Michael Lister - Soldier 02 - The Big Beyond (9 page)

Chapter 23

“I
knew you’d come see that fat nigger bitch eventually,” Butch said.

We were in his car, and though I wasn’t sure where we were heading, I knew where we weren’t. The station was in the opposite direction.

He was driving. I was in the front passenger seat.

Handcuffing a one-armed man is a difficult thing to do, so Butch had one cuff around my left wrist and the other through the metal cage behind us, so my arm was suspended awkwardly above my head.

“You’re a real genius,” I said.

“This ain’t gonna go so well for you, pal, but keep up with the mouth and it’ll go even worse.”

I shook my head.

“You’re too crooked to know it, but I’m a good cop. The whole force is looking for you, but I found you.”

“The hell we goin’?” I said. “If you were a good cop, you’d be taking me to the station.”

“If you’d’ve just killed all those civilians, I’d take you in and let you take your chances, but no way you kill my partner and not put the big snuff on you myself.”

“The hell you talkin’ about, Butch? I don’t care how good you think your frame job is, nobody’s gonna believe I killed Pete. He was
my
partner first. Would still be if I hadn’t gotten my arm blown off.”

“Save it, pal. You ain’t gonna work me.”

“I’m not trying to work you. I’m just talking to you. Telling you—”

“You’re gonna do plenty of talking by the time I get done with you—only you’re gonna once in your entire worthless goddamn life tell the truth.”

I didn’t respond and we bounced along in his old black cop car in silence for a while.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you,” he said. “You’re goin’ down for what you done, but you can save yourself a lot of … ah … unpleasantness by just comin’ clean.”

“You serious? Come clean about what? What is it you think I’ve done?”

“Okay. Play it that way, pal. Only don’t forget you had a chance to save yourself a hell of a lot of misery.”

He seemed sincere, like he really believed I was guilty. Could that be? If he were just trying to cover up crimes he had committed, why try to get me to confess? When I had dealt with him before, I had believed he was corrupt, looking to set me up, covering his ass if not his crimes, but now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe he wasn’t corrupt so much as incompetent.

“Butch, I have no idea what happened to Pete,” I said. “I wasn’t even in town at the time. Did something happen you’re trying to cover up, or do you really not know?”

“You sure you don’t wanna start singing? Your old hotshot Pinkerton partner ain’t around to save your ass no more.”

“You’re right. He’s not. And you know why? Because I shot him in self-defense. That’s what I was doing the night Pete disappeared. That and driving to Tallahassee with Lauren Lewis for medical treatment. I crashed my car into Johnston’s Sanatorium. Check it out. It’s true. I’ve shot only three people lately: Stanley Somerset, Cliff Walton, and Ray Parker. Somerset and Walton only got a limp out of the deal. Ray is the only one in the ground. All of them dealt the play. All were self-defense on my part.”

“Pretty story, pal. You should sell it to the pictures.”

He drove me out to a secluded area in the middle of the woods.

We walked through the woods to a small clearing under the bright light of the afternoon sun, the cool wind pleasant, the day peaceful and pretty. Was this the day that was to be my last? I wouldn’t mind so much—but I’d like to find Pete and to bring justice to Lauren’s killers first.

The little clearing was the same spot Butch had brought Ray to when he was going to shoot him after Ray retaliated for Butch’s bullying—which resulted in Butch’s fat ass on the ground.

It was the site of an old moonshine still.

Butch had been part of a group of cops who discovered it and busted it up here in the pinewoods near Sandy Creek.

Since moonshine had soared in price, stills had sprouted up all over the Panhandle. Even employees of Wainwright Shipyard with good jobs were quitting to become ridge runners instead. This was one of the many all around us, one of the few that had been found and destroyed.

Nothing original about Butch, he led me to the exact same spot he had Ray, and made me kneel down in the exact same position in front of the same open well.

The hand-operated pitcher pump connected to the shallow well was still here—along with the various metal vats and buckets, hoses and hardware, and what was left of the overturned and smashed barrels.

He had cuffed my wrist to my ankle and had his gun pressed against the back of my head. He was going to shoot me in the head and dump my body in the well.

“Spill,” he growled.

I didn’t say anything.

“Where’s Pete? What’d you do with him?”

I still didn’t respond.

“Tell me where he is and I won’t kill you. I swear it.”

He paused, but continued quickly when I remained quiet.

“Look, he’s my partner. I’ve got to find him. Even if he’s dead. I can’t just leave him out there somewhere. Not know. You know that. Hell, he was your partner before he was mine. You know how these things work. How they got to be.”

