The Redneck Detective Agency (The Redneck Detective Agency Mystery Series Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter 9

Jenny had ruined a perfectly good day for Rusty. Why had she showed up at his house? He’d chased her and begged her back before the surgeon came into her life. He’d done his part and his duty. What? She wanted him to beg some more? Naw, he was done with that shit.

              It was like he could read her mind about certain things. He knew she thought since she’d gotten rid of Rusty, got rid of the dead weight holding her back, she soared. Rusty knew he was in trouble when he started being able to see things from Jenny’s point of view.

              He knew she had an urge for glamour, for a higher position in society. Maybe she needed to climb that social ladder before middle age gave way to senior years. Maybe her biological clock ticked. Instead of fertility this time, it was for social position.

              She liked the idea of being part of a power couple. A big time realtor and her heart surgeon multimillionaire. Now Jenny and Rusty, that was the real power couple. Hadn’t they survived four rivers, a tropical jungle, and untold hardships and glories together? Yeah, well, she was tired of just surviving.

              Jenny Clay, super realtor of riverfront properties. And Rusty Clay, private eye.
Oh, Jenny, your husband is Rusty Clay. Isn’t he the one who solved The Case of the Stolen Catfish?
“There’s your power couple, Jenny.”

              He didn’t have to ask himself what this man Compton had that he didn’t.

              If he could just look this Compton man in the eye—then he would know.

              Rusty possessed an almost sixth sense sometimes that way. Sometimes he could look a person in the eye and see into their soul. And he needed to look Compton right in the eye. Rusty owed himself that much. Then he could be done with it.

              After cogitating on and off about it since Jenny left, Rusty came up to that conclusion about dark.

              He was going to do it. Hunt Compton down and look him in the eye and says something like, “My name is Rusty Clay. I’m Jenny’s ex-husband three times over.” See what the man had to say about that.

              Rusty walked right past his trusty step-side green Chevy pickup. Straight six with a three on the column. Three on a tree. It stayed parked outside, but he didn’t want to drive it tonight.

              He walked out back to his shed of a garage.

              He got into his1978 maroon El Camino. Rebuilt V8 Chevy engine with a turbo charger. Could do a hundred and eighty if the body stayed together. Low riding, half car, half pickup. Gloria called it a Redneck Corvette.

              Rusty needed something else. The El Camino rode a little low for all the gravel river roads Rusty traveled down. Ray had a short block Chevy engine he wanted to get rid of. Maybe Rusty could find him some fancier car to drop the Chevy block into. Something sleek and sexy that had his name on it.

              Rusty drove down to The Point, in case Dr. Compton and Jenny were shacked up there tonight. He cruised through the parking lot twice.

              No Jenny car. No car with a medical logo on any tag. No lights on in her condo unit.

              Rusty hit the highway to Huntsville, headed to an address he got off the internet. He drove through Huntsville and up the winding road of the exclusive section of Montesano Mountain.

              The gates to Dr. Compton’s place were open. He drove onto the circular drive of the sprawling two story house, built out of what looked—best he could see in the security lights—old used bricks. The man had good taste. Rusty gave him that.

              No parked cars outside. You could bet Dr. Compton, Mr. Busy Heart Surgeon, would be a man to park right near the front entrance.

              The son of a bitch was probably at the hospital. Rusty lost his chance of finding him with Jenny. He lost his chance of finding him at his exclusive mansion where he was king. At the hospital Compton was a god. There Compton had no need for social façade. Maybe Rusty could catch him between cutting people’s hearts out.

              The hospital was three miles away, and a quick, easy drive.

              Rusty knew the section of the parking garage Compton parked. Last time Crystal came to Alabama, Rusty dropped her off there. Crystal, Jenny and Dr. Compton were all going to meet there and go out for dinner.

              Rusty cruised up the ramps, and then on the fourth level, near the corridor leading to the hospital building itself, he came to a row of doctors’ parking.

              He slowed. Most the cars were Mercedes and Jaguars. All of them were shiny in the strange yellowish light. One was an older model little two-seater. That was it. Rusty was pretty sure. 450SL Mercedes.

