Crimes in Southern Indiana

by Frank Bill

  Nelson waved a hand, said, “By the Galloways.”

  Pat shook, said, “Yeah.” Paused and told them, “I know you’re upset, but I got a few questions, answer best as you can.”

  Stace wiped tears, nodded.

  “You and the boy had any problems, disagreements?”

  “No.” She sobbed with mucus dribbling from her nose. Anger thinning her tears and she said, “Why don’t you ask some these ass-minded folk always judgin’ me and Matthew.”

  “What’d you mean?”

  Nelson cut in and said, “She means coulda been any neighbor lives down here. Ever’ time I come to pick Matthew up someone has started shit with her.”

  Pat asked, “What kind of problems the neighbors give you?”

  Stace inhaled for composure, told Pat, “They all paid me visits, bitchin’ ’bout my boy runnin’ up and down the valley, fishin’ from they land.” She stopped, half smiled, remembering something, and continued with “Matthew always brought home his blue fishin’ stringer weighted down. Knew where all the fishin’ holes was.” Then her smile trailed off.

  Pat looked at Nelson. “Where was you last night?”

  “Hold on a goddamned minute—”

  Pat cut him off. “Gotta ask, nothin’ personal. Where was you?”

  “At the bar, ask Poe. Was there till closing.”

  They all sat in a discomforting silence until Pat couldn’t take it any longer and stood up. Stace asked, “You find his pole or tackle?”

  “To be honest, don’t even know the exact location of where he was hit and thrown in.”

  Tears and sniffs came from each, and she mustered, “He’d a black-and-red Ugly Stik. Matchin’ tackle box. Bought it for him at the Walmart. God, how he loved to fish.” Then she pulled her legs from the floor and sat on them, began to tremor, pushed her face into Nelson’s chest. Created a damp spot on his shirt.

  Pat had nothing left to ask, told them he’d keep them informed, let them know if anything came up. He stepped to the door, and Stace raised her head from Nelson’s chest, said, “You question people down here, start with that brother of yours, Everett. He’s been the worst one.”

  Driving down the mosquito-infested road, Stace’s words dug a shelf across Pat’s chest. The worst one, Everett. His older brother. The man was mean, but would he run over a child? Throw him in the river?

  His brother was many things. Tortured by the memory of war. Never touched drugs. A drunk who didn’t agree with those who didn’t work. But kill a kid? Pat shook his head. With the window rolled down, hints of maple and walnut meshed with the fish stink of the river, streaming through with the clank and pitch of gravel. Birds whispered and Pat remembered showing up at the Leavenworth Tavern to stop a disagreement. Everett was holding Sheldon Noble down, a knee buried in his spine, hair in one hand, blade in the other. Thought Everett was gonna scalp the bastard. And what for? All because he called Everett a stupid-ass, dink-lovin’ jarhead.

  Rounding a blind curve, a swarm of dog-pecker gnats peppered his windshield, wafted through the window. He swatted and cursed, “Now, dammit,” as the smear of a boy raced across the road.

  Pat stomped his brakes. Went sideways.

  “Shit!”

  He put his cruiser into park. Got out. His legs went weak. His hands shook. He looked beneath his cruiser, walked around it. Nothing. He stepped to the weeds, took in the wall of trees. Blind spot. Person could hit an animal or a child. Shaken up and angered, he stared at the weeds and raised his tone.

  “This is Harrison County Deputy Sheriff Pat Daniels. You in them weeds come on up outta there, got a good mind to tan your ass.”

  The cruiser sat idling behind him, the river’s current flowed below. There was no sign of the boy, but that’s when he saw it sticking up out of the weeds.

  “I’ll be damn.”

  It was a scuffed black-and-red Ugly Stik fishing rod. The reel was busted. A few of the eyelets were bent. He stepped deeper into the green and tan strands of foliage, and his boot thudded against something. He reached down and picked up a black-and-red tackle box.

  Pat surveyed the weeds like he did during deer season when he’d shoot a deer and it would keep going on adrenaline, leaving behind drops of blood. He’d use them to track it until its adrenaline ran out. But this time he found nothing. He turned to step back onto the road and saw the dented twelve-ounce glimmer. He kneeled, picked it up. It was an empty can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The emblem glistened red, white, and blue. The colors were fresh, not faded. He put his nose to its opening. The scent was warm beer, not soured. The can was new.

