Radio Activity (The Rick Shannon series)

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Rick started to open the windows of the trailer to equalize the pressure in case one touched down nearby. He was trying to remember if the atmospheric pressure increased or decreased in a tornado when he realized that it didn’t much matter if you were killed by an implosion or an explosion. Wait a second, he thought. That’s a myth. By the time a tornado is centered over your trailer, the place has been subjected to 150 mile-an-hour winds loaded with lumber, livestock, and telephone poles. After that, the trailer’s got all the ventilation holes it needs to equalize any pressure difference. With this in mind Rick moved away from the windows.

  The wind was picking up serious velocity and it made Rick think about a station he worked at once, somewhere in the middle of Kansas. Out in the prairie states, you had the advantage of being able to see a tornado coming. In the middle of a pine forest, you can’t see like that. They just drop out of the sky and you better not be in the way.

  Rick had seen a lot of storms in his life but never anything like this. For a moment he thought he felt the trailer move. Maybe shifting on the foundation or no, it was something else. The attached carport started vibrating as it strained against the wind, the fiberglass and thin aluminum struggling to survive the onslaught of all this energy. There was a tremulous, keening screech reminiscent of a Yoko record just before the carport detached from the trailer and started cartwheeling toward the woods.

  Rick glanced outside and saw the tall pines bending in the gale. He knew if the winds grew strong enough the softwoods would snap and the hardwoods would come up roots and all. A moment later it sounded like rivets hitting the walls and the roof. Rick looked out the window and saw hail like jawbreakers stripping the paint off his unprotected truck. “Oh shit!” This was a bad sign. Large hail usually precedes a tornado. That was one of the axioms he remembered.

  Rick knew he was supposed to get out of the trailer and go lie in a ditch but the nearest one he knew of was several hundred yards away. He’d be dead before he got there, beaten to death by the hail or impaled by something carried on the winds. Still, he had to do something. Problem was, he was too scared to move.

  Whatever fear had been triggered by the hailstorm was dwarfed by the sound of the freight train that followed. It was a horrible rumbling sound that promised death in a deep clear voice. It was the unearthly roar of fifteen tons of pressure moving across the land. A window shattered and something hit the wall inside. Rick turned in a jerk and saw movement on the floor. It was a fox squirrel, shaking its head like a cartoon character before running to hide under the sofa.

  For some reason this launched Rick out the door like a shot. Pelted by the hail and stung by flying debris, he ran in a straight line toward a shallow ravine, his arms covering his head. When he was close enough he dove and slid into the ditch, where he sunk his fingers into the wet clay and started praying.

  49.

  It was over before Rick got to ‘Amen.’ The National Weather Service would later classify it as a Category F-2 tornado with top winds of a hundred and fifty miles per hour. It was on the ground for roughly half a mile with a track width of about fifty yards. The freight train rumbling lasted ten or fifteen seconds then disappeared faster than Sopwith Camel. Then it was just the sound of the rain and the noise a wet disc jockey makes when pulling himself out of a muddy ditch in south central Mississippi.

  Rick had some minor cuts and bruises but was otherwise all right. He stood outside the trailer and undressed, leaving his clothes in the rain to rinse off the mud. Before he went inside he got down on his knees to look under the trailer. It was tied down.

  Rick put on some sweats and chased the squirrel out the door. Then he rigged a make-shift patch for his broken window. He put on a raincoat then went out to his truck to assess the damage. He shook his head when he saw what the hail had done to his new windshield. He reached into his toolbox and grabbed his tire iron, then pried the busted glass out and tossed it by the side of the trailer. After that he strapped on his trusty goggles and headed for work.

  50.

  Traci was at the reception desk looking through a file when Rick walked in and asked her to call the windshield replacement people again. Without looking up, she said, “Is the other one leaking in all this rain?”

  “Yeah,” Rick said. “Pretty bad, too.”

