Crooked as a Dog's Hind Leg

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  "Why did he come back?"

  "To get his rig. He was going to park it at his house overnight and head out first thing this morning."

  The timing sounded right. "Do you get many other trucks down this way? Other than your guys?"

  "A few," Keith said.

  "Not many," Cole said. "But you can't think Payson hit Dan. He'd never have left him like that."

  "Maybe he didn't realize he'd hit him." I didn't want to bring up Deveron's theory quite yet. "So you didn't see Dan on the road when you left Payson?"

  "No, I didn't go that way."

  "I thought Springbank dead-ended here."

  "It does, but there's a shortcut into town." We walked a few yards down the road, and Cole pointed out a tiny dirt road I'd forgotten was there. "Springbank takes you out to Highway 321, but going that way cuts the drive in half. Of course, the big rigs have to take the blacktop."

  "Would Rose have taken that way last night?" I asked.

  "Naturally," Keith said. "I did, too. It's the shortest way, and I wanted to get home."

  "Let's get this straight. Last night, Keith went that way, then Rose did, and then Cole and Payson. Later on, Cole brought Payson back, and headed to Byerly on the dirt road while Payson drove out Springbank Road in his truck. Is that right?"

  Both men nodded.

  "My only question is this. Cole, why were you on Springbank today instead of taking the shortcut?"

  "I had to run by the post office this morning, which put me closer to Springbank," he said.

  That sounded reasonable. "All right, then. Now I need to talk to Payson. Can y'all get in touch with him, or tell me where to find him?"

  Keith went inside to check on the trucker's whereabouts, and ran back a few minutes later. "You're in luck. There was a delay when Payson went to pick up his load, so he's still at the factory in Hickory. I told him to stay put until you get there."

  I got the address and radioed Belva to come get me. It wouldn't have taken a Deputy Deveron to detect that she wasn't real happy when she showed up.

  "I take it you didn't find anything?" I said as I got into the car.

  "Do used condoms count? How about wadded up newspapers or three sneakers, all from different pairs?" She pulled a face. "Nothing but trash, and none of it was fresh."

  "It was worth a shot."

  She muttered, "Easy for you to say," which I pretended not to hear.

  On the way to Hickory, I radioed the police dispatcher there to let them know a couple of out-of-town officers were crossing the border, but I regretted being so polite when I saw the county car parked outside the furniture factory where we were going to meet Payson. Deputy Deveron was sitting in the front seat.

  He stepped out when Belva and I did, and said, "Good morning again, Chief. Deputy."

  "Morning," I said, not willing to qualify it further. "Who are you tagging along with this time?"

  He flashed that irritating grin again. "I heard you on the squawk box and wondered if you were working that lying-in-the-road death."

  "I'm working the Jackson case, if that's what you mean."

  "I'm telling you, it's a clear case of lying-in-the-road death. I've seen them before."

  "Thank you for sharing the depth of your experience, but I have somebody to talk to." I started to walk past him.

  "The physical evidence matches—blood traces on the front tires, but no markings on the hood," he said.

  I stopped. "What did you say?"

  "I said— Oh, don't worry. I didn't touch anything."

  "Deputy Deveron, are you saying that you interfered in my case?"

  "I just looked."

  "Did anybody see you looking at the truck? The driver, for instance?"

  "I don't think so."

  "You don't think so."

  "Look, I'm just trying to help." He drew himself up. "I am still in my jurisdiction, which is more than you can say."

  I thought about reminding him that I had permission to be there, or pointing out that my daddy had played poker with Hickory's police chief for twenty years, but it just wasn't worth it. Instead I turned my back on the man and said, "Belva, would you get Payson to come out here? I'll be over at his rig."

  Deveron at least had the courtesy to stay back at his car while I located the blue-and-white Littlemill truck, and leaned down to examine the tires. It was hard to tell, but I thought I saw blood traces and other smears. And as Deveron had said, I couldn’t find anything on the grill or front bumper to indicate a collision.

