The Redneck Detective Agency (The Redneck Detective Agency Mystery Series Book 1)

by Phillip Quinn Morris

  Rusty put his hand on her shoulder. “I understand. I understand.”

  “I drove over here and unstrapped him and got over him and I capsized the boat getting him out. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Vivian said.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Thank God he didn’t have to have his picture in the paper with a two hundred fourteen pound catfish. And worse--Rusty could see it in The Wall Street Journal right now. Alabama man previously arrested for the bombing murder of his ex-wife’s multi-millionaire fiancé grabs world record catfish with bare hands. To hell with giving those Yankees an opportunity to make fun of somebody from Alabama.

  “I can get together the five thousand dollars and give to you. I promise,” Vivian said.

  “What five thousand dollars?”

  “The prize money for the biggest fish.”

  “Oh, you just forget that. I never wanted that money. I’m relieved.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. One less thing I have to contend with right now. Let some worthwhile grabbler who could use the money for his family get the five thousand dollars. And me, you, and Al were going to split it three ways, anyhow.”

  “At least we have it on video,” Vivian said. “I don’t know if that will qualify you for a world’s record…”

  “No, no, no, Vivian. It’s all right. It was an illegal grabble. The fish had been placed there.”

  “It had?”

  “Yes.”

  “The way it grunted was terrible, Rusty. You wouldn’t believe me. It was like an old man saying, ‘Let me go, let me go, let me go.’”

  “I know how they can grunt.”

  “If I hadn’t have done it, I would have felt like I was killing someone. It would have given me nightmares.”

  “Believe me, Vivian. I understand. You did the right thing. The perfectly right thing.”

  With that Vivian, put her arms around Rusty and clung to him.

  “Listen, Vivian, there’s something I need to tell you about Al right now.”

  Chapter 47

  Rusty and Ray lifted up Goober’s body and hoisted up into the double wide casket right next to old man McAllister’s corpse.

  Rusty was telling Ray, “I don’t know why Gloria has this little game going. She’s got this thing about having to claim I’m a redneck.”

  “Don’t let it bother you,” Ray said with a grunt. He was tugging old man McAllister so that he was more on his side of the casket. “There, that’s good. Pull ole Goober’s head around a little there, Rusty, and it’ll look like they in bed sleeping together.”

  “You do it. I don’t like touching dead dogs,” Rusty said.

  “Damn pussy,” Ray accused. Then Ray went to straightening Goober’s head around.

  “I mean,” Ray said. “Where Gloria is coming from is, I mean I’m a bigger redneck than you are…”

  “I never hear her calling you a redneck.”

  “That’s the point. You won’t claim you one. That’s her game. Just like Alice. She’s got her little game. She claims I’m a white liar and that I make stuff up and I deny it all the time. But that’s the game. I mean what am I supposed to say that yeah your ass is a little bigger than it used to be? That, yeah, I was staring at that woman’s tits. That, yeah, I had more than two beers. That, yeah, I can remember I had that five hundred dollars hidden in my sock drawer. That, yeah, I could have come home half an hour ago…”

  “Hell. You think you know everything there is to know about women, Ray?”

  “I do.”

  “You’re the only man on Earth who does.”

  “Just because I only got one damn arm don’t mean I go around setting my own limitations.”

  “You got me there.”

  “But you are one lucky son of a bitch.”

  “How’s that?”

  “What about the game between the Clear Springs Blue Catfish and Claramina? That damn field goal of yours back in 1970?”

  Rusty laughed. “Aw, that’s those assholes own fault. If they want to go ahead and play a game with a storm rolling in with thirty miles an hour winds…”

  “And you do have certain abilities that only a redneck would have.”

  “Like what?”

  “You have some power over some animals. You know like catching Cottonmouths.”

  “Well, you can do that with that one arm you got.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that. I seen that video. That damn two hundred and fourteen pound blue cat. It spit your arm out and jumped in the boat.”

  “It did not, Ray. I had to wrestle that thing over the gunwale.”

