Slow Falling (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 6)

by George Wier

  “Thanks,” I said, but my actual thought was: 'It beats bailing you out of the drunk tank.'

  *****

  “Tell me what you're thinking,” Hank said. We cruised along at a ninety-five mile per hour clip and Hank was taking to it as if he were born driving that speed. I've done that kind of speed myself from time to time, but only over the short-haul. A hundred miles of it? Not advised.

  “I was thinking,” I said, “that I don't like any of this. I have to say that my credulity has been strained by everything thus far.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, and glanced my way.

  “Do not, repeat, do not take your eyes off the road, Hank,” I said.

  “Okay. Alright. But what did you mean?”

  “You mean two miles back? I don't know. At the moment I feel like I'm in the Space Shuttle on a re-entry course. But I think we have to go this fast. I don't know why, but it seems like time is of the essence, as they say.”

  Hank glanced over at me, an uncertain look on his face.

  “Okay,” I said, “what I meant was that Dr. Hague and Deputy Kinsey and myself waltzed into a heavily guarded and secure facility last night and liberated a set of files moments before the cavalry came calling for those same files. And the cavalry may have been a bunch of NRC boys and girls, but I don't buy it. Not for a moment.”

  “Why?” Hank asked.

  “They couldn't answer a simple question about a common-denominator element. If I had to guess, I'd say they were some kind of private security masquerading as G-men.”

  “Private security, huh? Well cut off my legs and call me 'Shorty'. You sure about that?”

  “No. Not sure of anything. All I do know is that two people, thus far, are dead. Dale Freeman of Liberty, Nebraska, and Bob Helmsley of Eden, Texas.”

  “Well, I didn't see this Freeman fellow,” Hank said, “but I did see Mr. Helmsley. He was deader than day-old horse hockey.”

  “I didn't see Freeman either,” I said. “But according to Sonny and Bert Hague, the man who walked into Sonny's bar died a grisly death.”

  “What was with all the dirt?” Hank asked.

  “I've been wondering that myself,” I said. “And then all this stuff about radiation. I've got radiation on the brain at the moment.”

  “Tell me,” Hank said.

  “All that us common working people know about radiation is what we got from our high school and college science classes, and what we read about it in the magazines and newspapers. For instance, some people think that the radioactive fallout from the disaster in Japan is still affecting half the continental United States.”

  “I do personally buy that one,” Hank said. “Add all that crap on top of the cell phones and the microwave towers and I'd say we're all hotter than a pistol. Radiation is the scourge of civilization.”

  “You do have an opinion, don't you,” I said.

  “I sure do.”

  “Like I was saying,” I said, “I'm not much on the whole conspiracy theory thing. But sometimes you take a paranoid fellow and look into his life a little, and you know what you find?”

  “What?”

  “Everybody really is out to get him.”

  It was good to hear Hank laugh.

  “So,” I continued, “there's the Moon-landing hoax conspiracy theory, there's all the old Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, there's the Area 51 alien conspiracy theory. The list goes on.”

  “I've heard of those.”

  “Up until a few years back, I would have told you there was no way in the world that someone had figured out how to pinpoint gold deposits with a chunk of meteorite, or that there was really a group of fellows trying to force Texas into seceding from the Union. Or...” I sighed. “So now a guy covered in dirt walks into Sonny Raleigh's bar.”

  “Sounds like the start of a really bad, off-color joke,” Hank said.

  “That's because it is really bad and it is off-color. But is it joke? I don't think so.”

  “I see what you mean,” Hank said. “And I see what you mean about your credib—your...”

  “Credulity.”

  “Yeah, that. I can see how that got all stretched out of shape. And also, now I understand something else.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your attitude,” he said. “Bill, you've had a very ugly chip on your shoulder ever since I met you in your driveway early this morning. And now I know why. You've been pushed around quite a bit in the last twenty-four hours, I'd say.”

