Plains Crazy (19 page)

“Mad Dog actually went and told you, didn't he?” the bartender complained. “I was hopin' he was joshing me. I know he's got kind of a liberal outlook on guns and all, but I didn't think he was a tattletale.”

“That was a hand grenade he brought to my office,” the sheriff countered, “not a gun. And we've had three bombings in Buffalo Springs this morning. It would take one hell of a bad citizen not to tell me about discovering illegal explosives today.”

“Illegal. Sheriff, ain't you read your Second Amendment?”

“Many times. It doesn't mention hand grenades.”

“Thing was just innocently lying back there in Mr. Finfrock's private collection. I mean, it was more like it was in a museum until that wolf of Mad Dog's let herself back there and brought it out into the bar.”

“Which brings me back to my first question,” the sheriff said. “Finfrock here?”

“Nope. He's not. I figured he'd be in one of them convertibles that just went by.”

The convertibles had been replaced by the clowns and the man on stilts. Next would come the horseback contingent. From marching band to the last of the pretend cowboys, the whole parade would have passed in under five minutes.

“I want to see this museum,” the sheriff said.

That's when the bartender should have asked to see the search warrant that was still with Mrs. Kraus back over in the courthouse, but he didn't.

“Sure,” he said. “Normally, I couldn't show you. Mr. Finfrock, he keeps it locked up in that back room of his. Only this morning, for some reason, seems he went off and left it open. Had to be, right, else how'd Hailey get in there to steal that grenade in the first place?”

The bartender stepped aside and held the door for the sheriff and Deputy Wynn. “Can I get either of you gentlemen anything?” he said, as he escorted them toward the bar. The place was empty. “Hardly anybody been in this morning,” he explained when the sheriff declined the offer and before Wynn could ask for a free soda pop. “You'da thought Mr. Finfrock would just leave us closed till this afternoon. Hard to compete with a potluck and free ice cream. Should do real good later on.”

The sheriff agreed. Buffalo Springs Day got him an occasional rowdy drunk whose expectations of coming home for the reunion didn't match the reality. The sheriff followed the bartender and Wynn followed him and they made their own little parade to Finfrock's office.

“You're lucky I didn't lock this back up after Mad Dog and that pretty lady left. Only I wanted to show Mr. Finfrock how I found it, and how that wolf got back here. See, I don't got keys to his collection room, though he lets me in most times I want.”

The man opened the last door and stepped inside, reaching over and snapping on the lights. Museum, the sheriff decided, had been an accurate description. There was enough weaponry to outfit one of those second-amendment militias the bartender seemed to favor, but it was all lovingly displayed in cases and shelves covered with soft cloth. Some of the more exotic stuff was in glass display cases.

The sheriff was no arms expert, but he recognized a Browning automatic rifle, an M16, several varieties of AK47, a MAC-10, and then some heavier stuff including a .50 caliber machine gun. The row of grenades, minus the one with Mrs. Kraus over in the office, was right where she'd told him to expect it.

Only a few feet away was an ancient rifle. It lay atop a glass case filled with sabers and epees and such. It was a Sharps buffalo gun, just like Mrs. Kraus had reported Mad Dog found—and just like the gun Bradley Davis, director of
This Old Tepee
, had said was stolen from the same locked cabinet as the Cheyenne bow and arrows connected to the two corpses in Klausen's Funeral parlor.

“What about this?” the sheriff asked, pointing out the antique atop the display of edged weapons.

“The buffalo gun? That's new. Mr. Finfrock, he traded for it just last night.”

“Who'd he trade with?” the sheriff demanded.

The bartender shook his head. “I don't know. Was my night off. But I heard Mr. Finfrock grousing about what he had to give for it.” The man crouched down and opened the door to a cabinet under a row of modern machine pistols. He reached in and hauled out a small drum and showed it to the sheriff and his deputy proudly.

“We used to have two of these.”

The sheriff bent and took a closer look. The drum was stenciled with a complex series of specifications. Most of the numbers meant nothing to him, but one caught his eyes. It read, “TNT equivalence: 118%.”

