Memorial Day: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Novels)

by Harry Shannon

  "Confidential like?"

  "Off the record."

  Doc stood up. "Can't say for sure, but I reckon during or maybe after somebody slapped her around, she slipped and fell. She was already barefoot on the rocks there, had abrasions on her heel. Anyway, she hit her head and passed out. But then I kind of lean towards the idea that the killer held her head under the water to make sure she was gone."

  "Because?"

  "What, the fall? Because of the way her skull got smashed, and because the wound looked very deep. The rest? Because like I said yesterday, I think the actual cause of death was drowning."

  "Can you prove that?"

  Doc shrugged. "Not without a forensic specialist right there at the site, and then only if nobody touched anything. Forensics, now that's a strange kind of science. Those guys are real picky people, got to have everything exactly right, all down to the last detail. You can't touch a thing."

  I opened and closed my fingers again. The bucket made a rattling sound. I winced at both the cold and the topic. "Then why did you move her so fast, Doc? You sound like you know better than to do that."

  Doc gave me a look. "We all do what we're told in the end, don't we?"

  "I guess so. Can we continue to keep this drowning thing just between you, me, and Bass? Might be I can use it somewhere along the way."

  Doc studied me, thinking on it. Finally, he said, "Don't see why not. Now, come on. The sheriff is a'waitin'."

  As I was locking the motel room door: "Incidentally, how well did you know Sandy Palmer?"

  Doc Langdon was down in the dirt and two steps ahead. He laughed out loud. "That ain't very subtle, coming right out with it like that."

  I followed him out into the sunshine. "I wasn't trying to be subtle. And I'm tired of the country bumpkin act, Doc. It was charming at first, but now it's starting to wear thin."

  "Guess I'll have to work on my Elvis impression," Doc said, as he waited for me to catch up. "That's the only other good one I have."

  I shifted attitudes. "Sorry, Doc, but I can't seem to stay out of this. It feels like something I have to do."

  "Be better off you did stay out, boy."

  "Maybe."

  We walked for a while. I touched a rib and winced. After a moment of dead air, as we turned onto the street, Doc said, "Okay, then. Sandy Palmer. Truth is, I didn't know her very well, Callahan. I'll be straight with you though, it was not for lack of trying. The girl got around, if you know what I mean."

  Another tumbler clicked into place. I stopped in the dusty street. "No, I don't know what you mean."

  "Come on, Callahan," Doc said. He seemed both amazed and amused. "Do you mean to tell me you didn't know Sandy Palmer was the town tramp?"

  "No," I said, truthfully, "I didn't." That explained the mixed signals I had received from Sandy the day before, in the park. The intense counter-transference of childishness mixed with sexual heat. I felt a bit stupid for not having interpreted it correctly. "Sandy upset a lot of people, then, men and women both."

  "Damn straight. Bass has got one long list of suspects to ponder. Look, that girl screwed every horny husband, son, and daddy in the county."

  "I see."

  Doc grew impatient and started walking again. He got a few steps ahead before I managed to react and follow. Meanwhile, Doc spoke over his shoulder. "I wanted her too," he said, frankly. "Tell you the truth, I was pretty jealous of anybody got their chance with her."

  "Jealousy can make a man do unusual things."

  Doc snorted. "Oh, now I'm O.J.?" His shoulders tightened but he kept on walking. "I said I never got in with the girl, Callahan."

  I lengthened my stride and paced him. Then I stepped closer, crowding him a little. "I want to believe you, Doc," I said. "In fact, I almost do."

  Doc laughed, edged away. He picked up the tempo. I realized he was in far better shape than he looked. He was old, but still strong and vital. "You're a rough bastard, aren't you?" he said. "You ought to ask Glen to deputize your ass."

  We were approaching the sheriff's office at a brisk clip. "There's no easy way to say this, Doc. I've had a look at your police record. I know about the work you did for the wise guys, patching up soldiers."

  Doc tensed, spun around, turned pale. There was a little wad of spit at one corner of his mouth. "Mind your own business, Callahan. I'm starting to comprehend why everyone around here dislikes you. You don't want me to join them, watch your mouth. You're running way low on friends."

