by Tony Masero
“Not quite procedure is it, officer?” There was a coldness about the stranger now, a terseness that cut through his earlier calm. “If I had meant it,” he went on steadily. “I would be talking to a dead man now.”
He ejected the ammunition case from the grip and pulled back the slide letting the ready shell fly away. With a turn of the Glock´s trigger guard around his index finger he spun the weapon and offered it back to George butt first.
“Now,” he said. “You going to be nice?”
Red faced and glowering George snatched back the weapon. Joe sniggered behind him.
“Had you there, George. He sure had you there.”
George grabbed the two-way from his belt and stabbed the call button. He cleared his throat noisily and made the call.
“Chief, come in Chief.”
The two men faced each other watching one another intently as George waited for a reply. Summersby had relaxed back, half sitting on the table behind him his arms folded in front of him whilst George fumbled to re-holster his empty weapon without taking his eyes from Summersby.
“Stoeffel here. What’s up?”
“It´s George, Chief. I got a fellow here at the Low Down Cafe. Says he´s had a bike wreck. Looks beat up. Might be our perp.”
There was a pause. “You got an ID?”
“Nope, says he lost it in the wreck.” George was beginning to recover some of his bravado now, as the case against Summersby seemed to be justifying his earlier aggression.
“Okay, take him in and hold him `til we check it out. Tell Ayleen I´m heading out to the Jobin place and I´ll be back after that.”
“Roger that. Out.”
Sullen faced, George looked up at Summersby. “You heard him. Let’s go.”
Summersby put a hand in his jeans pocket and George started back, nervously suspicious. Summersby smiled wryly and pulled a crumpled batch of damp dollar bills from the pocket and placed them on the counter.
“What do I owe you?” he asked Joe.
Joe slid a bill away with his finger. “That´ll do it.”
“Thanks,” said Summersby, he turned back to face the deputy. “Shall we go?”
The coffee house shook as a heavy freight train passed by on its way to the depot at Charleston. Joe winced wild-eyed as George forgetfully slammed the door once again behind him.
“Dumb redneck,” he muttered to himself as he rang up the cash on the old fashioned brass till.
Chapter Three
The battered wooden sign was barely visible to Stoeffel as his headlights flashed across it. White lettering on a black background. `Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco´ it ordered, the rest lost down amongst the tangled undergrowth beneath. He took the barely visible, tree overhung track alongside the sagging sign and made out a dim rectangle of light in the gloom ahead.
The house was deep in the forest, a run-down shambles with a porch roof that was slipping sideways into the surrounding forest. It was an old wooden structure with a rickety fenced front veranda; a long low level plank building that had obviously seen better days. Rain slick ivy festooned the wooden pillars and hung in weeping swags across the front of the veranda. The house appeared to have surrendered any pretense as a dwelling place and was slowly being reclaimed by the encroaching woodlands.
Above the place a rising full moon shone down from a sky now brushed clear of rain. The moonlight filling the veranda with stark shadows and lighting up the warped surface of wet wooden roof tiles above in contrasting harsh brightness.
Stoeffel exited his cruiser and climbed onto the creaking veranda.
“Who´s that?” called a high-pitched woman´s voice from inside.
“Paul Stoeffel, ma´am. Chief of Police down at Lodrun. I got some questions I need to ask you.”
There was a shuffle and clumping sounds from inside, then silence. Stoeffel waited a few moments.
“You there, ma´am?” he called again.
“Sure am. Ain´t going nowhere. You comin´ in or going to stand out there all night?”
“Okay, ma´am. I´m coming in then.”
“Come ahead.”
Stoeffel pulled back a squeaking bug screen badly in need of oil and turned the battered brass door handle. The room inside was lit by two dim oil lamps and the light from the barred window of an elderly iron stove, their glow revealing a chaotic jumble of antique furniture partially hidden in shadow. The air was stale with the stink of dust and age and there was a greenhouse temperature that made Stoeffel´s skin prickle. At the center on the one cleared patch of tattered carpet sat an old rocking chair and in it a withered woman with a brightly patterned quilt around her shoulders. She held a pump action shotgun in her hands, her stringy arms quivering with the weight.
