An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock

by Terry Shames

  I explain who he is. Tilley can’t keep his eyes off Penny. I guess he’s impressed that we have a minor celebrity in custody.

  I take Penny to the jail and put him in a cell.

  “This place is mighty nasty,” he says. His lips curl as he looks at the stained mattress.

  He’s right. It’s an old building that has seen a lot of drunks and minor criminals who had nothing better to do than draw on the walls when they weren’t puking or sweating out alcohol. “I know this isn’t the first time you’ve seen the inside of a jail.”

  “When am I going to get my phone call?”

  “Soon. I need to go get some lunch. You want anything? Enchiladas at the café are pretty good.”

  His mouth falls open. “I don’t need any damn lunch. I need to call my lawyer.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

  I close the door behind me. Tilley is sitting up straight at his desk, eyes trained on the door I came out of. “You think he’s the one that murdered those people?” His voice is hushed.

  “No. I think he knows who did, though.”

  I ask Tilley if he wants to join Schoppe and me at the café, but he tells me he’s going home for lunch. Schoppe and I stroll over to the café and take our time eating and exchanging cop talk. Although we know Penny is a small fry, we’re both as keyed up as if we have made a major arrest.

  I take a plate of enchiladas wrapped in foil back for Penny. He waves it away. I tell him to take the plate because he may find that he’s hungry later.

  “There’s not going to be any later,” he says. “My lawyer will have me out of here this afternoon.”

  I make another attempt to get him to talk to me, but he’s adamant that he won’t say another word without a lawyer.

  Handcuffing his hands behind him, I bring him into the front room and ask him the lawyer’s telephone number.

  “If you’ll take these cuffs off, I can dial it for myself,” he says.

  “I’d better do it for you. Wouldn’t want you to misdial.” It has occurred to me that he might call someone who pretends to be his lawyer.

  He gives me a number, and the man who answers doesn’t identify himself as a lawyer. “Who am I speaking with?” I ask.

  “Who is it you’re calling?”

  “Hold on.” I cover the mouthpiece and say, “I think this is the wrong number. What did you say your lawyer’s name is?”

  “Milton Consecci.”

  “I’m looking for an attorney by the name of Consecci,” I say.

  There’s a moment of silence.

  “You still there?” I ask.

  “I’m here. Who did you say you were?”

  “This is Chief Samuel Craddock of the Jarrett Creek Police, and I have a man here in custody who wants to speak with Mr. Consecci.”

  “Who is it?”

  “His name is Beaumont Penny.” I raise my eyebrows at Penny, along with a fake smile, and he looks murder at me.

  “Why didn’t you say so? Hold on. I’ll get Consecci.”

  “He’s coming,” I say to Penny. If he could shoot nails out of his eyes, I’d be attached to the wall.

  A man comes on the line with a deep, authoritative voice. “Let me speak with Penny,” he says.

  “Are you Mr. Consecci?”

  “Yes. Put him on.”

  I hold the phone to Penny’s ear.

  Penny’s tone is less arrogant with the man who is supposedly his lawyer. He tells Consecci what happened and asks him to come and get him out of “this no-good hick police station.”

  He listens and his eyes narrow. “What do you mean ‘tomorrow’? You’re supposed to be available any time.” Penny is quiet for a bit, then says, “All right. First thing in the morning.”

  He leans back, indicating the call is over, and I hang up the phone. “I expect you’ll want those enchiladas now,” I say.

  He doesn’t reply, but I didn’t think he would.

  I call Wills to find out if he’s gotten any forensic information on the bullets from Sutherland. He sounds aggravated. “No, but I’m ready to go to his higher-ups and get some satisfaction. I don’t know what good it will do, but I’m tired of him dragging his feet.”

  I tell Schoppe he ought to get back to Bryan, that I don’t have big plans for the afternoon except to work on Penny a little more. As soon as he’s gone, I go back to the cell. Penny is sitting on the cot, forearms on his knees. When he sees me, he rises. “I don’t suppose you’d let me call Betty. She could bring me some cigarettes.”

  “No, but I’ll call your daddy, and he can bring you some.”

  His expression is pained. “Don’t call Daddy. He doesn’t need to see me behind bars.”

  “You should have thought of that a long time ago.”

  “Listen here, I’ve got some advice for you. You’re getting into something you don’t want to mess with.”

  I open my mouth to reply, but he holds up his hand. “I know who you are, and I know you’re trying to help get this kid out of jail. It’s not every lawman who’s willing to step up. If I could help you, I would, but I’m not in a position to do that.”

  “It’s not just about Truly,” I say. “It’s about drugs being sold to the high school kids. I want it stopped.”

  “You’re trying to push the wind,” he says.

  “A girl overdosed this week. If I turn a blind eye, before I know it, somebody will die, and then it will be my fault for being a coward. You can tell that to your drug connection. I want this town left alone.”

  “Big talk.” He sits back down on the cot.

  It’s the first time he’s been straight with me, and the first time I’ve had a chance to let people outside of Jarrett Creek know my mission. I go over to the gas station and buy him a pack of cigarettes. I spend what’s left of the afternoon at my desk, waiting for a sign of trouble, but it’s quiet. Even the petty criminals seem to have taken the day off.

