The Old Gray Wolf

by James D. Doss

  But do not leap to the conclusion that Big Bad Bertha Bronkowski was a woman without tender feelings toward her victims. If she had known that the barfly bum had died from being flung through her swinging doors and headfirst into a sturdy fire plug, she would have definitely lost some sleep about it. Maybe forty-four winks. Maybe four.

  DESSERT?

  The two half-gallons of ice cream and the store-bought pies were untouched after the supper that had ended so abruptly for Charlie, Scott, Sarah, and Daisy. And would remain so until …

  12:10 A.M.

  Which was when a sleepless Daisy Perika rolled out of bed, pulled on her faded red bathrobe, and toddled down the hallway to the headquarters kitchen for a stealthy postmidnight snack. The ravenous old lady finished off a sizable chunk of lightly microwaved peach pie—à la mode, of course. (No, chocolate ice cream.) After swallowing the last morsel, she licked her lips. That sure hit the spot. To underscore this earnest compliment, the aged gourmand added a healthy burp.

  BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST

  And like a ravenous vampire bat lusting for blood, even in the middle of the night.

  It had begun like this: about six minutes after LeRoy Hooten’s black heart had ceased to beat, an enterprising ER X-ray technician at Snyder Memorial Hospital (Myra) learned from a chatty ambulance driver (Pete) that the purse snatcher’s demise had resulted from an unfortunate encounter with the county’s best-known lawmen. The young lady, who had been ticketed by a lesser-known GCPD cop for running a Stop sign and issued a second citation for employing a string of colorful obscenities to characterize the officer’s parentage, saw an opportunity to get in a good lick at the local gestapo.

  During the wee hours, the vengeful insomniac (who had dropped out of journalism school at a fine Ivy League university) settled down in her tiny studio apartment on Knapp Street and tap-tapped out a sparsely parsed three-hundred-word summary of LeRoy Hooten’s wrongful death at the hands of a couple of cops who (so she said) had a history of brutalizing less-fortunate citizens. To this lurid piece of fiction, the wide-eyed lass added the most suitable image of Scott Parris and Charlie Moon (together) that she could find online and posted her article on two of the major social-networking sites. In the grainy, five-year-old, black-and-white newspaper photograph, the lawmen friends were posed with drawn six-shooters—laughing about a shooting-gallery contest they had won at the county fair. (First prize, for which they were much obliged, had been a meal for four at the best barbecue restaurant in Granite Creek County.)

  The spread of the X-ray tech’s posting was what the virtual community calls “viral.” By morning, the story was picked up by one of the cable networks. Neither Moon nor Parris got a gander at the eleven-second report, which—with the photo—portrayed them as a couple of chuckleheaded cop-clowns who enjoyed beating up on any down-on-his-luck bum who hit town.

  It was an unfortunate development, which would produce grim consequences.

  LET US SLIP AWAY FOR A REFRESHING CHANGE OF SCENERY

  Why would we do that when the panorama on Charlie Moon’s spread is picture-postcard perfect?

  Because aside from an unwary cowboy getting gored in the groin by a playful three-year-old Hereford bull, a boisterous brawl in the Columbine bunkhouse where an ornery, big galoot known as Six-Toes will be decked by “Little Butch” Cassidy, and a rusty old windmill that gets wrecked by a passing whirlwind that presumably had nothing better to do than twist useful machinery into a pile of metallic junk—not a lot will happen around Charlie Moon’s ranch for the next few days, which quiet interlude will provide a fine opportunity to drift away toward the sunrise and find out what some interesting and enterprising folks are up to on the yonder side of the muddy ol’ Mississippi. That does not narrow down the locality sufficiently? Then let us say north of the wide Ohio and eliminate all of Dixie (which is regrettable). Even more geographical specificity is called for? Very well; we shall further limit the neighborhood to a location well south of Chicago and a tad west of Indiana.

  What could happen in the Land of Lincoln? Just about anything.

  Ask any steely-eyed hombre you happen to bump into in Bozeman, Cheyenne, Leadville, Socorro, or El Paso and he’ll tell you that those quiet, polite midwesterners create a whole lot more trouble per capita than ten thousand hornets in a nest that some reckless passerby wearing a White Sox cap casually whacks at with a baseball bat.

