Bitch Creek (15 page)

She did, and Calhoun frowned for a minute, then began sketching. As he did, he talked. “Five foot nine or ten,” he said. “I'd say about one-forty-five, one-fifty. Blue eyes. Pale, kinda washed-out, more gray than blue, actually. Wire-rimmed glasses. Big ears that stick straight out. Howdy-Doody ears. Like this.” He drew Fred Green's ears, cocked his head, and nodded. “Little scar beside his left eyebrow, crescent-shaped, maybe half an inch long. Soft hands, liver spots. Tanned face, thinning white hair, widow's peak. Wrinkles here”—he was sketching Fred Green's face, filling in the details, watching it magically appear as the pencil moved over the paper—”and here, alongside his mouth. Perfect teeth. Capped, probably. If they're dentures, they're expensive ones. He was wearing casual clothes—short-sleeved cotton shirt, buttoned to the throat, chino pants with pleats in front, braided leather belt, shiny oxblood loafers—all new, clean, top-of-the-line. Gold Rolex on his left wrist. Manicured fingernails. Nicest fingernails I've ever seen on a man.” He put down the pencil, cocked his head at the sketch he'd just drawn, then shrugged and turned it around for the sheriff. “That's him. That's how he looks.”

Dickman glanced at it, then frowned at Calhoun. “Where'd you learn to do that?”

“Huh?”

“I didn't know you were a damn artist, Stoney.”

Calhoun shrugged. “I'm not. This is just what I see in my head, that's all.”

“I think that's what artists do,” said the sheriff. “They make pictures of what they see in their heads. It's a gift.”

“Well, I can't say anything about that. I wasn't thinking about it, Sheriff. I just did it. Saw it in my head and put it down there on the paper.”

“This is a professional piece of work,” said Dickman. “And all that detail you remembered. You've been trained for this, haven't you?”

“I don't know,” Calhoun said. And as he said it, he had one of those quick memory-flickers—a dark classroom, others in the room, sitting in rows, a desk that was a little too small for him, a projection screen, photographs flashing on it one after the other, changing every few seconds, a dozen of them, maybe more, squinting at them, concentrating, forcing himself to remember them, to line them up in his head, to
see
those photographs . . .

Then the memory was gone. Calhoun shook his head. “I don't know how I did that, Sheriff. But that's him, all right. That's Mr. Fred Green who says he's from Key Largo, Florida, who was with Lyle when he got shot. That's exactly what he looks like.”

The sheriff picked up the paper, then stood up. “I've got to fax this back to the office right away. Stoney, if you don't mind, I'd like you to come with me.”

Calhoun nodded, then looked at Kate. “Can you handle the shop this morning, honey?”

She nodded. “We've got no guide trips booked. I'll be fine. You just keep me posted, okay?”

C
ALHOUN RODE SHOTGUN AND THE SHERIFF
drove to Millie Dobson's house. He pulled into her driveway, parked beside her green Cherokee, and glanced at his watch. “It's not even eight yet. I need to use her fax. Suppose she's open for business?”

“Millie's always open for business,” said Calhoun.

They climbed out of Dickman's Explorer, and Calhoun followed him up onto Millie Dobson's front porch. The sheriff rang the bell, and a minute later the door opened.

Millie was wearing a silky white blouse with several of the top buttons undone, a string of pearls around her neck, a narrow black skirt that stopped several inches above her knees, and stockinged feet with no shoes. She was trying to hook a big dangly earring into her left ear. “Uh-oh,” she said when she saw the sheriff. “What'd I do now?”

“I don't know, Millie,” he said. “Something, I'm damn sure of that. I could arrest you just for the way you're looking right now. But the fact is, it's that fax machine of yours I'm after today.”

She glanced over Dickman's shoulder and caught Calhoun's eye. “You're keeping bad company, Stoney. Folks're gonna start talking.”

“I expect they already are,” he said.

She pushed open the screen door. “Well, come on in, then. Make it snappy. I've got people who want to buy a house coming by any minute, and I sure don't want a pair of derelicts like you two hanging around here scaring them off.”

Dickman tipped his cap as he entered. “We'll be out from under your feet in no time, ma'am.”

“Coffee's plugged in,” she said. “Help yourself. I've got to finish dressing. Think you can work the machine by yourself?”

