Deadly Science

by Ken Brigham

  On closer inspection, the woman was probably not that young, or if so, she had logged more miles than years. Her hair was dyed blonde and needed attention; the dark roots were beginning to show. Although her face was smooth and tan, the skin had that too taut appearance that reeks of plastic surgery or botox or whatever was the current method of choice was for smoothing over the ravages of age and sun and cigarette smoke. She smiled at Hardy, exposing a perfect set of abnormally white and unnaturally straight teeth. But it was a nice friendly smile. Hardy relaxed some.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” Miss Teeth greeted Hardy. “You must be the detective that called. Is that right?”

  “Yes’m,” Hardy answered, removing his wallet from his coat pocket and flipping it open to expose the badge. “My name is Hardy Seltzer. I’d like to talk to Mr. Dakota if I may.”

  “Sure, honey,” she said. “I’m Bunny Waller,” extending her hand with a little curtsy. “And you don’t need to be so proper, you know. Just call him Jody. We’re just plain country folk.”

  Hardy shook her hand. It was small and smooth. And very cold. Maybe Bunny Waller was plain country folk as she claimed, but Hardy seriously doubted that most plain country folk had benefitted from the services of plastic surgeons and orthodontists. No matter. He wasn’t interested in Bunny Waller, whoever she was. Unless she had something to do with the subject at hand, her only function was to get him connected with Jody Dakota.

  “Okay, Bunny,” Hardy said, trying without complete success to suppress a smile. “Can you let Jody know I’m here?”

  “Sure,” she said, “but he may be down back at the shooting range, I’m not sure. Come on in and I’ll find him.”

  “Shooting range?” Hardy said.

  “Yep,” Bunny replied. “Jody loves guns. Always has, long as I’ve known him. He set up a shooting range down in the back. He practices there with those guns a lot,” she gestured toward an upholstered leather sofa. “Come on in and sit down here on the couch, Hardy. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, thanks,” he replied.

  He was imagining Little Jody Dakota practicing his marksmanship at his private and very remote Hickman County shooting range.

  “Suit yourself, hon,” she said.

  As Bunny Waller walked the length of the long living room toward the back of the house, the unmistakable sounds of gunfire echoed in the distance. Hardy was distracted by the sound so that the slightly odd way Bunny walked barely registered somewhere in deep recesses of his brain. He wasn’t interested in Bunny Waller, whoever she was.

  After Bunny was gone from the room, Hardy got up from the sofa and wandered around. The space was long and narrow, running the width of the house. At the far end of the room, Hardy encountered a display case that contained several handguns. He took the picture of the Colt Hammer model that he had printed out from the Internet from his jacket pocket and smoothed it out on top of the case. He carefully eyed each of the six guns in the case, his eyes moving back and forth between each gun and the picture. One of the guns in the case at the edge of the arrangement looked to him exactly like the one in the picture.

  “You into guns, sonny?”

  Hardy’s muscles tensed at the sound of the voice from behind him. Concentrating on the gun comparisons, he hadn’t heard the two people enter the room. He picked up the picture of the gun, refolded it, and returned it to his coat pocket as he turned to face Bunny Waller and a strikingly small leathery-faced man probably in his seventies wearing a very large white Stetson hat.

  Jody Dakota was short and also slightly built. The moniker Little Jody Dakota seemed especially appropriate. The small man moved easily though, the quick, sharp movements of a wary animal on the lookout. His dark eyes darted about, not fixing on anything in particular. Bunny’s eyes were fixed on Jody, following his every move with more interest, it appeared, than affection. Maybe Bunny deserved more attention than Hardy had thought on their first meeting. He noticed now a certain grace in her manner. And, oddly, he just now noticed that Bunny Waller had very large breasts, unnaturally large for her petite frame—perfectly symmetrical mounds created, no doubt, by the same skilled professional who had ironed away the wrinkles in her face.

  Hardy didn’t immediately respond to Jody’s question, and the small man strode toward him, extending a hand.

  “I’m Jody Dakota,” he said. “Just call me Jody. And who are you?”

