The Old Gray Wolf (5 page)

“Well—I don't think so…” Her voice trailed off.

Parris steeled himself. “So what're you trying to tell me, Clara?”

“I'm sorry, sir.” The dispatcher took a deep breath. “Approximately ten minutes ago, Mr. LeRoy Hooten was pronounced dead in the Snyder Memorial ER.”

The cop's ruddy face blanched. “Did you say …
dead
?”

“Yes sir. Cause of death is uncertain, but the ER doc says it was probably due to a concussion that caused internal bleeding in the brain. Death sometimes occurs immediately after the injury, but depending on how fast the blood is leaking, it can take hours.” A heartbeat. “The neurologist who usually checks the cranial CAT scans is at home with the flu, but the digital files have been uploaded to the Internet for a radiologist in Australia. We should know something more definite in a few minutes.”

The deflated lawman closed his eyes. “Do we have a next of kin to notify?”

“Not yet, but a couple of officers are working on it.” Clara Tavishuts added, “With a transient like Mr. Hooten, it might take few days to locate a parent or sibling.”

“Thanks, Clara.” Disconnecting, Parris gave his host a barely discernible nod.

The lawmen got up from the table and drifted listlessly down the hallway to the parlor, where Scott Parris filled Charlie Moon in on what the deputy hadn't already guessed. “I suppose getting slammed on the noggin with a can of black-eyed peas ain't nothing to laugh about.”

“That can you tossed probably wasn't what killed him.” Moon stared at a heap of dying embers in the fireplace. “When he pulled that blade on me, I guess I hit him harder than I needed to—and when the fella went down, he banged his head against a signpost.”

*   *   *

Miles away, and at the very moment when the remorseful lawmen were speculating about which of them had dealt the death blow to the late LeRoy Hooten, the person actually responsible for the unintentional homicide was serving a Budweiser beer and a light California white wine to a Rocky Mountain Polytechnic English-literature professor and a long-haul trucker from Butte, Montana. (Yes, respectively.) The 240-pound bouncer had dismissed LeRoy Hooten from her mind as soon as his odorous presence was outside her high-class saloon. B
4
was laughing loudly at a coarse joke the university professor had shared with the trucker.

But do not leap to the conclusion that Big Bad Bertha Bronkowski was a woman without tender feelings toward her victims. If she had known that the barfly bum had died from being flung through her swinging doors and headfirst into a sturdy fire plug, she would have definitely lost some sleep about it. Maybe forty-four winks. Maybe four.

DESSERT
?

The two half-gallons of ice cream and the store-bought pies were untouched after the supper that had ended so abruptly for Charlie, Scott, Sarah, and Daisy. And would remain so until …

12
:
10
A
.
M
.

Which was when a sleepless Daisy Perika rolled out of bed, pulled on her faded red bathrobe, and toddled down the hallway to the headquarters kitchen for a stealthy postmidnight snack. The ravenous old lady finished off a sizable chunk of lightly microwaved peach pie—à la mode, of course. (No,
chocolate
ice cream.) After swallowing the last morsel, she licked her lips.
That sure hit the spot.
To underscore this earnest compliment, the aged gourmand added a healthy burp.

BAD
NEWS
TRAVELS
FAST

And like a ravenous vampire bat lusting for blood, even in the middle of the night.

It had begun like this: about six minutes after LeRoy Hooten's black heart had ceased to beat, an enterprising ER X-ray technician at Snyder Memorial Hospital (Myra) learned from a chatty ambulance driver (Pete) that the purse snatcher's demise had resulted from an unfortunate encounter with the county's best-known lawmen. The young lady, who had been ticketed by a lesser-known GCPD cop for running a Stop sign and issued a second citation for employing a string of colorful obscenities to characterize the officer's parentage, saw an opportunity to get in a good lick at the local gestapo.