  He glanced around in the weeds for more cans but, just like the boy, he couldn’t find a trace.

  “You got one more chance to come on up out of them weeds, boy.”

  And what he heard was nothing more than the flow of the river below him.

  “Little shit.”

  Pat stepped to the rear of his vehicle. Popped the trunk, dropped the rod and tackle inside. Closed it. Looked at the blind spot once more. Added alcohol to his theory, that made it even more feasible. He got into the cruiser, knowing what brand of beer his brother Everett drank, Natural Light, not PBR. That set his mind at ease and he thought he’d stop in, seeing as they hadn’t spoken in a while.

  Everett could still feel Poe’s and Merritt’s eyes engraving their pity for Nelson into his right temple. He fished another Pabst Blue Ribbon from the ice of his cooler. Popped the beer open. Tilted the can to his lips. Navigated the truck down the road. As he sucked the icy foam from his beer, anger took on an acidic form and traveled throughout his insides.

  “Who’s Poe think he is any damn way? Being kind of harsh, ain’t you?”

  Everett’s truck tires tossed road as he turned down his driveway. He thought about the boy in the dark, his face red from the taillights, and he told himself, “It was an accident, let it go.”

  Taking another swig of his Pabst, he saw the cruiser up by his house. Turned and saw his baby brother Pat coming from up by the toolshed. Everett shifted his truck into park, killed the engine, and opened the door, taking in what Pat was holding. The stringer he’d left hanging from the rusted nail in the paint-flaked door after skinning those crappie last night. Everett bent his head back and guzzled his brew. Swallowed and said, “The shit brings you down my way?”

  Pat heard Everett’s question, not wanting to believe what he’d found, trying to write it off as a coincidence. He’d pulled up minutes before, sat waiting in his cruiser, saw the boy again, this time running up to Everett’s shed. He’d gotten out, wondering what the hell was going on. There was no trace of the boy. Just a blue stringer hanging from a nail. The scent of rotted fish guts coating the insides of his nose as they decorated the ground.

  And now Everett had pulled up, got out with a PBR in his hand.

  Pat told him, “Came down to ask you a few questions. Seen a…” He stopped short about seeing the boy. Cleared his throat and said, “Thought maybe you’s up at the shed. Seen the stringer. The fish guts. You go fishin’ yesterday?”

  Everett rolled the question around in his mind. The booze sloshed his words.

  “Went lass night. Caught me a few crappie.”

  Pat blinked, saw the boy appear from nothing, run toward Everett’s truck. Pat said, “The shit is goin’ on?” Rushed past his brother.

  Everett followed his movements, turned with Pat’s steps. Asked, “The hell you doin’?”

  Pat made his way to the front of Everett’s Silverado truck. Kneeled down, looked for the boy. Saw specks the shade of human spotting the bumper. He swallowed and said, “Got some blood on your bumper. Hit an animal recently?”

  Everett crushed the can. Dropped it to the ground, stepped to the rear of his truck, seeing how things were playing out. What he’d done wasn’t going to be forgotten. Regardless, he wasn’t going to jail, and he said, “No animal.” Grabbed a crowbar from the truck bed, came around the hood just as Pat stood up. Met his gaze. It held disbe
lief.

  Everett brought the octagon extension sideways. Pat raised his right arm as a reaction, shielding himself from the swing. Felt the bone in his forearm chink. He gritted his teeth, stepped away from Everett, patted his side. Unsnapped the leather holder on his belt, pulled the metal can from it. A chill had started to line Pat’s veins. The pain was thick; he wanted to vomit.

  Everett came forward, said, “You’s my brother, but I ain’t goin’ to jail for that little bastard.” And he raised the crowbar for another strike.

  Pat pushed the pepper mace into Everett’s face, pulled the trigger, and shouted, “Kinda evil has gotten in you? It was someone’s son!”

  “Goddammit!” Everett screamed. Dropped the crowbar. His hands clawed at his eyes and cheeks, festering with burn.

