Just North of Nowhere (31 page)

"Huh," Bunch said.

"Ya, but here's what. Somewheres in between going in and going down, Albers Karlsen starts yelling. Screaming about his big front tooth!"

"Lost a tooth, huh, Bet’?" Not that Bunch cared but it was something to say.

Fatty's laugh knocked snow from the branches that sagged over the path. Ice crystal whipped in the wind from the clearing at their back. Fatty stopped dead with laughing. "I was just a little shit then. No mom. I don't think I had no mom at the time. Anyway daddy told me it all. He says to me, 'That Albers, now,’ he says, ‘he starts yelling to Vinnie Erickson when we’re hauled over to the Township Building, sez ‘Gottdamnit, Little Erikthon,’ Albers sez…” Fatty looked to Bunch. “Lots of folks called Vinnie ‘Little Erickson’ then, him being the kid and his dad being sheriff and more important than just a town cop. Anyways daddy say Albers is crying like a baby to Vinnie, ‘That Thon of a bitth there…’ he done it just like Albers talked without his tooth. Anyway Albers points daddy out, ‘his hand shakin,’ daddy says" Fatty held up a quivering finger and aimed it at Bunch's eye. “’like this. He sez, ‘bathtard bit my big front tooth from me! Bit it right off my mouth!’ So daddy looks all surprised and like butter wouldn't slide off his tongue and he says to Vinnie, 'Aw py Cheesus, Little Erikson! I got no tooth of his!'"

Fatty doubled over with the memory.

Bunch bounced on his toes, wanting to get a move on. "Huh. Well what the hell."

"So daddy, he puts up his hands and turns around like he’s offering himself for Officer Vinnie's search and says, 'I yust got all shit up over that trip-20-for-out-and-the-match them Waddling Grangers was claiming. Then that little flicka there…' and he points back at Albers, 'he goes and pulls out that damn dart before anyone goes to verify what side of the wire it’s hanging from! So I was hot, sure I was. Haw, haw, haw! But, now, bite a tooth out a man’s mouth?' daddy sez, and tells Vinnie, ‘Ho, ho, Crimminies, I yust head-butted the son-of-a-bitch. See here!' And he shows Vinnie where his head’s bleeding like a pig."

"’Little Erikson,’" Bunch said. "Yeah, Bet’, I remember people calling Vinnie that. Right after his old man come to be County Sheriff and Vinnie took up as town cop.

Fatty’s look went snow-cold. A laugh hung out in his eyes. "Bunch. You ought stop calling me 'Bet’.'"

In twilight, Fatty was just a dark hole in the snow, but Bunch saw eyes. Fatty's arms wrapped his chest like roots. "Them guys called me that down there.” The shadow head nodded toward the path ahead. “Said I had tits like ‘Betty.’ They called me. Bet’.” The shadow laughed. “I didn't like it."

"So that’s where that come from," Bunch said. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Fatty said, took a breath and went on. "So Vinnie. He looks at the blood on daddy's head and says, 'Wellllll…' you know, like he does, and he says, 'welllll, I guess.' And he looks over to Albers. And Albers, he sticks up his hand and swears an oath on it, sez, 'I theen that Lurgo coming at me. I theen them whithkers come. I theen them whithkers open. I theen Lurgo'th dirty red mouth and he wath biting down and there my tooth WATHN'T no more. Cripeth he mighta took off my lip! Then what’d ya thay?'

"So Vinnie, he looks back at Pop… And daddy frosts the cake, like he does selling cheeses, you know? When he's selling for the Amish on the road. 'Bit off the Son of a Bucket's tooth? So, py gum, I yust open wide…' Pop always got all Scandahoovian when he's selling, 'I yust open up and I bite off that feller's tooth, huh?!' So he waits, and Vinnie smiles and shakes his head and Daddy goes, 'Haw, haw, haw…' Like he always done. 'Py Cheeses,' he says to Vinnie, 'your daddy'n me'd haf a pretty good laff over that one, that's fer sure a laugher! Huh?' Haw, haw haw…"

Bunch wasn't sure if it was Fatty laughing inside himself or if it was Fatty telling the story and being his old man laughing, but he kept both eyes on him.

