That Night at the Palace (11 page)

Finally, after walking around the body a couple of times, he went down the slope to the water’s edge and looked up. The alligator was just a few feet up the embankment. Above the gator to the right lay the victim. On the top of the slope was a small tree with some broken limbs. The muddy slope was smooth but there were alligator tracks all around. The body was hung on some small broken bushes and partially wedged between a bush and a small tree. The gator had been trying to pull the boy between the two. By the look of things, the tree would have to be cut just to get the body free.

One of the victim’s legs was ripped away and one hand had been chewed on. The victim’s remaining hand was holding a two-foot stick that he most likely had used to fight off the gator.

“What do you think, Corporal?” Jefferson asked.

“He definitely died after the gator dragged him down here.”

“Seriously?” Jefferson asked in shock. “How can you tell?”

“There’s vomit next to his face. Someone bashed his head with that tire-iron. They probably put him in the car and drove to the bridge and shoved him down the slope. I suspect they thought he’d float downstream some. He got hung up on that broken tree,” he said, pointing. “He probably hung there a while until the alligator smelled the blood and came up the slope and grabbed hold of his legs. From the looks of the mud the gator worked at him a while and finally broke him loose and dragged him down here where he got hung up again. The alligator most likely fought with him for quite a while. There’s a lot of smoothed-out mud. I suspect the gator went into a roll and ripped off the leg. At some point the kid finally died. The gator was still trying to get him loose from these bushes when your boy there shot it.”

“Dear God.”

“Look at his right hand. He’s holding on to that tree limb. Your undertaker will have to pry it free.” Brewster answered as he looked around. Then he spotted something at the tree on the slope above. “Chief what is that at the base of that tree?”

Jefferson worked his way back up the slope toward the bridge. On the ground there were a few rocks stacked up. Jefferson looked at them and then back at Brewster. “Someone stacked up some rocks.”

Brewster climbed to the slope to where Jefferson stood. He was a little put out with himself. He had been looking at the body where it lay and hadn’t thought about the fact that it had been moved by the gator. It was a rookie mistake. A seasoned investigator such as he shouldn’t have made such an error.

He looked at the rocks and the trees and the marks on the ground. When the boy was pushed off the bridge he landed wedged in the small trees. He was probably weak from the blood loss, not to mention the pain. Most likely he didn’t have the strength to stand up, let alone get out of the trees. He must have made a pillow with the rocks while he lay there, probably so that he could keep an eye on the gator.

Brewster walked back down to the body. The kid had grabbed the limb when the gator dragged him into the bush. The Ranger looked at the leg that was still attached. The heel of the boot was dug into the ground. He was still fighting to the very last.

The Ranger turned his head away from the chief and the deputies and looked out at the water. Part of him wanted to vomit. Another part of him wanted to cry. That gator may have worked on him for hours before he died. No human should have to go through anything like that.

Brewster turned and began walking up the slope to the Chief, somewhat disgusted with himself that he was still nauseated. The long-time peace officer considered himself above such things. It occurred to him it was because this was just a kid, and a good one at that, that it bothered him so. He couldn’t help but wonder if he would have felt that way had it been a bank robber or a cop killer lying on that slope. Blood is blood, but when it’s a bad guy you don’t mind seeing it spilt. Conversely, when it’s a decent kid like this, it breaks your heart.

When he reached Jefferson, he walked past the chief toward the trestle, “Have your boys go ahead. I’ve seen enough.”

“Sure,” the Chief replied as he followed the Ranger up to the tracks.

Alongside the tracks, behind the prowler, sat a black hearse with two men leaning on the hood beside
Bobby Weatherholt, who was there holding a camera. Jefferson motioned to Bobby and the three began walking to the river. “Let Bobby get his pictures before you boys touch anything.” He then turned to his four deputies who had been standing on the trestle watching the corporal, “Toad, you and Hunker give ‘em a hand,” he ordered.

As the chief was talking to his deputies, Brewster began walking to the far end of the bridge, away from everyone else. After a few minutes Jefferson walked up. “What do you think, Corporal?”

