Crystal Meth Cowboys

by John Knoerle

"Call the Medical Examiner," said the Mayor to the back of the room.

  Bell and Lyedecker turned to see Deputy Coroner Bernard Fischer escorted into the office by the Mayor's secretary. A diminutive man wearing wire rim glasses, Fischer was recognized as the top ME in Santa Barbara county after only nine years on the job. A top pre-med student at Stanford, he had turned down medical scholarships in order to care for his aged parents in Wislow. The Sheriff had snatched him up in a heartbeat.

  Bell chewed on his mustache. Boss Hogg wouldn't have brought the ol' Kingfisher up from SB to deliver any good news. Bell watched Bernie refuse the Mayor's offer of a high-backed chair and smiled to himself. The little man didn't want his legs to dangle.

  Fischer stood to the right of Bell, facing across the desk so that everyone had to turn to face him. Bell made eye contact and Bernie nodded curtly. Bell hoped he hadn't told one too many Jewish jokes at the last SO picnic.

  "First of all," said the Mayor. "I would like to thank Deputy Coroner Fischer for schlepping all the way up here on his day off." The Mayor gave Bernie his best shit-eating grin. "And helping us laymen make sense of this complex document."

  The Mayor held up a copy of the autopsy report. Deputy Coroner Fischer remained impassive inside his starched and steam pressed green and khaki uniform. His parents owned a dry cleaners and Bernie never donned a uniform that wasn't wrapped in polyethylene.

  "I realize this is a preliminary autopsy report pending certain lab results, but, after all…" The Mayor gestured to all the happy participants happily. "This isn't a legally binding inquiry, is it?"

  Bell told himself he would have to have a little chat with his old drinking buddy Lieutenant, now Sheriff, Jack Broome about leaking a copy of a preliminary autopsy to Boss Hogg without extending the same courtesy to himself.

  "Okay," said the Mayor and bent his nostrils to a page of the autopsy marked with a red plastic clip. "I'm particularly interested in your take on the shoulder injury sustained by the deceased," said the Mayor. "The result…" The Mayor scrambled through the mass of paperwork on his desk. "According to Officer Bell's report…" The Mayor paged through the Narrative Supplement hurriedly. "Of…yes, Officer Bell's second shot." Boss Hogg grazed Bell with a look before he turned to the Deputy Coroner.

  "My 'take'," said Fischer, "Is that the bullet severed Mr. Bjornstedt's brachial plexus nerve."

  "Right," said Boss Hogg. "Quite right. So, once Officer Bell shot the man in this way, would it have been possible for him to point and fire a weapon with that shoulder…with the arm attached to that shoulder after sustaining that injury?"

  Boss Hogg looked confidently at the Deputy Coroner. Bell knew Hizzoner already knew the answer, had asked Bernie the question before hauling him up here. "To the best of my knowledge, no."

  Mayor Krumrie rocked back in his black leather chair. "Well," he said, "That's good enough for me."

  "Mr. Mayor," said Bell. "The manual decocking device was off." When this brought no look of recognition, Bell said, "My partner's nine millimeter semi-automatic, the one with the suspect's prints all over it, the one he waved at me, the manual decocking device, the safety, was off."

  The Mayor's face remained bereft of comprehension. Bell whipped out his service weapon, creating quite a stir. He pointed the weapon at the far wall. "Disarming the safety on a Smith and Wesson nine millimeter automatic requires coordinated movement and strong fingers." Bell demonstrated. "You have to grip and steady the butt with your fingers while flicking upwards, strongly, with your thumb. A man with…" Bell nodded to Bernard Fischer. "An incapacitated shoulder could not have released the manual decocking device on a Smith and Wesson nine millimeter."

  "Exactly," said the Mayor. He looked to the Chief of Police. "We believe the safety became released in the prior struggle over the weapon. Or perhaps the safety was already off in Officer Lyedecker's holster. He's a rookie. Who knows?"

  Wes Lyedecker sat frozen to his chair as he experienced the dizzying transformation from casual observer to a man whose neck was being fitted for a noose. He looked at Bell, who inclined his head forward, giving him permission to speak. "Mayor Krumrie, Chief Sunomoka, Officer…"

  "Chiminski," said CJ.

  "Officer Chiminski. I can assure you that the safety on my service weapon was inoperable…the safety wasn't inoperable, the gun was inoperable…not that it didn't work but…when the gun was in my holster the safety was on. Definitely on."

