Lot’s return to Sodom

by Sandra Brannan

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m trying to find a friend. A fourteen-year-old. She’s a volleyball player on his team. I’m worried about her,” I answered honestly.

  “Check his bed,” she said, turning abruptly toward the kitchen and letting the saloon-style doors swing shut behind her.

  Alrighty then. I thought I had found my answer. Some people thought Eddie Schilling had a thing for teenage girls. Or something to that effect.

  I returned to the table only to find that Tommy had company. The old man had kind eyes and a wonderfully infectious smile that smoothed the wrinkles that congregated all over his face. He rose as I approached, with some difficulty, and balanced himself by gripping tightly to the big brass ball of his hickory cane. One leg appeared misshapen and I tried to check the natural tendency to look down at it. He was younger than I had thought. Maybe sixty, sixty-five, not the seventy-five I first assumed.

  Tommy rose too, groaning, and introduced us. “Liv, meet Dr. Morgan.”

  The doctor extended his free hand to me, and beneath my firm grip, I felt strong, thin fingers.

  “Dr. Morgan,” I repeated. “So very good to meet you. I’ve heard so many great things about you over the years.”

  “Oh, my,” he chortled. “All lies, I assure you.”

  Tommy took extra care in lowering himself back in his chair, clearly bothered by the pain in his knees again.

  “I hear you’re about to find the elixir for my friend’s joint aches,” I said, motioning toward Tommy.

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” he said with a chuckle. “How are you doing with your medication, Tom?”

  Tommy nodded. “Still okay. Just hate to take it because it makes my head fuzzy and makes me sleepy all the time. Can’t work feeling sleepy.”

  “Take those pills,” he said with a wink and a nod. “Nice to meet you, Liv. I just came in for a bottle of the elixir of my choosing, and I’m on my way home to enjoy a few nips.” He held up a bottle of Johnny Walker and hobbled toward the door.

  “Nice man,” I said.

  “Don’t let that bastard fool you,” Tommy said with a grunt. “Nice and ornery, I’d say. So what did Cecelia tell you?”

  “The rumor is that Eddie Schilling messes around with high school girls,” I said, looking to Tommy for confirmation.

  “I suppose,” he said, draining the balance of his coffee.

  “Have you seen any young girls over at the campground with Mr. Schilling?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ever?”

  He shook his head.

  “And you’re out there every day working the fields, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you ever see Michelle over there? I mean, other than yesterday when you found her.”

  He shook his head again.

  “Do you think Mully or one of these Lucifer’s Lot bikers killed Michelle?”

  He looked into my eyes and said, “I wouldn’t put it past them.” I sensed a “but” might follow. “But those FBI guys will do the right thing.”

  Translation: He believed someone else was responsible, not Mully. “And do you think I’m safe? As far as Mully is concerned?”

  “Not until and unless you call those agents and tell them what you know,” he scolded, pointing at the pay phone on the wall by the bar. “Now is a good time.”

  “I think I need more privacy, if you know what I mean. Mind giving me a ride back to my truck on your way home?” I asked, eager to be on my way.

  “My pleasure, Miss Bergen.”

  At my truck, Tommy offered a smile and said, “Make the call.”

  “I will. When I find a phone.”

  He surprised me when he shoved his cell phone into my hand.

  “And find that girl, Char. From what you’ve told me, she’s definitely the key,” he said, knowing far more than he let on.

  I agreed with him wholeheartedly.

  Before I shut his door, I asked, “Do you know Ernif and Helma Hanson?”

  “Of course,” he said. “They live by my cousin up past Rochford.”

  “I heard today that he died,” I said, searching his face.

  “On Sunday,” he said, leveling his eyes on mine. “That’s what Dr. Morgan was telling me before you came back to the table. He’s caring for Helma in hospice, and he said she didn’t take the news all that well. He was killed just like Michelle.”

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what he meant by that.

  As quickly as I had wondered, Tommy explained. “Struck from behind. On the back of his head.”

  My gut twisted. Elizabeth was right.

  Ernif Hanson had been murdered.