“I've done it once or twice before,” said the sheriff.

She left the room, and Dickman found a piece of blank paper. “Now, Stoney,” he said, “you tell me all those descriptors of Fred Green again, so I can write 'em down and send 'em to the office along with this portrait you drew for me.”

Calhoun shut his eyes, conjured up his mind-picture of Green, and told the sheriff everything he saw, right down to the man's approximate shoe size.

“Okay,” said the sheriff. “Now what about that car he was driving?”

“White Ford Taurus,” he said. “Four doors. Maine plates. This year's model. A rental, I'd say.”

“Why would you say that?”

Calhoun shrugged. “He was from away. Said Key Largo. Maybe, maybe not—but definitely not a Mainer. So that wouldn't be his car. Seems like all rental cars are new and white.”

The sheriff smiled and shook his head. “You've got a cop's mind, Stoney.”

“I've got a weird mind, is what I've got.”

“Same difference, I guess.”

Dickman ran the papers through the fax machine. Then he pulled out his wallet and laid a ten-dollar bill on Millie's desk. “We're done, Millie,” he called in the direction of where she had disappeared to. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” came her reply. “You boys clear out quick, now. I don't want those nice people thinking I've got trouble with the law.”

Back in the sheriff's Explorer, Calhoun said, “Now what?”

“Let's drop in on Jacob Barnes. Then I want to take a look at the place where you found Lyle.”

As they drove, Dickman said, “Millie's an attractive lady, isn't she?”

Calhoun said, “You're not tempted, are you, Sheriff?”

Dickman laughed. “Not hardly. Jane and I've been married thirtytwo years, and I can honestly say I haven't regretted a minute of it. No, I'm just saying it's kind of odd someone hasn't won her heart. She's got about everything a man could want—including plenty of money.” He chuckled. “If Dublin had a mayor, no doubt she'd be it. Nobody'd dare vote against her. She knows everything about everybody, going back to their ancestors. Bet she gave you the entire history of that piece of land of yours.”

Calhoun shrugged. “It used to belong to a family named Calhoun who got burned out in forty-seven, is all I know.”

“Kinfolk of yours?”

Calhoun shrugged. “Guess not. I'm not from around here.”

“Ask Millie sometime,” said the sheriff. “She'll give you the whole story.”

Five minutes later the sheriff pulled up beside the little mom-and-pop store across from the church at the crossroads. Calhoun followed him inside.

They found Jacob Barnes pouring water into the coffee machine in the back corner of the store. The old man either hadn't heard them come in or else had decided to ignore them, and he didn't turn until the sheriff said, “Morning, Jacob.”

“Oh, mornin', there, Sheriff. Stoney, how you doin'?”

Calhoun nodded. “Not bad.”

Barnes got the machine switched on, then gestured to the chairs that were gathered in a semicircle. “You boys come to make a purchase, or to set?” As if to express his own preference, he slouched into one of the chairs.

“Neither,” said the sheriff. He handed Calhoun's sketch of Fred Green to Barnes. “Wondered if you might've seen this man. He was driving a new white Taurus.”

Barnes squinted at it, then looked up at the sheriff and shrugged. “Can't say that I have. Who is he?”

“A young man drowned up in Keatsboro the other day,” said the sheriff. “We think this man might know something about it.”

Barnes nodded. “I heard about that. Up to the Potter place. Damn shame. What's this fella got to do with it?”

“We're not sure.”

“Well,” he shrugged, “afraid I can't help you. Maybe Marcus knows something. Hey,” he yelled toward the door that opened from the back of the store. “Hey, Marcus. Come on in here, boy.”

A minute later the door opened and Marcus Dillman, Jacob's grandson, his daughter's fatherless son, came in. Marcus was a hulking young man in his early twenties. He wore a bushy blond beard, overalls over a black T-shirt, a faded New York Mets baseball cap with the visor tugged down low over his eyes, and a perpetually good-natured grin.

Jacob had once confided to Calhoun: “Marcus ain't too swift. Truth to tell, he's numb as a hake. But he's a good boy, strong as an ox, and he'll work his ass off, so long as it don't require spelling or multiplying.”

Marcus looked at Calhoun and the sheriff and nodded. “Mornin', gentlemen,” he said. Then he touched Jacob on the shoulder. “What's up, Grampa?”

