Another Man's Ground--A Mystery, page 10
“I mean, I’m stoked to do the whole thing,” Larkson continued as if he’d heard what Hank was thinking. “But, man. That’s a lot of cash all in one place. It’s pretty sweet.”
Now they were moving away from the counter and toward one of the chairs. Lloyd snorted with laughter. “You bet your ass it’s sweet. You’re lucky I chose you. Otherwise some other tat dude’d be seein’ all that money.” He settled into the chair, his skin squeaking against the cushioning. Hank figured the odds were good he was wearing another wife beater.
Larkson started fiddling with his equipment, the metal instruments clinking against one another. “Yeah, the only other time I’ve seen a bunch of money like that in a sack was this bank robbery movie. Couple of summers ago. I don’t remember the name of it. Had that guy in it that was in that old TV show…”
They spent five minutes nailing down the film title, while Hank shifted in his chair and hoped Larkson could bring the conversation back around to where Taylor had gotten his money. After a brief detour into both of their hopes for another Fast and Furious street-car-racing movie, Larkson fired up his liner motor and steered things back in the right direction.
“You didn’t do something as cool as that, did you?” he asked Lloyd. “Racing and stealing cars all over the world and hanging with beautiful women? Walk away with a bag of cash?”
Oh, the guy was good. Hank was tempted to offer him a job right then and there.
Lloyd snorted another laugh. “Nah. I’m just a delivery driver,” he said in a tone that quite clearly implied the opposite. “I drive truckloads of plants. For people stupid enough to pay for them.”
Hank leaned forward to try to hear Larkson better over the whine of the motor.
“… parts of the country, plants can be a dangerous business. We’re not in Colorado where it’s legal, you know.”
“Man, I don’t do that. There’s not as much money in that anymore. It’s all in that herbal sh—”
The sound of the needle equipment stuttered suddenly. Larkson grunted. Hank rose quickly to his feet.
“What the hell are you up to, Tats? You seem too damn interested in my money.” There was a smack and another grunt as Hank drew his gun and rounded the doorjamb.
Lloyd’s right arm with its incomplete sleeve was still strapped to the chair. He was bringing his free left one back for another punch to the tattoo artist’s face. Hank leveled his Glock just as Larkson raised his own weapon.
“I don’t think so, asshole.” And Larkson sank the motorized needle into Lloyd’s shoulder.
He stepped away and picked up his hand towel as Hank walked forward, his gun still pointed at Lloyd.
“Did you get what you needed?” Larkson asked over the high-pitched screaming coming from the chair.
“It’s definitely a start,” Hank said. “And with what he just did to you, we can make him a guest of the Branson County Jail for a while, that’s for sure.” He looked at Larkson’s face. “Sorry about your eye.”
“Eh. I guess I wasn’t as subtle as I thought I was being.” He grinned.
So did Hank. “No, you did great. If this tattoo thing doesn’t work out, let me know. I might have some detective work for you.”
He holstered his gun and pointed at Lloyd, who was now crying and trying to get the needle out of his right shoulder while his arm was still strapped to the chair. “Will that come out?”
“Yeah,” Larkson said. “I’ll get it out of him. Mostly cuz I’m going to want my liner back.
“He can keep the needle.”
* * *
Hank hated this place. Much more than he’d ever hated the morgue in Kansas City. And he couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was just unfamiliarity. This was only his second time here. He’d already made one wrong turn. He stopped at an intersection of hallways and sighed.
“That way.” An elderly woman with a volunteer badge pinned to her crisp white button-down shirt pointed to the left as she passed him in the corridor.
“What?” he said.
“The morgue’s that way.” She smiled when she saw his puzzled stare. “Anybody with that horrible look on their face is looking for that place.” She gave him a pat on the shoulder and a little shove. “Go on, then. It’ll be okay.”
He sighed again and trudged down the corridor until he found the correct set of doors.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Dr. Whittaker chortled as he pranced around his desk to shake Hank’s hand. “Don’t worry about it. He’s not going anywhere.”
