Installment #6
Chapter 9
9
“Almost three weeks ago,” Sheriff Cady said, propping his boots up on his desk. “That’s about all I’m at liberty to say. We’re holding our investigation open.”
Like the rest of the sheriff’s office, the desk was old and made of wood. Walt sat across from the sheriff and his large boots. A puck of manure clung to one of his boot heels. To see the sheriff’s face as he reclined in his creaking chair, Walt was forced to look past the boots and the dried poop.
Ignore the poop. Don’t look at it. Don’t. Look. At. It.
But his eyes kept coming back to the dung. He was afraid this made him appear shifty-eyed to the sheriff.
“Holding it open?” Walt said. “You think something is sour with the way she died?”
“No, I know how she died. Road went right, she didn’t. But before she died she was under investigation, her and some others. She was involved in some things. Just because she’s dead don’t mean our investigation is.”
“It’s funny. I came here expecting to…find her. Can you tell me, investigation for what?” Walt said.
He leaned back in his chair, putting some distance between him and the sullied boot heel. But inadvertently moving into bars of sunlight shining through the window that caused him to squint.
Beady-eyed and shifty. Great, Walt thought.
“Like I say, I can tell you the investigation is still open,” the sheriff said. “Now, you can take that as an invitation if you like. Store is open for business, so to speak. Got anything you want to tell me?”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you know, this gal up and dies. Then here you show up. Now why is that, I wonder?”
“I was just looking her up. She’s an old friend.”
“Right. Just looking her up. Just checking out the pipeline? Checking out why it suddenly dried up?
“What pipeline? I don’t know what the hell she was into. That’s why I came in here, for chrissakes.
Sheriff Cady held Walt’s gaze, then nodded. “Well then. Let’s see what I can tell you. Randall! Fetch me the Templeton file!”
A voice yelled from somewhere down the hallway behind the sheriff.
“You mean Dale Earnhardt?”
Sheriff Cady winced but said nothing. Walt heard heavy footsteps come loping down the hardwood floor of the hall. A lanky, grinning deputy popped into the room. Randall noticed Walt, and the smile dropped from the deputy’s face. His cheeks flushed as he handed two thick manila folders to Sheriff Cady as he nodded to Walt.
“Sorry about that,” Randall said.
Walt dismissed the episode with a shake of his head. He watched the Sheriff, still reclining, lay the folders on his chest, open the top folder and begin to scan it. Walt felt the deputy eyeballing him. Walt tried to ignore it. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and…face near the poop again. Was it dog shit? Horseshit? Walt became self-conscious of how rigidly he was sitting in the chair.
Walt looked at his hands folded between his knees. They look posed, stiff. Was the deputy still staring? Walt sat still as long as he could. Afraid of looking uncomfortable but sure that he did.
Finally, he sat back in his chair. Sunlight from the window stung his eyes again. He looked away and accidentally met the deputy’s gaze. This moved Randall to speak again.
“Pardon me, you look familiar.”
“I get that a lot,” Walt said. “I remind everybody of somebody.”
“No,” Randall said, clucking his tongue. “You remind me of you. Your picture, I’ve seen it.”
Randall pointed at Walt’s Thoroughbred Times on the corner of the Sheriff’s desk. “In there.”
The Sheriff raised his head from the file, pulled his boots down from his desk and sat up straight. He looked from one man to the other, waiting.
“I doubt it,” Walt said, shifting in his chair.
“I’m almost sure of it. You’re a horse trainer, like racehorses,” Randall said.
“I’ve done a little of it.
“I knew it. What horses?
“Randall, let the man alone,” Sheriff Cady said. “I’m sure he’s not in the mood for horse talk at a time like this.
“I’m sorry, Mr…?”
“McKinley. Walt McKinley.”
At the sound of Walt’s name, the deputy’s smile flattened into a line. A grim line that Walt seemed to have crossed. Walt knew that the deputy knew.
“That Walt McKinley?” Randall said.
“Guilty,” Walt said.
For chrissakes, any word other than that.
“I mean, yeah, probably I’m the Walt McKinley you’re thinking of.”
Sheriff Cady sat listening to the silence in his office, glancing from one man to another and back again.
“Anybody want to let me in on it?” the sheriff said finally.
“Well, what your deputy is alluding to, I think,” Walt said, trying to find a good way to put it. “See I…uh…well, a while back I had a little trouble with the Oklahoma gaming commission.”
