Early's Fall

by Jerry Peterson

  “Your name, sir, for my records?”

  “Plemmons—P-L-E-M-M-O-N-S—corporal, Kansas State Police.”

  The guard leaned down. He looked through the window past Plemmons. “And your passenger, sir?”

  “Early,” Plemmons said, “spelled the normal way. Sheriff, Riley County.”

  “Thank you, sirs, another moment, please.”The guard turned back to a desk in the post. He hand-stamped something and handed it to the trooper. “Put that on your dashboard, sir. That pass will get you around. Return it on your way out, sir.”

  Plemmons saluted and drove on. “Kid can't be more than nineteen, and we're trusting the safety of our nation to him?”

  Early took off his sunglasses. He cleaned them as the cruiser rolled along, past manicured hills, the grass mowed so evenly Early could picture a ground-pounder measuring each blade with a ruler. And no clippings left behind to detract from the appearance of regulation neatness.

  “You were probably his age when you went in,” Early said.

  “No, twenty-four. You?”

  “Two years older.”

  “I'm tempted sometime to blow past him on lights and siren, just to see him mess his pants.”

  “Dan'l, he'd have the MPs all over you.”

  “Not before I gave them a merry chase. I got a V-Eight, and all they've got are those dinky four-cylinders in their Jeeps.”

  The road ahead split. Plemmons slapped his clicker down and bore left. After he and Early passed through a meadow, they topped a rise. Before them laid an expanse of limestone buildings, each one story and long as a football field.

  “Horse barns when this was a cavalry post,” Plemmons said. “You can almost smell them. I tell you, it had to be something to see a thousand soldiers lead their horses out for morning parade and mount up.”

  Early hooked the bows of his clean glasses back over his ears. “I did, a couple times before the war.”

  “The heck you say.”

  “Dan'l, I grew up not ten miles from here. My dad raised horses for the Army.”

  “And you went in as infantry?” Plemmons pushed his clicker up and aimed his cruiser toward another cluster of limestone buildings, these two- and three-stories tall. He parked in a slot marked “visitor” in front of the most imposing of the buildings, an American flag and a unit flag for the First Division—the Big Red One—flying from poles at either side of the entrance, the flags limp in the breezeless morning air.

  Plemmons and Early left the cruiser. They shambled up the walk, Early in his wrinkled tans, a contrast to the trooper in his pressed uniform and his campaign hat worn regulation square.

  A full colonel trotted down the front steps, his hand out. “Daniel, good to see you. If you'd called ahead, you wouldn't have had to wait at the guard shack.”

  “Not a problem. Steve, this here civilian is James Early, sheriff of Riley County. You know him?”

  “Haven't had the pleasure,” the colonel said, Davidson on the nameplate over his breast pocket. He shook hands with Early.

  Davidson turned back to Plemmons. “The corporal said you want to see the Old Man. Mind if I ask what it's about?”

  “You heard about the murder of the schoolteacher up by Leonardville?”

  “Read it in the paper.”

  “We've got reason to think the doer might be here on the post.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “We're going to need the general's help.”

  Davidson, hands on his hips, kicked an imaginary stone away from the edge of the sidewalk. “Daniel, he's in a sour mood. Just got word the division's budget's been cut, that we may be losing one, maybe two companies of men and equipment. He's not going to like this. . . . Well”—the adjutant gestured to a squad of horse cavalry cantering across the parade ground that fronted on the headquarters' buildings—“that's him on the white charger, out there with his boys, shaping them up for a ceremony this weekend.”

  Early nudged Plemmons. “He's got a saber. You sure you want to do this?”

  “I'll take you over,” Davidson said. He stepped out at a quick pace that took the trio across the road and onto the parade ground. A quarter of the way out, they stopped and watched the general drill his color guard. “I've got an old sergeant who does this, but when the general's mad at the world, he orders his horse saddled and tells the sergeant to go suck coffee for the morning.”

