The End of the Pier Read online

  “And don’t you go harassing that man—he’s bought his share of trouble and grief.”

  • • •

  The only thing Carl Butts had bought that Sam could see was three cases of Bud tallboys and a half-gallon of Jack Daniel’s.

  Sam knocked on the trailer’s storm door, still with the summer screen insert in it. That autumn, Sam remembered, had been especially chill, the air musky with the smell of leaves someone was burning illegally on the other side of the dank river that narrowed between its high banks as it slid through the trailer park grounds as if trying to shoulder off the debris: rusty tin cans and bread wrappers and empty plastic detergent bottles. The sheriff’s office had served the trailer park’s owner, Nicholas L’Amour, with several warrants, demanding he improve the conditions. But the L’Amour Trailer Haven (its dirty buff sign decorated with hearts filled in with information about lot size, price, and amenities—kiddies’ playground, for example, that no kiddies went near; sauna in a lean-to where you could see through the boards) never saw any improvements; money was changing hands, but not between the owner and the grounds keeper.

  Carl Butts, though he didn’t leave his chair, was a man of probably only medium height, but squarely built: square jaw set on thick neck, square shoulders and torso—the type of man that put you in mind of a trash compactor, pressed down hard and heavy inside, a lot more than meets the eye.

  Sam guessed it was a lot less, the way he stayed glued in the TV chair, the tube of flesh beginning to overshadow the belt, and the rather whiny voice that called to someone in the dark environs to get the door. He was sitting almost within arm’s reach of it himself, but the person who came to it was a woman. It must have been from her that Butts got his sweetheart looks and general ebullience. She had narrow eyes and a mouth like a mail slot—thin, squared off, and with a way of clamping down on words. Sam wondered idly, as he answered the question as to what his business was here, if Grant Wood had made his first pit stop here at the L’Amour Trailer Haven; Mother Butts was right out of American Gothic. Finally, she let him in, and then quickly reclaimed her seat before the TV, as if Sam might steal it.

  Butts looked up briefly from the soap they were watching, grunted out something about his day off, and returned his eyes to the screen. Neither of them asked Sam to have a chair; both of them wore equally puzzled looks, prompted by a witless dialogue between two interns and the open-mouthed, wide-eyed expressions of two nurses (meant, probably, to register shock, but managing only to look stupid). The Buttses were as intent on figuring this out as if it were the Idea of Order at General Hospital, an intellectual puzzle capable of being patched together only by a roomful of Harvard professors.

  Sam folded his arms and watched for a minute. He’d seen bits and pieces of this one; it was Florence’s favorite. He started burrowing his way into their attention by addressing the woman as “Mrs. Butts” and discovering he’d been wrong.

  “Grizzell. That’s ‘Griz-zell,’ mister, accent on the second syl-la-ble—not like them papers kept calling it, ‘Grizzel.’ Made it sound like “gristle.’ ” She had a whiplash voice and the same punishing eyes as the grammar school teacher who’d walked between the third-grade desks with a narrow birch rod.

  At least he’d got her attention for a moment. “Mrs. Grizzell. Sorry. I guess I just supposed you were Mr. Butts’s—relative.” He didn’t want to say “mother” in case she turned out to be not more than ten years older than Carl Butts. “Newspapers aren’t known for being accurate. But you’d think they could get a name spelled right, wouldn’t you?” Sam smiled his damnedest, realizing this was the mother-in-law, Loreen Grizzell Butts’s mother.

  She eased a bit in her rocking chair and nodded. “Think so. Now, what’s police coming back for? They got that Boy Chalmers that murdered my Loreen.” Her attention went back to the soap, where a discussion between a toffee-haired girl and a tearful woman had replaced the one between the doctors.

  Same talk, different people, thought Sam. “I’m real sorry about your daughter, Mrs. Grizzell. I’m sorry to intrude upon your grief, ma’am.”

  At that, she had to look up and look grieved, and pull the wad of handkerchief from her sleeve. But her eyes were still gorging on the soap.

  “Carl, offer the man a chair. What did you say your name was?” she asked, as Butts rose to drag over a folding chair with an orange vinyl back and seat. The color clashed with the pink petunia pattern on the slipcovered easy chair in which Butts sat. He grunted when Sam thanked him.

