by BJ Mayo
His version of events did not always align with what he overheard. I did not know them personally, only what the investigation was lending. Her grandpa, or Pap, as they called him, lived in an old dilapidated travel trailer in back of their two-acre place on the Houghton County line. It was about two miles north of Spring, and easy to find down a one-lane dirt road. The family lived in a fairly well-kept mobile home. It was underpinned with white tin and anchored down. There were tires on top of it due to high south winds that would ripple the roof like a washboard if something was not placed on top to hold it down.
Unfortunately, in this case, ten or fifteen old tires were giving the home the appearance of “poor white trailer trash,” as the locals liked to call them. There was no one at home when I stopped in to visit them after Captain Burris assigned me the case. Jenna Couch, Jerald and Irene’s daughter, was found dead two days before I left to come to the mountains. Her lifeless body was found by the lake keeper, hanging at the lake house at Moore’s Lake approximately twelve miles northeast of town. The Moores’ lake house was donated for community use by the Aubrey Moore III family in Spring. Aubrey was satisfied with the large sign outside the lake house declaring it Aubrey Moore III Lake House. “Welcome General Public.”
There was a four-legged stool lying on the wooden floor. The rope she used to hang herself with was a red-and-black pleated lead rope with a two-inch brass spring clasp on the end. They sold these in the horse tack section at Rose’s feed store in Spring. Rose was an old out-of-prime barrel racer who opened her store to be close to the cowboys that came in for horse feed. I don’t know whether to believe that or not, but she always had on way too much perfume and had her shirt unbuttoned too many buttons to allow cleavage to show. She always seemed to have to bend over to pick up a receipt or something when I came in. Rose may have done extracurriculars on the side, but the law left her alone. She could sweettalk the fat off of a pig. Back in the day, when she was in her prime, she commanded a lot of rodeo cowboys’ attentions.
Dissecting the motive for such a senseless and selfish act was my job. I was called to the scene as soon as she was found. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, attractive and with her mama’s same athletic build, it seemed such a tragic waste as I looked into her horrified blank stare and purple face. Her nearly black tongue stuck out grotesquely.
I took a thorough inventory of the dimensions of the building, careful not to disturb anything on the flagged-off scene of death, which was now a possible crime scene. She was dressed in blue jeans and a white, button-up blouse, regular school wear, even if it might be homemade. I am sure her mama did not shop at LaVelle’s in town to buy her things. She had on silver earrings with a little makeup on. There was one ring on her pinky finger on her left hand with the letter “E” on it. On her feet, black, flat-soled tennis shoes, old with white shoelaces. No belt. Her britches were stained with urine and feces, from when her muscles relaxed, as they all do. The rafters in the lake house were approximately ten feet tall, all 2 x 6, not hardly bowing under her slight weight, which I guessed at 105 pounds. She appeared to have some type of burn mark on top of her left hand and her left calf, maybe from a cigarette. There was no sign of cigarette butts on the floor or on her person. Her hands did not smell as if she had held one in her hand. Time of death was estimated at two to three hours earlier, and rig had not set in. I wrote down my usual detailed notes and photographed relentlessly, as was my custom. It was not easy to tune out my feelings, looking at the dead young girl.
Spring’s local JP, Cotton Banks, was onsite shortly before I arrived, and eyed me casually as I smelled both of Jenna’s hands and proceeded to lift her feet out and away, one at a time, to look at the bottoms of her soles. He and I had worked many cases together, and we continued on without much comment. On the bottom of her left sole was a small piece of some type of material stuck on what appeared to be gum. I scraped it off with my clean pocketknife blade into an evidence baggie and carefully marked the date, location, and time of removal. Precious little evidence, but it was all I could find. The coroner would make his ruling within a couple of weeks, and maybe we would know more.