“Tell you what,” I said—but before I could say anything else, I heard a loud crack and Butch fell forward on top of me.

Chapter 24

W
hen Butch opened his eyes and saw Clip standing beside me, he shook his head.

We had him propped up on the side of the well and had just splashed water in his face.

Spitting and letting out a mean burst of humorless laughter, he said, “A one-armed dick and one-eyed nigger. If that just don’t beat all.”

Clip’s gun was drawn, the same one that cracked the back of Butch’s skull a few minutes before, and was pointed at him. I was holding Butch’s gun, but not pointing it directly at him.

“You gonna kill another cop?”

“You no more a cop than I is,” Clip said. “You bent as hell. Badge don’t change that.”

“What happened to Pete?” I said.

“You tell me.”

“Butch, I wouldn’t be asking you if I knew where he was or what happened to him.”

“Yeah? Well … me neither.”

He had a point.

“I told you where I was and what I was doing when Pete went missing,” I said. “Return the favor.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Clip thumbed back the hammer of his revolver.

“Butch, the night I left town, I called Pete and gave him evidence against Howell and his helpers. That’s the last I spoke to him. But the person who was with him said he called you after that. What’d he say?”

“To meet him at Howell’s.”

“And?”

“And I did. And there was no one there and he never showed. ’Cause you killed them all.”

“How long’d it take you to get there?”

“Long enough for you to take ’em out I reckon. And your nigger to clean up the mess.”

I shook my head.

“You ain’t gonna get away with it,” he said. “Even if you fade me. Whole force is looking for you. You don’t get away with killin’ cops. You just don’t.”

“Why’re we having this conversation?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“If I killed Pete and the others—by the way, whatta you think made me do that?”

“There’s talk, buster. You took Lewis’s wife. You were squaring whatever they done to her.”

“So if that’s true—and all I’m doing now is covering it up— why we talking? Why am I asking you about Pete? Why am I trying to find him if I know where he is? Why am I trying to find out what happened to him, if I already know?”

He had nothing for that.

“You got nothin’ to lose by tellin’ me the truth,” I said.

He didn’t say anything.

“Okay, but if I find out you had anything to do with Pete, we’ll come for you—and there won’t be any talking then. Just the big sendoff.”

I turned and started walking away. Clip followed—walking backward at first, then when far enough away, turning.

“That’s it?” Butch said.

I stopped walking and turned toward him.

“You not gonna punch my ticket?”

“I’ll leave your gun at the end of the road,” I said.

I turned and started walking again, catching up to Clip who hadn’t stopped but had slowed. “I don’t understand,” Butch said.

We kept walking.

“Wait,” he yelled.

We stopped walking and he caught up to us.

“You’re really gonna let me live?”

“Yeah,” Clip said. “That punishment enough.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you a miserable fat—”

“No,” he said to Clip, then turning to me said, “Why you gonna let me live?”

“I’ve been truthful with you,” I said. “I’m just trying to find out what happened to Pete.”

“Me too,” he said, and we continued walking.

The twin trail path we were on was an old dirt logging road that had grown over. Above us, the sky was clear, the sun bright. Beneath us, the brownish grass was sun-dappled, the path crisscrossed with the elongated shadows of midsize pines.

After a short way, Butch began breathing heavily, his shirt soaked through, though the day was cool.

“That was the night we found the second victim,” he said between labored breaths. “I was on my way to meet Pete when I got radioed about it. I was told to go directly to the crime scene, that Pete was being told the same thing, that it took precedence. Everything else would have to wait. I did as I was told. After a while, when Pete didn’t show up, I rushed over to Howell’s and found it empty. Just like I said.”

“Y
ou think he tellin’ the truth?” Clip asked.

We were on our way back into town. He was driving. I was thinking.

“Now don’t get carried away,” I said. “I doubt he could ever do that, but there might be less lies than usual in what he’s saying.”

He nodded, a small smile twisting on his large lips, but didn’t say anything.

Lena Horne was singing “Stormy Weather” on the radio, and it made me think of Lauren and miss her even more. Of course, everything made me think of her, and maybe I really couldn’t miss her any more than I did, but there it was.

“Like you to keep following him for a while if you can,” I said.

“You keep payin’, I keep followin’.”

“And keep your eye out for Cliff Walton. I saw him downtown last night.”

“You think Howell and the others still around too?”

I shrugged. “Be strange they didn’t all leave town, but … maybe they sent him back.”

“Maybe he da one shootin’ at your ass. Got the priest instead.”

“
May
be.”

“He walkin’ with a limp these days?”

