Long Fall from Heaven

by George Wier

  “We are. Afterwards,” Cueball replied.

  Micah sighed deeply, crossed his long, hairy arms over his chest and watched the dim and shadowy world illuminated by the car’s headlights.

  Cueball turned northeast on Market Street away from The Strand and drove ten blocks before turning back to the northwest on 2nd Street.

  “We taking the ferry?” Micah asked.

  “Nope,” Cueball said.

  “I don’t know if I want to see this,” Micah said.

  “Neither do I, but—”

  “But it’s better that we know what we’re dealing with,” Micah finished the thought for him. “Something else you need to think about, Cueball.”

  “What?”

  “Your testimony put Lynch in the death house. I know there was that Houston conviction, but spree killers aren’t the most reasonable people on earth, so…”

  “I’ve already thought about it.”

  “And?”

  “I’m armed to the teeth and on my toes.”

  “How about Myrna?”

  “She’s packing her bags. I’m sending her to stay with her sister in Tyler. Pete is going to drive her later this morning. She’ll be safe there. Besides that, Micah, she’s as good with a gun as you are. Probably better.”

  Second Street became Ferry Road after a few blocks. The northern tip of the island dwindled into the darkness behind them and the glassy strip of the Intercoastal Gulf Waterway reflected the harsh lights of industry on the mainland beyond. Cueball turned off to the north and followed the shoreline.

  Three small marinas, side by side, marked the last of the island’s access to the waterway and the Gulf. And there, bathed in light, were a phalanx of police cruisers, sheriff’s vehicles, and the coroner’s wagon.

  Leland Morgan walked up to Cueball and Micah as they approached. The heady, rancid smell of shrimp and crab boats mingled with the chemical odors of industry. At the end of the dock was what was left of Homer Underwood.

  “The crabs took part of him, but it’s Old Homer,” Morgan said.

  “Same shirt,” Micah said.

  “How’s that?” Morgan asked.

  “I said, it’s the same shirt he was wearing when I saw him yesterday. And another thing, Morgan. If you say one word out of place, I’m going to take your goddamned gun and beat the hell out of you with it.”

  “Alright,” Cueball said. “That’s enough. Micah was Homer’s friend. Probably his only friend in this world. Show a little respect, okay?”

  Morgan nodded. “I will, and you two need to be the ones cutting me a little slack this time. I didn’t have to call you, but I did because I knew Homer and Lanscomb were buddies.”

  “Point taken,” Micah said grudgingly. “And I do appreciate it.”

  Morgan stepped aside and allowed the two men to join the sheriff’s deputies and the medical examiner.

  “Let’s have it,” Cueball said to the coroner, an older fellow near retirement age with salt and pepper hair and in need of a good shave. But then, every man there was in need of one, if not a stiff drink as well.

  “There’s a hole in his head that looks like a bullet hole. Could be a .25 caliber,” the coroner said.

  “‘I’ll die this island,’” Micah said.

  “What’d ya say?” the coroner asked.

  “One of the last things he told me. He said there’d be no one to mourn him when he shuffled off. Homer was born this island, he lived it, and now he’s died it.”

  “Are you saying this is a suicide?” Morgan piped in.

  “No and hell no,” Micah said. “No way. If Homer ever owned a gun he long ago sold it for whiskey. He didn’t kill himself.”

  “Well, if you say so,” the coroner stated. “The crabs didn’t get inside his cranium and I don’t see any exit wounds. Chances are the bullet is still in there. I’ll alert Ballistics to expect one.”

  “Where did you say they found him?” Cueball asked.

  “He was washed up on the jetty a few hundred yards out,” Morgan said and motioned toward the darkness and the northern tip of the island, with the Gulf of Mexico beyond. “A fisherman found him and called it in. We brought him in by boat since that was easier than hauling his body overland.”

  “We, hell!” a voice piped in from the boat anchored to the jetty. “I’m the one who brought him in.”

  “I know that voice,” Cueball said.

