Seminole Bend

by Tom Hansen

  Ev’s two muscular legs were her only mode of transportation and she walked three miles each week to Dixie Food from the northeast ghetto to cash in her food stamps. She pounded her fists on the ground in frustration, knowing she certainly couldn’t afford to pay for a second round of goodies back in the grocery store.

  Several yards back, still lying on the asphalt where the Ford LTD’s driver had shoved him, Lance Billips witnessed the whole accident. He clambered to his feet and came running to check out Ev’s condition. Ev Pritchard was his Friday night fling and the couple probably would get hitched except for two big problems: neither had any money and Ev had a husband. A gigantic, ornery and jealous husband.

  Ev was okay, a little stunned by the whole ordeal, but more upset about losing this week’s food rations. After checking on her, Lance started trotting towards Main Street to see if he could figure out where the LTD was heading. Most weeks, his fitness program consisted of short shoplifting hikes to the neighboring grocery store and Friday night heavy breathing exercises with Ev. But today, with adrenaline induced energy, Lance decided to cross Main Street and jog to the sheriff’s office to report the incident at the phone booth. He was hoping he’d get lucky and perhaps the phone booth assaulter dude was a wanted felon and had a reward on his head. But regardless, Lance wasn’t about to let the son-of-a-bitch get away scot-free. First, the dang bastard shattered Lance’s Mad Dog, then he almost shattered Lance’s lover. Lance vowed revenge.

  * * * * *

  Calvin Potts backed his Chevy Nova out from the sheriff’s office parking lot onto the service road that ran parallel to Main Street, and then shifted the car from reverse to forward. A block down the service road was an entryway onto Main Street. Calvin stopped at the intersection and noticed a big blue car veering onto the shoulder and heading right at him at warp speed. Calvin froze. He couldn’t think fast enough to decide whether to reverse backward with his automatic transmission, or jolt forward to avoid a collision, so he did neither. Instead, his mouth gaped wide open as he stared out the driver side window at the blue box of steel bolting directly at his door, only a few feet away. A split second later came a thunderous sound of metal on metal, and an explosion that could be heard all the way to the lake!

  Lance’s jogging came to a sudden halt and he glanced west toward the direction of the blast. He could see black smoke rising into the clear blue sky like Hiroshima revisited. Lance could barely make out the tail end of what looked like the infamous blue LTD he was chasing, and sure enough, one of the cars on fire was none other than the one owned by Mr. Bully. Lance’s lips curled and he started a slow laugh. The son-of-a-bitch blew the hell out of himself, he thought. Lance wasn’t sure who the unlucky sucker was that the LTD struck and he really didn’t care. The big jerk in the blue Ford wasn’t going to be smashing anyone’s Mad Dog again!

  The Seminole Bend volunteer fire department workers were several blocks away, over by Taylor Creek. They were putting out a grass and weed fire in the backyard of a resident whose cigarette smoking habit not only was burning his lungs, but now it was burning his property. They didn’t have to wait for a call from dispatch; they, too, heard the collision and saw the smoke rising about a mile away. The backyard fire was almost out, so they unraveled the garden hose from the man’s house and told him to keep watering until they returned. The four volunteer firemen, who were also cook’s at Jake’s BBQ at night, hopped into the red fire truck and raced to the scene of the accident. By the time they arrived, both cars were charred black as coal. Approaching the bigger vehicle first, they could find no trace of life or even find anything that resembled a body in the LTD.

  The firemen then shifted their attention quickly toward the Nova and made a hurried dash to the driver side door, but stopped dead in their tracks when they noticed a horror flick unfolding before their eyes. The firefighters could see the skin on the face of Calvin Potts sizzle and melt like wax while the old man’s empty eyes gazed at the interior roof of his car. All four of the heroes by day and cooks by night became nauseous and staggered away to get their hose from the truck. By the time they returned to the Chevy, the old man’s bones were turning to ash. They sprayed massive gallons of water on the two cars, but to no avail as both vehicles smoldered in the street in full view of hundreds of permanent Seminole Bend citizens and snowbirds alike. Traffic on Main Street came to a full stop as the gawkers couldn’t believe their eyes! Everywhere around, people covered their mouths and stared in awe at the incredible sight. But while the Seminole Bend attraction of the century stunned the onlookers as they observed in horror and disbelief, Lance happened to notice a large, muscular man enter the back door to Elmer’s Hardware Store. Lance recognized his face, even from a distance.

