No Second Wind (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 3) Page 13

  “Don’t you believe him. I hired you myself, didn’t I?”

  “Sure, Mr. Dutton, sure you did.”

  Anita broke in with, “Sit down, Jase, here at the table. The coffee’s fresh.”

  She put a cup and saucer in front of me and added a plate of cookies. “Wait, though.” She opened the box of candy and sought to pass it around. It came to a halt in front of Mr. Dutton. He took a piece, chewed and said, “Keep your hands off my daughter.”

  “Now, Mr. Dutton,” Omar said.

  “Please excuse him, Jase. Grandfather, forget it.” There were both vexation and amusement in Anita’s tone.

  I broke up that subject by saying, “Have you seen any wolves, Mr. Dutton?”

  “What you saying there?”

  Before I could answer, Omar was saying, “Mr. Dutton and I come on a deer that something had killed. Looked like coyotes.”

  For an instant Mr. Dutton perked up. “You don’t savvy wolves. It was wolves.”

  “Yes, sir. It was wolves,” Omar answered.

  “Guess what Mr. Beard brought,” Anita said. “A bottle. You could have a hot toddy, Grandfather.”

  The old man looked around, scratching his head. “A toddy? Yeah, with whiskey. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’ll fix it. The water’s hot. Omar?”

  “I never touch it, Miss Anita.”

  “Jase?”

  “With a little cold water, please.”

  She fixed the drinks, making herself one like mine. Grandpa reached out an eager hand. He slurped, smacked his lips and slurped again. For a little while nobody said anything much.

  Then the talk turned to the weather, the feeding of livestock, the approach of calving and such absorbing subjects. The old man wasn’t having any of it. His attention was on his drink. After a while, not speaking, he held out his glass to Anita. She filled it again, using no more than a dribble of whiskey.

  It and what he had had were enough. He slumped by degrees. He yawned. His eyes became slow and unseeing.

  Watching him, Omar pushed back from the table. “Full day tomorrow, Mr. Dutton. Bedtime for workingmen. Come on, old pardner.”

  The old man let himself be led away. We could hear him fumbling around, getting ready for bed. Omar’s footsteps sounded in the back of the house and quit sounding. Anita replenished our drinks.

  “He’s a jewel, Omar is,” she said. “I’m ever so grateful to you.”

  “You don’t need to be.”

  “He does what I ask him and does it well enough. And with Grandfather? Well, you noticed. And also he takes him with him when he feeds the cattle. He finds little chores for him to do. He makes him happy.”

  “I’m grateful to you, too,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “For the toddy. I didn’t even have to suggest it.”

  “I’ll bet Ike Doolittle gave you the word.” She smiled, showing the good white of her teeth. “He gave it to me first. Grandfather used to wander around so. He’d wake me up in the middle of the night, thinking it was breakfast time. He just couldn’t sleep. Then came Ike to the rescue. What whiskey I put in the toddy can’t hurt him. I checked. I think it helps him. When I forget it, Omar reminds me. That’s Omar for you.”

  I said, “He’s gentle all right. Maybe that’s nature’s apology for shorting his mind.”

  “I’m about to think that dull and gentle people have an understanding, a sort of affinity for old age and perhaps childhood, too. Or is Omar just an exception?”

  “We are not ready to announce final conclusions. While our experiments tend to support what you say, they are limited and hence inconclusive.”

  She smiled again. “Yes, sir, professor. May I ask what your specialty is?”

  “Pretty girls.”

  “That’s nice, even if your judgment is shaky. Do you think we could stand one more?” I said sure. After she had returned with the glasses, she asked, “What really are you studying in college, Jase?”

  “Criminology. Aspects of the criminal mind. Psychology. Penology. Police procedures. Sociology. You name it.”

  “All so you can be a better policeman?”

  “So I can be a better officer.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “I hope to go on. Some special branch of work. Maybe administration. Maybe advanced psychology. Maybe improved procedures. Maybe methods of investigation and investigation itself. Who can say? Meantime I have a good preceptor in Sheriff Charleston.”