I made a little small talk with Cotton on how dry it was this time of year, and how puny the lake looked. He always appeared to me to look like an old English bulldog. Cotton’s jowls hung about an inch on each side. He moved his head up and down when he spoke, and they seemed to fairly swing, just like an old bulldog. He was a dutiful family man, and he and Maude had been married for over thirty-five years with two sons. Both boys were cotton farmers. He had won the JP slot every year he ran, and was going on his twenty-fourth year. He hung his head down when he spoke as we prepared to exit the building.
“Alfie, this don’t make no sense. This girl was a junior in high school. Far as I know, she ain’t never been in no kind of trouble. My grandson knows her. She certainly ain’t part of the doper/druggie group.” Tears welled in his haggard face. “I hate to see someone so young taking their own life. What could have been so bad in her life to make her do that, you reckon? I ain’t doing this job no more when my term is up.”
Of course, he said this every time I was been around him on a teenage death case. This made number eleven in twenty-three years. Some were traffic fatalities, some drugs, and only one other suicide. He got torn up when the young Turner boy fell off the hood of the car, coming down Booger Hill. There were four teenagers in the Chevelle 396 SS turning ninety miles per hour when they came off the top of the hill and headed down, turning off their lights. The Turner boy was riding on the hood, trying to hang on, when he fell in front of the car. Cotton was on the scene to pronounce him dead. He cried like a baby.
I shook my head in agreement and we eased out the door. Walking up the small path to our vehicles, I spotted a couple of cigarette butts, barely visible in the crushed limestone. I took out my tweezers and separate evidence baggies and gathered both of them.
Daylight was fading fast. I had Cotton take out his little pocket light and keep it focused on the ground as I picked the first one up. He followed it up with the light as I put it in the baggie. It appeared to be a Marlboro, and had a sign of maybe dark lipstick on it with yellow flecks. Our girl did not have any lipstick on, for sure.
Cotton followed me down again as I bent back down for the other one. This one was chewed on the end and was a Camel brand. I carefully put it in the bag. There were no signs of lipstick on it. A lot of the young boys like to smoke unfiltered Camels. Only the sissy boys smoked the filtered cigarettes.
The paramedics awaited our motion and moved in, lifting her down gently. I told them to be sure and use gloves with the rope and to give it to me when they got it off her. They delivered it to me once they put her in the ambulance. I placed it in a large evidence baggie. It looked just like the lead ropes sold at Rose’s Feed Store. She sold red-and-black ones like this and braided blue and yellow. I would definitely have to pay her a visit and sniff around a little.
I did not watch the paramedic team take her down. I put a little Merle on my eight-track and listened quietly in my unmarked vehicle. I watched as they rolled her out, strapped down in a black body bag. It seemed odd that her total being was wrapped up in that black bag. Anything she ever wanted to be, or that her parents wanted for her, was now beyond reach. They loaded her up and took her into Spring. Cotton pulled out before me, dabbing his eyes as he passed me with a wave. Sometimes life does not play fair. What a chickenshit way to go.
The next day I visited the Couch place. The family was not at home, nor was “Pap” in the small trailer in back of the place. Cotton knew Pap in passing from years gone by. He was an old cowboy, working nearly all the local ranches, day-working cattle, line riding, and whatever else he could pick up. He was said to be quite the horseman in the day.
I rapped on the old metal door with no answer. There was the heavy and sweet aroma of cigars, pungent in the air. It was evident that Pap smoked a lot in this trailer. A box of White Owls lay open on the smal
l table with wrappers dropped on the floor around his easy chair. Cigar ashes had thumped inadvertently on the floor around the chair. Several dried chicken bones were lying beneath the table. A matching set of red salt and pepper shakers sat on a plastic table cloth. Faded, ruffled curtains hung over the west-end window. Yellowed from the sun and unwashed, they seem stiff and brittle to the touch. On the wooden shelf above the table were several pictures, none in frames, two or three arrowheads, and two small jars of Mentholatum. One picture was a cowboy on a palomino horse, rearing up. The rider had his hat off and was whooping it in the air. I assumed it to be Pap in his younger years. The hat he had on in the photograph was hung on the wall next to the picture. It was beat up pretty bad on the edges and stained with sweat beyond the hatband. He sported a yellow mustache in the photograph and smiled broadly.
