A Fine Kettle of Fish

by Lou Bradshaw

  Since I had gotten there so early and hadn’t been able to get home to get my trunks, I was stuck with shorts and T-shirt. I hadn’t even been wet above my knees, except when we

  (6 of us) threw Porky Nichols in for a sober up dunk, but that didn’t really count.

  By 7:30 some of the more well done hides were becoming somewhat uncomfortable. I had a hunch that there would be some pretty well defined lines when those bikinis started coming off. I didn’t think that there would be much danger of lost virtues that evening or the next few evenings for that matter. In fact, I didn’t have any qualms about letting Nan leave alone with her date, Keith the dingus. He would be lucky to get a good night handshake.

  By 8:30 the only ones left were Mack, Legs, Liz and I. We were all sprawled out on the gravel bar with a fire going to keep the bugs and mosquitoes at bay. There were hotdogs, beer, soda, rock and roll, and a gorgeous sunset – life was good. We sat there until it was fully dark, just enjoying it. Finally, Mack and Legs went off for a moonlight dip even though there wasn’t a moon. We soon heard them splashing and laughing, and from the way she was giggling, I doubted if she still had both pieces of her swimsuit still on, if any at all.

  Liz and I sat there shooting the breeze for a while, and I finally said, “Come on let’s get in the water.” knowing full well that she was in the same situation that I was, without swimsuit.

  So, I was ready when she said. “But I don’t have a suit.”

  I came back with, “Oh what the hell, you’re among friends, don’t let a little thing like that stop you.” I thought that might push her into a spontaneous move.

  “Huh uh, big boy!”

  Well so much for spontaneity. “Oh come on,” I said, “it’s darker than sin out there.” Maybe I shouldn’t have made reference to sin, it could trigger her into an attack of religiousness or something. “Nobody’s going to see you.”

  “Nope.”

  This was not going to be easy, but then I really hadn’t expected it to be. “What’s the big deal? I’ve seen your scrawny butt a hundred times or more.”

  “Not since it got so cute, you haven’t.”

  De Ja something or other, where had I heard those words before? Suddenly, I didn’t want to pursue getting her naked and wet. Liz has been one of my best friends for a long time. She had been my confidant, my co-conspirator, my conscience, my advisor, and she had even patched my shot up butt; somehow it just wasn’t something I wanted to go for. I owed her too much for a cheap move. But on the other hand if she were to say, “Hey! A swim sounds great; last one in is a rotten egg.” I would have been all over the idea.

  She had won again and she didn’t even know it. So, if she didn’t know she won, did she really win? That’s a question I would have to ask Jake Farley. Anyway, I was ready to accept defeat when she cocked her eyebrow and gave me a smirky grin, which meant that she was about to say something that would make me squirm in the depths of defeat. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists waiting for the hammer to fall on my dome.

  Then with an angelic smile and a voice as sweet as honey she said, “Oh, speaking of butts, the darndest thing happened. Mary Ellen asked me about that scar on your hienie. She said you told her that if she wanted to know how you got it she’d have to ask me. So that’s what she did.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Well…yes I did. She seemed to know about it.” The angel smile was gone and the devil smirk was back with cocked eyebrow. “Now just how did she know about that scar on your be-hind?”

  With the most casual and nonchalant voice that I could muster, I said, “Did you ask her?”

  “No, I figured I’d ask you, hot shot.”

  “You should have asked her.” I said as I leaned back, opened another beer, and lit up a Lucky. On the outside I was smiling, but on the inside I was screaming, ”I WON! I WON!”

  She was dying and she knew that I wasn’t about to say a word. I won! She couldn’t have expected me to be ungallant. I won! I was being a good winner. I won! I was hiding behind the cloak of chivalry, and I won.

  * * *

  At about 10:30 that night I was sitting at the counter in Crockett’s with pie and coffee shooting the bull with Chuck Melke a sheriff’s deputy when Crockett told him he had a phone call. Chuck went behind the counter and through the curtains to the back room. I had always wondered what was back there - a phone at least. Chuck came back within a few seconds and said, “Well, Little Brick, you better fire up your daddy’s hook truck. Looks like some nigger got hisself killed out on the other side of the overpass”

  My insides turned over.

