Plains Crazy (22 page)

***

Jackson Street was deserted, or nearly so. Mad Dog spotted an elderly Chevrolet parked near where the street ended at a field of ripening wheat. It had Kansas plates and was too old to be a rental. Mad Dog thought he remembered something new and shiny parked across from the house with the peonies. It was gone now, leaving a clear view of the red, white, and pink blossoms bobbing gently in the dappled sunlight that penetrated the leafy canopy above.

He had missed her. She had already collected her car and gone. And he didn't have a clue where. He didn't know whether she was planning to stay around, or if what he'd just done to her might have changed her plans. She could be on the road back to Wichita and a flight out of Kansas already. Hell, he didn't even know if Jorgenson was the name she actually went by these days. He might never find her again.

He was feeling pretty sorry for himself when Hailey stuck her head out of the back seat and planted a slobbery kiss on his right ear.

It was a little like a gentle slap in face, albeit a very wet one. Still, it broke the woe-is-me chain of thoughts he'd been indulging. He reached around and gave Hailey a big hug. “That's right,” he told her. “We've still got each other.” She whined and pulled free of him and turned and looked out the back window like she wanted to go somewhere.

“What, babe? Do you want to go home?” And then he had it. Janie might want to go home, but she wasn't going to do that before she saw her granddaughter. That meant the site where
This Old Tepee
was being filmed. That's where the girl who was also his granddaughter would be staying. And if, by some chance, Jackie wasn't there, her employers would surely know where to find her. It was a link. Janie might have gotten away for the moment, but he was suddenly sure he could find her again.

Mad Dog whooped and did a U-turn that would have slammed Hailey against one of the windows if she hadn't braced herself, like she was expecting it. The Mini charged out onto Main, stopped at the four-way next to the Texaco and the Buffalo Burger Drive In, and turned south.

“You aren't free of me yet, Janie Jorgenson,” Mad Dog shouted. Janie wasn't in hearing range and neither was anyone except Hailey, who had her head out the window where she could take full advantage of the breeze.

He smiled. “You just think you were stalked before,” he yelled to the missing woman.

***

“My cell's dead,” the sheriff said. “Either of you girls have yours?”

They offered them simultaneously and he took Two's because she practically forced it on him. He punched in a number and got the standard “not in service” message.

“Your mother apparently has hers turned off.”

“We know,” One told him. “We've been trying to call her ever since we found these emails at the house.”

The sheriff tried a second number. “Busy,” he said. “That was Doc Jones over at the coroner's office. He's either on the phone or he's got it off the hook. Since he's our family physician, I'll bet he knows what's going on. I think he's been hinting around about it all morning. I was too preoccupied to catch on.”

The girls nodded and Mrs. Kraus came and stuck her head out the door to his office. “You best get yourself in here if you want to talk to your suspect. He's making noises about a lawyer.”

“Yeah, be right there,” the sheriff said. He fished in his hip pocket and came out with the keys to his pickup. “Take the Chevy,” he told the girls. “Go to Klausen's and see if you can find Doc. Have him call me right now. Don't let him give you any bull about doctor/patient confidentiality.”

“Right,” the Heathers chorused, much happier since someone was taking responsibility for making things right again. The sheriff didn't share his concern that this might be beyond his ability to fix.

“If he won't call me, you do it. Soon as you find him.”

“We're on our way,” and they were, clearing the front doors before he could turn to the business that awaited him across the foyer.

“If I'm a federal suspect,” Finfrock was saying as the sheriff came in and closed the door behind him, “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Okay,” the sheriff said. He went over and sat in his old wooden swivel chair. It groaned and he felt like harmonizing. Judy, sick. Not just sick, dying maybe. He couldn't get his mind around it.

“Okay?” Finfrock said. He sounded puzzled, like he'd been expecting an argument. “Whadaya mean okay?”

“I mean call your damn lawyer,” the sheriff snapped. “You think I give a fuck?”