“You want to know one damn thing about all that? I’ll tell you. I happen to know that cut on daddy’s head? It come from a swipe took at him by Janus Aukerlund who clipped him one good one with his Shriner’s ring. Aukerlund kept his damn mouth shut about it though, ‘py cheeses, he’d better,’ daddy said. Hell, Janus was on his own damn team. Why’d anyone punch his own team guy? Know how I know?”

Bunch shook his head and stared down the long road toward County H.

“Do you?”

“Sure, sure,” Bunch said.

“I’ll tell you. Now everyone’s gone, I’ll tell you. One of the moms tole me. Not my real mom, just one of them. The Injun, I think it was, the one daddy said he bought when he’s up selling cheese. She come back and wasn’t very old. Said she was sitting on the soda pop thing by the store on the res, then daddy come by and tole her she was sold and had to come with him. She come but didn’t last long, but she tole me about the Shriner’s ring and Janus Aukerlund. She patched daddy up after that. An’ daddy tole me most of the story after the Injun was gone.”

“Yep. What was it about?”

The wind swept the trees and the rest of the light went away.

“What?”

“What was between your daddy and Janus Aukerlund.”

“None of your gottdamn business.”

The wind again. And the dark. Fatty’s head shook from side to side. Then the laugh came again. He was Lurgo again, telling the story. "'Bite off a man's tooth!' Ya, sure! Couldn't stop laughing. ‘I put one over on Vinnie. Put a good one over.’ Course Vinnie'd only been cop for about a month and he didn't know too much about much then.

"Ah. Vinnie believes anybody," Bunch said.

The bulking shadow of Fatty went still again. "Well, HELL no, Bunch," the shadow said. Snow crystals whisked between them. "Vinnie's one damn fine police officer. Daddy is too smart for him is all. Okay?"

"Hm," Bunch said. He wasn't going to argue with a man, just lost his pop.

"Ya. Til the day Albers died, every time Waddling Grange come here to play the Sons at darts, son-of-a-bitch brought him a little white bible in his trouser pocket so when Vinnie hauled 'em to the lock-up, Albers'd hold up the Goddamn Good Book and swear aloud, 'That Lurgo over there, he come at me and bit off my tooth. See here how this'n's a new'un? I swear the man bit and took the real one!'

“So what the hell you say about that?" Fatty’s eyes caught light.

"Yeah, I guess," Bunch said. "Cripes, who the hell would bite off someone's tooth!?"

"Well, Pop might." Fatty said.         

Another hollow log moaned in the woods. Fatty’s shadow almost disappeared in the snow that came with the wind. The air settled in a moment.

"That whole night at Township Hall, daddy kept Albers Karlsen's tooth safe and sound and I ain't saying where he kept it. Then he walked home and kept the damn thing. Kept it in his sock drawer until he put it somewhere else. I got it now. See? 'Slow to anger, quick to grin,’ like it says!"

"What's that?" Bunch said.

"Burma sign. Daddy. Them Burma signs plain amused him.” Fatty cocked his head toward the padlocked shack by the graveyard place. "You come back after we put daddy in the ground and fill that hole and, py yimminy, I'll show you a thing or three. Show you yust what's what in pop's keepin’ place. Frostin’ on the cake, py cheeses."

Bunch nodded. Hell, it was too dark to see, but Fatty? Fatty was laughing into the snow fit to be tied.

Vinnie Erikson was a big lug. Some said he was Bluffton's cop
because
he was a big lug. See? Vinnie always wanted to be a lawman – hell, County Deputy was his life goal. With his daddy secure as Sheriff – and Erik Erikson
was
secure, you’d best believe that – you'd think the job would have been Vinnie's for the whining for it.

