’Bout that time, Rye Willis showed up to make a delivery, somethin’ he don’t like to do in front of a audience. He figured out quick what was goin’ down an’ had a good laugh at my expense.
“Bet you don’t have no better luck,” I told him.
He thought about that an’ said, “Think I ain’t read Tom Sawyer?”
I didn’t answer. I know he hadn’t, but I’d told him the story one time.
Rye added, “How much is it worth to you to get that critter outta here?”
“Alive?” I said.
He shrugged an’ nodded.
“Twenty bucks is all I got on me.”
“Fair ’nough.”
Rye went inside Hardsetter’s an’ come out with a beer keg an’ a tapper. He tapped the keg, commandeered a bucket, an’ proceeded to fill it. Then he carried it over to just outside kickin’ range from the jack. He looked around at his audience an’ said, “I outta be chargin’ admission.”
“My money’s on the jackass,” one of the boys said.
“How much?”
“I got twenty bucks says that critter’ll make a jackass outta you.”
“You’re on,” Rye told ’im.
At that point, Charity come out to see what was up an’ Rye asked her to hold the bets. Charity’s got a great head fer figures, so she kept track of the action when Rye offered to cover everybody.
“How ’bout you, Homer? You want a piece of this?”
I’d noticed, while they was dickerin’, that the critter’d sidled over to the bucket an’ was givin’ the beer a try. Seemed like he was formin’ a favorable opinion, ’cause he started puttin’ it away pretty fast. So I told Rye I was a repersenative of the Law, and they was laws against gamblin’.
He just said, “Ah-hunh.”
Pretty soon the jackass started shakin’ his head an’ staggerin’. He took about ten steps, then stood with his legs splayed out an’ his head down. He didn’t even move when Rye walked over an’ slapped him on the neck. “Somebody get me a rope,” Rye said.
Charity put Rye’s winnin’s in her pocket an’ fetched one. Rye twisted it into a halter that he tied on the donkey’s head. He said, “Sweet Charity, you got any old gunny sacks around?”
She reckoned she could find a old table cloth. While she was huntin’ it up, Rye called Truck Towing on his cell phone an’ told ’em to bring the big winch an’ a small truck. “The one you use fer haulin’ parts’ll do just fine.”
Time the tow truck arrived, Rye had the jackass blindfolded with the table cloth so it couldn’t see the truck.
The rest of the project went down smooth as West Wheelin’ White Lightning. Dwayne “D.W.” Truck—who’d come hisself to see what all the fuss was about—backed the tow truck up to the jackass, an’ him an’ Rye eased the canvas sling underneath it. ’Fore the poor critter knew what was happenin’ they had him hung from the tow-hook, all four legs danglin’. Then Patrick Truck, D.W.’s baby brother, backed the parts truck up under the critter an’ Dwayne eased him down into the back. They cross tied him, so he couldn’t climb out or kick down the tailgate, an’ Rye asked, “Homer, where’d you want him delivered?”
Which is how I ended up with a jackass fer a lawnmower.
car wrecks
’Bout 4:15 p.m., my cell phone rang, an’ when I answered, it was Skip. Musta just got home from school.
“Homer, there’s a super-sized rabbit tied to our front tree, eatin’ the roses!”
“Dammit! Shorten the rope, would you, so he can’t reach the flowers. An’ give him a pail of water.”
“Who’s he belong to?”
“If I knew that he wouldn’t be there.”
“What’s his name?”
“Far’s I know, he ain’t got one.”
“So I can name him.”
“Hell, no! We ain’t keepin’ him.”
• • •
It was nearly suppertime ’fore I picked Skip up at home an’, dropped him at my sister’s house fer supper. After which, I drove back to the state cop shop to interview my prisoner. When I asked fer him at the lock-up, the guy in charge said, “He’s gone, Sheriff.”
“How kin that be? He ain’t even been arraigned.”
