by Tim Garvin
“First time I ever heard your name was from my dad. Only Silver Star winner in the county.”
Squint nodded. He switched the radio on, a man singing a song in Spanish.
Seb said, “Jorge drove the van a lot, I guess.”
“It’s our chore runner.”
Seb switched the radio off. “Let me ask you this. Did you know Germaine Ford?”
“Of course, I knew her. She sued the shit out of me. Why?”
“I’m trying to get a handle on Leo Sackler. Did you know Hugh Britt?”
“I know he got killed.”
“I guess it was big news.”
“Not to me. I was in Viet Nam. I don’t recall how I heard about it—probably when my dad bought this place. I definitely didn’t run in that crowd. I was a farm boy from the western side of the county.”
“Lot of people think Germaine Ford killed him. Because she gave the lodge to Leo. She went to see the governor too, to petition for clemency.”
“Well, she was a strange woman. Who knows?”
“Beautiful back in the day.”
“So I heard.”
“You didn’t know her back then?”
“Like I say, I was in Viet Nam.”
“That whole time? Never got any leave?”
Squint looked across and said mildly, “Where is this going, Seb?”
Seb lifted the red cap from the water bottle and dropped it back in place. He said, “Whose hat is this?”
“Mine.”
“On that video, the guy driving has got a red cap on. Jorge’s wearing a blue cap. Stuck right down in the mud.”
The farm buildings came in view. Squint parked the van beside the ambulance, lifted the rope, and got out. The group at the trench now included Stinson and the father. Squint waited for Seb to come alongside, then turned to face him. He said, “Because Jorge wore my cap, now your mind is working?”
“Don’t be offended. I’m sure we’ll find his DNA on the cap. But yeah, I do get a train of thought. It was you in the van, and you drove over and killed Leo Sackler—for some unknown reason, which was not robbery—then you hunted me down at Smitty’s to complain about Prince, but really that was just a way to mention Jorge was chasing the drone. Because you got to thinking, that drone was taking pictures of a blue van out on Twice Mile, and the sheriff’s going to want to know who was driving. Two hours ago, I told you I had that video. And now Jorge’s dead.”
“You motherfucker. You think I killed Jorge?”
“I don’t really. That’s just a particular train of thought. Anyway, Jorge went into the trench by himself. The train of thought would be, you turned a valve and threw his phone in there. Sorry, Jorge, I dropped your phone.”
Squint, who had been slumping forward intently, now straightened. He laughed. “That’s a mean-ass theory. Based on a red cap.”
“Couldn’t take it to a jury, that’s for sure.”
Squint started to turn. Seb said, making his voice casual, “I talked to DeWitt yesterday.”
“Who’s DeWitt?”
“The land guy. Didn’t he come talk to you?”
“I don’t recall anybody named DeWitt.”
“No, I thought he must have come by, see if you were thinking of selling some land to pay for all this technology?”
Squint stopped. “I’m not selling any land.”
“Well, he was in the neighborhood. He stopped off at Leo Sackler’s to see if he wanted to sell the lodge. He told me he saw Leo was digging that well out. So that’s how you knew, is what I’m thinking.”
“Knew what?”
“That Leo was after something in that well. We’re out there digging right now. When we find it, we’ll have the mystery object, plus a red baseball cap. I wonder will that be enough?”
“I’m not going to talk to you any more about this, Seb. I can see you’re aflame with a theory, and I will not collide with a mind made up. Any further communication with me will be done through my lawyer.”
“I understand.”
They started toward the trench again. Squint turned, stopped, laid the back of his hand hard against Seb’s arm, stopping him. “Do not mention this shit in front of Manuel. That man is in pain, and I might have to break your fucking neck. We got a tragedy out here, in case you didn’t notice.”
Seb gazed at Squint intently. He said, “I definitely won’t mention it.” The ordinary world, which before had been trembling and distant, was now close, real, and completely interesting.