  She took a sip of her drink. “But police work seems so limited.”

  “Oh, does it? Oh, sure. The public safety means nothing. Neither does the general welfare. Neither does the protection that a good officer tries to insure. Where in hell would you be without him?”

  “I didn’t mean to anger you, Jase.” She put a hand over mine. “I was just inquiring, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me and drink your drink.”

  I wasn’t to be put off. I knew an edge was in my voice. “People feel a good deal the same way about farmers and ranchers. It’s a dumb occupation, not fit for a smart and ambitious man. Those people forget that without agriculture there would be no food on the table. Just as a good police officer has a special concern for society, so does a good farmer have a special concern for the land. We fight weeds, both of us. Wendell Berry said that a farmer was really a mother. Same thing goes in a different way for the police officer. But who cares about mothers?”

  We had risen from the table. She said, “Please, Jase. Double please. I’m so sorry.” She came into my arms, and anger drained out of me. I kissed her.

  I said, “I got carried away. Now you forgive me.”

  “Nothing to forgive. You talked sense.”

  We kissed again. My hand felt the hard muscles of her back. They were trembling. Then rigidity went from her, and she melted against me. I felt for her breast. She moved it aside and then moved back, as if that were right.

  I found myself urging her toward the front of the room, to the couch. She said against my throat, “No, Jase, please. We hardly know each other.”

  “I’ve known you forever.” I wasn’t quite lying. She had inhabited a thousand dreams. “It’s just that we’ve only just met.”

  She drew her mouth away from mine to speak. “But Jase, when I do it, I do it for keeps. I’m not ready for keeps. I can’t be. Not yet.”

  She tilted her head back. Her face looked swollen and infinitely sad. Her eyes, half-closed, held a glaze. It was a piteous and lovely face, the loveliest I ever had seen.

  I had heard it said, in coarser language, that tumescence knew no conscience. Perhaps it wasn’t conscience that deterred me. I only knew that I wanted everything between us to be clean, right and above board. Call that conscience if you will.

  “I can’t be ready for keeps, either,” I said and released her. “I just wish I were.”

  “I know. I know.”

  I kissed her lightly and took my leave, breathing deep as I walked to the car. There was no sound of wolves on this night.

  16

  I was on the late shift—was I?—on the late shift at nine-thirty, the next morning, looking at the carcass of a cow. Correction: it might have been a steer. At first blush it was hard to tell what with all the works, the genital and excretory organs, cut off or chewed off. It lay on its side in back of the trailers where we had seen the dogs sniffing.

  Sheriff Charleston was there, and Ike Doolittle and probably all the residents of the row, men, women and children. They made a shivering circle around us.

  Charleston was stooping, examining the cut hide. He moved up and studied the throat.

  Tim Reagan asked, “What do you make of it?”

  Charleston didn’t answer then. “Let’s turn it over,” he said.

  We managed that, Reagan and Doolittle and I. The carcass didn’t look any better that way, but it did look different. Along the ribs the skin had been gnawed off or clawed off or cut off.

  After a little more study
Charleston announced, “It doesn’t look like the work of wolves.”

  “You sure?” Reagan asked, not in dispute.

  “There haven’t been any cattle close around here. Seen any?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Wolves wouldn’t and couldn’t have dragged the carcass here. And the kill wasn’t done here.”

  “Chief Bandy thought different.”

  “He’s been on hand, then?”

  “A couple of hours ago,” Reagan said. “His man found the carcass, touring around, and got Bandy out of bed. Bandy took a look, said wolves probably, and left to telephone I don’t know who.”

  Charleston asked the circle of watchers, “Can any of you tell us anything? Can you help us? Unusual sounds, for instance? Perhaps something you saw?”

  A shrill woman spoke up, pushing out from the circle. “You say it ain’t wolves, but how in hell do you know, Mr. Wise Guy? Was you here? Did you see ’em when they sure-to-God were around? Or had you gone bye-bye? What we want is protection, not that slick salve of yours. It don’t protect us. It don’t protect the kids. Damn you, anyway.”

  Reagan managed to hush her.