The trooper shrugged. “About a half an hour after he made his phone call, some guy showed up who said he was Ames’s lawyer. He had an order to show probable cause why his client was arrested in the first place. He tried to get the judge to drop all the charges because you weren’t here to testify, but Sergeant Underhill convinced the judge to postpone the hearing. Sarge told the judge you were dealing with the disaster Ames created, so the judge continued the case until tomorrow an’ let Ames out on bail.”
“Well, we still have his truck and license,” I said. “Guess he’ll have to come back.”
I asked where could I find Sergeant Underhill, an’ the trooper steered me to the 24-Hour Café across the highway.
• • •
Underhill was sittin’ in a back booth, tuckin’ away a order of steak an’ eggs. When he seen me, he waved me over an’ pointed to the empty bench across from him. “Take a load off.”
I set my hat on the bench an’ sat down next to it.
The waitress hurried to bring me a mug of fresh coffee.
Underhill waited ’til she’d took my order ’fore he fished somethin’ outta his shirt pocket and laid it on the table. Ames’s CDL. He pointed at it an’ said, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
I’d looked at it when I took it off Ames, an’ I hadn’t found nothin’ wrong. So I knew I’d have to study it close if I was gonna find anything amiss. “The pi’ture looks just like him,” I said. “That’s unusual.”
Underhill gimme his gotcha grin, so I studied the license some more. Somethin’ was off about the feel an’ the weight of it. “It’s counterfeit.”
Underhill pointed at me an’ nodded.
“It’s a damn good one,” I added. He agreed. “So who is Ames really?”
Underhill said, “I ran his prints through N.C.I.C. They came back to a Samuel Loomis. He lost his own license for DUI.”
“Is there a real Henry Ames?”
“Yeah. But according to his daughter, he’s blind, deaf, and senile. Currently resides in a nursing home in Atlanta.”
“Well, we still got the truck.”
Underhill shook his head. “He won’t come back for it. Probably belongs to some bank. I’ve got an APB out, but we’ll be really lucky if we ever see him again.”
We pondered that while we finished our steaks. At least the steaks was good.
• • •
I was really glad I was already on duty that night, cause I would’a got called back in if I wasn’t. I’d just tucked Skip in for the night at my sister’s, stopped by the house to see was the jackass okay, an’ made my early rounds—checkin’ that doors was locked an’ such—when D.W. Truck rung me on my cell phone.
“Homer, that truck you impounded’s just been hijacked.”
I didn’t ax was he sure. D.W. would know. S.O.P. fer vehicle impoundment is when the fine’s been paid or the judge finds the owner not guilty, the feller gets a paper to take to the Impound Officer. That’s Dwayne. He gives the guy a release form to fill out—says his vehicle ain’t been bruised or burglarized. Once he signs it, he gets his keys back and he’s on his way.
“What happened, Dwayne?”
“The truck was fine when I locked up fer the night—’bout ten minutes ago. Then the dogs started in. When I went out to see what was up, the truck was gone. Sommabitch took my gate right off the hinges and drove over it.”
I told him to keep everybody away from the scene, an’ I’d be along directly.
Happens, I was wrong. I was halfway out to Truck’s when Martha called me.
“Homer, you’d best get out to Car Wrecks. There’s been an accident….”
• • •
The two-mile stretch of county highway runnin’ along our local river is called
Car Wrecks. Ten or fifteen streams feed it down steep ravines an’ gullies. The road zigzags across half of ’em on bridges built or rebuilt over a span of years. ’Tween the zigzags an’ the mismatched bridges, there’s plenty of curves an’ places a car can go off the road in spite of the guard rails the county keeps replacin’.
Time I got there, I didn’t have to look long or hard to find the crash site—seemed like the whole of West Wheelin’s fire department was turned out, linin’ up to make a human guard rail in the gap where somethin’ big had took out the standard-issue railin’.
There was a dozen cars an’ pick-ups parked along where the road curved ’fore goin’ over a old Roman-style stone bridge. The Fire Department’s pumper truck was parked near the gap, in the middle of a mare’s nest of hoses. The scene was lit by the car headlights an’ the floodlights on the fire truck. Outside the circle of light, the trees was black on black—you couldn’t see the river or anything past the far side of the bridge.
