“Looks like you got yourself banged up,” Sheriff Trace Martin said to Tom.
“Slipped on a patch of ice,” Tom said as blandly as possible. “Last night. Right outside on the highway.”
“You gotta watch yourself. That black ice can be dangerous. I fell and broke my collarbone some years back. Still got a pin in there, matter a fact. Doc said there was no point to removing it. Now it’s part of me.”
“Do you set off the security at airports?”
“Sometimes,” the sheriff chuckled.
“Well, I’m pretty bruised, but I don’t think I broke anything,” Tom said. “I won’t need any pins.”
“You might have it checked out all the same.”
“I might just do that.”
“But I’ll tell you why I come by. We’ve got a suspicious death here on the West End that I’m investigating.”
Tom felt his pulse quicken. For nearly a week he had feared and anticipated precisely this moment, and he had tried to prepare himself for it, imagining how it might unfold and rehearsing what he would do if and when it did. He had worked to supplant dread with something more functional, a steely resolve to do nothing to make the sheriff’s job easier. He had remembered some wisdom from a P.D. James novel – in which, of course, every character was a suspect in the murder – to the effect that nothing that is said to an investigator can be unsaid whereas anything withheld can always be revealed later. With that sage advice in mind, he had resolved to act like a reporter by asking more questions than he was asked, a reliable shield against saying too much. As recently as just a few moments earlier, when the sheriff’s signature black cowboy hat filled the front doorway, Tom felt he was prepared, or as prepared as anyone in his situation could be. He had been surprisingly calm until the sheriff said the words “suspicious death.”
Now he was further unnerved by his strong impression that the sheriff was studying him closely for his reaction to the news he had brought. Or was it only his imagination?
“Anyone I might know?” Tom asked.
Did his voice sound as regular and steady to the sheriff as it did to his own ears? Was he showing enough interest in the sheriff’s revelation of a murder nearby? Or, possibly, he would express too much interest as the interview progressed.
“Trucker named Mark Brubaker. Lived alone out on East Bryant Mesa.”
Tom shook his head: “Didn’t know him, not that I know of anyway.”
“Not many people did. And most would run the other way if they run into him.”
Tom gave a slight nod.
“I’d like for you to write it up,” Martin said. “Believe it or not, the newspaper can actually be of some help in a homicide investigation. Law enforcement wants the perp-a-traitor to know that we’re after him.”
“Well, it sure sounds like news. And I’m glad to be of service.”
“Perp gets nervous, he’ll be sure and make a mistake.”
Which would be any traitor’s just desserts, Tom thought, and especially a perp-a-traitor’s, but then he quickly corrected himself. The sheriff had the demeanor of a buffoon, but he was shrewd and Tom didn’t want to make the mistake of underestimating him. So as if to agree with the sheriff and to acknowledge the sure inevitability of the perp’s fatal mistake, he again nodded his understanding, trusting that his own case of jittery nerves was, at the moment at least, adequately concealed.
“What else can I report about the victim? Any survivors?”
“Wife. A Russian immigrant named Anya. But he was only married to her a couple a months and she hasn’t been seen in the county since late August or early September. Supposedly, she left him. Whereabouts now are unknown. Basically she’s an illegal, so she’s prolly laying low.”
“Is she a suspect?”
“Let’s just say we’d like to talk to her. If anyone knows where she’s at, we’d appreciate it for them to give us a call.”
Tom was scribbling notes.
“How did he Brubaker die? And when?”
“My guess is he’s been dead a week or so. Now I can’t tell you the details of how he died or that might compromise the investigation.”
“Of course.”
“You know that we cops never show all our cards.”
“I guess if you’re going to play poker, you’d better know how to bluff.”
Tom flinched at his misstep. He had certainly not intended to evoke the image of a fire poker, though it could have been subconscious. If so, was it to let the sheriff know he had ice running in his veins or was it to speed the sheriff’s investigation as a way for Tom to satisfy a guilty conscience?
Why that’s exactly right!” Martin exclaimed, grinning. “You play poker?”
Had the sheriff deliberately put the emphasis on the word “poker”? Or was Tom imagining it?
