by Terry Shames
“How many bodies are we talking about?” Wills asks.
“Five so far,” Tilley swallows. “Looks like kids.”
“Damn.” Wills takes his Ranger hat off and scratches the back of his neck.
“And at least one of them was shot.”
“The hell you say! Let’s get on back there and take a look. Mind all of you not to tramp around too much, although between the fire and the firefighters moving around, I expect there’s not much left of the crime scene.”
We move through the trees. I admit my heart is pounding pretty hard. In the months I’ve been chief, the only bodies I’ve seen are a glimpse of someone laid out at the side of the road after an automobile crash, and a couple of old people who died of natural causes. In a town of three thousand people, you don’t get much in the way of murder—or at least I haven’t had the misfortune to see it.
It’s full daylight now, but the sun hasn’t hit the house, surrounded as it is by tall post oak trees. Although the house stands in a cleared area, some of the trees close by are blackened from the fire. Several firemen are standing in a huddle, looking shocked and grimy. Some are smoking cigarettes, most likely to rid themselves of the awful smell of creosote and burned flesh. The smell has a bad effect on the oatmeal I ate earlier, making it tumble around like a live snake in my stomach. I grit my teeth, determined not to disgrace myself by losing my breakfast in front of these men.
The house is a single story cobbled together and sprawled out probably without much regard to building codes. But it looks more substantial than some of the houses built in this area. There was a wide porch, and the beams holding up the roof over it are still standing, although it looks like a good push could knock them down. The house is big enough to have two or three bedrooms in addition to a kitchen and a living room.
Schoppe falls into step beside me, behind the others. “Man, this is a tough one.” He coughs and spits to one side.
A man in a Bobtail Fire Department jacket peels away from the huddle of men and walks over to us. “I’m Bob Koontz, fire chief over in Bobtail.”
“Have you called the ambulance?” Wills asks.
“Didn’t see any sense in it. It’s too hot for them to get in there yet. You all stay back. That porch looks like it might collapse, and if it does, embers could get scattered.”
“Would you mind taking us as close as you consider a safe distance?”
I like Wills. Reputation has it that Rangers are arrogant and pushy, but I see none of that in him. I read somewhere that they are trying to clean up their image after a handful of shameful scandals. Maybe this is part of that effort, or maybe it’s just Wills’s usual way.
As we move closer, Koontz coughs deep in his lungs. “Right inside the door there, you see what looks like three bodies, and then around back there’s another one near the kitchen door.”
The door is hanging partly open. “It looks to me like they were trying to escape the fire. Is that your assessment?” Wills’s voice is steady, although I don’t know how he stays calm. What happened here makes me tremble with anger.
“We’re not sure. The body in the yard puts a different light on it. The girl was shot.”
We file by the precarious porch. The door has been torn off its hinges and bears evidence of being chopped at by an ax. The doorway and walls inside the entry are charred. Each man in turn peers into the house where a slant of light illuminates three shapes tangled together in a sprawl by the front door. Whoever set the fire didn’t bother to pretend it was a natural disaster. Three gas cans lie on the ground near the front door. Wills points at them. “We’re going to need those taken in for prints.”
“We’ll take care of that,” Sutherland says.
Wills hooks his thumbs in his belt and gives Sutherland a speculative look. If I had to interpret his expression, I’d say he knows Sutherland and doesn’t like him.
I hear a squeak of distress. Bonnie Bedichek has crept along behind us, and despite the horror of what she’s seeing, she’s scribbling madly in her notebook. Then she hoists the camera that’s slung around her neck and begins taking snapshots.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to desist from taking photos. We’ll let the press in as soon as we’ve had time to process the scene.” Wills is quiet, but somehow he projects authority. I can learn something from this man.
Maybe because he addressed her with respect, or maybe because the scene is more than she can take in, Bonnie lowers the camera.
We proceed around back, and when I see the form laid out in the weeds, I hear a roaring in my ears. Schoppe is beside me again. “How long have you been chief?” he asks.
If he hadn’t asked me a question to take my mind away from the body, I might have fainted flat out, but I feel an urgent need to answer the question. “A little over six months. How long have you been a Ranger?”
“Two years, but the first one was all training. Never seen anything like this. Never wanted to.”
I put in my time in the US Air Force and then went to Texas A&M for four years, so I’m not a kid, but all that experience seems to drop away at the moment. I feel like Schoppe and I are two high school boys tagging along behind the grown-ups.
The body in the yard is a girl with mahogany-colored skin, a teenager by the looks of her thin, gangly legs and skinny little body. She’s clad in short shorts and a brightly colored, striped top. Her hair is fluffed out from her head like an electric shock went through her. I’ve seen that style on TV. It looks like she was fleeing from burning clothing—the worst thing you can do. But, looking closer, I see that the clothing is charred and not burned off her body. She was rolling around, trying to smother the flames, and somebody shot her just off the center of her forehead.
