A Lonely Way To Die - Art Bourgeau Read online

  "How did you happen to decide on her, or did she make the first move?" I asked.

  "No, I made the moves. She works a couple of days a week for me at the beauty parlor. I noticed that she gave each of her customers a neck rub when she did their hair," she said.

  "So you decided to give her a try," I said.

  "Something like that," she said.

  "Do you think you're a lesbian?" I asked.

  "That depends on what you think a lesbian is. If you think it's a woman who hates men, then I'm not. I like men as much as the next woman. If you think it's a woman who's not afraid to get her pleasure wherever she can, then I am one," she said.

  "One other thing," I said.

  "What's that?"

  "Why did you decide to run for mayor?" I asked.

  "It all started because of the beauty parlor. I wanted to get a traffic light put up at the intersection in front of the shop, so I went to Jim Henry to talk about it, and he turned me down. He said that we didn't need a light there, and he politely told me to mind my own business. That made me mad. We do need a light there. Trucks come rolling down that hill at high speed, and you can't see them when you turn onto the highway. We're lucky no one has been killed there yet. Jim Henry didn't fool me for a moment. I knew he was just interested in protecting that precious speed trap that he and Buck Hill run. If the trucks slow down, they won't be able to give as many tickets, and they won't make as much money. It's as simple as that. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. Here I was interested in saving lives, and I was getting nowhere. So I decided to run," she said.

  "Do you think you stand a chance?" I said.

  "A chance, you are kidding? I've already won it. I don't need a chance. I've got the female vote. I own the only beauty parlor in town. Jim Henry's the one who doesn't have a chance," she said.

  Jessie was an interesting woman. From where I stood it looked like she had won a few, lost a few, and was getting ready to win a few more. That's what Vince Lombardi would have called character.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning the shit hit the fan, so to speak. F.T. and I were relaxing with an after-breakfastcup of coffee when Jessie arrived. I knew it was trouble. She was not the type to show up at the goat shed otherwise. I offered her a cup of coffee.

  "What a coincidence. I was just thinking about you, and here you are," I said.

  "It's no coincidence, and I want you to know that I don't think it's a damn bit funny, either," she said.

  "You're probably right, it's not funny, but would you mind telling me what the hell you're

  talking about," I said.

  "The note and the phone calls are what I'm talking about. What you did to us at the cabin was one thing, but this is going too far," she said. I could tell this was one woman you didn't want mad at you.

  "I still don't know what you're talking about. Would you mind starting at the beginning?" I said. She put up quite a fight, but finally she told us the story.

  "Last night I stopped by Lou Young's for some groceries. When I came out, this note was on the seat," she said.

  She showed us the note. It was crudely printed in pencil, but the message came through loud and clear. It said, "Bitch, I have been watching you. I know all your dirty secrets. If you don't withdraw from the election you will die and you will die screaming."

  "‘Then about ten o'clock last night the phone started to, ring. It rang every ten or fifteen minutes. When I would answer it, nobody would say anything. They would be on the line, but they wouldn't say anything. Finally, around midnight I couldn't stand it any more so I took it off the hook," she said.

  "What makes you think we did it?" I asked.

  "There's too much coincidence. Everything was fine until you showed up at the cabin yesterday. I'd had no trouble, and within hours of meeting you, trouble starts. It had to be you. There's no other answer," she said.

  "I don't want to disappoint you, but it couldn't have been us. We don't have a telephone here, and it stands to reason that the person who left the note did the calling," I said.

  "You're friends with Truman. You could have called from his house," she said.

  I was stuck. The innocent never have an alibi. There was no way I could prove we were at the goat shed all night. F.T. stepped in.

  "You're so full of shit your eyes are brown. You've got it all worked out nice and neat that we did it, but we didn't. We were here all night, and that's that. It was probably some goddam kids who didn't have anything better to do," he said.

  We finally convinced her not to worry. It must be a joke. She left feeling better.

  Later, F.T. and I decided to pay Lou Young a visit. He had gone to the bank. Hulan was minding the store. There were no customers, and he was belting out a strong version of "Shall We Gather at the River." With Hulan. around you don't need a radio.

