Crimes in Southern Indiana

by Frank Bill

  Officer Down (Tweakers)

  It was too damn early for this shit, Conservation Officer Moon Flisport told himself as he steered his Expedition down the country road, sweating bourbon through his pores. His heart was pounding in his skull, ready to explode across the front windshield because of the Knob Creek he’d torn into last night after his wife, Ina, had called him a racist.

  Moon had told her about the truck of illegal immigrants he’d pulled over for speeding. Told her about the dope he’d smelled but couldn’t find on their persons or in their vehicle. Told her how he’d taken everyone’s driver’s license, knowing all of them were fake. He’d radioed INS. They gave him the runaround, told him he couldn’t prove they were illegal. Told him to let them go. They didn’t have the room or the time to deal with them. He told Ina one of the illegals had a license with the name Bob on it. And that’s when Ina blew up. Accused him of racial profiling.

  “Illegals can have American names.”

  “His license IDed him as Bob Dylan.”

  Ina told Moon he cared more about his job, hunting, training his coonhounds, and catfishing on the Blue River than he cared about her. Said she was tired of it and locked herself in the bedroom.

  Moon went swimming in a bottle of bourbon on the basement couch.

  He’d been phoning the house all morning, in between answering calls for trespassers on private property and hunters drinking beer at the Harrison County weigh station. Being a conservation officer during deer season meant that Moon had been busier than a champion mountain cur stud mounting a female cur to pass on his champion bloodline. That’s what Ina didn’t get, Moon thought, being a conservation officer meant he’d more jurisdiction than regular law, could pull over a drunk driver, answer a domestic dispute, or bust a dope farm or a meth lab.

  Now it was near lunch. She still hadn’t answered. He knew he’d hurt her feelings, telling her to get a fuckin’ hobby. But she’d accused him of being a heartless racist. Heartless he could swallow, but not racist. In his mind he was a fair man, and it burned his ass to be accused otherwise. Then he came upon a truck in the distance, parked in the center of the road, hazard lights flashing, the grill busted, one headlight hanging down by the wires. He keyed his mic. “Earleen?”

  “Go ’head, Moon.”

  “Looks like I might have a 10-50.”

  “Another person hit a deer?”

  “It’s lookin’ that way.”

  Moon pulled off the potholed back road in front of the truck, next to a field of dead grass bordered by a pine thicket. Woods once owned by Rusty Yates. Someone he’d not seen, let alone thought of, in ten years. They’d taken many trips down into Jackson and Hazard, Kentucky, on coon hunts, each of them passing a thermos of Folgers, nipping bourbon, and words on their wives, how each was as stubborn as a young pup. And they wished they could break their mule streaks same as they would a pup. Looking back, it was as if the earth had sucked Rusty up after his wife left him.

  Moon got out of his Expedition and realized whose truck it was. Brady Basham was a little colored man who lived on down the road a ways where the mill once stood, now gone because of a fire some years back. Brady was old-school. One of the best carp and cat fishermen in all of the county.

  Moon smiled and asked, “Hit a deer?” With curls the shade of a gray squirrel poking out from beneath his black-and-red checkered hunter’s cap, he looked up at Moon with eyes cracked by tiny red veins across the surface and big black dots in the center and told him, “The cocksucka ’bout gave my old bony ass whiplash.”

  He pointed to where it had jumped out, said he’d slammed his brakes. But it took a pretty good dent and gave an even better dent to the front of his rusted Ford Courier, though it was still drivable.

  Taking in the damage to Brady’s truck, Moon kept noticing the faint scent of cooked bleach in the cold country air. Brady was holding the headlight that hung out like a eyeball, said the deer went down; when he got out the damn deer got up and limped into the field.

  Moon nodded. He asked Brady, “Got a question for you. Think I’m racist?”

  Brady sucked on one of his four teeth that wasn’t black from too much smoking and drinking, running his tongue over his gums, and he said, “Nah, Moon, seeing as we shared the bottle many a night, catfishing on the Blue River. I’d say you ’bout as fair a man as any black blood I ever knowed.”

  Moon looked into the old man’s sour-mash soul, told him he appreciated the kind words, because his wife had called him a racist after he’d told her about a truck of illegals he’d pulled over for speeding. He’d known they were illegal but was unable to do a damn thing about it.