              Rusty eased on down a few spaces and pulled into a Dr. Edwards parking space. Nobody came or went much. Rusty got out and went over to the front of the little Mercedes. Yeah, there was the sign. Dr. Robert Compton.

              The lines on that car were sleek and sexy. That’s what Rusty needed. He looked at the car. It was a convertible, but a pop-on top--like the old Corvettes used to have--was on right now.

              Rusty walked around the car, admiring it. He imagined him with Gloria in that thing cruising through Alabama, headed to the Gulf Coast.

              Then it came to him in an epiphany, as Gloria called it. One of these Mercedes jobs was probably a bit above his bank book. But what if he found one with a blown out engine? He didn’t want a damn German engine anyway. He could take the Ray’s rebuilt Chevy engine and get Ray to devise him an adaptor kit and pop that Chevy block into one of these 450 Mercedes.

              Rusty felt around at the grill, but couldn’t figure out how to pop the hood. Probably had a latch inside. He checked the door. It was locked.

              He got down on the ground and tried to look up under the car where the engine connected the transmission housing. He couldn’t tell a thing. He went to the El Camino and got a flashlight, came back and got down again. Shined it up under the engine there.

              Rusty couldn’t really tell. He would need to pop the hood. In fact, maybe he could Google the thing when he got home and get some engine compartment specs on a 450.

              He stepped back and took a good look and went to the back of the car, got down on his back, and stuck his head under best he could and shined the beam around. He wondered if he could use the same transaxle and exhaust system.

              Rusty slid out from under, stood up and took the whole car in, looked at it as a whole, imagined it cruising down the highway. She was a beaut.

              If the compartment was too shallow, he could cut through the hood, let the intake system stick out. He could rig it with oversized tires, jack it up a bit, so it was a little higher off the ground and could take the river roads easier.

              The little things in life gave Rusty excitement.

              He got in the El Camino and backed out of Dr. Edward’s space and cruised around to the next lane. He still had a shot at Compton’s car. And it looked even sleeker from this distance.

              Rusty cut the engine and got ready to go in and find Dr. Compton. He doubted they would let him be disturbed if he was in the middle of a heart transplant, but all Rusty had to do was be real humble and ask them to tell Dr. Compton that Rusty Clay was there to see him. That would get an immediate response. Old Dr. Compton would come right out if at all possible.

              Dr. Compton was no dumb ass. He knew he would have to talk to him sooner or later.

              Rusty was about to pull on the door handle to get out, when he noticed someone walk to Dr. Compton’s car and put a key in the driver’s door. It was Compton. Thanks again to the internet, Rusty knew what he looked like.

              Compton tossed something over into the passenger seat and then Rusty thought the man was going to get in the car. Rusty got to run over and meet him.

              But then Compton walked very quickly past Dr. Edward’s empty space, got out his cellphone and put it to his ear. Looked like he said two words, put the phone away and kept walking.

              Rusty eased back. No reason to meet him just yet. Something untoward was brewing.

              The man was about six feet. With this lighting, Rusty got a dimmed view. Compton looked like one of those soap opera handsome older doctor guys. Not that Rusty had watched a soap opera all the way through. Compton’s gray hair was combed back and his clothes looked pressed. Here was a man who could get two hours sleep and look like he just came back from a spa. One of those guys life forgot to beat up on their looks.

              Compton walked over to the next lane. He stepped between some cars about ten spaces to Rusty’s left.

              Then Rusty heard a car pull in the lane down to his right. The tires squealed when they made the turn, the way tires are apt to do in parking garages if you’re going a little too fast.

              A red BMW stopped right behind Rusty. One of those little two doors. Not the two-seater one, but the small, cute bottom-of-the-line, two doors. The ones that cost only thirty or forty thousand dollars.

              What? Somebody was after him? He reached under the seat and got his .45 automatic, chambered it. But then he saw the driver. A tall, young blonde. Sitting in a car, he could still tell she was a six footer. She must have been about twenty-five years old.

              Rusty kept staring in the rear view, fighting the urge to turn and get a direct look. He glanced over to his right to make sure nobody was coming in on him. When he looked back in the rear view, Compton opened the red car’s passenger door and hopped in.

