No Second Wind (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 3) Page 6

  Oldham joined in again. “That’s good. That assurance of protection. As for the opposition, it is misguided. It doesn’t know or will not recognize the facts. I tried to explain that last night.”

  “Jason, here, heard you.”

  Oldham, his courtesy showing, turned to me. “And what did you think, Mr. Beard?”

  “It was quite a discussion.”

  “I keep coming back to costs, unjustified costs,” Ames said. “Unemployment insurance is running out for some of the men. For others it has already run out. It’s barely enough to hold a crew together as it is. As a responsible employer, concerned with the welfare of our men, we supplement the insurance checks and in some cases support the men all on our own. But time goes on as the money goes out, and every day that an expensive machine stands idle constitutes a drain on our resources. It’s an intolerable situation.”

  Charleston said, straight-faced as before, “I can see it would fret you.”

  Ames smiled. “I am happy that you get the picture, Mr. Charleston. I knew that you would understand and be sympathetic. That’s all we can ask and all we do ask. Honest understanding.”

  “And meantime wait approval,” Charleston said.

  “I must tell you this,” Ames said, leaning forward. “At the first hint of approval we start getting out coal. At the first hint of it, I repeat. Let the consequences be what they may.”

  Oldham supported him. “A thing started is a thing started. A thing done is a thing done. That’s our thinking. The dust will settle.”

  Charleston looked at the ceiling, then back, and didn’t speak.

  “It seems we have a happy meeting of the minds,” Ames said. “To go on, then. We support good government, Mr. Charleston. When a good man is in office, we want him to stay there. It’s to our interest and everyone else’s.” He allowed time for his words to sink in.

  Charleston answered, “I see.” His manner suggested to me that he didn’t like what he saw.

  “Now,” Ames went on, “I believe you have an election coming up?”

  “November.”

  “Unless you stage an energetic campaign, unless you have the means for it, some unfit man, some whippersnapper, may be put in your place. Right?”

  “It’s possible.”

  The two men didn’t see danger. They couldn’t read his expression. It might have passed for serene but for the unrecognized glint in his eyes and the tightening of lines at his mouth.

  “We wouldn’t want that to happen,” Ames went on. “No, sir, not that. To ensure against it, we offer substantial support. Substantial, I promise you. Enough and more than enough to return you to office. A contribution to the cause of good government.” He waited for an answer and got it.

  Charleston didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The words came clear and hard. “I’ve listened to you,” he said. “Now I want you to listen to me.” His eyes, as they fixed one man and another, put me in mind of glass caught by the sunlight. “If you try to jump the gun with your strip mining, if you proceed before final approval, if you gouge out one shovel of soil, I’ll stop you.”

  It was like an unexpected fist in their faces. They fell back, dismayed, and bent forward, mad.

  “For Christ’s sake!” That was Oldham.

  From Ames came, “The hell you will!”

  Charleston held his ground.

  Oldham found words. “It’s not your say-so. It’s up to the state and federal agencies.”

  “You bet your life it is,” Ames said. “You’re off the reservation, Charleston. It’s not in your jurisdiction, not for one goddamn minute.”

  “The law is the law, and I’m a sworn officer of it, and that’s it,” Charleston told them.

  Ames broke out, “You damn fathead. You won’t listen to reason.”

  Charleston rose straight from his chair. “Neither will I be bought. Good day, gentlemen.”

  I let them get their own jackets and hats. They went out with mutters. Charleston muttered something himself. I couldn’t quite hear it but it might have been, “Sons of bitches.”

  He was my man.

  8

  It was midnight, nearing the end of his shift, when Doolittle radioed me in the office.

  “I’m at the Chicken Shack,” he said. “A man’s been shot dead.”

  I asked, “Fight?”

  “Nope. It was Pudge, the bartender.”

  “The dead man?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Who did it?”

  “God knows. Shots came from outside.”

  “Shots?”

  “Right. Someone was plunking the lights.”

  “Come again. What lights?”

  “On the sign. The outside sign.”