  “DeGheyn,” said Sam in answer to her question. “Sam.”

  Her eye strayed from him to the ceiling, the cobwebs there, and she repeated the name, mouthing it carefully. “De-Gin.”

  “Well, more ‘Da-Geen.’ Long e. Rhymes with ‘beguine,’ if you remember that old song.” Sam smiled.

  As if she didn’t quite trust his pronunciation, she asked, “Just how do you spell that name?”

  “D-E-G-H-E-Y-N.”

  That floored her; she stopped her rocking, then picked it up at a rather reckless speed, all the while shaking her head. “That ain’t no American name. What kind of name is that, anyways?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Dutch.” Sam smiled, offered his cigarettes around. She shook her head, but her son-in-law took one, his eyes still clamped to the swimming greeny-blue of the TV. They’d both forgotten he was a policeman, apparently. “It’s a funny spelling, all right. And even funnier, it’s really supposed to be pronounced without any g sound, and with a long i—‘Da-Hine.’ You’ll appreciate why I use the G.”

  She just shook and shook her head in wonder at the vagaries of oddly spelled names. “Hine? Hine? Well, I never did hear any name so peculiar that don’t sound like it’s spelt!” She shook her head in wonder. “Yes, I most certainly do appreciate you use the G. You American?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Born-and-bred U.S. of A. So was my mother and father. It was my great-great-great-grandfather that was Dutch.” Sam had no idea if this was true; the origins of his name were lost in the swirling mists of the Atlantic crossing. What he had discovered was that it was the name of a famous Dutch painter, but looking at the picture on the Butts wall of a twelve-point buck, gold antlers painted on black velvet, he thought he’d leave that detail out. Yet Mrs. Grizzell seemed satisfied by this, for she nodded and smacked her lips. Sam went on: “And I’ll tell you, it’s annoying—I mean, when I hear someone pronounce it who’s read it, or just looks at the name on my desk. I have to keep correcting them.”

  Soul mate, her eyes said. Oh, she knew all about that problem. “Carl, shut that damn thing off. I never could make out what those fools was doing, anyways.”

  Butts made no move, beyond mumbling something about “the damned fools.” He referred to her as “Ma Gris” as if his mother-in-law were a French perfume.

  Sam had seen five minutes now and then of this soap because it was Florence’s favorite. Walking through the living room, coming or going out, he’d picked up bits and pieces. Now he said, pointing his cigarette at the screen, “I think she’s supposed to be in love with that doctor there. Only he’s married. That’s what she’s tearing her hair out about.”

  “Floozy,” said Ma Gris, rocking, arms crossed, hands holding her elbows.

  “It ain’t her causing the trouble,” said Butts, topping another tallboy. “It’s him—it’s that intern or whatever. Want a Bud?” He held up a can and Sam thanked him kindly. Butts tossed it to him. “Bunch of assholes, anyway.”

  “So shut it off. I wish to talk to Mr.—” Carefully, she said “DeGheyn,” as if the word were a delicate china cup that might crack under the weight of the two syllables.

  Sam did not want the set shut off; it might provide him with an opening. Inclining his head toward the women who were rabbiting away near the nurses’ station, he said, “Now, that one looks like that woman on ‘Dynasty.’ ”

  Ma Gris’s head swiveled round to the screen; her eyes narrowed to slits, as if even this were a susp
icious statement. “What woman’s that?”

  Sam thought for a second. “Angela—something?”

  “That ain’t ‘Dynasty,’ ” she said, spitting it out.

  “ ‘Falcon Crest,’ ” said Butts, scratching at his belly. “That’s Jane Wyman you’re talking about. This one don’t look like her, does she, Ma Gris?”

  Hell, thought Sam. Well, given in his whole life he’d clocked up maybe one full hour of the soaps, he thought he was doing pretty damned well. Nothing lost; let them chew over Jane.

  “I got no use for that woman, none,” Ma Gris said in deadly level tones. “Do you know she divorced our President.” A sort of hissing whisper emphasized the devilish nature of Jane Wyman’s treacherous deed. “And let me tell you something.” She leaned forward and tapped Sam on the knee with a ridged fingernail. “The Betty Kelleys of this world, they ought to be drawn and quartered, drawn and quartered, think they can sling dirt against our President’s wife.” Ma Gris rocked furiously, arms locked forth-rightly across her skinny chest, nodding to Sam as if in approbation of his, not her, judgment.

