by Tony Masero
“Okay. One more thing. Phone around any open tourist stores will you, see if anyone stocks those toy lambs.”
“Same as at the murder site?”
“That’s it, I want to know who has them.”
“Right, Chief. Anything else?”
“That’s all. Out.”
Chapter Nine
Jason Legrand was a rangy character, which seemed better suited to a saddle than a police car. He appeared slow to the casual observer, yet disguised a quick brain under the apparent mountain boy facade. Stoeffel had found him a priceless member of his team.
Legrand had already been there when Stoeffel arrived and it was Legrand who had introduced him to the back roads of Chelan County and shown him around the highs and lows of Lodrun. Legrand had covered for Stoeffel when his wife got sick and had put in many extra hours without complaint or requests for overtime pay whilst Stoeffel visited the hospital and cared for Leonora.
By nature a quiet man, he lived with a half Cherokee Indian woman, Mary Little Doe, who was as self- contained as he was. They had never married but seemed quite content with the situation as it was, even though the more pretentious members of the community frowned on the mixed-race arrangement.
It was a small town and it only took a slight discord to upset the fragile balance of relationships. But despite the whispered comments and sidelong glances, Jason and his lady continued living together, obviously impervious to all the gossip.
As Jason put it to Stoeffel once; “As police officers we are supposed to set an example, well, here I am showing these folks how to apply a little give an´ take” - and that was all he ever said on the subject.
It was mid-afternoon by the time Legrand got around to checking Rose´s Moving and Storage. He parked opposite the block-long warehouse and languidly crossed the quiet Main Street, going in through the antique glass paned swing doors.
The building was an old flat roofed Victorian style structure, massively built of red brick with small square windows that had been barred over against break-ins. One of the original, more substantial town buildings, it dated back to 1882 and had first been a lumber mill, then subsequently put to a number of other industrial uses until Bubba Rose had taken the place over some two years before.
Surveillance cameras heralded Legrand´s coming and Bubba Rose was at the door before Legrand made it to his office.
“Hey there, Deputy. How are you?”
Bubba Rose was a big man, standing nigh on seven feet tall, even looking down on Legrand who was no midget himself. Bubba seemed slightly disproportionate as his barrel chest and long legs dwarfed his head, which was as round as a pumpkin with thin dark hair slicked over the crown. He made no display of his obvious wealth and dressed in work boots, jeans and a fleece lined checkered shirt with a vest over the top. Bubba Rose liked to appear the people´s man and his noisy drinking parties were legendary affairs that had necessitated frequent calls on the Chelan County constabulary.
His money bought him friends on the street and on the Town Council. Although apparently well liked he was in fact somewhat feared by the towns people. He could, in his cups, release a terrible temper and as he drank often and sometimes excessively it had earned him a reputation. Perhaps unfounded, yet Bubba encouraged the reputation, since he liked to hold the feeling he held sway over people and their affairs.
“Well enough,” answered Legrand evenly.
“So step on into the office. Have a snort and tell me what’s on your mind.”
Bubba held the door to his chrome laden office open. The room clashed with the rest of the building, being styled in a brash décor of pink carpeting and stark white walls. The furniture was red leather and low-level glass-topped work surfaces sported state-of-the-art computers and flat screen monitors with alternating surveillance scenes of the warehouse storerooms displaying at intervals.
Bubba hoisted a heavy cut glass decanter from a bar that sported a flamboyant vase full of freshly imported long stemmed cut roses and raised it questioningly in Legrand´s direction.
“I´ll pass, Bubba,” said Legrand. “Being on duty and all.”
“Okay, then I´ll just have to take one for you.” Bubba chuckled, pouring himself a large measure into a chunky whisky glass. “So, bud. What’s on your mind?”
“We´re checking around on the Links girl’s murder. Need to know if young Brian Links was in yesterday. When and how long for, that kind of thing.”
Bubba sat in his massive leather chair behind a huge desk that would have made the Oval Office look small and reached for an inter-office phone.