  I supposed he was right. Thus far I had felt pushed every step along the way, and I don't like being pushed any more than the next fellow. Laying aside being pushed by having to help Penny out of a bad scrape with regard to her boyfriend, and the familial situation of Julie having the baby, I had been pushed by Sonny, and I had even been pushed ever-so-slightly by Dr. Hague, and I had been pushed hard at the Central Texas Diagnostic Technology installation front gate. The last push had been Julie practically pushing me out of her hospital room.

  “And now I know why I'm paying you,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “To tell me what I should already know,” I said, and began laughing. I laughed long and hard for minutes, and laughed even harder when I realized the miles were greater than the minutes. And Hank, to his credit, allowed me the release.

  “Better?” he asked after the spell had passed.

  “Much,” I said. “Good God, but I have missed having you along, you old son of a bitch.”

  Up ahead the Deputy Sheriff's cruiser slowed. Hank let up on the gas and eased on his brakes. I could see the next County Mounty in line pull out onto the highway and gun his engine.

  “Ahh,” Hank said. “Smooth hand-off.”

  Hank had not slowed us below sixty and we were quickly approaching one hundred miles per hour again. I glanced back to see Ladd's deputy turning back into Chalmers County.

  “When was the last time you had your tires changed?” I asked.

  “Couple of years back,” Hank said.

  “Great.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was 2:30 p.m. when we rolled into Leakey, Texas. The local Sheriff's deputy lead us straight to the Courthouse where the Sheriff was waiting for us.

  “What's all this about?” the fellow asked before even offering his name or a handshake while Hank and I were getting out of his truck.

  “A couple of dead bodies, Sheriff,” I said. You can always tell a southern sheriff at a glance, with a few notable exceptions. They typically wear a cowboy hat, whether a Stetson or a Resistol, or often plain straw. Also, they're usually male, but there are a few female sheriffs, and even most of them wear the hat. It's almost as important as the badge. Next, they carry an aura about them. Call it the weight of their office, call it their essential powers, or call if whatever you will, but it's there and it's as real as the plain western-cut shirts and cowboy boots they also usually wear.

  “Yeah, I know about the dead guys,” he said. “Dirt, radiation and everything. What I don't know is what any of that has to do with my county.”

  I offered my hand and he shook it, there beneath the shade of a lone oak tree adorning one corner of the expansive Courthouse lawn. The Courthouse itself was a long single-story white stone structure connected to a more ancient jail house, which was fitting for the County Seat of Real County, Texas. The town of Leakey itself boasts a population of less than four hundred people. From my scant knowledge and one visit there in my younger years, I recalled that the town subsisted from tourism for the nearby Frio River, and off of horse and cattle ranches, which tend to be rather large spreads even by Texas standards. A ranch that doesn't encompass at least three thousand acres is considered locally as a small operation.

  “Bill Travis,” I said.

  “Good to meet you, Travis. Doyle, Doyle Dupree.”

  “Sheriff Dupree—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “Just call me Doyle. We've had nothing funny going on in Leakey, or anywhere
hereabouts, except for a strange character lately. So I hope that you're not needed here.”

  The man stood six foot four in height, his broad shoulders seemed to have shoulders of their own, and he appeared to be in that indistinct range of age somewhere between thirty-eight and forty-nine. His hair was a sandy-blond, but curly, and I had the impression that he had to fight the local women off with a stick. Also, from his grip, I took him for a rancher when he wasn't busy being a lawman.

  Hank Sterling offered his hand and his name and the two shook.

  “We're glad you've had no trouble,” Hank said. “We're here to see that you don't.”

  “Mighty fine,” Doyle said. “Who or what are you looking for?”

  “Moe Keithley,” I said.

  “The author fellow?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “Please tell me you haven't also shaken hands with him.”

  “I haven't. And why shouldn't I have?”

  “Because,” I said. “I believe he came in contact with both of the recent corpses.”

  Sheriff Dupree whistled. “Well, that explains it, then.”

  “Explains what?” Hank asked.

