Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

by John A. Broussard

  “We can wrap this one up,” Jay observed back at the station, while Al was writing up his report. “The old fool should have known better than to go hauling bricks around in this broiling sun.”

  Al shrugged. “We still have to go through the motions for an unattended death. We’ll close it out as soon as we hear back from the hospital.”

  “Hell, why bother to wait? The ambulance crew said it was heatstroke. They should know. God knows there’ve been enough people keeling over from the heat this past week to give the crew plenty of experience.”

  Al made the point that they had better busy themselves with something or they’d be out pounding the streets with the rest of the unemployed. “We can always claim this is kind of mysterious. Sure as hell we couldn’t claim any mystery when the Dusty Tavern bartender threw Pete Boucher through the plate glass window.”

  “Phew. Wasn’t that a mess, though? His head was damn near off his shoulders. I’ve never seen so much blood outside of a car wreck.”

  “So I’m calling for an autopsy on Black.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe they’ll find he’s been poisoned. If they do, we’ll be busy for months.”

  The autopsy came through before the weekend, a sure sign business had slowed down considerably in the forensics department. Jay was suggesting that the ongoing heat wave had driven all the criminals to the beach, while Al was leafing through the half-dozen pages of medical verbiage, finally focusing on blood content.

  “Hey! Look at this.” He handed the report over to Jay and pointed to the section he had been studying. “George must have been drunk as a skunk. I’ll bet he was staggering around the field long before the heat got him.”

  “Maybe, but he still died of heatstroke. It says so right there at the end. Nothing else, except his hands were bruised. But handling all those bricks would bruise anyone’s hands. No poison. No sign of strangulation. No gun wounds. No nothing.”

  “Even so, I think we owe Chuck a call. Maybe we can find out why George was whooping it up so early in the day. And we should go out to see George’s widow, too. I can think of several questions to ask her.”

  “You’re really stretching this out.”

  Al grinned. “Job security.”

  They found Chuck Ford in front of his house trimming the hedge. His first words were pretty much the same as the ones he had spoken at the time of the death. The gist was that George should have known better than to go out in the heat and under the blazing sun to do work he wasn’t used to doing.

  Al went on with his questions. “Could you tell me what time you and Mr. Black arrived at the yard?”

  Chuck seemed annoyed. “What difference does that make?”

  “It’s just for the record, sir. We have to include certain details before we can close the incident.”

  Chuck shrugged. “Maybe nine or so. I got there right around then. George was already puttering around. He was the one who unlocked the gate.”

  “Do you know if he’d been drinking?”

  Chuck laughed. “If you’d known George, you wouldn’t have had to ask that question. He really liked his liquor.”

  Al was beginning to feel annoyed at Chuck’s evasiveness, but managed to hide it. “Had he been drinking that morning? It’s important for us to know.”

  “Damned if I can see why. Sure, he’d been drinking. He even had a flask along with him. Offered me some, but I told him it was too early in the day for me.”

  “Was he drunk?”

  “No more than usual. He may have had a lot to drink before he got there. You couldn’t tell with him.”

  “By the way, what happens to the brickyard now?”

  Chuck made a dismissive gesture. “Not much. There’s no point in trying to open it again. The land’s the only thing worth anything, and that isn’t much.”

  “Do you own it now?”

  Chuck nodded. “Yeah. That was the agreement. It looked like a good deal back then but, for all it’s worth, George might just as well have taken it with him.”

  When they’d gotten back to their oven of a patrol car, Jay suggested they head back to the station and sit in front of the fan, for once looking forward to paperwork. “This should be enough investigating for one day. As far as I’m concerned, the damn fool was drunk and went out there in a hundred-degree heat and under this blazing hot sun. If he hadn’t died from that, we should be investigating how he could have survived the combination.”

  Al was only half listening. “That hot sun is what’s bothering me now.”

  “Yeah. It’s bothering me, too.”

