The Long Lavender Look (9 page)

"Later, I guess."

"Nobody thought you'd get out. That way it isn't so much like stealing."

"People around here think that when Sheriff Hyzer grabs somebody, he's always right? Is that it?"

His gaze was direct for a moment, and then drifted away. "They say he's a good sheriff. They say he's fair."

"Thanks again for going ahead with my car. I'll be around on Monday."

So I drove around and about, getting the feel of the town and the area, had a late lunch in a red plastic national franchise selling the Best Sandwiches Anytime Anywhere, and had a medium bad sandwich and very bad coffee, served in haste by a drab, muttering woman.

On the way in, I had picked up the local morning paper. Eight pages. The Cypress Call & Journal. The masthead said it was owned by Jasson Communications. They own a few dozen small-city papers in Florida and South Georgia. Guaranteed circulation of five thousand seven hundred and forty, by the last ABC figures. It had the minimum wire service on national and international, and very exhaustive coverage of service club and social club doings. Typical of the Jasson operation. Cut-rate syndicated columnists, ranging from medium right to far right. Lots of city and county legal notices. Detailed coverage of farm produce prices.

I found myself on the bottom right corner of page two.

HELD FOR QUESTIONING

Two Fort Lauderdale men were taken into custody Friday morning by the County Sheriff's
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Department for questioning in connection with the torture murder of Frank Baither at his residence on State Road 72 Thursday night after it was learned that the vehicle in which they were riding had gone into the drainage canal sometime Thursday night not far from the Baither house.

And that was it. Local yellow journalism. Sensationalism. Who, what, why, when, where, and how. Exquisite detail.

So after my late and sorry lunch I went around to the Call & Journal. It was printed on the ground floor of a cement-block building on Princeton Street. The editorial and business offices occupied the other two floors.

According to the masthead, the managing editor was one Foster Goss. Enclosed in glass in the far corner of the lazy newsroom. A couple of hefty women pecking vintage typewriters. A crickety octogenarian on the copy desk. A couple of slack young men murmuring into phones, heels on the cheap tin desks. Offstage frantic clackety-whack of the broad tape.

Foster Goss was a fat, fading redhead, with thick lenses, saffroned fingers, blue shirt with wet armpits. He waved at a chair and said, "Minute," and hunched over the yellow copy paper once again, making his marks with soft black lead. He finished, reached, rapped sharply on the glass with a big gold seal ring. A mini-girl got up and came in and took the yellow sheets, gave me a hooded, speculative glance, and strolled out. Foster Goss watched her rear until the half-glass door swung shut, then creaked back in his chair, picked one cigarette out of the shirt-pocket pack, and lit it.

"Meyer or McGee?" he said.

"McGee. I want to complain about all the invasion of privacy, all the intimate details about my life and times."

Half smile. "Sure you do."

"So I came around to give you an exclusive, all about local police brutality and so forth."

"Gee whiz. Golly and wow."

"Mr. Goss, you give me the impression that somewhere, sometime, you really did work on a newspaper."

His smile was gentle and reflective. "On some dandies, fella. I even had a Nieman long ago. But you know how it is. Drift out of the stormy seas into safe haven."

"Just for the hell of it, Mr. Goss, what would happen if you printed more than Mister Norm would like to have you print?"

"My goodness gracious, man, don't you realize that it has been the irresponsible press which has created community prejudice against defendants in criminal actions? As there is absolutely no chance of anyone running successfully against Sheriff Hyzer, he doesn't have to release any information about how good he is. And very damned good he is indeed. So good that County Judge Stan Bowley has a sort of standing order about pretrial publicity. So the sheriff would read the paper and come over and pick me up and take me to Stan and he would give me a sad smile and say, 'Jesus Christ, Foster, you know better than that,' and he would fine me five hundred bucks for contempt."

"Which wouldn't stand up."

"I know that! So I go to the Jasson brothers and I say, look, I've got this crusade I've got to go on, and I know the paper is turning a nice dollar, and I know you nice gentlemen are stashing away Jasson Communications stock in my retirement account every year, but I've got to strike a blow for a free press. Then they want to know who I am striking the blow against, and I tell them it is the sheriff, and they ask me if he is corrupt and inefficient, and I say he might be the best sheriff in the state, who took a very very rough county and tamed it without using any extralegal methods."

