Burn What Will Burn

by C. B. McKenzie

  “What does that mean, Smarty Bell?”

  “It means Joe Junior might be bathing with the big-mouth bass if Sheriff Baxter is aimed at him. Baxter hates Joe Pickens Junior.”

  “Why?”

  “Could not say in particular,” said Smarty Bell. “I think Joe Junior looked at the sheriff wrong one day or threw up on him during a D&D arrest and that was that. Sam Baxter is one of those black and white guys. If Sam Baxter is ‘for’ you, then you are golden. But if Sam Baxter’s ‘against’ you, you best just go away from this country and leave no forwarding address.”

  I preferred not to deal with Manicheans myself, but the world was full of people who saw no shades of gray, not even on cloudy days.

  “So you think this man I found is Joe Pickens Junior? He had a Semper Fi tattoo,” I said. “Real big fellow. Red cowboy shirt.”

  “Not striking a chord,” Smarty Bell said. “Not Joe Junior, for sure. Wrong type. Joe Junior was never in any armed services and he’s skinny as a rail. Maybe this dead fella was a fisherman?”

  “Nobody fishes at that spot on The Little Piney but me and Malcolm and the Wells twins. Everybody else goes over the state park if they’re fishing The Little Piney.”

  It was too hard to get to the water at that location on the little creek and with no place to park and not much bank to sit on, too many snakes and turtles, not enough fish, it was definitely only a Local’s spot an outsider wouldn’t stumble on or stay in, a fishing hole without any advertisable attractions, where you went only if you didn’t have anyplace else to go or because it was your own backyard. Not the kind of place you wound up in by accident.

  “No ID on him?” Smarty Bell asked me.

  “Nothing.”

  I touched the gold ring that was under my shirt, depended by the gold chain around my neck.

  “No car keys? Car?”

  “Nope.”

  “He was dumped then,” Smarty Bell said surely. “Somebody killed him elsewhere, drove to the bridge and tossed him in.”

  “Is that a regular thing around here?”

  “It’s happened before. Not there exactly, but nearby there. In South Slough. Couple of years ago they drug out a tourist lady who’d been raped and then beat to death and left in the mud to drown. They had some suspicions about who done it, but never could make a case against anybody.”

  “I was thinking my situation could have been an accident. Maybe the fella I found just slipped and hit his head, then fell in the creek and drowned.”

  I was hoping someone could conceivably think this actually.

  The bartender grunted, said nothing for a moment.

  “Autopsy’ll tell,” said Smarty Bell. He paused. I waited because I did not have much else to do. “But your fella, he didn’t walk to The Little Piney. No regular people walk down there.”

  “I do,” I reminded.

  “You’re not an example of anything regular, Buddy,” Smarty Bell reminded.

  That was the sticker in explaining how the dead man had gotten to The Little Piney. Nobody walked anywhere anymore, but me, it seemed, and Malcolm. Even the twins rode their motorized three-wheeler to the creek when they went down there to blow up frogs with firecrackers or skin live snakes, animal torture being one of their primary hobbies.

  The dead man had not walked to The Little Piney. No way. Nobody would believe that. But if he hadn’t walked, where was his vehicle?

  “What should I do, Smarty Bell?” I asked. “911 was a wash. I tried the Doker Constable and he didn’t answer.”

  “I think the Doker Constable’s been dead for about six months, just nobody’s saying anything so his widow woman can keep collecting his checks. And the B’ville cops probably are all out sick from regular duty since there’s a strike going on at the Tidy Chicken plant over in Danielles by the Marshall Islanders, so I imagine the local cops and deputies are all over there across the river at Danielles pulling security shifts for extra cash. The cops around here make more money working for the chicken plant than they do working for City and County.”

  “Should I call State Police?”

  Smarty Bell did not answer me immediately. I waited.

  “Call Sam Baxter,” he advised, as if some thought had gone into that suggestion. “That’s his bailiwick and he’ll be pissed royal if he’s called off the bench last minute.”

  “Baxter’s the sheriff of Poe County?” I asked, thinking he sounded familiar.

