Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition

by Andrew Sutherland

  His mug shots and the various pictures from the file usually had him wearing his hair long enough to comb, but not much longer than that. The cuts were usually very “Ivy League” looking. His blond hair and his practiced hygiene in the pictures made him look like another Midwestern farm kid. The Eric Bannerman who was now sitting in the little room was shaved completely bald. His face was freshly shaved, and though his head was tanned, it look newly shaved as well. It was obvious that Bannerman intentionally groomed himself this way.

  The table in the room had been knocked a little askew. It wasn’t squared perfectly with the walls. Bud didn’t notice it until Bannerman walked in, looked at the table, grabbed the edge of the steel table and moved it ever so slightly until it was squared perfectly in the room. He pulled his chair out and waited for Charlie to get to his chair. He motioned for Charlie to sit with a small, almost cultured after you wave of his hand.

  “Always the gentleman, eh, Eric?” Charlie said this as he dropped his files on the table, shook Eric’s hand, and sat down. His back was to the two-way mirror. After Charlie was seated, Bannerman sat facing him and, unbeknownst to Eric, Bud as well.

  “Handsome is as handsome does.” Eric said as he sat.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Some dude named Chaucer wrote it about six hundred years ago. It just means that the actions make the man.” He seemed to smile a little when he said this. It was a secret, sad smile.

  “Oh. I learn something every time you come in here. So, what have you been up to?” He had taken out a folder and pulled the notes from their last session. “Seems like last time you were in, you were thinking about doing some work on the farm house.”

  “Still am. I can’t decide if I should do some deck work around the outside, or maybe a screened-in porch.”

  “Screened-in porches are nice, but if we get a bad storm or, God forbid, a tornado, you can kiss that puppy goodbye.”

  “I thought about that. Respectfully, I don’t think so. I think if I put on barn shutters and over-engineer the supports, it might even be a safe room to ride out a storm in. I’ve been trying to find out how fast I could shut it all up if I had to. I mean if a tornado pops up without warning, you’re going to be in trouble no matter what, but they’re getting better and better with the warnings. I bet, with the sirens, you’d have a good ten minutes in most of the reasonably fast ones.”

  “Yeah, I guess if you have a little time, it might be a good deal. Deck sounds good, too.”

  “I don’t ever entertain, as you know, so I’d just be building a deck to look at when I came in with groceries or after plowing. I like to have a reason for what I’m doing.”

  “Anything else new going on in your world. You thought about getting a job?”

  “I’ve thought about it, but I have a lot I can do on the farm. I have one of the two barn buildings almost finished.”

  “I saw that you finally cleared all the debris from that old silo. The base rock wall is still standing. You doing that for a reason, or are you just not into moving the two tons of river rock?” Charlie laughed as he said this. “I think doing that would give me a damn stroke.”

  “There’s some space dug out under a really thick floor out there. I think they used to ferment their silage then, every once in a while, give the thing a thorough cleaning. I don’t know what the access underneath was about, but it’d make a nifty cold cellar. I’m leaving the stone part up. I’ll do something with it. I’ll be living there for a few more years unless the state decides I can leave early.” He got another of those far away looks.

  “Still wanna leave?”

  “More than anything. I feel like my life is on hold. I’ll never get over what I did, but I have nothing tying me to this part of the country anymore. I have enough money to start up in a place like Arizona and just be an anonymous person. Maybe be a handyman, maybe just try to help people. I’ll never balance my karma, but I’d like a chance to try.”

  “I’ve told you before, you could get involved around here with the community. Plenty of work to be done.”

  “These good people don’t need to worry about having a killer among them, and I have to disclose if I interact. I appreciate you all letting me just, you know, live in my own little universe out there at the farm. I’d just as soon keep it that way until I can walk away with my head held high.”

  “Well, if you keep being the model parolee you’ve been, I’ll put in a word to get you on your way. You’ve done your time and made your amends the best you can. If it helps, I look forward to our meetings. You’re damn near the easiest guy I gotta see. And you bring us fresh vegetables. Bringing food to cops is always a good bet. Now, if you just grew donuts...” They both chuckled at this.