  Hardy shook Jody’s hand briefly, feeling the surprisingly firm grip of the small hand.

  “As I told Miss Waller,” Hardy replied, “…er…Bunny,” he corrected himself, still not entirely comfortable with the invited familiarity, “my name is Hardy Seltzer. I’m a detective with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.”

  Once again, he brandished his wallet and flipped it open to reveal the badge. Jody bent forward, eyeing the badge carefully, scratching his chin as though he were registering the exact details of each word and image. After what seemed an inordinate amount of time scrutinizing the badge, he straightened back up and looked at Hardy.

  “Well, Detective Hardy,” Jody said, emphasizing the given name to make it clear that the familiarity was deliberate. “What in the world brings you way out here? You’re a city cop. Thought surely we’d escaped from the city’s finest this far out from town.”

  Hardy thought the word escaped seemed odd, but maybe he was influenced too much by his suspicion and by his need to solve this riddle as soon as possible. Hardy wasn’t comfortable with the situation. He was out of his element in more ways than one and anxious to get down to the business at hand. All this affected bonhomie was not to his liking.

  “I’m….,” Hardy started to speak, but Jody interrupted.

  “What brings you here, Detective Hardy?” Jody said. “Can’t imagine why you’d come way out here unless you had a good reason. Sit down, sit down,” he motioned to the sofa where Hardy had sat earlier’ “Can Bunny get you something to drink?”

  Hardy didn’t sit down, but both Jody and Bunny did. Jody removed his hat to reveal a largely bald head, tan and shiny, rimmed by a fringe of gray. Because of the size of the hat, it wasn’t clear until he removed it that Jody had a very large head, out of proportion to his small body. Hardy thought of the cartoons of Humpty Dumpty that appear in children’s books and wondered whether Jody, too, was headed for a great fall that would shatter this illusion of bucolic bliss. Hardy couldn’t help but hope that that was true.

  “No thanks,” Hardy replied. “She offered earlier. I would just like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright.”

  “Questions about what?” Jody said.

  “Well, I’m investigating the Printers Alley murder of Bonz Bagley,” Hardy said. “And…”

  “That stingy bastard?” Jody interrupted. “I saw it in the paper. Couldn’t help but laugh when I read it. Somebody should have killed the bastard a long time ago. I’d’ve done it myself if I’d had the balls. Pardon my language, honey,” he turned to Bunny and patted her bare knee.

  Bunny crossed her arms beneath her very large breasts and smiled as though the subject of male genitalia was neither unfamiliar nor offensive to her.

  Shocked at Jody’s outburst, Hardy responded, “That’s an interesting reaction, Jody. Most people I’ve talked with seem to have been fond of Mr. Bagley.”

  “Well, you just ain’t talkin’ to the right folks,” Jody said. “For every person Bonz helped there are a dozen he did a heap o’ harm to. I happen to be one that survived it, but a lot didn’t.”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Bagley?” Hardy asked.

  “You mean saw him or talked with him?”

  “Well, either one.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen him when I go downtown, which is pretty rare lately. That is, seen him sitting out there in the alley acting like a big shot. He never was a big shot. He was barely a shot at all, hangin’ on the coattails of some folks with talent and living off their leavings.”

  “But when was
the last time?”

  “Bunny and me went into town a week or so ago. On a Sunday. I was meetin’ with a guy who wants to write a book about the business and he’s interviewing a bunch of us old-timers. He might’ve even talked to Bonz. Wouldn’t doubt it. We didn’t see Bonz when we was there though, didn’t even go near the alley. We was meetin’ with this guy at the fancy hotel out by the university and we just met, and then came back home. I don’t like the city anymore. It ain’t the same as it was and ain’t better for it. Come to think of it, we was probably in town the same day Bonz got himself killed. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

  “What time did you go into town on that Sunday?” Hardy asked.

  Bunny answered, “Early. We went in early so Jody could have pancakes for breakfast.”

  “I love them pancakes,” Jody said. “There’s a place out on Hillsboro Road makes the best flapjacks I ever ate. Big fluffy things. They make ’em with buckwheat flour and they get some country butter from somebody local, and red clover honey. Makes my mouth water, just thinkin’ about ’em.”