A Now-and-Then
Dream
Cody didn’t have a cable lock for his boat and motor, so it was, first, which boat ramp was closest to Walmart, and second, which one was safest from scumbags who might see a free motor, maybe even a free boat. He decided on the Dover ramp at the end of Clough Street, which was a nice neighborhood, without street people, and also, it was Monday and the high school kids would be in class. He tied the boat, wrestled out the bike, and started to pedal through a geography of broad lawns, curving walks, Grecian porticos, double and triple garages, hardly a car in sight. Cody had been raised in affluence, but now, after his rat life of prison and drugs and homelessness, this upscale neighborhood emitted an otherness field, like a hand in the face, so that he was out of place, peddling a rattletrap bike, wearing jeans and a moss-streaked white T-shirt, and which was why, it came to him, rat people rob each other, instead of these guys, where the money was. Not just because they stand out and look suspicious, but because the otherness field said, back, fool, you don’t deserve to rob here. Which was why, if they ever did, they killed somebody or raped somebody or took a shit on the kitchen table.
Once out of the subdivision, he took out his phone and entered “Walmart” into the map, deciding on the twisty neighborhood route, since who knows, maybe Elton and Peener were cruising streets, and also the 24 bypass was narrow-shouldered and life-risky. Twenty minutes later he reached Walmart and chained his bike to a shopping cart enclosure in the parking lot.
First it was find AllGone, and if they didn’t have that, then something like it. Then it was rags, then paint and a raincoat and a wide straw hat, and a ready-to-go fishing pole and a few lures. Then it was Keisha, if he could find her and get her away somewhere. He couldn’t call her, since Walmart was all about time theft and made everyone turn off their phones. Finding her, when he thought about it, was good besides just a last goodbye, since he could get her to stand in line to buy the AllGone, because of the security cameras. Why were you buying that AllGone, son? Trying to destroy some DNA?
The main door shushed open as he entered. He nodded past the greeter, an elderly black man, then turned back and touched the man’s arm.
The man smiled. “Can I help you?”
“You know a girl named Keisha? She’s a floating stocker. You know where she is today?”
“I don’t. But I only come in an hour ago. But she works on Monday somewhere. You could ask in the office, but probably best thing is just find her. You know what I mean?”
“Thanks. I’ll dig her up.”
Cody made his way back to sporting goods, scanning. The interaction with the old man had given him a solidarity vibe. The old man knew her, that she was Monday working, and was thinking on her behalf, don’t worry these Walmart managers with Keisha’s personal business, the old man stepping out naturally for the good of the world. The good of the world was there if you could find it. It slipped in like a now-and-then dream between only certain people. Last night he had wept on Keisha’s shoulder, and she kissed him and said, “Oh, honey,” and it was the good of the world flowing into him. And Seb Creek knew about the missiles and advised him instead of arresting him, which was the same dream of good, the secret dream of let’s don’t hurt each other. If he came free, he could try to live well. He could tell Charlene, the leaf has turned. She would come home and find the boat
gone and the spilled paint and abandoned flytraps, but when he got back, no matter what hour, he would wake her and tell her everything.
He found a cheap fishing rig and a packet of horsehair catch-anything jigs, then found a plastic hand basket and added a dark coat and hat, then, an inspiration, three cans of pink spray enamel, pink occurring to him as the perfect misdirection, since it was obvious and unsneaky.
Still scanning for Keisha, Cody went to the cleanser aisle and on a bottom shelf found a quart bottle of AllGone, but without a spray nozzle, which he had already decided was a must-have for crevice penetration. He knelt and read the contents of the bottle, which was mainly hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide, then started reading the contents of the ones nearby with spray nozzles, none of which were exactly the same, then thinking maybe buy AllGone and also one with a nozzle and switch them, if they fit, so check, and, as he started to unscrew the spray bottle, a girl said over his shoulder, “Can I help you, sir?”
He looked, and it was Keisha, with her broad gap-toothed unselfconscious smile. He stood, grinning, and said, “Hello, miss. I’m trying to see if this nozzle here will fit on this AllGone product, which I want, but I would like to have it in a spray.”