  One of the deputies shined his flashlight upwards at a red and grizzled face looking down on them.

  “Spence Landau,” Micah said and shook his head. A shrimper turned lawman, Landau ran the Galveston County Sheriff’s Department boat patrol.

  “It’s me, alright,” the voice said. “Now get that damned light outta my eyes before I make you eat it. Out of the way, I’m coming down.”

  “Any idea how the body got out there, Spence?” Cueball asked.

  The other man shook his head. “He could have either been killed somewhere else and thrown off the dock or a jetty or out of a boat. Or he could have been whacked on the jetty or in a boat and then dumped. The one thing I’m sure of is that he wasn’t dumped in the surf and washed out to where he was spotted. There’s not enough of an ebb tide here to do that with a body.”

  “What I want to know is, will anybody give a shit?” Micah asked.

  “I do,” Landau said quietly. “I liked Homer. We’ve hoisted a few together over the years. As I understand it, he was a hell of a reporter in his time.”

  “That’s right,” Cueball said. “He ran the Galveston Daily News when I was a kid. Then he took to the bottle.”

  “And this is how they sometimes end up,” Morgan said.

  “The bottle didn’t kill him,” Micah said through clenched teeth.

  “I’d say you’re right about that,” Morgan grudgingly agreed. “Don’t worry, Lanscomb. Old Homer will get the same consideration anyone else would get.”

  “Yeah, right,” Micah said bitterly. “The same consideration he would get if his name was Moody?”

  Morgan grit his teeth. “You know, Lanscomb, sometimes I really hate you.”

  “Get in line.”

  Cueball took his friend’s arm and swung him around and said, “Let’s go. There’s nothing we can do here but get in over our heads.”

  • • •

  On the way home Cueball said, “I think I need to make a few calls and find out who Harrison Lynch palled around with up there at the Dreyfus Unit. If he’s like most cons—and I imagine he is—he’ll have one friend who knew all his ins and outs.”

  “And?”

  “And then we go talk to him, whoever he is.”

  [ 13 ]

  “You let Micah help you on this one, C.C.,” Myrna said. She fussed around the breakfast table, moving jelly jars and setting out the proper silverware. The coffee steamed in his nostrils and threatened to scald the tip of his nose. Micah had skipped the meal and gone back into one of the guest bedrooms to finish sleeping.

  “Cueball?” she asked when he didn’t respond.

  Cueball grunted.

  “Are you listening, Mr. Boland?” she said.

  “Of course I’m listening.”

  “But are you hearing what I’m saying? Take Micah with you to that prison!”

  “Since when have I ever heard you?” Cueball asked with a laugh. “I never heard my momma, why should I be hearing you?”

  “That’s only because your momma had better sense than to even try to get through to you. Which means she had better sense than me, apparently.”

  “You do have a point,” Cueball said. And with that, the conversation was over.

  “I’ve got some phone calls to make,” he told her when breakfast was done.

  “No need to tell me,” she said. She put her arms around his chest and squeezed him to her while he patted her arms.

  “Up there in Tyler you be sure to keep all the doors locked and your gun loaded and handy.”

  “How long have we been together
?” Myrna asked him.

  “If you’re asking what we’re doing for our anniversary next week, that’s a state secret. Allow an old man his remaining dignity and let him surprise his little sugar-girl, will you?”

  Myrna kissed his cheek. “Just so long as all this mess is wrapped up by the time my birthday rolls around,” she said. “That’s the best present you could give me.”

  Cueball tried to think of something to say that would sound snappish and quick, but Myrna was already releasing him.

  The front door bell rang. The caller turned out to be Pete Gofford, Cueball’s pool hall manager.

