Dead Man's Tunnel

by Sheldon Russell

  Scrap fired up his pipe. “If you’d spend your time hunting them copper thieves instead of brawling, life might be more rewarding, and maybe I could turn a profit around here.”

  “Now there you go jumping to conclusions,” Hook said. “What you think I’ve been doing?”

  Scrap dropped his feet and studied Hook over the desk.

  “You caught ’em?” he asked.

  Hook worked at a burr buried in his sock. “Four of them,” he said. “Under the culvert just beyond the siding. They probably throw the copper off as the cars are made up for a run, stash it in the culvert, and truck it out at their pleasure.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I take everything back what I said about you, Hook, and most of what I thought.”

  “Thing is, they overpowered me and got away.”

  “They got away?”

  “For the time being.”

  Scrap lit a match and sucked his pipe back to life. “But you saved the copper?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “The thieves got away and with my copper to boot?”

  “They weren’t anxious to stick around for another go after I worked them over,” Hook said. “No need for thanks.”

  Scrap laid his pipe in the Chevy hubcap that doubled as a paperweight for his car titles. He scratched his head.

  “You’re telling me you caught ’em, but they got away?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s more or less how it happened.”

  “And you saved my copper, but now it’s gone?”

  “That’s the short of it.”

  Scrap shoved his hands into his pockets and started for the door. About halfway there, he turned.

  “Just what am I supposed to do now?”

  Hook stood and squashed out his cigarette.

  “Scrap,” he said. “That’s the one question you might not want to ask.”

  12

  THE NEXT DAY Hook waited until he heard the crane start up before he went to the office to call Eddie Preston.

  “Security,” Eddie said.

  “Eddie, this is Hook Runyon.”

  “Runyon, what the hell is going on out there?”

  “Chasing thieves, Eddie. I hear that’s what security is supposed to do.”

  “I get a call from the engineer on the eastbound hotshot. He says he dang near hit a popcar that had been left on the tracks outside Ash Fork. He says he damn near ran over some fool pushing it down track. So I says, ‘Don’t worry about it. We got all kinds of dead people up and down the track out there. What’s another one more or less?’”

  “That’s a real cynical point of view, Eddie.”

  “So, I’m thinking to myself, what kind of a dumb ass would leave a popcar on the tracks with a hotshot coming in, and guess who came to mind?”

  Scrap opened the door and commenced searching for his pipe tobacco.

  “Hello, hello,” Eddie said. “Damn it, Runyon. Don’t hang up on me.”

  “Copper thieves, Eddie,” Hook said. “First thing I know the eastbound’s coming in. I almost managed to nab those copper thieves, but the bastards outnumbered me.”

  “Count on an investigation,” Eddie said. “The railroad frowns on leaving popcars on the main line. And then there’s that other thing, too.”

  “What other thing?”

  “That orphanage formed a committee. They’re unhappy about the government using tax money to buy rubbers for soldiers.”

  “They use tax money to buy bombs,” Hook said. “Anyone worried about that?”

  “They ain’t happy about them rubbers.”

  “Can’t they just destroy them?”

  “They’re government property. It’s against the law.”

  “Well, give the rubbers back to the railroad.”

  “The railroad don’t want them, Runyon. Nobody would have known anything about this if you hadn’t set that car loose.”

  “Next time I’ll just let them shut the main line down,” Hook said.

  “And what about that Johnson Canyon Tunnel deal?” Eddie asked.

  “What about it?”

  “You wrapped it up?”

  Hook lit a cigarette and looked over at Scrap, who was taking a nap under his hat.

  “I don’t think it was an accident,” he said.

  “Well, it damn sure wasn’t natural causes, unless you count being run over by a train natural.”

  “There was a love triangle, Eddie.”

  “A what?”

  “Those two guards were sleeping with the same woman.”

  “I don’t care if it was a circle jerk, Runyon. The railroad’s getting ready to pour a lot of money into that line, and I don’t want delays.”

