The Home Place: A Novel Page 9

  Alma swallows with difficulty and squeezes his heavy arm. “Thank you. Ahó.”

  Then the manager steps forward to recite health codes and ushers Alma out of the kitchen.

  They’re only a block from the police station. Alma carries out coffee and rolls for the ride, secures them in the backseat just as her parents used to do on Saturday-morning rides to spend the weekend helping out at the home place. Then she directs her slow-moving posse toward the waiting lawman. Might as well get this interview over. What could Alma tell him that would be any help? The Terrebonne family is dysfunctional but not homicidal, and she doesn’t know Vicky’s friends. What she just heard about Murray and the home place is worth discussing, but what she knows about Dennis’s Salt Lake drug supply is at least five years old, and she doesn’t relish the thought of testifying against Brittany’s father. Brittany’s phone calls, Walt’s apparent outing late Saturday night, Pete’s lamely excused failure—what does she really know? Alma herds Brittany and Maddie across two intersections and up to the glassed-in front desk at City Hall, where a short-haired woman in a snug pink polo shirt calls Detective Curtis to meet them. When the heavy metal door to the offices swings open, Alma realizes that she knows him.

  “Ray, hello.” She offers her hand. “You look familiar. Remember me from school?” Ray is only slightly taller than Alma, but solidly built under his well-pressed detective’s business casual. She is surprised to see his hair braided down his back—the police dress code must have relaxed, and Ray himself has changed from the skinny, buzz-cut kid she knew. Everything else about him is perfectly regulation, down to his well-groomed fingernails and shiny boots. His dark eyes are guarded, but he smiles readily enough when he recognizes her.

  “I was a few years ahead of you at Senior.” He takes her hand and gives it the gentle press with which Indians interpret this foreign gesture. How interesting. He will have shaken enough white hands to understand the cultural expectation of a firm handshake, and he is either rejecting that altogether or making some sort of exception for her, either personally or because of her gender.

  “Were you ROTC? Very clean cut?”

  He ducks his head with a little acknowledging smile. “Coming off the res that’s pretty much the only way to get through college. I did criminal justice here at MSU-B.”

  “Your family must be proud.” At the mention of family, Alma remembers her own. She steps to the side to show Brittany and Maddie to Ray.

  “My family, yeah.” Ray laughs like she’s cracked an inside joke. “They call me Apple.”

  Apple—Alma knows that one: red on the outside, white on the inside. Red, white, it doesn’t matter; this is what the place does to anyone with talent and ambition. It slaps them down and mocks them until they get out or give up. Ray will be heading one way or the other himself by now. She looks at him more carefully. There’s something else she knows about him, a thing she can never say. Ray is Mountain Crow. His ancestors roamed the high country of what are now the Big Horns and Absaroka-Beartooth range. When they were driven out by the whittling of the reservation—removed from the place now called Absarokee after the people forced to abandon it—there were white settlers waiting to move in, and Alma’s ancestors were among them. Alma has the homestead patent in her files. The story has come down to her through journals written in a tight cursive, with careful line drawings.

  These are things that are never said among white and Crow in this town. This is the history lying under thin, angry skins, separating people who ought to be united by a common love of fried food and ritualistic spectacle: fairs, powwows, and rodeos, the deliberate enactment of culture, the heartbeat of ceremony.

  Alma offers up more recent history instead, less charged common ground. “Yeah, I remember you now. The rest of your class was the original cast of Dazed and Confused, and you were a straight arrow. The younger kids looked up to you.”

  “Did they?” Now Ray looks surprised. “I never knew that. I was the dork who had to go home with his grandma after every game.” A man in cargo pants, a wrinkled shirt, and a day’s growth of beard passes them on his way out. He and Ray exchange respectful nods. “Detective,” each says to the other, and Alma takes in how carefully Ray grooms himself, compared to his white colleague.

  “Yeah,” Alma acknowledges. “I wish there had been more like you. It might have helped my sister. You’ve met Brittany, my niece. And this is my grandma Maddie Terrebonne.”