  And Brady told him, “Women. Never had much use for one unless we was swapping the spit, you know what I mean.” Then he hit Moon on his shoulder with his frail pigeon-wing hand and both men busted up into laughter.

  Basham wanted the deer if Moon could find it. He’d had a hankering for some fresh venison. Especially the tenderloin and some ground deer burger to make some homemade summer sausage. He pointed out the direction in which he thought the deer had gone. Moon told him to wait by the truck, he’d give him a shout or come back if he found it.

  Moon went out in a field, walking around like a hound that had lost its trail. His head was a throbbing knot even though he’d taken four or five aspirin already. Taking in the patches of briar that ran along the sides of the field, he was reminded of all the rabbit he’d hunted with Rusty years ago, nipping a bottle of whiskey to cut the chill from their bones.

  Moon couldn’t place what had happened to Rusty after his wife left him. It seemed that with age and a person’s job, the responsibilities of everyday life just kind of distanced a man from a friend until he’d not even realized he’d forgotten about him.

  Inhaling the cold air through his nose, he noticed the cooked bleach scent was getting thicker but couldn’t tell the direction it was coming from. He stood looking around, said fuck it and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, checked his signal, thought he’d phone Ina again before he got too far out of range. Still no answer.

  With each step his head pulsed as he searched the earth beneath the dead reeds of grass for a hint of blood, hoping the deer was laid out somewhere close. He thought of all the hit-and-runs he’d worked over the years, and how the deer had never gotten more than a few feet and dropped deader than a doornail. Or on impact. Not this tough son of a bitch. He just kept on running. And Brady wanted it. Snaggletoothed old crow had maybe two teeth. What the hell was he gonna do, gum him to death? Put him in a blender, suck the pulped venison through a straw?

  A few more steps forward and he saw a thick mess of red painting sections of grass in front of him. He swiped it for freshness and it smeared warm. It was injured. Running on adrenaline.

  Moon trailed the blood through the field and into a pine tree thicket.

  Trees scattered out every so many feet ran all the way up into the dead sky. Vines or plants grew here and there. He stepped into the dank silence, boots cracking the foliage of yellow pine needles splotched by blood. Every step grew louder and louder, breaking the silence of the woods.

  He stopped, his head a mess and his stomach in a bind. He was hungover and hungry. He cursed Ina for not answering her damn phone and Brady for hitting the deer. He hoped Ina would cook some fried chicken when he got off work this evening, with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, rolls, and some fried apples with cinnamon. Damn, that made his stomach ache. To hell with Brady’s snaggletoothed ass for wanting this damn deer.

  In a few more steps, the blood trail stopped. The smell of cooked bleach suddenly blistered his eyes and nose. Glancing around the deaf woods, he knew from hunting the area years ago that Rusty’s farmhouse was on the other side of the thicket. He didn’t know if he heard it or felt it first, but an explosion stung his left shoulder worse than a hornet. He’d been shot.

  His ears rattled. Adrenaline took over. He hit the ground like a bushel of potatoes. Lay on his back unholste
ring his .40-caliber Glock handgun with his right hand. Thumbed the safety off. Rolled to a tree. Pushed his back into a pine, taking away his chances of getting shot in the back. Lungs elbowed his ribs to find air, red stained his jacket. The blood weighed down his left arm. His left shoulder had been separated by a shotgun slug. Could be a hunter mistaking him for a deer or just some crazy son of a bitch.

  Laying his pistol down, he tugged his radio off the side of his stiffening arm, keyed it. “Earleen? 10-78. I been fuckin’ shot. ’Bout one mile from where I’s parked on Rothrock’s Mill Road. Takin’ cover in a pine thicket on Rusty Yates’s property.”

  “Sit tight, Moon. Another conservation unit, county K9, and state police are on the way.”

  Moon picked his Glock up from the ground. Adrenaline turned to panic. Footsteps crunched. Moon looked about the trees, saw no movement in the open silence. He wondered what direction the shot had come from, remembered he was on duty, and yelled, “Stop fucking shooting, I’m Conservation Officer Moon Flisport!” Before he could finish a voice screamed, “Fuck you, squirrel cop!”