  Pat’s arm hung loose at his ribs, throbbing and changing shape. It felt as though it would ignite. He came toward Everett, released the mace, pulled his ASP baton. Damp fell from the burn of Everett’s face as he felt the steel hammer the back of his neck and push him into his truck’s hood. Behind him Pat’s voice told him, “I’s takin’ you in for murder.”

  Everett shook his head, repeating the words “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” over and over. Tried to twist away, but his face felt as though it’d been ignited with kerosene and a match.

  Pat dropped his weight against him. Everett gave in, didn’t fight as Pat pulled his left arm, then his right, to his lower back. Steel clasped around each wrist. Pat pulled his brother from the hood, led him toward his cruiser in shock as he looked up by the shed, watched the bruised shadow of a boy run and disappear.

  A Rabbit in the Lettuce Patch

  Ina Flisport sat like a used rag doll tossed onto potholed pavement and left behind after meeting Clay at Tuke’s Bar, a rural watering hole within the backwoods of Orange County, Indiana, where she told Clay she’d left her conservation officer husband, Moon, for him. Clay stood up, laughing. “I don’t wanna shack up with some whore-ass housewife. I just wanted a piece. I’m done with you.”

  And after two months of sharing the sheets, the aff air ended. Lester the bartender stood in the bar’s kitchen, running his reptile tongue over his parched lips as he eavesdropped on Ina’s and Clay’s words. Then Clay left. Ina stayed.

  Lester dialed Kenny’s number, telling him, “Got ourselves another rabbit in the lettuce patch.”

  Lester exited the kitchen’s back door into the cold darkness. Walking around to the front door of Tuke’s, he turned the open sign to closed, pulled out his keys, and gently locked the door from the outside, slid the padlock back into place.

  Ina lit another cigarette and wondered if Moon had found the letter she’d left, telling him that thirty years of making sure his meals were cooked, his hound dogs were fed, laundry was done, and the yard was mowed were twentyeight years too many.

  She’d sit up late most nights while he coon hunted. She smoked cigarettes, played solitaire with David Letterman for company. Hoping for some form of affection, a touch, a kiss, a gesture of appreciation, something that she no longer received. Moon would come in and pretend she didn’t exist. She’d decided that his taking her for granted was enough, their marriage was over.

  They’d met when she was fift een, in the summer of ’73. Young by today’s standards, but back then older men married younger women. She was knocked up and married by sixteen. Had her second when she was seventeen and her third by eighteen.

  Lester returned from the kitchen with a cup of coffee and asked Ina, “Need another Bud Light?”

  Ina glanced up from her beer through a haze of smoke, thinking to herself that Lester appeared malnourished, with his greasy hair and flesh so pale it was as if he lived without proper lighting, and told him, “Not yet.”

  Behind the bar, Lester stood sneering as he sipped his cup of coffee. He could hardly contain himself as he took in Ina’s grapefruit-shaped breasts, tawny hair hanging above them with the finest hints of gray. He imagined his wormlike self buried within her succulent pigment, painted by the passing summer. To a rural-lowlife-deviant bartender like Lester Money, sex was an appreciated endeavor regardless of how aged a woman was. He couldn’t be picky. But in his mind Ina appeared to be in her early thirties, though he believed her to be older.

  Ina watched the steam from Lester’s coffee rise and wanted to hit the road, find a motel or bed-and-breakfast to sleep off all the bad of being dropped like a stillborn. But she needed to sober up and she asked Lester, “Think I could get a cup of coffee?”

  “Coffee?” She must be planning on leaving. He didn’t need to mess up again, told her, “Sure, give me a sec.” He walked back to the kitchen, pulled a clean mug from a hook on the wall, poured her a steaming cup. Pulled the small vial of liquid from his pocket. Some Georgia Home Boy. He twisted the lid off, poured the colorless liquid into her coffee. Brought the cup of coffee to her side of the bar, sat beside her, and winked as he sucked on his lime-colored teeth and said, “Couldn’t help overhearing your words with Clay. He’s a regular, and you mentioned someone goes by the name of Moon. I get a feller comes in here from time to time for a drink after fishing. His name is Moon. He’s a conservation officer.”

