James Ross - A Young Adult Trilogy (Prairie Winds Golf Course)

by James Ross

  “I guess. But that is when the real problem started.”

  “What real problem?”

  “Nature called.”

  “Hopefully they knew you were going to be in attendance and restocked the toilet paper,” Julie replied.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Pork Chop laughed facetiously. “My side was killing me and I barely made it to the restroom. Then I had trouble getting my pants unbuttoned.”

  “Probably because it had become a sixty-four inch waist by now?”

  “Anyway I just had time to slip them down a little and then whoosh—I made a mess.” The guys erupted at the thought. “But that was only part of it.”

  “What could be worse than that?”

  “Like I said my side was killing me and I couldn’t clean myself up.”

  “You mean wipe?”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t wipe my butt.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I leaned forward and tilted to the side but I fell off the stool.” The laughter increased.

  “Pork Chop, you’re a total mess.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but I was in a predicament. My pants were around my knees. It hurt to reach down. I hadn’t wiped yet.”

  “You were laying in a mess.”

  “Somewhat of a mess. The side of it anyway.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I had to rock back and forth and try to get on my knees.” The guys were holding their sides. The sight of a beached whale trying to flop back into the water came to mind.

  “Did you make it?”

  “After about five minutes. I crawled.”

  “Where?”

  “To the door. But when I got there it dawned on me that I couldn’t go outside.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Knocked on the door until one of the nurses came.”

  “What did she do; help you wipe your ass?” The boys were rolling.

  An emergency beep from the local television station interrupted programming on the TV that was positioned in the corner above the bar. “This just in,” the local female newscaster said. “The body of a runaway teen was found in the last hour in a sewage pond at the city’s treatment facility. Authorities had been notified earlier today that a child was unaccounted for at the Footprints of Hope foster home. More at five.”

  “Now there was someone that was in some deep do-do,” Pork Chop said.

  The attempt at humor did not go unnoticed by J Dub as he hurried to the door. “And nothing about it is funny. I think that it might have been Pabby.” He ran out of the clubhouse.

  CHAPTER 79

  The conference room at Atkins, Blum & Charles was reserved for an important pow-wow. When word of the death of the runaway teen was released the ABC law firm got involved. Tanner Atkins was Trustee for the absentee ownership group. His good friend, Judge Buchanon Porter, was married to the head mistress. A crime scene investigative unit headed by Chief of Police Doyle O’Callahan was soon to commence. All were in attendance as well as Pamela Porter and Tanner’s partner, Benjamin Blum. Getting to the bottom of what happened didn’t seem to be as important as damage control from a PR standpoint.

  “How could something like this happen?” Tanner started.

  Even on a horrible day Pamela wowed the males and today was a horrible day. She was hung over, lethargic and struggled with the proper application of make-up, yet she still managed to come off as a coherent authority. “I think that Pabby was upset.” The guys winced as the words screeched from her voice. “I had grounded him. It was about the third or fourth time in the last year.”

  “We have to determine if this is an accidental death or a homicide,” O’Callahan said.

  “There’s no doubt that he ran away,” Pamela replied.

  “Why would he have beaten his teacher so badly that it put her in the hospital?”

  “He was very strong for his age.”

  “She was pulverized.”

  “He was an angry.” She looked at the drawn faces.

  “What does Aieshia say?”

  “She’s in shock and not talking. The doctor says that in a situation like this the trauma might be so severe that she’ll never talk about the incident.”

  “Then we may never know.”

  “From a PR standpoint the story protects the image of the home,” Tanner admitted. “A troubled teen, distraught because of a recent grounding, lashes out at his handler, runs off and accidentally drowns at night.”

  “How did he get there?” O’Callahan asked.

  “He ran off. Anywhere was better than where he was.”

  “How did he scale the fence to get on the property?”

  “Once again he was fueled by the need to free himself.”

  “How could he have drowned?’

  “He fell, bumped his head, rolled into the water and couldn’t swim. I’m sure Footprints of Hope can document the fact that he couldn’t swim.” Tanner turned to the judge. “What do you think?”

  Pamela’s hangover was mild considering the condition the judge was in. He had consumed four drinks before he got the call to come to the meeting. “Spinning an accident doesn’t clog the courts.”

  “Let’s assume it was a homicide of some sort,” Tanner hypothesized. He turned to his law partner and asked, “Ben, if you had to defend someone could you set them free?”

  “Are you kidding? There were no witnesses. All the evidence would be circumstantial.” He paused for effect employing his usual courtroom theatrics. “Then there is the question of motive.”

  “So you’re telling me that if we go to all the trouble of finding a killer he’d probably walk a free man?” O’Callahan asked.

  Tanner got up and walked to the liquor cabinet. For every question the chief had, the lawyer had a plausible answer. “You’re a cop. You have to investigate.” He opened the refrigerator. “What’s your poison?”

  “Chablis.”

  “Lighthouse Ale.”

  “Manhattan.”

