Country Hardball (12 page)

“Hell if I know,” Caskey said. “I’m sure you got an idea.”

“A couple,” McWilliams said, sliding in another shell. “Maybe we get there and the place is totally clean. He sets this up, Rudd does, just to show he’s got nothing to hide.”

“That’s smart.”

“The kind of thing he’d do, right? Then next time someone tries to say he’s the kingpin around here, he throws his hands up and says haven’t we been through this, blah, blah, blah.”

“Damn, that is smart.” Caskey slowed down as the made a big curve up to Rudd’s. “What else? You said you had a couple ideas?”

“Yeah. But I won’t know until we get there. Lacewell got the warrant?”

“Don’t know.”

“All right. Can’t know until then.”

• • •

They got out of the car, walked across the side yard under a pecan tree. McWilliams reached down, picked up a pecan, bounced it in his throwing hand, let it fall to the ground.

They found Lacewell and some troopers by the front steps leading up to the porch. “Sheriff said tell you Eddie’s with Mr. Rudd in the kitchen,” he said.

“That mean you’re supposed to keep me away from the kitchen?” McWilliams asked.

“Means you’re supposed to keep your own damn self away from the kitchen. Oh, and before I forget, Mattie said Cora called at the office for you. Said don’t forget dinner at Grady and Delsie’s place.”

“Yeah. Fine,” McWilliams said. Salisbury steaks and cans of tea at his wife’s brother’s house. He planned to take his pistol in case someone said they were going to play Rook again. McWilliams looked up at the house, generations old, turned back to Lacewell. “Who’s got a copy of the warrant?”

“Reckon there’s plenty copies floating around so’s we can tell what we’re looking for.”

McWilliams looked at the copy Lacewell was handing him. Date and address. Areas to be searched. The primary residence. All outbuildings, known and unknown, including but not limited to the “big barn.” The place most of southwest Arkansas knew as the drying house. Stories of pot plants hung through like tobacco, hanging and drying. The place was cursed. Every time the cops got a good lead and followed it to the farm, they’d find nothing. Not even no drugs. Just an absence of everything. Cleaned up and all the good stuff hidden, like your in-laws were coming to visit. Even the aerial shots of the property had disappeared from the system.

“How’d we end up here?” McWilliams asked. “Why today?”

Lacewell laughed. “This ruin your plans? Got tickets for the big game?”

McWilliams was still reading through the warrant, but he saw Caskey swallow something thick. Look “what the hell?” at Lacewell.

“I meant the tractor pull,” Lacewell said. “That tractor pull.” Not the Astros exhibition game in Magnolia. Not the team Skinny Dennis could have been pitching for if he hadn’t lost out on that sch
noan Holarship, the draft, the Muleriders, the plan to hit the farm system after his degree. All to chase after whoever shot his little sister and that Rudd boy with her, asking for trouble. Not what Lacewell said at all.

“Where’s Boggs?”

“Judge Boggs?” Lacewell asked.

McWilliams held the paper back out for Caskey. “He off hunting?”

“Maybe he’s hunting for that piece of tail you let get away,” Caskey said to Lacewell.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Olivia?” McWilliams asked. “The woman in the clerk’s office there?”

Caskey nodded. “She’s fair game, right, Mike?”

“We’re not going out now, if that’s what you mean,” Lacewell said.

“That’s what I was asking.”

McWilliams nodded. “So His Honor?”

“Think he’s got cases tomorrow. I’m on the schedule to work the court.” Lacewell was the type who liked working as a bailiff. Stand in one place. Air conditioning. A sit-down lunch with a knife and fork.

“Gordon signed the warrant,” McWilliams said. “Should have been Boggs.” Caskey was reading through the warrant, McWilliams grabbed it back. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “We’re looking for cash and a pistol. You see the list of what we’re looking for?” McWilliams handed the warrant back to Caskey again.

“So what?” Caskey asked.

“Boggs handles the multijurisdictional grand jury,” McWilliams said.

Caskey snorted. “‘Handles’ is right.”

“What’s that mean?” Lacewell asked.

“How many times you been out here?” McWilliams asked him.

“I don’t know. Last year we were out here. Didn’t find anything but a couple of stray dogs.”

“Before that?”

“Every year for a while, I guess. Never find anything. Don’t figure we’ll find nothing this time.”

