Plains Crazy (23 page)

“I saw her this morning,” Mad Dog told the man. “She was with another guy. They had a flat tire and they told me they were on their way here.”

“Yeah?” the kid with the earrings said. “I haven't seen her. Why don't you ask her old man?”

Mad Dog knew who Jackie's father had to be. That couldn't be who the kid meant. “Her boy friend?” Mad Dog asked. “Where can I find him?”

“That's right,” the kid grinned. “I remember, you hippie generation people referred to your significant others as old man and old lady didn't you?”

Wow, Mad Dog thought. Revenge on the time traveler. He had, in fact, had an old lady for a few weeks when he experimented with that commune on the Kansaw near the Oklahoma line in the late sixties.

“Nah,” the kid continued. “I meant her dad, Brad Davis. He's the chief honcho here, the director for
This Old
Tepee
.”

How could that be? How could a sociopath, a would-be-patricide, have managed to get himself put in charge of a major Public Broadcasting project? “You're sure?”

“Hey man, no way an undergrad with a weakness for tar like Jackie could have gotten on this crew otherwise. Ask anybody.”

The rest of the crowd seemed to agree.

Mad Dog wasn't sure what tar was, but he didn't think it was good. He reached in his pocket and fished out the envelope with the pictures of his son Janie had given him. “Could this be Davis when he was young?” he asked, passing a couple around.

No one seemed to think so. “Why not ask him yourself?” the man with the eyebrow stud suggested. “That's him, packing the sedan on the other side of the stuffed buffalo. He's the guy with the graying hair and the long face watching his cell phone. I might look like that if I'd lost half my cast a week into production. He's hoping to get us a stay of execution. But it won't happen. This thing died with that kid this morning.”

***

“Jud Haines,” Supervisor Finfrock said. “That's who I traded the C4 to. Who could be more trustworthy than that? Hell, we just trusted him with three million dollars, didn't we?”

The sheriff barely heard. The phone was ringing and he reached for it.

“Say, where'd Jud get to?” Chairman Wynn asked.

“And if he's so damned trustworthy,” Mrs. Kraus wondered, “why'd he pull the pin on that grenade?”

Finfrock shrugged. “Well, it was just a Hollywood fake.”

“But he didn't know that,” Mrs. Kraus shot back.

“Everybody, shut up!” the sheriff said. From their expressions, it shocked them as much as his obscenity had a few minutes before. But it worked.

“Sheriff's office,” he said to the phone.

“She told me, specifically, not to let you know.” It was Doc Jones calling because the Heathers had forced him into it.

“Let me know what?” the sheriff asked.

“Englishman, I can't tell you a thing about Judy's medical condition. No matter how much I sympathize or how bad I want to help you and the girls. I took an oath and this is a matter of professional ethics.”

The sheriff knew Doc. They'd pulled charred bodies out of twisted wreckage together, been through a couple of murder investigations. If Doc said he wasn't going to talk, he meant it.

Oh, they were close friends, close enough so the sheriff let him use that damn nickname. The sheriff could probably wheedle a few hints if he had long enough to work on Doc's sympathies. But he didn't. It was three already. Even with lights and siren, it would take him more than an hour to get to the Wichita airport. With her flight scheduled for four-forty, he had to leave soon.

Or, he could still call Wichita and have her stopped. That was an option. Not one he liked, but it gave him an idea.

“Doc, this is not a personal matter. It's police business. Judy has been acting irrational all day. You know what happened at the Farmers & Merchants, right?”

“I've heard,” Doc said, “but I don't see how that…”

“It was Judy,” the sheriff told him. “She needed cash for this Paris trip. She was the one who took the bomb in there and stole five thousand dollars.”

The sheriff believed Judy's version of what had happened. It made sense, especially in light of the courthouse bomb, but blaming her gave him an excuse. “I've got to arrest my own wife, Doc, so if you know anything about why she did it, you've got to tell me. If she needs help, I want her to get it. But I aim to make sure she doesn't hurt herself or anyone else.”

