Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (17 page)

With a shiver I walked around the outside perimeter of the building, somehow not surprised to find a ladder propped against the far side. I tested it with a tentative foot and then stepped up, slowly making my way to the top. It brought me to the flat tin roof of the building, and I stepped out, careful not to disturb the distinct dirt footprints that led from the ladder to the front of the roof. I walked along next to them and peered outward, confirming that this location afforded a perfect view of the road.

I knelt down, examining the prints of what looked like a single pair of shoes, probably sneakers. There was nothing distinctive about the prints, though I was no expert in reading shoeprints. I decided that when I got back to the car I would call Barbara Hightower and let her know about this, so the police could bring in one of their people to collect and interpret this information.

For now I headed back down the ladder and returned to the inside of the building. With one wall simply wide open to the river, anyone could’ve come here by boat. It would’ve been easy, I realized, to dock here, make their way through the brush to the road, flag Eddie Ray down, and clobber him there. Then, if the person was working alone, they could’ve driven Shayna’s car to her driveway, left it there, walked the two-and-a-half miles or so back to here, and sailed away in their boat. My theory worked even better if there was more than one person involved; while someone drove the car to Kawshek, the other person could’ve driven the boat there and picked the killer up at the dock once the car was returned.

Either way, if anyone had come here recently, I decided, chances are they would’ve tied off onto one of these cleats. There
were six cleats along the work area, and I went to them one at a time, knelt, and studied them. The first five were dusty and untouched. The sixth, however, was suspicious enough to make me take a closer look.

It wasn’t dusty like the others; that was obvious. More importantly, in the dirt around the base of the cleat I could see splatter marks, like little drips of water that had fallen into the dust and then dried there. That, combined with the footprints on the roof, was proof enough for me: I felt strongly that this building had played a part in the murder of Eddie Ray.

Suddenly, I had that feeling again, as if I were being watched. I stood straight and looked out at the river. It was beautiful as usual, dark and flowing and empty. I could see no one on the far shore, though in places the trees were thick enough so that someone could’ve been watching me from a hidden vantage point. With a shiver, I brushed off my pants and left the building, heading as quickly as possible through the “jungle” back to the road. The brush was so thick that at one point I found myself immobilized, unable to move forward. Heart pounding, I tried to retrace my steps, stumbling as I worked my way around the brambles and the weeds.

My hands were shaking by the time I reached my car, and I didn’t feel safe until I was inside, doors locked, motor running. While I caught my breath, I picked burrs from my clothes and then methodically tended to my hair, taking it down, shaking out bits of grass, and then pinning it back up.

Finally, I put the car in gear and drove on to Kawshek. Whether someone had been watching me or not, I felt certain I had stumbled onto something important in the old boat repair shop. The police had combed through the brush surrounding the murder scene last night looking for clues, but I thought it odd they didn’t catch cleat number six inside the old building. It was fairly elementary, as Holmes would say.

Putting it out of my mind for now, I reached Kawshek and easily found the little combination of stores near Shayna’s
apartment. I pulled to a stop in the parking lot and exhaled slowly, glad to see that my hands were no longer shaking.

Looking around, I decided that the town really was quite dingy. Though the water in the distance was beautiful, as always, there was something dirty and depressing about the buildings and streets. From the crumpled trash that dotted the parking lot to the broken fences and littered yards of the houses nearby, Kawshek seemed to speak loudest of apathy. It looked simply as if no one cared.

I got out of my car and walked nonchalantly to the Kawshek General Store, the place where Shayna had said many of the townspeople frequently gathered. I wasn’t even sure why I was there, really, or what I hoped to accomplish. I just wanted to learn more about the town, about the people here, about the folks who knew Eddie Ray. To my mind, usually the smaller the town, the more everyone knows everyone else’s business.
Get hold of the right person,
my old mentor Eli Gold always said,
and they’ll talk your ear off.

