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  Mavis would never change. Paul hoped for years to see her looking too old and wrinkled and dried up to attract new cock, but so far it hadn’t happened. She sure smoked and drank like she wanted to grow old fast. Maybe fucking was her fountain of youth.

  The weird thing was, lately it had gotten even worse. More men, more drinking, more smoking. He was sure of that. There seemed to always be men lurking around—some of them pretty scary. One day after some jail-bird-looking guy left, Paul walked up behind her while she leaned over the kitchen counter. She appeared to be snorting something up her nose. That was something new as far as Paul could tell. When he asked her about it, she told him to mind his own business.

  Again, he didn’t want to attract attention to himself by yelling or walking up to them, but he wanted out of there. In addition to Longmire, he was way behind on both Pawn Stars and Storage Wars. He was hungry and was pretty sure there was enough Sugar Frosted Flakes and milk at home to satisfy him. Plus, he needed to get to his phone and his laptop. See what people were saying about Mark and Tina. And him.

  He needed to figure out who’d done this. And, he needed to make sure the blame stayed as far away from him as possible.

  When Mavis finally came to the car she was all smiles. Paul knew that smile. Then, she looked at her son and frowned.

  “You are in a lot of trouble, Paul,” she said when they were both in the car.

  “Mom, you know I didn’t do it. Right? It had to be somebody after Mark Pisko.”

  She didn’t say anything. Just turned on the car and pulled away.

  “Come on, Mother. Do you really think I’d do something like that?”

  Paul watched as tears fell down her checks.

  “I don’t really know what to think anymore with what all you kids get into. But I really didn’t need to sit in the police station and hear the detective accuse you.”

  “Well, please accept my apologies for being accused of murdering Tina and that asshole. I’m sorry it’s bringing you down.”

  She just kept crying. Sometimes he didn’t like his mother at all.

  “And thanks a lot for providing Fagan with so much helpful information. Jeez, I think he almost arrested me after he talked to you.”

  “Well … you can’t expect me to lie to the police. Plus, they would’ve found out sooner or later.”

  “Luckily, I think I was able to convince him I didn’t do it.”

  “Really? I hope you’re right.”

  “He tried to pull one of those deals like we always see on Dateline or The First 48, you know what I mean?”

  “What?”

  “He said they found a witness who saw me go in and out of the house carrying a shotgun. Even said they ID’d my Honda.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “He was lying, Mom, jeez. When I called him on it he finally gave up.”

  “Thank God.”

  “I know. Right?”

  TEN

  As they turned the corner onto their street, Paul could see his sister Bethany’s fancy car parked in front. It was a Lexus or a Mercedes or a BMW or something like that. As they got closer, they saw Bethany banging on the front door. She yelled something toward the house, got into her car and pulled away quickly. Mavis honked the horn and waved and Bethany waved back. Bethany glared at Paul. She looked really pissed. Then, she started talking on her cell phone. Typical, Paul thought, what a bitch. Must’ve known his wife had just been killed and couldn’t even pretend to look sad for him.

  Paul’s niece Miranda was in the house. Bethany, her mother, must’ve come over to see her or something. Weird. Miranda had a room in the house but hadn’t used it much since she was usually at her boyfriend’s. Unlike Bethany, who’d always treated her daughter like shit, Mavis loved Miranda and did anything she asked. The girl was nineteen years old, but most of the time still acted like a child. Mavis had spent a fortune on her the last two years or so: rehab, clothes, rent, bail bondsmen, cash.

  Mavis ran into Miranda’s arms as soon as she walked in the door.

  “I know, Grandma,” Miranda said as she patted Mavis on the back. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Paul said. He grinned, or at least tried to grin. He loved Miranda. She was a stupid dumbass, but he loved her.

  “Oh, Uncle Paul.” She approached him with wet eyes and hugged him tight. “I’m so sorry. This is so awful. I mean, are you, like, kidding me right now?”

  “No, not kidding.” Paul said.

