Death at the Black Bull (5 page)

W
hen Jimmy pulled into the parking lot behind the sheriff's office, he saw Virgil standing in the far corner looking at Buddy Hinton's truck. He parked the patrol car near the back entrance, then walked across the dirt lot.

“Hey.”

Virgil didn't respond.

“Whatcha doing?”

Virgil glanced at Jimmy, but still didn't say anything.

“Why'd somebody do Buddy like that?” Jimmy said.

“There's always a reason,” Virgil said. “We find that out, we may find out who did Buddy.”

“But Buddy never hurt no one. It don't make sense. Maybe it was a serial killer. Just random.”

“You been watching too many of those
CSI
shows, Jimmy. This wasn't random.”

“How do you know that, Virgil? I mean, Buddy was well liked. He didn't have no enemies.”

“Well, for one thing, he left this truck behind and rode off with his killer. That tells me at least two things. One, that he knew his killer and two, that this was planned. Whoever killed him lured him away and was no stranger to these parts. He knew where that stock tank was and figured that Buddy wouldn't be found until the water and heat did its job. Then he knew to drive Buddy's truck into that ravine to slow our search even more. Actually, that tells me something else, too.”

“What's that?”

“That this killer must've reckoned he had a lot to lose if he let Buddy go on living.”

“Well, what are we going to do now?” Jimmy said. “Where do we start?”

Virgil hesitated for a second. He looked down at a small tumbleweed at his foot, gave it a light kick and watched it roll off toward the middle of the lot with the help of a breeze.

“I think maybe the best place to start is back at the beginning. Remember, when we started we were looking for Buddy. Now everything's changed.”

“What d'ya mean?”

“Well, now we're looking for his killer.”

*   *   *

Virgil tried to clear his mind on the way back to the ranch. He was tired and he had a headache. Not the kind of tired that comes at the end of a day baling hay in ninety-degree heat or stringing wire for half a mile on posts that you dug with a manual posthole digger. This was the kind of tired that keeps you up nights, robs your sleep. That has your mind going in ten directions at once. And worst of all, won't quit. No off switch at all.

It had been building all day. His recent conversation with Jimmy had just crystallized it. He'd been sheriff for over a dozen years. This was not his first homicide. But this one was different.

Hayward had its share of murders, of course. They might be in a bar or parking lot, where someone ends up pooling blood from a knife stuck between his ribs, or lying among shards of glass with his head split open. There were also the domestic killings. A woman beaten once too often who is afraid for her kids and finds the strength to put a round or two into a husband she'd married with high hopes.

Then there were the rare occasions when a partner goes over the edge because of the humiliation of faithlessness. A momentary picture of Wendell Tibbs came into Virgil's mind as Tibbs stood over the bloodied bodies of his wife and the rodeo cowboy she'd been sleeping with. Virgil pleaded with him to no avail to put the gun down, and then stood helplessly as Wendell, with tears running down his cheeks, put the last bullet into his brain.

These were the casualties of broken people with broken lives, or flameouts from a combustible moment of rage, but they had a commonality that Virgil understood. Buddy Hinton was different. His death was planned, and executed. Whoever did this to Buddy had a reason. That was what had Virgil's mind working overtime. If they had a good enough reason to kill Buddy, it might not end there.

C
esar was sitting on the last hay bale that had come up the conveyor. He was done for the day. Pedro and José had just left in their pickup. Brothers and good workers, they had worked on the ranch for the last ten years. He liked to tease them since they became legal, calling them Pete and Joe. They didn't seem to mind. In fact, he thought they might secretly like it. Of course, what they didn't know was that Cesar had been illegal for over fifty years. Virgil's father had fished him out of the river way back when, and ever since he had called this place home.

Now Cesar sat on the bale, looking out of the hay door at the close of a hard day. He was feeling it. He would never admit it and no one, except maybe Virgil, could tell, but the years were beginning to show. It was probably close to a hundred degrees in the top of that barn and hay chaff was floating in the air, making breathing a challenge. So he needed to sit a bit before climbing down the ladder. He was looking forward to a cool shower to wash the chaff that had gotten down his back and mixed with the moisture of a long day. Uncomfortable as it was, in a way it made him feel good. It was the mark of a job accomplished and part of the cycle of life for him.

He stood up.

A mile or so in the distance, he saw the glare bouncing off a car windshield. He hoped the car was Virgil's. He loved him as much as he had loved his father before him, maybe more. He had been here before he was born, and had been with him every step of the way as he grew up. After Virgil's father and mother had been killed, he became the father Virgil still needed. The bond between the two was strong and unspoken, but always there.

*   *   *

Virgil expelled a deep breath as the group of ranch buildings came into view. He looked to his left at the cluster of horses standing idly, swishing their flyswatters in the shade of a tree by the ever-running creek. He saw the little mare from his recent fateful ride and remembered the soreness in the lower part of his back. As he drew nearer, he could see the figure standing in the open hay door of the barn closest to the road. He knew who it was long before he got close enough to see the man's face. The same man who had been there his whole life. A smile crossed his lips. For the moment, the dull headache that had been building subsided and his mind cleared.

