The Totem Read online

  "Thanks." Slaughter stared at the floor. "It's too bad. A woman that age. Now she's all alone." He sighed, then walked toward the double doors.

  The medical examiner was waiting for him. "What about the body? Can I move it?"

  "I'll have pictures taken. Then it's yours." Again he tried to distract himself. "Is everything all right for tomorrow?"

  "As near as I can tell."

  "Okay. I'll see you then."

  Tomorrow was the weekend, and they always got together out at Slaughter's. That was Slaughter's way of keeping everybody friendly. Everyone he worked with had an open invitation to the ranch-although "ranch" wasn't quite the word, just five acres with a house and barn. But he had two horses, and the house was very nice, and he liked to have the people whom he worked with out, the only friends he had. He'd been married once. His wife, though, had divorced him, which was common with policemen who were married to their work. She had kept the children, one boy and a girl, and now he hardly ever heard from them except when he insisted that they come out for a visit. That had been a month ago, and since then he'd been distant. It was obvious that he was looking forward to have people with him for tomorrow.

  Now he walked to the cruiser, glanced around, opened the driver's door and slid inside. He sat there for a moment, then reached to grab the microphone from the two-way radio on the dash.

  He pressed the button. "Marge, it's Slaughter. Any news?" He released the button.

  Hiss of static. "Nothing, Chief. What about Doc Markle at the vet's?"

  Slaughter didn't answer.

  "Chief?"

  He swallowed. "It's too late. He's dead."

  "Oh." Hiss of static. "Lord, I'm sorry."

  "Yeah, well… Guess his time just came." The words were like stones in his throat. "Damn it," he murmured.

  "Say that again, Chief. I didn't understand you."

  "Nothing. I'll be back to the office shortly." Slaughter returned the microphone to the radio, grabbed the key and twisted it, starting the car.

  He had tried his best to be objective in there. Really it was hard. The doctor and the medical examiner both knew the way he felt. So did Marge. That was what she'd meant when she had said that she was sorry. Not for Markle, but for him.

  Markle was the man he'd known out here the longest. It was Markle who had come out showing him about the horses he had tried to raise, explaining his mistakes. Markle had told him that a vet should come out twice a year at least, checking, giving shots and worming. Just when Slaughter got so he had one thing right, though, he would screw up on another, and soon Markle had to come out nearly every day. In the end, the old man had asked him why he wanted in this business in the first place, and then Slaughter had told him of his ideal image, living in the country, raising horses, selling them, sitting on the porch and watching all the animals run free. Markle shook his head. The word he'd used was "business," and he meant it. If you wanted horses just to ride and look at, that was one thing. Raising them and selling them, that was something else. People out here bred their own. Anyway, you needed decent stock. Good brood mares, a winning stallion. It took years to build a proper herd. Not to mention all the care and work. Days and nights of making sure that they were healthy, taking pains that they stayed out of trouble. You needed to watch them all the time.

  Slaughter had listened, nodding, but he'd persisted, and only when the herd-not one horse or a couple, but the whole damned herd-came down with colic, did he know enough to stop. It was Markle who had told him of the old chief's death and how the town council needed a replacement. Markle was a member of the council, and that had helped, of course. Plus, Markle felt close to Slaughter by that time, at first just full of pity and exasperation toward him but then growing to admire his determination and the way he liked the country and the people and the style of life. Indeed, they'd gotten to be good friends, sitting on the porch each time Markle had come out, discussing each new set of problems, Slaughter drinking beer, the old man drinking Coke. The old man sensed in him a gentleness that went beyond Slaughter's name and strong, tough manner. The old man had told him so, and while there were some members of the force who stood in line to get the job, the old man had felt that since Slaughter had singled out this place in which to live and since he had a sympathy for ranchers, since he had the best credentials, he ought to have a good chance for the job.