  The drinks brightened everyone’s mood. Tanner turned again to O’Callahan. “You have to save face, Chief. But if this thing gets into the court system I have the best defense lawyer in the Midwest that could get a killer off. The judge has more pressing things to consume his court. A foster home for handicapped kids doesn’t need to get beaten up in the press.”

  “I hear what you’re saying.” O’Callahan lit a cigar and laughed.

  “This is an in-house issue. There is no family. There was an accidental drowning. No harm, no foul.”

  “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. The last thing I want to consume my time with is a murder investigation.” O’Callahan puffed smoke into the air. “I’ll release a preliminary statement to the press tomorrow. If anything else turns up we’ll explain it away as a simple lack of evidence.”

  “I was hoping that a little meeting like this would clear things up,” Tanner concluded.

  O’Callahan raised his beer signaling that he wanted another.

  “Want dinner, Hon?” Judge Porter asked his wife.

  “Not tonight, Dear. I’ve got a date.”

  CHAPTER 80

  “I’m sorry,” Doc said. The vet and head pro had gathered two traps and were disposing of the squirrels by the maintenance barn.

  “You heard what the police said.” J Dub was distraught. “We should be at the Special Olympics and instead we’re getting ready for a funeral.” The pro fought back tears. “I can’t believe that this is happening.”

  “There’s nothing I can say to console you.”

  “Hey, I’ve had them die on the course. They’ve had heart attacks right here in the clubhouse.” J Dub closed his eyes, spread his hand and let it travel down his throat. “This one doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe DeWitt is right.”

  “About what?”

  “FOBS.”

  “FOBS killed Pabby?”

  “No. There are forces at work that are out of your control.”

  “
Like what?” J Dub grabbed a squirrel by the tail and flung it into the woods. “I’m too simple for that horseplay. Here we have a perfectly healthy kid that was looking forward to joining a family. The cops say that he beat up his teacher and ran away. They rule it an accidental drowning. Two and two don’t add up to four.”

  “Now you’re getting closer to what I’m talking about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The forces didn’t cause his death.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The forces might be covering it up.”

  “Huh?”

  “I talked with DeWitt.”

  “And…”

  “Guess who the Trustee of Footprints of Hope is?”

  “I’ve got no clue.”

  “Tanner Atkins.”

  “Mr. Moral himself. The world will be a better place when that guy exits it.” J Dub looked down at the other trap. The remains of a mangled squirrel were present.

  “It looks like a fox got to that one. The fat one must have a slender snout.”

  “Through the cage?”

  “They have snouts that will fit through the openings.”

  J Dub let the comment register. “In a lot of ways we’ve been acting like a fox, but maybe it’s time to outfox the fox.”

  “Now it’s my turn to ask questions.”

  “The lawsuit and Pabby’s death may have a common denominator.”

  “What?”

  “Tanner Atkins.” J Dub placed the traps into the back of the Gator. “Let’s take a drive.”

  After returning to the clubhouse J Dub announced to Julie that he would be gone for a while. The pro hopped into his pickup and Doc jumped into the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”

  “I want to see this place where Pabby supposedly drowned.” The pickup cruised down the bluff and reached the river bottom ground in five minutes. A few turns later the pair traveled past Footprints of Hope. J Dub noticed the street sign. “Water Works Road. How appropriate.” He made a right. The truck wasn’t more than a half mile from the levee. A yellow street sign signaled that the road was a Dead End.

  “It looks like the cops have been down here at least.” Yellow crime scene tape had roped off the area. J Dub pulled to a stop.

  “There’s Footprints of Hope.” J Dub pointed to the facility that was very visible. “He could have easily gotten over here from there.”

  “But he would have had to scale the fence to get into the sewage pond.”

  “That’s doubtful.”

  “He was a big kid. He could have handled that.”

  “No way.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  J Dub pointed. “Look what stands in the way.”

  “Now I see what you’re talking about.”

  A flock of geese were feeding in the grass between the foster home and the treatment plant. “Maybe they weren’t there that night, but I doubt it. There’s too many of them down here.” J Dub rolled down his window and smelled the stench. “He didn’t come over here on his own.”

  “How do you think he ended up there?”

  “He was driven down this road. He didn’t walk alone at night.”

  “The cops are going to stick to their explanation of things.”

  “Sure, I understand. It’s easier for them.” J Dub rolled up his window and shifted the pickup into reverse. He turned the vehicle around and headed back down the road. “I’m not a real big fan of O’Callahan either.”

  “Where to now?”

  J Dub turned the pickup toward town. “Spilker General. Let’s see if we can talk to Aieshia.”

  Fifteen minutes later the pair was standing at the foot of her bed. She was sleeping, her face bandaged. “The doctor doesn’t want her disturbed,” the nurse informed.

  “We can come back in a couple of days.”

  “She’s experienced shock and extreme trauma.”

  “Has she said anything?”

  “We haven’t heard a word from her.”

  CHAPTER 81

  A few weeks later…

  Carla and Shae sat in a booth in the clubhouse. The smile had long disappeared off Shae’s face. Her heart was broken. The boy that was such a part of her life was gone forever. A box of colored pencil’s eased her pain. She put the finishing touches on a card to the Cardinals.

