Point of Contact

by J. T. Edson

  ‘Is that Woman Deputy Fayde?’ asked a male voice.

  ‘It’d better be,’ Alice growled.

  ‘Brixham, R. and I. here,’ the caller went on and she could imagine him grinning at having disturbed her rest. ‘No make on Morgan for Triple Six-Four,’ but he’s on record.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Two separate charges for disturbing the peace. Seems him and another farmer, Eli Slocum, had a fight in a bar on Evans Hill and again at an Elks supper in Euclid. They’ve been feuding for years, from what I can make out. Morgan paid his fine without fuss, but Slocum took it bad and made threats. He blamed Morgan for starting the fights, and allowed he should have paid both their fines. That help you?’

  ‘Some,’ Alice admitted. ‘We’ll pay Slocum a visit. What’s his address?’

  Brixham gave the required information, then continued hopefully, ‘Shall I call your partner and tell him about the make?’

  ‘No,’ Alice replied. ‘I’ll tend to it.’

  Doing so would be simple enough for her and save embarrassment all round. The officer at Records and Identification did not know that Brad was lying at Alice’s side listening to the conversation.

  ♦Article 666-4 Texas Penal Code: Unlawful manufacture of liquor.

  Five

  Alice’s wristwatch showed the time to be five minutes to nine as she brought her Ford Mustang to a halt at Eli Slocum’s dilapidated farm house. By her side, Brad looked at the buildings and reached to open the passenger’s door.

  After receiving R. and I.’s report, they had decided to visit Slocum. Calling the Sheriff’s Office at half past seven, Alice spoke with their Watch Commander who always reported in at that time. Learning that no reports on the Morgan killing had arrived, Alice had suggested that she and Brad went to see Slocum before visiting the Office. Warning them not to take all day on the call, First Deputy McCall gave his permission.

  Neither deputy wore uniform. Alice had on a sleeveless grey blouse, denim skirt and comfortable shoes. The Colt Commander and other equipment from her Sam Browne belt now reposed in the Pete Ludwig shoulder bag on the seat between her and the big blond. Since they had become so close in the dangerous days when they acted as decoys to bring the Colismides gang out of hiding, Brad and Alice kept a change of clothing at the other’s apartment. So Brad wore an open-necked tan shirt, yellow silk cravat, black blazer, dark grey slacks and crepe-soled shoes. Such was the excellent cut of his blazer that it gave no hint of the big automatic in the Hardy-Cooper spring shoulder holster against his left ribs.

  Before Brad could open the door, a big, lean bitch Plott hound [xii] burst out of the barn. Bawling in a savage manner, it charged towards the car. Brad took one look at the bitch’s well-developed teeth and changed his intentions.

  ‘Stay put, Alice!’ he warned. ‘That’s a mean dog.’

  ‘Here’s Slocum,’ Alice answered, indicating the direction from which the bitch had come. ‘He looks about as friendly as his dog.’

  Looking towards the barn, Brad felt inclined to agree with his partner in her description, Tall, gaunt, Slocum wore an old shirt, patched bib-overalls and heavy boots. Gold suspicion and avarice did nothing to improve a thin lined, sharp-featured face. An old shotgun hung on the crook of his left arm, its twin barrels pointing downwards.

  ‘Whatever you want, I ain’t got it or don’t want it if you’re selling something,’ he greeted. ‘So you can just turn that fancy car and get the hell off my property.’

  ‘We’re—’ Brad began.

  ‘You deaf or something?’ Slocum yelped. ‘Blasted summer-complaints, you reckon you can tromp on anybody’s land. Well you can’t, not on mine. Just set one foot outen that car and my old dawg’ll chaw it off.’

  ‘Listen, Mr. Sloe—!’ Alice started.

  ‘God damn and blast it!’ Slocum bellowed, starting to hitch the shotgun from his arm. ‘I’ll—’

  Even as Brad prepared to dive from the car with his automatic in hand, the Plott bitch swung around. Facing the barn, she let out another bugle-bawl. Buck Shields ambled into view from the side of the building, Sassfitz at his heels.

  ‘Call Loopy there off, Eli,’ the old deputy commanded, right hand dangling negligently close to the Great Western’s staghorn butt. ‘And you put up the scatter, pronto.’ Snarling an order, Slocum caused the bitch to sink into a sitting position at his side. Then he returned the shotgun to the crook of his arm and jerked a thumb towards the car.

