Bob Don came to his office door quickly, which surprised me. He surprised me further by looking happy to see me. His broad, tanned face broke into an ear-to-ear white grin. “Well, hey there, Jordy, it’s good to see you!” He pumped my hand like I was a water well.
“Hello, Bob Don. I wonder if you have a minute to talk privately.”
“Why, sure I do.” Apparently talking to me would be the highlight of his day. I found that a little difficult to believe, what with all the unsold cars on his lot. We went into his office, decorated in small-town prosperity. Pictures of local Little League teams that were sponsored by the Goertz dealership covered the walls, going back at least two decades. Trophies for the teams that fared well stood on a shelf. He’d backed several winners and probably sold their parents a car while the glow of victory was fresh. There were pictures of him and his wife over several years, the fashions changing somewhat but not straying far from rural Texas couture. His wife was a numbed-looking woman with heavy-lidded, blank eyes and pneumatically big hair. I’d heard gossip that she drank heavily. There were awards for excellence from the various automakers he represented; but they were cheap-looking certificates that Bob Don had mounted in expensive frames. I thought they looked rather sad. Bob Don sat behind his desk in a thronelike leather chair and gestured for me to take a seat.
Clutter covered the desk, including a huge, ceramic monstrosity of an ashtray with a few butts mashed in it. I saw it and laughed; it reminded me of the horror ashtray I used in the library. Bob Don laughed with me in the automatic, reflexive way of salesmen. I told him why I laughed and his grin grew. “Oh, Lord, yes, Gretchen’s just got too much time on her hands.” He examined the ashtray as though it were an interesting part from a foreign car. “She said it represents somethin’, but damned if I know what it is. Rage, I think. Insisted she had to take some damned course over at the community college in Bavary. Not pottery, but cer-a-mics. Next week it’ll be photography or genealogy or some such thing.” He shook his head and started to offer me a cigarette. Suddenly he withdrew the pack. “Sorry. Just remembered you’re trying to quit.” “How did you know?” “You mentioned it last board meeting.” He shrugged and put the pack away. “Actually, I’d love to have a cigarette with you, Bob Don. I decided to hold off on quitting for the moment.” He looked pleased, muttered something about not living forever, and lit for us both. I inhaled deeply and looked at him through the smoky veil. Tall guy, over six feet, probably up over two hundred pounds now. His face held strength when he wasn’t trying to be a good ol’ boy, and I thought he must’ve been handsome when he was young. He looked better when he didn’t smile than when he did. His official Beta verse, according to my notebook, was Judges 5:30: Have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two?
Two women. Had Beta discovered another woman in Bob Don’s life aside from the artistically challenged Gretchen? Or had some other prey been split? Or neither? Beta had a vivid imagination. At least I had that in common with her, I thought. I stayed silent for a moment, watching him smoke, and wondering if he was going to set his blond-gray hair on fire with his cigarette. His hair spray was probably creating an ozone hole directly over Mirabeau. He wore it swept into a Conway Twitty-style helmet, with long matching sideburns. Bob Don could have easily been a televangelist or a Sixties country-western singer as much as a rural car dealer. “What’s up, Jordy?” he finally said, breaking my reverie. “I wanted to talk to you about Beta Harcher.” His eyes frosted. “Oh, her. Don’t pay attention to her. She’s just a bit overzealous, and-” I didn’t let him continue. “Haven’t you heard?
She’s dead.” I might as well have leaned over the table and mussed up his hair. The shock showed naked on his face. He recovered quickly, drawing on his cigarette. His eyes avoided mine. “Dead?” I told the story in few words, omitting the list. “I thought the police might have called you by now. They’re starting an investigation, of course.”