“Used to. When I was in college.”
“I bet you were good at it.”
“I won a few hands. Lost some, too.”
“Well, there’s always luck involved,” Martin allowed. “Luck a the draw, as they say. Nobody can be lucky all the time.”
“No.”
“You see, Tom, there’s plenny a details only the killer knows,” Martin explained. “And that can to be useful to the investigation, especially when we’re interviewing a suspect.”
Tom quickly asked a question to make it clear that he, for one, had no such inside knowledge.
“Was Brubaker shot?”
“We’re gonna have to wait on an autopsy to know the exact cause of death,” the sheriff said. “Corpse was pretty decomposed by the time we got there. But we know the death is suspicious because the killer tried to cover his tracks and made a real mess of it. Flooded the place and broke all the windows. But all he really accomplished is that he left a whole bunch of additional clues. If he hadn’t of done that, we might not of looked fu-ther. We might of just assumed it was some kind a bloody accident. Prolly not, but… maybe.”
The sheriff shrugged as if to comment on the general foolishness of the criminal class, and Tom was in no position to disagree because he was silently kicking himself. In his panic, on his second visit to the shack, when he discovered that the fire poker was missing and reacted by flooding Brubaker’s shack and breaking all the windows, he had been too clever by half.
“Can you keep that last part, how we determined it was a murder, off-the-record?” Martin asked. “I’ve prolly said too much.”
“Sure thing,” Tom said, but he wondered if the sheriff had a reason for wanting Tom alone to know about the open taps and broken windows. Off-the-record might be awfully convenient if, in fact, the sheriff had a reason to suspect Tom; he could be using it to tighten the screws and make the perp nervous and more prone to a foolish mistake.
“I’ll tell you what,” the sheriff continued. “And this is still off-the-record. Just be thankful you’re not the one having to analyze the crime scene. It’s as nasty and as p.u.-trid as anything I’ve seen in my near-forty years in law enforcement.”
“That bad?”
“You can’t imagine,” the sheriff said, but of course, with the image of Brubaker’s bloated corpse fresh in his mind, Tom could all-too-easily imagine, almost recoiling at his memory of the stench.
“Back on-the-record?” Tom asked, and Martin nodded his assent. “Got any suspects?”
“We’ve got some ideas. Some good leads to follow.”
“Can you say more?”
Martin pushed back in his chair and frowned.
“You can say there is some evidence that it might be related to the meth trade,” he said. “That’ll reassure the honest public that they’ve got nothing to fear. We’re not dealing with something random here. But I don’t want to go into much detail about that. Not yet.
“Back off-the-record, this Brubaker was one nasty cocksucker, if you’ll pardon my French. He was mixed up with meth, that much is for sure, like I told you, we’ve got evidence of that, and God knows what else he did for his jollies. Nothing nice, I promise you that much. Now, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but he was about as far from a respectable citizen as a man can get. He was a complete lowlife, to say it plain. And I just hate to spend my time and public resources looking for his killer because the truth is that the world is a better place without him in it. There’s no doubt about that. But you see, Tom, I don’t have that discretion, not to investigate.”
“Of course not,” Tom said.
Was it an accident that of all the French slurs the sheriff might have employed, he called Brubaker a cocksucker? Was he offering Tom some kind of out? Or, to the contrary, by stating that he had no choice but to investigate, was Martin cautioning Tom that he had no easy way out?
“It doesn’t really sound all that complicated, sheriff,” Tom said. “Sounds like you’ve got some kind of drug deal gone bad.”
“That’d be a good guess. But it’s not the only angle I’m looking at.”
Tom felt sure that he knew exactly what the sheriff was suggesting. But he still couldn’t tell whether the reference to another angle was intended as a warning. If Martin knew that Tom was involved in Brubaker’s death, would he or could he be this subtle? And if he didn’t know about the blood on Tom’s hands, would he be capable of this much ambiguity? Tom was confident that he was crediting Martin with more in the way of both subtlety and deliberate ambiguity than he could possibly have intended. But how much more, he could only imagine. In Tom’s mind, he and Martin were sitting across from each other at the poker table. Tom was bluffing, holding a pair of measly deuces, but what about Martin? What was he holding?
