Enlistment

sundown in zion

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 Gideon Nelson joins up again.      

“Well butter my hoe cakes and rub my jelly-roll if it ain’t Boats,” Elvis Barker said when he saw Nelson enter. “What’s up white boy?”

            “Out slumming,” Nelson said, “and giving thanks.” He walked to where the soft drinks lay stacked in orderly rows. He grabbed a diet soda and gestured toward Barker with it.

            “No thanks,” Barker said. “The old lady says I been drinking up the profits lately.” He followed Nelson to a table in the “Collusion Corner.”

            “Keeps watch on you, does she?” Nelson said, as he counted out payment for the soft drink.

            “I told her it was a good thing we are in a dry county,” Barker said. They both laughed as they sat. Barker checked the front door, and said, “So what’s up? What you got to give thanks for?”

            “All that Navy training we received.”

            “That you received. All they ever taught me to do was to chip paint and clean shit scuppers. What did they train you to do?”

            Nelson smiled. “Well, once they sent our team to Charles Town, West Virginia to that evasive driving school where they send the State Department boys.”

            Barker considered this. “Guess you need to know shit like that when you jump out of a helicopter in the middle of the ocean.”

            “It comes in handy at times,” Nelson said.

            When Barker saw that Nelson wasn’t going to discuss it further, he said, “So what brings you around?”

            “Just going to see the Sheriff,” Nelson said. “I called from the road and he said I could come on by a little later. He was receiving some urgent radio traffic. So I thought I would stop here and waste some time.” He grinned.

            “You always did know how to make a person feel important, Boats,” Barker said. He took the money that Nelson had placed on the table and took it to the cash register. Upon returning, he said, “What are you finding out in Connorville these days?”

            Nelson looked around, then back at Barker, “Just that there’s one bunch of lying sons of bitches there.”

            “Okay,” Barker said, “now tell me something I don’t know. And don’t tell me that they don’t like black folk.”

            “I met a former sheriff’s deputy named Ralph Patterson. You know him?”

            “Barney Jr.? He was Sheriff Love’s right hand man. We all thought he would be the next sheriff.”

            “What happened?”

            “Politics shifted. Power’s in the north county now.”

            “And?”

            “Roger’s roots are south county. Farm country.”

            “Which means?”

            “Next sheriff will be on the right side of politics. And I mean not on the left side.”

            Nelson nodded. “I see. He seemed like a fairly nice young man.”

            Barker said, “Oh, Roger? He’s okay. He never was one of those ‘Whatchew doin’ here this time of night, boy?’ type of deputies. He got pushed aside for a while by the two that you … uh … the two that injured themselves.” He stood up, walked to the door, looked outside. In the distance, the wail of an ambulance siren could be heard. Seeing nothing, he returned to the table. “So what are you going to see the Sheriff for about?”

            “They’re claiming Abbey’s body was found in the county and her murder is his case now.”

            “Well crack my chitlins. How’s he feelin’ about that?”

            “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

            “Say,” Barker said. “By the way …I’ve been trying to help you out with this case.”

            “Oh,” said Nelson suddenly leaning forward. “How?”

            “I been asking folks if any of them know Abbey or why she might have turned religious all of a sudden, and why she chose Connorville as the right place to come to Jesus.”

            “And?”

            “Not much so far,” he said. “The kids around here think it had something to do with her friend running away.”

            “This Bridgette girl?”

            “That’s the one.”

            “So what about her?”

            “Nobody knows much except she was athletic and Abbey’s best friend.”

            “Yeah,” Nelson said, “I had heard that already.”

            “One more thing,” Barker said.

            “What’s that?”

            “Everybody agrees that she was some kind of beautiful.”

            “I’ve gotten that impression.”

            “No,” Barker said. “I’m talking movie star beautiful. In fact, the kids tend to think she ran off to Hollywood.” He paused. “All of them except Martin.”

            “He disagrees?”

            “He says he knows for a fact that she and Abbey had made plans to take a field trip down to Louisiana this summer when Bridgette got out of the rehab clinic.”

            “She was going to be released?”

            Barker nodded. “Martin seems to think she had responded well to treatment, this was according to Abbey, before she just up and ran away.” Nelson narrowed his eyes in thought. Barker said, “Damndest thing I ever heard of.”

            “Passing strange,” Nelson said, as a group of workers walked into the store to buy lunch. With Barker occupied, Nelson finished his soda, tossed the can, and waved farewell.

            Reaching the highway, Nelson turned toward Armistead. As he did, a sheriff’s car approached him at high speed, lights flashing and siren screaming, heading in the direction from which Nelson had just come. Nelson pulled over until it had passed and proceeded into town. He passed a new building under construction, moved along a busy main street, and proceeded to the courthouse where he parked. He climbed from his truck and, after looking both ways, walked to the Sheriff’s office.

            When he entered the large anteroom, the Sheriff’s receptionist, who knew him now by sight, continued a phone conversation as she waved him through. As he passed, he heard her tell the person on the other end of the conversation, “I said that he would be glad to talk to you as soon as we hear from the deputies on the scene.”

He entered the office to find the Sheriff bent forward in front of a radio listening to transmittals. He motioned Nelson to the visitor’s chair as he continued to listen. Nelson heard a transmittal that ended with the words, “all secure here.”

            Sheriff Love pressed a button, said, “Ten-four, out,” and turned to Nelson. He rolled this chair back to its normal position behind his desk. He closed an open notebook and turned it over. Smiling at Nelson, he said, “My nautical hero, what brings you in boredom’s way? You’ve caught us on a busy morning, I fear.”