Not so. Daddy wanted his boy in Bluffton. “You look after the homeplace,” the sheriff said.

Unkind folks said that daddy Sheriff didn't want the big lug on the county roads, that he didn't trust Vinnie'd be able to find the county seat on a regular basis. Others said right out, “Vinnie’s just plain bug-dumb!”

Now, there hadn't been a murder in Bluffton since, what? 1948, it was, when Al Capone's ex-chauffeur moved to Bluffton with his spade chippy then shot Nels Boyum fifteen times for looking at her over beers at the Riverside. That was it for recent murder. People just didn't do those things in Bluffton. Leastwise, not this part of the century.

Nope, Sheriff Daddy never reckoned on his boy having to manhandle a murder.

Then there was one.

On one side, it was pretty simple. A crime of passion. Adolescent angst. Something like that.

On the other side, the Sheriff was chewing his fingers and getting pissy as hell. Goodhearted folks said he was worried over his boy. Unkind folks said he was thinking about his own ass.

That was bullshit. Sheriff Erikson was a man secure in his job because he knew shit. He knew
all
the shit, all the county shit, anyway. Folks were vested, like they say, in assuring that Sheriff Erikson was a happy man.

Enough said.

Everybody figured the Sheriff was hoping that Vinnie, big lug though he was, might just hunker down and do some damn fine police work; pick up the killer ahead of any embarrassment.

Eventually, the killer picked himself up.

The facts in the case were these: a popular high school cheerleader, name of Sally Friedlander, was found sliced to death in her own yard. Sally's mom found her, morning after. Sally's corpse showed evidence of some rough fore-, during- and after-play: Broken jaw, gouged eyes, choking bruises on her neck, couple of busted bones, the stuff big city law was used to. Everyone who had to look at the poor kid threw up right away. Her mom finding her in the back yard after a night of worry was the first. She didn't even recognize the heap right off. When she told her husband that there was a strange something in the yard, the realization hit her and she got crazy, then threw up.

There had been some sex. The post-mortem revealed that. Most everyone assumed it. This was Sally Friedlander, after all. No one boyfriend, Sally was regularly dating the senior, junior and sophomore classes. During the last month, she'd made some social inroads with some freshmen as well, so the suspect pool was broad and deep.

Sally had been a beauty. No one could figure why she was such an easy time. Most guessed she was just one of those who had to have it. If she’d held back, even a little, made guys want it a little more, work a little harder for it, she probably could have had her pick of some premium deals. Top of it all, she was smart, funny, and someone to pal around with. She threw like a guy, too!

She was adopted. The Friedlanders were not rich but they weren't poor. Dad sold cars, mom stayed home. Sally was their life. Now she was meat.

“A waste,” most people said. Her death and her life was what they meant.

Vinnie gathered physical evidence like it said to do in the books. He sealed the scene and kept it pristine. Did a good job, too! Wrote the reports, catalogued clues; went over the photos Hank Buey from the
Mercury-Eagle
had taken both for Vinnie and the paper. Like the book said, Vinnie tried to build a picture of the victim’s last day on earth, her last hours. He talked to the girl's folks, her teachers; talked to Doc who'd done the p.m., talked to her friends, talked to the boys. That's when he hit it big. Rather, it hit him big.

Vinnie probably had a lot of facts swarming in his brain or he wouldn't have gotten decked. Being a big lug, he didn't get decked too bad.

He'd gone to Cowl Dengler's place to talk to his boy, Junior Cowl. Big Cowl was a fishing chum of Vinnie's, one of the few people in town Vinnie called a friend; known each other since grade school. Cowl's old man had been Sheriff daddy's best bud in the Army. The families were friends going way back. Hell, Denglers and Dorblers were related but that didn’t do too much to Vinnie’s friendship with Cowl. Hell, just about everyone in the Valley was related.