  “I found that guard’s flashlight at the bottom of the trestle. Why would he go into the tunnel without his light?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to see the train that was going to run over him.”

  “And maybe he dropped the flashlight during a struggle on the trestle,” Hook said.

  “If you think there was a love circle, turn it over to the military, Runyon.”

  “Triangle,” Hook said.

  “What?”

  “A love triangle, Eddie. Jesus, you need to get out of the office once in a while.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “In the meantime, see if you can’t stop those copper thieves before they shut down the whole system. That’s why you’re out there, you know.”

  “Little static on the line, Eddie. I’m having trouble hearing. Are you still there? Hello. I’ll check back later, Eddie.”

  Hook hung up the phone and searched out a cigarette. Scrap scratched his chin and tossed his hat onto the toe of his boot.

  “What’s this about rubbers?” he asked.

  “Don’t start, Scrap.”

  “You got rubbers, Hook, I got a right to know.”

  “There were army condoms on a railcar that turned over, that’s all. The damn things wound up in the wrong hands.”

  Scrap blew on his pipe and reached for his tobacco. “The army’s got rubbers?”

  “Where you been all your life, hanging out with Eddie?”

  “What do they do with them?”

  “Jesus, Scrap, what do you think?”

  After filling his pipe, Scrap hung it in the corner of his mouth. He studied Hook.

  “What color are they?”

  “What color are what?”

  “Try to concentrate, Hook. We’re talking rubbers here.”

  “Army green. Hell, I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “All those rubbers will be coming back as surplus,” he said. “I figure a man could pick ’em up cheap.”

  “And what would you do with army surplus rubbers?” Hook asked, shaking his head.

  “Sell them. What do you think? Just ’cause the war’s over don’t mean people are going to stop making unwanted babies.”

  “Just forget it, Scrap. You can’t sell green army rubbers out of a salvage yard.”

  Scrap lit his pipe and hooked his thumbs under his overalls’ straps.

  “I don’t know why not. I sold two hundred boxes of sanitary napkins one time. Bought from a trucker what tipped over his eighteen wheeler. I knew the time of month of every woman between here and Flagstaff.”

  Scrap sucked at his pipe and looked at Hook. “Did you know them things come in different sizes? Now that’s something to ponder, ain’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Hook said. “How about loaning me the jeep for a few hours?”

  “Oh, sure. Why not?”

  “You haven’t taken the motor out of it yet, have you?”

  “Something’s been sucking eggs down at my chicken coop,” he said, ignoring Hook. “Eggshells everywhere. Looks like it snowed, and all the chickens are walking around in a daze.”

  “Are you going to loan me the jeep, Scrap?”

  “Alright, take it,” he said, handing him the keys.

  “There’s a place in heaven set aside just
for you,” Hook said.

  “Well, that’s good ’cause I sure wouldn’t have to worry about yard dogs no more,” he said.

  * * *

  Hook found Sheriff Roscoe Mueller in city hall, sitting at his desk. His blue uniform, leftover fat clothes by the looks of them, hung on his frame like a sack. The collar of his T-shirt had been frizzed by an overabundant beard, and hair sprang from his nostrils, the tops of his ears, and fingers. In a different setting, he might be mistaken for a gorilla or orangutan. His badge, big as a jar lid, looked like something from a kid’s cowboy outfit.

  The nightstick lying on top of his desk had been the same one he’d offered to break Hook’s head with at the pool hall skirmish. The sheriff had backed off upon realizing that Hook was a railroad dick. Hook had learned over the years that some of the most dangerous cops could be found in the backwash towns of America. A good many were less than concerned about lawful procedures.

  Sheriff Mueller looked up from his paper. “Well,” he said, “if it ain’t the yard dog. How’s the junk business these days?”

  “Never any shortage of junk,” Hook said.

  “Heard someone left the popcar on the main line, Hook. Trains run on those main lines, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Yeah,” Hook said. “The divisional supervisor filled me in on that.

