Signs of Struggle (22 page)

“It wasn’t in my Blackberry,” I said. “You seem tense, Sheriff.”

“I am intensely curious, yes.”

“A quality crucial to law enforcement. I congratulate you! Now, if I can just do my statement and press charges against the last of The Three Stooges, I’ll get out of your hair. I intend to conduct a search for their employer.”

“I have a cousin high up in United States Naval Intelligence,” Payne said, “and yes, I’ve already told him that’s an oxymoron. I need to tell you I had him check out your service record.”

“Oh?” I said, gathering new respect for the Sheriff. Lunatic Mooning was right.

“I can see that you’re merely interested, as opposed to concerned, because you know I didn’t find anything you haven’t already told me. Correct?” Payne said.

“Why didn’t you just ask me? You know military records have a way of disappearing if one knows the right people.”

“I suspected that, oh object of curiosity. So what did you do in the Navy? ”

“Some of this, some of that,” I offered.

“Were you in Special Forces? Were you a SEAL?”

I said nothing.

“Okay, have it your way. But, Thomas, you need to know I’m not buying your line of bullshit.”

“I never once thought that you did,” I said. Time to move on. “Have my buddies from the bridge debacle fessed up yet?”

Payne jammed his hands into his pockets. “Nope. But I think they will. Whether that person, or persons, will turn out to be the same source behind the dudes from last night, time will only tell. I suspect a connection.”

“There have been clues,” I said.

Payne made a face.

“So, let’s do the paperwork, and then I’m on my way. Call it morbid curiosity, but I don’t intend to sit around anymore. Come on, pupper,” I said, and Gotcha was instantly at my side, saving Payne from an Alienation of Affection lawsuit.

“You better not get out of bounds with Larry if you find him. Give me a call. Sit on him. Then let me handle it. Let the system handle it.”

“I know you can handle it, Harmon, and I have some faith in the system, even if you refuse to waterboard. It’s just that I don’t know if it will happen in my lifetime or not. After last night, the definition of what constitutes my lifetime is a little vague. Have a nice day. Call me if you hear anything.”

“I did hear something,” Payne said, a little smile on his face.

I looked at the Sheriff.

“I heard you dropped by to say nighty-night to Olivia Olson last night, after the shooting. I’d encourage you to watch your step.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’s a mighty fine person who doesn’t need to get hurt, Thomas.”

“Duly noted.”

“Good.”

“I gotta get out of here,” I said, and as soon as I finished the paperwork Payne handed me, I was, Gotcha at my side.

G
otcha and I rode around a while that Saturday, found nothing, and by late afternoon we meandered on home. A blue Toyota 4Runner waited in my driveway. A young lady sat on its hood. I glanced quickly around to see if anyone else decided to visit. Nope. I parked and got out, retrieved Chief Justice. Gotcha bounded out behind me, sniffed the air, then wheeled and joined me as we headed for the house.

4Runner Woman, maybe thirty years old, dressed in Levi’s and a navy blue t-shirt, jumped quickly to her feet. She wore Rainbows, I think they’re called. Her hair was thick, black, long, and braided down her back in a single pigtail. Her pale blue eyes revealed intelligence, inquisitiveness, and a smattering of arrogance. A beautiful woman. All the more reason to be careful.

She clutched a purse in her left hand.
So
, I thought,
right-handed
. If her hand dipped into the purse, I would bring the shotgun up.

I glanced around, walked slowly, and thumbed the safety off Chief Justice as I slipped my finger alongside the trigger guard. This person would not be the first attractive murderer to fool a man. I had seen
The Sting
.

“Don’t shoot!” the woman said in an artificially high voice, raising her hands in mock terror. “I didn’t come to kill you!” She gave Gotcha a skeptical look.

“Who are you and why are you here?” I asked. “You may put your hands down.”

She arched one eyebrow. “I’m Suzanne Highsmith. I write for…”

“The
Des Moines Chronicle
. Columnist. Good technical writing skills, given to overly-dramatic hyperbole in human interest stories, and Marxist slant better left to the editorial pages. Nice job writing about the family that drowned at Lake Okoboji. A little lachrymose.”