  So the two of them had done their best, the old man working on the members of the council, especially those who felt that big-time tactics weren't exactly what the town required, Slaughter coming in to say that big-time tactics were exactly what he didn't want, that they had been the reason he had left Detroit. He made a good impression. The issue was-even those who didn't want him had to say-he knew so much about this kind of work. They couldn't help but be convinced. And Markle was the cause of it. That night Slaughter took the old man on a celebration. Markle even drank some beer.

  And now Markle was dead. Slaughter pulled up at a stoplight, waited, thinking, shook his head, and when the light turned green, he angled left. He thought of how he'd never spent the time he planned to with him. There had always been a thing to do, some aspect of the job to keep him occupied. Oh, sure, he'd gone around to see him and his wife from time to time. But not enough and not for long, and now he'd never have the chance again.

  EIGHT

  The door was thick wood, rich and solid, and Slaughter swung it open, stepping into the shadowy coolness of the stairway. The cells were down the stairs to the right, connected to the courthouse by a tunnel. Above and straight ahead, a wide square vestibule led into the offices. The floor was wood. The vestibule was rimmed by treelike plants. The ceiling, two floors up, was domed with glass.

  He climbed the stairs and stood in the middle of the vestibule, looking at the ceiling and the glass. The sun was not yet high enough to gleam in. Where he stood was in halflight. He felt the halflight match his mood, thinking of the old man, and then shaking off his mood, he turned abruptly left to enter his office.

  "Morning, Marge."

  "Morning, Chief. Your coffee's on the desk. The night sheet's right beside it."

  "Thanks."

  But he'd already known she would say that. It was what she told him every morning, reduced now almost to a ritual. In spite of what had happened, he was forced to smile, walking past her toward his glassed-in section of the office in the far right corner. Marge was forty-five, gray-haired, heavy-set. She had been here briefly with the old chief just before he died, and wanting to keep everything efficient, the change as smooth as he could manage, Slaughter had kept her on. It was the best move he could have made. Marge was widowed with two full-grown children, and she had gone to work to get some order in her life. She had helped Slaughter ease in to his job, telling him which man was good at what he did and which was faking. She organized things so he could find out quickly what was going on. It had been her notion that they move the two-way radio unit from the room across the hall and put it in here with him. That way Slaughter could overhear whatever messages were coming through and maybe save some time. Certainly that saved the town some money. Rather Marge did, taking on two jobs instead of one, freeing one man who had always worked the radio (now he could go out on the street), at the same time taking Slaughter's calls and acting as his secretary.

  She had the unit on the desk beside the entrance to the office, typing at another desk and waiting for the cruisers to start checking in with her. Behind her, desks were set in rows where officers would come in for debriefing after finishing their shift. The desks were empty now. There wasn't any point in having men here waiting for some trouble; best to keep them on the street and have Marge call to tell them where to go if they were needed. Slaughter barely glanced around the quiet room as he entered the glass-partitioned section of the office, sitting at the desk. He reached to swing the door shut, peered out the window at the cars and trucks that went by past the trees out there. Then sipping at his coffee-cool; he hadn't drunk it soon enough-he too
k the night sheet, leaning back until his chair was braced against the metal filing cabinet.

  There were ten notes on the sheet. Last night hadn't been busy. A break-in at the hardware store. He saw that two men from the day crew were already working on that. They would check the manner of the break-in, find out what was taken. Chances were by Monday they would catch whoever did it. Strangers didn't come to steal here very often. When they did, they surely didn't try the hardware store. Most likely these were locals. Even though the town had a population of twenty thousand, it was small enough that there would be no problem discovering who'd suddenly gotten his hands on lots of hardware store equipment.

  Two drunk driving, one assault (that was at a truckers' bar-an argument during a pool game), one dog that kept barking all night, and one prowler. That was on the other side of town, and Slaughter would have a cruiser checking there tonight. He scanned the other items on the sheet. Two car accidents, no injuries. A broken window at the high school. A missing person. Well, not really missing. That was Clifford who had left his wife three times already. He kept going out and getting drunk and then not coming home. Clifford's wife would phone to say that he was missing, and they'd find him two days later at a friend's. Well, Slaughter would have a man check all the friends and this time tell the guy at least to phone his wife when he got sober. They had better things to do than run a marriage-counseling service.