Boone County’s only got four full time firefighters—firemen. They was all there. Along with—looked like—most of the volunteers. We’d recently got a squad of new-comers, includin’ Angie Devon an’ Jesus Lopez, an’—I wasn’t too surprised to see—Miz Mary Lincoln. All the old-comers was there, too—Nina an’ Rye, Merlin Willis, Junior Jackson, an’ the Jefferson twins. Rumor had it Tom an’ Jeff was descended from a dead former president. Probably more’n a rumor. Tom had a way with words an’ always had a pen stuck into his afro; Jeff had really good penmanship.
I shouldered my way into the line-up an’ leaned over the space where the guard-rail used to be. The ravine below was dark as a gateway to Hell. A fire burned cheerfully in what I judged to be the center of it. Smelled like a barbecue where the cook used diesel fuel instead’a lighter fluid.
“You guys on strike?” I asked the Chief, who was one of the full-time guys.
“Nope. Outta water.”
Which explained why the hoses was lyin’ around like road-killed rattlers.
“Don’t worry, Sheriff. That little brush fire we had last August cleaned out all the combustible material. There’s nothing left to burn.”
“’Cept my evidence.”
The Chief sighed an’ gave the order, an’ all the firefighters fell to an’ got back to work. Took about a hour ’fore the chief pronounced the fire out an’ sent everybody home but the on-duty man.
By that time, I’d called the state cops an’ they sent out their crime scene van, evidence techs, an’ more lights. It was close to sun-up by the time they was done.
I waited ’til it was light enough to get good pictures of the scene without a flash. When I’d run a couple rolls off, I woke up Doc Howard, an’ asked him to send a couple interns an’ a ambulance to pick up the crispy critter that’d been the truck driver.
I never did get by Nina’s fer dessert.
The Grassy-ass Cafe
By the time I collected Skip from my sister’s, it was 8:30 a.m. We went home so I could change clothes an’ feed the jackass. On the way, I called the school an’ told ’em Skip’d be late, then I called Nina an’ offered to buy her breakfast if she’d meet us at the café.
When Skip an’ I got to the house, we found that the critter had chewed everything he could reach—pretty much the whole front yard—down to the roots. He musta figured out I could help him get more, ’cause soon as I got outta the cruiser, he let me hear why jackasses is called mountain canaries. His “hee-haw-haw-haw” echoed off all the neighbors’ houses an’ brought at least two residents out to see what was up.
Folks around here mostly don’t comment on other folks’ business, least not to their faces. But Mrs. Shaklee, next door, stuck her head out the kitchen window an’ yelled, “Couldn’t you have just gotten a rooster, Sheriff?”
Skip just said, “Wow!”
I untied the critter from the tree he was attached to an’ tried to lead him behind the house where there was more grass. He planted his feet an’ wouldn’t budge.
I pulled harder; jackass started backin’ up. Skip nearly busted a gut laughin’.
“Knock it off!” I said, “An’ gimme a hand.”
Even with both of us pullin’, we couldn’t get the critter to go forward.
Finally, Skip said, “We might just as well swing him around an’ back him up where we want him to go.”
So we tried that. It took about twenty minutes, but we finally got him ’round behind the house, tied to the only tree there was. I had Skip fill a wash tub with water for him while I got a shovel an’ rake to pick up the free fertilizer he’d produced the day before.
Then I got cleaned up, an’ we went to eat.
• • •
The little restaurant Maria Lopez’d opened across the street from City Hall was officially called the Gracias A Dios Café. Only nobody but Maria an’ her husband could pronounce that. So folks mostly call it the Grassy-ass. It was usually pretty crowded mealtimes ’cause Maria’s a damn good cook, an’ not just Tex-Mex. She can cook anything you can describe.
When we pulled up there was a beat-up old GMC pickup parked out front. It had runnin’ boards—which ain’t unusual on trucks hereabouts—and the slickest paint job I ever seen—a wide baby blue an’ white plaid with a red pin stripe runnin’ through it. The sign on the door said Donatello Firenzi Masonry & Whimsy. There was a mason’s level in the gun rack, an’ a big brown Maine Coon cat curled up on the passenger’s seat. I made a note of the license plate ’fore we went inside.
