A Lonely Way To Die - Art Bourgeau Read online

  "Our Cindy was a Christian, and I'm sure her last thoughts were of forgiveness, like our very own Southland forgave her enemies. Cindy was pure, pure and sweet like honeysuckle vines or the sight of the early morning sun coming up over the cottonfields. She was soft, soft and ripe like the peaches of Georgia before Atlanta burned. She was alone, alone in her hour of need like our very own Southland was alone, alone in its hour of need, when friends, one and all, turned their backs and let her bleed and die. But weep no more my children, for Cindy, like our beloved Southland, will rise again on the Day of Reckoning, and clothed in white, armed with a sword of fire, she will seek out and destroy those who have caused her pain. Glory to God in the highest."

  The Reverend was just starting. He went on for another twenty minutes or so, until he worked himself into a royal frenzy. He was good, very good. When he finished I couldn't tell if he had been preaching Cindy's funeral or heading up a recruiting drive for the Confederate States Air Force.

  When he finally finished, the congregation stood and faced the aisle. Hulan began singing "Peace in the Valley." His deep, rich voice carried the song beautifully. The pallbearers took charge of the coffin and began their slow march to the hearse. As they passed, I thought of something Mae West was supposed to have said: "Fuck 'em all but six, and save them for pallbearers."

  Everyone headed for their cars to form the funeral procession. Buck Hill led it in the town's patrol car. The hearse came next. Then everyone else. The half-mile ride to the cemetery took twenty minutes.

  "That was a beautiful service. I know Cindy would have liked it," said Truman. From the strained quality of his voice, I could tell he was crying. I didn't look at him.

  "That's true. I think she would have liked it," I said.

  "Snake, how do we find the sonofabitch that did this to her?" he said.

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Don't pay any attention to Snake's crap. He'll find him as soon as he decides to stop fiddle-farting around and get busy," said F.T.

  "All right, goddamit, we'll do it. Now leave me I alone," I said.

  "What do we do first?" asked Truman.

  "We'll stop by your place and get your phonebook," I said. I had to start some place, and F.T.'s idea was as good as any.

  The cemetery was located next to the Cannibal Springs water tower. It was at least four or five acres in size and was surrounded by a fence made of a single rusty chain strung through concrete posts at regular intervals. We parked alongside the road and walked the rest of the way. The sky was much cloudier. The rain was near. As we walked toward Cindy's grave, I saw headstones which belonged to people I hadn't thought of in years.

  Many of the headstones were weathered, the names faint, the grass growing up to hide all traces of the grave. Those graves had been there a long time. The newer ones had headstones with sharp, distinct printing, and often the grass hadn't completely grown through the red clay hump of the grave. Everything was neat and orderly in more or less straight rows. Families were grouped together. Friends and neighbors were buried side by side, spending a quiet eternity together. A quiet place to spend a quiet forever.

  Cindy's grave was in a corner near a tree. On hot days the tree would shade her. The hole had been surrounded by a carpet of astro-turf. The coffin rested on a rack above the hole. All those dead flowers from the church were heaped in a corner out of the way. Everyone gathered around the coffin, and Reverend Teasdale said the goodbyes for us as a group. When he got to the part about ashes to ashes and dust to dust, they lowered Cindy into the ground. We each picked up a handful of dirt and tossed it in. When it landed on the coffin lid it made a sound like rain on a tin roof. I hope the sound didn't scare her. She was always so afraid.

  Then I noticed I was crying.

  Chapter 20

  The funeral was over. The funeral procession broke up. Everyone went their own way. We went back to the truck.

  "Now where to?" asked Truman.

  "Your place," I said.

  We picked up the phone book and stayed long enough to drink a couple of beers, and listen to a recording of a live performance by Leon Russell. It was a three-record set. Since it was Sunday, and the First National Bar & Grill was closed, I raided Truman's refrigerator for a couple of six-packs.

  When we got into the truck, the rain was starting to splatter on the windshield. Then I remembered our stakeout.