  “High Sheriff of Poe County. And yeah, you know him,” said Smarty Bell, as if he knew him and did not like him and expected me to feel likewise. “He’s in here all the time. Trolling. And he knows you, Buddy. Asking after you just the other day. Wanted to know what I knew about you and Miss Tammy Fay.”

  “What did you tell him about me and her?”

  “I told him I know about you and her, what the Pope knows about tampons.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Is the sheriff after Tammy Fay?”

  “Baxter’s after pretty much everybody,” Smarty Bell said.

  Malcolm came out of the store with one of his pet rat snakes wrapped around his forearm and no mail. He snapped his fingers and returned inside, came back with a clutch of envelopes and a couple of magazines.

  “I’ll call the sheriff,” I said.

  “Might as well, Buddy. My guess is, Baxter’ll jump in on it anyway. That’s his neck of the woods from way back. Look better if you call him first.”

  “I want to do the right thing.”

  “Suit yourself on that, Buddy. Just remember you didn’t talk to me,” Smarty Bell said. “Because me and Baxter do not make music. He tried to bust my ass for some bullshit once and I hadn’t forgot about that yet. I’m just as black and white as that asshole is when it comes to grudges.”

  Malcolm strolled to the perpetually lowered tailgate of my truck and draped his snake over the sidewall of the bed, started examining my mail. The snake slid into the shade under the pickup.

  “And when you get in touch with him, do not be no smart-ass either, Buddy. Baxter is always loaded for bear. Do not give him any shit.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Who knows why you would? You just got a habit of crawling under people’s skin. Sometimes you put folks off. You’re not exactly socialized, Buddy. You talk funny and write poems. Regulars here think you’re a half-cocked loose cannon, you want to know.”

  “All right,” I mumbled.

  I thought the boozehounds at the Crow’s Nest liked me.

  They just liked my free financial advice I guess.

  “Not me thinks you’re wacked, Buddy. I like weirdos and you tip, so I think you’re okay. I’m just saying, don’t be exactly your regular self around High Sheriff Baxter,” the bartender warned. “It’s generally rumored he takes rides in the country with people he doesn’t like and comes back with an empty shotgun seat. Probably not true, but could be, if you hear me. One word to the wise should be sufficient, Buddy.”

  “I appreciate you, Smarty Bell.”

  “All right then,” Smarty Bell said. “See you around the well, Buddy.”

  Smarty Bell hung up.

  I hung up.

  The pay phone kicked out the change, which made sense because it was Malcolm’s money not mine.

  I located a number under “Poe County Emergency Services” and dialed that number in Bertrandville.

  “Poe County Sheriff’s Department,” a woman twanged.

  She sounded just like Tammy Wynette.

  “I’d like to speak with Sheriff Baxter, please.”

  “The sherf’s out of touch at the present moment.”

  “How about a deputy then?”

  “Depties are pretty much all at the Tidy Chicken plant in Danielles.”

  “It’s an emergency,” I lied.

  “For emergencies please dial the number nine, then the number one and then the number one again, please.”

  “I know what 911 is. I tried 911.”


  “Well?”

  “Well, it didn’t work,” I said.

  “It’s got to work, Sir,” the dispatcher insisted. “It’s 911.”

  “Well, it does not work from where I’m at.”

  “Please don’t use that tone of voice with me, please, Sir. Wait, please.”

  It was getting very hot in the phone booth.

  “Try again, please,” the dispatcher instructed.

  She hung up.

  “Shit.”

  “You okay, Bob Reynold?” Malcolm called to me.

  “Fine as the hair on a frog,” I grumbled.

  I counted to ten and back to zero, took a deep breath, tried 911 again.

  Bzzz, click, clickety click, bzzz, nothing.

  Forgetting about the corpse was seeming a better option as the minutes passed. Was it too late to return to The Little Piney and push him back into the water? The local aquatic fauna would probably have him disposed of relatively quickly as a full-grown snapping turtle could bite a man’s leg off given enough time.

  But now Smarty Bell knew about the corpse in the creek.

  “Who you trying to call, Bob Reynold?”