Most essentially, Tom suspected that he and Sheriff Martin both knew that there were crucial connections between Brubaker and Ray Walker, although neither was admitting it to the other. Tom knew that the sheriff was aware of those connections because Sarah Walker had told him as much. But was the sheriff aware that Tom had investigated the Walker disappearance and that he, too, knew about the ties between Walker and Brubaker? Did Martin assume that Sarah told both of them the same story about the friendship between Ray and Anya? If the sheriff read the paper he knew Tom had interviewed Sarah, so he certainly knew it was a possibility. But had Sarah asked the reporter to keep her missing husband’s awkward relationship with a beautiful foreign woman off-the-record? Or had Tom kept it out of print on his own?
Just a few moments earlier, when the sheriff had asked Tom if he knew Brubaker, Tom had lied, essentially recommitting himself to a strategy of deception. Tom’s mind was racing quickly enough that he had time to ask himself if the alternative – if folding his cards and giving up the round, describing how he had come to kill Brubaker – might not have been the smarter move. Perhaps it would have been if he had reported the incident right after it happened, before more cards were dealt. But now, Tom recalculated instantly, it was too late; his behavior had been too questionable, making the truth a far riskier proposition. He asked himself: Would he have behaved so questionably if, in the immediate aftermath of Brubaker’s death, he had not been stoned out of his mind on meth? If the sheriff knew that all-important detail, that Brubaker had forcibly injected him with meth, would it make a difference? Or would Martin prefer to believe, for reasons of his own, that Tom had chosen to mainline the drug?
Tom could guess at least some of what the sheriff had to be thinking. Martin had, according to Sarah, assumed that Ray had run off with Anya. He had almost certainly interviewed Brubaker in the aftermath of Ray’s disappearance, and had either satisfied himself that Brubaker had nothing to do with whatever happened to Ray or he had chosen not to investigate that possibility. By the time Tom met him, Brubaker asserted he was happy to be rid of Anya. Even if he told Martin the same thing, it would be logical for the sheriff to theorize now that Walker had subsequently killed Brubaker, which would be precisely the inverse of a theory Tom had worked out (but could still be the truth): that Brubaker killed Walker. In any case, Martin had a compelling reason to look for Anya Nemerov now, in his investigation of Brubaker’s murder. Tom had removed the clues pointing to Anya’s location from Ray’s file cabinet, but Martin could easily find other clues to track her down. If Martin did find Anya in Albuquerque, he would quickly learn that Ray Walker was not there. Unless, it suddenly occurred to Tom, Ray was there and Anya had deceived him. But that was unlikely. What was much likelier is that Anya would tell the sheriff about her conviction that Brubaker had harmed Ray. That could lead her to describe Tom’s visit with her. Then the sheriff would ask himself why Tom had not said anything during this very interview and he would be on Tom’s trail … straight to Brubaker’s shack in precisely the time period that Brubaker was killed.
What then, Tom asked himself, should he do? Since Martin chose not to tie Brubaker’s death to Ray Walker’s disappearance, should he allow it to remain unspoken and off-the-record? Or should he broach the subject himself? To go there would send his interview with the sheriff in a potentially dangerous direction. But if he did not go there now, he would cast himself under an even darker cloud of suspicion if and when the sheriff found Anya and discovered on his own that Tom knew much more than he’d admitted to.
Was there, behind one of these two doors, a lady, and behind the other a tiger? If Tom opened the door with the tiger, he would never know if there really was a lady behind the other because he would be dead. Moreover, it was every bit as likely that there was a tiger behind both doors.
That calculation left Tom with no alternative but to push the last of his small pile of chips to the center of the table.
“When you asked me if I knew Brubaker, I said I didn’t, and that’s true,” Tom said. “I never met him. But I’ve heard of him. Sarah Walker told me that Ray and Brubaker’s wife were friends. In fact she worked for Ray.”
“That’s right.”
The sheriff was squinting, as if he were scrutinizing Tom’s poker face for a tell, maybe a quick pulse in his neck or an unnatural movement of his eyes. Tom met Martin’s gaze directly.
