The Deadly Cotton Heart

by Ralph Dennis

  Turk hesitated and I came level with him. He waved me around the left side of the house. I saw him head straight for the front steps. I ducked and trotted toward the back of the house. I’d gone about ten yards when I heard the whomp-whomp of a shotgun. I stopped. Turk, who’d been on the steps, sprinted past me.

  “Ed, you sing out.”

  “I got him, Turk. I’m all right.”

  Turk ran on. He could still move. I settled to a walk. By the time I reached the back steps, the two young cops and Turk formed a half-circle around the body of Billy Bennett. Two heavy-duty flashlights lit up the body. I only needed one look. He’d taken two hits. One had torn up his chest. The other had blown away the top of his head.

  I could hear the shuddering breath from Ed. “I do the right thing, Turk?”

  Turk put a foot on the bottom back step. “You call out to him?

  “It didn’t do any good up front,” Ed said.

  “You tell him to stop?”

  “I called his name,” Ed said, “and he turned the shotgun toward me.”

  “You whisper?”

  I skirted the body. The shotgun was on the ground next to him. I picked up the shotgun. I couldn’t be sure in the dark, but I thought it was an old Iver Johnson with the exposed hammers. I fumbled with the catch and opened it. I used a finger to check the chambers. Empty, no shells in it. I reached out and took the flashlight from the young cop whose name I didn’t know. I worked it around the area. Near Billy Bennett’s left hand, I found a scattering of shells. Before I returned the flashlight, I moved it over my hands. I’d picked up slick palms from the oil.

  I walked up the back steps and into the house. The smell of the cleaning oil was stronger in there. The open bottle of oil, the rod and the cleaning patches were on the kitchen table. There was an open box of shells on the kitchen sink. Five or six shells were left in the box. I read the label. Double-o buckshot.

  Steps behind me on the plank floor. Turk leaned past me and looked at the shells. “That’s nasty stuff,” he said.

  I nodded. Double-o could cure hangnails, bad breath and the clap all at once.

  It was three-thirty-five by my watch.

  Turk lined up three paper cups on the night table and cracked the seal on the bottle of J&B. He sat on the edge of my bed and poured fist-like shots. I sipped mine and held Hump’s for him until he came out of the bathroom where he’d been washing up. It was that kind of night. I looked down at what had been at one time a good pair of summer pants. I looked like I’d been digging in a clay pit.

  “This hair won’t scratch you,” Turk said.

  I could feel him watching me. It had been that way on the drive from Rock Farm to Thelma’s where I’d picked up my Ford. We’d agreed to meet at the motel room for a drink. Now it had started up again. A close, tight watch like he was trying to read my mind. That walk around wasn’t necessary. All he had to do was ask. I’d be glad to tell him.

  “You still bothered, Hardman?”

  “That cowboy of yours, after he goes back to work at the garage, he ain’t going to work on my car.”

  “That’s what’s burning you?”

  “This dead-end,” I said. “I might as well be back in Atlanta.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Turk said.

  I grinned at Hump. “You think the chief is telling us to leave town?”

  “Nothing like that,” Turk said, “but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to rain out the festival tomorrow, too.”

  “I’ll make one more deal with you.” I held out the cup and he tipped a couple of shots into it. “You tell me about the Parker murder and I’ll leave the beautiful town of Backwater, Tennessee, with no regrets.”

  “Tell me about some husband married to Ellen Carver or Cora Abse or whatever. Give me his name.”

  “Bad memory,” I said. It was a standoff.

  “Oh, shit. Maybe you leaving town is worth it. I’ll tell you this much. Parker lived in Gaptown, and he lived there until 1968.”

  “That’s Gaptown, Tennessee?”

  “Right by the Georgia line,” Turk said.

  “What was Ellen Carver’s part in the murder?”

  “Who said she had any part in anything? Look, it’s a dirty mess and people have been raking in it for years. I’m not about to put my rake in that barnyard crap.”

