Nights of the Red Moon

by Milton T. Burton

  “What’s this all about?” I asked Sheila once I got to my feet.

  “I asked him for an interview,” she said. “That’s all. But then I noticed that he’s high on something, and I tried to back away. When I did, he grabbed me.”

  I was puzzled. “But why would you want to interview him?”

  “That murder-for-hire trial down in Beaumont last year that got so much press. He was the defendant.”

  “I seem to remember something—”

  “That’s Big Paul Arno, Bo. His picture was on the front page of every newspaper in the state. He’s wired in with the Mafia down in New Orleans.”

  * * *

  As I said, needless complexities. I figured Arno matched up with the dark blue Cadillac with Louisiana tags that sat parked beside the Caravan. I called for assistance. After two of my day-shift deputies arrived I instructed them to impound it and give it a thorough search.

  We still maintained a pair of holding cells in the basement of the courthouse, and that’s where I jugged Arno for the time being. I also insisted that Sheila come down and sign an assault complaint. About the time I finished the paperwork, a phone call told me that the search had turned up a loaded nine-millimeter pistol and a small glass vial of white powder.

  “That pistol isn’t a CZ by any chance, is it?” I asked.

  “Nope, it’s a SIG Sauer. One of the fancy ones.”

  I told them to bring the gun and the vial to the office and log them in as evidence. When they arrived I tasted the contents of the vial, an experiment that left no doubt in my mind that it contained cocaine, but it would have to go to the DPS lab for expert confirmation. I also told them to take Arno out to the new jail and book him on assault and possession.

  “Why did you broach that guy in the first place?” I asked Sheila.

  “I’m a reporter, Bo. That’s what I do. Besides, hoods usually won’t manhandle the press like that. It doesn’t pay for them in the long run.”

  I had her sign the complaint, then told her to go on about her business.

  “Okay,” she said. “But I think you owe me an explanation. Could this guy somehow be connected to the Twiller killing?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But come by the house tonight and I’ll fill you in on what I find out about him.”

  “Sure,” she said and smiled and scampered off to do Sheila things. I was about to call Muldoon and Hotchkiss when Maylene told me Tom Waller was on the phone.

  “Bad news,” I heard him say as soon as I lifted the receiver.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “The appeals court overruled Judge MacGregor’s denial of bail on Raynes.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They said that bail cannot be denied in noncapital cases unless there is what they called ‘compelling evidence’ that the defendant is a flight risk. Actually, Judge Fox said that and managed to get the other idiot on the court to agree with him. See, Fox hates MacGregor and loves to reverse him, so…”

  “If that kid’s not a flight risk I don’t know who would be,” I said.

  “He’s less of one since he’s been promised a job clerking in one of our well-established local businesses. That was one of Holbrook’s big selling points.”

  “Which is Zorn’s liquor store, I suppose.”

  “Correct. How did you ever guess?

  I snorted. “How did Holbrook manage to get a hearing so quick?”

  “He knows where all the bodies are buried, Bo.”

  “He’s still got to come up with the money,” I said.

  “Not so. An outfit named Coastal Bail Bonds signed on for the full amount. The kid will be out by noon.”

  We hung up, and I called Muldoon and Hotchkiss. Muldoon didn’t answer but Hotchkiss was only five minutes away, and he was familiar with Sheila’s assailant.

  * * *

  “So what’s the story on this Arno character?” I asked after he got situated in front of my desk with a cup of fresh coffee and a few of Maylene’s homemade cookies.

  “They call him Big Paul, and he’s an authentic bad guy.”

  “Sheila mentioned the New Orleans mob. Is he part of Scorpino’s old outfit?”

  “Yes and no. He’s not actually a made guy and can’t be because he’s not Sicilian. His ancestors came from up around Ravenna.”

  “I thought they’d quit being so particular.”

  “Not in the Big Easy. Scorpino was old-fashioned, and his heirs stick to the rule out of respect for him. But Arno is the next thing to being made. He freelances and can ignore some of the rules. Plus he doesn’t have to kick as much of his income upstairs to the boss.”

  “Could Sipes have hired him?” I asked.

  “It’s not very likely since he has his own crew of cowboy thugs that came out of the rodeo circuit with him, and he trusts them more than he would any mob-connected guy. But we know that Arno has done some freelance strong-arm work in the past for Sipes’s suppliers down in South America. Urging people to come around to their point of view and so forth. With that deal down in Beaumont he got a little too energetic and the fellow wound up dead.”

  “I see,” I said. “But why do you think they’d be interested in Sequoya?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they’re concerned about a possible leak in their pipeline.”

  I pondered for a few seconds, then shook my head. “It sounds more likely that they were fronting the stuff to Sipes and he still owes them for it. I mean, you’ve assumed he’s an independent, but he may just be a cog in the machine.”

  “I guess that’s possible.”

  “I was going to question Arno and get nowhere,” I said. “Maybe you’d like to do the honors instead.”

  “Hell yes, I would.”

