Death in the Distillery (11 page)

"Yeah."

"It looks that way, Danny. I'm sure there are probably
some around who had reason to kill the guy, but all the
hard evidence points to an accident." I did my best to give
him the bare bones of the police report. My suspicions, I
kept to myself. "It appears he got soused, took a joy ride
on the tractor. When he went under the tree, he ducked, the
tractor hit the ditch, and he bounced out. It was that simple.
Satisfy you?"

Danny studied me. "Yeah. But do me another favor. You
find out any different, let me know. First off." He hesitated.

"I don't understand, Danny. Now, what's this business
to you? You owe me some kind of explanation."

His grin faded. "I'm looking into it for some business
associates."

Business associates? I frowned. His kind of business associates, I didn't want to mess with. "Sure. Why not?"

Danny hesitated, studying me. Maybe he felt he owed
me an explanation after all. "Thanks. Hey, look, we go way
back. All I can tell you is I'm involved with some influential people who have sizable investments out there as a
result of a contact I provided. These are people who want
to keep a low profile."

His voice dropped lower. "These are gentlemen you or
a bozo like me don't want to make mad. If there's a murder,
and their involvement becomes public, my friends will be
very upset with me. That would blow my credibility all the
way to China, and me right along with it. You understand?"

I considered his explanation. Influential people could
mean mob members, and despite their efforts to curry the
image of legitimacy, those good old boys weren't too inclined to take the same risks as legitimate investors. If
that's what he meant, and if I were in his shoes, I'd be
nervous too. "I don't want to know nothing. But I understand." I grinned. "How can I get in touch with you? We
can't keep meeting out here. People will talk."

"Huey'll be around. Just look for the black Lexus."

I grunted. "Just knowing Huey'll be around makes my
day."

Danny chuckled. "I bet." He leaned back and the window
hissed shut. The powerful automobile sped away, heading
for the string of Christmas lights on the highway below.

I watched until the lights were swallowed up in the line
of headlights. Shifting my truck into gear, I turned around
and headed home, puzzling over Danny's involvement with
Chalk Hills. One thing I knew for sure, I didn't want to
get on the wrong side of his `business associates.'

And now, in addition to all the unanswered questions I
had uncovered at Chalk Hills, Danny O'Banion had stepped
into the snarl, further tangling whatever few threads of coherent logic remained.

Jack lay on the couch, snoring and gurgling. Oscar swam
lazily in his aquarium, having survived another day with
the infamous Barb and Angelfish killer, Jack Edney. I
watched the pale pink Tiger Barb for several moments,
weaving through the plastic water sprite and Amazon sword
plants.

"I know how you feel, guy," I whispered, sprinkling
some food on the surface. "Around and around. Getting
nowhere."

My stomach growled. The refrigerator was empty, so,
after showering, I sat at the snack bar, eating a bowl of
frosted flakes and rereading the file on Emmett Patterson.
The pieces of the puzzle refused to fit.

At three o'clock in the morning, I bolted upright in bed.
I suddenly realized what had been bothering me about the
set of tandem discs, and I knew without a doubt, Emmett
Patterson had been murdered.

I stared into the darkness, unable to believe the revelation
that had exploded in my head. But, it made sense. After
reading the autopsy report and interviewing most of those
involved, I had the feeling I was stumbling across uneven
ground, marked by potholes and yawning chasms. But now,
with a single stroke of startling recognition, the entire playing field leveled off.

Eagerly, I threw back the covers and hurried into the
kitchen, ignoring Jack's dissonant snoring reverberating off
the walls. With trembling fingers, I flipped through the autopsy report to the descriptions of the trauma. "Here it is,"
I muttered, reading aloud the words that told me Emmett
Patterson had been murdered. "A blunt trauma to the occipital region. It other words, a concave, non-penetrating
wound to the back of the head."

I held the death certificate in both hands, my fingers gripping the edges until they crumpled. "That's it. That's what
I was missing. Blunt trauma to the occipital region."

Which was impossible.

The frame supporting the discs was angular, made up of
square bars with ninety-degree corners, sharp corners. Had
he struck the frame, the trauma would have been penetrating, not blunt.

And if the wound did not match the frame of the tandem disc, then perhaps he did not pass out and fall from the
tractor. Unless someone had helped him pass out with a
club of some sort, a round club. I thought of Claude and
of a round baseball bat, the round baseball bat with the
bleached barrel. Maybe bleached to remove the blood
stains?

I was too excited to sleep. I wanted action; I wanted to
wade into the fray and find answers to the entire set of new
questions tumbling in my head. But three-thirty in the
morning is too early for anyone to ask questions, even those
out at the distillery. Still, by the time I shaved, grabbed
breakfast at IHOP, and reached Chalk Hills, the early birds
would be after the worms out there.

And that was my job. To find the worm who murdered
Emmett Patterson.

I hesitated, considering the other side of the sword. If it
was murder, Beatrice Morrison and Danny O'Banion would
be upset, and that's putting it mildly. They'd go ballistic.
"You best be sure, Tony," I muttered, folding the autopsy
report back into the envelope. "Dead-on sure."

I jerked to a halt on the porch. I should have known.
Baby Huey sat in the Lexus next to the curb across the
street. A cigarette glowed. I considered inviting him to
IHOP. "Let him pay for his own," I muttered, pulling onto
the street and heading west. Moments later, a pair of headlights swung in behind me.