  “Telling me about it you’ve done it.”

  “How?” He put the cap on the J&B. “The facts are all there. You’d find out which Parker murder it was. You’ve got that many brains.” He stood up and stretched. “You two leaving in the morning?”

  “Might as well. Ellen Carver’s left town.”

  “Gone where?”

  I smiled at him.

  “Jesus Christ, I just …” He stopped. “You in the Atlanta phone book?”

  “I’m there.”

  “Tomorrow’s a busy day. If it don’t rain the damned thing out, I’ve got to police all those hippies and all those fat-assed tourists. Sunday or Monday, I plan to have a talk with Ed Beuller.”

  “The cowboy?”

  He nodded.

  “Knuckle talk?” Hump said.

  “If I have to,” Turk said. “You see, I’ve been listening to you and I don’t like the smell of this.”

  I kicked off my muddy shoes. “And after you talk to Ed, you’re going to call me and tell me what you found out?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Hump followed him to the door and they shook hands, and Turk talked about coming to Atlanta some day for a drink and to see a Falcon game. Hump closed the door behind him and locked it and started undressing. “It ain’t going to hurt my feelings any to leave this town.”

  “Ditto,” I said. I threw my muddy socks against the wall. “Double ditto.”

  I couldn’t sleep. I was rolling from side to side. At seven I gave it up and stumbled out of bed. I turned on the overhead light and began dressing. Hump didn’t like it, but he decided to go along when I said he could have the back seat.

  While Hump stored the bags in the car, I settled up at the motel office. The kid with the cowboy boots and the leather fringed jacket was still on duty. I paid him and walked out to the breezeway. I took a last look at the lake or river or whatever it was behind the motel.

  The kid followed me and stood in the doorway. “One thing I didn’t remember to tell you yesterday about that call. The woman asked where you were from.”

  “And you told her?”

  “What was on the registration card,” he said. “The street address and Atlanta. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. That was right enough.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I cut the engine, Hump sat up in the back seat. His eyes looked like he had been in a dust storm, and he groaned when he tried to stretch out his legs. That back seat wasn’t designed to sleep even a six-foot man. It was cramped hell on six-six or six-seven.

  “We there already?”

  I looked over the seat back at him. “This look or smell like Atlanta?”

  He sniffed. “It’s not the right smell.”

  It didn’t look like Atlanta, either. Gaptown is a narrow little resort town. The four or so blocks show nothing but motels and cafes and junk-gift shops and a number of auction shops. The auction shops specialize in old silver and furniture. I didn’t do a count, but I figured there were about as many as you’d find in Blowing Rock, North Carolina during the tourist season.

  I’d parked next to a white MG with battered fenders and rust beginning to show around the dings and dents. From the car I could read the lettering in the window of the low wood frame building.

  THE GAPTOWN SENTRY

  THE SOUTH’S FINEST WEEKLY

  The building, some time in the past, might have been one of those Ma and Pa grocery stores. I got the clue from the fancy groc in the chipping paint up near the roof line.

  Out of the car, I waited while Hump limped and stomped the feeling back into his legs. I spent that time looking up
at the mountains that seemed to hunch and lean toward the town. The mountains were rounded and old, treed over and almost blue-green in the spring chill before noon.

  I tried the door. It was locked. That was me. Never read the sign until afterwards. At Breakfast. Back in half an hour. A lot of good that did. When was the half hour up?

  The notice was signed in a flowing script, J. Giles.

  “Cafe right there,” Hump said.

  I followed the swing of his arm and found it. A blue and yellow brick front with glass all the way around. FAN’S COUNTRY COOKING.

  “Assuming this is his car …”

  “And assuming it runs,” Hump said.

  “We ought to find Mr. Giles there face down in his oatmeal.”

  “Detective work is fun,” Hump said.