  “Well, first it explains those Nuclear Regulatory fellows who left empty-handed this morning.”

  I felt the too-familiar sinking feeling coming on.

  “And second?” I asked.

  “It also explains that other fellow taking Keithley with him right before the government people got here.”

  “What fellow?” I asked.

  “That doctor fellow,” Sheriff Dupree said. “Hague, his name was.”

  Hank chimed in: “Bill, we're late.”

  *****

  I tried to get Bertram Hague on my cell phone right then and there in front of the Real County Courthouse with Sheriff Doyle Dupree and Hank Sterling standing by.

  There was no answer from Dr. Hague, nor did I expect one.

  Going back over it in my mind, I had been right to be suspicious about the ease with which we'd waltzed into the industrial plant. There were a couple of key points where my bluff should have shattered like the invisible eggshell it was, but I hadn't been alone. There had been Patrick—whom I had known for many years and who was therefore above any suspicion—and then there was Dr. Bertram Hague, who had purportedly called me up at the behest of Sonny Raleigh. Which cued my next call.

  I made the call to Sonny Raleigh. Sonny answered on the first ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Sonny, it's Bill.”

  “Yeah, what'cha got?”

  “Did you tell Dr. Bertram Hague to call me?”

  “Yeah. Shouldn't I have?”

  “I don't know. Who is he?”

  “As far as Pud says, he was there at the bar when that old guy came in and dropped...” Sonny's voice trailed off.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It's just that Pud says that this Dr. Hague fellow had only been coming around the bar for the last several weeks. When he first got there he wasn't one of the regular Harley riders who come in, but that after his first visit he later shows up with a Harley.”

  “Maybe he took a shine to motorcycles,” I said. “Or maybe his hog was in the shop. There could be a good explanation for what's going on.”

  “What's it all about, Bill?” Sonny asked.

  That sinking feeling was there, but it had worsened.

  “I don't know, Sonny. It's just... something isn't right. Any idea where I could find this Hague fellow? That is, if I were in West Texas?”

  “Oh hell, what are you doing in West Texas? Wait a minute—I don't want to know. Tell you what, Bill. I'll have Pud call you in a bit. He's down at the bar now getting it ready to open again. The government people have allowed me to open back up, now. Clean bill of health and all that. I'll tell you something funny, Bill. According to Pud, those government men were vacuuming my hardwood floors before they gave the all clear for Pud to come back in. They had on those environmental suits and everything. Now, if it was safe and they give him the all clear, then why were they vacuuming? And why the suits?

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But you're right. It does sound funny.”

  “Also it's interesting that there's no mention of the dead guy in any of the local papers or on the news.”

  “And there won't be,” I said. “You can count on it. I've gotta run, Sonny. Yeah, tell Pud to call me when he gets the chance.”

  “See ya, Bill.” Sonny hung up.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hank walked around the town square and poked his head into a few shops while the Sheriff invited me inside his office for a brief chat. Hank doesn't like the inside of Sheriff's offices, police stations, or jails, and from what I knew of his history I could understand that sentiment. I had no great love for the places either, but not from having been forced to spend the night in a jail, or at least on the wrong side of the jail cell bars. For Hank's part—with a checkered past that in the main consisted of bouts of severe alcoholic binges and occasional run-ins with the law when he was three sheets to the wind—he'd waked up in more jails without any memory of how he'd gotten there than any other person I've known.

  For my part, there was to be a cup of hot coffee in the offing, which I was definitely in need of to prop up my drooping eyelids. The offering of coffee didn't seem to interest Hank Sterling, however, which I took to be yet another symptom of the new and improved Hank. Probably the son of a bitch would outlive me, even if he was nearly twenty years my senior. Then again, I'd also known former alcoholics twenty years off the wagon who'd dropped dead of liver disease in what would have otherwise been their middle years.

  “What I want to know,” Sheriff Dupree asked me inside his office, “is what this is really all about.”

  “I'd like to know that as well,” I said.

