R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 03 - A Dead Red Oleander

by R. P. Dahlke

  I opened the rusted screen door to Burdell’s house. A note was tacked to the peeling white paint of the door. I’m out at the pond. Follow the path to the willow trees and bring worms or beer.

  We didn’t bring beer or worms, but I was determined that Burdell tell me if he had accepted a bribe that got Arthur killed. We took the path to the pond, and saw his lawn chair lying on its side, a tackle box spilled of its contents.

  “Burdell?” I called, hoping he had stepped behind a tree to pee.

  “Lalla—I—I think—you see that over there?”

  “Where?”

  “By that willow tree yonder.”

  In the lacy shadows, a colorful plaid workshirt, the kind favored by fishermen, hunters and cranky old cropdusters wallowed beneath a lowering branch. With the discarded fishing rod, I climbed out on a thick limb and snagged the shirt, pulling the body around so I could see the face. Sadly, I recognized my father’s old friend. My dad and Burdell had the same bushy gray eyebrows, only Burdell now sported a bloody hole at the base of his neck.

  I shimmied down off the tree, dropped the fishing rod, and wiping away the tears threatening my vision, flipped open my cell. Looking for a signal and finding none, I flipped the cell closed. “Let’s go back up to the house. I can’t get a signal here.”

  Then I looked back at the body silently waiting in the shallow end of his fishing pond. “Goddammit, Pearlie, I can’t leave him here like this. Wait here.”

  I climbed back up the tree limb, and using the fishing rod, snagged his shirt and towed him to the shore. Then Pearlie and I got a hand under each arm and pulled him out of the water. I couldn’t bear to turn him over. It could’ve been my dad lying on the ground, his grey hair wet and stuck to his head.

  Pearlie was breathing heavily through her mouth. “Is—is it really him, your dad’s friend?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m afraid so. Come on let’s go call 9-1-1.”

  If only I’d chosen to come here before going to the aero-ag school, maybe this wouldn’t have happened, or maybe we would’ve been found face down in the pond along with Burdell. I vowed if I ever found out who killed him, I wouldn’t wait around for the police.

  We trudged uphill to the house, and I opened the screen door and turned the knob on his front door.

  “Shouldn’t his house be locked?” Pearlie asked.

  “Burdell is like most of these old-timers, never locks his doors. If it weren’t for the intruder we had a couple of years ago, my dad would still keep our house unlocked.”

  I walked over to the phone on an end table next to a twin of my dad’s Barcalounger. It depressed the hell out of me. How was I going to tell Dad someone had shot his best friend? And for what? The old boy didn’t have anything valuable to steal. No big screen TV, and no fancy car or fishing boat, either.

  There was a small package addressed to my dad on the table. This would be his monthly exchange of a paperback novel. I put it in my back pocket, thinking I’d give it to my dad when we got home.

  With a heavy heart, I picked up the handset of his old-style black phone to call the police.

  An inside door swung open and out of it stepped the braggart from the aero ag school. Clark! The son of a bitch. I flexed my fingers and felt the bruise along my ring finger where it had gotten stuck in the door handle of his new Ford F-150.

  He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him, which I hoped would work in my favor. He was so fixated on me he didn’t notice Pearlie glued to the wall behind him. Not that I expected much from my cousin. She was rooted to the spot, her hands clapped over her mouth to keep from screaming.

  Unfortunately, he had the gun he’d used to shoot Burdell in his hand and raised it to aim at my head. “Put down the phone Ms. Bains.”

  I flicked a glance at Pearlie, hoping she would remember that little pistol she carried in the bag she had hanging on her arm. I chanced a reminder. “My friend has a gun on your back.”

  “Oldest trick in the book,” he said, holding out his other hand. “Give me the phone, or put it down. Come on, lady. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Like you didn’t hurt Burdell Smith?” I said, putting down the phone. “Why’d you do it? What’d that old man ever do to you?”

  He frowned, opened his mouth to say something, but Pearlie chose that moment to come out of her trance. Instead of pulling her gun out of her bag, she screamed.