"Then what if a hot team comes in here from Miami to do a big feature on this cozy little dictatorship, Mr. Goss?"

He smiled again. "No contempt charges. Maximum cooperation. Guided tours. Official charm.

No story."

"But Meyer got badly beaten."

"By a deputy who was immediately fired and booked for assault."

"You keep track, even though you don't print much."

"Old habits. Ancient reflexes. Interested me to find that Lennie Sibelius came on the run when you whistled. That's why we're getting along so well. I wanted to find out what kind of cat you might be, Mr. McGee. Hence the open door, frank revelation policy."

"Learn anything?"

"Hired gladiators like Sibelius, Belli, Foreman, Bailey, and so on seldom waste their talents on lowpay representation unless there is some publicity angle that might be useful. None here. I'd guess it was a favor. Maybe you work for him. Investigator, building defense files, or checking out a jury panel. You handle yourself as if you could give good service along those lines."

"Have you ever thought of going back into journalism?"

"I think about it. And I think about my mortgage, and my seventeen-year-old daughter married to a supermarket bag boy, and I think about my twelve-year-old spastic son. I catch pretty fair bass twelve miles from my house."

"Do you think about Frank Baither?"

"I try not to. Mister Norm will let me know what I need to know."

Then we smiled at each other and I said my polite good-by. He was like King Sturnevan, long retired from combat, but he still had the moves. No wind left, but he could give you a very bad time for the first two rounds.

I went out into the late April afternoon, into a spring scent of siesta. Head the Buick back toward the White Ibis, where I could make a phone call and find out how Meyer was making it.

Eight

I PARKED exactly where the motel architect had decided the vehicle for Unit 114 should be.

Inside the room the red phone light was blinking. I wrote down the numbers the desk-lady gave me. The Lauderdale call was from a very very British female on Lennie's staff, relaying the diagnosis on Meyer: a mild concussion, hairline fracture of the cheekbone, and they were keeping him overnight for routine observation.

The other one was a local number. I let it have ten rings, just like it says to do in the phone book.

Hung up. Then I called the sheriff. He was there. "Yes, Mr. McGee?"

"I don't want to do anything I'm not supposed to do. I was thinking of driving down to Al Storey's station on the Trail. Then I remembered it's outside the county."

"What would be the purpose?"

"I would sort of like to know how somebody set me up."

"That's under investigation. We don't need help."

"Are you getting anywhere with it?"

"I'd rather not comment at this time."

"It's your best approach, isn't it?"

"I'd appreciate it if you'd stay inside my jurisdiction, Mr. McGee."

"So be it, Sheriff."

I glowered at the unspottable, unbreakable rug for a time, then looked up Arnstead in the phone book. No Lew, Lou, Louis, or Lewis. There were three of them. J. A., and Henry T. and Cora.

I tried J. A. "Lew around?"

"Not around this house, ever, mister." Bang. So I tried Henry T. "Lew around?"

"Not very goddam likely, buddy." Bang.

Started to try Cora, then decided I might as well drive out to the address and see for myself. The
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book said 3880 Cattleman's Road. I found Cattleman's Road a half mile west of the White ibis, heading north off of Alternate 112. Flat lands, and frame bungalows which were further and further apart as I drove north.

A big rural mailbox on the right-hand side with red stick-on letters spelling Arnstead. Sand driveway leading back to a pink cement-block house, a small place with a lot of unkempt Mexican flame vine climbing its walls. Cattle guard at the entrance to the drive. Outbuildings beyond the house, and some fenced pasture with a big pond. A dozen head of runty Angus grazed the green border of the pond. A small flock of Chinese Whites cruised the blue pond, and after I rumbled over the cattle guard and parked near the house and turned the engine off, I heard their goose-alarm, like a chorus of baritone kazoos. In an acre of marsh across the road, tree toads were beginning to tune up for evening. An inventive mockingbird swayed in the top of a punk tree, working some cardinal song into his repertoire.

