by George Wier
“Know anything about spool-o?” I asked Burt. He had the lights rotating above us and hit the siren for seconds at a time when we blew through traffic lights on the edge of town. We were past all intersections, and West Texas sprawled before us along a hilly highway.
“Who—or what—is a spool-o?” Burt asked.
“Never mind,” I said.
I was missing something. Something small but terribly important. I began reviewing every conversation I’d had since I turned off Denise’s Cessna and my feet hit the tarmac.
A particular conversation came to mind. I had been riding with Buster LeRoy after leaving Denise with Buster’s wife. We had been coming up on the airport.
I never wanted to be Sheriff, Buster had said. He’d told me about being railroaded into the job and leaving his dream of being a rodeo champion behind.
“You’re doing some heavy thinking, Bill,” Burt said.
“Shh,” I hushed him.
And something else. Suddenly, I had it.
“Burt, can you tell me anything about a fist-fight between Edgar Bristow and Buster LeRoy?”
Burt chuckled.
“The infamous fist-fight that never happened. Sure. What do you want to know?”
“All of it,” I said. “And while you tell me, see what you can do about catching up to Reg and Lydia.”
“Will do,” he said, and I watched as he walked us on up to ninety miles per hour.
And so ensued another bored Burt-tale reminiscent of our first ride together, but this time with the Texas landscape blurring past.
*****
No one except the two men involved—and possibly their confidants—know what started it.
The whole thing went down at a Dairy Queen restaurant at the edge of town. The story goes that in his first year as the town’s presiding peace officer, Buster LeRoy had reached the boiling point on the subject of Edgar Bristow, his importance, his wishes, and his political maneuverings. In general, Bristow had his hand in every pie with any warmth in the entire county. For example, the municipal airport was built on former Bristow land with the provision that Bristow could keep a permanent hangar there. In exchange the City taxes on his rent homes were abated in perpetuity. Anyone caring to look at the appraisal district rolls will find that the assessed value for any Bristow property in the city limits is zero, and it’s that way from now until the end of time. That’s just a “gimme”, you know. Small potatoes. Whatever the reason, on a Saturday afternoon, Bristow was sitting there when Buster came in to flirt with the counter-girl. And no, she wasn’t Lydia. There were a dozen other customers there that day, more or less, and each tells a slightly different account of what happened. But I was sitting there as well, enjoying a banana split, one of only a few weakness in my life—
Okay, I’ll get on with it. Anyway, Bristow says something under his breath to Rodney Felker, a city councilman. I heard it plain enough. Bristow called Buster LeRoy a ‘whoremongering idiot’. Buster turned to him, placed his hand on the butt of his pistol and said: “You have something to say to me?”
But Bristow looked Felker in the eye and said aloud where everyone could hear: “We don’t talk to whoremongers in my county, do we Rod?”
It got awfully quiet in there, let me tell you.
Buster’s face turned a brilliant red. He’s one of those hot-blooded types. But he kept his cool. He looked around the restaurant, then down at Bristow.
“Come on, Mr. Bristow. We’re going outside to discuss this for a moment,” he said.
You have to remember that Bristow was up in his seventies at this time. An old man, but about as tough as an old salt lick. That old man looked up at Buster, his eyes were cold, steady. “Mr. LeRoy,” he said. “You can go piss up a rope.”
And that’s when Buster clamped his hand down hard on Bristow’s shoulder and pulled him bodily from his seat. Bristow resisted, trying to grab at something, anything, but only managed to pull his and Felker’s steak-finger baskets onto the floor.
Bristow hollered, loud: “Ow! Help!” You know, stuff like that.
No one dared move.
Buster let go of him when he got him outside. We couldn’t hear the exact exchange because there was a diesel truck idling close by, but Bristow cursed him so that spittle flew. Buster reached out, gave Bristow a cuff on the chin. Bristow folded up like a house of cards. You would have thought it would be all over the news. You know? That old man Bristow would file charges, have Buster’s head on a plate, served up by any one of his lap-dog attorneys, of which he had more than a few. That never happened.
And now the old man is dead.
*****
“To what woman,” I began, “would you attribute Edgar Bristow’s base appellation?”
“You mean, who was he calling a whore?”
I nodded.
“It was during the time when Buster and Lydia were about to break up, I think. Somewhere around that time. I think maybe it was her he was calling that.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Lydia was Molly’s best friend. Somehow I don’t think the old man approved of their relationship.”
“Could be,” Burt said. “That would make a little too much sense, now wouldn’t it.”
“Yeah. Do you think it’s possible that Buster LeRoy somehow had Edgar Bristow in his hip pocket?”
“You mean, like he knew about something illegal he was doing? Sure. I mean, of course. What else?”
“Can you give me a for-instance?” I asked.
“Nope. I don’t think anybody can. Just rumor, but generally common knowledge. Nothing that would stand up in court.”
