Country Hardball

by Steve Weddle

  “So what?” Caskey asked.

  “Boggs handles the multijurisdictional grand jury,” McWilliams said.

  Caskey snorted. “‘Handles’ is right.”

  “What’s that mean?” Lacewell asked.

  “How many times you been out here?” McWilliams asked him.

  “I don’t know. Last year we were out here. Didn’t find anything but a couple of stray dogs.”

  “Before that?”

  “Every year for a while, I guess. Never find anything. Don’t figure we’ll find nothing this time.”

  “So why the hell are we out here again if every time we come, the place is clean?” Caskey asked.

  “Different this time. Robbery. Not drugs,” Lacewell said.

  “And this time we’ll find something,” McWilliams said. “Hey, what’s Rudd’s connection to the robbery anyway?”

  “Don’t know,” Lacewell said. “Some kid just found the orange toboggan at the end of the driveway. He’d heard the story on the radio so he called it in. Bing, bam, boom, here we are.”

  Big Gene walked up behind Lacewell, smacked him in the shoulders. “You ladies talking about your vaginas?”

  “Hey, Gene,” Caskey said, taking a step away. “Shouldn’t you be up at the house, giving a statement like your boss, Mr. Rudd?”

  “Done did,” he said. “Figured I’d come down and see what you bunch of fairies were doing.”

  Caskey turned to McWilliams. “He seem drunk and disord)ing up ing outerly to you?”

  “Resisting arrest, too, right?” McWilliams said.

  “Shit, fellas, what put you in a bad mood?” Then Gene leaned down into Lacewell’s face, put his hand over his own mouth as if he were going to throw up. “Oh, hell, I see now. Looking at this guy in daylight is enough to make you sick.”

  Lacewell slapped Gene’s hand away. “I’ll have you know, big brother, I’m a duly deputized officer of the law.”

  Gene laughed. “May well be, but you’re still so butt ugly even a priest wouldn’t fuck you.”

  “All right,” McWilliams said, taking Gene by the elbow. “You’ve had your fun.” He walked with him out of earshot. “You come down here for any reason?”

  “Boss says he doesn’t want any trouble.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Says if there’s any trouble, he ain’t starting it, you understand?”

  “When is this trouble he isn’t starting going to start?”

  “My guess?”

  McWilliams nodded.

  “Right about the time those two troopers walk into the barn.” Gene cocked his head, pointing behind him. McWilliams looked over Gene’s shoulder to see two state troopers and someone in a blue FBI blazer about fifty yards in front of the barn, walking toward it.

  Gene walked off and McWilliams turned back to Lacewell and Caskey. “Tell those troopers to stop right now.”

  “What?” Lacewell asked.

  “Just tell them to hold up. Barn’s hot.”

  “Shit,” Lacewell said, running to the house and pulling out his radio.

  Caskey stood next to McWilliams. “That Gene’s good people.”

  “That Gene’s an asshole.”

  “Yeah,” Caskey said.

  McWilliams saw the cops near the barn turn and walk back to the house. Then he heard the thumps of the helicopter coming overhead to land near the barn.

  “You know,” Caskey said, “I got my sniper certification on Tuesday. I could neutralize this situation from three times this distance.”

  “Good thing it didn’t come to that.”

  “Yeah. But it woulda been sweet.”

  • • •

  On the way back to town, Caskey pulled in at the Rebel Mini-Mart.

  “Was gonna get an ice cream sandwich,” he said. “Want something?”

  McWilliams shook his head. “Wouldn’t imagine MeChell is still there.”

  “Worth a look.”

  When Caskey went inside, McWilliams walked around the side of the store where Dalton had found the cigarette butts. He saw Katie Mae smoking at the corner behind the building.

  “Starting a habit?”

  Katie Mae turned. “Of talking to you? All right.”

  He grinned, walked over to her. “Glad to see you. Had a question. killedan H”

  “All right.”

  “The two guys who came in here. You sure you’d never seen them before?”

  “Not in those masks,” she said.

  “Think about the eyes. Think about those eyes on a different face.”

  “Okay.”

  “What color were the eyes?”

  “Which guy?”

  “Either?”

  “The tall one?” Katie Mae said. She hadn’t said anything about height before. Said they were both normal build. Normal everything. Except for the accents and the masks. And the pistols.

  “Sure,” McWilliams said. “The one taller than me?”

  “About your height, I guess. He had green eyes. Like brown green.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Brown.”

  “Dark brown?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, the moment gone. “Just brown. Hey, Daddy said you used to be a pitcher. Like played in the big leagues and all.”

  McWilliams leaned against the wall. “I used to pitch. Long time ago.”

  “I’m a pitcher, too. Think you could show me some stuff?”

  “Afraid I don’t know much about softball.”

  “Softball, shit,” she said. “Two-time All-Star with the Tigers. Trying out for the team as soon as I can.”

  “Which team? High school?”

  “Yeah. Think you can help me?”

  He laughed. “Glad to, your daddy say it’s fine.”

  “I got a hellacious fastball. You better be ready.”

  “Yeah, well, a good fastball doesn’t mean too much.”