  We took the booth near the front entrance. There was a good smell to the place. The scent of freshly-made biscuits, what you couldn’t fake, the flour dusty smell, and the salty aroma of frying, salt-cured ham. This kind of place you could probably get red-eye gravy with your grits.

  Hump read the menu while I looked over the other diners. A slow look about and I was certain I’d picked him out. A gray-haired, almost emaciated man in his late fifties sat alone at a booth in the back corner. He was reading the Nashville paper as he ate. One forkful and he’d read a paragraph, then another bite and another paragraph.

  It was the two-hour breakfast the way he went at it.

  The waitress brought our coffee and took our orders. Before she stepped away, I asked if Mr. Giles was in the cafe.

  “There.” She tilted her head toward the counter.

  “Where?”

  “There.”

  The man she indicated was in his middle twenties. He wore flared, green-checked slacks, boots with Cuban heels and a blue alpaca sweater. He wasn’t at all my idea of what a small-town editor was supposed to look like.

  I had a sip of the coffee and slid out of the booth. I carried my cup to the counter and sat down on the stool next to Giles. “You the editor of the Sentry?”

  The swing toward me was almost slow motion. I knew why when I saw the ravaged face and the bleak eyes. Mr. Giles had been too close to the bottle the night before. Before he could answer me, the counter waitress brought him half a glass of water and a foil package of Alka-Seltzer. His hands shook as he struggled with the pack. He broke one tablet trying to get it out of the package and into the glass. Only after it was fizzing did he turn to me again.

  “I’m John Giles.”

  “I’m James Hardman from Atlanta.”

  “That must be nice.”

  “What?”

  “Being away from Atlanta.”

  I smiled. It wasn’t that good, but I wanted something from him and if he considered himself a wit, I’d try my best to humor him. “It’s good to breathe some fresh air.”

  “That’s what we’ve got here,” he said. “And damn little else.” He lifted the glass in both hands and poured it back in one long swallow. He wiped the back of a hand across his mouth. “You want to see me about something?”

  Lie time. “I’ve been doing some writing, just freelance stuff. Mainly magazine …”

  “I can save you the trouble. I don’t have an opening.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “I’m thinking about doing a book. Non-fiction is big now. Fiction’s dead. A friend suggested I look into something here. I’ll do a proposal and he’ll send it to his editor at Random House.”

  “And try for a contract, huh?”

  I nodded. “It works that way.”

  “And you want some information from me?”

  “It would be a big help.”

  “Stop me if I’m wrong …”

  No reason to be coy. And the best lies are the ones with a tablespoon of honesty in them. “It’s the Parker murder,” I said.

  “I thought so. You’re not the first.”

  The waitress placed a buttered english muffin and a cup of tea next to Giles’ elbow. He played dip-the-tea-bag and waited me out. It was my move.

  “What are the chances?”

  “Could be,” he said.

  “I’d like to look over the back issues, the ones that cover the murder.”

  “I’ve got one question.” He mashed the teabag between his thumb and the spoon and dropped the bag on the saucer. “Are you keeping a close expense account?”

  “Huh?”

  “You putting down your research expenses?”

  “Sure,” I said. Whatever that meant. I knew what it meant to him. I had a feeling.

  “My time’s worth something,” he said.

  I told him that I understood. “How long do you think it would take me to go back over the files?”

  “An hour, more or less. It would take a longer time, but I’ve done the clipping. I’m about to do a retrospective on the case. You know, seven years afterwards, that kind of thing.”

  “What’s your time worth?” I looked at my booth. Hump was already into his breakfast.

  “On the low side,” he said, “about twenty dollars an hour.”

  “I think I can bury that in the expense sheet somewhere.”

  “I thought you could.”

  He appeared to be watching my hands, waiting for it, so I got out my roll and held it under the counter level and worked a twenty free. I folded it a couple of times and slid it across the counter until it was hidden by the saucer. His hand covered it like he was trapping flies.

  I said I’d be over after I had breakfast.

