Gator Kill

by Bill Crider

  Sheriff Tal Tolliver was a tall, rawboned man who looked good in his western-cut clothes. Better yet, he had a streak of pure white that ran down the right side of his hair. He wore boots with sharp-pointed toes. He looked more like a Sheriff than anyone I'd ever seen.

  Norm Jackson explained to him what I was doing there and how I'd found the bodies.

  "A big-city private-eye, huh?" Tolliver said, looking me over. "I don't believe I've ever seen one of those, except on TV--I like to watch that Jake and the Fatman whenever I get a chance." He had a deep, resonant voice that would make him a hit at any campaign speech. "You carry a pistol, son?"

  He wasn't more than forty-five years old, which meant that if I was his son he was extremely precocious. I didn't mention that fact to him, however. I just said, "No, I don't."

  "Good, good," he said. "We don't like folks coming into the county and carrying guns and killing folks. You just have a seat and wait here a while."

  I sat in one of the chairs, the one the cat had been under. I had let him out before Deppidy Jackson came.

  Tolliver and Jackson went into the bedroom with their Polaroid camera and their evidence bags to perform their crime-scene investigation. I doubted they'd learn any more than I had.

  The ambulance arrived while they were in there, and I pointed the way for two young men who didn't look especially eager to do their jobs.

  The Justice of the Peace came in right behind them, and all in all it took about an hour to get things squared away.

  When everyone but the law was gone, Tolliver came out of the bedroom. "I don't mind if you look for whoever it was that killed the gator on Fred Benton's place," he said. "But I hope you don't intend to get yourself mixed up in any of our other little problems around here."

  "I hope not," I said. "Although I guess your Deputy told you that someone took a shot at me and Fred today."

  "Probably just some out-of-season hunter, didn't want you to get too close to him and see who it was. This here is a little bit different."

  I couldn't argue with that. "Don't worry. All I wanted to do was ask Zach Holt if he killed Fred's alligator."

  "If he was the one, he's been punished enough for it, wouldn't you say?" The Sheriff smiled.

  "Absolutely," I said.

  "And you don't carry a gun, so you weren't the one who punished him. You did say you don't carry a gun?"

  I thought it might be a good idea to offer a small clarification. "I meant that I wasn't carrying one now. I've used one in the past, but I didn't think I'd need one to investigate a dead alligator."

  "Oh," he said. "Well, we'll want you to hold yourself available for questioning in this investigation."

  "Am I a suspect?"

  "You were in the house with 'em. You might've thought Holt was the one who took a shot at you earlier."

  "They looked like they'd been dead for a while," I said. I didn't know why I was pushing it. I knew it wouldn't get me anywhere.

  "You could have killed them earlier, then came back. Returning to the scene of the crime, like they say."

  "I'll be available," I said.

  I didn't want to argue anymore; I just wanted to get out of the house. After all, he'd never come right out and said I was a suspect. I couldn't blame him for wondering about me. I was a stranger, and I was in the middle of a murder, for whatever reason. It was a place he didn't like for me to be, any more than I liked being there.

  I went out into the yard. The Sheriff's car was there, along with the Deputy's. The ambulance was still there as well. It was dark now, and the light bar on the ambulance threw dancing shadows around the place.

  I was standing by my car, thinking about leaving, when Deppidy Jackson's bony hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to face him.

  "I guess you know I don't like you much, Smith," he said.

  The feeling was mutual, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

  "I told you that I'd really hate to have a murder case on my hands," he went on, "and now I've got one. You told me you wouldn't bother anyone that didn't bother you first, but now there's a dead man and woman in that ambulance, and you're standin' here in their yard. I really don't like you, Smith."

  I decided that it was time to speak up for myself. "I haven't bothered anyone, and I certainly didn't kill anyone."

  I looked at the dark bulk of the house. Killing people wasn't in my line, whether Jackson knew it or not, and I was actually a little queasy just thinking about the two bodies.