  Doyle Dupree's office was a mix of southern law enforcement and cowboy motiff with a few out-of-place odds and ends thrown in, such as the foot-tall metal sculpture of dolphins chasing each other in the surf. It was about as out-of-place as anything I'd ever seen in West Texas. But then there was the obligatory Texas Lone Star flag under glass beside a window onto the main street outside. The sun was low in the sky beyond the town square. At that moment, Hank Sterling sauntered into view, paused in front of an office on the town square, then disappeared through the front door.

  “But what I really need,” I said, “is some pointer as to where Hague and Keithley went. And why. So, if you don't mind, can you tell me the story, as far as you know it, of Keithley's stay in Leakey over the past few days?”

  “Sure,” Sheriff Dupree said. “I'd be happy to. But after that, you may want to go have a look at his hotel room. He stayed at the Star Of Texas Inn. It's just a few blocks south of here. Also, you'll want to talk to Nellie Boscum, who runs the place. He might be able to remember something. Hell, I'll go with you. You've got my curiosity up pretty damned high and I'm overdue for a visit to Nellie's cafe. His cook makes a mean peach cobbler.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, and sipped my coffee. It was strong and black and I could feel it coursing through my blood after the first few sips. And my stomach began to rumble with the mention of peach cobbler. “We got here as though the hounds of hell were after us, Sheriff, and I can't help but think there's some urgency still, although I have no idea in which direction to go. So, if you could, please tell me about Moe Keithley, Bertram Hague and the NRC people.”

  “Yeah,” Sheriff Dupree said, then propped his boots up on the corner of his desk and interlaced his fingers over his stomach. “Here goes.”

  *****

  Moe Keithley came into town in the middle of the night as if he were The Ghost Rider or some creature from the Apocalypse, his motorcycle belching flame and his white hair all frizzed back and his eyes jittery and nervous. He woke up Nellie Boscum by leaning on the night buzzer at the hotel, checked himself in, got a key and let himself into his little hotel room. That's when the weird stuff began happening.

&n
bsp; At about three in the morning, he had waked up the other guests with a series of long, blood-curdling screams emanating from his hotel room. The neighbors to either side of him, both of them also bikers, banged on his door for several minutes until the screams abruptly ceased. Of course, by that time a Sheriff's deputy was en route. When he got there, Keithley opened his hotel room door rather sheepishly, asked what it was all about, and had to spend several minutes going through a nystagmous test—which is the test where the officer shines his light in the subject's eyes and gets him to perform various mental and physical tests while watching to see what happens with the eyes—to see if Keithley was high or on narcotics. When Doyle Dupree's deputy was satisfied that the old fellow was simply “tripping”, as he put it, whether as a result of having seen the old fellow drop dead up near Austin the day before or whether it was simply from Keithley being Keithley—he took down his name and made a report and let the odd fellow go back to bed. And by that time, everyone staying in the hotel hated the man, including Nellie Boscum, who gave him a stern warning.

  About eleven the next morning, Keithley came into Nellie's cafe demanding breakfast—which had already been cleared away—and made a big scene in which he demanded flapjacks and scrambled eggs. Nellie tossed him out on his ear and felt better about being rid of the guy.

  But it didn't end there.

  The next call came from a rancher, a fellow named Bruce Boyd, who gave a description that instantly pegged his problem as Moe Keithley. His real name, by the way, is Missouri Canter Keithley, which got the Sheriff's Office, the Courthouse crowd and even the two local prisoners into an avid discussion about odd first names. Sheriff Dupree went out to the ranch himself, escorted Keithley off of the property amid the fellow's shouting “We have a right to know!”—whoever “we” was supposed to be. Keithley got back on his bike and headed back into town, where he went to the local newspaper office and demanded any and all information on any traffic accidents that had occurred in the county in the last ten years. He specifically demanded access to the newspaper microfiche file—which didn't exist and had never existed—and failing that, demanded access to a hard copy of every newspaper published in the past ten years.