A Reckoning in the Back Country

by Terry Shames

  “I could see the guy trying to get the trailer into the water didn’t have any idea what he was doing. The trailer was slewing around this way and that.” He waves his hand to indicate the movement of the trailer.

  Dooley shakes his head. “How exactly did the boat get where it is?”

  He’s referring to the fact that the bow of the boat has crunched into the dock. That appears to be the only thing keeping it from drifting away.

  “Well, sir, the guy with the trailer is still trying to get it in place when all of a sudden the boat kind of roars and gives a lurch. If you was to ask me, I’d say the driver thought he was powering it down, but instead he moved the stick forward and revved the engine. The boat came barreling up toward the dock and bang!” He slaps his hands together.

  “The guy in the truck gets out and he’s hollering, and I go over to see if the boat driver is okay. He turns off the motor—at least he had that much sense—and comes staggering out onto the deck of the boat and scrambles onto the dock. And he runs over to the truck and says to his buddy, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ Well, sir, his buddy didn’t need to be told twice. They ditched the trailer and beat it out of here like scalded cats.”

  He starts laughing again.

  “If that doesn’t beat everything.” Dooley says. He’s taken his hat off and his rubbing the top of his head.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “How did the guy in the truck get the trailer unhitched so fast?”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot that part. The damn fool just lifted the tongue up and it came right off, which means the trailer was setting down on top of the hitch without anything holding it on!”

  “Who the hell would do something so stupid?” Dooley howls. I notice his son has his head bowed so that Dooley can’t see him laughing. His shoulders are shaking.

  “Did you recognize either of them?” I ask Arlo.

  “No. They was young boys. Maybe in their twenties.”

  “You didn’t happen to get a license number?”

  He snickers. “Now how was I supposed to do that? I was laughing too hard. Damn fools. Besides, it was getting dark.”

  “What kind of truck was it?”

  He screws up his face and coughs a couple of times. “Black pickup. Older model. I don’t know exactly what kind.”

  “Would you recognize the boys if you saw them again?”

  “I doubt it. Best I can tell you is that one of them was light-haired; the other one, darker. The dark one didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, and the lighter one—the guy driving the boat—had a little more meat on him.” The description brings to mind two boys I’m familiar with.

  I go back to my squad car and put out a call to the highway patrol to be on the lookout for the truck, describing the vehicle and the boys. Dooley has followed me to the car, and when I’m finished, he says, “Can I get this boat off my dock? You going to look for fingerprints or anything like that?”

  “I might want fingerprints. Is it safe, being left like that at the dock?”

  “Safe enough. I’ll tie some lines to hold it in place and to keep the dock from being damaged any further.” He sighs. “Just what I need before Christmas. Major dock repairs. If you catch those boys, I’ll take it out of their hide.”

  “I’ll get somebody out here in the morning to look it over in case the boys left something incriminating. We’ll take a look at the trailer, too.”

  “I’d like to know who had the gall to try to steal this boat right off the dock like this,” Dooley says.

  “I wonder how many people knew Wilkins had that boat,” I say.

  Dooley folds his arms across his chest. In the dim light from my car’s overhead light, I can’t see his expression.

  Suddenly the radio crackles to life, someone calling me.

  “This is Craddock.”

  “This is the DPS, highway patrol. Those boys you called about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They got stopped halfway between Jarrett Creek and Bobtail. What do you want us to do with ’em?”

  “Hang tight. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I’m on the road before I remember I was supposed to see Ellen tonight. I call her and give an abbreviated version of the events of the last half hour.

  Before long, I see a bunch of red-and-white lights flashing on the side of the road. I slow down and pull up behind the patrol cars, and sure enough there’s a black pickup with two young men in handcuffs standing next to it. I was hoping I would recognize them, and I do, although they are using a different, newer-looking truck.

  I reach in the glove box and get my badge and pin it on, then go over and introduce myself to the patrolmen. “Thank you for holding these boys until I could get here,” I say.

  “They had this truck up to over a hundred miles an hour. You’d think the devil was chasing them.”

  “As it happens, I have an interest in these two. Tuck them in the squad car, and I’ll tell you the story.”

  They shove the two guys into the back seat of one of the cars, and the four officers gather around me. They are highly entertained by the story and are only too happy to bring the men out for me to question. Two more hangdog faces you’d never see. Even in the poor light from the cars, you can see that Cal is flushed red. Pete has lost his swagger and now has a hopeless look.

  “There are lots of things I could ask you boys,” I say. “Like, what kind of harebrained scheme led you to try to steal a boat . . .”

  “We weren’t stealing it!” Cal says. “The, uh, the owner asked us to take it out of the water and bring it to him.”

  “And who might that be?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that,” Cal says.

  “Actually, you do, but we’ll figure that out once we get you to the police station. Let me ask you, though. What made you think you knew how to hitch up a trailer to a pickup, drive the trailer into the water, get the boat onto the trailer, and drive it somewhere?”

  Neither of them can give me a good answer, so I tell the troopers to return them to the squad car and we’ll take them to the police station.

