New Brew

by Mark Lashway

  Betty’s husky voice seemed vaguely familiar to Cam, but he quickly dropped the thought when he noticed some of the hard looks that bystanders were giving him as they rushed by. What the hell? Oh….no….they can’t be thinking….

  “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape!” Betty cried again as they ran through an area where a lot more people were hanging around. One spectator decided to do the heroic thing and rushed out to cut Cam off. Cam merely gave the man a powerful forearm to the chest, flattening him and causing a woman to scream. “Get the fuck out of my way!” Cam snarled.

  “Fuckin’ bitch, I’m gonna get you!” Cam yelled. Oh shit, that wasn’t very smart, he realized. That didn’t sound too good.

  Hunter and quarry pounded on, creating a buzz among the growing concentration of spectators as they now rushed through the most populated area. After another half-minute the crowds thinned out rapidly. Betty seemed to immediately grasp the implications as she took a surprisingly sharp turn and headed down a side road. “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape! Oh God, won’t somebody help a poor woman?!” she sobbed. They continued on.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Ned Inkwell staggered down the main street, unaware that he was only a minute behind the chase. His interest had been piqued when, not far from the Ace Brewing tent, he’d heard some angry words that had sounded like Cam’s voice. Poking his head into Phil Utah’s place, he’d found the Ace Brewing rep almost asleep by the half-light of a dimmed lantern. Utah had told him that he’d been woken by a loud voice but knew nothing more. Seeing that whoever it had been had left the area, Inkwell had moved on, but had stopped to mooch another beer from some people on the way. It had been a California common style, and he’d enjoyed it very much.

  He thought about his people on the stakeout at the abbey. There had been no word from them so far. Peering at his watch, he shrugged, realizing that it was still a bit early yet to expect that. Continuing on, he sensed a change in the crowds as he reached the main action, as there was a strange buzz going through the throngs of people. Listening carefully, he picked up little bits of conversation that concerned Cam chasing some woman named Betty. Frowning, the investigator headed in the direction in which some people pointed as they discussed the dramatic new developments. He would plod along. Running was out of the question.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Cam was wearing down, his legs feeling like lead weights now, his lungs desperately gasping for air. Betty, however, apparently had more stamina, and she had actually increased her lead over him. His anger was almost to the eruption point, mostly due to her so-far successful flight from him. Failure was always guaranteed to eat away at him. The utter ridiculousness of the whole picture of a woman, and an extremely homely one at that, with blonde hair streaming wildly behind her and still managing to outrun him while holding up her dress turned his mood completely black.

  She took another quick turn, heading down an even narrower side path, and he followed, wheezing. As they went through an area that contained mostly campsites, Cam glimpsed a ray of hope when he saw a small group of people about 80 yards away and recognized them as Dale Sassie’s gang. Motioning wildly with one hand once they happened to look their way, Cam indicated to them to catch her. It would be over soon.

  “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape!” Betty screamed again. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh God!”

  Within seconds they had reached Sassie’s campsite and Cam saw two women there stand back to get out of the way as Dale and his two newly acquired friends Frank and Lyle stood ready to spring into action. Thank God it’s over! Cam thought gratefully.

  He was dumbfounded when he saw Betty run straight through the little gathering without interruption. His mind didn’t have time to make sense of it when he felt himself being taken to the ground with overwhelming force. What the hell? The wind was knocked out of him as he hit the ground and he felt the pain of two, maybe three bodies come down on top of him.

  “What….what are you doin’?!” Cam groaned when he could draw a breath. “No, no!”

  “Easy, buddy,” Frank murmured, maintaining his grip on the exhausted Witter.

  “No, you don’t understand!” Cam growled.

  “Heh heh, well, actually we do understand,” Lyle chuckled. “We know how these things happen. A bit too much boozing, a guy starts to go after a woman he normally wouldn’t want, she says no, he starts getting….”

  “No, you’re nuts!” Cam protested as they hauled him to his feet.