  “I appreciate your positive attitude, Charlie. Same time in two weeks?”

  “Aw, hell. Make it three if you want. If I need you, I know where to find you.”

  Bud was watching all of this and simply couldn’t reconcile the idea of this, calm, easy-going, educated guy with the image of some maniac running around killing people on a grudge with broadswords, drownings, and IV pushes of almost-pure alcohol. Bud made a split second decision. He got up and went to the interview room door and knocked.

  “Charlie? Mr. Bannerman? It’s Detective Smythe, Chicago PD. Can I come in?”

  Charlie looked at Eric who made a gesture that said, “By all means.”

  “Come!” Charlie yelled. Bud opened the door. Eric hadn’t turned but saw Bud in the two-way mirror’s reflection.

  Eric immediately recognized the cop as the guy who had put the blocks to that moron Robbie last night. He tried to keep his inner turmoil under wraps. He used an old trick he’d read about in some acting book or another. He stood, as did Charlie, and while they talked and talked through introductions, Eric was concentrating on controlling his respiration and focusing all of his attention on this new detective. Bud was his name. He’d learned that if you were completely immersed in someone else, you couldn’t be self-conscious because you were too busy being “other conscious.” It worked pretty damn well. Chalk up another victory for acting technique.

  Bud pulled a chair into the table and said, “Mr. Bannerman…”

  “Eric. Please. I insist.”

  “Eric. Do you keep tabs on anyone who was in acting circles in Chicago who you knew around the time of your…um…accident?” Bud produced a list of names from his pocket.

  Eric flinched just barely at the mention of the accident. He could see that Bud thought he was reacting to the accident, not the actors. It was lucky, or well played, or both.

  “No, sir.”

  “If I have to call you Eric…”

  “Point taken. No, Bud. I wasn’t friends with anyone in the theatre community at that time. It was a closed community and I was a very isolated and, frankly, very weird kid back then. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you follow the news or any of the entertainment gossip out of Chicago?”

  “Nowadays, I mostly just read books or listen to music that I own. I lost touch with the world when I was a ward of the state, and I just continued going in that direction. I know Barack Obama is the president and the other big stuff, but everything else I get off of the TV at the local diner, or when I see a headline as I walk by a newsstand. News is depressing. I’m an avid reader and a music nut. I leave all that other depressing stuff to folks like you and old Charlie here.”

  “In the months since you’ve been out, several people from the same general time you were doing your acting and combat stuff have come to some untimely ends. Now, I was looking at all of it, the big picture, you know? Between talking to you now, listening to you talk to Charlie here, and Charlie’s opinion, I don’t think you’re involved with all this present stuff. I think you may be able to help us out, though. Are you interested? Would you help us even if we kept you locked up for too long and for the wrong reasons?”

  “Bud? Like it or not, I made a bad choice a number of years ago, and
I cancelled an entire family’s experience here on earth. I could have gotten worse, and some might say I deserved worse. If there’s anything I could do to help you out, I’d be happy to chime in. Are there pictures to look at or what?”

  “I’d need to run back to Chicago and grab my notes and some other things then come back out and have a proper interview with you, unless you want to come into Chicago…” Bud was hoping he could get around making another trip out here.

  “All due respect, Bud, I don’t drive much these days. Just putter here and there and never even really leave the county. While I was in Joliet, I developed a combination of two phobias, enochlophobia and agoraphobia, which make Chicago a little too challenging of a place for me to negotiate.”

  “I’m familiar with agoraphobia, but the other one, not so much.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen a shrink a couple of times since I got out. They like seven-dollar words. The agoraphobia is a fear of large places. It’s usually big open places, but it can also be big places like cities. The enochlophobia is fear of crowds. The combination of the two is pretty gosh-darned brutal. I’ll be a small-town guy for the rest of my life. Just thinking of a big city gets me near paralyzed.”

