Marcia Muller: Burn Out

I said, “Tell me about her.”

His gaze shifted to the darkness gathering in the empty stalls beyond Lear Jet’s. “My sister-in-law’s youngest. She was such a beautiful little girl, and she loved her Uncle Ramon.”

“And now?”

“She’s still beautiful. You saw that.”

“And she still loves you?”

He sighed heavily. “Who knows? Who knows anything these days?”

I couldn’t debate the latter question. “She’s in trouble, Ramon.” I told him what I’d seen that afternoon, and Amy’s reaction to my offer of help. “The clerk at Food Mart said she ‘moves around a lot.’”

“One boyfriend, another boyfriend, sometimes she crashes at my sister-in-law’s house.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen in three months. She looks a lot younger.”

“Still underage, then. Can’t her mother rein her in?”

He looked at me, eyes sad. “Look, Sharon, it’s not that simple. Her mother has her own problems.”

“There’s no father in the picture?”

“My son-of-a-bitch brother Jimmy took off when Amy was a year old. Miri-that’s his wife-did her best by all five kids, but it wasn’t good enough. Her older girl left town nine years ago, before she finished high school. We don’t know where she is. Last I heard was a postcard from Las Vegas, and that was over a year ago. The two older boys’re in prison. The younger boy was killed in a car wreck-his fault, he’d been drinking.”

“And now Miri’s in danger of losing Amy, too.”

He looked down at where his thick-fingered hands were spread on his denim-covered thighs. “I don’t think she’d even notice if Amy was gone.”

“Drugs? Booze? Men?”

“You got it. When Vic-the youngest boy-died, Miri totally fell apart.”

“What about the kids’ Uncle Ramon? Where do you fit into the picture?”

“I don’t. Miri and I had a big fight, four, maybe five years ago. The times I came around to apologize, she ran me off with a shotgun.”

“D’you think Amy might listen to you, let you help her?”

“Like I said, I don’t know how she feels about me these days.” He paused, and in the silence Lear Jet whickered. “You say this guy pushed her out of a pickup?”

“Yes. Brown, probably a Ford, with a lot of Bondo on it.”

“You see him?”

“Yes. He has a dark brown beard; I couldn’t really tell about his features. After he threw Amy out of the truck he went to the edge of the shoulder and was shouting at her. When I intervened, he thought about attacking me, then took off.”

“Boz Sheppard. That asshole. If she’s hooked up with him, it’s statutory rape.”

“How old is this Boz?”

“Late twenties, maybe thirty. Hard to tell. Too damn old to be messing with a young girl like Amy.”

“Who is he?”

“Local lowlife-not that we haven’t got plenty of them. Claims to be a carpenter, but he’s usually so stoned he couldn’t drive a nail in straight if his life depended on it.”

“He from around here?”

“No. Showed up in Vernon one day, took a trailer at that crappy park up the highway. Does odd jobs, but I hear mostly he deals drugs. Rumor is he’s got a record.”

If he did, I could get Derek Ford, Mick’s assistant at the agency, to access it. “Definitely not good company for your niece,” I said.

“Yeah. Which way you say she was going when she walked off?”

“North from town.”

“Toward that trailer park.” Ramon stood. “Think I’ll take a run out there, pay a visit. Want to ride along?”

“Ramon, it’s a family matter-”

“One that could use a woman’s touch.”

Well, why not? I had nothing else to do that evening.

The park extended from the edge of the highway to the hillside-two dozen or so old-model trailers up on cement blocks. No amenities such as a rec center, plantings, or even paved parking areas. No trees. Only a sagging barbed-wire fence between it and the outside world.

Personally, I’d rather have lived in a cave.

Ramon stopped the truck in front of a one-windowed shack with a sign saying OFFICE. Got out, but came right back. “Nobody there.”

I looked around, pointed out a woman walking a dog. Ramon nodded and approached her. When he slid into the truck he said, “Last trailer, last row in back. From the look the lady gave me, I’d say Boz’s dealing, all right.”

We drove back there in silence, gravel crunching under the truck’s wheels. The rows were dimly lighted-minimum county requirement-and most of the trailers were dark. Boz Sheppard’s was by far the worst of them all-ancient, small, humpbacked, its formerly white paint peeling off to reveal gunmetal gray and rust. There was a glow in its rear window.

Ramon took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to say to her.”

“Tell her you love her and want to help.”

“What if she doesn’t think she needs it?”

I pictured the look of defiance in Amy’s eyes before she’d turned her back on me that afternoon. Underneath there had been fear-and not of me.

“She does, whether she knows it or not,” I said. “This Boz-he’ll try to intervene. We should separate them.”

“How?”

“Leave that to me.” I didn’t have a plan, but once we confronted Boz, my instincts would tell me what to do.

We got out of the truck and went up to the door. Ramon knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again, rattling the flimsy door in its frame.

Nothing.

“See if it’s unlocked,” I said.

“That’s not legal-”

“You have probable cause to be concerned for your niece.”

“Damn right I do!” He turned the knob and pushed the door inward so hard it smacked into the wall behind it. Moved up the two low steps and inside.

A growl. At first I thought it came from a watchdog, then realized that Ramon himself had made the sound. I pushed around him. And stopped.

The room was tidy, the pullout bed made up into a couch. A woman lay collapsed beside it, her arms outflung on the bloodstained carpet, long dark hair covering most of her face. Freshly spilled blood. It pooled beneath her, and the front of her black silk dress was torn and scorched where a bullet-or bullets-had entered. The scent of cordite was strong on the air.

Before I could stop him, Ramon went to the woman and brushed her hair from her face. Gasped and recoiled.

I went over and pulled on his arm. “Go outside. This is a crime scene. We can’t disturb anything more than we already have.”

He hesitated, then went, shaking his head.

I looked down at the woman’s face. Not Amy, but someone older who closely resembled her. The dress looked expensive, her costume jewelry gaudy. One red spike-heeled shoe had come off her foot and lay on the carpet. I glanced at the breakfast bar on the counter: a half-full shaker of martinis and two glasses, one lying on its side, broken, liquid pooling beside it.

I backed up, left the trailer without touching anything. Ramon was leaning against his truck, trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands.

“You know her?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Who is she?”

He took a deep drag on the cigarette and exhaled. “Hayley.”

“And Hayley is…?”

“Amy’s older sister. The one I told you sent me a postcard from Las Vegas.”

How the hell did I get myself into this? I came up here to make plans to leave this kind of thing behind me-the stench of death, the flashing lights, the paramedics, the radios and official voices droning on and on and on…

I should’ve told Ramon to bring Sara along with him if he felt the situation required a woman’s touch. I should’ve stayed home, waited for the agency calls, phoned Hy. I should’ve jumped into the Rover and gotten the hell out of Mono County.