“I don’t care about court,” I said.
Burt paused for full two minutes. I waited. Outside the miles rolled past. We were running without lights or sirens, so oncoming traffic made no attempt to pull over and out of our way, as would have otherwise been the custom. Still, we fairly screamed along.
“You know,” he said, finally, “when you’re a wealthy old bird and you practically have your hand in most every till around, there’s a great deal you can get away with.” This, like many other things Burt was prone to say, was cryptic. But then he unloaded his bombshell on me. I should have been looking for it. I had even drawn up a few of my own rules about people and what they were likely to do. One of my rules, contrary to what any given cop would probably tell you, was ‘suspect no one,’ but the caveat to that one was ‘expect anything.’ And thus far, those two, paired together, had stood me in good stead.
“Everybody knows that Edgar Bristow started out as a lumberman, once he returned from the war. But then, once he had a bit of money he began investing very heavily.”
“In what?” I asked.
“Chemicals. Oil. Natural gas. I believe he owned a refinery outright down on the Houston ship channel. He had a bit of a blow, though, when one of his underground storage units blew sky-high back in the ‘70s.”
I digested this for a moment.
“Any idea where?”
“Down close to Houston. Outside of Hempstead, I think. I read a little write-up on it once in a newspaper.”
At that moment we topped one of those high central Texas hills and I saw it in the distance. A car pulled over to the side of the road, passenger door open. Even from over half a mile away, I could make out the headache rack on top. Reg’s car.
“Uh-oh,” Burt said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Better hurry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The car was empty. The high weeds had been trampled down leading toward the barbed-wire fence line at the edge of the highway. There was a creek down there not thirty yards away.
I was out and running before Burt could comment.
The moment my hand touched the barbed wire, there was a report. Then a second.
I went over the fence instead of through it. I don’t know how, so don’t ask me. It was one of those moments that exists in and of itself—an imperative to act carried out.
Through the brush and up a hill, scrambling. Deeper still into the woods. I leapt deadfalls and small gulleys that fed the creek. I emerged into a meadow and a patch of brilliant sunlight.
Lydia stood there, her back to me.
I called her name and she turned, the gun aimed directly at my chest.
“It’s Bill, Lydia!”
She squinted at me, looked down at her hands and then dropped the gun.
I was there in front of her after several long strides. I reached down, picked up the gun, thumbed the cylinder free and loosed three bullets into my palm. Three spent cartridges remained lodged in their holes, still hot to the touch. I had only heard two shots fired from the roadside. I closed the cylinder and stuffed it inside my belt.
“Bill, I—” Lydia began.
I looked over her shoulder. There in the grass was the writhing form of Reg Morrissey.
I grasped Lydia’s arms. “You stay right here. Don’t you dare move.”
“Bill, I. What happ—”
I stepped around her and knelt down to Reg. He was grasping one arm and rolling back and forth in agony.
“Reg? Are you shot anywhere else?”
“No. Gah! My arm! Bitch... tried to... kill me.” Reg gritted his teeth.
“Was that before or after you tried to kill her?”
“Stupid bitch!”
“Shut up, Reg. Let me see that arm.”
It took some doing, but I got him to let go of his arm. There was an entrance wound and an exit wound, neither bleeding bad enough to lead me to believe an artery had been hit.
“We have to get you back to the highway,” I said. “Burt can treat you. We’re here with the ambulance.”
“I don’t trust that sonuvabitch to... trim my toenails,” he said.
“Is that why you hired him as a temporary deputy?” I asked.
“Help me up,” Reg said, “and give me my gun.”
“Not a chance,” I said, and helped him to his feet.
Lydia stood there, staring, her face perplexed.
We walked towards her. As we neared her she reached out to try and help Reg, but he pushed her away.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It’s pretty simple,” I said. “Somehow you shot him. Do you remember what happened?”
“No! I don’t!”
I watched her face. She stared at me, her eyes pleading for some understanding.
“Okay,” I said.
“And you believe that?” Reg said.
“I don’t know what to believe, but I believe she believes it.”
We moved over the hills and through the brush, taking the easy way around and over the narrow defiles.
I could tell that something was dreadfully wrong as the thicket gave way slowly before us. When we emerged from the trees and the narrow clearing along the fence, Reg cursed.
The tail end of his cruiser was visible at the edge of the creek that ran beneath the highway. And Burt’s ambulance was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I couldn’t get down inside the cruiser without the risk of breaking my neck. Burt must have put it in neutral and given it a push over into the edge of the ravine.
Reg had his cell phone and I used it to call the Sheriff’s Office. Lydia flagged down a passing SUV on the highway about the moment I exacted a promise over the phone from Deputy Ross to head our direction poste haste, and bring a backup cruiser along to give chase to Burt’s ambulance just in case he passed that way back towards town. I knew resources were stretched thin at the moment, but I also got a promise to double the guard on Sheriff LeRoy’s hospital room.
