Marshal and the Moonshiner

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Stauffer looked at me for a long time, and I’m sure he recognized someone who made no bluffs. He waved his cigar at the door. “Go get yourself a cup of joe, Johnny.”

  Notch bladed himself to me, trembling not from fear, but from anger.

  “Go on, Johnny. I’ll be all right.”

  Notch’s eyes stayed on me until he disappeared through the side door.

  Stauffer looked past me. “Tell me what the hell’s going on, Red Hat.”

  For the first time I became aware that Maris had followed me into the office. She stepped closer to Stauffer’s desk, and I could see by her red face and quivering lip, she had worked herself up, too. “What’s going on is Jimmy Wells tried killing us last night.”

  Stauffer stood and leaned across his desk. “I don’t like your tone, Deputy. What are you getting at?”

  I pushed Maris aside. “What we’re getting at is Jimmy Wells is your deputy, and he was driving that delivery truck last night. And Dale Goar and someone else who works for you beat me up a couple of nights ago in back of the Kerfoot.”

  Stauffer waved his cigar around, and the smoke passed over us as if he were an Indian blessing us with sacred sage. “The city police stopped by this morning and filled me in. Said someone shot up the First Baptist and Maris’s beater Chevy. They couldn’t find anyone that’d give the descriptions of the shooters.”

  “We gave them descriptions last night,” Maris said. “And I told them one was Jimmy.”

  “So they said. But Jimmy’s on that rustling case. And don’t you think it strange that no one else in that part of town saw anything? Even after the coppers went door to door.” Stauffer snubbed his cigar out and took a fresh one from the humidor. “Guess everyone’s deaf over there.”

  “Or maybe they don’t want to say it was a deputy for fear they might be the next target.”

  Stauffer carefully set his cigar on the edge of a quartz ashtray rimmed with turquoise and stepped around his desk. He took a deep breath while he stood chest to chest with me. “I’m about gut-full of your accusations for one morning.” Spittle flew from his mouth, and his reddening color crept up into his skull, camouflaged only by his wispy, blond hair. “I don’t know nothing about last night. And, like I said, Jimmy’s up in Concho on that rustling case.”

  “Jimmy was the wheel man last night,” Maris said again. “Even though someone else did the shooting, it was his panel truck.”

  Stauffer rubbed his forehead and took a step back. “Jimmy called me yesterday and said he needed more time up north. I told him to stay over and come back today after he wrapped up some interviews.” Stauffer looked around me and motioned to Maris. “Go out and give Melody the description of Jimmy’s truck. Get a pick-up-and-hold order out for him and for anyone else with Jimmy.”

  When Maris left the room to talk with Stauffer’s receptionist, he walked back around his desk and sat. “Bet that made you nervous last night.” He smirked.

  “Someone ambushing me?”

  “Having someone shooting at you, and you can’t do a thing about it. Just like we ran into at the Wood.”

  “Not at all like Belleau Wood.”

  Stauffer leaned forward. His eyes narrowed and fixed on mine. “Sure. It was just like the Wood—we caught rifle rounds in-coming from marines a thousand yards away. Men we couldn’t see. Didn’t know. Shooting at us, and not a thing we could do about it, except wait for them to charge headlong into our machine guns again. Teufel-hunden.”

  “Devil Dogs.” I nodded. “You fools named us well.”

  I sat in one of the chairs situated in a semicircle in front of Stauffer’s desk. I rested my arms on the chair’s arms, which were made from steer horns, and turned the chair so I could watch both doors. And kept my hand close to my gun in case Notch returned uninvited. “This was different last night. This was someone out to kill a federal marshal. And one of your deputies.”

  His face reddened again instantly. “You heard me order Red Hat to have a pick-up order placed on Jimmy. I can’t control what my deputies do twenty-four hours a day.”

  “So, if not you, Jimmy must be working for someone else.”

  Stauffer shrugged. “Who says he’s working for anyone except me?”

