by Bill Crider
He was a big man, looking a little like a weightlifter who'd gone to seed, or maybe just a big man who worked out just enough to keep a little tone. His neck was short and thick, giving the impression that he didn't really have one, and I wondered if he wore a tie with his jacket. If he did, it wasn't lying on the car.
"My name's Truman Smith," I said. I put out my hand. "Maybe I can give you some help."
He took my hand in his own, which was sweaty and huge. It was like shaking hands with a hot gorilla. "Gene Ransome," he said. He shook gently and let go.
I looked at his other hand. There was a Presidential Rolex on the wrist above it. He looked more like a speculator than I did, though he didn't have the face for it. His nose had been broken at least once, and his black hair grew low on his brow, giving him a thuggish look.
"Maybe you can help, all right," he said. He should have sounded like Sheldon Leonard, but he sounded more like a midwestern newscaster. "This thing's sitting in a precarious spot."
We looked the situation over and decided that he should let the jack down and drive on up the road. I'd watch for cars and flag anybody down before there was a wreck. He needed to be on a level, and there was no way to get there except right on the main road.
After we decided that and he moved the car, it didn't take long to change the tire.
"I know a place where they fix flats," I said.
"Hurley's? Yeah, I know him. I'll take it there. Thanks."
He seemed like an odd sort to be in this area and to know Hurley. "You a salesman?" I said.
He smiled, showing a set of slightly damaged choppers. One at least was missing. "That's right. I know a lot of folks in this area."
"You know Fred Benton?"
"Benton? Sure, sure. I know him. He a friend of yours?"
"Sort of," I said.
"A good guy. Well, I gotta get this flat to Hurley's and get it fixed. Thanks for the help."
"Sure," I said. I watched him get in his car. Then I got in the Subaru and followed him to a turnaround, where I passed him. He headed back in the direction of Hurley's. There was something about him that bothered me, but it was nothing definite.
I drove a little longer, and then I realized that I was doing nothing more than aimless rambling. Detection wasn't any part of it. There was no use doing any more driving, so I turned back toward Fred's.
When I got there, there was a black and white Sheriff's Department car parked in the yard.
I got out of the car and walked to the back door, tapping on the door frame. I didn't want to barge in on anything, but at the same time I was pretty curious about what might be going on.
Mary came to the door. "Come in, Truman. You don't have to knock."
"I didn't want to interrupt," I said.
"Oh, it wouldn't be an interruption. This is about you, too."
Fine, I thought. Just what I need. The Sheriff.
It wasn't the Sheriff, though. It was Deputy Jackson, or as he put it, "Deppidy Norm Jackson, Mr. Smith."
I shook his hand, which was like shaking with a tree branch. Jackson was thin and wiry. Maybe skinny was the word. He looked as if he wore a size 28 belt. He had on a khaki uniform, and he wore a pistol on his belt. It looked like a .38.
He and Fred were in the room with the couch. They had both stood up when I came in, and after Jackson had introduced himself, Fred told me what was going on.
"I called Deppidy Jackson right after you left," he said. "I didn't figure there was much he could do about it, but by God a man ought not to get shot at on his own land and not tell the law about it."
Jackson had pale blue eyes, so pale they were almost white. "We drove down there to where y'all got shot at," he said. "Walked over to the woods to see if the shooter left any of his brass behind him, but we didn't get lucky enough to find anything. Didn't really expect we would. That's a lot of woods."
He looked at me as if expecting some sort of response. I didn't have one, so he went on.
"Guess you know all about the dead gator back in there."
"I saw him," I said.
"Well, it ain't a felony to kill one. I killed one myself once upon a time, or me and my brother did. We weren't no more than a couple of kids. We were gonna make us a pair of shoes. Woulda made boots, I guess, if the gator'd been big enough, which he wasn't. We didn't get to make the shoes even, but that wasn't 'cause of the gator. It was 'cause of our daddy. He caught us with that gator and whipped our butts till they was raw as liver. You can bet that was the last time I ever thought about killin' a gator."
