The Long Count

by JM Gulvin

  He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Nancy, when has Miss Annie ever been herself?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ The nurse was peering through the panel to where the wizened-looking woman stared back. ‘Are you sure you want to go in there? You know how she’s been. Look at her. Look at her eyes; she’s got that look in her eyes, and if you’re going in there she really ought to be strapped.’

  Beale too now looked through the window. ‘In a jacket you mean? I don’t think so. She trusts me, Nancy. She won’t try anything. She never does.’

  ‘She used to trust you,’ the nurse said. ‘She doesn’t trust you anymore. She doesn’t trust any of us anymore, and she remembers, Doctor. There’s nothing Miss Annie forgets.’

  Finally she unlocked the door and Beale went in. Nancy closed the door behind him but she did not lock it and she did not move away. The doctor leaned with his back to the panel of glass while Miss Annie remained where she was. She held the baby doll in her arms, its chill features pressed to a tired nipple where it poked through her pajama top.

  ‘I’m feeding,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be in here, not when I’m feeding my baby.’

  ‘I know that and I’m sorry. How is he, Miss Annie?’ Beale asked. ‘How’s your baby?’

  She did not reply. She just looked at him. ‘If you touch him, if you try and take him away from me, I’ll kill you.’

  Nine

  Quarrie was still at Henry’s Bathtub. Prising another cigarette from his pack he felt in a pocket for his lighter. The wrecker down by the water’s edge was in position with the winch hooked up to the chassis of the submerged cruiser. The driver flipped the switch and the winch started rolling and a couple of minutes later the vehicle surfaced. The same steely blue as the car he had inspected back in town, it was dripping water and weed and hissed like some ancient leviathan. The driver’s door was not locked and the keys were still in the ignition. Grabbing them, Quarrie opened the trunk.

  The dead man’s face was the color of a gutted fish, his clothes fastened to his skin. He looked flattened, as if the weight of the water had squashed him, where he lay curled in the foetal position between the traffic cones and wheel-jack. The Marion County sheriff stood with his arms folded and alongside him Chief Billings.

  ‘Don’t look like he took a bullet,’ the chief said. ‘Jesus Christ, do you think this sumbitch had him climb in?’

  Briefly Quarrie glanced at him. ‘Like you say, Chief: it don’t look like he’s holed any.’

  He went through the dead man’s sodden pockets. No driver’s license or wallet, nothing that could identify him. Nostrils flared, he wiped his hands on his jeans.

  ‘That gal you talked to from the diner,’ the sheriff said. ‘Did she have any idea what it was he might’ve been driving?’

  Quarrie shook his head. He looked beyond the two men back towards the highway. ‘Whatever it is, he’s but a few hours ahead of us. We’ve traced him this far so I’m going to follow my gut and see if I can’t get any closer.’ He glanced at the sheriff again. ‘Nicole,’ he said, ‘the waitress. Have somebody walk her through a detailed statement and call me if she comes up with anything.’

  A few hours later he was south of Marshall, Texas, heading for the freeway and listening to the regular radio where the newscaster was relating a casualty report.

  ‘Thirty-one Americans and one hundred and seventy-six of the enemy were killed in a three-hour battle in a jungle clearing sixty miles north of Saigon. Of the six hundred Americans involved, one hundred and twenty-three were wounded. There was no estimate for wounded among the Vietcong.’ The man’s voice was crisp and clear, staccato, like the firefight he was describing. ‘The Vietcong struck first with heavy machine guns from the brush and tree line shortly after the American battalion hiked into the knee-high sawgrass. US soldiers returned fire and within fifteen minutes artillery began to pound the enemy positions …’

  The shortwave crackled where it was housed under the dash and Quarrie turned the regular radio off.

  A woman’s voice lifted through the speaker. ‘Harrison County dispatch calling Ranger Unit Zero Six?’

  Reaching for the handset Quarrie picked up. ‘Copy that, Harrison County. What’s up?’

  ‘The sheriff up in Marion told us you might be in our neck of the woods and that you’d want the heads up on anything we got.’

