The Genuine Article (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 2)

by A B Guthrie

  “It’s Sunday. If you feel like it, see if you can pick up something in town, anything at all. You don’t have to, though. It’s just a suggestion. Got that?”

  “I’ll feel like it,” I answered. “Could I ask what goes with Mr. Gewald?”

  “You can ask, but I can’t answer. He left. He’s still gone.” He smiled a tired smile. Paper work always made him fretful. “No doubt he’s collared the guilty man.”

  I drove home through the diminishing rain.

  “You go right in and take a hot bath,” Mother said after one look at me. “You ought not to go out in weather like this. You shouldn’t have to. Doesn’t Mr. Charleston know that? Go on. I’ll get a quick snack ready for you.”

  I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, being careful not to brush up against her clean clothes. She had a fresh outfit laid out for me when I got out of the tub.

  Mothers! Well, my mother, anyhow!

  I ate a sandwich and drank hot chocolate and lazed around the house. If I fell onto something downtown, it wouldn’t be on a Sunday afternoon. Night was a more likely time. My father spent the hours reading and dozing. A Hoosier by birth, he was re-reading Booth Tarkington with only occasional interest. My book was Catch-22.

  A half-hour after supper I was ready.

  The rain had slackened even more and the air grown chilly. Who could be sure, it might really snow? That could and had happened in June.

  I parked at the Bar Star. It had just a couple of customers, ranch hands that I knew to speak to. I spoke and at Tad’s gesture followed along to the far end of the bar.

  “You got my thanks, Jase,” Tad said. “I’m going to team up with you and your crew. Gave notice already.”

  “So the sheriff was telling me. It suits me fine. You’ll make out. How about a short beer?”

  He drew it and as I took my first sip said softly so as not to be overheard, “Your man was in town last night.”

  I matched his tone. “Who is that?”

  “Seems I heard somewhere you were on the lookout for Becker?”

  “He was in town, huh?”

  “For a while, anyhow. He got juiced up pretty good. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Not to me. He had just got back from trucking some cattle. I guessed he was going back to Chuck Cleaver’s ranch, but he didn’t say so. He could have passed out.” Tad leaned across the bar, closer to me. “You think he’s guilty?”

  “Mr. Charleston does the thinking. He hasn’t told me.”

  “Well, anyhow, I told you what I know. I feel like a member of your gang already.”

  “Keep it up, Tad,” I said. We shook hands. I finished my beer and went out and sat in the car. After what might pass for thought, I got out and crossed the street to the Commercial Cafe. If there was any official purpose in talking to Jessie Lou, I didn’t know what it was. Still, I went.

  There were only a couple of late diners inside. One girl, a stranger, was waiting on them. The other was clearing the tables after what looked like pretty fair business. I knew her casually. Jessie Lou wasn’t in sight.

  The fat fry cook behind the counter was picking his teeth. I walked over and asked, “Where’s Jessie Lou?”

  “A-ha,” he answered, almost losing the toothpick. “Don’t blame you. She’s some dumpling.”

  “No cracks,” I told him. “Just answer. Where is she?”

  “Pardon me all to hell, officer. She called up sick.” A note of grievance came into his voice. “We needed her, too. Needed her bad. Had to hire a green gal in her place.”

  “Did she say what was wrong?”

  “You don’t ask a young lady that question, now, do you? Sick is what she said and sick, I guess, is what she is.”

  Back in the car, I sat and wondered. Becker in town: Jessie Lou off work. Connection there? Did the facts jell? There was no harm in finding out.

  The curtains were drawn at Jessie Lou’s house and no lights shone in the windows. But sick people didn’t always want light, and there was enough still in the sky to give the house some. I went to the door and rang the bell, rang it again, then again. The door opened a bare crack. A voice got through the crack. “Jase, I can’t see you. I’m not fit to be seen.”

  I had to push my way in.

  Even in the murk of the room I could see swelling on the left side of her face. One eye was so close to shut as to leave only a slit. Before morning it would be blacker, more discolored, than it already was. These things I noticed first. She was dressed in a wrinkled wrapper and wore overrun bedroom slippers. The word that jumped to my mind was woebegone.

  “What?” I said. “Just what? What in hell?”

