No Second Wind (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 3) Page 7

  I sat down.

  “Now that you’ve got back your sunny disposition, tell us what you’ve found,” Charleston said.

  “I assume you are talking about one Pudge Eaton.”

  “Come off it, Doc.”

  “It’s the damndest bullet wound I ever saw.” Doc settled back. “Either he had a whiff of buckshot or he had a cast-iron skull.”

  “Go on.”

  “The bullet fractured, you might assume, but the entrance hole wasn’t round. It was ragged. I probed and brought out a couple of small metal pieces besides one a little larger. It would have done the business itself, but the boss piece went clear through the skull, as you know. It’ll be lodged in the building somewhere.”

  Charleston nodded and said, “Inside job possibly?”

  “You ask some fool questions. Inside job, hell! Since when did window glass shatter in the direction of the hit? Ask something else.”

  “We ask a lot of dumb questions, thinking of the possibility of a put-up job, of a collaborator, though that’s probably a cold trail.” Charleston leaned forward. “Here’s another one for you. A direct hit would have made a starred hole in the glass. It wouldn’t be likely to shatter it. That’s how it figures. What do you say?”

  “I don’t say.”

  “It was a ricochet, Doc.”

  “So be it then. You’re the detective. I’m just a sawbones. I leave it to you.” Doc rose from his chair. “Now, if ever you want me, call me up, night or day. You know my number, but I wish to God you didn’t.” Abruptly he smiled. “Forget the fool part, Chick. Sometimes you’re fairly bright.”

  He went out the door, almost colliding with Doolittle and Tim Reagan. Reagan sat down as Charleston waved to a chair. Doolittle kept on his feet.

  “It’s good of you to come, Mr. Reagan,” Charleston said.

  Reagan sat on the edge of his chair, chin out, unsmiling. “Just because Ike asked me to. Let’s cut out the shit.”

  “All right. We want to know how and why Pudge Eaton died. Did he have any enemies that you know of?”

  “He died because some son of a bitch shot him. You maybe lost a marble, Mac?”

  Doolittle broke in. “Quit playing the dumb Irishman,” he said to Reagan. “You’re not doing yourself or anybody else any good. Answer what’s asked. And Sheriff Charleston’s name isn’t Mac.”

  I expected trouble then. There wasn’t any. Reagan said only, “Oh, hell, Ike. Okay.”

  “I ask again, did Pudge Eaton have any known enemies?”

  “Christ, we all got enemies. The whole town’s our enemy. Too good for the likes of us. We came here to work, no harm done, and what with one thing and another we’re kept off our jobs. And who in this fuckin’ town will so much as speak to us? Enemies, huh!”

  “Particular enemies? One particular enemy?”

  “None that I know of. Hell, Pudge was nice to everybody.”

  “I understand there was some disagreement at the hearing the other night? About whether to strip mine?”

  “Just one guy.”

  “Chuck Cleaver?”

  “If that’s his name.”

  “Do you have any reason to suspect him?”

  “That country bum! He didn’t even know Pudge.”

  “What about Pudge’s brother?”

  “What about him?”

  “Suspect him?”

  “Jesus Christ, no! Don’t talk shit to me.”

  “All right. Who owed money? Anyone in deep to the Chicken Shack?”

  “We all run a tab. Pay it when we get our checks. What else don’t you know?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Reagan,” Charleston said evenly. “As you can see, we’re only skirting edges. I see no reason to bother you again.”

  Reagan let Doolittle show him to the door.

  With only the three of us present, Charleston asked, “So you found the marks?”

  I answered, “One of the supports was scuffed up, the one right under the window. Ike and I both examined it.”

  “It figures,” Charleston said, more to himself than to us. “The lights were the target. One shot went high.”

  “So it’s not murder.” Doolittle had his hand on his chin and was only half-asking. “Accidental death.”