  “Look, Sheriff, I got boys stealing Scrap’s copper right off the cars. Where do you figure they are selling it?”

  “Any salvage yard in the country,” he said. “Say, I hear tell that sergeant at the tunnel tried to stop a hotshot with his hand, and it didn’t work out so well?”

  “It’s not altogether clear,” Hook said.

  The sheriff rolled up his paper and tossed it in the trash basket. “I figured to help sweep up out there, but that lieutenant said the army would be taking care of things.

  “The digger said they shipped the body back. Why is this your problem, Hook? Don’t you have enough to worry about?”

  “You know how the railroad is,” Hook said.

  “I sure don’t remember lieutenants looking like that when I was in the army,” the sheriff said.

  Hook pulled up a chair and fished out a cigarette. “The world’s changing, Roscoe. Going to leave you behind.”

  “That’s for sure,” he said, hiking his boot up on the desk.

  “You managing to keep the peace around here?” Hook asked.

  “Now that you ain’t busting up the pool hall, things been pretty quiet.”

  “Sorry about that little bang-up,” Hook said. “Appreciate the professional courtesy, though.”

  “Well, Ben Hoffer’s been asking for an ass kicking most of his life,” he said. “Guess he was waiting for you to come along to do it.”

  “I try not to break the law most of the time,” Hook said. “Sometimes it just can’t be helped.”

  The sheriff reached for a pencil and dug a wad of gum loose from under the heel of his boot.

  “I figure Ben started things, or I’d have run you in, Hook. That’s the way it is. You might want to keep your eyes open. Ben Hoffer ain’t one to take a beating and forget it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that, Sheriff.”

  “I figure you ain’t here to ask forgiveness, Hook, or to check on how my day’s going.”

  “Been wondering if you know anything about Corporal Thibodeaux?” he said. “He’s one of the guards out at the tunnel.”

  “Thibodeaux? Yeah, I know him. He’s living here in Ash Fork. Been staying at Linda Sue’s, the waitress over at Blue’s Café.”

  “You got anything on him?”

  “Hot checks,” he said. “Thibodeaux’s got a problem getting from one payday to the next on his own funds. Never nothing big, just piddling shit. But I’m getting damn tired of chasing him down. I told him next hot one and he gets sack time in my hotel. He don’t show for duty and the army eats his ass. He knows how it goes.”

  “What about Linda Sue?” Hook asked.

  “Been waitressing most her life. No one works harder than Linda Sue, but she ain’t got a notion when it comes to men. She can spot a goddang bum a hundred miles away, and there ain’t nothing she likes better. Her and Corporal Thibodeaux were born for each other.”

  “And what do you know about Sergeant Erikson?” Hook asked.

  “I spotted him coming out of Linda Sue’s a time or two. I figure those boys were sharing more than a guardhouse. Linda Sue ain’t nothing if not generous.”

  “No trouble from Sergeant Erikson?”

  “Quiet and kind of spooky. Always on the outside looking in. You know the type.”

  Hook squashed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Thanks, Sheriff. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

  * * *

  When Hook got back to the jeep, someone had pulled in front of him.

  “Damn it,” he said.

  He tried to push the jeep back with his one hand, but the wheels rode up against the curb.

  Just then the old man from the post office came around the corner. Hook leaned against the hood to catch his breath.

  The old man sank his hands into his overalls’ pockets.

  “Where’s the dog?” he asked.

  “He isn’t here,” Hook said.

  “Shoot him?”

  “Not exactly,” Hook said, turning around and leaning into the jeep.

  “Shoot him behind the ear,” he said. “He’ll never know what hit him.”

  “You think you could help me push this jeep back?” Hook asked.

  “Got to have a reverse to back up,” he said. “No reverse, you got to park with no one in front of you.”

  “Someone pulled in,” Hook said. “Maybe you could give me a hand. I’ll steer if you’ll push.”

