by Tim Lockette
Jethro could have his hearing and be on his way to prison by 9:30.
Atticustpeale: We’d have to start early. We’d have to work fast.
CinqueMartinez: Leave it to me.
The next day at breakfast, Martinez pounced. “So, we’re off Friday,” he said. “Can we come to the courthouse with you, Dad?”
We’d done that before: reading quietly on a bench in the back of a courtroom on our holiday. Martinez hated it. Cell phones and video games were banned from the courtroom. With a screen in front of him, he was as motionless as a sponge on the ocean floor. Without it, he couldn’t sit still.
“I see what you’re doing,” Dad said. “Yes, Jethro’s plea hearing is Friday. No, I’m not going to discuss it further. And no, you two are not going to be there to unfurl your protest banner. You’re going with Taleesa. Wherever she’s going.”
We’ve also spent the October holiday with her, some years, as she interviewed cancer researchers in Auburn, covered Mobile’s first (and last) Oktoberfest parade and talked to people in Cheaha State Park who were making a movie about Bigfoot.
“Actually,” Taleesa said. “I was planning Friday as a writing day. Just going to stay here while you kids do your thing.”
“You deserve a day off, Mom,” Martinez said.
Taleesa chuckled. “I’m a freelancer. We don’t get days off.”
“We should go to the beach,” Martinez said. “Other people go on vacations. We just watch our parents work.”
Always good with the guilt, that Martinez.
“The beach in October?” Taleesa said. “The water’ll be cold. There won’t be anything to do.”
“Oh, that’s the best time,” Martinez said. “Nobody else will be there. We’ll have Panama City all to ourselves. We can hit the shops and walk on the beach. We don’t have to go in the water.”
Suddenly I realized what Martinez was doing. So I pitched in: “Maybe you could get a story out of it: Five things to do in Panama City in the off-season. Or maybe a business story about how the tourist traps survive in the winter.”
Taleesa thought for a second. “The business journals do pay well. And I owe the Herald a feature next month. Two birds, one stone. I like it.”
“Aaaand,” I said, raising my voice in excitement. “Your research will consist of going to the beach and seeing what there is to do. Enjoying yourself. You can have a day off and still get something useful done.”
Taleesa nodded. “I like it.”
“And we can stop and buy a lottery ticket just over the state line,” Martinez said.
There it was: the bass drop. Martinez was trying to get us to the shop where J. D. Ambrose bought his lottery ticket before he was murdered.
“I smell something fishy here,” Dad said. “What are y’all really up to?”
Martinez was silent. I jumped in.
“You caught me, Dad,” I said. “ I’ve been wanting to put up some flyers about Easy across the Florida line. Everybody stops at that one gas station to buy lottery tickets. This is my chance.”
Dad turned to Taleesa. “Sounds like fun,” he said. “Wish I could go.”
And we were in.
The last time Martinez woke us all up before dawn was Christmas. When he was five. So I was a little perturbed when he turned on my bedroom light that Friday morning, threw back the covers, and put a cold can of Coke in my hand.
“Time to go,” he said. “You’ll probably need some caffeine. You’ll want to tap it a couple times before you open it.”
Through my squinted eyes, I could see him already decked out in ridiculous beach garb: loud tie-dye shorts, sandals, and that too-small airbrushed shirt of a blue dolphin jumping out of the water that we bought during Spring Break like eighteen months earlier. The airbrush artists didn’t even get our names right: mine said “Addy” and his was “Martin Ed,” but he loved that shirt anyway.
“Jeez, what time is it?” I said.
“Five-thirty,” my brother said. “We have to hurry. Dad’s already up and getting ready for work.”
I drifted off. In my dream, I was in an icy forest with trees with red metal apples on them, apples with droplets of water on their sides. I reached out to grab one and CLONK! woke up when the Coke fell off the bed and hit the floor.
That’s when it hit me. Five-thirty. Three and a half hours to find evidence to clear Jethro Gersham. I ran to the bathroom, brushed my teeth while sitting on the toilet, and rushed so fast to get dressed I put my shoes on before my pants and had to take them off again.
“Good Lord,” Taleesa said. “What is the rush? I get a day off and I can’t even sleep in.”