  That was that. Nothing pressing. Although he didn't want to, Slaughter would have to work some more on organizing traffic control for the Junior Ranchers meeting that was coming up next week. He would have to make a speech there too, and for sure he was going to have to work more on what he planned to say to them. He thought about the old man. Might as well get started. He was reaching into his desk for a pencil and some paper when the buzzer sounded on his desk.

  Slaughter pressed the button on the intercom. "What is it, Marge?"

  "A call for you. It's Doctor Reed."

  Reed had helped calm Mrs. Markle. "Put him through." Slaughter straightened, reaching for the phone. "How are you, Doc?" And then he frowned and listened.

  Mrs. Markle was still unconscious from the sedative. She kept talking anyhow. Babbling was more like it. Mixing things like Sam Bodine, the steer, the old man, several other things as jumbled. Mostly, though, she just kept saying Sam Bodine. The doctor thought that Slaughter ought to know.

  "You think Bodine owns the steer Doc Markle had on the table?" Slaughter asked.

  "I don't know. It's hard to tell. I thought I'd better call you, though."

  "I'm glad you did." Slaughter set down the phone, scratched his chin, and peered out the window.

  "Marge," he said and opened the door.

  She looked at him.

  "Sam Bodine and old Doc Markle. Weren't they friends?"

  "The father and the doctor were. I don't know much about the son."

  Slaughter didn't either. He had heard the old man talk vaguely about him, but he'd never understood the story.

  "Guess it's time I took a drive. Anybody calls, I won't be back till after lunch."

  NINE

  It was a place he'd never been. Slaughter had made a point of getting close to nearly all the ranchers around town, but Bodine was a loner, and except for once or twice a year, at ranchers' meetings or in passing on the street, Slaughter almost never saw him. Strictly speaking, Slaughter had jurisdiction only in the town. The state police had power in the valley, so it wasn't strange that Slaughter barely knew him. All the same, the town and valley were related, and he liked to keep on top of what was going on out there.

  He meant to tell Bodine what had happened, to find out if the steer the old man had been working on was his. Slaughter could have phoned to do that, but really it was better that he drive out and do it in person. This way, he had a chance to be alone and think, mulling through the times that he and Markle had shared together, facing up to what had happened so he could adjust to it and keep his feelings separate from his work. That was just about the only value that he had, the largest one at any rate. Of course, that value was a mix of several others, but they all combined to just one thing-the need to keep his life as straight and simple as he could. Since his work was really all that mattered to him (so he told himself at least; he wished he had his children with him), that meant keeping his work as straight and simple as he could as well. He couldn't be two people, feeling one way, acting some way else. He had to bring them both together, which was why he liked to have the crew he worked with out at his place on the weekends. Seeing all those people was a way of merging leisure with his work.

  So the old man had passed on now. Never mind "passed on." The old man was plain dead. Three days later, Monday, he'd be underneath the dirt. There wasn't anything that Slaughter could do about it. Feeling bad was just a distraction. Anyway, he told himself, how come you're feeling bad to start with? For the old man, for his wife, or for yourself? Is that sorrow or regret? You owed him things. You didn't go around to see him. Now he's dead, and you start wishing that you'd gone. Some friend you turned out to be. All right, hey, get control. Get it straight that next time you've got dues to pay, you pay them. Next time you make friends, you understand the obligations.

  Right, he told himself and then repeated. Right, he thought and shook his head. And then because he didn't like the way his mind was working, he did his best to switch it off, to concentrate on driving, to look at the fields around him, at the mountains. The sky was almost white now. He could feel the stark sun burning through the rear glass of the car. Today would be the hottest yet, and he was thinking of the ranchers who'd be working in the parched grass of the range. The cattle wouldn't breathe well. Some would die. Then, because the thought of death was going through him, he began to notice all the carcasses of animals that were here and there beside the road. Five of them in just one mile. A raccoon and a porcupine, a field squirrel, and a rabbit, then a skunk, stiff and bloating in the sun. He thought of old Doc Markle, shook his head, and didn't bother counting anymore.