  “You did not! The camera don’t lie. I saw it with my own eyes. That damn catfish just jumped in the boat for you!” Ray was practically hollering so loud now that Rusty was scared they could hear him in the church.

  Then Henrietta McAllister, the new widow, walked into the back room of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. She came to the casket and leaned over her husband’s corpse. She started crying. “Oh, boys, you have done a wonderful job. Look, just look at that.”

  She stood back and held her hands to her breast. “It looks like him and Goober are just taking them a nap before they go off coon huntin’ for the night.”

  “They going off to that big coon hunt in the sky is what they doing, Mrs. McAllister,” Ray said.

  “Oh, Ray,” Mrs. McAllister said, “you as gifted with words as your daddy was. Lord rest his soul.”

  Mrs. McAllister went over and put her hands on her dead husband’s hands, stared at him a moment and then backed away. “Okay, Rusty.”

  Rusty stepped up and closed the casket lid. She went back into the church and as soon as she got out there, Rusty could hear her break down.

  The funeral director, Charles Bertell, along with the other pallbearers, walked into the back room from the church auditorium. Chuck reached under the lid of the casket and clamped it shut. He directed them to roll the casket out the side door.

  They stepped out into the blazing hot June sun. The pallbearers got the casket into the hearse.

  Then Rusty turned and admired his new car. All he had been through, all the interrogations, all the press bullshit, and now in the middle of a funeral, he still could take the time to baste in the glory of the car that Ray had just finished for him.

  A cool, sleek, blue-gray 450 SL Mercedes. It was jacked up a bit all around. Had big mud grip tires on the back and small mud grip tires on the front. That would keep the bottom from scraping the middle of the rutted country river roads. Add the 327 into the mix and it would skitter along as fast as any pickup.

  And with it a little higher in the back, Rusty could see right over the air intake that stuck out through the hood of the car. And today he had the pop-top on for the occasion.

  Rusty took his eye off one beauty and put it right on another. There came Gloria, in her sexy little funeral dress. It was long-sleeved, black, slinky, and came down below her knees. She had on black high heels and this wide brimmed black hat, cocked on her head with a veil coming down over her eyes.

  Sammy was walking right beside her. While she looked straight ahead, she nodded something to him. Then Sammy waved at Rusty and broke away, to go back to his car.

  Rusty opened the passenger door for her and Gloria got in. He went and got in and turned over the engine, cranked up the a/c.

  Before Rusty could say a word, Gloria said, “I just got word. Sammy just told me.”

  “What?”

  “Al just passed away.”

  “What? I thought he was recovering?”

  “He was.”

  “I just thought he was faking the amnesia.”

  “I did at first. But now I don’t think so. He walked to the bathroom, came out and was about to get into his hospital bed and he dropped dead on the floor with a heart attack. You know, that’s how his father died. They had weak hearts.”

  Rusty drifted away a moment, wondered if Al had committed suicide, had just willed the heart attack on himself with s
ome of that bizarre stuff he knew.

  Then Rusty snapped out of it. He put his hand over on Gloria’s. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you two must have had some good times. He was a very handsome and charismatic man. He had so much good in him. And sociable, too.”

  “Exactly my feelings, Rusty. Isn’t that strange. So much good in him, but the evil took over,” Gloria said and then pointed ahead.

  Rusty looked. The procession was moving. He put the Mercedes in drive and caught up.

  “Does Vivian know?” Rusty asked.

  “Yeah. She was at the hospital.”

  “I wonder how she’s taking it?”

  “Pretty well, I guess. I invited her to stay at my house. Now that Al’s passed away, she may come stay with me before she goes back.”

  “Goes back where?”

  “Oh, you don’t know do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “She’s one of the heirs to the Johnson fortune.”

  “What Johnson fortune?”

  “You know, Johnson outboards.”

  “Oh, my God. If only my daddy had lived to know I had gone grabbling with a Johnson outboard heir.”

