No Second Wind (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 3)

by A B Guthrie

  Charleston sat down. “How did you get in?”

  “I heard the dog howling.”

  I interrupted with, “He wasn’t the only thing howling last night.”

  Charleston glanced at me, said only, “So I noticed,” and turned back to Doolittle. “So you broke in?”

  “Now, chief, you ought to know me better than that. The door was unlocked.”

  “Doubtless. Doubtless,” Charleston said. A smile touched one corner of his mouth. “Otherwise you might have needed a warrant.”

  “Maybe not, with the dog howling so pitiful. You wouldn’t want me to face a charge of cruelty to animals, would you?”

  “Heaven forbid. So Coletti didn’t have a gun in the house?”

  “Nary a one. What’s more, Tim Reagan told me firearms weren’t their ticket, not his or the gang’s. Come trouble, they relied on shillelaghs and bicycle chains.”

  “And knives?”

  “That was only Coletti.”

  The switchboard called. Charleston answered and said, “Have the chief come on in.”

  City Police Chief Leo Bandy came through the door. He was a small round man with a large round face. With what seemed an effort he was holding his chest out. He ignored Doolittle and me and spoke directly to Charleston. “This has got to stop. I’m telling you that, Charleston.”

  “Sit down, Chief Bandy. I’m listening.”

  “Be damned if I sit down. I just come with a message, that’s all.”

  “What’s got to stop?”

  “You taking jurisdiction where it belongs to me. A man killed and a girl beat up right in the city limits. That’s my territory.”

  “Nobody kept you out.”

  “And nobody notified me, not you or anybody else. Goddamnit, everybody calls you. What you think we got a city force for?”

  Charleston raised one eyebrow. “Force?”

  “Right now, it’s just me and one officer, but by God we’re here.”

  “So.” Charleston drew out the word. He made a doodle on a piece of scrap paper. “Suppose, then, we turn over to you all that we have and resign from the cases?”

  “Now I didn’t say that.” Some of the bluster had gone out of Bandy. “You’re too far in to get out, and we’re too far out to get in. I was pointin’ to the future, that’s all.”

  “Message received,” Charleston said, staring Bandy down. “Here’s the answer. This office is responsible to all the taxpayers of the county, those within the city limits included. They pay taxes, too. We will continue to meet our responsibilities with or without you, in the county and in the city. Do I make myself plain?”

  “You heard what I said,” Bandy answered and turned toward the door. His chest had resumed its normal position in his belly.

  “I heard you. Thanks and good-bye.” Charleston watched the door until it closed, then said, “Pisswillie.” It was his word for trifling vexations. “Maybe we can get down to business now.”

  I spoke what was first in my mind. “Those wolves howling last night?”

  Charleston said slowly, “What sounded like wolves.”

  “Begging your pardon,” Doolittle interjected, “they were wolf howls sure enough. I’ve heard many a one, from singles and packs. What’s more, on a still Arctic night their voices will carry six miles.”

  “I don’t doubt that carrying quality,” Charleston said and didn’t say more.

  I wanted to add that the howling I had heard didn’t strike me as the tail end of sound, but Charleston dismissed wolves with a thrust of his hand. “Coletti ought to be alert enough now, no matter what Doc shot into him. Go see, will you, Ike? Bring him in then.”

  After a minute or two Coletti came in the back door, guided by Doolittle. His eyes took in Charleston and me through swollen lids, and he said, “Sons of bitches.”

  He might have been a prizefighter the next morning after fifteen losing rounds. Bruises put his face out of shape. They were turning from red to purple to yellow and green. His broken nose, packed, showed white at the nostrils. Of necessity he breathed through his mouth, and, when he spoke, his tongue moved behind a gap in his teeth. For an instant I felt guilty, but only for that long.

  “Sit down, Mr. Coletti,” Charleston said. “We have some questions to ask.”

  “Hey, that’s my dog,” Coletti said. “Come here, you Bipsie.”

  The dog crept, cowering, under a chair, and Charleston remarked, “Obviously he knows you. Sit down.”