  A few minutes later, Belva brought out Payson Smith, a wiry man in a straw cowboy hat. "Hey, Payson," I said.

  "Hey, Junior. Is something wrong?"

  "I'm afraid so. You mind telling me where you were yesterday afternoon and evening?"

  Payson looked a little worried, but no more than anybody would be when questioned by the police without knowing why, and he gave the same story I'd heard from Cole. When I asked, he confirmed that he'd driven down Springbank the previous night.

  "How fast were you going?"

  "I don't know. Maybe thirty-five."

  I didn't have any idea he'd been going that slow, so I just looked at him.

  "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I was probably going about fifty. I know the road's marked thirty-five, but—"

  I held up one hand. "I'm not here to give you a speeding ticket, Payson. I just want to know if you saw anything along Springbank."

  "Like what?"

  "Like a man's body. Dan Jackson was run over last night."

  "Jesus! Is he dead?"

  "Oh, yeah. Looks like he was hit by an eighteen-wheeler."

  "But I was the only truck— Junior, are you saying I hit him?" His eyes got wide. "I couldn't have. It was dark and I was going fast, but I've been driving a truck for over fifteen years. I couldn't have hit a man and not realized it."

  "So you didn't see him?"

  "Junior, I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that I did not see anybody on that road last night."

  I'd had suspects swear even more drastically than that and still be lying, but I thought Payson was telling the truth. "Let me ask you a question, since you've been driving so long. What if there'd been a man laying in the road last night, maybe wearing dark clothes and not moving. Would you have noticed if you'd hit him?"

  He pulled his hat off to scratch his head. "Why would anybody have been laying in the road?"

  "Lying in the road, actually," a voice said from behind him. Damned if Deputy Deveron hadn't walked up without my noticing.

  I ignored him. "Just suppose he was. Could you have hit him and not realized it?"

  Payson gave it some thought. "You know, I think I could have. Even a big man is nothing to a rig like mine. Do you think that's what happened?"

  I shrugged. "It's a possibility."

  Deveron had the nerve to say, "A good possibility," but shut up when I glared at him.

  I said, "If you don't mind, Payson, I'm going to take some pictures of your rig, and Belva is going to scrape some samples off of your tires and the grill for testing."

  "Go ahead, I want to know, too." He shook his head. "Fifteen years without an accident, and now this. And for it to be poor old Dan Jackson."

  I patted him on the shoulder and went back to my squad car for the camera and some evidence bags. Deveron was right behind me.

  "Classic lying-in-the-road death," he said. "I don't like to say 'I told you so...'"

  "Good, because I don't like to hear it." At least I managed to smile when I said it.

  Deveron, of course, grinned that grin again.

  I halfway expected him to hang around while Belva and I collected evidence off of every one of those eighteen wheels, but apparently he did have some work to do, because he left before we got started. Payson stayed to watch, looking mournful, and he promised not to move the rig or leave town until he heard from me.

  After we were done, we drove to Dr. Connelly's office to drop off the samples. I let Belva take them in, but it

wasn't for spite—I just didn't want to hear Connelly crow about having found a whole new way for somebody to die.

  The rest of the day was business as usual, but around four, Dr. Connelly faxed us the autopsy report and the results of the tests on the samples from Payson's truck. As expected, Dan had died as a result of severe trauma to the head and chest, and his blood alcohol level was several times higher that the legal limit.

  That should have been the end of it, but something was niggling at me, and it wasn't just spite because Deveron had figured out the story ahead of me.

  I looked over the bits and pieces Belva had gathered together, and something clicked. Before, I'd told Dr. Connelly that I was curious about what I didn't see at the accident scene, meaning the lack of skid marks. But looking at the things Belva had found, I realized there was something else I didn't see, something that sure should have been there.

