It Takes Two (32 page)

He ordered Bud to complete the report on the motor-hotel killings immediately, and to submit it by noon Monday. Willene Norris’s role in the affair was to be minimized, he directed, in return for her expanded statement—which, Hollipaugh explained, he himself had taken that morning and would have his secretary type up in triplicate.

Bud was further ordered to prepare a warrant for the arrest of Mary Davis—who was hardly blameless but no murderess—charging her with evidence tampering and fleeing the scene of a crime.

Officer Hurston picked up Mrs. Davis a few hours later. Still in her housekeeper’s uniform, she was booked and jailed on further orders of Sheriff Hollipaugh, pending charges of first-degree homicide, times two.

While Hurston fetched Mary from her rented house, Hollipaugh sent Bud over to the
News-Press
building with a sealed envelope for reporter Ralph Nype. Once Nype read the enclosed note and alerted his editor that a follow-on story would be slotted for the Monday edition’s front page, he let the messenger read the letter. A suspect in the double killing had been identified, Hollipaugh wrote. That suspect was now being questioned about other illegal activities to which said suspect might be able to furnish evidence. Further information might be available later in the day.

Feeling double-crossed and humiliated, Bud charged back to the office and told the sheriff he’d decided to quit the department and start a private security business. The sheriff just rocked back in his chair, took off his hat, swiped his bald, dry head with a handkerchief and asked Bud to come sit awhile and tell him all about the measly ten percent raise he was going to get.

Let’s give Hollipaugh credit here. Not only was he crafty, self-centered and no dummy, he knew how to listen and how to add things up.

In other words, he was a politician, a skilled operator and a cracker on the take. He knew most of what was going on at the Caloosa—the gambling and party-girl part, the liquor-by-the-drink part, the Cuban movies, Lou Salmi’s stud service, even the gist of the plan to hire Bud as director of security.

If he’d known about the Dan-fucking-Bud part, he’d have probably used it, so maybe he didn’t know that.

Anyway, after a long discussion in which he probed Bud’s loyalty and wavering resolve, Hollipaugh made him a reasonable counter offer. “Accept a promotion,” he said. “Stay with me for a year. Work part time. Start yer guard bidness and see how ya’ like it. Don’t run off half-cocked. Let’s us see if ya’ really want to quit public suh-viss. Payin’ bills without a county paycheck is no Labor Day barbecue, young man, not when you’re used to eatin’ reg’lar.”

Bud told the sheriff he’d always eaten regular in the Marine Corps but had been glad to see his discharge papers just the same.

I returned from the hospital a little after sunset. Carmen was in good spirits and recovering nicely. A dentist would see him on Monday morning.

Bud was waiting in my office. This time, he wasn’t lounging in the easy chair. He was standing at the window, staring out at the street, hands clasped stiffly behind him.

“At ease, troop,” I called, shutting the door. “About face.” As I said it I remembered that neither move can be ordered from parade rest.

He turned on me quick, pointing an imaginary Garand M1 rifle at my midsection. “Pow, whomp, you no-count bastard. Your guts is gravy, Sheriff.”

I keeled over onto the sofa, clutching my stomach and moaning.

Growling happily, Bud plunged the make-believe bayonet into the tender area just beneath my sternum, stirring my ripped lungs into confetti and slicing my heart into dog meat.

“Kill the bastard,” I cried. “Shove the flame-thrower up his ass. Make him marry Mrs. Norris in the graveyard at high noon.”

Bud dropped the imaginary rifle, grabbed my waist with both hands and started to tickle me. “Where you been, Tojo? I hotfooted it over here wanting a cold brew, maybe to wash down some of that Bacardi you keep behind the bar. And come to find your club room locked up tighter’n a schoolteacher’s slit. Your club guard’s off-duty and that yard dog Salmi said he could get me iced tea but nothing stronger.”

I pulled him down on top of me, then rolled us both onto the floor. Riding his heaving chest, tickling him back and mock-fucking him with my hips, I teased, “You want something stronger, Sarge? You know how to ask for it, don’t you? Don’t you?”

