I patted his shoulder. ‘She’s at home—’ I started but Dalton interrupted.
‘If they could get into Mama’s house, they can sure get into ours!’ Dalton said and jumped up. He didn’t excuse himself, just shot out the door, presumably on his way to his house – or maybe, which didn’t bode well for anybody, to the shop.
‘Man, you got yourself some trouble there, Milt,’ Charlie said.
‘Tell me about it,’ I said.
‘You think Dalton’s gonna go back to your shop and hurt those Permeter brothers?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘You don’t seem too concerned.’
I smiled. ‘He won’t kill ’em,’ I said. ‘Just make ’em pay attention.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘You do run an informal shop, huh, Milt?’
‘Well, we don’t wear tuxes, I’ll guaran-damn-tee you that.’
Emmett Hopkins sat at his desk thinking about Maudeen Sanders and her kin. If Holly ever came back from taking care of her mother-in-law, he’d ask her to run Maudeen’s kid through the system, see what she could find. Her brother, Ralph Winchell, too. He knew Ralph from church, but only to nod to. He and his wife and kids all went there. He knew Ralph had taken in Maudeen’s daughter after her mom’s incarceration, and she’d been around the church a lot too. He tried to remember her name. Lisa, Lynne, Linda. Something like that. He looked at the computer screen in front of him. Hit the icon for Google and put in Maudeen Sanders’ name. There were three. Who’d have thought there would be more than one? The first one lived in Oregon, the second in Vermont and the third in Georgia. Not one of them appeared to be his Maudeen Sanders. He sat back and stared at the screen some more.
The new deputy, Anna Alvarez, stuck her head round the door. ‘You seen Milt?’ she asked.
‘He’s over at the police chief’s office. Can I help you?’
‘I just wanted to remind him I gotta be in court tomorrow. That Hanson case.’
‘Just leave a note on his desk,’ Emmett said. Then, ‘Hey, Anna. You know anything about computers?’
‘Probably more’n you but not much,’ she said with a grin on her face.
‘I’m trying to look up Maudeen Sanders’ kin. I tried Google but all I got was a bunch of Maudeen Sanders in other states.’
Anna walked around behind Emmett’s desk. ‘You gotta go into our database,’ she said, hitting a couple of keys. A window opened up, asking for a password. ‘What’s your password?’ she asked.
‘Huh?’
‘Never mind, I’ll use mine,’ Anna said and plugged in four numbers. The screen opened up with a menu. ‘See that?’ she said, pointing at an item that said ‘Closed Cases.’ She clicked on it, then typed Maudeen Sanders’ name into the search area. ‘Viola!’ she said when the woman’s name came up. ‘There you go.’
‘Write all that down,’ Emmett said, ‘so maybe I can do it again.’
‘OK. I’ll do that and email it to you,’ Anna said.
Emmett just looked at her. ‘And when you gonna teach me how to get my email?’ he asked.
‘Oh, brother,’ Anna said and left his office.
Emmett started reading the file on Maudeen. Her daughter’s name was Lynette Sanders. He’d been close on the name, he thought. She would be twenty now. Her mother had two more years left on her sentence. He was surprised she hadn’t gotten out early for good behavior. Lynette’s address was listed as the same as her uncle’s, Ralph Winchell. But this information had all been inputted from the file that was originally put together at the time of the killing. He would never call what happened to Wharton Jacobs murder. As far as Emmett was concerned, the man had it coming. Maudeen Sanders had put him down like you would a rabid dog. And good riddance was all Emmett had to say about it.
But still. Maudeen was doing time for it. Which pissed him off and he didn’t even know the woman. He could only imagine how pissed off her daughter and her brother would be. But wouldn’t they be pissed at the judge who gave her ten years rather than the sheriff’s department? Maybe they were. Judge Norman had retired a couple of years ago. Emmett wondered how he was doing. He picked up the phone and dialed the county clerk’s office.
After introducing himself to the lady who answered the phone, he said, ‘I’m looking for Judge Norman. He retired a while back but I need to talk to him about an old case. It might be related to something we’re working on.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ the woman said. ‘Judge Norman passed away earlier this year.’
‘What from?’ Emmett asked.
