Dimebag Bandits

by Craig Furchtenicht

  “Yeah, a beer. We'll do that.”

  They let out a collective sigh of relief as the police car faded down the road and out of sight. The unexpected visit was somewhat unnerving and left them all a bit uneasy. Poor Chris was left especially rattled by the confrontation and proceeded to chain smoke from Todd's pack of cigarettes. “Fucking tinfoil badges,” he muttered.

  “No doubt,” Brenden agreed. “That's exactly the kind of shit I don't need right now.” He pointed in the direction that the deputies went and looked directly at Soup as he spoke. “Cops showing up at my doorstep, ready to shake down my old man. Fuck that. I don't care what the rest of you assholes do, but I'm out.”

  He stormed inside the house before any of them had a chance to respond. The hinges on the screen door growled their rusty cry as he stepped over the threshold. The wood smacked wood as the door slammed shut, announcing yet another angry departure.

  “Go ahead,” Soup muttered, careful not to speak loud enough to actually be heard. “We don't need your uppity ass anyhow.” He looked across the porch at the other three. They all stared back with a shell shocked look on their faces. “Ain't that right, Cuz?”

  Chris perked up like a faithful yard mutt and puffed up his chest, contemplating his place in the apparent shift in the hierarchy. With Brenden out of the picture and Soup leading the way, he stood a good chance of finally shaking his low man status. He liked that idea a lot. “That's right, Cuz. Screw him.”

  “What about you college boy? Feel like starting up your own pharmacy?” Soup asked, with his eyebrows raised.

  Kori looked at Todd and tried to get a sense of how he should respond. Mental images of some young Amish girl played in his head, flailing hers arms with her head rolled up tight in the window of Soup's Impala and struggling in a futile effort to keep her purity intact. If Todd had an endgame, he thought to himself. It had better be a damn good one to stick with these two.

  “Just the four of us?” Todd chimed in. “I don't see it.”

  “I can get some more help if that makes you feel better,” Soup replied. He already had someone in mind as a matter of fact.

  Todd looked to Kori, shrugged and then he gave him a reassuring nod before answering for the both of them. He knew that by saying yes he was risking his friendship with Brenden, but having friends did not put cash in his pocket. The greatest risk that he foresaw was being blamed for facilitating Kori's decision to get involved. If anything happened to his brother, Brenden would never forgive him.

  Chapter 22

  Dale slept like a baby that night for the first time in weeks. Just the idea of not having to look at Butch Tassler's ugly mug for two straight days had a calming effect on him. He woke up refreshed and ready to tackle some much needed projects around the trailer. It was a long overdue feeling, especially after the previous day's events.

  He hated holding back information from Bobby Hazelton, but he needed to clear up a few things before sharing any theories on the Semler arson with him. He hoped to hell that he was wrong about the gut feeling he got when he saw the drag marks in the tracks behind the hermit's house. Tassler had his own ideas about who might have torched the place. He did not bother to share them with Dale, but then again he really didn't need to. Dale hoped to hell that Tassler was right and he was wrong.

  Not only did his partner hold out on him, he barely spoke two words after the stop at the Woodson place. Dale had a feeling that there was going to be even more tension between them than usual for a while. He hoped that Butch at least had some good luck hunting during his days off. Early bow season had started that morning and killing something always seemed to brighten him up a bit.

  He stepped out of the shower and was toweling off when a knock came from the front door. He slipped on his favorite pair of sweats and hurried to answer it with a sinking feeling in his chest. There was an urgency in the knock that gave him a sneaking suspicion that his plans were about to change.

  Detective Hazelton stood next to his white sedan, resting one elbow on an opened door. He slowly drummed his fingers on the hard metal top with the other hand. The solemn look on his face confirmed Dale's suspicions. He slapped the top twice and said, “Get dressed. There's something you ought to see before the press and the local brass go ape shit with it.” He didn't wait for Dale to respond before climbing back behind the wheel and slamming the door shut.

