Taters pointed up at the bell tower in the library. “And that’s where you waited out the storm before you trudged through all that snow to get to a radio?”
Pilate nodded. “Seems so long ago.”
“Hell, our little adventure on the high seas in the Gulf seems like ages ago to me,” Taters said.
“Lotta water under the bridge.”
“John Pilate? Hey!” Dean Felix said, walking from the library door to where the men stood.
“Hello, Dean,” Pilate said. “Dean Don Felix, this is my friend, Taters Malley.”
“Taters?” He extended a hand. “How do you do?”
“Just fine, thank you,” Taters said, shaking the Dean’s hand.
“New in town?”
“Just visiting,” Taters answered. “Dean, is it?”
“Don.” He chuckled. “Don the dean.”
“Don, it’s a pleasure.”
“John was just showing me around the prettiest campus in Iowa,” Taters said.
“Nebraska,” Pilate said.
“Close en—”
“Yeah, we’re pretty proud of our campus. It’s an officially recognized arboretum site.”
“Impressive,” Taters said.
“Well, where you from, Mr., uh…Taters?”
“Malley. My last name’s Malley. Taters is a nickname.”
“Oh, I see. Well, welcome. What brings you here, to Nebraska, I mean?”
“Just visiting my old buddy,” he said, elbowing Pilate in the ribs.
“We love John,” Felix said, hitching his pants up on his hips; his belt needed help.
“Oh go on,” Simon said. “No, really. Go on, you annoying little man.”
“He really put Cross College on the map,” Felix said, wiggling his eyebrows. “So, Mr. Malley, what do you do?”
“Taters is a charter boat captain, Don,” Pilate said, irritation creeping in. “Don’t worry. He’s not a reporter.”
Taters burst out laughing. “Far from it!”
All color flushed from Felix’s face. “Am I that transparent?”
“Not at all,” Pilate said, his voice dry as a Hawkeye Pierce martini.
“Well, again,” the dean said, clearing his throat, “welcome, Taters.”
Taters nodded and smiled.
“So, John, I hear you’re the town constable now,” Felix said.
“Yep. Only temporary, but I’ve got bills to pay.”
“Well, I can’t think of a better guy. Hey, maybe you can teach a section of criminal justice next semester.” Felix laughed, a little too hard.
“You’ll be lucky if he does,” Taters said, matching the laugh with one of his own.
“Well played,” Simon said.
“You’re 100 percent right,” Felix said. “Well, John,” he said, turning back to Pilate, “could we talk about coordinating campus security with your efforts sometime?”
“Sure, Don,” Pilate said. He wanted to add that he was only working the job for a few more months, but he saw no point. “Call my office tomorrow, and we’ll set something up.”
“You bet. Well, I’d better get to a meeting. Taters, it’s been a pleasure.”
“All mine,” Taters said.
“John.”
Pilate nodded as the man took his leave, hurrying up the sidewalk to the administration building.
“Now I see why that guy shot his dean in 1963,” Taters said.
“Jeez, Taters. He’s not that bad,” Pilate said.
“Sorry. The guy just seems a little full of himself.”
“He’s a college dean.”
“Got it. I just forgot how those guys in, uh…what do you call it? Anemia?”
“Academia?”
“Yeah, that.”
“They’re not all bad. Most are just pumped up on the prestige of being a big fish in a little pond.”
“Then there are the ones who go psycho and try to kill you, like the former president here,” Simon said.
“Gotcha.”
Pilate looked across the oval, eyeing the bench where he’d first met former Cross College president, Jack Lindstrom. Pilate had driven in with a U-Haul and passed the time with a cigarette, waiting for the admin office to open. He carelessly tossed a butt on the ground, something Lindstrom observed and promptly upbraided him for doing. It went downhill from there.
“John, where to now? You okay?”
“Sorry,” Pilate said, shrugging. “Lot of crap memories.”
Taters cocked his head. “Tough for you here, isn’t it?”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Bullshit. All things considered, the sightseeing trip to that cemetery on the hill is officially off the itinerary.”