“’A little lachrymose’? What kind of a man uses the word ‘lachrymose’ in conversation while holding a rifle on a woman?”

“It’s a shotgun, and would you please present your press card and driver’s license? Slowly.” I tapped the Mossberg against my leg.

“Aren’t we a little paranoid?” she asked, slowly reaching into her purse.

“Do you have a tapeworm?”

“What?”

“You said ‘we’ and you appear to be by yourself. What do they teach you in college these days?” I brought Chief Justice up, butt against my right thigh and the business end pointed vaguely off to my right. A few quick degrees to the left and she would be a target. She noticed, fished out her wallet, and produced the documents.

I approached, took the Iowa Driver’s License and Press Card with my left hand, stepped back, and glanced at the cards. Neither photo did her justice. I pointed the weapon at the ground, clicked on the safety, and handed back her identification. She took them abruptly; jerking them from my fingers. I avoided fainting.

“Paranoia is an illogical fear, an unsubstantiated anxiety. I have had a total of five grown men try to kill me in the last few weeks, and two more who merely intended to put me in the hospital, so you’ll forgive me for being cautious, Miss Highsmith. If men can’t get the job done, why not send a woman? I’m sure you’d agree with those politics.”

“I’d like to ask you about the shootings out here,” she said. “Shall we go inside?”

“No.”

“Your idea of Southern hospitality? I hear you’re from down South.”

“My version of honesty. My home is private. And I’m from Clinton. Iowa.”

“Whatever.”

Gotcha ambled slowly over to Highsmith and sniffed her shoes, then looked up and snorted once. Highsmith took a step back.

“Does it bite?”

“Only once.”

Highsmith shuddered.

“Chill, Gotcha,” I said, and she looked at me with her big, sad eyes, turned away from the reporter, and came over to my side and sat.

“Nice dog.” It sounded as if the young woman was commenting on something gooey at the side of the road.

“She is that, truly. Her name’s Gotcha, and she won’t bother you, but she does like to have her goozle scratched. It’s a good way to win her affection.”

“I fear to ask, but a reporter’s curiosity is insatiable. What’s her ‘goozle’?”

I reached down and began scratching and massaging the pendulant, soft folds of excess skin under her chin and covering her throat. Gotcha’s eyes closed and her tongue flopped out. “She has all this extra skin, her goozle, in case she gets in a fight and the other dog, or whatever it might be, grabs her by the throat. All they get is thick skin, not the jugular or windpipe. Tends to discourage them, especially when the Bulldog turns and bites
them
. And won’t let go.”

“Is that a pit bull?”

I sighed deliberately to show impatience. “No, she’s a Bulldog, known to the unsophisticated masses as an English Bulldog. Wonderful creatures, really. If you have an interest, I can provide you with a history, and fascinating facts as to why they look this way. For example, that thick wrinkle across the bridge of her little nose is called a stop wrinkle, and it’s there to divert an adversary's blood flow from her eyes so she can see clearly while locked on. And her short muzzle and underslung jaw is like that so she can breathe, also while locked on. But, I don’t think you’re interested, are you?” I looked at Miss Highsmith, who appeared to be suffering from heartburn.

“No, but thank you ever so much all the same. I’m interested in you, and what’s been going on relative to your being here in Rockbluff.”

Highsmith fished a spiral notepad and ballpoint pen from her purse. She flipped the cover of the notepad, shifted her weight, looked up and said, “I’ll call you Thomas if you’ll call me Suzanne.”

“I’ll be happy to call you Suzanne, and you may certainly call me Thomas, but if I am ever in a situation that requires an introduction, I will introduce you as ‘Miss Highsmith.’ I do not recognize Miz, and I never will. Trash English.”

“Now, aren’t we being language elitists?”

“We?”

She shifted her weight to the other leg.

“You need to understand that anything we talk about is off the record,” I said.

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“I like my privacy. I don’t want to be bothered. I don’t want my answers to your questions in the public domain.”

She stared at me, her blue eyes cool. She looked back down at her notebook. “I understand from reliable sources,” she began, “that several weeks ago you called in a nine-one-one from a farm where a woman’s husband, Hugh Soderstrom, was killed in an accident.” She looked up. “Is that right?”