He pushed against me, his smile fading when I got hold of his wrists.

“Relax,” I said. “Drop your hands. Gonna have to check you for concealed weapons.”

“Quit fucking around,” he said, suddenly serious. “What if somebody comes in?”

I thought about it. He was half right. I’d forgotten to lock the door. Somebody who didn’t work for me, or who disapproved of horseplay between healthy young men, might just come in and get the wrong—which is to say the right—idea.

And while I pondered, Bud hunched his hips up off the floor, twisted his torso, broke my hold, turned me over and quickly stopped me with a half nelson.

“Could break your arm for you,” he said, breathing heavily but keeping his voice just above a whisper. “Only how would that look, with me coming to work for you as security officer right after?”

Relaxing, I dropped my face to the rug and quit struggling. “Did you quit your job? What happened?”

He twisted my arm. “You gonna be good if I let you up?”

“Good enough. Better than you deserve.”

He twisted my arm again, hard. “Thought we agreed that kid stuff was all out the window. You got a short memory, huh?”

“Get off me. You’re mashing my meat and potatoes.”

Rising and stepping back, he ran his hands across his jaw, then reached down to adjust the tented front of his pants. “Wouldn’t want to do that,” he said. Then he quickly sat down and crossed his legs. “Want you to help me decide something, and not just about coming to work here. If I do, that is.”

“Where to live? What to wear? More than two weeks’ vacation? What?”

He said it wasn’t anything like that, and then he told me that Mary Davis was going to be framed for both deaths and he didn’t know what to do about it.

I asked if he and Coroner Shepherd and Officer Hurston were sure about the evidence.

“We got it down cold, Dan. Wash Davis shot Hillard Norris, then himself. Pair of textbook cases. Homicide-suicide. Take it to the grand jury and go out for coffee. What I can’t prove,” he added, “is that the boss phoned Mrs. Norris out at the fish camp early Sunday morning. Can’t prove he alerted Wash to the location of the love nest. But he must have. You know it, I know it. The rest of them ain’t talking. Or can’t. So he gets off.”

Out on the street, a car with a faulty muffler chugged by. A dog barked. The February wind rustled the leaves of the live oaks near the open window. I wanted a beer. This was serious stuff between us, some kind of turning point.

“So you do what you need to do,” I said. “You do what’s right. Because you’re a good, honest law enforcement professional paid to do the best job possible for the people of Lee County.”

Leaning back, Bud massaged his jaw with his thumb and forefinger. “I can’t fight city hall, Dan.”

“We can.”

“Right. Yes. You and me and who else?”

“The admiral. His investors. They didn’t buy this fleabag and fix it up out of the goodness of their hearts. Like I said before, they must have taken out insurance before setting up this business. What do you want to guess that your boss is either on the payroll or taking orders from somebody else?”

Bud’s shoulders sagged a little, then tightened. An angry, questioning look crossed his face. “OK, Lieutenant, let’s us assume the sheriff is on your team. Say he helped eliminate Norris to protect your boss’s business. If you look at it that way, the blood is also on the admiral’s hands. And on yours and maybe mine.”

“Two-way stretch,” I replied. “If you believe your boss is a killer, even if you can’t prove it, can you still work for him?”

“Ask yourself exactly the same question, Lieutenant. Ain’t this a fucking helluva mess?”

“Just because I admire somebody, and learned most of what I know from him, that doesn’t mean I have to admire everything he does.” I was on the spot. And that was putting it politely.

“Didn’t Dr. Goebbels and General Tojo use that argument? Didn’t get ’em far, though, did it?”

“The boss is no Tojo,” I muttered as I picked up the private phone and placed a person-to-person call to Asdeck.

When Asdeck came on the line, I talked fast. I told him that shutting down the club for more than a few of days would give the cracker sheriff and Klan all the wrong signals. I told him I’d find a new chandelier and get it installed in the club room this week. Assuming it was in place by Thursday, I intended to reopen over the weekend, provided that he agreed.