For the next hour, Pilate showed Taters some other sights: the greasy spoon, the VFW hall, the bank, the post office, and, finally, his office.
Taters wandered about the outer office, admiring the heavy shutters on the windows and front door, then the small jail cell. “Man, this is like something out of a John Wayne flick,” Taters said. “You take the speakerphone off the desk and squint a little, and I feel like John T. Chance could walk in anytime.”
“Ha. Never thought of that,” Pilate said.
“You’ve got a jail. Can you arrest people?”
“Technically,” Pilate said, “but then I’d have to be up here all night with them. That cell’s mostly for show these days. Especially during my very brief administration.”
“Ya never know,” Taters said. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He fished in his pocket and handed Pilate his phone, then walked into the cell. “Take my picture.”
Pilate laughed. “Okay, but don’t—”
Taters pulled the door closed.
“Close the door.”
“What?”
“Taters, I don’t have the keys on me. They’re at home.”
“You shittin’ me?” Taters’s face was a mask of confusion, annoyance, and a slight terror.
Pilate took the picture. “Gotcha.”
“Damn you, John. Don’t go pullin’ practical jokes on a man with an alien heart. Now get me outta here.”
Pilate unlocked the door. “Ready to go catch some fish?”
Before Taters could answer, a voice called from the front door, a female voice, shaky and trying hard to maintain composure: “Constable? Constable? Are you in there?”
“Yes, I’m here. What’s up?” Pilate asked, tossing Taters his phone and rushing to the front office.
Standing in the front doorway was a middle-aged woman with brown hair, hollow eyes, and blood smeared on her blouse. “Constable, y-you have to hurry. It’s Parker. I think he’s…d-dying!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bursting out the door, Pilate, followed closely by Taters, ran ten feet, to a ridiculously large pickup, idling, its chrome nose smashed into one of the ionic bank pillars.
Pilate recognized Parker Nemec lying on the ground. The lower half of his body was in his Ford F-150, but the other half was hanging out of the truck cab, twitching on a grim halo of blood.
Pilate kept his eyes on Nemec and bellowed, “Call 911!” He crouched beside the man, looking for a wound. “Mr. Nemec? Parker?”
Nemec’s eyes fluttered in recognition.
“Parker, what happened?”
The woman crumpled against the truck fender.
Taters took her arm. “You need to sit down, little lady,” he said, guiding her away from the scene, over to a bench in front of the bank. “Where’s your phone?”
Nemec muttered something unintelligible.
Pilate could barely hear him and rose up. He leaned over Nemec and turned the key. Before the banker fell out of the vehicle, he had somehow marshaled the strength to take the truck out of gear.
Pilate carefully pulled him from the truck cab and laid him on the street, then bent down over the bloodied body. “Parker, what happened?” He took the man’s blood-speckled face in his hands and tried to make eye contact. He knew it was cr
itical to get as much information as possible.
“Cold…” Nemec shuddered.
Pilate was no expert, but he knew that was a sign of shock and significant blood loss. “We’ll get you fixed up, Parker. Just tell me what happened.”
“Axe…me…” he muttered through chattering teeth.
“Ask you what? What happened?” Pilate felt Nemec’s body shuddering violently beneath him.
“Axed me,” he said.
“Asked you what? Parker, listen to me,” Pilate spoke calmly in measured, comforting tones. “We have a call in to the paramedics. You’re gonna be okay, but I need you to do two things for me. Can you?”
Nemec’s eyes fluttered.
“Okay. One, understand that you are going to live, and try to breathe normally. Can you do that?” Pilate didn’t wait for a response. “Two, tell me who hurt you.”
“He axed me,” Nemec said, each syllable clearly a herculean effort.
“What? What did he ask you? Who asked you?”
“This is turning into a sick game of who’s-on-first,” Simon said.
“In my…back,” Nemec stammered.
Pilate gently placed Nemec’s head on the ground. “Parker, I’m going to lift you up and have a look.”