  “Have you called Charleston?”

  “I thought you better do that.”

  “I’ll be along after I do.”

  Charleston answered on the first ring. I told him what I knew.

  “Go over there right away,” he said. “I’ll get hold of Doc Yak and Underwood. See you.”

  I snatched at the keys, ran out of the office, unhooked a police car and cranked up. The night was cold, colder because I had forgotten my coat. The Chicken Shack sign glowed ahead of me, some of the lights not working. It showed “Chi––en Sha–k.”

  I wondered whether I had heard shots while I drowsed in the office. It seemed to me I had and mixed them in a dream.

  I ran up the porch steps and threw open the door. A half-dozen men were in the barroom, not drinking. They looked up, silent, as I entered. Doolittle was waiting in the forefront. He said, “Upstairs.”

  He led the way to the back of the place, and I followed him up a narrow, wood-splintered staircase. We went through a small bedroom, where I had to stoop but Doolittle didn’t, because the ceiling slanted. It gave onto a similar front bedroom where a man lay on the floor and another sat hunched on the bed, his gaze fixed on the still figure.

  “That’s Pudge, and this here’s his brother, Ves Eaton,” Doolittle informed me.

  Ves Eaton didn’t look up. He was muttering to himself, “The dirty son of a bitch! The goddamn bastard!”

  Glass from a shattered front window crunched under my feet as I stepped ahead. Pudge was dead all right. I knew so after I had lifted his head and felt of his wrist. A bullet had entered just under one eyebrow and come out at the top of his head. I saw splatters of blood and brains.

  I straightened. “Doc Yak will be here in a minute. You haven’t disturbed anything?”

  Ves Eaton might not have heard me. Rage was in his face and dry grief. He said, not to us, “Poor Pudge never hurt no one. What the hell? What the hell?”

  “Nothing messed up that matters,” Doolittle said.

  “Hold on,” I told Eaton and got out my notebook. “What’s your full name?”

  “I got all that,” Doolittle put in. “It’s Silvester Eaton. Pudge’s first name is Vivian.”

  “Brothers?”

  “Yep. And partners.”

  “No trouble between them?”

  Eaton gave the first sign of attention. He said, “Goddamn you!”

  “No trouble as I know of.” The speaker was Doolittle again. “They were getting along. Then someone had to start popping the lights.”

  “And poor Pudge went to the window for a look-see and got himself shot,” Eaton told us.

  “Sure?”

  “What does it look like for Christ’s sake?”

  “How come he wasn’t tending bar?”

  “Go shove your questions. All right. He tended bar mostly while I took care of the other stuff. But tonight I relieved him. That’s the size of it. Oh, hell.”

  “And no one downstairs saw anything? Not Tim Reagan or Tony Coletti or anyone?”

  “It happened fast,” Doolittle said. “I ran outside, along with some others, when the lights got to popping. No one was in sight. Then Ves went upstairs and found his brother, fresh shot.”

  “Did he go
alone?”

  Eaton lifted his torn face to me. “You stinkin’ snoop! Think I did it, huh? Killed my own brother?”

  “Not necessarily. Why did you go upstairs?”

  “To see could Pudge take over while I went out to look around. Investigate, you would say.”

  There was a tramping on the stairs and footsteps in the adjoining bedroom, and Charleston came in, followed by Doc Yak and Underwood. Charleston gave me a quick look, and I nodded, trying to tell him we had put the first questions.

  Doc Yak went forward and bent over the body, his satchel by his side. “Plain to see,” he said presently. “No need for more examination. Beyond help. That’s him.” He rose, “The goddamn luck of life. Crazy bastard son of a bitch.” Death always offended Doc.

  Eaton started up from the bed. “Who you talkin’ about, quack?”

  Doc pointed down at Pudge. “Not him. Not anybody. Just things. Now go soak your noodle.”

  Eaton subsided.

  “What caliber gun, would you say?” Charleston asked.

  “Big enough. I’m not a ballistics man. You want a ballistics man, go get yourself one,” Doc said.