  * * * * *

  Danny Martin, the brawny cowboy who was Max Miller’s partner had no trouble getting into the Pott’s home. Calvin, in his haste to visit the sheriff, forgot to lock both the outside entrance to the Florida room and the sliding glass door that led into the house’s master bedroom. Danny yanked the banana plant, roots and all, from the large ceramic pot in the corner of the bedroom and tossed the tree behind him onto the porch. As he focused his eyes on the lightly snoring body under the covers, Danny picked up the plant-holder, slowly raised it over his head and walked delicately over to the bed where Agnes Potts was sleeping soundly. She felt no conscious pain when Danny slammed the hundred-pound pot into her face, jamming bones from her nasal cavity into the frontal lobe area of her brain and causing immediate head hemorrhaging. Underneath the black dirt mounded on her face from the moist earth inside the pot, trickles of blood streamed out from Agnes’ ears and eye sockets. Her left eyeball hung down by muscle and nerve tissue to where her nose once was located. The ghastly sight even caused Danny to weaken, and he turned his ashen face to the door. But before he left, he ripped open the jewelry case on the dresser and took two gold watches and a diamond solitaire necklace so authorities would suspect the old lady’s death was from a burglary.

  * * * * *

  Lance Billips grabbed a plumbing wrench from the shelf in Elmer’s Hardware store and followed the drops of blood that led to the small bathroom tucked away in the back of the store. There was no way the big ox in the blue LTD could have escaped from that collision! Lance guessed that the man must have jammed the accelerator with a strong oblong object, then jumped out of the car a few seconds before impact. The blood droplets in Elmer’s store most likely indicated he was injured doing so.

  The bathroom door handle was locked, so with the wrench weapon in hand, Lance backed up and waited precariously behind the shelf of paint just outside of the restroom. Several minutes passed, then finally the handle turned and the door began to open. As Max limped out, Lance raised the wrench above his head, looked the stunned car-crashing murderer in the eyes, and said, “This is for hurting my Evie, you bastard!” He swung hard in a swooping hook motion and landed the heavy steel instrument solidly on the big man’s temple causing him to quaver first to the side, and then fall backwards. Max tried to stand up, but his knees wobbled and he stumbled dizzily into the bathroom. Then his legs gave out and he slipped and fell hard. The base of Max’s head crashed on the porcelain sink and Lance heard the ominous crack of his opponent’s skull. Lance didn’t wait to see the outcome of his blow; he wheeled around, turned left into the storeroom and sprinted out the back door of the hardware store. But as it turned out, he really didn’t need to rush because no one was inside the hardware store, or as a matter of fact, anywhere near the outside of the shop either. Curiosity had gotten the best of the locals and everyone was down the street watching the aftermath of the worst car accident in Seminole Bend history.

  CHAPTER 16

  Wednesday, February 10, 1982

  11:00 a.m.

  W illy Banks awoke to the screaming sound of ambulance sirens all around him. He slowly opened his eyes and tried desperately to focus his vision while a tremendous headache pounded his temples. Facing the ceiling, Willy s
tared directly at the dim fluorescent lights above the elevated bed on which he lay. As he looked around and saw the transparent plastic tube that ran from a bottle of blood into his left arm, he knew he must be passing time at Gregorson General Hospital. He dared not look at his injured leg in the event that it wasn’t attached to his body.

  Willy could barely recall the last twenty-four hours and he was desperate to find out what happened to his partner, Sam McCormick. He knew it was very likely that Sam had died from shotgun pellet wounds or drowned in the Jackson moat and he laid the blame squarely with Roy’s thugs. Willy was convinced that it was high time for someone to put an end to Roy Jackson’s Seminole Bend dictatorship. It wouldn’t be easy.

