[Shelby Alexander 01.0] Serenity

by Craig A. Hart

  “What…are you looking for?” Evans asked.

  “Nothing. Checking out a hunch for a friend.”

  “Whose tracks are these?”

  “One set belongs to that Ellis girl.”

  “Jenny.”

  “Jenny, yeah.”

  “And the other?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Poor…girl,” Evans said.

  Shelby felt a cloud of depression beginning to settle back down. He turned and started back for the Jeep.

  “You say your station is close by?” he said.

  Evans nodded. “Not far.”

  It wasn’t far, a half mile down and a mile up yet another snow-covered road.

  “This road is…almost impassable in spring,” Evans said. “No gravel. All dirt. Turns to…mud.”

  “I remember,” Shelby said. “I went up this way to go fishing one year and got stuck. Lost a whole afternoon digging my old truck out. Ever since then, I’ve taken the county highway around. A little longer drive, but it beats rolling around in the mud.”

  “Where do you…fish?”

  “A true fisherman never reveals his secret place.”

  Evans smiled. Shelby mused it might have been the first time he’d ever seen the man truly smile. Evans was nice enough but always seemed a little depressed. Not that melancholy was a character flaw; Shelby had dealt with his share of the darkness over the years.

  The Jeep rumbled up the snowy road, which was little more than a game trail. Evans raised a hand.

  “Here.”

  They got out and walked into the woods again.

  What Evans called a station was nothing more than a stand of maples he had tapped for syrup. Aluminum buckets were attached to the tree trunks to collect the sap that ran from spigots driven into the wood.

  “The sap already running?” Shelby asked. “I thought it would be too cold.”

  “A little,” Evans said. “But if the thaw hits…it’ll start coming out fast, especially if we get above…freezing.”

  Evans inspected each bucket and spigot in turn, making sure everything was ready and operable. He was on the final tree when they heard the roar of a truck engine. Shelby turned in time to see a pickup come to a sliding halt behind his Jeep. Three men jumped from the back and two more stepped from the cab.

  Evans groaned. “This is why I…wanted you to come along. It’s those…Ellis brothers.”

  “Stay calm, Evans,” Shelby said. “Let me do the talking.”

  “That’s…fine with me.”

  Shelby plastered a grin on his face and walked out to meet the men. “Something we can do for you fellas?” He scanned the faces, looking for Harper, but the man wasn’t present.

  “You talk to Harp lately?” one of the men asked.

  “You’re Shepherd Ellis, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  Shepherd Ellis was a dark-haired, thin-faced man with deep set eyes and a nervous habit of rubbing his hands together. He was the oldest Ellis, next to Harper, and seemed to be in charge of this group.

  Shelby recognized the other man from the truck cab as Gannon Ellis, a giant of a man, well over six feet with broad shoulders and massive arms that hung like an ape’s. His face was flat and his eyes lacked the light present in the eyes of those more intelligent. Shelby privately referred to him as The Neanderthal, but never to the man’s face. As experienced a fighter as Shelby was, he didn’t have complete confidence in his ability to defeat the big man, if it came to that. As it certainly would if Gannon ever heard of the nickname. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but Shelby had learned to choose his battles whenever possible. Stupidity and courage were not the same thing, nor did they dictate the same actions.

  “You ain’t answered my question,” Shepherd said.

  “Yeah, I talked to him,” Shelby said.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “What you talk about?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I’m askin you.”

  “What’s going on here, Ellis?” Shelby asked. The warning bells in his head were going off, loud and insistent. Something was wrong and he had no desire to somehow give these men the idea that he or Evans was to blame. They were far from town and Shelby had no gun. He couldn’t have shot it out with all of these men anyway.

  “That’s what we’re all wonderin,” Shepherd said. “You been talkin to Harp a lot, ain’t you?”

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  “Makes me wonder, that’s all.”

  It didn’t sound to Shelby as if Shepherd knew anything about Harper’s hiring him to look into Jenny’s death. Which meant he didn’t know anything about the ten thousand.

  “Wonder what, exactly? I think your brother has a right to talk to anyone he pleases.”

  Gannon moved forward. “Let’s beat him, Shep. He ain’t gonna tell us nothin.”

  Shepherd waved him back. “Don’t seem right.”

  “Maybe you should talk to him about that,” Shelby said.

  “I wish I could.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “He’s dead, that’s why.”

  A tingle ran up Shelby’s spine. “Dead?”

  “Stone cold. Shot in the back with a rifle.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “That’s what we’re wonderin. You been talkin to Harp a lot. And you two were never known to be bosom friends. Makes some of us wonder if maybe you know somethin about him dyin.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “That’s what all murderers say,” Gannon interjected. “Why should we believe you?”

  Shelby weighed the risk of telling Shepherd the truth. It likely didn’t matter much, now that Harper was dead. But he had no insight into the politics of the Ellis family or who knew what about Jenny or Harper’s suspicions concerning the new drugs coming into the area.