  Wes sat back and exhaled from his ankles. Bell's mood blackened. CJ the narc, his personal reclamation project and sole representative on the Board, was leaning back in his leather chair, just-a smilin' like a field nigger invited up to the big house to share Massa's table scraps on Christmas day. So far the only thing he'd said was his name.

  Deputy Coroner Fischer spoke up. "I have further information."

  Mayor Krumrie waved him on. Fischer pulled a folded-up report from his pants pocket and unfolded it. "I received the lab results this morning." He read from the report. "Robert Bjornstedt had almost four hundred micrograms per deciliter of methamphetamine in his system when he died." Fischer paused. When he had everyone's undivided attention he continued. "I said before that the subject couldn't have fired a weapon with his shot-up shoulder to the best of my knowledge. But methamphetamine intoxication at that level is the equivalent of dark matter." He paused and checked again. The geeks were his. "Astrophyicists claim that over 60% of the universe consists of so-called 'dark matter' where the commonly accepted laws of physics do not apply. Light disappears, gravity works backward. Whatever. The point of this dissertation is that a human body subject to that much meth is capable of almost anything this side of winged flight. And I'm not so sure I'd rule that out."

  Boss Hogg looked from Chief Sunomoka to CJ and back again. Bell dug an elbow into Lyedecker's ribs.

  Lt. Coroner Fischer surveyed his listeners with his hands on his hips. "When Officers Bell and Lyedecker confronted him, the subject's blood pressure was, conservatively, 260 over 110. At most he had five minutes before his arteries ruptured and his heart exploded." Bernie graced Bell with a look before he turned to face the Mayor. "As it turns out they did the man a favor."

  Chapter 6

  "Speak to me," said Bell.

  Wes took a sip from the mug of fresh ground coffee that Bell had painstakingly alchemized from three different kinds of beans and inhaled a medicinal smell. He had coated the insides of his nostrils, dry from the constant wind, with Mentholatum. A blue bottle fly, sensing sugar, buzzed around his coffee. Wes swatted at it. Bell snatched up two album covers from a boards-and-brick shelf and ushered the buzzing fly out the sliding glass door to the back yard. Two big dogs galloped up as he slid the door shut. "Fly herding," explained Bell as he returned to his studio.

  Wes stepped up to a microphone that looked like an electric razor and said, "Testing." His plosive T rattled the studio monitors mounted above the mixing board. The speaker grills had been removed and Wes could see the bass cone throb. He backed off and repeated, "Testing, testing."

  Bell adjusted a knob on a gunmetal gray box that glowed with vacuum tubes. Wes examined a black and white glossy of a P-51 Mustang bursting through the clouds that hung in the place of honor above the mixing board.

  "So, Mr. Lyedecker," urged Bell, the unctuous game show host, "Tell us something about yourself."

  The dogs, a blonde Labrador and a German Shepherd, muzzled up against the sliding glass door. Morning sunlight angled into the oblong room.

  "Well, I'm 23 years old, six foot one, 180 pounds." Bell tweaked something inside the metal box as Lyedecker talked. "I was born in Quincy, Massachusetts on September 12th, 1971 and I grew up in Braintree."

  Bell stirred his hand like a stage manager giving the fill sign. "Uhh, I'm an only child, my parents are divorced, my father is an investment counselor and my mother works in hospital administration. Umm…I enjoy weight lifting, I used to play football, and I…"

  "Have a large collection of porcela
in frogs," said Bell. "All right, we get the idea." Bell leaned over an Ampex tape recorder and cleaned the heads with a cue tip.

  Wes sat down in a highback club chair. The leather on the arms was dry and cracked. On the wall next to the kitchen counter hung an autographed photo of a man standing in front of a WWII bomber. Wes hunched forward, wondering if this might be Bell's father. But the photo was signed by Paul W. Tibbets and the logo on the fuselage read 'Enola Gay'.

  Bell threaded a ten inch reel of tape onto the take-up reel. "You ready?"

  "I guess." Wes had never recorded anything but a phone machine message and sounded stilted doing that. "What do I say?"

  Bell grabbed up a legal pad and handed it to Wes. "It's gotta be quick. Four seconds max," said Bell, punching the record button. The ten inch reel twirled. "Rolling."

  Wes read Bell's overlarge scrawl in a shallow voice. "This message paid for by Citizens to Elect Florence Jillison Mayor."