  Pete was coal black, about five-ten, and built like a Mack truck, with a massively broad chest and long arms that bulged with muscle. Back in his youth, Pete had been a grifter and a scam artist who had accumulated a half dozen arrests on a nice little rap sheet that made him, at least in the eyes of the police, a desperate criminal waiting to happen. Then in the late 1950s, he’d managed to get in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a consequence, he found himself installed on Huntsville’s death row for the murder of a prominent Houston real estate broker who was slaughtered in a household robbery that went sour. The night his date with the chair came around, he fought the guards all the way from the holding cell to the death chamber. It took a half dozen big men five extra minutes to get him quelled halfway into submission. They were just in the process of strapping him in when the phone from the governor’s office rang.

  It was a temporary reprieve—ten days, issued by the State Supreme Court justice who wanted time to consider some disturbing stories put forth by his diligent and grossly underpaid attorney. The next week the reprieve became permanent when the court decided that a deathbed confession and some hitherto uncovered evidence changed the whole complexion of the case. It took several more months for the legal system to go through its red tape and shake Pete loose from the pen, but shortly after his release he received a full pardon on the basis of innocence. The warden later said that if it hadn’t been for those five extra minutes of struggle, Pete Gofford would have been bound for glory, innocent or not. All Pete himself ever said was, “I didn’t do it, so I didn’t see no reason to let them redneck peckerwoods fry my ass the easy way.”

  Even in his criminal days, Pete had never been involved in anything heavier than petty larceny and the occasional rigged poker game, but his experience with the death house convinced him to go arrow-straight. Like Cueball, he was a native of the Island. The two met a few times over the years when they were home for visits. Not long after Cueball opened the pool hall, he tracked Gofford down, driving a cab in Houston. He offered Pete a job as manager of his pool hall. It was a move Cueball never regretted. These days Pete was rigidly honest. He was also smart and resourceful and able to run the place without any supervision, which left his employer free to get away when he needed to.

  “Bout ready, Miz Boland?” Pete asked, following Myrna into the kitchen.

  “In a few minutes. Would you like some breakfast?”

  “I done et.”

  “Who’s going to handle the joint for us while you’re gone?” Cueball asked.

  “Tommy Smart,” Pete said.

  Cueball grinned and nodded. Tommy was a fine young pool player who had been hanging around the place since he was a little kid. Trustworthy and able, he would no doubt be gone in a couple of years as the big city tournaments beckoned. “Tommy Smart is pretty smart,” he said. “He’ll do.”

  Myrna finally got everything packed and satisfied herself that her two aging urchins could survive for a few days without her. Once Cueball heard Pete’s Oldsmobile back out of the driveway, he picked up the phone and started calling in a few of his markers.

  [ 14 ]

  Leland Morgan stepped out of the elevator and into the vestibule of the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant Morgan,” the desk sergeant said.

  “Geez, Mike. Didn’t think I’d see you down here in the morgue. Who busted your chops?”

  Mike Stratham was a veteran cop from Houston. The guy was in his late fifties and getting close to retirement. Morgan usually never gave the man the time of day. Today, he made it a point to be especially nice.

  “Nobody did. I like it down here. It’s cool all the time, nobody complains about anything. I don’t have to take any crap, you know?”

  Morgan chuckled. “The clientele is quiet, huh?”

  Stratham smiled. “Yep. Just the way I like it. And I get to work a crossword puzzle every now and then as well. Say, do you know a four-letter word for ‘boilerplate’?”

  “Try ‘form.’ Say, I’ve got to take some pictures of Underwood before they do the autopsy. The lighting was bad out there on the docks where we brought him up.”

  “Ah. You’re lucky that it hasn’t already happened. Dr. Pierson got some kind of emergency call and had to leave, or you would have lost your last chance for a picture. You can go on ahead, Lieutenant.” Stratham pushed a clipboard toward Morgan.

  “Oh. Do I have to sign in?”

  The clipboard paused halfway across the counter. “Not if you bring me a cup of coffee.”

  Morgan smiled. “I’d do that anyway, Mike.”

  “Thanks. Ah, to hell with it. You’d be the only name on the board all week if you did. Nobody really cares. Not sure what happens to these forms once they’re full anyway. Not that I’ve ever seen one complete.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” Morgan said, and walked on past the desk. He turned before he entered the morgue. “And don’t let me forget to bring you that cup.”