Hank appreciated a sense of humor as much as anybody in this business, but there was something about Michael Whittaker that just wasn’t funny. He’d been the medical examiner in southern Missouri for decades, though, and Hank was stuck with him.
Whittaker whipped two surgical masks out of a box and a jar of VapoRub out of a drawer.
“You’re going to need these for this guy. Whoowee. Very ripe.”
Hank swiped a streak under his nose, strapped on the mask, and followed the roly-poly doctor through the main morgue area and into the exam room reserved for homicides and suspicious deaths. The doc slid open the cooler, and he stared down at the mess of a human being.
It was a male measured at five feet eleven inches and 184 pounds, give or take. There was no gray in a full head of hair, so he likely was not too old, Whittaker said. Otherwise, the identifying characteristics of the face were completely destroyed, by both the decomp and that illegal kid falling on it. Same went for the chest cavity, which now had snapped ribs and a bunch of mush where the organs were supposed to be.
“He must have fallen from a pretty good height to cause that kind of damage,” Whittaker said. “Then it looks like he did a jig on the body, because everything is all torn up. No respect for evidence.”
“Well,” Hank said through gritted teeth, “he was actually trying to get off it. It was in a fairly confined space.”
“Eh,” Whittaker said. “Shoulda been more careful.”
Hank tried to keep his voice neutral as he asked how long Rotten Doe had been dead. Whittaker flipped through his chart.
“Your techs measured the temperature at the bottom of the fissure at ten degrees cooler than the surface air. So assuming that’s a constant deviation, it probably took the body about ten days to reach that state. Give or take a couple days.”
Well, that narrowed it down. A not-old, not-fat male, five feet eleven, dead anywhere from one to three weeks. Whittaker snapped the file shut and informed Hank that he had several bodies ahead of Mr. Doe. He’d probably get to the full autopsy in a day or two. Hank spun on his heel and left the room before he added to the morgue’s body count. The jerk could have told him that before he drove all the way up here to Springfield. He ripped off his mask, used it to wipe off the VapoRub, and stomped out to his car.
* * *
He pulled into his space at the office in Forsyth and saw Sam pacing the sidewalk. He pounced as soon as Hank got out of the car.
“You arrested him? Really?” he said, bouncing on the balls of his enormous feet. “Awesome. Do we have enough for a search warrant? For their land?” He bounced some more. “We could finally get back there, see what’s in the darn woods. Oooh, meth bust, here I come—”
Hank held up a hand to slow his deputy down and to keep himself from laughing. “Hold on. Let’s get him in front of a judge first. Hopefully we can get bail set high enough on the assault of the tattoo guy that he can’t make it—seeing as I seized his bag of cash this morning. Then we’ll focus on trying to get in to search the property. Have you figured out any of the other herbal businesses he drives for?”
No companies other than Old Mountain Natural Herbs had admitted to Sam that they used Taylor as a delivery driver. And all the companies he talked to were being very tight with their lists of local drivers and growers. Kept blathering on about security concerns, Sam said with an eye roll.
“You’d think they were mining gold instead of growing weeds,” Sam growled. “I told them all that they had a day to rethink themselves into a more cooperative position, or I was calling a deputy attorney general friend of mine and asking for agricultural and environmental investigations into their business practices.”
Hank looked at him in surprise. Sam wasn’t usually that heavy-handed. “Nice. Good job. And I didn’t know you knew somebody in the AG’s office.”
Sam rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, no. Not exactly. I did meet some lady AG at a training class last year. I think she was in Medicaid fraud, though.” He grinned at his boss. “But you always say, what they don’t know…”
Hank burst out laughing. His eager Pup was coming along quite well. As a reward, he told him about Taylor getting stabbed by the tattoo artist. That had Sam bouncing again as he gleefully volunteered to check on the new inmate’s medical care.
“Just don’t ‘accidentally’ poke him in the shoulder while you’re there,” Hank said as Sam headed to the jail, and he turned toward his office.