“Call me? Why?” Now he looked at me. His complexion, fair to begin with, paled. “You have a key to the library, Bob Don. There was a key on her that Tamma Hufnagel says Beta swiped from Adam, but who knows for sure?” “Good Lord!” He receded into his chair. He blinked his puffy blue eyes through the smoke. “Holy Christ!” he muttered. “Would you like a drink?” “Sacrilege and booze? How un-Baptist of you, Bob Don.” He shrugged instead of arguing. “I’m a man like any other, Jordy. I believe in God, but all His rules get tiresome. I’m gonna have me a whiskey. You want one?” “Sure.” I never drink early, but I’m flexible under stress. He produced two plastic glasses from a desk drawer, along with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He poured solemnly and handed me a glass. He didn’t make a toast and I was relieved. “Beta dead,” he muttered. “Jesus! It seems impossible.” The shock faded from his face and his expression was composed and unreadable. “Everyone dies,” I observed, wondering how he’d react to such a cold comment.
“Yeah, but I always thought she’d go on her own terms.” He shook his head and sipped. “I understand you saw her yesterday, around midafternoon?” “You ask that like you don’t care, but I think you do.”
He fingered his red necktie, covered with little yellow horseshoes.
“You were upset when you saw her,” I said. “Who told you this?” he asked. “Tamma Hufnagel, I guess. She was leaving as I got there.
Practically running. Looked as scared as a four-year-old at a haunted house.” I filed that away. “Never mind Tamma. I’m curious as to why you were there.” He frowned and I saw his fingers whiten against his drink. “Why should I tell you?” His friendliness had not entirely evaporated, but it was drying. I measured him. I hadn’t liked Bob Don before, but in the past five minutes he’d shown glimmers of humanity that elevated him beyond the supercilious glad-hander I’d known.
“Look. She threatened me yesterday in the library, then she ends up dead there from a bat I brought and left in my office. It doesn’t look promising for me. The police and Billy Ray Bummel think I was involved.” He mashed out his cigarette and downed his glass of Jack Daniel’s. His stare held mine. “I’ll ask you a question, Jordy. I want the truth. I will help you all I can if you need it.” His eyes had a frankness I hadn’t expected. “Did you kill her?” “No, I did not,” I answered. “And if I did, why would you help me anyway?” He poured more whiskey into his glass. “Because I liked your daddy, and I like your mama,” he said simply. “I’d do it for them.” “Then help me. Tell me why you were there and what you know about her.” “What do I know about her?” He looked toward the window. He didn’t say anything for several moments. “She grew up here. She was pretty when she was younger. She was wild, too. I remember hearing that about her, although she was several years younger than me. She didn’t get religion bad until she was twenty, and then something happened to her to make her think she and Jesus together were an unbeatable team. She never married ’cause nobody could live with her. Her daddy was well-to-do and she lived off the money he left her.” He shrugged. “She was obsessed with God With judging people.” I nodded. “Do you think she ever used that judging to go a step beyond?” “What do you mean?” he asked hoarsely. “You can’t judge someone until you know their story. She could just judge people by conduct, but that might not be enough.” I watched him; our eyes never strayed from each others’. “Was she the type to dig up dirt on folks? Use it against them?” I thought of the verses she’d associated with Tamma and Bob Don; they suggested secrets best kept hidden. “She wasn’t blackmailing me,” Bob Don said tonelessly. He raised the plastic glass to his lips and gulped. Not the response I expected. I sipped my own drink, trying to act nonchalant. “So why did you go see her yesterday?” He swallowed. “I wanted to clear the air with her about me replacing her on the board. Just make amends instead of amens.” He tried to laugh but it sounded more like a sick cough. “I knew how upset she was and I thought it best to make her feel she still had a voice-through me-on the board.” That was all I needed, another Beta. “And are you her voice now? Are you going to give me as much trouble as she did?” Bob Don looked hurt. He fumbled for his words, as though they were scraps he’d scattered on the floor. “No, not at all. Look, Jordy, please stay out of all this. Let the police do their job.” “Their job seems to be trying to find enough evidence to arrest me, according to Billy Ray Bummel.” “They won’t arrest you.