  Her voice was frail. “I didn’t want to see you this way. No. Don’t turn on the lights. I can’t even stand to look at myself.”

  “Forget that! Let’s sit down. Then you can tell me. You’ll have to tell me.”

  She moved back and slumped on the sofa while I took a chair. “I earned it, I guess. The wages of sin as they say.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Oh, damn it, Jase! Damn it! The chickens came home to roost.”

  “One chicken, you mean? One chicken named Becker?”

  She swallowed. I thought that act hurt her. She bent her head and put her hands to her face and spoke almost in a whisper. “He forced his way into my house. He tried to force me to—you know. He hit me. You can see that. But don’t look anymore, Jase.”

  “Why didn’t you call me? Call someone? You could have done that.”

  “Not then, I couldn’t. Not later, either. My word? What’s it worth? A laugh. Just another fight in a whorehouse.”

  The words rather than Jessie Lou herself made me mad. “It’s not a whorehouse anymore, and for God’s sake quit accusing yourself! Stop right now! I know you.”

  “That’s the trouble. You know. A lot of people know or suspect. What’s the use, Jase?”

  How answer? Like a soul-saver? Like Solomon? Seeing her huddled there in the darkened room, hearing the frail voice, I wanted to cry out a protest. I wanted to swear. I wanted to hold and to comfort her. I did say, “You fought him off. Why? Because you saw purpose in that. What’s the use? Don’t ask that fool question. You saw a use for yourself better than his use of you.”

  One hand came away from her face then, and one big eye looked at me. “I did fight him off, Jase. He didn’t succeed. He did not. You have to believe me. I got away and ran out the back door.”

  “I believe you. Did he try to catch you?”

  “I’m not sure, but he couldn’t catch me, never ever.”

  “No?”

  It might have been my imagination, working there in the gloom, but I thought I saw a crinkle of smile around that one eye. “Never. Bowlegs and cowpuncher boots?”

  I felt we were on better footing, so asked, “Do you know where Becker went? Did he say?”

  “No. To the ranch, I suppose.”

  “Not to Breedtown?”

  She gave me her full face. Even lopsided, it was pretty. You could tell what she really looked like. She said, “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “Why not?” I asked, though the answer lay plain enough.

  “Eagle Charlie.”

  “If Becker killed him, yes.”

  “He was hot after Rosa, and Eagle Charlie wouldn’t make terms. There’s a good reason.”

  “Maybe so, Jessie Lou, but that motive seems weak to me.”

  “How many men have been killed over a woman? You’re an innocent, Jase.”

  She was getting some of her spirit back, and I was glad.

  I got up, resisting an impulse to take her in my arms. I said, “You’re one hell of a girl, Jessie Lou,” and went out, knowing she was.

  The rain had ceased altogether. In its stead was cold. It would be freezing cold in the mountains. If it didn’t rain more and soon, the flood was a flash.

  I thought about going to Charleston’s apartment to report
what I’d learned but voted no. He was up there with Geet, relaxing, enjoying privacy. Tomorrow would be time enough.

  I did go to the Jackson Hotel and asked if Dave Becker was registered. He wasn’t.

  So home for me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The morning was crisp, almost as if touched by frost. Water still ran in the gutters and puddled the low spots, though no more than last night. The whole arch of the sky was clear blue. The sun was only trying to warm up. No flood of great consequence, I told myself.

  I walked halfway to the office before I remembered I had come home in the county car—on official business approved by the sheriff. I walked back and got it running.

  Inside the office I found Jimmy giggling. It wasn’t like him to giggle at any time, much less at ten minutes of eight.

  “What’s up?” I asked. “Feathers in your britches, Jimmy?”

  “You missed yesterday,” he said. “You missed the whole show. Your bad luck.” Remembrance made him laugh.

  “You could tell me.”

  “I will, seein’ as the sheriff hasn’t come in.” He giggled some more. “God and a pisspot, but it was funny!”

  I sat down and waited.