  “But still a homicide.” Charleston paused and considered. “What was the purpose in shooting out the lights? Mere harassment? By whom and why? Reagan has no idea. That’s all we got out of him. No idea, except everybody in town.” He got up and went to the window, which he couldn’t see out of, frosted as it was. “Maybe we better keep the ricochet business under our hats. Only the man with the gun knows about that, and he might be happy if we chase off in other directions. Let him think we don’t know.” He turned. “You two question the neighborhood. That’s next.”

  Dismissed, Doolittle and I left the office.

  We drove to the edge of what I had come to think of as Skid Row, though I had read that the word was “road,” which derived from the trails that skidded logs made in the timber country. Yet neither term was appropriate. The same went for Shanty Town. Call it Trailer Town then. Some of the mobile homes sat on blocks, some on their own wheels, as did most of the campers. TV masts made a thin forest above them.

  We left the car and agreed to start at the ends of the row and work toward the middle. Being the senior officer, so to speak, I said I’d walk to the far end while he set to work close by. Rank has its drawbacks.

  Walking, drawn in against the still bite of the cold, I counted the dwellings, the temporary and movable abodes of a class of people, of a growing kind of civilization strange to me. Would the whole country come to that, moving from fugitive rich pickings to new ones, as gold miners had done when their claims played out? No permanent residences then, no place to call home except a wheeled box? No picket fences? No lawn or garden to tend? No sense of being part of a known and loved landscape? Onward, roll on to the next shabby payroll.

  Not so shabby, though. Not in money. The cars that I saw parked beside or behind these places were expensive and looked new. All that was missing—no, not all but a big part—was permanence.

  A dirt road, its ruts frozen, ran in front of these homes. I counted fifteen as I stumbled along. I stopped at the fifteenth, a mobile job on blocks, and knocked at the door. A dog let out a wild barking, sounding above the din of TV. A woman opened the door, a small woman in slacks who looked shellacked. Transient or not, I thought, she wouldn’t let herself be caught without make-up.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I’m from the sheriff’s office. May I ask you a few questions?”

  “For God’s sake, come in then,” she answered. “Every time I open the door this place turns into an icebox.”

  I entered. She closed the door and went to sit on a turnout bench. She motioned toward the one easy chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I won’t be long,” I told her, staying on my feet. The dog, a poodle, had quit barking and was trying to make love to me. The place was cramped, God knew, but tidy.

  “You’ve heard about the death, Pudge Eaton’s death?”

  She turned the TV down while I warded the dog off.

  “Poor Pudge,” she answered. “Yes, I’ve heard. You, pup, stop being a nuisance.”

  “You know he was shot then. We think the rifleman may have been fairly close by.”

  “No one had it in for Pudge. He wasn’t too smart, but he was nice.”

  “The question is did you hear anything last night or see anyone? Anything or anyone suspicious?”

  “Not a sound, unless you count the TV, and not a soul.”

  “Are you sure? Did you take the dog for a walk? Or did your husband?”

  “My husband was soaking it up at the Chicken Shack, or I guess he was if his credit’s any good there now. He told me about the shooting.”

  “I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Find him, then. He went out this morning, probably for more of that juice. Damn such a life!”

  “In
his absence you must have walked the dog?”

  “Now that you speak of it, I did, and now that you speak of it, I caught a glimpse of a boy. He was just turning out of my sight.”

  “A boy?”

  “He was real small, anyhow. Short and thin.”

  “Was he carrying anything? A gun maybe?”

  She thought hard. “There was something in his hand, I think, something like a stick, a walking stick. I couldn’t swear. It was so cold that my eyes started melting, if you get what I mean.”

  “But you didn’t hear any shots, any sounds?”

  “I don’t remember any. I had the music way up.” She made a little despairing gesture. Her eyes were melting again, not from cold, and the melt smudged her cheeks with mascara. I thought of a small and dirty-faced child. “Just me and the goddamn TV, day in and day out, and the nights lonesome, too.” Her voice came out in a cry. “Christ, man, what’s a girl to do? What’s she to do?”

  I felt like going over and patting her. I wished for someone who could kiss her tears away, mascara and all. “Carry on, I guess,” I mumbled.

  “Chin up and all that crap,” she said, lifting her head as she wiped her eyes.