  “Well, I don’t think we are,” Lyle maintained.

  “Yeah, he’s had an obsession with that one all along!” Bucky Fritsch added as he walked into the site to check things out. “And here he is married….”

  “Yeah, Cam, we just don’t get you,” Sassie remarked. “You got Shauna, which, by the way, didn’t sit too well with a lot of the guys here, you know. But even that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? Now you’re getting aggressive….”

  “Fuck you!” Cam snarled as he went for Sassie but was jerked back by Frank and Lyle.

  “Do you think that poor woman is far enough away now to let him loose?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah. He looks like he’s pretty well spent by now,” Lyle said.

  “That’s a good thing for her!” Chloe yelped, getting laughs from the group.

  Cam’s face fell when he turned to look in another direction and saw Shauna standing there, the look on her face making it clear that she had heard everything. He began to speak, trying to explain, but she held up a hand, turned and walked away, sobbing. Cam’s spirits weren’t helped much by the sight of Ned Inkwell standing off to another side, swaying, but still clear enough to shake his head in sorrow at this apparently disgraceful episode.

  He was about to leave and head back to his tent to try to explain the truth to Shauna when a buzzing in his pants pocket told him that he had a call. Hurriedly fishing the cellphone out before the caller got sent to voice mail, he turned it on and put it to his ear, knowing that it was almost certainly Andy.

  “Hello?”

  “Cam, it’s Andy,” came the faint voice from an iffy connection. “Can you talk?” The question was actually a code that the two men had agreed upon whereby an affirmative answer meant that the receiver of the call had nobody else around and could talk freely.

  “Nope,” Cam simply replied, acting nonchalant, noticing a few of Sassie’s group watching him. To walk away now would draw too much interest.

  “Can you go somewhere else?”

  “Nope.”

  “OK, the slow way, then. Was your call about Welker or anything….”

  “Nope.”

  “Was it about your late friend….”

  “Nope.”

  “Was it about those FBI….”

  “Yep.”

  “What about?”

  “Description.”

  “There were at least three, Cam, especially at the end, at the site of the body retrieval by the river.”

  “Go ahead. The first?” Andy would know that it meant the presumed leader.

  “Stocky guy, six feet tall with muscular build, very blonde hair, blue eyes and a deep baritone voice.”

  “I see,” Cam muttered as he glanced at Dale Sassie, who fit the description perfectly. “And the next?”

  “Another guy was shorter, maybe five eight, very slim and wiry build, starting to bald, brown eyes and had this odd Bassett hound look to him.”

  “I know what you mean,” Cam replied, zeroing in on Bucky Fritsch, a dead ringer for the man Andy had described. “And the last?”

  “Another guy about five eight, medium build, jet black hair, olive complexion, very dark and penetrating eyes. This one had a constant air of tension about him, like he would never have a sense of humor, even in his own home.”

  “I know the type,” Cam told him. Although there was nobody present who fit that description, it matched a man by the name of Tony Alves, a frequent presence in Dale Sassie’s circle. This makes no damned sense, Cam told himself, but when he thou
ght back to his discussion with the FBI agent he understood that there was really no other explanation.

  A glance out of the corner of his eye told him that Sassie and Fritsch, despite their attempts to appear disinterested, were actually watching him. Two can play that game, he thought, putting on the act himself.

  “Is there anything more you need, Cam?” Andy’s asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Has this cleared things up for you?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re gonna leave my name….”

  “Yep. Thanks. Bye.”

  Putting the cellphone back into his pocket, Cam took a minute to put on a show of taking in a deep breath, rubbing the back of his neck and shaking his head before leaving Sassie’s campsite. He needed to be alone to think.

  “Hey, just remember to slow down on the sauce,” Frank said to him as he began walking away. “We won’t be around to save you from trouble every time.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Cam sighed and then left.