  I began with some general questions about the weather, the proper temperature of a cold beer, the local fishing conditions, and worked my way around to the election. He was not for Jessie, but that was to be expected. He was an old bachelor who lived at home with his mother, and figured the Lord intended women for things other than politics. I did not ask what those things were. It was too early in the day to get sexually excited. I tried several other angles. Either Hulan didn't know anything, or he was not saying. I could have learned as much from a conversation with a can of tomato puree.

  We spent the afternoon at the First National Bar ' & Grill, drinking beer, and listening to Waylon Jennings. I always listen to Waylon Jennings when I'm worried.

  Chapter 14

  The next day, Friday, was a carbon copy of the day before. The morning was warm. The air had the smell of dew on it. We had been in Cannibal Springs for about a week, and the slow way of living was gradually draining some of the meaness from me.

  F.T. cooked breakfast. We had fresh tomatoes grown nearby, thick-cut bacon fried not too crisp, and fried eggs sunny side up. F.T.'s eggs were always sunny side up. Anything more, he felt, was a waste of energy, and didn't improve the end resuIt.

  We had a full day ahead. Normally, Thursday was field day, and everything got a thorough cleaning, but yesterday Jessie had interrupted our schedule, so we had moved our field day to Friday. The campsite didn't take a lot of work. Mostly, it was just tidying up, dumping the trash, and gathering more firewood. The laundry was our major problem. It had been at least three weeks since we had done the laundry, and we were getting low on clothes. Normally, doing the laundry is more nuisance than problem, but this time it was a problem. Cannibal Springs didn't have a laundromat, so we had to improvise. We hung a clothesline between two maple trees, moved the picnic table to the edge of the stream, and scrubbed the tabletop with our scrub brushes. We stripped naked and waded into the stream with two seabags of dirty laundry, which we soaked in the water and piled on top of the picnic table. That was the easy part. The hard part came when we tried to scrub the rabbit tracks out of our underwear and the sweat stains out of the armpits with just a scrub brush and a bar of Dial soap. We dumped the soapy clothes back into the stream and waded in to rinse them. That's when Jessie arrived. We made a pretty sight, standing there nude, knee deep in a stream, rinsing a ton of soapy laundry, but she kept her composure.

  "There's coffee in the pot," I yelled.

  She poured herself a cup, lighted a cigarette, and waited for us to finish. She didn't have to say anything. I knew there had been more trouble. We finished rinsing our clothes and dumped them in a pile on top of the picnic table. Jessie watched while we hung them on the line.

  `"Any trouble last night?" I asked.

  "Yes. Like the night before, about ten o'clock the phone started to ring. This time I didn't wait. I took it off the hook after the third call."

  "What happened then?" asked F .T.

  "I sat for a while, looking at the phone lying there off the hook, thinking that it was evil, that it was the link between me and somebody who was trying to hurt me. Finally, I decided I wa
s acting like a silly middle-aged woman, so I got up and went to bed. I had trouble going to sleep, but I must have dozed, because I woke at a noise outside my window. I didn't turn on the light. Instead, I opened the drawer of the table beside my bed and reached for the gun I keep there. It was gone.

  Somebody had been in the house during the day and had taken it. I know it was taken yesterday, because I checked it the night before when the phone calls started," she said. Her hand shook as she paused to light another cigarette.

  "Then what?" I asked.

  "More noises outside the window. I'm sure somebody was out there, but I was so scared I just pulled covers over my head like a little girl and cried. Not a hell of a lot of bravery, is it?" she asked.

  I didn't blame her. I would have been scared too. Anybody who says he wouldn't have been, is either a liar or hasn't lived enough to have felt real fear. The kind that makes your guts rumble, your heart pound, your hands shake. It's exciting but not exhilarating, like the fear you feel on a roller coaster. It's draining, paralyzing. To experience much of it can make you old in a short time.

