Mr. Cooter's Bowling Ball

by Harper Harris

  I was sat across from Coot in his cell. He still seemed weirdly content to be in jail. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get a read on why he was acting this way. Maybe Cooter was just a weird guy and that was the only explanation I was going to get.

  “So, how’s life treating you, Coot?”

  He shrugged.

  “Pretty good. Like I said the food’s great and I was telling the truth when I told you that this firm bench has been great for my sciatica. And, I have to admit, being here has let me think about whatever I want to. I’m not stressing about the day-to-day at the dump and I’ve just been relaxing.”

  How? How has he been relaxing? He should be thinking of what will get him out of this cell. I wasn’t sure if Cooter really understood the severity of a murder conviction. This wasn’t like his occasional drunk tank naps. If he went down for Lonny’s murder, he would never be a free man. He’d probably be able to avoid the death penalty. That was something I wasn’t totally sure on, but, given the facts of the case, I doubted there would be capital punishment, but he would never be a free man. At his age, a life sentence was truly that. If there was a possibility of parole, he might not even live to see it.

  I wasn’t about to dump all of this on him. My plan was to put him at ease, so I continued to do that.

  “That’s nice. I’m glad you can see the bright side of something that’s pretty dim.”

  I did have to give him that. He was looking on the sunny side of life.

  “I try my best,” Cooter said, shrugging again.

  We hadn’t been talking for very long, but it looked like he was fairly relaxed. I decided to take the chance and go for it.

  “And that’s what I’m doing too. Giving you the best possible defense I can.”

  “I know, Kari. You’re the best lawyer in town.”

  He wasn’t immediately putting up his defenses, so I took it as a good sign.

  “Well, I was doing some digging and I wanted to ask you about that vandalism charge you got a few years back and what it had to do with Lonny and the mayor’s wife.”

  I hoped being kind of abrupt about it would shock him and he’d just start talking without realizing it. It’s a police tactic that I’m really bad at.

  “I suggest you ask the mayor’s wife about it. Or Lonny.”

  He was clearly not amused. And, as a matter of fact, neither was I.

  “Thank you for the advice,” I replied sarcastically.

  I didn’t want to get visibly angry with him, but it was in there. I dug through my bag and took out the iPod I had planned on giving him the other night.

  “I got permission from the Sheriff to let you use this while you wait in jail. I thought you might like a little music to pass the time.”

  He took it from me and I took a charger out of my bag as well.

  “In case it dies on you.”

  I didn’t wait for a reply. I turned around and walked right out of the station. I was going to go check on Cooter’s SPAD lead. I didn’t have much else to work with and I hated being idle, so those were the plans I made.

  I also knew that I was a bit harsh with Cooter. My hope in being snippy with him was that he felt rotten about being so obtuse with me. Maybe then he’d realize I was only trying to help him and he could do the same for me.

  Chapter Seven

  Wednesday

  I found myself in one of Appleton’s many churches with Shortbread. I was going to crash the meeting of The Society for the Preservation of Appleton Dignity. The name was a little long, but that wasn’t my biggest gripe with them – if what Cooter suggested was true.

  I got fully into the church and saw that Cindy Carter appeared to be in charge. Of course, she would take any opportunity to further boss the people of Appleton around. After her mother’s unfortunate murder, Cindy had effortlessly slipped into the role of the meanest person in town; a seat left vacant by her mother, Miss June. I didn’t really want to talk her, but I knew it would be necessary for the case.

  I made my way to the front, Shortbread in tow, and greeted her.

  “Hi, Cindy. It’s been a while.”

  Since she sold her mother’s land to Anderson, I didn’t have to come into contact with her as a neighbor, thankfully. She lived to another part of town.

  “Kari, what the devil are you doing here?”

  I could hear how little she wanted to see me. She did nothing to hide it.

  “Nice to see you again, Cindy.”

  Shortbread made his way between the two of us and Cindy looked down at him.

  “And you brought your mutt with you, how cute.”

  I wasn’t a fan of the way she called Shortbread a mutt. And not for the first time. I loved all dogs, but I just felt an overwhelming urge to correct her.

  “Actually, you must’ve forgotten. Shortbread is a purebred boarhound.”

  Those types of things weren’t of much consequence to me, but I would not have Cindy Carter talking about my puppy like he was trash. Oh, I wanted to tear into her, but that would be unprofessional and would do nothing to make my day any better or easier.

  “I’m actually here because I’m looking into the murder of Lonny Krump. I was told this organization might have some information.”

  Cindy turned her nose up at me. “Well, we’re having a meeting right now, so you’ll either have to leave or wait ‘til it’s over.”

  Dear god, I did not like this woman.

  “I guess I’ll be staying then.”

  I posited it like a challenge because I wasn’t going to have Cindy scare me away from this meeting. I had all the patience in the world. I walked away from Cindy and to the back of the church.

  I made myself comfortable, or as comfortable as I could, in one of the pews where I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way or bring too much attention to myself. My parents weren’t religious, and I’d never really been to church when I was younger. So, whenever I found myself in one, I couldn’t just be totally at ease. A part of me always felt out of place.