During the wee hours, the vengeful insomniac (who had dropped out of journalism school at a fine Ivy League university) settled down in her tiny studio apartment on Knapp Street and tap-tapped out a sparsely parsed three-hundred-word summary of LeRoy Hooten's wrongful death at the hands of a couple of cops who (so she said) had a history of brutalizing less-fortunate citizens. To this lurid piece of fiction, the wide-eyed lass added the most suitable image of Scott Parris and Charlie Moon (together) that she could find online and posted her article on two of the major social-networking sites. In the grainy, five-year-old, black-and-white newspaper photograph, the lawmen friends were posed with drawn six-shooters—laughing about a shooting-gallery contest they had won at the county fair. (First prize, for which they were much obliged, had been a meal for four at the best barbecue restaurant in Granite Creek County.)

The spread of the X-ray tech's posting was what the virtual community calls “viral.” By morning, the story was picked up by one of the cable networks. Neither Moon nor Parris got a gander at the eleven-second report, which—with the photo—portrayed them as a couple of chuckleheaded cop-clowns who enjoyed beating up on any down-on-his-luck bum who hit town.

It was an unfortunate development, which would produce grim consequences.

LET
US
SLIP
AWAY
FOR
A
REFRESHING
CHANGE
OF
SCENERY

Why would we do that when the panorama on Charlie Moon's spread is picture-postcard perfect?

Because aside from an unwary cowboy getting gored in the groin by a playful three-year-old Hereford bull, a boisterous brawl in the Columbine bunkhouse where an ornery, big galoot known as Six-Toes will be decked by “Little Butch” Cassidy, and a rusty old windmill that gets wrecked by a passing whirlwind that presumably had nothing better to do than twist useful machinery into a pile of metallic junk—not a lot will happen around Charlie Moon's ranch for the next few days, which quiet interlude will provide a fine opportunity to drift away toward the sunrise and find out what some interesting and enterprising folks are up to on the yonder side of the muddy ol' Mississippi. That does not narrow down the locality sufficiently? Then let us say north of the wide Ohio and eliminate all of Dixie (which is regrettable). Even more geographical specificity is called for? Very well; we shall further limit the neighborhood to a location well south of Chicago and a tad west of Indiana.

What could happen in the Land of Lincoln? Just about anything.

Ask any steely-eyed hombre you happen to bump into in Bozeman, Cheyenne, Leadville, Socorro, or El Paso and he'll tell you that those quiet, polite midwesterners create a whole lot more trouble per capita than ten thousand hornets in a nest that some reckless passerby wearing a White Sox cap casually whacks at with a baseball bat.

But we all know that was an unwarranted exaggeration that borders on being regionally prejudicial. After all, how many folks do you know who would deliberately disturb a colony of edgy insects who are armed with seriously barbed stingers and know how to use them?

Really—
that
many? Well. Perhaps you ought to consider emigrating to Tombstone, Dodge City, or Islamabad.

But back to the urgent question, which (in case it has slipped your mind) is: who is this imprudent passerby who is about to take a swing at the aforesaid metaphorical nest? You may, if you are so inclined, spend precious hours in vain speculations, or—turn the page and find out.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

MISS LOUELLA SMITHSON, PRIVATE EYE

As to what name she goes by, let us qualify: this particular Miss Smithson is Louella on her driver's license, Ella to her few friends, and Ellie when Granddaddy Ray Smithson calls her to supper. (When on a hot case, the lady often assumes a convenient alias—a moniker with just a dash of pizzazz.)

Now to the issue of vocation. Is Louella-Ella-Ellie a bona fide, fully qualified, licensed private eye? Not really; the lady is more or less playing the part. Pretending, if you like. Admittedly, she does make a few dollars running down the occasional missing person (an out-of-work ex-husband who is behind in alimony payments, or a wife who has run away with her high-school sweetheart). Small potatoes some will say, but a novice cannot launch her career by pursuing those high-profile offenders on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Even so, Miss Smithson has high hopes of becoming a big-time bounty hunter—and then penning a bloodcurdling account of her encounters with real-life criminals that will make Mr. Capote's
In Cold Blood
seem anemically pale in comparison.

A somewhat lofty ambition for someone of ordinary talents—perhaps even unseemly? Maybe so—but who are we to arch a critical brow, or for that matter to pose so many vexing hypothetical questions?