  WHEN HE OPENED THE door to the bathroom, Streeter was startled by the unexpected presence on the other side.

  “Quit sneaking around,” Streeter scolded, holding a cold towel to his jaws.

  “I was bringing you coffee, you ungrateful asshole,” Bly said, extending the cup and tossing him a frozen package. “And peas. For your jaw. It will keep the swelling down.”

  “Thanks. Nice shiner.”

  “Go to hell,” Bly mumbled, walking toward the little kitchen and placing another package of frozen peas to his own face.

  “We’re too old for this.”

  “Well, those idiot college kids had it coming,” Bly argued, remembering how they left all three in a heap at the bar. A boyish grin snuck up on his lips. “I’m kind of glad you misinterpreted my signal to go. I meant go as in leave, not go as in go after the guy. I haven’t been in a bar brawl in a long time. Kind of felt good.”

  “I figured if we were real Serpents, we wouldn’t have done anything less,” Streeter agreed, drinking the tepid coffee that Bly had just handed him.

  “Really getting into your character, aren’t you? I like that. At least Big Red and his boys won’t question if we’re really Serpents,” Bly conceded.

  “I’m going to have to buy some more sunglasses,” Streeter said, holding up the pretzel mess of plastic and dark lenses.

  “Shank sent me a diagram while you were nursing your jaw, so I marked the boot prints leading away from Michelle’s body back to the Lazy S on this quadrangle map here. Two sets of footprints going up, one coming back. They confirmed that the second set matched the shoes Michelle was wearing when they found her.”

  Files, papers, and pictures were scattered across the big oak table in the safe house. Bly unrolled a map and placed his coffee cup on one corner to keep it from rolling up. Streeter checked his watch; 7:47 pm. Still plenty of time before the late night activities in Sturgis got rolling.

  “This is Sturgis,” Bly said, pointing to the map. “This is where Michelle’s body was found, where Tommy Jasper found it, and where Clint White was seen early Monday morning taking a smoke. Here’s the Bergen quarry. I also marked the Lazy S Campground, of course.” He continued to point with his index finger to each of the dotted marks as he dictated the list of the players’ homes. “Frankie Jr.’s, Brian’s, Frank and Arlene’s, Ken Vincent’s, Eddie Schilling’s, Jens Bergen’s, Roy Barker’s, Michelle’s old apartment, and Barker’s Market. Michelle’s Vega was found in the grocery store parking lot right here, but Roy Barker said she always parked here.”

  “Someone else was driving,” Streeter concluded. “Or Michelle was trying to tell us something.”

  “Barker and Bergen both confirmed that Michelle mentioned having car trouble. Maybe Char was driving.”

  Dragging his finger across the creek from the Lazy S Campground and into the tree line up the creek to where Michelle’s body was found, Streeter speculated out loud, “So, Michelle walked from the Lazy S to where she was killed. How did she get to the Lazy S in the first place?”

  Bly offered, “Mully or one of his crew enticed her into partying with them? She climbed on one of their bikes?”

  “I don’t buy it,” Streeter said, shaking his head from side to side. “From everything we’ve learned about her, she didn’t seem to be that kin
d of person. Too responsible to be a partier. Besides, she had declined Mully’s offer in the grocery store.”

  “Unless she had a Sybil thing going on,” Bly snorted.

  “Entirely possible. But Michelle didn’t appear to be like most rape victims, particularly victims of violent rape, who often deal with the emotional aftermath by using coping mechanisms, like compartmentalizing their feelings and emotions, in order to deal with the trauma, the shock of it all.”

  “Give it to me in English.”

  “Michelle was highly functioning, had moved on with her life,” Streeter said, walking to the picture window and studying the night movement of the vendors, bikers, and tourists on Main Street.

  The majority of them looked like boys on their way to Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, thinking they were going to have the time of their lives, not knowing they were about to turn into jackasses filled with regret.

  Streeter refilled his coffee, wanting to stay sober as he rode the Harley.

  “But it isn’t entirely out of the question that Michelle could have hopped on Mully’s bike willingly and been his sheep for the evening,” Bly concluded, playing devil’s advocate.