“She thinks you believe they were having an affair.”
“They could of been.”
“And she told me that Ray helped Brubaker’s wife run away.”
“I believe she said something like that.”
“She said you figure Ray ran off with her.”
“I might.”
“But if they were having an affair, then Brubaker could have had something to do with Ray’s disappearance. Or Ray with Brubaker’s death.”
“That sounds pretty good, Tom,” Martin said. “It’s tight. But maybe it’s too tight. Sometimes a coincidence like that leads an investigation astray.”
“But you must have your suspicions.”
“I’m just gonna have to say ‘no comment’ on all of that,” Martin said. “It’s hy-po-thetical and this investigation is just beginning. I’m sure you can understand. Like you said, a criminal investigation is a lot like a game of poker: There’s things we know and there’s things we think we know and there’s things we know we don’t know and things we don’t know we don’t know. Same thing is true for the perp.
“And just like in poker, unless somebody gets lucky, the winner is the one who figures all those angles better than the other guy.”
After the sheriff left, Tom realized that his heart was still pounding.
There were things Sheriff Martin knew and things the sheriff thought he knew and things the sheriff didn’t know, and Tom could not know where the extent of his own investigation of the Walker disappearance and his responsibility for Brubaker’s death fit along that spectrum. On the other side of the equation, as the sheriff had further observed, there were things the perp knew, things he thought he knew, and things he didn’t know.
Tom breathed deeply to calm himself down. He had escaped the sheriff’s overt suspicion, at least for now. Encouraging Martin’s pursuit of the plausible theory that Ray might have killed Brubaker might distract him for a while. By the same token, not telling the sheriff that he had met Anya and knew where she was preserved the possibility, however remote, that he wouldn’t be able to find her. If the sheriff did find Anya, Tom would probably find himself in trouble that he couldn’t easily talk his way out of, but there was nothing to be done about that now.
Tom was feeling increasingly trapped, the air having become too thick to breathe. In addition to Tom’s concern about where the sheriff’s investigation might lead, there was the deeply worrisome question of what happened to the incriminating fire poker, which had most likely been taken by the longhaired punk who had mugged him. Did the longhair discover Brubaker’s body after he saw Tom fleeing the scene, take the fire poker, and later rough Tom up for good measure, all prior to a blackmail demand that was yet to be presented? But why would anyone blackmail Tom, who was conspicuously close to penniless? More likely, the longhair, who was hardly a law-abiding citizen himself, had reported Brubaker’s death to the sheriff, which would suggest not only that Martin himself might have the fire poker by now, but that he was utterly corrupt and up to his fat, red neck in whatever treachery Tom had stumbled into.
If not from the longhair, how else would the sheriff have learned about the suspicious death of a hermit nobody knew? Tom could imagine only one other possibility. He found himself hoping that Brubaker was not as utterly friendless as he had imagined, but that someone had stopped by to visit or check in on him, not having heard from him in awhile, and had discovered him dead. Then the sheriff could be legitimately investigating Brubaker’s death. In that case, though, Tom could still find himself in Martin’s crosshairs.
Wherever he looked, Tom could find little solace. In any case, his next move was both clear and unavoidable. It was only Friday, but he started writing a story for publication in the next Thursday’s paper. Writing it early would allow him plenty of time to read and reread the article before it was printed, fine-tuning it to make certain he reported enough about Brubaker’s death for the story to seem complete but not so much that it revealed more than it should; to ensure, according to an increasingly complex calculus, that he faithfully reported what should be on-the-record and omitted what should not.
Saying too little could be as risky as saying too much, and the slightest miscalculation either way could be disastrous, leading to his arrest, trial and imprisonment, maybe even to the death penalty. With so much at stake, Tom was uncomfortably reminded of his lost career in big city journalism, a humiliation that he hoped he had put far in his past. His failing then had been a sloppy disregard for the truth, as if the accuracy of details didn’t matter in writing stories of mere human interest, like the story of a home-schooled whiz kid’s university scholarship offers, as opposed to hard news, like a murder investigation. Now he was writing a fabrication out of a deep regard in his own mind for the distinction between hard facts that may be misleading – that he had killed Brubaker, for example – and some species of deeper truth that may be difficult for any outside observer to fully comprehend, namely that he had killed Brubaker in self-defense and was wise, for a host of reasons, not to report it to the authorities.