“We don’t want to miss it,” Martinez said, practically pulling Taleesa out of the bed.
“Miss what?” Taleesa said.
“The tide,” he said. “High tide is at 9:30. We don’t want to miss it.”
He’d done this for a couple of days. Trying to come up with beachy-sounding reasons to get there early. On Wednesday he said we didn’t want to miss the scalloping; on Thursday, we needed to go early to avoid a nor’easter. I was pretty sure he had no idea what any of those words meant.
As we hounded and nagged Taleesa, Dad was beginning to look and smell like a big court date. Lots of aftershave, a new tie. Hair slicked back so every hair was in place. Still, Taleesa resisted rushing. She made us all sit down and eat breakfast together. She took the beach bags Martinez hastily packed, dumped them out, and started loading them again. “So do we really need floaties? We’re not going in the water. Sunscreen, maybe you guys can use.”
It was agonizing. By the time we pulled out, Dad was right behind us, loading his briefcase into the car. It was 8:30 a.m. Three hours packing for a one-hour drive to the beach! But then, I realized: Taleesa was the only one who really thought of this as a beach trip.
I sat in the back with Martinez, so we could conspire.
“Chill out with the high-tide stuff,” I whispered. “Let me handle it from here.”
“I can’t help being intense,” he whispered back. “We’re Jethro’s only hope.”
“You need to brace yourself,” I said. “Chances are we won’t find much of anything.”
“The best clues come out right at the last minute,” he said. “That’s how it happens in the movies.”
Bing.
Princess_P: Just a few minutes and another murderer gone.
I ignored it.
Princess_P: Halloween’s coming. Have you thought of going as a pig? All you need is a curly tail, you little fatty.
I was so sick of this. What could I say to hurt this person back?
I sighed and looked out the window, watching for the “Florida State Line” sign. Call me crazy, but I see a big difference between Alabama and Florida, even though it’s just twelve miles away from home. Even though on both sides of the county line, it’s all pine trees in rows, and swamps, and humidity and sun and gas stations that sell grody foods in red pickle jars. I guess it’s the signs. In Florida, all the signs promise sun and fun down the road. In Strudwick County, the signs are all about cheap beer, Marine recruiting, and the coming end of the world. “ARE YOU READY?” they ask.
“There it is,” Martinez said. “Gas and Florida lotto, next left.”
“Oh, all right,” Taleesa said. “When we win the Pick Six, I’m getting a hot tub. What are you getting, Atty?”
“A good air conditioner for the animal shelter,” I said. “Ads in big newspapers to help us find homes for animals.”
We pulled in to the store under a big sign that read STATE LINE LOTTO CENTER AND FUEL. The parking lot was all gravel, and the gas pumps were super-old, the square kind with mechanical numbers on them instead of a screen. The parking lot was nearly full, a fact I attributed to the offers made in bold pink letters on the side of the building.
WELCOME ALABA
MIANS
LOTTERY
BEER ON SUNDAY
WINGS
Inside, it smelled like fried food. People milled around a counter where chicken and fries sat under a heat lamp. Bandanas and car tags and were for sale on racks, and the wall was lined with T-shirts you could buy for $13.99. One had a Confederate flag and the words COME AND TAKE IT. Another had Jesus on the cross with the inscription PAID THE COST TO BE THE BOSS.
“Clues,” Martinez said. “We have just a couple of minutes to find all the clues.”
He was still convinced, I think, that clues came clearly marked with pawprints, like in a kids’ show. I just played along, pulling some Easy flyers out of my bag. “I’ll distract them, you look,” I said.
A mean-looking white lady leaned on the counter, scowling at a magazine. When she saw me, the mean look went away and she turned into a grandma. She wore a name tag that read ARLENE.
“How can I help you, sweetie?” she said.
I thrust the flyer at Arlene. “Ma’am, I don’t suppose you’ve seen this dog?” That’s how I always opened. Nobody ever says “I haven’t seen him.” They always say “I wish I could help you.” And that’s when you ask to put the flyers up.
But Arlene didn’t do what I expected. She peered at the paper and smiled. “I know that dog. That’s Edward.”