  “Possible, but I doubt it,” Streeter said, “but without having any psychological analysis, it would be hard to prove. And even if we could, it doesn’t prove who murdered Michelle. Having information about Michelle’s psychological state might be helpful to us at Mully’s trial, if he really did murder Michelle. For now we need to focus on viable suspects rather than chasing any dead ends.”

  “Before we call it a dead end, Streeter, should we investigate whether or not Michelle was seeing a shrink?” Bly asked.

  “Might not be a bad idea, although I seriously doubt if anything will turn up. Just instinct. But that would be a good way to keep Shank busy.”

  “What about the hypothesis that Michelle was forced onto the bike with Mully?”

  “Does that fit the Lucifer’s Lot style?”

  “If she affronted them somehow,” Bly answered, nodding. “Maybe she got lippy at the grocery store and Mully didn’t like it. Or maybe she ran into his bike in the parking lot, tipped it over or something. Who the hell knows? From what Eddie says, it doesn’t take a whole lot to get Mully’s blood boiling.”

  “Or maybe she was protecting Char. Would they kill her for that?”

  “Not likely,” Bly said, thinking of other scenarios. “Maybe it was a class for one of the prospects and the beating got a little too rough, causing her to die.”

  “With no bruises, no semen, no sexual violation of any kind?” Streeter asked, incredulous. “Would they have handled a situation gone poorly by dumping the body like that?”

  “Definitely,” Bly answered, shoving a chunk of summer sausage into his mouth. He spoke through a mouthful. “But only if she was really dead first. And only after everyone who wanted them earned his wings, which would mean the swabs for saliva will start showing multiple DNA patterns.”

  “We’ve got to find out if Mully or any of his gang are wearing the purple wings.”

  “It’d be a start,” Bly admitted. “We’ve got to find him first. By the way, they pulled Roy Barker in for questioning about the B&E at Bergen’s house and found nothing out of the ordinary in Michelle’s locker at work. They’ll let us know what they learn from Barker.”

  “We’re still going to the Cattle Jump Campground tonight?”

  “And Main Street again. He’ll be at one of those places. The Miss Cattle Jump Campground contest is in two and a half hours. If I had my guess, he’ll be out there. But he won’t be wearing his colors. Inferno Force don’t allow it.”

  “That’s right,” Streeter said. “You mentioned they police the campground.”

  He remembered the last time he was at the Cattle Jump Campground, images as clear and disgusting as if it were last night. He rubbed his tender jaw, amazed at how true the saying was about nothing ever changing.

  “He’ll be there, though,” Bly asserted. “Mully won’t want to pass up that kind of entertainment. We’ll have to follow him until he leaves. They’ll fly their colors as soon as they leave the campground and then we’ll be able to see if he’s wearing any purple wings.”

  “If you ain’t limpin’, you ain’t shit” was the bumper sticker slapped to the back of the wheelchair in front of him being self-propelled by the broad-shouldered biker. Streeter had forgotten how claustrophobic the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally crowd made him feel until he found himself up to his nose in elbows and greasy hair, right smack in the middle of it. Then again, he reminded himself, the attendees ten years earlier had been merely a fraction of the four to five hundred thousand participants that had streamed into this small South Dakota town for this week. He was grateful for the breathing room the wheelchair gave him as he trekked up one side of Main Street and down the other.

  To parallel the thick crowds on the sidewalks, hundreds of thousands of motorcycles were parked in a row down the center of the street and along both sides, allowing two narrow lanes of traffic that provided a continuous motorcycle parade for onlookers. The bikes were an amazing display of the best, the brightest, the oldest, and the oddest. Mostly Harley-Davidsons, the bikes lining the street thus looked like obedient, stout soldiers outfitted for action. Onlookers could ogle to their heart’s content, but the unspoken rule was that bikes were never to be touched. Again, Streeter was amazed by the self-discipline these bikers exercised in following such a simple rule. Either that, or the last person who touched someone’s bike found himself with rearranged fingers.