  “Daddy said you threw 100 miles an hour.”

  “Not hardly,” he said. “Don’t focus on the speed. It ain’t about how fast you get there. It’s about where you get. About where the batter thinks you’re going to get.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s about setting something up. Getting the guy to lean outside early in the count and then jamming him tight.”

  “Well, I can pitch strikes all day long.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” McWilliams said. He hadn’t talked baseball in, hell, years really, but he fell right back in. Muscle memory. The way you miss time with a leg injury and work your way back. Then how your arm finds the slot, the release point. How there’s that moment when you stop thinking about your hips and your shoulder and your elbow angle. How all those pieces just come together and you stop thinking. And you don’t even realize it. You just throw. “It’s not about strikes. It’s about knowing the situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you’ve got one out, tight ball game, and the guy at bat has three balls and no strikes. And he’s a power hitter. What do you do?”)ing up ing out

  “Tight game? Keep him off the bases. Like you said. Pitch him, get him leaning out, jam him in. Paint the black.”

  “No, not even the black. You keep the ball clear of the plate. He’s a power hitter. This guy is slow. And the guy coming up next is the catcher.”

  “I ain’t afraid. I’ll throw it right past him. Country hardball.”

  “Then he hits it out of the park. Bad guys win. Drive home safely.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You walk him. Let him get to first. Then pitch the next guy inside for a ground ball to the shortstop. Double play ball.”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen them do that.”

  “Sometimes you break out the country hardball, but sometimes you let them hit it. You just have to be ready when they do.”

  “Won’t that walk look bad on your stats?”

  “You can’t worry about that. You sacrifice that. Hell, we were playing
El Dorado one year and I walked a guy with the bases loaded. Gave up a run to get to the next batter. Start with a clean slate. No balls. No strikes. And I went after him. But I had to give up that one run to get to him. To pitch him inside.”

  “What happened?”

  “I hit him in the head.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah, but the next one flied out to second and I struck the next guy out. We scored four runs next time up. Won that by something like three runs, I think. It’s all in knowing the situation. Being willing to give something up when you have to. It’s not always about fastballs down the middle.”

  He heard the car door open behind him and turned to see Caskey waiting.

  When they got back on the road, Caskey asked about Gene. “You think he was trying to tip us off? Make sure we didn’t get hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Well?” Caskey waited. “Well what, then?”

  “I think he was trying to set us up.”

  “How do you mean? Like get us killed?”

  “Shot at. Probably not killed.”

  “No shit?” Caskey hummed a little. “Damn. That’s messed up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, why you think that?”

  “Because he works for Rudd. And Rudd needs someone to blame this on.”

  “Someone to take the rap?”

  Jesus Christ. “Yeah.” McWilliams looked over, saw Caskey biting his lip and nodding, the wheels spinning like wet tires in loose gravel.

  “So how was he going to do that?”

  “It’s a big place. Remember a few years back, those hunters found a field of pot on his farm?”

  “Oh, yeah. And he said some worker did that? Some Mexicans he had?”

  “Yeah. And the place was so big, he couldn’t be expected to know what happened on every inch every day.”

  “Those Mexicans got d an heported, didn’t they?”

  “Probably.”

  “So someone was going to start shooting at us when we got into the barn?”

  “Yeah. And Gene wanted us to know for sure that Rudd didn’t have anything to do with it. Guy’s already setting up court testimony and he isn’t even arrested yet.”

  “So then what?”

  “The barn?”

  Caskey nodded.

  “I don’t know,” McWilliams said. “Maybe he told one of the workers to shoot near the cops, then give up and take the blame. Said he’d get him a good lawyer, get his family some money. And maybe Gene warned us,” McWilliams tapped his fingers on the dash, thinking quickly, “maybe Gene warned us so we’d know what was coming. Maybe Rudd was hoping we’d take the shooter out and he could blame everything on the dead guy.”

  “Damn, that’s a great plan.”

  “Yeah. No telling. Calling the guy out and finding all that pot in the barn means Rudd’s going to have a lot of court dates coming up.”

  “So how come today? Why this time? It’s like you knew we were going to find it.”

  “Yeah. That’s because of the hat.”

  “The toboggan?”

  “Yeah. That made it a search warrant for a robbery.”

  “So? Still found the pot. And didn’t find anything about the robbery.”

  “Right. Because the whole thing was a setup.”

  “What whole thing?”

  “The robbery,” McWilliams said, leaning his head on the headrest.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Two guys rob the place. Then the only evidence pops up at the end of Rudd’s driveway? On a public road?”

  “Whoa. No kidding. Whoever robbed the store wanted to frame Rudd.”

  “Not frame Rudd. They wanted his place searched. Draw us out there so we’d find the whole damn operation.”

  Caskey nodded, thought about it. “But why now? How did they know there’d be all that shit there today?”

  “Who signed off on the search warrant?”

  “Judge Gordon.”

  “How is that different than all the other warrants?”

  “Because this time we found something?”

