Death On The Pedernales (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 5)

by George Wier

  The other deputies began pushing the photographers, reporters and gawkers back down the sidewalk. Burt and I pulled Buster away from the doorway and huddled over him. Burt unbuttoned Buster’s shirt, felt underneath for an exit wound and found none. “It’s still in him,” he said, meaning the bullet. “Maybe that’s better. One wound to treat but a hunk of lead to dig out first.”

  The faint wail of sirens grew closer. An ambulance. I wondered who had called them. I watched Buster’s chest. His breathing was slow and shallow, but steady. Burt held his flat palm pressed over the wound, but blood leaked around his fingers.

  Reg stood over us. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Boss?”

  “Shh,” I whispered. “Quiet.”

  Burt nodded his agreement. Reg understood and stepped to the doorway and outside. He held up one hand and whistled to the clamoring crowd pushing against the deputies.

  The commotion outside abruptly ceased.

  “We will have silence,” Reg said, his voice muffled somewhat by the closed door between us. “Disperse. Now. Clear the way for the paramedics.”

  “Not bad,” I whispered under my breath.

  Burt looked up at me, shrugged noncommitally, his face not for a moment slipping from its usual unsurprised and bored state.

  *****

  Four of us—myself, Ladd Moore, Burt Sanderson and Reg Morrissey—loaded Buster’s stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Reg himself passed the oxygen bottle inside to the stout female EMT. Reg closed the doors reverently, turned to me and said: “I’m too busy to take you to Austin, Mr. Travis.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.:

  *****

  Lydia was in a real holding cell this time, the sole occupant, and it was locked. She lay there, unblinking. Possibly she might bore a hole in the bare concrete ceiling over her head.

  Her nose was taped where Reg had broken it when he hit her. A smear of dried blood was there over her upper lip.

  I tapped the intercom button. “He’s alive,” I said.

  No answer. She didn’t even stir.

  There was something there inside me. I’m not very introspective by nature, but neither am I numb. Whatever it was, it was about the size of a small tangerine and it made its abode somewhere in the area of my upper chest. As my attention came to rest upon it, it rose slowly upward to rest at the base of my throat where it began to swell. And it hurt.

  “I trusted you,” I said, quietly.

  Nada. Zip. Nothing.

  And what was this fierce wetness in the corners of my eyes?

  I turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Gladys Fletcher, the dispatcher, did her best to get my chin up off my chest by putting on a pleasant smile. Her dimpled milk-chocolate brown cheeks widened when I came trudging by her desk.

  “Mr. Travis. Mr. Travis,” she called. “I have your clothes ready.”

  “Huh?”

  She raised herself up from her ergonomically-correct rolling chair, reached up to a hook on a closet door and handed me my clothes, cleaned and pressed and ready to go.

  “Mrs. Fletcher, I didn’t ask you to wash my clothes.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t do it myself, silly. The trustys washed them. We have to keep those boys busy, you know. Keeps the dickens away.”

  I remembered the use of trustys from my own tour of duty with a small county Sheriff’s Department back in my college days. No jail can function well without trustys to help run things. Trustys are, as a rule, non-violent. They typically have strong local ties and virtually nowhere to run outside of their resident county. They do the cooking, washing and pressing, sweep and wax the floors, handle the Courthouse and city park lawn maintenance, perform the unlovely yet necessary duties of trash cleanup, and there are a few who are allowed to drive county vehicles and generally work as gophers. And it gives them something to do rather than go quietly mad within the confines of a cold and heartless cage. It is my personal philosophy that Man was never intended to have no rights or freedoms, no matter what the criminologists say. I firmly believe that at the heart of any criminal is a sane and rational being who would not hesitate to aid his fellow man. The trick, as always was to find him in there.

  All these thoughts took but a moment of time, and I came back from my little trip through history to find Gladys looking a me, expectant.

  “Oh,” I said. “Of course.”

  I peered briefly into Gladys Fletcher’s deep brown African-American eyes and found myself returning her smile with my own.

  “Mrs. Fletcher,” I said. “You’re a pill.”

  She beamed at me.

  I walked on down the hallway, examining my clothes.

  And then I remembered: the black threads.

  I tore at the thin plastic over my newly pressed clothes, reached down into the shirt pocket and felt.

  Nothing.

  I walked back to Gladys’ counter, draped my clothes across it and began fishing.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Well. No really. It’s just—” I peered inside the pocket and found the threads wadded up into a very tiny ball in the corner.

  “Aha!”

  “What’d you find?” she asked, riveted on my performance. She looked at the ball of thread.

  “Mr. Travis,” she said. “Those trustys aren’t Chinese launderers. They’re not perfect.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, they’re the best on the whole damned planet,” I said. “This,” I shook the little ball of thread, “is important.”

  Her eyes met mine. She frowned.

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Travis.”

  I grabbed my clothes.

  “I’m going to go shed this damned uniform, Mrs. Fletcher. God bless you.”

  “Why thank you. Thank you!”