  Ina took a sip of her coffee, not liking this salamander of a man being seated beside her. He made her feel unclean. Knowing her personal business. Her husband’s name.

  Lester continued with “I’d be willing to bet that man you come in with, Clay, I’d be willing to bet you and he are having an affair and the man you mentioned leaving, whose name is Moon, is the same Moon comes in here.”

  Ina finished her coffee. Felt her insides go limp. She’d be damned if she’d sit here and listen to any more of what this slug had to say, and she told him, “That’d be none of your business.”

  “It’d be a terrible thing for a husband to find out his wife was having an affair. I’d be willing to turn a cheek for a piece of your sweet stuff.” Then he wrapped his nicotine-smudged fingers around her arm and pulled her into him.

  Ina jerked her arm from him. Drove her elbow up into his chin. Rattled his jaw and teeth. Turned away and grabbed the first thing she saw, the thick green glass ashtray she’d been using, smashed it on top of his skull. He dropped in a cloud of ashes and cigarette butts, hollered from the floor, “Fuckin’ whore!” Ina grabbed her purse, placed her feet on the bar’s floor, and it hit her. The sinkhole of her insides. The rubber-band strength of her legs. The shifting angles of the room as it frayed and tilted. The Georgia Home Boy.

  She struggled to the door. The locks clicked. The door swung open. Knocked her backwards. Two men with beards and oil-stained trucker caps stood looking at her. One wore a skinning knife, the other a pocketknife. Each stank of cold outdoor air, burned wood, dirty work.

  The one with the skinning knife was as big as an oak tree and he told her, “You got a taste of age on you, but you is a pretty thing.” Ina didn’t know if it was the booze or the coffee or the butt of the gun she didn’t see or feel as it made contact with her face when she tried to run between the two men. Her whole body had become a hollowed-out abyss. The last thing she heard wasn’t the sound the gun made against her head or how the floor sounded when it echoed in her skull. It was the words the man with the pocketknife said that echoed through her skull: “Lester, you about let this ol’ rabbit run plum out the damn lettuce patch again.”

  The old dirt road led to a home where a primered Firebird, a rusted Ford pickup truck, and Ina’s gray ’85 Toyota Land Cruiser sat beneath the big beech trees that were almost bare of their leaves. The house was nothing more than a 1,300-square-foot shingle-sided home with a leaking tin roof and a flaking white-framed wooden screen door with holes that had been patched with pieces of rolled-up yellowing newspaper. The windows were devoid of outside light, boarded up from the inside with plywood and thick plastic on the outside to keep out the cold. Dead in the center of the screen door was a chipped black plastic sign with large orange lettering: PRIVATE PROPERTY—KEEP OUT.

 
Somewhere inside, Ina struggled with her sight. She forced her eyes open with a sudden intake of air through her nose. Her lungs panted and cold fever outlined her body.

  The air was thick with the stagnant scent of a peeled onion and the dank darkness of not knowing. It was as if the night had dropped upon her like a dead body, its weight heavy and hot with a sticky haze. Some feeling returned to her hands and she touched what lay on her. A man, passed out or asleep. What she felt of him was his slack naked torso.

  Below her was a bed. Like this stranger on top of her, she was nude, with an ache in her inner thighs. Her mind and body were disoriented. Her head throbbed as she searched her memory for where and what had brought her to this place. She inhaled the scent of the peeled-onion odor, mixed with cigarette smoke, stale beer, mildew, and rotted wood. She started to push the man who lay upon her, but feared what he’d do if she woke him. She didn’t have her bearings to fight back. She ran her hands along the bed, which was no more than a mattress and box spring, turned her head, her eyes adjusting to her surroundings. Outlines of clothing piled on the floor. What looked to be her jacket and skirt, some jeans with a belt, work boots, and a flannel shirt. Empty whiskey bottles on a nightstand next to the bed. Beer cans on the floor. Wads of paper. A small television with rabbit ears on a dresser. An ashtray of cigarette butts. The weight atop her had begun to snore. His arms were enormous, hanging down each side of her, his back wide, his hair greasy and scented like his body, reminiscent of the spoiled boxes of vegetables her father sometimes retrieved from the town supermarket’s Dumpsters for the small number of pigs he raised behind the barn when she was a kid.