  Bell jabbed the yellow stop button. "Loosen up. Project."

  "Shouldn't you be doing this?"

  "Hey, I'm the engineer."

  "I'll be happy to push the record button."

  Bell plunked himself down a wheeled stool and threw out his arms, rolling backwards as he said "Awright, awright. I don't want my voice on Florence Jillison's campaign commercial. Ex-pecially if Boss Hogg wins." Bell looked moist blue eyes at Lyedecker. "Plus, too many shitheads know my voice in a negative context. As in 'put your nose in the dirt you scumsucking felonious welfare recipient shithead motherfucker'." Bell tucked his size twelves under the bottom rung of the wheeled stool. His face assumed that slew-eyed crinkle-browed font-of-all-wisdom look that Wes was beginning to dislike. "And it just so happens Florence Jillison is targeting the core shithead motherfucker constituency in this campaign."

  Wes examined the chocolate brown carpeting. It was dusty. "That all makes sense. I can see your point of view. But why is it OK for my voice to be on the commercial?"

  Bell gestured to a rack of signal processing equipment. "Because I've got you so filtered, echoed and EQ'd your own mother wouldn't recognize you."

  Then they wouldn't recognize you either, thought Wes. But he stepped up to the mike, cleared his throat and read take after take until the words merged themselves into one lengthy polysyllable devoid of meaning.

  "OK," said Bell, plunking the stop button. "There's gotta be a good one in there somewhere. Florence!"

  "Hi there!" said Florence Jillison, breezing into the studio, wearing a beaded jacket over a raw silk chemise and matching side split skirt the color of the Caribbean Sea. "Sorry I'm late." She turned to Wes and positively beamed. "Officer Lyedecker, what a treat!"

  Wes nodded, surprised that she knew his name. He didn't recall being introduced during the 415 call.

  "I thought the rookie could help us spitball a spot," said Bell, clapping a hand on Lyedecker's shoulder. "He graduated Harvard, you know."

  "No!"

  "Magna cum laude."

  Wes felt his cheeks color as he shook his head. He wanted to set the record straight but Florence regarded him with such open-mouthed awe that it seemed a shame to disappoint her.

  Bell handed Wes a legal pad. "So how we gonna trash ol' Boss Hogg?'

  Florence addressed herself to Bell. "Well, first I want to thank you for the generous offer of your studio. As you know I've been spending what little money I have on newspaper ads, but who reads anymore? I can't afford TV. Radio seems the best way for me to speak to the voters one to one. Besides personal appearances, of course."

  "Of course," nodded Bell. She was repeating his sales pitch word for word.

  "Oh, congratulations! I hear the SRB was a clean sweep."

  "Yeah, well Hizzoner the Mayor didn't see it that way," said Bell. "But after Bernie Fischer got through the ol' Harbor Bomber swung the vote."

  Florence Jillison ducked her head. In the final month of the campaign she was on full combat alert. She ventured a timid "Who?"

  Bell thrust out his upper teeth, slitted his eyes and said, "Ooooh, Admiral Shitamoko he say-uh Bell and Ryedecker-uh not gittey! Vely fine poricemen. Oh yes. Vely fine." He stopped when he saw that Florence wasn't smiling. "So why'd he do it?"

  "Who?" said Florence.

  "Boss Hogg."

  "Why did he do what?"

  "Why did he try to nail me, us, to the cross with less than a month to go before the election?"

  "Oh I don't know," said Florence. "Maybe I've got him worried. He's spent the last twelve years attending Rotary banquets and playing golf. My guess is he wanted to throw a bone to the down and out."

  Bell nodded to himself, his suspicions confirmed. "So we do the ol' piss and pitch. Piss on him for twenty seconds, then pitch you hard for forty."

  Wes twitched, nervous that Bell's crudity would offend Ms. Jillison. Florence removed her beaded jacket, folded it and draped it over her shoulder. She inhaled, swelling her breasts against the silk. "Works for me," she said.

  Wes scribbled hurriedly on the legal pad, reverting to cursive for greater speed. "How's this for an opening line?" He deepened his voice, conscious that he had the full attention of his elders. "Florence Jillison believes that the office of the Mayor of Wislow should be more than just a 'ceremonial' position."