  "I've got enough friends," I said, lamely. I was trying to sound tough and indifferent.

  That dog wouldn't hunt. Doc Langdon saw right through me. He stopped at the foot of the steps. "Is that so?"

  I sighed. "No. Doc, I'm not sure I have any friends at the moment. But somehow I got myself into this situation, and now I have to ask some tough questions to get out again. I need to know what happened to Sandy."

  Doc squinted and spat. He looked up and away, over my shoulder and into the pastel mountains. "You want it straight up, Callahan?"

  "Sure do."

  "Okay," he said. "Here it is, short and sweet. It would not surprise me a bit if somebody got upset at that girl and her round heels and decided to put her to sleep. Hell, son. Somebody took some video of her naked little butt a while ago and half a dozen copies were floating around town. So there you are. Okay?"

  I was silent, perhaps for a bit too long. His words made me feel empty and sad. I studied the dirt. Doc was being honest, and in order to do that he had to avoid looking in my eyes.

  "And why do you figure all this happened to her, Doc?"

  "You're the shrink," Doc said. "You know as well as I do." His voice trembled a bit. "Somebody screwed that girl up, Callahan, probably years and years ago. She was a hot little twist, and she got around too much. That's all there is. You hear me?"

  "I hear you," I said.

  "Now, if you plan on raising more hell around here, you leave me out of it. I'm just a fat old man with a couple of black marks on his record. It's not much of a life to begin with, so don't you go and fuck with it."

  Doc stalked off. I turned and went up the steps.

  Fifteen

  Sunday Afternoon, 3:05 PM

  Glenn Bass kept his office cool and dark, with virtually no dust. I saw some wanted posters, lots of oak furniture, including a long wooden bench. The barred two-man cell seemed like something out of a western film. There were some awards for marksmanship on the wall above the large wooden desk. They were yellowed and seemed decades old.

  There were a few photographs, the largest one of Bass with a unit of cheerful grunts in Viet Nam. It was the kind of photo all handsome young boys took at the beginning of a war. I instantly sensed that only a few had returned alive. Another faded photograph showed a somewhat younger Bass crouched over the carcass of a dead buck with huge antlers. He was holding a long hunting bow.

  I flashed on the dead man in the alley, his hands behind his back and fingertips sliced off; Doc had said he was killed with some kind of sharp object, perhaps a pick. What about a hunting arrow?

  "A bow is an ugly way to kill something," Bass said.

  I jumped involuntarily. "I've always thought so."

  "Gets the job done, but it's cruel."

  The sheriff was leaning against the wall behind the door, taking down a shotgun from the gun rack. He carried the weapon back to his desk. He sat down, spread some newspaper and began to clean it. He did not look up.

  "You prefer a shotgun?" I felt weak and sweaty and wanted to sit down. But there was nowhere to rest, except for the bench, and I did not want to feel like his prisoner.

  "I prefer a rifle," Bass grunted. "But I'm good with a bow, too. Thing is, the arrow hurts like hell, just slows the animal down so that he dies badly. That's not a clean way to kill."

  "Why did you hunt that way, then?"

  Bass looked up. I could not read his eyes. "That time? Somebody asked me to."

  I decided on the lesser of two evils. We
nt to the bench, sat, and then leaned forward, hands on knees. "Who asked you to hunt with a bow?"

  Bass finished scrubbing the barrel of the shotgun. He looked through, blew it out, put down the brush and met my gaze. His tone was flinty. "Not sure that's any of your business."

  "Just making conversation. Never much cared for hunting, myself. Especially bow hunting. My stepfather liked it."

  "Killing is an acquired taste."

  "Listen," I said, "since you and I are suddenly making nice again and all, can I go ahead and speak my mind?"

  Bass put down the weapon. "Shoot."

  "Unfortunate choice of words."

  Bass did not smile. "Don't push me. I already asked you nicely to just shut up and leave town."

  "In due time."

  He bristled. "What the hell do you think you're playing at, kid? You're about to step in some deep shit here, and for what?"

  "Beats me," I said, weakly. "Lately, I have this thing about playing hero. I suspect you'd know about that."