  But we all know that was an unwarranted exaggeration that borders on being regionally prejudicial. After all, how many folks do you know who would deliberately disturb a colony of edgy insects who are armed with seriously barbed stingers and know how to use them?

  Really—that many? Well. Perhaps you ought to consider emigrating to Tombstone, Dodge City, or Islamabad.

  But back to the urgent question, which (in case it has slipped your mind) is: who is this imprudent passerby who is about to take a swing at the aforesaid metaphorical nest? You may, if you are so inclined, spend precious hours in vain speculations, or—turn the page and find out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MISS LOUELLA SMITHSON, PRIVATE EYE

  As to what name she goes by, let us qualify: this particular Miss Smithson is Louella on her driver’s license, Ella to her few friends, and Ellie when Granddaddy Ray Smithson calls her to supper. (When on a hot case, the lady often assumes a convenient alias—a moniker with just a dash of pizzazz.)

  Now to the issue of vocation. Is Louella-Ella-Ellie a bona fide, fully qualified, licensed private eye? Not really; the lady is more or less playing the part. Pretending, if you like. Admittedly, she does make a few dollars running down the occasional missing person (an out-of-work ex-husband who is behind in alimony payments, or a wife who has run away with her high-school sweetheart). Small potatoes some will say, but a novice cannot launch her career by pursuing those high-profile offenders on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Even so, Miss Smithson has high hopes of becoming a big-time bounty hunter—and then penning a bloodcurdling account of her encounters with real-life criminals that will make Mr. Capote’s In Cold Blood seem anemically pale in comparison.

  A somewhat lofty ambition for someone of ordinary talents—perhaps even unseemly? Maybe so—but who are we to arch a critical brow, or for that matter to pose so many vexing hypothetical questions?

  A PI is what Louella Smithson imagines herself to be, and here in the good old U.S. of A. a lady may practice whatever self-deception happens to strike her fancy. This born-in-the-heartland citizen is endowed with an inalienable right to envision herself as a hard-boiled detective, a gimlet-eyed gumshoe, or even a pistol-packing-momma bounty hunter who always gets her bad man and collects a humongous reward. And whenever she’s of a mind to, Miss Smithson can drift along in daydreams about her primary ambition—which is to become a bestselling author of hair-raising accounts in that ever-popular genre known as True Crime.

  But do not assume that the lady is detached from reality. Her stern paternal grandfather has taught Ellie that no worthwhile goal is ever achieved unless one ruthlessly disciplines both mind and body, concentrates on a specific long-term goal, puts in many long, hard hours—and never, ever gives up. These are words that she lives by, and why—at this very moment—our plucky entrepreneur has parked her old blue-and-white Ford Bronco about six miles north of Millport, Illinois, on the crest of an eighty-foot promontory known by locals as Noffsinger Ridge. Which elevated vantage point is directly across the paved highway from the Logan County Picnic Grounds. (Which is where the happy congregation of Mount Pleasant Methodist Church is congregated to enjoy their annual outing.) Which inevitably raises the nonhypothetical question: is Miss Smithson fascinated by highly competitive games of foot racing, the poetry of slow-pitch softball, and the haphazard tossing of yellow plastic horseshoes? Does her mouth water at the very thought of tables spread with barbecued pork, fried chicken, honey-baked beans, and a half-dozen varieties of potato salad? Check the little box by Nosireebob.

  The young woman would have
preferred to park her rusty SUV directly across the highway from Mrs. Francine Hooten’s oversize dwelling—where, with the aid of her trusty binoculars, Louella could have peered through the front windows of that residence. In highly contrived fiction, such a convenient spot would have been thoughtfully provided for the private eye, but in real life that choice real estate was a wide-open pasture with no place for a PI to hide. To make matters worse, it was presently occupied by about two dozen head of cud-chewing Holstein milk cows. This harem was chaperoned by a dangerous-looking bull who would have gladly charged a Sherman tank had the tracked vehicle invaded his territory.

