by Gen Griffin
“You're going to have to pull your head out of your own ass before you're going to be much good to anyone else,” Frank said the words mildly, but they stung Kerry.
“Excuse me?” he said, unable to believe he'd really heard the sheriff right.
“You heard me,” Frank clucked his tongue at him. His expression was bland. “I listen to my officers, Kerry. Listening to your staff is a big part of running any successful business.”
“Okay,” Kerry shrugged.
“Absolutely none of my men think you're going to be an asset to this department,” Frank delivered the blow and then waited for Kerry's reaction. “I think you have potential because you've got a good heart and your transcripts are certainly a hell of a lot better than any of the other boys' transcripts. Mooney thinks you’re an idealist who won't be able to function during a real investigation or handle living, breathing criminals. Perkins is a worthless lout who I got stuck with thanks to state politics. Screw not being able to fire a man. He's leaving as soon as he nails down his retirement, so I'm going to have to grit my teeth and deal with him.”
The Sheriff sighed. “Addison despises you because you're a threat to his buddies. They think you're out to get them. Based on your actions, I'm going to go ahead and assume they're right. Ian is too damned nice to say anything bad about you, but that's just Ian. He's always been the peacekeeper. It’s one of the reasons I want to hire him. Ian doesn't run around making enemies. Kerry. He makes friends. So does Addison, for that matter.”
“Even the criminals like Addison,” Kerry grumbled. He explained about Reggie Gunther's failed poaching attempt.
“Why do you think that is?” Frank countered.
“Because he lets them get away with things he shouldn't,” Kerry replied.
“No. He doesn't.” Frank took off his cowboy hat only to put it back on two seconds later. “Costing people their jobs when you don't have to is a way to make a lot of enemies you don't need.”
“But he broke the law,” Kerry said. “The whole point of having laws is so that you can deal with people appropriately when they break them. Why should people obey the laws when there isn't any consequence for breaking them?”
“Does the punishment fit the crime?” Frank asked.
“That's not my job,” Kerry said. “I'm not responsible for handing out punishment. I'm responsible for solving crimes.”
“Which brings us right back to where we started. David Breedlove isn't your murderer.”
“Statistically speaking-.”
“Statistically speaking, David is an unpredictable asshole with a tendency to get away with anything he thinks might be able to. He's not reckless enough to just slaughter someone in cold blood and then leave evidence all over the place. You're barking up the wrong tree because you want David to be guilty. You hate him. It has nothing to do with Benjamin Gomez.”
“Maybe,” Kerry sighed. “But I saw that truck.”
“Kerry, David is a mechanic. He has access to a ridiculous number of vehicles. Why would he use his own truck, a truck everyone in town would recognize, to dump a body?”
It was a good question. One that Kerry had not occurred to him to ask. “I don't know.”
“He wouldn't,” Frank said.
Kerry sighed and looked down at his own hands. “Maybe I'm just not cut out for this job. It seems like I screw up everything I touch.”
“Why don't you just try to be a cop, instead of a hero?” Frank suggested. “You have a lot of certifications but not a lot of experience in the field. Spend some time just getting on your feet as a cop and learning how to do the job well and you might surprise yourself.”
“You're not firing me?” Kerry looked up at him in surprise. He had been waiting for the bomb to drop for the entire conversation.
“You still have a week of your trial period left. You asked to be assigned the Benjamin Gomez murder, and I gave you the case. Solve the murder and you can keep the job. Otherwise, I'll be expecting your resignation on my desk six days from now.”
“I figured as much,” Kerry said reluctantly. “I'll solve this murder, Sheriff. You have my word.”
Chapter 28
“You need to get out here. Now.” April Lynne stuck her dark head of bouncy curls into Cal's office and gestured at him with an urgency that only served to accent the faint hint of panic in her voice.