  One of the troopers is grinning when he walks over to me. “I bet you don’t know who that is, do you?”

  “Who what is?”

  “The red-headed one.”

  “Cal Madigan? I know that I had both of them in my custody this morning for stealing dogs and made the mistake of letting them out to create more problems for themselves—and the rest of us.”

  “His stepdaddy is going to pitch a fit when he finds out you’ve arrested them.”

  “Who is his stepdaddy?”

  “Jerry Bodine.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” I walk over to the patrol car and poke my head inside. “You’re Jerry Bodine’s stepson?”

  “Damn right. And that’s his boat.”

  “Is this his pickup, too?”

  “No, it’s mine.”

  “So, Pete, that’s your truck with the flames on the side?”

  “Yeah, what of it?”

  I turn back to the trooper. “I think we can get this sorted out. You guys mind waiting until I make a phone call?”

  “What’s going to happen to my truck?” Cal asks. His voice is indignant. He thinks I’m going to be lenient because his stepdaddy is a bigshot.

  “You should have thought of that earlier,” I say. He’s used to having things his way. But if I’ve put it all together right, there’s more to it than these two boys stealing dogs and boats. Now that I know who they are, I suspect it’s more than coincidence that their descriptions matched the one Margaret Wilkins gave of the two men who attacked her. I just don’t know why.

  “It’ll be safe here,” the trooper says. “We’ll lock it up.”

  When I get back to the patrol car, Dusty whimpers, so I let him out to do his business.

  “What are you doing with that puppy?” One of the troopers asks.

  “Long story.” I’ll be glad when he’s a dog and can blend into th
e background.

  I had considered calling Maria to come and get Dusty before I left the marina, but I decided that if he’s going to be my dog, he’s going to have to get used to the unexpected.

  While the troopers wait, I call Jerry Bodine and am surprised when he answers at his office phone.

  “Mr. Bodine, it’s Chief Craddock. Mind if I come over and have a word with you?”

  There’s an overlong pause. “I was on my way out the door. Can it wait?”

  “It can’t, but I can come to your house if you’d prefer.”

  “That’s not a great idea. I’ll wait for you.”

  When I walk into Bodine’s office, I can see he’s all set to be in charge. “What’s this all about?” he says, standing up. “I don’t have time . . .” And that’s when the troopers come in behind me with the two boys.

  Bodine’s face freezes, and then he drops back into his chair with a heavy groan. “Don’t tell me they screwed up.”

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” I say, “but things didn’t go as planned.”

  “Cal, what the hell is wrong with you?” Bodine snarls. “Can’t you do anything right?”

  The boy has gone pale. “It wasn’t my fault,” he says.

  “To be fair,” I say to Jerry Bodine, “the wrong was on your side when you decided to steal that boat. The fact that your stepson couldn’t get the job done is irrelevant.”

  “I didn’t steal the boat. I figured with Wilkins dead, I had a right to take it back.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “On what grounds?”

  “Wilkins cheated. He didn’t win that boat fair and square.” His face is getting red.

  “Last time we talked, you told me you didn’t see any sign of cheating.”

  “I didn’t. But I know that’s what happened. He was too damn lucky for it to be real.”

  “The time to have had that discussion was when he cheated, not after he’s been murdered.”

  “I don’t care. I’m going to fight to get that boat back,” he says, slamming his fist down.

  “That’s between you and Wilkins’s estate,” I say.

  “Well, you’re right about one thing. This is my doing, so you can turn the boys over to me.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen for several reasons. Number one, the DPS officers here clocked them driving at over a hundred, which is reckless driving.”

  “He was driving!” Cal says, throwing his pal under the bus.

  “Dude!” If the two boys weren’t in cuffs, Cal’s buddy would be pummeling him.

  “Doesn’t matter who was driving,” I say. “You’ve both been drinking. I smell alcohol on you, though we may able to overlook that because of the other trouble you’re in.”

  Jerry Bodine butts in. “What other trouble?”

  I describe the damage to the dock. “And I expect there’s damage to the boat as well. Your stepson was driving the boat.”

  “Jerry . . .” Cal whines. He’s scared now. But his stepdaddy is in no mood.

  “Get them out of here,” he yells at the troopers, “before I kill them myself.”

  After they leave, Bodine looks at me and says, “Aren’t you satisfied? What more do you want?”

  I sit down and take my time answering. “I want to know how bad you wanted that boat back.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Bad enough to have Lewis Wilkins killed?”

  “You’re not pinning that on me. I did not kill Lewis Wilkins.”

  “Did you want it bad enough to have his wife roughed up?”

  He’s so angry that his face is crimson. “What do you mean, roughed up? What happened?”

  I tell him. “The two men who attacked her had hoods on so she couldn’t identify them. But the way she described them, they have a physical resemblance to your stepson and his friend.” I’m stretching the facts, wondering if it leads anywhere.

  He gets up. “Oh no. I promise you I had nothing to do with that, and neither did my stepson. All I wanted was that boat. You don’t know what kind of trouble I’ve been in ever since I lost it. I told you I didn’t have any idea my wife would pitch such a fit about that ridiculous boat. I’ve got half a mind to go buy another one and tell her it’s her daddy’s boat just to shut her up.”

