The Shining Badge (15 page)

One of the women said, “Thank you, ma’am. It’s been awful hard eating that slop these two have been serving.”

“They won’t be serving slop anymore.” Jenny said, “Porter, you and Mattie come with me. We’re going to have a meeting. Billy, I want you to listen to this.”

The four left the jail, and when they got downstairs, Jenny said, “You’ve been paid to clean up the sheriff’s office. It’s filthy. What you do in your own quarters is your business, but this kitchen’s going to be spotless, and the cells upstairs are going to be clean. I’ll be making an inspection the first thing in the morning. You can take your choice. You’re going to either start delivering, or you can go look for other employment.”

Jenny turned and walked away, and Billy Moon followed her. As soon as they were in the corridor separating the two sections, he said, “They won’t stay long, not if there’s real work involved.”

“Good. Surely there’s somebody better than those two.”

Moon chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Trouble is they’re kin to Dwight Hightower, the county judge.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, Sheriff Beauchamp tried to fire them when he was in office, but Hightower blocked it.”

Jenny said quietly, “I don’t know anything about procedure, but I know a good job of cleaning and cooking when I see it. And this may be a test case, Billy. I don’t know how much power the judge has, but I’ll go toe to toe with him on this.”

Billy Moon studied the young woman in front of him. He saw the courage in her but at the same time was aware that she was beyond her depth in politics. “It’s going to be like walking through a mine field, Sheriff, but I’m glad you’re here. As for Judge Hightower, I’ve been waiting to see somebody take him down for quite a while.”

“I’m depending on you, Billy.” Jenny put out her hand, and it was enclosed quickly by the deputy’s big paw. “You’ll have to help me.”

“I reckon I’ll do that, Sheriff.”

****

The room reeked of alcohol and was filled with smoke from the cigars that all four card players had in hand. The room was richly furnished, decorated in the best of taste, everything expensive, including the thick drapes that covered the windows and the Persian rug underfoot. Judge Dwight Hightower, at the age of fifty, looked like an aging Hollywood movie star. He had silver hair and rather patrician features. He looked around the table at the other three men, including Millington Wheeler, Max Conroy, whom he knew well, and a man called Vito Canelli, whom he did not know at all. All he knew was that Canelli was involved in organized crime in Chicago. Canelli didn’t refer to his boss by name, but since Al Capone was serving time in an Atlanta penitentiary, Hightower guessed he worked for Capone’s successor, rumored to be a man named Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti. There was something dangerous about Canelli, but Hightower felt confident to handle him.

The four had been playing poker for only about an hour,
and now Hightower looked over toward Conroy and said, “Too bad about losing that election.”

“Next time we’ll do better.” Conroy had been drinking heavily, and there was a dissatisfaction about him as he muttered, “That woman won’t last. It’s a tough job. She’ll quit before too long.”

Canelli was silent as the talk went on between the other three men about the election. Finally he said, “We have to know what’s going on with the local law.”

Conroy quickly said, “I’ll know what’s happening, Mr. Canelli. I’ve got some men inside the sheriff’s office. We’ll know every move they make before they make it.”

Canelli puffed at his cigar, and his almost black eyes took in the tall form of Conroy. “I’ll be depending on that.”

Conroy was flushed and had lost more money than he could afford. Hightower said, “Why don’t you go check on what’s going on with Jack and that crew over in the south of the county, Max.”

“Sure, I’ll do that, Judge.”

As soon as Conroy left, Canelli stared at the two men across from him. He threw his cards down as if bored with them. “I’m not sure we can do business.”

“Now, wait a minute, Mr. Canelli!” Judge Hightower said quickly. “We can handle it here.”

“You lost the election. That means you don’t have enough support.”

“It was a jumped-up thing. All the preachers got into it. Next time we’ll know what to look for,” the judge said. “But Conroy was right about one thing. That woman sheriff won’t last. It’s too rough a job for a woman, and we can make it even rougher.”

“I’m not sure,” Canelli said. “As long as the law was in your pocket, it was a sure thing. If we’re going to keep doing business, the men making the booze are going to have to be protected.”

“That won’t be hard. The woman doesn’t know the first
thing about being a sheriff, and as Conroy said, we’ve got two deputies that’ll let us know what’s happening.”

