The Best American Mystery Stories 2005
- Автор: Хиггинс Джордж, Камински Стюарт Мелвин
- Год: 2005
- Язык: английский
- Год: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ISBN: 978-0-618-51744-2
- Жанр: Другие детективы
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Del had no relatives we could find, but Billie Jean had mentioned to Agnes Day at the hospital she had a sister in Rapid City, so the sheriff called her. We learned their mother was still alive in a nursing home, and from the way the sister reacted, we understood there were hard feelings between the sisters, apparently because Billie Jean had run off with Del. Billie Jean had married into evil.
Then late Saturday it came to light from Wilferd Barkley that Del’s truck had been parked at that same turnout several times before. Wilferd was a stonemason who lived farther out the country road in an A-frame built thirty years ago in the hippie days. He kept a few sheep and goats, and he poached deer that wandered into his yard (he’d been fined for it twice). He wasn’t the most trustworthy of witnesses — he drank up his disability check every month — but he knew Del’s truck, and why would he lie?
After a few inquiries, Emily Jefferson admitted seeing Del, though she denied anything was going on, and Wilferd couldn’t contradict her. Nobody believed it, though. Anyway, a possible motive was established for Larry Jefferson to have killed Del, and, in a rage, perhaps, the whole Olshansky family. So that evening the sheriff drove to Pueblo and hauled Larry out of his seminar. It was obvious right from the start Larry had no idea who Dei Olshansky was. He’d heard of Marya, the basketball star, but that was the only family name he knew. He didn’t know Emily was seeing Del, but it didn’t surprise him. She was cold as ice to him. He called her a mousy woman with bad teeth.
That threw the situation into the same muddle as before, back to the idea of random chance.
Then on Sunday, another body turned up — Warren Nixon. He hadn’t appeared at church, and when his phone was busy for half an hour, Jeff Bates, the assistant minister, went to look for him. Warren was in his apartment, face-down, bludgeoned with one of his own golf clubs.
In this day and age, with kids shooting other kids in the schools, oil spilling into the oceans, and people flying airplanes into buildings, nothing is bizarre anymore, but for our town this was bizarre. Warren Nixon had photos of boys lying around, a computer full of child pornography, movies. All young boys. Beautiful boys like Carlos Olshansky.
Just like that, Carlos became both a victim and a suspect.
That Warren Nixon lived in this community so long and kept his predilection hidden surprised us. We discovered he had gone to Denver, to Chicago, to Los Angeles to gratify his base desires, but here, he must have been tormented because right in front of him, practically handed over, was the most beautiful boy any of us had ever seen. He had to be careful; he had to work slowly, to curry favor. But something had gone wrong.
We imagined this scenario: there was another lover, a visitor, perhaps, with similar perverse tastes. This hypothetical person was in league with Warren Nixon, a disciple, a fringe character none of us noticed. This unknown person fell in love with Carlos, and, in a moment of rage and jealousy (who knew what Carlos felt?) beat Warren to death. The man took Carlos back to the trailer to get Carlos’s things, and Billie Jean intervened. There was an argument, and the lover happened to have a pistol and shot everyone. It was at that moment Del drove up in his truck.
Was Carlos involved? Who else but Carlos could have driven the second car? Or was there a second car? Had Carlos acted alone? He might have killed Warren Nixon and then his family, driven his father’s truck to Emily Jefferson’s, and then walked to the highway, it was less than a mile. He could have hitchhiked from there.
Most of us think Carlos must have been drugged or otherwise coerced into participating. Perhaps there were two other men, or another couple. Carlos was the innocent casualty of someone else’s perversions, the prey. He was frightened and threatened by someone bigger and stronger, a person in a position of power, a church person. Beautiful Carlos, still to be looked for.
Since these events, in their divorce, Emily Jefferson admitted to an affair. She confided to a friend Del insisted on making love every which way — in a chair, against a wall, from behind. Had he abused Carlos? Or had Billie Jean? Or one of the sisters? It came to light Marya had been expelled from her school in Colorado Springs for punching a teammate at practice. Marijuana was found in Danielle’s room at the back of the trailer, and her raft company friends said she was a heavy user. Who knew about this family?
It is hard to inquire after the dead. Only Carlos might tell us the truth. And where is he?
There is one recollection we’ve wondered about, a story several people have come forward with — Arne Bullard, Donna Snow, Linda Sayles — all of whom have businesses downtown. They remember the day eight years ago, Carlos was five or six, when Danielle and Marya dressed him up as a girl. They had put makeup on him — eyeliner, rouge, and lipstick — that’s what Donna Snow recalled. “He was a girly boy,” she said, “with his hair curled and fixed up in blue ribbons. He was walking in a pink dress, and so pretty. They paraded him up and down Main Street, past all the shops and stores.” Arne remembered it, too, seeing them through his barbershop window. “He was having a good time,” Arne said. “He was holding the girls’ hands and laughing, not resisting in the least. Of course, what did he know? He was a little kid.”
Now there are other things people remember about Carlos, like his teachers at school and the boys on the football team and the girls who watched him in the halls. He was a smart kid, but so quiet, shy, and respectful. Though he was friendly with everyone, he had no girlfriend. He let people come to him.
Maybe Carlos is dead. That would explain why no one has found him in the year since this happened. The town has moved past the killings; people don’t talk about it so much. The remains of the Olshanskys’ trailer have been removed and the land sold to a developer, though Luther Warren and Ivo and Frieda Darius are protesting the rezoning to one-acre lots. Marya’s class graduated from the high school, and in another two years, Carlos’s will be gone, too, dispersed with their stories. The Church of the Major Prophecy has disbanded and the sign’s been taken down. No other church has seen fit to establish itself there, so the cinder-block building is empty, the spire tilted a little to one side. Recently a cabinet company has been interested in the site.
In our town businesses go on, children are born, the old people get sick and die: there’s nothing new about that. And in the wider world, the space shuttle has broken apart, the war in Iraq is past, the suicide bombings continue. No one can change what happens, but the events recede, especially now when we know so much. We are lucky, aren’t we, that in the history of our town and our country, in the history of the world even with its wars and famines and plagues, no one has been able to stop time.
Daniel Orozco
Officers Weep
From Harper’s Magazine
700 Block, First Street. Parking violation. Car blocking driveway. Citation issued. City Tow notified.
5700 Block, Central Boulevard. Public disturbance. Rowdy juveniles on interurban bus. Suspects flee before officers arrive.
400 Block, Sycamore Circle. Barking-dog complaint. Attempts to shush dog unsuccessful. Citation left in owner’s mailbox. Animal Control notified.
1300 Block, Harvest Avenue. Suspicious odor. Homeowner returning from extended trip reports a bad odor — a gas leak or “the smell of death.” Officers investigate. Odor ascertained to be emanating from a neighbor’s mimosa tree in unseasonal bloom. “The smell of life,” officer [Shield #647] ponders aloud. Officers nod. Homeowner rolls eyes, nods politely.