“No! Don’t touch me. Hurts… Axed me, and…” Nemec stuttered, then blacked out.
“Shit.” Pilate pulled Nemec gently on his side. Nemec’s sport shirt was soaked with blood and had a massive tear in it. Pilate moved the shirt around and found a gash, about five inches long and an inch or so wide, almost horizontal, dead center between his shoulder blades.
“Looks like someone swung a baseball bat at him,” Simon said.
“No, an axe,” Pilate sighed, gently holding Nemec’s body. “Somebody axed him all right.”
Sirens flooded his ears.
“They’re on the way,” Taters said from behind Pilate.
Pilate nodded.
“Guess that fishing trip is off, huh?”
Burl Crites, the county paramedic, rolled up in his ambulance seconds later. “What we got, Sheriff?”
Pilate didn’t think to correct him with his proper, less impressive title. “Stabbing, right up between his shoulder blades.” He nodded his head at the gaping wound.
Crites knelt beside them and called over his shoulder, “Story, we need a pressure bandage…now!”
Pilate’s watched as Story Sudik, an Explorer student EMT, smoothly dropped to the ground beside them with her medical kit. Such professionalism and maturity, which went well beyond her sixteen years, had earned her a commendation from the governor when former Sheriff Welliver was shot. She and Crites were first responders, and Story had played a role in saving the sheriff’s life.
Pilate stood and thoughtlessly wiped his hands on his shirt.
“Burl, that look like an axe wound to you?”
Crites nodded. “Could be.” His voice was level as he went about his work. “Sheriff, we’re gonna stabilize him the best we can and get him to hospital. He’s lost some blood, but I think he’ll pull through if things go our way.”
“I need to know who did this to him,” Pilate said, watching Crites and Sudik working on Nemec.
“Understood,” Crites said. “If he comes to and says anything, we’ll take note. Story, get ready to move.”
She nodded, glancing back at Pilate a second before returning to her work.
“Who’d want to give that guy the cherry tree treatment?” Taters asked, leaning on the doorjamb as Pilate washed up.
In his small office sink, Pilate scrubbed the blood off his hands. “I have an idea or two.”
Taters handed him several paper towels. “What do you do now?”
“Where did you find paper towels?”
“Under that crummy sink. Old, though—Brawny looks like a teenager on the package. He can barely grow a proper mustache.”
“Well, thanks. I gotta make a call to the county about it, and State Patrol will probably be here any minute now to take statements. How’s Sally, at the bank?”
“Shook up.” He shrugged. “She’s okay, but that other gal, Stephanie…well, her husband showed up, and they’re pulling it together.”
“How about you?” Pilate asked, stepping out of the bathroom.
“What about me?”
Pilate nodded at Taters’s chest.
“Ticker? Fine,” he said, waving Pilate off. “Really.”
“Okay. You want me to take you home? I’m gonna need to hang around here and—”
“I don’t wanna tell you your business, John, but I’m a witness, too, so maybe I should loiter a while longer.”
“Totally right,” Pilate said.
He was interrupted by a familiar voice: “John? You here?”
“Yup. I’ll be right out, Commissioner.”
Jeremy Ryder’s tan, leathery face looked close to ashen as he stood in the outer office. “Jesus, Pilate. You got blood all over you too.”
“Not as bad as Parker Nemec,” Pilate said.
Ryder looked past Pilate. “Who’s this gentleman?”
“My friend, Taters Malley,” Pilate said.
Ryder nodded. “Mr. Malley, are you from around here?”
“He’s visiting from Florida. He was with me when all this went down,” Pilate said. “He’ll need to give a statement to the state police, I imagine.”
Ryder nodded. “Hulsey just rolled up behind me. You guys can talk to him in a minute. First, tell me what happened.”
Pilate recounted everything to an impassive Ryder, who leaned on Pilate’s desk, his arms folded and his legs crossed at his ostrich boot-ensconced ankles.
“Mr. Malley, was that about the way you saw it too?”