  Clark whirled around at the sound and got the full force of one chubby little blonde launching herself at him. I leaped on to his back, hoping the two of us could bring him down. We weren’t enough to knock him off his feet and Pearlie fell off, but I hung on like a limpet, and we lurched around the room, knocking over furniture, lamps, and chairs.

  Pearlie got up, climbed on to a couch, and launched herself at him again, battering at his head with her purse. Too bad she didn’t remember she had a perfectly good gun inside.

  Her aim seemed to improve, and every now and again the purse connected with his head or a shoulder, and I thought maybe that gun was going to do some good after all. Instead, it only seemed to infuriate the guy.

  We struggled and fought, me on his back trying to get a strangle hold on his neck, him jerking me around like one of those mechanical bull rides, Pearlie screaming, tossing books and magazines at his head. We staggered around like this for a few more seconds until he slammed me into Pearlie and knocked us all into the wall. Pearlie and I slipped down on to the floor to lie dazed and exhausted. Pearlie’s dress was bunched up around her bottom and my shirt was hanging half off.

  He stood over us, his gun pointed at me. Then his angry face altered into a leering grin. He reached out and jerked Pearlie to her feet. Looking her up and down, he licked his lips. “Fights always make me horny, and lucky me, I think I’m holding the cure. You, skinny bitch, get up,” he said to me, and gestured for me to pick up a wooden armchair.

  He pushed Pearlie away from him. “There’s a roll of duct tape over there. Get it, cutie, and tie her up,” he said. “Hurry and make it nice and tight. I don’t want any interruptions to our party.”

  I didn’t have to ask what he had in mind for Pearlie. It was the after I was worried about.

  Pearlie was slow and clumsy at the task, submissive, docile, and not at all like the Pearlie I knew. I could only hope this was an act.

  But then, my cousin didn’t have much practice with killers. I suppose it would only be natural that she would try to please him. It’s part of our genetic makeup—do what the man says and he won’t kill her. Unless you were someone like me, who had run up against not one, but two killers in the last two years, who knew there would be no bargaining for our lives, no chips left to play in this game. I knew I would have to find that tiny window of opportunity that might save our lives before it was too late.

  When he was satisfied that my wrists were bound to the arms of the chair, and my feet couldn’t be used against him, he ordered her to stand up.

  Looking up at him through very blue eyes swimming in tears, her lower lip trembling, in her breathy, little-girl whisper she said, “I’ll do anything you want, but please don’t hurt me.” Then she raised her face, licked her lips, and ducked her head down on to his shoulder. “Please?”

  Oh God, please let her be acting.

  If she was acting, she’d done her job, because he pulled her to his chest and with a throaty growl, said, “Looks like I got myself a little alley cat and she’s in heat. You come to the right place then, ’cause I’m ready for some action.”

  She looked up into his face and purred, “You’re right about that, baby, and I got a condom or two in my purse just for you.”

  Her purse? Now we were talking.

  He held on to her arm with one hand, grabbed her purse with the other, and pushed her into the bedroom.

  I heard shuffling, some moaning, and then his muttered curses as he rummaged around in her purse looking for the condoms. Then Pearlie’s soft purring, “You know ho
w women’s purses are, full of this an’ that. You lay back and relax, baby. I’ll get it and then I’ll slide it on so we can get us some action.”

  I held my breath, waiting through the silence, hoping against hope that Pearlie would—

  “You bitch!”

  I held my breath as I heard a wild yell, and then gunfire. One shot, then two.

  Then it was quiet. Too quiet.

  “Pearlie?” I whispered.

  She staggered out of the door, her feet bare, her sundress askew and the buttons undone. “I—I think I killed him,” she said, her voice shaking. “But I can’t stand to be in there another minute to find out.”

  She put the gun on a side table, dropped to the floor, and fumbled with the knots to untie me.

  “Pearlie, honey,” I said, gently, “you did great, but forget about untying me, and call 9-1-1 first, will you?”

  She stood up and sleepwalked to the phone. When she picked it up she said, “Where are we anyways?”