  She pulled back and looked at him. “Wow, Grandma said you’re the number one suspect or something. Like you would ever, like, kill Tina. That shit is ridic.”

  “I was a suspect, at first. Somehow, I just got downgraded to ‘person of interest’ according to the detective guy. Such an asshole. Dude even smacked me around a little.”

  “No shit? Fuckin’ po-po, right?”

  “Right. Hey, what was your mom doing here a minute ago?”

  “What?”

  “Your mom, she was just banging on the door and yelling. Just now.”

  “Weird. Didn’t hear her.”

  Miranda was a great student in elementary and junior high. Her IQ was in the superior range and she was always in the gifted programs and classes. Back then, her mother never shut up about her achievements. Then, at some point in high school, she got into drugs and boys and sex. Her grades got worse and worse. She flunked out and still hadn’t taken the GED. Didn’t do much of anything except get high and fuck her boyfriend.

  When she was younger, she was kind of cute. But now, what a mess. Paul knew she and that crazy Logan thought she was some kind of superstar because they posted photos of her on Facebook constantly (the albums were entitled Modeling Portfolio 1, Modeling Portfolio 2, etc.). But the sad truth was she was ugly as hell. She was tiny and thin, with the body of a little boy, and awful tattoos covered most of her exposed skin. Her head was shaved on the sides and the hair that grew out of the top of her head was different lengths and colors: pink, orange, purple. She had horrible pale skin, her face covered with acne scars, which she tried to cover up with thick applications of makeup. She was not good with cosmetics. For some reason, she and Logan thought she should have a completely blank expression in the photos. She looked hideous.

  Paul always felt especially close to Miranda. He loved the kid, but she was just getting weirder and weirder. He didn’t have a good feeling about what she was up to and how she was going to end up.

  Mavis sat down in her chair and loaded her bong.

  “Would you like a drink, Grandma,” Miranda said. “Beer? Vodka?”

  “Just give me a vodka in one of the big glasses with lots of ice, okay honey?”

  “Could me and Logan have a beer?”

  “Sure sweetheart.”

  Shit. That meant Miranda’s drug-addict boyfriend was somewhere in the house. That was some scary human. Paul didn’t like it when he couldn’t see Logan. He didn’t own very many valuable things but wanted to keep what he had. The guy had about nine personalities and all of them were thieves.

  He went back into the hallway to look for him just as Logan, with his hair inexplicably completely shaven, was coming out of the bathroom.

  “Hey, Uncle Paul,” he said. He held out his arms. Kid always wanted to hug, except for those times he was threatening to kick Paul’s ass if he had inadvertently hurt his feelings. About a year earlier, Paul’d returned one of Logan’s friendly hellos with just a nod that the kid didn’t catch and he got so pissed he slammed Paul against the wall and said, “You ignore me again you sonofabitch, I’ll cut your tongue out.” After Paul apologized with all his might and Logan let go, he noticed Logan had a nasty, razor-sharp knife in his left hand the entire time. Later, he looked the weapon up on the internet and it was called a Karambit. Scary.

  “Sorry for your loss,” Logan said. He held tight and stroked Paul’s back. “But fuck that asshole Mark Pisko.”

  Logan was at least six foot six. He was lean, but h
ad long arms with huge biceps and wide, firm deltoids. Big, body-builder chest too. As usual in the hot Modesto summers, he was shirtless and his body slick with sweat. Before he’d shaved his head, he had a thick thatch of black hair. He still had his heavy, black, close-cropped beard that matched his black eyes. There was a dime-shaped patch on his right cheek where no beard grew. His eyebrows were thick, and black as well, and were only a couple of inches below his incredibly low front hairline. Before shaving his scalp, he’d always reminded Paul of a werewolf. Now, he looked like a contemporary Genghis Khan.