  ‘Yes, mam, go ahead.’

  ‘The Sheers Motel in Fairview, one of the cleaning staff found the partial barrel of what she thinks is a shotgun dumped by the side of the road.’

  Twenty minutes later he was driving Main Street, Fairview, passing the bank and mercantile. A little further he came to the Sheers Motel. A flat-roofed concrete block housing two dozen rooms together with a tiny reception area like a kiosk out front. The manager was sitting behind a tall counter reading a copy of Sports Illustrated and the sawn-off barrel of a shotgun was lying on a sheet of brown paper. Bald-headed, when he got to his feet the man stood around five and a half feet with suspenders keeping up his pants.

  ‘You the Ranger?’ he said, glancing at Quarrie’s guns.

  Quarrie nodded.

  Stepping back from the counter the manager wedged a fist against his hip and jutted his chin at the truncated barrel. ‘Grace found it walking into town this morning.’

  ‘Grace is the cleaner?’ Quarrie was inspecting the roughly sawn barrel carefully.

  ‘Colored woman, yeah. She’s gone for the day right now; got kids at home to take care of.’ The manager gestured vaguely in the direction Quarrie had just come from. ‘I had her run to the store real quick to pick up some stuff we needed, and she came across this here piece of metal. Said it was back from the road aways but the sun caught on it and she went to see what-all it was. Just lying in the brush, she said, like somebody tossed it out of a car window.’ Taking a hunk of chewing tobacco from his pocket, he peeled a sliver off with an overlong thumbnail that looked to have been cultivated for just that purpose. ‘She brought it back here to me because she figured I’d know what to do.’

  Again Quarrie considered the barrel. ‘How far down the road did she find it? How far away from the motel?’

  ‘I can’t tell you exactly. About a hundred yards I reckon.’

  ‘If I asked her could she show me the spot?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s pretty sharp. Yeah, I imagine she probably could.’

  Quarrie cast another short glance his way. ‘You busy right now? Got many people staying?’

  ‘I guess there’s one or two.’

  ‘What about last night?’

  ‘Five, I think there was.’ Spinning the register around where it was laid on the counter, the manager took a look. ‘Yeah, we had five people staying last night.’

  Quarrie turned the book so it faced him again. ‘What about vehicles? There’re no license numbers written down here.’

  The manager shook his head. ‘This is a small place and people pay up front and usually it’s with cash. I don’t bother with license plates or stuff like that; it ain’t as if we ever need to trace anybody.’

  Looking through the window Quarrie studied the concrete block of rooms. ‘Was one of your guests a young guy with dark hair?’

  ‘Maybe. We had one young guy, I think. Can’t tell you what-all color his hair was. I don’t notice stuff like that.’

  Quarrie squinted at him once more. ‘You want to show me his room?’

  Grabbing a key from the metal locker behind the desk, the manager led the way across the parking lot. He unlocked the door to room 13 and was about to go inside when Quarrie checked him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Grace cleaned this room already, is that what you said?’

  The manager nodded. ‘Last one before she went home.’

  ‘OK, thanks. I can take it from here.’

  The room was not very big and it was basic, a nightstand beside a narrow-looking double bed, a black-and-white TV and a tiny bathroom at the back. The bed was freshly made and the drapes at the wind
ow tied back. Yellow flowers had been painted directly onto plain blocks of blue cinder that made up the walls. The carpet was threadbare and patchy and in places he could see a hint of concrete showing through.

  It looked as though everything had been vacuumed thoroughly and he imagined if Grace was sharp enough to spot the barrel of a shotgun by the side of the road then she would be more than fastidious in her work. Standing in the doorway still, he cast an eye across the nightstand, the bedclothes and the little table where the TV was set. Nothing jumped out at him initially; he could see no marks on the table or nightstand to indicate where someone might have taken a saw to a shotgun. But then his gaze fastened on the luggage rack.