  “Not a problem.” Bud was looking at his watch and trying to do some math, half-figuring, half-guessing. It was near noon. If he left, went back to Chicago, got his shit, then came back out here, he’d probably hit some hellish traffic and would end conducting his interview late enough in the evening that staying in a hotel tonight would be prudent. He hated long drives at night. “If it’s OK with you, I think I’ll drive back to Chicago right now, check in with some folks, then drive back out here tonight and crash in one of the little hotels around here. Then I’ll drive back tomorrow in the late morning. I just want to check in with the wife and tell her I won’t be around tonight. Does that work for you?”

  “Sure. I don’t get much company. People make me kind of nervous. If you’re bringing your partner or someone, there are plenty of little greasy spoons we can eat at. If it’s just you, I think I can manage hosting a party of one without freaking out too badly. I could even rustle up some grub at the house. I’m a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself. If you want a drink, you’ll have to bring your own. I don’t drink. I’m not allowed to, but wouldn’t even if I could. It doesn’t bother me if someone else does it, but I’ve had a pretty horrific relationship with alcohol up to this point. No need to pursue it, not one step further.”

  Bud felt no feelings of anxiety about meeting with Eric at Eric’s farm house. He didn’t have any solid feelings about Eric at all. It was like Charlie had said. Eric was a nice guy, but there was some essential thing missing from the guy. Something that had been scrubbed out of him in Joliet.

  “OK, Eric. I’ll be back by around six or six-thirty.”

  “I have an extra room at the farm if you want to crash there, or you can hit one of the local places. I just wanna help if I can. Too much bad stuff happens to people for no reason in this world. Be nice to be part of the solution.”

  Bud got Eric’s phone number and he got the address. “That’s on a Farm to Market road. Is it on Google?”

  “It is. When I found the place, the real estate lady had one of those Garmin location thingies.”

  “GPS. Saved my ass more times than I can count.”

  “So much stuff came out on the market while I was inside. No incredible mystery that I have some anxiety problems. Well, I should be at the home number, so if you need to call, try that one first. I don’t get very good cell service out where I am, so I still have a land line.”

  Charlie chimed in, “Yeah, they need to put in more cell towers out here. Eric even has one of those old rotary wall phones from 1972.” They all had a quick laugh.

  “Well, if that’s all, I should boogie. I have a little work to do before Bud makes it back out.”

  “Don’t go to a bunch of trouble. I’ll eat anything, so just cook normally.”

  “Hey, man, it isn’t every day I get important cop company. I bought a whole fresh lamb not too long ago and had it butchered. You do lamb chops?”

  “I love lamb, but I never get it. My wife can’t abide lamb. Calls it mutton.”

  “I’ll do lamb chops, garlic mashed potatoes, and even put together a salad so we don’t get busted by the health police.”

  Bud stuck out his hand to shake with Eric. “Thank you, Eric. I feel like you might be able to help, and I’m not afraid you’ll bury me in a shallow grave anywhere.” They all laughed and headed out. No Detective Smythe, you’ll go in a deep, deep hole. And if my half-baked plan goes right, you’ll be sharing it with that fuckin’ crook, McNair.

  “I’m off. Thanks, Charlie. You be good now. And Eric? I’ll see you at the latest at seven, but I’ll call and give you an ETA.” And Bud was out the door, into his car, and flying back to the Windy City. With any luck, he could beat rush-hour traffic on the way out. He had a good feeling about this meeting. They were gonna bust this baby wide fuckin’ open. He’d be making a collar with Al by tomorrow at noon, the next day at the latest. He wasn’t a fan of the “third man” theory. It was the one that operated on some permutation of, “…then this guy I’d never seen clocked me with a shovel. I woke up tied to a chair and everyone was dead.”

  In Bud’s experience, the third man was a load of bullshit…except when it wasn’t. Occasionally, there was a third person. Someone who, for some reason or another, was perpetrating stuff on some innocent person just to fuck their life up. This felt like that. Eric had done his crime, hitting the woman in the crosswalk, for sure. He’d driven drunk and paid the price with his life. He spent his time in the joint, probably lost his virginity there, didn’t even get to wear someone’s pin before being their bitch. But the other stuff about having someone fixate on you, make your sentence last as long as possible, it was so much…drama. If he was a bad guy, he’d planned the hell out of his revenge.