  Charleston said shortly, “If you remember something, tell us. This animal will be removed later. Ike, stay around. Guard the evidence. Come on, Jase.” He turned to Reagan. “I have a call to make, too.”

  Reagan moved closer. “Could you talk to my boys later, telling them what you’ve told me? They’re damn uneasy.”

  “Get them together at the Chicken Shack. Say one o’clock. I’ll be there.” He walked to the car, and I followed.

  A man was seated in the office, waiting. Seeing him, Charleston said, “Well, Pete,” and stepped ahead to shake his hand. Then he introduced me. The man was Pete Howard, a former sheriff, who had been appointed to investigate the killing and mutilation of animals, mostly cattle.

  We all took seats. The muted ringing of the telephone sounded there, the almost constant ringing, and then the tones of Mrs. Vail, sounding the standard reassurance about wolves. “I was just going to call you,” Charleston said to Howard.

  “Bandy beat you to it.”

  “You’ve seen him and seen the carcass, then?”

  “Just got here. Wanted to talk to you first. That Bandy!” His face showed contempt.

  “You know him?”

  “Of old. Better than I want to.”

  I tried to size up Howard. He was a short and stocky man with live eyes and an open face. I would have bet he was honest and competent. “You’ve been on the scene?” he asked.

  “Yes. A man named Reagan called me.”

  “What’s your idea, Chick?”

  “I doubt this case is connected with the ones you’ve been investigating.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You ever had an animal left right in town?”

  “Nope. They were stumbled on, mostly in out-of-the-way places. But I suppose there has to be a first time.”

  “Were they branded stuff?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ll find no brand on this one. It’s been removed.”

  “Rib brand?”

  “Like most of them these days.”

  “That’s not predator work then. Not coyote or wolf or anything I can name. They’d go for the better and easier meat.”

  “It was meant to look like a wolf kill.”

  “Then, see here.” Howard leaned forward in his chair. “If it was a man or men, why doesn’t it fit into the pattern?”

  I was paying attention, but another part of my mind was far off. It was with Anita and last night. I could have a job with Charleston as long as he chose to stay in office. The pay wasn’t bad. It was enough. Enough for keeps. Did I want to go for keeps? One answer was yes. For the time being, at least, I could forget education. I saw that good face of hers and felt the shiver of her back under my hand, and another answer was no. No, when I used reason. No, when Grandpa came on the scene. No?

  “My hunch is it doesn’t,” Charleston was answering Howard. “A hunch backed by some evidence. Where the carcass was, for instance. The removal of the brand. And there were no punctures in the throat of this animal.”

  “That’s not always the mark of these butchers. Blood?”

  “Very little if any. That seems to fit your pattern. Not so well, though, if the cow was killed elsewhere and hauled to town. How long would blood flow, even seep, in below-zero weather?”

  “That’s a thought,” Howard said, relaxing. “You probably know this, but it’s a funny thing, the absence of blood in the cases I know. None, you might say. None in the body cavities. We’ve experimented. We’ve tried to draw all the blood out of test animals. No luck. We’ve tranquilized and anaesthetized them and put pumps on the blood streams. But when one third of the blood had been drawn, the veins collapsed.”

  Curiosity prompted me to butt in. “Have you tried the other kind? A push pump or force pump, I mean, not the suction type?”

  Howard didn’t mind my intrusion. He turned to me and answered, “Yes, and we’ve had even less success there.”

  He faced back to Charleston. “Veterinarians, pathologists, toxicologists, inspectors, they’ve all worked with us and come up with nothing. Hell, we can’t even duplicate the cut marks on the hides. Some have looked like serrations, so we’ve tried knives, pinking shears, even cookie cutters. No soap. A few of the cases, not the ones I’ve been talking about, were dismissed. Pretty obviously coyotes and birds had been at work on animals already dead.”

  He half-rose, as if to get up and go, but Charleston told him, “The evidence will keep. I have a man watching it.”

  “There’s a drug called Ketaset,” Howard said, settling back. “It does more than knock animals out. It increases their heartbeat almost to the breaking point. We thought we might have something there. We didn’t.”