Huey sat in the Lexus while I had a leisurely breakfast
loaded with cholesterol and fat. Three eggs over-easy, three
greasy sausages, two pancakes dripping with butter and hot
blueberry syrup, all washed down with hot coffee heavily
laden with sugar. Carbohydrates, fat, protein. A balanced
breakfast. I could feel my arteries clog. To offset the year's
worth of fat and cholesterol coursing through my veins after such a meal, I sipped on a diet Coke during the drive
out to Chalk Hills.

I'm not too swift, but my next decision was a no-brainer.
If I learned for certain that Patterson was murdered, then I
had to turn it over to the proper authorities. But first, I
would inform Beatrice Morrison and Danny O'Banion.
Once each decided on his next move, then I would go to
Sergeant Howard and dump the details in his lap without
fear of learning to swim with concrete shoes.

However, until I followed up on my theory, I would keep
my suspicions to myself.

The only employee I had not interviewed was Tom Seldes, the rackhouse foreman, the heavily muscled man with
gorilla arms and girl's voice, the man whose personal ambiance still jarred me. No way a brutish man should have
the voice of a bird. He should growl, like a gorilla.

He stood in the middle of the sunlight spilling through
the open doors of the rackhouse. Behind him, barrels of
aging whiskey were stacked in horizontal racks four high,
on rows that stretched into the darkness of the storage
building.

He wore khaki trousers and a matching shirt, unbuttoned
at the neck. Thick, black hair boiled from his open collar.
We shook hands. His grip was like a vise.

Though friendly, Seldes was not the least bit helpful.
Pulling information from him was like dodging raindrops,
almost impossible. "You knew Emmett Patterson pretty
well, didn't you?"

"Yeah," he said in his high-pitched voice. "Emmett was
okay. He hadn't grown up altogether, but he was a good
boy." He shook his head. "Terrible way to go."

"How do you think it happened?"

Seldes arched an eyebrow. "Beats me. Claude said Emmett was drunk."

"You talk to anyone else about it?"

"Naw. The others, they don't mess much with us common laborers out here. Of course, don't misunderstand.
They're good folk. But we don't run in the same circles."

Before I could reply, a bright red forklift rounded the corner of the rackhouse and headed for us. "Best we move
out of the way," he said, stepping to the side of the open
doors. "The boys will be pretty busy today."

"Doing what? They moving barrels?"

He rolled his powerful shoulders. "Some of them." He
looked up at me, his dark eyes bright. "I been in this business for over fifty years. Still fascinates me."

Dodging forklifts? The stench of diesel? The chill of a
darkened rackhouse? Some fascination. "Yeah, I can see
how it would be fascinating. Now, about Emmett Patterson."

Seldes shrugged. "Told you about all there is. He worked
here for a long time. He knew better than to get careless
on the tractor. That's how accidents happen. In fact, he
shouldn't have even had it out Sunday. Especially drinking
like he was."

A flag popped up in my brain. "Him? I thought Hawkins
took it out."

"No. Emmett did."

"Maybe I'm confused. Runnels told me that you said
Hawkins took the tractor out."

A wry grin split his deeply lined face. "David Runnels
is a good man. I've knowed him for over thirty years, but
he's losing it upstairs."

"You mean, Patterson took out the tractor."

"Yeah."

"Then why would Runnels say Hawkins did?"

His grin broadened. "Like I said, Mr. Boudreaux, David
is at the age where he forgets a lot. He gets his days mixed
up. I took it out Saturday morning. Emmett took it out
Sunday morning."

Either Tom Seldes was a fast thinker and glib liar, or
David Runnels had simply given me the wrong information. I didn't push the matter with Seldes. I'd verify the
information myself. "Hawkins said Emmett was quite the
ladies man."

The smile on his face turned into a frown. "I tried to get
him to settle down, but he wouldn't listen. His lust for women kept him in trouble. His hormones was always going crazy."

"But according to Hawkins, he did have a knack to
charm their pants off. Didn't you run across him and some
girl in the rackhouse one time years back?"

His cheeks colored. "Yeah. I was plumb surprised. I
didn't know what to do, so I just stood there like a dumbbell."

"That was the runaway girl?"

He nodded. "I don't know about a runaway, but she
wanted a job, but I didn't want no truck with her. Hardheaded. She said Alonzo had sent her to me, and she insisted on filling out an application. I let her, but when I
told her I didn't need any help, she got mad. Wanted to go
back and talk to Alonzo about working in the lab." He
snorted. "I didn't figure her and Emmett woulda got no
work done at all. They'd jump in the nearest dark corner."
He hesitated. "The girl had no shame at all."

"What do you mean?"

A sheepish grin played over his face. "When I found her
and Emmett, she was wearing this red shirt that she got
dirty when her and Emmett was ... well, you know. Rolling around on the ground with Emmett. Anyway, she pulled
that shirt off right in front of me and put on a white shirt
before she went back to see Alonzo. And she wasn't wearing no brassiere neither."

I suppressed a smile at the obviously straitlaced man's
discomfort over the girl's shameless behavior. "That must
have been something of a shock, huh?"

"Yeah. I ain't no prude or nothing, but, well, right out
in front of God and everybody, people don't strip off naked. You know?"

"Yeah." I hesitated, trying to figure out how I could get
her name without arousing his curiosity. "Well, you know,
Tom, Mrs. Morrison wants me to find out all I can about
what happened to Emmett. I want to give her a full report.
You know how she likes to get her money's worth. You
wouldn't happen to have the girl's name would you?"