Prairie Gothic (4 page)

***

Doc Jones arrived in his aging Buick station wagon that doubled as ambulance or hearse, depending on circumstances. It was beige, speckled with mud, not unlike the streaks of tired snow that remained between the elms on the lawn in front of the Sunshine Towers Retirement Home.

The sheriff met his old friend on the sidewalk. The wind reminded him just how cold it was. Doc slumped into his heavy overcoat, his droopy, hound-dog face looking even sadder than usual.

“Morning, Sheriff.” Doc extended his hand. “As coroner, I get to come over here all too often, but never after an infant before. What's up?”

The sheriff escorted him to the entry and through its first set of doors. In the space between inner and outer doors, the cold was only a threat, not an adversary.

“I don't know much yet, Doc. What I do is pretty bizarre.”

“I assume you're keeping me from getting somewhere warm for a reason.” Doc gestured to where a small crowd filled the lobby and stared at them with an intensity normally reserved by residents here for a few soap operas or the odd global tragedy.

“Everybody in the county is going to know about this before dark. I'd just as soon not share more than I have to.”

Doc nodded and snuggled a little deeper into his coat.

“Tommie Irons died last night,” the sheriff told him.

“Not a surprise. The cancer was all through him. So you've got two bodies for me?”

The sheriff sighed. “Tommie's not here. Apparently Mad Dog's been coming to see him. They've been sharing their indigenousness, or something. I guess Tommie decided he wanted a traditional Choctaw burial and persuaded Mad Dog to help. Some of the residents called Mad Dog and smuggled him in this morning. Damned if I know where my brother or the body have got to.”

Doc's droopy mouth straightened into a half smile. “Sorry, Sheriff, that's partly my fault. I persuaded Mad Dog to come talk to Tommie about Native American religious notions. The old man wasn't going easy and I thought…No, hell, I should have thought. Your brother always carries things to their illogical extremes. But what's that got to do with a dead baby?”

“After Mad Dog left with Tommie, some of the seniors went for an early morning stroll. Alice Burton was one of them. You know about her?”

“She's not one of my patients, but yeah. I know. She's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but she's not as far gone as her family seems to want to think. This got something to do with that doll they gave her?”

“I guess she took the doll along. Nobody noticed anything until after they got back. Somewhere, she seems to have traded plastic for the real thing.”

“And I assume they didn't traipse through any nurseries. You're thinking this child was abandoned?”

“Shortly after birth from the look of things. Part of the umbilical cord is still attached. I'm hoping this kid belongs to someone who was just passing through town.”

“I can appreciate that sentiment,” Doc said.

“We may end up with a lynch-mob reaction to this. Can you suggest any likely candidates for the baby's mother?”

“Half the teenage girls in this county. We don't teach our kids sex education. We don't offer much recreation. The nearest Planned Parenthood office is halfway across the state. Having a ‘premature' kid six months or less after the wedding is pretty much the norm around here.”

“I meant specifically.”

Doc turned his face away from the crowd in the lobby. “You know I don't do abortions, Sheriff. Not because I don't believe they're occasionally a better option, but because if I did, even an occasional secret one, word would get out and I couldn't live here anymore. Literally. You and I could list a dozen people in this county who would seriously consider shooting me if they believed I was killing unborn babies. So, I'd have to say no in answer to your question. No one's come to me for a solution to an unwanted pregnancy, and even if they had, I'd never admit it. I took an oath. If anyone told me something like that, I couldn't reveal it.”

“Sorry, Doc. The possibilities of this thing scare me as much as they do you. I was thinking of myself more as coming to someone's rescue rather than leading a rush to punish.”

“I know.” A shiver ran up Doc's spine that the sheriff didn't think came from the cold. “Let's take a look. I'm coroner here and I'll share with you anything I learn from performing my duty. What you do then is between you and the law, or you and your conscience.”

The sheriff couldn't recall ever seeing Doc so obviously upset. Neither of them knew a thing about this baby yet, and already both of them were as skittish as a pair of taxpayers facing IRS audits.