“So why the hell are we out here again if every time we come, the place is clean?” Caskey asked.

“Different this time. Robbery. Not drugs,” Lacewell said.

“And this time we’ll find something,” McWilliams said. “Hey, what’s Rudd’s connection to the robbery anyway?”

“Don’t know,” Lacewell said. “Some kid just found the orange toboggan at the end of the driveway. He’d heard the story on the radio so he called it in. Bing, bam, boom, here we are.”

Big Gene walked up behind Lacewell, smacked him in the shoulders. “You ladies talking about your vaginas?”

“Hey, Gene,” Caskey said, taking a step away. “Shouldn’t you be up at the house, giving a statement like your boss, Mr. Rudd?”

“Done did,” he said. “Figured I’d come down and see what you bunch of fairies were doing.”

Caskey turned to McWilliams. “He seem drunk and disord)ing up ing outerly to you?”

“Resisting arrest, too, right?” McWilliams said.

“Shit, fellas, what put you in a bad mood?” Then Gene leaned down into Lacewell’s face, put his hand over his own mouth as if he were going to throw up. “Oh, hell, I see now. Looking at this guy in daylight is enough to make you sick.”

Lacewell slapped Gene’s hand away. “I’ll have you know, big brother, I’m a duly deputized officer of the law.”

Gene laughed. “May well be, but you’re still so butt ugly even a priest wouldn’t fuck you.”

“All right,” McWilliams said, taking Gene by the elbow. “You’ve had your fun.” He walked with him out of earshot. “You come down here for any reason?”

“Boss says he doesn’t want any trouble.”

“That’s good.”

“Says if there’s any trouble, he ain’t starting it, you understand?”

“When is this trouble he isn’t starting going to start?”

“My guess?”

McWilliams nodded.

“Right about the time those two troopers walk into the barn.” Gene cocked his head, pointing behind him. McWilliams looked over Gene’s shoulder to see two state troopers and someone in a blue FBI blazer about fifty yards in front of the barn, walking toward it.

Gene walked off and McWilliams turned back to Lacewell and Caskey. “Tell those troopers to stop right now.”

“What?” Lacewell asked.

“Just tell them to hold up. Barn’s hot.”

“Shit,” Lacewell said, running to the house and pulling out his radio.

Caskey stood next to McWilliams. “That Gene’s good people.”

“That Gene’s an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Caskey said.

McWilliams saw the cops near the barn turn and walk back to the house. Then he heard the thumps of the helicopter coming overhead to land near the barn.

“You know,” Caskey said, “I got my sniper certification on Tuesday. I could neutralize this situation from three times this distance.”

“Good thing it didn’t come to that.”

“Yeah. But it woulda been sweet.”

• • •

On the way back to town, Caskey pulled in at the Rebel Mini-Mart.

“Was gonna get an ice cream sandwich,” he said. “Want something?”

McWilliams shook his head. “Wouldn’t imagine MeChell is still there.”

“Worth a look.”

When Caskey went inside, McWilliams walked around the side of the store where Dalton had found the cigarette butts. He saw Katie Mae smoking at the corner behind the building.

“Starting a habit?”

Katie Mae turned. “Of talking to you? All right.”

He grinned, walked over to her. “Glad to see you. Had a question.
killedan H”

“All right.”

“The two guys who came in here. You sure you’d never seen them before?”

“Not in those masks,” she said.

“Think about the eyes. Think about those eyes on a different face.”

“Okay.”

“What color were the eyes?”

“Which guy?”

“Either?”

“The tall one?” Katie Mae said. She hadn’t said anything about height before. Said they were both normal build. Normal everything. Except for the accents and the masks. And the pistols.

“Sure,” McWilliams said. “The one taller than me?”

“About your height, I guess. He had green eyes. Like brown green.”

“And the other one?”

“Brown.”

“Dark brown?”

“I don’t know,” she said, the moment gone. “Just brown. Hey, Daddy said you used to be a pitcher. Like played in the big leagues and all.”

McWilliams leaned against the wall. “I used to pitch. Long time ago.”

“I’m a pitcher, too. Think you could show me some stuff?”

“Afraid I don’t know much about softball.”

“Softball, shit,” she said. “Two-time All-Star with the Tigers. Trying out for the team as soon as I can.”

“Which team? High school?”