  Ray nods to Maddie and Brittany as he moves to offer an arm to Maddie. “Mrs. Terrebonne,” he acknowledges with a respectful nod. “Brittany, I’m very sorry about your mom. I realized I’ve seen her waitressing the last few years—cops and Denny’s, you know. I’ll do the very best I can to find out what happened to her. We’ll let you hang out and watch some TV while we talk, okay?”

  Brittany doesn’t respond, just follows as Alma holds the door for Ray to escort Maddie and they begin to walk down a hallway lined with closed doors. Ray opens one into a small meeting room with a television and ushers them inside. He hands Brittany the remote.

  “Can I get you water or something? I might be able to scare up a doughnut around here. Or if you’d like to talk to one of the social workers again, I think—”

  Brittany’s eyes find Alma’s, giving off the same silent alarm she used when Helen suggested that Brittany stay with her.

  “No more social workers,” Alma tells Ray. “But water would be nice.”

  A complicit glance passes between aunt and niece. Alma puts an arm around Brittany, who tucks into the safe place under her aunt’s collarbone. Ray steps out for a few minutes and comes back with a ceramic coffee mug full of water. He closes the door as he, Maddie, and Alma back into the hall and keep moving.

  “She always like this?” he asks, tilting his head toward the door.

  “Mute, you mean?” Alma shakes her head. “She’s quiet, but not like this. As far as I know, the last she spoke to anybody was whatever she said to your officer.”

  “It wasn’t much,” Ray replies, returning his arm to Maddie, who takes it with a sweet little smile. “It’s all in his report, but she only said a few words. She said she called and nobody came. Have you found out anything about who she might’ve called?”

  Alma hesitates, glances at Maddie, exhales. “Yes. She called my brother, Pete, and our aunt and uncle, Helen and Walt.”

  “What?” Maddie cries out as if bitten and stops, clinging to Ray’s right arm with both hands, the cane dangling from her arm by its crook. “She called them? Alma, what happened? Didn’t they go? Why wouldn’t they go?”

  Alma turns back to Maddie and reaches for her arm. “Yes, Grandma. I’m sorry. I’ll explain later. They didn’t—”

  “But why wouldn’t she call me?” Maddie looks from Alma to Ray and back, wide-eyed. Ray looks down at Maddie’s fierce grip on his arm.

  “You can’t drive anymore, Grandma,” Alma soothes, loosening Maddie’s hands from Ray’s bicep before they leave a bruise, tucking one into her own arm and taking the cane. “She knows that.”

  Maddie moves along more slowly now, putting more weight on Ray while Alma balances her from the other side. Ray points at a door to the left with only his eyes and lips, a Crow gesture that Alma recognizes. They step into a small office piled high with files on every available surface. There are no identifying items, not a degree on the wall or a photo on the desk. Alma pictures Brittany perched on the utilitarian orange office chair in front of the desk, tiny in this impersonal space, collapsing inward, staring at the telephone receiver, unable to respond to Alma’s insistent, distant voice. The void expanding inside Brittany is all too familiar to Alma, an infected vestigial organ.

  Ray follows and shuts the door. “What did she tell them when she called?”

  “You should ask them. I’m not sure.” The lawyer in Alma balks at hearsay. Ray helps Maddie into the office chair and turns to where Alma leans against the wall next to the door, poised to escape, both palms flat against the
drywall, her breath coming faster as she flashes back to the morgue.

  “I talked to all of them yesterday,” Ray says.

  “Then what are you asking me for?” Alma’s hands ball up beneath the cashmere folds of her coat. She is embarrassed by the inappropriate antagonism in her voice, but she hates everything about this: the fluorescent lights, the gunmetal desks, Maddie sitting very straight on the edge of that ugly chair, ankles crossed, looking around with a vague sort of terror as she takes in the inside of a police station for the first time in her life. Alma wants a rewind, a repeat of yesterday morning’s serene bike ride that doesn’t end this way. It’s not Ray’s fault, but here he is in front of her, asking questions he’s already got answered like she’s under cross-examination. She drops her chin and faces him like a cornered animal.