  He was born in Sarajevo, when it was still a part of the former Yugoslavia. He and his twin brother Dagmar were the rejected offspring of a Bosnian teenager who was the constant victim of rape by Serbian soldiers during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. At six, the boys were adopted by Sharon and Bobby Swift, who’d been moved by a TV news report on the plight of the thousands of war orphans. Dagmar was in Corcoran State Prison for life plus ten years (without parole) for the rape and drowning of the Swift’s eight-year-old biological daughter, Molly. He was found in their backyard hot tub with Molly’s corpse floating next to him. Had his iPod headphones on and was smoking a joint.

  Logan held the hug for a very long time. Paul knew better than to try to stop it before he was ready. When Logan and Dagmar first got to Modesto and the Swift’s home, they could barely speak even their native language, and they’d never been to school. They’d never even been outside of the orphanage room they’d shared since just after birth with a hundred other pathetic children. Both boys lashed out at everyone around them with a violence so consistent and cruel that they even frightened the administrators and teachers at their local elementary school. Diagnosed with ‘attachment disorder’ at twelve, the Swifts immersed both boys in a controversial therapy that included requiring them to stay within one foot of their new mother for days at a time; to sit in the laps of each parent maintaining constant eye contact while being spoon fed gobs of ice cream; and, to refrain from ever asking either parent for anything, until they learned that all their needs were being met. This process was designed to create the parent/child bond that Dagmar and Logan had not gotten in Bosnia.

  The results were mixed. Both boys calmed down enough to attend and participate in school and church relatively successfully, and they became easier to manage. But Dagmar acted out his rage in sexually violent ways and became a serial rapist the next three years—something that until the murder of young Molly he kept a secret by threatening his victims. Logan put on a pretty good act of being a nice, even sweet, young man, even though over the past several years he kept returning off and on to the violence of his youth, while also honing his skills as a burglar. Plus, he was addicted to heroin. Completely devoted to Miranda, he obeyed her without question. Paul felt sorry for anyone who Logan rightly or wrongly thought had insulted or mistreated his niece.

  “Tina was a sweet lady,” Logan said, letting go of Paul finally. “But she never should have left you. That pissed me off.”

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “Me too. But I’d pretty much gotten over it.”

  Paul didn’t say anything else. Just looked into Logan’s damp eyes until the kid walked away to join Miranda.

  He found his phone still connected to its charger. It was on the old cardboard box his radio/cd player had come in that he used as a bedside table. He checked: no messages; no calls. Not even from his kids. That was good.

  He took a shower. Then put on some shorts and a polo shirt and went back into the living room.

  Logan was gone. He saw Miranda and Mavis out back on the deck, smoking pot, drinking and talking. A common sight.

  He went to the kitchen, got a box of Frosted Flakes (pleased to see that it was unopened—people were always stealing his cereal), a gallon of milk, a plastic Tupperware container the size of a mixing bowl, and a large spoon. Sat in front of the TV in his usual chair and placed everything on the coffee table. Checked the recordings in the DVR queue and after much thought, picked the oldest unwatched episode of Storage Wars. He ate bowl after bowl of cereal, careful to keep adding cereal and milk with practiced timing to make sure he never had to take a bite of a gross, soggy Frosted Flakes. He couldn’t eat them unless they were still crispy.

  He loved Jarrod and Brandy (she had such great legs and nice tits) and Barry Weiss (“the Collecter”). He couldn’t stand Dave Hester (“the Mogul”) or Darrel Sheets (“the Gambler”). He thought the auctioneer’s blond assistant was cloyingly annoying (the one who always said “Don’t forget to pay the lady” for some inane reason), but he liked to look at the cleavage she always showed.

  As usual, he didn’t stop eating until he felt so full he was ashamed of himself. This is why he weighed 245 rather than his healthy weight (according to his doctor) of 180. He was glad to see that Brandy and Jarrod made the highest profit from a unit Brandy was convinced had cost too much.

  He felt so out of it. Groggy, confused, still anxious from the DM. He was seeing strange things out of the corner of his eye: lizards and dragons, and rivers of vomit and shit. He was also seeing Detective Fagan, hovering over him with the chair held high above his head, or, just his fist. Couldn’t believe Tina was dead and that someone would do such a thing. He was glad Mark Pisko was dead. He hated that guy.