  “Oh, man. This does not sound good,” Dale said to himself as he hastily threw on a pair of jeans and a jacket. As an afterthought, he pulled his personal revolver from a drawer beside his bed and clipped the holster to his waistband.

  As soon as they arrived at the scene, Dale was certain that another body had been found. At least twice as many DCI agents were trolling around in the freshly harvested field than at the Semler property. They slowly walked between the rows of soybean stubble, systematically scanning the ground as they went. Although they stood only a few yards apart from one another, the line of men covered at least half an acre.

  An agent that Dale remembered seeing at the arson scene stepped out of his own vehicle and greeted them at the gate. He was slightly on the husky side and looked completely miserable as the brisk morning wind rippled the fabric of his tailored suit. He stuffed his bare hands into his pockets and gave Dale a lingering once over that left no doubt about his feelings on sharing notes with the local authorities. Hazelton tried to break the tension with introductions, but it did little to loosen the agent up. Mathers, as Hazelton had called him, simply pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and led them into the field.

  It wasn't until they had rounded the tree line that flanked the field on the south that it dawned on Dale where they were. The field abutted the acreage that Tassler and his ex-wife once shared. In fact, he could almost make out the rooftop of the house that Butch sometimes insisted on driving by during their shifts. An ominous feeling welled up inside him as they walked deeper into the field.

  They crested a small hill close to the tree line. At the bottom were two investigators, dressed in clothing much more appropriate for the weather than agent Mathers. They stood on either side of a tarp that was weighted down by clods of dirt, apparently procured from the recently plowed ground. A massive lump rested beneath it, giving the illusion of movement as the wind blew across the loose covering.

  “The coroner's only done the prelims, so we figured it was best to keep him covered up,” Mathers told Hazelton. He tapped his muddied dress shoes on the edge of the tarp to illustrate his point. Then he turned his attention to Dale and added, “Don't want the natives getting all restless, do we?”

  “That's fine agent Mathers. I think we can handle it from here,” Hazelton said. Mathers briefly protested but Hazelton quelled it with a dismissing hand. “Go on and get back to your unit before you freeze to death. And next time watch the weather channel before you leave your hotel room for Christ's sake.”

  Dale watched the Mathers walk back to the entrance with his hands once again buried in his pockets. He allowed himself a bit of guilty pleasure as the agent momentarily lost his footing and was forced to pull his hands free to regain his balance. It was difficult to say, with the wind blowing so hard, but he thought that he heard him cursing as he trudged on. He turned back to Hazelton and the two guarding the tarp in time to catch them smiling as well.

  “Kinda reminds me of my own pain in the ass partner, you know,” he remarked. Immediately the smiles vanished from the agents faces. They shared an awkward glance amongst themselves before regaining their stoic expressions.

  “Ooh,” one of the agents muttered.

  Hazelton shot the agent a stern look before placing a hand on Dale's shoulder. Even though they were roughly the same build, Dale suddenly felt very small in comparison. He stared down at the lump beneath the tarp and back to the investigator, dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to speak and quickly closed it as his saliva glands went into overdrive. For a second he felt as if he would pass out. Finally he forced out a single word.
“How?”

  Hazelton nodded to the agents. They lifted two corners of the tarp and carefully folded them over, revealing what lay hidden underneath. Dale let out a startled gasp. He looked first to the two agents and then to their superior, waiting for the punch line. It had to be some sort of joke, albeit a horribly sick one.

  Tassler's body rested almost in a fetal position, only his knees were not pulled up to his chest nearly far enough to call it that. He laid on his side with one hand stuffed down the front of his unbuttoned pants. The other was stiffened in the early stages of rigor mortis, hovering close to his face. It would have appeared that Butch had been sucking his thumb, except for the fact that it was nearly bitten in two. What Dale believed to be an arrow was buried halfway down the shaft into his throat. Another pinned the hand in his pants firmly to his pelvic region. It too was sunken in almost to the fletching.

  And that was not the shocking part.

