Murder of the Prodigal Father

by Mark Wm Smith

  We strolled down a narrow hallway, past a couple of closed office doors. One door stayed open a crack. A shadow moved across the glow. Crandall led me inside a room cluttered with spring traps, guns, and various animal hides. He pulled a fox pelt out of a club chair and asked me to sit.

  I sat.

  “We’re working on this illegal trapping ring,” he explained, as he rounded his desk and sank into a worn captain’s chair. His voice wasn’t quite as deep as his chest. “Two or three guys playing Lewis and Clark on private property. ‘Tis the season to disobey the law.” He grinned.

  “Seems popular all through the year,” I said, unwilling to return his humor.

  He took the hint and leaned his elbows onto the clean desktop. “I am sorry about your dad, Connor. I liked him. He dealt fair and he owned his mistakes.”

  I wanted to bust into my interrogation. But Crandall exhibited such a genuine concern that I started taking inventory of the room instead. “I’m glad you liked him.”

  “Dixon had problems like any man. Maybe more than some.” He chuckled. “I got to respect a man can handle a woman half his age, though. My wife gives me fits and she’s a year older.”

  My head came around to see Crandall staring memorably into the bookshelf beside his desk. In the same instant, it occurred to him what had slipped past good taste. He glanced at me and pursed his lips. “Sorry, son. Too much redneck in me, I reckon.”

  “Forget it.” I decided this gave me room to get to the meat of my visit. “Why didn’t you perform an autopsy?”

  “Wasn’t called for.”

  “He was lying naked in the middle of the living room when they found him. Isn’t that right?”

  Crandall actually turned red. “Well, hell son, I’m not his momma.”

  I grinned now, deciding to leverage the moment. “I’ll agree to that.”

  His frown and increasing ruddiness suggested the humor only went one way.

  I pressed in. “Isn’t a situation like that a little unusual? You can’t tell me folks die so bizarrely every day.”

  “No. I wouldn’t say they do.” His color receded to normal and his jaw muscles tensed. “But a body doesn’t need to pry into private habits for the sake of gossip.”

  “That sounds like a sidestep to me.”

  “Hell, boy, it rankled that he’d passed during some kinky act, and I’m not the one to judge a man on his death bed.” His neck muscles had knotted into ropes.

  “Sheriff,” I said quietly, hoping it showed respect. “You say you were his friend. Why wouldn’t you make sure everything was kosher for a friend?”

  Crandall let out a long breath and leaned back in the chair. He rolled his head back, and then looked straight at me. “You might be in the wrong business, son. You have a talent for getting under a guy’s skin.” He let that warmth-laden grin return. His gentle eyes weren’t quite as gentle any longer, though.

  I waited.

  “I’ll give you that the scene appeared somewhat odd.”

  “And that didn’t trigger the need for deeper investigation?”

  Crandall let the chair come forward again. “Mr. Pierce, this is a community with a structured legal system. Dixon was a citizen, and you have a right to your concerns. But you’re not the mayor, nor the judge, nor the district attorney. Those are the people I answer to. Am I clear?”

  It took the wind out of me. I had gotten up a good head of steam and expected to win something. But Crandall was Sheriff, and I was a kid trying to make amends for hightailing it out of the country. “Okay.”

  “Having straightened that up, I’ll tell you. I didn’t feel particularly comfortable about Dixon’s death. Had I been in charge, I might have proceeded with the autopsy.” Now he eased back in the chair again. “But it wasn’t, and isn’t, my case.”

  “You don’t have anything to say about what goes on in the county?”

  “I have plenty to say. But Chief Frieze has jurisdiction. It’s his bailiwick inside the city line, with few exceptions.”

  “Why didn’t he ask for an autopsy?” I knew Crandall would have trouble answering this without crossing an invisible line of professional etiquette, but I wanted to know what he’d say.

  “Frieze thought it looked reasonable for a partier like Dixon. He’s got a solid background in crime. He came from Denver, plenty of DB’s there. I didn’t argue much.” He looked blankly into the hallway behind me. “Maybe I could have pressed him, but I didn’t.”