Brewster, stopped walking and leaned on the bridge and watched as the four men began trying to lift the body. “Do you go to the movies, Chief? Charlie Chan, the Thin Man, Mr. Moto?”

“Sure, every week.”

“Well, it’s never like that. Killers don’t plan it out. They don’t try to frame-up someone. Killers get angry and they shoot, or in this case, clobber someone over the head. Tell me about these two boys.”

“They’re good kids. Oh, sure, Cliff got in a little trouble now and then, but, like I said, he never did anything bad.”

“You said earlier that they were together a lot?”

“They were best friends. You almost never saw them apart. They were in school together, they worked together, and even last night they were out on a date with their two girls together. Corporal, there’s just no way Jesse did this. He’s a good kid.”

“Someone who was really mad stopped that boy in town last night and hit him with that tire iron. It was rage. He didn’t just hit him once or twice. He hit him a dozen or more times to make a dent like that.

“Then the killer drove the kid in that coupe down here and tossed that body down off the bridge, knowing that he’d bleed out and the critters would eat up the body. It’s just dumb luck that those two found him.”

“Why would anybody want to do that?”

“If his buddy didn’t do it, then it was someone who had a real good reason to hate that boy.”

“Do you think it was someone he knew?”

“Whoever did this definitely knew him. Murderers kill for a reason. This kid doesn’t look like he had any money, so it wasn’t robbery. The fact is, most murderers are family members or co-workers, people who know the victim well enough to have a reason to hate him.”

“I can’t believe his family did this and, damn-it, I just ain’t buyin’ that it was Jesse.”

“Okay, let’s say it’s not this Jesse kid. Let’s say there’s someone else out there, someone who has a reason to kill this boy,” Brewster began, thinking out loud, “These two kids are best buddies. They probably know just about all the same people. And they were together most of the time, which means that if someone had reason to kill one of the boys, then he probably has reason to kill the other. You say this kid and the other one were out late last night, and this one dropped the other kid off and headed home?”

“Right.”

“So…” Brewster paused in thought, “he sees some guy fixing a tire on the side of the road late at night and stopped to help.”

“That makes sense, Cliff would have turned left off Main onto the highway a few blocks to get to his house. He would have gone right past Washington’s Feed Store, too.”

“So let’s say the guy’s on the side of the highway out in front of the feed store with a flat, and this kid stops to help, and the guy whacks him over the head with a tire iron then puts the boy in his own car and dumps him here.”

“Then it was just some random guy who suddenly decided to kill?”

“No, this wasn’t random. The kid’s head is too bashed in. There was passion behind it. The human skull is pretty thick. If you hit it once or twice with a tire iron you’ll get one or two fairly small dents. He would probably die, but this killer hit him over and over. You don’t do that randomly. You do that out of rage.”

“But Cliff wouldn’t have stopped for someone if he knew he might get killed.”

“So we’ve got a killer who hated this kid enough to beat him to death, and the kid didn’t know anything about it.”

“If he wanted to kill Cliff, then…”

“Chief, you have a killer right here in Elza. Chances are that this Jesse is on his list. Bring him in for questioning. He’s better off in jail than he is on his own. We need to question him anyway. He’s probably talked to the killer and doesn’t even know it.”

In the distance a ’37 Ford Woody rumbled along the rutted road that was becoming congested with cars.

“Just what I need. Onlookers.”

The law officers began walking toward the end of the bridge where Toad and Hunker stood watching the men below pulling Cliff’s mangled body from the brush.

When the chief reached Toad, who was still standing guard, he pointed to the man getting out of the Woody. “I don’t know who that is, but if he tries to get a look down at Cliff, slap some cuffs on him.”

“I don’t have any cuffs.”

Jefferson pulled some handcuffs off his belt as the man, with great determination, made his way through the high grass toward the tracks.

“Let’s go, Corporal,” Jefferson said to Brewster. “Toad can take care of this.”