‘Well, I’m not sure. You want to talk to his former bailiff? I understand they stayed in touch,’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am, thank you,’ Emmett said and waited while the call was transferred.
‘Bob Huntley,’ said the man who answered the phone.
Emmett again introduced himself, gave his condolences about the judge, explained what he was calling about, then asked, ‘I need to know how the judge passed.’
‘Car accident. Brakes went out on a bad road and he crashed the car into a tree. He was in the hospital for about two weeks with broken everything, but then had a heart attack,’ Huntley said.
‘Anybody check the car’s brake lines?’ Emmett asked.
There was a moment of silence, then the bailiff said, ‘No. Should they have?’
‘You know where the car is?’ Emmett asked.
‘Probably at the junkyard over on Highway Five,’ he said. ‘But it’s been a few months and the car was totaled. They may have already demolished it.’
‘I think I’ll find out,’ Emmett said.
‘So, Deputy, what’s going on? You think somebody did something to Dave’s car?’
Emmett was feeling bad about not being more circumspect when talking to the bailiff. With Huntley calling the judge by his first name, they were obviously pretty good friends. ‘We’re not sure,’ Emmett said. ‘But I’ll keep you posted.’
‘You do that. And if somebody did, you give me five minutes alone with the SOB, you got that?’
‘I hear you,’ Emmett said and rang off.
Dalton burst through the front doors of the sheriff’s department like a rampaging bull. Anthony was still on the customer side of the bullpen counter – keeping an eye on Nick Permeter who remained in the interrogation room.
‘Hey, Dalton,’ Anthony said, stepping away from the counter where he’d been leaning an elbow. ‘You OK?’
‘Where are they?’ Dalton demanded.
‘Who?’
‘The Permeter brothers!’
Anthony noted that Dalton’s hands were fisted and his usually pale face was an unhealthy red. ‘Milt’s got ’em tucked away, Dalton,’ Anthony said, warily walking up to his fellow deputy. He put both hands on Dalton’s arms but Dalton shook him off.
He looked to the left, saw Nick Permeter in the interrogation room and headed in that direction. He threw the door open and stormed in, Anthony right behind him.
‘Hey, Dalton,’ Anthony said, trying to keep his voice even and soothing. ‘Why don’t we go talk to Emmett, huh? He’s here. Milt’ll be here in a minute. Why don’t we talk to—’
‘You try to kill my mama?’ Dalton yelled, leaning his fists on the table and moving into Nick Permeter’s space.
Permeter backed up as much as he could. ‘What the hell? No, man! Who tried to kill your mama? Not me, man!’
‘Then it was your goddam brother!’ Dalton yelled. Turning to Anthony, he said, ‘Where is he?’
Emmett, having heard the shouting clear across the department in his own office, came hurrying up. ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded.
‘Ah, Emmett, Dalton here is a little upset—’ Anthony started.
‘You bet your ass I’m upset! One of these Permeter assholes tried to kill my mama and I’m damn well gonna find out which one did it! So where’s the other asshole?’
‘Joe’s here?’ Nick demanded. ‘You got my brother here? What the hell!
What are you people doing?’
Dalton swung back around to Nick, one arm raised. Emmett grabbed Dalton’s fist and drew it behind his back. ‘Not on my watch, Dalton,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘Let’s go in my office.’
Dalton turned, tears in his eyes. ‘Emmett, they tried to kill my mother, for God’s sake!’
‘Somebody did, sure, but we don’t have any proof that says it was the Permeter brothers.’
‘That’s right, asshole!’ Nick Permeter shouted. ‘Don’t go accusing people till you got some proof!’
Dalton swung back around and Emmett motioned for Anthony to take him out of the room. To Nick, Emmett said, ‘You’re lucky I don’t let him at you. One more peep out of you and I will.’ With that he left the interrogation room, locking the door behind him, and headed to his office, where Anthony had taken Dalton.
FIVE
When I got to the shop I noticed it wasn’t a happy place. There was yelling coming from the wing where my office and Emmett’s were housed and yelling coming from the interrogation room. I noted that the door to that room was locked, used my key and walked in. Nick Permeter shut up for a minute. ‘What?’ I said.