  Moving into the room now he shut the door and considered the carpet again. It was clear Grace had worked it hard, but he kept to the edge of the room as he sought the luggage rack. Folding metal legs with canvas bands running in between, taking care to open it up he inspected those bands and could see nothing at first, but then he picked up the tiniest slivers of what looked like shavings of steel. In the bathroom he tore a piece of toilet paper off the roll and gently smoothed the shavings onto it. Folding the paper over, he took a pen and marked it with the room number and name of the motel.

  Back in the parking lot he opened the trunk of his car where his 7mm hunting rifle was clipped to the underside of the lid. Lying on top of a folded sheet of tarpaulin was a briefcase and inside that a stack of evidence envelopes. Carefully he slipped the fold of toilet paper into one of those then sealed it and scribbled a note on the front. Grabbing a roll of police tape from his tool box he sealed the door to the motel room, then went back to reception for the barrel of the gun.

  Back in the little kiosk he called the sheriff’s office and requested that a lab team be sent down to dust the room. He told them he wanted a teletype of any fingerprints they recovered forwarded both to the National Crime Information Center and his captain’s office in Amarillo. Then he went back to his car and drove the short distance into town.

  The mercantile was on the right-hand side and he pulled into the parking lot and went in. A young woman was sitting on a stool at the checkout chewing gum, and he asked her if she remembered anyone coming in to purchase a hacksaw.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘Young guy about my age came in here first thing.’

  ‘What was it he bought exactly?’

  ‘A hacksaw like you said. That and a roll of duct tape.’

  Thanking her, Quarrie went back to the parking lot and was about to get in his car when he noticed the facade of the local bank. He stood there for a second or so chewing his lip and thinking how there’d been no wallet on the dead man in the trunk of the cruiser.

  Inside the bank, he talked to the cashier and she showed him the check she had cashed for sixty dollars. A little red-faced, she admitted she had not asked the young man for any identification.

  Using the manager’s phone Quarrie spoke to Ranger Headquarters in Austin and then he went back to the mercantile to get a cup of coffee while he waited for somebody to call him back. He was sitting in his car outside the bank with his hat over his eyes when the manager came out and Quarrie followed him.

  A dispatcher was on the phone and he took it at the manager’s desk. ‘John Q,’ the woman said, ‘we got the information you wanted. The body you found in the trunk was a salesman called Kelly, working for a farm supplies company out of Little Rock, and it’s the company that owns the vehicle. 1966 Buick sedan, it’s black and the license plate is five, double-three, double-one.’

  ‘All right,’ Quarrie told her. ‘I want an APB out on that car and someone from Arkansas needs to call on Kelly’s next of kin.’

  Ten

  Isaac Bowen spent the night in Shreveport, Louisiana, and in the morning he took a train to Texarkana and a bus from there to Paris. Late afternoon, he walked five miles west on the county road until he came to the junction where it forked with Route 38. Perched on the top rail of a fence he looked up at the sky where rain was threatening to fall. A few minutes later he heard the sound of an engine in the distance and saw the speck of gray as a vehicle approached. Straightening his tie he fixed the collar on his tunic, picked up his duffel and stuck out his thumb.

  A pickup truck, it rumbled towards him but did not slow and Isaac lifted his hand. An older guy at the wheel, he was wearing bibbed denim overalls and a battered-looking hat. Spotting Isaac finally, he came to a halt ten yards further on.

  ‘Where you headed, son?’ Leaning across the seat he opened the door.

  ‘Up towards Monkstown; house not far from the lake.’

  The old guy indicated through the windshield. ‘I’m driving 38 so I can only take you as far as the T.’

  ‘Thank you, sir: the T junction will be just fine.’ Throwing his duffel over his shoulder Isaac got in.

  They drove west across flatland, the old man working the wheel while Isaac sat upright at the other end of the bench.

  ‘Got us a little rain blowing in,’ the old man said. ‘Ain’t been so bad over this way but out west they ain’t seen a drop since fall.’ He nodded to Isaac’s uniform. ‘I guess you wouldn’t know too much about that, though, huh? I guess you been overseas. Good to see a man in uniform, son, especially right now what with all them kids waving placards and shouting the odds. Don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

  ‘Was always going to happen,’ Isaac told him. ‘The service I mean. When I was growing up a soldier is all I was ever going to be. My dad was in the army and his dad before him, his granddaddy before that.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ the old man said. ‘Just get back from over there then, did you?’