  Underwood edged forward. “Can I take him?” He always seemed eager to make away with a body, perhaps to resume his study of baseball all the sooner.

  Doc said to Charleston, “I can tell you one thing. The man who shot him down stood there right in front of the place.”

  “Couldn’t be,” Doolittle replied. “I or someone would have seen him.”

  “Blind fools, all of you, then. Look here, Charleston.” He raised the dead man’s head. “Bullet went in under the left eyebrow, as you can see, and came out the top of the head near the front. An angle shot, a sharp upward angle. Only a man right down below could have fired it.”

  Eaton had been listening, his face dark and drawn. “I ran out, too. There was no one there, no matter what shit you tell us.”

  “Everyone to his own shit,” Doc said and picked up his bag.

  “Can I take him now?” Underwood asked again.

  “Goddamn it, yes,” Doc told him. “I’ll want to examine him later.”

  “All right, men,” Charleston said. “Everybody out.”

  We filed down the steps, all but Felix Underwood. At the bottom two men waited with a litter. Charleston told them they could go on up.

  Before we got to the bar Charleston asked Doolittle, “Did you get anything from these men?” He nodded toward the group ahead.

  “All they knew, which wasn’t anything. I know as much as anyone, and that’s damn little.”

  “Enemies? Any mention of them?”

  “Ves told me Pudge didn’t have one single enemy, not to his certain knowledge.”

  “You talked to everyone, all the men present at the time?”

  “All present and accounted for.”

  Charleston gave a quick nod of his head. “Nothing more here right now. Come along, both of you, please.”

  We drove the cars to the courthouse, hooked them into the electrical outlets and went on to the office. I was shivering.

  Once we were seated, Doolittle and I told our stories. They added up to nothing much except for the plain fact of a death.

  Charleston asked Doolittle, “You sure there wasn’t anybody just outside as Doc Yak insisted?”

  “If there was, he got out of sight damn quick.” Doolittle scratched his head. “And we would have heard him shooting, I think. The way it was, I can’t say I heard any shots at all, what with the talk and the juke box going full tilt. Then someone heard the light bulbs exploding or noticed the difference in the light cast outside. I don’t know which. Anyhow, we were late catching on.”

  “Ves Eaton went upstairs alone, so you’ve told me. What about him as a suspect?”

  Doolittle was shaking his head. “We would have heard that shot for sure. I looked around but didn’t see any gun. Dead end, I’d say.”

  “Jase?”

  “Ves Eaton’s grief seemed honest enough. Likewise his anger. I don’t think there’s anything there.”

  “Were they about of a size, same approximate height?”

  Doolittle answered, “Ves was a couple of inches taller.”

  “Still, he could have shot up from the hip. That would account for the slant of the bullet.”

  “I can’t buy that,” Doolittle said. “Who shoots that way, unless in danger and one hell of a hurry? Besides, Ves went up and clattered right down the stairs, howling and screeching like a tomcat. He wasn’t out of sight more than a minute.”

  “There’s another possibility,” Charleston said slowly. He doodled with a pencil on an old envelope. He looked tired. He let us have time to think of the possibility.

  The answer hit me just as Doolittle spoke. He said, “Ricochet.”

  Charleston nodded his agreement. “We’ll have to see, if we can. That sign on the edge of the porch, I believe, is supported by steel rods that angle out from the building proper. A bullet, hitting one of them, would glance up. If that’s the case, we’ll find the rod scored.”

  Charleston yawned and got up. “All that’s for tomorrow.”

  Doolittle suggested, “We could maybe find the bullet in the woodwork.”

  “If my guess is right, that battered piece of metal wouldn’t help,” Charleston replied. “Can both of you be here in the morning?”

  We answered sure.

  “We’ll need your reports.” Charleston sighed and regarded us almost in apology.

  “I can’t type,” Doolittle said.

  “Jase can.”

  The sheriff gave us good-night and went out.

  I went to the typewriter and inserted paper while Doolittle sang to the old hymn, “Work for the day is coming.”

  “Got anything better to do?”