  Chapter 16

  In the 15 minutes it took me to get the tow truck and get out to the wreck, Chuck was already directing traffic while the state trooper was writing down all the particulars. The funeral home ambulance was there and flares were out up and down the highway. Not that anybody could have missed the scene with 4 gumballs flashing and spotlights everywhere.

  What I took to be a ’59 Cadillac Eldorodo, was in a ditch with its wheels up. It was pretty well banged up like it must have rolled a couple of times before it landed in the ditch. About 30 yards back and well off the road I could see the funeral home guys putting a body on a stretcher.

  I walked back to them because I had to. I had to see if it was who I thought it was. There was no reason to believe, would be Luther, after all, it wasn’t even his regular night, but I had to see. The funeral home guys knew me and knew that I had worked some pretty mean wrecks, so they didn’t have a problem when I asked to take a look at him.

  Dick, the one in charge said, “Well, he ain’t too mangled, but he sure is dead, lotta blood though.”

  When he pulled back the cover I breathed a sigh of relief and felt guilty about it. It was Malcolm, no doubt about it. I felt bad for Malcolm, but I felt pretty good for Luther. He just lay there like he was asleep except for the blood and the odd angle of his head and neck.

  Charley, the other funeral home guy said, “Nuther good nigger.”

  I must have shot him a pretty hard look because he shrugged his shoulders and said, “What?”

  I said, ”I know him, Charley, he’s a customer.”

  Dick yelled to the trooper, “Hey Bobby, little Brick here knows this guy, the deceased.” The trooper motioned me over.

  I went over to where he was making a show of measuring this and sizing up that. “Who was he?’ he asked.

  “All I know is Malcolm something.” I said. “He’s from Memphis.”

  “How come you know him? You get down to Memphis a lot, do you?”

  “No,” I replied, “I only been there once in my life. He’s…he was a customer at the station, came through last week with a regular customer.” I told the cop about Luther coming through regularly, ferrying cars back and forth from Memphis. I didn’t mention my suspicions or Luther’s worries.

  “Well, Malcolm Willis was one of the IDs he had on him so that’s what we’re gonna call him, for now. What else you know about him?”

  I told him that was about it, and he said, “It looks pretty cut and dried. Probably fell asleep going around 80 – 85 miles an hour, lost control, swerved, and started to roll and wound up in the ditch upside down. My guess is he was thrown out with the first roll. Must have busted his neck and that was that.”

  He told me that an investigator might want to talk to me, since Malcolm was carrying some extra identification and gas credit cards. He said that I could go ahead and get the wreck out of there. I think he felt that he had shown the world enough importance for one night.

  I went ahead, backed the tow truck up, and pulled out the hook. I didn’t have to worry about ruining anything because it was already a mess. I just hooked on to the first thing I could find that would hold a hook. It came upright in no time, and I worked it out of the ditch.

  Upset, moody, and confused I hauled the Cadillac back to the station and found a place for it until the cops decided what to do with it. It was late, but I
didn’t want to go home yet, so I called the house and told Brick what had happened, and that I was going to spend the night at the cabin.

  I went back outside and put the truck in order. I was having a problem dealing with Malcolm being dead, even though I hardly knew him. I think I was more upset by the fact that he was a connection to Luther, and my suspicions and concerns about Luther’s activities, than the loss of Malcolm. But, he was alive at one moment and the next he wasn’t. Was it like turning off a light switch, or could you still hear and see, but your body wasn’t working? Were you standing there in front of God listening to your sins and hoping that your good points were enough to get you in? Where was hell anyway?