  "Have you got a couple of extra ponchos we can use?" I asked.

  "Sure, they're on the back porch," he said.

  I went to get them and noticed Truman's guns. I started to take one, and then thought better of it. It would be more trouble than it was worth.

  The rain was coming down harder by the time we got back to the goat shed. The water was beginning to make the hard ground shine.

  I needed some time to think so I said to Truman, "I'm going to take a nap. Last night at Jessie's and then the funeral today have really worn me out," I said.

  "What about the phone book?" he asked.

  "That will keep 'til morning. Come on down first thing tomorrow, and we'll have some breakfast and go through it," I said.

  Truman didn't like it, but he left. F .T. and I put on the ponchos and brought our gear under the shelter of the roof of the goat shed. I opened a beer, filled my pipe with Revelation, and sat down at the picnic table to get to work. I didn't know how long it would take, but I wanted to be through while there was still daylight.

  It was a bigger job than I thought, trying to remember everyone in town and trying to place them at the funeral home. F.T. had been right. I eliminated about half the phone book right away just by age and logic, but the second half was tougher. After about two hours I had narrowed it down to seven names: Lou Young, Hulan, Virgil, Flo, Jim Henry, Buck Hill, and the man F.T. had punched. I read them off to F.T., and he gave me an odd look.

  "How do you figure them?" he asked.

  "Like you said, whenever you eliminate the shit, whoever you're left with has got to be it," I said.

  "That's crazy. Most of them couldn't have done it," he said.

  "That's right. Only one did it. Now we have to narrow it down to that one," I said.

  "How are we going to do that?" he asked.

  "Let's look at motive, opportunity, and method," I said.

  "Hell, you can eliminate Flo just on method," said F.T.

  "Why?"

  "No woman is going to be handling poisonous snakes like that," he said.

  "Flo would. She always was a tomboy. She liked to hunt and fish, and she was never afraid of snakes. Once when she was a kid, her dad found her keeping a rattler in her room in a big cardboard box. He had to whip her to make her get rid of it," I said.

  "Okay, she likes snakes, but what's her motive? She's the one who was for Jessie running for mayor in the first place," said F.T.

  "Cindy could be the motive. Maybe they were having a little affair on the side. Maybe Flo got jealous of Jessie and decided to get her out of the picture," I said.

  "You're saying that just because you didn't screw her the first night back, she's a killer," said F.T. "No, but there's enough there to make her a suspect," I said.

  "Okay, what about Virgil and Lou Young. What are their motives'?"

  "I don't know yet, but they always seem to have opportunity. They're always there when something happens. Both of them have had plenty of experience with snakes. Lou Young grew up on a farm near here. Virgil worked at the fish hatchery before he opened the bar. That's two out of three. All we need is a motive."

  "What about Hulan?" asked F.T.

  "Hulan's an odd duck. Always lived with his mother, who is a real tough cookie. Never had a normal relationship with a woman. He's a religious fanatic, and I swear he knew the details of the murder before I told him," I said.

  "Since when does living with your mother and wearing a bow tie qualify you as a killer?" asked F.T.

  "Since today," I said.

  "What about Jim Henry and Buck Hill?"

/>   "Simple, motive. Money. If Jessie is elected, they lose their jobs. Losing the job doesn't mean much money to them, but losing the job means losing the speed trap, which does mean big money."

  "Okay, what about this guy I punched?" asked F.T. ·

  "You mean John Q. Citizen. Remember how he was carrying on at the bar about Jessie. Maybe he's just a public-spirited citizen like Lee Harvey Oswald or James Earl Ray."

  F .T. didn't like it. I think he expected me to go through the phone book and name the killer. I left him sitting at the table, staring into the rain. We had about two hours of daylight left, so I lay down for a nap. There's nothing like being warm and dry and taking a nap while it's raining outside.

  F.T. woke me about eight o'clock. It was still raining, and the temperature had cooled with sunset. We put on our ponchos, took the extras, and started for Jessie's. We took our usual spot in some bushes behind Jessie's house. We used the extra poncho to keep our legs dry.