  Al ignored the comment. “How come Chuck doesn’t seem to mind it today when he told us the other day he didn’t want to be out in it? Seems to me his hedge could wait for the heat wave to break.”

  “You’ve just naturally got a suspicious mind.”

  “You bet. And there’s a lot to be suspicious about.” As he spoke, he started looking through his notes. “The ambulance arrived at the scene about eleven-thirty, and Chuck says they were sorting bricks since early morning. Do you remember what the brick pile looked like?”

  “Like a brick pile. Everything was just thrown together, one brick on top of another.”

  “Does that sound much like sorting to you?”

  “Maybe they’d already sorted out another pile?”

  Al shook his head. “Did you see any other piles that looked like they’d been sorted?”

  Jay shrugged.

  “And why did it take Chuck so long to call the ambulance? Clancy’s Garage is less than a block away.”

  “Oh, hell! They were just sitting around shooting the bull and probably didn’t get to working until ten or so.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve got a lot of questions to ask Mrs. Black. Make her home our next stop.”

  Jay shook his head in exasperation, but wheeled the car off toward the end of town where George Black had lived.

  Mrs. Black was a slender, middle-aged woman. Her black dress reminded them she was a widow who had just buried her husband, and they both expressed their sympathies. She seemed in surprisingly good spirits, however—under the circumstances—and ready to answer any questions. Al immediately said there were one or two items needing to be cleared up about her husband’s death. She was quick to invite them in and even offered iced tea, which they gratefully accepted.

  “Could you describe what happened on Tuesday?”

  Mrs. Black looked puzzled.

  Al smiled. “I’m sorry. I guess I should be more specific. Did your husband have anything to drink before he left that morning.”

  She still looked puzzled. “Do you mean alcohol? Beer?”

  Al nodded.

  “No, of course not. He seldom drank, and never alone. And he certainly wouldn’t have been drinking early in the morning.”

  “Did you ever know him to get drunk?”

  She smiled. “Oh, he’d get tipsy on rare occasions. If we went to a party, he’d drink beer—nothing stronger. And sometimes he’d have a bit too much. Then I’d have to drive home even though I’m not much of a driver.”

  “Did he own a liquor flask?”

  “No. Not even back during Prohibition. As I said, he was never a lone drinker.”

  “Why did he go out to the yard?”

  “I’m not sure. He said something about Chuck wanting to see him there about something. I never knew much about the business. Not that there’s been much to know about it lately, but he went off sometime around seven.”

  “Did your husband have any heart problems?”

  “Why, no. Of course, he hadn’t been to the doctor’s in years. And even then it was when he broke a wrist. Other than that, he didn’t need to see any doctor. We were both healthy. I didn’t even go to the hospital when I had my babies.”

  “Did your husband ever talk to you about selling the business?”

  Mrs. Black laughed at the suggestion. “I didn’t know much about it, but I did know nobody would have wanted
to buy the brickyard. There was a company—I can’t think of the name right now—they called him and were interested in the land—just the land. Some common name like ACME Properties or ABC Properties or something like that. George said he had no intention of selling. He insisted the brick business would come back some day and that we’d saved enough to outlast the Depression.”

  “Well,” Al said when they finally made it back to the station, “do you think I had a right to be suspicious?

  “Yup. Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “George Black still died of heatstroke.”

  Al brushed the problem aside. “Tomorrow, first thing, we’re going by Chuck’s and we’re going to get the key to the yard. He can go with us, or not. It’s up to him. I want to take a close look around.”

  Chuck Ford was definitely unhappy about giving up the key, finally deciding to go along and to open up the yard for them. He was even more unhappy at the long series of questions Al leveled at him.

  Chuck didn’t know the name of the company that ordered the four thousand bricks, since they had put the order in with George. He did have a couple of beers with him before they started work, but George had already been drinking before he got there, and finished off his hip flask before starting in on the beer. No, he didn’t know what happened to the flask. George’s wife was just plain wrong about his drinking. He was always sneaking drinks at work.