  When I got there, about three of four people were already seated and then over the course of a few minutes, four to five more people showed up. The meeting was totally lacking in attendance. I’d like to think that it was because Cindy was leading, but who really knew? There were maybe eight people there and they were mostly women and, if I were to guess, all over sixty, except for Cindy. She was about a decade behind everyone else. This made me feel even more out of place with my youth and big city roots. But this wasn’t a group I wanted to feel I belonged in.

  The meeting started with Cindy banging a gavel, an actual gavel, like she had the right to judge anyone. The acoustics in the church made the banging reverberate off the walls, freaking me out a bit with its sharpness. It sounded like Cindy’s personality.

  “So, we’re here for our weekly meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Appleton’s Dignity. Thank you all for being here. Why don’t we start with the usual? Does anyone have anything they’d like to say?”

  After Cindy made her little announcement, one of the women in the crowd stood up.

  “I’d like to lodge a complaint. My next-door neighbors refuse to mow their lawn on a regular basis. I’m not saying regular means every other day, but once a week is the minimum. I do not like how this reflects on my property. They are bringing the entire block down with their lack of lawn care and I was hoping the society could inform them of their misstep. Personally, I have tried to bring it up in various ways, all of them polite and nice, but they just don’t seem to care.”

  “Hear, hear,” someone else yelled.

  “We have been having an uptick of unkempt lawns. I think it’s because we have all these young people moving out on their own and they don’t understand the value of maintenance,” Cindy responded.

  I already didn’t like this meeting. I kind of didn’t like it from the get-go, i.e. walking in and seeing Cindy was in charge, but the general ambience was also unappealing. It looked like this was about to be a bunch of peo
ple coming together to target the locals that they didn’t like and who they felt were offending the public dignity and just rag on them. I really hoped they never actually got around to leaving ‘notices.’ That would be a level too far up. And illegal. It seemed like I got to them on a quiet night because no one else had any grievances.

  “If that’s it, we can move on to our agenda. I’d like to comment on a point from last week about Cooter Prescott and his blasting of that disgusting music from his garbage truck.”

  That ‘disgusting music’ was EDM. It’s what I put on the iPod for him to listen to. I could understand how it could be seen as annoying to have them coming into your house when you weren’t a big fan of it, but I didn’t think it required its own bullet point on an agenda.

  She continued, “I know we’ve all made multiple complaints to the Sheriff asking the police department to do something about the nuisance and they never took us seriously, but it looks like the problem took care of itself. I’m sure you’ve all noticed how quiet it’s been since he was arrested, and we now have a different person going around and picking up the refuse.”

  The room applauded at Cindy’s comment. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was sickened by all the hate and judgement and the fact that these people would applaud the arrest of a man because they were happy their day was a little quieter now. It wasn’t like Cooter was doing anything to hurt them. He just wanted to make his day a little groovier, as he might’ve said. I was disgusted.

  And Cindy had ended up being a continuing disappointment. It seemed she had learned nothing from the bad example her mother set. I wasn’t saying Miss June deserved what happened to her, but the response from the town after her murder should have shown Cindy that hate led nowhere. Being mean and spiteful was a fool’s game and, in the end, there could be no winners.

  The meeting pretty much continued like that for about an hour. Cindy went through a list of people and mentioned whether or not they’ve changed their ways. I was grateful when it was all over, but I couldn’t leave just yet. Lonny hadn’t been mentioned during the meeting which meant I had to ask around to see what the society’s gripe was with him.

  I approached Cindy who was talking with two other women from the society. She saw me walking up and whispered something to her group before turning to me.

  “Kari, how did you like the meeting?”

  I wasn’t going to tell them the truth, but I didn’t want to seem like I was totally endorsing their activities, so I found a middle ground.

  “It was… illuminating.”

  Cindy made a tight line out of her lips. She probably picked up on my dig, but it wouldn’t look good to start a fight right here, right now.

  “Anyway, since the meeting is over now, maybe I could ask you those questions about Lonny?”

  One of the women scoffed and it gave me the biggest hint that these guys also had a big problem with him.

  “Lonny was another… disturbance to the neighborhood. And I’m not saying that we are grateful for his death because no good Christian woman could ever feel that way.” The other two woman made sanctimonious noises of agreement with what Cindy said before she continued. “But almost every single day, he would take his guitar to the town square and play all day long. It was his sad attempt at a job because some of the more forgiving Appletonians would give him some money when he played. But he was a nuisance and needed to be stopped.”

  “We tried talking to Sheriff Cranston,” another woman piped in, “because what Lonny was doing was illegal. There’s a local Appleton law that forbids these types of things, but all the Sheriff did was tell us that no one had enforced that law in years and he wasn’t going to be the one to start. But no one is supposed to play music outside of a church on Sundays. It’s written down in ink, but no one cared. No one ever seems to care about what we have to say. We’re residents of this town and deserve to have our voices heard.”