  “The shooter had a Thompson submachine gun.” I jumped when the door opened, but it was Maris who entered the office. She stood beside my chair. “You got Thompsons in your arsenal?” I said.

  “Of course we got Thompsons in our arms vault,” Stauffer answered, “but no one can check them out without either me or Johnny approving it. And they are still locked up.”

  “So if you didn’t unlock the vault to give Jimmy a Thompson, that means it must have been Notch.”

  “Now see here—Johnny’s a trusted member of my agency. He didn’t give Jimmy Wells any gun.”

  “Sure?” I said.

  Stauffer picked up his cigar that had died out. He relit the dead soldier and watched the smoke rise to be dissipated by the ceiling fan. Stalling. “Anyone can walk into any gun store and plunk down money for a Tommy-gun.” He dropped his match in the tray. “Nothing illegal about that.”

  “Brings me back to who Jimmy’s working for.”

  “These are hard times.” Stauffer hooked his thumb in one of his silk suspenders. “A deputy’s pay is meager, as Red Hat can attest.”

  Maris remained silent.

  “I’d say Jimmy got caught up in the easy money, with all the illegal hooch rampant from here to Oklahoma City. My guess is someone told Jimmy to off you two.” He snubbed his cigar out in the ashtray. “But when we find him, we’ll find out why he did it. And charge him. The last thing I need is some horse shit scandal about the office.”

  “Especially with the election coming up this fall,” I added, but Stauffer only glared at me through a fog of cigar smoke.

  There was no more to be said. I’d come in convinced that Stauffer had sent Jimmy and the shooter to hunt us up. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I stood and brushed past Maris on my way out of the office. “Where you headed?” she asked, running to catch up.

  “Leonard Brothers. I got to talk with Byron.”

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  I had polished off my second pot of coffee while I talked with Byron. Funny how born-again drunks can put so much coffee away, replacing one addiction for another. Especially when they feel that itch they dare not scratch for fear of ending up drowning in the bottle. We’d examined the state of the nation in this damned Depression, how silly it was congress passed the Volstead Act, and how many folks now opposed Carrie Nation’s crusade to make the country dry. I grew tired of philosophical discussions and turned my attention to Celia Thunder. “You recall Celia and Fenton when they lived here?”

  Byron refilled our mugs. “They’d come in every Friday for a meal. Kind of like their weekly reward.”

  “Who kept an eye on Cat while they ate?”

  Byron looked up at the ceiling, and his fingers moved in time with his lips. “Cat was sixteen or so then. Maybe no one watched her. Or maybe it was aunts or cousins who watched over her. It’s the Indian way, looking after family. All I know is there were ladies willing to look after Cat when she got out of the hospital.”

  “Hospital? She get hurt or something?”

  “Celia said Cat had taken ill with scarlet fever. Poor girl was cooped up in the Catto Hospital for six months right after they moved here. They wouldn’t let her go home until she had a clean bill of health.”

  A roustabout sitting in a corner booth doctored his coffee with whatever panther piss lurked inside his hip flask. His partner across the table bent and whispered, and they both eyed me suspiciously while the flask disappeared back into the greasy pocket.

  “Looks like word got around,” I said.

  Byron spooned honey into his cup and grinned at the oil men. They turned their attention back to their meal. “Small town, Nels. Folks know you are a federal lawman. And they equate all lawmen with those who wa
nt to shut the booze down.”

  “That’s not my job.”

  “All I am saying is that might play into why Jimmy Wells and his shooter took a run at you and Maris last night. Jimmy might be engaged in a side business.”

  “Moonshining?”

  “Some rumor to it.”

  “Well, it just sets wrong that a deputy shot at us. Think Stauffer knows more than he’s letting on?”

  The roustabouts set their money on the counter and left, keeping an eye on me until they disappeared through the curtain of wet sheets. Byron slid the money into the cash drawer and sat on the stool beside me. The button over his protruding belly popped, and he reached under the counter. He came away with a stapler and gave his shirt a couple of quick staples to hold it closed. “Everything about Stauffer is shady, from that gaudy suit he always wears, to a different dame hanging on his arm every night, to that fancy Lincoln a sheriff should not be able to afford. But I cannot say he knew about Jimmy’s little detail last night.”