  “My deputies should be taking him out to the jail right about now. Go on out there and tell him that he’s looking at a long stretch of hard time if that vial tests positive. Clue him in on what kind of time East Texas juries are handing out for cocaine possession these days. Then tell him I’ll give him a pass if he tells us why he’s up here and who he’s working for.”

  “Have you talked to the DA about that?” he asked.

  “No, but he’ll go along with it.”

  “Okay, but don’t expect Arno to buy it. That code of silence, you know. Plus boundless confidence in the power of lawyers.”

  “I realize that,” I said. “Now back in the old days—”

  “Yes?” he said with a grin.

  “A man like Arno?” I said and laughed. “John Nightwalker would have put a well bucket on his head and whipped it with a piece of chain until he was ready to cop to being Judas Iscariot.”

  Maylene came in and laid a note on my desk. I’d asked her to check the town’s motels, and she’d discovered that Arno had been registered at the Eight Ball on South Main since noon the day after Amanda Twiller was killed. I pushed the note across to Hotchkiss. He read it and raised his eyebrows. “Do you make him for this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We know her body was transported in Doyle Raynes’s car, and I don’t see a pro like Arno working with a fool kid like Doyle.”

  “Maybe he did the hit, and Raynes and somebody else moved the body.”

  “Could be, I suppose,” I said. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “I’d like to sign his gun out and shoot it so I can run one of its bullets through our computer.”

  “Sure. There’s a firing tube and a bullet trap out at the new jail.”

  He nodded and just then his cell phone rang. After about thirty seconds of listening and whispering, he put it back in his pocket and laughed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Lester Sipes has booked the biggest suite in the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogdoches, and he’s supposed to arrive there in the early afternoon.”

  “Do you think he might be hunting his lost merchandise?”

  “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” he said.

  “I don’t suppose you would ha
ve any objections if I paid him a little visit this afternoon at the hotel?”

  “Rattle his cage all you want. Just let me know in the unlikely event that you learn something.”

  “Sure,” I said. I sat and ruminated for a while as Hotchkiss sipped the last of his coffee and finished off his cookies. “I don’t know that much about big-city mobsters, but I didn’t think they molested straight citizens in public like this guy was doing with Sheila. At least not without a real reason. And I thought they generally went peacefully when arrest time rolled around.”

  “They’re just thugs and bullies in spite of all the crap you see on TV and in the movies about respect and honor. But it is true that Arno is more of a loose cannon than most of those guys. For one thing, he’s gotten strung out on coke in the last year or so. In the old days that would have been an automatic death sentence, and I think that they probably would have whacked him years ago except that he’s so good at what he does.”

  “Which is murder, I guess.”

  “Yeah, and he can do it in such a way as to make detection almost impossible.”

  “One other thing is on my mind,” I said. “The day Amanda Twiller was killed, you and Muldoon told me this was a sideline case with the two of you. You seem to be devoting a lot of time to it. What gives?”

  “Since your talk with Mack Reynolds the other night I’ve been assigned to Sipes and what he calls ‘related matters’ here in Sequoya full-time. Mack says I can profit from your experience and he wants me to work closely with you.”

  “Well, maybe I can profit from yours too,” I said and quickly told him about Harvey Holbrook and Doyle Raynes’s bond. “Could you check on this Coastal Bail Bonds outfit and see who’s behind it?”

  His eyes were hard and bright and his smile cold. “I don’t need to check. I know the story on it.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s backed by Sipes’s Kemah bank. In fact, my guess is he owns the damn thing.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I never got around to eating my sausage and biscuits that morning, and by eleven-thirty I was ready for something substantial. I left the office with nothing particular in mind and wound up at Seabrook’s, a barbecue joint over on the north side of town. The place had been built back when I was a kid by a black Korean War combat vet named Rufus Seabrook, a consummate grump who was never shy about voicing his scorn for the human race. What saved his business from failure was the quality of his barbecue. If better ribs or brisket have ever passed mortal lips, I don’t know where such a thing might have happened. Now in its third generation of family ownership, Seabrook’s was a local institution.

  I made my order and paid for it at the counter, and managed to get my favorite corner booth just as the noon rush began. I was waiting on my ribs and had just gotten my iced tea sweetened to my satisfaction when Charlie Morton walked up and slid into the seat opposite me.

  “Need to talk to you, Bo.”

  “Always willing to talk, but I hope you’re not trying to wiggle out of our agreement.”

  “No, I’m just being a good citizen.”

  “Charlie, I love those good citizen deals, so you just let her rip.”

  “I know Emmet Zorn was seeing that Twiller woman who was murdered, so I thought you might like to know he came to me about two weeks ago and wanted to put his house and store on the market.”

  That was interesting. “Really? Did you take the listings?”

  “Sure, and I’ve already sold the house. I didn’t even have to put a sign in the yard. The deal goes through forty-five days from the date when we signed the contract, which was five days ago. As far as the store is concerned, I told him that I handled commercial property, but not businesses per se. Luckily, though, I knew a guy in Dallas who’s been looking for a little something to retire to down here in East Texas, and he may buy the store. If he does, I’ll buy the property myself and lease it to him.”