  The unit moved with precision, wheeling on command, the four horsemen of the color guard and their mounts moving as one, flowing seamlessly from a walk to a canter to a full gallop and back. The unit rode by the three men on foot. One rider—two stars on his hat—peeled off and trotted his horse up to Davidson.

  “They're looking good, general,” Davidson said.

  “Nothing like being chewed out by the Old Man to shape them up.” The rider, ramrod straight, rested his reins hand on the pommel of his saddle. His face, with not a hint of a smile upon it, showed age and a confidence in his authority, yet the man ignored the civilians and continued to watch his color guard. “Custer, if he was alive, would be proud to have these men riding with him. . . . Who ya got here, Steve?”

  “Trooper Plemmons and Sheriff Early. There's something pressing they have to talk to you about, the murder of that civilian last week.”

  The general swiveled toward the intruders. “Spill it. I'm listening.”

  Plemmons took a scrap of paper from his pocket. He glanced at it, not because he needed to see anything on it, but for effect. “You got an officer on your post, a colonel whose wife died a couple years ago, he's got a little boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “His name Taggert?”

  “Seth Taggert, that's right. Commands one of my artillery companies. What's this about?”

  Plemmons put the paper back in his pocket. “We need to talk to him.”

  “Not 'til I get some details.”

  Early, listening, shifted his weight. “General,” he said, “we have reason to believe your Colonel Taggert is involved in the murder.”

  “Sonuvabitch. All right, let's hear the reasons.”

  Early sucked in a lungful of air. “He had an affair with the murdered woman.”

  “That doesn't mean beans. What else you got?”

  “It's enough for a start. We'll know more after you order him to talk to us.”

  “Not gonna happen. You bring me some real proof and I'll have the sonuvabitch up on charges in my own court.”

  “But this is a civilian matter,” Early said.

  “Look, the colonel's my boy. You don't like it? Write your congressman.” The general rammed his spurs into his horse's flanks and rode off at a full gallop toward his color guard.

  Davidson turned to Early and Plemmons. “I told you he was in a sour mood. I could order my inspector general to make a discrete investigation . . . keep it from the general.”

  “And your inspector'll paper it over,” Plemmons said. He squared off in front of the adjutant. “Worse, the general will transfer Taggert to Europe. I'm an old Marine and Cactus is former Army. We know how you guys play the game.”

  “He won't be transferred.”

  “The general's authority trumps yours.”

  “Dan, I can do things here.”

  “Huh-uh. The only one who can do something here with this matter is the general. You know it, and I know it.”

  “Dan—”

  “No. This was a courtesy call, and I want you to tell the general that. And I want you to tell him the next calls he gets are going to be from the governor, two United States senators, and the biggest damn busload of newspapermen he's ever seen.”

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  August 26—Friday Afternoon

  Scrimmage

  “You really think you can get the governor in on this?” Early asked as Plemmons backed his cruiser out of the visitor slot.

  “Oh yes, he's my uncle.” Plemmons grinned, his grin as wide as morning. “First year I was a trooper, I was
his driver. Absolutely hates the Army.”

  “Why?”

  “He was a buck private when Patton was the commanding general here. Got his bee-hind kicked by Patton for some minor infraction. But I'll do one better than call Uncle Frank. Want to go for a ride tonight?”

  Plemmons, at Early's request, dropped him off in front of Manhattan's Ranchers & Merchants Bank, the biggest bank in the county, a sterile place for all the wealth deposited there—marble lobby housing four teller cages, each behind bulletproof glass and topped by barbed wire so no bandit could get at the tellers and their cash drawers, behind the tellers the bank's safe, to the side a plain wooden desk behind which sat a secretary and, behind her, the doors to two offices, the bank president's and the head teller's—the men who handled the bank's loans and investments. Early headed for the desk.

  “Marvelle,” Early said in a greeting to Miss Marvelle Old-strum, a handsome woman who had guarded access to the bank president for as long as he could remember.

  She looked up from something she was typing. “Sheriff.”

