A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  Billy ignored the gesture and said, “You surround yourself with men. Strong men, but old ones. I’m the one who wants more from you. And I’m the one you simply can’t manage to keep a sane relationship with.”

  “You were there,” I said. I didn’t mean it as an accusation, but it was. “Levi told me. You were the medic who stitched me up in the Humvee. You saw it all. You told me it wasn’t you.”

  “It wasn’t me.” His eyes flashed but his voice remained soft. “It wasn’t you, either. We were different people.”

  “Now who’s running away from things?”

  “That may be. But I wanted to be the man you chose out of love, or desire—even friendship. Anything but gratitude.”

  “Why?”

  “Love is the worst way to pay a debt.”

  I thought about that. For a long time I stared through the windshield at the snow and stubby evergreen spikes of the junipers. All the other trees were bare. Against the dirty gray sky their limbs looked like cracks in glass.

  Before I could think of anything to say, Billy asked, “How did you get hurt?”

  I must have looked confused. He pointed at his face then at me. “You have blood on your face. Your clothes are a mess.”

  “I found E. Lawson.”

  “He did that?”

  “He almost killed me.”

  Billy nodded thoughtfully but he wasn’t looking at me anymore.

  “I need to ask you…” I paused. Wondering if I really wanted to hear more about Rose Sharon.

  “Yes?”

  “Why have you been hiding?”

  “Who said I was hiding?”

  “Why have you been out of touch? When you found out about Rose you shut down and closed me out.”

  “I needed space to feel bad. Rose and I were close.”

  “Close?”

  “Like family. She called me her ‘better brother.’”

  “Did you ever tell me that?”

  “No. You’re not very good with other people’s complications.” Billy shook his head. It was a sad kind of gesture, and regretful. He still didn’t look at me. “Maybe I should have tried harder.”

  I shook my head so vigorously it hurt. “No one tries as hard as you. You’re right about me. Sometimes I would rather fight than love.”

  “Sometimes?” He laughed.

  I laughed once, then winced at the pain in my back and ribs.

  Billy stopped laughing. “I thought you were exaggerating when you said he almost killed you.”

  “He hurt me. I hurt him right back. We need to keep an eye on the hospitals. He’ll be looking for help.”

  “We should get you into one too.”

  “No. I don’t think anything is broken but my spirit. You were the best medicine for that.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You showed up.”

  * * * *

  Despite my protests, Billy didn’t let me drive home. He called Uncle Orson to come get my truck for the second time, then helped me into his SUV. I fell asleep on the drive and woke up once more in the hospital with taped ribs and a bandage around my head.

  This time Billy was sitting in the chair.

  “What happened?” I asked. As I said it I knew it was a foolish question.

  “I couldn’t tell if you passed out or fell asleep. Either way it let me bring you here without having to fight about it.”

  “My left eye is blurry.”

  “You got another concussion. But I think you knew that. The stitches in your head were popped. There is a place on the back of your scalp, too, that had to be stitched. The doctor said it looked like your hair had almost been pulled off your head.”

  Reflexively I reached and touched the back of my head. I could feel the lump and a sharp bite of pain under the bandage.

  “And, on top of that, you have a vitreous hemorrhage.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Bleeding in your left eye. Your vision should be back to normal in a few days.”

  “Get my clothes.”

  “Nope. You’re off duty. Medical leave for at least a week.”

  “You can’t.”

  Billy pointed at himself. “Sheriff, remember?” Then he settled his Stetson down on his head and stood. “I have a lot to do. You don’t. I’ll be back, but it’ll be late.”

  “Late?”

  “There’s a memorial for Rose at the Star Road Theater tonight. I’m going to play her a song.”

  I found that hard to believe. “You were invited to sing at her memorial?” I made my doubt clear in my tone.

  “No.” Billy didn’t look back or say anything else as he walked out.

  I kept thinking of what he said in the truck—other people’s complications. Funny how we always seem so eager to make them our own.

  After half an hour I was tired of lying in bed stewing in my own mind. Work is almost always the best way for me to get past the fences that circle my life. I pulled the oxygen sensor off my finger and the IV needle from my arm. The nurse came in and we went through the same you-can’t-do-this dance as before. This time I dressed without arguing and ignored the demands for signatures.

  I didn’t leave the hospital. I took the elevator down one floor and went to Donny Fisher’s room. He was alone.

  Donny didn’t look like the strong young man I had first seen. Lying in the hospital bed with his neck misshapen and bandaged he looked like a damaged boy. The bandage wasn’t the only sign of the trauma Levi’s bullet had done. Donny was intubated. I assumed it was to protect his throat after surgery. It didn’t matter for what I wanted. I hadn’t expected he would be able to talk.

  I walked up to the foot of his bed.

  Donny opened his eyes.

  We stared at each other. The airy hissing of the machine that fed him oxygen was the only sound.

  I was about to apologize and leave when Donny lifted his hand and gestured me closer. Then he pointed to a scribbled pad and ballpoint pen sitting on the stand beside him.

