Saving Cecil

by Lee Mims

  It was the best I could do. I mean, I’d been trying to work up to telling Bud about the bullet in the tire and the detective who helped me but, honestly, there hadn’t been time yet. And if I’ve learned anything from years of living with Bud, it’s that it’s best to feed him bad things in small doses.

  There was another awkward pause. Chris gave me a look that said he’d follow my lead. Unfortunately, Henri, having found her voice, wasn’t following anyone’s signals and blurted out, “Dad, Chris is a detective on the Sanford police force. A detective sergeant,” she beamed.

  “Yes,” Bud said. “I got that much … ”

  “And, he’s the one who brought mom home after her wreck and found the bullet in her tire!”

  Oh shit. “Bullet?” Bud said, turning abruptly to me.

  “Oh,” I laughed dismissively. “Didn’t I mention that? We think it was probably just a stray hunter’s bullet, right, Chris?”

  “Uh … ”

  “More likely that crazy sheriff!” Bud boomed. I put my hand on his arm to calm him. “I’ve told Detective Bryant all about our past with Stuckey,” I said. “And he’s checking into it, aren’t you?” Now it was time for Chris to feel a little pressure. Only he didn’t.

  “As I told your wife, I’d need cause to take out a warrant on our own sheriff. She’d have to jump through quite a few hoops, probably involving a judge, to get that done. I’ve asked her if she wants to pursue it and she hasn’t gotten back to me.”

  The ball was back in my court. Bud looked at me, then said, “Well, maybe she’s right, it could have been a stray bullet from a hunter’s gun.”

  Henri began to babble about what a sweet guy Chris was. How he’d gone out of his way to look her up after seeing her for only a few minutes at our house the night of the accident. How he’d sensed she was stressed over trying to coordinate the wedding plans and how he’d wanted to help her and … oh brother. I didn’t know whether to hate him or admire him.

  Then Bud, apparently paying no more attention to When Henri Met Chris than I was, said, “Say, Chris, you’re an officer of the court. What do you think about that hog operation Cleo found? Isn’t it illegal in the state of North Carolina to interbreed wild and domestic hogs?”

  Double Shit. “Bud,” I said sweetly. “Could I see you in the kitchen for a sec?”

  Pushing the swinging door with the palm of my hand, I resisted the urge to let it fly back in Bud’s face. Instead, I held it for him, stopped it from swinging to insure our privacy, then spun around to face him. “What were you thinking?” I whispered sternly. “I haven’t told him about the hogs because I need to check some things out for myself first … ”

  “You mean some things you’re trying to keep to yourself. Some things you’re supposed to let the police handle … ”

  “That’s not fair!” I said more loudly than I’d anticipated. I lowered my voice and continued. “Telling him about the hogs would naturally lead to what I found besides them.” Bud gave me a quizzical look. “Hello? Important fossil find?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Even if I could lie—and I believe no lying was one of your new rules—he might find the pit himself if he investigated the area. Now, you may not know this, Bud, but archeological finds like this one are very rare and highly prestigious and people have been known to actually kill to protect one!”

  “Did I hear you mention killing someone to protect something?” Chris said, letting go of the swinging door and striding purposefully to where Bud and I stood by the sink.

  Threatening Bud with a stern squint of my eyes, I said. “Of course not. We were just discussing … a movie.”

  “No you weren’t,” Chris said coolly. “Maybe you’d better tell me about these hogs you found.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” Bud said, giving me a return squint. “After all, it is this young man’s job to solve murder cases, Cleo. Not yours.”

  “Even if I’m the main suspect?”

  “Especially if you’re the main suspect,” Chris added.

  “Let me ask you something, Chris,” Bud said. “What’s your opinion of the sheriff?”

  “Honestly, I’ve been a little surprised at his reaction to your wife. He does seem somewhat irrational in his attempt to prove she committed the murder. Generally, he’s a competent officer, if not a terribly innovative or imaginative one.”