  Accepting the deuces she had been dealt, Miss Louella Smithson did not whine about her less-than-optimal observation point. She patiently surveilled the Hooten driveway—in anticipation of witnessing the arrival of a legendary assassin. No, not just any legendary assassin who might happen by. Our hopeful bounty hunter has a yen to spot the very same killer whom the aforesaid Mrs. Hooten was rumored to have hired some years ago to rid Chicago of a plainclothes copper who’d gunned down her brutal, drug-pushing, mobster husband, who had lead poisoning coming, and make that a serious overdose. What brings the pseudo–private eye to the neighborhood at this particular time? Like so many of modern life’s misadventures, you may blame it on the Internet. Miss Smithson routinely googles to find any morsel of knowledge that might enrich her bulging file on the Hooten clan. (This process is more difficult than you might imagine; the USA and Canada boast hundreds of salt-of-the-earth Hootens who are credits to their communities—and no kin whatever to Francine.)

  For months, there have been nothing but dead ends, but quite recently Miss Smithson’s number came up and she yelled “Bingo!” The cause of her excitement was that blog heaping abuse on “that brutal pair of Colorado lawmen” who had killed Francine Hooten’s only son with a can of black-eyed peas and/or a sharp left hook. As a result of this report, the hopeful young woman had driven almost four hundred miles overnight to stake out the Hooten estate on the hunch that history might be about to repeat itself. If it does, the young entrepreneur plans to follow the suspect known to the FBI only as “Cowboy” and make a positive ID on the shadowy character. That in itself would be a fantastic accomplishment, but would she be satisfied? You know she wouldn’t. Sooner or later, if all goes well, our ambitious private eye plans to effect a “citizen’s arrest.” If all goes well.

  In the meantime, all she can do is wait atop Noffsinger Ridge and hope. Hope that Francine has already employed the same assassin. Hope that Cowboy will actually make a showing. Hope that she will be able to tail and ID said Cowboy. Forget about arresting an armed and extremely dangerous felon; the odds of all these hoped-for preliminary events converging in Miss Smithson’s favor were somewhere in the neighborhood between astronomically low and dead zero. That being so, she dismissed all negative thoughts of improbability from her mind.

  So was Louella Smithson having a good time? Ask any private eye you know about stakeouts, and she’ll tell you they’re about as much fun as watching ragweed grow in malodorous back-alley trash heaps.

  Nothing of interest had occurred until some twenty or so minutes ago, when a motor vehicle showed down on the country road. The shiny automobile (so she thought) looked a little bit out of place. Don’t ask her why; even amateur PIs just know these things. Wishfully, Miss Louella Smithson had watched the sleek gray Ford sedan slow … hesitate as the driver presumably took a look at the happy gathering of Methodist Christians … and pass by.

  Not much, but it was enough to catch Louella’s eye and cause her hopes to soar. That’ll be him!

  Perhaps. She would have to wait and see.

  It is gratifying to report that minutes later, the same vehicle had returned and turned into the picnic grounds to park among the dozens of sedans, SUVs, and pickups already clustered there. Miss Smithson had gotten the merest glimpse of the driver exiting the automobile, and seen only an indistinct figure though her binoculars as the person of interest strode away from the boisterous picnic and through a thickly wooded area. He’s keeping out of sight! And here was the clincher: the suspect was proceeding in a southerly direction. Yes, toward the boundary of Mrs. Francine Hooten’s thirty-four-acre property, which abutted the Logan Country Picnic Grounds.

  Despite this promising development, Louella was frustrated—and not without cause. First of all … I didn’t even see enough of the driver to know whether he’s fat or thin or short or tall—much less get a look at his face. On the plus side, she had gotten a glimpse at the Ford sedan’s license plate, which was definitely from out of state. This would have canceled out her failure to get a good gander at the suspect if she had been able to read the plate—which was smudged with mud—which was suspicious because the rest of the automobile glistened like it’d just been run through a twelve-dollar automatic car wash. He rubbed mud on the plate so somebody like me couldn’t read it. Having nothing nutritious to chew on, the lady settled for sour grapes: It’s probably only a rental car, so even if I had the plate number all I could do was trace it to Avis or Hertz or whatever. Which probably wouldn’t be of much help, because … If the driver is a seriously professional criminal, he wouldn’t have used his right name when he rented the car. And Miss Louella Smithson had several other aggravations to contend with. The worst of these was her worry that … The driver might not be who I hope he is. Sigh. He might even be another private eye, come to spy on Francine Hooten. But that possibility was a real downer, and Louella-Ella-Ellie was determined to believe that the newcomer was the legendary Cowboy Assassin. And not without good reason: Things just feel right about this. Never underestimate the efficacy of that mysterious talent commonly referred to as “a woman’s intuition.”