  I handed it over.

  He flipped to a clean page and wrote. I expected an angry dismissal. I wasn’t actually at all prepared for his question.

  Did he kill Sharon?

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “It seems like Levi thought you did.”

  He wrote again. Stupid.

  I nodded. “Yeah. There’s a lot of that going around.”

  Donny narrowed his eyes and glared at me, then made one mark on the pad: ?

  “No one wants to talk about Rose in a helpful way,” I said.

  His face sagged.

  “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  Donny’s nod would have been imperceptible if I hadn’t been looking for it. Then he wrote, Mother.

  “Yes. Do you know why she’s fighting the investigation?”

  Not supposed to talk without lawyer.

  “I understand,” I said. “You were a suspect. It’s a smart thing not to talk without a lawyer. And I shouldn’t even ask you questions without Mr. Tau here. But we both want the same thing, don’t we?”

  Sharon’s killer.

  “Yes.”

  I don’t know anything.

  “She knew about you, didn’t she?”

  Gay? When he held up the question, his eyes were at first cast aside. Then he looked at me with defiance.

  I wondered if it was the first time he’d faced the world with his true identity in the lead. “Yes. She knew you were gay. She accepted?”

  My friend. My sister. Always on my side. Clark was her friend too. Rose helped keep our secret but she always said it would be okay to come out.

  I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t get the chance.

  Donny flipped the page and wrote again, furiously. Sharon d
idn’t deserve—

  “No, she didn’t,” I interrupted his writing. “Help me get justice for her.”

  ?

  I thought hard in a long silence about what I wanted to say. Finally, I asked, “Who is the song about?”

  Donny didn’t write; he pulled both shoulders up and spread both hands.

  “It wasn’t about Sheriff Blevins?”

  Just her friend, he wrote. After a moment’s more thought he added to the page. Mother is just mad. She’s making all that up.

  “Did Sharon have any boyfriends?”

  Not since Tom the asshole.

  I almost laughed to see the word written out like that. The sentiment behind it, though, kept me focused. “What’s asshole Tom’s last name?”

  Ask sheriff.

  “The sheriff? Why should I ask him?”

  Asshole is a deputy.

  “Tom Dugan.”

  Donny winced at the pain, but he nodded clearly.

  As stunned as I was, some of the pieces seemed to settle in my mind. It made sense. “Thanks, Donny. It helps.”

  I would have walked out, but he wrote another note. You think Dugan did it?

  “I don’t know.”

  The look on his face was a strange mix of disappointment and anger. He wrote, Kill him. Do it for Clark.

  I didn’t have a response to that. I walked away, but stopped at the door and turned. “Do you know a man by the name of E. Lawson?”

  Donny’s widened eyes answered the question, but for good measure he wrote one word on his pad.

  Dangerous.

  Chapter 11

  In the hallway, while limping to the exit, I made two calls. First to my uncle asking where my truck was. The second was to dispatch. Doreen was on. I asked her where I would find Tom Dugan.

  “Aren’t you in the hospital?” she asked. “The sheriff said not to let you in the building.”

  “I’m not trying to get into the building. But I need to find Dugan.”

  “You’re off duty,” she repeated. “And it’s a good thing. You need a rest, Hurricane.”

  By habit I almost told her not to call me Hurricane. Instead I said, “Doreen. It’s really important. I need to know where Dugan is. And where Billy is if you know.”

  “Of course. Everyone is at the same place.”

  “Same place? Where’s that?”

  “Don’t you know about the memorial service for Rose Sharon and that other boy?”

  “Clark Beasley,” I said. I hadn’t thought of the service until she reminded me. Billy said he was going to play a song for Rose Sharon. “It’s at the Ozarks Star Road Theater.”

  “Everyone’s there.”

  “Everyone?”

  “It’s a mess. There are press trucks and reporters everywhere. Branson City Police called us in to help control the scene. We don’t have enough people on tour. They called in the highway patrol and asked for support from Stone and Christian Counties.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said.

  “You’re off duty,” she reminded me.

  “Has anyone sighted Levi Sharon or E. Lawson?”

  “Nothing about Levi. We have conflicting information about Lawson, though.”

  “What information?”

  “One truck registered to him was found in the parking lot of a Springfield hospital.”

  “One truck? So there’s another?”

  “Yes. An ’01 Ford F-150 was sighted in Branson. The officer who reported it was called away.”

  “It got away,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks, Doreen.”

  “Are you staying in the hospital?”

  I closed the connection. Before me were the automatic doors of the trauma center entrance. It was already full dark outside. I didn’t have to wait long before two pairs of headlights swept through the parking lot. My GMC followed by Clare’s old Dodge swung up the circle drive and stopped.

  Uncle Orson got out of my truck and came to meet me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I kept walking to where Clare was parked. “Come here,” I said.

  Clare rolled his window down as we approached.

  “Let me ask you both something,” I added.

  “What’s going on?” Clare asked.

  “You tell me,” I said as an answer.