  Streeter searched in the sea of bikers for any sign of red and silver or Mully’s salt-and-pepper mop of hair. His eyes seemed to land on everything but: beer bellies, scruffy whiskers, unkempt hair, and black T-shirts. The men weren’t much better, Streeter mused, realizing it was his humor that would assure he’d keep his cool as an undercover agent rather than bolting, as instincts would have him do. Granted, some of the women were not bad looking, he admitted to himself, but most were overweight, underdressed, overly intoxicated, and badly in need of eau de Febreze.

  It was the sea of black that made Streeter feel particularly claustrophobic. The ratty-looking T-shirts that engulfed him on the streets were adorned with Harley-Davidson logos, raging ghouls or fiery skulls, or naked or sparsely clad women. A few featured clever sayings: “If you can read this, the bitch fell off,” or “Satan is my copilot,” or as one woman confessed, “If it has a dick or a kickstand, I’ll ride it.” Still other societal outcasts wore T-shirts with messages intending to shock, such as “I fuck sheep,” or “50,000 battered women and I’m eating mine plain.” Along with the black T-shirts were black leather chaps, black domers, black skullcaps, black vests, and black leather jackets, despite the sweltering heat. The only thing more suffocating than the sea of black was the smell of it all.

  And the smell of all that black leather was now rising in waves off distant, hot asphalt. Mixed with the hot leather was the rank odor of sweat from the street vendors who were flipping grilled pork and beef and chicken, smothered in biker-preferred grilled onions and peppers, as quickly as the throng could order them. Wafts of greasy fries, exhaust from legions of motorcycles, acres of freshly tattooed skin oozing blood, and fetid body odors sickened him, and Streeter thought if one more person with halitosis breathed the word “Serpent” in his nose as they passed by him, he might punch someone. Anyone. It wouldn’t matter.

  There were made-to-order shops and stands galore: hemp and halter booths, tire and tattoo experts, glow-in-the-dark nunchaku and nameplate artisans, souvenir and skullcap vendors, bra and beer tents. If a person had the mind to, anything on his or her body could be pierced, collared, painted, tattooed, or exposed.

  Streeter turned his head toward the street for a moment to stop the involuntary gag that had risen in his throat. Bly moved beside him and both folded their arms across their chests as they stared out at the motorcycle parade. A speedboat mounted over a motorcycle drove by, painted
with licking flames of silver and red.

  Streeter pointed and scoffed, “The irony. I’ve been looking for red and silver all evening and this is what I see.”

  The next bike had two shirtless men riding on it, both in black leather chaps—period.

  Bly grunted, “They’re practically begging for trouble. It’s a sin to have a man riding in the bitch seat, particularly with another man. When it’s a man riding with a woman, they just consider him pussy whipped.”

  Streeter pointed at the next bike that passed by. The man driving it looked like a half-naked Santa Claus. “And you don’t think he’s asking for trouble?”

  “He’s looking for naughty girls to sit on his lap and tell them what they want for Christmas.” Bly studied Streeter a moment before asking, “You okay? You’re looking kind of green. Drink too much earlier tonight, bud?”

  “Hell, no,” Streeter growled. “It’s the disgusting whiffs of BO and caramelized onions and pus-festering, oozing tattoos and stinking leather. Darned if I’m not going to puke all over the next person that breathes on me.”

  Bly roared with laughter.

  A small crowd gathered behind them, pointing at their colors. It was rare for Serpents to attend the rally, and Streeter had quickly become accustomed to the pointing and whispering.

  Streeter talked from the side of his mouth so only Bly could hear his question. “Do Serpents puke?”

  “Obviously, this one does,” Bly said, gesturing with his thumb toward his fellow agent.

  The next motorcycle in the parade was a tricycle towing a jailhouse, a beautiful redhead in a pink bikini caged within the bars.

  Bly nodded at the biker, who flashed a toothless grin his way, before turning toward Streeter, saying, “Pus-festering, oozing tattoos? Where do you come up with this shit?”

  “Just take a look around you, friend.”

  The next biker on parade was straddling an ape hanger, the handlebars rising high above his ears on either side. He had a scraggly gray beard, a tattoo on his naked belly of one fat pig mounting another one, and a plastic pig nose covering his own.