  Nestled firmly behind Tassler was the body of a freshly killed doe. The front legs of the deer were positioned on either side of his shoulders. The lower legs were fixed in the same manner, one under him and the other lay over his Butch's hip. It was almost if the animal and he were in an intimate spooning position.

  “What the hell?” Dale exclaimed. “What sick bastard stages something like that? And why?” He wanted to stop staring at the pair of bodies but could not pull his eyes from them.

  Hazelton sighed before answering. “Hate to tell you this, but I don't think this was staged. All prelim forensics indicate that your partner there...,” He stared down at Butch's body with a look of mild disgust. “He was in that very position when he took one to the throat.” He motioned with the flat of his hand to the space between Butch and the doe. “Angle is right and the shaft went straight through him and into the deer. So did the one in the happy hand.”

  “You mean to tell me that he was...,” Dale did not know how to articulate what he was thinking. He could not bring himself to say it out loud, wouldn't know what to call it even if he could. “With a goddamn deer?”

  “No, I think that came first. No pun intended,” Hazelton replied. He kept a straight face and glanced over to his men, daring them to even think of doing otherwise. “Can't be for certain until the labs come back, but we found quite a bit of what appears to be semen on the deer and the coroner did a test on the animal to see if...”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ! Don't tell me anymore!” Dale put his hands to his ears and walked in a looping circle. He was thankful that he had not had time to have breakfast before Hazelton had showed up at his door. If he had he almost certainly would have lost it then and there. He stopped and looked up with watering eyes. “What the hell is going on here, Bobby?”

  Hazelton did not answer right away. First, he ordered the two agents to give them some privacy. The agents looked grateful to be relieved of their duty and hurried to join the rest of the crew, policing the area for evidence. When they were out of earshot Hazelton turned to face him, his face twisted into an angry scowl.

  “Why don't you tell me, Deputy Scheck,” he said. He spoke each syllable of the word deputy as if he were spitting. It came out, dep-you-tee. “I've got two bodies in as many days in this godforsaken place and both happen to have been key persons of interest in a very important case. If I might remind you, a case that has taken two years for me to build. A case that you are supposed to be part of. So why don't you tell me what in the hell is going on.”

  “I have no idea.” Dale stared at the bodies, wishing that the agents would have thrown the tarp back over them before they made their headlong retreat. His hands started to shake and his watery mouth suddenly went dry, making his response sound even more like a lie than it already was.

  “Bullshit!” Hazelton snapped. He rushed in to close the distance between them. Dale blinked in surprise and backpedaled until he was pinned against the thicket of trees behind them. “You were both holding back on me the other night. Don't blow smoke up my ass by denying it, either. I expected that from this scumbag,” He pointed back at the nestling bodies, who both stared off in the distance with the same dull glaze in their eyes. “It was in his best interest to lie to me, but you on the other hand...”

  “Bobby,” Dale interrupted him, pleading.

  “No,” Hazelton's palm shot up in the air. “Let me finish, goddammit! You on the other hand are my only inside shot at this case. I put my neck on the line by sending you in this alone. Put all of my trust in you. You start holding back on me and shit like this happens, guess who's gonna end up looking like the idiot.” He eased back some, giving Dale just a little bit of breathing room before answering his own question. “Me, that's who.”

  Dale measured his words very carefully. He let out a breath and admitted that he had made a mistake. He explained his hunch that the arson with a limp may have possibly been Brenden Woodson. It seemed plausible, given the fact that Woodson had deep ties to Semler. He spun a story beginning with Brenden's knee injury in high school and ended with a file filled with photos of Brenden and his band of misfits frequenting the hermit's property. It was at least partially the truth, although Brenden was not the first one that popped into his head when he saw the drag marks in the tracks.

  “I just wanted to be certain before I reported anything to you,” Dale explained, taking care not to break eye contact. He could not tell if Hazelton was buying his half-truth or just giving him enough rope to hang himself. He was not really telling him anything that he didn't already know. He put the finishing touch on the lie by adding, “I'm damn glad I did, because I'm having serious doubts about it now.”

