by George Wier
“Excesses?” Lief said. “Snipers firing on innocents in a barn are ‘excesses’? I’d hate to see real abuse, then.”
“You won’t,” Hayward said. “Not anymore. Everyone is going home, and that includes you, Mr. Travis.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Let’s just say that someone knows you and put in a good word. That cooler heads, thank God, have prevailed. As for the Sheriff, he will serve out his current term of office and quietly retire. You can go back to your dogs, Mr. Noonday, this coming March. You won’t be running for re-election. The dogs are what you most love anyway.”
“That’s true,” Noonday said. He sighed loudly, a balloon deflating.
“What about those boys?” I asked. “Two dead snipers.”
“They are going back to their families for proper burial. And just in case you are all wondering, there will be no media barrage, no ‘cover-up’ to be uncovered. No ‘smoking gun’.”
“And dipwad here?” I asked, indicating Jockovitch.
“Dipwad is going home to Boston. He was paid to stop the highway project until the journal could be retrieved. He did that, but then he exceeded his mandate and came down here to retrieve it himself. His services will never be required again. You might say that we’ve stopped payment on the check.”
I didn’t have to look at Jockovitch to know that the smile was gone from his face.
“Go outside, Salmon.”
I was about to protest. When he arose from his chair an almost overpowering impulse to trip him and send him flying on his face came over me, but I kept my head. It was touch and go for second, though.
Salmon P. Jockovitch left.
“What about Sam?” Noonday asked.
Hayward grabbed his handkerchief quickly and sneezed into it once, then folding it back up and tucked it away again.
“How would you rate Sam’s IQ, Sheriff?”
“He wasn’t smart, but he was loyal.”
“Sam Beard was another dog, Sheriff. That’s how you need to look at him. Not too bright, but a good dog. Go bury your dog, Sheriff. I’ll handle everything else for you so you won’t have to go to jail and we’ll call it even. You weren’t supposed to be mixed up in this in the first place.”
“I can go, then?”
“Yes. But no guns. You’ll never carry another firearm. If you do, I’ll make sure that someone makes you eat it.”
“So everybody gets a slap on the wrist?” Darla Sinclair asked. “Go and sin no more?”
“In essence, yes. Miss Sinclair, you and Mr. Prescott possibly have a future to tend to. You should focus your attention there, or wherever. I don’t care. But you’ve got parking tickets to write and drunks to haul to jail and Mr. Prescott has a highway to complete by ― next October, isn’t it?”
“Something like that,” Lief said. “How come you know so damn much?”
“And Judge Sinclair,” Hayward continued, leaving Lief’s question unanswered, “you have your History of East Texas to complete, as well as a backlog of cases.”
“That I do,” Judge Sinclair said. “However, there are some people in this room that want more answers before we go back to life as usual.”
Hayward sighed. “No, Judge. You really don’t want to know any more. I assure you.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Roth Hayward turned his attention directly to me.
“Mr. Travis. I’d shake your hand if I didn’t have this cold. Your friend, former FBI Agent Cranford, now retired, had some things to say about you.”
“Such as?”
“Such as that you don’t stop. That the word ‘quit’ is not in your vocabulary. He urged me to take you into complete confidence.”
“Why don’t you?” I asked. “I’m certainly listening.”
At first I thought he was going to ignore the question, as he had earlier ones, but after a moment he answered up.
“Agent Cranford is enjoying his retirement in a sleepy Colorado town in the shadow of the Sangre de Christo Mountains. He can offer advice about you. He cannot, however, order me in the disposition of my cases.”
“How much does he know?”
“About the Pfeffer affair. Nothing. Mr. Cranford knows enough to know when he doesn’t need to know. Call it a former agent’s instinct. You could take a lesson from him in that.”
“I solved an eighty year-old missing persons case for him,” I said. “Cranford is one of the good guys. That has nothing to do with this ‘Pfeffer’ thing.”
“Right. It doesn’t,” Hayward said. He made as if to sneeze, but then didn’t. The handkerchief whipped out, then back in. “It’s very stuffy in here. Don’t you have air-conditioning?”
“We only turn in on when it gets above eighty,” Darla said. “Why don’t you just come clean?”
“We’ve discussed that already,” Hayward said.
Sheriff Noonday stood up behind us, walked between us past Roth Hayward and out the door.
“I know you don’t understand ‘quit’ or ‘cease and desist’, Mr. Travis. But ― I shouldn’t threaten you, should I? It’s not nice and it doesn’t work with you, I can tell. Alright. I won’t threaten. But I will warn. Tonight cooler heads prevailed, but there are heads not-so-cool who are waiting for a reason to climb on board and ride this train. And, let me tell you, you don’t want that.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’re right about that one thing. Cool heads are better. But what about this?” I held the journal out in front of me.
“Keep it,” he said. “At least we know where it is. And you’ve been warned. It’s late. I’m tired. We’re done here,” Hayward said and abruptly turned and walked out the door.
