Murder of the Prodigal Father

by Mark Wm Smith

  I wiped up the remnants of my meal with a paper towel. It wasn’t setting well. I dumped a half glass of milk on top of it and snuck back to the car.

  Driving to the hospital proved difficult with one arm and diminishing light. But I made it. First by sneaking out on Mother. Then by grinding my teeth against the pain.

  When I found him in his office, Dr. Marcus pointed his sharp nose at me and scowled. “I don’t suppose you’ve returned to check back in?”

  “I returned to ask a professional question.”

  “Yes, you should be in bed, preferably the hospital type, with a nurse around to observe you. That answer it?” His lips collided in an unsupportive grin, that matched his incensed stare.

  I stepped inside and took a chair in front of him. “Look, Doctor, I got shot. I’m not comfortable lying in a public bed filled with drugs when they don’t know who did it. Or why.”

  He let out a sigh that lightened his face a tad. Those off-colored eyes adjusted to a similar shade of grey behind the horn-rims. “I’m sorry. Long day. But I’m still not happy.”

  “Me too.” I might have smiled if my upper body didn’t shriek silently with every twitch. “Is there any way that someone could have killed Dixon, induced a heart attack or something, and left little sign of it?”

  Doctor Marcus’s thick eyebrows nearly met his military cut hairline. “You are serious about this.”

  “Is there?”

  “There is always a way, but without a body, there is no way to prove it happened.” He frowned and lowered his head. “I’m sorry. I should have pressed the system. They are supposed to perform an autopsy. Everything looked as expected at the time, and Chief Frieze, or whoever was in charge, pushed it by rather quickly.”

  Bookshelves behind his desk held all the information I could ever want. I wished I had time to read them. There must have been ten on psychiatric issues alone, and Marcus was a general practitioner.

  “What would happen if Dixon got into some DDT? Would that look like a heart attack?”

  “Maybe. It would probably affect him. Don’t get many deaths from it these days though. It’s illegal.”

  I gestured toward the bookshelf, wincing at the effort. “Can any of your books tell you?”

  Marcus winced along with me. “How about one more day? In the hospital. I’ll get the nurses to pay special attention.”

  “I’m already out. How about the books?”

  “It is almost time for rounds. Then I go home and enjoy my family for a couple of hours before checking back on a couple of patients.” His face became boyish. “Can’t this wait?”

  I almost gave in. “I got shot over this, Doc. Help me out.”

  Twisting his chair on the horsepower of another deep sigh, he fingered a row of texts, and then yanked one out.

  While he flipped pages, I pretended to enjoy the inflamed throbbing in my shoulder. Surely Batman could withstand such minor injuries. Or Bat Masterson, famed gunfighter and news reporter. I could be in worse company. My head began to ache from sitting in the same position for too long. At its peak, the doctor stopped and looked up.

  “DDT could do the job. Combined with illicit drug use. That would certainly accelerate the process.” His abrupt end and bleak expression punctuated the good news with uncertainty.

  “What?”

  “It would take about a gallon of the stuff. What are the chances that Dixon would miss that kind of application to his body?”

  I groaned.

  Back at the house I phoned Nansi.

  She cried about not being with me in the hospital. I cried about being where I could get shot and drowned. I told her not to fly over. She told me they were already booked. That’s okay, un-book, I’d be home in three or four days. Too bad, we’re coming. Yes, it hurt to breathe, but I was breathing. Well keep it up, we’ll be there in two days. It hurt to do push-ups. Don’t do push-ups. We laughed.

  The conversation ended with our hearts tuned to one another.

  When I hung up, I cried some more for the marriage, no, the love, I’d certainly ruined with my uncontrolled behavior. My affair with Jasia was not something I could keep from my wife. I wanted to return home and make it right.

  But I couldn’t make it right. All I could do was solve the riddle of Dixon’s death. If that made a difference in my own behavior, we might be able to muster some hope.