  “I need to know if they told you something different,” Ray says in that calm, lightly accented voice that came over the phone so powerfully. Alma tilts her head and reconsiders. After a long breath, she starts over in a steadier voice.

  “Pete said he thought it was just Vicky using Brittany to manipulate him again. I guess he’s had a lot of calls like that. And he thought he saw Walt’s truck heading that way. But Walt says Helen told her to stop bothering people in the middle of the night. He never went. Walt and Pete, they’ve both done a lot of running around to rescue Vicky. And then the one time—” Alma stops as the words stick, caught up in her throat.

  “Honey,” Maddie says, holding out a tissue. Alma reaches over to take it but finds she doesn’t need it. She shoves it into her pocket.

  “Then the one time . . .” Ray sets his hip on the desk and leads her back to the sentence.

  “Then the one time they don’t show up, this happens. It’s . . . It’s cruel.” Alma blots her nose with the tissue, then hides it again. “I talked to the staff at Denny’s this morning. I wanted to know what they’d say about her.”

  Ray steps behind his desk but doesn’t sit. He’s looking her over now. She notices how few gestures he makes, standing there with his arms at his sides, not allowing his body to communicate at all. Did he have to practice that, or is it natural?

  “And did you find out anything you didn’t know?” he asks.

  Again she hesitates. There’s no point in hiding this from him, but it still pinches her, somewhere in her gut, to be the one revealing such dark things about the family. Maddie hasn’t even heard this. Alma’s eyes drop to Maddie, who is folding tissues in perfect squares and stowing them in the outside pocket of her purse for easy access. Ray’s eyes follow the glance.

  “Alma, would you mind helping me grab coffee for all of us?” he asks. When they are outside he pulls the latch closed behind them and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Now, without upsetting your grandmother, what did you hear?”

  Alma sighs and forces out the cook’s words about Murray and Dennis and Kozinsky, while Ray leads the way down the hall. She can feel herself flush as if this is her own confession. “I don’t know if it’s true, what he said about Murray, but it sounds true. The home place was one of the last things she had left to bargain with.” Alma raises her eyes with effort to his. “She wouldn’t have done it lightly.”

  If Ray is surprised by what Vicky was involved with, he doesn’t show it. “Murray Donner. His name came up already in interviews. We’ve got an outstanding warrant on him for a second offense of criminal possession. But this doesn’t really turn Murray into a suspect, does it, even if it turns out to be homicide? Sounds like he had a pretty good setup and now it’s messed up. Unless—”

  “Unless there’s more going on there than we know.” Alma follows Ray into the break room.

  “Exactly.” Ray fills three unmatched mugs with weak coffee out of an industrial-looking machine and hands one to Alma. “I’ll have to get out there and see what’s going on, pick him up if he’s dumb enough to be hanging around. Can you give me directions?”

  “We’re on our way out there now. I could show you.” Alma sips and makes a face. This is her fourth or fifth cup of lousy coffee since the plane touched down. The Itching Post, to give proper credit to Pete, is fully up to Seattle standards.

  Ray is contemplating the two mugs in his hands. “It’s out of Billings PD jurisdiction. I’ll have to touch base with the Big Horn County sheriff,” he says, more to himself than her, “but yeah, let’s do that. I’ll follow you out.” He looks up and nods with new enthusiasm. “What else can you tell me about her ex, Dennis? He’s the father, right?”

  “Yeah, Dennis Willson. They got together in high school. After Brittany was born they lived together for a few years but never got married. He comes across nice enough, but he drinks. He had bad problems with depression when they were together. He’d go to bed and not get up for days. She supported him for a while before she finally dumped him. From what I hear he hasn’t been reliable about child support, but I don’t think there’s any conflict between them.” Alma leans against the counter and resigns herself to the coffee, tipping the mug up for a longer drink.

  “Does he live here in town?”

  “The last I knew he had an apartment near the ballpark.”

  “Any known association with criminals, drug use, that sort of thing?” Ray opens a cupboard above the coffeepot. “Does your grandma take cream or sugar?”