She said, “I can help you with that, sir.” She took the spray-nozzle bottle and replaced it on the shelf. “Follow me.”
He fell in beside her. “Are you taking me to a back room?”
She said, “Sir, do not be making naughty remarks.” She stopped before a display of empty spray bottles and handed him one. “Just pour the AllGone into that and spray away.”
He said, “I was looking for you. I was going to have to walk the whole damn store.”
“Duncan told me. The greeter you talked to. I won’t get a break for two hours. What is all this green on you?”
“Miss, that is moss. Also, miss, I need one more thing—some rags. Maybe shop rags, which I think you have.”
“We certainly do. Come this way, sir. I’m calling you sir, sir, in case they reading lips on the cameras.”
“Do they do that?”
“No. Unless they kidnapped a lip-reader. They wouldn’t pay one.”
They entered automotive, and Keisha handed him a bundle of pale-red shop rags. He said, “Any chance I could get you to buy all this for me?”
She said, “I could, but probably best not. Since, you know, I’m helping you, and you already picked this stuff out. I only get ten percent anyway. That’s only a few dollars on this right here.”
He said, “It wasn’t that, it …” He stopped, then said, “Well, shoot, I could have used that money.” He smiled.
She said, “I guess I could do it on my break. If they talk to me, I could find something to say.”
“Naw, forget it.” Then he said, “What would they do if I just hugged you to my backbone and kissed you?”
She had a hand on her hip. Now she let her arms hang and said, “Well, go ahead, if you want to.”
They watched each other, waiting. He said, “I won’t.”
She smiled, relaxing. She put her hand back on her hip and let her head slowly shift in inquiry.
He said, “Tomorrow I’m going to tell you a whole lot of stuff. We’re going to celebrate tomorrow, if it ever comes. Remember I said that.”
Easing Toward
Oblivion
Squint’s rope was a keepsake, so they had to devise a between-the-legs under-the-arms harness without cutting it. Seb took off his jacket, holster rig, and shirt and after ten minutes, they figured out a modified rappelling truss. Carney carefully applied Vaseline from his medical kit to the seal of the M95 mask, worked it firmly into Seb’s stubbled beard, then pulled the straps tight behind his head.
He said, “If you smell rotten eggs, you’re smelling death.”
Seb slid into the chest-high waders and was lowered into the shallower end of the trench by Stinson, Marty, and Barb. At the bottom, he stood for a moment, breathing, then gave the okay sign. Carney returned it. Seb had sunk past his ankles and now began to slog toward the body, using his gloved left hand against the trench wall for balance, keeping his right hand aloft and uncontaminated for evidence, which was, in this case, as far as they could tell, only the phone. He knelt beside it and pulled it carefully from the mud, then slipped his arm into the waders and slid the phone into the plastic bag he had left protruding from his pants pocket.
He continued to the body, knelt, and felt for a pulse. Above him, he could feel Manuel Navalino’s eyes. He looked up. He shook his head. Manuel moved away from the edge of the trench.
Marty tossed down the other end of the rope. Seb gripped it, drove his hands into the mud to pass it under the chest, then tied it tightly against the back and under the arms. As they pulled, he guided the body up, the back against the mud wall, until they had pulled it out.
He continued through the calf-deep clay to the pool that bubbled at the deep end of the trench. He squatted and felt under the red-brown water for the pipe ends. There were three elbows, all uncapped. He felt a continual pulse of bubbles from the center pipe. He stood. Above his head each pipe was intersected with a bulky blue-handled brass valve. He stripped off his muddy glove, tossed it up to Marty, and pulled on a fresh pair. He tried each valve handle, the center one last. It was partly open. He tightened it, and the bubbling at his feet stopped.
Above him, Carney said, “There it is. He climbed down those pipes and hit that valve. Probably turned it with his bare foot.”