  “Tony’s not here,” the petite, blonde dispatcher told me.

  “Not here?” I searched beyond her glassed-in cubicle. I wouldn’t get far without him. Rubbing my shoulder, I peered at her with all the charm I could muster out of my pain. “Can you tell me where he is?”

  She turned a glance toward the sheriff’s office, and then back to me. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” She scribbled a quick note on a scrap of paper and slid it under the thick, acrylic partition.

  I stared into her soft blue eyes a moment. Her boldness shocked me. A guy should get shot more often. What was her name? “I..., can I leave a message?”

  “Sure,” she said with more pep than a police dispatcher should have.

  I looked down at the paper, wondering if I should use the same note she’d used for her phone number. I knew I couldn’t call her, but it would be rude to disregard the gesture. Especially since I couldn’t remember her name. My eyes focused on her handwriting. I felt my skin turn hot.

  Moving Freeman prisoner from Jordan. Will have him call.

  My head came up and the flush of my face warped the contour of my grin.

  “Just tear off a piece and write it on that sheet of paper. I’ll make sure he gets it.” Her face beamed at this subterfuge.

  I picked up a pen, fumbled it, and managed to scratch out, Call me. Connor. Pushing the note back, I mumbled a thank you.

  She tore the note in half and shoved my half back at me.

  I hobbled toward the stairs, emasculated by my prideful assumption.

  Cheri— that was her name— held the little note high, waving it boldly, calling out to me as I left. “I’ll make sure he gets this, Mr. Connor.”

  At the foot of the stairs I heard an angry voice call out. “Pierce!”

  The hair on my neck perked up, my heartbeat shot higher, sweat formed under my armpits, and the warmth of embarrassment drained from my face. By the time I turned, Frieze was coming around the corner.

  “Chief,” I tried to smile.

  Frieze halted his scowling face within inches of my tormented one. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Guilt tightened my fist around Cheri’s note. “I’m trying to find Tony.”

  “You’re trying to make me look like an ass.” His scar had turned deep red.

  “I’m not trying—”

  “You think we’re too stupid to do our jobs?”

  “No sir.”

  “We are doing our jobs, Pierce. We are committed to keeping this town safe and secure. We don’t need you stepping in and poking around in our work, making a fuss over folks getting what they play for...”

  My brow pinched together of its own will as hot blood rushed into my earlobes. I balled my other fist.

  “You want to waste time uncovering the naked truth about your sex crazed father, that’s your own damned business. But you better by God leave my investigation alone.” The long-winded speech had depleted some of the tough out of his scar and lightened the load on his vocal intensity.

  I realized my jaw was pulsing. Two or three words boiled onto my tongue. I captured them against the roof of my mouth.

  “Doc Marcus isn’t your personal medical resource. Let him be.”

  We stared hate darts at one another for twenty more seconds, before he spun on a boot heel and stomped off.

  I gave Cheri a strained nod as I turned back to the exit.

  Climbing the stairs, the ordeal found its way into my wounded shoulder and bruised rib. Each step yelled curses at me. The shock of frozen air that slapped me when I pushed open the door actually felt relieving.

  I cro
ssed the cold, dark parking lot, and dropped into the driver’s seat of the New Yorker. Happily, the leather seats hadn’t lost all of my body heat. A layer of ice covered everything else in my world.

  In order to block the fresh memory of ego-flaying, I rotated a new idea. A Freeman might have shot me. Since I’d been home, the only possible connection I might have with these gun-wielding anarchists was Tony. Unless Jasia’s social mingling had crossed into civil chaos.

  I chuckled at the idea and started the car.

  By the time I reached the dealership I’d turned the Freeman scenario over at least twice. The way I figured, if Zachary was a part of the Freeman clan, or a victim of their workings, my shooting might be linked to their cause. It stretched imagination a tad.