“Not a problem,” he said to Legrand, stabbing buttons. He looked over as he waited for an answer.
“Any news on that killing yet?”
“Nothing so far,” answered Legrand cagily.
“Terrible business,” muttered Bubba, taking a sip from his glass. “Terrible.... Ah! Listen, Joline you got yesterday’s time sheets to hand? Will you bring them in here?”
Bubba laid the phone back and sat back deeper into the buttoned leather. The chair squeaked under his bulk and the leather complained with a muted squeal. “Who would have done such a thing? Hope you catch `em fast, Jason. `Cause I reckon they´ll be long gone if you don´t.”
Legrand nodded sagely as if Bubba only ever spoke words of wisdom.
“Mind you,” Bubba continued. “You catch them you better get `em out of town fast, I reckon the colored folks will be pretty riled by what’s gone on here.”
“Don´t reckon the Chief will take kindly to any lynch talk.”
“Aw!” Bubba waved a negative paw. “Them days are long gone, Jason. Sometimes I think it’s a damn shame though with all the crime there is.” He peered into the bottom of his glass thoughtfully.
“Say, Bubba. Do you mind if I check with the rest of the staff, see if they saw the little girl here?”
Bubba shrugged. “Sure, help yourself. Time sheets´ll tell us who was in yesterday. Personally I was over in Charleston making up a quotation. Young couple there got themselves a mountain lodge. Man, I don´t know where these kids get their money. Why, I remember when...”
Joline Marsh, Bubba´s secretary-cum-housekeeper came in and interrupted them with a spread of time cards in her hand. She was a soft-tan African-American girl who had moved up to the town from the south. She spoke with a honey toned Mississippi accent and had a figure to match. Everyone in Lodrun noted her arrival and she did little to hide her attributes. Even Legrand looked twice as she leaned over the desk in a tight fitting mini, which allowed him full view of her long and elegant legs.
“Here y´are, Bubba. Here´s them sheets y´all wanted. Why!” she said turning to Legrand with coquettish surprise as she noticed him standing behind the door. “Hi there, Deputy. How´re y´all today?”
Jason swept off his hat. “Real fine, Miz Marsh. And you?”
She eyeballed him from under long lashes with eyes dark as coal. “Couldn´t be better. Thank you.”
She was the kind of woman that most men could not resist. An evident well of sexual fire that burned in a body set to excite even the most sterile of male hormones. Long black hair and smooth, unmarked skin the color of milky coffee, covered a lush and shapely form that moved with a flexible mobility under the hugging garments she wore like a second skin.
“How many we got here, Joline?” asked Bubba, watching Legrand´s appraisal with a slightly jealous frown.
“I put everyone in there, Bubba. All five of them. Y´all want someone in p´ticular?”
“You just need Brian´s times, Jason?” Bubba asked.
“No, I reckon I´ll have to question them all. Better I see their schedules.” He did not miss Joline´s slight start at the mention of Brian´s name although she quickly recovered herself, successfully disguising the moment from Bubba Rose by stepping over to the door.
“That all, Bubba?” she asked.
“For now, honey. Thank you.”
Bubba Rose had moved in early on Joline�
�s arrival and his big bucks had won the day. Although publicly only his nominal factotum it was common knowledge that Joline did far more than wash Bubba´s socks and tidy his desk. Legrand felt a slight twinge of disappointment as she left the office, leaving only a faint hint of her perfume in the air.
Bubba grinned over his glass, watching Legrand speculatively as he offered the sheets.
“Some kind of woman, eh?”
Legrand shook his head, smiling awkwardly.
“That is the truth.”
He glanced quickly at the time cards. Four store men and a cleaner. He spread the cards. Brian Links. Clement Ray Barnes. Eric Leeward. Leonard Sachs and Hose Cobble, the clean-up man.
“Like to hold these for a while, Bubba. I´ll let you have copies if you need.”
