by A W Hartoin
“Huh!”
“Call 911!” I made like I had a phone.
Aaron nodded and called, yelling into the phone. The rain came down in sheets and I ran back to the overhang. Aaron shook his head. “Can’t hear!”
“We have to go to the truck!” I yelled.
“Huh?”
“Truck!”
“Camper!”
“Truck!”
“Camper!”
“Enough!” I grabbed his hand and yanked him through the building. I went for the truck, but Aaron deviated to the one camper parked behind the building and its overhang. There was a bike there, but no vehicle for pulling. I banged on the door. No answer. Of course. Why would there be? Hail started banging on the metal roof of the RV in sharp pings. Aaron pushed me aside and forced the door open and we ran in. I tripped and fell on a warm body. A woman lay on the floor with a hypo next to her. I scrambled to my feet with a scream.
“Dead?” asked Aaron.
I checked her pulse and pupils. Not dead. Completely wasted.
“Why me? Seriously, why?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Witness?” asked Aaron.
“Not in this state. Steve could’ve died next to her and she wouldn’t have noticed.”
Aaron held out the phone. I took it, but I wasn’t sure if they’d be able to hear any better in the RV. The hail pounded the roof so hard it was like an artillery barrage.
“911. What is your emergency?” said the dispatcher.
“I’m out at Bear Butte Lake and there’s a body in the stone building!” I yelled.
“Where are you? I can’t hear you.”
“Bear Butte Lake!” I grabbed a towel and hunkered down under it, pressing the towel tight over my ears.
“Is this Mercy Watts?”
“Er…yes.”
She sighed. “Who’s your victim this time?”
“He’s not my victim,” I said before telling her the particulars.
“I have a unit on the way. Miss Watts, let me say this isn’t looking good.”
“Let me remind you that I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Let me remind you that this is your fourth murder in three days,” she said.
The woman on the floor groaned, rolled on her side, and then blew vomit out of her nose and mouth. She had Mexican for lunch. It wasn’t good.
“Again, not my murders,” I said, pinching my nose and clearing her airway.
Aaron lifted my towel and nudged the woman with his ancient Nike. “What about her?”
“This looks self-administered,” I said.
“What was that?” asked the dispatcher.
Aaron stared at me.
“Fine. I’ll report it. Happy?”
No reaction.
“What are you saying?” asked the dispatcher, her voice going squeaky.
“I’ve got a second issue.”
“A second body? For crying out loud. You need to leave South Dakota. Our population wasn’t that high to begin with.”
“She isn’t dead. She injected something. I’m guessing heroin.”
“Is she in trouble?” she asked.
“Well, it’s heroin, so I’d say yeah. No good comes of heroin,” I said.
“I mean, has she overdosed?”
I checked the woman again, giving her a not-so-gentle slap. “Wake up, woman.”
She groaned.
“Looks like she’s over the line, but not in immediate danger,” I said.
“EMT will be there in twenty,” said the dispatcher.
“Twenty? We’re like ten minutes from town.” I didn’t want to stay in that RV. If I did, the heroin user wouldn’t be the only one barfing.
“There’s golf ball-sized hail.”
“Swell.”
The dispatcher started giving me instructions on rousing the woman. I followed them a bit half-heartedly. I smacked her again and poured water on her face before sitting her up.
“Leb me alobw,” she slurred.
“Love to,” I said.
“Fub you.”
This day is awesome.
“I’ve got your vomit on my shoes, so fub you,” I said, looking up at Aaron. “Do you hear a siren?”
“Cops,” he said.
“Thank goodness. I’ve got to get out of here.” I held back a heave, just barely.
After another ten minutes, the cops still hadn’t come. The heroin user was fluttering her eyes and smacking my hands as I tried to hold her upright so I felt free to leave her, even though she immediately fell over and bonked her head on the table leg.
“Bivtches,” she muttered. “Get you.”
“Whatever.” I climbed onto the bed at the end of the RV to look out the window. “Unbelievable!” Two squad cars were in the parking lot next to my truck, but they were just sitting there.
“What?” asked Aaron.
“Cops won’t come out in the hail. Stay with her.” I went out the door and waved to them under the bulging rain-filled canopy. They saw me and waved back. I wanted to scream and I did. It’s not like anyone could hear me over the deluge. I went back inside and found an umbrella. Then showed the cops the umbrella. They waved. Unbelievable.
I screamed again and there was a weird snapping noise. Everything went black. Not like I passed out. Like I couldn’t see. Talk about panic and screaming. I fought the soaked canvas until someone pulled me out. I thought it would be the cops. It wasn’t.
Aaron dragged me into the RV and put a bag of frozen peas on the enormous egg on my head.
“I was wrong,” I said. “I didn’t jump off anything and I’m not fine.”
Aaron lifted the peas. “Bleeding.”
“Awesome.” I felt the egg, but the blood wasn’t coming from my forehead. I had a gash on the top of my head and the scalp loves to bleed. “Can you grab some paper towels?”
Aaron gave me a wad and that’s how the cops found me when they finally braved the storm—soaking wet with bloody paper towels and peas on my head.