Anyway.

Junior Cowl, was the spit and image of his old man. Another big lug. Maybe a little smarter than that. Hell, Junior was headed to the University next fall; going to study business administration and football. He was about the best linebacker Valley High had ever turned out. He was big, tough, and had smart feet. Guy with a future!

Officer Erikson wasn't expecting anything when he knocked on his buddy's door and Junior Cowl opened it. Big Vinnie stood there, his dumb Uncle Vinnie look on his face, and told the kid he had a couple of questions about the Friedlander girl. Junior smiled, nodded, put his head down like he did on the football line and gave Vinnie a quarterback sack. For a half-second Vinnie thought Junior was kidding around – like they did, rough-housing.

Then there he was: sitting on his ass in the mud. In a half second, Junior had grabbed the billy club from Uncle Vinnie's belt loop, and whammed him a couple three times, then took off in the prowler. Vinnie's prowler!

To his credit, Vinnie put two and two together pretty quick. He rubbed his head where he'd been whomped, rubbed his shoulder where he been thumped, rubbed his tailbone where he'd fallen and got on Dengler’s phone; put a county-wide on his own town patrol vehicle, last seen heading east toward County H, at a high rate of speed carrying one Cowl Dengler, Jr., aged 18, a suspect in the Friedlander homicide; suspect was armed – Vinnie’s scatter gun was hanging on the windshield – and was probably dangerous.

Didn't take long. Daddy’s county brownies took him down two miles past the Bluffton line. Not a shot fired and that was that.

Junior Cowl was spitting mad and screaming, but was kind of a pussycat when they stuck him in the cell over at the county lock up. More embarrassed than anything.

As it came out, he'd been out with Sally the night she'd been done in. They'd gone to a few dark places and some places where he figured nobody'd be. Hell, he didn't want people seeing him out with that skank. Then they got a little booze in themselves and he tried to get some, which was the point of it all. Bitch refused. First, she said it was her time of the month. That'd never stopped her, he'd heard. When he ripped off her pants and panties and proved to her it wasn’t her time, she still said no.

Now, Christ, he couldn't have that. No sir. Who the hell'd the little whore think she was? Hey? Who the hell did she think
he
was, anyway?

His lawyer tried to plead insanity. Junior kept saying it was self-defense. Half his team buddies, agreed. A whore doesn't put out, that's big-time Fuck-You stuff. Guy's gotta defend himself. The other half of the team just laughed to themselves. Always figured Junior was a fag. She hadn't refused him, he probably couldn't handle all that woman, probably couldn't handle knowing what a pussy he was.

Junior went down. Life. Frankly, his lawyer told him, he was lucky. He'd be out in 15 years.

Junior wondered if maybe they'd give him the choice of going into the Army or the Marine Corps instead of jail.

Maybe twelve, his lawyer said.

Vinnie was confused. Now, he knew the kid; he knew the old man; his old man knew the kid's old man. Cripes, he was embarrassed. Not about falling flat on his ass, knocked over by a school student. Hell, no.

The whole thing bothered him. What the hell?

He talked to Bunch. Bunch said, forget it. Anyone can get caught napping, get knocked down by a highschooler kid.

Then Bunch laughed.

Naw,” Vinnie said, warming his butt at Bunch's fire, standing in the muck by the river, getting his patent leathers all crappy. “It ain't that; it ain't that. I can't figure this whole thing. Cowl raised a good kid. Dammit I know it. Junior was driven to that thing. I know it! But damn, it don't make no sense.”

“Son of a bitch,” Bunch said and tossed another stick on the fire. “Women can do almost anything to a man. Make a man crazy enough to do anything!”

Bunch had issues of his own.

The two of them stood and thought.

A pickup roared overhead on the bridge and its wheels locked, tires screeching. Vinnie looked up through the slats but his brain was figuring.