  “I won’t,” Stratham said and went back to his crossword puzzle.

  • • •

  Leland Morgan donned a pair of rubber gloves and stepped into the examination room. Underwood’s body—or what was left of it—was laid out on the cold table.

  He walked around the body and glanced toward the drawn curtains. He paused for a moment, listening, then pulled a pocketknife from his pants and opened it. Bending low to Underwood’s head, he probed into the gaping wound where the bullet that had taken Underwood’s life had entered. After a moment of fishing around, he felt the metallic connection of the knife with the lead bullet. He removed the knife, closed it and dropped it in his pocket. He turned around and began opening drawers behind him. After a moment he came up with a pair of long and narrow forceps. He went back into Underwood’s head with them and came up with the bullet. Back inside the drawer he found a large square of gauze. He placed the bullet in the center of the white cloth, wiped the forceps clean with it and replaced them, then slid the bullet into his pocket.

  Leland Morgan smiled.

  He made his way out to the front desk, waved to Sergeant Stratham and acted as though he had things to do and places to be. He waited for Stratham to say something about the coffee he had wanted, but when he didn’t, Morgan increased his pace.

  [ 15 ]

  A guard captain ushered Cueball and Micah into the office of Don Kellman, warden of the Dreyfus Unit. Kellman was big, beefy, and hard-looking as befit the warden of the state’s most secure prison facility. He was cordial without being overly effusive and gave the impression of being a man who could get a lot done in a short time.

  “I hope you didn’t mind my greasing the skids a little before we came over here,” Cueball said.

  Kellman smiled and shook his head. At fifty years of age, he was a career employee of the Texas prison system and a seasoned bureaucrat who knew how the game was played from way back yonder in the back yonder. Which meant that he was well aware that the grease on the skids could also be used to cover his ass. And he said so. “I really couldn’t have let you interview Lynch’s cellmate without a request from someone like your friend the senator. But with that request covering me, I am more than happy to oblige you. In my opinion, Lynch should never have been paroled.”

  “Why was he?” Micah asked.

  “Because since he came here, his record has been flawless. S
omewhere along the way he saw the possibility of parole and began to behave. He claimed to be a reformed man, and his record backed him up. Even here in Texas, parole boards occasionally show a little mercy. Misplaced mercy, in this case. And I told them so.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded. “But they were of a different mind because of media pressure. Do you remember that big flap in the papers last year charging the parole board with being nothing more than a rubber stamp for prison officials?”

  Cueball and Micah both nodded.

  “There was a considerable measure of truth in the charges. As I’m sure you both know, the board is nothing more than a crew of well-heeled Rotarians who threw money at the governor’s campaign, along with a couple of retired cops who were thrown in for window dressing. But the criticism stung, and they started getting serious about being independent-minded, like the press suggested. The release of Harrison Lynch is one of the results.”

  “So you didn’t think he was reformed?” Micah asked.

  “Hell no. Psychopaths don’t reform. People like him suffer from a lack of conscience. But some of them do learn that life is much easier for them if they quit fighting society.”

  “But not Harrison Lynch?” Cueball asked.

  “Oh my God, no. But he’s very smart, and he’s spent the last twenty years gaming the system. I imagine it amused him since he didn’t have anything better to do. That is apart from all that math bullshit he was doing.”

  “Math?” Cueball asked.

  “That’s right. The guy went through the entire prison library on the subject, then started asking for more advanced stuff. Our library did have a couple of calculus texts, but the stuff he asked for, I’ve never heard of. Oh, crap. I forgot all about that.”

  “What?”

  “I had a federal agent asking about Lynch the other day. I had to tell him he’d been paroled. The fellow didn’t seem too pleased about that.”

  “What’s that got to do with math?”

  “Just that this federal guy asked if Lynch had been doing anything odd before he left us, and I mentioned the math stuff. For a minute there, I thought the guy had hung up on me.”