Taters nodded. “Well, I only saw a bit of it. I took Sally inside and called paramedics. John saw way more.”
“Okay, Mr. Malley. Please go on out and give your statement to the trooper, would ya?”
Taters nodded.
“Thanks,” Ryder said. After Taters closed the glass door, Ryder dropped into Pilate’s chair and sighed, his steely blue eyes unfocused.
Pilate fell heavily in the guest chair in front of the desk.
“An axe?” Ryder’s eyes still tracked ethereal.
Pilate nodded.
“Well, that narrows it down to every swinging dick in the county,” Ryder said bitterly.
Pilate glanced down at the bloodstains on his shirt. “I suppose so, but I might have an idea. I mean, I don’t wanna wrongly accuse anyone, but—”
“Go on.” Ryder’s eyes snapped over to Pilate’s.
“Well, I was over at the Tin Roof Rib Shack the other day, and a fella met me there with an axe in his hand.”
Ryder’s eyes widened. “Really? Who?”
“He called himself Mr. Tibbs.”
“Clever. Black guy?”
Pilate nodded.
“One of Robie’s crew.” Ryder fished a toothpick from his shirt pocket and jabbed it in his slit of a mouth. “Otis.”
“Well, if it was, I think we all know who that points back to,” Pilate said.
“Shit yeah,” Ryder said, “but why? I mean, Parker Nemec’s a damn banker. Sure, bankers ain’t terribly popular these days, but—”
“He came to see me a few days ago,” Pilate chimed in. “It was kinda odd, and he seemed a little…shaken up. I wasn’t sure what he wanted.”
Ryder keened a moment. “Scared?”
“Who? Him or me?”
“Him. Was he scared?”
Pilate nodded. “Seemed like it, though I never met the man before, so I couldn’t be sure.”
“Hmm. Well, somebody musta put a scare in him, then put a little English on the ball for good measure,” Ryder said.
“Whoever it was, they took a pretty good swing, for sure,” Pilate said.
“We need to find out where Nemec was when he got sucker-punched with that axe,” Ryder said. “Evidently, he was close to his ride and managed to get back here. I d
oubt he coulda gotten far with that wound before he passed out.”
“Do you want me to look into it?”
“Shit, John, you’re the town constable, not a detective, remember?” Ryder said, smirking. “But you do have a certain…native ability when it comes to these things, a good track record, of sorts.”
“True.” Pilate felt his guts clenching again.
“Still, this isn’t your job, and whoever these guys are, they’re playing hardball. It’s not that you haven’t seen your share of the rough stuff, but I’d rather you stay out of it for the sake of your family. Let’s let the state boys handle it good and proper,” Ryder said, drawing his thin frame to a standing position. “But keep your eyes and ears open.” Ryder clapped a hand on Pilate’s shoulder as he walked past.
“Will do.”
“Thanks, John. Let’s go tell Hulsey what you know.”
“Okay.”
“By the way, where’d you get those crappy boots? Look like something a damn Okie would wear.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pilate pushed a Modelo Especial across the grain of the Frontdoor Backyard Bar to Taters, amidst the buzz of night bugs coming alive at sundown.
“You gonna have one or keep drinking that fancy shit?” Taters asked.
Pilate leaned on the other side of the makeshift bar, his eyes on the martini. “Today’s distinctly a martini day, pal.”
“No arguments there,” Taters said, inhaling deeply and opening the Modelo.
Pilate was on his second drink and feeling every drop of it. “This place is cursed,” Pilate said, looking away from Taters, out at the denuded fields behind them.
“Now, John…” Taters started.
“I’m serious. This place is cursed and has been since that freaking nut-job, Professor Bernard, blew away his bosses here in ’63,” Pilate said, then sipped more of his drink. “There are ghosts walking these streets, Taters, haunting that school, and they demand satisfaction.”
“Ghosts? That’s horse shit, and you know it.”
Pilate smiled humorlessly, observing a gnat dying in his drink. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t the town that’s cursed.”
“Exactly.”
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