  Coletti seated himself shakily. If the sedative had worn off, the hangover hadn’t. He told Charleston, “I want a lawyer.”

  “Any time, but I must tell you that the testimony of witnesses will be more damning than anything you may admit. I am speaking of last night.”

  “So what about it?”

  “First, let’s deal with the night of Pudge Eaton’s death. Where were you at the time?”

  “Oh, no! You can’t hang that on me. Son of a bitch if you can.”

  “Perhaps not, but you weren’t at the Chicken Shack. We know that. So where were you?”

  “I don’t have to tell you.”

  “No, you don’t. Of course you wouldn’t want to if you were taking pot shots at the lights. What was the reason for that? Had the Eatons closed off your credit?”

  Coletti said, “I need a drink.” He did, too, with the shakes he had.

  “The sooner you answer, the sooner you’ll have your drink. I promise you that. Now where were you when Pudge Eaton was shot?”

  “If you got to know, I’ll tell you. I was laying up with Erma. She’s one of the Chicken Shack girls, and she’s got her own little house. You can ask her. She’ll clear me.”

  “We will,” Charleston said and sighed. “So much for that.”

  “You lettin’ me go?”

  “I’m afraid not, Coletti.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of the charges against you.”

  “I can get someone to put up bond.”

  “We must wait to see how your wife gets along.”

  Coletti sucked a breath through the gap in his teeth. “Gets along? What the hell you mean? Gets along?”

  “Just what I said. Gets along.” Almost idly he added, “I suppose you know you can’t post bond on a murder charge?”

  The breath caught in Coletti’s throat, then wheezed in and out, faster and faster. He said to himself, his eyes fixed on the floor, “Oh, sweet Jesus! Not that. With just a slap or two.” His head jerked up, yanked by some mistreated nerve. He strangled out, “Whiskey!” His voice was weaker than his need.

  Charleston took a half pint from a desk drawer, handed it to Doolittle and said, “Let him have it. Take him back. Better nurse that flask along, Coletti. It’s the last you’ll get.”

  As the back door closed, I said to Charleston, “There’s more than one kind of a kick in the face.”

  “And ways to keep a dirty bird in a cage.”

  He took his leave, saying before he went out, “Tad Frazier will relieve you along about midnight.”

  Walking home in the clamped cold that night, with Bipsie trotting along behind me, I heard again the wild voices of wolves.

  12

  Blanche Burton was sending a message. “You there, Ike? Hear me? Good. Drive out the Titusville road, to the McDonald mailbox if necessary. Young Ronald started for town three hours ago and promised to call home but hasn’t been heard from. His folks think he may be stalled. Go see. Mr. Charleston’s orders. Fine. That’s it, honey.”

  I stood by the switchboard, listening until she signed off. “I declare,” she said, “he’s even nicer than you are.”

  “They say he’s pure hell when his dander’s up.”

  She sniffed, unbelieving, and answered, “Trashy people do wag their tongues.”

  I went into the inner office. Charleston was saying “Goodbye” into the telephone. He greeted me, lighted one of his thin cigars and through the smoke said, “Crazy hours we’re all keeping. No organization. Thin
gs get in the way of it. Frazier’s out on a fire alarm. Maybe nothing, but he’ll get there ahead of the county fire truck and see can he help. Doolittle’s busy, and as for you, God knows what hours you’ve been keeping.”

  “I’m not kicking. Anything new about Pudge?”

  “No time to pry.” He drew on the cigar. “How’s Mrs. Coletti?”

  “Much better. She got in touch with her parents. They’re sending money.”

  “Good. When is she planning to leave?”

  “She’s talking about day after tomorrow.”

  He studied the smoke he had blown out. “It’s a shame. The office hasn’t done what it should.”

  I asked, “What’s that?”

  “You’ve never been on winter duty before? No. Of course you haven’t. It’s been our habit in bad weather for one of us to tour the back roads of the county, making sure no one is in trouble. That’s part of the duties of this office.”

  It wasn’t really. It was a self-imposed duty, and good politics besides, though I had never known politics to influence his operations.