Canelli got to his feet. “My boss wants a steady flow of product. We’ve got to be sure of delivery. Expense is no object, but the stuff has got to get through.”

Millington Wheeler was a strange addition to this party. He was probably the leading citizen in Summerdale, and at the age of forty-eight, was in his prime. He was a chairman of the board of deacons in the Baptist church, and with his wife, Helen, ruled society, such as it was, in the county. He had long been involved with Judge Hightower, the two of them finding ways to make money off of county contracts, but what people did not know was that Wheeler had lost most of his money with the fall of the stock market. He had kept it covered up, but he had overextended himself. Now he had a burning desire to recoup. He hated himself sometimes for what he was doing. He used to take pride in his honesty, but he had convinced himself that making and selling bootleg whiskey was not the sin the preachers made it out to be. He had subscribed to Al Capone’s ideas, who had said, “I’m just a businessman.” Of course, Wheeler shuddered now, thinking about where that had landed him.

Leaning forward, Wheeler said, “This thing has got to work, Judge.”

“Yes, it does, but you know it could be dangerous.” Judge Hightower put his cigar down and picked up the glass. He sipped from the amber-colored liquid, then said, “These mob types think nothing of human life. If we cross them, we’re dead.”

“Look, it’s just a business, Dwight. Prohibition is going to be repealed soon. We both know that. It hasn’t worked. This is the last chance we’ve got to really put ourselves in good shape.”

The two spoke quietly for a time, and then Wheeler said, “What about Conroy?”

“I’ll put him on the county payroll. Assistant to the
superintendent of the highway department. But his real job will be twofold. One is to make sure that our suppliers don’t get arrested, and two—to get rid of that woman.” Hightower stared at Wheeler. “Just make it rough, Wheeler. And there’s no turning back. Once we start, we’re in for good.”

“We can do it. Look, Dwight,” he said, and his voice was quietly desperate. “Nobody but you knows about the financial pocket I’m in, but this will get me out of it. Then I’ll retire and let you run the show. But I’ve got to get out of this hole I’m in.”

The two men stared at each other, and then Wheeler rose, saying, “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He left, and Hightower sat there for a time thinking hard. Finally he rose and went to the second floor of his mansion. He knocked on Canelli’s door, and when a voice bid him enter, he stepped inside. Vito Canelli was standing facing him, his hand in the pocket of his suit. Hightower knew it was on a gun, but he ignored it. “It’ll be all right, Vito. We can make it work.”

“What about Wheeler? He seems like a weak sister to me.”

“He’s been rich all his life, and he was hard hit by the stock market. He tried to make it up by gambling on horses.”

“He’s a weak sister, Judge. I hear he’s religious, and that ain’t good.”

Judge Hightower let contempt show in his expression. “He’s a hypocrite. He likes to make a show, but his religion don’t keep his hands clean.”

Vito stood there and thought hard for a moment. He took his hand out of his pocket and nodded. “All right, we’ll do it. Get him tied into it, Judge. We can’t have any problems here. I’ll tell you right now, the boss don’t like excuses.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Veiled Threat

“I can’t stand these blasted flies!”

The heat in the sheriff’s office was oppressive, and a faulty screen had admitted a number of large black flies, which seemed determined to land on Jenny’s hair. She swiped at one of them ineffectually, then took out her handkerchief from her hip pocket and wiped her forehead. “Why can’t we get that screen fixed, Ruby?”

Ruby French was sitting alongside Jenny. The two women had been seated for over two hours at a long, scarred wooden table covered with papers, documents, and records of various sizes and shapes and age. It had been a difficult time for Jenny, for she was totally ignorant of politics on a county level, and it seemed that whoever had originally organized the bookkeeping system had delighted in making it as mysterious and obscure as possible.

Ruby drummed with a pencil on the table and found a smile. “The budget’s pretty tight around here, Sheriff.”

“Look, why don’t you just call me Jenny when we’re not in a formal situation.”

“That’s fine with me. Anyway, it would probably cost ten dollars to go around and repair all the screens that need fixing. Maybe twenty. If we spend the money for that, we’ll have to take it away from something else.”

“Well, take it out of my salary. These flies are going to drive me crazy!” Suddenly Jenny laughed aloud. “Here I am with problems as big as Mount Olympus, and I’m worried about
flies. Don’t pay any attention to me, Ruby. You’re doing a great job. I’m just thickheaded.”