  “What’s the question?” Uncle Orson asked.

  I looked from one to the other then said, “E. Lawson.”

  Both of the men looked at me. Neither said anything.

  “Who’s paying him?”

  Both of them stopped looking at me.

  “Clare,” I said. “You’re paying protection on my place?”

  “I wanted to keep you out of it. Since you’re a sheriff’s detective you needed to be able to honestly say you didn’t know.”

  “Since I’m a sheriff’s detective I should not, and would not, pay him.”

  “That’s the other reason. You would have been stubborn. You would have lost the place.”

  “I’d burn it down myself rather than knuckle under to Lawson if I’d known.” I turned to my uncle. “And you?”

  “You can’t be on the lookout every minute,” Uncle Orson said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you only need to look the wrong way once for a fire to break out. You know how slim a living a boat dock and bait shop provides. I don’t have any real insurance.”

  “What?” I barked the word so hard and loud my head throbbed with the effort. “Are you crazy?”

  “Sometimes you have to make hard choices,” Orson said. He sounded like he believed it as much as I did.

  “You sound like a girl I knew in high school who got pregnant. She said her boyfriend didn’t like to wear a condom and she just made a choice.”

  “Look, no one’s proud of it,” Orson said with a little more fire. “But you stomp one cockroach and another one shows up. Pretty soon the only thing you’re doing is killing roaches. Either way you end up with no business and no life.”

  “It’s true,” Clare added.

  “It’s over,” I said. “Not another penny from either of you. The man almost killed me today. I’m making sure he never extorts anyone in my county again.”

  Orson pointed to the bandage still on my head. “He did that?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Just don’t pay.”

  Orson and Clare looked at each other then back to me. They nodded but didn’t say anything more.

  “Good.” I went back to the GMC and drove straight to the Ozarks Star Road Theater.

  * * * *

  Snow was falling again. Fast-blowing fluff streaked through my headlights. It piled in blown drifts. In Branson, roads already crowded turned slick and slow. I put the truck into four-wheel drive and hit my emergency lights.

  At the main entrance was a bright white marquee surrounded by neon and chaser bulbs. In the center, black letters said, FAREWELL TRIBUTE — ROSE SHARON AND CLARK BEASLEY. I had never known Clark, but I pitied him having to share his death and memorial with a star.

  The theater parking lot was stuffed. Cars and trucks were filing up to the entrances only to be turned away by cops who had taken over for parking attendants. Around the building there was a gauntlet of news vans and official vehicles. I pulled up over a curb and parked on top of a sickly looking shrub.

  A city cop I didn’t know was at the back door. I showed my badge and he waved me through. Backstage it was dark and crowded. Between the black-out drapes I could see the performers on stage. It was one of the big Branson family acts. The music was a glossy kind of bluegrass-inspired country. It was carefully crafted hillbilly, produced with thousand-dollar guitars and clear plastic fiddles with color-changing lights inside.

  T
hey finished their set and cleared the stage. As they did, a screen rolled down from the overhead fly system. All the stage lights dimmed as the screen flared into life. From the front of the stage, cameras flashed. Everyone in the packed house stood as the music started. The backstage and wing spaces were filling even more as performers packed in to be part of the moment.

  I gave up trying to find Billy and let myself get pushed by the incoming tide of Branson royalty.

  It wasn’t until Rose Sharon began to sing that I looked up at her on the screen. She was alone in a spotlight that sparked off the sequins of her dress. She was beautiful and sad as she sang “You Took What Wasn’t Yours.”

  I looked around at the faces. They were all lit only by the glow of the girl on the screen. Most were singing along. Many were crying.

  The intensity of her performance was stunning. The sense of loss that filled the theater was humbling. One girl and one song had touched so many people. I was suddenly glad I was there watching her and not drunk on a snowy dirt road. Or more likely, dead after getting drunk with a concussion while parked in a bit of Ozarks nowhere with a snowstorm coming in. Every so often life has a way of showing its value in surprising ways.

  The song faded and I began to hear other voices. They were arguing in angry whispers that failed at being quiet. Other people heard it too. Some moved toward the conflict. Some moved away. There were others that had reasons to stay and work to do. They held their ground, calling performers to clear the stage.

  “No!” Sissy Fisher’s full shout rose above everything.

  “I wasn’t asking permission,” Billy answered, just as loudly.

  The crowed opened up and I saw them. They were in the wing at the far side of the stage. Billy held a guitar in one hand. With the other he was fending off Sissy, who was alternately dragging him away from the stage and beating at him.

  The image on the big screen transitioned from a freeze of Rose to video of the roadside memorial that had built up by the site of her murder. It was the same spot where I had seen kids tying teddy bears with ribbons, but it had become something much more. There were flowers and bows, candles in the snow, and hand-painted signs. It had only been a couple of days but the site had become a shrine.

  “I know what you did to her!” Sissy screamed. Her voice was like blasphemy in a quiet church. Voices that had gone quiet, set into stunned silence.