  “How much did the house bring?” I asked.

  “Seventy-two thousand. It’s nothing special, a nice two-bedroom frame house built just before World War Two. But older cottages like it are popular with young couples just starting out, and his has been well maintained over the years. It has beautiful hardwood floors. Heart maple.”

  I couldn’t help but grin, thinking about the hole in the hallway floor. “How about the store?” I asked. “What’s it worth?”

  “I’ve offered him a hundred and seventy-five thousand on the property, and he’ll let the business itself go for the retail value of the inventory, less markup. Which averages about twenty-five percent. But my point is that it looks like Zorn is planning to bugaloo out of town, and I thought you might want to know.”

  “You bet I do. I’ve heard Zorn has a partner in the store.”

  “He did at one time. I’ve seen the abstract on the property and all the paperwork on the business. I wouldn’t have called my friend in Dallas otherwise. The partner pulled out about six months ago and signed the whole thing over to Zorn. I assume Zorn bought him out, but no details appear in the records.”

  “I don’t suppose you remember the guy’s name?”

  “Sure I do. And it’s a name you’ll probably remember from the newspapers.”

  “Who?” I asked, already knowing his answer.

  “Lester Sipes.”

  * * *

  When I got back to the office I found Emmet Zorn waiting to see me.

  “Come into my inner sanctum,” I said.

  He came through the doorway with the search warrant in his hand and wariness in his eyes. I sensed that he was mad but too smart to give vent to his anger. Wise move on his part. I decided to kick things off before he could quiz me. “It’s legal,” I said.

  “I see that, but why?”

  I pointed at the chair in front of the desk and he dropped reluctantly into it. “Didn’t you read it?” I asked.

  “Not completely.”

  “You should have. A search warrant has to name what is being sought.”

  “Which was?”

  I decided it was time for a creative lie. “Any unscripted drugs or anything else that might have tied you to the Twiller murder. An unnamed source said you’d been procuring her some Vicodin from contacts down in Houston.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “I believe everything; I believe nothing,” I said in a phony French accent, mimicking Inspector Clouseau. “But since the door to this office is shut and it’s your word against mine, I don’t mind telling you that I just used the information as an excuse to see if we could find anything to link you to Amanda’s death. Which we didn’t, and that means you are less of a suspect than you were this time yesterday. Be happy about that.”

  “I don’t like people going through my things, especially when I’m not there.”

  “Who would?” I asked. “But notification in person isn’t a legal necessity if the owner isn’t on the premises at the time of the search. Just so long as the warrant is left in a conspicuous place, the requirements of the law have been met.”

  “So now you’re convinced I wasn’t involved?”

  “I’m more convinced than I was yesterday. And by the way, Doyle Raynes was granted bail by the appeals court over in Tyler as a result of Harvey Holbrook’s efforts. Holbrook doesn’t come cheap and he doesn’t do charity work, so I can’t help but wonder what your part in that was.”

  “I asked a friend in Houston to help the kid out. That’s all.”

  “This friend must be pretty well heeled.”

  “He is.”

  “And charitably inclined?”

  “Sheriff, what do you want from me?”

  “Nothing more right now. Take a hike. I’ve got work to do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  That afternoon I hit a few of my informants and learned nothing new. Then I decided to visit Danny Kettle. A few years my junior, Danny was a child of the sixties in one respect and one respect only. He’d never had the long hair, never espoused
the leftist politics, never worn the freak clothes, never used the hippie/druggie jargon that eventually got mainstreamed. What he did was discover marijuana during his junior year in college, and he’d been blissfully stoned ever since.

  Danny’s wealthy grandmother had left him a generous trust fund. His father had been a prosperous realtor, and his parents’ deaths had left him even more money and a nice fifties-style, split-level house on the east side of town. His life consisted of banking his trust checks, smoking dope, and jabbering distractedly with his live-in girlfriend, a charming New Age nutcase named Wynette Dobbs who was known locally as Wendy the Wiccan. It was a match made in heaven since Danny was a gentle nihilist who believed nothing, while Wendy was an equally gentle optimist who believed everything that came along, provided it was nonsense. Between the two of them they managed to keep all their bases covered.

  I pulled up in front of his house and shook my head with a smile on my face. The yard was a model of well-groomed suburban respectability, the work of a local lawn maintenance firm Danny contracted with. The house was in excellent repair, its wooden trim freshly painted, and a sedate, late-model gray Buick sedan sat primly in the carport. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the place’s owner had been fried on weed for the last four decades.

  Danny had his feelers deep into the local drug culture since he socialized with many of the town’s young dopers. Early in his career as a cannabis zombie, he’d been reluctant to accommodate me in one of my frequent quests for information. After he watched in horror as I flushed a half pound of high-grade Colombian down the toilet, we reached an understanding: if Danny wanted to stay toked up, he had to pay for the privilege by being forthcoming about what I needed to know.

  I rang the bell three times before he finally drifted to the front door. “Oh, hi, Bo,” he said. “Come on in.”