              The little BMW took off.

              Hellfire. This man was about to marry Jenny and he had a honey on the side. Son of a bitch. Well…maybe Rusty shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe that was his daughter or his niece.

              Rusty pulled out and started tailing. The BMW got on a main drag and then got off less than a mile later in the southeast section. At a stop light the two kissed and it was no peck on the cheek. That blew the daughter/niece theory.

              Rusty honked the horn when the light changed. The girl un-lip-locked herself from Compton and swung a left, never even looking in the rear view. All their attention was on what was ahead for the night.

              He followed them down a two lane. They turned into a cul-de-sac of apartment buildings. She pulled into one. Rusty pulled into the next building’s lot and parked, facing them.

              The blonde and Compton got out and held hands walking into the building.

              Rusty fumbled around with his cellphone. Wasn’t the damn thing supposed to have a camera on it? Rusty needed more than the ten seconds it took them to get on into the apartment to figure it out.

              He drove around. Took down the apartment building number and address, got the BMW’s license plates.

              Jenny was one week away from her engagement party. The wedding date hadn’t even been announced yet. Rusty didn’t really know what to think about that. Maybe that’s the way the high society world operated.

              Rusty—he had never cheated on her, from when they had first started dating. So, he felt he was qualified to, as Gloria said, cast that first stone. Ironic thing was, he didn’t want to. Not just yet.

Chapter 10

At six o’clock the next morning, Rusty sat on his couch, an elbow on either knee. He held a cup of coffee in his hands, but it had been a few minutes since he’d taken his first sip.

              Last night he didn’t get to be until twelve-thirty. He stayed up Googling and printing out everything he could find about the chassis and engine compartment of 450SL Mercedes—which was no quick taste because all Rusty had in his house was dial up. South of Elk from the marina—the Elk Riviera—they had cable and all that went with it. But north of there, where Rusty was, all he had was a telephone line, dial up, and a small TV antennae that got him three stations on a good day.

              His conclusion at twelve-thirty last night, best he could tell after a couple hours of Googling on the Mercedes, a V-8 Chevy engine could be put in a 450SL . Something about that was reassuring to know. But all the research had been mostly a distraction from a moral dilemma which weighed heavy on him this morning.

              Should he tell Jenny or not?

              There were a lot of reasons not to tell her. First of all, it was none of his business. Secondly, maybe she already knew. Maybe uncompromising Jenny was willing to make a few concessions to leap right up that social ladder. He doubted that.

              There was the practical side of it. If she found out before she got married, she might not marry him. If she found out after she got married, she could score a few million bucks off it.

              Never let it be said that Rusty Clay came between a woman, in general and Jenny in particular, and her millions.

              On the other hand, he’d been married to her three times. Didn’t he owe it to her? That was the question.

              Then he decided to play the Golden Rule. If he were in her position, about to marry a rich woman, would he want Jenny to tell him he was marrying a cheater?

              Now, he was getting somewhere. He didn’t have the exact answer yet, but it was enough to make him straighten up and take his second sip of coffee.

              And then the black rotary phone, sitting on the end table beside him, rang. Rusty picked it up on the third ring. “Hello.”

              “Hey, Cuz.” It was Ray. “I’m at Gloria’s.”

              “Her house?”

              “No. You dumb ass. Her café. Check this out. Right now, there’s a thirty minute wait to be seated. Wall to wall out-of-town grabblers. Lot of young stuff, too. I’m going to wait it out, enjoy the view. You want to join me?”

              “Yeah. I’m about to starve. I’ll be right down.”

              “I can’t wait to tell you this one.”

              “What’s that?”

              “Yesterday at the McAllister affair, all them McAllisters and Pylants git drunk and Gloria gets into it with Pelfry McAllister…”

              “Old man McAllister?”

              “No. Pelfry Junior. She knocks the son of bitch out. One of them Pylants had to hold a vial of deer piss under this nose to get him to come back to.”

              “What did she hit him with?” Gloria was a tough one all right.

              “I think it was a left hook.”

              Rusty hung up and marched right down to his boathouse, cranked his eighteen horse Johnson and cruised the ten minutes down river to the marina.