‘That big asshole deputy of yours, the one that killed my brother – he just tried to kill me! And he ain’t got any proof I done anything!’ He tugged at the cuff on his wrist that was attached to the metal ring welded to the underside of the interrogation room table.
‘Tell you what,’ I said, coming around to his side of the table, my handcuff keys out. ‘Let’s get you out of here.’
I unlocked the cuff from the metal ring and Nick stood up, rubbing his wrist under the cuff. ‘Good! I’d hate to have to sue your—’ he started. But changed that to, ‘What the hell?’ as I cuffed both hands behind his back and led him out of the interrogation room.
‘Thought you might wanna talk to your baby brother,’ I said, unlocking the door to the cells. ‘But you’ll have to do it through the bars.’ I opened the cell next to Joe’s, took the cuffs off Nick and encouraged him inside.
‘Hey! Get me out of here!’ Joe yelled.
‘You two are material witnesses,’ I said.
‘To what?’ Nick demanded.
I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure yet.’ And with that I left the cells and headed down the hall to the other scream-fest.
I sorta thought on first hearing it that it was Dalton’s voice, and sure enough I was right. Emmett was sitting behind his desk but Anthony and Dalton both were standing in front of it, Anthony with a hand on Dalton’s arm, no doubt trying to calm him down.
‘Hey, y’all,’ I said from the doorway.
Dalton whirled around. ‘They won’t let me talk to them Permeter assholes!’ he yelled.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘They’re both in the cells now and neither one is going anywhere. We gotta be smart about this, Dalton. If we’re gonna get them for this, we got to have all our i’s dotted and our t’s crossed. Right?’
Dalton grudgingly nodded his head.
‘So, we need to gather evidence. I want you and Anthony to go over to your mama’s house and use the crime-scene kits, see if you can find prints – anything that shouldn’t be there. Your mama’s a real neat lady, Dalton, so anything outta place was maybe put there by whoever did this. You with me?’
‘Yeah,’ Dalton said with a sigh.
‘Anthony?’ I said, looking at him.
‘Got it, Sheriff.’ To Dalton, he said, ‘Let’s go get the kits and head over there.’
Dalton nodded and followed Anthony out of the room. To Emmett, I said, ‘My office.’
Once in my own chair I picked up the phone and called Charlie Smith. ‘Got Dalton and Anthony going to Miz Pettigrew’s house to dust and shit,’ I said.
‘We already did that, Milt,’ Charlie said.
‘Won’t hurt to do it again,’ I said. ‘Besides, I need to keep Dalton busy, and he’d know if anything was out of place in his mama’s house.’
Charlie sighed. ‘Gotja,’ he said. ‘But I’ll send Mike Reynolds over to keep ’em company.’
‘You do what you gotta do,’ I said and rang off.
‘This is getting out of hand, Milt,’ Emmett said when I’d hung up.
‘You think?’
‘No need to get snippy,’ he said.
‘You’re the one getting snippy,’ I countered.
We were silent for a while, both taking a couple of deep breaths.
‘This sucks,’ I finally said.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed.
‘I’m sorry, man, I know how you feel about it but we gotta look at Maudeen Sanders’ kin,’ I said.
Another big sigh from Emmett. ‘About that. I was looking at Miz Sanders’ file on the computer—’
‘How’d you figure out how to do that?’ I asked, impressed.
‘I didn’t. Anna showed me how.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Anyway, I was looking at Miz Sanders’ file and saw that Judge Dave Norman’s the one who sent her up—’
‘No surprise there. He used to preside over most of our cases. He’s retired, right?’
‘And dead,’ Emmett said.
‘Dead? Jesus, when did that happen?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, if you’d hold your horses for a minute.’
I mimed locking my mouth shut and throwing away the key.
‘At least we’re being adult about this here,’ Emmett said, sarcastically, I thought. But I could have been wrong. ‘Anyhow, he got killed in a car accident. Brakes went out.’
I couldn’t help it – I opened my mouth. ‘Well, shit on a shingle,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed.
‘You call the junkyard?’
‘Didn’t get a chance what with Dalton coming in and all.’
‘Well, let’s do that. Let me know what they say.’
‘Right,’ he said as he got up and left my office.
