Back of Beyond

“Hank,” Cody corrected.

“Hank was your sponsor. That means whenever you felt like taking a snort you called him and he talked you down? Like that?”

Cody said, “Like that. But there’s a lot more to it. Nobody can talk a drunk out of a drink except a fellow drunk. He was good, too. He appealed to my best nature.”

“I didn’t think you had one.”

“I don’t,” Cody said. “But I’ve got a kid. I don’t see him much, but he looks up to me because he doesn’t know any better.”

Larry’s face softened some. Not much.

Said Cody, “My dad was a drunk. My mom was a drunk. My uncle was a drunk. My kid could go down the same road. I don’t want him to. So I want to clean myself up. Not give him a role model, you know?”

Larry looked away. “I hate this kind of sharing. Men talk to each other, they don’t share. Sharing’s for assholes.”

“Yeah,” Cody said, “believe me, I hate this Oprah bullshit. But it is what it is. I’m learning to find out what it’s like to be clean and sober. I’ve been pretty much drunk for twenty years. And you know what?”

“What?”

“It sucks. I don’t know how you people do it-too much reality. But Hank was good because he understood and didn’t try to act superior. He knew where I am now. He went through it himself, and he was a tough bastard. Marine. Desert Storm, in fact. And he did it all on his own. His wife left him years ago and he had no brothers or sisters. His parents were dead. He did the Twelve Steps on his own.”

Moments went by. The rain thrummed on the roof.

“Well, good for you,” Larry said. “I didn’t mean to give you a hard time. But it seemed you were holding out, like testing me or something.”

“I told you it wasn’t like that.”

Larry took a deep breath and threw his shoulders back. “So can we get on with this now? Can we figure this stupid thing out?”

“Yeah,” Cody said, grateful.

“So what did Hank Winters do? Was he coming back here from a trip?”

“Probably. He was on the road most of the time. A pharmaceutical rep. His territory was the whole mountain west, from what he told me. He didn’t tell me the specifics, but he was gone three out of four weeks a month. He stayed sober even though he was surrounded by temptation-all those airports and hotel bars. Think about it. He once told me, ‘Even if you’re not at home you can always find a meeting.’ And he did.”

Larry nodded. “So how could he be your sponsor if he was gone all the time?”

“I thought we put that away,” Cody said. “But since you asked, I called him on his cell. He’d answer me any time of the day or night, wherever he was. I pulled him out of some big meeting once with a hospital and he took the call and talked me down for forty-five minutes. A couple of weeks later he said he got beat out of a commission for five thousand bucks. But he took my call. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

“A good guy,” Larry said.

“Yes,” Cody said, looking down at his sodden boots and feeling his chest contract. “A saint. My saint. And not the type of guy who would buy a liter of Wild Turkey and drink the whole bottle alone. He just wouldn’t do that. No way. That’s why I think this wasn’t an accident.”

“Who would kill him? Somebody local? Any ideas?” Larry asked. But it was obvious he wasn’t convinced.

“No idea in the world,” Cody said. “But AA is its own world. We share-I mean talk about-the most intimate things in the world with each other. But other than his job, I don’t really know much about him. That’s the way it works.”

Larry took a couple of steps toward Cody. His voice was low. He said, “Cody, I know you want to believe that. And you may be right. But shit, man, isn’t it ‘once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic?’ I mean, maybe something happened. Maybe he just fell off the wagon. You can’t say it doesn’t happen.”

“Not Hank,” Cody said. But a kernel of doubt had been planted.

“Maybe just this once he fucked up,” Larry said. “It happens. You know it happens.”

“NOT HANK,” Cody said.

“Okay,” Larry said, putting his free hand up, palm out. “I’m just sayin’.”

“There’s something else,” Cody said, suddenly feeling as if the floor was buckling under his feet. “I checked out his briefcase.”

Larry said, “And…?”

“His coins were gone. He always kept his coins in a plastic sleeve in his briefcase. He’d bring them out whenever we met face to face and show them to me. He was so proud of them.”

Suddenly, the kitchen flooded with light. Cars had entered the parking area. Cody could see Larry without lifting up his flashlight. In the glare of the lights through the rain-streaked windows, the surface of Larry’s face and head was patterned with shadowed rivulets that looked like channels in an ant farm.

“Skeeter,” Larry said, chinning toward the window. “Maybe the sheriff, too. At least three units. A whole shitload of ’em.”

Cody didn’t look over.

“The coins,” Larry said. “Were they gold coins or something? Valuable? So you’re saying maybe it was a robbery and a murder?”

Cody shook his head. “The coins weren’t worth shit.”

“So what are you driving at?”

“They’re AA coins,” Cody said softly. “Twelve-step program coins. One for every year from the local chapter. They’re probably worth twenty bucks each, if that. There’s a goddamned elk on the Helena Chapter ones. Hank had nine of them. I’m ten months away from getting my first one and I’ve never wanted something so bad. And they’re missing.”

Larry shrugged. “So your point is what?”

“They’re gone,” Cody said.

Outside, he could hear the sound of doors slamming and loud voices.

Larry said, “We better go out and fill them in.”

Back out in the rain, Larry said over his shoulder, “My cynical cop mind tells me Henry, I mean Hank, tossed the coins away when he decided to go on a bender. You know, like symbolic.”

“Not Hank,” Cody said.

4

Sheriff Edward “Tub” Tubman and Undersheriff Cliff Bodean arrived on the scene in identical beige GMC Yukons with LEWIS AND CLARK COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT decals on the front doors. They parked side by side next to Larry’s rig. Dougherty jumped out of his car to greet them. Both hikers remained inside his vehicle. As Larry and Cody approached, Tubman was unfolding his rain suit. His new gray Stetson rancher-an affectation that appeared the day after he declared he was running for reelection-was on the wet hood of his Yukon, the top of it already darkened from the rain. Cody was annoyed the sheriff didn’t know enough to rest a good hat like that crown-down on a surface like real ranchers did.

Bodean was still in his vehicle and talking to dispatch over the radio.

The sheriff shot his arms through the sleeves of the suit but it got bunched around his head and he struggled. Cody was reminded of a turtle.

“Let me help you with that,” Dougherty said, giving the back hem of the coat a yank. When he did, Tubman’s head popped through the material and he came up sputtering.

“Damn thing anyway,” he said, reaching for his hat. “So what have we got, boys?”

Tubman was short and doughy with a gunfighter’s mustache and a tuft of hair that circled his round head like a smudge.