“Close range,” Schoppe says in a whisper. “See the powder burns?” I nod, grateful that he pointed it out.
Everybody is whispering. I suddenly realize that Sutherland is not with us. I see him off in the trees, bent over. I look back to see his partner gazing at me coolly. “He has a sixteen-year-old daughter,” he says.
Chapter 4
I’ve never been a big drinker, as my daddy drank himself to death and my brother is well on his way to doing the same. I enjoy a beer in hot weather, and maybe a shot of bourbon to be sociable, but that’s about it. After what I’ve seen this morning, though, I understand why somebody would get drunk enough to numb his senses. I’d like nothing better than to go to the Ten Spot on the outskirts of town and spend the rest of the day hoisting one beer after another.
Of course I’m not going to do that. Something tells me that while my conscious mind would be tamped down, I’d still be left with images seared on my retinas. Not only that, but I’d be playing right into Jeanne’s misgivings about me being a lawman.
After I leave the crime scene, I go back to what we call headquarters, a ramshackle building that used to be a hardware store right next to the Texaco station. The city council is always planning to build a new police station, but then something comes up that’s more important. The recent project that has me steamed is the building of a museum right in the center of town. True, the Santa Fe Railway paid for most of it, since it mostly consists of memorabilia from when the railroad was the heart and soul of central Texas. But the rest of the money came from Biddy White, whose husband was the foreman of the tie plant and a big cheese in the town at one time. Somebody could have persuaded her to pay for a decent police station.
Tilley drives in right behind me, and we walk up to the door together not saying a word. I tear a note off the front door that says Susie Lassiter’s dog has gone missing again. Yesterday I would have called her straight off and offered my help, but this morning’s events have put the missing dog in perspective.
Tilley and I slump into our chairs like we’re old men. He lights up a cigarette, and for once I don’t mind. It’s a clean smell by comparison. He sighs. “I need a shower.”
“I know what you mean.”
“What are
you going to do?” he asks. I notice he doesn’t say we. “You going to leave it to the state?”
I’m not sure what to reply. I suppose that’s the easiest way. Despite my annoyance at the highway patrolman, he’s right; I don’t have jurisdiction. But I feel like it’s a cop-out to simply walk away and hand off the investigation to people who don’t live around here. Not that I have the resources or the experience to investigate myself, but at least I ought to know what they find out. Wills said he’d keep me in the loop, but if Sutherland has anything to say about it, I imagine I won’t be included. I just can’t quite decide if I want to push it.
The phone rings. It’s Jeanne, and her voice is cheerful and excited. It’s like hearing someone from another time and place. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you. If you don’t get on over here, you’re going to miss the unloading.” I notice the light blinking on the answering machine.
“Is Truly there?”
“He just drove up.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
It’s probably wrong to assume that because Truly Bennett is black, he knows all the other black people in town, but I can’t help dreading telling him about the scene out at the burned house. Of course, he might already know. His daddy was still standing on the porch when I drove back by, keeping vigil. This time there was a young girl with him. I assume that was Truly’s sister.
Leaving his earlier question unanswered, I tell Tilley what’s going on at my house. He forces a smile. “So you’re going to be a cattle rancher.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I just want to keep a few cows.”
Tilley sniffs his armpit. “I think I’ll duck on home and get a shower and then come back, if it’s all the same to you.”
It still gives me a funny feeling for a man ten years older and more experienced than me asking my permission to leave work.
I listen to the phone messages. Two are from Jeanne, sounding impatient the second time. The other one is a panicked voice asking if I know what the sirens are for. It’s Verna Price. She calls every time the volunteer fire siren goes off. She’s stuck in the fifties, when everyone was afraid Russia was going to bomb the United States. Why she thinks anybody would target a small town an hour and a half’s drive from the nearest city, which is San Antonio, is anybody’s guess. Reasoning with her never gets me anywhere. But her panic is real, so I call her back and tell her it was only a fire.
I live five minutes from the station. When I drive up, Jeanne is standing next to a big truck that has brought the cows. She runs to my pickup and looks as excited as a child. “We got some good-looking heifers. I was afraid you wouldn’t get here to see them unloaded.”
I look inside the cattle truck and see there are a good dozen still unloaded. Truly’s truck is parked next to the cattle truck, but I don’t see him. I assume he and the truck driver are getting a batch of cows herded into the pasture.
I kiss Jeanne and try to bring my attention back to the excitement of the moment.
“Phew, you smell awful,” she says.
“It was a bad fire,” I say. “I’m going back to the pasture to see if they need any help.”
At that moment, though, the two men come around the side of the house and head toward me. Truly is quiet, as always, and I can’t read his face.
“How can I help?” I ask.
“This boy has been helping me,” the driver says. “We’re taking them down a couple at a time. He seems to know what he’s doing.” The driver looks around the same age as Truly, early twenties, and him calling Truly a “boy” irritates me. Maybe it’s just my mood.
“Truly helped me pick out this bunch,” I say. “He’s a good man with cattle.”