A leathery little old woman was yanked out of the front door by a crossbreed dog the size of a bull calf, mottled black and brown, hair all ruffed up around his neck and standing erect down his spine. He made a rumbling in his throat, and showed me some very large white fangs.

"Buttercup!" she yelled. "Hold! Hold!"

Buttercup stopped, all aquiver with anxiety to taste me. The old woman wore ancient blue jeans, a dark red pullover sweater, and blue canvas shoes. She clung with both hands to the hefty chain fastened to the studded dog collar. She was thin as one of the stick figures children draw.

"Hoped it was Lew," she said. "Or maybe Jase or Henry coming around finally to see I'm all right. But he's still growling. Who are you? They can't do my eyes till the cataracts get ripe, and I can tell you I'm sick and tired of waiting. Who are you?"

"My name is Travis McGee. I was looking for Lew."

"What for?"

"Just a little talk."

"You stand right still. I got to tell this here dog everything is all right. Buttercup! Okay! Okay!

Hush your noise! Down!"

He sat. The rumbling stopped. Tongue lolled. But the amber eyes looked at me with an obvious skepticism.

"Now you come slow right toward him, Mr. McGee, right up to where he can snuff at you.

Don't come sudden."

So I made the slow advance. He growled again and she scolded him. He sniffed at a pant leg.

She told me to hold my hand out and he sniffed that. Then he stood again and the tail wagged.

She said I could scratch behind his ears. He enjoyed it.

"Now he won't bother you. If you come in here and he was loose, he'd come at you running low and fast and quiet, but stand your ground and he'll get a snuff of you and he won't bother you none. I'd get edgy out here alone so much if I didn't have Buttercup."

"He must be a comfort to you. Do you know when Lew..."

"Before we get into that, would you kindly do me a favor. I been wondering if I should phone somebody to come help me. That black horse of Lew's has been bawling off and on since early morning, and I can't see enough to take care of whatever's bothering him. It's the near building, and he's in a stall that opens on the far side. Know anything about horses?"

"They're tall, have big teeth, give me a sweat rash, and they all hate me on sight."

"Well, what I think it is, Lew having so much on his mind, he could have forgot feed and water."

I walked out behind the house and found the stall, the top halves of the doors open and hooked back. There was a black horse in there, standing with his head hanging. His coat looked dull. The stall had not been cleaned out for too long. Flies buzzed in the heavy stench. Feed bin and water trough were empty. He snatched his head up and rolled wild eyes and tried to rear up, but his hooves slipped in the slime and he nearly went down. From the dried manure on his flanks, he had already been down a couple of times.

I went back to the house and told Mrs. Arnstead the situation and asked her if there was any
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reason he couldn't be let out.

"Lew was keeping him in the stall on account of he had a sore on his shoulder he had to put salve on, and it was too much trouble catching him. I guess you best let him out and hope he don't founder himself sucking the pond dry."

When I unlatched the bottom halves and swung the doors open and stepped well back to one side, he came out a lot more slowly than I expected. He walked frail, as if he didn't trust his legs, but slowly quickened his pace all the way across to the pond. He drank for a long time, stopped and drank again, then trudged away from the pond, visibly bigger in the belly, and went slowly down onto his knees and rolled over. I thought he had decided to die. But then he began rolling in the grass, squirming the filth off his black hide.

I looked around, saw rotten sprouting grain in an outdoor bin, saw trash and neglect.

Mrs. Arnstead sat in a cane chair on the shallow screened porch. She invited me in. I sat and Buttercup came over and shoved his big head against my knee, awaiting the scratching.

There was a golden light of dusk, a smell of flowers.

"I just don't know anymore," she said. "Shouldn't heap my burdens on a stranger. Lew is my youngest, the last one left to home. Did just fine in the Army and all. Came back and got took on as a deputy sheriff. Worked this place here and kept it up good, and he was going with the Willoughbee girl. Now being a mother doesn't mean I can't see things the way they are. Jason was my first and Henry was my second, and then it was sixteen long years before I had Lew.

Lord God, Jason is forty-three now, married twenty-four years, and their first was a girl, and she married off at sixteen, so I've got a great-grandson near six years old. I know that Lew was always on the mean side. But he always worked hard and worked good, and cared for the stock.