  "The heroes I knew are all dead."

  I wiped my brow. "That an observation, or are you threatening me?"

  Bass leaned back in his chair. It complained and a hinge popped. He looked me over carefully. "Callahan, you and me, we've got some things in common. We both got hell whacked out of us growing up, both have world-class tempers. We both mean to do the right thing, but sometimes we screw up mightily. You recall that night?"

  I shrugged. "Sure. Why the hell do you think I agreed to keep a dead man secret for a few days?"

  Bass nodded. "Makes us even, I reckon. How old were you when I busted you, maybe seventeen?"

  "Sixteen, probably," I said. "I was big for my age. I'd whipped Mayor Pepper's kid Greg in a money fight. His Daddy beat his ass again for losing, so Greg came after me with a box cutter and sliced my forearms up a little. I got it and threw it out into the fields." I paused, remembering, my face hot with shame. "Greg's head got bounced off that brick wall over by the old casino. He went down pretty hard."

  Bass grunted. "I heard all the fussing, came around the corner while you were bent over the boy. I always meant to ask you, were you trying to help him or were you going to club him again?"

  I thought for a moment. My throat closed. "I don't rightly know."

  "Don't matter," Bass said. "That boy was bad, and you were just a kid. I didn't figure you deserved to go upstate for defending yourself."

  "So you let me go."

  "Jake Pepper was the mayor, Callahan. His brother-in-law was a senator. You and Danny Bell were white trash, at least to these morons around here. I made a judgment call, let you go. I'll stand by that."

  "Maybe you're right," I said. "But I sometimes wonder. At least the kid lived. Whatever happened to him?"

  "Greg drooled like a baby for a few months, then woke up and didn't remember shit. Last I heard he was living in Salt Lake and singing in some church choir. His asshole daddy died in '97. You were long gone."

  "After Danny dropped dead and the ranch got repossessed, I hauled ass out of Dry Wells."

  "As I recall, you enlisted in the Navy Seals. Made me proud."

  "I never wore the trident. I got tossed out right after training." Bass raised his eyebrows. I sighed. "They got me for fooling around with the wife of an officer and fighting. It's a long story."

  Bass nodded with something that passed for respect. "Okay. I don't talk about my days in the service very often, but its Memorial Day tomorrow, so I'm going to make an exception. Listen up. This would have been late '68, maybe early 1969. They were inserting us into some fucking collection of huts and rice paddies."

  Bass got a far-away look. After a moment, he continued. "There is a sound the chopper blades make, a kind of 'thock 'n thock 'n thock.' It echoes through the metal, your butt kind of vibrates. Some boys would sit on their helmets, because they didn't want to get their balls blown off.

  "This new guy called Cherry was maybe nineteen, like the rest of us, but he carried himself older. He was from California, had an education. We all figured he was fucking dinky dao for signing up. Anyway, so we are all in the chopper and you can't hear anything and your mouth tastes like dog shit and suddenly you're there. The doorway is open and we're spilling out into the razor grass wearing all that gear. Some of us are falling flat, some running forward. The chopper doesn't stay down for thirty seconds because the LZ is hot. It's a trap, and they start cutting us all to pieces. Guys are screaming at each other and bellowing things into handsets and trying to get control, but this is so bad your asshole puckers until you could carve a washer off it.

  "Near as I can tell, there is a machine gun nest right in front of the LZ, and since we got rice paddy and water all around us, that nest is blocking the only exit. Go out into the water, like some guys do, and you're lumbering along, all loaded down, and an even easier target. You can't go back, because that chopper pilot is out of there like a stripe-assed ape.

  "And then the small mortar shells start falling all around us; guys blowing up and flying to pieces. I'm so scared I'm trying to sink into the mud so nobody can see my ass to shoot it. I wanted to see what I was made of. Hell, you can see what we're all made of in combat, and it's just red meat and gristle."

  Bass stopped for a long moment. His eyes were dark, haunted slits. I had an urge to say something, but my mouth was too dry. I couldn't bring myself to speak. I was seeing through a window into my stepfather's past. I felt both fascinated and horrified. I tried to breathe quietly, through my mouth. Finally Bass continued.