  ‘You tell these danged summer-complaints to get offen my land, Buck Shields. They won’t listen to me.’

  ‘You should’ve tried listening to them,’ Buck drawled sardonically. ‘They’re deputies from the big city Office—and you’ll never come closer’n just now to getting your fool head shot off.’

  ‘What they wanting here?’ Slocum mumbled, scowling at the Mustang.

  ‘They’re just waiting while you ’n’ me have a lil talk,’ Buck replied. ‘It won’t take long. Alice, Brad, stop in the car. You big-city folks ain’t used to walking.’

  Watching Buck accompany Slocum into the house, leaving the two hounds on the battered porch, Brad let out a low sigh of relief.

  ‘That could have been rugged, boss-lady. What do you reckon brought Buck here this morning?’

  ‘The same thing that brought us,’ Alice answered. ‘Only Buck didn’t need R. & I. to tell him about it.’

  Ten minutes went by, then Buck left the house. Signaling Sassfitz to follow him, he strolled across to the waiting deputies. Brad could see Slocum glaring through the left side window until finding himself observed, he withdrew hurriedly.

  ‘Can we drop you anywhere, Buck?’ Alice inquired.

  ‘Left my Jeep down the trail a piece,’ the old deputy replied. ‘You pair moved fast. I’d only just got here. Come around the back on foot, which you big city folks wouldn’t know nothing about doing.’

  ‘Did you suspect Slocum?’ Brad asked, ignoring the final comment.

  ‘Eli!’ Buck guffawed. ‘Shuckens, no. I just wanted a name ’n’ address.’

  ‘Does he have an alibi for last night?’ Alice wanted to know.

  ‘Was waiting here all night for Holton, and spent all morning stashing the embalmer’s special away. He didn’t kill Tap. First-off, he don’t have no hand-gun. Second-wise, if he had one, he’d be too mean—and smart—to leave empty cases behind. Third-time, I know him, have for years. He wouldn’t have the guts to walk up and shoot Tap from that close. No sir, Alice gal, Eli Slocum didn’t kill him.’

  ‘What now?’ Alice said, bowing to the old deputy’s superior wisdom.

  ‘Soon’s I get my Jeep, we’ll head into Gusher City and talk to a feller,’ Buck replied. ‘I come on over to see Eli and ask for his name.’

  ‘Climb in the back,’ Alice offered. ‘I’ll drop you off at your Jeep.’

  ‘How about Sassfitz?’ Buck wanted to know.

  ‘Him too,’ Alice smiled.

  Climbing out, Brad stood aside while Buck and the blue-tick boarded the Mustang. With them seated at the back, Brad rejoined Alice and she started the car moving. As they turned a bend which hid the house from view, Slocum slouched from the front door and stood shaking a fist furiously after them.

  ‘Won’t he tell this man?’ Alice inquired.

  ‘Nope,’ Buck stated emphatically. ‘He don’t have a telephone and, anyways, he’s too smart to let it get out that he gave me the name.’

  ‘Who is this feller?’ Brad asked.

  ‘The combine’s broker,’ Buck replied.

  ‘Did you learn anything after we left, Buck?’ Alice asked. ‘Time of death’d be between five and eight yesterday morning. Cause, two soft-point bullets; like you figured on but didn’t say, Brad. We dug them out of the wall, but they’re too battered for Jed Cornelius to make anything of ’em.’

  ‘F.I.L. [xiii] can still make the gun from the cases,’ Brad pointed out, somewhat surprised at the old deputy’s depths of perception.

  ‘T
he scientifical wonders can make anything—except the thing you want to know,’ Buck sniffed. ‘We can rule out robbery, unless the killer got scared and didn’t do it after gunning Tap down. The house hadn’t been entered as we could find a sign of. He hadn’t been killed for his corn, that was still in the barn.’

  Do you reckon this might be a combine killing?’ Brad asked.

  ‘Tap don’t have no enemies local and nobody I know of’d want him dead, or’d profit by it.’

  ‘Slocum might get Tap’s orders from the combine,’ Alice suggested.

  ‘He’d not want ’em. Eli don’t cotton to work anymore than he has to, and he’s already working his still to capacity. Nope, we’ve got to look somewheres else for the killer. I’ve got my folk out asking if any strangers’ve been seen around, or anybody’s been asking for Tap’s place. It’s too soon to expect results though. The Jeep’s hid among them buffalo-berry bushes, gal.’