“Who bit you in the butt?” Asdeck asked. “Been waiting for you to take a little more initiative. Can’t hold you by the hand forever.”

We both laughed.

Bud glanced up, cocking his head.

“My private security service,” I answered, “has provided excellent inside information on a certain high official of Lee County. The official may be mixed up in a double murder, and trying to cover it up. And he could be on the take from a particular out-of-state investor. It’s rumored he wants to run for Congress. No telling who he might double-cross to get elected.”

Asdeck didn’t make admiral by treating enterprising underlings like dirt. “Sounds like your source could be onto something,” he almost purred. “Tell him good work and we need more of it. But let me look into all this tomorrow, check on a few things. Then we’ll talk again.”

When I passed on Asdeck’s praise, Bud blushed. “You know I ain’t on board yet,” he said. “We just been talking.”

“That’s right,” I charitably agreed. “It’s just talk.”

“Here’s what I figure,” he added. “Wouldn’t it seem like to you that no charges can go forward without a signed report from the investigating officer?”

“Sounds right to me,” I said.

“Then say I don’t go along in framing Mary Davis? What’s the worst you figure can happen? That I lose my job and have to start over?”

“A man like you doesn’t ever need to worry about getting jobs or moving ahead,” I answered. “It also doesn’t hurt that you’re on the right team.”

Bud stood up. The front of his trousers was flat now. “Been some kind of team member all my life,” he said, pulling on his jacket. “But my old coach, even my granny, they never said anything like that. Didn’t ever tell me they had that kind of confidence in me.”

“Maybe I know you better than they did.”

“And maybe we can work together better as friends,” Bud concluded. “Rather than the other thing.”

I didn’t stand. I didn’t want Bud to notice the forlorn erection inside my pants. After he said goodbye, I thought about getting blind drunk. I kept a bottle of Bacardi in my closet for just such emergencies. But I knew alcohol wouldn’t do it. And I didn’t have the energy for another forty- or fifty-lap swim. Adjusting my pants as best I could, I wandered out to the river’s edge to breathe in the orange-blossom perfume and try to get my mental bearings. Walking east into the sweet breeze, I didn’t see the man on the dock until I turned around.

The man was smoking a cigarette. He flipped the butt into the stream and said, “Hello, Dan,” as I strolled over to him.

“Hope you don’t mind me back so soon,” Frank added, smiling and shaking my hand. “Swimming laps did the trick this afternoon. Loosened me right up. Had an early meeting with a few student leaders, supper by myself and took a walk. This is where I ended up.”

He had on a short-sleeved shirt, dark pants and sandals. I was again aware of the way his neck seemed to flare smoothly from his ears down to his sloping, muscular shoulders. “Gets lonely when you’re far away from home,” he explained, glancing toward the river but moving a step closer, our elbows momentarily brushing. When he turned to face me, I noticed the whiskey on his breath.

“We all get lonely,” I answered. “Horny, frustrated, tired of eating shit, sick and tired of sleeping alone.”

He was silent a few seconds. Then he said quietly, “That’s me. For years, at least a part of me. Wanda and Tommy both said you’d understand, and might be a good friend for me to make.”

Was he saying what I thought he was saying? It was hard to be sure.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “Don’t know anything. Except, you know, what you mentioned. Frustrated and…stupid and out in the cold by myself.”

I leaned toward him. He held his ground, looking sideways into my eyes, not pleading, not defended or puzzled, but open to whatever came next, trusting and ready to learn.

“It is kind of chilly out here,” I said, hoping he caught my drift. “Happens once the sun goes down. But I’ve got a bottle upstairs, if you’d like to come on up to my room and get warmed up.”

“I’d like that,” he answered, amiably enough. “No sense both of us being cold and lonely. But, ah, you know, what about we, ah, go someplace else?”

I asked him why. Again he didn’t beat around the bush.