  “What the hell you going on about, Ma Gris? Who’s Betty—?”

  “Do not swear at me, Carl Butts. It’s that blond-headed floozie of which I speak.”

  Sam quickly got out his pack of gum and shoved a stick into his mouth, clearing his throat and also biting the tender flesh of the inside of his upper lip. A week’s pay, step right up to the bat and give a week’s pay, he thought, to have Maud listening to this. When he could trust himself to speak, he said, “I most certainly agree. Gossips like her deserve to be horse-whipped.” His mind was clicking, clicking over any way to introduce the topic of murder. The attempt on Reagan’s life might do, but any venturing near the Reagan household, with Ma Gris in the party, could have him here until the snows came to cover him up. And no closer would he be to Loreen Grizzell Butts.

  The charge of “floozie” came this time from Carl Butts, who hadn’t forgotten they’d been talking about the soap-opera life of the hapless Jane Wyman. “You got the wrong gal, mister. You’re thinking of Krystle.” He took a long swallow of beer and looked at Sam with an air of superiority.

  Who was Crystal? he thought. Ma Gris leaned forward. “With a K,” she said.

  Sam thought for one insane moment she could read minds. And then he realized it was just her passion for justice in name-spelling. “Dynasty,” that must be it. He smiled broadly and said, “Listen, I got to tell you this story about ‘Dynasty.’ You’ll appreciate it,” he added, as if no one else had the intelligence to do so. “I was watching”—meaning Florence was—“one afternoon and saw”—oh, shit, what was the apparent hero’s name?—“saw Mr. Handsome Gray-Hair go backwards straight down that long flight of stairs. Shot to death—”

  “Blake,” she said, rocking frantically, and all ears.

  “That’s right. Blake. Well, he was just lying there, and there was Miss Platinum”—it had to be Krystle—“Krystle with a smoking gun.”

  Both Butts and his mother-in-law clearly wanted to leap into the account, but Sam held up his hand and smilingly shook his head. “But let me just finish. That night I was watching”—in other words, Florence had been—“and there’s Blake walking around as healthy as could be. Hale and hearty, no damage done. But that afternoon he was dead as a doornail. Looked it, I mean. And there was Krystle just loving him up as if that afternoon had never happened.”

  Neither Butts nor Ma Gris laughed. It was far too serious a subject for ribaldry. Sam chewed his gum ferociously, remembering telling Maud about all this, how it was the quintessence of the soaps: get shot in the afternoon and resurrected at night. The whole of soap opera. The two of them had laughed so hard she’d nearly knocked the lamp off the end of the pier.

  He didn’t expect the Butts contingent to laugh, and they didn’t. Carl explained to Sam he was seeing a rerun in the afternoon. “That’s a real popular show—been going for, oh—how long, Ma Gris? Seven, eight years, maybe?”

  She didn’t answer her son-in-law, but instead addressed Sam. “It should be disallowed.” When Sam’s puzzlement showed, she went on, rocking the harder as if to firm up her argument. “See, the reruns spoils things—like it did for you, to see Blake killed and then a few hours later, walking around bold as brass.” Unmindful of the inanity of her comment, she smacked her dry lips in satisfaction.

  Sam felt nearly sucked into the vortex of this total illogic; he almost felt he should convince her that any “Dynasty” freak would already have seen Krystle trying to stiff Blake.

  It was Butts who answered her. “Well, now, Ma Gris, why get mad at Blake? It was Krystle’s doing. Right?” His head turned toward Sam.

  Sam was afraid they’d all start getting involved in the “Dynasty” family squabble and opened his mouth to divert this. It was unnecessary, for she counterattacked.

  “You men always side!”

  She didn’t need to add “against the women.”

  Sam couldn’t have written a better script himself to open up the Loreen Butts case. He laughed slightly. “Now, though, Mrs. Grizzell—in this case, she did shoot him.”

  Ma Gris slapped her hands on the arms of the chair in the act of rocking forward and answered ferociously: “Drove her to it! That man drove that poor woman—”

  “Hey! Now, just you hold on, Ma.” Butts nervously fingered a cigarette from a pack tight in the pocket of his fatigue-green T-shirt. “Just you hold on now.” He lit the cigarette and tossed the matches in the full ashtray angrily. “I’d say just hold on.” He puffed in quick little jabs and kept his eyes trained on the blue-green images on the silenced soap opera.