Cal barely looked up from the register receipts in front of him as he entered the previous day's sales into the computer. He hated missing work because nothing ever seemed to get done when he was gone. His Dad had managed Walker Hardware since Pappy's third heart attack nine years ago, but Jerry Walker openly admitted he had no business sense and would tell anyone who asked that he was computer illiterate. Cal had taken over the books after Dad had screwed up a $20,000 inventory. He'd digitized everything to make it easier for everyone to share responsibility about how much was made by the store on a daily basis and how much was spent on inventory. It occurred to Cal now, as he stared at the paperwork from yesterday, that he was the only one who bothered checking the files.
Ordinarily he would have been pissed to realize he'd once again been stuck with all the work, but today nothing was going to get him down. He had a future. Better yet, he had a future with the woman he loved. Cal felt downright good about life. Nothing was going to bring him down.
“Calvin. I mean it. Hurry.” April Lynne was still standing in the door between his office and the back counter. “Pappy is fixin' to shoot some man outside by the Pepsi cooler.”
Well, almost nothing could bring him down. Except maybe another murder.
Cal stood up so fast he knocked his chair backwards into the wall. “What are you talking about?” He was already moving towards the door.
“Pappy caught some homeless guy trying to jimmy the soda machine out front. He's standing outside holding that blasted .357 on him until the Sheriff gets here. Your Dad's already tried to get the gun away from him twice, but Uncle Jerry's too much of a pushover and Pappy ain't listening.”
“You've got to be kidding me.” Cal went around the desk and out into the almost empty store. He could dimly hear his Pappy yelling outside as he hurried through the aisles of PVC pipes and bolts with April Lynne on his heels.
“Stealing an honest man's dime. You're what's wrong with this country. Lazy no-good worthless begging trash. Cluttering up our streets and clogging our medical centers with your worthless excuses of mental problems.” Joshua Walker was indeed standing next to the soda machine that sat on the sidewalk beside Walker Hardware, shaking the barrel of a .357 revolver in the face of a terrified looking man about Cal's age. He had dirty, ratty jeans and a ripped t-shirt that advertised a concert for a band Cal had never heard of before in his life. He was on his knees a few feet in front of Joshua. The sole of his right sneaker gaped open revealing a stained sock. A beat-up backpack rested against the front of the soda machine, its pockets bulging with scraps of material. A bedroll had been tied off to the top of it.
Homeless, Cal recalled April Lynne saying.
Jerry, Cal's Dad, was making insufficient soothing noises from five feet away and mumbling something about how no harm had really been done. A bent old screwdriver was lying on the sidewalk next to the soda machine and Cal could see that the lock that covered the compartment where the money was kept was bent. He wondered how desperate a man would have to be to try to rob the change from a soda machine in broad daylight.
“Pappy,” Cal spoke firmly as he walked directly to his Pappy's side. He didn't miss the look of relief in his father's eyes as he gestured at Pappy to hand him the weapon. He could see he'd already turned the safety off. “Put the gun down.”
The grizzled old man, his back stooped after 82 years of hard work, made a loud snorting noise and continued to point the gun at the thief.
“Stealing our hard work, Calvin. You can't just let people steal your hard work. We've earned every dime we have, and I'm not just about to let some worthless, lazy,
no good bum come in here and take what we work to earn. That's the problem with this country. We keep handing out food stamps and free houses for the poor, and now nobody thinks they have to work for anything. Now we have people banging on our doors demanding that we give them the fruits of our hard labor. I'm not having it. It’s not going to happen here. Not to me.”
“Pappy, he's not going anywhere.” Cal raised one eyebrow at the terrified thief. “Are you?” he asked, hoping the man had the sense to see where Cal was trying to go with this.
“No. No, sir.” The man's voice quivered plainly as he held his hands up in a position of surrender. “I ain't going no where, sir.”
“See Pappy, you don't have to shoot him.”
“If he makes a move to run, I'm shooting him.”