A PI is what Louella Smithson imagines herself to be, and here in the good old U.S. of A. a lady may practice whatever self-deception happens to strike her fancy. This born-in-the-heartland citizen is endowed with an inalienable right to envision herself as a hard-boiled detective, a gimlet-eyed gumshoe, or even a pistol-packing-momma bounty hunter who always gets her bad man
and
collects a humongous reward. And whenever she's of a mind to, Miss Smithson can drift along in daydreams about her primary ambition—which is to become a bestselling author of hair-raising accounts in that ever-popular genre known as True Crime.

But do not assume that the lady is detached from reality. Her stern paternal grandfather has taught Ellie that no worthwhile goal is ever achieved unless one ruthlessly disciplines both mind and body, concentrates on a specific long-term goal, puts in many long, hard hours—and never,
ever
gives up. These are words that she lives by, and why—at this very moment—our plucky entrepreneur has parked her old blue-and-white Ford Bronco about six miles north of Millport, Illinois, on the crest of an eighty-foot promontory known by locals as Noffsinger Ridge. Which elevated vantage point is directly across the paved highway from the Logan County Picnic Grounds. (Which is where the happy congregation of Mount Pleasant Methodist Church is congregated to enjoy their annual outing.) Which inevitably raises the nonhypothetical question: is Miss Smithson fascinated by highly competitive games of foot racing, the poetry of slow-pitch softball, and the haphazard tossing of yellow plastic horseshoes? Does her mouth water at the very thought of tables spread with barbecued pork, fried chicken, honey-baked beans, and a half-dozen varieties of potato salad? Check the little box by
Nosireebob
.

The young woman would have preferred to park her rusty SUV directly across the highway from Mrs. Francine Hooten's oversize dwelling—where, with the aid of her trusty binoculars, Louella could have peered through the front windows of that residence. In highly contrived fiction, such a convenient spot would have been thoughtfully provided for the private eye, but in real life that choice real estate was a wide-open pasture with no place for a PI to hide. To make matters worse, it was presently occupied by about two dozen head of cud-chewing Holstein milk cows. This harem was chaperoned by a dangerous-looking bull who would have gladly charged a Sherman tank had the tracked vehicle invaded his territory.

Accepting the deuces she had been dealt, Miss Louella Smithson did not whine about her less-than-optimal observation point. She patiently surveilled the Hooten driveway—in anticipation of witnessing the arrival of a legendary assassin. No, not just any legendary assassin who might happen by. Our hopeful bounty hunter has a yen to spot the very same killer whom the aforesaid Mrs. Hooten was rumored to have hired some years ago to rid Chicago of a plainclothes copper who'd gunned down her brutal, drug-pushing, mobster husband, who had lead poisoning coming, and make that a serious overdose. What brings the pseudo–private eye to the neighborhood at this particular time? Like so many of modern life's misadventures, you may blame it on the Internet. Miss Smithson routinely googles to find any morsel of knowledge that might enrich her bulging file on the Hooten clan. (This process is more difficult than you might imagine; the USA and Canada boast hundreds of salt-of-the-earth Hootens who are credits to their communities—and no kin whatever to Francine.)

For months, there have been nothing but dead ends, but quite recently Miss Smithson's number came up and she yelled “Bingo!” The cause of her excitement was that blog heaping abuse on “that brutal pair of Colorado lawmen” who had killed Francine Hooten's only son with a can of black-eyed peas and/or a sharp left hook. As a result of this report, the hopeful young woman had driven almost four hundred miles overnight to stake out the Hooten estate on the hunch that history might be about to repeat itself. If it does, the young entrepreneur plans to follow the suspect known to the FBI only as “Cowboy” and make a positive ID on the shadowy character. That in itself would be a fantastic accomplishment, but would she be satisfied? You know she wouldn't. Sooner or later, if all goes well, our ambitious private eye plans to effect a “citizen's arrest.” If all goes well.

In the meantime, all she can do is wait atop Noffsinger Ridge and hope. Hope that Francine has already employed the same assassin. Hope that Cowboy will actually make a showing. Hope that she will be able to tail and ID said Cowboy. Forget about arresting an armed and extremely dangerous felon; the odds of all these hoped-for preliminary events converging in Miss Smithson's favor were somewhere in the neighborhood between astronomically low and dead zero. That being so, she dismissed all negative thoughts of improbability from her mind.