              He pulled around the point and damn, boats all over the marina, cars all crowded around the café, trucks and boat trailers all in the parking lot off from the loading ramp. It was worse than a Fourth of July. Rusty had never seen it like this before.

              He taxied into the marina. Some shitass had taken Rusty’s boat slip. And it was a damned state-of-the art-bass boat of all things. Rusty had the urge to go back home, get his .45 and give that thing another drain hole. This one without a plug.

              Then he saw Gloria. She came bouncing down the pier in some tight jeans and white satin blouse. She waved Rusty over and hopped down into her wooden runabout.

              Rusty circled his boat around, went down the next slip, pulled along Gloria. He cut his engine, reached over and held on to the gunwale of her boat.

              “I’m leaving,” she said. “You can have my slip.”

              “You’re leaving with the place like this?”

              “Hell, I’ve got to go uptown and take Mama to church.”

              “I thought your sister always took her?”

              “Yesterday, I shared that pint of peach moon you gave me with her. That and the champagne, she’s so hung over she can’t get out of bed.”

              “I heard you mixed it up with the McAllister’s yesterday.”

              “Aw, listen to this, Rusty. Yesterday, I go to a McAllister wedding with my new ex and his eighteen year old girlfriend. I get drunk on your moonshine and cold-cock Pelfry Junior McAllister. Is that redneck enough for you?”

              “You are guilty of your own accusations of me,” Rusty said, trying to sound profoundly philosophical. Gloria seemed to like it. She threw him a kiss and then negotiated out of the slip.

              Rusty negotiated in, moored, and went up to the café. Betty was acting as hostess. She had on one of the new caps. It had some big eyes on the front, the bill had catfish lips and a big whisker was falling down either side of the bill. Two big fins flopped along the side. Clear Springs Catfish Rodeo was stitched on the front.

              Rusty thought it was good job. Gloria designed it herself.

              Betty wore one of the new T-shirts. On the front was the picture of a huge, cute, happy-looking catfish with the inscription--Grabblers Get Down Dirty in Muddy Water.

              Rusty walked on and found Ray back in the same booth they had sat the other day. Someone had left a Sunday morning copy of
The Dolopia Democrat
on the seat. Ray was straightening it up with that one hand of his.

              Rusty slid in opposite him. Ray had a cup of coffee sitting there waiting for Rusty.

              “Hey, Rusty, guess what I caught yesterday afternoon?”

              “The clap?”

              “Naw. A three pound bass.”

              “Hot damn. Did you catch him and then release him?”

              “Yeah, I released him into a skillet of hot grease.”

              Both of them laughed. Rusty said, “Catch and release. What’s the use in catching it in the first place, if you not going to eat it?”

              It was a rhetorical question, but Ray responded, “None at all. I hate to eat a damn bass. Not like it’s a crappie or perch or bluegill, but shit.”

              Ray picked up a section of the paper and started scanning it. Without looking up, out of the blue, Ray said, “What were you doing to Gloria Thursday night?”

              “What are you talking about?” Rusty flinched. The very question jolted him, made him feel invaded.

              “I had a mess of bluegills I cleaned. I caught them with a cane pole on the backwaters of the Tennessee. I was bringing you some. I come up toward your house and heard the wildest screaming of a woman in the throes of passion. And hell I was plumb out in the channel of the Elk with my rebuilt Elgin outboard quarter throttle. Damn, Rusty, you need to shut your windows.”

              “How do you know it was Gloria?”

              “Hell, her daddy’s old shiny wooden boat was tied up on your pier.”

              “Oh. You didn’t tell anybody did you, Ray?”

              “I didn’t tell anybody. But Alice was with me.”

              “Oh, shit. What did she say?”

              “Not a damn thing. But it stirred something inside her. I had to perform some husbandly duties when I got home. I owe you one there, good buddy.”

              Some new girl came over. They ordered. Ray went back to his newspaper. Without looking up, Ray said, “Seems like the Katfish King had him a cousin Ray.”

              The name sent a chill down Rusty’s back. Another invasion. “Catfish king, who?”