“What kind of trouble?” Sheriff Cady said.
“He fixed races,” Randall said.
“No, no, I never fixed a race. You read the suspension agreement they made me sign. Nowhere in there does it say one word about fixing races or doping horses.”
Another long pause and Walt thinking shut up, shut up, shut up. He was about to start talking again just to fill the quiet when the sheriff saved him.
“So they just suspended you and made you sign a legally binding document because you weren’t doing anything wrong? Well, sure, that happens all the time.”
It was probably no use to explain but Walt gave it a shot.
“I didn’t fix races or dope horses. Never doped a horse in my life. I just kind of held back on some medicine for a few horses. I didn’t put them in their best condition to win is all. Never did I hurt any horse.”
“Is that supposed to be an excuse or an explanation?” the sheriff said. “Either way it don’t sound so good.
“Somehow it doesn’t sound any better now than it did under oath,” Walt said. “But it’s the truth and that has to be enough. The fact is, the only time it ever sounded good was when she…” Walt gesture toward the folders “…said it to me. It was her idea. I keep wondering, you know, how come it worked on me but not anybody else?”
“Must be in the delivery,” Randall said.
“That’s all I can figure,” Walt said.
The Sheriff went back to the folder.
“Let’s see here,” Sheriff Cady said. “Joni Templeton.
“No, her name was Geri,” Walt said. His heart quickened. “We talking about the same woman?”
“There’s a picture of her somewhere in here. Hold on a sec. “
Sheriff Cady fumbled with the folder, dropping half its contents on to the floor. Walt sat forward as the sheriff scooped up the mess of papers and plopped them on the desk. The sheriff sifted through the pile, pulling a picture from the file. He showed it to Walt.
It was a picture of a woman. A red-haired woman. Walt sank back in his chair.
“Out here,” Sheriff Cady said, “she called herself Joni Templeton.
“Joni?”
“Maybe she had cause for a new name. Your lady friend’s last days weren’t a real contribution to our community.”
“Is being a dancer a crime in this town?”
“Dancer?”
“Stripper.”
“I don’t know a thing about that,” Sheriff Cady said. “Don’t allow that kind of establishment in Eden. All I can say, she was into something she shouldn’t have been.”
“Do I have to guess?”
“Like I said, we’re holding our investigation open.”
Walt rubbed his eyes.
“Honestly, son, I didn’t hate to see her go,” Sheriff Cady said. But I am sorry for the way you’re feeling.
Sheriff Cady leaning in close across his desk.
“Sure you don’t have anything you want to add to your friend’s story?”
Walt resituated his cowboy hat on his head. The sheriff’s eyes roved up to the bullet hole in Walt’s hat.
Walt spoke before the sheriff could ask about it.
“I drove all night, sheriff. I should get some sleep. If I can.”
“Try the El Ranchero,” Sheriff Cady said. “Just follow Main Street to the edge of town.”
“Walt, after you get some sleep maybe we could talk horses?” Randall said.
“Have to be over breakfast,” Sheriff Cady said. “Walt here is leaving first thing in the morning. Aren’t you Walt?”
“You put it that way, I guess I am,” Walt said.
He stood, and, finally without sunlight in his eyes and not having to squirm in his chair or look past dried dung, Walt felt as comfortable as he could, which still wasn’t all the great considering he was tired, hungover and in shock that Geri was dead.
“Was she with anybody?” Walt said.
Sheriff Cady and Randall exchanged a glance to see who would tell him.
“Does it matter to you that much?” asked Randall.
Walt pursed his lips and looked at his boots. Without looking up saying, “Can you give me his name?”
Both the sheriff and the deputy were silent. Walt looked up at them.
“I’m not mad about it. I just want to talk with him. About Geri.”
Again the sheriff and Randall looked at one another. The sheriff nodded. Randall spoke.
“Joni…Geri…she was…she was living with Diane Cross.”
All three men stood silently as Randall’s words sank into Walt.
Diane. What the hell kind of name is Diane? Well, it’s a damn good name for a woman.
Finally, Walt spoke.
“Something stinks in here.”
“Now son, the sheriff said. “No need to get nasty just because your girlfriend—”
“—No, I mean you got shit on your boots.”
Walt turned and walked out, leaving the two men standing there.
Randall shrugged, picked up the Thoroughbred Times Walt had left behind and wandered back down the hallway to the toilet.
Sheriff Cady checked the soles of his boots.