Past Dying (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “What was the victim’s name?”

  “Tom McElwain.” He shook his head. “I knew Jacko was a bastard but not that much of one.”

  “Have you talked to the people in Columbia?”

  “No. I’ll call them later to tell them what we found. But right now I’d just like to nail down whoever killed Jacko Reilly and Clovis Hightower. That would wrap the whole thing up.”

  “Maybe you will,” I said, shook hands with him again, and watched him get back into the Bronco.

  When he was gone I went back into the house.

  McElwain. Where had I heard that name?

  I looked in my notebook and there it was: A McElwain had bought the two hundred acres in the hills above Carter Crossing from Jim Bowie in 1833. Of course, there might be a lot of McElwains in these parts but it seemed a coincidence worth noting.

  I looked at my watch. What would it cost me to drive up to Columbia and talk to a few people? I still had my credentials and Jeff hadn’t explicitly ordered me off the case.

  And if I was headed up in that direction, there was something else I wanted to check out at a certain estate in the area.

  At just after eight I pulled into the judge’s driveway. Tally Galt’s Saturn was there and I was glad there were no other cars. I walked over to it, inspected the mirror on the right side, where it had scraped against something, and then started back for my vehicle. But as I walked across the drive I saw someone coming toward me on horseback, from the field behind the house. I waited, hands in the pockets of my jacket, as the horse and rider drew slowly nearer, coming toward me on the other side of the white board fence. At first I thought it was a man, but there was something in the form itself, and I realized the rider was Tally Galt.

  I walked over to the fence to wait but she was taking her time.

  “Beautiful horse,” I said as she approached, nodding at the chestnut with a star on its forehead.

  “Two years old,” she said. “His name is Crash. Ironic name considering that he’s the gentlest horse we own.”

  “Up early,” I said.

  “Arlo likes to sleep late,” she said. “But I like to be up at first light. Comes from a country upbringing.”

  She reached down to pat the horse’s neck. “Was it Arlo you came to see or me?”

  “Actually it was your car.”

  “Really.” She patted the horse again, her eyes on its neck, as if she were blocking me out. “All the way out here on a weekend to see a car?”

  “Actually, I’m on my way somewhere else but this seemed like a good time to stop.”

  “Did it? All right, I’m listening.”

  “I was up at Jeff Scully’s cabin just now,” I said. “I saw some paint on the gatepost that matched that scrape on your mirror.” I nodded my head at her car. “The other day when somebody shot at Luther and me they were in a hurry to get away afterward.”

  “I’ve had that scratch on my car for a long time.”

  “I don’t think so. I figure you just haven’t had a chance to get it fixed. And you knew the sheriff wasn’t going to press the issue so there wasn’t any hurry.”

  “Is that what you think?” Her voice was toneless and her eyes held my own.

  “Yes. I don’t know why you were up there. Maybe you forgot something and just happened to be there when we came along. You weren’t really trying to shoot anybody, were you? You were probably shooting up in the air. You just didn’t aim high enough.”

  “If I wanted to shoot you, you’d be dead,” she said coldly.

  “Anyway, Jeff told me he was seeing someone but he didn’t want to talk about it. I thought it was a younger woman at first, but putting it all together I figure it was you.”

  “You’ll never prove a thing.”

  “I don’t need to. It’s not a crime—except the shooting and I figure that was an accident. It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Do you have a recorder?”

  “No.”

  Her head dipped slightly in acknowledgment. “My foot slipped on the gravel. When I saw Luther fall down I guess I panicked. Are you going to report it?”

  “No, Luther’s okay. I’m not interested in what you or Jeff Scully do after hours. I’m more interested in where you were yesterday morning.”

  “Yesterday morning? Why?”

  “Were you with Jeff?”

  “Mr. Graham, this conversation is becoming distasteful.”

  “I’m sorry. I understand it might be.”

  “How could you possibly understand?” she said, looking past me then at the fields beyond. “Look around you: What do you see? Galt land, Galt horses, Galt cattle, Galt women. Do you see that Brahma bull in the field out there? That’s Buster. Arlo bought him at auction in Baton Rouge for twenty thousand dollars. It’s his prize possession. He has an old Colt pistol, too, one of the first they ever made. It’s worth thousands. But he didn’t buy it for an investment. He just likes to hold it because it’s his. I married Arlo after his first wife got tired of being a part of his collection. I took her place. And my money took the place of the money he’d spent.”

  I waited.

  “But I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she said, shifting slightly in the saddle, and for a second I thought she’d lost her balance, but then she recovered. “You have no business prying into my private life. If Arlo knew …”

  “If Arlo knew he’d what? Or does he already suspect?”

  She glared at me and I thought for a second she was going to bolt, but she kept herself under control.

  “What the hell do you want? You see all this, you see me. I’m human, I’m not some butterfly on somebody’s collection board. What right do you have to judge me?”

  “I’m not judging you. I’m just saying Jeff Scully’s a decent man, who worked like hell to get where he is, and never let up enough to enjoy the friendship of women. Now I think he’s in over his head and I hate to see it ruin him.”