  I turned and walked away, a little bit of a spring in my step for the first time since I had stepped out of the cockpit of Denise’s airplane.

  *****

  “What do you want me to do with this?” Burt asked me, looking down at his palm.

  “I want to know where it comes from? What kind of thread it is. Anything the boys at the medical examiner’s office can say about it.”

  We sat in Buster LeRoy’s office waiting for Reg Morrissey to show up. He was supposed to have been back from the hospital ten minutes before.

  “Girls,” Burt said.

  “Huh? What?” I asked.

  “Girls. At the coroner’s office. That’s right, you weren’t there long enough to find out. There’s Doc Armstrong, there’s Audrey, her assistant, and then there’s the secretary. Quite a looker, that one.”

  “Okay. Are they good?” I asked.

  “They’re the only.”

  Burt took a blank envelope from a box on a shelf behind the desk, opened it and dropped the threads inside.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Can you please cheer up? I swear to God, when I’m around you I feel like someone’s about to tap my shoulder and ask me to be a pallbearer.”

  “I’m cheerful,” he said, and I was reminded of a Droopy cartoon.

  At that moment the door opened and Reg came in. He was all business. He moved quick and cat-like, a man completely in his element.

  “We got problems,” Reg said, and sat himself down. He folded his hands together in front of him and regarded us.

  “What?” Burt asked.

  “First, the boss is maybe gonna be okay. He’s about to go under the knife to remove the bullet. They say it’s lodged near his heart. About a quarter-inch from it, in fact. His chances are better than fifty-fifty, though.”

  “Second?” Burt asked.

  “The grand jury is convening upstairs in twenty minutes, and they want to true bill Miss Stevens for attempted murder. While I’m for it on general principle this whole thing is plenty complicated enough.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’m not saying
I don’t want her in jail. She’s clearly a danger to herself and others. I’m just thinking it could have waited a bit. For Pete’s sake, it hasn’t been more than a couple of hours.”

  “You’d be their star witness,” I said. “Does that bother you, Reg?”

  “You ever get in the middle of a love triangle, Mr. Travis?”

  “No, but I’ve been through a tornado before.”

  “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Look,” Burt said, “she shot him. It’s pretty much open and shut.”

  “I know,” Reg said. “And I punched her out for it. Let me tell you, it took everything I had not to shoot her dead right there.” Reg turned to me. “And you like her, Bill. What’s up with that?”

  “Who says I like her?” I asked.

  “You liked her before she shot him.”

  “And who says I don’t not like her?” I pushed.

  “Now I’m confused,” Burt said.

  “Good,” I said. “I’m doing something right.”

  “Look, shut up you two,” Reg said. “I’m getting a headache.”

  I gave Reg a warm smile.

  There was a long pause in the conversation. Reg sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  “You think I have ulterior motives?” Reg asked me.

  “I wonder,” I said quietly, “who killed Edgar Bristow.”

  “Who the hell do you think?” Reg asked.

  “You think Buster did it, don’t you?” I asked.

  “What I think is nobody’s business,” he said.

  Burt whistled and we turned to look at him.

  “Getting warm in here,” he said.

  “Shut up, Burt,” I said.

  I reached down beside my chair, picked up the gun belt with the revolver and the badge I had pinned to it and dropped them on the desk in front of me.

  “I was wondering why you were in your civvies,” Reg said. What I thought about saying was how good my change in attire felt.

  “Everybody in this town is very nicely distracted,” I began. “Like the song goes, ‘there’s a killer on the road.’ The number one suspect is in the hospital with a hole in his chest, shot by his former lover. According to my reckoning, ten years ago when Molly Bristow was beat to a bloody pulp, Buster LeRoy didn’t even know Molly Bristow, nor her best friend Lydia Stevens. He was riding bucking broncs on the rodeo circuit at the time.” I gestured to the eight-inch high gold-embossed trophy on the desk not far from the gun I had deposited there. “Look at the date on that trophy.”

  Burt sat forward, picked it up.

  “‘NPRC 3rd Place. Las Vegas, Nevada. August 9, 2000.’ Holy crap,” Burt said, then added quietly, “He didn’t kill Molly Bristow. He couldn’t have.”

  “The two killings might not be related,” Reg said.

  “And they might be,” Burt said.

  Reg slapped the desk in front of him and stood. “That’s it. I’ve got work to do. Mr. Travis, I’ll expect you to be out of this county before it’s dark. You,” he pointed a Burt, “have a paramedic uniform all cleaned and pressed down below. Leave the gun and badge on the desk here. They county will be sending each of you a check for your services today. Dismissed.”

  He walked to the door, opened it and slammed it behind him.

  “Dismissed,” Burt whispered, and then chuckled.

  “Sometimes, Burt,” I said, “I think maybe I don’t like you. And then you have to go and redeem yourself.”