  “What’s going on?” Henri said from the doorway. She joined us, took Chris’s arm in hers, and smiled up at his handsome face. “We’re going to miss my friends at Blue Oasis. The Friday night bar crawl is starting there … ”

  The blue-eyed detective smiled suavely, slipped his arm around Henri’s waist and gave her a light buss on the lips. Modulating his tone from interrogatory to intensely sexy, he said, “Why don’t you go powder your nose, Miss Henri. I’ll meet you at the car.”

  I braced for the “Henri blast” following this sexist request, but surprisingly she squirmed like a puppy and said, “Good idea. It won’t take but a few minutes.”

  Clearly, I’d underestimated this fellow in so many ways.

  Moreover, since I was going to have to rid the area of the hog operation before I could risk bringing in a team of paleontologists to excavate Cecil, I decided I might as well get some help. I gave him a brief sketch of what I knew of the operation, including Luther and the man in the green truck. I told him I’d stumbled upon it while flagging Lauderbach #2, but left out any mention of the clay pit.

  Chris listened, arms crossed, then said, “So are you thinking these hogs were deliberately interbred, the feral and the domestic. Why?”

  “To create a hunting trophy.”

  “A hunting trophy … huh. Interesting theory. Who would want to do this?” Chris asked.

  “Luther Green and the man in the green truck, of course,” I sniffed.

  “Have you any proof of this?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve been told not to interfere with police work.”

  “Okay,” he replied, rubbing his chin contemplatively. “I’ll check into what laws, if any, might have been broken. But the obvious thing, the thing that stands out, of course, is the connection to the murder. Clinton might have been killed with a knife, but he was shot with an arrow first. Arrows would be the only ammunition plausible if the hunting club was meant to be clandestine.”

  Then, upon hearing Henri approach, Chris directed his attention to Bud. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cooper. Sorry it was such a short visit. Perhaps we’ll see each other again soon.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Bud said, handing him one of his business cards from his wallet. “Drop by my office any time.”

  Chris looked at the card. “Cooper Enterprises,” he said, reading it.

  “Yes,” Bud said. “We’re in the CP&L Building downtown.”

  As soon as Henri and Chris left, I decided I’d had about all I could stand of “let’s share our lives” and found several creative ways to occupy Bud’s mind that were far more pleasant.

  For most workday folks, Saturdays are a day off. For those of us who toil in the energy field, however, Saturdays and Sundays are just another day. I was on my way across the farm, headed to the site by way of the series of dirt roads that connected its vast acreage when, several hills due south from me, bumping along a path at the edge of another section of woods, was the green Toyota truck.

  Braking to a full stop, I watched until it rounded the edge of the trees, then followed at a safe distance. All that crap about me not doing law enforcement’s job was right there, front and center in my mind. It’s just that I was here and law enforcement wasn’t. And hadn’t Chris asked me about proof?

  Seemed appropriate that a civic-minded citizen such as myself take action to help solve crimes whenever possible. Especially when the crime was murder and the prime suspect was said civic-minded citizen
. Besides, I was only going to follow the truck.

  This was easy to do because the soft, sandy soil and flattened weeds made the tracks obvious. Also obvious was the fact that more trucks than the one I was following had passed this way. Perhaps one, pulling a stock trailer full of hogs? Soon, the tracks turned into the woods on one of the many old, overgrown logging paths. A fleeting thought that the newly broken branches poking out into the road might scratch the van slipped through my mind, but I was so intent on not being detected, it slipped away.

  Who was running the hog operation and whether it was legal in the eyes of the state of North Carolina was information I needed to know if, as I’d told Watson, we were going to be able to proceed with the excavation and preservation of Cecil. Plus, it’d be a good thing to know where the feral hogs were when I talked to the Lauderbachs. I had a feeling they had no idea any type of hogs were being raised on their land, let alone crossbred ones. I especially wanted to be enlightened about every aspect of the operation because, well, no one likes being jerked around and having their head screwed with.