  Chuck’s unhappiness didn’t diminish as the three of them wandered around the yard looking into the deserted office, through the warehouse full of rusting equipment, and around and into the oil-fired kiln. Chuck told them the last business prior to the surprise order of the previous week had been eight months before. Shortly afterwards the office had been shut, the gate of the yard had been padlocked, and everything had been closed down. Neither he nor George, nor any of their former workers had set foot in the place until the fatal day.

  As they were closing up the yard again, Al felt certain Chuck had killed George. For one thing, his story had changed significantly. Yet, the gap in the evidence was still enormous. As Jay had said, George Black still died of heatstroke.

  Chuck seemed relieved as all three walked back to their cars. At that moment, a fuel truck pulled up, and the driver leaned out the window. “Say Mr. Ford, you wouldn’t want another oil delivery here like last week would you? My boss says I’ve got a bonus in store for me if I can match last week’s sales.”

  ***

  The unprecedented event was the Chief’s summons to congratulate Al for his perseverance. “Great work! Chuck Ford finally admitted to everything. He says he was desperate. About to lose everything he owned. And the only hope was to get what he could out of the land under the brickyard. Black wouldn’t let go, though. So Ford decided to get rid of him. He ordered just enough fuel to fire up the kiln, then he got Black out to the yard, convinced him to drink a couple of beers with him, only Black’s beer was laced with straight alcohol. When he passed out, Ford hauled him into the kiln, closed the door, and turned on the heat. He cooked him for two or three hours at a hundred and seventy. Black must have come to sometime while he was in there. That’s where the bruises on his hands came from. Hell of a way to die!

  “By the way, the mayor just found enough money to buy three new cars for the force. You and Jay are scheduled to be the first to get one. And they’ve got some of that new-fangled air conditioning equipment in them.”

  HOOF BEATS

  “When you hear hoof beats, think horses.”

  That was Marty talking. Everyone else who knows him on the Big Island calls him Uncle Marty. I don’t. Maybe that’s because he is my uncle. And, maybe it’s to get even, but he calls me “son.”

  He’s tall, gray-haired, with a Santa Claus complexion, but he isn’t built much like Santa. In fact, he looks like he could win just about any footrace. He’s also a detective sergeant in the Hawaii County’s Police Department. But I’d be willing to bet he’s past retirement age and has somehow managed to keep the HPD from finding out. I know he’ll go on policing until he drops.

  What Marty was doing was filling me in on the how and what of detecting. That’s the kind of stuff he’s been talking to me about since as far back as I can remember. Maybe he figures I’m still a kid, even though I’m long ago married, have a kid of my own, to say nothing of a print shop, a home (owned mostly by the bank, of course) and a part-time, unpaid job as a volunteer firefighter. I’m really not much interested in detective work, but I’ve never said so to Marty and never will. It would take all of his fun out of telling me how to track down criminals. Nope! He can fight crime all he wants. I’d rather fight fires.

  So, anyhow, it was lunchtime that day. I’d brown-bagged it, and Marty was making do with a pipe full of awful-smelling tobacco and a cup of our office coffee, which I have to admit isn’t exactly Starbuck Special.

  He was sitting in one of my rickety garage-sale office chairs, with his feet up on another of the same, pointing his pipe at me and warning me not to think zebras. It was an off-duty day for him, and he was making the most of it: shorts, sandals, an aloha shirt and a leisurely hour of talking story with me.

  “That’s the trouble with all these young kids who join the force these days. They’ve read too many crime stories, or seen too many on the tube.” Marty emphasized the point by aiming the stem of his pipe at me and taking a hefty swig of his boiling hot coffee. Without blinking, he went on.

  “The simplest explanation is always the best explanation. If a woman’s killed, there’s no need to comb the neighborhood. Check out her husband or her boyfriend.”