  "Tell me something," I said.

  "What's that?" said F.T.

  "Where did you go last night?" I asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When you left the room, where did you go?" I asked.

  "You know a gentleman never tells something like that," he said.

  "That's true. A gentleman never does, but right now there aren't any gentlemen around. Just us chickens," I said.

  "I decided to follow your lead. I woke up and you were gone. I figured you were in with Jessie, and Dawn had been giving me the eye, so I decided to go check it out."

  "What if you had been wrong?" I asked.

  "I'd have just said I was making the rounds to make sure everything was all right," he said.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "I tiptoed out of the den real quiet and went to her room. The door was closed but not latched,. so I just pushed it open and went in," he said.

  "Then what happened?" I asked.

  "She was laying there in bed, but she was awake. She just looked at me as I walked over to the bed, and then she pulled the sheet back. She was nude. I got in with her, and she whispered in my ear that she thought you and Jessie would never get done, and that turnabout was fair play, and that she was glad to see Jessie with a younger man for a change," he said.

  F.T.'s story was interrupted by a car coming down the dirt road behind Jessie's house. It had

  turned the lights off at the highway before making the turn.

  "It's the killer," I said.

  We waited until the car stopped before we started to move down the hill toward it. Neither of us was armed. I wished I had taken one of Truman's guns. We had to cross an open field of about a hundred fifty yards, so we were moving cautiously. The car was a light car. That's all I could really tell. I didn't recognise it. Nothing was happening. No one was getting out. Then a second car turned in from the highway, also with its lights out. The first car saw it and started to pull away.

  The driver gave it too much gas, and the wheels started to spin in the mud of the dirt road. Then it took off, still with its lights off and headed for the road's other exit. The second car followed it. It was Buck Hill. I saw the lights on top of—his car. F.T. and I dropped to the ground until Buck Hill was gone, too.

  "Do you know whose car that was?" said F.T.

  "No, I don't," I said.

  "What good are you. I thought you knew everybody around here," he said.

  "Hell, it's been four years. People do trade cars, you know," I said.

  "Would you like to take a guess?"

  "Yeah, it was one of our seven suspects," I said.

  Chapter 21

  The rain stopped around five, and we headed back to camp for a few hours of much needed sleep. Around nine I got up and made a pot of coffee. Dawn arrived around ten.

  "I might have known it," said F .T.

  "What's that?" I said.

  "She's driving a Volkswagen,»and it's piss yellow to boot," he said.

  She came over to the picnic table where we were sitting.

  "It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" she asked.

  "lf you like that sort of thing," said F.T.

  "Pour yourself a cup of coffee, and sit down," I said.

  She poured her coffee, sat down and lit a cigarette.

  "Did your mother go to work today?" I asked.

  "No, the beauty parlor is closed this week because of Cindy. Mom was cleaning the house when I left. Why don't you give her a call?" she said.

  "Maybe I will," I said.

  "Which of you made the coffee?" she asked.

  "Snake did. Why?" asked F.T.

  "Because it's good," she said.

  "Snake can make a pot of coffee. If you think what we're drinking is good, you're wrong. That's way below average. In fact it's downright piss-poor for Snake. Why, old Snake was a coffee-making legend in the marines. That is, he was until they fired him and took the pot away from him," said F.T.

  "Why did they do that?" asked Dawn.

  "It was a natural enough mistake. It all started when Snake was the clerk typist for our company and the coffee pot burned out. The sergeant took some money from the sunshine fund and sent Snake to get a replacement. Snake came back with one of those units like a Mr. Coffee, only it was some other brand. Anyway, he made a pot of coffee and it was great. Well, the word spread, and everybody and his uncle was coming over for coffee. The whole pack of filters that came with it lasted about three or four days. When the filters ran out, Snake started using paper towels. They worked just as well. Then one day we ran out of paper towels, so Snake wadded up some toilet paper and used that for a filter. It worked just fine except for one thing—the paper was the perfumed kind. When that coffee strained through the toilet paper, it made the awfullest-tasting shit you ever tried to drink. It tasted like a combination of Aqua Velva and motor oil," he said.