“You sure you´re a policeman?” Her voice quavered.
“Sure am,” said Stoeffel stepping into the light and removing his hat so she could see him more clearly. “Mind lowering that weapon, ma´am?”
She lowered it with a relieved cackle. “Ain´t loaded anyways. If I fired the damned thing I´d sure as likely end up in my own back room.”
“Am I speaking with Mrs. Jobin?” asked Stoeffel.
“Mother Jobin, they call me. And you are Police Chief Stoofell, did you say?”
“Stoeffel, ma’am,” Stoeffel corrected.
“Yep, that’s what I said. Ain´t deaf you know.”
Stoeffel could see her better now. White hair tied up in a tight bun and a face lined by years to a waxen mass of crinkles, with two bright eyes that shone with dark brilliance from beneath hooded brows. She dropped the shotgun on the floor with a loud crash and pulled the quilt more tightly about herself.
“You shut that door behind you, did you? Feels a mite cold in here tonight.”
“I did, ma´am.”
“You ain´t from round here, are you?”
It was hard to guess at her origins, her skin seemed to be the color of walnut but that may have just been age or the lamplight. Stray white hairs wisped thinly on her chin as she spoke. It was apparent she was a tiny woman under the bulk of the quilt but she held herself well and had obviously been a proud lady in her younger days.
“No, ma´am. I moved here from Washington DC about six years back.”
“Thought so,” she nodded sagely. “I know most folk around here. Born and bred here, y´ know? In this very house. My gran’pappy built it with his own hands.” She spoke with a clear high voice yet with a slight lisp that gave witness to only a few remaining teeth. “See that pot bellied stove there?” she asked. Stoeffel nodded. “You put a few more bits a kindling in there will you? Keep back the chill a mite.”
Stoeffel did as he was asked although he could feel the heat radiating from the stove from where he stood by the door.
“Obliged,” she mumbled. “Don´t get around so well these days, you know.”
“I see that, ma´am. Why don´t you move into town. Have folks care for you?”
She snorted. “Lord, no! Down there with all them foreigners. All them noisy peoples. No thank you. This´ll do me until my time comes and that´ll be soon enough. When sweet Jesus is willing. Ninety-eight years I am, you know? Least as far as I can reckon.”
“That’s a good age,” Stoeffel obliged politely.
“Maybe from where you´re standing. Ain´t so good from this end, I can tell you.”
Stoeffel chuckled in spite of himself. He liked the old lady´s style.
“Well,” she said. “Speak your piece. What is it you want?”
“We have a problem down there on Dead Fall Back, ma´am. A little girl been killed. And you being the nearest property I was wondering if you noticed anything going on around here.”
“What little girl was that?” she asked, her head cocked sharply to one side like a bird on a perch.
“A youngster name of Epsie Links, ma’am.”
“Lord a´mercy!” Momentary anguish twisted her creased face into a painful coil of wrinkles. “Little Epsie. Dead killed you say. Was that
a accident?”
“No, ma´am. It was a murder.”
She sighed deeply. “It’s a wonder, ain´t it? Here I am nigh on a hundred years old an´ still rattlin´ about and that poor mite ain´t even going to see her first child born. Declare, it’s a strange and miserable old world sometimes, that’s for sure.”
Stoeffel stood, waiting patiently as the old lady mused over the sadness of such a loss. He twisted the brim of his hat in unconscious circles between his fingers.
She cleared her throat noisily, hawked and spat into a brass cuspidor by the side of her chair with remarkable accuracy.
“`Scuse me,” she apologized. “I gets the phlegm, you see. Used to chaw the tobacco but doctor said I had to give it up last year. Now all I do is spit up without even the pleasure of a damn good chaw. Well now, only thing I heard going on around here was all them vehicles in the woods out yonder. Stopped now. But a while back they was busy all the time, roaring in and out at all hours. Damn near drove me wild with their festering racket.”