  Chapter 48

  It was the first funeral Rusty ever attended where the corpse wasn’t there. And it was the first funeral he had ever been to where less than twenty people attended. And all of those were only there because they were Gloria’s friends except for Vivian and Al’s old college pal.

  Gloria planned and paid for all of Al’s final arrangements. Al had no next of kin. His uncles and aunts were passed away and he had a couple of second cousins somewhere he had seen only once when he was six years old and none of them lived in Alabama.

  After the service at the Clear Springs Methodist Church, Gloria invited everyone to her house for refreshments. It came off as a quiet cocktail party. Vargas Preston and his wife, each with a glass of wine in hand, mingled and worked the crowd. Mrs. Preston didn’t flirt with Rusty, but she came over and told him and Gloria they were just going to have to come over for dinner one night.

  Old man Clanton came with his wife Beverly. Mr. Clanton took the death and circumstance pretty hard, for he and Al had been pretty tight at the bait shop. But not taking it so hard he didn’t match Ray and Alice beer for beer. The three of them went from sipping out of glasses to guzzling straight from the cans, like they were in a beer drinking contest. Alice’s weight did not fool old man Clanton.

  Gloria’s sister Glenda brought a guy she was dating. He wore glasses and a close-cropped gray beard. He was grouped up with a four intellectuals--college professors, scientist at NASA, and such--who had homes on the river.

  Vivian Calvert came up to Rusty and they exchanged email addresses. Rusty asked her how she ever ended up in Clear Springs. She happened to be in Atlanta and heard about catfish grabbling, was intrigued about it, and heard there was an annual Catfish Rodeo in Alabama.

  “So, I came to Clear Springs. I walked into the bait shop. Saw Al talking to Clifford Clanton. I went up and started asking Al some questions and, well, the rest is history.”

  Gloria came over and got Rusty by the arm. “Excuse me, Vivian. May I borrow Rusty a moment?”

  “Only if you bring him back all in one piece,” Vivian replied.

  “That I will do.”

  Gloria took Rusty over to the far corner of her living room, where they had a grand view of Elk River. “I think Vivian has a little crush on you,” Gloria said.

  “Her lover or whatever he was just died.”

  “I think you have a little crush on her.”

  “She’s a bit intriguing. An outboard heir. Good-looking. But you’re the only girl for me, Gloria.”

  “I’m no girl,” Gloria said and took a sip of white wine. “And I’m no lady either. I’m just a mean old woman.”

  “Well, if mean has been what you’ve been to me the last month, I want some more of it.”

  “I didn’t come over here to talk romance.”

  “What do you want to talk?”

  “I need to ask two favors of you.”

  “And what would they be?”

  “So, here’s the scene. Al, of all things, did make a will the day after we got divorced. He left everything to me. So, I’m going to take Daddy’s old cabin and rent it out. The CIA or whoever the hell they are will take off all his computer equipment and files. The quarter of a million dollars they found in his safe deposit box uptown, it’s still being held. I really don’t want it. It has to be dirty money. I told Sammy to let those black ops guys come in and take it. I’m going to give all his clothes to charity. I’m going to keep Daddy’s old fishing boat.”

  “It’s still sitting under the water down there.” He pointed upriver, where Doc’s pier was.

  “Thanks for reminding me. What I want you to do is take Al’s boat and help me get rid of it. And I don’t want to see it around here anymore. Get rid of it for good.”

  “I can do that. What else, Gloria?”

  “The authorities have gotten all the DNA they want from his body. It is being cremated now as we speak. I want to spread his ashes on the river somewhere.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Appropriate. The river took hold of him, Rusty, and gave him five more years of good life. He obviously came here to get revenge on Elmore King, but the river took his breath away. For five years anyway.”

  “You did that too, Gloria. You were more part of it than the river.”

  With that, Gloria planted a long big French kiss on him, for anybody who cared to look over in the corner of the living room to see.

  After they finally broke the kiss, Gloria said, “I don’t want to spread Al’s ashes alone. I wondered if you would go with me in the morning?”

  “I will.”