  “May I have your name?”

  “Yes. I’m Marie Coletti. If you’re a drinking man, you’ve met my husband.”

  “I’m not much of a one, but I have. Thanks for answering my questions.” I put my hand on the doorknob.

  She rose and stood, looking like girlhood forsaken. She asked, “Must you go?”

  The words weren’t an invitation. They weren’t a pass if my mind told me right. Marie Coletti just didn’t want to be left alone. At least that’s what I felt sure of.

  I said, “I’m working. I’m sorry,” and left her.

  The TV was blaring again as I walked to the next unfixed abode.

  I didn’t get anything more, if, for a fact, I’d got anything from her. I talked to neat women and slobs. I entered clean places and dirty ones. I met kids and more dogs and a couple of men who weren’t drowning their sorrows. No one heard anything. No one saw anything. Those who weren’t at the Chicken Shack had kept themselves closed against the cold, their TV sets blaring.

  About halfway down the row Doolittle and I came together. I asked him, “Any fish?”

  “One old gal might have seen a man, a tall man, gangly-like, she said. He wasn’t carrying anything that she saw.”

  “Case closed,” I told him. “My girl saw a small boy.”

  10

  It was a little past noon when we met, and we parked in front of the Commercial Cafe, went in and had sandwiches and coffee. Other customers, what few there were, came by to ask about the killing. Ike kept answering for us both. “We don’t know anything that you don’t. Maybe not as much.” Which wasn’t the whole truth but near enough.

  When the curious were not around, I asked Ike, “What about Tony Coletti?”

  “He’s a crafty bird. Watch out for him.”

  “Boozer?”

  “He doesn’t belong to the temperance union.”

  “What about his credit?”

  “I wouldn’t want to go on his note. What you sniffing at?”

  “Possibilities,” I answered. “Pipe dreams, maybe.”

  We drove back to the office, wishing the car heater would warm up, and went in to report.

  Charleston was alone. As we entered, he crumpled up a sheet of paper that I saw he had been making notes on, saying, “So much for that.” He put his hands to his head and drew them down over his face as if to smooth out the thought wrinkles.

  Doolittle told him what he had found out, which wasn’t anything, and I told him what I had, which added up to nothing plus.

  But maybe a little bit more. “Tony Coletti likes his liquor. That’s what his wife led me to believe. Likes a lot of it.”

  Charleston asked, “Uh-huh?”

  “Suppose he had run up a big bill at the Chicken Shack and couldn’t pay off and the Eatons had said nix to more credit?”

  To me Doolittle said, “So that’s what you were sniffing at.”

  Charleston tapped on his desk, not in impatience but to the steps of his thought. “Was Coletti present in the Shack at the time of the shooting?”

  “Give me one more chance, please, Mr. Sheriff,” Doolittle said to him. “I’ll make a deputy yet. No, he wasn’t there, but I never gave thought to it.”

  I added, “Neither did I till just now. Not even when I was pointing his way. One more chance for me, too, if you please.” I was lying a little for Doolittle’s sake.

  “Maybe something there,” Charleston said, musing. “Just maybe. Resentment. Outrage. Sense of injustice. Tit for tat. Could be, I suppose.”

  “Especially if Coletti got hold of another bottle somehow,” I said.

  “Doolittle, you can find out about the credit. That comes later, though.” Charleston’s gaze went from one of us to the other. “You both look pretty saddle-sore.”

  Doolittle spoke. “The mail must go through, sir. I’ll climb a fresh horse.”

  Charleston said after the briefest of smiles, “I’m afraid you’ll have to.” He went on to explain. “Tad Frazier’s got his hands full. Three break-ins at summer cabins. I’m going to talk to Chuck Cleaver and want Jase along. He knows Cleaver better than I do and stands more chance to get something out of him, if anything’s there. You take over the office, Ike, until I get back. I’ll relieve you then. Jase, you’ll have time for a nap when we return, but try to report back about eight o’clock. At midnight I’ll come back on. All right?”

