In the morning, it was cold, and when Robert awoke and walked out to the kitchen, the floorboards beneath his feet felt like frozen steel.
He dumped some grounds in his old drip pot, turned on the black-and-white television on the counter, and sat down at the table waiting. There had never before been an Indian summer in Rio Verde that had lasted this long, and that made him uncomfortable. The cold, too, seemed to be a bad omen, a portent of things to come, and he found himself wondering if anyone had died during the night.
He stared for a moment at the dull gray metal of the coffeepot, then forced himself to stand up and walk out to the living room. He dialed the station, asked Ted if everything was all right, was gratified to hear that it was. But he still felt uneasy.
He stopped by Rich's house on the way to work, dropping in unannounced.
Corrie was already gone, and Rich was in the bathroom shaving, but Anna opened the door and greeted him enthusiastically. 'Uncle Robert!' she cried, throwing her arms around him.
Grinning, he picked her up and gave her a loud kiss on the forehead.
She giggled, wiping her forehead with one hand while using the other to check inside his shirt pocket. 'Where's my present?' she asked.
He looked puzzled. 'Present? What present?' Anna laughed, hitting his shoulder. 'Come onI' 'Hmmm. Let me think.' He withdrew a stick of Juicy Fruit from his left front pants pocket, snaked his arm around her head, and pretended to pull the gum from behind her ear. 'Why, here's a piece of gum!'
He put her down on the floor, and she ran back through the house toward her bedroom. 'Thank you, Uncle Robert!'
He followed her into the hallway. 'Rich! You home?' His brother stuck his head out of the bathroom, small flecks of white shaving cream around his neck. 'Yeah. What is it?'
'You busy today?'
'Maybe. Why? '
'I thought I'd go out and-see Pee Wee. You want to come along?'
Rich off the with a towel. wiped excess shaving cream
'Are you going to be talking about the FBI or vampires?'
'Both.'
'Vampires?' Anna yelled from her bedroom.
'Little pitchers,' Rich said to his brother. 'Get ready for school!' he called to Anna.
Rich turned back to his brother, nodded. 'I'll go. But I have to take her to school first. And stop by the paper for a few minutes.' i 'That's okay.' Robert grimaced. 'I have some faxing to do.'
'Have you talked to Pee Wee at all lately?'
'A little. Just about Rossiter..... 'You haven't asked him what he thinks--'
'I was going to ask him today.'
Rich nodded. 'I'll come by the station, then. Give me an hour.'
'You got it.'
Pee Wee Nelson lived alone at the far end of Caballo Canyon in a house he'd built himself. He'd started the house in the early 1970s, at the peak of the environmental movement, and had worked on it in his spare time and during vacations un till his retirement over a decade later.
Made end rely from castoff and recycled materials, the house was known locally as Pee Wee's Pagoda, and that was exactly what the structure resembled. Disdainful of the geodesic domes and submerged earth dwellings popular during the period, he had decided instead to build upward, to showcase rather than hide his home.
The achievement was significant, and the home was still being improved upon long after many other ecologically oriented dwellings had been sold or abandoned. There'd even been an article on Pee Wee and his house in the Arizona Republic the week he had retired as police chief.
Of all other respects, Pee Wee was ultraconservative. An ardent NRA member and a Goldwater supporter from way back, he was a past president of the Rio Verde Republicans, and a very vocal right-wing activist.
Like many lifelong outdoors men however, he understood nature and valued it in a way that many limousine liberals did not seem capable of.
He was the only man Robert knew who had both NRA and Wilderness Society stickers on the bumper of his pickup truck.
Pee Wee was in his seventies now, but he looked, talked, and acted like a man in his early fifties. He might be a little more stoop-shouldered than he had been in his prime, but at six-foot-five he still towered over everybody else in town and still had the ability to intimidate even the toughest cowboys. He a/so commanded the respect of nearly everyone in Rio Verde, Rich and Robert included.
In recent years, he'd taken to making mirrors to supplement his retirement income, buying the glass wholesale and cutting it into various designs. The venture had proved lucrative, and he more than doubled his retirement earnings selling his 'artwork' to tourists from the
Rocking DID.
Both Robert and Rich had one of Pee Wee's mirrors--gifts---hanging in their respective houses.
It was ten o'clock before they finally left the police station, Robert promising Steve that he would be back before noon, ordering the deputy to stall Rossiter if the FBI agent called.
Robert drove, pulling onto the highway without looking, swerving in front of a refrigerated semi that was al ready pushing the speed limiL
The truck braked, swung into the left lane. The semi's horn blared, but only for a second, the driver obviously realizing that he'd been cut off by a cop car.
'Aah,' Robert said, grinning. 'The trappings of power.'
Rich checked his seat belt. 'Yofi're going to get us killed one of these days.'
'Pansy.' 'You always pull this macho shit when you go to see Pee Wee.
You'll probably start spitting when we get there, too. You always do.'
They headed out of town, driving north. Robert honked as they passed Jud, hiding in his speed trap behind the bowling alley.
'Would you ever have an affair?' Robert asked. 'Why would you even ask something like that?' Robert shrugged. 'I don't know. It's just that you and Corrie seem .. . well, not exactly all fired up about each other.'
'A relationship's not a straight line. There are hills and
'This is a valley?' :
'Maybe a canyon.'
'To me, the best part of a relationship seems to be the beginning. You know, when you touch for the first time, kiss for the first time--'
'I don't want to hear where this is going.' 'It is, though. It's the best part. It's more exciting when you're first exploring, when her body's new to you--'
'Do we have to talk about this?'
'Just because you're stuck in a rut...'
'The longest relationship you've had been, what, a month?'
'Three years and you know it.'
They were silent for a while. right, Rich said finally. Robert sighed. 'You know, many time I wish we'd had kids, Julie and me.' 'You think that would're changed anything? You think that would've saved the marriage?'
'No. But at least I'd have something to show for it, yon know?'
'I'Ve got a news flash for you. Kids are not trophies. They're people. It might gratify your own vanity if you'd had a child, but think of how tough it would be for that kid, shuffling back and forth between you and Julie--'
Robert groaned. 'Lighten up, for Christ's sake. Stop lecturing. I was just talking. You take everything so damn seriously. That's your main problem.'
'You weren't just talking; you meant it.'
'Give it up.'
They were into the desert, the town behind them, and the shoulder at the side of the highway was littered with the discarded husks of blown-out truck tires, their black and twisted forms looking like the charred corpses of known animals. The gravel sparkled with the shards of broken beer bottles.
Robert turned down an unmarked dirt road that hit the highway just after the third cat de guard. The caI