  “Oh!” She looked up from what she was doing and said, “Did you know we had a tornado warning about an hour ago?”

  “Yeah, I got wind of it.”

  “Apparently a couple of them touched down but no reports of injuries so far.”

  Rick feigned immediate indignation. “Whaddya mean no injuries!” He touched a scratch on his cheek. “What does this look like?”

  Traci leaned forward, squinting. “Shaving accident?”

  “Oh fine, trivialize my trauma. I’m lucky I didn’t end up in Munchkinland.”

  It took her a second but Traci leaned forward, a shocked look on her face. “You mean it was out at your place? Ohmigod, what happened?”

  Rick waved her off like it was nothing. “Oh, no big deal really. Peeled the carport off the end of the trailer but I rode it out.”

  Traci looked at him skeptically. “Did it really or you just jerkin’ my chain?”

  Rick smiled as he gestured at the file on her desk. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, yeah. I decided to do some poking around while Clay was out.” Traci tapped her finger on the file. “Guess who bought a huge run-of-schedule about a week before Captain Jack stopped coming to work?”

  Rick pointed at Traci. “Universal Financial Services is the answer to your prayers.”

  “You bet. And at drive-time rates,” Traci said. “Before that they’d never spent more than five hundred a month buying seven to midnight.”

  “What’s the commission?”

  “Doesn’t say.”

  “Does it usually?”

  “Yep.”

  Rick sat on the corner of her desk. “Okay, so maybe it’s a payoff. Bernie paying Clay for getting rid of Captain Jack? Something like that?”

  Traci shrugged and said, “Seems like a clumsy way to do it. But then again, he’s not exactly Rico Suave.” Her eyes looked past Rick when she saw Clay’s Crown Victoria pull into the lot. “Uh oh. Salesman of the decade’s back,” Traci said as she slipped the file back into the drawer.

  A moment later Clay blustered through the front door and crossed to where Rick was pretending to look at phone messages. Rick looked up. “Oh, hey, what’s going on?”

  Clay tossed a copy of the McRae Monitor on Traci’s desk. “Ya’ll see this yet?” The paper was folded open to a picture of Clay handing the big check to Ken Stigler at the park. Rick and Joni Lang were standing behind the check. “That’s some good publicity there,” Clay said.

  Rick picked it up and looked. “Not bad.” He handed it to Traci.

  Clay nudged Rick and nodded toward the parking lot. “The hell happened to your truck?”

  “Same thing that happened to your trailer,” Rick said. “Big-ass hail storm and a little twister. I was just telling Traci. It snatched off the carport.”

  “Aww, shit,” Clay said as he grabbed his messages and started for his office. “I got like a damn five hundred dolla deductible on that.” He disappeared down the hall for a moment then came back. “Is it like . . . gone? Or is it just bent up or pushed across the field there or what?”

  Rick gestured to infinity and said, “Way gone.”

  “Well, damn. Tch.” Clay seemed to struggle with a small thought for a moment before he looked at Rick and said, “Hey, do me a favor. Take a walk around and see if you can’t find it out there. Maybe we can haul the thing back and put it up good as new.” He rapped his knuckles on the door frame then headed down the hall.

  Traci said, “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt.”

  Rick acted like a wounded schoolboy, touching his cheek lightly. “I did get hurt a little.”

  “Well, I’ll kiss your boo-boos later,” Traci said. “
Meanwhile I’ll get the windshield guys out here then I’ll call around and see if I can find out what happens to abandoned cars in Deckern County.” She reached for the phone book. “What’re you gonna do?”

  “Me? I’ve got a regular job.”

  51.

  Rick was playing Supertramp’s Crime of the Century while thinking about what Traci had learned that afternoon. According to her source, cars abandoned in Deckern County were towed and the owner-of-record notified. If the owner failed to respond in sixty days, the car was sold at auction. Traci had a friend in the used car business who frequented the monthy auctions. She was going to check with him to see if he remembered any torch red Corvettes on the block since Captain Jack’s disappearance.