  “I can dream up a few things, but, being highly responsible of late, I have to say no.”

  We finished sometime before dawn.

  9

  I silenced the alarm clock after the first ring, hoping my mother hadn’t heard it. I shook my head, trying to tell myself that I had slept long enough. Long enough? From 3:30 to 7 A.M.? A cat might have made out with that nap.

  It was still dark, and my bones told me it was still cold. In a right world no one would have to get up in the dark. No one would have to shiver and shake.

  I shaved and took a shower and threw some clothes over my goose pimples, thinking to slip quietly out of the house. But the kitchen light was on and the heat there turned up, and Mother was busy at the stove. I smelled frying bacon.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “You didn’t have to get up.”

  “Omelet or scrambled, Jason? Quit fussing.”

  At the table I said to her inquiring look, “A man was killed last night. That’s why I’m up.”

  “Killed! Who was it?”

  “One of your foreigners, Pudge Eaton by name.”

  She sat down, holding a coffee cup, and said, “By one of his own kind, I suppose. Did you say shot?”

  “I didn’t, but he was.”

  “It doesn’t sound like one of our people, killing a man.”

  “It’s happened before.”

  “Very seldom. It’s not characteristic. Jase, what’s your hurry? Finish your breakfast.”

  “No time.”

  A dying half-moon hung in the west. In the east the stars shone. Another day with a cold sun, and the sun dogs showing, but what would Pudge Eaton care?

  Charleston and Doolittle were already in the office. The radiators were clanging, not to great effect. I started to take off my coat.

  “Not now, Jase,” Charleston said. “You and Ike go and examine those metal supports, struts I guess you call them, that hold up the sign at the Chicken Shack. Borrow a ladder from the county shops. Report pronto, huh? You, Jase, I mean. Ike, see if you can rout out one of the Shack’s customers and bring him in.”

  “Not Ves Eaton?”

  “Try Tim Reagan. Afterwards we’ll canvass t
he neighborhood. Go on.”

  A sleepy shop worker let us have the ladder, an eight-foot aluminum extension, though he didn’t much want to. I held the ladder through the open window at the side of the car while Doolittle drove. In the pursuit of justice, what’s a frostbitten hand and arm? The sun was peeping up, cheerless, as if it could bring no hope to the world.

  The Chicken Shack stood forsaken, its blinds drawn, the broken window boarded up; the dispenser of joy juice had quit dispensing.

  We slanted the ladder, extended, against the porch. Doolittle swarmed up it almost before it was in place. He hadn’t gone far until he called out, “Eureka! Seek and ye shall find.”

  Satisfied, he came down, and I took my turn. The support was scored all right, the support that angled up toward the boarded window. There was the scratch just above the edge of the porch, then a deeper impression, then another scratch, the brightness of metal showing through the black covering. I could believe that the bullet, striking it, had been deflected into the window. I could believe it, though no one can predict the way of a ricochet.

  Back on the ground I said, “That looks like it. Just what we figured. I mean Charleston figured.”

  “So it does, Doctor Watson, so it does. Now I must go cozen Tim Reagan.”

  “I don’t know if I can cozen the ladder alone.”

  We solved that problem by lowering the back windows of the car and sliding the ladder across. I said as I left, “Send out the dog and the brandy if I don’t show up by tomorrow.”

  I drove the car to the county shops, delivered the ladder, rolled up the car windows and went back to the sheriff’s office.

  Old Doc Yak was inside with Charleston. At Charleston’s inquiring look I said, “Good guess.”

  Doc Yak hadn’t sat down. He was saying, “Damn you, Charleston! You play hell with my practice.”

  “I was under the impression, Doctor,” Charleston said, his voice and face bland, “that your importance to this office increased your prestige.”

  “Prestige, hell! What’s prestige to an empty purse?”

  “I shall call your services to this office to the attention of the county commissioners.”

  “Awfully kind of you.” Doc threw himself in a chair. He handled his body as he handled a car, headlong and to hell with the consequences, which he seemed never to think about, anyhow.