  Gloria Peters, the forty-something, curly brown-haired-this-week-but-most-likely-redhead-next week, head nurse opened the door to the deputy’s private room and said smiling, “What you doing up, Willy Banks? We gave you enough knock-out juice to put a horse to sleep for several years!”

  “I’m fraid to look, Gloria. Do I have one or two legs underneath that big black butt of mine?”

  “Well, Willy, we ain’t seen such a muscular, beautiful specimen of human flesh in years as your leg, so we stuffed it and hung it on the wall in the lobby. But we attached a huge catfish in its place at your hip, so now you will be known as ‘Willy the Merman’.”

  “Well ain’t you the hilarious and sympathetic nurse lady? So what’s up with all the sirens?”

  “You ain’t the only casualty, Willy. This morning we had a huge accident right out front of the sheriff’s office. A big old Ford LTD rammed into Calvin Potts’ Chevy Nova and blew Calvin to pieces. What was left of him fried and melted like a candle! When the sheriff went over to tell Agnes, they found the back door of the Florida room, you know, the one that leads to the master bedroom, open and they went in. I overheard the call come in just a few minutes ago: they found Agnes lying in her bed with her face crushed to pieces by what I thought they said was a big ceramic planting pot. Her jewelry was missing. Dang, what a coincidence; some damn thief killing her at the very same time her hubby gets into a fatal accident!”

  “I got to go, Gloria!” said Willy authoritatively as his eyes scrambled around the hospital room. “Unhook me from this miserable tube.”

  “You ain’t going nowhere, Willy Banks. We just finished giving you four quarts of blood and sewed up your leg. Not even one of them aliens on Star Trek could heal that fast, you fool!”

  “Gloria, I have a good suspicion that Calvin Potts’ accident and Agnes Potts’ killing were not just a coincidence. I got to get to the scene of the murder before . . . well, it ain’t none of your business. Now unhook that damn thing!”

  “Willy, I can’t let you out of here. You’ll pop them stitches just climbing out of bed, then we got to find you some more dang blood!”

  “Damn it, Gloria, I’ll just do it myself!” Willy ripped the IV out of his arm, then sat up and reached for the bottle of alcohol and a cotton swab that was sitting on a cart near his bed. The blood trickled down to his fingers, but he swabbed the tiny hole in his arm and found a round bandage to put over it. Gloria stood back with her hands on her hips and just shook her head.

  As Willy slid his good leg off the bed, a sharp pain in his injured leg caused him to wince. He carefully placed the leg on the floor, but it buckled at the knee and Willy collapsed, planting his backside firmly on the linoleum.

  “That’s what you get for being a pain in the ass, Willy Banks,” Gloria stammered. But Gloria knew her friend was bound and determined to check out the Potts’ house and she could tell something important was eating at Willy. “Alright, I’ll help ya kill yourself, seeing that’s what you seem to want. But if anyone asks, I don’t know nothing!”

  Gloria put her arms under Willy’s armpits and yanked with all her strength. “Not even a hydraulic hoist could lift you, ya big ox.”

  Willy raised his hands and placed them on the side of the bed. Again Gloria heaved, and this time with Willy’s help, he stood erect.

  Willy’s clothes were on hangers in the closet by the bathroom. Gloria helped him to the closet, but then Willy gave her an insistent look. “Don’t you be looking while I get outa this dang bed sheet miniskirt, Gloria Peters!”

  “Ain’t nothing to see that I ain’t seen every day that I work here, you dang fool.”

  Willy grabbed his bloodstained, khaki police shorts and navy blue t-shirt. He couldn’t remember what happened to his socks and tennis shoes, but he didn’t have time to look. Willy limped down the hospital hallway with Gloria helping him to keep his balance, and then headed straight to the employee parking lot out back. Gloria had offered to let Willy use her ten-year-old Mercury Bobcat, but she began to think twice about the offer as she watched Willy wince in pain trying to get into the driver’s side bucket seat. He would have difficulty engaging the clutch and maneuvering the stick shift, but fortunately the Potts’ house was only four miles away. Willy winked at Gloria and he backed out, then sped through the parking lot to the main road. She could see he was trying to hide the severe pain written all over his face.