  Byron stood and grabbed a plate of cookies from the back counter and set them between us. “Baked them last night.” I nibbled on one. Byron wasn’t so demure, and he’d inhaled three by the time I finished dunking mine in my coffee. He looked over his shoulder at a seed salesman eating by himself in a corner and lowered his voice. “What I am certain of, though, is that Stauffer does not like federal agencies telling him what to do. He has tangled with Marshal Quinn now and again when he comes over from the city. Something about Quinn not checking in with the sheriff’s office here before he does business irks Stauffer.” Another cookie down, another in the wings inches from Byron’s mouth. “You watch your backside for that reason, if for no other.”

  The cow bells rattled, and Maris burst through the sheets. She ran to the counter as the seed salesman watched her with curiosity. “They found Jimmy,” she blurted out. She dropped onto a stool beside Byron and clawed at the plate of cookies.

  Byron rested his hand on her back. “Calm down and have a cup of coffee.”

  “Can’t, Uncle Byron.” She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and started in on another cookie. “It’s Jimmy.”

  “Stauffer found him then?”

  “No. A couple kids out shooting squirrels found Jimmy on the road to Geary about twenty miles out of town. Dead behind the wheel of his panel truck.” She frowned. “Gunshot to the side of his head. Damn, Nels, do you think it was one of my rounds that did him in?”

  “You mean do I think Jimmy would have lived that long if you shot him by the church? No. But we’ll find out more when we look at the body.”

  “Jimmy’s not here yet.” She slurped her coffee excitedly. “He’s still in his truck. Mel Fleus is towing it in with his wrecker. Going to drop Jimmy off at the courthouse. Should be there by now.”

  I downed my coffee and followed Maris out to the Studebaker. The car started on the first kick as if it, too, were anxious to get a look at Jimmy. “What if it was my slug that killed him?”

  “Then you can feel that you did a good job. He and his partner would have killed us last night.”

  By the time we reached the courthouse, a crowd had gathered around Mel’s Reo wrecker as he unchained Jimmy’s panel truck. Perhaps we did things different back in Wyoming—and people could call me a hayseed all day—but we were a little more sophisticated in our crime scenes than let a wrecker operator bring the victim in. And allow people to rubberneck the vehicle and victim.

  I moved people aside to give me room as I walked around the truck. Maris followed close. The taillight and side glass were shattered where Maris had hit them; the painted-over business sign of the previous owner was peppered where my slugs had landed. But there was nothing to indicate either of our guns had killed Jimmy.

  I studied the crowd, from the small boys sharing a box of Cracker Jack as they ogled the dead man, to the staid ladies fanning themselves as if offended by the sight they couldn’t drag themselves away from. A familiar face reflected the afternoon light off his bald head, and I tipped my hat to Dale Goar. His hand went instinctively to his bandaged nose, and he disappeared somewhere in the crowd.

  Stauffer and Notch watched the spectacle from the courthouse steps before they approached the panel truck. “Shows over,” Notch said, towering over all the gawkers. “Back away from the truck.” The crowd began to disperse, and Notch looked down at me. “Goes for you, too. This is sheriff business.”

  “I don’t think so.” I moved a step closer to Notch. I’d had enough good times from the sheriff’s office for one day, and I sure didn’t need Stauffer’s thug pushing me around. “This is the same outfit that tried to kill me and one of your deputies last night. Makes it my business.”

  Notch looked over at Stauffer. He nodded his head, and Notch stepped aside. I bent to the panel truck and peered inside. Maris stood on tiptoes looking past my shoulder at Jimmy slumped over the wheel. Dried blood had collected on the back of his neck and matted his fiery-red hair. Flies swarmed around a hole big enough to stick my thumb in. “Did my bullet do that?” Maris asked. I recalled the first man I’d killed as a lawman. Even though it was just me and him shooting across an open pasture, I’d gone into denial until Helen snapped me out of it. I wanted to tell Maris for certain someone else’s bullet killed Jimmy. But all I could offer to give her was my opinion.