The other photo was of an attractive young lady sitting under a fruitless mulberry tree outside Pap’s trailer. I believed this one to be Jenna. Certainly attractive and athletic, not like the girl we found hanged.
I slipped it into my shirt pocket. What were they going to do, arrest me? Hell, I’m the law. They could kiss my mockingbird ass. I had every intention of returning it when I visited the family again, discreetly of course.
I moved to the end of the camper and viewed the unmade bed, unchanged linens, and slobber-stained pillow case. Cigar ashes were piled thickly on the floor by the bed, as well, with uncountable burn marks on the carpet. Amazing he had not burnt the place down. He had an old transistor radio on the headboard and a small twelve-inch television on a shelf at the end of the bed, with a set of rabbit ears on top of it with foil wrapped around each one. In the tiny bathroom were a wooden-framed mirror, toilet, and small sink. The fake wood toilet seat was not centered on the pot, probably from him sliding over when he wiped his butt. His shaving kit was propped against the edge of the sink. There was an old black coffee cup with water in it by the faucet. False teeth receptacle, I assumed. It was filled with water that had not been emptied for some time.
Nothing else piqued my interest, and I eased out the door. Captain Burris knew I had vacation scheduled when he assigned me the case, and he knew I wanted to leave today. However, even though I normally worked freelance when on a case, he asked me personally to pay a little visit to the Couch place and do a little nosing around with the parents if I could.
So I nosed around. He didn’t have to know I had a picture of the deceased in my pocket. After making out my official report, I went home to finish packing. Of course I left out the part about the picture. The full-blown investigation would begin in earnest when I returned.
* * *
Beatrice watched me pack with a wary eye. She knew me far better than I cared to admit, and had gotten way too close to my business of late. Her questions penetrated me like knives. Everything she said seemed like a steady drip of water, irritating to the core.
I did not want to go into detail. I did not want to share. I damn sure did not want to talk, to articulate, to visit about it. I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge and leave her in the rearview mirror. Could she not see that I would much rather deal with the worries of the day on my own? She knew all too well the intensity with which I took on a case. “The Bulldog,” as Captain Burris had called me years before, was something she would not let me forget. “Alfie, why can’t you just back off a little and not take everything so personal? Quit being so serious. When you are on a case, you go into your bulldog mode and you don’t come up for air until you are finished. I am your wife and I would like to see you sometime during the daylight hours. There is more to life than solving some case. It’s like your life depends on it. There are other detectives in the department. Why can’t the captain stick someone else on them from time to time? You always seem to get the bad ones, and we never seem to have enough time for us.”
Why in the world would I want to make time for “us,” I almost said aloud. “We’ve had our time,” I muttered below my breath.
As usual with Beatrice, I kept fairly quiet, knowing if I lost my temper it might be a week or two before things settled back to normal. With one last joust she reminded me that our wedding anniversary was coming up, and she would like to do something special. I had the date written in my logbook, but in the midst of some case I had forgotten at least twice. Her feelings were hurt beyond measure. In fact, I did not know I had forgotten until a couple of days after the fact.
She pulled me to her and kissed me gently on the lips before I left. “Is everything all right?” she asked. It was more of a peck than a kiss. She used to put a lip lock on me in our younger days.
I told her everything was fine. She said, “I wish I meant as much to you as the mountains and your trips do. I cannot compete with your mistress. Not only are you hardheaded, you are the most selfish person I know. And sometimes you are a downright asshole.” It always shocked me when she said a bad word.
“When I brought up maybe adopting, it’s like you turned off a switch or something. Just leave, please.” She was crying as she closed the door.
She could kiss my mockingbird ass. Why would she even think about adoption? I never could stand for her to cry. I knew I was an asshole, and she was a better person than me. I just simply could never get the courage to tell her that.
Damn right I am an asshole.