  The exertion of the chase had already cleared the alcohol-induced haze from him, leaving his mind able to function quickly. He had barely gotten out of sight of Sassie’s place, gaining some hard looks and sniggers from some folks along the way, when a terrible thought suddenly entered his mind. No way, he told himself, grimacing at the idea that it could be true. The whole thing is just too wild to take seriously.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Shauna sat on her cot inside their tent, staring ahead in the dim light with tear-filled eyes. Her highly anticipated night of glory had been irreparably ruined. Of course, she didn’t believe for a second the comments she had overheard about Cam going over the edge and turning into a drunken would-be rapist. Still, nothing could salvage this night. She remembered Cam telling her not too long ago about how she took his breath away when he saw her dressed up. Well, here I am now, all dolled up in the absolutely sexiest dress I’ve ever owned, and so what? I still can’t compete. He’d rather chase suspects than chase me….

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a rustling of the door flap. Ned Inkwell peeked his head in and said simply, “Shauna? Are you OK?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she whispered, fighting back tears. Inkwell walked into the tent, although she hadn’t invited him.

  “I….I’m really sorry about that mess with Cam,” he informed her. She could tell that he’d been drinking a lot tonight. He reeked of beer. Yet, like her husband, she was amazed that Inkwell was still walking around.

  “Thanks, but I’ll be OK, really,” she told him, standing up and looking for something to do. She had always hated somebody hovering over her while she was seated.

  She started to walk by him but was stopped when he put a hand on her hip and pulled her around to him. “Oh Shauna, you don’t know how much I want you,” he sighed.

  “Ned, let go of me….now.”

  Instead, he drew her closer and quickly kissed her. She pulled away and then he moaned, “Oh Shauna, you don’t know what a beauty in blue you are. What color would you like to see me in? What if we saw each other just naked? I’ll show you what a great lover I can be!”

  Knowing that she had given him a left jab several nights ago and had blackened his right eye, which was mostly healed now, she switched it up and hit him in the left eye with a right cross this time. Inkwell dropped to the ground in a heap and didn’t get up. He was out.

  Shauna packed a few things and left to go stay at Helen’s place for the night, needing a shoulder to cry on. She didn’t know how she would react the next time that she saw Cam.

  Only a matter of minutes after she’d left, Cam arrived at the tent and entered, expecting to face the storm. Instead, all he saw was the unconscious Inkwell slumped on the ground, lying on his back. Seeing the shiner on the investigator’s eye, Cam could roughly guess what had happened, and his heart sank. Might as well get ready to set myself up with a divorce lawyer, he told himself bitterly. Right now, though, he had to think himself to sleep and then wake up in the morning with a clear head. His crazy hypothesis was sounding less nutty by the minute.

  -27-

  “Cam!” came a voice that the sleeping man thought came from his dreams. A hard shaking on his shoulders woke Cam to the unpleasant reality. He moaned softly and sat up on his cot with an agonizing slowness, trying to shake the fog from his brain. Finally, his eyes opened just enough to see the unwelcome sight of Bobby Bobb, who looked both eager and agitated.

  “Wh-what….do you want….Bobby?”

  “Ned Inkwell sent me to get you, Cam. You need to come right away. It’s urgent, and he looks pretty pissed.”

  “Oh Christ.” Cam rose to his feet, his body protesting, his balance unsure. He felt like he could sleep the day away. He’d been more wiped out than he’d thought.

  He followed Bobby Bobb to wherever Inkwell was summoning him, although it only took a minute or so before he got the sinking feeling that somehow they were heading toward Duke Lando’s place. The sun was already well up, meaning that he’d slept late as it was. The heat was already mounting in what appeared to be a cloudless sky. It was going to be a long, bad day today, he was sure of that.

  Cam walked with all of the enthusiasm of a man heading to an execution chamber. He wished that he could just turn around and hit the road to home, but his sense of duty prohibited that. He was already sick of GWIBE days before its end, just as he’d been last year.