“Would that have been hunters would you say?”
She shook her head slowly. “Don´t reckon so. It were off-season. And they was making way too much noise in them ree-creational vehicles of theirs. Nothin´ at all creational about them if you ask me.”
“Whereabouts would that have been, Mrs. Jobin?”
“I tole you, its Mother Jobin,” she scolded, irritably.
“I apologize, ma´am.... Mother Jobin. Where was it at?”
She pointed. A long thin arm creeping out from under the quilt. “Due north along the track a-piece.”
“And you´ve seen or heard nothing else unusual in the last day or so.”
She shook her head.
“Can´t say that I have.”
Stoeffel replaced his hat on his head.
“Well, thank you kindly for your time, ma´am. I´m sorry to have troubled you.”
“Weren´t no trouble, Chief Stoofel. Glad of the company, you drop by any time.”
“I’ll certainly do that, ma’am.”
“And Chief,” she spoke softly so that he barely heard her and caught him with his hand on the doorknob. “Tell them Links people that I´m sorry for their loss, will you?”
“I surely will.”
Her voice rose to a harsher tone. “An´ when you catch up to the sonofabitch that done it you make him pay, you hear.”
Back in his car Stoeffel took a moment to record the interview. He was meticulous in that way and had found that such records had stood him in good stead during his time in DC where it had sometimes been many months before a case came to trial.
When he was done, Stoeffel turned the car and retraced his way down the uneven track and took a left turn at the Mail Pouch sign, continuing north in the direction the old lady had pointed. It was no more than a rough woodland road beaten out by forestry employees and hunters and his headlights bumped and weaved as the cruiser bucked over potholes and exposed roots. The woods before him seemed impenetrable in the bright headlights, the foliage hemming him in and forming a blanket wall of monochrome haze. A low level mist was forming in the dampness and it crept eerily towards him from amongst the trees reducing his visibility.
Stoeffel persevered. Half an eye on the track before him while his mind considered the call from George. Was it possible that all this was necessary with a likely suspect already in a holding cell back at the station? But his curiosity was piqued, just what had been going on out here in the backwoods? Probably no more than an illicit still or a teenage trysting place. But he had to know for sure. It was this persistent curiosity that had made him a cop in the first place.
One thing was for sure, the road had indeed been well used and often recently. Dead broken branches littered the roadside and bushes had been beaten back by the passage of wide-tread tires. Nowhere was there evidence of the forest growing back. Something had gone on up here and from the freshness of the damage, despite the old lady´s vagueness as to exactly when, it was clear it had not been that long ago.
Stoeffel broke into the clearing unexpectedly. Chain sawed tree stumps littered the area and caused him to slew to a sudden stop. Ahead in the headlights standing against the far side of the clearing stood the remains of what looked like a cabin. Its beams were charred and black and they gleamed with rivers of silver where the light struck wet wood. Stoeffel picked up his flashlight and unlatching his holster stepped out of the car. The sudden quiet hit him with the same impact as the chill misty air. A stillness filled the forest with not even a slight breeze to stir the branches overhead.
Stoeffel moved towards the ruined cabin. He played his flashlight across the ground before him and saw only the remains of tire tracks, rough edged and unidentifiable after their battering by the rainfall. His shadow, cast by the still burning headlights, climbed the face of the burnt building making him appear as an elongated gaunt figure rippling across the timbers.
Stoeffel entered the building. Climbing over fallen timbers and sniffing the acrid smell of damp charred wood. It had not been too long ago, this fire. He poked with the toe of his boot at the sodden ashes, now turned to a creamy mud. A gleam caught his eye and he bent to pick up a fragile shard of glass. A thin tube, like the neck of a container, no more than an inch in diameter. Carefully he placed it in an evidence bag and holding it between thumb and forefinger continued to search. There were sections of angle iron, twisted and distorted by heat, that were obviously the remains of work surfaces. The skeleton of an office chair and the remnants of a spring mattress. Blown food cans and the shell of a portable TV indicated that someone had lived and worked here. The heat must have been tremendous though for every item was now a weird approximation of its former self.