“Is this…” The sheriff had a sinking feeling that he knew what was inside.

“That's right,” the bartender nodded, enthusiastically. “It's C4 plastic explosive. Plastique. I betcha there's enough in here to level most of Buffalo Springs.”

***

Janie Jorgenson was aroused. It surprised her when she finally recognized the feelings. She thought she was panting nearly as hard as Hailey, in the back seat, as she watched Mad Dog's still cute butt disappear into the Dillons. She hadn't felt this way since…well, not for a long time. Not since the hot flashes and the insomnia and the mood swings came along. Thank goodness those were past her now, but with them had gone her femininity, or so she'd thought. Until she'd seen that familiar look in Mad Dog's eyes. Was that part of what brought her back here?

She remembered their visits to that swimming hole on Calf Creek like they were yesterday. Hot sun, hot water, hot bodies pressed against each other. They had been drunk with the need for each other then. She flushed and tried to make herself sober up and return to here and now. She wouldn't be wearing that same svelte body to Calf Creek today. Of course, neither would Mad Dog, though she thought he might still look pretty good at a skinny dip. All she'd meant to do was get him out of town for a few hours. Get him off the streets and away from danger until…

Janie was fifty-seven years old, and though she swam at least an hour four days a week, she was carrying a lot more flesh these days. And not where the girls in the centerfolds or on the movie screens carried it. She had cellulite and stretch marks and varicose veins, to say nothing of boobs that were more pendulous than perky. She couldn't imagine how Mad Dog would be able to look at her without cringing if she shucked out of her clothes the way she found herself wanting to.

And there was Sam to deal with. Running off to indulge in a fantasy frolic while trying to pretend the last forty years hadn't happened wouldn't do a thing about Sam.

Hailey stuck her nose in Janie's face and licked her, as if she'd been following this internal dialogue and wanted to offer encouragement. And then, with surprising agility, Hailey hopped into the driver's seat, scooted around to face out the driver's window, and launched herself into the parking lot.

“Hailey, come back,” Janie called.

Hailey, of course, paid her no attention, except for a reassuring glance over one shoulder as if to say, don't worry, I know what I'm doing.

An old Ford pickup with a camper shell on the back pulled into the Dillons lot. A pair of dark-skinned women, Hispanic maybe, with long shiny-black hair popped the doors and got out and waved toward the grocery store. Janie turned and looked in that direction. She hadn't noticed him before. He was sitting against the wall, legs folded underneath him. He waved casually back, unfolded those legs, and stood. He was a big man with steel gray braids hanging beneath a billed cap. Not Mexican, she decided, Native American.

The man started across the parking lot toward the truck. He didn't get far before Hailey trotted over and sat in front of him, directly in his path. Most people would have shied away from an animal they feared might bite, or sidestepped her, knowing she was somebody else's responsibility. The man with the braids stopped dead still and considered her. He said something that Janie couldn't hear and reached out and presented his hand for her to sniff. Hailey accepted the offer, let him pat her on the head, then lay down. It wasn't a casual on-her-side sort of down, but perfectly straight, legs neatly balanced on either side of her body so that you could picture her being up and about her business—including tearing out his throat if that were what she wanted—in an instant.

The old Indian gently lowered himself to the asphalt and sat, cross legged again, in front of her.

That was when Mad Dog came out of the Dillons. He had a couple of paper bags in his arms and a big silly smile on his face as he glanced at where Janie sat in the Mini. And then he noticed the tableau a few yards away. His smile disappeared and his face got serious. He walked by Janie without a word. Just before he got there, Hailey stood and circled slightly and then lay back down in that relaxed but dangerous looking way of hers. Mad Dog put the paper bags on the ground in front of the old man and sat on the pavement as well. The three of them formed a little circle, the bags of picnic makings in the middle. Mad Dog said something. The old man answered, then bent and touched the ground and the bags four times. What he was doing seemed formal and solemn. Hailey opened her mouth. She looked from one man to the other with what Janie thought was a wolfish smile. Janie couldn't hear them from the car. There was just enough breeze to carry their soft voices away, and just enough echo of something nearly recognizable being played by a distant band to drown them out.