  “Is old Hi in?”

  “And in what reference might this call be? Want to open an account or are you needing a loan?”

  Early chuckled at that one. He did his banking at Randolph. “Just social,” he said.

  “I'll see if Mister Dodds will see you.” She left her desk, walked less than five paces across the marble floor to a door with frosted glass, the gold lettering on the glass reading HIRAM DODDS, PRESIDENT. She opened the door, said something, and turned back to Early. “Mister Dodds says he will be pleased to see you.”

  Early peeled off his hat as he went around Marvelle's desk and on into the bank president's office, the door closing behind him before he could reach back to close it. “Hi,” he said, extending his hand.

  Hiram Dodds came around his massive walnut desk and, like a car salesman, pumped Early's hand, his face alight with an immense smile that showed well his highly polished teeth, one to the side capped with silver. “Jimmy, you don't get here often enough,” he said. “Come on and sit with me on my couch.”

  To the side stood a leather couch that could accommodate the bottoms of four hefty men, but of greater interest to Early was a wildcat crouching on a shelf above the couch, looking as if it intended to pounce on anyone who came near.

  Dodds noticed. “Got him last fall over in Geary County, didn't you know that? Bank client over there said the cat was spooking his cattle, so he and I went hunting, and I bagged him. By weight and his height at his shoulders, the conservation department people tell me that wildcat's the biggest one on record.”

  Early eased onto the couch. As much as he tried not to, he still glanced up at the cat.

  “Jimmy,” Dodds said as he sat down, “I can assure you that one's quite dead. If he wasn't, don't you think he'd have eaten me by now?”

  “Wildcat, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, they are best when they are dead.”

  “As an old cowboy you understand that. So how social is this visit?” Dodds took two cigars from a humidor on a side table and offered one to Early.

  Early studied the stogie. “This is not like the White Owls I get down at the drugstore. If you don't mind, I'll save this—give it to a judge who will appreciate its quality.”

  He slipped the cigar into his shirt pocket while Dodds flicked open a Ronson desk lighter. Dodds put the flame to his own cigar and puffed away, getting a good burn going. He expelled smoke between each puff, changing the hue of the air in the office.

  “Hi,” Early said, “you wouldn't by chance be holding the paper on Bill and Judith Smitts's house?”

  The banker tapped some ash into a silver tray on the side table. “Shame, isn't it? She was a nice person. Her death's really destroyed Bill's life.”

  “I expect it has. . . . But the paper?”

  “You know I don't like discussing the business of my bank's customers, but yes, I hold the mortgage.” Dodds blew smoke from the side of his mouth as he glanced at Early. “You already know that, don't you? You checked with the registrar of deeds.”

  “Hi, as near as I can tell you loaned Bill and Judith the full value of the house. Bankers don't do that.”

  “Might as well know I also increased their loan so they could buy the new car.”

  “You'd never get that by a bank examiner, not without having some kind of collateral beyond the house and the car.”

  “How about five thousand dollars in a savings account?”

  Early's eyebrows rose.

  “I told Bill to make the loan work, I had to have something to fall back on if he failed to make his payments. Next day, he gave me five thousand dollars—cash, mind you, not a check—and promised not to draw on it until the day he could burn his mortgage.”

  “Were you curious where he got the money?”

  “I'm not curious where anybody gets the money as long as they deposit it in my bank. Why are you so interested?”

  “Oh, I don't know. But I'm going to ask you one favor.”

  Dodds sucked on his cigar.

  “You handle most of the property sales your bank finances. If Bill asks you to sell his house, I want you to call me.”

  “And why should I do that?”

  “May come a day you might want a favor.”

  Early strolled away from the Ranchers & Merchants wondering what he had learned. Why would anyone borrow a pile of money when he already had a pile? And where did the pile come from? Smitts hadn't worked for the U-P all that many years, and Judith's teaching check wasn't much. At the corner he crossed the street to the courthouse and went on to the side entrance where he found Pop Irving waiting on the liars' bench, feeding the squirrels.