Where Darcy Blakely sat waiting for him.
She stood as he entered and folded her hands in front of her. She looked as poised and put-together as usual, except for the tightening around her mouth that Hank had come to associate with his presence.
He stopped in the doorway.
“I am here to offer my resignation—well, first, I’m here to apologize. And then to offer my resignation,” she said.
That was not what he’d expected. After getting pounded by Maggie for the past three days that he couldn’t fire her, now here she was quitting.
He opened his mouth and then shut it because he couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, he walked around his desk and sat in his chair. She sank into the one opposite, straightened her pale pink skirt, and held his gaze steadily.
Great. He’d thought this would be a quick phone call, and he’d end it with a feeling of relief. Now—not so much. He started to run his hand through his hair, but froze halfway. She smiled.
“Well, at least I’ve had some positive impact.”
He lowered his hand. “Yes, you have. You have done a lot. And I thank you. I—” He stopped. He should think of it like a witness interview. He knew how to handle those.
“Can I ask you why you’re resigning?”
“You haven’t contacted me since the Rotary lunch. You obviously aren’t interested in me trying to crisis-manage the situation. Someone else can perhaps better advise you about responding to the allegations. I will of course hand over all of the campaign volunteer lists and—”
“Wait—what? Allegations? What allegations?” He half rose out of his seat before catching himself and sitting back down. Darcy bit back a sigh, and her perfect posture slumped a little. Hank cringed.
“Do you not pay attention to anything? Really?” she asked. “You haven’t heard about the radio interview? That Tucker did yesterday?”
Hank shook his head slowly. He thought about pointing out that he had two death investigations going on and they were certainly justifiable cause to have missed a campaign item. But he risked a look at Darcy and decided to keep his mouth shut.
She shoved her designer glasses back up her nose with untypical haste and leaned forward. “Tucker gave an interview with Dick Battenberg on the AM Christian station that broadcasts out of downtown. He called you a carpetbagger and a bad cop who cared more about campaigning than solving crimes—which I was expecting, honestly—but then he said you also screwed up the Mandy Bryson murder case, and were involved in criminal behavior when you were up at Mizzou. And that you’re Mexican.”
Hank blinked. That was about all he could do. They stared at each other for what felt like several minutes. She looked as pissed off as he felt, at least.
“It’s not true,” he finally said. “None of it. You know that. He can’t say any of it. That’s slander.”
She sighed again. “No, that’s a campaign. And you need to refute all of it, immediately. The longer it sits out there unchallenged, the worse it is.”
It couldn’t get much worse than that. What had they dug up about his college days in Columbia? And they’d obviously figured out his mother was a Mexican immigrant. And— “What about Mandy Bryson? Screwed up her case? What the hell? The guy’s already pleaded guilty. I got him to confess, damn it. How the hell is that screwing it up?” He realized he was yelling, and coming out of his chair again. He stopped both and tried counting to ten. It didn’t work. Darcy let him go on for a while at slightly lower volume before she interrupted.
“Tucker said that the guy should have gone to trial,” she said. “That the people of Branson County deserved to have the whole truth come out in public. Otherwise how are they to know that you got it right, because you probably got it wrong.”
“He confessed!” The volume was back up. “I investigated, I proved it was him, and I got him to confess. Then he admitted it in court, which is a public forum, or doesn’t that asshole know that? He—”
Darcy stopped him again. “That is the least of the three, frankly. We can prove that Roy Stanton pleaded guilty to murder. That the crime was solved while you were sheriff and the lead investigator. That should be enough to dampen it at least. It’s the other two things I’m worried about.”
Hank scowled. “What did he say about the stuff at Mizzou?”
“That’s just it. He didn’t say anything specific—just criminal conduct,” she said, and then leaned forward. “What did you do?”
Just the one thing that St. Patrick’s Day when he was a sophomore …
“There … might have been some activities that seemed perfectly valid at the time, which … might now be considered questionable as I look back on them.”