  “Well, that’s up to you.” I stand up and move close to him and look him in the eye. “But if I get the slightest hint that you had anything to do with that business with Margaret, I’ll haul you in so fast that your wife won’t even remember she had a husband.”

  “That goddam boat is going to be the death of me,” he says.

  On the way home, I stop at a hamburger place in Bobtail. Dusty is interested in the burger, and I feed a few pieces of meat to him. He seems to think that’s about the best thing he ever ate.

  It’s after ten when I get home, and I’m weary, but I’m too wound up to sleep. I sit at the kitchen table with a beer and a piece of paper in front of me to set down what I know and what I don’t know about the murder of Lewis Wilkins. The “don’t know” side is a lot longer than the “do know” side.

  CHAPTER 26

  Bill Odum is back at work the next morning. He seems like a stranger after all that has happened the last few days without him.

  “Looks like you and that dog are a team,” he says, when Dusty waddles in behind me.

  “Yep. Named him Dusty.”

  “It’ll be nice to have a dog around here,” he says, reaching down to scratch him behind the ears. “Can you bring me up to date on what’s been going on while I was laid up?”

  I give him a summary because I don’t have patience to relate details. After my consideration of the case late last night, a couple of things are nagging at me, and I’m eager to tackle them. “Anything going on here this morning?” I ask.

  “I had to round up Jenks Jenkins,” Odum says. “His daughter called early this morning. He had walked across the railroad tracks and was headed out of town. Something’s got to be done. She can’t keep an eye on him all the time, and she’s worn out.”

  “Let me talk to Loretta,” I say. “She and the church ladies were going to try to find a solution. Can you hold down the fort for a while? I’ve got a couple of things I want to clear up.”

  I go over to see Dooley’s son to ask him about the conversation he and his sister Annabelle had with the Wilkins kids the night of Thanksgiving. I don’t really suspect either of them of having a hand in their daddy’s death, but it doesn’t hurt to hear what they said to friends that they might not have said to me.

  According to Bobby, Daniel and Emily were upset not so much about the fact that their daddy was killed, but the way he was killed. The only new information he gives me is that Daniel has been staying with Emily in Houston. That strikes me as odd, because they didn’t seem to get along that well. Even so, nothing Bobby says makes me think I am wrong in my assessment that they had nothing to do with their daddy’s murder. There’s only one loose end, and to tie up that one, I’ll need to go to see Emily.

  Back in the office, I make two phone calls. One is to the person who originally owned the cane corsos that we found dead.

  “This is Hollister,” the man answers.

  I identify myself and tell him that I got his number as the owner of two dogs that were registered to him. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

  “About what? I haven’t owned those dogs in a few years.”

  “Did you sell them?”

  “Yes. They were quite valuable. But they made me nervous. I couldn’t handle them.” He speaks in clipped voice, as if I’ve taken him away from something important.

  “Do you happen to have a record of who they went to?”

  “I did at one time. I think the guy who bought them was here in Houston. Why are you asking these questions?”

  “The dogs were found dead. They were shot.”

  “Jesus! Where did you say you are? Jarrett Creek? I don’t even know where that i
s.”

  “Thirty miles west of Bryan.”

  “Well, it’s a shame somebody killed them. They were beautiful dogs. But like I said, they haven’t been in my possession for a long time. What were the dogs doing there?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know.”

  “Must have been something around there that’s worth guarding. They were trained guard dogs.”

  “Guard dogs. Okay.”

  “I’m a little surprised that a chief of police is calling me about this. Is there more to it?”

  “Before the dogs were shot, they were used to kill a man.”

  There’s a moment of silence. “I hope you don’t think they are still my responsibility.”

  “No, I’m just trying to track where they went after you owned them.”

  “It could have been an accident. They were potentially dangerous dogs. Maybe somebody was careless with them and after they killed somebody, whoever owned them thought they ought to be put down.”

  “This was not carelessness. I need to find out who you sold them to. If you can get me that information, I’d appreciate it.”

  After concluding the call with Hollister, I admit that it’s high time I called the number of the man Cal and Pete were going to sell the dogs to. They’d said they were to ask for Rich.

  “Beebee’s Pet Shop,” a woman’s voice answers, bored, when I call.

  “May I speak with Rich?”

  A pause. “Who’s calling?”

  “He doesn’t know me. I was given this number.”

  “Name?”

  “Samuel Craddock.”

  “Just a minute, I’ll see if he’s around.”

  I’m not surprised when she says he’s out.

  “You know when he’ll be back?”

  “I sure don’t. Anything else I can help you with?” Her sugary tone tells me all I need to know. Rich is only available to certain people.

  “Can I ask where you’re located?”

  “It’s on our website.”

  “I mean what city?”

  Click. I don’t know what good she thought it would do to hang up on me. I look on the website and find out that Beebee’s Pet Shop is in Houston.

  Twenty minutes later, Mr. Hollister calls back about the cane corsos. “I sold the dogs to a security firm in north Houston.” He has the name and number.