  “How so?” Hazelton raised an eyebrow. He seemed genuinely curious, not suspicious.

  “Well. I got to thinking after Butch and I questioned him yesterday,” He looked down at the bodies as if he expected Butch to corroborate his story. It occurred to him that his partner most likely wouldn't have vouched for him even if he wasn't laying there in a post-coital embrace with a deer. “Woodson has too much to lose and nothing to gain by killing Virgil Semler. Besides, he has an alibi for the time frame. Says he was in Cameron buying supplies at the Farm Supply. Then he had lunch with his boss at Mable's. He's got at least half a dozen witnesses at each place. Maybe more.”

  “And you verified these alibis yourself?”

  “Not yet, but I will,” Dale admitted. “I have no doubt that they'll all check out.” He was feeling more confident that he had successfully covered his butt, so he decided to shift the focus back to the investigation. “What about the ex-wife and her boyfriend?”

  Hazelton shook his head and waved a hand in the direction of the house. “They've been out of town for days. It was his nephew that called it in. Says that his uncle and the ex-wife left for a car show in Springfield two days ago. Won't be back until Monday. Lucky for us that the dispatch got routed to the state patrol and not your guys. Otherwise every Barney Fife in Catalpa County would be here right now, mucking up my crime scene.” A cruel grin formed on his face. “No offense to you, by the way.”

  “None taken,” Dale responded, forcing a smile. He liked Bobby Hazelton, but he had the sudden urge to slap that grin from his face.

  “It won't stay quiet for long, though. The nephew and a couple of his buddies were hunting when they found the deer whisperer and his companion here. For all we know, there are already a dozen photos floating around on the internet by now. Fucking Facebook.” He pulled off a glove and clamped it between his teeth as he punched a series of keys on his phone. Dale grimaced at the sight, wondering just what that glove had come into contact with before it ended up in Bobby's mouth. The investigator barked orders to someone on the other end, presumably agent Mathers, to “get this freak show out here before the spectators showed up.”

  A DCI van approached in the distance, its wheels bouncing and swaying violently against the uneven terrain. Half a dozen agents on foot kept pace with the slow moving vehicle, all thankful to be walking in the cold instead of having their gu
ts battered inside the warm cab. Dale hoped like hell to be on his way out of there before anyone got any funny ideas about asking him to help load the dead. He doubted that he had the stomach for it.

  Hazelton took in the gruesome sight one last time and then threw the edge of the tarp back over the bodies. He walked over to the fence line, where he had recently unleashed his fury on the deputy, and bent down to retrieve Tassler's hunting gear. A compound bow and quiver lay in the fallen leaves along with a small backpack. Hazelton slipped his glove back on and picked up the bow. He tested the weight of the drawstring with a few quick pulls and nodded in approval.

  “Is that such a good idea?” Dale asked. He could not believe how carelessly someone as by the book as Hazelton was handling the most likely murder weapon on the scene.

  Recognizing his concern, Hazelton shook his head and smiled. “This bow didn't kill anyone, deputy. Except for maybe Bambi here.” He walked over and peeled back the tarp once again, making Dale wish he had just kept his mouth shut. He pointed to the fletching on the shaft protruding from the side of the doe. It had the same orange coloring as the ones in quiver. “That is an arrow.” Then he pointed to the ones in Tassler's body. “Those are not.”

  “I think I'm missing something here.”

  “That's because you don't hunt,” Hazelton explained. Even though the contemptuous tone was not there, Dale still thought of someone else who made it a point to remind him of that fact almost daily. The detective removed one of the arrows from the quiver attached to the side of the bow. He held it in approximately the same angle as the one sticking out of Tassler's neck. It was more than twice as long as the one that killed the man. He repeated the comparison with the crotch shot and explained, “These are crossbow bolts. From an entirely different weapon that, unless I'm missing something, is no longer at the scene of this crime.”