Stay At Home Dad 03-Father Knows Death

by Jeffrey Allen

  First, the Petal Dawgs. Now, C.A.K.E. George apparently had a lot of outside interests. I’m not sure why, but I hadn’t pictured him being involved in community activities. I saw him just doing his job and that was it. I was probably guilty of thinking that about a lot of folks in Rose Petal. It was hard envisioning them as anything other than what I saw them as on a daily basis.

  “And last week,” Dorothy said, glancing at Scarecrow, “he said something bad was happening in Rose Petal.”

  “What was it?”

  “He wouldn’t tell us,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Yeah,” Scarecrow said. “He said he wasn’t ready to involve us yet.”

  “You ask why?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Scarecrow said, annoyed. “But he wouldn’t say anything. Just said he’d learned something and he was upset and he needed to find out more before he told us.”

  “Have you talked to the police?” I asked.

  They both made faces as if I’d spit on their shoes.

  “No,” Dorothy said. “Like we said, we don’t talk to the pigs. And, let’s face it. The police here in Rose Petal are kind of lame.”

  Hard to argue with that, especially after my conversation with Sheriff Cotter, but still.

  “George was murdered,” I said, looking at both of them. “That’s the kind of info they can use to help find out who killed him.”

  “Or they can ignore us and treat us like crap,” Scarecrow said, scowling. “Bad enough that we’re college kids. But add in the fact that we’re doing what we’re doing and it seems like everyone thinks we’re stupid. That’s why we came to talk to you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “We heard you were looking into his death,” Dorothy said. “And people say nice things about you. We didn’t know who else to go to.” She paused. People said nice things about me? “You are investigating his death, aren’t you?”

  I hesitated, then nodded.

  “So we thought you should know,” Dorothy said. “I wish it was more. George deserves better than what happened to him. Maybe whatever he knew was the reason for him getting killed. I don’t know. But the way he acted?” She glanced at Scarecrow. “It seemed like a super big deal.”

  Scarecrow nodded an affirmation.

  I watched the cars line up in the grass-lined lot like ants. Families poured out of their cars, kids bouncing with excitement, parents smiling and holding their hands, telling them to settle down and watch out for cars.

  “I’ll have to tell the police,” I said. “And they’ll probably want to talk with you.”

  They once again exchanged anxious looks.

  “Just to interview you,” I assured them. “They’ll want to know what he said, see if you can remember any more details. I can vouch for you, tell them you’re legit.”

  “We just told you all we know,” Scarecrow said. “We don’t know anything else. Really.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But they’ll want to confirm. They’ll want to put it down on paper and add it to the case file. Dorothy’s right. It might have something to do with his death and, if it does, the police might be able to follow it up. I’ll follow it up, too, but the police should always know anything that might help them with a murder investigation.”

  Scarecrow leaned in close to Dorothy and whispered in her ear. They both glanced at me, but I couldn’t read anything from their looks.

  Scarecrow put his hands on his hips. “You’d have to be able to contact us. And be able to tell them who we are, for them to bring us in.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “So maybe I could get a phone number or something? And I’d need your real names. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I promise. The worst that can happen is that they don’t take you seriously. You’ve done your part. That’s all you can do.”

  “But what if they think we had something to do with it?” Dorothy asked.

  “They’d have no reason to think that,” I assured her.

  “But you don’t have our numbers,” Scarecrow said, fidgeting. “Or our names.”

  “I have your first names.” I had to admit at that point that I’d heard them.

  “But not our last names.”

  “True. But I think you’d be smart to give them to me.”

  “You’ll have to catch us,” he said.

  I didn’t understand. “What?”

  “Run!” Scarecrow yelled and they both took off sprinting across the grass lot, looking back over their shoulders to see if I was chasing them.

  I was not.

  I was just standing there, wondering for the millionth time if they added crazy to the water in Rose Petal or if everyone here was just born that way.

  21

  Before I could get into the fairgrounds, I was intercepted by an unfriendly face.

  Sheriff Cotter adjusted his sunglasses. “Son, I think that maybe you have a memory issue.”

  He’d seen me coming toward the main gate and went from sitting in his lawn chair—de facto security—to standing up and hitching up his belt.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Remember that conversation we had?” he asked, tilting the brim of his cowboy hat up slightly. “About not investigating until the fair closed?”

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  “Son, I’m not messing around here,” he said. “I specifically asked you to leave it alone until the festivities were over with.”

  “Well, unfortunately, I was hired to check into George’s death,” I said. “I’m being careful to not disturb the fair in any way.”

  “The point is that I asked you not to,” he said.

  “I know you did,” I said. “And I’ll be honest with you, Sheriff. That didn’t really make much sense to me.”

  “That right?”

  “Well, maybe not about me doing the investigating. The part that didn’t make sense was you letting a criminal act go unlooked at for a few days,” I said. “Can’t imagine that’s the best way to go about it.”

  He sucked on his teeth for a moment. “That because you’ve got all that police experience?”