“Long as we have something before payday or the boys might get a little irritated if their pay ain´t right. Mortgages, groceries,” he shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“Sure, I´ll have copies sent over.”
“No, don´t you do that. Joline will let you have them. Get along there to her office down the hall, tell her I said it’s okay and she can show you down to the warehouse if you want to question the men right now.”
“I´ll do that. Obliged, Bubba.”
Joline looked up from dabbing at a calculator with a long red fingernail as Legrand came into her room.
“Hello again,” she husked.
“I need some copies here, Miz Marsh.”
She smiled, sliding from behind her desk and taking the sheets.
“Now why don´ you call me Joline like evr´body else around hyah?”
Legrand watched her rotate over to the photocopier with fluid ease. “Fair enough.... Joline it is.”
“That’s better, much mo´ friendly, don´ you think?” She depressed the machine´s button and watched a copy sail into the tray.
“Bubba said it’s okay if you take me down to the warehouse. See the guys down there.”
“Sho´ thing, they be having their break about now. They´s all in today. You´ll find them all together in the break room, (rest room over here is the bathroom) it’s better that way as this is a real big place. We have to use them little communicator things to find them sometimes.”
“Did you see the little girl, Epsie Links, yesterday? She came along here to see her brother, I believe?”
Joline twisted her full lips, biting the lower one with a row of white even teeth.
“I sho´ hated to hear what happened there. Brian must be broken-hearted; I know he loved her so. That po´ chile.”
“Did you see her here?” Legrand repeated.
Joline shook her head.
“I cain´t recall seeing her. But that don´ mean nothing. I have my head down here in the office and maybe she come in the back. We have a big loading bay down there.”
Legrand nodded as Joline handed him back the time sheets.
“Will you follow me, Deputy?” She smiled at him teasingly and sidled over to the doorway.
Anywhere. Anytime. Legrand thought guiltily.
Legrand followed her through a maze of narrow passages until they came to a high cement balcony that overlooked the long stretch of the vast storerooms. Chain-link caged sections that stretched into the distance and housed boxes and crates, furniture and household goods.
“This hyah is the storage section,” Joline explained. “We can hold folks belongings whilst they´s movin´ or just store stuff they don´ need right now.”
She pointed to a large loading bay that was open and allowing chill mountain air to flow in and fill the storage space.
“That there is where all the crates are fork-lifted onto moving vans when the time comes.”
Through the doorway Legrand could see an array of white vans parked outside with the graphic decal of a red rose displayed on the side. Below the balcony Legrand could see a glass windowed office and the forms of overall clad men inside.
“Now you go on down there an´ do your business. I won´ come down if you don´ mind. They is kind of common men an´ I just don´ like to be around them.”
“Sure, that’s fine,” said Legrand. “And thanks for your help, Joline.”
“Why anytime, Deputy,” she grinned up at him coyly. “Anytime.”
The men looked up through a haze of tobacco smoke as Legrand entered. They all sat around a steel top table with the remnants of their break in front of them. Stained coffee mugs and a scattering of crumbs and biscuit containers covered the table. Three of them were younger men, husky and rough looking. The fourth was an older diminished fellow, who wore dungarees and a woolen watch cap.
“How are you today?” Legrand said as he came in. “Like to ask you fellows some questions.”
They all watched him without a word, their silence speaking volumes. These were obviously men who were not likely to spend any neighborly social time with an officer of the law.
“Can I get your names right here?” Legrand looked at the time sheets. “Which one of you is Hose Cobble?”
“That be me,” said the older man.
“And what do you do around here, Mr. Cobble?”
One of the other men, sitting in a corner seat, snorted at Legrand´s question.
“Not a lot. Ain´t that right, boys?”
He never took his eyes from Legrand as he asked the question.
“Give it a rest, Clem,” said the old man with tired disdain, stubbing out his hand-rolled cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “I keeps the place clean, Deputy.”
“Clean. That’s a laugh,” said the man in the corner, looking meaningfully at the ashtray. Legrand had him marked as the leader down here by the way the others silently deferred to him. “And you will be Clement Ray Barnes?” he asked.