  Transferring with Sassfitz to his own vehicle, Buck led the way towards Gusher City. On the way in, Alice and Brad discussed the case. Neither of them thought to challenge Buck’s views on Slocum’s innocence. They knew the, old deputy and respected his superior experience too much for that.

  Although now a part of Gusher City, the Evans Hill district had been in existence before the discovery of extensive oil deposits caused the city to grow. On the fringes of the district, the buildings followed the modernistic trend of the sprawling newcomer. For the rest, Evans Hill still retained the air of a small range-country town. Buck led the way into the older part of town, cruising through the main shopping center and halting before Yorke’s General Store.

  ‘This’s the place?’ Brad asked, looking at the old-fashioned, undistinguished building.

  If the store itself showed little connection with the moonshining business, its owner seemed an unlikely candidate for the important position of the combine’s Rockabye County broker. Small, chubby, neatly dressed, he exuded an air of pompous, self-satisfied innocence. Certainly he displayed no concern at the visit, but advanced with a bustling yet friendly welcome.

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Shields,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I reckon you just might, Mr. Yorke,’ Buck admitted. ‘Can we talk somewheres private. This here’s Deputies Fayde and Counter.’

  ‘I thought I’d seen you somewhere,’ Yorke remarked, beaming at Alice and Brad. ‘In fact I think you used to shop here when you were younger, Miss Fayde.’

  ‘My folks lived near here,’ Alice answered.

  ‘Come with me into my office, please,’ Yorke offered, waving a hand towards a door marked PRIVATE. ‘I can’t see why peace officers should want to talk to me. There hasn’t been a crime around here in months.’

  In his office, Yorke closed the door and fussed around seating the three deputies. Then he stood back with an attitude of puzzled expectancy, drumming his fingers on the top of his desk.

  ‘Is the combine having fuss with some other outfit?’ Buck demanded.

  The blunt attack seemed to take Yorke aback for a moment, then the bland expression of surprise returned. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know—’

  ‘Don’t waste my time!’ Buck growled. ‘You’re the Rockabye County broker—’

  ‘I think that I should call my lawyer,’ Yorke said worriedly, reaching for the telephone on his desk.

  Slapping a hard hand on the receiver, Buck held it down. Cold anger showed on his leathery face and he growled, ‘Listen to me, Yorke. I know you’re the broker for the combine, which don’t bother me one lil bit. Your bunch could run non-tax-paid whiskey ’til hell froze for all I cared; just as long as you didn’t use tush-hawgs for drivers, didn’t start pressuring folks to buy it and nobody got hurt—’

  ‘If you don’t take your hands off that—!’ Yorke yelped in the tones of an indignant tax-payer whose Constitutional rights were being flouted.

  ‘Last night somebody was hurt,’ Buck interrupted, without moving his hand. ‘You likely heard about it on the newscasts. Tap Morgan was gunned down. So I want to know if the combine’s involved.’

  ‘How would I be able to help you?’ Yorke demanded. ‘First Deputy Shields is just stating a hypothetical case, Mr. Yorke,’ Alice put in. ‘He means that if he met someone who was a broker for the combine, he would ask for co-operation and information. Even if the broker couldn’t give it himself, he would know how to contact somebody who could.’

  ‘I’m still not sure why you came to see me,’ Yorke insisted, but he made no attempt to pick up the receiver when Buck left it unobstructed. ‘However, as a tax-paying citizen, it is my civic duty to help the law in any way I can.’

  ‘It’s this way, Mr. Yorke,’ Buck growled. ‘Last time there was a combine war, two pistols and an innocent bystander got shot down. There were two pile-ups involving six and eight cars, most of ’em nothing to do with the combines. If the bomber-boys hadn’t stopped it, there was a convoy carrying enough whiskey to blind half of Gusher City. And it would’ve blinded folks. The other side had got to it and mixed in enough wood alcohol to do just that.’

  ‘We—’ Yorke began, then revised his statement hurriedly. ‘I never heard of those incidents in Rockabye County.’