Of course, Tom might well be justifying his own self-interest. Truth might indeed be a noble ideal, incapable of corruption or taint, a pure virtue that sometimes demands nothing less than self-sacrifice. If so, then deception must always wrong; and a lie is always a lie. Someday, but not now, Tom told himself, he would wrestle with those vexing ethical questions, which could be reduced to one overarching question: Was Tom a good man, overall, in the larger scheme of things? Or was he as corrupt as anyone else, as corrupt as Albert or Dick DeRichter, as corrupt as Trace Martin or Mark Brubaker, all of whom surely rationalized their multiple crimes and misdemeanors with no less self-deception than Tom was capable of?
If not sooner, Tom vowed to take the matter up on his deathbed. Now, he just worked to get the story of a man’s suspicious demise ready for publication in a small-town newspaper. He was so skilled at his craft that in some respects it was easy, despite the fact that the purported mystery at the story’s center – so far as the man writing it was concerned – was not mysterious at all.
Sheriff Reports Suspicious Death
By Tom Austin
The death of a West End resident last week appears to be suspicious in nature, according to Slickrock County Sheriff Trace Martin.
The body of Mark L. Brubaker was discovered on Wednesday in his remote home on East Bryant Mesa. Brubaker, 34, was a loner, and had virtually no contacts with his neighbors, the sheriff said. He worked as a long-distance truck driver.
Brubaker had been dead about a week when his body was found, Martin said. Martin said he could not state a cause of death, pending an autopsy, but he said that Brubaker’s home appeared to be the scene of a violent encounter. Though he was unable to reveal details, he did suggest that one line of investigation involves the possibility that the incident could be related to the region’s methamphetamine trade.
In what the sheriff cautioned could be a mere coincidence, Brubaker’s wife, Anya Nemerov-Brubaker, a Russian immigrant, was employed by Ray Walker, the Radium auto mechanic who disappeared three weeks ago. Nemerov-Brubaker last drew a paycheck from Walker Auto Repair approximately three weeks prior to that, the sheriff said, and her current whereabouts are unknown.
“We would like to talk to her,” the sheriff said, and he asked that if anyone knows where Nemerov-Brubaker might be, they should call his office at 970 355-3333.
Martin declined to comment when asked if he believes the disappearance of Ray Walker, the absence of Anya Nemerov-Brubaker, and the suspicious death of Mark Brubaker could be in any way related.
“Sometimes a coincidence leads an investigation astray,” the sheriff said. “This investigation is just beginning.”
Clearly the story could not be published as Tom had written it. Despite his best efforts at obfuscation, rereading his own first draft, Tom saw that it would very likely serve as his obituary it if were published. When you put something into writing, he mused, and especially if it is published, it becomes part of the physical world and is virtually impossible to erase. So it was with the unavoidable truth that the misfortunes of Ray Walker, Anya Nemerov and Mark Brubaker must be inextricably related. It would have to be revealed eventually that he, Tom Austin, was the missing link.
Tom might not die peacefully of old age at the West End Clinic after all, as he had once imagined, or at the Manor Nursing Home in Cortez, possibly in the same room now occupied by Elizabeth Walker. Instead, he now seemed destined to be swept up in the vortex of a West End conspiracy whose dimensions he could just barely discern. He might well meet a violent end in the next five minutes, five hours, or five days, or he might die in prison.
As consolation, there was time for Tom to find a way to rewrite the story before he was forced to publish it – if he could only figure out how. There might yet be a way out of the devious trap he had managed to construct for himself. But his escape would require not only more ingenuity, but also a dramatic turn of events that Tom could neither foresee nor imagine. He had only a few precious days’ time to work things out, or for fate to lend a hand, with nothing more mundane than his own impending newspaper deadline ticking away the minutes and hours to his probable doom.