  “And I’m a man-ruiner? I’m going to ruin your poor, helpless little friend the sheriff?”

  “I don’t know, because I don’t really know you. I just know Jeff.”

  “Do you? Get out of here, Mr. Graham, and don’t come back.”

  I nodded. “However you want to play it, Mrs. Galt.”

  I took the long way to Columbia, swinging out wide into the floodplain and then coming in from the northeast and crossing the old bridge into town. It was sixty miles going this way but I wasn’t in any hurry.

  Once at the courthouse, I found the sheriff’s office and asked to see the detective who’d handled the McElwain murder. Two minutes later a tall man with gray hair, glasses, and a lumberjack shirt came out to the counter and introduced himself as Chief Deputy Forbes.

  I told him my name and said I’d been asked to come to Columbia by the sheriff of Cane River Parish. Forbes gave me an appraising look.

  “You got identification?”

  I showed him the identification card and badge.

  “I’m a Cane River deputy sheriff,” I said, swallowing hard.

  Forbes picked up the ID card, read it, looked at me, and then examined the badge. Finally, he put it down.

  “So you are.” He leaned over the counter. “I heard your sheriff’s got his hands full down there.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I told him. “Now about McElwain.”

  “Burglary that turned into a murder,” the chief deputy drawled. “Screwed up from the get-go. Old man didn’t have nothing worth stealing, much less killing for.”

  “Can I get a copy of the report?”

  “Sure.” His eyes narrowed. “But you don’t mind telling me why, do you? If you got something on this, we’d like to know.”

  I told him about Jacko’s murder and the killing of Clovis Hightower.

  “Damn.” He was already delving through a stack of papers on his desk. He brought out a circular and shoved it across the counter. I saw a list of guns, knives, and serial numbers.

  “Ho
w did you get the list?” I asked.

  “McElwain’s nephew gave it to us. The nephew’s the one that found him. Only relative.”

  “No clues?” I asked.

  “Clues?” The deputy screwed up his face. “You mean evidence?”

  “Right, evidence.”

  “No. Figure there must’ve been a couple of ’em. Real nasty bastards, too. They trussed up old Tom McElwain and beat him until he was almost dead. Then they left him in his own blood.”

  He went to a filing cabinet and came back with a folder. “I’ll make a copy of this for you.”

  Five minutes later he handed me a new folder of papers.

  “You think whoever killed this Reilly fellow killed McElwain?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. Where can I find this nephew?”

  “Charlie?” Forbes laughed. “Probably still in bed. Working ain’t his strong point. Do you know where the old drive-in used to be in Grayson?”

  “More or less.”

  “It’s a street back, wood frame house with a Galaxie on blocks in the side yard. He’s been working on that damn car for two years. I guarantee you won’t miss it.”

  He was right. As I got out a small spotted dog came racing up to yap at me. A radio was blasting loud music from the side of the house and I saw a car on blocks, under a hickory tree whose overhanging branch had been converted into a derrick for a pulley and chain. There, bent over the open hood, was a man in camouflage hunter’s garb and a green hunter’s jacket.

  “Hey,” he yelled when he saw me. “Come here.”

  I walked toward him and as I approached I saw he had a wrench on one of the motor mounts.

  “You got a metric wrench?” he demanded in a loud voice.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “What you say?”

  “I said I don’t have one,” I yelled over the radio.

  “Oh.” He looked back down at the engine and rubbed a greasy hand across his forehead. In his late thirties, he was already nearly bald.

  “Some jack-leg rebuilt the motor couple years ago and used metric bolts when he put it back. Bad idea. Now I got to go down to Wal-Mart and get a new wrench.”

  I waited.

  “You selling something?” he asked.

  “Not me,” I said. “I’m a sheriff’s deputy.”

  “What?” He straightened up slowly.

  “From Cane River Parish,” I said. “I came to ask you about your uncle.”

  “My uncle?”

  I told him about Jacko’s murder and then about High-tower’s. “They found some of your uncle’s guns in High-tower’s house.”

  Charlie McElwain wiped his nose with the back of his hand and squinted over at me.

  “So the ones who done it are dead?” he asked.

  “Two of them, I figure. But there’s at least one left.”

  He nodded and bent back over the engine. “Hey, hold this.”

  I moved over beside him.

  “Take this wrench and hold it here while I twist.”

  I took the wrench, fitted it around the nut, and held it while he applied pressure to the bolt head.

  “Piece of shit bolt,” he said and wiped his hands on a rag.

  “Can you tell me about your uncle’s murder?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I gestured for him to turn down the radio and he complied.

  “Your uncle’s death,” I said.

  “What about it?”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  He stepped back from the car and spat on the ground.

  “Somebody killed him. I come in and he was laying on the floor, beat to shit, everything all pulled out and all over the place. That’s all there was to it.” He shrugged. “They was from out of town.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Shitfire, man, ever’body in town knew Uncle Tom wasn’t worth nothing. Anyhow, he used to keep his money buried in the yard, under this tree. Ever’body knew that. Anybody from around here would’ve dug under this tree first, but they didn’t. All fifty dollars was right where he buried it.”