  “It was your Mr. Jesus. He showed up lookin’ like he’d been drug through a mile of old culvert. Soppin’ wet and dirtied up, and he come in with any importance he had left, and his shoes was slickery, and he fell down right there.” He pointed to a place on the floor and laughed again. “It didn’t hurt him, the fall on his ass, I mean, but it sure put a dent in his dignity. I like to split a gut, tryin’ to keep sober-sided just then, but later I let myself go. Talk about a comedown!”

  “Tell me the rest,” I said. “What went on before?”

  “I’m comin’ round to it. What happened was he met Luke McGluke out on the road, both of them in cars, and he squeezed Luke off to the side and got out to put questions to him. Luke, he knew his old wreck wouldn’t outrun a lame goose, so he popped out of it and took out on foot, across the fields, throwin’ mud with each jump, and behind him came Gewald.”

  Jimmy chuckled as the scene formed in his mind. “You know how damn wet it was. Maybe they run a mile—Gewald allowed it was two—but Luke was too scared to be caught. So Gewald went back to his car and come to the office. That’s when he fell on his butt. It did me good, I tell you. Old high-and-mighty sittin’ surprised on his behind, wet as a drowned rabbit and muddy to boot. He was one sore-assed inspector, the bruise to his feelin’s bein’ worse than a broke hip.”

  I kept grinning. “What next?”

  “I gave Gewald time to get his clothes changed and then coaxed Luke into the office. He’d come back by then and was hidin’ out in his lean-to. The sheriff took the board while I was gone.”

  “Keep going.”

  “I had to sit in on the interview, or Luke would have flown the coop. What came of it? Just what you’d expect. Not a damn thing. Luke, he just looked loco, and his answers were straight, I guess, but dim-like. I felt sorry for him. Gewald didn’t. He kept leanin’ on him, like he expected sense to come out of a funny farm.”

  The door opened to admit Charleston. After we’d said hello, he took me to the inner office.

  I could hardly wait to sit down. “Becker’s back.”

  He wanted to know where and how I’d picked up that fact, and I told him the whole story.

  “So we have at least a case of assault and battery against that no-good,” he said.

  “I doubt Jessie Lou would testify.”

  “Maybe not. So you think Becker went back to the Cleaver ranch?”

  “That’s my guess. Where else? He was ahead of the flood. The bridge hadn’t washed out.”

  Charleston picked up a pencil and turned it in his fingers. “I talked to the foreman of the road crew this morning. They’ll put in a temporary bridge, but it won’t be passable until tomorrow. One day of grace for Mr. Becker. We’ll just sit tight.”

  “I hear Mr. Gewald had his troubles?” I said.

  “You might say so,” he answered, grinning. “The bright side is that Jimmy’s in fine spirits. All’s right with his world.”

  “Is Gewald coming around today?”

  “Later on, I suppose. He’s determined to get to Breedtown and bring those two women in. For him I got the loan of a four-wheel drive from the county road shop. That comes under the head of professional courtesy.”

  I thought the courtesy was overdone but didn’t say so. I asked, “Has he started out yet?”

  “No idea, Jase.”

  “What’s for me to do?”

  He lighted his first cigar of the day. “Stick around. Wait developments. Relieve Jimmy, maybe, or Halvor tonight. Attend to what calls might come in.”

  He leaned back and blew smoke at the ceiling as if no matters pressed on him. “Did you ever read any criminal psychology, case histories, psychiatric studies, explanations, that sort of thing?”

  I said I hadn’t.

  “They don’t make much sense, if I’m any judge. According to them no one is a criminal. Behind every crime are personal reasons, compulsions, distortions of personality, explanations that to me in most cases are merely excuses.”

  When Charleston was off and running—an infrequent event—I didn’t interrupt.

  “A child is treated too strictly, so, grown up, he hates mama or papa or the whole world. He’s punished for wetting the bed, so as an adult he wants to pee on the universe. Or he’s ordered to use his right hand when he’s a natural lefty and so his spirit’s deformed. Or he finds mama and papa engaged in the act, and he loves mama himself and so develops a complex. Or, somehow, for reasons that require a lot of expert explanations, he becomes a sex fiend with a set on little girls. All can be explained, and so all is forgiven. Tommyrot.”

  Charleston had to relight his cigar.

  “The worst of it is that nothing is definite. One practitioner says one thing, a second another and a third still another. Put them on the witness stand and they lean toward their fee. Hell, they fall for it. Where the money is, there’s the diagnosis.”