  I had to protest at that. “But there are plenty of cases of women being killed where the husband wasn’t involved.”

  Marty’s rosy-cheeked face, mustache and all, came out from behind the coffee cup. The pipe took aim again. “C’mon, son. You know as well as I do that many a husband has gotten away with killing his wife, and sometimes it was just because the investigators were fool enough not to assume he was the killer, first crack out of the bag. Now, I’m not saying every murdered woman has a killer for a husband. What I am saying is that that’s the place to start. Then you have to move out from there. Sons, daughters, other relatives. And if you don’t find the guilty one among that bunch, you still don’t go looking for Martians.

  “Friends kill friends. When it’s a stranger who does it, that’s news. And the news gets splashed all over the countryside. That’s why these young detectives get the idea that every case is like that. They aren’t. Believe me. Same goes for burglary, arson… you name it. If there’s a lot of money missing—jewels, something really big—I check out the insurance policy first. Remember that gas station holdup in Waimea last week? The one where a lot of cash was involved? Well, it turns out the attendant faked it. Just as I’d suspected.” The pipestem drove home the point as Marty downed the last of the coffee, dregs and all.

  Barely pausing for breath, he added, “So what you do is run down what’s most probable first. Figure it’s horses when you hear hoof beats. Believe me, my boy, there aren’t many zebras galloping around this island.”

  My pager went off just at that moment. Fire control was calling out four companies, including us, to a brush fire. I keep my gear in the print shop van, so I yelled to one of my workers to let him know I was taking off and bolted for the door. Marty didn’t bother to ask. He was in the passenger seat before I could get behind the wheel.

  We could see the smoke in the distance as we pulled out of the driveway. Emergency vehicles are allowed ten miles over the speed limit, but that didn’t stop our fire-truck driver Connie Hodgkins from passing me doing at least seventy-five, siren blaring, lights flashing. We have several women in our company and are always looking for more, since they’re more apt to be home during the day. And it’s especially good if we can find women who are qualified to drive commercial vehicles. Connie qualified, and she turned out to be a great addition to the company, even though she’s
sometimes too ready to take chances. This was one of those times.

  Sensibly, oncoming traffic scrambled off the road on to the shoulders. It was obvious to me that Connie wanted to beat the career guys to the scene. Fifteen Alpha doesn’t often accomplish that feat, but it looked like we’d be a winner this time.

  As the engine passed us, I caught a glimpse of Kuulei Tana, Fifteen Alpha’s fire chief, riding shotgun. She was on the radio, undoubtedly giving Control a blow-by-blow description of what she could tell about the fire scene as they raced toward it down the highway. It was already looking like a major blaze.

  Incidentally, Kuulei is absolutely the best when it comes to firefighting. She has her Red Card, which means that when the big wildland fires break out on the mainland, she’s likely to be flown over to help.

  The fire, or at least its potential, was even worse than I’d anticipated. Two or three acres were already ablaze with a bad wind blowing, and the flames were heading toward a row of old plantation houses lining the roadway. I roared up behind our fire truck. It had beaten Fifteen to the scene—but not by much. I could see their big tanker speeding down from the opposite direction.

  I hit the pavement running, slammed back the van doors and started putting on my gear. Marty was already unreeling a booster hose. Two other volunteers were running the three-inch supply line to the nearest hydrant and flushing out the discharge gate before attaching the line. By the time I’d finished suiting up and gotten to our engine, three more volunteers from Fifteen Alpha had arrived, the snubber had the hydrant full on, and the truck’s pump was revving up the water pressure.

  Kuulei was the IC, the Incident Commander. The captain of the career company would ordinarily have taken over as senior officer, but he was quick to signal Kuulei to continue running the show. Few other firefighters on the island, professional or volunteer had her experience when it came to brush fires.

  I took first turn on one of the inch-and-three quarter attack lines. Connie, after getting support personnel to watch the pump, buddied along behind me as we pulled the hose between two of the houses and out into the burning field.