“A wicked one,” I said.

He smiled appreciatively. “You Dillinger as hell, my man. Dillinger as hell.”

Chapter 25

W
ith Clip following Butch and keeping an eye out for Walt, and Ruth Ann finding photographs and information about the four victims, I was at the beach.

It was evening, and the soft gold glow of the descending sun cast a dreamlike quality over everything.

The green waters of the Gulf were spiky, sea-foamed and white-capped, the sea oats clustered on the dunes waving in the wind.

Calm.

Peaceful.

Airy.

The beach was empty for miles in every direction—those who just came for sunning and swimming in the summer missing out on one of the best experiences the beach had to offer. Sunsets in the approach of winter solstice.

But I wasn’t here to take in the breathtaking beauty of the setting sun. I was here to talk to Rina, a young Japanese woman who was not only Miki Matsumoto’s best friend, but the last person to see her before she went missing.

I didn’t know much about Rina, not even her last name, but what I observed was a pretty, if plain, young woman who was calm, composed, and spoke better English than I did.

“Were you locked up with the others at Manzanar?”

“I was.”

“Well, I can see why. It’s obvious you pose a great threat to this country.”

She gave no indication she knew I was being sarcastic.

I turned and glanced at the young guy who had driven me out here to meet her, and when I looked back I caught her staring at what was left of my right arm.

“I wasn’t in the war,” I said.

She acted flustered, embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I just wanted you to know. I was a police officer. It got blown off here. I never served.”

“I am sorry. I—”

“Don’t be.”

“It is just … how do you do … detective work with only one … arm?”

“Same way I do most things. Slowly and awkwardly. And not very well.”

“I am sorry. I should not have asked.”

“It’s fine. Really. Would you tell the driver I said to wait in the car?”

I turned as she spoke to him in Japanese, and he glared at me, our eyes locking, though he continued to speak angrily to her.

“He says he will not go anywhere.”

“Tell him I said if we cannot speak in private we will not speak at all, and he can be the one to explain that to Bunko and her brother.”

I was still staring at the guy, but from the corner of my eye I could see her give a slight bow.

“Very well,” she said, then spoke to him in Japanese again— and he, her. “He will walk a bit away, but he will not let me out of his sight.”

“It’s his hearing not his sight that’s the issue.”

She said something else to him and he began to back away, watching us the entire time.

“He says if you try anything at all he will kill you.”

“Tell him back at him.”

She told him and he laughed and held up his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun, shot me, blew on the barrel, then holstered it.

“Let me guess,” I said. “He likes American Western movies.”

“Yes.”

“And the only thing he understands is the shooting.”

She didn’t respond.

While I waited for him to get far enough away, I looked out across the sand and sea again to the setting sun, now a shimmering red-orange crest half hidden by the horizon.

When the gunman was at least twenty feet away, I nodded to her.

“I am not sure what I have to tell. Just that Miki was a good girl. Sweet and kind. The best friend I ever had.”

“I’m sure she was, but I need to know anything you know that can help me find her. Do you know where she is?”

“She was always happy and looking for fun and excitement. She was very carefree, maybe even a little careless, but she had no guile, nothing but goodness in her. Her mother is so overbearing, so overprotective, so over everything, but even with that Miki mostly just obeyed.”

“I don’t need to hear about her obeying. I need to know the ways she disobeyed. I only care about finding her. I’m not going to look for her any less if she didn’t always obey. Understand?”

She seemed to think about it for a long time, then nodded.

“I only want to find her. Nothing else matters to me. I don’t care what she’s done, who she’s with, or why she left.”

“There is a little motel not far from here. We would sneak down there sometimes. The night clerk is a sweet boy. Makes us drinks. We listen to music. Talk. Dance. Laugh. We laughed so much.” I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“That is where we were the night she disappeared. I do not want to get in trouble and I do not want to get her in trouble. I just want her to be okay.”

“What happened?”

“There was this soldier. Passing through. He was cute. He hung out with us. We drank and talked and … he liked Miki and she liked him. I could tell. He asked her back to his room and to my surprise she went. That left me and Paul—that is the night manager’s name—but soon I realized he didn’t care to hang out with just me. I guess all along he liked Miki too. Anyway, I walked back here—well, to the place we all hide out in. I think what she did was shameful, but she is not a shameful person, Mr. Riley. I thought she would come back later that night, but I guess she never did. The next morning she was missing. I guess she never came home.”

“Have you told anyone?”

“No, sir. I tried to, but I just … Can you go get her back without anyone ever knowing what she did or that I knew?”