  "I think the Sheriff believes that you're just an innocent bystander, lookin' for a gator killer," Jackson said. "Me, I'm not so sure. I'll be watching you, Smith. I'll be watching you real close. You won't want to make a wrong move."

  He turned and walked back toward the house. I watched him go, his thin body looking like nothing more than a shadow of itself as the light flickered over it. I was beginning to wonder exactly what I'd gotten myself into.

  ~ * ~

  Fred was curious, naturally, so I told him as much as I knew.

  "You think this fits in with what-all else is goin' on around here?" he said.

  "I don't have any idea," I said. "Do you usually have this much excitement?"

  "You're kinda jokin' with me again, ain't you," he said. "A dead gator wouldn't be such a big deal, but murder? I don't know how long it's been since there was a murder in this County. And when you add in those shots somebody took at us today, well, you got enough excitement to last this place about ten years."

  That's what I'd been afraid he would say. It was probably all tied in together, all right. Nothing else made any sense. Maybe I could get a handle on it in the morning. Right now, I needed to make a phone call.

  Fred said it would be all right to call Galveston, “Just don't talk too long."

  Dino was irritated that I'd found it necessary to call. "Of course I fed the damn cat," he said. "You think I'd forget a thing like that?"

  "Not really," I said. "Just checking."

  "Trust me," Dino said. "Put that cat right out of your mind."

  I told him I'd try.

  7

  Things didn't get any better the next day.

  Fred woke me up early, and I hadn't slept too well. I dreamed all night that I was trying to get somewhere, walking along a sandy country road, looking for Jan, but I could never get to wherever it was that I was going. I didn't find Jan, either. I hadn't run in two days, but my legs felt as heavy and tired as if I'd just finished the Boston Marathon.

  Fred hadn't gotten me up for breakfast, either. "There's somebody here you need to talk to," he said.

  So I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth and tried to make myself presentable in the few minutes he allowed me. The whole time I was getting dressed, he stood by the bed and tapped his foot on the floor.

  He led me to the den, and this time instead of a Deputy Sheriff there were three people sitting on the couch. Two of them, a man and a woman, looked about Fred's age, but they hadn't aged quite as well. Their faces were lined and leathery, their eyes tired. They wore faded clothes that had been washed and dried in the sun a lot of times. They twisted their hands nervously when I walked through the door.

  Beside them there was a woman who was much younger, probably ten years younger than me. She had long, straight blonde hair and blue eyes. She'd spent a lot of time outdoors; her face was a smooth, even tan. She was as nervous as the other two, but she didn't show it by any movement. She showed it by sitting rock still, and by the shadow on her blue eyes.

  I wished I'd shaved.

  "These are the Stones," Fred said. "This here's Don."

  The old man got off the couch and offered me his hand. It was rough from outdoor work, and he had a solid grip. He was at least five inches shorter than I was.

  "That's his wife, Sue, and his daughter-in-law, Brenda."

  Sue and Brenda looked at me from where they sat. A lot of the people in this area hadn't gotten to the stage where women shook hands with men. I nodded in their
direction.

  "Pleased to meet you," I said.

  "Don's got a problem," Fred said.

  I'd worked that out for myself. I just didn't know what the problem was.

  "They've got my boy," the man said.

  I looked at Fred.

  "The Sheriff," he said. "They arrested Perry last night."

  "They say he killed Zach Holt, but he never done it," Don Stone said.

  "Let's sit down and get this sorted out," Fred said.

  I thought that was a good idea, and I suppose the others did too. Don went back to the couch, while I took the chair I'd sat in the day before. Fred stood where he was.

  "Perry and Zach have had a little trouble in the past," Fred said. "Mostly over poaching and such."

  "We own a little land, 'bout a hundred acres," Don Stone said. "Not much, but we got a little lake on it, has a few gators in it. That Holt fella, we think he took one not long ago. Perry braced him about it, and they got into a little argument."

  "A fight is what they got into," Fred said.

