2 Heroes & Hooligans in Goose Pimple Junction (43 page)

“Sounds like a plan.” Rusty tipped his hat and left the building.

A while later, Hank arrived in Johnny’s office, where Skeeter and Velveeta were waiting.

“What’s up?” Hank slumped into a chair.

“We like John Ed for stealing the stuff around town.” Johnny’s chair squealed as he settled in behind his desk.

“Well, spit in the fire and call me Billy Bob,” Hank said, looking truly astounded.

“Okay, Billy Bob. Now we gotta find him.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“His granddaughter Charlotte spilled the beans. She was a tough nut to crack, let me tell you.” Johnny took a swig from the can of Mtn Dew on his desk. “He’s been stealing stuff he needs or wants from all over town, and she’s been supplementing with Lou’s home cooking. Seems he figured the town owed him.”

“Plus he prolly just wanted some good old-fashioned revenge,” Skeeter speculated.

“That, too. I guess it didn’t occur to him to take responsibility for his own self. Anyway, he gave himself a license to steal. But we can’t find him anywhere. He sold his house back a few months. Got any ideas?” Johnny looked at each of the officers.

“Mag Bar?” Hank offered.

“Negative. Cash says he doesn’t come into the bar. I guess he uses—or used—it as a drop-off point for his food deliveries, but he wasn’t a regular customer.”

“It’s not like he could steal anything in there,” Skeeter pointed out. “You order a drink, you gotta pay for it.”

“Yeah, but you can steal out of the back room,” Velveeta said.

“That”—Johnny pointed at her—”you can do.” He leafed through some papers and pulled one out of the stack. “Affirmative. Cash reported four bottles of bourbon missing a few weeks back.”

“Shoot, since all the commotion last summer, he ain’t been a regular anywhere in town,” Skeeter said. “But I heard he kind of holed himself up in old Crate Marshall’s place. After Tank died, the house has been empty. Doesn’t have electricity or gas, but it’s a shelter.”

“He’d hear us coming a mile away up at that place.” The room was silent for a bit. “I think we have to set him up.”

“How?” the three officers said together.

“Charlotte let it slip that sometimes she’d leave Lou’s back door unlocked, and in the middle of the night he’d come over and help himself to the contents of the kitchen. I think he mostly came for refrigerated stuff at night. Food she couldn’t leave in the drop box.”

“So old Ima Jean wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought she was, huh?”

“It appears not. I say we get Charlotte to tell him she’ll leave the door unlocked and we let him steal his last meal.” Johnny absentmindedly twirled a pencil around his fingers.

“Then we wait for him at Lou’s?” Hank said.

“Then we wait for him at the old Marshall place. He’ll walk right to us with the evidence in his hands. I don’t want to cause a scene at Lou’s, especially with Charlotte living there.”

“Okay, when?” Velveeta looked like she was ready to go right then and there.

“Charlotte said the food she just sent him should last a few days. Let’s do it on Thursday night.”

“Roger that.” Hank’s usual easygoing nature had turned all business.

“Meantime, if you see him, watch him, but don’t bring him in. I think we’ll get him to tell all if we catch him red-handed.” Johnny put his pencil on the desk and stood up.

The officers filed out, but Johnny called out, “Officer Witherspoon?”

Velveeta peeked around the doorway. “Yes sir?”

“Anything on that theory of yours?”

“Negative, sir. I’m still working it.”

He nodded, and she left him alone in the room once again.

Johnny stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking out his office window to the light pole across the street. His mind kept going over Cash’s description of the woman at the bar.
It couldn’t be.
But things she’d said kept running through his head like a news crawler.
But she out and out lied to me about never going to the Mag Bar
.

He picked up the phone. “Jack? Johnny here. Yeah, sorry for calling so late. Can you meet me up at the diner in the morning?” He listened for a few seconds. “Negative. I gotta go home and get some sleep. It’ll keep until tomorrow. About seven? All right. See you then.”

Jack was waiting in the back booth when Johnny arrived at 7:02. “Morning, gentlemen.” Johnny breezed past Clive and Earl at their regular places. “Do y’all sleep here?” He’d said it as more of a statement than question, but the men nodded.

“We might if Slick stayed open twenty-four hours.”

“Thank the good Lord he don’t,” Slick said.

Johnny waved to Slick in the kitchen, squeezed past Willa Jean taking an order, patting her on the shoulder, and walked to the back booth to join Jack.

“You look like you were pulled through a knothole backward.” Jack’s wrinkled brow showed his worry for his friend.

“Kinda feel that way, too,” Johnny said, running his hand through his short, dark hair.

Willa Jean finished at the other table and came to their booth, eyeing Johnny carefully. “You look more miserable than a horse in a hayless barn.”

“Aw, not you, too. I don’t look that bad, y’all.”

Willa and Jack looked at each other and then back at Johnny. They said in unison, “Yes, you do.”

“I’m going to get you some of my fresh-squeezed OJ. Y’ont anything else?”

“Thanks, Willa Jean. How about some scrambled eggs?”

As soon as she walked toward the kitchen, hollering, “Gimme two and wreck ‘em,” Johnny said, “I got a problem.”

“I can see that,” Jack said. “I thought everything with you and Martha Maye were okay now.”