Despite the hot late evening sun beaming down on us as we got Reg into the passenger seat of the SUV, I felt cold inside.
Wrong guesses, I had thought before. Wrong guesses both in the dark and the brightness of day.
Lydia sat beside me in the rear seat while a salty middle-aged woman—she was as cool as cucumber despite the bleeding passenger—drove us at top speed back towards town.
I turned and regarded Lydia. What was it about her? Everything centered on a handful of people: Lydia Stevens, Buster LeRoy, Reg Morrissey and Burt Sanderson. There was something between them. Something shared. But she was the odd one out.
I looked past Lydia to see the sun westering.
“Lydia,” I whispered. “What do you remember?”
She looked down at her hands. There were cuff marks on her wrists where the circulation had been hampered.
“I remember waiting in the jail. Waiting for Buster to come.”
“No,” I said. “In the woods back there. Beside the highway. What do you recall?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There you were and there was the gun in my hand. And just before that, I was waiting for the feds to bring Buster back to the courthouse.”
“You mean you don’t remember shooting—I mean, you don’t remember anything in between?”
“No.”
Both Reg and the driver were listening with attentive ear.
Nine hours, I thought. She’d been gone for nine hours.
I reached over and patted Lydia’s hands. She grasped my hand and held it so hard it hurt. And as the miles slipped past, she silently wept.
*****
“Reg,” I said. “How hard would it be to get a search warrant for Burt Sanderson’s house?”
“He doesn’t live in a house.”
“Apartment then.”
“No apartment. But it would be pretty easy at this point.”
“Who do we need to call?” I asked.
“Give me that cell phone, Bill,” he said.
I waited while Reg made the call. We passed a sign showing us to be sixteen miles from Trantor’s Crossing.
“What do you mean one’s already been issued?” Reg demanded into the phone. I hoped he wasn’t raising his voice to the judge. I watched him in profile. His face contorted in anger. He slapped the lid down on the cell phone, then winced in pain.
“What gives?” I asked.
“The Feds.”
“Agent Bruce,” I said, making it a mild oath. “By the way, where does Burt live?”
“For the last three years, same address. Sheriff LeRoy got permission from the County Commissioners Court to sell the place off. After all, it was just standing there. So, Buster put up the cash and Burt rents from him. Pretty cheap rent, as I understand it. I guess Burt and Buster are pretty tight. The way I’ve got it figured, Buster had to have someone watching the place and it made sense to have someone stay there while he was converting it. Otherwise it would be the most useless piece of real estate anywhere. ”
“What place is that?” I asked.
“Why, the old county fallout shelter.”
*****
Back in my college days a couple of suite-mates of mine at Sam Houston State University used to raid the old fallout shelter beneath the Old Main building for some of the basic necessities of dorm life—such things as toilet paper and toothpaste.
I shivered.
There were many things a person would likely find in a fallout shelter. First on the list would be old c-rations, mess-kits, and rain ponchos. And then, of course, there would be the one thing most needed during any genuine emergency which might necessitate a fallout shelter to begin with: medical supplies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The two sheriff’s cruisers passed and then fell in behind us a few miles outside the city limits. Our driver, Miss Thompson, a school-teacher from Fredericksburg, very neatly blasted through half a dozen red traffic lights and slowed for the courthouse.
We got out as the last rays of the sun faded from the roofpeak of the old building in front of us.
Ladd Ross’s cruiser braked to quick stop beside us. An ambulance was waiting there with the rather large and stout EMT who had helped us load Buster LeRoy. Reg tried at first to ignore her, but she made him sit down on one of the many benches while she began an examinat
ion of his arm.
“I don’t have time for this, Linda,” he complained. “I’ve got a killer to catch.”
“You’ll have time for a funeral if this gets gangrenous. We’re going to the hospital, Reg. Right freaking now!”
He looked up at her and swallowed.
With his good hand Reg tossed me his keys. “Go, Bill. But she stays,” he motioned toward Lydia who still sat in the backseat, oblivious to what was going on. “Have one of the boys lock her up, Ladd,” he told deputy Ross. “And post a twenty-four hour guard. Bill, you follow Deputy Ross to Burt’s place. And somebody please have a wrecker go and fish my car out of that damned creek.”
“Burt?” Linda, the EMT asked.
“Yeah,” Reg said. “Uh. He might need our help.”
“We’ve been worried about him,” she said. “He’s been gone with the other wagon for too long now.”
I helped Lydia out of the car. Ladd Ross was ready to put his handcuffs on her but I held up a warding hand.
“Those won’t be needed,” I said. “Will they, Lydia?”
“No,” she said, her face downcast.
“I’ll get to the bottom of all this,” I said. “I promise.”
She looked up at me. I gave her my best public relations smile, patted her hand and wondered what Julie would think of that.
*****