  Just what Moon needed, he thought, some crazy-ass redneck. He hoped Brady’s frail ass didn’t try walking into this mess, having heard the shot fired, thinking Moon had found the deer, put it out of its misery.

  He heard twigs breaking around him, closing in, but couldn’t see anything. He was becoming light-headed from the loss of blood. His mind played tricks on him—vibrations ran down into the marrow of his sternum.

  He was searching for his breath, squeezing his lids over his eyes. He searched through the confusion of his mind for some sense of control. Remembered his academy training. Fight or flight. Moon was a hunter. Who the hell did this crazy ass think he was, shooting a conservation officer. He didn’t just check fishing and hunting licenses, arrest poachers. He’d more authority than the town, county, or state police.

  Footsteps stomped close, then stopped, and Moon yelled, “You got one more chance to put your damn gun down and—” Disoriented, he saw what he thought was boots on a man dressed down in splotches of puke green, black, and mud brown clothing, aiming the bored end of a shotgun at him. The skin of his face was depressed and scabbed, cleaved by strawberry whiskers, eyes expanding into the red webs that had replaced his whites. The man was Rusty Yates and he told Moon, “Come passin’ where you’ve no business, squirrel cop. Think you gonna bust me?”

  Moon thought about Ina, their argument, not speaking with her, and all at once the shotgun blast gripped the air. Moon fell to the left, squeezed the Glock’s trigger. Once. Twice.

  He lay on his side staring at Rusty on his back, quivering. Coughing. Trying to breathe as his lungs filled with fluid. He was dying. The sound of sirens came from a distance, wavering through the trees. From somewhere behind Moon a voice screamed, “Fuck! Fuck!”

  Moon was spent. Rusty had just missed him. But his body felt waterlogged. He couldn’t distinguish the cursing voice from the voices yelling, “Moon! Moon!”

  He held his pistol tightly, anticipating a slug in the back, watched Rusty’s chest heave. Moon had shot him there. Crimson spewed in a spatter-shot pattern from his mouth. Moon wanted to help him, roll him onto his side, but his body snuggled with cold, his hearing flatlined, and the surrounding woods lost its hue.

  Moon sat in a wooden chair, his arm stiff from the gunshot wound, his ears ringing from the sound of a .12-gauge slug, his .40-caliber Glock, and Rusty Yates laid out, exhaling his last moment.

  He’d flipped the actions over and over in his mind. Waking in the Harrison County ER. Phoning Ina. But just like the nurses who’d phoned her, he never got an answer. He was released the next morning. Fisher, a conservation rookie, escorted Moon to the Sellersburg State Police post for a debriefing of what had happened. A man sat recording the events; Brady, the deer, the charred smell of bleach. The damp silence within. And the pain that ignited his arm and brought the cold.

  The Indiana State Police knew Moon had no other choice, ruled it a clean shoot. Aft er the debriefing with the state boys, Fisher escorted Moon home.

  Now he was seated at the kitchen table, where a manila envelope inked with the bold print MOON lay torn open. A letter from Ina, next to his glass, empty like his house. He shook his head, everything gnawing away at him.

  He’d done more than shoot a man. He’d killed someone he’d hunted with. An old friend. And for the first time in his life, Ina wasn’t here to talk with about it.

  Filling his glass with the tea-colored liquid, he sipped the bourbon, tasted the burn that coated his throat, lined his gut. Being a part of the law was all about choices. Moon had made plenty of them, always involving people and their families. The struggles within their trees, the branches, limbs, and roots. They were the community he served. But in a world that took and took from the workingman, Moon guessed there was a breaking point between right and wrong.

  He hadn’t seen Rusty Yates in years. His wife had left him after he’d lost a good factory job, at a battery separator plant that had sold out, moved to Mexico. Hired a cheaper workforce. Cost a lot of men and women their livelihood.

  Rusty owned more than two hundred acres out in the middle of nowhere, needed a way to get by, hooked up with Ray Ray, the other voice Moon heard yelling fuck, started cooking crystal meth. And by dumb luck Moon had gotten too close while trailing the deer for Brady Basham. Rusty and Ray Ray had been out in the woods hunting, tweaked out of their minds on amphetamines, and seen him in his uniform, thought he was sneaking in the back way to bust them.