  “The sheriff,” I said.

  Malcolm scratched in his greasy hair, looked at me sideways.

  “Why is that, Bob Reynold?”

  “Bob Reynolds’s business,” I told him.

  Malcolm frowned, shrugged.

  “He in town this morning,” Malcolm said, reluctantly it seemed. “I overseen him eating in the café around about six.”

  I knew Sam Baxter’s face from newspaper dots in the local rag, and had seen Sam Baxter around and about in Bertrandville (sometimes especially at the Crow’s Nest, as Smarty Bell had reminded me); but I had never seen Sam Baxter in Doker. And I was in Doker almost every day for something, had a running tab at and seldom missed breakfast at EAT. Most usual mornings I would get to town even before Miss Ollie Ames opened the café and sit my truck on Elm Street for reasons of my own.

  I slotted coin, dialed a Doker number.

  “This is EAT. Miss Ollie Ames speaking.”

  “This is Bob Reynolds, Miss Ollie. I’m looking for the sheriff, Sam Baxter. Would you know if he’s around?”

  “He was for a fact,” the owner of the café informed me. “Earlier. But he’s gone now. Hang on, Mister Reynolds…”

  I hung on, stared at my watch. The second hand was not moving. It was seven thirty-three. I tapped the plastic crystal and the sweep hand moved three seconds and stopped again.

  “My son says sheriff’s still across the street at the Old Lion, Mister Reynolds.”

  The Old Lion had been a gas station and so that was what Locals persisted in calling Tammy’s Tune-ups and Towing Service.

  “At Tammy Fay’s,” I repeated.

  “My son says, he’s been over there at the garage awhile.”

  Her son, Warnell Ames, a hulking halfwit, should know—all he did, all day long, was sit on a stool out front of his momma’s restaurant and stare at the Old Lion, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tammy Fay and watch the cars go by, lifting a hand in greeting to every single one.

  I suppose that was a life of a sort though, like the rest.

  “All right,” I said. “Thank you, Miss Ollie.”

  “You got some troubles out your way, Mister Reynolds?”

  “A small trouble.”

  “You’re all right, though? Nothing happened to you, did it, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, kneading my eyeballs with my knuckles.

  “I’m just thinking of you, Mister Reynolds.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ollie.”

  “Well, I worry about you, Mister Reynolds. Living way out there all alone. I’ve missed you at breakfast these last few days.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been sick, Miss Ollie.”

  “I pray it was nothing serious, Mister Reynolds.”

  “It was nothing serious, Miss Ollie.”

  “You want me to holler over at the sheriff for you, Mister Reynolds?”

  “I’ll call the Old Lion myself. I’ve got the number.”

  Tammy Fay seldom opened her place before ten, if she opened it at all. She was never showered and dressed before nine. So the sheriff had most likely disturbed her at her apartment over the garage.

  “My son thinks the sheriff’s looking for somebody, Mister Reynolds.”

  “Well, Miss Ollie,” I said. “Maybe I found somebody.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “You get him, Bob Reynold?”

  I nodded at Malcolm, thumbed in another quarter and dialed a memorized number in Doker. My stomach clenched listening to the phone in the Old Lion ring. Tammy Fay picked up on the fifth trill, clearing her throat.

  “Yeah?”

  She sounded as good as Bette Davis on a bad day.

  “Tammy? It’s me,” I said. “Bob.”

  I could smell her honey-colored, smoky hair through the telephone line.

  I felt a bit nauseated.

  Tammy Fay coughed.

  “You need to quit smoking,” I said.

  “There’s a health warning printed right on the side of my Pall Malls, so I don’t really need to hear this shit from you, do I? I have a doctor, you know. And you ain’t him.”

  She was obviously in a foul mood, a place she could get to early and stay until late.

  “I’m just looking for the sheriff,” I said meekly.

  “So?”

  “I heard he was there.”

  “What do you need him for?”

  “Business, I guess. Is he there?”

  “He’s just leaving.”

  “Stop him. Please.”

  “What for?”

  She sounded really pissed.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I don’t want to trouble you. I’ll just call the dispatcher.”