A polite knock rattled the RV door and the heroin woman yelled, “Come in!” She pushed herself upright and fell over on the other side. A cop I didn’t recognize opened the door and peeked in. “Mercy Watts?”
“It’s about time.”
He folded up an umbrella and shook his head. “Who is this woman?”
“Beats me,” I said. “If you had an umbrella, why didn’t you come before?”
“It was hailing and it never lasts long.”
“What the heck! You have a body and whatever you want to count her as.”
“Are you saying that body’s going to get up and walk away?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t channel my father. Instead, I gave him the rundown and got up to leave.
He held up his hand and stepped in front of the door. “So you admit that you were breaking and entering?”
“To get out of the storm and call you,” I said.
He unhooked his cuffs.
“Are you serious?”
“I have an obligation.”
I held out the bloody wad. “Funny how you didn’t have an obligation to help me.”
His cheek twitched. “You did break and enter this RV.”
I pointed at the woman, who was babbling, and from the increasing stench, just peed herself. “Go ahead and try to make that stick. I double dog dare you. I revived her and cleared her airway of vomit. If I hadn’t come in, who knows what could’ve happened.”
“Trevino’s right. You are a pain in the ass.”
“I’ve been called worse on Twitter. What else ya got?”
He had nothing. When the EMTs arrived, we turned the heroin user over to them. They weren’t thrilled. Drugs, vomit, and pee, oh my.
“Let’s go out and see your body,” said Officer Ryan.
“I’m good. Seen it.”
Ryan insisted, so we sloshed back to the stone walls to find Steve under a plastic tarp and Trevino documenting the scene. He looked at m
e with hound-dog eyes. “When are you leaving town?”
“Sunday. Are you saying you won’t miss me?” I asked.
“I’ll miss you like a giant hemorrhoid.”
“Nice.”
“Apt. Tell me what the hell you were doing out here?”
“I was going to interview a suspect.” I gave him my theory.
“Well, you were pretty wrong,” said Trevino.
“Thanks for pointing that out. I had no idea.”
He closed his umbrella as the rain dwindled. “Alright. I’ll have you go and sit in my cruiser until the coroner shows up.”
“Pass,” I said. “I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Not more important than this. We still haven’t gotten your full statement on your last murder.”
“Why does everyone say your murder?”
“Because you are suspiciously close to a lot of people who get killed.”
“I was with Aaron the whole time. We were over at the Bear Butte visitor center right before we found him. You can ask the rangers. If I was going to murder Steve, I wouldn’t advertise that I was looking for him and then call you as soon as I did it.”
Trevino’s eyes said that he thought I might just be that nutty. Great.
“I’m leaving.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you going to arrest me?”
Please say no.
Trevino looked at Steve’s body under the tarp. “Not at this time, but I do need a signed statement.”
“You know where to find me.” I took Aaron’s arm and headed for the opening.
“What’s your hurry?” asked Trevino with a narrowing of the eyes.
“My grandad’s back in town. Apparently, it’s open season on Vietnam vets. I’ve got to get him back to The Ornery Elk.”
He unhooked his walkie from his belt. “What’s his location?”
“The Indian show area.”
Trevino called for foot patrol to head over there to wait with Grandad.
I thanked him and asked, “They won’t tell him about Steve, will they?”
“You want to tell him?”
Not exactly.
Chapter Twenty-one
AARON DROVE BACK to town while I shivered under a police blanket. The hail had dimpled my poor truck and Dad was going to freak. Luckily, the trees I parked under protected it to some extent. Steve’s bike had a shattered windscreen and the metal parts had the texture of a golf ball so it could’ve been a lot worse.
I dug my insurance info out of the glovebox and the Game of Thrones theme song started vibrating Aaron’s phone. We both looked at it and then each other.
“You get it,” I said.
“You,” said Aaron.
“I have a head injury.”
“I’m driving.”
Dammit.
I clenched my jaw to try and control the chattering. “Hello.”
“You ever gonna call me?” bellowed Uncle Morty.
“You’re busy.”
“I ain’t busy when people are dying. Stop making that noise. What the hell are you doing?”
“Shaking,” I said.
“What the hell for?”
“‘Cause it’s fun, obviously. Why else does a person shake uncontrollably?” It came out pissed and peevish. I was both.
Uncle Morty paused and said with surprising gentleness, “Are you sick?”
“Sick of people dying, but no. I just got pummeled with rain and hail. Again. This place bites rocks.”
He chuckled and then stopped. “Did somebody else die?”
“Yeah.” I told him what happened at the lake.
“Jesus H. Christ. What is it with you?”
I held my free hand up and heaved a sigh as the heater kicked in. “I didn’t kill him or Hal, for that matter.”
“What do you need for this shit?”
“Are you offering?”
“For a price.”
“It’s for Grandad. You like him.”
“I like you, but I got a business to run. New leads?”
I put my face in front of the vent. “Dr. Watts said Steve wasn’t violent. I guess she was right about that. She was a little hinky about Lt. Morris.”
“Hinky how?” he asked.