  Chapter 39

  I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep when the sound of my front door squeaking and the door closing wakes me. For a second, I think I’m dreaming, and then I wonder if Jeanne has decided to come home. Quiet footsteps approach my bedroom, and I reach under my pillow and grab the Colt. “Hold it right there,” I say, as I swing my legs off the side of the bed and grope for my pants. My hands are sweating. Have I been a fool to lie down and sleep as if everything is normal?

  “Samuel, it’s me.”

  “Horace, why can’t you knock the way most people do?”

  “I didn’t want to wake Jeanne.”

  “She isn’t here.” I reach over and turn on the bedside lamp.

  My older brother is my height, but a lot leaner, almost emaciated. In the shadows, his face looks like a skull, and I wonder why I haven’t noticed that he looks like a drug addict. His clothes, a black T-shirt and khaki pants, look like they haven’t been changed in a good while.

  I put on my pants and get a T-shirt out of the chest of drawers and pull it on. “Let’s go in the kitchen.” I don’t want my brother in my bedroom.

  When we get to the kitchen I square off with him. “Now what do you want?”

  “You have a beer?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Midnight.”

  I grab a couple of beers, and we go sit on the front porch.

  “Samuel, you’ve pissed off some people, and I’m scared you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “What people?”

  “People that have an interest in Beaumont Penny.”

  “I’m touched at your concern, but you should have thought of that before you started dealing drugs with him.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Oh, come on, Horace, who do you think you’re talking to? Everybody in town knows you’re selling drugs to high school kids. That’s why they hired me to be police chief. They thought I could corral you.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Never mind.
Did you know that a young girl overdosed a couple of days ago? And I caught the kid who supplied her with her pills smoking dope out at the lake last weekend. This has got to stop.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with me. The kid out at the lake you’re talking about was Charlie Ostrand, is that right?”

  “Yes, you know him?”

  “Sort of.”

  I can’t sit anymore, and I’m so mad I could haul off and punch Horace. I walk over to the porch rail and lean against the post. “I told you that the other night I went to the drug drop-off point and got knocked out for my trouble, but not before I heard your voice.”

  He stays still as a stone.

  “You can’t deny that.”

  “All right, but it has nothing to do with Beaumont Penny.”

  “He’s not supplying you with drugs?”

  He leans over with his elbows on his knees. His voice is desolate. “No, he’s way over my head.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s one of the big guns from Houston.” He gets up and walks over close to me, keeping his voice low. “The only reason I’m here is that I’m trying to keep you from getting yourself killed. Hell, I may get myself killed by interfering.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I find it hard to be too concerned. You brought this on both of us. You’re lazy and looking for easy money.”

  He groans. “You don’t need to be so all-fired holier-than-thou, Samuel. I was looking for a way to keep a roof over my family’s head.”

  “There are other ways, Horace, but they involve work.” All of a sudden I realize that I sound like our mamma. Maybe she was always disgusted at our daddy after he started drinking. Maybe I inherited some lucky genes that bypassed Horace. “Look, you’ve put me in a spot. I ought to arrest you. How do you think I’d feel handcuffing you and marching you down to the jailhouse?”

  “It would be a damn sight better than you poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You have to let Penny go.”

  “Horace, there are two issues here. One, I want the drug dealing to stop here in Jarrett Creek. Bobtail can do what they want with it, but I want it out of my town. And two, I want Truly Bennett out of jail. That’s why I’ve got Beaumont Penny in custody. And I told him the same thing this afternoon.”

  “Are you kidding me? You really do have a death wish.”

  “I don’t give a damn what Penny does in Houston. I just don’t want it here. I figured if he was supplying drugs, I could stop it. Now you tell me Penny isn’t supplying you with drugs? Who is?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “Of course I do.”

  His voice goes hard. “Sometimes you’re not as smart as you think you are. Why don’t you think on it a minute? Who has a finger in every single thing that happens in this town and can move around as he pleases, no questions asked?”

  It sounds like he could be describing me, but I know I’m not the culprit. My head starts to pound as the implication hits me. “A cop.”

  I already know before he says, “Tilley. You said everybody knows I was dealing drugs, but did you ever wonder why Tilley didn’t take the job as chief?”

  “They told me he was moving to Waco.”

  “That was his excuse, but you’ll notice he didn’t go nowhere.”

  “Seems like it would have been more convenient for him to be supplying drugs if he was chief.”

  “Not at all. He has to move around a good bit, all over the county, and as a deputy nobody pays a bit of attention to what he does or where he goes. Not to mention he’s all up in the volunteer fire department. Makes hisself look good.”

  “Where does he get the drugs?”

  “That’s where Penny comes in. I’m not up on the details. I’m not that high in the food chain.”

  I remember Tilley’s face when he saw Penny this afternoon, and his warnings. “That son of a bitch.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s not your concern. Where is Donna?”

  “She’s back at our place. For tonight.”

  “Why are you two planning to move to Houston?”

  “What do you care? We’ll be out of your way.”