He needed daylight and a proper team. Carrying the evidence bag carefully Stoeffel made his way back to the vehicle. That was when he saw the bundle of rags, off to the side outside the searchlight probe of the headlights. Propped like a bag of garbage it rested against the decapitated pillar of a tree stump. He went over and pressed his boot against it.
The pile heaved wetly and flopped sideways, a ravaged skull detaching itself and falling out, rolling into the torchlight at his feet. Picked clean by forest scavengers and shining the pale yellow color of polished ivory in the torchlight it grimaced up at him with an uneven set of browning teeth.
Chapter Four
Deputy Jason Legrand pulled into the BeeBar Service Station just as the rain was beginning to let up. The gas station was a lonely place and serviced the infrequent road traffic along Dead Fall Back that mainly consisted of farming and supply vehicles. The franchise owner, Ben Gomez, was forced to serve as full time attendant as well as manager. He could never get the staff to stay on in the out-of-the-way place. That and a number of robberies had kept even the most marginal of kids from applying for the job.
Jason had first struck up an acquaintance with Gomez at one of these attempted robberies. A particularly ridiculous affair where the robber, a recent parolee, had faced Gomez down with a knife and pistol as he was serving, or more rightly, servicing, a travelling sales lady.
For some reason Jason could never understand, the woman, a statuesque and well-groomed blonde, who passed along the road on frequent sales trips north, had formed an unlikely passion for Gomez. There was no way could you describe Ben Gomez as the most attractive of men. An overweight figure, with a drooping Zapata moustache and lugubrious dark rimmed eyes. In fact, everything about the man drooped. From his sagging trousers to the bags under his eyes. But then, reasoned Jason, appearances can be deceptive.
So while Gomez serviced his girlfriend in the back room, the robber, seeing the store apparently empty, made bold with the till. The sound of it opening brought Gomez out in a sticky rush, trousers still around his ankles. He fell, of course, and in the process took a display stand of Gummi Bears, Pot Noodles and Hershey Bars with him.
His lady, following close behind, hands covering her stupendous breasts, tumbled over Gomez´s prostrate
form. The terrified robber, amazed at the sight of two half naked people advancing on him over a fallen sales unit, promptly let loose with his pistol, firing wildly. Bullets perforated the shelves of supplies stacked against the back wall, bursting oil, grease and anti-freeze containers into explosions of messy liquid.
Gomez headed for his under-the-counter .38, his dismayed lady clinging to his ankle as he wormed across the floor. The two of them made it safely to the shelved revolver while shells ricocheted around them in all directions. By the time Gomez had gained his feet, revolver in hand, the robber had used up his entire magazine and in desperation drew a long bladed hunting knife.
He took a swing at Gomez, whose hand was shaking so much he could not even draw a bead on the fellow. Stepping into a spreading pool of top grade motor oil, the robber´s swing missed Gomez completely and carried the felon in a wild skywards loop, which ended up head first on the floor.
He stayed there, unconscious, until Legrand arrived to handcuff the dazed guy and haul him off back to prison again.
How Gomez made out with his lady friend after he left, Jason never did find out. But the shared adventure had left Gomez with an affection for Legrand that lived on. For that reason, when Legrand pulled into the forecourt Gomez beamed as best he could through his normally dour expression and shook Legrand´s hand like a long lost brother.
“How are you, Jason. Everything okay? You feel good, no?” His south of the border drawl dragging out the vowels extravagantly.
“Well enough, Ben. Spare a cuppa coffee?”
“Sure, Jason, for you, always. Come on in back, I got a pot already made there.”
They moved into the small messy office to one side of the counter and Gomez indicated a spare chair.