I looked back and said nothing.

She gave her head a little negative shake, as if to say, “I don’t believe this,” and looked back down at her notebook. “A few weeks ago you beat up two men in a barroom brawl; later, you fought two more men on the bridge downtown, and you put them both in the hospital, where they remain.” She looked up, received no encouragement, and continued from her notes.

“And last night, three men came out here and there was an exchange of gunfire. You killed two men without sustaining so much as a scratch. The third was badly injured and is now hospitalized.” Suzanne looked up at me. “Wherever you go, people get hurt or killed. Like, monthly. Am I too far-fetched here?”

“Off the record?”

The young reporter rolled her eyes, glared at me, then put the cap on her pen and flipped her notebook shut. “Okay, everything’s off the goddamn record. Jesus.”

It was fun messing with the press. “So, what do you want to know?”

“Everything that’s happened since the accident at the farm.”

“I wasn’t at the farm when the accident happened. It was a coincidence that I was driving by right after the situation occurred. I was just getting used to being back in Iowa after a long time, enjoying the look of the land. By the way, if you’re interested in accuracy, I did not phone in the nine-one-one call. That was done by Wendy Soderstrom, the dead man’s wife. So much for your reliable sources.”

“I stand corrected. I will speak to the person. Now, why did you get in the fight in, um…” she checked her notes, “the delightfully named ‘Shlop’s Roadhouse’?”

“I was asking questions to discover the whereabouts of an individual who frequents the place. His friends took exception to my inquiries. They jumped me as a mode of discouragement and I defended myself.”

“And the incident on the bridge?”

“Those men were hired by someone to kill me, at least that’s what they said. Before I was forced to defend myself. That’s how I got a puffy lip and loose teeth, an abrasion over my cheekbone, a cut over my eye—all nicely healed.”

“You seem to be pretty adept at defending yourself. Are you a martial arts guy? Ex-Special Forces or something like that?”

“I’m just pretty lucky, along with having read a little bit about a lot of subjects, taken the time to observe other things, listened and learned.” I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“So tell me about last night. Things seem to be escalating.”

“Three men came by to kill me. I happened to be walking in the woods with Gotcha when they kicked in the front door. I caught two of them by surprise inside the house. The third, who was waiting in a car, incurred superficial injuries as a result of participating in a negative peer group.”

She laughed. It was a brief snicker, but genuine. “God, I wish I could use this stuff. This is a helluva story. And you are really a load, Thomas. Now, I have one more question. Do you know what that question is?”

“You’ve already been told who, what, where, how, and when. You’re probably intrigued, as am I, about the why part of the equation. I mean, why are all of these people trying to kill me?”

“Wow! You went to college, didn’t you?”

“And graduated, too, even though it was a public institution.”

“Well?” she asked, moving her head side to side in anticipation, “What’s the answer? Why did the muscle with guns try to take you out? Why did the men on the bridge try to kill you? Why did the dolts in the roadhouse try to rough you up?”

“Another question! But one I’ll answer. Yes, I think I know the why. I’m going to find out, beginning as soon as you go back to Des Moines and don’t write your story.”

“One last thing. When this story is finished, assuming you live through it, I would like to have the exclusive. Deal?”

“Nope.”

“Why not? This doesn’t make sense! I’ll respect your privacy, but when it’s over, what’s the harm in giving me the exclusive? You’ll be famous, and with your attitude, a media darling. Might even get your own talk show. And I’ll get the Pulitzer Prize.” She smiled a dazzling, white, charming smile.

“That’s why no one gets the story.”

“You don’t want me to win the Pulitzer Prize?”

“I don’t want anyone to know any of my business.”

“But if you get killed, and I hope that doesn’t happen, of course, seeing as how we’re on a first name basis and all, I will do the story. And if you give me information now, I’d do your story justice, and, if you’re dead, it won’t matter to you then anyway.”

“Good-bye, Suzanne.”

She walked out and started for her trendy wheels, then stopped and turned. “If you change your mind, will you call me first?”