  The old man turned his back to the jeep, putting both hands under the bumper. He rocked her a couple of times, and the jeep rolled back into the street.

  “Thanks,” Hook said, getting in.

  “No reverse, you got to plan ahead,” he said. “Sometimes I had to park my Buick on the edge of town. Going backward everywhere ain’t easy, you know. Sometimes a man gets confused about which is the right side of the road.”

  “I’ll be more careful in the future,” Hook said.

  “People get tired of pushing after a while,” he said. “People will get where they won’t push no more.”

  “Thanks again,” Hook said, pulling off.

  He drove by Blue’s Café to talk to Linda Sue, but Blue said that Linda Sue didn’t show up for her shift. So on his way back to the salvage yard, Hook swung by her house and knocked on the door. No one answered.

  The sun had set by the time he pulled into the salvage yard. When Mixer heard him, he came out from under the caboose steps wagging his tail and stretching.

  Once inside, Hook slipped off his prosthesis and fixed himself a whiskey and springwater. Both the pushers were gone from the siding, but he found the quiet more unsettling than comforting. He thumbed through a few of his latest acquisitions and then tossed them aside.

  The more he tried to gather up the loose ends of the sergeant’s death, the more they unraveled. He figured a man careful enough to check the board and sign the log had a fair notion of the schedule going in. For Erikson to get caught short in the tunnel just didn’t fit. And he’d been on the right side of the curve for spotting the glimmer when she broke over the canyon. And then there was Linda Sue, the love nest, and the flashlight under the trestle.

  He pulled the covers over him as the night deepened. Maybe the army would come up with some answers. The lieutenant had promised to keep him informed, but it struck him that she didn’t push like she ought, leaving the hard questions for him. Maybe this sort of investigation was out of her league. With her being in Transportation and all, maybe she didn’t deal with love triangles and dead bodies in tunnels every day.

  Even though he preferred working his cases alone, at this point he’d take all the help he could get. And the possibility of seein
g the lieutenant again didn’t bother him much at all.

  13

  A STEAMER WITH a line of salvage cars in tow rattled the window as it blew past the caboose. Hook rolled over and groaned. Living in a caboose was like living inside a concrete mixer.

  He found the coffee grounds swelled to twice their size in the coffeepot, and the ashes hadn’t been cleaned out of the coal stove in days. After shaking them down, he dumped the ashpan outside. He put in enough fresh coal for breakfast coffee, and soon the aroma filled the caboose.

  In the summertime, it took the coal stove about five seconds to turn the caboose into an oven and three hours for it to cool down to a tolerable temperature. Eddie had promised to update the old caboose with electricity, but somehow he had never gotten around to it.

  Hook sat on the edge of his bunk and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He needed a shave, which meant more hot water, which meant more misery as the sun bore through the cupola.

  When the coffee had finished, he poured himself a cup at the table. From there he could see Scrap’s office and the crane rising into the morning sun. He lit a cigarette and watched Scrap working his way toward him through the yard.

  The military had yet to file charges or close the tunnel investigation, so in the meantime he figured to see if he could find where the thieves fenced the copper. He’d follow Sheriff Mueller’s advice and check out the other salvage yards in the area. Nothing stopped a thief faster than drying up the money source. Once those copper thieves were rounded up, he’d petition Eddie to move him back to civilization.

  Scrap knocked on the door before sticking his head in.

  “You up, Runyon?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you run some electricity out here, Scrap? I’m going blind with that kerosene lantern.”

  “So’s you can read half the night, I suppose. Did you bring my jeep back?”

  “It’s back,” Hook said. “Half of Ash Fork’s population has taken a turn pushing it down the road.”

  “You got to park it where you don’t have to back it up.”

  “I hadn’t figured that out,” Hook said.

  Scrap shrugged. “I’ve got a transmission just come in. If you’d park it long enough, I could drop her in.”

  “I’ve been thinking I might check around, see if I could find where those boys are fencing that copper,” Hook said.