  Jody chuckled, but Hardy wasn’t laughing. Bunny and Jody began to sense the growing tension in the room. No one spoke for a few minutes. Hardy was letting the potential significance of the developing information sink in for both him and the other two. On the one hand, if these were the guilty parties, it would be very unlikely that they would so readily provide both a motive and an opportunity for the crime. On the other hand, maybe these two were cleverer than they wanted to appear. Volunteering this information could be a strategy for hiding their guilt. Hardy had seen criminals use that approach before. It worked sometimes.

  Presently, Bunny spoke, “Whoa now, detective,” she said. “You’re not thinking we had something to do with this?”

  Hardy put on his game face, looked directly in her eyes, and responded, “If I didn’t think that was a possibility, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jody said, standing up and pacing about, thumping the white Stetson against his thigh. “Totally ridiculous. I made peace with all that old stuff a long time ago. Hell, you can ask anybody about that. Like I said, if I’d had the balls, I might have done it a long time ago, but I’m too old to get riled up about that history now. And too content. Ain’t that right, Bunny?”

  But Hardy didn’t think that Jody Dakota looked like a contented man. Too restless. And his hard dark eyes darted about, the wary look of a man who might well be hiding something.

  Jody walked over and sat down next to Bunny again. He patted her bare knee. She smiled as contented a smile as she could muster. Whatever it was that attracted Bunny to this man and this remote lifestyle, Hardy doubted that it was contentment. He very much doubted that. Sitting there together, they did not look like the contented, happy couple they were attempting to portray. Hardy was developing more of an interest in the woman. If there was something hidden there it probably involved them both.

  “Let’s talk about guns,” Hardy said, ignoring their comments. “Mr. Bagley was shot with a very unusual gun, and I was noticing before you came in that there are some very unusual guns in the display case over there,” pointing toward the far end of the room.

  “I like guns,” Jody replied. “So does Bunny. I used to collect some unusual ones back when I had the money for it. That’s the ones in the case there. They’re showpieces. We don’t shoot them. Too damn expensive. And where on God’s earth would you find ammunition for them? Wouldn’t be easy. We shoot newer guns at my shootin’ range out back. Bunny here’s a really good shot,” he looked at Bunny, who smiled again.

  “I see,” Hardy said. “The gun that killed Bonz was a really rare one. A Colt hammer model 1903 made in the early nineteen hundreds. Sound familiar?”

  “Sure. That was in the paper. I’ve got one of those. Got a dealer to locate it for me a while back. Found it in Texas as I remember. Mine is a beauty, a really rare one, gold plated, engraved too.”

  Hardy had been impressed with the gleaming gold gun when he first saw it. Especially impressed with how much it resembled the gold plated “All American” 1903 hammer model Colt pistol in the picture from the Internet. According to the Internet piece, it was an extremely rare collector’s item.

  Jody continued, “Cost me better than ten grand when I bought it. Came with an official certificate too. It’s there in the display case. But it didn’t kill Bonz or anyone else at least not since I’ve had it. Bunny keeps those guns cleaned up good, but none of ’em’s been fired in ten or fifteen years.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I take it in for ballistics testing.”

  Hardy knew that he was on thin ice here. If Jody would voluntarily surrender the gun for testing, ballistics ought to be able to determine for certain whether it was the weapon that fired the slugs recovered from Bagley’s body. If so, there could be a pretty airtight case—motive, opportunity, and the murder weapon. But, Hardy couldn’t force Jody to surrender the gun. To do that, he would have to go through the county sheriff. And God only knew who that was. Probably some good old boy who had doled out enough Jack Daniels on election day to corral the necessary votes. And Jody Dakota was probably the most famous resident of Hickman County. It wouldn’t be surprising if he was bosom buddies with the sheriff.

  Jody got up and paced back and forth in front of the sofa, staring at the floor and rubbing his chin, thinking.

  “What good’s that going to do me?” Jody mumbled.