  I called Dr. Connelly just long enough to verify some information from the autopsy report. Then Belva and I went back to Littlemill Trucking to arrest Dan Jackson's killer.

  What with the arrest, dealing with lawyers, the paperwork involved, and having to spend the night at the jail to watch my prisoner, it wasn't until the next morning that I remembered that I ought to call Dr. Connelly and let him know what had happened. It turned out he was in the car on his way to meet Deveron for breakfast, since I'd interrupted their meal the day before, and I asked if he'd mind my joining them.

  "I thought you didn't like that Deveron character," Belva said when I got off the phone.

  "I don't," I said with a grin that I suspected was an awful lot like Deveron's.

  The two men were waiting for me at a table at Shoney's, and Dr. Connelly had already poured me a cup of coffee, half of which I downed right way.

  "Rough night?" Deveron said.

  "A long one, anyway," I allowed. "Guard duty—I arrested a man in the Jackson case."

  "The lying-in-the-road death?" Deveron said incredulously. "Don't tell me you arrested that trucker!"

  "No, he was telling the truth about not knowing what he'd done because of Jackson lying in the road. Or is that laying in the road? I never could keep those two straight." I thought about it for a minute. "Now, a person lies down, but lays somebody else down. Isn't that right?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I just want to get my report correct. The fact is, Jackson didn't lie down in the road—somebody laid him down. He was murdered."

  "Is that right? Was it Payson?" Dr. Connelly asked.

  "Nope, it was Keith Nevis. He told me he was the first to leave work yesterday, and he did drive away, but he didn't go far. He pulled off the road someplace where he couldn't be seen, waited for Rose and Cole to go by, and doubled back to get Dan. He said Dan was so drunk he had to carry him out to his car, which fits in with the elevated blood alcohol level from the autopsy. He drove down Springbank a piece, pulled Dan out of his car, and laid him in the road, knowing that Payson was going to be driving that way later that night. Then he went home, figuring he was safe. If Dan woke up before Payson's truck got him, or if the truck missed him, everybody would assume Dan had wandered off on his own and Dan himself sure as heck wouldn't remember Keith putting him on the road. Which would leave Keith free to try again. Shoot, for all we know, this may not have been his first attempt."

  "How can you know the vic didn't walk there himself?" Deveron said, not willing to give up. "Blood alcohol levels can be misleading with habitual drinkers. He might have sobered up enough to walk that far."

  "Then why didn't he take the shortcut to town instead of the long way around? And why did he pass out on the road if he was that sober?"

  "He was too drunk to find the shortcut because he started drinking again."

  "That's possible, because he had bottles hidden all over. But with all the trash Belva collected from around the body, there wasn't one empty whiskey bottle, or beer can, or anything other container for alcohol."

  "But—"

  "Besides which, Keith has already confessed. Apparently he's been carrying a torch for Rose for years, and he just couldn't stand to see her wasting her life on a drunk. He was probably planning to marry her himself, if she'd have him."

  "So no lying-in-the road death after all," Dr. Connelly said, sounding disappointed about not having something new to talk about with other medical examiners.

  "There is one thing that might make you feel better," I said as if it had just occurred to me. "You, too, Deputy, since you were so sure you had the case figured out."

  "What's that?" Deveron said unenthusiastically.

  "Well, Keith was standing on Springbank Road when he told me he went straight home, but it turned out he was lying. So it really was lying-in-the-road death." I smiled at him, then headed for the buffet to get some breakfast.

  Maybe I am a spiteful woman after all.

  You may also like...

  If this is your first introduction to Laura Fleming and the folks of Byerly, North Carolina, be sure to check out the first book of the Laura Fleming mystery series, Down Home Murder!

  If you've read all of Laura's adventures, then you may also like Curse of the Kissing Cousins, the first novel in Toni L. P. Kelner's "Where Are They Now"? mystery series, featuring savvy celebrity reporter and amateur sleuth Tilda Harper.

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