  Chapter 49

  Rusty connected the cap and fuse to the five sticks of dynamite that were placed right behind the helm of Al’s Boston Whaler. He let the long fuse hang over the gunwale.

  Then Rusty stepped over into Gloria’s wooden Chris-Craft. She took the box, leaned over, and dumped the ashes in the bottom of Al’s boat. Then she tossed the heavy cardboard box in and it landed and rested near the gas tank.

  They were right dab in the middle of the mouth of the Elk River, where it emptied into the Tennessee. The top of the sun was breaking the eastern horizon now.

  He handed the box of matches to Gloria and then got at the helm and cranked the engine. Gloria lit one of the kitchen matches and set it to the end of the fuse. Then she pushed Al’s boat away from hers.

  Rusty put the Chris-Craft in forward and pulled away, made a teardrop loop on out in the Tennessee and came back toward Al’s boat and then headed on up the Elk. He did a ninety degree like he was going over to the west bank of the Elk. But he just wanted them to get a clear view, so he taxied along cutting across the channel.

  The boat exploded into a big red and yellow ball. Even at this distance, Rusty and Gloria could feel the aftershock. It must be something about the smooth surface of the river and the shock keeps going unobstructed outward.

  A mushroom cloud boiled up into the sky.

  When it cleared, Rusty could see nothing. No debris, no floating pieces of Styrofoam from Al’s boat, anything. And that was a good thing.

  At the news about Al, Jenny had rushed back to Alabama. She was probably right now at the window of her condo there at The Point, looking out.

  Gloria put her arm in through Rusty’s. “I think that was a very appropriate send off for Al.”

  “Very,” Rusty said. “Hey, you remember how I said something like if our first night together worked out I would invite you out on a date?” Rusty asked.

  “Vividly.”

  “Well, tomorrow when they release the official report on Al, I thought well, it would be a good time to leave town.”

  “It might get a little hectic if we stuck around.”

  “I would like to invite you out for three nights. We go down to Mobile and see
a play. Then we go over to Gulf Shores, stay right on the beach for a few days. All expenses paid by me.”

  “I accept, Rusty Clay. And we are going in your newly restored Mercedes?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s go pack.”

  “I got one appointment early this afternoon, Gloria, and then we’ll hit the road.”

  Chapter 50

  Rusty Clay sat at his roll-top desk in the office of The Redneck Detective Agency. He was dressed in his Dolopia dress uniform--his fifty dollar jeans, an ironed long sleeve dress white shirt and his black boots.

  “Gloria Davenport has McAllister blood,” he said aloud.

  Then the footsteps could be heard coming up his stairs. They were light footsteps but Rusty knew they did not belong to a light person.

  He got up and walked to the door. He opened it just as Joanna King got to the top landing. Mrs. King was a pleasant looking woman of about sixty. She was roundish and teetered on some invisible line. She could let herself go and quickly become obese or she could get on one of those weight loss programs and soon have a waist line again.

  As she caught her breath from the stair climb, Rusty said, “Thank you so much for coming, Mrs. King. And I would have been more than glad to come to your house.”

  Mrs. King waved her hand, no, no, no. “Thank you for having me, Mr. Clay. And call me Joanna.”

  “Only if you call me Rusty. Please have a seat.” Joanna passed up the couch and sat at the desk by the window. She plopped her big purse over on the edge of the desk. “Something cold to drink, Joanna? Bottled water, Dr Pepper, a beer?” He opened up the little refrigerator.

  “Give me one of them Dr Peppers. One right now would shore taste good. And I’ll just suck it right out of the can.”

  Rusty smiled, got two cans of Dr Pepper, came over, popped the cans open, gave one to Joanna and sat opposite her.

  “When the investigation on Al Bolton is released this will be public and media information. But I just thought you should hear it from me first.”

  “And I appreciate that, Rusty.”

  Rusty pointed to the door, the only door in the place other than the bathroom door, the door with the glass upper half that read The Redneck Detective Agency in black lettering from the outside.