He opened the inner doors and shooed people aside. They pushed through to the hall that led to the cafeteria and offices and headed for the one where Deputy Wynn stood guard, one hand hiding his empty holster. The sheriff had locked his deputy's .357 in the glove box of his truck and wasn't sure he would return it.

“Mornin', Doc,” Wynn said.

“If there's a disaster, I can always count on you being there, can't I, Deputy?”

Doc really was in a mood. If there was one man in the county who was never unkind to those who meant no harm, it was Doc Jones. Wynn didn't seem to notice the insult. He just opened the door to the nurse's office, then followed them inside.

“Ah, damn!” Doc muttered softly. He peeled away the blanket that swaddled the infant with a touch so gentle it seemed he must believe the potential for suffering survived beyond death.

The room felt too small for three adults and a dead baby, though not for want of square footage. All of Kansas was too small for the blend of horror and tragic innocence the tiny corpse represented.

“At least we can rule out the Golds and the Eisenbergs,” Wynn said.

The sheriff was surprised. Not that either family had been high on his list, but he thought it was going to be tough to narrow down suspects.

“Why's that?” Doc asked, his tone equally tinged with doubt.

“You didn't notice?” Wynn was clearly shocked, and, from the flush that suddenly spread over his face, maybe a little embarrassed.

“Notice what?”

“His pee pee. Look at his pee pee,” Wynn said. “Boy sure ain't Jewish.”

***

Bertha's Cafe was jammed. All the booths along the windows were occupied and the excess had spilled over to flood the seats at the counter. People milled around, waiting in the remaining floor space, making a mockery of the capacity sign the fire marshal had tacked up by the front door. Bertha delivered monstrous platters of bacon and eggs and home fries, and brimming mugs of coffee strong enough to wake Sleeping Beauty. Buffalo Springs wasn't ready to trade large doses of cholesterol and caffeine for bran muffins and juice just yet.

County Supervisors Bontrager and Hornbaker were nursing their coffee and discussing the outrage of Mad Dog making off with Tommie Irons' corpse. Irons was Ezekiel Hornbaker's brother-in-law. The supervisors were occupying a booth Bertha could make better use of. That's why she asked them about the baby.

“What baby?” they replied.

Bontrager was a big man in the dairy cattle industry. He raised registered Holsteins on a couple of sections a few miles north of town. He'd been handsome when he was younger. Now, in his early seventies, he just looked weathered and maybe a little beaten down by the losses he'd been taking on his tech stocks.

Zeke Hornbaker was taller and maybe five years younger than Bontrager, but he looked younger still. He didn't farm. The family had inherited money, and Zeke, to hear him tell it, was a successful investor in the commodities market. His boots and western-style suit were custom made and helped him look fit and young, as did regular applications of hair coloring.

“That dead baby they found over at the Sunshine Home this morning. Folks have been talking about it since I opened. I figured two government officials, such as yourselves, would know everything. Or should.”

Parties at several adjacent tables turned to listen to Hornbaker's response. “You sure about this, Bertha?”

“It's true,” a farmer in a pair of clean, starched bib-overalls at the counter replied. “I dropped the wife off there to visit her mother a bit ago. They say it was a newborn that somebody just disposed of. Threw away. Englishman and Wynn were over there investigating. You didn't know about it?” The tone of that last part seemed faintly accusatory and was met by a general grumbling from Bertha's clientele.

“Maybe you should check in at the courthouse?” Bertha suggested. There was enough nodding to indicate a chorus of Amens might have been heard had this been a gathering of those seeking sustenance for the soul instead of the flesh.

“Maybe we should,” Bontrager agreed, uncertainly.

“No maybe about it,” Hornbaker replied, wadding up his napkin and climbing to his feet. “If a baby has been murdered in Buffalo Springs, I personally will not rest until the guilty party is caught and punished.” His statement had the ring of a campaign promise. Hornbaker and Bontrager grabbed their coats off the rack and headed for the door, trailing a few loyal political followers and leaving some badly needed table space.