I put the picture back in my pocket, not knowing where the investigation would lead me when I returned. A suicide is never pretty, and usually there is blame to go around, and it is a death that goes on punishing those left behind. Hopefully, when I returned, the coroner would have the results of the autopsy. In the meantime, I planned to indulge in my “mountain mistress,” as Beatrice said, and partake of her wonderful charms.
Maybe Beatrice was right. I hope she keeps my horses and goats fed while I’m away. Maybe that will keep her mind off of adoption. Damn, what a goofy-ass notion. Hell, if we adopted a kid, we would be in our mid-sixties when they went to college, if they went to college.
CHAPTER FIVE
All of my schooling took place in Spring, Texas, in Houghton County, the heart of Texas. Our county was split by I-30 and sat squarely between the heart of Texas and Mexico. The small town was a unique blend of 30 percent blacks, 40 percent Mexicans, and the rest a tight lineage of white folks. Of the 30 percent of white folks, about 10 percent of those we considered well-off, and most lived south of the I-30. I was not one of them. I lived close to Apple on the Creek Road about four miles north of town, among working stiffs, none with an education past high school, unless they were smart and lucky. We had a bread man that woke up at 3:00 every morning to deliver Frostie Bread, an alcoholic who raised catfish and sold bait, oil field workers, an ag teacher, and—known only to a few folks around—a pimp at the local whorehouse. None of our folks knew he was a pimp, they just carried on about how clean and pretty his yard was. Little did they know he was a sex trafficker of women, men, and, we heard, some children the older adults wanted.
We were not very educated in social graces. I guess we did not really know we were poor, and thought it normal to ride the school bus from the country into the school in town. When we got to high school in the ninth grade, a lot of the boys from south of I-30 wore double-breasted sweaters and nice-looking shoes. We had Montgomery Ward rough-out cowboy boots, buck stitched belts with rodeo belt buckles. Well, I had rough-out boots, everyone else had wingtips, but we did not have enough money to buy them Tony Lamas at forty-five dollars a pair.
Even though we were poor, I was able to run fast and tried out for the ninth-grade track team. Coach told me I made the team and put me to running hurdles. He said I might be able to compete in the 1,320-yard relay, which back then was a precursor to the mile relay they ran beginning sophomore year. When tryouts for the 1,320 relay were announced, I went over to see who else was going to try out. There were nine boys my age standing around the 110 mark of the track field, waiting on Coach Bettis to show up. It was said he was a state champion in the 880-yar
d run in his high school days, but I dared not ask him about it. He instructed us to warm up and stretch for thirty minutes and meet him back at the 110 mark of the track.
We jogged one mile as a group, with no one talking but two of the boys in front. They had fresh haircuts and did not come from our neighborhood. I had never seen any of these boys before. They were laughing and cutting up about going to the show with their girlfriends on Friday night and making out during the show. The one in the lead said he did not even remember what the show was about.
I was careful not to finish in the rear of the pack, even though we were only jogging. We all sat as a group and begin to stretch our legs like Coach Bettis had instructed us to. The two talkative boys who led the mile run begin to talk about their girlfriends again. They were talking about how good they looked in their cheerleader uniforms with short skirts. They were talking pretty nasty when coach came up and told us to pair up into three groups and put three boys in the last group. He said each group would run a timed 330-yard dash, which is equivalent to one leg of a 1,320-yard relay. He said the best four times would qualify for the team, with the fifth-fastest time as the alternate.
The first group was the two boys who had led the mile run. The coach had a little starting gun, and another coach at the finish line had his stopwatch. He took us to the end of the first 110-yard mark and we got ready to go. The first two boys crouched and prepared to run, with the coach holding the gun in the air. They certainly looked more mature than I did, with my white, spindly legs and uncut hair. They both had sideburns and a lot of hair on their tanned legs. How in the world could your legs be that dark and covered with that much hair? To my surprise, these two guys were very fast and burned a trail around the track to the finish line. The coach on the finish line recorded their times. I watched them high-five each other and nearly got sick.