A bell jingled over the door as I stepped into the store. Two older men looked up from a small round table in the corner where they sat mending a fishing net. One of them had a thick head of white hair, and I recognized him as the fellow who had first seen the dots of blood in the road the night before. The other man looked familiar, though not from last night. With deeply lined ruddy cheeks and a dirty yellow kerchief around his neck, I knew I had seen him in his boat from time to time, out on the water.

Both men nodded at me and went back to their mending. I walked past them toward a refrigerated compartment in the back of the store. I took my time choosing a soda, carefully scanning the small selection and pretending to decide what I wanted.

“Hey, Stinky, you got a customer!” the white-haired man yelled. There seemed to be no one else in the store, but then I heard a grunt from somewhere in the back.

“I’m in no hurry,” I added, my heart pounding. According to Shayna, Stinky was the man with the cot Eddie Ray liked to crash on whenever they had an argument. I knew that eventually I would have to talk to this man and find out more about the whole situation. For now, if Stinky was too busy to come to the register right away, more the better. I wanted to be here in the store if any conversations started—or to start a conversation myself. Of course, it would’ve been easy enough to identify myself as an investigator and start asking questions, but I had a feeling that folks around here would be a lot more tight-lipped if they knew I had come in an official capacity.

I took a soda from the cooler and then walked over to the snack section to spend some time looking at rows of prepackaged crackers with cheese and cookies. I noted that the store was bigger than it looked from the front, with the back jutting out toward the marina. Through a dirty, multipaned window on the back door, I was able to see a single dockside gas pump near a ramshackle bathroom. Boats were lined along the dock, and several men and one woman sat on the tops of dock pilings, hosing out some coolers. As I lingered, the bell on the front door rang three separate times as people came in, spoke to the two fellows there, took a newspaper, and left their change on the counter.

I chose a pack of crackers with peanut butter, went to the cash register, and waited for Stinky. As I stood there, I turned my attention back to the two men who were silently working, a pile of gray cord netting between them on the ground.

“Doing a little mending?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“That must get pretty tedious.”

“Yup.”

Obviously, I wasn’t going to draw the two of them into conversation.

I heard the jingle of the bell again and watched as a woman dressed in tight jeans and a navy sweater entered the store. She was pretty, though her teased-up punk-like hairstyle was about 20
years out of date. She came straight to the counter, and I waved her in front of me.

“You go ahead. I’m in no hurry,” I said.

“Thanks,” she replied, and then she starting banging her car keys on the counter.

“Stinky!” she yelled. “Get out here! I gotta hustle!”

The two men cackled loudly.

“You heard her,” the white-haired man yelled toward the back. “Gotta have that nicotine on the double.”

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” a man replied. After a moment, he shuffled out from a door behind the counter, wiping his hands on his apron. He looked to be in his early 50s, with tufts of gray hair and about two days’ growth of beard on his chin.

“Why don’t you buy a whole carton and stop driving me crazy every ten minutes?” he grumbled to the woman in front of me.

“Shut up and give me my smokes,” she replied. “I can’t afford a whole carton at once.”

The two men laughed.

“Can’t afford a whole carton but comes in here for a pack every day,” the man in the kerchief said. “What’s the difference?”

“The difference,” said Stinky, choosing a pack of Virginia Slims Menthol Lights and slapping them down onto the counter, “is that she can slip seven bucks out of Russell’s wallet without him seeing, but she can’t slip out seventy, no way.”

“That’s about right,” the woman said. “Hey, you got any more of that crab soup you had the other day?”

“I was just in the back making some now. Be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

“Never mind, then.”

She paid for her cigarettes and left as quickly as she had come in. I looked out of the window to see her get into an old, beat-up, black Camaro, which roared with the distinctive sound of a busted muffler as soon as she started it up. She drove away, the sound fading with the distance. Listening to her go, I wondered if the “Russell” the men had spoken of was her husband, and if that was the same Russell who had been friends with Eddie Ray.

“That be all?”

I turned to see Stinky looking at me, one finger poised over the cash register.

“Uh, no,” I said. “I’ll take a pint of that crab soup she just mentioned.”

“Won’t be ready for ’bout fifteen minutes,” he said again.