“If you shoot at a moving target, you're more likely to hit either me or a passing car then you are him,” Cal said flatly, deciding that now was not the time to spare his grandfather's feelings. Between dealing with Kerry and Gracie's dead body, Cal was completely out of patience. He didn't want any more people dead on his account. Not even the homeless thief. “Your glaucoma has seriously affected your aim. Give me the gun. Now. Before you hurt someone.”
Pappy's head jerked up in surprise at the force in Cal's tone. The old man turned his head two inches to the left so that he could see Cal around his cataract.
“You're going to take my gun from me?” He asked with a strange mix of humor and disbelief in his voice.
“If you force me to.” Cal could see the old man mulling over his options. Cal doubted Joshua Walker could remember the last time someone had stood up to him in public. Cal's Dad certainly never had and Sheriff Chasson was never going to. Joshua had done whatever he'd pleased for the last 60 years. Cal could hear sirens approaching in the distance.
“Thieving scum like him deserves to die.” Pappy gestured at the man on the ground with the barrel of the gun, but his voice lacked the hate Cal had heard in it before. Even though he still had the gun in his left hand, Cal could see that the old man was hesitating. He could also see that Pappy's hand that was shaking from the effort of holding the heavy weapon upright.
“Stealing $5 from the soda machine isn't a death penalty offense,” Cal applied logic, knowing he needed to get the weapon before his Pappy accidentally dropped the thing and blew someone's brains out. The sirens were getting louder. A quick glance down the road revealed that a cruiser was making its way through Possum Creek's small downtown area as quickly as it could without running over any of the pedestrian shoppers.
“You're lucky my grandson is a soft touch.” Joshua Walker held the gun on the homeless man for another moment, and then he sighed and lowered the revolver to his side. He shot a baleful glare at the man on his knees in front of him and then revolver so that its barrel faced his shirt and the butt of the gun faced Cal. “Take it. If you want it. I've been meaning to pass it down to you anyway.”
The homeless man looked over at Cal. His eyes were the size of whiskey barrels. “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you.” Cal was unable to hide his surprise as he wrapped his hand around the loaded gun and took it from his Pappy. Joshua Walker had carrier this gun in a holster on his hip for as long as Cal could remember. “I didn't mean that you had to give it me for keeps.”
“It’s yours.” Joshua brushed off Cal's gratitude with a grizzled frown. “As you and Doctor Fletcher have both already pointed out, I can't see to shoot the damn thing anymore anyway.”
Joshua didn't wait for Cal to reply as he turned and began to walk back towards the front doors of the store. “Make sure you press charges,” he told Cal as a wide-eyed April Lynne opened the door for him. “I'm going to go sit down. My back is killing me today.”
Cal let out a deep sigh of relief as the doors fell closed behind the old man. He turned back to his Pappy's hostage and was surprised to see Ian standing beside the still shaking man as Jerry explained the situation.
“I'm impressed,” Ian said as Cal approached them.
“What?” Cal asked.
Ian gestured at the gun Cal had already forgotten he was holding. “I never thought I'd see the day someone disarmed your Pappy.”
“Me neither,” Cal's Dad, Jerry, said. “Loretta and I have been trying to figure out how to get that gun away from my Dad for the last three years. If I had known the solution was to have Cal ask politely for it, he would have been disarmed before his eightieth birthday.”
“I wasn't all that polite,” Cal pointed out, feeling vaguely embarrassed and ashamed of himself for the way he'd handled a man he'd both idolized and respected his entire life. “I just didn't want anyone hurt.”
“You seriously probably owe Cal your life,” Ian informed the homeless man, who had made absolutely no attempt to escape as they stood there talking. “Joshua Walker wouldn't have hesitated to shoot you dead.”
“Assuming he'd have hit him and not, say, your cruiser. Or Cal's truck. Or the bank across the street,” April Lynne spoke up from beside Cal. “Congratulations, cousin. You are officially the man of the hour. Maybe even the whole day.”
“Y'all are making too big a deal out of this. I just saw a situation that had the potential to turn bad quick. I did what I needed to do in order to keep everyone safe. Even him.” Cal gestured at the homeless man.