Janie Jorgenson watched, trying to understand what was going on. Mad Dog, it seemed, had given their lunch to the old man. At least when the two of them got to their feet, the Indian gestured and one of the women from the truck came and took the paper bags. Then Mad Dog pointed toward the vacant lot next door. There was a little picnic table just off the edge of the parking lot where it appeared people could take food from the deli. The two of them seated themselves there and Janie began to wonder if Mad Dog had forgotten all about her.

Still, she was fascinated when the Indian pulled cigarettes out of a pocket and lit one and passed it to Mad Dog like he was passing a joint. Mad Dog didn't smoke. The ashtray in his car had never been used and she would have smelled it on his clothes if he were a smoker.

Mad Dog didn't look her way, hadn't since he came out of the grocery store. She was starting to get a little angry. She got more so when they lit and shared a second cigarette.

Eventually, she let herself out of the Mini Cooper and stomped across the parking lot, following Main back to where she'd left her rental car. Mad Dog didn't seem to notice. Hailey did, but Hailey didn't come after her.

So much for the potency of her revived feminine charms, and her ability to lead Mad Dog around by his…Well, she wouldn't need to worry about going skinny dipping on Calf Creek today. The hell with the hunt for Sam, she thought. Mad Dog deserved whatever happened to him. This was just like when he'd sent her to get an abortion while he met a football recruiter. Something had come along that interested him more than she did. Her first true love had abandoned her once again.

***

Chairman Wynn knocked on the jamb beside the open door to the sheriff's office. Mrs. Kraus looked up from her desk and put a hand over the phone. It wasn't like the chairman to knock, not even on closed doors. “Yes, sir?”

“Any word on our bomber?” The chairman edged inside and then slouched his way to the counter.

“Let me put you on hold,” Mrs. Kraus told the phone. The chairman could have just listened while she continued trading gossip with a friend to find out what he wanted to know, but she preferred to maintain the illusion that she was a woman whose dedication to her job was constant. “I'll take that report on your missing parakeet in a minute.”

She put the phone back in its cradle and faced the chairman. “Englishman and your boy are following leads,” she told him. She wasn't sure whether she should mention where those leads had taken them. “Weren't you with the rest of the board? They all back there in the courthouse now, or have they gone over to the ice cream social?”

“Fair and Babcock are in the park. Haines and Finfrock are making some arrangements. Should be done in a minute and then we'll go over and join the festivities.”

Chairman Wynn was a nice enough fellow, once you got past his tendency to treat everyone who worked for the county as a personal servant unless an election loomed. If you were in legitimate trouble, you could count on him being there for you, even if it meant cash out of his pocket. But Mrs. Kraus couldn't remember the last time he'd acted like this, almost subservient to her. It was weird and she tried to think why this was happening. Then it dawned on her.

“You couldn't get us any outside help, could you?”

The chairman shuffled his feet and chewed on his lip. “Well, no,” he admitted. “I tried, but everybody seems to think it's a practical joke.”

Mrs. Kraus remembered her own efforts and sympathized. But here was an opportunity to remind the chairman that big fish in little ponds could get lost when they tried to play in the ocean.

“What about your political connections? I thought, you being such a force in the Kansas Republican Party, you could get straight through to the folks in Homeland Security.”

The chairman blushed. “So did I. National folks treated me like a prankster, or worse. I did get one of the bigwigs at state level to pay attention. Finally convinced him I was serious and then he up and asks me what I expect him to do about it. Whose budget's gonna cover the cost of say, sending us a Kansas National Guard unit, and where do I think I'm going to find one with explosives experts anyway. They're probably all deployed in Iraq, he told me. He said, unless we're starting to stack the dead up like cordwood and CNN is flying in a team to give our terrorist attacks live coverage, we're pretty much on our own. Lord, last thing we want is media coming here.”

The blow to the chairman's ego must have been substantial. Mrs. Kraus thought back to her conversation with the FBI agent that, so far, had produced no response. “Well, hell,” she growled. “You tried. Besides, there ain't been any more bombs.”