  “I’ve never been a police officer.”

  “Exactly,” he said, smiling. “So you probably shouldn’t be thinking you know what I should be doing.”

  I nodded. “Probably not. But I’m curious what state law enforcement would think of that practice. Like, say, if I called the Texas Rangers later on today and let them know that you’re sitting on a possible homicide. I wonder what they’d say.”

  The smile vanished. “Are you threatening me, son?”

  “I’m just making an observation,” I said.

  “I’d suggest not making those, then.”

  “Or?”

  “Or you’ll be sorry,” he said, raising an eyebrow behind the sunglasses.

  “So I should let Mama know you don’t want me doing anything about George’s death?” I said.

  He shuffled his feet against the dirt and hay on the ground. “Mama? What does she have to do with any of this?”

  “She’s the one that hired me,” I said. “And she’s the one who told me that if anyone gave me any trouble, I should let her know. And this right here? Sorta seems like you’re giving me trouble.”

  He sighed. “Mama hired you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He tilted the brim on his hat back down. “Well, that makes it all a little different now. Wish she’d tell me things when she changes her mind.”

  “Changes her mind?”

  His mouth twisted, but he didn’t say anything.

  “She the one who told you to hold off on investigating?”

  His mouth twisted tighter. “We have a standing agreement.”

  “What exactly is that?”

  “Anything bad happens at the fair, she asks me to wait until it’s over,” he said. “I work around it. But I don’t make a lot of noise.”

  “Why?”

  “So it doesn’t screw up the entire week,” he answered. “One bad week he
re and it can have a trickle-down effect on the entire town. So it’s not like I’ve just been letting the thing sit. I’ve just been very quiet about it. If I’m stalking the fairgrounds, asking every single person questions, it’s gonna look a whole lot less friendly than normal. People will stay away. They’ll talk. It’ll mess up the whole week.”

  I didn’t disagree with him, but it was still hard to see how that took precedent over a murder investigation.

  “I pulled prints from the freezer,” he explained. “Body is being checked for DNA samples down in Dallas. Determined cause of death.”

  “Which was?”

  He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, as if saying it didn’t matter if he told me or not. “Trauma to the head. Not sure what the weapon was, but looks like he took a blow to the back of the head.” He shrugged again. “So I’m doing things. I’m just not doing anything that might ruffle Mama’s feathers.” He paused. “Probably why she hired you.”

  “How you figure?”

  “You aren’t wearing a uniform or a gun,” he said. “You aren’t as scary as I would be.”

  That made sense. Even if everyone seemed to know that I was investigating, it was still different than uniformed officers roaming the fairgrounds.

  “And if she woulda just told me that she’d hired you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said, frowning. “Sorry, Deuce.”

  “No worries, Sheriff,” I said. “Sounds like we both got only part of the story.”

  He adjusted his hat. “Story of my life, Deuce. Story of my life.”

  22

  Bruce—he of the horned, red wig—squinted at me from the back of a pickup truck. “You know who did it yet?”

  I’d just entered the main gate of the fairgrounds and he was in the bed of the truck, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a very large squirt gun in his hands.

  “Nope, not yet,” I said. I pointed at the squirt gun. “And please don’t shoot me.”

  He looked down at his hands and laughed. “Oh, no, man. This is for the parade. To keep everyone cool. I’m just getting some practice in. It’s gonna be so danged hot. They’ll be begging me to soak ’em.”

  I didn’t ask what he was practicing on. “Ah.”

  The driver of the truck poked his big, square head out. “Yo, Bruce. Where we headed?”

  “Hang on a sec, Willie,” Bruce said, then to me, “So, no leads?”

  “I’m working on a few things,” I said, being vague on purpose. “Talking to a few people.”

  Bruce’s expression soured. “Yeah? Like who?” “Just people who knew George, that kind of thing.”

  “I don’t think anyone knew him too well.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He shifted in his makeshift seat in the back of the truck. “I just think he was kind of a loner. Always seemed to be off by himself, never talked to anyone. Probably a waste of time to ask people about him.”

  “Actually, I’ve found a few people who knew him pretty well,” I said. “So I think I can put some things together.”

  He leaned forward. “Like who?”

  Bruce was awfully interested. “Just people he spent time with outside of his job.”

  “I don’t think he did much outside of his job, man.”

  “Well, like I said, I’m finding some different things. We’ll see.”

  “Maybe he got himself stuck in there,” Bruce said.

  “Stuck in where? In the freezer?”

  “Sure.”

  “How? Why?” Buried to his neck in a pile of sausages?

  The pickup idled loudly. “Maybe he was looking for some free food or something. Maybe the door accidentally shut behind him. Maybe he was trying to fix something. Who knows?”

  “I don’t think he would’ve crawled in if he was just looking for some food,” I said.

  Bruce thought about that, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he was really hungry.”