  “I’m not that tuckered,” I said, but Charleston just answered, “Come along, Jase.”

  We got into his old Special, which he had bought and maintained himself for special purposes, though I could see nothing so special ahead of us.

  We rolled along through a winter world. Now and then, right and left, we saw three or four horses and small bunches of cows, trying to fuel themselves on the sparse and frozen grass. Save for them we were alone, two silent men and a piece of machinery, life in a lifeless expanse, the open fields rolling away to hills and the hills to mountains scant-patched with snow. The sun, more than halfway through its journey, glared coldly, an enemy now, a partner of frost. Even with my heavy socks and boots and the heater going full tilt, my feet felt the creeping cold through the floorboards.

  Yet my country, I thought, my proper place, my point of outlook on men and things. Love could keep loving even though it got the cold shoulder. A jack rabbit, white as the expected but unfallen snow, leaped from the side of the road, ran ahead of us and jumped back in the borrow pit. I felt better for seeing it.

  In one of the few conversations we had, I said, “Why Cleaver? What might he tell us?”

  “He’s the only lead we have.”

  “Except Coletti.”

  “Yes. Possibly. Possibly.”

  We turned off the highway, went over a cattle guard and started through a long field, at the end of which Cleaver’s house stood under a plume of chimney smoke. A bunch of cows were in the field. Seeing us, they started following, their muzzles frosted. Anything on wheels gave a promise of hay. I had to shoo them off when I opened a gate. They stood in slow disappointment when we left them.

  Cleaver was coming from the barn as we pulled up at the house. His face, tight with cold, showed no surprise and no welcome. Coming closer, he sidled along an old farm truck, equipped in back with the usual toolbox.

  I rolled down a window and said, “Howdy, Chuck. Got time to talk for a minute?”

  “I s’pose. But if we got to talk, for Christ’s sake come in the house.”

  He showed us in. I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Cleaver through the kitchen door. The door eased closed, as if men and their affairs were no rightful concern of women. Cleaver said we could sit down if we wanted to.

  The living room held overstuffed furniture—three chairs and a sofa through which the circles of springs showed and now and then the bare end of a sp
ring. The carpet was worn down to threads. A round-bellied wood stove was fighting the cold and losing. A border collie, an old bitch, lay close to the stove. That breed of dog is not unfriendly but not demonstrative, either. She lifted her head and put it back down. We kept our wraps on.

  “It didn’t take two of you,” Cleaver said.

  Charleston answered, “We just wanted to talk.”

  “You could have told me by phone.”

  “Told you what, Chuck?”

  “That that pissant neighbor of mine filed a charge. You know damn well I belted him one, leasing his land and to hell with me. What is it? Assault and battery?”

  “Nothing like that,” Charleston told him. “There’s no charge.”

  “Then what?”

  Charleston nodded for me to take over.

  “A man was killed last night, Chuck,” I said. “The bartender at the Chicken Shack. Had you heard?”

  “We listen to the news.”

  “Apparently the man who did it was shooting out the lights and fired one shot high.”

  “That’s the way it sounded.”

  “All right, Chuck. We have to investigate. We’re questioning everybody, everybody who might have any motive at all.”

  “Go question them then. I’m out.”

  “Would you tell us where you were at the time of the shooting?”

  “When was that?”

  “Didn’t the radio tell you?”

  “If it did, I forgot.”

  “At eleven o’clock or close to it.”

  “And where was I, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right in my little bed. Rancher’s hours, not sheriff’s.”

  “Could someone confirm your whereabouts? Witnesses, I mean?”

  “Sure. Everyone watches me sleep.”

  Charleston took a deep breath and blew it out. “For all that we know, you could have done it.”

  Cleaver’s jaws ridged at the open suggestion. In that outdoor face were weather and years and work and hardship. No wonder that sometimes he went on a binge. Through his teeth he said, “For what goddamn fool reason would I do that?”

  “You don’t like strip miners.”

  “Damn right I don’t. But why the hell shoot out lights? Why shoot a barkeep that I never saw? What would that get me? Tell me that, Mr. High Sheriff.”