There was a moment's silence on the phone. Chairman Wynn and Mrs. Kraus exchanged whispers on the other side of the office and Craig Finfrock looked like he wanted to get up and carry the chair he was handcuffed to over so he could get involved in their conversation. Only Deputy Parker appeared unfazed. She hardly knew Judy. She might not have an opinion, one way or the other.

“All day, you said. So what other irrational behavior have you witnessed?” Doc asked. The sheriff could hear it in Doc's voice. He was about to get an answer. He didn't know how he felt about that. None of this fatal disease shit seemed real as long as a name hadn't been put to it. But he had to know.

“There was some strange stuff at home this morning,” the sheriff said. He decided not to elaborate on that, especially in front of an audience. “Wild emotional flip flops. She arranged this Paris trip before dawn and without telling me about it. Then she went and got a haircut. An extreme one, and a bleach job. She's running around with a platinum crew cut now. She went over and robbed the bank right after she did her hair.”

“Hold on now,” Doc said. “You don't really believe Judy robbed that bank. I sure don't. You tell me something like that, you better have proof.”

“Doc, she confessed it. She told me over the phone just before she left town.”

“Oh,” Doc said. There was a pause before he continued. “Well, some erratic behavior is to be expected. She's on an emotional roller coaster. And I understand about France. She's always wanted to go and she's probably thinking now or never. There's a chance a thing like this can affect a person's thought processes, but I didn't see any signs of that when I gave her the test results yesterday. She seemed normal enough, under the circumstances. Absolutely no evidence of personality change. I would have laid odds she'd be physically incapacitated long before anything like that could happen.”

“Damn it, Doc,” the sheriff demanded, “what's wrong with my wife?”

“Tumor,” Doc said. “Brain tumor, deep in the cerebellum where it's probably inoperable.”

“Good God,” the sheriff said, but even as he said it he knew he no longer had any faith in a benevolent deity.

***

“Mr. Davis? Brad Davis?” Mad Dog approached the man with the long face stuffing a suitcase in the trunk of a rental car.

“We're not hiring.”

“And I'm not job hunting. My name's Mad Dog,” he paused and watched for a reaction. He got one.

“Oh yeah,” Davis said. “I remember. You're the guy with the buffalo we were going to rent. And you wanted to talk with Bud Stone, didn't you. Sorry, we're out of business and Stone's already gone.”

“That's okay. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about your mother.”

Davis glanced at his watch. Mad Dog had never seen one before, but he thought it might be a Rolex. “I can give you maybe five minutes,” Davis told him. “Now, what's this about my mother?”

“Your mother is Janie Jorgenson, right?”

“Did you know her when she lived here?”

Mad Dog nodded. “Has she ever mentioned me?”

Davis shook his head. “She never talks about Buffalo Springs. She wasn't happy here.” He looked at Mad Dog and reached up and rubbed a hand across his cheeks and through his prematurely graying hair. “Is something wrong with me? Have I got something on my face?”

Mad Dog realized he'd been staring intently. He couldn't see any of himself or his family in the man. If this were the son Janie had told him about, he didn't resemble his father. He didn't look like the pictures Janie had given him either, though a lot could change in twenty years.

“No, I'm sorry. I was just trying to see Janie in you, Mr. Davis. And, excuse me, but I'm curious about the names. She's going by Jorgenson but you're Davis?”

“She's Jorgenson again all right. She and my father went their separate ways. I got his name, but she stopped using it long ago.”

“Did she tell you anything about your father?”

“She didn't have to. He and I see a lot of each other.”

Mad Dog couldn't hide his surprise.

“What's this about, Mister? Who are you and why are you so interested in my family?”

Mad Dog scrambled for an answer. “I was a good friend of your mother's when she lived here,” Mad Dog explained. “Indulge me, please. How old are you, Mr. Davis?”

“I'm thirty-seven, or will be next month. I hope you're going to explain this.”

Thirty-seven wasn't possible. Nor was a June birthday. If Mad Dog were Brad Davis' father, the man would have to be forty. By their calculations, Janie had gotten pregnant in June. If she'd had a baby, it would have been due around March of 1963. Davis hadn't been born until more than three years later. The man couldn't be his son.