I didn’t even know what to say. “Wha? You’ve really seen him?”
“Oh, I seen him,” Arlene said. “He used to come in every week with his owner. That guy J.D. He bought a ticket ever’ week.”
“J.D.,” I said. “Jefferson Davis Ambrose? The pawnshop owner?”
“I reckon that’s what J.D. stands for,” Arlene said. “Of course he don’t come in anymore. He’s dead. A black guy shot him right in his own store.”
She said that last bit in a harsh whisper, casting a nervous glance at Taleesa as she said it. That stuff always hacks me off, but now was not the time to deal with it.
“So Ambrose brought in this dog, every week, and his name is Edward,” I repeated.
“That’s what I said,” Arlene said. “Had a little ‘E’ on his dog tag. J.D. loved that dog. It was with him all the time. It was with him last time I seen him. Although J.D. wasn’t playing the lottery then. He’d already won. He came back one last time to thank us. Look, he got his picture made with us.”
Sure enough, on the wall was a sign that said: HOME OF A LOTTERY WINNER. Beneath it, a photo of Arlene and some other people with a guy holding a lottery ticket. And right there next to the guy with the ticket, his tongue hanging happily, was Easy.
My head was spinning. Easy was the murder victim’s dog. Maybe the last living witness to the murder—except for whoever did it. Maybe clues do have pawprints on them.
“Wow,” I said. “So what did y’all talk about on that last visit?”
“Well, he thanked us for being so good to him all these years, and he gave God the glory for winning the lottery, and he said he was going to use the money to cancel all the debts everybody owed him—he thought it was the Christian thing to do—and said he was going to retire out of the pawn business, “ Arlene said. “Oh, and he said his brother-in-law, who was his business partner, sort of, wasn’t too happy about closing the place.”
“Did he say why?” I asked.
“Well, not really, but I can guess,” Arlene said. “I know his brother-in-law, Gary Dudley. He comes in here ever so often to get beer on Sunday. To hear him tell it, he’s a full partner in the pawnshop with J.D., but that’s not what J.D. said. J.D. said he owned most of the business, but that a little bit of it belongs to his sister—Gary’s wife—and J.D. keeps Gary on as an employee because he’s family. J.D. didn’t have a wife or kids of his own. So I guess Gary was worried about losing his job. If J.D. wanted to close the shop, there wasn’t much Gary or his wife could do about it, I reckon.”
Whoa. I felt queasy, though with fear or excitement I couldn’t tell. I pulled out my phone and looked up “Gary Dudley.” I needed a Facebook page or something. Something with a photo. Waiting . . . Waiting . . .
There. My heart stopped.
“Martinez!” I shouted. “It’s Cloudy Hair. Cloudy Hair is the murderer!”
Martinez rushed up, and his eyes got wide as he looked at my phone. It was a Facebook profile photo of a man we both knew. Old, slim, mean-looking with a cloud of stringy white hair.
“It is him,” Martinez said. “The guy from the animal shelter. The guy who wanted to kill Easy!”
Taleesa came up, too. I went through everything Arlene had told me.
“So, you see, Jethro really didn’t do it after all,” I said. “Cloudy Hair framed him.”
Taleesa shook her head. “I don’t follow you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s look at what we know. We know the man we know as Cloudy Hair is really Gary Dudley, the brother of the murder victim. And we know that the dog we know as Easy is really Edward, the murder victim’s dog.”
Taleesa nodded.
“And we know that Cloudy Hair shot Easy, and that Easy bit Cloudy Hair, and a day or so later, Cloudy Hair came to the animal shelter hoping to claim Easy. Claim him so he could shoot him. Or just have him put down.”
“Strange,” Taleesa said. “But not proof of murder.”
“Actually, very strange,” I said. “I mean, two days after your brother-in-law is murdered, you want to hunt down and kill his dog?”
“Maybe he tried to take Easy in, and Easy bit him, and he shot Easy, and Easy ran off,” Taleesa said.
“Fine, but why keep hunting? Why not just let him go? Once he’s in the pound, likely to be put to sleep, why try to claim him so you can shoot him yourself?”