Neither the driver nor Truly seems to notice my correction, but Jeanne gives a little snort of amusement.
I love the look of a Hereford cow—its snowy white face surrounded by red. As a breed they look solid, and they have fewer health problems than some other breeds. They take the heat well and fatten up readily. It takes only a half hour for us to finish up getting them down into the pasture. By then I’m feeling less agitated.
After the driver leaves, Jeanne says she’s going in to make some lunch. Although I know she won’t approve, I ask Truly if he’ll join us. It’s a token request. I know he won’t stay. It wouldn’t make him any more comfortable than it would Jeanne. Sure enough, he says he’s got to be somewhere, and Jeanne goes into the house.
“Truly, I need to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You know there was a fire out in the woods beyond your place this morning?”
He nods and looks down at the ground.
“Would you happen to know who lives out there?”
“Not right off,” he says. His voice is so quiet, I barely hear him. He lifts his head and looks off into the distance. “I heard talk, though.”
“What kind of talk?”
He shakes his head and doesn’t look at me. “I’d rather not say. It’s better you leave it.”
“What do you mean ‘leave it’?”
He shakes his head again. “It’s rumors. I’d best be getting on now.”
To my surprise, he walks swiftly away, toward his truck.
“Truly, I owe you money.”
“I’ll get it later,” he calls over his shoulder.
I watch him drive away and wonder what’s gotten into him. He has never been much for chatter, but he is always polite and respectful—almost deferential.
I walk on back to the pasture. To the north I see that the sky has darkened. We’re going to get our first norther of the season. The cows will like that. They’re probably hot after being cooped up in that truck for the last few of hours.
“Your mother called this morning.”
Jeanne and I are sitting at the little table she set up on the porch so we can have occasional meals here when the weather permits.
She insisted that I take a shower and change clothes before eating lunch. I didn’t think I could eat after what I’ve been exposed to this morning, but I find I’m starving. She’s heated up roast beef from last night. She’s a good cook. Nothing fancy, and that’s fine with me. When we visit her family in Fort Worth, they always take us to some fancy restaurant. Jeanne loves it, but I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes man.
“What did she want?”
“She wants you to come by. She said she has something to tell you.”
I grunt in reply. She always has something to tell me. Always a complaint against me; my brother, Horace; or our dead daddy.
“Don’t be that way. She’s old. She just wants attention.”
I don’t know why, but Jeanne has taken it on herself to be friendly to my mamma. I’ve told her how mean Mamma was when I was growing up. She nagged and belittled my daddy and brother pretty much nonstop. Neither of them ever did a thing that pleased her. Maybe because I was younger than Horace, I escaped the worst of it, although it seemed like plenty. But it was almost worse, having to witness what she did to the two of them. I always felt guilty being spared. As nice as Jeanne is to her, you’d think that Mamma would be kind back, but she barely gives Jeanne the time of day and is downright cruel about the fact that we haven’t produced any children. I can’t see why Jeanne acts like everything is fine.
“I’ll go see her,” I say.
“Today?”
“I don’t know. Now let me alone.”
I know better than to snap at my wife like that, and she usually pops right back, but now she’s quiet and I can feel her eyes on me as I shovel my food in.
“What happened this morning?” she asks. “You’ve been jumpy as a cat ever since you got back.”
I lay my fork down. The image of those bodies heaped in the front doorway overtakes me and I run my hands over my face. “I’ll give you the easy version. There was a fire and we found bodies.”
She gasps. “Oh, Samuel. Where was the fire? Who was killed?”
I need to choose my words
carefully. I don’t want to start a fight. “It was a black family over in Darktown. The dead appear to be young.”
“How young? You know how they are.” For some reason, Jeanne has taken up her father’s line that black people neglect their children. I don’t know where it comes from. I told her I never saw anything like that around here, but she said that was because I didn’t pay enough attention. My feeling is that I’d rather have been neglected by my folks than subjected to Mamma’s unrelenting criticism and Daddy’s drunken rambles.
“We’ll have to wait for the autopsy to find that out.”
“I mean little kids?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean you don’t think so? The bodies would be little. If it’s teenagers, you’d wonder why they didn’t have sense enough to get out of the house.”
I know she doesn’t mean it that way, but she sounds hard-hearted, as if she’s not talking about real people. But maybe I’m too raw at the moment and her words hit me wrong. I don’t want to describe the heap of bodies and tell her that there was no way to see how big they were because they were a burned mass, fused together in a doorway. Maybe later I’ll be able to tell her that I hope to God they were shot like the girl outside was before the fire got to them. But I can’t talk about it now. I push my plate away and get up. “I have to get back,” I say.
I don’t know if we’ve actually had a fight, but it feels that way when I drive away. Maybe to appease her I’ll stop by and visit my mother later. But there’s a lot to take care of between now and then. I realize that I didn’t go back and take another look at the cows before I left. I’m sure they’ll be fine. But my lapse tells me what kind of mood I’m in.