  “Harper wanted my help.”

  “Help? For what?”

  “He didn’t think Jenny’s death was an accident.”

  “She froze to death.”

  “Harper believed she had some help.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “She’d been hit on the head.”

  Shepherd stood silent for a few moments, processing the information.

  “You didn’t know?” Shelby asked.

  “Harp never told me.” Shepherd looked back at the other men. “Any of you know this?” They all shook their heads.

  “Well, it’s true,” Shelby said. “Harper wanted me to look into it.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Gannon said, his face registering a modicum of understanding. “You’re a detective or somethin, ain’t you?”

  “Or something.”

  Shepherd stood for a moment, looking at Shelby. “So Harp hired you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He pay you?”

  “He did.”

  “How much?”

  “That’s between Harper and me.”

  “It was between you and Harp. He’s dead now. He always fancied himself the leader of the family, bein the oldest son, but I guess that’s me now. So I reckon I got a right to know. How much he pay you?”

  “Ten grand.”

  Shepherd whistled. “That’s a pretty penny.”

  “He figured I could get answers he couldn’t.”

  “How so?”

  “He said the sheriff’s been breathing down your necks lately.”

  “That piss ant,” Shepherd said. He spat in the snow. “He put a target on our backs the minute he put on that badge. Thinks he’s some sort of crusader or somethin, but he’s a greenhorn playin a man’s game.”

  “He’s no Eliot Ness,” Shelby said.

  “Nah, his name’s Wilkes. Little piss ant. Probly got a rich pa somewhere.”

  “You Ellises can’t be hurting for money,” Shelby said, instantly regretting it as Gannon’s face turned dark.

  “It ain’t the same,”
Shepherd said. “We don’t let money go to our heads. We still live like simple folks and work hard, makin honest money.”

  “Like selling drugs, you mean?” Shelby mentally kicked himself.

  Gannon growled and stepped forward again, opening and closing his hammy fists. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

  “I’m on my own side,” Shelby said. “Forget it.”

  “Yeah, well, our money was good enough for you, don’t forget.”

  Shelby couldn’t deny the point.

  “So I guess you’re workin for me now,” Shepherd said. “And since you already been paid, I suppose you keep on doin what you’re doin. Report back to me what you find.”

  Shelby nodded. He wasn’t sure if having Shepherd as his contact would make this easier or more difficult. On the one hand, Harper had been quicker to grasp events and what they might mean. But in a way, it was more difficult to deal with intelligent people; they were harder to bullshit. And Shelby had made a good living in bullshit.

  “Where is Harper now?”

  “At the house. We drug him in from the woods where we found him.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Oh, you don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It ain’t pretty.”

  “Harper never was. Let me see him.”

  Evans waited in the Jeep while Shelby viewed the body. Shepherd hadn’t been exaggerating. Harper’s body was not pretty. It was so decidedly not pretty, in fact, that Shelby felt a little guilty about his earlier joke. Harper was dead, all right. As dead as a man with no face could be.

  “We figured an animal got to his body before we did,” Shepherd said.

  “Maybe,” Shelby said. “But an animal didn’t shoot him in the back.”

  “That’s true enough.”

  Shelby leaned closer to examine the bloody pulp on the front of Harper’s head. He had seen a decent amount of gore in his day, but this was bad. It struck him how odd and round eyeballs looked when there weren’t any eyelids.

  “An animal didn’t do this either,” he said, standing up and pushing down the bile in his throat.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I said. There are knife marks, clean cuts. If an animal had eaten his face, it wouldn’t even be this tidy. Besides, an animal would go for the large organs anyway: the heart, lungs, liver, intestinal walls. Not a lot of nutrition on the face.”

  “So you’re sayin a person done this.”

  “Unless you’ve ever seen an animal wielding a knife, then I would say that’s a safe assumption.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Shepherd breathed. “What kind of bastard would do a thing like that? I mean, we’ll beat the shit out of someone or shoot a man if we have to, but we don’t go in for this.”

  “I guess someone hated your brother. Any idea who?”

  “Nope. I mean, there are plenty of people who don’t like us Ellises much. Jealous, most likely. But not like this.”

  “Are you going to report this to Wilkes?”

  Shepherd shook his head. “Nah. We take care of our own. Besides, that sheriff might have had somethin to do with it, the way he’s been after us.”

  “Don’t start anything, Ellis,” Shelby said. “I said it to Harper and I’ll say it to you: touch Wilkes and you’re asking for more trouble than even the Ellises can handle.”

  “Don’t you worry about us,” Gannon said, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “We can take care of ourselves.”

  “Gannon’s right for once,” Shepherd said. “We can take care of our own.”