  Could they hear themselves? The people they were rallying against were also residents and deserved to not have their livelihoods scrutinized by these self-appointed overseers.

  “I see.” It was getting late and I wanted to get there out of there. “Thank you for having me, but I have to get going. Shortbread here needs to get home.”

  “It’s time for all of us to leave anyway,” Cindy commented.

  Everyone started heading out, still tittering over their irrelevant hatred. I needed to get out of earshot of them. Hearing all of this just made me sad. They were getting so worked up over things that could easily be ignored. Their grievances were over some of the most insignificant things. I’d been living here for only a couple months and I’d gotten accustomed to the town’s little eccentricities. Many of them had been here their entire lives and things had probably changed since they were younger, but it wasn’t so hard to just go along with it.

  However, my unfavorable opinion of these people aside, I didn’t think they would have killed over it. It looked like their main method of problem solving or attempted problem solving was to complain until whoever it was folded. I’d keep them in the back of my mind, but I needed to explore other more viable avenues.

  Chapter Eight

  Thursday

  It was the next day and I had worked through the first half of the day. I decided to burn through my lunch hour at the Sheriff’s station. I wanted an update on the investigation and to say hi to the Sheriff. He was nice enough guy, but Sheriff Beau Cranston was basically good at staying elected Sheriff and I wasn’t sure what else. But I liked him. He was in love with Shortbread and seemed pretty honest, just maybe not the sharpest tool in the box.

  I walked into the Sheriff’s station and greeted Cranston. “Hi, Sheriff.”

  I took Shortbread off of his leash, so he could run over to his buddy. I stood by them while Beau rubbed Shortbread’s belly.

  Once they were done, I re-leashed Shortbread so he wouldn’t run around the station.

  I asked Sheriff Cranston, “How are things going along with Lonny’s case?”

  He looked a little uneasy. That made me feel uneasy.

  “Well, to be honest, all we really know is that Lonny was killed somewhere else and his body was moved to the dump,” he confessed.

  “That’s weird…”

  “Also, we have the murder weapon, Cooter’s bowling ball, and it has his finger prints on it.”

  Of course, the bowling ball had Coot’s finger prints, it was his bowling ball. It would be weirder if it didn’t, I felt. But what stuck out to me was that the body was moved. Why would Coot kill someone, and not just any one, his close friend, in one place and then bring the body to the dump? That would be implicating himself since he lived there. None of that made any sense. I’d needed to know where the body was originally before I could come to any conclusion, so I brought up something different.

  “I actually stopped by the dump and saw these pieces of a torn-up postcard. They appeared to have blood on them maybe?”

  I didn’t bring the ones that I found because I didn’t want the police to take them just yet.

  “They were probably already there and got dirty when Lonny’s body was moved.”

  He immediately dismissed my findings, but I could admit that there wasn’t very much to it. But that was why I brought it up. I was hoping to find out more and see if they could potentially be connected. I knew it was such a little thing, but those little things could add up and paint a picture of what happened.

  “And,” he continued, “I know you want to help your client, but I promise that once the investigation is concluded, this office will share our findings. You really shouldn’t be disturbing the crime scene.”

  It sounded more than just a suggestion; it had the tinge of a warning. I knew Beau meant well, but I remembered my first case in Appleton and the fact that if I hadn’t disturbed that crime scene, a murderer would still be on the judge’s bench in Appleton. I’d continue to do things my way but keep it on the down low.

  I said go
odbye to Sheriff Cranston and headed back to the office. I wasn’t going to have to stay late again since I’d been there all my usual hours. I did have to eat lunch at my desk, though. It wasn’t too big of deal to me because when the end of the day rolled around, I gathered all of my things and Shortbread and got myself back home.

  At home, Biscotti was hanging out in the backyard while Ash made dinner, so I let Shorty out back to play with his sister.

  “What are you making?” I asked her.

  It smelled delicious and I wanted to know more. Ashley had a whole slew of spices sitting out on the counter along with some fish and veggies.

  “It’s Catfish Cubion. My mama’s second cousin had a whirlwind romance and eloped with a Cajun who had passed through Appleton for work. Before we knew it, she had moved to Baton Rouge with him. Oh, it was true love, I’m very sure of that, but the fastness of it had taken the family by surprise. It wasn’t that much of a scandal though since someone else in the family had just gotten into a bit of unsavory legal trouble around the same time. Plus, they had an official wedding a month later, so no one really made too much of a fuss.”

  I felt like every recipe Ashley had was a story but I really liked the idea of getting a story whenever I got a chance to try some new food.

  “Am I allowed to know what kind of legal trouble?”

  Ash gave me a look, but it was accompanied by a smile, so I knew she wasn’t upset by my prying.

  “It is a bit of a family secret, but I will tell you that it involved a fire, a duel, and about a quarter of a million dollars worth of rhubarb.”

  That cleared up absolutely nothing. Now I had way more questions like why did someone need or have that much rhubarb? And a duel? Those were like outlawed back in colonial times. I knew I had a famous aunt, but Ash’s family sounded like a myriad of crazy characters. Crazy characters I’d like to meet.