It was getting colder by the minute, and halfway to the junkyard a slurry of flakes began to fall. The trees were thick on this part of Highway Five, with drifts of snow under a lot of them. Traffic was light as Emmett headed for Sonny’s Used Parts and Auto Shop, better known as the Longbranch junkyard. The call from his office had garnered the information that Judge Norman’s car had not yet been demolished as it still had some salable parts Sonny hadn’t yet scavenged. So Emmett was on his way there, Guy Bergen, the tow-truck driver who’d found the cut brake lines on Anthony’s wife’s car, riding shotgun, ready to check out the brake lines on the judge’s car.
A dilapidated, almost-redwood fence surrounded the yard, and as Emmett pulled his car through the gate he noted the prerequisite junkyard dog barking its fool head off and jerking against its chain. This one was a pit bull mix, and Emmett parked as far away from him as he could. Sonny came out of the antique Airstream he’d been using as an office since Emmett was a kid trying to steal parts for his ’46 Merc. Emmett hadn’t seen Sonny since the day he got caught with the battery from a ’49 Ford that he’d been told would fit his Merc. He never found out if it would or not. Sonny took back the battery but didn’t press charges.
As far as Emmett could tell, Sonny hadn’t changed much. He’d been older than God back then and still looked about the same. White hair in tufts around his head, a swollen, vein-riddled drinker’s nose, a turkey neck and hands crooked from arthritis. The only thing different was he was now wearing a blue jumpsuit stained with oil rather than the army-green overalls stained with oil that he used to wear.
‘You Emmett Hopkins?’ Sonny said, his voice the only thing showing that he’d aged since the last time Emmett had seen him. It was thin and reedy, and quavered a bit.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, sticking out his hand to shake.
Sonny shook his head. ‘Don’t shake hands no more cause of my arthritis. ’Sides, my hands are dirty.’
‘Well, thanks for letting us come by and check out the judge’s car,’ Emmett said.
‘You the
mechanic?’ he said, nodding his head toward Guy.
‘Yes, sir. Been in here a couple of times getting parts,’ Guy said.
Sonny nodded. ‘Thought you looked familiar.’ He turned and pointed toward the back of the yard. ‘Well, come on then. Let’s go check it out.’ And he led them slowly through the mountain of wrecked Ford pick-ups, Chevy four-doors, Dodge Rams and the occasional Toyota, pointing out his more exotic treasures. ‘Lookee here. It’s a fifty-seven Studebaker. No call for parts but I keep it around out of nostalgia, I guess. And here’s a Renault. Can you believe somebody around here actually bought a French fucking car?’ He cackled. ‘Don’t that beat all?’
They finally came up on Judge Norman’s 2010 Cadillac Seville. ‘Really screwed it up,’ Sonny said, shaking his head. ‘But you should be able to check the line. If y’all won’t need me, I’ll head back to my office. Get cold real quick these days,’ he said and shuffled off.
‘Thanks, Sonny,’ Emmett called to his retreating back. ‘Well?’ he said, looking at Guy.
‘Gimme some room,’ Guy said and, after scraping the accumulating snow on the ground away with his foot, slid himself under what was left of the Seville.
I thought I’d start checking out Maudeen Sanders’ kin. I was sympathetic to her situation, and her kin’s situation, but if they had anything to do with what was going on now, I needed to know. And they had to stop before anybody else got hurt. So far we had one dead – Dalton’s mama’s friend, Doris Jameson; one not doing so well – her other friend, Enid Merkle; and possibly a dead judge. Of course, Maudeen Sanders wasn’t the only one of the bunch of suspects to go before Judge Norman: he was the one who sent both Permeter brothers to McAlester and agreed to the lighter sentence for Jesse Trevino. So Jesse shouldn’t be too pissed at the judge. Or us. I really didn’t see him as a viable suspect. Judge Norman was also the one who presided over Danny Evans, Sr’s trial. The senior Evans had gone to McAlester too and had been killed while he was there.
So I had seven possible suspects if it turned out the judge’s brake lines had also been cut: Maudeen Sanders’ kin – her daughter and her brother; both Permeter brothers; and Danny Evans’ family, which consisted of two sons and a wife. And that’s only if I had gotten all the assholes we’d arrested and/or killed over the years who might – or family members who might – be holding a grudge.
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