He looked as though he thought a good whipping was all that a gator kill deserved, and I could see by glancing at Fred that he didn't have a very high opinion of Deppidy Jackson.
"What about shooting at two men with a high-powered rifle?" I said.
"How do you mean?" He looked at me with those icy pale eyes.
"I mean, you think a whipping's good enough punishment for that crime?"
"I guess the law says different on that one," he said. "I'll do what I can about it, but there's no traces that we could find of whoever did it. They must've walked in there, 'cause there ain't no tire marks." He paused and looked at Fred. "Least none that we could find. We couldn't even find what tree they was in."
I hadn't thought about that, but it was logical. Whoever had shot at us had been shooting from a good angle, and in that flat country that meant they were in a tree, almost certainly. In fact, I hadn't been thinking at all. When the shots were fired, I wanted to get under cover, and that was the only thing on my mind.
"We'll be lookin' into this, but I can't make any promises, that's all I'm sayin'. No clues. No nothin'. Unless you two want to tell me the names of anybody that'd want to shoot you."
"I'm new here, myself," I said. "As far as I know, no one even knows I'm around."
"I guess your list would be too long," Jackson said, looking at Fred. "I hear a lot of folks've got it in for you lately."
"Then you prob'ly know who they are," Fred said. "I'm not makin' any lists."
"That's all right, then," the Deputy said. "Just don't expect too much." He looked at me. "And you try to keep outta trouble here. I know Mr. Benton's hired you to find out who killed his gator, and I guess there's nothin' wrong with you tryin' to do that, not that I can think of right off, there's not. But people around in here don't take too much to strangers. I'd hate to have a murder case on my hands."
I wondered if he was referring in some oblique way to the morning's shooting or if he was just giving me some kind of standard warning.
"I won't bother anyone," I said. "Not unless somebody bothers me first."
"That'd be good. Folks'll leave you alone if you leave them alone." Jackson walked over to an end table where his gray cowboy hat was sitting. He picked it up and settled it on his head. "I'll let you know if I find out anything about that shooter, Mr. Benton," he said.
Fred walked him out of the room, and I sat on the couch. When Fred came back, I said, "You really think he's going to be any help?"
"No need for me to lie about it," Fred said, scratching his head. "I don't think he can help at all. The law in this county don't do too much that they don't have to do. And I don't want you to think I'm buttin' into your business. I know you can do what I asked you to do. It's just that I thought the law ought to know that somebody's shooting guns around here and things might get dangerous."
"Rifles," I said. "Not guns."
He grinned. "Yeah," he said. "Rifles."
6
I told Fred that Hurley Eckles didn't like him.
"I coulda told you that," he said.
"He also didn't think I looked much like a real estate speculator," I said. "I should have tried another approach."
Fred looked me over. "You don't look like much of anything," he said, "except maybe an out-of-work house painter."
I didn't know how to bring up the next point, so I just said it flat out. "He said you didn't own any land. He said everybody
around here knew that. I didn't know it."
Fred looked sheepish. "He's telling the truth, I guess. Technically, he's telling the truth."
I wasn't too sure about the difference between the technical truth and the other kind. "Maybe you'd better explain that," I said.
"Mary owns the land. It's all in her name. She inherited it not long after we got married, and, well, her daddy didn't like me very much. Thought I was just a snot-nosed kid with no sense." He paused, looking back into a past I couldn't see. "He coulda been right. Anyway, he made sure to put it in the will that if Mary died before I did, the land wouldn't go to me. It'd go to our kids. Hell, I'd've given it to the kids anyway."
"You have kids?" I said.
"Two. Boy and a girl."
"Maybe you'd better tell me about them."
"Why? They ain't in on this."
"They could be," I said.
