under her skin recoil as if her entire body right down to the bones was horrified and revolted by what she'd seen, and it seemed only to build a fire of anger in his gut -- but not at her, he reminded himself. Impartial is for the Magistrate, and you been told plenty how you ain't the Magistrate. But whoever did this...
He broke from his relentless march, turned and took her gently, almost tenderly, by both arms. "I need you to be strong now, Brenda. I got a piece of work to do, and you have to help me get it done. Whatever happened here, and I got a feeling already for what it is, we're gonna make them settle it up, whoever done it." He fixed her frightened brown eyes with his hard blue ones. "You and me. You do your part. Can you? If you can't, I have to cuff you to something and call Dusty down here to take you to the station to get your statement." Carrot and stick both, but the way she was shaking and still choking in sobs, it was the hand he had to play. After a little more of that, she nodded slowly, still gulping back tears, and pushed to lead him into the bedroom. He nodded, not happy, but satisfied with her show of spine.
The sight was nothing Espinson had ever wanted to see, himself. Standing in the doorframe of the bedroom, he was at first outraged at the sight that greeted him: there was his long time friend Calvin Donaldson -- caucasian male, age 57 years, height 6 foot 4, weight 260 pounds, his clinical, official mind's voice recited before he slapped it back -- hanging by the neck, his lips blue, tongue protruding, eyes bulging. The noose had cut partially into his generous neck hard enough to unleash needle-thin trails of blood down into the sleeveless, neckless undershirt. His right arm sported a shocking bruise, a solid knot of black with what looked like tendrils reaching up, down and around; they gained purples and blues and yellows farther from their epicenter; it looked to Espinson like a serious fracture. Donaldson's erect penis partially protruded from the fly of his soiled boxer shorts in what Espinson had heard called, "Angel lust."
Espinson looked away in a mixture of revulsion, horror, grief and -- and that was when he noticed it. His eyes fixed on the bed. He turned back to Brenda Donaldson with narrowed eyes. "Did you touch anything in here?"
She shook her head vigorously, "No."
He looked back at the bed, nearly overturned and resting where it had apparently been thrown against the wall, then looked back. "You're sure?"
She gave him a sour look.
"You're sure." He released her arm. "You go on out on the porch now. Don't you go any further, I still need your statement. But I don't need you in here now. Go on, get." She nodded, her throat full of new tears, and disappeared out of the room as quickly as she could negotiate the wreckage of her and her late husband's home, while Espinson reached for the mic fixed to the shoulder of his uniform shirt.
#
The first thing Deputy Dustin Guzman did, even before he stepped out of his truck, was deliver more bad news. After Brenda Donaldson had been settled into the cab of the truck, her head falling to rest and then shaking with silent sobs in both hands as Espinson fastened her seatbelt, he stepped around the front over to his Deputy, who had motioned him over with a finger wagged beyond the sunburned, sobbing face of the newly widowed woman.
"Dusty?" Espinson leaned close, kept his voice low.
"Been out of your car awhile, ain't you, boss?" the casual tone of the question was belied by the grim look on the Deputy's face.
"Cut the shit, son." Espinson said not unkindly.
"There's another one over on Terrace and 4th."
Espinson shook his head slowly and sighed. "Two deaths in one day."
This time the Deputy shook his head. "You ain't readin' me, boss. Another hanging. Matches what you called in, to the letter. Broken arm, busted up place and all. How does a guy break his arm hanging himself? Or hang himself with a busted arm?"
Espinson flicked his gaze to the newly minted Widow Donaldson and back. "I s'pose we're gonna find out. You get her to the station and get her sorted. Her sister lives out on Silver Road; you see she gets there when you've got what she can give us, I don't expect much. Be easy."
"Yes, sir."
"Terrace and 4th?" Just then, the sound of an engine and rolling tires glided to a halt on Espinson's other side; that'd be the Medical Examiner.
Guzman nodded. "Yes, sir."
Espinson slapped the driver's side door. "All right, go." Guzman nodded and reversed the truck back onto Fremont, then pulled away, leaving Espinson to deal with a perpetually cranky M.E. who would already confirm that which he already knew; that a one hundred twenty pound, 50 year old woman could not have lifted a two hundred sixty pound man into a noose and then kicked a fifty pound iron bed out from under him hard enough to nearly flip it over; nor could a two hundred sixty pound man have hung himself with only one good arm. Whatever was happening here was certainly homicide; but the how tugged at his mind like a child pulling a lone loose thread.
#
The corner of Terrace Avenue and 4th Street lay under the bald blue sky and gave every appearance of wanting to die there. Trevor Parker had never amounted to a squirt of shit, as his father Donovan had often made clear down at the Number Ten, and the dusty, grimy Quonset hut that served as Parker's Auto Repair looked every bit the part of home to someone of like character.
The old Tahoe grumbled to a halt as a gust of arid wind lifted a shower of dust from the vacant lot and carelessly tossed it at the grille and door with a thin hiss, as if warning Espinson to turn around. He paid it no mind, swinging a long leg out while the door of the truck swung before him like a shield.
The short walk from the parking lot to the open double doors of the hulking aluminum structure wasn't as short as usual; Earl Brown, whose antiquated Ford pickup sat three-quarters dissected on the grime-spattered shop floor, had apparently thought himself Union's newest source for late-breaking news. Espinson "Excuse me'd" and "Coming through'd" his way through a modest throng of gawkers who stared, stunned, at something his eyesight hadn't quite caught hold of.
The wind gusted again, setting up a high, forlorn howl in the arcs of cheap metal and old wood of the structure as he followed their gaze toward the crossbeams, and his blood went cold. Yes, there was Trevor Parker. "All you people!" Espinson turned and shouted, "Get out! Right now, go on! This ain't no carnival show!" The crowd fell back and began to scatter in a lazy amble; all but one. But that one was the boy's father, Donovan, so that was all right -- for now.
Unlike old Cal, Trevor was a bantam one-thirty, a bean pole of a man hardly a minute out of boyhood. Espinson cast his eyes back to the floor, where a faded Reebok sneaker lay tilted on its side as if drunk. About a foot to the left of that was -- Espinson turned and looked back at the elder Parker. "Let me guess. You found him just like this."
The elder Parker gave back a level stare with old green eyes. "Boy, you know I cain't get up that high in the rafters."
Espinson nodded. "That don't mean you didn't touch anything. Change a few things? We all know how you felt about the youngster."
"And you know if you wasn't wearin' that tin badge, I'd give you a good smack in the kisser for that." Old Donovan bristled. "I was tough on him, but he was my boy, my own flesh. And if you think I could do that --" he pointed to the object just west of the boy's shoe "--then you ain't got no more brains than a cactus plant."
Espinson merely shrugged. "You know it's my job to ask, Don."
"You call me Mister Parker after that shot." the old man spat.