The two began walking along the tracks to the prowler as the man from the Woody came toward them. Before he got to Jefferson and Brewster, Toad, hunting rifle still in hand, intercepted him.

“Sir, you’re gonna have to turn around and go home. We have police business here,” Toad ordered in a tone that impressed himself far more than the other man.

The man reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a notepad. “I’m David Roberson with the
Jacksonville Statesman
. I need a few words with your chief.”

“I said no,” Toad replied emphatically, growing more impressed with his importance.

“I hadn’t thought about this,” Jefferson said softly to Brewster. “I’ll deal with it, Toad.”

Brewster followed Jefferson to the reporter.

“Are you sure, Chief? I’ve got this.” Toad said, disappointed that he didn’t get to use the handcuffs.

“Go back to the bridge and see if they need any help,” Jefferson ordered his deputy.

The reporter watched the deputy leave and turned to Jefferson and asked, “Really, his name is Toad?”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Roberson?”

“I hear you got a bad one,” the reporter said, a bit too cheerfully for anyone’s taste.

“We don’t have any information for you. Come back in a day or so.”

“Is he down there? I’d love to get some pictures.” Roberson said, ignoring the Chief and walking past Jefferson and Brewster to the bridge as he pulled a Spartus camera out of the side pocket of his coat.

“No pictures,” Jefferson ordered, grabbing the camera as Roberson passed him by.

“Chief, you can’t stop me. The press has a right to be here,” Roberson defended just as he got a look down the bank at Cliff’s twisted and mangled body. “Good God almighty.”

“No pictures,” Jefferson repeated as he walked up to the reporter and handed back the camera.

Roberson stared down at Cliff. Then he raised and unfolded the camera. “I can’t print it, but I gotta take one to show the guys back at the paper.”

“No pictures. That kid was a friend of mine.”

Roberson sighed as he relented, and then asked compassionately, “What happened here, Chief?”

“We don’t know yet,” Brewster answered with authority.

“Who are you?”

“Brewster McKinney, Texas Rangers.”

“THE Brewster McKinney?” Roberson said as he excitedly tried to write notes while holding the camera.

“We have a murder. The kid’s name is Cliff.” Brewster paused and looked at the Chief.

“Cliff Tidwell.”

“Cliff Tidwell. He was hit in the back of the head. We think with a tire iron,” Brewster looked at Jefferson and then continued. “He died immediately. Put that in your paper as a quote from me. You got that. You do not mention the gator. His mom and dad don’t need to read that in the paper. Besides, like I said, all that happened after he was dead. If I read one word about an alligator in that paper of yours, I’m going to come find you and I’m gonna tie you to one of those trees down there and leave you overnight and see what happens. You got that?”

The reporter stared at the tall, gruff old Ranger and nodded his head.

Jefferson couldn’t help but smile. It never would have entered his mind to threaten to kill a reporter, but he wasn’t Brewster McKinney. Over the years since their first meeting, the chief had read many newspaper accounts of the Ranger’s exploits. The man was famous, and he had a reputation for being tough and ruthless. A law officer making an arrest was common news, but a law officer single-handedly apprehending four armed robbers was the sort of thing that legends are made of. McKinney is a walking, talking legend. It was, for instance, well known that the he carried a Colt .45 automatic pistol in a shoulder holster under his coat like a gangster. Some claim that his draw was so fast that there wasn’t a man alive who could match him. Jefferson, conversely, had never taken his weapon from its holster and prayed that he never would. The only time he came close was the night that George Henry McMillan’s was robbed, and thankfully the burglars were long gone before Jefferson got the call. Of course, that’s why McKinney could make threats to a reporter. He knew full well that the reporter had read the same articles that Jefferson had read, and though it was unbelievable that the Ranger would follow through with his threat, no man alive would take that risk, not when they knew McKinney’s reputation.

“Do you have any suspects, Mr. McKinney?” Roberson asked timidly.

“Yes, and we’re going to make an arrest. Make sure you put that in your paper.”