This Fiction Thing

Sometimes I blithely write a character, fall in love with it, and brag about how lifelike it is. Then I reread the book years later with burning face because, well, you can guess why it seems lifelike. 

My first romantic hero is like that. I plotted The Holoka Point beside a pool in Mazatlan. It was to be my first novel. It was to be Romantic and Suspenseful. Its hero was to be a stock trader. He was to be very mysterious, not altogether housebroken, and a Native American. Carefully and all the while wiping drool from my chin, I described his broad chest, his hawk-like profile, and the tantalizing streak of white in his long hair.

Mercifully this, er, thing has never seen print; in fact, I have never even shown it to my family. I’ve only kept it because I treasure the Indian Princess. She Gives Herself to the Pounding Surf, leaping from a Sheer Cliff in a Raging Storm. I mean, you just can’t make up my amateur naiveté. I like to remember how young I was.

Twelve years later, I paged through my photography credits and there he was, exactly as I had depicted him in my first novel. In real life he was a high-powered Native American attorney working for the local tribe. His long ponytail was streaked with white. His hawk-like profile belonged on a coin. His broad shoulders were clad in a hand-tailored suit. Not a detail was missing in The Holoka Point, although when I wrote it I didn’t remember this guy at all. Consciously, that is. Sigh.

If I reread that stuff now, and I blush to say this, I’d probably drool over him again.
Here’s Chapter Twelve of Dead on Dutcher’s Mountain.

Twelve
McCoy bent with a species of relief over the stub of Dudmann Brock’s head; anything was preferable to the autopsy on Gail Webster, which he had just finished. The stakeout on Dutcher’s Mountain had borne this unexpected fruit almost at once. No sooner had Gail Webster’s remains–McCoy used the euphemism to himself with wry precision–been deposited in their labeled drawer than Gunderson had called again from the mine. Brock’s fat body was found on the other side of the mountain. It had lain there for perhaps two days.

McCoy’s probe made finicky movements in his smallish hands, exploring without disturbing. Yes, there was a lot of smashed bone in the tissue, a surprising amount; the bullet had been doctored. Powder burns and bits of lead on the flaps of skin; no other foreign matter; a close shot. Dudmann was probably standing when he was killed. No need to look further; cause of death was destruction of vital tissue and massive hemorrhaging due to a bullet would to the head.

The wound didn’t leave much head, when you considered it. McCoy was not in the mood.

He straightened. Four needless deaths, maybe four murders, in a couple of months. Three of them discovered in the same week. It was too much; he hated it. Homicide was rare, apart from the barroom stompings and stabbings which came with the territory. A deliberate, flat-out premeditated murder like Dudmann’s was sensational. The brightest spot in the overall gloom, for McCoy, was the thought that if Brock was the one who fiddled with Harry Maatz’s car, there was poetic justice in his death.

But now there was the public reaction to plan for. Everyone in town would call for the news rather than wait for Wednesday’s paper. The lobby would be full of people with weird complaints about imaginary prowlers. Deputy Linda wouldn’t get her work done because of the visitors. His people would be set back for a week. And there was always extra work about a homicide, and no contingency money left, and God damn it to hell, why did she have to be the one to identify Gail’s body?

McCoy lowered his probe to the table and slid the dolly away with his boot. That was his real problem; why was Hillary the one to take the pictures? To learn who that half-skeletal thing had been? And why did a stranger have to be the one to comfort her? He should have stopped her. He should have put his foot down when she first showed up, pretty and tired-looking, half sick. And why did Johnny-on-the-spot have to be a pervert who got off on something like that?

The bastard was fast, that’s why, and the sheriff had been slow.

Well, stunned. You only read about people like Voerst, who get that indecent rush from pain. All right, it was done; no harm so far.

McCoy washed his hands and began stuffing instruments into the autoclave. This morning Hill hadn’t sounded too bad. She’d come down soon and get some rest. He’d be in close touch and have Voerst watched. Sit on him.

He walked to his retort of coffee and tipped himself a mug full. Hillary Webster. Her memory had remained vivid but now, more than vivid, it burned. He could stand right where he was and smell her dark hair. In this room full of chemicals.

The coffee was old enough to be thick.