Manuel departed with the body in the back of the ambulance. Beside the trench, Seb sat on the grass and stripped off the waders, then the second pair of gloves. He had fended off the trench wall with his feet and hands as they pulled him up, and his pants and T-shirt were still mud-free. He used his shirt to wipe his Vaseline-smeared beard, but would need a bathroom to wash his face and mud-caked arms. They were only a hundred feet from the open lagoon, and the hog stench had no doubt permeated his clothes anyway and would mean a change.
Kate had arrived and was at the head of the trench dusting the brass valves. She looked up, appraised his mud-crust with a smile. She said, “Ever heard the song, ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’?”
He said, “I like Monk’s version.”
“All I know is the title, really. It always pops into my mind when I see somebody doing some kind of mean-ass work. You’re a mess.”
“You going to get anything from the pipes?”
“Too rough. Just giving it the college try.”
“How’s the dig going?”
“They’re down about another two feet. It’s starting to leak pretty bad now. We got a pump going.”
Seb slid the bagged phone from his front pocket and laid it on the grass beside her. He said, “This is the kid’s phone. It was stuck in the mud. It’s probably locked. If you get it open, I need the calls for today.”
Behind him, Stinson said, “Seb, let’s do a briefing in the parking lot. Unless you want to get cleaned up first.”
They gathered beside their parked cars. All three had heard that Seb’s SBI investigation had been canceled, and they congratulated him, Marty and Barb enthusiastically, Stinson matter-of-factly. Seb held his arms akimbo, letting the mud cake in the light breeze, occasionally peeling a piece away. Marty and Barb reported their so-far dead ends, Barb about the store videos and warrants for the bank and phone records, which showed nothing promising, Marty about his visit to the prison, where he had discovered from guards and inmates that Leo Sackler was a domino champion, the manager-coach of the prison basketball league, an admired mechanic, and without enemies. He also learned that each month for more than forty years money had been deposited anonymously into Sackler’s commissary account. The amount had increased over the years and was now $200 each month. Both detectives had reached out to their section’s confidential informants, and so far nothing. Then they listened with comradely atte
ntion—and apprehensive glances at Stinson—to Seb’s progress. Stinson folded his arms and lowered his head.
Seb went through the broken tibia and his subsequent theory of the murder, an accidental fall or push, someone on the surface with a rope, someone strong enough to pull a body up seven feet and tie it off on the ladder. This imagined scenario created silent consideration without endorsement. Then he recounted his long day of interviews, the extortion attempt—likely Elton Gleen, who denied it—then mentioned Randall’s finding the realty agent, and ended with the drone video which showed the van proceeding toward the lodge.
Stinson looked up. He said, “Seb, that’s good work with the drone. So we got two suspects, Elton and a dead boy.”
Seb said, “We only have Squint Cooper’s word it was Jorge in the van. You can’t see the driver. I called Squint this morning to ask where Jorge was. Two hours later he was dead.”
Stinson’s enthusiasm stalled in a frown. He said, “So Squint killed Jorge to stop him from talking to us?”
Barb said, “Maybe Jorge turned that valve himself because he was feeling like shit after murdering someone. And threw his phone in there so it would look like an accident. For his dad.”
Marty said, “How about he drove past the entrance to the farm so he could go get a pizza and never went to the lodge at all?”
Seb said, “Bottom line, we either got two accidents in three days, or we got two murders.”
Marty said, “Or a murder and an accident.”
Barb said, “This is why we do this, boys. This is kick-ass interesting.”
Stinson unfolded his arms and laced his hands behind his head. He said, “We’re getting the work done.” He jabbed his chin at Seb. “What’s next?”
Seb made assignments, Barb and Marty to look into Jorge, check for sudden money, check his background, then hassle informants and door-knock, starting in Coopertown—that last, a Stinson satisfier. For himself, there were a few last interviews. Then there was the well dig and whatever it turned up, if anything. Beyond that, it went unsaid, they faced the slow drip of snitch-waiting.
