Installment #14
Chapters 24 & 25
24
Walt watched as Vern showered more pepper on his last bite of chicken fried steak, the black flakes sticking to the gravy. They were sitting in a booth at the back of the café. Walt was finally hungry.
He cut into his own fried steak. He chewed rapidly, afraid his appetite would leave him again if he watched Vern clean his plate. The first bite of white-gravy covered steak was salty and comforting.
“If you don’t want that, I’ll take it,” Vern said, gesturing with this fork. “Half of it, anyway.”
“Ah’m eating it,” Walt said through a mouthful of meat.
“Yeah, but before you weren’t. You were just kind of staring off into space. So I figured maybe you’re not hungry or don’t want it all. I’ll take yours if that’s okay.”
Walt swallowed his food.
“Before, I was thinking,” Walt said. “Before, I wasn’t hungry. Now, I am hungry. Now I’m eating.”
“I’m just saying.”
And like that, Walt’s appetite left him again. Walt took another bite anyway. His stomach turned but he chewed and chewed and forced himself to swallow. He cut another bite, smaller, from the steak and began chewing it. Walt watched as Vern turned his silverware upside down and lined it diagonally on the edge of his empty plate. Vern sighed, looking around the café.
“Wonder what kind of pie Mylinda’s got for us today,” he said. “I hope it’s that Michigan blueberry.”
“You know what I was thinking about before?” Walt said.
“What’s that?”
“I was asking myself: Now where did the morning go? It just flew by, didn’t it?”
“Yes indeedy,” Vern said.
“Just flew by. I mean, where did it go? How did we waste it? Because I know we sure as hell didn’t spend it finding out anything about Geri. Other than how she died.”
Vern put a hurt look on his face.
“That’s what I thought you were after.”
“Did I give you that impression? I’m sorry, no, that’s not it at all. I’d like to know why she ran out on me. Why did she land here? And what’s this big mysterious crime the sheriff thinks she was involved in? For a town full of gossips, everyone’s doing a great job of keeping that nasty little secret from me.”
“I’m telling you, she wasn’t into anything.”
“Well, all I know,” Walt said, “is I still don’t know anything.”
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since you been in Eden.”
Walt put down his silverware, took a sip of his iced tea. “You know what else I was thinking? I was thinking about you, Vern.”
“You going to eat the rest of that steak? It’s getting cold.”
“Uh, ‘yeah, it’s burned’ with the car and ‘pow’ at the crash site and ‘I could eat’ at the grave. Surprised you didn’t pack a picnic, eat it graveside.”
“I was hungry!”
“You know, for a guy who supposedly loved her, you don’t seem too broken up about her being dead and gone.”
“Everyone grieves differently. She’s been dead for weeks now. You’re the one who just found out about it, not me.”
“Weeks. Well, life does go on, I guess.”
Walt and Vern stared at each other for a moment. Vern, picking up his knife and fork, reached across the table to cut at Walt’s chicken fried steak.
“I’m still eating that,” Walt said.
“No you’re not,” Vern said. “You’re yammering.”
“It’s my lunch,” Walt said. He pulled the plate away from Vern.
“You’re not eating it,” Vern said, stretching across the table with his utensils.
Walt pulled the plate out of Vern’s reach, over to the farthest corner of the table. Vern sat back and smiled. He glanced around the café. Then he reached across the table and poked his fork into the back of Walt’s hand, just hard enough to draw blood.
“Ouch! What the hell?”
Vern hopped up, snatching the check from the table.
“Lunch is on me.”
Walt pushed away his plate. The saliva in his throat felt as thick as the gravy on his plate. Walt sipped his iced tea. He looked up at Vern paying the bill at the register. Vern had a toothpick in his mouth and was watching Walt. Vern’s face cracked into a smile and he nodded at Walt. The bell over the door echoed long after Vern was gone.
25
“Sheriff in?” Walt said. Walt stepped from the afternoon heat into the cool air of the sheriff’s office to find Randall dusting the filing cabinets.
“Hey Walt,” Randall said, putting down the feather duster. “Nah, he’s over to Caulfield, having lunch with Big Jim, the sheriff over there.”
“Then I guess now would be the time to break into some houses,” Walt said.
Randall looked at Walt blankly. Walt smiled.
“Kidding, Randall. C’mon, let’s go take a look at that horse of yours.”
Walt sat in the front seat of the deputy’s squad car next to Randall, who was flying down a gravel road. Walt checked out the interior of the squad car.
“My first time in a cop car,” Walt said. “In the front seat, anyway.”
Both men laughing at that. The windows were down, and Randall had to yell over the roar of the hot wind hitting them in the face.
“We bought him off a fella over in Didion a few months back. Lately he’s acting kind of funny.”
“The horse or the fella you bought him off of?” Walt said. “Wait. I said that already, didn’t I?”
Randall kept his eyes on the road but another smile lit up his long face.
“Hey Randall, can you tell me something?”
“If it’s about our investigation, nope.”
“It’s not. It’s about Vern Mason.”
“Running with Vern are you?”
“I wouldn’t call it running. He was showing me around. Or he was supposed to. Crazy bastard jabbed me with a fork.”
“He’s squirrelly but I never knew him to be a cannibal,” Randall said. “You want to press charges?”
“What? No. But you were investigating him too, right? Was he doing whatever Geri was doing? Were they in it together?”
“Can’t tell you that,” Randall said. “Mind if I tell you something else though?”