  “As much as possible,” Alma confirms. He doctors Maddie’s coffee, then offers packets to her, but she waves him off. “Drug use definitely. Vicky started smoking pot with Dennis in high school. She used to giggle to me about it on the phone, how they’d get high behind the gas station between classes.”

  Ray chuckles. “Time-honored tradition.”

  “For sure,” Alma agrees, “but not for me. My parents would’ve grounded me until college if they ever thought I went near drugs or alcohol. It was different for her.”

  “Your parents treated her differently?” Ray asks.

  Alma is startled at the reminder that Ray doesn’t know the essential family history. They amble toward the break room door as a uniformed officer approaches the coffee machine with a mug, exchanging nods with Ray. “Didn’t anybody mention the accident to you? Our parents died when Vicky was twelve and I was seventeen.”

  Ray stops moving and looks down at the coffee. When he looks up, his expression is abashed. “No, nobody mentioned it. I’m so sorry for your loss. Both times.” He holds the door for her. They’re quiet for a few paces before Alma swallows another mouthful of scalding coffee and goes back to her original reply.

  “Anyway, I don’t know what she might have been doing these days, and I don’t think Dennis is in the picture much anymore. The break was pretty definite.” The screaming fight they’d had when he dropped off Brittany for Grandpa Al’s funeral felt definite, all right. Still, Alma can’t imagine Dennis doing Vicky harm, if that’s what they’re talking about. He’s too passive a personality, too absorbed by his own navel.

  “I’ll look into it. Anyone else?”

  Alma opens her mouth to speculate, then shuts it just as quickly. Something lawyerly in her counsels caution when talking to the police. “You said, ‘even if it turns out to be homicide.’ Do you really think it might be murder?” The mug is still very hot, and she’s having to hold it with both hands to keep the coffee from sloshing out as she says these words.

  Ray breathes in and out before answering. “We need to wait for the autopsy. The coroner should be on it today. We have to treat it as a homicide because—”

  “Yes, I get that,” Alma interrupts, impatient. “Because it was an unattended death. But what do you think?”

  “I think . . . I see too many people die in stupid ways around here. You know it’s bad when it’s not just Indians anymore. Nice local white girl like your sister—we’ll hear from the council about that.” He grins. Alma freezes for a moment at his words, then relaxes as she realizes that Ray is joking. She likes him too well to be offended, but Ray takes in her reaction and shakes his head. “Batting a thousand he
re, aren’t I? Chief Rains on Parade rides again.”

  “Rains on Parade?” Alma starts to laugh in spite of herself. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “Old family joke,” Ray says, picking up the pace as they move down the hall. “I always know the wrong thing to say.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m just wound up tighter than a drum right now.” Alma sips at the coffee again. Somehow it tastes better this time.

  “To tell you the truth,” Ray says in a more conversational tone than he’s used until now, maybe trying to make up for his remark, “I’ve been thinking that there’s something suspicious about it. I’ve seen deaths from exposure and there’s just something off about this one. But I can’t put my finger on what exactly strikes me as odd yet.” They’re back at Ray’s office.

  Alma pauses before pushing the door open. “So we’ll know by tomorrow?”

  “We’ll know whatever the autopsy can tell us,” Ray answers, then moves briskly into the office to give Maddie her coffee and sit down behind his desk with greater formality. “I’d like to ask both of you some questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Alma goes to stand behind Maddie’s chair and lay a hand on her shoulder.

  “This isn’t a formal interrogation,” Ray continues. “I just need some background about . . . the deceased. I’m talking to people who were close to her, trying to gather any important information about her situation at the time of death. Just to be sure we’re covering all possible areas of inquiry.” Ray’s careful detours around Vicky’s name finally register with Alma. Like a traditional Crow, he is deliberately not speaking the name of the dead.

  “Grandma probably knows more than I do,” Alma says. “Vicky and I haven’t been close for quite a while.”

  “Do you mind if I record this?” Alma and Maddie give short, indifferent headshakes. Ray taps a few times on his mouse and advances a tiny microphone toward them on the desk. “When was the last time you talked to her?” he asks Alma.