One thing I'd learned was that you never knew who was involved in what until the whole affair was sorted out. As someone--Yogi Bear? Yogi Berra?--is supposed to have said, it isn't over till it's over. Or something like that.
"Well, they ain't," Fred said. "You can be sure of that. Gil's in Tokyo, teachin' for the University of Maryland. Terri's in the Army, stationed in Alaska. I don't think either one of 'em's interested enough in this land to do a thing about it. They got other lives."
"But you're interested enough," I said.
"What's wrong with that? What's mine is Mary's and what's hers is mine. This is a community property state, but it'd be that way with us anyway. Always has been. I got lucky enough in oil leases to buy this place twice over if I wanted to, but I've always felt like I owned it."
"I was just wondering," I said.
"Well, you don't have to wonder."
"But if Mary wanted to sell the land to the state for a park, . . . " I said.
"She wouldn't want to. There's no need for you to talk like that. She wants what I want."
I noticed that his face was getting a little red, as if he'd shaved it too close. I decided to change the subject, but to have a private talk with his wife later.
"What about this Zach Holt?" I said. "Is there still time for me to talk to him today?"
"He's not far," Fred said.
He told me how to get there, and I went back out to the Subaru. It was still summer, so the days were fairly long. I would have time to talk to Holt and get back before dark even if we had a long conversation. I thought it might be a good idea this time to tell the simple truth, that I was looking into the illegal killing of an alligator, rather that to try some cover that I wasn't suited for.
When I thought about it, I felt a little funny. I could almost hear myself: Mr. Holt? I'm Truman Smith. I'd like to ask you a few questions about a dead alligator.
Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought.
I drove some more on the back roads, looking at the trees and listening to the birds and the insects. Since the air-conditioner wasn't working as well as it should have, I had the window down, and the warm late-afternoon breeze had an almost pleasant feel. Fall was a long way off, but there was something in the air, something I couldn't name or identify, that let me know the season would eventually change. You could feel things like that here, away from the noise and the smell of the cars and the factories and the refineries. As I got close to Holt's house, I could smell the river, a heavy damp smell that let me know there was water nearby. A lot of water.
The house wasn't exactly a shack, as Fred had called it, but it wasn't far off. There was a 1971 Ford up on blocks in the yard, most of its body covered with reddish rust. The wheels were there, but the tires were missing. Or maybe not. There were several tires lying in the thick grass and weeds of the yard. One of them might have fit the Ford's wheels. Not all of them, however. One of them was a tractor tire.
There was a gray tomcat asleep on top of the car, and I thought of Nameless. I hoped Dino had remembered to feed him. If I thought of it later, I would call and ask.
There was a small chicken coop a few yards from the house, but the wire was in poor repair. Two chickens, one white, one red, pecked in the yellowing grass beside the Ford, seemingly unintimidated by the presence of the cat. Before long, they would be going to roost.
The sun was a big red ball above the treetops, and the shadows fell long across the yard. I got out of the Subaru and slammed the door. The cat raised his head to look at me, then sat up and started to groom himself. The chickens pecked on, undisturbed.
Nothing else was disturbed, either, which bothered me a little. There was no sound of a tv set playing in the house, no noise of a radio. I could hear the frogs down by the river; I could hear the insects humming in the grass and the birds calling in the trees. But there was no sound from the house.
The house was old and unpainted, made of wood and set up on concrete blocks in case the river rose. The windows had all their glass, and I could see electric lines running from the house to the ones strung along the road, but there was no evidence of care about the place. No one ever cut the grass. A faint odor hung in the air, reminding me of the dead gator I had sniffed earlier. I looked over my shoulder in a nervous reaction, as if I might be expecting rifle shots.
No shots came, however, and I walked toward the house. When I passed the Ford, the cat ran down the windshield and across the hood, then jumped to the ground and disappeared around a corner of the house. The chickens clucked loudly and headed in the direction of the coop.