Everyone in the office looked at him, mouths agape. The sheriff seldom cursed and never used the “f” word. They were probably shocked by his behavior. Hell, they had every right to be. He knew he should be pushing Finfrock about the stolen Sharps and the drum of plastic explosives he'd apparently traded for it. That might lead him to Buffalo Springs' wannabe al Qaeda cell. But right now he was waiting for a call from the coroner's office, and confirmation of, or release from, Judy's death sentence.

“Uhh, look,” Finfrock whined. “Those guns, the grenades. I keep them all behind locked doors. I don't let anyone else play with them.” The sheriff didn't want to listen, but he'd been re-elected in spite of his party registration because he cared about this community and its safety. He'd given years of his life to maintaining Benteen County as one of those pastoral fantasy worlds urban folks dreamed about—a place where people seldom locked their doors, parked their cars and left them running with packages on the seat while they ran a quick errand, and hardly ever paid a penalty for what town folk would call their foolish innocence. Almost unconsciously, he reached up and turned on the tape recorder.

“Now, I'll admit some of my collection may not technically meet guidelines for private ownership and registration,” Finfrock said. “But, where's the harm?”

“Thought you wanted a lawyer,” the sheriff said.

“Well now, hey, we're all friends here aren't we?” Finfrock looked around at the room's occupants and smiled hopefully. “I think, if you'll just be reasonable and not start calling in federal agents, we can work this out.”

The sheriff reached up and massaged his temples. Until he touched them, he hadn't even realized he had a headache. Stress, he thought. He looked at his watch and recited the time and date into the recorder, then told it who was present. “You been read your rights, Mr. Finfrock?”

“Yeah, sure,” the supervisor agreed, “but just call me Craig.”

“And you understood those rights? You understand you have the right to an attorney and if you can't afford one, we'll provide one anyway? You understand all that, Mr. Finfrock?”

“Craig, really. And yeah. I understand. I don't need a lawyer. You go ahead, ask me what you want.”

“All right, Craig, who'd you give the can of C4 explosives to?”

Finfrock twisted miserably in his chair. “Well, it was just a trade is all,” the supervisor said. “You know, like I'll trade you an entire set of 1961 New York Yankee baseball cards, starting players, including right- and left-handed pitchers and one reliever for your autographed Babe Ruth bat. That's all. And I've been looking for a Sharps buffalo gun for years.”

“Who?” the sheriff repeated.

Finfrock looked uncomfortable. “You're thinking that the guy I traded with, he's the one been bombing Buffalo Springs, right?”

“Who?”

“Well he can't be. I mean, really, he wouldn't. He's completely trustworthy. You're all gonna laugh when I tell you who it is.”

The sheriff opened his mouth to ask it one more time.

And the phone rang.

***

Wynn Some, Lose Some began getting bored after turning away the first few customers from the Bisonte. Once the new wore off, he let the bartender handle it. The man seemed glad to assume the responsibility. He'd complained that telling customers the place was closed by order of the sheriff might set them to thinking it was for some sort of health violation. Now, when folks dropped by for a drink or to ask about happy hour, he was saying they'd had to lock up on account of the bombs in Buffalo Springs, to check back in an hour because he was sure they'd be open again by then. Wynn, having seen what was in the room behind Craig Finfrock's office, didn't think so, but he didn't bother arguing about it.

Main was busier than usual, especially as folks headed home, or elsewhere, after the parade climaxed the potluck and ice cream social. But busier than usual meant a car every five minutes instead of one every half hour or so.

The biggest excitement was when Jud Haines' red Buick went by hell bent for leather. Wynn had made slow-down motions at the supervisor, but Haines either didn't see him or ignored him. If Wynn Some had had access to the county black and white, he would have taken great pleasure in writing up the cocky supervisor for speeding and maybe reckless endangerment and, if the supervisor got sassy with him, might have hauled Haines off to sit in one of the eight-by-eight cells in the back of the courthouse until he learned proper respect for officers of the law. Or so Wynn Some fantasized as he killed time, sitting on the edge of the curb by the entry to the Bisonte's parking lot on the kind of spring day that fairly begged you to play hooky.