First things first: Brock. McCoy toed the rubber tire. Why would anyone kill him? He wasn’t lovable, and he hadn’t made any friends in prison. But on the other hand he didn’t have any married mistresses, and he didn’t mess with women who were busy with someone else. He didn’t go into debt, not even when he gambled, which pretty much ruled out a hit from Reno. So it had to be the pot-farming that got him killed, and someone he trusted, a partner, who shot him.

No. Dudmann had never used a partner; too greedy. Maybe the drug dealer at The Whole. Maybe he wanted to horn in.

McCoy took a cautious sip of his brew. The why would have to wait. The real world kept turning, and his men already worked overtime without pay. Take it all personally and it would make you crazy.
Gunderson’s report about Gail lay on the counter beside the autoclave. McCoy picked it up.

“…Jessica Gunderson, Hillary Webster, Rosalie Burns and Dr. Ralph Witgens, the Dutcher’s Mine medical officer, remained at the mining complex during the tour. All other visitors and persons associated with the mine were present at the discovery of the remains. A list of their names is included at the end of this report.

“Lewellyn Jones led the party to the point where the trail debauches into a roughly circular clearing of grasses and azalea scrub. The trail enters the clearing at a point down-slope and southeast of the mountain crest, approximately one-thousand feet below the summit. From it, the crest slopes steeply to the bed of an unnamed stream, tributary to the Middle Fork of the Smith River, which lies below the subject clearing another seven to eight hundred feet. From the clearing, which lies at a slant of perhaps eight degrees, there is an unobstructed view over the forest toward the Trinity Alps and, eastward, to the Siskiyou Mountains. The picnic site was no doubt chosen for this view.”

McCoy sipped coffee and skipped to the discovery of Gail’s body, awkwardly flipping pages one-handed.

“Phyllis Bailey found the body before I reached the clearing. I observed her rush from the trees upslope, turn abruptly to her right (westward) to reenter the forest, then fall to her knees, retching. Brian Webster reached her first, offering help. Karen, Mr. Webster’s daughter, joined her father and asked a question. Lewellyn Jones arrived as Webster spoke. He then immediately went toward the trees which Mrs. Bailey indicated, stopped, turned, and prevented the daughter from entering the woods at that point.”

Good man, Jones. If Karen had run three feet farther she would have seen what her mother had become after exposure to summer heat and carnivores.

“At that point Robin VenLoo, alias Karl Voerst, walked east to the edge of the clearing. Others had the situation well in hand, so I remained near the passenger van to observe the suspect. With his face against a tree trunk and his back to the gathering, he stood without moving for some moments with his hands in his pockets. He ignored the proceedings. I have described his ecstatic expression to you verbally, and will omit it here as a subjective judgment.”

McCoy set down the paper without reading further and carried his mug into the darkroom, a double-sink sized corner of the lab with a solid door. Gunderson’s report was pretty good, considering his prejudice against Voerst, and his persuasive oral report had suggested that farcical test last night with the lights.
Voerst’s picture at the cave, blown up and cropped to become a portrait, lay on the counter in duplicate beside copies of a full-figure shot. Hillary’s photography yielded crisp detail, even with the cheap official film. Voerst’s face was all right, McCoy decided, if you like noble statuary. Now everyone from Sacramento to Washington and Interpol would get to see it.

McCoy’s head lifted and he sniffed the air; there was a draft. He turned off the light and looked toward the high, black-painted window behind the enlarger. Sure enough, light showed through a slit along a low corner of the sash. He turned on the light and looked more closely. The sash had been welded to the sill, but now was slightly bent from the outside. It must have been jimmied.

McCoy went out the back door and around to the parking lot behind the lab. The darkroom window was just over a narrow bed of shrubbery. It would open to a view of the lot, the City offices, the old library, and the movie house. Anyone beside the window would be visible to dozens of people, even at night. Nevertheless the bushes were disturbed and one had lost a good-sized branch which hung to the ground. McCoy stepped behind the shrubs and looked closely at the window frame. The scratch was plain, and a sizeable chunk of masonry below it was chipped out.

Here was a switch; someone had tried to break into jail. Into the photo lab. McCoy cursed, stared at the hills, and took a moment to think before he headed back inside.