              “You know. Me and you ate at one over in Lauderdale County.”

              “Naw. I don’t know. All catfish places are named Catfish King, Catfish Cabin, Catfish Kettle, Catfish Cook.” Then something started to click in Rusty’s mind.

              “It hit it big when you were off on your thirty year tour of living on other rivers. Katfish King ran all these advertisements on the local TV. See, it was this catfish and it jumped out of the water and then onto this plate and this guy with a smiling face starts eating it…”

              “A raw catfish?” Rusty asked.

              “Naw. Hell, naw. It’s a real catfish, jumps out of the water. Next shot it lands on this plate of a man sitting at a restaurant. But now the fish is all cooked. It’s supposed to be funny and show how fresh the fish is.”

              “I see.”

              “And this owner has his fat ass in all the commercials. Everybody knows who he is. Especially, after they found out he just stole that jumping catfish part of his commercial from a fish commercial somewhere out in Nebraska or somewhere. Had his fat ass in court.”

              “I still don’t know who you talking about.”

              “You know. He has a whole chain of catfish restaurants in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. There’s twenty-eight of them according to the article here.”

              “And your point is?”

              Ray looked up from the paper. “This Katfish King must have had him a Cousin Ray. And that Cousin Ray must have caught him wearing one of those hearing aid looking cell phones.”

              “What are you talking about?”

              “Remember the other morning.” Ray lay the paper down. “You gave me a .45 round and told me if you ever started wearing one of those little hearing aid cell phone pieces of shit in your ear to shoot your between the eyes.”

              “Yeah, I remember that.”

              “Well, they found Elmore King yesterday shot between the eyes with a .45, and cold. Been dead for a couple, three days.”

              “Who the hell is Elmore King?”

              “Elmore “Katfish” King. Owned the Katfish King restaurants. They were going to open one up in Dolopia pretty soon.”

              Only then did it hit Rusty. “Let me see that.”

              Rusty didn’t have to turn the paper around. He recognized the picture upside down. Elmore King. The man who gave Rusty five thousand dollars to find his stolen two hundred fourteen pound catfish.

              Rusty did his best to act bored, like he had no more interest in Elmore King. But in reality Rusty felt like he was about to be caught in some conspiracy, that he might be the last person to see Elmore King alive, that he had found himself in a very dangerous position, that he was a slow-moving target and he didn’t even know who the enemy was.

His body was trembling. He could feel it. He just hoped Ray didn’t notice it. Rusty put his hands down in his lap, in case they were noticeable shaking.

              Cousin Ray was about to say something—Rusty was sure it was something about Elmore King, but something changed in the café. People were saying “hey” in a very enthusiastic way to someone. Ray looked over. Rusty turned around in the booth.

              Here came Duane Pylant. Rusty was saved by a Pylant. Duane was an old classmate, fellow riverman, and for the last five years national professional bass tournament treasure. He stopped to shake a couple hands, sign a couple caps, then walked on back.

              “Hey, Duane,” Rusty and Ray said to him. They all shook hands. Rusty scooted over and Duane slid in beside him. Rusty pulled the paper over toward himself.

              The new girl, Leslie—Betty’s neice, Rusty thought—came over to take Duane’s order and started kissing his ass. Rusty hated that. Uptown in Dolopia, that was fine. But down here at the river it seemed unappropriate. Like Rusty, he didn’t mind when somebody kissed his ass uptown because of his own connection to Sammy. But down on the river it got on his nerves.

              We’re just crazy about your show. My husband’s not going to believe I waited on you. Duane had his own cable show—Southern Bass Fishing Today. Every year the stations carrying it expanded. Rusty, not having cable, had only seen the show a couple times, from a tape Gloria recorded for him. Ray didn’t have cable either, but somebody who did was always inviting Ray and Alice over. Maybe Jenny was right. After they’d divorced that last time, nobody invited him anywhere. Not that he invited anybody, but still. Maybe he was disconnecting from society.

              He wished he could disconnect from Elmore Leonard. But this thing had him.

              Finally, Leslie moved on with Duane’s order. Ray said, “Man, Duane. I got some suggestions for your show.”