  “Tell them Burdell Smith’s place out on King’s Ranch Road. Tell them to call Sheriff Caleb Stone. And, Pearlie, for now, let’s not mention anything about the aero-ag school.” I was going to have to play this just right, or Caleb would blow his top.

  <><><><>

  We were on the couch going over the last details of today’s incident with the local sheriff when Caleb walked in with Detective Rodney. I stood up and went to him, expecting comfort and maybe a tight squeeze. Instead, he gripped my shoulder and gave it a little shake. “And this was something you couldn’t leave for the pros?”

  I jerked out of his grip. “The pros? Where were the pros when Burdell needed help?” I was shocked that he would arrive and consider this my fault. In my fury, my voice went up another octave. “I stopped by to see my dad’s old friend and ended up fighting off a killer. And all you can say is why couldn’t I leave it to the pros?” My hand itched to reach out and slap him.

  Caleb flinched at the spitting vehemence in my voice, and backed off to talk to the sheriff. I sank down again on the couch next to Pearlie, and she said, “You tell ’em, Lalla.”

  I watched Detective Rodney circle the room, picking up furniture, looking under tables. “Quite a fight here. You sure it was just you two girls, or did you have help?”

  Pearlie jerked up off the couch. “We were defending ourselves from a rapist and killer!”

  No one was going to question the right of a small, helpless blonde to defend herself from a killer and a rapist. The local sheriff nodded his admiration of my cousin’s gumption. He did, however, take her gun. “It will be put through the usual for ballistics, miss, sorry.”

  I pointed at Pearlie’s small pink-handled pistol going into the plastic evidence bag. “You’re wasting your time. It was the other guy’s gun that killed Burdell Smith.”

  When their heads were turned, I gave Pearlie a nice thumbs-up and mouthed, “Good job, Pearlie.”

  Chapter Sixteen:

  After a long two hours feeding the same story to the Sacramento County Sheriff, we were released with the promise to be available for further interviews.

  Caleb leaned on the driver’s side of my caddy. “You don’t have to drive, you know.”

  He was trying to make up, but Caleb’s earlier bullying had left shards of hurt under my skin. “Pearlie’s a bit fragile right now,” I said stiffly. “The backseat of a police car could finally send her around the bend.”

  Caleb accepted my excuse, but still insisted we caravan to Modesto so he could drop the detective off, then he’d see us out to the ranch.

  Pearlie silently slid into the passenger seat. When we were buckled up, I shifted into gear and we got behind Caleb’s cruiser on the road.

  I glanced over at her. “You okay?”

  She spit out a piece of fingernail, and examined the wretched state of what was left of her manicure. “I’m thinking about dumping my job with Granny.”

  “What?”

  “I had that creep in the palm of my hand. With my acting skills and good looks I should be in Hollywood.”

  “Uh-huh. Tell me that tomorrow.”

  “Why? I’m stoked.”

  “That’s the adrenaline talking, Pearlie. Give it a few hours and you’ll be bawling like a baby. I’ve been there, I know.”

  “Not me. You think I’m gonna go all weepy about some creep who tries to rape me? Huh, not a chance.”

  “You were great, Pearlie. I’m really proud of you.”

  She looked out the window at the passing scenery, staring at the long line of fence posts with nothing but monotonous grassland undulating in wave after wave of brown hillocks until it grew into the eastern hill country of the Sierras. Jackson was up there, home of the original Forty-niners’ gold rush, now boutique wineries, chic galleries, bed and breakfast inns, and dude ranches.

  Pearlie had gotten way too quiet. I started to say something that would fill the silence in the car, but couldn’t think of a thing to say. I felt beaten, inside and out. It was strange; I could hold my own with a man who wanted to kill me, but when Caleb chastised me for taking what he saw as unnecessary chances, I crumbled.