“No, you’re not. This bookkeeping was designed by Noah after he got off the ark, I think. What it needs is a complete renovation.”

“Why don’t we do it, then?”

“Once again, it would take money.”

“Well, I think it ought to be modernized. Could you do it?”

“I suppose I could. It would mean a lot of extra work.”

“Well, do it. I’ll get the money from somewhere.”

Ruby French put the pencil down and said, “Let’s have some iced tea. Maybe that’ll cool you off a little bit.” She rose and went to the back of the office where an icebox was wedged into a corner. Opening the door, she took an ice pick and chipped away at the block of ice that had been put in earlier in the day. “Someday we’ll get us one of those new electric ice boxes, and we won’t have to have the iceman coming by.” She chipped off enough slivers to fill two glasses, shut the door, then filled them with tea from a covered pitcher. The two women put sugar and lemon in and then sat back, and as Jenny sipped the tea gratefully, she said, “What about you, Ruby?”

“What do you mean, what about me?”

“I mean, do you have a family? Are you married? I don’t know anything about you at all.”

Ruby lifted the glass and carefully traced the watery ring with her forefinger. She did not answer for some time. When she finally looked up, there was an aura of sadness in her eyes. At the same time there was a mixture of anger and regret. “I was married once. I thought it was the romance of a lifetime, but that only lasted until the first time he beat me up.”

“He beat you?”

“Yes, and I put up with it for three years. Finally he ran off with a dancer in a cooch show.”

“What’s a cooch show?”

“Dancers in a carnival. Kind of a striptease act.”

“I’m sorry, Ruby.”

“Well, we all have to eat our peck of dirt, and I guess Kenneth was mine. No more men for me.”

“Not ever?”

“I do what I want to now. I don’t have to put up with a sorry man.”

From outside the building came the sound of a harmonica playing a merry tune. The two women listened to it for a moment, and then Jenny turned to the woman beside her. “What am I going to do with Legs and Mattie? They’re absolutely worthless. I thought making them eat with the inmates would cause them to do a better job, but it didn’t. And they’re not fulfilling their job to clean the office either.”

“Not much you can do about them. Like Billy told you, they’re distant relatives to Judge Hightower. He’s not proud of them, but he pressured Sheriff Beauchamp into putting them on. The sheriff tried every way he could to get rid of them, but the judge can squeeze pretty hard. Have you met him yet?”

“Just once. He seemed very nice.”

“Oh, he’s a handsome guy all right and pretty smooth—but a rattlesnake is pretty according to some people. Don’t let him box you in a corner. Don’t give him a handle on you in any way.”

“But we can’t put up with this any longer. Those people are stealing. They take the food budget, stick half of it in their pocket, and buy the cheapest things they can find. While the inmates are half starved, those two are running around with county money in their pockets.”

Ruby studied the young woman before her. She had been highly skeptical of the whole concept of a female sheriff, and she still was as far as results were concerned. But she had to admit that Jennifer Winslow was a good woman.
A little bit innocent,
she had said to Billy Moon,
which is going to get her hurt.
Now as she took in the rich shine of Jenny’s red hair and the wide pleasant lips and the fine coloring, she said
briefly, “That’s life, Jenny. There’s crookedness in this world and meanness, and you’re not going to take it out. You’re not gonna be able to stop it all.”

Jenny stared at Ruby, and her lips grew firm. “I’m going to do something about that pair!”

“Watch your back,” Ruby warned. “The judge has a dozen ways to get at you, and he doesn’t mind using them.”

“I’m going up to see if they’ve cleaned the cells yet. My head’s tired with all this anyhow. Thanks for the lesson.”

“You’re doing fine. It just takes a while to get accustomed to it.”

Leaving the sheriff’s office, Jenny moved into the corridor, then up the stairs that led to the cells on the second floor. She had learned to call out as she entered, “Woman in the hall!” for sometimes the inmates were not dressed. She waited for time to let her warning take effect and then stepped inside. She went at once to the bathroom, and she saw that it was filthy—disgustingly so. Her lips tightened, and she stepped outside and moved down the row of cells. She stopped at one where a small man with a wild head of black hair was grinning up at her. “Hello, Jimmy. How’s it going today?”