  *****

  It was a six block walk from the courthouse square to the Chalmer’s County Medical Examiner’s Office. The town itself stood on a stepped series of rocky promontories overlooking the shallow yet ever-flowing Pedernales River. The sun overhead bore down with an oppressive hand on my head and shoulders as I walked along sidewalks that were probably ancient around World War II. On the horizon there was a low, thin mass of clouds that held nary a hint of rain. I passed an old-style barbershop, complete with red and white pole that once upon a time no doubt spun itself about. Now it was as still and lifeless as the streets that lead away from the town’s heart. Back there, mere blocks away, the news vans were packing up one by one and heading off on their unending quest: to find that one sad place in the land were both malice and trauma could be found in plenty. The story of a small town Sheriff, however, who was released after a cursory questioning by higher authorities to be shot by a mere former lover—that was a second-page type of story, one that required a journalist with a pad, a pencil and middling expense account. I suspected that by sundown that was all that would be left—a few freelance journalists.

  A narrow suspension bridge over the Pedernales River appeared ahead, which was my landmark. And on the town side of the bridge stood the aging, blocky red brick architecture of the Coroner’s Office.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Threads,” she said. “There are more kinds of threads than there are brands of beer. It’s the earmark of advanced civilization.”

  “Not methods of farming or astronomy?” I asked.

  “Well, sure,” she said. “There’s always those. But a diversity of textiles—that speaks volumes about us.”

  The smell of ammonia was sharp and I fought the urge to wrinkle my nose where she could see it.

  “But,” she uncrossed her arms and held the threads up, “with regard to these and what type of thread they are, I happen to have a book.”

  Dr. Isabel Armstrong was somewhere in her late fifties. She was slightly pudgy about her middle and her hips, and her blond bangs kept getting in her eyes. She blew upwards and her bangs dispersed. I liked her.

  “A book?”

  “Yeah. Come on back. I was just about to go to lunch, you know. I didn’t think you’d be here so fast. When I told Burt to tell you to call me, I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so quickly. This about Buster?”

  “No,” I said, following her down a long, narrow hallway of lime green bathroom tile, “and possibly yes.”

  She glanced back at me and smiled.

  She entered a small office with an old lab table, some ancient photographic equipment, what looked like small centrifuge and a microscope.

  I examined the microscope in mild shock. “Where’d you get this?” I asked her. It was a Leica.

  “My graduation present from medical school.”

  “Nice present,” I said.

  “Yeah. I think it’s probably worth about as much as this building.”

  She turned the lamp on and then slid the threads between a couple of standard glass slides and then put it under the silver clips.

  I checked my wristwatch and then after awhile checked it again.

  “See anything?” I asked.

  “Take a look,” Dr. Armstrong said, and stepped aside with a welcoming gesture.

  I peered through the optics, saw nothing but light, then moved the slide until a very large rope came into view.

  “What am I looking at, Doc?” I asked.

  “Whatever it is, it’s something from this,” she said.

  I looked up to see her holding a large notebook that contained what looked to be a few hundred pages of plastic slipcovers. Many individual pages were tagged with yellow sticky notes with scribbles on them.

  She plopped the notebook on the lab table next to the microscope and began to thumb through page after page of photographs of different threads and fibers.

  “Where’d you get that notebook?” I asked.

  “You ask a lot of questions, Mr. Travis. Are you married?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well hell. Okay. This was a... present from the FBI lab in Dallas.”

  “For all your hard work?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling at me.

  “So,” I said. “Do you have any ideas about this thread?” I tapped the microscope.

  “Looking,” she said. “Give me a second.”

  I waited.

  “Here,” Dr. Armstrong said and tapped the top half of the page.
“I think maybe this one.”

  I peered at it. It could have been the same thread. Then again, it could have been a fragment of rope from an ancient Incan suspension footbridge. But there was a description beneath the photo, neatly typed.

  “F-1 thread,” I read aloud.

  “And your next question is, what is F-1 thread used for?”

  “Yeah. That’s my question, exactly.”

  “It’s principle use was as a surgical thread. I’ve heard stories—”

  “‘Was?’ And what kind of stories?” I asked her. I noticed she was looking up and to her left, the way people have of checking on the past. It’s my belief that we do that because we read right to left, therefore the past is to the left. Also, it can tend to indicate someone is telling the truth as opposed to engaging in creative storytelling.

  “Oh,” she said. “Stories from older surgeons, talking in the break room. I think they used to call this kind of stuff ‘spool-o’.”

  “Spool-o. Huh. What would you sew with it?”

  “Well,” she said. “Mostly internal organs. Stuff like that. If I didn’t have the modern stuff, I might use it in an emergency to sew someone’s pancreas back in place if it got severed in a car accident. I seem to remember it being used for just that in a particular case. A cousin of mine.”

  “When was that?”

  “I was just out of medical school and was going back and reviewing my cousin’s medical records from when he was a kid and they did the surgery. In the operative report the doctor at one place used the identifying number for the thread, and then in another place said ‘spool-o’. I thought it was kind of odd at the time. Surgeons are like anybody else. They use what they’re familiar with. They use what works, you know.”

  “What’s the F-1 stand for?” I asked.