He'd first noticed Haines because of all the tire squealing a couple of blocks down where either the supervisor or Mad Dog must have gone through a stop sign and damn near run over each other. He'd seen Haines come roaring his way while Mad Dog swerved around on the street and something fell from his car. Then Haines went by and failed to obey a duly constituted officer of the law and Mad Dog stopped and let Hailey join him in his new Mini Cooper—which Wynn thought looked mighty snappy but was sure couldn't hold a candle to his Lexus, no matter what Mad Dog claimed. Mad Dog didn't go back after his package.

Littering. There was another crime the deputy might have done something about if he'd not been firmly instructed to stay here and make sure no one entered or left the Bisonte, especially with any of Finfrock's toys.

The deputy got excited when he saw the sheriff's truck come down Main. He was sure he was about to be relieved of this monotonous duty and he started walking to meet it, only it was the Heathers in the truck and not Englishman, and they turned in at Klausen's Funeral Parlor instead of coming the extra block toward the Bisonte.

Wynn knew he should go back and keep an eye on the bar, like he'd been told, but he was awful curious why the Heathers had their dad's truck and what they were doing at Klausen's. He stood in the street, wracked with indecision.

Traffic on Main had thinned, so he watched with interest as Cletus Thornburg pulled off a side street and came toward him. Cletus was towing his boy's old GTO with a not much newer GMC. They hadn't done a neat job of tying off the tow chain. It dragged along the street, ringing like some insane Salvation Army solicitor and giving off sparks. Down by the Dillons, the chain hooked on Mad Dog's package and began pulling it toward the Bisonte. Deputy Wynn stepped in front of Thornburg and thrust out a hand in an obvious order to stop.

“What's the trouble, Deputy?” Cletus asked, affable as always.

“Your tow chain's loose. Might take a chunk out of the asphalt or, way it's making sparks, start a fire under your boy's car. You got to fix that.”

Cletus thanked him and had his boy climb under the GTO and rearrange the chain, freeing Mad Dog's package in the process.

“I'll take that,” Wynn told them. He stepped under the shade of an elm and tried to figure out what Mad Dog had lost. There was something soft and pliable inside a filthy cloth sack that probably had been clean enough before it was dragged along Main for a couple of blocks. Wynn untied the string that closed it and found a paper sack inside. He tugged at the package within and tore a seam in the paper instead of drawing it free. There was something dough-like within. He pinched off a chunk and tasted it. Mad Dog, he decided, wasn't much of a cook.

***

Oh, wow! A Mini Cooper! Can I have a ride?”

She looked like a model from a beer commercial—perky and cute and exposing lots of flesh on a figure of the sort seldom encountered in the real world. Mad Dog guessed she was used to getting her way with men because she didn't wait for him to answer before grabbing the passenger's door handle to let herself in.

Hailey growled, something she rarely did, and the girl stepped back.

“Not right now,” Mad Dog told the girl, more politely than Hailey had. “We're in the middle of something.”

“Hey,” she said. “I know you. You're the jogger—the guy that archer was shooting at this morning. This must be your wolf.” She hadn't opened the Cooper's door, but she hadn't put much distance between herself and Hailey's grumble of discontent.

Several handsome young men had followed her from where they'd been loading the ring of trucks and RVs that formed the PBS encampment. None threw themselves between Hailey and the stunning blond, no matter how good she looked in those short-shorts and that skimpy halter. Discretion, Mad Dog thought, a wise decision pending a proper introduction.

“That would be me and Hailey,” Mad Dog confirmed. “And you must be Daphne. I'm looking for someone. A woman, pretty, about my age. She would have driven in here in the last few minutes to see her granddaughter Jackie, a crew member.”

Daphne shook her head. “No. People have been leaving, not coming. Not until you.” She looked at her band of followers as if for reassurance that she hadn't missed something. Mad Dog felt a sharp pang of disappointment. He'd been sure this was where Janie would come next.

“Could I talk to Jackie?” he asked. Maybe she'd heard from her grandmother. Maybe the girl knew where Janie could be found.

“Jackie's been gone all day.” It was one of the girl's entourage, a tall guy with a stud in one eyebrow and a pair of hoops in the opposite ear.