  “I doubt it was your .38 by the size of that hole.”

  Stauffer walked to stand beside me. His Homburg was perched at an angle steep enough I thought it would fall off. He grabbed a handkerchief nestled up his suit coat sleeve and covered his nose. “You said you winged a couple rounds Jimmy’s way?”

  “I emptied a magazine at him. Eight rounds,” I answered.

  “So you carry a .45?”

  I nodded. “I told you I did.”

  “Then it might have been your bullet that retired Jimmy from my agency.”

  “Doubt it. By the size of that hole, he couldn’t have made it as far as he did.”

  Stauffer smiled. “And maybe his partner drove Jimmy out to that road to Geary after he died at the shooting last night.” His smile faded. “Either way, I’ll need your gun.”

  “What for?”

  “Marshal Lane.” Stauffer stuffed his handkerchief back up his cuff, and put his hands on his hips “Surely you’ve heard of comparisons of victim’s bullets to that of a suspected weapon.”

  “Sure—it was used in Chicago in ’29 at that St. Valentine’s Day crime scene, and a few other high profile cases . . .”

  “And it will help us catch whoever murdered Jimmy and put him behind bars in McAlester for life. As soon as we do an autopsy on Jimmy and dig that slug out of his brain, we’ll know. See, Marshal Lane, we rubes down here know something about investigating crimes. Your gun.”

  I’ve never given up my weapon before, but Stauffer knew I understood the rules. My .45 would be tested for ballistic comparison. No time soon, but eventually. I skinned my gun and ejected the magazine, racking the slide back and catching the round in the chamber. “How long you going to have it?”

  Stauffer handed the gun to Notch. “What you think, Johnny—will the marshal get his gun back soon?”

  Notch grew serious, but the smile lines around his eyes told me he was anything but remorseful. “The State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigations is pretty backed up. I’d guess Marshal Lane will get his gun back sometime this spring.”

  Stauffer threw up his hands. “There you have it. We’ll get your gun back as soon as it’s tested. Now if you’re done here—”

  “I’m not.” I opened the passenger side door and squatted. “Looks like your Jimmy was a tall man.”

  “Taller than us,” Stauffer said. “Nearly as tall as Johnny here.”

  I brushed broken glass off the seat and slid in the passenger side. When I hit my head on the roof, it made my stitches sing out. I looked over at Jimmy with his protruding black tongue and swollen neck and figured he wouldn’t have minded me sitting next to
him. “Jimmy wasn’t the last to drive this truck.”

  “How’s that?” Stauffer said, midway to stuffing a cigar into his mouth. I had his attention, and he leaned inside the panel. I motioned to my knees bunched up and rubbing against the dash. “If Jimmy was taller than you or me, he wouldn’t have been able to drive with the seat this far forward.”

  “That’s just speculation.”

  “We hicks call it an educated guess.” I grabbed a single hair that had become snagged on a dash screw and held it to the light. “Like this hair.” I held it to Jimmy’s head. It was many shades darker than Jimmy’s red strands. “I’m betting whoever drove Jimmy out to the country and killed him has hair the same color as this.”

  Stauffer took the hair and wrapped it in his hankie. “Evidence,” he proclaimed to the crowd and handed it to Notch.

  I unfolded myself from the truck and set my hat gingerly on my head. “I’m certain you’ll let me know as soon as you find out who the shooter was.”

  Stauffer grinned and hooked his thumbs in his suspender. “Of course, Marshal, you’ll be the first to know.” He turned and patted Maris on the behind. “And you’ll be the second.”

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  Maris turned off the car in front of the Kerfoot and hit the steering wheel. “If I didn’t need this job so badly, I’d kick Stauffer in his little cojones.” She had ranted about him patting her behind ever since we left the courthouse. I tried to steer her toward more pleasant things. “Amos is shorter than me by some, isn’t he?”