  "Cherry, his eyes are wide. You can't hear a fucking thing, but he's trying to tell me that he'll go up the fucking middle and I should cover him. Cover him! This kid watches too many movies. He gets up, he's a dead man.

  "He gets up. And it happens to be right when Gunny and some boys start to run a shoot and scoot on the right flank, so the machine gunner turns to try to pick them off, and so does every guy Charlie's got. We have this lane we can see through, all of a sudden. Way down at the end of a dark tunnel there's a couple of dinks in black pajamas, and I am aiming and I fire and one of them goes down and then the other one does too.

  "Cherry is broken-field running like a big fullback with the ball on fourth and seven when he has just got to score or the championship is game is lost, you know? And he's firing from the hip as some little dink starts to replace the two I wasted, yanks on the gun and brings it around, but Cherry is there in the VC's face and puts him down. Then Cherry flips a grenade into the nest, where the gun and all the ammo and half the mortar guys are gathered, and starts running back towards me. And everything behind him just goes up, into fucking orbit, all red and yellow and black smoke. All the way back, Cherry is bobbing and weaving and dodging bullets and coming within millimeters of dying. Me, I'm frozen like a Popsicle right there in the mud. I'm blown away. I've never seen anybody do anything like that, before or since."

  I wanted to stop him, for some reason. I cleared my throat. "Pretty amazing kid," I said. My own voice startled me. My mouth tasted terrible.

  "Shut up," Bass snarled. "I ain't done yet."

  I put my hands up, palms forward. "Sorry."

  "The thing about Cherry," Bass continued, "is that he took a lot of crap from the guys. Calling him John Wayne, shit like that. He had an okay sense of humor, but I think it got to him. Not like it ticked him off, but that he enjoyed it a little too much.

  "Couple months later, we get ambushed up around Hue. Two gunners this time, perfect fields of fire, got us in a crossing pattern. Cherry, he waits until one gunner is changing magazines, and he stands up and starts running again. The other gun swings around, though, and . . . Cherry just sort of flew into pieces. I don't know how to say it, except one arm went north and one went south and then the legs vanished too. His guts fell out. What was left of him dropped right there."

  Bass seemed to return to the room. He smiled thinly. "He was a good boy, Callahan. And now that you're all grown up, you seem like you'd be an okay sort
to have a beer with, too."

  "Why did you tell me that story?"

  "Because Cherry started believing he was some kind of a hero, instead of just plain lucky. Do you get my drift?"

  I met his eyes and nodded. "I think so. You don't want me to go charging off foolishly, thinking nothing bad can happen to me. Something like that?"

  "Exactly."

  I shifted on the long, wooden bench. I had been stiff and motionless for a long time. The adrenaline from the fight had dissipated, so my muscles were starting to cramp up. "How many tours did you do, Sheriff?"

  "One. That was enough for me."

  "And you what, came back and got married?"

  "Most of us did, back then."

  "What happened with her?" I asked. "Just curious."

  Bass stared at me. He moved in his chair and the wood cracked and moaned like a campfire. I saw his gears working. He decided to level with me. After a moment, he whispered: "I was crazy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

  "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," I said.

  "Whatever," Bass said. "I'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night. I drank too much, and sometimes I went crazy for no reason at all."

  I understood better than I wanted to admit. "Sounds familiar."

  Bass eyed me. He shrugged. "I hauled off and hit my wife a couple of times, got busted down and out. They discharged me. That's it, beginning and end of story."

  "Still have a temper?"

  "Hell, it's been a long time since I teed off. I like it that way. Let me ask you a rhetorical question. Do you think a man needs to be ready to do violence in this world?"

  "Yes."

  Bass leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "Damn straight. The world hasn't changed all that much in a thousand years."

  I choked out the question I'd been sitting on the whole time. "Sir, how well did you know Sandy Palmer?"

  Bass moved the shotgun around so it was pointing at me. He resumed cleaning it; no sounds but the nylon brush against metal and my thumping heartbeat. Bass took his time, looked up. "You're a lot like Cherry," he said. "Born to be a chalk outline."