Martinez lit up. “Because the dog is evidence,” he said. “You shot the dog, and for all you know, there’s a bullet still in the dog’s body.”
Taleesa: “Still don’t get it.”
“Okay, let’s tell the story another way. I’m Gary Dudley, cloudy-haired mean guy. My boss, who is my wife’s brother, wants to close his business because he won the lottery. I don’t have any say in it, and I’ll lose my job. But if my brother-in-law is dead, then my wife inherits the business and the lottery ticket. I’ll be rich.”
Taleesa, skeptically: “Go on.”
“It just so happens that my brother-in-law has a bunch of guns in his store, all pawned by various people, and he’s starting to call all the gun owners and tell them to come claim their guns. For free. And you know—because you’ve seen the X mark he puts on his paperwork—that one of the gun owners can’t read, can’t even write his name. Maybe you even talk to your brother-in-law about that to make sure you’re right.”
Now even Arlene was drawn in. “Keep going,” she said.
“So you take Jethro’s gun out of storage and you load it. You wait for a time when the shop is empty, and you use your brother-in-law’s cell phone to call Jethro to come get his gun. When you’re sure Jethro’s on the way, you shoot your brother-in-law in the back room of the store. And you type up a nonsense receipt—”
“I knew that was a clue,” Martinez shouted.
“—And you staple it to the lottery ticket. You give Jethro both. You tell him to make sure to hang on to that receipt, to prove he got the gun back fair and square. Jethro leaves with the murder weapon and the lottery ticket, thinking you’ve made his day. Then you just walk away. An hour or so later, a random customer walks in, wonders why no one’s around, goes to the back office to find him. Dead body, police called, cell phone checked, cops go to Jethro’s house. And Jethro—who calls a receipt a ‘ticket’—is like, yeah, I got the gun and the ticket right here.”
Taleesa nodded. “The perfect crime. Too perfect, sounds like a conspiracy theory.”
“Except it’s not perfect. One thing goes wrong with the plan. When you shoot your brother-in-law, his loyal dog
tries to defend him, biting you on the leg. You shoot the dog, and you don’t know how badly he’s hurt, because he runs away. So now you’re limping around with a dog bite on your leg, and maybe there’s a dog out there with a bullet in it from the murder weapon. Not so good for you if someone puts the two together.”
Taleesa seemed convinced now. “That’s pretty compelling,” she said. “Atty, you’re a genius! Your dad’s going to feel stupid for not finding all this before.”
Martinez shook his head. “There are still some problems, though. Jethro said the guy who gave him the receipt was a guy in a red hat.”
“Commonly used to cover hair, cloudy and otherwise,” I said.
“And how does Easy get away, if Cloudy Hair shoots him inside the pawn shop?” Taleesa asked. “It’s not like he can open doors.”
“I can see y’all have never been to Ambrose’s store,” Arlene said. “He was stingy. Never ran the air conditioning. In the summer, he’d have the front doors open and big fans running.”
“And there’s the marina,” Martinez said. “Dad told us that the business partner, the guy we now know as Cloudy Hair, had an alibi. He was fishing all day and had a receipt from where he put his boat in.”
Taleesa chuckled. “That’s the flimsiest part of the whole story,” she said. “Just because I have a marina receipt, doesn’t mean I spent the day fishing. A boat is a vehicle. I could drive it up Red Creek, put it ashore maybe near the highway bridge and walk into town in five minutes. Then walk, or limp, back to the boat when I’m done.”
“Speaking of getting downtown,” I said, looking at my phone, “It’s 9 o’clock right now. We need to stop Jethro before he enters his guilty plea!”
“Call Dad!” Martinez said.
“Cell phones aren’t allowed in the courthouse,” I said.
“Let’s go, kids,” Taleesa said. “Atty, you can try to call the court clerk and see if he’ll get a message to Dad. Meanwhile, we need to be heading that way. Go, go, go.”
We ran to the car, Taleesa kicking up gravel as we sped out of the parking lot. I think it’s the first time I ever saw Taleesa put a car in gear without asking us twice if our seat belts are on. Now, suddenly, she was a speed demon. Seventy, eighty, almost ninety miles an hour.