  “What are you working on?” J Dub asked.

  “We’re sending a card to the Cardinals to see if we can get a special room to watch a game.” She had drawn a beautiful redbird on the front and placed it on a bat. “Even though he was mostly scared of birds Pabby thought that this was the prettiest bird he had ever seen.” She had given it a golden beak and had added a tear that dripped from the bird’s eye. A puddle was on the ground under the bat.

  “It looks so sad,” J Dub said.

  “It is.” She reached into her bag and pulled out the string that she had made for Pabby’s race. “I’m going to send this with the card and tell them that this was the finish line that he never got to break.”

  J Dub picked up the card and read what she had printed.

  Dear Cardinals,

  My best friend drowned recently.

  He and I grew up together at Footprints of Hope—

  that’s a foster home. One of the things we wanted to do this

  summer was go to a Cardinal game.

  Here’s his finish line he didn’t get to break at the Special

  Olympics.

  Also there’s a picture of him standing with his teacher.

  Can you give a room in the outfield or upper deck so we can dedicate the day to him?

  This is a big deal for all of us at Footprints of Hope.

  Thank you.

  Shae

  “That’s beautiful, Shae. You can’t get anything unless you ask for it. I bet they’ll make a spot for you.” He reached for a picture on the table. Over a hundred were scattered. “Which one are you going to send?”

  “Carla and I have it down to these three.” She handed them to the pro.

  J Dub studied the photos. Each had a date stamp. It was obvious that they had been taken in rapid succession. “Where did you get these?”

  Carla broke out of her shell. “That was last year when we first got here. Pork Chop put the camera on a tripod and placed the camera on automatic. We stood in front of it for at least a minute while the pictures were taken.”

  J Dub studied the photos. In the background of each it showed a golf cart traveling down a hill. The occupants were laughing. Someone other than Frankie “Booby Tat” Mastralacci was driving. “I need to get a copy of all of these prints. Can I have what you’re not going to use?”

  “I’m sure that they are on the camera’s memory card.”

  “Good. I’ll talk to Pork Chop.” J Dub moved behind the bar feeling oddly elated. “How’s Aieshia doing?”

  Carla shrugged. “I don’t know. She left on a bus.”

  “Huh?”

  “She didn’t say a word to anybody. She just left.”

  “Where to?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Do you think she went home?”

  “That’s as good of a guess as I could make.”

  CHAPTER 82

  Doc was punctual. He showed up with DeWitt moments after J Dub handed the photos to Curt. The trio had planned to go to lunch at Stub’s. With Doc behind the wheel the ride gave J Dub an opportunity to appreciate the scenic beauty of his place on earth.

  Cypress and spruce trees dotted the roadside. They were mixed with the oak, ash, hickory and maple trees. The underbrush made visibility difficult off the shoulder of the asphalt. But the undeniable feature was the view off of the bluff. The Mississippi River was majestic—the site to the western horizon vast.

  No trip to Stub’s would be complete without some sort of travel along the River Road. That was the local nickname for the state highway that hugged the river that originated in Minnesota and dissected the country until emptying in
to the Gulf of Mexico in New Orleans. The river was between a mile and a mile and a half wide along this stretch.

  Stub’s was located on the east side of the River Road. It was up high enough not to fall victim to the times of high water. Proprietor Blue Howe had done a masterful job on the beer garden. The place had undergone changes over the years. What started as an older two-story home spilled into a neighboring auto showroom. When the state’s no-smoking laws went into effect Blue built an outdoor beer garden that had an alternative, temporary cover during inclement weather. He left a scenic opening in the wall that served as a backdrop for the local bands that played. The view was unmatched in the Midwest. Patrons could soak down the suds, frolic to the tunes and enjoy a gorgeous view of the waterway and Missouri shoreline.

  After walking through the line to order food the threesome took their cardboard boats of peel-and-eat shrimp and popcorn to an outdoor table. The cocktail waitress, dressed in super short cutoff jeans and a peach-colored tube top, took their drink orders. With a diamond in her navel, tattoos on her shoulder and a cover girl smile it was easy to see why Blue had become a millionaire in the beer business. Running shoes and a metal loop in her eyebrow completed her look.

  DeWitt didn’t waste any time getting to the heart of the matter. “I’m glad that Everett got word to you.”

  “Why would anyone want to miss a lunch date at this place?” A large barge was traveling upstream pushed by a tugboat. Tarps and metal coverings hid the cargo, but it was probably loaded with coal or grain. An uncovered barge was stacked with mulch.

  “My sources told me that something big is coming down on the night of the new moon before the Harvest Moon.”

  “That’s in June.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to check the dates.”

  “I think that it’s a little early this year.”

  “Which means it can only be maybe ten days away.” DeWitt didn’t eat popcorn by the handful like most of the guys that J Dub knew. Instead he picked up a kernel and popped the pieces into his mouth one at a time.

  “What’s the significance?” Doc asked.

  “An atonement meeting.”

  “What’s that?” J Dub questioned.