  As Rick went from Crime of the Century into Thin Lizzy’s Call The Police, he realized he didn’t hold out much hope on finding the Corvette. Since the car, or lack thereof, seemed unlikely to provide any leads, Rick wondered who or what might provide some. There was still the Lady of the Golden Shower and there was also Tammy Callaway. Rick didn’t think either of them knew what had happened to Captain Jack but he still wanted to talk to them.

  As Call The Police circled the turntable, Rick had a sudden inspiration that sent him deep into the archives looking for an obscure version of a song that had made Bobby Fuller a star back in 1966. Rick found the Ducks Deluxe album Don’t Mind Rockin’ Tonight, cued their raucous version of I Fought The Law, and let it fly. His inspiration for playing the song had come from the suspicious circumstances of Bobby Fuller’s death in Los Angeles in July 1966.

  According to the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, Bobby Fuller was found lying face down in the front seat of an Oldsmobile, covered in gasoline. The windows and doors were shut but not locked and there was an open can of gas in the back seat. The autopsy said there was extensive bruising on Fuller’s chest and shoulders and a witness testified that his right index finger was broken, as if it had been bent back until it snapped. Naturally, the Los Angeles Police Department said there was no evidence of foul play and ruled the death a suicide.

  Rick considered suicide for a moment. Not for himself but for Captain Jack. His sister had said he was depressed. Serious drug users had been known to do themselves in. Put the two together and. . . paging Kurt Cobain. . .but, no, it didn’t add up. Suicides don’t usually hide themselves. You just find ‘em with their heads in the oven or wherever they were at the time. That Captain Jack had been engaged in blackmail just prior to his demise also pointed to murder instead of suicide. So while Bobby Fuller’s story hadn’t shed any light on Rick’s investigation, it had led to a good song for his Crime and Punishment set. As I Fought The Law neared its end, Rick cued Clapton’s version of I Shot The Sheriff.

  Dismissing suicide, Rick was back to murder. Who had he not talked to? He felt a sudden pang of disappointment. On the day of the radio station promotion he had meant to ask Joni Lang if she knew any Tammys on the local pageant circuit. It was a long shot but that’s all he had. He made a note to call her later, then turned his mind back to his show.

  He came out of a spot break singing the praises of Al Kooper. “He’s one of those guys whose music you remember but whose name you don’t,” Rick said. “In 1965 he had a hit when Gary Lewis and The Playboys recorded his song This Diamond Ring. That same year he played on Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone. He went on to play with and produce a few bands you loved but never realized he had anything to do with. So let’s start in 1966 with a song he wrote for The Blues Project, one of those underground radio chestnuts. Here’s Flute Thing on WAOR-FM.”

  Rick followed that with I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know from Blood, Sweat, and Tears and then went on to Kooper and Bloomfield’s version of the Ray Charles standard Mary Ann. About halfway through the song Rick took a call from an irate listener who complained about Al Kooper’s lack of relevance to rock and roll. “You oughta play some damn Free Bird or somethin,” he said.

  “Ahhh,” Rick said, “Skynyrd fan.”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Me, too. Loved their first album.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about! That thing rocks!”

  “You know those guys started playing together in ‘65? Called themselves My Backyard.”

  “Yeah, but then they named themselves after that gym teacher who was always givin’ ‘em shit about their long hair.”

  “Yeah, and they played all over the south for years without a single record company tryin’ to sign ‘em up.”

  “Yeah, but somebody finally did, man.”

  “And it was the same guy that produced their first album.”

  “Hell yeah,” the caller said. “Sumbitch knew what he was doin’ too!”

  “Damn right,” Rick said. “You know who that was?”

  “Uhhh, I dunno, like Duane Allman?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rick said. “I tell you what. I’ll play you something off Skynyrd’s first record. How’s that?”