  “You sure got a like for the critters,” Early said as he ambled up.

  “They're free like me.” Irving shucked a peanut. He tossed it out on the grass. “Why'dja ask me to come by? I'm not in trouble, am I?”

  “You like football?”

  “It's moderately interesting, though I don't profess to understand it. Baseball, that's what I played as a kid. Not half bad.”

  “Nice afternoon like this, let's go up to the college and watch some football.”

  “Be all right.” Irving jerked his head to the side, several vertebrae in his neck crackling like popcorn. He shuffled to his feet and gathered his bedroll from where he had left it at the side of the bench. “So whatcha been doin', Jimmy?”

  “Oh, not a lot,” Early said as they strolled around back to the parking lot where Early had left his Jeep. “Been out at Fort Riley to ask a few questions. You've heard about the murder in our county?”

  “Talk o' the jail. You tellin' me someone out at the fort had something to do with it?”

  “It's possible. Pop, at this point anything's possible.”

  Irving fitted himself into the passenger seat of the sheriff's Jeep, Early slipping in behind the steering wheel. He fired up the engine and rolled the one-time war machine out onto the side street and away, north to Bluemont and west to K-State, Irving riding at ease in the warmish air of late summer swirling about him.

  “Reminds me of the time you an' me rode across Nebraska on top of them boxcars,” Irving said. “It was a beautiful day.”

  “Thank God we had the sense to jump off before we got to Lincoln.”

  “Yup. The bulls was waitin' fer us. They thumped our buddies in the yard.”

  Early turned in at the graveled parking lot beside Kansas State's low-slung stadium built from cut limestone, the stadium's walls rising up into medieval battlements. Spectators could sit in the bleachers and imagine knights on horseback jousting before crowds from the king's court. The crowd this day was a rag-tag collection of students, Early guessed from their looks, with a scattering of somewhat better-dressed adults among them. He guided Irving across to the west side, to put the sun at their backs.

  As they settled in, three rows up from the grass, someone walloped Irving. The blow whanged o
ff the back of his head and knocked Early's hat away as it swept on.

  “Why you bring that old man here?” a woman bellowed, her face red, mouth snapping into a harsh line.

  Irving, a hand clasped over the back of his head, spun around before Early could recover his hat. “Ella? My, gawd, woman, it's a free country.”

  “T'aint free with you around.”

  Ella Irving launched herself at her husband's throat. He went over backward, down two bleachers with her on top of him, the tangle startling a number of spectators, horrifying others.

  Early jumped after them. He got hold of the woman's shoulders, but she again swung her massive purse. Irving twisted away and the blow carried on to Early, whacking him in the side of his face.

  “Ella, that's enough!” Early, staggering, hauled the woman back, and Irving scrambled out of her reach. “You looking to get arrested?”

  “After what he did to me, you ought to arrest him.”

  “That's in the past. This is now.”

  “Not to me it isn't,” Ella said, her eyes narrowing as she studied Early. “I come to watch my son play some football. If you're gonna let that mean old man stay, I'm leavin'. I'm going home.”

  She wrenched at the seat of her dress, straightening her hemline, then stomped down off the bleachers and away up the sideline.

  Irving held out a shaking hand. “You gonna let her do what she done to me?”

  “Don't you think you deserved it just a little?” Early touched his ear. “Think I took the worst. Can't hear too well.”

  He clambered back up into the bleachers and settled himself, gingerly feeling around his ringing ear. “Pop, get your butt up here and sit down before I arrest you just for something to do.”

  “I didn't do nuthin'.”

  “I don't care. Get back here.”

  Below, a gaggle of players charged onto the field. They ran toward the long bench in front of Early and Irving. And then came another gaggle, heading for the bench on the opposite side of the field.

  Irving tapped Early's knee. “What's goin' on?”

  “A scrimmage. It's a bunch of K-Staters who want to make varsity.”