“They are. This is a work problem. I think I know who killed Lenny, but I can’t prove it.”

“Go on,” Jack said. “Wanna tell me who we’re talking about? Hey, by the way, did y’all find T. Harry?”

“Yeah, Beano and that detective from Nashville brought him a few hours ago. He’s over to the station percolating, but I don’t think he killed his brother.”

There was a commotion at the door of the diner, and the men looked up to see Skeeter Duke rushing toward them.

“Chief! Hank says the detective arrived and T. Harry’s ready to talk. You’d better get over there right quick.”

“Aw, criminy. I’m sorry, Jack. I’ve got to go. Will you be around later?”

Jack sighed heavily. “Yeah, just give me a call. I’ll be home.”

As Johnny slid out of the booth, Jack said, “Don’t suppose you could give me a name instead of keeping me in suspense.”

Johnny grinned, slapped his friend on the back good-naturedly, and said, “Negative, buddy, but I’ll say this: it will surprise the fire outta you.”

“I’ve not known you to be a cruel man until now.”

T. Harry’s red hair was mashed down on one side and stuck straight out on the other. Dark circles underneath his bloodshot eyes, on an otherwise pale face, almost made him look like he had two black eyes.

The minute Johnny walked in, T. Harry growled, “I shoulda knowed he’s behind this. I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Well, that’s just too damn bad, Applewhite,” Detective Squires said. Johnny pulled out a chair and sat down beside him.

“I want a lawyer,” T. Harry shot back.

“Sir,” Rusty leaned toward him, “you’re not under arrest for anything except being loaded up on loud-mouth soup. That’s a fact, and no lawyer in the world can get you out of that rap. Right now, we simply want to ask you a few questions. Are you telling us you’ve done something for which you need a lawyer?”

“I ain’t done nothing. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.”

“Mr. Applewhite, do you know a Mr. Joe Bob Mossbourn?”

T. Harry stared at him. “Yeah, I knew him. That man didn’t have the sense God gave an animal cracker.”

The detective scribbled on the paper in front of him. “How do you know Mr. Mossbourn?”

“We were acquaintances, that’s all.” T. Harry’s chin jutted into the air.

“How were you
acquainted
?” Rusty pressed.

“I don’t recall,” he said, studying his fingernails.

“Can you explain why you keep referring to the man in the past tense?”

T. Harry’s eyes nervously darted around the small, dingy room. “Well . . . well,
you
were talking like that.”

“No sir.” Rusty sat back. “I never said anything of the kind. You’re the only one who has talked about him in the past tense. I think that’s because you know the man’s dead.”

“He’s dead?” T. Harry tried his best to act shocked and surprised.

“I wouldn’t count on a career in motion pictures,” Rusty said. “Now admit it. You knew he was dead, and maybe the reason you knew he was dead, was because you killed him.”

“Aw, no. Hell no. You ain’t gonna get me to admit no such thing.”

Rusty said nothing. He and Johnny stared at T. Harry, which had the desired effect. T. Harry began babbling away.

“I’m telling y’all, I didn’t kill nobody. Besides, I was here in Goose Pimple Junction. I couldn’t have killed him.”

“I don’t recall saying when the man was killed,” Rusty said with a grin.

“See, I’ve been here for a few weeks now, so whenever it was, I was here.”

“T. Harry.” Johnny stood and pushed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. “You said you came to Goose Pimple Junction the day before your brother’s funeral. That’s only a little over a week.”

“I– I–” T. Harry stammered.

“Because if you were here in town when your brother was killed,” Johnny moved beside T. Harry, towering over him, “I might have to look hard at why you didn’t tell anyone and why you felt the need to pretend you had just came to town. I’d say that’s mighty suspicious behavior right there, wouldn’t you, Detective?” He turned from the detective back to T. Harry. “Maybe you killed your brother.”

“Now that’s just a bald-faced lie.”

“I think Mr. Applewhite here is in what you call between a rock and a hard place. Either he was in Nashville and he killed Mossbourn, or he was here and he killed his brother,” Rusty said. He leaned toward him and got within an inch of his face. “Which is it, hotshot?”

“Okay, okay, here’s what happened. I was in Helechewa for a few weeks before Lenny died.”

“Why were you in Helechewa? Why would you be in a town just thirty minutes away and not tell your brother or your sister-in-law?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but I want immunization.”

Johnny sat back into his chair and looked up at the ceiling as if praying for help. He brought his gaze back to T. Harry. “You want a flu shot?”

“No. I want—you know, that thing where’s I tell you something but I don’t get persecuted for it.”

Rusty shook his head at T. Harry’s stupidity and said to Johnny, “I’ll bet he inspired the slogan, ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste.’“

“That would be a pretty safe bet,” Johnny said. “I think he’s right, though. I think he needs immunization. Immunization from stupidity.”

“What say I take him back to Nashville with me tonight? I got a witness who can identify him.”

“Wait! I’m trying to confess, if y’all will just pipe down long enough. I didn’t kill nobody, and I wasn’t in Nashville because I been in Helechewa for a few weeks on account of needing to be near Goose Pimple Junction so’s I could woo Martha Maye. I’ve been leaving presents for her. Just ask her.”