  Pearlie, her voice still hoarse from the earlier yelling, said, “I was sixteen when my folks died in that car crash. You know they never told me I had any relatives at all? That’s an incredibly selfish thing to do to a kid, don’t you think? Even if you are only a second cousin, you’re better’n nothin’. I was mad at my parents for dying, mad that my granny didn’t even come to the funeral, not that she knew about it in time. I lied and told the lawyer I needed money for a trip to Texas to see her. He should’ve seen to it that I got on a plane, but I think he was just glad to have me out of his hair. I took the money and ran off with a bunch of hopheads, that is until my cash ran out, and the guys started on me to contact the lawyer for more. When I wouldn’t, they held me down, shot me up, and raped me. If I had had a gun, then that argument woulda turned out different. I hitched a ride with another bunch of kids. College kids, not dopers, and they took me all the way to Granny’s ranch, and wouldn’t accept gas money. I guess there are some good people in the world after all.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Tell anyone and I’ll deny it.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

  “Good, ’cause that sort of thing don’t look good on a girl’s résumé when you’re trying to get a man to commit.”

  Oh, boy. Pearlie and Mad Dog. Again. I opened my mouth to tell her Mad Dog was still married, then decided not to ruin her high.

  “This ride didn’t do anything to convince me otherwise. And no, I ain’t worried that his soon-to-be ex-wife is going to come around and mess with our fun. They don’t have children and she hasn’t lived with him for years, but do you think she would set him free so he could have a life? What a bitch!”

  Pearlie’s nerves were about to pop. “Pearlie, when we get home I’ll give you a nice stiff drink, and put you in a tub of hot water with my favorite bath oil.”

  “Don’t bother, I won’t need it.” She reached over and turned on the radio, flipping country western to a conservative talk show, to a rock ’n’ roll station. It went on like this for the rest of the drive home.

  <><><><><>

  I got Pearlie into the house, and after explaining the barest of details to my Aunt Mae, I took my dad to his TV room. Then I told him about his friend Burdell.

  He backed away from me, waving his hands in front of his face as if he could erase the onslaught of grief that was about to envelope him.

  I took a step closer, unsure if he wasn’t about to have another heart attack. “I’m awfully sorry, Daddy. Is there anything I can do?”

  His eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and he was working hard not to let me see it. “You can close the door behind you and leave me alone.”

  I did as he asked and as I was closing the door, I saw him collapse into his Barcalounger, the one that was just like Burdell Smith’s.

  I went o
ut to the porch to talk to Caleb.

  He had his boots up on the rail, a cold beer in his hand. He reached down and brought up another open bottle and silently handed it to me.

  When our hands met, he noticed the swelling on my ring finger, put down his feet, and took my hand in his.

  “My God, Lalla, you didn’t say you were hurt. Did that bastard do this?”

  I drew my hand out of his. “It was an accident, Caleb. I couldn’t tell you in front of all those strangers, but before we went to Burdell’s we were at the flight school. I talked to the only two employees; one of them was Clark Sullivan. Yes, the one Pearlie shot. I tried to stop him from leaving, and my ring finger got stuck in his door handle.”

  I held up the fingers and flexed them. “Not broken. Just bruised.” Then I told him about meeting Alvin and Clark Sullivan who was Arthur’s drinking buddy. “But I swear to you, I didn’t know Clark Sullivan was going to show up at Burdell’s.”

  I could swear till it was dark and the moon hung over our roof, but that didn’t mean Caleb believed me. “Do you think I should call the marshal tonight and tell him? It could be the link he needs to prove Nancy innocent.”

  Caleb sat back and thoughtfully pulled at the paper label on his beer while he did that humming thing he did when he was thinking. “The marshal briefed me on his interview with the flight school employees. He had nothing that indicated either of these guys knew Arthur outside of the job.”

  Was that a touch of admiration in his voice? But before I could jump on it as reason why I did exactly what I promised not to do, he stood up and pushed at the creases in his pant legs.

  “I’ll call him tonight. He’ll want to talk to the mechanic again. What was his name?”

  I stood up too, and hoping to pad my tally of good points, added, “Alvin. He’s the mechanic there.”

  Caleb kissed me on the cheek, and without another word, he left.

  I was pretty speechless too, thinking back on the unbelievable day—getting Alvin to tell me that Clark Sullivan was chummy with Arthur, then seeing Clark run off, finding Burdell face down in his pond, and coming on Clark again in the house. He’d killed Burdell and we’d interrupted him while he’d been looking for something. But what?