Darcy groaned. Then she giggled. Hank flinched. Had he finally sent her over the edge? She giggled and giggled, fishing a tissue out of her laptop bag and dabbing at her eyes. “Oh, my. This is horrible. It will almost surely bite us in the ass. But, my dear, that was an absolutely perfect politician response. Perfect. I’m very impressed.”
Hank slumped down in his chair in defeat.
“So, essentially, I just have to try every weasely way I can think of to not get you mad at me? Talk like that, and it’s all good?”
“Well, it’s better at least,” she said. “We’ve still got a lot to do, though.”
It took Hank only a split second to agree. His resentment over the Rotary luncheon was no match for how much he suddenly needed her help. He grinned at her. “You said ‘we.’ Does that mean you’re not resigning?”
She tucked her blond hair behind her ears and adjusted her glasses. “I suppose it does. I can’t let this go unanswered. It wouldn’t look good. Plus, no one else on God’s green earth would take you now. So, yes, I’m not resigning.”
Hank tried not to look too relieved. They both rose from their seats, and he walked her to the door.
“Wait.” She stopped short. “The Mexican thing. Is that true?”
“We talked about that,” he said.
“No. No, no. We talked about you being from California. We did not talk about you being from Mexico. You didn’t mention that.”
“I’m not from Mexico. My mother is. She immigrated here with her parents when she was four years old. She is a naturalized citizen. So are my grandparents.”
That tightening around her mouth was back.
“That would have been pertinent to tell me, don’t you think? Around here? To have that kind of ancestry?”
Hank doubted his mother would appreciate being called an “ancestor.” And he didn’t much appreciate being called a “Mexican” as if it were a dirty word. That must have been apparent from the look that crossed his face, because she quickly put up her hand in a “stop” motion.
“Just hold it. I am not maligning your heritage. Or calling you a dirty name. I am trying to work within the realities of the situation. And that situation is southern Missouri. Where, in case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many Mexicans. And the ones there are, sure as heck can’t vote.”
How was it that this woman could send him from even-keeled to completely pissed off in less time than it took to exit a room? He scowled. “As a voting bloc, they’re referred to as Latino.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that. You’ve got to have a thicker skin. You can’t take this as a personal attack. That’s what they want. We’ll come up with some way to deflect it—try to say it’s not a big deal. I’ll figure that out. But you”—she jabbed a finger at his chest—“have to do your part. Keep your temper.”
She left him standing there trying to do just that.
CHAPTER
15
The heat had just started, slightly earlier than usual. It shouldn’t affect the grape vines too much. And for her tomatoes, it was wonderful, she told him. They would be abundante. She would send him salsa.
Hank leaned back in his chair and let the Spanish wash over him. How an accident just off the freeway had caused a detour right past the front gate. How the parish was almost done raising money for the new parish hall. How that friend of his from high school had just joined the Chamber of Commerce. How she missed him and her grandbabies. He hung up his cell phone feeling more at peace than he had in weeks. Gracias, Mamá.
“How’s your mom?” Maggie sat down on the other end of the couch and tossed their battered copies of Sheep in a Jeep and Goodnight Moon onto the coffee table.
“Good. She says hi. Wanted to know how many lives you’ve saved since she talked to you last.”
Maggie burst out laughing. “Really?”
“Yeah. She won’t admit it, but I think she uses it as ammo in the bragging wars with the other ladies in the women’s group at church.”
“I love your mom.” She stretched out along the couch, and Hank automatically drew her feet onto his lap and started rubbing. He stopped when she jerked back.
“Ow. Just not that spot. I’ve got a blister. I had to switch to dress flats today. My tennis shoes got trashed.”
“You get blood on them again?”
“No. Vomit this time. Which is definitely worse. At least blood doesn’t stink. They went straight in a biowaste bag.”Hank gingerly took his hands off her feet and looked over at her. She gave him a lazy grin. “I washed them, silly, don’t worry.”