  10

  Carly came over that night. She brought meatloaf and red wine. They had sex on the couch, which left Shelby with a catch in his back. He didn’t mention the pain to Carly; she was already far too aware of his age for his liking. She claimed it didn’t bother her, but Shelby was realistic enough to know the possibility always existed something—or someone—better could show up. And probably would. It wasn’t even a reflection on Carly’s character. It was simply the way the world worked. He was an aging lion and eventually he’d be challenged by a younger, stronger lion who’d fight him for his place in the world.

  He thought about aging as he watched Carly sip her wine. There was a fire in the woodstove and the warm glow made him reflective. It must have had the same effect on Carly, because she surprised him by asking, “Do you believe in God, Shelby?”

  It was not something they had ever talked about before. Not that they had avoided the subject; it simply had never come up.

  “I did.”

  “And now?”

  “The jury’s out.”

  “So you’re an agnostic.”

  “If you must label it, then I suppose.”

  Carly refilled her wine glass, drank, and then moved over to lay her head on his shoulder.

  “I used to believe in God too. I guess I still do. Although my perception of him has changed quite a bit.”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, you know. I don’t really believe in an old man in the sky anymore.”

  “You heathen. So how do you view God?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  Shelby shifted his position to ease the stabbing pain in his back.

  “I’m not as anti-God as I used to be,” he said. “There was a time when I was about as staunch an atheist as there was.”

  “What changed?”

  “Time. I got older and decided it took too much energy to take a stand on an issue no one could ever definitively prove. It took some getting used to, saying ‘I don’t know,’ since the God issue seems to be one of those questions humans have a natural need to answer.”

  “Even you?”

  “Sure. And I’ll even admit believing would have many comforts, so I have come to understand why some people choose that route. It would be nice to believe an all-powerful someone has your best interest at heart and things will eventually work out for the best. My mind won’t quite let me accept that, though. Too many awkward questions arise.”

  He turned his head to look down at her bare shoulders.

  “Aren’t we quite the philosophers tonight. What brought this on?”

  Carly smiled. “Probably the wine.”

  “I know you well enough to know otherwise. Wine makes you frisky, not contemplative.”

  The smiled faded as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I was thinking about Jenny Ellis.”

  “What about her?”

  “It’s such an awful thing, is all.”

  “People die every day.”

  “But not like that.”

  “Freezing?”

  Carly was silent.

  “Carly? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Did you see the report?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Jenny didn’t just freeze. She was also raped.”

  It was Shelby’s turn to fall silent. His mind whirred.

  “How do you know this? Did you read the report?”

  “Stevens told me.”

  “Deputy Stevens? Why? He seemed very close mouthed when I talked to him.”

  “He was sober when you talked to him.”

  “The Barn Door?”

  Carly nodded. “He came in and started drinking. Stayed until closing. Then he started talking to me while I was cleaning up.”

  “Why would he tell you this?”

  “Conscience, I guess. It looks like Wilkes is covering it up. I don’t even think the family knows.”

  “Why would Wilkes care?”

  Carly shook her head. “I don’t know. But it was weighing heavily on Stevens, I know that.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I guess that’s why I was thinking about God. It’s a sure thing there’s evil in the world and it would be nice to think there was something that could be done about it.”

  The information about Jenny raised new questions
in Shelby’s own mind. He was beginning to feel there was no one he could trust and that it would have been in his best interest to refuse the ten grand. It had seemed like easy money, but that misconception was being quickly debunked. While Harper Ellis would never have won any Citizen of the Year awards, Shelby had a working relationship with him.

  In truth, Shelby’s line of work often found him working for individuals on the outskirts of the law and this was not something that had ever cost him much sleep. All that was required was to figure out the limits and motivations of the employer. From there, it was pure psychology.

  Now that Harper was gone, he was left dealing with Shepherd and, to a lesser extent, Gannon. He knew less about them, but he knew Gannon Ellis was erratic, unpredictable, suspicious, of below average intelligence, and dangerous. Shepherd was something of an enigma. But he was an Ellis. And now what Carly had told him about Deputy Stevens left him wondering if he could trust him either. It might demonstrate the man had a conscience, so that was something. But if he was following Wilkes’ lead by keeping Jenny’s rape a secret, then what else might he hide? And Shelby had to accept the fact that Stevens had his career and family to consider. It wouldn’t be unthinkable he would do whatever he had to in order to make sure he could continue providing for them. In one respect, that was simply what a good man did. And if the time ever came when Stevens had to make the tough choice between principle and family, Shelby wouldn’t bet on principle.

  Carly stood up and emptied her wine glass with one long gulp.

  “I ought to be getting home,” she said, pulling on her jeans and t-shirt.

  “Drive carefully,” Shelby said. He walked her to the door. “And thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Why, the meatloaf, of course.”

  She snorted and flipped him the bird.

  “Whatever. Stop in at the Barn Door tomorrow if you get thirsty.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  He watched her get in her car and drive away, watched the taillights disappear beyond the trees, and was assailed by a sudden sense of loss, as if they had said goodbye for a very long time.