  Bud was driving now. Talking to himself and thinking freely. He tried his phone and got a weak signal. He called Betsy and went through all of the details of the case that had developed in the last 24 hours, at least the ones she’d missed or hadn’t been around for. He explained meeting Eric.

  “Eric?” She almost shrieked his name. “You met Eric?”

  “Cool your jets, baby doll. I met him sure. I met his PO, as well. Eric seems like a pretty swell guy. Sure he fucked up hard, SUPER hard, but he did his time, helped countless people, and got out fair and square. He would have done every minute of that time except for some old fucker of a judge having a heart attack. He got paroled, like, instantly, as soon as the old guy died. Now he lives outside Rockford. He owns an old farm out there. Sees his parole agent like clockwork. They aren’t even pushing him too hard about getting a job. As long as he keeps his place looking nice and keeps his nose clean, all is well. I think the guy is being set up. I know it sounds like…”

  “…the third man? If I had fifty cents every time you’d told me what a crock of shit the third man thing was, Buster’s clothes would be new and I’d never have to wash another pair of your boxers. So now it’s a plausible hypothesis?”

  “Ooooh. You know cop talk makes me hot. In most cases, I think it’s pure ‘grade A’ bullshit. However, I think Mr. Eric Bannerman is being framed. I’m coming back out to visit with him tonight, have an early dinner. I’ll stay at a local flea-bag hotel and be back in the morning with a sore ass, a stiff back, and, hopefully, a solved case. Then I get back on the streets and you start looking for some jobs. How do you like them apples?”

  Betsy had heard Bud say a million times that cop work was hours of boredom followed by seconds of adrenaline poisoning. She was hoping the poison was coming, not too strong, and things would go back to sexy, sublime, suburban love. He gave her the time table. Said he’d leave some messages for Al. He’d told her Al was on his own tonight, probably with the hot smart chick, so the time with Eric would be fast, then he’d spend the time in his hotel fit
ting together a case that might, at the very least, get Eric off parole and back to regular old life.

  “I love you, baby-o. Kiss the prince. If we get this together, it’ll mean early nights and lots of pony rides for the next few weeks.” Last week, Buster had been in the middle of a pony ride, pulled Bud’s hair, and caused the pony engine to have an alarmingly loud backfire. Now, Buster’s primary mission in life was to make Bud fart by yanking on the area around his right earlobe. Kids.

  “Cell phones are spotty out there, but I’ll send you the phone number of the hotel. I got such a good feeling from the guy, that if he offers his guest room, I might take him up on it. That just might get me back home earlier. If anyone calls, I’m out. If anyone important calls, have them hit my cell, K? You know you’re the bee’s knees to me, right?”

  “Right. Get home early tomorrow, and maybe we’ll do some detectifying in the living room, just you and me.”

  “Woah! You suggesting a pony ride right there in the living room?”

  “Lights on and everything, Gumshoe.”

  “Message received. I gotta go, babe. I’m driving, and these underwear are cutting of the circulation to my brain.” Married code for hard-on.

  “Sir, you are a pig, and I love you. Come home safe and in one piece. We’ll work on the case of the naked housewife.” The line clicked and Bud smiled for at least twenty minutes while he was driving and thinking.

  He was trying to figure out how the third man could fit into this scenario, and all he could come up with was one thing. Judge Rufus MacFarlane. Something had gone south. Not south of the loop or south to Missouri, but south to the Mayan fucking Riviera. There was no way to fuck the people who fucked over his baby girl. They were untouchable. They were dead, but this was Chicago, after all, and he had a scapegoat. It wouldn’t be as satisfying, but the judge’s scapegoat was going to eat every shovel-full of manure the judge could posthumously find. When the judge had died, the pressure on Eric had let up, and Eric was a free man. Bud needed to see if all this new shit was planned retaliation. Had the new deaths been coincidental or part of some plan? It felt like a bitter old plan placed by a bitter old man. It took a little while for the fix to start back up; Bud thought that the fix was in and still working. A gift that just kept on giving.