  “No.” McWilliams squeezed his eyes shut, took a breath. “Because this one didn’t go through the multijurisdictional grand jury because it was for a store robbery, not a drug search.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you think Judge Boggs was tipping off Rudd before? Saying here comes the search?”

  “I don’t think anything. I’m just noticing some things. Some inconsistencies.”

  “It has to be Boggs.”

  “No, could be someone in his office.”

  “I guess,” Caskey said. He whistled. “Damn. Somebody’s going to be in a world of hurt.” They pulled into the parking lot for the sheriff’s office. “Hey, what about the cigarettes? What about that?”

  McWilliams thumbed the pack in his pocket. “Guess that turned out to be nothing,” he said.

  • • •

  On the way to Grady and Delsie’s that night, McWilliams asked Cora about her brother’s employment.

  “He’s doing some odd jobs, I think. Delsie’s doing all right with the beauty shop, she told me. He’ll find something.”

  “Good.”

  “I know why you’re asking.”

  “Just asking.”

  “You think he’s going to get mixed up in all that nonsense you think he was mixed up in before.”

  McWilliams didn’t say anything.

  “You still think he’s some kind of criminal ring leader. You need to let that go. Dennis, he’s my brother. You think I don’t know him?”

  “I was just asking.”

  “All right. Fine. Look, I don’t want to go through all this again. It’s over and done with, and I don’t want you to keep bringing it up.”

  “I wasn’t. Just asking about the job search.”

  “Well, don’t mention anything about it tonight. You can say something about the beauty shop. That would be nice. But don’t say anything about Grady not finding work. He’s touchy about that. You men always are.”

  “All right.”

  “Let’s not fight. I don’t want to fight about this. Let’s just have a nice, quiet evening with no trouble. You turn off your radio and your cell?”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Oh, right. You men and your jobs.”

  McWilliams didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, putting her hand on his leg. “But he’s my brother. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I know,” McWilliams said, holding her hand.

  When they pulled up at the house, he asked Cora to go on in and send Grady out. Wanted to show him a problem with the truck’s engine.

  “Howdy, deputy,” Grady said as he walked down the steps to McWilliams. “Cora said you’re having some engine trouble. What’s the problem?”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” he said, closing the hood of his truck. “You hear about all the commotion up at Rudd’s farm today? Big day.”

  “Commotion?” Grady rubbed his chin, looked away to nothing. “No, can’t say as I did. They have a fire?”

  PRODIGAL

  Hank Dalton was dragging his index finger down the morning’s sports page. This was after supper on a Tuesday, box scores had been reprinted from Monday’s paper. So he was scrolling through Sunday’s games, recreating what he could. A couple of days behind, which was just fine. No rush.

  The kid from Magnolia, the Womacks’ boy, had gotten into the game against the Padres. Pinch-hitting for the pitcher. One at-bat. Nothing to show for it. Padres over the Marlins. “Hope he went down swinging.”

  “What’s that?” Ruby asked from across the den, looking up from her crossword.

  “Oh, nothing,” he said. “Just mumbling to myself.”

  She moved an afghan, patted the couch. Took off her drugstore reading glasses. Set them on the side table. “Well, come mumble a little to me.”

  Wh
en he got up to move closer, he heard the gravel pop on the edge of the road in front of their house. A car going slowly along.

  He walked to the front windows, spread the curtains. The sun was dropping to the tree line in the field across the way, the slowing car in darkness, then light. Shadows inside.

  “Who’s out there?” she asked. “We got company?”

  “No. Just looks like someone’s having a bad day.”

  “Well, I hope it isn’t company,” she said. “We could use a little quiet around here.”

  He nodded. Took a breath. “I’ll see what the trouble is, if they need something,” Hank said, letting the screen door close behind him as he stood on the front steps.

  “Just be careful,” Ruby called after him.

  But he wasn’t paying attention to his wife just then. His full attention was devoted to the man now back, like set the standing next to him, the man with the pistol pressing under Hank’s jaw, the man in the ski mask, pressing his mouth against Hank’s ear and saying “motherfucker” this and “motherfucker” that.

  Hank should have known to be careful.

  About two weeks before, sixteen days to be exact, he and Ruby had walked through their side door to find their house had been robbed. The night had been perfect until then. They’d gotten the good news from Ruby’s oncologist and called a few people to celebrate. By the time they got from the clinic in Texarkana to Wiley’s on the Bayou, three dozen people had joined in the full-remission party. Bernice had to set aside the meeting room for them, bumping the Rotary meeting to a few tables by the kitchen. No one complained. In fact, the Rotarians came along, too, all so pleased as hell Hank’s wife was going to be all right. No, you never know, but this is great news. The Good Lord is looking after ya, Hank. Luck’s coming around, yes, sir. She’s the strongest woman I ever did see. Everyone shaking hands, hugging. Most of them wondering the same thing.

  Someone must have called Chet.

  Wouldn’t Hank and Ruby have called? Your mother gets this kind of news, doesn’t the family call? Were we supposed to call?

  Hell, you know how Chet is. He’s probably too doped up to move.

  Don’t say that. Don’t you talk like that tonight. Of all nights. Don’t you talk like that about their son.