"How was she killed?" he asked Dagget, who was following behind.
"She was butchered, Harold. Plain and simple." PART of Guisti had been hoping that the woman had been shot or poisoned, because there had been another body discovered in an outcropping of rock two months ago, naked and butchered. Guisti believed the weapon used was a hatchet of some kind. He was hoping he would not come to the same conclusion when he examined this young female, because he did not want to think about what that would mean for the people of Whitaker, Cayuse and Blaine.
A FINGER EXERCISE FOR HELL!
Chapter THREE.
Surrounding the City of Whitaker was farmland made 'green by irrigation systems that tapped into the Camas River, but beyond the farms, hot, dusty winds blew tumbleweeds across vast flatlands that were broken only occasionally by high, brown hills. As Peter drove through the desert, he felt his spirit burning up and crumbling slowly to gray ash and he entered the City of Whitaker as empty as the and land that encircled it.
Peter spent his first night in Whitaker at the Riverview Motel, which was clean, quiet and actually had a view of the Camas River. After breakfast, Peter walked from the motel to the offices of Amos Geary. He was exhausted from tossing and turning all night in strange surroundings as his emotions shifted from boiling rage at the injustices that life had heaped upon him to feelings of fear and utter despair as he struggled with the very real possibility that he might have lost forever the love of his father.
The walk from the motel took Peter through Wishing Well Park, which ran the length of the town between High Street and the Camas River. There was a wistful beauty in the slow-moving Camas, but Peter found the town as dry and uninteresting as the wastelands that surrounded it. The biggest bookstore was the Christian Bookshop; you could easily find a store that fixed saddles but none that made carlattes and the town's only movie theater featured wholesome family entertainment. Peter thought of Whitaker as a finger exercise for l the architect who designed hell.
City center started at High and First where the courthouse stood. Peter turned up First Street to Main. Running parallel to Main Street was Broad Street. Elm, the street farthest from the river, started commercial, then curved through a pleasant, tree-shaded, residential section of town until it arrived at the campus of Whitaker State College. On the other side of the college was the hospital.
As Peter walked, he saw battered Ford pickups in the parking spaces and noticed more cowboy hats than he had seen all of last year in Portland. When he reached Main and Fourth, he checked the slip of paper with Geary's address. On both sides of Main were old, two and three-story brick buildings.
Peter saw Dot's coffee shop, B.J."s beauty salon and an orange-and-black Rexhall sign, but no law office. Then, he glanced up a story and saw AMOS J. GEARY, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW painted in flaking gold letters on a second-floor window. Peter backtracked and found a narrow doorway between the beauty salon and the coffee shop. The door opened directly into a cramped stairwell. Dingy, green linoleum was secured to the stairs by dented brass runners. It creaked underfoot as Peter climbed to the second floor.
The hall at the top of the stairs was dark and musty.
Geary's name and profession were painted in black on a door to the left of the stairwell. The door stuck and Peter had to push hard to get it open. A middle-aged woman with grey hair was sitting behind a desk working at a word processor, the only item in the reception area that did not look as if it had been purchased in a seca ndhand store.
Two issues of Field and Stream and a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated lay on a low Formica-topped end table next to a couch made of cracked, red imitation leather. A ceiling fixture lit by a dim bulb and a little sunlight that managed to work its way through the dirtcovered front window conspired to cast a dull yellow glow over the room. Peter could not help comparing this iquated dump to the elegant offices from which he had so recently been evicted. The memory of the plush carpets, brass fixtures and polished woods made his stomach seize up in rage and frustration. It just was not fair.
The woman looked up when the door opened and stared at Peter through glasses with thick, black plastic rims.
"I'm Peter Hale. I have an appointment with Mr. Geary for nine."
The woman eyed him suspiciously.
"You're the young man who's going to work here, aren't you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, take a seat. Mr. Geary's not in just yet. But I expect he'll be along any minute. He has court at ten."
The secretary-receptionist went back to her work without another word. Peter was shocked by her abrupt dismissal, but decided against reprimanding the woman.
She'd probably be typing his work and did not pay to alienate what appeared to be the only support staff in the office.
Peter sat on the couch. After a while, he looked around the reception room. Except for some cracks in the ceiling plaster, he did not see anything he had not seen the first time he looked. Peter glanced at his watch.
It was nine-fifteen. He decided to check out the Sports Illustrated. It was nine months old but Peter thumbed through it anyway. He was finished skimming it by nine-thirty and was deciding whether to read an article on a Peruvian boxer or start on Field and Stream when the door to the law office opened.
Amos Geary's face was a beet-red matrix of busted blood vessels. What Was left of his unkempt hair was a dingy gray and he had compensated for its loss by growing a shaggy, walrus mustache. His bloodshot eyes were lost in folds of puffy flesh. Geary was as tall as Peter's father and looked twice as heavy. His stomach sagged over his belt and the buttons on his shirt looked as if they were about to pop. Peter was wearing a tailored gray pinstripe suit and a tasteful maroon tie. Geary was wearing an awful aquamarine tie spotted with stains that matched those on his rumpled brown suit. Peter's facial muscles twitched with the effort it took to hide his distaste.
Geary studied the young man from the open doorway, mentally reconstructing his face with his mother's features deleted and his father's expanded.
"Peter Hale, I presume?"
"Mr. Geary?" Peter asked hesitantly while he studied Geary's sagging jowls and bulbous, red-veined nose.
Geary shifted his battered briefcase and extended his right hand. It was sweaty and Peter withdrew his own after a light touch as if he feared he could contract alcoholism from the brief contact.
"How was the drive?" Geary asked, ignoring the light and Peter's discomfort.
"Fine," Peter responded, flinching slightly as Geary's alcohol- and mouthwash-drenched breath hit him full in the face.
"Glad to hear it."
"Don't forget you have court at ten," the secretary reminded Geary.
"What case, Clara?"
"Judd."
"Oh, lord. Not Judd," Geary answered, turning his back on Peter and trudging down a dark and dingy hall.
"Follow me," Geary called over his shoulder. Peter trailed his new boss to a poorly lit office that stank of stale smoke. Geary tossed his briefcase on top of a mess of files and papers stacked atop a battle-scarred, wooden desk.
Peter sat on a straight-backed chair in front of the desk. While Geary rummaged through a gray metal filing cabinet for the Judd file, Peter looked around the office. On one wall, among diplomas and certificates attesting to Geary's admission to various state and federal bars, was a black-and-white team photo of the 1956 Oregon State football team. Geary caught Peter looking at it.
"I'm in the front, kneeling down. Your father's behind me on the right. I opened holes for him for four years and I've got cleat marks on my back to prove Geary said with a brusque laugh.