  “Right now,” he continued, “I’m a little worried about old Ernest Linderman. Know him?” I didn’t. “Lives off the Petroleum road, fifteen miles or so away. Then there’s old Mr. and Mrs. Whitney, not so far off. Better check on them, Jase, but wait.” He made a quick sketch on a piece of paper. “Here’s a map.”

  “Any others out that way?” I asked him.

  “What others?”

  “I was thinking, well, don’t the Duttons live somewhere around there?”

  “It’s the old ones who may need help.”

  “The way I hear it, that grandpa can’t be young.”

  “He’s got young help.” Slowly Charleston leaned back and smiled. “Do I detect something there, Jase?”

  “I just thought—”

  “All right. All right, boy. I’ll put the Duttons on the map, but their place is out of the way. Make that your last visit, if you make it at all.”

  He gave me the map. I didn’t see how I could go wrong.

  “And, Jase,” he added, “take along that old .30–30 carbine on the chance you see a wolf.”

  “I heard other hunters were going out.”

  “Yes. And shoot themselves full of liquor and maybe lead.”

  “Anyhow, they’re hunting wolves, not miners.” Speaking, he made a face.

  I rose to go, but he stopped me by saying, “One thing first. Go talk to that woman—what’s her name? Erma—that Coletti says he was with at the time of the shooting.”

  “Doolittle could do it better than I. He knows all those people.”

  “But it’s you that has to be satisfied.”

  “Not you?” I asked.

  He took a little puff on his cigar and, breathing out, said, “No stone unturned. So turn it, Jase. You could be right.”

  I took the carbine, saw that shells were in the magazine and said so long.

  Tim Reagan was filling in as bartender at the Chicken Shack. Four men sat toward the rear end of the bar. The two women I had seen before were seated at a table. The men eyed me and eyed Reagan as he walked toward me. I supposed they hoped for trouble. They turned back to their own affairs, however, when Reagan said, “How are you, Jase?”

  “Hunting information as usual.”

  “My well’s been pumped dry.”

  “Not quite, Tim. I want to know who’s Erma.”

  His thumb flicked toward the table, and he answered, “The tall one.”

  “Send the ladies a drink, please.”

  There were two extra chairs at the table, and I took one and said, “Howdy, ladies.”

  One, the short one, said to the other, “He wants it for nothing. All cops do.”

  The men at the bar weren’t paying any attention. They were talking about wolves.

  “I believe you’re wrong, Pearl,” the tall one answered. “I think I smell trouble.” She was dark and would have been good-looking except for paint and wear and tear. It seemed to me her eyes were sad, as if she saw the end of the road and knew it was the wrong one, to boot. But it was too late to take the road not taken, Mr. Frost.

  Tim brought over drinks for them, and I paid. They didn’t thank me.

  “Erma,” I said, “I want to know where you were at the time Pudge was shot.”

  She batted her eyes. “Now when was that? Let me think. Oh, yes, the night he was shot. I was attending to business.”

  “With whom?”

  “Hear that, Pearl? Oh, my! ‘With whom.’”

  “Make it who with.”

  She drew herself up, playing the grande dame. “I do not reveal the names of my clients. Professional secrets. They’re privileged.”

  I said, “I could run you in any time.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, tough guy. Is the food good at your jail?”

  “Bread and water. For variation, water and bread.”

  She let a smile, not professional, touch her face. “He makes jokes, Pearl.”

  “I’m laughing my head off,” Pearl said. She reminded me of a bunny that unfortunately had turned into a plump rabbit.

  “I’m all fun,” I said. “Only right now I want an answer to my question. Where were you?”

  “At my home until after midnight. That’s where.”

  “With company?”

  “I’m crazy about company.”

  I said, “Quit sparring. Tell the truth.”

  “I haven’t lied yet.”

  “You haven’t said anything, either.” I softened my tone and explained, “I’m not here to trap you. What you tell me can’t get you into trouble, unless you fired the gun, which is a crazy suspicion to me. I’m asking you please, Erma. Plain please.”

  Now her gaze met mine and didn’t shift away. “It’s been a long time since anyone said please to me.”