  Isaac nodded.

  ‘So where is it you live?’

  ‘Right now I’ll be staying with my dad.’ He pointed. ‘Our place is way up there in the woods.’

  The old man looked the width of the cab. ‘Me, I farm a few acres a little ways south. Don’t know many people up thataway anymore, though if I was a sight more neighborly I would. Wife died a few years back and I kind of got took up with being by myself.’

  Isaac looked ahead. ‘Well, sir, maybe you can come visit. I only just got back and I aim to surprise my dad.’

  The old man said nothing further. He concentrated on the road ahead until they came to the T junction and he dropped Isaac before turning south.

  Isaac walked in the opposite direction, making his way deep into the woods with the wind getting up and the first traces of lightning scattering the landscape ahead. Dry still here, he stepped up his pace and came to the mailbox at the bottom of the drive. He paused now, squinting at a car parked a little deeper into the woods. A Ford Fairlane, two-door with Louisiana license plates, he walked over to take a closer look. There was nobody around, but he could see a briefcase on the back seat and a weighty-looking tape machine with a reel of tape loaded and a microphone clipped to the side.

  When he got to the house the front door was locked so he rang the bell but nobody came. He rang it again and still nobody came so he walked the length of the patio to the kitchen door only to find that was locked as well. With a shrug of his shoulders he crossed to the garage and found the door closed but not locked. Inside, his father’s Pontiac sedan was parked next to the old pickup truck, the keys to which were hanging on a hook. Fetching those, Isaac climbed behind the wheel and backed the truck out then switched off the engine and left the truck on the drive. Inside the garage again he paused to consider the metal trapdoor in the floor that was visible now the truck was gone.

  A storm shelter. He lifted the trap and climbed down the ladder into the darkened passage below. He stood there listening for a moment then he sought the light switch on the wall. The passage led to a large, square room made of concrete where his father kept sleeping bags and camp beds as well as water coolers, a propane stove and lots of canned food. From there another passage carried under the drive to another door with no lock, only a handle. Opening that, Isaac was faced by a panel made up of
oak boards running lengthwise bottom to top. Working his fingers down the right-hand side he found the spot and the panel swung in.

  His father’s study. He stood there catching the stale scent in the air and sniffed like a dog. The door to the basement corridor was open and as he moved around the desk he caught his foot against the leg. On one knee now, he retied a loose shoelace and noticed some tiny stains on the floor. He stared at them then flicked on the lamp but that did not give off enough light so he crossed to the wall and the switch for the overhead spots. Again he paused; the passage that led to the foot of the stairs was dark and chill, no sound of a TV or radio playing and no light shining from above.

  ‘Dad?’ he called. ‘Are you home? It’s Isaac, back from Vietnam.’

  There was no reply. With light flooding the study now he went back to the desk and considered those stains again. A little air escaped his lips. A few blackened-looking dots, scraping at one with his fingernail he tasted it and his expression was grim. His attention was taken by the weapons cabinet fixed on the wall where one of the hooks was missing its gun. He looked at the floor once more and then back to that empty hook, then he heard the doorbell sound from above. Closing the wooden panel he cast another short glance at the gun cabinet then made his way along the basement passage and climbed the steps to the hall.

  Through the window he could see a Fannin County prowl car parked in the drive outside. A skinny-looking deputy in his twenties was at the door in his light brown uniform with his hat in his hands, hair cut close and his cheeks carrying old acne scars.

  ‘Mr Bowen?’ he said, looking closely at Isaac’s uniform. ‘Sir, are you Isaac Bowen?’

  Isaac nodded.

  ‘We’ve been trying to find you, sir, through the Army. Is it all right if I come in?’

  Isaac ushered him into the kitchen and the deputy stood there shifting his weight.

  ‘Last couple of days,’ he said, ‘we were making a whole bunch of calls to see if we could track you down.’