“You ever seen this fella?” Jacob handed the sketch to Marcus.

Marcus frowned at it, then shook his head. “Nossuh.” He looked up at Calhoun and grinned. “Funny ears, huh?”

Calhoun smiled.

Dickman took the sketch from Marcus. “Supposing I use that machine of yours,” he said to Jacob, “and leave a copy of this man's face with you. Tack it up there beside the door.”

Barnes shrugged. “Nickel a copy.”

The sheriff went over to the photocopy machine, and Jacob said, “Help yourself to coffee, Stoney.”

“I'm all set,” said Calhoun.

“That was your friend, Lyle McMahan, wasn't it? Who drowned himself up there at Potter's?”

“Yes.”

“You found him, I hear?”

Calhoun smiled. “Do you hear everything, Jacob?”

Barnes nodded. “Suppose I do.”

“Well, if you hear anything else—you, too, Marcus—you be sure to let the sheriff know.”

Barnes squinted at him. “Sounds to me like this wasn't no accident.”

“I guess you'll have to ask the sheriff about that,” said Calhoun.

Dickman came back and handed a copy of Calhoun's sketch to Jacob. “I wrote my number on the bottom,” he said. “You might point it out to folks who come in, ask them to take a look and feel free to call.”

“Guess I can do that,” said Barnes.

They left the store and climbed into Dickman's truck. “Now,” said the sheriff, “I want you to take me to the crime scene.” He glanced sideways at Calhoun. “Which, I've got to mention, Stoney, you have already corrupted.”

“Because I lugged Lyle out of there?”

Dickman nodded.

“Be damned if I was gonna leave him in the water.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn't do that.”

“Nobody would do that.” Calhoun turned to Dickman. “You're checking out Lyle's Power Wagon, I assume.”

The sheriff nodded. “I called the state police, suggested they get their forensic boys onto it. Of course,” he said, “you've corrupted that piece of evidence, too.”

“If I hadn't gone into it for that map,” said Calhoun, “we wouldn't've found Lyle in the first place.”

“Valid point,” said Dickman.

It took about fifteen minutes to drive from Jacob Barnes's store in Dublin to the barway beside the dirt road in Keatsboro, where the overgrown cart path led through the woods and down the long slope to the milldam where Calhoun had found Lyle. The sheriff pulled his Explorer off the road. They both got out.

“Lead on, Macduff,” said Dickman.

They pushed through the saplings that overgrew the old ruts through the woods, and after a while Dickman said, “How far we got to go, Stoney?”

“I figure it's about a half mile in, altogether. We're getting there.”

“And you lugged that big fella all the way up this hill and through the woods?”

It didn't seem to be a question that needed an answer, so Calhoun said nothing.

Lyle's deflated float tube, vest, fins, waders, and fly rod were piled on the other side of the milldam where Calhoun had left them. Dickman went over and scootched down beside them.

Calhoun stood there, looking around. It was actually a pretty spot in the little valley, with the forest rising from scrubby hardwoods to tall pines on both sides. Red-winged blackbirds chittered in the reeds along the rim of the pond, and down toward the far end he spotted a great blue heron, poised in the shallow water as still as a stump, his head drawn back and his neck arched like a bow at full draw. A pair of redtailed hawks cruised on the thermals high overhead. A quiet, peaceful place, the kind of place Lyle loved. Not the kind of place where someone would shoot a man.

“Hey, Stoney,” said the sheriff. “Look here.”

Calhoun squatted beside Dickman.

The sheriff was holding Lyle's waders on his lap. He poked his little finger against a hole in the bib—right about where they would cover a man's solar plexus. “Doc Pritchard said the entry wound was just about straight on. If Lyle was floating on the pond, the shooter must've been kneeling or lying on the ground, because in one of those float tubes, his chest is only a foot or so out of the water.”

Calhoun glanced around. “About the only dry land around here where someone could set up to shoot is right here, around the dam.”

“Assuming he was out there in his tube when he was shot,” said Dickman.

Calhoun nodded. “They could've moved him, you're thinking. Shot him first, then stuck him in his tube and pushed him out, let him drown on his own. Or maybe shot him, held his head under water till he died, then stuck him in his tube.”