“Sure am,” said the man with sly cockiness as he flexed his big tattooed forearms. “Lodrun´s best.”
“Nice looking knife you got there,” said Legrand, pointing to the long sheath fastened to Clement Ray´s thigh. “That a hunting thing?”
Clement Ray slapped a hand across the sheath. “Sure is. Gut me a deer soon as look.”
Legrand looked around vaguely. “Don´t see many deer about down here.”
“Hey, Deputy. There´s plenty of heavy work needs a knife here. Cutting open them packing cartons ain´t an easy thing, you know.”
Legrand let it slide; carrying a knife in hunting country was no crime. He turned to face the others.
“Eric Leeward?” he asked. A big man with a cleft upper lip and bald head raised his finger. “Right here, boss.”
“And you´ll be Leonard Sachs,” Legrand turned to the slender, mustachioed fellow that faced him across the table. The young man laid aside the girlie magazine he had been studying and nodded silent agreement.
“Need to ask you fellows if you saw the Links girl in here yesterday.”
“Sure did,” said Cobble quickly, whilst the others just watched stony faced. “Came in back here to see Brian.”
“And what time would that be, Mr. Cobble?” Legrand watched the steady tremble of the old man´s hand.
“Round lunchtime, one o´clock I´d say.”
“Any you other men see the child?”
There was collective shake of heads.
“Okay,” said Legrand. “And when did Brian get back from lunch, anybody know that?”
“You got the cards right there, don´t you?” said Clement Ray pointedly.
Cobble was pressing a shaky finger to his lip thoughtfully.
“It was like three fifteen, three thirty, I think.”
“Now how would you remember that, old man?” butted in Sachs, coldly. “You don´t even know the day of the week unless it’s written inside a bottle.”
“I damned well do,” whined Cobble irritably. “I remember it good `cause Brian was singing like a lark. Kind of crazy really. I never heard him sing before, so I looked at the clock to see if it was going home time yet. He got a pretty good voice, you know.”
“
You a fan, are you, you old duffer?” laughed Clement Ray.
Legrand looked down at the card. It had Brian Links clocking in back from his lunch break at one thirty in the p.m. If the old man was right that left a two-hour gap between the time card and his actual return to work.
Chapter Ten
Stoeffel called a meeting in his office. He had them all crammed into the small space except for Ayleen, who was painting her nails while she ostensibly manned the front desk.
“Right,” said Stoeffel. “Let’s break it all down. Leroy, what do you have for me?”
Leroy sniffed loudly. “`Kay. Here´s how it reads. Reason Links has a sheet. Nothing much. Mostly teen stuff. Bit of shoplifting over in Minerstown. Got into some fights. One drug arrest for holding a few joints of marijuana. But all this was some twenty years ago.”
“That all?” asked Stoeffel. “Nothing harder than the MJ.”
“Nope all it says is he was carrying weed when the Highway Patrol pulled him over one time. This will interest you though. His boy, Brian, has a drug bust too. More recent. And it’s for a coke possession.”
“Mm-mm,” hummed Stoeffel. “What was he holding?”
“Not much really. Just a rock of crack. No big deal.”
“So, is he a user or a dealer? I wonder?”
“It’s common among a lot of youngsters these days,” cut in Summersby, knowledgably. “Been escalating since the nineties. We´re getting so it’s a disease, more and more busts that are cocaine related. Over half of all arrests in Atlanta, New York and Chicago test positive. The DEA busted 60 keys in one year recently. That’s a thirty six percent increase on previous years. And hell, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Okay, enough with the statistics for the rest of the country, let’s concentrate on here. So, Leroy, what about the toys?”
“That’s weird, Chief. Nobody stocks them. Least no one in Lodrun. There´s a label on its ass says it was made in China (changed Japan to China, because even the Japanese have lost out on the stuffed toy market to the Chinese), not in the U.S.”