  Hardy responded, “Well, if the tests show that your gun wasn’t the murder weapon, you’d be free and clear, don’t you see?”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Jody said, sitting down again by Bunny and massaging her knee. “That’s a very expensive firearm, detective Hardy. I’m not sure I’m willing to trust you with it. And what if the test, I think you called it bombastics or something, makes a mistake. I mean, I know for sure that my gun didn’t kill Bonz. I don’t care what your test shows. I know that for a fact. Hell, we don’t even have any bullets for it. Except for when Bunny takes them out for cleaning, those guns have sat in that display case for fifteen years. Just sat there looking pretty and doing nothing.”

  “Then,” Hardy answered, “I don’t see the problem. Since you know it wasn’t your gun, then let us prove that and we’ll all be happy.”

  Bunny broke in. “Hell, Jody,” she said, “let him take the damn thing. We don’t need this hassling from the cops, and he’s obviously going to keep at it unless we do what he wants. Detective,” she continued, turning her attention to Hardy, “how long will it take to do the test?”

  “Yeah,” Jody said, “how long? And where are you goin’ to get any bullets for it? I don’t think they make ’em anymore.”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it shouldn’t take long. The ballistics guys have their sources. They can get the bullets.”

  Only after a lengthy discussion of the matter did Jody and Bunny agree to let Hardy take the gun. Hardy watched as Bunny walked the length of the room to the display case, retrieved a key from a drawer in an adjacent cabinet, unlocked the case, and carefully removed the weapon. She placed it in a purple velvet bag also retrieved from the adjacent cabinet and brought it to Hardy, placing it gently in his hand. Hardy wrote out a detailed receipt for them and handed them the receipt and one of his business cards.

  “Okay,” Hardy said. “My contact information is on the card. If you have any questions feel free to call. As soon as we have the results, I’ll get in touch. In the meantime, you should stay close in case we need to talk again.”

  “We sure as hell ain’t going anywhere, not as long as you’ve got my gun. Just get this thing over with and done,” Jody said.

  Hardy was troubled as he drove back into the city, the velvet sheathed golden gun resting on the seat beside him. He desperately wanted to wrap up this case, and he wanted to believe that he was close. But either Jody Dakota was unaware of the power of ballistics testing or this gun was probably not the weapon that killed Bonz Bagley. Otherwise,
why did they let him take it? Or were these two yokels a lot cleverer than they wanted him to believe? Little Jody Dakota was a performer, after all, or had been. Hardy had often thought that people didn’t become performers, they were born that way. It was something in the blood that didn’t go away with age or loss of fame. How else do you explain the has-beens and no-talents who kept at it when there was no hope for money or fame. How do you even explain the continued existence of places like Printers Alley? Must be a compulsion. Were Little Jody Dakota and his friend Bunny doing that dance for Hardy’s sake? Still shaking it for the paying customers?

  Chapter 13

  There were six floors of six thousand square feet each in the building where Shane and KiKi lived. Each floor had a separate owner so that there were six owners and, therefore, six representatives on the building’s condo association board. The board met quarterly as specified in its bylaws. They met in the third-floor conference room of one of the lawyer owners, a location Shane thought of on those occasions as the belly of the beast, a facetious tribute to the six six six symbolism. In fact, there were usually no more than five people at the meetings; Rory Holcomb rarely showed up.

  Shane represented the second floor since he was always there, and KiKi was usually at work when the meetings took place. He didn’t relish venturing up to the next floor and into the belly of the beast, not because he harbored any superstitions about the symbol, but because there was rarely anything of substance that transpired at the meetings and he wasn’t particularly fond of the other owners. In truth, having explored Dr. Conan Doyle’s eerie spiritualism as part of his research at Oxford, Shane was somewhat amused by the six six six symbolism.

  It was late afternoon when Shane rolled his wheelchair off the elevator on the third floor and was confronted by Rory Holcomb sitting just outside the belly of the beast waiting for the others to arrive for the meeting. This was to be one of the rare meetings when the third six would roll up—the spiritual jackpot. Shane and Rory nodded to each other as the rotund figure of the third-floor lawyer emerged from his office and invited them to join him in the conference room.