  ‘Nope,’ Buck agreed. ‘They happened up north, round Deaf Smith County. But one thing y—this hypo-whatever—Alice—said feller can bet his last thin dime on. They’re not going to happen here. If this is a combine war, I want it stopped pronto and I want the man who killed Tap Morgan. If there’s any more trouble, I’ll close this whole damned county. Even if it means ridge-walking every inch between the Presidio and Terrel County lines, I’ll find and wreck every still. I’ll stop the convoys and cars if I have to use rail-bumpers and wampus-boards. I’ll keep your sugar-kites so busy filling in demand letters on their sales that they’ll not have the time to supply the distillers. Mister, this whole damned county will be closed tighter’n a widow’s purse strings—and the other counties’ll follow our lead.’

  Little showed on Yorke’s face, other than a thin film of perspiration, yet Brad and Alice knew that he was concerned by Buck’s threat. Any member of the combine would be, for it amounted to an open declaration of total war. Officers put to the exhausting task of ‘ridge-walking’, searching on foot, would ruin every still they found beyond repair. Directed by a wily old-timer like Buck Shields, they would be unlikely to miss finding the stills. Crashing into transporters and knocking them out of control, using cars with lengths of railroad rails fastened to their bumpers, was a tough method only practiced by local officers as an extreme measure. So was the use of wampus-boards, elongated metal plates studded with sharp steel spikes. Thrown or placed in the path of a speeding vehicle, a wampus-board would puncture its tires and bring it to a stop. Both methods were more feared than the bumper-clutch cars of the bomber-boys by transporter drivers. By manipulating the raw materials’ regulations and demanding reports of sugar or other sales from storekeepers, the peace officers could either frighten the sugar-kites out of the combine, or prevent them from supplying the men working the stills. Finally, as Buck warned, the neighboring counties would follow Rockabye’s lead and increase their efforts against the combine.

  No man holding a position as important as broker, organizing the collection and distribution of whiskey between still and customer, could fail to realize the gravity of the situation. Efficient as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Bureau’s Enforcement Branch might be, they were a comparatively small organization against whom the combine could survive. That did not apply if the local officers set themselves determinedly to wipe out moonshining.

  ‘Of course I know nothing about any combine,’ Yorke stated after a moment’s thought. ‘I hear gossip occasionally, but none of it concerns a combine war.’

  ‘What would you advise this broker to do, Mr. Yorke?’ Brad asked.

  ‘It’s hard to say, as a honest citizen. But I feel that he should consult the head of the combine, pass on what Mr. Shields told him and make the situation at
local level clear. He would also ask for any information available to be passed to the Sheriff’s Office.’

  ‘That’s just about what I was going to suggest,’ Buck drawled when Yorke finished speaking. ‘If I don’t hear something by tomorrow, or anything else happens, I’ll start to clamp down.’

  ‘I understand,’ Yorke replied, the sweat even more in evidence.

  On the sidewalk, Buck let out a snort. ‘I hate a middleman. He gets fat while the others take the risks.’

  ‘Which’s why you had us along,’ Alice smiled. ‘So you’d have somebody to stop you losing your temper.’

  ‘Never could stand a smart woman,’ the old deputy grinned, then became serious. ‘A combine war’s bad medicine, Alice. I figured that if one was brewing, it’s got to be stomped out fast.’

  ‘I’d say you’d done just that,’ Brad complimented. ‘Or made a good start.’

  Six

  Woman Deputy Alice Fayde received a proposal of marriage, and the news that First Deputy McCall wanted to see her, on entering the deputies’ squad room. Neither the proposal nor the news came as any great surprise. Big, brawny Deputy Pat Rafferty made the offer at least once every watch, which caused Alice no concern as she knew him to be happily married and a devoted family-man. Naturally the Watch Commander would be waiting to hear of the latest developments in the Morgan killing.

  After interviewing Yorke, Buck Shields had returned to Euclid. There he would continue to delve into the murder with the help of deputies from his local Sub-Office. Alice and Brad were to remain in Gusher City, attending to their own work but available to follow any line of inquiry that arose in the town. They had left the Mustang in the municipal employees’ parking lot across the street from the Department of Public Safety Building, rode an elevator to the third floor and received Rafferty’s greeting on arrival.

  Declining the Irish deputy’s offer, Alice logged in and removed the ‘off watch’ plate from her name on the duty-roster board. While Brad repeated the process, she glanced at their desk. Its top was bare of papers, so she went with her partner directly to the Watch Commander’s office.