“Gertie and Abe Yoder, party of five,” Bertha called. She grabbed a stack of dirty dishes with one arm while she swiped a gray cloth across the formica, leaving it smelling of antiseptic and covered by a film the Yoder children could draw in while their parents studied a menu that changed about as often as Kansas gave its electoral votes to a Democrat.

***

Doc Jones had taken the baby to Klausen's Funeral Parlor, where one of the back rooms made do for official Benteen County Coroner's business. Wynn Some, still unenlightened about circumcision, had been sent to retrieve the cruiser, keeping his eyes open for the doll that Alice Burton had presumably traded for the real thing on the way. His eager efforts to make a report about his pursuit of the phantom snowballer also remained on hold. His shift was over and he was off duty. The sheriff needed help, but it was clear things would go smoother without Wynn.

The sheriff was in the room of the little woman with the red tennies. It resembled Alice Burton's cramped quarters, only without the massive furniture. The room felt seriously institutional. A metal-framed bed stood flanked by a couple of chairs, a dresser, and a nightstand. They looked like rejects from a going-out-of-business-sale at an economy motel chain. Nothing personalized the room, not even the stack of newspapers and paperbacks on top of the dresser.

“Just call me Dorothy.”

She sat primly on the edge of her bed and watched as the sheriff paced over to the window. It offered a stunning view of vacant lots and abandoned businesses over which the Buffalo Springs grain elevator loomed from a few blocks away.

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to loosen muscles that felt tight enough to snap. “We don't really know each other, ma'am. I was taught to maintain a certain level of formality in situations like this.”

“Murder investigations?”

“Well, we don't know that yet, and I hope not, but an investigation anyway.”

“They call you Englishman, don't they?”

The unexpected use of his despised nickname turned him from the window and brought her his full attention. “Some do. Mostly not to my face.”

“You'd rather be called something else?”

“Yes ma'am. Sheriff or English, or the combination.”

“I started out as Ruth, but I didn't like it much. I prefer Dorothy.”

He got it. “OK, Dorothy.”

“How can I help you, Sheriff.”

“Well, we've got a pair of unusual circumstances this morning. One body that should be here is missing. One that shouldn't be, turned up here. What can you tell me about how that happened?”

She glanced out the window, as if the answer might be found in the weathered words printed atop the elevator where it threatened to scrape fresh snow from the low clouds rushing just above.

All it said was
BUFFALO SPRINGS CO-OP
, though you had to have good eyes to pick out the fading letters.

“Tommie died,” she said.

“I'm sorry.”

“Oh, don't be. He was past being ready for it. In fact, he was getting a little cranky that it couldn't just be over and done with.”

“Was anyone with him?”

“About half a dozen of us. I'm not gonna tell you who the others were. It's up to them, whether they want to talk about it or not. I'll take responsibility for myself, but I won't give up any names.”

It was like she was playing the tough gal role in a movie—hard but honest, and with a code of honor she planned to live by. He suppressed another smile. “I understand. When did it happen?”

“Six-fifteen or so. We were watching the news on his TV. One minute Tommie was eyeing that cute little weather gal, the next he was gone.”

“What did you do then?”

“We called your brother, like Tommie asked us. Then we prepared his body.”

The sheriff raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, nothing peculiar. We just washed him and rolled him up in a blanket. Then we waited. Your brother came for him about four. Unless there's some kind of emergency, even the night staff is always asleep by then. We let him in the back door.”

“I thought there was supposed to be security on all the doors. Some kind of alarm.”

“Oh, yeah, but we've wired around some of that stuff. This is a pretty boring place. Every now and then we need to get out without our keepers riding herd on us. We've got several escape routes, in case they find one and it takes us awhile to get around to unfixing it again.”

“And Mad Dog, what did he do?”

“Nothing. He just thanked everyone for helping Tommie get his final wish. Then he took the body and left.”

“He didn't bring anything? Nobody came with him? Could the baby have gotten in then somehow?”