Bunch laughed. “The fifth speeder you DIDN'T catch since you been here, Vinnie. Your cruiser up there, folks is probably reckoning you're taking a long lead on speed trap season.”

Vinnie stayed pissy for weeks. He kept going over his notes; even typed them. Putting down his thoughts, one letter at a time, helped him focus. He kept looking at the photos, Doc’s report. He went over his typed pages and reorganized them, then he wrote them out in longhand again.

Over TV dinner one night the old man lit into his kid; chewed Vinnie's asshole and spit it out for the dog to gnaw. “Gawdamn, Lardass. You get over this thing, now, you hear? That's an order, there, Mister. Get over this or you and me is really gonna tangle.”

Sheriff daddy grumbled through
Wheel of Fortune
, didn't even get the easy ones.

The next night, daddy tried being a pal. He punched Vinnie’s shoulder and told him it wasn't his fault, Big Cowl'd start talking to him again. Sometime soon. Anytime now. Circumstances had them on opposite sides of the legal fence, for the time.

A month teeter-tottered back and forth. Vinnie kept poking, shuffling the pictures, going through the interviews in his head. He started reading books on crime and criminals, books on how crimes get solved and books on the way crimes get started. He read psychology, chemistry, biology. He didn't understand much of it, but he read it. He read “Crime and Punishment,” and fell a little in love with Sonia.

Then Junior Cowl got himself murdered. Raped and murdered in the prison shower. Being an officer of the law, Vinnie was privy to details civilians didn't hear. It happened pretty mean.

It all made him shake his head. The whole damned thing. He kept shaking his head. Everywhere he went, sipping suds at the Wheel, lecturing speeders, walking patrol day or night, eating pie at the American House Eats, Vinnie'd sigh and shake his head.

Even Cristobel was pissed at him; walked right up to him one warm night when the play was getting out over by the theater barn; said that he ought to get over this obsession.

“Get over this obsession! People cannot stomach a sad policeman!” She yelled at him right in the mix of people, tourists and real folk. The tourists stared. “They think their job is to be sad. Theirs! They are to be happy, unhappy, frightened. They do not want their law to be an emotional wreck!”

She fixed Vinnie with her dark look. That always scared him a little. Her nose holes opened full and he never knew if she was going to turn him into a gopher or what.

“If this is ambition, Vincent, then, damn it!” She punched him in the badge. “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff!”

“Huh,” he said. “Ambition? What?”

“If you want to solve this case…”

“Case is solved,” he shouted. “Solved and closed. Buried.”

“If you want answers,” she said quieter, “talk to those who know!”

He wondered about that for a bit. Only dead people knew. Hell, that was the problem. Anyone knows anything, they're dead. He considered that for a long time.

He was rewarded by accident again. There were two guys who knew. Both were alive.

High summer had come to the bluffs. Heat crawled up from the river, mornings, like steam. It hung on the paths, the streets, it soaked the tin roofs and brick sidewalks. The wood porches and steel sheds sucked it up, bounced it back and forth, and breathed it out, nights.

Vinnie sat in the shade at Elysium Park. Thinking. Nothing was going on, there was no one to speak of in the park. Some kids were playing dead man by the creek, a few folks sat in the shade. Then there was old Ken, walking over from the street. The old snake-hunter'd take a step, stop to breathe. Take another step. And so on. He was moving toward Vinnie's bench. When he got within fifty feet, Vinnie could hear. The old guy was arguing, arguing fit to fight. The imaginary guy Old Ken was talking to had been part of the...Holy crap...the Dengler murder!

Vinnie perked. Jesus Christ!
His
Dengler was not the first Dengler involved with mayhem and in bloody murder in Bluffton. Back in 1900-something, when old Ken was a young guy, there had been Denglers in Bluffton. They were a big family and the head of it was...Vinnie was piecing this together from the one side of the conversation he could hear...a guy named Lars Dengler.

Lars owned the Dancing Queen saloon, the place that now was that shithole, the Riverside Tap.