*****
On the road to Austin in the early morning hours, the intermittent headlights of oncoming traffic on Highway 79 whizzed on past. A road sign told me that Austin was fifty miles further on. I felt like I needed a shower.
In my head I traveled broad highways composed of images, sounds and sensations. There was Luke, Lief’s employee, sobbing in the shadow of an old hay barn. Tate Lancing moaned in pain and whispered about his ‘first pick or first third’. A waitress named Dollie smiled a secretive and knowing smile. The freckled and ancient skin of the oldest man in North America shook my hand with a firm handshake and I looked down at his jigsaw puzzle and smelled boiled cabbage. Darla Sinclair looked at Lief Prescott a certain way and Lief returned her look. Sheriff Noonday dropped his gun and said ‘three’.
Had it been only two days and two nights? Hell no. It had been a lifetime.
But then there was something... else. I reached for it but it skittered away into the darkness along the roadside. I knew how to sneak up on such things, however. I stopped trying to think about it and let the miles pass.
And then I smelled smoke in my nose, except it was the mere memory of smoke. Burning wood. And something else.
In the middle of the night, less than fifty miles from Austin and about sixty or so miles from home, Julie, the kids, and bed, I stood on my brakes.
Burning wood, yes. And...
“Garlic!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I’d forgotten about Ty Hennessey, a.k.a. Able Johnson. The last I knew he was languishing in the county jail in Franklin. Judge Rogan Sinclair had wanted to talk with him. Had he done so? I didn’t know.
I turned the car around in the middle of Highway 79 and headed back east. My old Mercedes could still do ninety miles per hour.
*****
It was 4:00 a.m.
A light rain pattered on my windshield and the road became slick. I slowed down to seventy.
By the time I crossed the Brazos River bridge the raindrops were fat things thocking on my windshield in a continuous roar. It was coming down in buckets.
I was thinking about
Roth Hayward, replaying his words in my head.
You can go back to your dogs.
Judge Sinclair, you have your History of East Texas to finish.
Roth Hayward. The man who knew everything.
There are some things that no one can know unless they live in your closet and watch everything you do through slitted eyes, or unless they’ve been told.
Told.
It was as if Ely Green’s jigsaw picture-puzzle had leapt into the air and assembled itself by the time it hit the table again.
I decided to hell with the rain and walked her back up to ninety again.
*****
I came screaming back into Hearne, Texas, blowing through flashing yellow lights. Before I could get to the intersection of Highway 6, I saw red and blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror.
I was tempted not to stop, but thought better of it. I only hoped it was the good guys.
I pulled off and waited.
After a minute, Lief Prescott was tapping on my window. I rolled it down.
“Darla and I had a bet going that you’d be coming back into town. She lost. She doesn’t know you as well as I do. What did you forget.”
“The same thing that you did, Mr. Perfect Memory.”
“My memory isn’t perfect,” he said, the rain drenching him. “It’s photographic. I recall exactly.”
“Okay. What does garlic smell like to you?”
“Ty Hennessey,” he said. “Shit.”
“See?”
“Okay. Follow us, Bill. We’re going to the Courthouse in Franklin.”
“Fine by me,” I said.
Roth Hayward was right about too many things. And if my suspicions were correct, Ty Hennessey would be long gone by the time we got there.
*****
The Sheriff’s Office was open. Sheriff Scott Noonday was sitting with his boots propped up on his paper-strewn desk. He’d bathed, changed, his wound was re-dressed and his arm was in a sling.
“Whoa there,” he said. “You fuckers are supposed to be long gone.”
“We were,” I said. “We’re back, now.”
“What do you want?”
I looked around. Sheriff Noonday was alone ― no deputies, no jailers, nobody.
“Sheriff,” I said. “You’ve been taken for a ride. We all have. They killed your best deputy and called it dog-killing. They’ve shot you and stolen from you and smeared your name in the mud. What are you going to do about it?”
He stared at me.
“They did kill Sam,” he said. He wiped a lone tear from the corner of his eye.
“In cold blood,” I said.
“Yeah. They didn’t give him a dog’s chance.”
“Sheriff, there is a man that can shed a good deal of light on this whole thing. One man.”
“He’s gone,” he said.
“Who’s gone?” I asked.
“That Hayward fucker.”
“Not him,” I said. “He won’t tell us a damned thing. I’m talking about your prisoner. Ty Hennessey.”
The lights went on behind his eyes.
“Him? The squatter?”
“That’s right,” Lief said.
“Sonuvabitch!”
“What?” I asked.
“He walked out that door not fifteen minutes ago.”
“Why did you let him go?” I asked.
“No reason to hold him. He hadn’t done anything. We never bothered to even prefer charges against him.”
“Alone? Did he leave alone?” Lief asked.
“Naw.”
“Who with?” Darla asked.
“Why, your grandpa, Darla.”
“Tell me, Sheriff,” I said. “Did you ever mow Judge Sinclair’s lawn?”