  F .T. and I tried to convince her to go to Buck Hill with the problem. She wouldn't do it. The election was less than a week away. She wasn't going to do anything that might hurt her chances. Also, her daughter, Dawn, was coming home from summer school, and she didn't want to worry her. That didn't make much sense to me, but I didn't say anything. F.T. said that she had more guts than brains. I agreed with him. We volunteered to go back with her and have a look around her house.

  Jessie lived in the subdivision west of town. Five years before, it had all been pasture land. Now it had been `chopped up by roads, flanked on both sides by one-story, L-shaped, brick ranchers, all similar in design with picture windows, aluminum storm doors, and attached garages. Almost every house had a swing set in the backyard. I wondered if they came with the houses.

  Jessie's house was about a block from the beauty parlor. It seemed different from the rest. It had several full-grown trees in the front yard and no swing set in the back.

  We walked around the outside of the house. She showed us her bedroom windows. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to see she had been right. Someone had been outside her window. There were footprints in the flower bed underneath. F.T. and I measured them against our shoes. They were much smaller, probably not more than a size ten. I wear a thirteen, F.T. wears a twelve.

  We went inside the house and looked around. There were no signs of forced entry, but that didn't surprise me. The burglar had probably come through the door. The flimsy locks on tract houses wouldn't keep out a determined five-year-old. We had a beer, and Jessie took us back to camp.

  About nine o'clock that night we grabbed our ponchos to use as ground cloths and walked back to Jessie's house. We found some cover with a good view and made ourselves comfortable. I was starting to feel like an old pro at this stakeout business. We agreed to do four hours on and four hours off. I took the first watch. Traffic was slow.

  Everyone goes to bed early in Cannibal Springs. I was glad I had my pipe with me. I filled it with Revelation.

  Pipes are good friends. Much better than cigars. Cigars are line after dinner or when you are fishing, but they do have their drawbacks. They stink up your clothes. Women do not like them. And you can never be friends with a cigar like you can with a pipe. About the time you are beginning to develop a fondness for a cigar, you have smoked it up, and you are forced to make the acquaintance of another one from the handshake onward. But anyone can be friends with a pipe. The more you smoke it, the better it gets. A pipe is a near-sacred thing. A man would wear another man's underwear before he would even consider smoking another man's pipe.

  The time passed slowly. About midnight, I saw a car drive past Jessie's house a couple of times, but it did not stop. Buck Hill drove past a few times on routine patrol. He didn't see us. After that, nothing else.

  At dawn we went back to camp to get some sleep, but we didn't sleep for long. Around eleven o'clock Truman arrived with bad news. It was Cindy. She was dead. One of the beauty operators had found her body at the beauty parlor. He had no more details. We dressed, and the three of us drove to the beauty parlor. Truman knew nothing about our involvement with Jessie and Cindy. We kept it that way.

  A large crowd had collected at the beauty parlor by the time we arrived. News travels fast in Cannibal Springs. Cars were parked along the shoulder of both the highway and the entrance road to the subdivision. The gravel parking lot of the beauty parlor was full. The ambulance was backed up to the front door. Buck Hill's patrol car was parked beside it. I figured the mayor must be there, too.

  We parked about two hundred yards away and approached on foot. Jessie's car was in the parking lot. I assumed she was inside the shop. Lou Young was in the crowd. Flo was sitting on the hood of a car. I didn't bother to look for Virgil. I knew it would take more than death to get him from behind the bar.

  I asked Lou Young what had happened. He said that today Cindy had opened the shop alone. She had apparently gone into Jessie's booth and had opened the drawer where she kept her towels.

  Someone had chopped the rattles off three diamondback rattlers and had put them in the drawer. All three had bitten her as soon as she opened the drawer. She had probably panicked from the surprise, had gone into shock, and died within a half hour. I didn?t need to hear more.

  Three diamondbacks biting you at once, and then to die all alone was as lousy way to get it. I could think of at least a million ways to die, and all of them seemed better to me. I have seen a man bitten by a rattler. It bit him through his boot. He went into shock immediately. The swelling was so bad his skin burst open before he got to the hospital. He lived, but he damn near lost his leg.