  “Well...” There wasn’t much I could say. Crandall had made his point. I might have done the same in his spot. That didn’t make me feel comfortable about Chief Frieze’s actions, but I couldn’t really see how laying any more guilt on Sheriff Crandall would help. In fact, if he was still in his office, I expected to ambush one more law officer tonight before leaving this building.

  “And there was your mother’s insistence, anyhow.”

  That perked me up. “How’s that?”

  “Lucille wanted to get the thing done. You were due home. No doubt she was tired of the situation, him living downtown and her in the house alone.”

  “She threw him out.”

  “I don’t know much about it. All I know is she felt it might be time to close the wound. As quickly as possible.” His kind eyes rested on me, showing empathy for the confusion I’d grown up in. “I had to respect that, Connor.”

  I nodded. “All right. But I want to talk to Chief Frieze before I go.”

  “Knock yourself out.” He leaned forward a bit and lowered his voice. “He’s not aces on public relations, so don’t expect a friendly chat.” Then he stood quickly and offered his hand.

  I followed suit.

  “I hope you find what you need, son.”

  We shook.

  I turned and stepped into the hall, looking for the open door I’d seen earlier.

  Chief Nolan Frieze spent the first minute of our time bent over a Palm Pilot, forcing notes into it with a stylus. The veins of his forearm swelled with each input.

  I tipped my head to see if the blunt point was leaving tracks. Sitting in the stiff grey chair with its stiff grey cushions and no arms, I got the feeling that letting me through the door was all the further Frieze wanted to go with this meeting.

  His size matched Crandall’s, minus twenty or thirty pounds. The two lawmen reminded me of Laurel and Hardy. Accept Frieze had a wide scar under his left eye that curved from cheek to chin. His military haircut had no part and his thin, black bangs laid high and straight across his forehead. With pointed ears, he could have been Spock’s brother.

  Laurel, the Vulcan. I grinned at my literary construct.

  The office itself looked just like it should. A pronghorn with a fifteen inch rack stuck its head out of one side wall. Frieze’s academy photo and diploma hung above him. Two gray bookshelves filled with thick binders of procedural text filled the lower half of the wall at his back. A single picture of Frieze’s wife and presumed middle-school aged daughter stared out of a photo opposite the antelope. Strain showed around the woman’s eyes making her appear disappointed. Or angry.

  “I hate these things,” Frieze said, lightly tossing the stylus to the desktop.

  “There’s always paper.”

  Frieze studied me for five beats. “I’m sorry about your father, Mr. Pierce,” he said, leaning into the black nylon and polyester desk chair. It was in a lot better shape than Sheriff Crandall’s.

  “Thanks. Crandall tells me you handled the scene of my father’s death.” I left the accusation open, to see where he might take it.

  “You mean Sheriff Crandall?” He left the chastisement hang for a second. “Case is closed. I understand you went over there with Tony Ruiz?”

  “He took me by.”

  Frieze nodded.

  “We cleared the place for Wilbur Thompson. So he could rent again.”

  “He’s gonna rent it right off?”

  “I’ve got a few things to clean out. But I guess.”

 
His Vulcan eyebrows went up.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Wilbur would wait. Frieze’s reaction made me look at it different. Dead man’s house for rent. Any takers?

  “Not much to tell, really. Probably heard everything from Officer Ruiz. And Sheriff Crandall.” I noticed a small muscular tick above his left eyebrow.

  “I felt a little uncomfortable in there. We didn’t discuss much about my father’s death.” Frieze was cocky. Forcing him into telling me seemed proper. He should, ethically, take time to talk to the family about the death of a citizen in his jurisdiction.

  “Dixon showed signs of drug use, a history of overindulgence, alcohol at the scene.” He picked up the stylus and leaned his elbows on the desk to inspect it. “I don’t really like to have to say things like this to the family.”

  “So he was high and drunk. I’m aware of his lifestyle. Not the best for longevity. Anything,” I hung the truth out in the air, “unusual?”