“What’s that?”
“You’re a grown man. You can do whatever you want, of course.”
“Why thank you, Randall.”
“But if I was you, I’d stay clear of Vern Mason. You know how he’s always cleaning his nails, washing his hands and everything? He’s a neat freak. Like this one gal I saw on a talk show one time. She couldn’t go five minutes without at least taking a baby wipe to her hands. Obsessive-compulsive something or other she called it. Anyhow, the lady on the show, she said she felt like there was something dirtying her hands. She just couldn’t get them clean. Well, Vern’s got some dirt on his hands that he can’t get off either. And let me be clear: That’s not a guess on my part. But like I say, that investigation is ongoing so I can’t say anything.”
The squad car turned down a long gravel drive that led up to a gray farmhouse. Off to the side were two barns. Dogs, two bird dogs and a border collie with matted fur, barked and charged the car. As Randall and Walt stepped out of the car, Randall told the dogs to hush and, after thoroughly sniffing Walt, they followed the men into the bigger of the two barns.
Walt and Randall approached a stall slowly. Walt heard the soft clop of hooves on straw, then a snort. The barn smelled of animal sweat and urine and horse manure, and those were pleasant, familiar odors to Walt.
“Good looking horse,” Walt said, looking over the tall chestnut-colored animal. “Seven, eight years old?”
“Eight,” Randall said. He ran his hand over the top of the stall gate where it was gnarled and chipped. “See here, he gnaws on it.”
Walt approached the horse, the gate still between them. The horse stood calmly but turned its head to keep a glassy eye on Walt.
“Whoa boy. Easy,” Walt said, stopping at the gate. “What’s his name?”
“Shep.”
“Easy Shep.”
Walt slowly reached out to touch the horse’s muzzle. “Does he gnaw on the gate? Or more like does he latch onto it. Sort of flatten out his head and neck and suck in air?”
“More like that, yeah,” Randall said.
Walt unlatched the gate and moved into the stall with the horse. Walt patted the animal’s broad chest, all the while watching the way the horse reacted and stood and breathed.
“He’s cribbing, Walt said.
“That bad?”
“It’s not terrible. It’s like a nervous habit. Kind of like Vern with his nails.”
“Oh, heck,” Randall said, “shoot him now and be done with it.”
“The horse or Vern?”
“Vern. The horse I’ll try to get on one of them talk shows.”
Both men chuckling before Walt went on.
“Cribbing is not that bad. Just sucks up a lot of his energy.”
“How do I get him quit of it?” Randall said.
Walt glanced around.
“Got a strap of some kind? Give me your belt.”
“I was needing a new one anyway,” Randall said.
He removed his belt and handed it to Walt. Gently, Walt wrapped the belt around the horse’s head just behind the ears. He cinched it firmly under the muscular jaw.
“This will make it uncomfortable for him to latch onto the gate. It’ll keep him from cribbing. But it doesn’t fix why he’s doing it in the first place. Some horses have a sort of claustrophobia. Try letting him out longer, more often.”
“I tell you what,” Randall said, “We’ll turn him out right now, then head up to the house for some iced tea. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds fair.”
Randall went to a wall where several ropes were hanging on nails and took one down.
“Randall, I hate to be a pest—”
“Oh, all right. Your girlfriend was running a meth lab.
“What?”
“Crystal meth. Crank. Speed. Ampheta—”
“I know what it is,” Walt said. “But she was selling it?”
“Making and selling. She and Vern had their lab hidden somewhere out on his property. Mason’s got acres of land out west of town. All that and the salvage yard were his granddaddy’s. Sheriff and I never could get enough on them for a warrant to search the place. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Geri was into drugs, huh? Never figured her for that. But really what do I know? Tell you what I don’t get though: How much money could she make selling drugs in a small town like Eden?”
“Way we figured it, they were cooking it up and selling it to some bikers out of Kansas City. Every few weeks or so, a few of these guys would show up at the salvage yard on their Harleys. We were closing in on them when she died. That’s it. I’ve said enough.”
“What about Amber? I mean, Diane. Was she in on whatever it was they were into?”
“Oh, come on, Walt.”
“You already told me the part you weren’t supposed to tell me. And I thank you for that, by the way. So what does it matter about Diane?”
“We never saw her involved but I can’t see how she didn’t at least know about it. Now that’s it. No more. Sheriff Cady’s going to have my badge or at least a good chunk of my hide. You seem like a nice guy, Walt. Wish I could say Sheriff Cady and I were wrong about her. But we’re dead on.”
“Dead on?”
“Sorry, that was an unfortunate way for me to put it.”
Walt heard movement behind him and turned to see a little girl in bare feet and a dirty dress standing in the doorway.
“Daddy why is Shep wearing your belt?” the girl said, pointing to the horse. “Are his pants falling down?”
“No baby,” Randall said, grinning. “It’s a long story. Why don’t you run up to the house and ask mommy to fix us some tea.”
The little girl turned and ran up to the house, the border collie running with her.
Randall led Shep from the stall and out of the barn. Walt followed them as far as the door then lingered at the line where the shade gave way to sunlight. He watched Randall lead the horse into a small pasture.
When turned loose, the horse trotted off toward a small gathering of trees near the far corner. Walt thought of his own horses and the ones he trained for other people. He took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the air and smells of the stable. He held it as long as he could before finally stepping out into the heat.