The place was pretty crowded. I made the plaid truck’s driver right off—the only stranger in the place. He was sittin’ at the lunch counter, tuckin’ away a plate a ham an’ eggs. A male white, mid-40s, dressed in a denim jacket over a blue work shirt, Levis, an’ work boots. He had a Chicago Cubs gimme hat hangin’ out of a back pocket.
Me an’ Skip took the only table left, an’ Maria brought us coffee an’ took our orders. We was almost done eatin’ when Nina finally showed. She wasn’t wearin’ her ring.
“Lost it already?” I asked.
She looked hurt. “It’s safe enough.” She pulled out the chain she wore ’round her neck to hold the gold cross her daddy give her. An’ sure enough, there was her ring. She let it drop back inside her shirt, settlin’ it between her assets. I sure did envy that ring.
I looked at Skip an’ could see his mind was movin’ along the same track. “Keep your eyes to yourself,” I told him.
He dropped his head, but he didn’t try to hide his smirk. When I pointed out that Nina was gonna be his stepmom sometime soon, he got redder’n strawberry soda.
“If you’re done,” I told him, “you can be excused.”
“I’ll wait in the cruiser.”
I tossed him my keys an’ turned back to Nina. “Why you hidin’ your ring?”
“We can’t set a date yet.”
Some guys would’a got mad, but I grew up with three sisters so I know women got their own kinda logic. You can understand it fine if you’re patient, an’ listen, an’ fill in the steps they skip getting from A to Z. I just said, “Why not?” an’ waited.
“Rye’s been courtin’ me just as long as you. If we tell him we’re tyin’ the knot without he’s even got a girl, he’ll be heart-broke.”
“Long’s he thinks he’s got a chance with you, he ain’t even lookin’.”
“So we gotta find him one.”
“He’s a grown man. He kin find his own.”
“I know, but he’ll find one a whole lot faster if we help.”
I knew that was one place Rye wouldn’t want no help, but there was no point in pointin’ that out. “What did you have in mind?”
“We could start with a list of eligibles.”
I signaled Maria fer the check, an’ tole Nina, “You start. I got a crime to investigate an’ a autopsy to attend.”
Maria handed me a check.
I handed her a ten an’ a twenty. “I got Nina’s, too. Keep the change.”
I give
Nina a peck on the check an’ beat feet ’fore she could think a anything else.
post mortem
Doc Howard was waitin’ when I finally made it to the morgue.
“I finished the post on your John Doe, Sheriff.”
“Good.”
“Are you sure you got all the bones?”
“I ain’t sure of nothin’ but death an’ taxes. But you’re welcome to go out there an’ look for yourself.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“What killed him?”
“I can’t say.”
“That’s helpful. How’m I gonna arrest—”
“I cannot manufacture evidence.” He shook his head. “Come with me.”
He led me to a empty classroom—acoustical panels an’ fluorescent lights on the ceilin’; tall windows lookin’ out on the campus; green an’ white linoleum tile floors; an’ rows of tables with chairs facin’ a chalkboard at the back of the room.
Doc had John Doe’s bones laid out in order on the table closest to the chalk board. Least it looked like the bones I’d brung him. Skull an’ back bones, ribs, and arm an’ leg bones was all about where they’d be if the feller had just laid down on Doc’s table an’ died. The dead give-away was that Doc looked happy as a pig in slop. Or like he’d just finished one of them 1000-piece giant-jigsaw puzzles.
“At least this time you brought me something to work with, Sheriff.” Musta been referrin’ to the guy the bear ate some time back.
I ignored the dig. “This how you maintain a chain of custody?”
Doc looked insulted. “This isn’t John Doe. This is Mortimer Oliver, the best anatomy assistant who ever lived, assisting even after death.”
I rolled my eyes.
“It was his last wish,” Doc said. “He willed his body to the Anatomy Department.”
Courtin' Murder in West Wheeling Page 3