“I'm sorry,” Mad Dog said. “I must have you confused with your older brother.”

“What older brother?” Davis said. “I'm an only child.”

***

Heather Lane was on the verge of losing it.

“You have to go after her,” Two told her father. She was on a cell phone in Doc Jones' office and Englishman was still at the courthouse.

“Calm down, Heather,” Englishman said. “I will if I can. Things may be coming together here. I only need a couple of answers to wrap things up. Don't worry. I won't let her get on that plane.”

“No, Englishman,
you
have to do it.” Memories of the bizarre conflict that tore her parents from her only six years before were suddenly fresh and painful again. She couldn't lose a second family, could she?

“You can't let a bunch of storm troopers from Wichita humiliate her in front of all those people at the airport. They'll treat her like a common criminal. She needs someone who loves her, someone who cares about her.”

“I promise,” Englishman said. “I'll only call as a last resort, and I'll explain the circumstances to them. They'll treat her right.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” Two threw the phone at the wall and missed. It hit the couch in Doc's office and her sister rescued it.

“Dad?” The other Heather put the phone to her ear and checked to see if they were still connected. “But Dad…” One continued, then paused to listen to his excuses, or so the expression on her face indicated.

“Dad, if you don't go get her, we will,” Heather English interrupted. Then her eyes got wide and angry. She turned to her sister and said, “He told me not to throw a temper tantrum and hung up on me.”

“I'll go along, if you want,” Doc offered.

“No,” both Heathers said.

“Just us,” Two told him.

“And Dad, if he cares enough,” One agreed. They turned for the door.

“If it wasn't for this bank robbery thing,” Doc called after them, “I'd tell you to let her go. A few days in Paris might be just what she needs to sort things out. Half of her battle will be how she feels about herself and her life. Only I wish Englishman was going with her.”

If Doc said more than that, Two didn't hear it. She and Heather were out the back door to the mortuary and on their way to Englishman's truck. Two, though more tenuously connected to the English family, was in the grip of a more demanding terror. It wasn't just Judy she was worrying about. It was also her place in the universe. She grabbed the keys and said, “I'm driving.”

One didn't argue. The girls piled into the truck and Two squealed out of the parking space, laying rubber all the way to the street. One got her seat belt fastened just before they turned onto Main. She reached over to switch on the lights and siren and noticed something else.

“Look out,” One howled. The truck's brakes cried in echo to those of an aging Nissan Altima that caught the Chevy's rear chrome-step bumper and sent them spinning in a perfect three-hundred and sixty degree circle, right in the middle of Main.

Two checked her rearview mirror. A man and his female passenger stepped out of the Altima into the street. Clearly, neither was hurt. She slammed the truck into gear again and popped the clutch. They were pointed in the right direction.

She was still smoking tires when the Chevy passed Deputy Wynn, standing by the curb in front of the Bisonte, eyes nearly as wide as his mouth. Two glanced in the mirror and watched him recede.

“There's no real damage,” her sister told her, “so step on it.”

Heather Lane needed no encouragement.

***

“Look,” Mad Dog said. “I just spent most of the afternoon with your mother. She told me she had a son named Sam, Samuel.” He could see from Davis' eyes that the name meant nothing to him.

“No way,” Davis said. “My mother and I aren't close. But she's always been pretty open about things. Even difficult stuff. I think she must have been spinning you some kind of tall tale, though I can't for the life of me think of why.”

Mad Dog decided straight out and honest was the best approach. He wasn't much good at anything else anyway. “She told me I was that boy's father,” he said.

“Oh,” Davis said. “You're the football player, aren't you.”

“Then she did tell you about me.”

“No, sir. She didn't. But she told Dad and he told me.”

Mad Dog ran a hand through his non-existent hair. “I don't get it,” he said.

“Me either,” Davis said. “I'm not sure what to tell you, or if I should tell you anything. I'm surprised mother's been here. I would have bet she'd never come back unless it was to blow this town off the face of the earth.”