            “Crime never sleeps,” Nelson said, “or so I hear.”

            “Not crime exactly,” Sheriff Love said, “more like the spirits of the universe shining upon our poor jurisdiction.”

            Nelson gave him a questioning look but said nothing.

            Sheriff Nelson said, “Two of our county’s most notorious scumbags got to playing a little too hard this morning.”

            “At what?” Nelson said.

            “According to the one who is still able to talk, at playing race-car, actually race-truck, driver.”

            Nelson nodded. The Sheriff studied his reaction. “Why do I get the feeling that you always seem to be around when our county enjoys an upgrade?”

            Nelson shrugged. “Just enjoying a bad reputation I suppose.”

            “Hmm,” the Sheriff said. “But good news aside, what brings you here?”

            “I’ve heard that you now have the Abbey Stubblefield case.”

“They laid the poor girl’s body, so to speak, on my doorstep, rang the bell, and fled. It is indeed, now my case.”

“I hear the Connorville Police Department is quite pleased.”

“And where did you hear this?”

“I got that impression straight from Chief Banks himself.”

            “The Weasel?” The Sheriff leaned back with his hands folded on his stomach. “You didn’t hear this from me, but an informant tells me the Chief is bragging that the transfer is the Connorville version of the burning bag of excrement placed on one’s porch.”

            Nelson closed his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “Do you have any idea when you might be able to tell the family anything?”

            “Are you serious? I had one deputy that was well trained in crime investigation and he went over to serve The Dark One.”

            “Just trying to get something, anything, any hope at all for the family.”

“I’m not being cranky,” Sheriff Love said. “I’m just frustrated. If I ask the Bureau’s help, I’m a suck-up who has to call big brother to help. If I don’t solve the case, I’m inadequate. The folks up Connorville way dominate my Quorum Court now and they have eviscerated my budget. It’s a goddam shitty mess as my daddy used to say. I…” he stopped. Leaning forward, he glared at Nelson, his eyes growing wide. “Say,” he said. “I have a good idea about once every forty years.” He nodded toward the photo of a young Gladson Love and another Marine, taken at Khe San shortly after the siege was lifted. “Getting out of the Marine Corps was my last and I’m about due for another.”

            Nelson shook his head and shrugged in utter confusion.

            “You’ve an independent income, right?” Sheriff Love said.

            “I get by.”

            “No felonies? At least no sex-related felonies?”

            “I don’t understand,” Nelson said, “but no.”

            “I know you love truth, justice, and the American way.”

            Understanding seemed to settle on Nelson. “Now wait a minute Sheriff …”

            “Shut up sailor,” the Sheriff said. “Haven’t you heard that Marines rule?” He punched a button on his phone and roared into it, “Miss Matterson, bring me a set of that deputy paperwork in here.” He turned to Nelson, “I’m gonna deputize your seafaring ass.”

            “Now wait a minute, Sheriff,” Nelson said, but the Sheriff cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Do you want to see this goddam case solved?”

            “Of course I do,” Nelson said, “but …”

            “Then shut the fuck up,” Sheriff Love said just as his receptionist opened the door to his office.

            “Now stop that kind of talk,” Mrs. Matterson said. “Here you go.” She handed the Sheriff a folder of papers. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” She raised herself to her full height, glared at Nelson, and turned back to the Sheriff. “Don’t make me talk to your family.”

            “I’ll tell her about those fried pies you want to swap me for sexual favors, wench,” the Sheriff said. “Now begone.”

            She harrumphed, turned on her heels, and walked out.

            “Now you’ll need to fill all this out and let Miss Manners out there make you a photo ID. Of course I can’t pay you but this will give you official status and open up all the right doors. If we’re lucky, some of the wrong ones too.”

            “But …,” Nelson said.

            “And it will piss everyone in Connorville off to no end. Case closed.”

            Nelson shrugged in surrender. “You know,” he said, as he raised his head in thought. “It just might work,” as the 1950s Sci-Fi hero said when he finally figured out how to kill the monster.”

            “Fuckin A, it’ll work,” said the Sheriff. He yelled toward the door, “Now Miss Manners, get your ear away from the door and get a-holt of Judge Thomkins so he can swear this feller in.” The sound of scuffling came from beyond the door.

            “Now …,” Sheriff Love said as he walked to a locked gun cabinet in the corner of the office. He produced a key and unlocked the cabinet. Inside, there were no guns but a collection of umbrellas, a raincoat, a tattered Bible, a large box of Ritz Crackers, and a small metal box. He opened the box and fished out a badge. “Now,” he said, tossing the badge to Nelson, “Your first assignment is to go and tell that medical examiner that we expect some results soon or we’ll put out the word that he fornicates with his patients.”

            Nelson still appeared in shock. He stared at the badge and the back at the Sheriff. “Are you serious?” he said.

            “About the fornication?” he said. “No, just repeating rumors I’ve heard.” He smiled.

            “No,” Nelson said, “about this deputizing thing.”

            “Never been more serious in my life,” he said. “I’ll tell the other deputies that you are on loan from the Bureau and that will impress the hell out of them. They’ll follow you like lap dogs. You’ll have to kiss Miss Manner’s ass daily of course, or your life will be one of constant misery. You’ll furnish your own vehicle I presume? I have this feeling that it is fairly maneuverable.” He winked.

            Nelson didn’t respond. The Sheriff said, “I’ll get you a portable blue light and siren. Boy, it’s going be nice having you in the tent with me pissing out, as old Lyndon Johnson said of J. Edgar, instead of outside pissing in.” He sat in his chair and smiled.