  "What happened then?" she asked.

  "I dabbed a little behind my ears, and it was just like in the TV commercials—the rest of the day I smelled like a warm sea breeze blowing over a burning junkyard," said F.T.

  The conversation continued more or less in the same vein until F.T. finally suggested they go fishing. They headed upstream toward the cabin, Truman arrived later, and we went to the Tank 'n' Tummy for breakfast. After all, a detective can't work on an empty stomach.

  After breakfast we drove by Lou Young's, the First National Bar & Grill, and City Hall. I didn't tell Truman why, and for once, he didn't ask. There were two cars parked behind Lou Young's. One was white and the other light blue. Lou Young and Hulan were still suspects. We skipped Buck Hill. We knew where he had been. We drove past City Hall. There was a black car sparked in front. Truman told me that it belonged to Jim Henry. That eliminated Jim Henry. Behind the First National Bar & Grill was a light green car and a dirty white one. Flo and Virgil were still suspects.

  I asked Truman about the fellow F.T. had punched. Truman told me his name was Buford Whaley. He worked at the sand and gravel plant and he liked to chase women. I thought about his wife. She looked like a good woman. It was a shame. We drove out to the sand and gravel plant.

  Inside the gate were about a dozen cars and trucks. I asked Truman which one was Buford Whaley's. He pointed out a white four-door Chevy. Buford Whaley was still in the running; We drove back to town. I had Truman drop me off at Lou Young's. I looked through the stationery display. There was a whole stack of pads identical to the one the notes had come from. That shot the hell out of that clue.

  I used Lou Young's phone to call Jessie. When she answered, I said, "What are you doing?"

  "Just finishing my housework. Why?" she said.

  "I thought we might drive out to the Boy Scout Camp for a swim. No one will be around, and we can go in the back way," I said.

  "Snake, I'd love it, but I can't. Not with Dawn at home," she said.

  "You don't have to worry about that. She won't be home for a while," I said.

  "She and F.T. went fishing," I said.

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sp; "I see," she said.

  "So grab your bathing suit and whatever beer you have in the refrigerator, and meet me on the lake road in a half hour," I said.

  "All right," she said and hung up.

  I started walking. The walk gave me a chance to organize my thoughts, and to decide how I was going to get the information I needed from her. She was right on time. I got in on the passenger side.

  There was a styrofoam cooler on the back seat. I opened it and took out a can of Old Blue. Jessie gave me a hard look.

  "Don't you ever do anything but drink beer? Every time I see you, you have a beer in your hand," she said.

  We were off to a flying start. This did not seem like the time to start questioning her about the murder. .Not if I wanted to keep my head on my shoulders. So I drank my beer and enjoyed the ride.

  When we got to the back entrance of the Boy Scout Camp, I got out and opened the gate. Jessie drove through and waited while I closed it. The dirt road to the camp was littered with potholes. We drove slowly. On one side of the road a cornfield was planted up to an old fence choked by honeysuckle and blackberry briars. Heavy forest stretched on the other side. The road ended at a small clearing. This was the main camping area. In the center of the clearing was a circle of logs which served as seats for assemblies. Inside the circle of logs was a fireplace made of stones.

  We parked the car and proceeded on foot. I carried the cooler. Jessie carried the blanket and towels. The path to the lake required that you be at least one-third mountain goat, but we made it. At the foot of a steep incline was a small, sandy beach in a secluded cove of the lake. The cove was approximately a hundred yards wide, and the entrance was blocked from boaters by a small island. I spread the blanket on the sand while Jessie undressed. She had her bathing suit on underneath her clothes. It was a dark, one-piece tank suit. I stripped down to my suit, which was a fashionable pair of Fruit of the Loom boxer shorts in white. The ride had not improved Jessie's disposition at all. She sat down on the blanket with her knees hunched up to her chest, lit a cigarette, and sat staring at the water without saying a word.