“Why would I mow his lawn? I don’t have time to mow my own.”
“He means when you were a kid,” Lief said.
“Oh. I never mowed anybody’s lawn. My dad owned the Circle N Ranch. We used to have over five thousand acres. Why would I mow lawns?”
“Darla,” I said. “I think we’ve got a serious problem.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“What do you mean?” Darla asked.
“Your grandfather told me that the Sheriff used to mow his lawn. He also told me that he once nearly killed a man over a disagreement about a dog.” I turned to the Sheriff. “Is that true?”
“What? No! I once had one of my hired hands jump me. The dumb son of a bitch wanted a big Christmas bonus. I always give ‘em a butterball turkey. He hit me in the back of the head and knocked me out. Then he got scared and ran ― left the county. I never got to lay a finger on him, but let me tell you, I sure would have.”
I could tell that Darla’s face was starting to color.
“What are you saying?” she asked me.
“Hold on, now,” Lief said. “Just stop right there. I was there, Darla, when he said those things. I remember every word. Bill’s telling the truth. Now wait. He may have had a good reason.”
“You wait!” she raised her voice. “Just stop it! Both of you.” She turned to Lief. “And especially you. I’m not a kid.”
To me, and perhaps to Lief, she was a kid of no more than twenty-five. I wasn’t about to say it, though, and neither was Lief.
“Okay,” Lief said.
“What the hell is going on?” Sheriff Noonday asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
I looked at Darla. She was clearly upset.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said. “I’ve got a huge mouth, Darla. There are things going on here ― large things ― that we know little about. Your father is a lawyer and a Judge. He didn’t get to be those things through dishonesty. None of us know what’s going on, but with your help, we can figure it all out. Your grandfather may be in danger. A man like him would only lie in order to protect the people he cares about. Myself? I’d do it in a heartbeat to protect my family. So would you.”
She let out a long breath.
“Okay, Bill,” she said. “Alright. If he needs my help, I want to do anything I can.”
“Okay. Call your grandmother. Make sure she’s okay. See if you can find out when your granddad is expected back home.”
*****
Darla made the call from her cell phone while the Sheriff unlocked a nearby room and brought out some guns and stacked them on his desk. Next, he brought out ammunition.
The conversation between Darla and her grandmother was both brief and revealing.
The Judge wasn’t expected back until late the next day.
Where was he going?
To their cabin at Hilltop Lakes. Maudelle didn’t like the country life so much, so she usually stayed in town. The Judge went out there to feed the deer, water the lawn and work on his book.
Darla did well in not letting her concern come out through her voice. I was sure she didn’t often wake up her grandmother at five in the morning. The two exchanged goodbyes and hung up.
The three of us looked down at the desk.
“Are we going to war?” Lief asked.
“I sure hope not,” I said.
“That’d be fine by me,” the Sheriff said.
*****
Outside the rain had slackened to a steady drizzle.
It was getting close to shift-change for Darla and so she radioed her Chief to let him know she was calling it a night and was going out of service.
I left my Mercedes parked in front of the Courthouse and took up Sheriff Noonday on his invitation to ride shotgun, literally, with him.
Loaded for bear, we followed Darla and Lief in her patrol car and into the night.
*****
As you travel further eastward across Texas, the highways seem to narrow and twist with regularity and the brush and forests beco
me more dense and lush. East Texas has always seemed darker to me, somehow, than the rest of the state.
As close to present time as the nineteen thirties much of East Texas was still free range land. Barbed wire, though popular since the late eighteen hundreds, was scattered here and there. You had to be able to afford barbed wire before you could buy it, and those were Depression years. The roads back then were mostly unpaved and travel by highway was a thing of the future, like one of those odd, futuristic exhibits seen only at the State Fair. Consequently, travelers in their Model A and Model T Fords were far more likely to hit livestock that roamed freely into the roadway than they are now, when the whole world is seemingly fenced off. Travel then was much slower.
I thought about these things as the night slowly retreated and a pale glow arose in the sky ahead of us. For some, East Texas, though now completely fenced off and modernized like the rest of the world, has a timeless feel to it; as if the land itself has remained unimpressed with the present day and not yet convinced that change is either necessary or welcome.
Ahead of us, Darla and Lief raced along and the Sheriff and I kept right behind them. More than once I felt a strong compulsion to glance at the speedometer, but I held myself in check.
Sheriff Noonday was quiet. I was surprised by this. I had figured he would be overflowing with commentary. Despite the fact that I was aware that he had previously been on the take, I found myself revising my estimate of him upwards.
Scott Noonday was not an overly large man, but like most Sheriff’s I had met, he had a gut that poked out well past his belt and strained the buttons of his shirt. I suspected that underneath his layer of fat there was a hardness of muscle and a toughness of frame aggregated into a mass that could bowl most anyone over. He’d been shot in the shoulder, had picked himself up and held a pistol on Jockovitch until the cavalry could arrive.