“She didn’t want to talk about him.”
“Get anything useful?”
“She turned Steve in and she said Cheryl Morris was friends with Robert’s wife.”
“But nothing on the stealing?”
“No. Can you get into that security company? I’ve got to know who hired them to get Hal’s info.”
“Yeah, I’m almost there. It looks like this Cheryl Morris has been busy. She’s been in contact with a dozen guys that were in Vietnam at the time of her husband’s death.”
“What kind of guys?” I asked between chattering.
“All kinds. Most retired. We’ve got math teachers to construction workers.”
“What are they talking about?”
“She contacted them through Facebook and then called them direct,” he said. “She called Wayne Millford. Interview her. She’s the center of this. We gotta know what they were talking about.”
“I agree, but I’m getting Grandad out of here ASAP.”
“You ain’t leaving until you figure this out. Your dad won’t have it.”
“Guys that were in Vietnam with Grandad are getting murdered. We’re out.”
He started manic typing and said, “They can always follow you home.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Yeah, I’m Mr. Comforting. What’d he say about Steve biting it?”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
A burst of cursing stung my ear and he yelled, “Go get Ace and get some damn information.”
“Get me the M.E. Report on Hal,” I said, finally warming up.
“I got it. He took a blow to the head that didn’t kill him. The Isradipine did.”
“At least I was right about that.”
“About time.”
“Thanks. Did they get any prints?” I asked.
“Dozens,” he said. “The cleaning staff didn’t clean a damn thing. They’re sorting through them now.”
“Any crazed murderers that were in Vietnam?”
“Not so far, but a lot of the prints aren’t popping.” Uncle Morty hung up, saying he was going to dig into Cheryl Morris’s computer and see if he could find out what she wanted from all those vets.
We drove back into town, passing dozens of bikers looking worse for wear after the storm. Some weren’t any better at planning than me and wore black trash bags. I’d rather get wet. I could just imagine what Twitter would have to say about me wearing a trash bag. It was sure to be on the nose.
Aaron found a parking space by the bridge and said, “Truck’s gone.”
I tried to fluff my hair in an effort to cover the egg. “We’re in the truck.”
“Other truck.”
Holy hell. He was right. We’d left the bloody truck a little ways down the road and it was gone.
“Maybe Raptor took Grandad back to The Ornery Elk,” I said, but somehow, I knew that wasn’t true. “Come on. Hurry.”
Aaron and I ran the two short blocks to the Indian sales section and I saw Grandad immediately, holding court with a couple cops and sales people. He was telling a story with a big smile and hand gestures. Now I had to ruin that. I stopped and put my hands on my knees. The ground went swimmy and Aaron had to force me upright.
“Okay?” he asked.
I hugged him. “I’m glad you’re here. You wouldn’t have left Grandad alone.”
“So you’ll eat my blue crab dish?”
I pulled back and saw what passed for a calculating look in Aaron’s normally unfocused eyes. “Are you going to fix my tickets?”
Blink.
“I’ll take that as a yes because I’d hate to have eaten my last Aaron original.” I mussed up his hair and discovered it didn’t look any different. I tried a
gain. No change. His bed head was a permanent condition. “Your hair is bizarre.”
“I know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
I’d assumed he didn’t know the perpetual condition of his hair, just like how he didn’t know that men don’t usually wear pink hairnets. I told him and he didn’t care. He had a supply of pink hairnets and he was going to wear them.
“Do you think there’s any barbecue left?”
“You hungry?” He went up on his toes.
“I only had one slider.”
Aaron trotted off in the direction of the barbecue truck without another word. “No crab. I’m serious about those tickets.”
He gave me a thumbs-up as he trotted away. If he came back with that stupid blue crab thing, I was going to be pissed. I’d rather eat my shoe and it was gross.
I walked slowly into the Indian area. There were no customers, except for Grandad, if you could even call him that. He was still smiling until he saw me and then the smile fell right off his face. “Where have you been?”
“Where’s Raptor and Wallace?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t notice my lack of an answer.
“They went back to The Elk. Where have you been?”
Dammit.
Before I could answer, two salesmen started taking pictures of me.
“Knock it off,” I said. “I’m having a crappy day.”
“You look great,” said one, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to my chest. Honestly, that happens all the time. My chest had its own Twitter handle.
“You like women who are half-drowned and have head injuries. Good to know.”
“Head injury?” He didn’t look at my head.
One of the cops with a name tag that said ‘LePage’ rushed over and put his jacket over me. “You need this.”
I looked down and got swimmy again. The white tee that I’d thrown on without thinking that morning was soaked through and my pale pink bra was clearly visible. There was a chilly breeze and it showed. I zipped up the jacket and went to glare at the guys, but they were typing madly on their phones. The women blushed and one asked me if I wanted a coffee. I did and she went off to get it. Grandad got up stiffly and I thought he was going to say something that I’d regret. It’s not often you look like you’re in a wet tee-shirt contest in front of your grandfather, but Grandad ambled off to the men. He grabbed both of their phones, threw them on the ground, and stomped on them.