  “But they took some guns …”

  “A Winchester shotgun, a .22 rifle, a lock box.”

  “A lock box?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know what was in it?”

  He shrugged. “Couple of old coins and pieces of coins he said were Spanish or Mexican. A couple of old papers. A gold wristwatch, I guess belonged to his daddy or somebody. A picture of him with some girl when he was young. And a butcher knife and a pistol.”

  “A butcher knife and a pistol?”

  “Yeah. One of them little .22 Derringers without no trigger guard, cast metal with aluminum barrel insets. Cheap crap like they used to send here from Europe a few years ago. I figured he kept the gun and the knife to protect the rest of the junk in the box. If the gun hung fire, which I wouldn’t be surprised if it would, he’d cut ’em with the knife!” He laughed at the joke. “Whole business pissed me off.”

  “Because they killed your uncle.”

  “Hell, no. Uncle Tom was a mean son-of-a-bitch with battery acid for blood. But he was gonna leave me the Winchester.”

  “And you didn’t see anything?”

  “Just Uncle Tom. I was, well, you might kinda say, drunk that day.”

  I eyed the stack of beer cans on the other side of the hickory tree. No further explanation needed.

  “Look, you think you can get that shotgun back?” he asked suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause this ain’t worth a shit,” he said, throwing the wrench down on the ground and sniffing. “This house, this land, ever’thing here he left me. Ain’t none of it worth a shit.”

  “Tough,” I agreed.

  I started away, but he called after me: “You find that Winchester, you let me know. You can keep the rifle and the Derringer.”

  TWENTY

  I came back the shorter way, driving down the east side of the river, along the floodplain, and then crossing on the ferry at Drayton, to skirt the hills, on my right. Somewhere around Paul’s Creek I picked up a sheriff’s cruiser, which lolled behind me for a few miles and then dropped away, gone, I supposed, down one of the side roads.

  Just before Lordsport I called my home number on the cell phone but no one answered. It was midmorning and Pepper could be any of a number of places—exercising, grading papers at the university, or even visiting Sam—so I left a message, saying I’d be home in three hours and that this time I meant it.

  As I came into town, arcing up through the hills and then down again, I thought of stopping by the courthouse and then remembered that it was Saturday and Jeff probably wouldn’t be there. I wondered if Tally Galt had called him and, if she had, what his reaction would be. Just as well if I didn’t talk to him just yet.

  I headed for the camp to get a few things and this time I saw a sheriff’s car parked just off the road, before the turn-in. As I passed, the deputy kept his head down as if he was reading something, and I swung onto the gravel drive and pulled in beside the house.

  Halfway out of the car I stopped. Something felt wrong. I scanned the windows. Had I left the inside lights on or off? The main room was lit and I realized the shades were all up.

  Then I relaxed: Alice Mae had a key and she might be inside tidying things up. If so, it had been a long walk for her, because I didn’t see the truck. Maybe it was broken down. I knew she’d come to work afoot if necessary just to make up for Luther’s misdemeanors.

  I went up the steps, saw the front door was open, and stepped inside.

  “Alice Mae?”

  Then I froze. The room was deserted but the furniture was upended and dishes had been pulled put of the cabinets and littered the floor. I stepped across the shards, eyes on the hallway.

  “Alice Mae?”

  A groan issued from one of the bedrooms.

  I hurried into the hallway and stopped in the doorway to the main bedroom, wh
ere I’d slept last night.

  Alice Mae Dupree lay on the bed, eyes half open, with only her long hair to hide her nakedness. As I watched she turned her head to one side and groaned again.

  I rushed to the bed and bent over her. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  Another groan. I was reaching for the blanket, which had been thrown on the floor, when I heard the screeching of tires outside and heard doors opening and feet racing on the gravel. The front door crashed open and as I turned toward the hallway a deputy burst into the room.

  “Freeze,” he commanded. “Put your hands up and turn around, real slow.”

  I realized as he cuffed me that he was the same deputy who’d escorted me to Judge Gait’s place.

  “Look, I just got here,” I said. “I passed you on the road. I—”

  “Shut up,” he commanded, shoving me into the hallway and prodding me out into the living room, where I saw three other men, one in a deputy’s uniform and two in plainclothes.

  “Caught him in the act,” he said. “Somebody better get Doc Carraway. Looks like the Dupree girl’s been beat up and raped.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “Reach in my shirt pocket. You’ll find a deputy’s commission, signed by the sheriff, and a badge. I just got here, and if this man didn’t see me pass by two minutes ago he has his head up his ass.”

  Something shoved me from behind and I hit one wall. The other men looked away, as if embarrassed. One of them was already talking on his portable radio and I heard him saying something about a doctor and getting an ambulance.

  “Take him out and sit his ass in the car,” the deputy behind me said. “I figure if we search this place real good we may find some party powder.”

  “I want a lawyer,” I said.

  “I bet you do,” the deputy said and one of the others smirked.

  He led me outside, put me in the back of his cruiser, and shut the door. I was still trying to make sense of it when a white Forerunner pulled up behind the other cars and Chaney Reilly got out. He walked past me as if I didn’t exist and went into the house.