  “Haven’t the killings and mutilations occurred in late summer?” Charleston asked.

  “Most of them, and I suppose that’s a point in your favor.”

  “This county’s been lucky,” Charleston said. “Not a single case, unless we have one now.”

  “Lucky is right. You’re on the fringe of a five-county area where the Montana killings have taken place. But Montana isn’t alone. Minnesota, the Dakotas, Colorado—they and others have had the same trouble. Same results, too. Zero results. But the killers seem to have gone south now. Your case, if it is one, is the first in some time.”

  Charleston said, “I don’t believe this business of no tracks around the kills.”

  Howard let that one pass with a shrug. “We have more theories than we’ve got cases. Good God, the theories people dream up. Secret factories buying organs and blood. Blood drinkers. Wild experimenters. Devil worshipers. Witches. Followers of Isis, whoever that is. Religious cults. Prelude to the Second Coming. The end of the world. Humans the next victims. Take your choice.”

  “Any hold water?”

  “It’s half bull but which half? We investigate them all and come out empty. We get reports, or theories, even wilder. People have seen, they say, men hooded all in black. Yep, and noiseless helicopters that leave no landing tracks. UFOs. Great hairy men, like Bigfoot. We even have a cast of his footprint. But, hell, you know most of this. Thanks for listening to me jaw away. I understand you have your own troubles?”

  “One killing, unsolved.”

  “And wolves on top of that.”

  “Yeah. Wolves.”

  “No problem?”

  “The fear is real enough.”

  “But not the danger, huh?”

  “It’s an old fear, primordial, I guess, a vestige of the times when a man had only a club to use against a saber-toothed tiger. Something like that. But danger? Hell, Pete. People have read scary stories about the far north or the steppes of Russia, but did you ever know wolves to attack human beings?”

  Howard laughed and said, “Not lately,” meaning never. He got up, adding, “I doubt we’ll ever find the fa
cts on this dead-cow business, but we keep trying. Out in back I have a truck with a winch on it. I want to take your animal to the lab. May need some help loading.”

  “Lunch first?” Charleston asked.

  “Thanks, no. Two meals a day, that’s my new diet.”

  “Deputy Ike Doolittle is watching the carcass. He’ll help you load. Know where to go?”

  “I think so.”

  Charleston gave him explicit directions.

  When he had gone, Charleston said, “Time for a bite, Jase. Then to the Chicken Shack.”

  I wished he were sending me to the Dutton ranch and Anita. Half of me was there.

  We had hamburgers at the Commercial Cafe and spent some time over coffee. About all that was said was said by Charleston. “If anyone gets to the bottom of this business, it’ll be Pete Howard. Good man. Thank the Lord it’s his baby, not ours.”

  A dozen or so men had gathered at the Chicken Shack. Some I didn’t know. Some I knew by sight. Then there were Tim Reagan and Tony Coletti. All looked like workingmen, not ranch-type workingmen, but like machinists and operators of heavy equipment. Some wore their hard hats.

  Ves Eaton was tending bar or, rather, leaning on it, for he had no customers. I imagined Reagan had cautioned the bunch about drinking.

  We got rid of our coats and caps, and Reagan introduced Charleston, saying only, “This here’s Sheriff Charleston. I asked him to talk to us.”

  Charleston stood up while he spoke. He took a long minute to look around first, sizing up the crowd. They were attentive enough.

  “I’m not here to give a pep talk to you men,” he began. “Let’s face the facts. An element in this county, a substantial element—I’m speaking of people—hates to think about farm land torn up, about range land ripped open by strip mining. They oppose you, of course. My own sentiments are no matter. The duty of my office is to see that the laws are obeyed. Neither, as Mr. Reagan has said, are the rights and wrongs of strip mining your proper concern. You came here to work, came at the bidding of the company that employs you. In that sense you are innocent. You might, though, think of your opponents not as enemies but people of a different turn of mind.”

  While he paused a man I didn’t know asked a question. He was a wiry-looking, red-headed man, and he called out, “How about Pudge Eaton?”