  The only idea that warranted association were Zachary’s death and my bullet wound. Somehow, these two things would logically collide. Enduring the pain of pulling myself out of Mother’s car one more time made me want that happy accident sooner than later.

  I’d crunched halfway across the frozen gravel before I realized most of the lights in the building were out. It annoyed me that Renée might have closed early at a time I needed to talk to her. There was little hope of developing a conversational rapport with Mother. She was likely done giving me information with which to draw some reasonable conclusion. And I was tired of unreasonable inferences.

  I finished my slow-stepping trek to the office door and gave it a pull.

  It swung open. Dim light from the single lamp on Renée’s desktop partially illuminated the room.

  Crossing toward the desk, I heard low voices emanating from the supply closet near the center of the elongated space. A glowing daffodil-colored line trimmed the bottom edge of the door. I stepped quietly over and gripped the knob.

  The sound stopped.

  It was probably, hopefully, water pipes expanding or the rumination of the heater. I didn’t need anymore violence done to me until my shoulder healed. I twisted the doorknob.

  Someone or something rustled behind the door.

  I hesitated, feeling a twinge of anticipatory pain in my shoulder. The battered part of my ego suggested I flee. My curiosity and pride energized my muscles. I pulled.

  A sensation of warm air and low-priced perfume flushed over me. These visceral pleasures tore at my tender psyche like a hardened steel rake.

  In the low light of the closet, I could make out two bodies. My eyes adjusted. Renée’s back was pressed against a shelf stacked with office supplies. The angry salesgirl, Vicky, had one arm wrapped around the lower half of my sister’s body, holding Renée’s leg high and undulating against her. Vicky’s head was buried in the opposite side of Renée’s neck. Renée moaned.

  Realization of the nature of their contact came too late. A nightmare I’d had as a child came rushing in. Eighth-grade. Bucking Horse Sale. Clinging to a ceramic pony. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Increasing speeds wrenching my gut. Slipping from the smooth skin of the merry-go-round horse, soaring into the crowd and landing on Pollyanna Marcielli. Polly screamed. I broke the arm of the only girl I would ever love. It scared me so bad at the time, I never spoke to Polly again. Seeing my sister like this shook loose that same feeling. I squawked on a choking breath.

  “Shit!” one of the girls said.

  It sounded like Vicky, but I was already moving rapidly toward the exit.

  Renée raced up behind and grabbed my broken wing.

  I howled.

  She released me and I charged onward. There was nowhere left within my contorted mind for an experience like this. Maybe I heard my name. Maybe I heard someone cursing my name.

  In the biting chill outside of the steamy office, I sucked in a deep breath that fired the kiln buried under my shoulder blade. I ignored it.

  Patches of time evaporated.

  I found myself driving through town, searching for motive in Renée’s past. But I’d been away too long. And when I was here, I’d paid too little attention to her torment to see it.

  Beneath the trustworthiness of this bizarre experience, I found another fear lurking. If Renée had been so strongly affected by Dixon’s actions toward her, whether real or imagined, she could have had reason to kill him. She certainly had access to the poison. Although, getting him to soak in it seemed unrealistic.

  The headlights swept past shadowy remnants of my youth. Houses I used to know. Streets I walked on the way to school. Families I greeted daily. All appeared and disappeared in the flash of time it took to roll by.

  What was true? So much has changed.

  Many newly constructed houses sat where fields had once been. Homes that held families I’d known, and kids I’d played with, had emptied and deteriorated. Large scale supermarkets had grown on the periphery of town and eaten up much of the local business revenue. Nothing from my past remained unchanged.

  How could I make a deductive assessment of this whole mess?

  Miles City had become as foreign as Okinawa. Maybe more so. At least on the island, I understood my limitations. Street signs were clearly unreadable. Language was obviously a barrier. Here, I thought I could look at things and tell what they were. But that perception was rapidly being eviscerated, even while I stood within its cunning walls.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Losing Ground

  I drove to Jasia’s and found the light on.