“Yeah. Think you can help me?”

He laughed. “Glad to, your daddy say it’s fine.”

“I got a hellacious fastball. You better be ready.”

“Yeah, well, a good fastball doesn’t mean too much.”

“Daddy said you threw 100 miles an hour.”

“Not hardly,” he said. “Don’t focus on the speed. It ain’t about how fast you get there. It’s about where you get. About where the batter thinks you’re going to get.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s about setting something up. Getting the guy to lean outside early in the count and then jamming him tight.”

“Well, I can pitch strikes all day long.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” McWilliams said. He hadn’t talked baseball in, hell, years really, but he fell right back in. Muscle memory. The way you miss time with a leg injury and work your way back. Then how your arm finds the slot, the release point. How there’s that moment when you stop thinking about your hips and your shoulder and your elbow angle. How all those pieces just come together and you stop thinking. And you don’t even realize it. You just throw. “It’s not about strikes. It’s about knowing the situation.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you’ve got one out, tight ball game, and the guy at bat has three balls and no strikes. And he’s a power hitter. What do you do?”)ing up ing out

“Tight game? Keep him off the bases. Like you said. Pitch him, get him leaning out, jam him in. Paint the black.”

“No, not even the black. You keep the ball clear of the plate. He’s a power hitter. This guy is slow. And the guy coming up next is the catcher.”

“I ain’t afraid. I’ll throw it right past him. Country hardball.”

“Then he hits it out of the park. Bad guys win. Drive home safely.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You walk him. Let him get to first. Then pitch the next guy inside for a ground ball to the shortstop. Double play ball.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen them do that.”

“Sometimes you break out the country hardball, but sometimes you let them hit it. You just have to be ready when they do.”

“Won’t that walk look bad on your stats?”

“You can’t worry about that. You sacrifice that. Hell, we were playing El Dorado one year and I walked a guy with the bases loaded. Gave up a run to get to the next batter. Start with a clean slate. No balls. No strikes. And I went after him. But I had to give up that one run to get to him. To pitch him inside.”

“What happened?”

“I hit him in the head.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, but the next one flied out to second and I struck the next guy out. We scored four runs next time up. Won that by something like three runs, I think. It’s all in knowing the situation. Being willing to give something up when you have to. It’s not always about fastballs down the middle.”

He heard the car door open behind him and turned to see Caskey waiting.

When they got back on the road, Caskey asked about Gene. “You think he was trying to tip us off? Make sure we didn’t get hurt?”

“No.”

“Well?” Caskey waited. “Well what, then?”

“I think he was trying to set us up.”

“How do you mean? Like get us killed?”

“Shot at. Probably not killed.”

“No shit?” Caskey hummed a little. “Damn. That’s messed up.”

“Yeah.”

“So, why you think that?”

“Because he works for Rudd. And Rudd needs someone to blame this on.”

“Someone to take the rap?”

Jesus Christ
. “Yeah.” McWilliams looked over, saw Caskey biting his lip and nodding, the wheels spinning like wet tires in loose gravel.

“So how was he going to do that?”

“It’s a big place. Remember a few years back, those hunters found a field of pot on his farm?”

“Oh, yeah. And he said some worker did that? Some Mexicans he had?”

“Yeah. And the place was so big, he couldn’t be expected to know what happened on every inch every day.”

“Those Mexicans got d
an heported, didn’t they?”

“Probably.”

“So someone was going to start shooting at us when we got into the barn?”

“Yeah. And Gene wanted us to know for sure that Rudd didn’t have anything to do with it. Guy’s already setting up court testimony and he isn’t even arrested yet.”

“So then what?”

“The barn?”

Caskey nodded.

“I don’t know,” McWilliams said. “Maybe he told one of the workers to shoot near the cops, then give up and take the blame. Said he’d get him a good lawyer, get his family some money. And maybe Gene warned us,” McWilliams tapped his fingers on the dash, thinking quickly, “maybe Gene warned us so we’d know what was coming. Maybe Rudd was hoping we’d take the shooter out and he could blame everything on the dead guy.”

“Damn, that’s a great plan.”

“Yeah. No telling. Calling the guy out and finding all that pot in the barn means Rudd’s going to have a lot of court dates coming up.”

“So how come today? Why this time? It’s like you knew we were going to find it.”