  Bruce wasn’t making sense, which wasn’t really surprising considering that he was wearing a red wig with horns for no good reason. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy you went to if you wanted, you know, common sense. He seemed more like the kind of guy you went to if you needed squirt guns and free beer.

  “You seem to know a lot about George,” I said. “But I know you said you guys weren’t really friends. How’s that?”

  Bruce moved around like a mouse was running loose in his shorts. “I told you before, man. I was aware of him. That’s all.”

  “Right, but you were just telling me how he didn’t have any friends and . . .”

  “Let’s go, Willie!” Bruce hollered and cut me off.

  The pickup lurched forward, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  Bruce stared at me as they drove away, the squirt gun tapping against his thigh.

  23

  I was halfway to the food stand when I saw my father walking toward me from the other direction.

  “What are you doing here so early?” I asked.

  He frowned. “Your mother volunteered us to sit at some table. So now I have to sit there while she yaks at everyone that comes through.”

  “Fun.”

  “No, not fun,” he said. “I’d rather be home, taking a nap. But I heard something interesting at breakfast with the boys this morning that I thought you might be interested in, too. I called your home but your wife, who is about to have a kid any second, said you had abandoned ship and were already here.”

  “You guys aren’t boys,” I said, ignoring the crack and digging in with my own. “You know that, right? You’re old men who act like boys.”

  “Whatever,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  He had breakfast every morning with his four oldest friends at the same restaurant and they sat there like the town elders and gossiped like their wives. While I made fun of them every chance I got, they did know what was going on in Rose Petal ninety-nine percent of the time.

  “There’s some rumbling that they’re looking to move the fair next year,” he said with a sly grin, because he knew I was going to be interested. “Did you know that?”

  “Move it?”

  He nodded. “You know that plot of land at the north end of the county, up near Denton? Was supposed to be some fancy schmancy development but then the money dried up and it never went through?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It’s there,” he said. “Trust me. The land is pretty usable. Needs some infrastructure and a few other things, but it’s a good chunk of land.”

  “It could hold the fair?”

  He shrugged. “Structures would have to be built because it’s essentially vacant right now, but, sure. Plenty of acreage. I would guess that it’s already zoned for plumbing and electricity, given that it was originally going to be housing.”

  I looked around. I’d been coming to the fair since I was born. I’d covered every inch of the fairgrounds. I knew exactly where everything was, including all of the secret hiding spots I’d discovered as a kid. I couldn’t imagine it all going away.

  “Who exactly wants to move it?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow. “Who do you think? Your pal, Mama Biggs.”

  “Can she move it?”

  “Here’s the really interesting thing,” my father said, glancing around. “Sure, she can move it. The fair board as the governing body can do whatever they’d like. And as you well know, they’ll do whatever she tells them. But that land up north? It’s for sale.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “In order to move the fair, that land has to be offered up for use by whomever owns it,” he explained. “Right now, it’s still for sale. Has been for almost two years, since the developers went belly up. The developers still own the rights and they’ve been looking to sell it to recoup their losses. They aren’t interested in leasing it, because they’re starving for money and they need to get as much as they can as quickly as they can. But there haven’t been any takers.”

  “So, then, how can the fair
be moved there? Wouldn’t the land have to be owned by the county or something to house it?”

  He smiled. I’d seen that smile a lot over the course of my lifetime. It was the one that said, “I’m so far ahead of you, I can barely see you when I look back over my shoulder at you.”

  “Well, it would definitely have to be owned by someone, yes,” he said.

  I waited.

  “Mama Biggs was at the bank last week,” he said. “Applying for a loan. To buy that property.”

  I took all of that in for a minute, working it through my head, watching several families stroll by us.

  “Ed told me this morning,” my father said. “I wasn’t even talking about your shenanigans.”

  “So she wants to buy the land so she can hold the fair there?” I said, trying to connect the dots. “Why?”

  My dad shrugged. “No idea. But I thought it was interesting.”

  “Why would that appeal to her?” I asked, confused. “So the county would have to pay her to use the new fairgrounds? That makes no sense. She’d have to pay for all of the new construction, not to mention the infrastructure needed to turn it into a fairground. I can’t believe that would be worth it.”

  “Well, since no one knows exactly what this rinky-dink carnival takes in each year, maybe there’s more money in it than we know,” he said.

  “Who owns these fairgrounds?”

  My dad paused. “The county, I’d assume.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  He chuckled and slapped me on the shoulder. “I can’t do all your work for you.”

  24

  “You look perturbed,” Julianne said.

  We were sitting outside the 4-H building under an awning and Carly was off helping her grandmother.

  “Perturbed?” I said, then shook my head. “No. Not perturbed.”

  She grabbed one of the hot wings from the paper boat in her lap and held it up. “Hmm. Okay. How about bewildered?”

  “Are you just trying to use big words to confuse me?”

  She gnawed on the wing. “Maybe. Whichever word you like, you are clearly preoccupied with something.”

  I nodded. “Yes. The impending birth of our child.”