  “Nothing particularly strange, no.”

  “So an autopsy wasn’t necessary?”

  “An autopsy wasn’t necessary.”

  “You find a lot of people lying naked and dead in the middle of their living room floor?”

  His eyes locked on mine. I expected them to be blue. They were light gray. Like a wolf. The tick above his eyebrow intensified.

  “Your father had a reputation.”

  “How about his activities before he died? Anyone report anything? Tell you anything during your investigation?” I leaned toward him.

  Frieze held the stylus up. “If we’d have found anything, we’d still be investigating. As it stands….” He sat back and stared at me with those predatory eyes. “Look, Mr. Pierce, I know you want to find some logic to the death of your father. I’d want that myself, in your situation. But we didn’t feel the need to question the whole town on this matter. After the prelim exam, with Dixon Pierce’s prior history, it was pretty clear that he’d died of a coronary brought on by excessive drug and alcohol use. I’m sorry.”

  Sorry was a word he’d found in one of those manuals behind him. Maybe he practiced in front of a mirror. It didn’t help. The straightness of his hair line, the tinge in his facial wound, and those hungry eyes prevented compassion from breaking free. I was impressed that he’d sat with my questions this long. I pushed on. “Were you aware of his recent conversion to Christ?”

  “Conversion?” It clearly surprised him. “How’s that relevant?”

  I shook my head, trying to look disappointed.

  “The world is full of backsliders and addicted religious people, Pierce.”

  “Okay. But didn’t this drug use concern you? Weren’t you a little afraid of drugs being bandied about by prominent citizens in your town?”

  Frieze rocked his chair forward. His brow knitted together, his facial tick went into overdrive, and that scar reddened. “Mr. Pierce, we cannot keep track of every drug user in this town, twenty-four hours a day, especially if they don’t make their own purchases, especially if they can afford a lawyer that will just tie up precious system resources while we are trying to solve real problems like a bunch of psychos,” he jabbed the stylus in the air toward me, “trying to bypass the legal system with twisted logic and guns. I don’t know if you read, but we’ve got a civil rebellion going on up the road in Jordan, and I can’t be wasting a bunch of time on a death caused by too much partying.”

  I raised my open palm. “Alright. Sorry to get you angry. I want answers to the question of my father’s strange death. You’re the guy in charge. I thought you might have some idea.”

  Frieze relaxed his shoulders. “Yeah, well, it’s not my style to get angry. Believe me, I don’t like this kind of thing to happen in town, out of town, anywhere.” His eye-tick kept time with his last three points.

  As the color of his facial wound lightened, I realized what a great job I was doing pissing people off. People I needed help from. Indignation at the lack of concern for Dixon obliterated common sense. If his death involved foul play, my wolf-cry had just pushed any chance of discovery to the bottom of local law enforcement’s file stack.

  I stood, and pulled my coat on. “I’ll let you get back to your job. Could you tell me, though—”

  “We did,” Frieze shoved the stylus back into its holder on the Palm Pilot, “what we could.”

  “The Patsy Cline record? I heard it was still playing when you arrived.”

  His head came up and the right corner of his mouth turned into a smile. “Yeah. He had good taste in music. Guess her voice must have carried him….” His gaze fell back to the Palm.

  “Thanks anyway.” I left quickly.

  The thin evening air invigorated my appetite. Glancing downtown, toward the 600 Café, I imagined a steak sandwich covered in gravy. Its salty thickness conjured moments with Dad, Mother, Renée and I in a booth together. That was a long time ago.

  I shook the nostalgia off, and strode to where I’d left the Chrysler earlier. Mentally rummaging through Mother’s pantry took the edge off of my appetite. Head home. That would be best. Leaving my mother by herself this evening, right after the burial, didn’t feel right. Even if she wanted to pretend she was relieved at her husband’s passing.

  But before it got away from me, I needed to stop and talk to Wilbur Thompson.

  I parked under the neon Montana map that designated this historic landmark. Stepping into the street, I admired the sign’s distorted reflection in my mother’s windshield. The surreal picture conjured ideas of the bar Dixon was probably sitting at on the other side of death.