  He wondered if he was supposed to do something. His wife was dead. They didn’t have any kids together but she had two of her own. Paul’s kids, up until lately, had thought of her as some kind of mother figure, he guessed. But he didn’t want to call them. He also didn’t want to deal with Tina’s family in trying to figure out arrangements because they were pretty sick of him, and for all he knew they could already be thinking he’d killed her. He’d hoped it was their problem since it was their daughter and he wasn’t with Tina now.

  He just wanted it all to go away. But, since it wouldn’t, he wanted to help the police figure out who’d killed his wife.

  ELEVEN

  After Storage Wars, Paul started to watch the previous night’s episode of Longmire. He loved it that the sheriff-hero was dark and depressed with some awful, bloody secret yet to be revealed. Loved it that he drove around in his rural Wyoming jurisdiction often drunk, with empty cans of Rainier beer rolling around in the bed of his pickup.

  First though, he needed to catch up on the internet. He paused the show and got his laptop from his room. Checked his email. Nothing but spam. On The Modesto Bee site, the headline read “Modesto Man and Women Found Dead in Man’s East Modesto House” over a large picture of Tina. Under the picture: “Modesto natives Tina Dunn and Mark Pisko were found early Monday morning by Pisko’s business partner Jorge Rincon. Police said the two were killed by shotgun blasts to their chests.”

  He recognized the photo of Tina. It was one of her Facebook profile pictures. She’d had it done professionally back when they were still married. A beautiful shot from the waist up of her looking directly at the camera. She wore a low-cut white lacy blouse and her brown hair was long and straight, with newly cut bangs. It was just after her double mastectomy followed by two saline breast implants. She did the shoot to show the world that she was still a beauty.

  Paul clicked on the headline to read the story:

  Former Downey High School and Fresno State University star defense back Mark Pisko, 43, was found dead at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in his Modesto home on 1321 Del Monte Avenue. With him was his companion, Tina Dunn, 39. According to Modesto Police Department Homicide Detective Anthony Fagan, both Pisko and Dunn were each killed by a double shotgun blast to their midsections.

  The bodies were found by Jorge Rincon, Pisko’s business partner in their used car lot on Crow’s Landing Road in West Modesto.

  Fagan estimated that the pair had been dead since early Monday evening. “At this point we have no clues and no real leads regarding these murders,” Fagan said.

  The 48-year-old Rincon is also a former local star athlete in both football and baseball at Downey High School and at the Universit
y of Nevada at Las Vegas. He and Pisko opened P&R Select Vehicles in 1998.

  Rincon said that both Mark Pisko and Tina Dunn were estranged from their current spouses and had recently begun a romantic relationship. He refused to talk further about the incident or the dead couple except to add, “I have a pretty good idea of who did this terrible thing, and I will do everything in my power to assist the police in bringing him to justice.”

  Shit. Rincon’s quote gave Paul chills along his arms and shoulders and to the top of his scalp. So what if Fagan had lost interest in him as a suspect—he still had that thug to scare the shit out of him. This fear, blended with the DM still coursing through his veins, caused the room around him to look sinister and dark, just like the night before. Felt like Rincon was lurking in the shadows in the house or outside in the bushes, ready to pounce on him, take him off to some hideaway, torture him for days. For all he knew, Rincon could’ve done the killing, maybe because of some business dispute, and would like nothing better than to put the blame on Paul.

  The article was clearly written early in the morning, probably before Fagan questioned Paul. He was certain Rincon told Fagan about his threats, though Fagan acted all vague about the guy (such a liar). He was glad his name wasn’t mentioned, but he knew that throughout the day, and maybe over the next several weeks or months, The Bee would find out more about the story.

  He heard Miranda and Mavis talking outside. They should at least try to act sad. He imagined the sound of the ice cubes tinkling in Mavis’ drink.