“Yeah. God knows, we don't need any more dead homeless folks right now.” Ian shot Cal a meaningful look. “Kerry probably would have loved the opportunity to charge Joshua Walker with a hate crime. He'd be an ever bigger prize than David.”
“An unprecedented disaster,” Cal agreed, only halfway paying attention to Ian as he studied the revolver in his hands. The worn grip felt good in his palm.
“It seems like we get more and more homeless every year,” Jerry chimed in with his two-cents. “Just as soon as the weather gets cold up north they start running down here to escape the snow.”
“The Sheriff told me he had to arrest one guy last year for peeing on the sidewalk,” Ian laughed as he handcuffed Joshua's thief.
Cal nodded, remembering how he'd told Leon the same story Friday night. Then he froze, the .357 still clenched in his right hand as a memory he had almost forgotten about came unexpectedly to the forefront of his mind. A homeless man in a battered trench coat, hanging all over a trashy woman. Leon's comments about how Frank Chasson wouldn't have to worry about arresting the guy if the woman's husband caught her cheating on him with a drifter. He recalled laughing with Leon as they had watched the less than savory couple get into a beat up Toyota and drive away.
Cal opened his mouth and then closed it abruptly. “Jesus Christ, the guy Kerry found dead, he was homeless wasn't he?” He barely realized he'd said the words out loud.
“Yup,” Ian frowned when he saw the horrified expression on Cal's face. “What's wrong?”
“It’s...shit. Do you have any pictures?” Cal needed to make sure the dead man was the man he'd seen. He was almost certain he would be, but he had to be sure.
“Of what?” Ian asked.
“The dead guy,” Cal clarified as Ian stuffed his own prisoner into the back of his patrol car. “I need to see a picture of him.”
“Not with me,” Ian shrugged his shoulders in apology. “A copy of the file is sitting on Addison's desk, though. If you want to drive over to the office and look at it. I don't have time to bring it to you. No one can raise Kerry on the radio because Addison cut the wires in the cruiser again. I don't have any back up and I keep getting new calls from dispatch every ten minutes.”
“What is all this about, Cal?” Jerry was watching his son with concern.
Cal stuffed the revolver into the waistband of his jeans. It fit, barely. He forgot about the gun as soon as he had it out of his hands. “I can't tell you right now. I need to go look at those pictures. If I'm right, I'm probably not going to be back today. Y'all are just going to have to manage the store without me.”
“Is everything alright?” April L
ynne had obvious worry in her dark brown eyes.
“Fine. Better than fine. Maybe.” Cal was too distracted to give her his full attention. He was almost certain the man he'd seen in the bar getting into a Toyota was going to be the same man Kerry had seen getting thrown out of the back of one. He had to be sure though. He had to be sure before he went to Leon and got the name of the jealous husband who must have murdered his wife's lover.
“Are you sure?” Ian had the cruiser's door open but he was paying more attention to Cal then the car. “I think I know who the real murderer is. It’s not David.”
“Well, I know it’s not David.” Ian had a baffled expression on his face. “No one thinks it’s David other than Kerry.”
“Cal?” Jerry was frowning at him now. “Do we need to call the Sheriff? I have his cell number.”
“No,” Cal said. “I need to be sure I'm right first.”
“You serious?” Ian asked.
“Serious as a lead heart attack.” Cal turned to April Lynne. “I don't know when I'm going to be back, so why don't you go to my office and enter the receipts from yesterday in the computer.”
“I don't know how.”
“You can figure it out,” he said. “You were better with computers in school than I was. Besides, I've already told Pappy that I'm not going to be working here forever. The rest of you might as well start paying attention to what it takes to run this store.”
He turned on his heel and headed for his truck. He could feel the stares of everyone he'd left behind on the sidewalk burning into his back as he got into the Chevy and took off for the Callahan County Sheriff's Department. The stench of burned rubber filled the air he'd left in his wake.