  "A scuffle," Stone said. "That's all it was, just a little bit of a scuffle, with some pushin' and hard words."

  "Not the way I heard it," Fred said.

  "That's the way it was, though. Maybe there was a bruise or two, but nobody got hurt. Just a scuffle."

  I should have felt relieved, in a way. After all, just last evening I had been afraid that Jackson was going to try pinning the murders on me. Now it looked as if he'd found someone more readily at hand, and someone with a more obvious motive.

  "Even if it was just a scuffle," I said, "it sounds as if the word got around about it."

  "I expect that ever'body around here knew," Fred said. "It's hard to keep a secret about a good fight."

  "Scuffle," Stone said.

  "Scuffle, then," Fred said. "You can call it whatever you want to, but you know good and well that people talked about it."

  "Where did this…scuffle take place?" I said.

  "Hurley Eckles' store," Stone told me.

  A good place for it. Hurley was the type who'd tell everyone who stopped in about the fight that had happened right there at his place of business.

  "Even with something like that, though the Sheriff would need something else," I said. "He wouldn't arrest someone just because he had a fight with Holt. There must be more to it than that."

  Nobody said anything.

  "It's sure gotten quiet all of a sudden," I said after about half a minute had gone by.

  "That's because there's not anything else," Stone said. "They just up and arrested Perry for that one reason. There's not anything else."

  I didn't believe him, but I didn't press it. "So what does all that have to do with me?" I said.

  "Word gets around," Fred said. "Just like word got around about the fight. The Stones heard I'd hired somebody to look into that gator killin', and they heard you were the one that found the bodies yesterday, so they thought…”

  "We thought you might be able to help us," Brenda Stone said.

  I had been wondering if she could speak. Now I knew. Her voice was soft and husky, the kind of voice that made me want to hear more of it.

  "I'm not sure I can," I said. "I've been hired already, and I usually don't take but one client at a time. The Sheriff's Deputy has warned me to keep out of this case." He hadn't, not exactly, but I knew that Jackson wouldn't welcome my poking around in things, not after what he'd said to me.

  "It's all the same case," Fred said. "You and I've already decided that. You don't have to do anything you wouldn't have done in the first place. If it ties in, it's not your fault."

  I wasn't sure Jackson would see it that way, but I said, "All right, I'll see what I can do. As long as it fits in with the job I've already got."

  "That's fine. That's all we could ask for," Stone said, rising.

  The two women stood up as well.

  "We surely do thank you, Mr. Benton," Stone said, taking Fred's hand. "We surely do."

  "Thank you, too, Mr. Smith," the younger Mrs. Stone said as they were ushered out of the room.

  I watched them go, Fred showing them to the door. Then I went into the kitchen to see if there was any breakfast.

  Mary was standing at the stove. "Bacon and eggs?" she said.

  "Sounds good to me."

  She tossed strips of bacon into a heavy black iron skillet.

  When they started to sizzle, I said, "Mary, how do you feel about this place?"

  She glanced at me, then back at the bacon. "How do you mean?"

  "I mean, do you feel the same way Fred does? About the gators and things? Or would you rather see this place developed and turned into parkland?"

  Mary reached into the skillet with a fork and turned the bacon. It smelled even better than it had the day before.

  "Whatever Fred wants is fine with me," Mary said. "This land has been in my family for a while, but I'm not attached to it. It's just land. Fred's the one who cares about it, and all the critters on it. I've never been that interested in what he does with it. It keeps him happy, and that's all that matters to me."

  She took the bacon out and laid it on a paper towel to drain, then cracked an egg on the edge of the skillet. She broke the egg in half and dropped the yolk and the yellow into the bacon grease.

  "One or two?" she said.

  "Two," I said, wondering what my cholesterol level would be by the time I finished this job.

  She broke another egg into the skillet and stirred them around with the fork. "Fred is all I'm really interested in, you see. We've been together for a long time, and I like to see him busy and happy. As far as I'm concerned, this land is his. There's never been any dispute between us about that. If he wants to find out who killed that alligator, then I hope you do it."