  I dared to say, “You think there’s no honest difference of opinion?”

  “Difference of guesses, made different by who pays the fees. The evidence of that is there in the court records. Godalmighty, Jase, if we had that good a case against anyone, we’d have our murderer.”

  He smiled as if in apology for talking too much. It struck me, not for the first time by far, that he could talk like a well-educated man, which he was, when he wanted to. Then he sobered and went on. “I suppose I oversimplify. I suppose I speak like a single-minded cop. But let it go. Forgive the child, maybe, but accuse the man. That’s where I stand. A son of a bitch is a son of a bitch, and no analysis can excuse him.”

  He took a breath and said, “Now we’ll take up the offering.”

  “Gewald would agree.”

  “We’ll give him that much credit, then.” He took a book out of his desk. “Nothing to do but wait for him.”

  I went out and talked to Jimmy, who was still Merry Sunshine. He didn’t want to be relieved but asked if I would bring him a sandwich and some food for his customers. One of them had been caught with a stolen chain saw and couldn’t make bond. Amussen had collared him. The other had been drunk and disorderly, so disorderly as not to be dismissed as simply drunk. Amussen’s work again.

  I loafed around town for a while, for it wasn’t time for lunch yet. Then I went to the Commercial Cafe—Jessie Lou wasn’t on shift—had a hamburger and coffee myself and went out with the grub Jimmy had asked for.

  I delivered the orders and walked in to see Charleston. He was still reading, and I sat down and played dumb. The telephone interrupted our session. Jimmy spoke to me from the board in the other office. He used the tone of a professional receptionist. “A gentleman and two ladies to see Mr. Charleston.”

  Gewald had learned some manners.

  I reported to Charleston, “Gewald’s here with the wome
n.”

  “Tell Jimmy to show them into the file room. I’ll be there directly.”

  He took his time. He looked at his cigar and settled it on a tray. He stretched. He rose slowly, saying, “Better bring your pad, Jase.”

  Gewald had his visitors seated when we entered and had taken a chair himself. Charleston went over and sat behind his desk, first nodding to the two women. I found a place out of the line of fire.

  Before I did, however, I took a long look at the old woman. She had a sack of a dress and had a blanket drawn over her shoulders. From her headband two braids descended, one cut off short, in respect to the deceased, I supposed. Her Indian face said, “No comment, damn you!”

  But Rosa! She wore a red dress, drawn in at the waist with a sash. Her black hair, let fall, made a striking contrast with the red of her outfit. Though of course she hadn’t, she might have dressed for me, for red and black were my favorite combination. She hadn’t mangled her hair or cut off a finger or otherwise disfigured herself, unless in places I couldn’t see.

  Her face stumped me. How describe it except in loose words like lovely? It looked sensuous, marked by an inheld vitality. Her skin had the tinge of copper. Her features were regular rather than fine, but they went together in a way to halt a man’s breath. It came to me, as I seated myself, that she proved the benefits of miscegenation. It was hard to think, it hurt to think, that time would make her dumpy and wrinkled.

  Gewald looked to Charleston, and Charleston said amiably, “Go ahead. It’s your turn.”

  Gewald wasn’t one to circle around. He was a hammer-and-tongs man. He fastened his gaze on Mrs. Gray Wolf and said, “You hated Eagle Charlie, isn’t that so?”

  No reply. He might as well have addressed granite. Rosa sat impassive, though that word never could quite apply. Some private spirit resided in her, even when she sat without speech or motion.

  “Answer me! Did you hate him? Did he hate you?”

  Another pause with nothing to mark it. “All right, you two quarreled. Yes or no?”

  While he waited for a reply he didn’t get, I found myself stacking Rosa up against Jessie Lou. Rosa had a quality Jessie Lou didn’t. She had that appearance of surging inner life, of basic and primitive impulse. Yet, in spite of what I knew about her, she gave the impression of purity, strongly mixed with the challenge to violate her. Blend those two elements, and a man wants to assert his virility. It struck me that few things were so seductive as innocence, real or imagined. A man couldn’t wait to erase it. Why did I vote for Jessie Lou, then?