  No one else roamed the street. Which seemed odd to me, but appropriately reverent of Dixon’s passing.

  Earlier, standing out front with Tony, I’d missed the artistic nature of the Montana’s entrance. A cowboy mannequin guarded the door from inside a small alcove behind plate glass. Red, blue and white light reflected off the smooth surface and made eye contact with him, or with the stuffed Audubon sheep in the opposing window, impossible. The cowboy held his rifle, butt down, next to his saddle, Stetson, and spurs. These were the things that made a cowboy real. Apparently.

  I stepped through and eased toward the bar.

  That little window display had more lighting than the rest of the interior combined. But the yellow glow was enough to reveal the Italian terrazzo tile, little hexagons of white, gold, blue, green, and purple.

  Nerves had kept me from reviewing the place earlier with Tony. Or from reminiscing on my own, brief past with the unique nature of the place.

  Hank Williams crooned on lost love from the shiny jukebox stuck between two empty booths on the opposite wall.

  “You look like him,” Wilbur Thompson told me from behind highly polished dark wood that ran thirty feet along the western wall. Three arches of carved oak held the large mirrors in place, and made him look like the king of the world. A stubby, scrapping king with meathook hands and a polished dome.

  I leaned my elbows on the worn oak, inhaling the sticky-sweet smell of alcohol mingled with sawdust. “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  Wilbur grinned in the removed way bartenders do. His short sleeves were rolled up to expose thick, hairy triceps. Lights circling the mirror reflected off his smoothly shaved head. A head undersized for his thick upper body. He reminded me of a buffalo. A buffalo running the Montana Bar. With the Bison Bar just down the street. I smiled back at him.

  “Drink?” he asked, in a nasal tenor.

  “A Budweiser. Bottle if I can.”

  Wilbur reached underneath the counter, pulled the bottle up, and gave a showy, quick twist on the cap before setting the beer between us.

  “Nice place.” I tipped the drink in deference.

  “Ain’t a cabin in Paradise Valley,” Wilbur said.

  “That your dream?”

  He stared at me without answering.

  “Don’t mean to pry.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry. Some folks that come in I wouldn’t say a thing to.”
/>   “Not a problem. I’m just a guy.”

  “No. You’re Dixon’s boy.” He grabbed a rag and took a swipe at the counter. “Wife doesn’t like the idea of leaving the bar for a log hut. ‘Specially in winter. Can be rough up there.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about my dad.” I glanced down the bar at the five other patrons who chatted over whiskey and beers. “If you can spare a minute.”

  “Sure. But I might have to pop up the bar every now and again.” Wilbur rested his hands against a brushed steel cooler below the wooden counter.

  “Dixon lived upstairs quite a while, didn’t he?” I took a pull on the beer and relished the cool, biting tang. It rolled down my throat like mountain spring water.

  “We had a good deal worked out. I needed some money to buy out the building.” His eyes glassed over. The floor behind the bar got suddenly more interesting to him. “The huckster that held my lease was killing me. Dixon rented the apartment. Helped me out with the repayment plan.”

  “Sounds like it worked out.”

  When he lifted his head, he blinked a couple of times rapidly. “Mostly. Dixon was a good tenant. I have some in a trailer park on the north side that could use lessons from him.” Wilbur flexed his triceps, and pushed off. “I better pour this guy another. Hang on.”

  He cruised up the length of the bar. Dixon’s death seemed to hit harder than he liked. I drank another swallow. Guilt tugged at my conscience, but the comfortable slide into my growling stomach helped me justify it. This was the first beer since I’d been caught with Sharon.

  Wilbur returned, more himself after a brief escape. “Hits the spot, eh?”

  I lifted an informal toast. “So you two had a good business arrangement going. Did Dixon act at all strange to you in the days before he died?”

  “Ah!” Wilbur waved a hand. “I hate to even say anything, now.”

  “He was having a problem?”

  “No. I had the problem. Just a sec.” He walked away again.