  He said he’d have the package out and waiting.

  Greeds, the small ones, the petty ones. Whoring for a bill or two.

  I kept my face over my plate a few minutes later when he left the cafe and headed across the street to the newspaper office.

  Hump watched him cross the street. “It set?”

  I said that it was.

  An hour later, we left Gaptown and headed for Atlanta.

  Hump had the wheel. I locked the passenger door and pressed my face against the window and tried to sleep. It got warm and I couldn’t sleep and forms like misshapen animals danced behind my eyelids.

  I hadn’t taken any notes. I hadn’t needed to. There were some things you could remember, like your social security number or the first time you got laid.

  It began that Sunday morning the first week in June of 1968. The Gaptown police received a call from an elderly lady in the Crown Heights section of town. The lady said she thought she’d heard gunfire at the Asa M. Parker estate across the road.

  “When was that?”

  “An hour ago,” the lady said.

  Asked why she’d waited an hour before she’d called the police, the lady said that she hadn’t been really certain it was gunfire at first, and she’d about convinced herself that it wasn’t when she’d heard tires screech on the road and she’d looked out her front window. A dark car, she wasn’t sure what make, had roared out of the Parker driveway and sped away toward the Interstate.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Half an hour,” she’d said. It had taken her that long to decide to call Asa Parker. He hadn’t answered and that was when she’d phoned the police.

  The police reached the Parker house in five minutes. The first sign that something was wrong was the body of the dead Doberman on the front porch. It had been shot a couple of times. A trail of blood spots led from the front porch to the living room. A bloody towel in the downstairs bathroom and another torn into strips pointed to the probability that the Doberman had bitten someone before it was killed.

  There was a perfectly preserved heelprint from a woman’s shoe in the blood on the tile floor of the bathroom.

  Police found the body of Asa Parker in the upstairs bedroom. He’d been shot several times. The last shot, the kill one, had been fired into the back of his head at close range.

  A wall safe above the bed had been opened. Papers from the safe had been scattered all across the bed and the bedroom floor.
<
br />   And that was all. No fingerprints. No real leads.

  Outrage colored the language of the articles that first month or so. Editorials deplored the inactivity of the police. Rewards were offered. And nothing came of it.

  The Parker case faded from the front pages. There were no more promises of an early solution.

  Asa M. Parker, the retired dentist from Dayton, Ohio, was almost forgotten.

  “It freaks me some,” Hump said. “That the girl had hooked some, that didn’t bother me. But this …”

  “Too rank for you?”

  “This is a job I want to quit,” Hump said. “That girl can stay lost.”

  In December of 1968, some seven months or so after the murder of Asa Parker, a nineteen-year-old girl named Cora Abse is living in Nashville. She doesn’t have a job, has no visible means of support, yet she lives in a $250 a month apartment and drives a late model Buick.

  Cora Abse shoplifts a $32 bottle of perfume at a downtown department store. And she is caught. When Cora Abse is arrested, she has over five hundred dollars in her purse. It was probably boredom that prompted it. Boredom and the need for some kind of cheap thrill.

  While in jail, she develops a friendship with a young, uniformed policeman. He talks to her and brings her cigarettes and helps her with the bail procedure. After she is released, he continues to see her. One night, though the circumstances are clouded, Cora Abse brags that she can finger the men who robbed and killed Asa Parker. She even convinces him that she is the woman whose heelprint was found at the scene of the crime.

  The young policeman falls by the way. He has served his purpose. An investigator from the Tennessee Bureau replaces him. Two days of talks and she gives him the names of the three men. A deal is hammered out. The shoplifting charge will be dropped and she will be given immunity if she testifies against the other three.

  Two of the men Cora Abse names are already in prison. Ben Lipmann and Arnold Schmidt had been arrested as part of a car theft ring in Knoxville and are doing two-to-five. The third man, Chris Morton, they find working construction in Macon.