As he pulled into the driveway, he saw that the figure had disappeared. The hay door was closed and all he wanted to think about was the cold beer they would soon share as they sat on the front porch later that evening in the twilight. The only disturbance the distant
yip, yip
of a coyote on his nightly hunt or the soft nicker of Jack calling to him for a little attention.

*   *   *

Jimmy and his young sister, Abby, stood on the bridge watching the bobbers at the end of their lines float in the water below.

“Not much happening,” she said.

Jimmy looked at her and smiled. He was glad he had made good on his promise. Hayward was a pretty small town, no place to hide, and if you were a kid without much of a pedigree, it was even harder.

“That's okay,” he said. “I like just standing here in the quiet.”

Fading sunlight slanted through the trees on the riverbank and danced on the water. There wasn't even a hint of a breeze, and no car had crossed the bridge in the last fifteen minutes.

“You know if you just hold your breath for a minute,” he said, “you can hear your heart beating.”

Abby inhaled deeply while Jimmy watched her face turn a bright shade. At the end of her minute, she let out her breath.

“Gee, Jimmy. You're smart.”

He smiled again.

“Jimmy, what happened to Buddy Hinton?”

“I don't know.”

“C'mon, Jimmy. Tell me something.”

“Why do you want to know? How do you even know about Buddy?”

“Kids were talking in the schoolyard during camp today. They asked me about it because they knew my brother was a deputy sheriff. I want to be able to tell them something. It's kind of important.”

“Have kids been picking on you? Just tell me.”

“No.” Abby's response was immediate. “They don't do that, no more. Haven't for a long time, ever since you became Sheriff Dalton's deputy.”

“Oh, so that's it. You want to impress some boy.”

Abby didn't respond right away. She looked down at the water as the float on the end of her line suddenly slipped below the surface and the tip of the rod bent in an arc.

“Ya got something there, kid. Work the line slowly, don't jerk it. Make sure he's hooked first.”

For the next couple of minutes, they were both engrossed in the drama of the catch. Finally, with Jimmy's guidance, Abby started to reel in the fish.

“Wow, Abby! You got yourself some big catfish. There's tomorrow night's supper. You did good.” Jimmy started to work the hook out of the catfish's mouth.

“Jimmy, it's not about the boys.”

“What d'ya mean, Ab?” He saw the serious look on her face, so he dropped the fish in a bucket at his feet and gave her his full attention.

“Well, you know how kids used to make fun 'cause we lived in a trailer and our clothes were . . . Well, you know.”

Jimmy nodded at the painful memories he had worked so hard to forget.

“I know it was much worse for you than it was for me,” she said. “But people don't do that no more because of you. Kids now treat me pretty nice and when Virgil, I mean the sheriff, picked me up last week on my way to school and dropped me off and all the kids saw when he waved to me and called me Abby, I could tell they were looking at me different and it felt nice. I think some even think I'm special.”

“You are special, Ab.”

“I know to you, but I never been to other people. It's a good feeling. So, if you were to tell me something about Buddy that they didn't know, well, it would kinda help me.”

Jimmy looked out over the stretch of river beneath them. The sun was pretty much gone. The light no longer danced on the surface. The water looked almost black.

“Buddy was found by Virgil floating in a stock tank. He didn't look too good because the water and the hot sun took its toll. You can tell that 'cause I know it will eventually come out, but I don't want you pestering me for more. This is an ongoing investigation and we've got to be real careful with the information we have. We don't want anybody to get a hint we're onto them. Let's get home now, so I can run down something I've just thought of.”

“Boy, Jimmy, you sound just like a detective. Wait till the kids hear about this.”

*   *   *

Not too far away, sitting with his feet on the railing of his porch, with a cold beer in his hand, Virgil was also enjoying the quiet. The nighttime smell of flowers and trees in full bloom mixed with barnyard smells of hay, manure, and hard work.

Cesar came out of the kitchen, the screen door slapping shut in back of him.

“Got almost all the hay. Left that field across the road for last. If we were to lose it to the weather, it wouldn't be much of a loss. It's pretty poor.”

Virgil looked at Cesar, surprised to hear that much from him in one stream.

“Guess it's time to turn that ground over,” Virgil said. “Cover it with rye, then plow it under and reseed.”

“That's what I was thinking.” Each took a sip from his bottle while he contemplated the idea.

“They putting Buddy in the ground tomorrow?” Cesar said.

“No. They don't dig holes on Sundays.”

“Any progress?”

“Not much. I think we've got to take a step back and look at this thing from the beginning. That's what I just told Jimmy. Guess I'll head off tomorrow where we found the truck and see if I can come up with something.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

Cesar took another sip from his bottle before he answered. “Seems to me that's the end. Down the bottom of that ravine is not the beginning.”

Virgil turned that over in his mind. Then he pushed back from the railing, put his feet on the floor, and stood up.

“Outta the mouths of babes,” Virgil said.

“Guess you're talking about me.”

“You got it. You just ruined my night.”

“How so?”

“You were right. I gotta begin at the real beginning. And now's the best time to do it. Saturday night at the Black Bull, instead of sitting here with you watching moss grow up that cottonwood.”

Fifteen minutes later, Virgil pulled out of his driveway, heading to the Black Bull to walk in Buddy Hinton's last footsteps.