  Even in the dim spray of the street lamp, her front yard looked unkempt.

  If I had a few days to fix it....

  The thought was upended by its very nature. I already had a family. I already had a yard to care for. Jasia only represented information I needed. Information that would put my father to rest. And find peace for my own soul. Or so I rationalized.

  With the topsy-turvy happenings at Mother’s, with Renée’s antics at the dealership, I had automatically gravitated toward the relative emotional stability of my past with Jasia. But it was past. I needed to stop relying on it. Only, now that I was here, I’d take care of the missing details and be gone.

  After the second knock, Nicole opened the door a crack. “She’s not home.”

  “Do you expect her soon?” I asked the shadowed, round face peeking at me from inside.

  “Maybe.”

  “Can I come in and wait? I promise I won’t bite.” I offered my best crew chief smile. The one that kept my bird flying when the aircraft forms suggested certain, nonessential repairs were needed before it left the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. The way she looked past me when her voice dropped made me believe her.

  “Why?” I said automatically.

  “I was told to keep... people out.” Her eyes pleaded for me not to ask any more.

  “Does that mean me?”

  Nicole hesitated. “I’m not sure. I’d have to ask.”

  It seemed cruel to keep pushing this young woman to make an exception, and compromising her role as guardian. “I’m sure it’s a mistake, but I’ll leave it. Tell Jasia I stopped by.” I turned and started walking slowly.

  “Sorry,” Nicole said in a near whisper before the door clicked shut.

  The walk back up the drive filled my heart with loneliness. Here I was, fighting with everything to find a simple answer to the meaning of my life, and everyone who had once loved me was closing the door in my face.

  Except Tony. But Tony’s restrictions as a deputy and employee of local law enforcement equaled something akin to rejection.

  One person had welcomed me with a spirit of friendship I hadn’t expected, though. I decided to return to the dealership and visit him. He might know what Zachary was into that got people killed. And he would probably tell me if he knew, instead of dancing around the issue.

  I weaved the Chrysler deftly through the back streets. The cattle yard next to the dealership was completely dark. I parked in its empty lot.

  The green fluorescence from the office touched a few sale models that sat near the highway. A shadow moved inside.

  Grabbing a fl
ashlight from the glovebox, I limped around to the rear of the shop bay, from a direction that kept me out of Renée’s view. I ducked into the back lot, and squeezed through the partially opened gate. Panning the small beam over the muddy trail, I twisted among the various scraps and paraphernalia in the small fenced area behind the garage. I skirted a snowy transmission topped with an alternator and a starter that hogged the largest part of the miniature scrapyard.

  In the shadows, the conglomeration reminded me of a mountain diorama from my grade school science fair. A clump of half-burned sagebrush accented the artistic scene. Blackened dirt, frozen with thick footprints skirted the once burning bush.

  Preparing to grab the doorknob, I spotted a row of gallon jugs scuffed with dark, irregular streaks. Remnants of the small fire that created such a ruckus on the day of Dixon’s funeral.

  I stepped to the side and picked up the nearest container.

  DDT.

  The three letters punched me in the chest, forcing a lungful of air out between my lips.

  Three more jugs sat beside it.

  I tested the weight of each one. All were full except the first half-gallon I’d lifted.

  Studying the ground in front of this poison queue revealed a depression in the frozen earth where another jug had been removed.

  This discovery troubled me. I’d been disturbed a great deal on this trip. Now it seemed that the whole town of Miles City had access to a drug that might have killed my father. Even Tony could have slipped back here of a lonely night on patrol and picked up some illegal pesticide. The exaggeration only aggravated me further, because it was half true. Anybody who knew of Dixon’s illegal stash could just drive by late at night and snatch a bottle.

  I latched onto the shop door handle and pulled, hoping I’d find Akira inside working on a car. I needed some reassurances that normal activity still went on in this town.