  * * * * *

  “And just what in hell’s name do you think you’re doing here, Willy?” Sheriff Bonty glared at Willy, but had that look in his eyes like a mom or dad has when they find their missing child: first relief, then anger for running off. “You’re supposed to be recuperating at Gregorson General. From what I hear, your leg was about ripped off.”

  “I’m okay, Al. What happened here?”

  Two men from the coroner’s office lingered by the bedroom door with a black body bag waiting for Sheriff Bonty and his officers to finish their initial investigation. Agnes Potts’ corpse was lying on the bed exactly where she was found. Willy gazed down and saw her brutally damaged and unrecognizable face staring upward. He turned his head to the side, covered his mouth and gagged. Although he was nauseous, Willy regained his composure and looked back at Bonty.

  “Looks like some damn thief broke into Potts’ home and Agnes unfortunately caught the bastard stealing, so he bashed her with that ceramic pot right in the face,” answered Sheriff Bonty, rather sure of himself.

  “If she caught him stealing, why was she laying on the bed like she was still sleeping?” Willy asked with a suspicious glance over at the sheriff.

  “Don’t know for sure she was sleeping. I think the thief pushed her back on the bed and then smashed the pot down over her face.”

  “But when he pushed her, how did he have enough time to lift a heavy pot and get back over to the bed before she ran?”

  “Come on, Willy. Agnes was no spring chicken. She probably was stunned when he pushed her to the bed and she froze there frightened about what he might do to her.”

  Willy didn’t buy that for a minute, but he could tell Sheriff Bonty was covering something up. “So, Sheriff, don’t you think it’s a little more than a coincidence that Agnes and Calvin should die on the same morning in two separate, strange accidents?”

  “Why are you grilling me, Willy Banks? I oughta fire your ass for disregarding my orders. I told you and Sam McCormick to stay away from Roy Jackson’s place, and what do you do? You go right over there! By the way, where is Sam? No one has seen him for a couple of days.”

  “So, how is it that you knew that Sam and me was at Jackson’s place? Did you talk with Roy Jackson, Al?”

  “Roy was smoking mad that you were trespassing a couple of nights ago and he was reporting you. Ya know, Willy, trespassing is a violation of the law in all fifty states. I can’t be having my officers violating the law, now can I?”

  “You said you knew Sam was with me at Jackson’s, Al. That means Roy snitched on both of us, right? So, how come you don’t know where Sam is now? Sam was with me, Al, and I think you know dang well Jackson killed him after Sam swam out in the swamp to intercept one of those drug barrels that was dropped from a little Cessna plane! You know, Al, the plane that you said wasn’t there so we wouldn’t spy on the jer
k?”

  “I don’t know nothing about Roy killing Sam. I’m just asking you because I wanted to make sure he was okay,” the sheriff explained, but not too convincingly.

  “So when do we start the investigation, Sheriff? One of our finest officers is missing and you ain’t done nothing to try and find him.”

  “Sam is considered a missing person and we can’t go looking for forty-eight hours, which is coming up real soon. But right now I’m a little busy, first tending to your gator accident, then Calvin’s car blowing up, and now Agnes getting her face smashed in!”

  “Gator accident? I’m telling you, Al, it was no damn accident that I was just about an alligator’s hors d'oeuvre! Roy’s thugs shot at me and Sam when we discovered his boys picking up barrels that were dropped from that airplane. They chased me and my airboat into a rock and I knocked myself out. Then they beat the living hell out of me in one of Roy’s barns, dragged me back to the swamp, and left me to be buried in a gator’s belly! And I’m thinking, Sheriff, that Calvin and Agnes’ deaths are related to Sam and me somehow and Roy Jackson is the common denominator. And I’m thinking you know that, too, Al.”

  The coroner’s men and other officers pretended they didn’t hear the exchange between Willy and Al, but it was more than obvious to the sheriff that they did. Bonty’s faced turned a bright red and he glared at Willy while pointing his finger an inch from Willy’s forehead. “Are you accusing me of something, Willy? What the hell evidence do you have that the Potts’ deaths are related to your trespassing incident?”