  After about a quarter of a mile, the road narrowed even more and concern over the van’s paint job returned, so I got out and walked the trail for a short ways. Didn’t look too bad, so I got back in the van and slowly eased along as broken branches and rubbery sapling limbs slapped and scraped along its sides. Tulip whined. I’d learned to take her anxiety as a warning … usually. “Pipe down,” I commanded as the woods got thicker, the light dimmer, and the branches bigger. “I’m not going far.”

  One thing I know about logging trails: unless you luck up and happen upon a clearing, there is no where to turn around. They can snake through the woods for miles, connecting one logging deck to another. I didn’t want to get trapped where I couldn’t run if necessary, so after another quarter mile, I stopped and walked the path again, finding a clearing of sorts. Well, it was more of a slight depression devoid of trees. Ones too big to flatten with a vehicle, anyway.

  Overhead, a canopy of limbs, all dressed out in autumn colors, intertwined tightly. I gave them a serious appraisal. No problem. I could push them aside too. Scuffing the leaf litter aside with my boot, I found the depression underlain by a very small outcrop of diabase rock. Probably what caused the stunted undergrowth. It was about three feet wide. Not optimal, but probably as good as I was going to get in terms of a place to turn around. Prudence told me to go no farther. Logic told me I didn’t need to.

  If the hogs had been relocated somewhere up the path, it would have to be in a large natural clearing. When I’d been knocked out, it had only been for a short while, two hours at the most. Even if they had pens already constructed, it would have taken a Herculean effort just to get the hogs loaded and moved while I was out. It wouldn’t have been impossible, but highly unlikely in that short amount of time.

  The more I thought about it, the more sense it made that there would be other locations on the farm where hogs could be corralled. Especially if this was, as I believed it to be, a trophy hunting scheme of some sort. Lord knows, I’d seen enough portable corral panels stacked around in various places. When a rich hunter contracted to shoot a wild boar, it was likely released from one of any number of remote locations on the farm, depending on wind conditions and what type of farm operations were being conducted nearby.

  All I had to do to find these possible locations? Look on the GIS maps and aerials of the farm. Seeing the green truck and locating the trail had made finding this one on an aerial photo easy, not to mention much safer. And, I’d be adhering to Bud’s rules about staying out of trouble, right?

  The overnight rain had softened the ground and it squished under my boot as I climbed back into the van. I wasn’t worried. With my foot on the brake, I let the van roll down into the depression, pushing aside hardwood limbs. Red, orange, and yellow leaves covered the window so thickly it blocked out the light. Tulip whined again. “Oh, don’t be a wuss-dog,” I said, inching back and forth in the small clearing.

  Pretty soon, I’d reversed direction. I breathed a sigh of relief. It could have been a sticky situation that left me in a vulnerable spot. I thought wistfully of the magic Jeep. I’d turned it around in much smaller spots. Of course, it was much smaller and had four-wheel drive. This piece of junk didn’t. The Jeep had also had a wench. Something I would add to whatever new vehicle I got. It was time to do something about getting a new vehicle. Resolving to move that task to the top of my to-do list, I headed for the site.

  Upon arrival, I could hardly wait to check the oversized aerial above my desk. I hopped out and opened the door for Tulip. That’s when I saw the damage I’d done to the van. Crap! It looked like it’d been rolled. Well, hell, I’d worry about that later.

  A magnifying glass wasn’t even necessary in scanning the aerial. I found what I was looking for right off. Just as I’d suspected, a large clearing, probably a loading deck for a past logging operation was still visible. I smiled smugly. Time to have a little chat with the Lauderbachs.

  FOURTEEN

  Before I called the Lauderbachs, I examined the last of the chip samples and pebbles brought up overnight from the depths of the ancient basin as I rehearsed in my head the way I wanted our conversation to go. Informing them about Cecil prior to bringing up the bad news about the hogs and why they had to go seemed right. I was just finishing my Schmid and Medlin work when Jackie poked his head in the door and gave me a you-got-time-for-me look. “Come on in,” I said. “You’ve saved me a trip out to you.”