  “Hell yeah,” the caller said before hanging up.

  A few minutes later Rick came on the air and said, “That’s a little somethin’ sweet from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s first album. A song called Mississippi Kid, co-written by the guy who discovered them. The same guy who produced their first three albums. He also played on the Stones Let It Bleed and Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, sometimes under the pseudonym Roosevelt Gook. Of course his real name was. . . Al Kooper.” He let that sink in for a second before he started the next record and said, “You’re listening to WAOR-FM. I’m Rick Shannon and we’re gettin’ at the roots of classic rock. Here’s Neil Young from Tonight’s the Night.”

  Rick took his headphones off and looked at the blinking request line. He was off the air in ten minutes so there was no way he could play any requests but he figured he could leave a note for Uncle Victor. He picked up the phone and said, “AOR.”

  “Hello.” It was a woman.

  “Howdy,” Rick said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I saw your picture in the paper today,” she said.

  Rick thought he recognized her voice. “Yes, well, unfortunately they didn’t get my good side.”

  “They didn’t get your name right either.” She paused. “Or did they?”

  Rick hesitated, trying to figure out who she was. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll bite. What is my real name?”

  “You told me it was Buddy Miles.” That narrowed it down. It was Donna Moore. “And I’ll tell you what else,” she said. “The guy who won the thousand dollars? His name’s not Ken Stigler.”

  52.

  Rick and Donna agreed to meet after he got off the air. On his way out of the station, he grabbed the newspaper off Traci’s desk. He got in his truck and headed for Kitty’s Road Café wondering what was going through Donna’s mind. She had used a vaguely threatening tone during their brief conversation. What was she trying to insinuate? It obviously had something to do with the fact that he’d lied about his name.

  It hadn’t occurred to Rick that anyone who knew him as Buddy Miles would see his picture in the paper. But he wasn’t inordinately worried about Donna’s discovery of his dual identity since it had no bearing on the thing she was most concerned about. Holly Creel was still missing and Rick was still Donna’s best bet to find out what had happened. The thing Rick was most curious about was why the contest winner had two names.

  Donna was sitting in a booth waiting for him. He slid into the seat opposite her and tossed the paper onto the table just as a waitress arrived with a piece of pecan pie and a cup of coffee. Rick ordered Tater wads and a beer.

  After the waitress left, Donna looked at the photo in the newspaper and then at Rick. “So,” she said. “Who is Buddy Miles?”

  “It’s my nom de private eye,” Rick said. “Took the name from a drummer who played with Jimi Hendrix. Remember Them Changes?” Donna shook her head. “It’s a great album,” Rick said. “In fact it’s one of the best from 1970 which was a pretty good year. I mean, Layla, Cosmo
s Factory, Moondance, John Barleycorn--”

  Donna held up a hand to interrupt. “Listen, if I said something to make you think I’m even vaguely interested in knowing this, I apologize.”

  “Oh, right, sorry,” Rick said. “Anyway, I figured since I was using Rick Shannon on the air, I’d better use a different name for my private investigation persona.”

  “Uh huh. And who is Rick Shannon?”

  “That would be me.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  Rick pointed at the caption under the newspaper photo. “That’s what it says there.”

  “That might just be your radio name.”

  Rick smiled and said, “Well, yeah. But enough about me.” He tapped the picture of the contest winner. “Let’s talk about this guy’s real name. He’s a friend of yours?”

  Donna shook her head. “Rents equipment from me now and then.” She nodded at the newspaper. “When I saw that, it caught my eye ‘cause I usually don’t know anybody whose picture is in the paper. So when I saw two faces I recognized, well, it got my attention. And then I saw that the two names in the caption didn’t match the names in my head. So I thought, this is interesting.” She leaned toward Rick. “Now I get to put the squeeze on somebody.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Rick said, genuinely confused.

  “Come off it,” Donna said. “You rigged the contest.”