  After a moment Sam said, “Well, Krystle was under a lot of pressure.”

  Smack went the knobbled hands down on the chair arms. It must have smarted, but Sam had given her her opportunity. “God knows the poor woman was—”

  Butts was still feigning interest in the faces floating like ragged water, but now his face reddened as he said, “It ain’t Krystle you’re talking about, is it? It’s Loreen. You think I drove Loreen to seek companionship elsewhere.”

  His prim way of putting this rather astonished Sam.

  Mrs. Grizzell said, “Why, no—that—”

  “Don’t tell me no. You been near to sayin’ it straight out ever since it happened.” He stubbed out his cigarette furiously.

  Equally surprising to Sam was the mother-in-law’s equable answer. “Now, your job did take you away a lot, Carl. And Loreen left alone here to see after the boy.”

  “That’s my fault?” He punched his thumb into his chest. “And she never did much seeing to Raymond, anyway.”

  “Raymond’s my grandson. Looks the spit of the Grizzells, if I do say it.” Smoothing her skirt, she went on: “Never said it was your fault. Man has a job, he’s got to do it. But look what the papers made of it, of my Loreen being . . . you know. Now, Loreen was never one to go about with other men—not like that Perry woman. Everyone knew she was a common whore. Went off and left them kids of hers with no one to take care of—”

  Butts cracked his knuckles; his biceps rippled beneath the thin cotton. “Took up with Boy Chalmers, though, didn’t she?”

  “Never ‘took up’ atall; you know her and Boy was friends from grade school. That’s what Boy Chalmers was, just a friend.”

  “All he could be,” murmured Butts to the silent hospital corridors, where the nurses soundlessly belabored their patients.

  Sam had moved not a muscle, had hardly blinked for fear of disturbing the current between the two. Now he brought down the front legs of the chair he’d been tilted back in. The tiny, sly smile on Carl Butts’s face vanished at Sam’s movement; he looked at Sam furtively, and his jaw clenched like a vise. Sam said nothing.

  Loreen’s mother went on, unmindful of the implication of her son-in-law’s comment. “To tell the truth—and I don’t mean to pain you, son—but I always thought Loreen and Boy would . . . you know.” Her eyes w
idened, the cold blue of them covered with a glaze of rime. She brought out her handkerchief again, kneading it in her lap.

  Butts said nothing, but Sam saw his mouth crimp. He looked at his shoes.

  To Sam, Ma Gris said, “Let me tell you about Loreen. That girl was shy. Shy and quiet.” She swiveled to glare at her son-in-law. “And don’t you go trying to paint a picture like the papers did—that my Loreen was a tart!” It was the even, deadly tone she’d used before, the last words brought down neat as a cleaver.

  Carl Butts flinched. “I never said that. You know, I never.”

  “But smart,” she went on. “Loreen was smart as a whip. Clever. She could’ve been an actress.” Here she looked at the TV, the doubled image of the toffee-haired girl. “Better than her. Could have acted rings around her. Could’ve been better than Jane Wy-man and Krystle put together.”

  “Well, she could rile a man, Ma; you know that.” He sounded almost apologetic. “Tart as green apple pie, Loreen could be.”

  The woman nearly screeched: “Don’t you go calling Loreen a tart! Yes, she could rile a person, but only if pushed, Carl Butts. It is a bald-faced lie to make out anything else.”

  “Ma Gris, I only meant—”

  But what he only meant cut no ice with her. To Sam, she said, “They got it all wrong—the papers, the police.” And she suddenly sat back as hard as if Butts had shoved a fist in her chest. Ma Gris must have remembered it was police she was sitting here jawing at. “Just what do you want to come bothering us for, Mr. Du-Geen?” Spite stung the syllables.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Grizzell. You see, I kind of agree with you, that we got it all wrong. See, I talked with Boy Chalmers, and he didn’t seem the type to do this.”

  “Goddamn right he wasn’t!” Butts all but shouted. His jealousy, his questioned manliness finally overcame his better judgment. “That man’s a fag!”

  Ma Gris paled. “Carl Butts!”