  I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Those snakes were put there for Jessie. Whoever had sent that note meant business. This was cold-blooded murder.

  Chapter 15

  I was bone-weary from being up half the night, but sleep was out of the question, so we spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon at the First National Bar & Grill. We arrived just in time for lunch, and the place was really humming. The crew from the sand and gravel plant was there, drinking beer and playing the pinball machine. I saw the man F.T. had punched. He ignored us, which was just as well for his sake.

  All the tables in the rear were filled with people we had seen earlier at the beauty parlor. We were lucky to get three seats at the bar. Cindy's murder was big news, and Virgil's business was showing it. Truman ordered lunch for us while I pumped a couple of quarters into the jukebox and played some Tanya Tucker songs. The first song was about a Mississippi delta woman who went crazy after her man left her and spent the rest of her life playing with her shit like it was modeling clay. After it began, I regretted playing it. The next one was better. It was about some woman who wanted to get laid in a quarry. This went over big with the boys from the sand and gravel plant.

  Flo brought our bar-b-ques. She looked a little the worse for wear. The effects of the morning were starting to show on her. The clasp holding up her hair had worked loose, and her hair was coming down one strand at a time. Occasionally, she would brush it away from her face with the back of her hand. I asked what she thought about Cindy's death. She said that she was too upset to talk about it and went back to the kitchen. I wondered why she was too upset to talk about it. As far as I knew, Cindy and Flo had never been close friends, but somehow it wasn't hard to picture them at the cabin, wrapped in each other's arms. Cindy had been the kind of person you naturally wanted to wipe your feet on. The throwaway person. She was perfect for Flo. And the snakes had been meant for Jessie.

  At his point my thinking was interrupted by Hulan, who plopped himself on the stool next to me and wanted to know all the details of the murder. There was an interested, almost gleeful, sound to his voice, not at all what you would expect from a gospel singer. But the Lord does move in mysterious ways. I had begun to tell about the scene at
the beauty parlor when I noticed his expression. Somehow, I could tell he already knew. But that was natural. Lou Young. and at least a half-dozen others had probably already told him about it.

  We ordered another round of Old Blue from Virgil. When you watched him behind the bar, it was easy to see how proud he was of the First National Bar & Grill. The bar was the realization of a dream. It's not hard to be proud of that, even if the dream isn't anything more than a shabby beer and bar-b-que joint with painted-over windows in a burned-out bank building. Very few people ever have their dreams come true, but that's because they don't understand dreaming. Some dreams are made for realizing, and other dreams are just made for dreaming. Everyone has both kinds. Knowing the difference between the two is the key. Fortunately Virgil's dream about the bar was a dream meant for realizing. I wondered how far he would go to protect that dream. There were people in town who still thought Virgil had set the fires which forced the bank to move out of the building.

  Lou Young came in, and Hulan, realizing his lunch hour was over, headed back to the store. It was completely unlike Lou to leave the store untended even for a few minutes, but today it seemed perfectly natural for people to behave oddly. He took Hulan's stool and ordered a beer and a bar-b-que. F.T. and I were still hungry, so we each ordered another one. Virgil brought more beer, and I Lou Young used his to help wash down a couple of antacid tablets. It looked like his ulcer was acting up again. When Flo brought our bar-b-ques I offered him the Tabasco sauce, but he turned it down. His ulcer was definitely acting up. No one ate a bar-b-que without Tabasco.

  We were just finishing our sandwiches when Jim Henry, our esteemed mayor, and Buck Hill, the constable, arrived. This was the first time I had seen Jim Henry since I had been home. He looked like he had aged ten years in the four years I had been gone. I guess living with the cares of Cannibal Springs on your shoulders can do that to you. But today there was more in his face than just the new lines and wrinkles. Jim Henry was definitely green around the gills. Before today he had probably never seen the body of a one-hundred-ten-pound girl who had been bitten by three big fat diamondback rattlers. I didn't blame him. Just the thought of it made me want to throw up the two bar-b-ques I had just finished.