In front of the wooden door on the house, there was a ragged and rusty screen with cotton balls stuffed in a couple of the smaller holes. I pulled back the screen and knocked. It was an awkward angle to open the door from, since I was standing on the ground. Thanks to the blocks, the floor level was a foot or so above where I was standing, and there were no steps.
There was no answer to my knock.
I knocked again, waited again for an answer that didn't come.
Just for fun, I tried the doorknob. It turned easily, and I pushed on the door. It swung inward.
"Anybody home?" I yelled.
Still no answer. I looked around the dim room. There were two chairs, an old tv set with rabbit ears sitting on top, and an old coffee table. No rug on the floor. No pictures on the walls.
"Hello in there," I said, and stepped up into the room, letting the screen door swing shut behind me.
That was as far as I intended to go. I had a feeling that something was wrong here, and I didn't want any part of it.
Then I felt something brush against my leg. I must have been wound a little tighter than I thought, since I jumped straight up about a foot.
It was the cat, which had apparently heard me calling, come back around front, and followed me through the door.
"You sneaky son of a bitch," I said.
The cat paid me no attention at all, just stood there looking through the doorway into the next room, the hair on his back slowly rising.
My heartbeat was already accelerated, thanks to the cat's brushing my leg, and seeing the way he was behaving didn't do anything to calm me. He gave a low growl and moved back toward the screen.
I took a step backward too. If the cat didn't want to see more, I was pretty sure I didn't, either. I should have looked where I was stepping, though. I put my heel right on the cat's front paw, and he howled with fear and anger, a piercing shriek that I was pretty sure scared me a lot more than I had scared him.
He ran under one of the chairs and crouched down, while I stood still and tried to regulate my breathing. It was a good thing I hadn't brought my pistol, or by now the room would have been full of holes. I might even have shot the cat.
If there was anyone within a few blocks of the place, they would have showed themselves by now, or at least said something. The cat was loud enough to wake up a rock, and I might even have yelled myself while I was jumping.
So it wouldn't hurt to have a look in the next room.
Except that I didn't want to do it. A little of the cat's
fear was in me now, and for the same reason. I could smell a little of what the cat smelled, and it didn't smell good. It smelled too much like the gator, too much like blood and corruption.
I looked anyway.
There were actually two doorways, one leading to a kitchen and one into a bedroom. The bedroom was where I looked.
That's where the dead woman was. She was wearing a dress that seemed obviously home-made and about two sizes too big. It was some kind of blue material, but it was stained red in the front by the blood. There was a small pool of blood beneath her. Most of it had soaked into the floor, staining it black. She looked frail and helpless in death.
The man was much bigger, and even dead he looked threatening. Big as a bear, Fred had told me, and that was a pretty apt description of Zach Holt. His face was as big and round as a dinner plate and covered with a thick black beard. He had on a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and jeans faded almost white and covered with dirt and grass and other stains I couldn't identify and didn't care to.
There was more blood on him than on the woman, as if he'd been shot more times, and the cover was off the bed where he'd grabbed it in his huge hand and pulled it, as if in an attempt to pull himself up off the floor.
I looked around the rest of the room. Besides the bed, there was a chest of drawers that looked a hundred years old but which was probably a lot newer than that. It had just been beaten up a lot, maybe bought at a second hand store. There was a closed door that I assumed led to a closet, and that was all. The Holts hadn't gone in for fancy living.
I went into the kitchen where the phone was and called Fred. "Call the Sheriff," I said after I told him what I'd found. "And have somebody send an ambulance. Or a hearse."
I looked through the doorway into the front room and saw the cat, crouching under the chair and staring at me.
~ * ~
Deppidy Norm Jackson was the first to arrive. He didn't say much, just looked at the bodies and confirmed my suspicion that they were the Holts. It was his opinion that we had best wait for the Sheriff himself.
"We don't get much murder around here," he said. "Sheriff'll want to handle this himself."