An Unattended Death, Part 4

      There I stood, my eyes fixed on the big black gun in Marshall Brody's hand. It was large enough to fire rockets. It was pointed at the ground.
      "What are you doing here?" Brody asked again, his voice rising.
      My friend Thomas was nowhere to be seen. He was still looking for deer sign somewhere. I hoped a maddened buck trampled him.
      "Don't I know you?" Brody asked. "You work for the radio station? I've seen you at remotes."
      I nodded, my voice apparently having left my body in search of someone who didn't the brains of gravel.
      He nodded and slipped the gun into his front pocket. I couldn't understand how that honking huge thing could fit.
      "What are you doing here?" he asked.
      "My friend and I are looking for deer sign," I said. "He's around here somewhere." Naturally Thomas didn't appear. Get him, Bambi, I thought. Kick him for me.
      Brody nodded. "And I guess you saw this." He motioned toward the tape. "And you just had to see." His face twisted.
      "I was sorry to hear about your son," I said. "I can't imagine how terrible it's been for you."
      He sighed and looked at the ground. "Thank you. What's your name?"
      I told him, and he nodded absently.
      "I was just trying to look around," he said. "I thought there might be something that they missed. Pretty dumb, I guess, but a man's supposed to take care of his family."
      "No, it's not dumb," I said.
      "He was clean," Brody said. "I know everyone thinks he started again, but he was clean. Someone forced him to do it. Then they left him here. They left my boy here."
      He stood there a long time, looking at the fluttering tape.
      Finally he moved off, giving me a sort of wave.
      I went back to Thomas's truck and waited. After a few minutes, the brave white hunter returned.
      "I found a lot of deer sign," Thomas said excitedly. "Oh, it would have been hard for most people to see, but if you pay attention and keep your senses finely tuned, you can see it. You've just got to be aware of the total environment. Why are you looking at me like that?"
      After Thomas dropped me off at my place, I sat on my couch, petting my dog Bo.
      "Bo, I think I've finished playing Rockford," I said. Bo just wagged his stump of a tail. "I'm done."
      But I wasn't. As I sat there, something nagged at me. Something about the trip out to the woods. Or maybe the funeral. It sat there, like some word on the tip of my tongue. Perhaps I was flattering myself, but just like C.J., I thought there was something more to Aaron Brody's death. But really what could I do?
      I kept thinking about how small and sad he looked in the coffin. I thought about his father and his mother. I thought about Simon. And then I thought about Marlene Postwain.
      Marlene was bad through and through, they said. I'd seen her little red car around town, but I'd never seen her or noticed her before. I thought about what the gossipy lady at the funeral had told us. She had said Marlene worked somewhere ... Where was it? Oh, yes, I remembered. I got my coat and car keys and left before I could change my mind.
      And that's how this Baptist, small-town boy ended up at the Stuttering Rooster, western Oklahoma's most infamous strip bar.
(To be continued)
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