  She dumped the eggs on a plate and put the bacon on with them. "I'll get you some toast," she said.

  While I was eating, Fred came back in. "I thought you ought to meet those people," he said. "They're pretty nice folks, and Perry wouldn't kill anybody."

  I hadn't met Perry, but I was willing to dispute that statement. You never could tell who might kill someone.

  "Have you known them long?" I said.

  "More than thirty years. Since before Perry was born. They aren't like some families around here. They work hard, keep to themselves, and don't bother other people."

  "Except when they get into scuffles," I said, pushing away the empty plate.

  "That's the exception, all right. Perry got a little hot under the collar about that missing gator. It's understandable."

  Understandable if you were Fred Benton, at least. No wonder he was taking up for Perry. They seemed to have similar interests.

  "There's more to the story than anyone was tellin, though," I said. "Do you know it?"

  Fred looked sheepish. "I've heard stories," he said.

  "What are they?"

  "I don't like to repeat that stuff," he said, looking at Mary.

  Mary laughed. "I'm a grown woman, and I've heard the rumors too. "It won't scandalize me to hear them again."

  "Well," Fred said to me, "I guess you have to know. There's been talk that Zach Holt and Brenda Stone . . . uh . . . fooled around some."

  "For goodness sakes, Fred," Mary said, "don't be so shy."

  Fred shrugged. "Brenda and Zach went out some in high school. That was nearly fifteen years ago, though, and it all ended when Zach dropped out. He didn't take too well to formal education, but he was a helluva football player. We all hated it when he dropped out, but he was wild even then, huntin' gators for skins just like he does now. Did, I mean. I guess he won't be doin' much of that anymore."

  "He won't be doing much of anything," I said. "Somebody cured him of the habit."

  I found myself wondering where Fred had been when Holt was killed. I wondered, for that matter, when he was killed. I'm no expert in those things, but I would have guessed that he hadn't been dead long.

  I also wondered what kind
of gun had been used to kill him and his wife, whether it had been a rifle or a pistol. I guessed a pistol. It didn't seem likely that you'd let someone in your house if he was carrying a rifle, though in Texas you never knew.

  And that reminded me of something that I needed to do.

  "Fred," I said, "I hate to do this so soon after that fine breakfast, but it's time for us to look at that alligator again."

  ~ * ~

  The smell was even worse, and I could hear the buzzing of the flies from farther away. The thought of what we were about to do made the bile rise in my throat.

  I must have looked pretty green. Fred said, "You sure you got the stomach for this?"

  "No," I said. "But I'll give it a try. Unless you want to do it."

  He shook his head. "I'll pass. You're the high-salaried detective." He got a Camel out of his pack and lit up.

  "Jackson should have done this himself," I said. "I'm beginning to wonder about him."

  Fred took a deep drag on the Camel. "I don't much blame him for not doin' it. That smell--"

  "It's his job, though," I said. I thought about that. "Mine, too, I guess, since you hired me. Where're those gloves?"

  "Right here."

  He handed me a pair of Playtex rubber gloves, bright yellow, that he had taken from under the sink at his house. I pulled them on, stretching them considerably in the process.

  "You think your wife will want these back?" I said.

  "I doubt that very seriously. You don't have to be careful with 'em."

  "How about the mask?"

  He handed me an allergy mask. I put the elastic band in back of my head and pulled the mask over my nose and mouth.

  "You look more like a doctor in that thing than I do when I'm wearing one," he said. "'Course when I'm wearing it, I'm usually ridin' a lawn mower."

  "Scalpel," I said, putting out my right hand, palm up.

  He handed me a butcher knife that he had taken from Mary's knife drawer. I was sure she'd want it back. Maybe Fred would clean it.

  I walked over to the rotting gator. "Why hasn't one of his buddies hauled him into the water and eaten him?" I said, my voice distorted only slightly by the mask, which wasn't really doing much to help with the smell.