“That’s okay,” I replied. “I’ll wait.”

He shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” he said. Then he turned and shuffled back out of sight back into the rear of the store.

I relaxed against the counter, glad I had found a way to buy 15 more minutes of hanging around.

“So was that Russell’s wife?” I asked the two men. The one in the kerchief stopped what he was doing and looked up at me.

“Who’re you?”

“I’m a friend of Shayna Greer’s,” I said, trying to smile warmly. “My name’s Callie.”

The other man glanced at me, recognition showing on his face.

“Hey, she’s the one who followed the drops of blood I saw,” he said loudly. “She figured out where ol’ Eddie Ray got whacked.”

“That so?”

I nodded.

“I’ve seen you out on the water, too, haven’t I?” the man in the kerchief asked.

“Yes, I live just up the road.”

That I was a “local” seemed to be enough for these two men. They pointed to a barrel that was lying near the wall and offered me a seat, all smiles now.

“I’m Murdock and this is Dewey,” said the man in the kerchief. “You might as well sit a spell while you’re waiting for yer soup.”

I rolled the barrel over closer to their table and sat, commenting on the activity in front of them. Murdock explained the fine art of net mending, concluding that it was a much more constructive
hobby than doing jigsaw puzzles. As he talked, a loud group of teenagers came into the store to buy night crawlers. I half listened to their conversation until they left again, box of bait in hand.

“Looks like this place gets pretty busy this time of day,” I said, and both men agreed. We chatted for a few more minutes, and then finally I managed to steer the conversation back to the subject of Eddie Ray.

“He was no good,” said Dewey, shaking his head. “Bound to end up that way sooner or later.”

“I still can’t believe little ol’ Shayna Greer did him in, though,” added Murdock in a softer tone. “She’s a tougher gal than I’d a give her credit for.”

His voice sounded almost respectful.

“We’re all innocent until proven guilty,” I said. “Maybe Shayna didn’t do it.”

“Aw, she did it,” Murdock said. “I heard her and Eddie Ray having a big fight night before last. The night she killed him.”

“What was the fight about?”

“’Bout money and getting a job and quit freeloading. Same thing they always fought about.”

“I understand Eddie Ray would go sleep at Stinky’s house whenever he and Shayna had a fight.”

“Nah, not Stinky’s house,” Murdock said. “Here at Stinky’s store. Out back. There’s a cot on the porch next to the empty beer kegs.”

“I see.”

“Yep,” said Dewey loudly. “Whenever you heard the two of them yelling, you knew ol’ Eddie Ray would end up getting drunk in the bar and then climbing onto the cot out back.”

“Alone?” I asked.

Dewey hooted.

“Far as I know!” he said. “Hey, Stinky, get out here.”

Griping all the way, Stinky shuffled to the counter.

“What?”

“Eddie Ray ever bring any women with him when he spent the night here?”

“He better not have,” Stinky said. “I’d a whopped him upside the head with my chowder pot.”

I shifted my position on the barrel, glad to know that perhaps Shayna had been correct when she said Eddie Ray didn’t cheat on her.

“The night he died,” I asked Stinky, “did he come here at all?”

Stinky glowered at me, but at least he answered my question.

“Like I told Shayna yesterday morning,” he said, “I heard the fight, and later I saw Eddie Ray in the bar. But as far as I could tell, he never came and used the bed.”

With that, Stinky turned and left the counter area.

“So did they fight often?” I asked the two men in front of me.

“Maybe not all that often, but when they did, it was always loud,” Murdock said.

“You could hear it all the way over to my house,” Dewey added. “Nothing new there. Eddie Ray was always rilin’ somebody up. Had words with Russell Lynch less than a week ago. Had a fistfight in the bar with someone else a few days before that.”

“Wasn’t Russell his friend?”

“Yeah, they was friends,” Murdock answered. “But friends sometimes argue.”

“What was the argument about?”

Murdock shrugged his shoulders, measuring out a long length of gray thread.

“Hey, Dewey,” he said, “that fight between Eddie Ray and Russell Lynch. What was that about?”