  “Please.”

  “He knows how to get his way, Pearl,” she said, her eyes still on mine. “All right, Mr. Law, please. I was at my home from nine-thirty until after midnight. Who was with me? That fine gentleman, Mr. Tony Coletti. He was too drunk to perform. That’s polite talk, so you will understand. But he tried and tried and kept trying. He nipped at a bottle, too, between tries. Maybe that raised his ambition, but it didn’t raise anything else. And all the time he didn’t have a dime in his pockets. That’s the sad story.”

  “Would you swear to what you’ve just told me, about his presence, not his performance?”

  “If I have to.” Her arm jerked suddenly, spilling some of her drink. “But who would believe me? What good is my word? Not worth a damn.”

  I motioned to Tim to refill the glasses.

  “It is with me, Erma,” I said and got up, leaving money on the table. Her breath said thanks.

  So scratch one Tony Coletti, I thought as I left. Too bad. Too damn bad. He deserved worse.

  The car engine was slow to fire, though it hadn’t had time to get really cold. What was needed was a new battery. What was needed was a maintenance man. At last I got the car going, headed out on the road toward Petroleum. I kept an eye out for wolves. It seemed, when I opened the window a crack, that I could hear them howling.

  The night was blind black. Not a star shone. Not the moon. In warmer weather, with the clouds low, a man might expect snow. Not now, though. Not as cold as it was. My headlights tunneled through the dark. They shone lonesome, the only lights in the world.

  Five miles or so out of town I saw a gleam on the road ahead. It grew into two, and I dimmed and pulled to the side. The other car stopped beside mine. A window rolled down and revealed Bodie Dunn. He asked, “Huntin’ wolves like us, Jase?”

  “I’m ready for them. Any luck?”

  Bodie held a flask out the window. “Have a drink. Join the party.”

  From inside the car came other voices, hearty with whiskey.

  “No thanks, Bodie. Not on duty. What’s your score?”

  Bodie took a pull at the flask. “We heard ’em
, that’s for sure. But score? Maybe we wounded one. We couldn’t tell.”

  From inside the car a laughing voice yelled, “Ghost wolves. We been layin’ ghosts. Gimme that bottle, Bodie.”

  As I was about to roll up my window, Bodie said, “We’ll get some yet.”

  I drove away, hoping ghosts were all they would lay, or had laid.

  I found Ernest Linderman’s place without trouble, though I had mislaid the map. A door opened as I approached it, and a rusty voice said, “Come in, stranger. Warm your butt. Hey, ain’t you Bill Beard’s young ’un?”

  I gave him a yes and entered. “I’m a deputy sheriff now. Just cruising around.”

  A straight-backed chair stood by a stove made out of an oil drum. An Aladdin lamp gave what light there was. Either rural electrification hadn’t reached that far or Linderman couldn’t afford the cost of a line. Close by a rocking chair a collie lay, dozing. It opened one eye and wagged its tail. There were a plank table and a couple of chairs to the right of the door, and a very small wood range under the rear window. Pots and frying pans hung from a wall.

  “Tell Chick—he’s a good man—not to worry about me,” Linderman was saying. His voice came through the phlegm of disuse. “No, sir. I get along.” He poured me a cup of coffee without asking. It tasted of long boiling.

  “Set, boy,” he said easing himself into the rocker. “Like I was saying, I get along, though I been too busy fightin’ the cold to get to town. My chickens froze their combs in spite of a coal-oil heater I keep in the hen house. My two cows come close to freezin’ their tits off and would have if I hadn’t rigged a blanket sling for ’em. I’m near short of wood, split wood, I mean, so I got to go out and chop blocks. Cold work, I tell you. More coffee?”

  “This is fine, thank you.”

  There was an old arch-fronted radio on a stand table. I wondered if he ever used it. The wooden floor was scrubbed clean.

  Catching me in my survey, Linderman said, “Not bad for a bachelor, huh? I been batchin’ it for ten years now, ever since my wife died. No young ’uns, though we tried hard enough. But I don’t get lonesome. I’m a tough old bird.”