  “I thought I’d let you know we made it through that diabase dike with no trouble. Apparently, our mojo is still working,” he said. He and I conducted a short, impromptu meeting regarding the drill plan and our next move should any problems arise. My motto: always have a plan, a backup plan and a backup to the backup. After he left, I cleaned up, then put in a call to the Lauderbach home. Sara answered and said now would be a good time to visit.

  When I arrived, instead of taking me to the sunroom, Ruby guided me down a wide hallway lined with photos of generations of Lauderbachs to a room that at one time might have been a den.

  Wall-mounted cases held trophies and ribbons for numerous cattle shows and county and state fairs. A wide-screen television, couch, and chairs had been relegated to the far end of the room. The rest was devoted to physical therapy equipment.

  Annette Lauderbach sat in a folding chair, watching her husband as he took a few steps in an obviously homemade contraption the likes of which I’d never seen. It looked like two large horseshoes welded together at 90-degree angles with a harness in the middle. The seven-foot-tall device rested on John Deere lawn mower wheels.

  Arthur, comfortably positioned in the harness, balanced himself with handles welded to either side of the horseshoe frame. Sara and Luther stood by, ready to offer assistance.

  With deliberate determination, he slid one foot forward across the floor a few inches. Then, straining mightily, veins popping out on his neck, he shifted his weight until he balanced again so he could drag his back foot to the new position where he’d rebalance and start the process all over again. Once he completed a step, everyone clapped. Luther helped him into his wheelchair and pushed him to the sitting area.

  My admiration for his amazing progress was heartfelt and I let him know, then asked, “Where in the world did you get this amazing piece of equipment? It looks—”

  “Homemade?” Arthur laughed. “It is. Luther’s quite handy when it comes to creative engineering. I wasn’t making any progress going to the therapist once a week, so he came up with this and now that I can work every day, I’ve been doing much better.”

  Ruby beamed. Luther grinned proudly. I was wondering how much longer they’d hang around, and if I should come back another time, when he and Ruby excused themselves.

  When I gave Arthur, Annette, and Sara the grand news about Cecil, they were at first astounded. Then they were ecstatic, especially
Sara. She started to cry, she was so overcome with emotion. “I just wish Clinton was here to enjoy this.”

  “But that’s the best part,” I said. “I believe he’s the one who found it. That is, if this is his.” I pulled the Estwing pick from my tote.

  Sara gasped. “I gave him that for Christmas a few years ago. He was so proud of it.”

  “It appears he’s been working—maybe for years—to expose enough of the fossil to show someone who could help him with a discovery of its magnitude. Do you know if he’d been spending time with any of his paleo professors lately?” The three Lauderbachs indicated that, if anything, Clinton had become withdrawn and less social after declaring his new major.

  “He didn’t get all weird or anything,” Sara said. “He was just very intense and focused on his studies. We still did things together, just not as often. Several times I asked him if something was up, you know, like a girlfriend occupying his time. He just said he was busy. There was one time when he was working on something important, and I pressed him on it. He only smiled and said, ‘you’ll see soon enough.’ Now I know what he was talking about.” Her chin trembled, but she sucked in a deep breath and continued, “I’ll talk to his professors and see if he mentioned anything about the fossil to them—”

  “No!” I cut her off abruptly. “Leave the paleo department out of this for the time being. I can’t stress enough the importance of keeping this find a secret in these early days. Once we go public, there’ll be a slew of professors and friends coming forth, all saying they’d worked on the fossil with Clinton. Documentation will prove whether they were.”

  The Lauderbachs all nodded in agreement and I continued, “Meanwhile, I’ve already arranged to have a crack team put together to see that the fossil is properly excavated and that Clinton gets all the credit for the find and the early work on it … ” I paused and looked at them intently so as to be sure of their feelings. “ … if that meets with your approval, of course.”