  “I care because if you’re getting deeper into peddling drugs, you can’t take Tom with you. Look what they did to that poor family that moved here. They won’t think twice about killing him if you cross them.”

  “I don’t plan to get crossways with any of those people.”

  “I’m going to make you an offer, and I want you to take me up on it.”

  He’s quiet, and seconds roll past, giving me the chance to consider what I will do if he refuses, which he may well do.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I want to give you the money to get out of here. Leave the state, or at least the area, and get started somewhere else. I’ll give you enough to live on while you figure out what you want to do.”

  He snickers. “You’re mighty handy at spending your wife’s money.”

  “I know Jeanne wants a good life for Tom, and she’ll be glad to make that happen.”

  “If I say no?”

  “Give yourself tonight to think about it. Talk it over with Donna.”

  He stomps down the front steps and is gone. The air has cooled off some. I go inside and pour myself two fingers of bourbon and go back out on the porch to sip it. I have plenty to think about, but one thought tops all the others. Not once did he ask where Tom was.

  Chapter 40

  I wake up exhausted, although I slept straight through once I fell asleep. The air last night was cool, but this morning it’s heavy. When I go down to tend to the cows, they seem as listless as I feel. The sun is out, but there’s a haze in the air, and I expect it will be clouding up soon.

  I’m not looking forward to the day. The only bright spot is thinking that Jeanne and Tom are having a blast in California.

  Usually I eat a good breakfast, but this morning I make do with two cups of strong coffee and a couple pieces of toast. I want to be sure I get to the station before anyone else. I’m there by seven thirty, which makes me laugh at myself. Eldridge is on duty today, and he won’t be in until nine at the earliest.

  I poke my head into the jail and find Penny snoring, so I close the door quietly. Who says the guilty don’t get a good night’s sleep?

  I make a pot of coffee and put my feet up on the desk and think. Tilley. Cato. Beaumont Penny. My brother, Horace. And of course there’s John Sutherland. What to do with them? I’ve done what I can to invite the drug dealers to leave town, but how do I get Truly Bennett freed? I wish there was some way to broadcast to the cutthroats in Houston that I don’t want too much. Just that. The rest of it—figuring out who killed that family—that’s somebody else’s job. I wish there was somebody to tell me what to do. I could talk it over with Wills, or maybe Bonnie Bedichek, or even Sheriff Newberry. But each of them has their own agenda. This is what being a lawman is all about. Taking the responsibility on my shoulders. If I hadn’t planned to do that, I shouldn’t have taken the job.

  If I were smart, I’d let Beaumont Penny go, arrest my brother, and pretend he never told me about Tilley. I’d call John Sutherland and politely ask if he’d change his mind about dropping charges against Truly Bennett, and act regretful when he declined. I’d call Ezekiel Bennett and tell him I’m sorry that I couldn’t help Truly, but that I know eventually he’ll be cleared. I’d let the police corruption investigation take its course. I might even call Jeanne and tell her I’m taking the first plane to join her in Disneyland. I imagine her face lighting up when I say the words.

  Of course, if I did all that, I would have to lay my badge on the desk as I walked out. I wouldn’t feel like much of a man.

  I take out Sutherland’s business card and pull the phone toward me. He answers after a few rings. “I’d like to come by your office.”

  “What for? I’m busy.” He’s surly, but so am I.

  “I have some informati
on that might be important to you.”

  He pauses a couple of beats. I imagine him puzzling over what I could possibly know that would be of interest to him.

  “Tell me on the phone.”

  “No.” I would normally say something like, I’d rather tell him in person—something friendly. A friendly puppy talking to a big dog. But I don’t feel friendly, and I don’t feel like a puppy.

  I expect him to snarl back at me, but he says, “All right, if you’re so all-fired determined to take a drive, come on.”

  Thirty minutes later, I’m in his office. I’ve thought out carefully the way I’m going to handle this, and when he asks me what I’ve got for him, I say, “First of all, when I’m done with what I’ve got to tell you, I want you to release Truly Bennett.”

  He guffaws. “You’ve really got a hard-on for this Bennett boy, don’t you?”

  “He didn’t kill those people, and you know it.”

  “What makes you think I know that?”

  “You would have turned over the forensics on the bullets.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I expect the bullets recovered in those murders were from the same gun that killed a drug dealer in Houston after Bennett was in jail.”

  “You really are wet behind the ears. Anybody with the slightest experience would know that whoever murdered the people in your town would get rid of the weapon as soon as they could.”

  “They would if they thought there was a chance of somebody making the connection. But my guess is they thought a hick cop and a disinterested member of the highway patrol wouldn’t make the connection. Why get rid of a perfectly good weapon if you don’t have to?” I call him “disinterested” rather than crooked because I don’t want him to get the slightest hint that anyone suspects he is corrupt. He might not be. He might just be lazy and looking for an easy way to seem like he’s solved the murder case.

  “So you want me to say the word to get Bennett out of jail.”

  “That’s not the only thing I want. I want the drug business out of Jarrett Creek.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “I’m telling you what I’m after. I’ve already put them on notice.”