  Florence turned to Bell who shrugged his approval. She took a step toward Wes, her eyes burning bright. Wes noticed that the tawny cast to her skin was actually a constellation of tiny freckles that disappeared into the open neck of her blouse. Florence glanced her head back and forth in abject wonder and, for an instant, Wes was sure she would kiss him. "Oh,” she cooed, “it's perfect,".

  -----

  "You think Ms. Jillison has a chance of getting elected?" asked Wes. They were a half hour into swing shift, cruising eastbound toward the swaybacked spine of mountains that separated Wislow from the rest of the United States. A burst of fuchsia caught Lyedecker's eye out the passenger side window. He looked up to see the wind riffle a thicket of flowering manzanita two hundred feet up the sunny side of a shaded arroyo.

  "Prolly not," said Bell. "Boss Hogg's got all the bucks."

  The LTD rounded a walnut orchard on the left, the crowns of the trees arched together in a leafy dome. A shaft of sun pierced a row of trees spotlighting a smudge pot overgrown with grass as green as a Gaelic spring.

  "That's a shame." said Wes. "She seems very progressive."

  After recording the radio commercial Florence lingered in the studio, watching Bell splice tape. In an offhanded way she asked Wes if he had 'talked' to anyone about the shooting. Wes said he had not. He wasn't going to spill his guts to a department shrink and get branded a weak sister, and he certainly wasn't going to tell his mother. Florence Jillison led him out onto the sunny back patio and asked Wes if he would care to talk to her.

  Wes didn't answer right away, played with the dogs, didn't feel like it. Florence waited, watching him. The depths of warmth and understanding in those hazel eyes would have soothed a rabid wolverine. Wes told his story in some detail.

  Florence listened, saying little. When Wes described the final shots to the naked man's face, Florence blinked tears from her eyelashes. Wes understood that women were their canaries in the mine shaft. His mother, when his parents were still together, used to cough reflexively when his father lit a cigarette in the other room. And here was Florence Jillison, expressing the grief that the men could not. Wes didn't tell her about the naked man's last word. He hadn't told anyone. It seemed to violate a confidence somehow.

  The Crown Victoria passed from the shadow of the orchard into a splash of late afternoon sun that painted the long grass in bright chlorophyll, the light so pure it almost hurt to look.

  "Florence wondered if Mr. Bjornstedt left any personal effects. Anything we should forward to his family."

  Bell was driving with his left hand, his right arm flung out along the top of the benchseat like a Sunday driver. "Reese found some pencil drawings in his bag. Said they were pretty go
od. Of course a lotta ampheads do arts and crafts. In Yermo there was this biker who woodburned Pickett's charge, you know, from the battle of Gettysburg, all up and down his living room wall. Copied it from a book," said Bell. "The detail was amazing."

  The LTD rounded a bend and approached the towering smoke stack of the diatomaceous earth plant. The on-shore flow swept the thick white smoke east toward the mountains. Wes noticed that the roadside bushes were splotched with white. As they passed under the stack a few drops of chalky condensation spotted the windshield. "The Department," shuddered Bell in the strangled voice of Richard Nixon, "Of Evil."

  "So," said Wes. "Should we send the drawings along?"

  "No we should not," said Bell. "We should definitely not send the bereaved members of the dead man's family, assuming he has one that gives a shit, a tearful letter saying 'Here are some momentos I recovered after shooting your husband/father/son to death six times with my semi-automatic, treasure them always and please contact me at the above address with future wrongful death lawsuits.'" Bell shook his head slowly from side to side. "No, we should definitely not do that."

  "Florence could send them. She volunteered."

  Bell got on the brake as lonesome Highway 46 became busy Playa Road at the southeast corner of Wislow. He grasped the wheel with both hands, the Sunday drive over. "You do not ever, under any circumstances, share evidence with a civilian."

  They motored down Playa Road past J Street. A pigeon nestled in the green traffic light. Bell looked up as they passed. "How come they never hang out in the amber light?"

  Wes pondered. "Probably because the amber light doesn't stay on long enough to warm them up."

  "12 Frank - Control."

  Bell leaned over, stopped, leaned back and gestured to the radio mike. "You do it, you're so fuckin smart."

  Wes picked up the boxy metal microphone, coughed dryly, depressed the button and said, "Control, this is 12 Frank," in clear, crisp tones. He remained hunched forward, waiting for the return transmission. There was no response.

  "You gotta key off, dickhead," said Bell, broadcasting this friendly reminder throughout the entire north county on the blue frequency. Wes released the button and the speaker spit static.