  Fisher said they’d caught Ray Ray and sent Brady home without the deer they never found.

  In the letter, Ina said she was unhappy, tired of his judging others with racist comments and never giving her the attention she needed.

  Walking from the kitchen to the bedroom with his glass of bourbon, he saw that the closets were empty. Ina’s luggage was gone. Moon was too ashamed to call the station, post a lookout for her license plate, a description of her ’85 Toyota Land Cruiser. Taking a sip from the glass, ice rattling, Moon thought that worst of all, he was too drunk to go look for her.

  The Need

  Speeding into the gravel curve, Wayne lost control of the Ford Courier, stomped the gas instead of the brake. Gunned the engine and met the wilderness of elms head-on. His head split the windshield, creating warm beads down his forehead, while flashbacks of an edge separating flesh and a screaming female amped through his memory.

  Blood flaked off as Wayne balled his hands into fists, remembering the need he could no longer contain.

  From behind, light chewed through the night and into the Ford. Wayne turned, looked into headlights that tattooed his eyes with black-green spots until he saw the red and blue blinking from above.

  The cruiser’s door slammed. Boots trailed over the loose gravel. Wayne watched the headlights black out the features of the approaching officer in the driver’s side mirror. His right hand gripped the wooden stock of his Marlin lever-action 30-30 in the seat beside him that he had used to kill deer hours ago. The Need square-danced with the amphetamines in his bloodstream, driving the fever in his brain to a boil, and he opened the door.

  Rookie Officer Fisher keyed his mic.

  “Moon, you out there?”

  “Just finished with those kids at the mill.”

  “Close to Wyandotte Road?”

  “I’m a few minutes away, whatcha got?”

  “Looks like Brady Basham sampled some of his home brew again. His Courier’s head-on into a mess of elm ’bout a mile up from 62 on Wyandotte Road.”

  “Shit. Crazy bastard ain’t supposed to drive this time of night. I’m on my way.”

  Fisher shone his Maglite onto the blue tarp over the Ford’s bed, saw the streaks of fluid shading down the patches of Bondo.

  The driver’s door swung open. A figure stepped out onto the gravel. Fisher shouted out, “You all right, Brady? Looks like you got yourself into a mess back here. Moon’s on his way, might be help
in’ to sort this—” His Maglite reflected a bone-tight face stitched with every angle of rage imaginable.

  The barrel of the 30-30 rifled an orange flame. Separated marrow and meat from Fisher’s right shoulder. It felt as though he’d been struck with fifty pounds of pressure from a pickaxe. His light clattered to the gravel and he followed, trying to configure speech. “You…you…shot me.”

  Wayne levered the empty brass to the ground. Stood over Fisher, listening to his lungs wheeze from what sounded like a combination of asthma and shock. Fisher tried reaching across his chest for his Glock. Wayne pushed the barrel into Fisher’s left shoulder. Pulled the trigger. Earth and bone exploded. Fisher jerked stiff. Wayne levered another empty brass and knelt down. His ears chimed from the gunfire and he laid his 30-30 beside Fisher, whose blinking eyes met Wayne’s blank stare. Fisher’s mouth began to foam like keg beer as he gasped, “Wayne, w-w-why you d-d-doin’ this?”

  Wordless, Wayne unsheathed his razored skinner with his right. Pressed his left into Fisher’s froth-filled scream. The Need tightened Wayne’s grip around the knife. He pressed the blade between damp follicles of hair and ear, finding the soft connection of tissue. Bearded faces stained by war screamed familiar and foreign tongues in Wayne’s mind. He cleaved ear from skull just as he’d done in the mountains. Fisher thrashed into a limp state.

  The Need made Wayne’s insides all pins and needles as he picked up the ear and added it to the other one in his desert-patterned fatigues. Sheathed his knife and grabbed his 30-30.

  Behind him the radio attached to Fisher crackled with a static voice. “Fisher, Brady all right?” Wayne knew the name attached to the voice. Moon. Memories from years before he’d enlisted, served in Afghanistan. He and his father coon hunting with the man. Wayne heard the engine roar in the distance. Saw the treetops lighting up like roman candles as he disappeared into the woods.