  He turned left, rattling across the grate, heading down the dusty road between the fields, seeing cattle, coming up a rise, then seeing where the house and barn were down there in a hollow. He saw trees and sheds, a wood pile, a big corrugated metal building that looked like it would serve as a garage. The house itself was newly painted, white with gray around the windows and the eaves, fresh and clean and bright against the summer sun. It was big and getting bigger as he neared, wider than he'd thought, a porch that faced off to the left, a gravel parking space on this side of the house. He pulled up, and he cut his motor, getting out, putting on his hat, walking toward the porch.

  The thing was, no one seemed to be around. The windows all were open. Anyone inside could not have helped but hear him. All the same, there wasn't any sign of anyone. Slaughter knocked, but no one answered. Then he turned and looked out toward the barn, toward the corrugated metal structure which he saw now had one door open, nothing in there on this side except a motorcycle. Well, that helped explain it. They were on the range and seeing to the stock. Either that or gone to town. Even so, you'd think that someone would have stayed. The wife perhaps. He'd met her once in town. Nice hands. She didn't seem the type to go out working with the stock.

  He put his hand down on his holster, stepping off the porch and walking toward the barn. He saw where posts and boards were rigged to form a horse pen, a nice looking appaloosa in there underneath the shelter of a cottonwood. He saw a water trough, a salt lick, and a feed pail. That reminded him to get another salt lick for his horses. He turned, facing toward the house again, the flowers on one side, the well-kept strip of lawn around the house and porch. He scanned the sheds, the barn, the open space between them, nothing out of place, nothing dirty or run-down, everything as freshly painted as the house, and thought that this must be among the best-kept ranches that he'd seen.

  He stood between the house and barn and shouted. No one answered. The horse was looking at him. Slaughter
went over, leaned on the fence, and snapped his fingers at it. "What's the matter? No one home?"

  The sun glared down on him. The horse moved its hoofs as if to come across to him and then stopped, its head cocked toward the house. Slaughter sensed before he heard it. A constant, high, shrill whistle. It was coming from the back of the house. He walked along the side, looked through a kitchen window in the back, and saw it. There upon the stove. A kettle with a flame beneath it, steam escaping through the whistle on the spout. He found a door in back that led in to the kitchen, knocked but no one answered, went in and shut off the stove. He didn't understand. He searched through all the downstairs rooms and then the bedrooms up on top. He thought that someone might have turned the kettle on and then lain down to rest a moment and then gone to sleep. But there was no one anywhere. The well-kept grounds, the freshly painted house. It wasn't like the people here to go off with a kettle on the stove. Slaughter went out, checking through the barn, the sheds, and the garage, but there was no one, and he didn't understand. What would make them leave a kettle like that? Why had they forgotten? Where in hell had they gone anyhow? The kettle had started shrieking only a while ago. They must have turned it on just before he came, so where in God's name were they?

  TEN

  Dunlap was hungover. He was slumped across the back seat of the bus. He had made connections with the nearest airport and had thought that he would take a taxi to the town. He hadn't remembered to check his map, though, and was told that Potter's Field was fifty miles away. No one would agree to drive him. It wasn't just the distance. It was that the town was on the other side of all those mountains. Getting there was several hours. Better take a bus. "But I want to go there in a taxi." They just shook their heads. This was something new to Dunlap. In New York where he came from, taxi drivers would grab the chance to go that kind of distance, picking up another fare and coming back. That was just the trouble. No one would be coming back. People took the bus. "But I'll pay to have you go both ways," he told them. They just shook their heads again. "All that driving through the mountains. We'll stay here and save the cars."