  There was a fairly large group of people standing in front of Lando’s tent when he arrived. Besides Inkwell, there were the four officers who’d been assigned to the stakeout at the abbey last night, the coroner Cam recognized from the night of Joey Creed’s murder, Phil Utah, Tom Deville, Clay Sharper, Sonny Lombardo, and now himself and Bobby Bobb. Bobby had been right, Inkwell did indeed look very angry as he motioned Cam over with one finger.

  “I wanted you to see this!” Inkwell snarled, throwing open the door flap to Lando’s tent.

  Cam peered inside. The lifeless bodies of the fake Maria Sanchez and Duke Lando lay on their backs on the ground opposite each other, the unseeing eyes wide open, each holding an automatic pistol with a suppressor attached. Puddles of congealed blood lay around the bodies. However, it was something in Lando’s other hand that caught his attention, and he stared.

  “It’s a bug,” Inkwell muttered, “a microphone. We saw a spot on the inside of a cot leg with broken tape where it was apparently located. It looks like Duke found it, confronted this gal ‘Maria’, then things got nasty. They were both packing, both got out their heat and settled accounts….permanently.”

  “So….your hunch is that Maria was actually the one doin’ the killin’s?” Cam mumbled.

  “It would clear up a lot of questions, Witter. With a bug in Duke’s tent, she was a step ahead of him on everything. There didn’t actually need to be a killer inside the abbey, alright?”

  “She was in cahoots with him in the beginnin’. So, you’re thinkin’ that either it went bad pretty early, or that she was plannin’ a double-cross on him the whole time.”

  “Exactly. This should wrap things up. The only thing is, Witter, I can’t come up with a solid motive for her turning on Lando.”

  “Perceived slight? Greed? Desperation? Take your pick, Ned.” Cam already knew that the fake Maria wasn’t the real culprit, but he was content to let Inkwell think that. The answer lies with the blonde bitch, he reminded himself. He wasn’t about to let the North Dakota investigator hear about his theory, however, for if he made that mistake Inkwell was liable to call in people who would put Cam into a strait-jacket and take him away to a nice place.

  “I’m sorry that you folks spent a whole night out there for nothing,” Inkwell told his stakeout crew. “I really did think you’d strike oil there.”

  “Aw, that’s alright,” the patrolman named Max replied. “At least we got to see this, so that makes up for most of it.” The others in the stakeout team nodded with approval.

  Cam motioned Inkwell of
f to one side, out of the hearing range of the others. “I see you made another pass at Shauna,” he whispered, smiling.

  “I don’t know….” Inkwell sheepishly admitted. “I really don’t remember anything.”

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t, you were totally wrecked last night. But the fact that you were unconscious in my tent and that my wife was gone said everythin’. Nice shiner, though.”

  Inkwell ignored the remark, redness overcoming his face. “You have something to explain to me, Witter: What’s your hangup with that ugly blonde woman? Why did you chase her like you did? I don’t buy that you were trying to….”

  “No, I certainly wasn’t. It’s nothin’ excitin’, Ned. I just saw her skulkin’ around in the dark, and she struck me as bein’ up to no good. I was just gonna ask her some questions.” He made sure not to tell Inkwell about her holding an automatic with a suppressor on it. Let him go with his new theory, but Betty is the key, and I know where to go now to prove it.

  “So, now that it’s over, what are you going to do?” Inkwell asked.

  “Oh, I just have a bit of repairin’ to do to my marriage, if it’s still possible. After that, I just want to go home, Ned. I’ve had enough of this shit.”

  “I’m attuned, Witter, really attuned, you know? Anyway, I hope you’ll stay in touch.”

  “We’ll see,” Cam replied noncommittally. Oh, he certainly wouldn’t be saying that if he knew what I’m holding back from him. “Gotta go, Ned. See you around.” He turned and walked away. He needed breakfast and a shower before he went to his fateful meeting.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Shauna returned to their tent almost two hours later after having spent the morning unburdening herself to Helen yet again. Half hoping that Cam would be there and half hoping he wouldn’t, she was still disappointed when it turned out to be the latter. Not being able to have it out with him would cause her to bottle it up for when he did come back, and she hated that.