  That Cadillac was beat to crap. It had holes, dents, and mangles all over the place. Before I realized what I was doing, I was going through the thing, probably from old habits. The driver’s seat was a bloody mess so he must have been in it for at least one flip before he was thrown out. The steering wheel was bent double and jammed into the seat. There was nothing in the glove box but a few gas receipts and an owner’s manual. Under the seat, I found what looked like a small pistol, but it was wedged in too tight with the seat crushed down on it. I found a suitcase in the trunk with a couple of changes of clothes and a jack, which I was tempted to take, but didn’t.

  I was about to leave the Caddy and go to the cabin, when I noticed that the back seat was ajar, so I lifted it and shined my light under it. I saw 2 bundles under there, each about 10” square and about 6” thick. They were wrapped in brown paper and taped down real secure. I got one out and lifted it to check its weight – a couple of pounds at least. Someone didn’t want these found. Someone who knew that a thief would naturally go for the trunk first.

  I lifted the seat and shined my light up under it. There was another, smaller packet stuffed into the springs. It wasn’t shoved up there by the wreck; it was wedged there purposely. I pulled it out and found it was pretty light by comparison to the other packages.

  Though I was no longer a crook, I was sorely tempted to take those packages. The way they were hidden screamed out that they were being smuggled. I had heard that sometimes cigarettes were smuggled to keep from paying federal taxes and the same with booze. They didn’t feel like liquid, so, I convinced myself that they were cigarettes, which I could use. It wasn’t actually stealing from someone; it was just beating the feds out of a little tax money. So, I was a crook again and even though it was a crime, I didn’t think it was as a sin.

  All the way out to the cabin, I kept the packages next to me on the seat, all the time trying to imagine what was in them. I couldn’t wait to open them. There could be a years worth of smoking in them, or what if they were full of girly magazines. Now that was something I could really use. Some nice titty books would be all right. They might even be full of pornography. Now that was illegal, but it didn’t hurt anyone. What little I’d seen of it could get old pretty quick. I could always sell it to Mickey.

  By the time I got to the cabin, I had stopped speculating. For all I knew they could be full of somebody’s laundry. I got a lamp lit and laid the packages on the table, and started on the first one. I carefully unwrapped it and found that it wasn’t full of naked women after all, but full of a plastic bag, which was full of something that I didn’t want to know about.

  Now, I may have been just a dumb, little town, hillbilly kid, but not so dumb that I didn’t have a pretty good idea what I had. Suddenly, I was scared. My first thought was to dump it into the river, but I didn’t know what it would do to the fish or the animals. Plus, I wasn’t sure whether or not they could trace it back to this location. I didn’t know what to do with that crap. I didn’t know enough about dope to do anything at all, and what if it wasn’t even dope? What if it was some kind of secret chemical that was going to be a cure for cancer or something? I didn’t know what to do. Get that stuff back to the cops, that was all there was to it, I just didn’t know how. That would have to be worked on.

  Once that decision was made, I was able to turn my attention to the smaller packet. I didn’t think it was more powder because it was hidden separately and it didn’t feel the same. Actually, it was shaped and felt like a stack of money. I wanted to open it so bad I could almost taste it. I just knew it had to be a stack of money. Explaining to the cops why I opened one of the other packs was going to be hard enough. Things could sure get complicated sometimes.

  There I sat looking at that little packet for a long time while my mind was playing ping-pong. If it were full of money, what would I do with it? If it were full of something else, what would I do with it? My head was buzzing with too many questions, so I opened it…and it was full of money – four thousand five hundred dollars of it in fact. There wasn’t any question as to what to do now…keep the money and get the dope back to the cops. At least now I could get some sleep.

  * * *

  I was up at 6:00 that next morning with a head full of scheme. The first thing I did was to take care of that money, I rolled it up and stuffed it into an old mason jar and screwed the lid on tight. Next I hid that jar in the deepest corner of the rafters where no one was likely to be going, except maybe a mouse or a squirrel. I wasn’t worried about squirrels or mice, they couldn’t get into the jar, and there was no place for them to spend the money anyway.

  By 7:30, I was out at the wreck site poking around like I was looking for something. I walked up and down that ditch and up into the weeds for about 20 minutes. Then I went into town.