  Among her secondary aggravations was:

  There’s no telling when he’ll drive out onto the highway again—I could be waiting here for hours and hours. Which annoying possibility was complicated by the grim fact that … I drank almost a whole quart thermos of coffee and now I’ve got to pee but there’s no place to go and if he don’t show up soon I’m liable to— Oh, no!

  (Oh, yes.)

  There were additional aggravations that might have been worthy of mention, but under the embarrassing circumstances, our highly distressed snoop has forgotten all of them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HER ESTATE ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH

  Francine Hooten’s property might aptly be named The Hornet’s Nest, but no such luck.

  It is nothing fancy: a mere thirty-four acres comprised of briar-choked forest and weedy pasture without any fat livestock to crop it down. The dwelling is a 130-year-old Victorian mansion that is sorely in need of new shutters, a replacement shingle here and there, and a few dozen gallons of white paint. But, humble though it may be, the stately old manor is hearth and home for the recently deceased purse snatcher’s widowed mother. Speaking of whom, the semiparaplegic Francine Hooten is a shameless Anglophile who enjoys tea and crumpets in the afternoon, rereads Jane Austen most evenings, knows all the latest gossip about the royal family, and would have a moat (complete with drawbridge and crocodiles) encircling her castle if the persnickety county building code did not prohibit it. Such an extravagance is well within her means.

  It is worth mentioning that Mrs. H. has two employees. These are Miss Marcella Clay (Mrs. Hooten’s maid, cook, and opinionated companion) and pale, beady-eyed, ever-suspicious Cushing—m’lady’s English butler. Truly—we do not jest. Cushing is the real McCoy, and straight from Merry Olde England—whence he emigrated to the USA following a brush with the legally constituted authority. That sordid incident involved suspected illegal possession and use of a firearm on behalf of Lord So-and-So, who had encouraged the hired help to discourage a cheeky commoner who was poaching salmon from m’lord’s private lake. Nothing could be proved against Cushing, on account of the fact that the alleged pistol was ditched in the River Tyne by the alleged shooter. Nevertheless, Mr. C. is unlikely to qualify for a ch
erished Green Card, seeing as how Scotland Yard has provided a thickish file of uniformly uncomplimentary information regarding said Brit to the U.S. Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization—copies of which have found their way into the files of the Illinois State Police and the Logan County Sheriff’s Office.

  Though dimly aware of the fact that he is not overwhelmingly welcome in King George’s former colony, Cushing is determined to make a go of it in the fabled Land of Opportunity. To that end, he has been displaying that sterling all-American quality that is so valued on the west side of the pond. We refer to the attribute popularly known as Get Up and Go, which in this instance involves doing more than a butler is paid to. Here is an illustrative example: despite the fact that the task is not listed as one of his official duties, the surly anachronism serves as his employer’s armed-and-dangerous bodyguard. Old habits die hard.

  A PREARRANGED RENDEZVOUS

  Accompanied and aided by her live-in maid and companion, wheelchair-bound Mrs. Hooten exited a rear servant’s entrance where the century-old cedar door stoop had been replaced with a gently sloping concrete ramp.

  As was his habit, Roman-nosed, hawk-eyed Cushing watched from the kitchen window.

  With her ever-present and seldom-used telescoping walking stick gripped tightly in her lap like a club, the testy woman pulled the brown blanket she was wrapped in tighter around her thin shoulders. Feeling more comfortable in the chill, humid air, Francine barked an order: “Take me to the rose garden, Marcella.”