  “Jesus,” she said, coughed.

  A car horn honked, echoed loud in the garage of the Old Lion. It sounded like the phone got dropped on the Doker end. Tammy Fay’s guard dog, Stank, a near hairless, three-legged, bluetick hound bitch set up a racket of growling and barking.

  A man’s voice, raised above the racket, said, “Change your, something, mind. Something, something, straighten something out. You better, girl, something, think. If you had something to do…”

  A car door slammed.

  Tammy Fay, her voice pitched hoarse near a scream and far away from the telephone, yelled, “Fuck something, something. He something, something. I will leave, something, goddamn you and the rest of them, something, something. Fuck him. Fuck you. Fuck alla you!”

  Or words to that sketchy effect.

  Then clearly,

  “I don’t know what he wanted.”

  I waited for the Old Lion telephone to get recradled.

  I was surprised to hear the distinctive clink of a Zippo cigarette lighter unhinging. Stank’s barking was persistent still, but muffled, as if she had been locked in the back room.

  “Hello,” I said.

  There sounded from the Old Lion in Doker a heavy exhalation, a smoker blowing smoke.

  “Tammy Fay?”

  “Who’s calling?” a man asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  I waited.

  Whoever was on the other end of the line waited too, outwaited me.

  “This is Bob Reynolds,” I admitted.

  “Randy Reynolds, the fellow that bought the Old Duncan Place,” I was immediately placed, but misnamed.

  “Bob Reynolds,” I corrected. “Is this Sheriff Baxter?”

  “Randall Robert Reynolds,” he said, like he was testing my names for flaws.

  “Star Route 1, Box 98M,” I added my address, just so he would be sure who I was.

  “I know where you live, Mr. Reynolds,” he said.

  “Are you Sheriff Sam Baxter?”

  He cleared his throat, said, “You got business with me, Mr. Reynolds,” which sounded, as delivered, more a statement of fact than a question.

&
nbsp; “Yes,” I said, leaned against the wall of the phone booth, wiped the sweat off my face with a sleeve of my T-shirt. “I found a body.”

  He cleared his throat. “I asked a question.”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Reynolds,” he answered. “I hear you. You claim to have found a dead man.”

  “Yes.”

  It was a man.

  “You’re at Pick’s place,” he said.

  “Yes. At UPUMPIT!”

  That, I supposed, was a natural assumption, if he knew where I lived and knew that I didn’t have a telephone. That seemed quite a bit to know, though, about a total stranger.

  How natural the assumption was that the corpse was a man, I didn’t know. Seemed that was a fifty-fifty shot without insider knowledge.

  “Stay where you’re at then, Mr. Reynolds,” he instructed. “I’ll be out shortly.”

  He hung up.

  The receiver slipped out of my slick grip, banged against the phone booth wall. I wiped my palms dry on my new T-shirt, replaced the receiver.

  Malcolm was staring at me.

  “You all right, Bob Reynold?”

  My skin was clammy and the narrow band that is always around my chest constricted. I took in and let out ten deep breaths, escaped the stifling heat of the phone booth, leaned into the cab of the truck, fetched my bottle of tranquilizers, tipped the final pill into my mouth, swallowed it with cotton-dry spit.

  I walked around the parking lot of Pick’s, counted from zero to one hundred and back to zero. I had hoped the day would be over quick, but it now augured the opposite, and appeared to be one of those stretched-out days that take as long to get rid of as a hangover.

  “I say, you all right, Bob Reynold?”

  Malcolm was shadowing me as I paced.

  “Go get us a couple of Coca-Colas,” I suggested. “Tell your PaPaw I’ll be in shortly to sign the chit.”

  Malcolm shuffled to the store and banged through the screen door. I sat down on the tailgate of the truck, tucked up my legs for fear of the snake resting under the pickup.

  Some of my mail was opened, but I didn’t mind. Malcolm could hardly read a stop sign, but the kid liked to look over my bank statements and quarterly reports, pretend he was a businessman. I never got anything more personal than those or Poetry Magazine and Investor’s Weekly anyway.