  At the station I took my time writing up a tow bill for the county. I had breakfast consisting of 2 Baby Ruth candy bars and some coffee that the night guy had left in the pot; it wasn’t too bad once I got it warmed up a little. Next, I went out and walked around that Cadillac and looked it over real well. I went back in and called Chuck Melke at home.

  “Deputy Melke.” I heard the phone claim.

  Poor dumb Chuck Melke was about 30 and single, and he just loved the idea that he was a part of law enforcement. It was a case where his whole identity rested on the fact that he was a deputy sheriff and not the fact that he was Charles Melke, a life long resident of Doubling, Missouri. It was as if he didn’t have ‘deputy’ in front of his name he wouldn’t even own a face. Had he only known that folks would have liked him a whole lot better if he didn’t try so hard to look important. His whole life was a lie, and the only one who believed it was Deputy Melke.

  “Chuck,” I said, “it’s Lee Brickey.” I wouldn’t give in to his ego by calling him Deputy anything, except maybe Deputy Dumb-ass.

  “Yeah, Little Brick, what’s on your mind?”

  “Chuck, I just came from the wreck site and found some stuff that might be evidence.”

  The word ‘evidence’ must have set him on fire because he was all action from then on. “Whatcha got? No, don’t say anything over the phone: just bring it over here. No…no, meet me at the office. I’m on my way right now – bye.” Click. He was so excited; he was probably wetting himself going out the door. All I had to do now was play the dumb little town kid part – at which I was a natural.

  The office, as Chuck called it, was no more than a broom closet attached to the city police department’s broom closet office, tucked away in the rear of City Hall. The Webster County Sheriff’s Department was in the county seat at Marshfield about 15 miles north of Doubling. So Chuck had to take what he could get, office wise, or work out of his car. He was already there when I arrived; he must have come in with lights and siren.

  When I carried the two packages in, I thought Chuck would come out of his skin trying to get into them. He got the first one open, saw the plastic bag, and started to tremble. He took out his pocketknife, and with a shaking hand he cut a tiny hole in it. Then the got a small amount of the powder on the tip of the blade and touched it to his tongue, made a face, and spit into a waste can. I didn’t know if he knew what he was doing, but he made a good show of it. I had to give 10 points for style.

  He turned in his chair to
the radio mike on a small file cabinet, keyed it, and said, “Five to base, over.” He repeated it twice before a female voice came through the receiver sitting behind the mike.

  “Base to Five,” the voice said, “what is it Chuck?” Base sounded irritated, and I gathered that she was not one of Chuck’s most ardent admirers.

  “Need to talk to One.” Chuck replied.

  “It’s Sunday morning Chuck. Dave don’t come in on Sunday unless it’s an emergency.”

  “Well base, I got 5 pounds of dope sitting on my desk, so you better get the sheriff on the phone.”

  “Holy shit!” followed by silence.

  “Base, you still there?”

  “Uh…yeah okay…. umm…Chuck, Roger’s here. Talk to him. Okay?” She was referring to Roger Cook, Chief Deputy, and Sheriff Dave Cook’s cousin.

  “Five, this is Roger, are you sure?”

  “Affirmative, Chief Deputy.”

  Chuck was having too much fun being a cop to allow himself to fall into sloppiness on the radio, like those at base. It must have been his military background. He had been in Korea, and used to tell us younger ones how he won the Korean War…except we didn’t win that war, it was a draw. Brick told me that chuck was a supply clerk; that must have been one deadly clipboard he had.

  Roger told him to sign off and call him on the phone.

  Chuck said, “Roger, over and out.” I was hoping he would say ‘Roger, Roger’, but that was probably a breech of something.

  He set the mike down on its file cabinet and turned to the telephone, then to the phone list taped to the wall. Ran his finger down the list, stopped when he found the number, and held his finger there while he called the operator. Then he gave the operator the number and informed her that it was official police business. I guess that meant she wasn’t supposed to listen in, or maybe he just liked to say it. When the Chief Deputy came on the line, Chuck explained about the wreck and that, “One of the local kids found it out at the crash site.”