The Travelling Man (8 page)

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Cassie stared at the phone handset in her hand in confusion for the second time that day. She was talking with the town’s doctor, Dr Toby Stewart (or Dr T as he liked to be called), who had performed the initial examination on both Harlan Harris and Davey Mackie. The doc was an old hippy whose age was indeterminate. He had delivered most of the adults in town and seemed to somehow never reach retirement age. He had been a fixture in Granton for as long as anyone could remember and just kept ticking along.  

“You’re going to have to run that past me again, Doc,” she said.

“It’s relatively simple, Sheriff. Harlan Harris died last night from massive blood loss trauma, and Davey Mackie died maybe 24-36 hours earlier.”

“But you’re also saying that Davey killed Harlan, despite already being dead?”

“Nope, what I’m saying is that Davey Mackie has indisputable evidence on his body that goes to show that he committed the murder of Harlan.”

“Despite the fact that he was already dead?”

“Hey, I’m just here to give you facts, Sheriff. I’m afraid that it’s your job to make sense of them,” the old doc said, and she could hear him grinning.

“How can you be sure that Davey was responsible?”

“There was blood under his nails and in his mouth, of all things. I don’t exactly have an FBI crime lab down here, but we have enough equipment to carry out an autopsy and initial examination,” he bristled.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to cast aspersions, Doc,” Cassie apologized knowing that despite the Doc’s general cheerful demeanor, the guy could be a little touchy when it came to his perception as an elderly quack. “But couldn’t someone have just made it look like Davey did it? Drag his hands in Harlan’s wounds to get evidence under the nails?”

“Possibly, but here’s the kicker: old Davey has a substantial amount of Harlan in his stomach.”

“He ate him?” Cassie exclaimed.

“It would appear so, or at least part of him.”

“Jesus, Doc,” Cassie sighed heavily. “What the hell is this? How can a dead guy eat someone? And what about the motive! I mean, Davey was a bit of a lush but he was never violent.”

“Well I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, Sheriff, or break any doctor patient confidentiality…”

“But?”

“But maybe you ought to take a little peek into Harlan’s business. Now I’m not saying that I would ever indulge, of course, Sheriff, but if one was so inclined
, then one might seek out a man like Harlan if you required a little something to take the edge off. A little something to perhaps lay back and listen to a little Floyd with, if you get my drift.”

Cassie took a moment to picture Harlan Harris in her mind. He was a man of good reputation in town and had never been in trouble as far as she knew. His name had never come across her desk in any sort of official capacity. “You serious, Doc?”

“As a heart attack, Sheriff.”

“I’ll take it under advisement, then.” Cassie hung up the phone and sat back in the office chair.

None of this made any sense; the death of two people in Granton was going to be the news of the century. But the added juicy morsel, courtesy of the Doc, that the killer had apparently already been dead before committing the crime had her stumped. It was always possible that Dr T had made an error, but she found that hard to believe. But then again, what exactly was the alternative?

“Working late, Sheriff?” A voice startled her from behind.

She turned to see Jeanne Rainwood standing in the doorway smiling pleasantly. “Makes two of us, Jeanne. I thought that you’d left already.”

“Forgot my keys,” the dispatcher shrugged unconvincingly.

“Spit it out,” Cassie said, knowing full well that Jeanne often took a full trip around the houses before she got to the point.

“You remember that I told you Cora was saying that there was a new guy staying out at Mrs. Fiorentino’s?”

“Jesus, Jeanne, I’ve got too much on my mind to start dating at the minute!” Cassie snapped.

“What I meant was that maybe, with what happened at Harlan’s store, it might be worth checking him out,” Jeanne said in small voice.

Cassie immediately felt ashamed of herself for assuming that Jeanne was only interested in something as shallow as setting her up with some new guy in town. The dispatcher stood in the doorway looking down at her feet nervously and Cassie wondered if she would ever shake off the shadow of her abusive husband. “Shit, I’m sorry, Jeanne; it’s just been a long day,” Cassie apologized. “It’s a good thought. With everything else going on, I’d clean forgot about that.”

“No worries,” Jeanne shrugged. “It was just an idea; ‘night, Boss.”

Cassie hated the way that Jeanne took an unfair insult without complaint. The dispatcher turned on her sensible flat-heeled shoes and left the office and headed out into the evening air.

In the rare lighter moments, especially since Ellie’s diagnosis, she had often wondered why Kevin hadn’t taken the plunge and asked Jeanne out. He clearly had a soft spot for the woman but the man was so quiet that it was often difficult to get a handle on just what he was thinking. Tom’s ambition and motivations were all on the surface, but Kevin’s were locked firmly behind a steely exterior.

She added the new guy staying at the Fiorentino boarding house to her mental note book for the morning and switched off the desk light. She hated to turn into a stereotype, but she was going to have to brace a man new in a small town for nothing more than being a stranger.

She had an odd feeling that she had met someone else in town recently, someone else who was just passing through, but, despite her excellent memory, she couldn’t picture a face or remember a name. When she searched her internal filing system she only succeeded in finding an empty page.

CHAPTER 6

meeting the
new guy

Marshal Dinkins crashed hard on his couch after working a double shift. Every muscle in his body ached but none more so than his own mind. Working a crappy job and living a crappy life was bad enough, but finding yourself at the bottom of the crap heap was almost too much to bear.

He cracked the seal on a fresh bottle and poured the dark liquid into his mouth, ignoring the burning sensation in his throat, only seeking the dulling of his senses.

His apartment was clean and tidy but sparsely furnished. He sat on an old leather couch that had seen better days and that had felt too many heavy ass prints in its surface. There was a tall free-standing floor lamp by the side of him but he preferred the darkness to hide in. Across from him there was a table with a small TV perched upon it, currently sitting dormant - its window to the world closed for business. Beside the table was a green cloth armchair that, for some reason, he had arranged to face the couch as though he was subconsciously seeking out companionship, as if he could picture someone facing him.

He took another long hard slug from the bottle and thought vaguely about throwing some tasteless frozen ready meal into the microwave, but in the end he just took another swallow. It was hard to believe that his life had petered out before it had really got started. He was now in full sight of 40 looming across the horizon and had nothing to show the world or its future inhabitants that he had ever existed at all. All he had ever wanted had been to leave some kind of mark that would prove that he had been here, that he had mattered at some point in his life.

He took another long slug from the bottle and, not for the first time, wondered if any of this shit was even worth it any more.

“This is all rather gloomy, isn’t it?” A voice spoke from opposite him in the armchair. “Perhaps a little light on the subject is what’s required?”

Marshal found his hand wandered involuntarily towards the lamp and his finger pulled the dangling chain. The small room was flooded with a low light and he found himself looking at Gilbert Grange without much surprise. “Hello, Mr. Grange,” he slurred drunkenly.

“And a good evening to you, Mr. Dinkins, or perhaps it is not?”

Marshal struggled to focus on the guy sitting across from him. The man had seemed to suddenly appear out of thin air, which wasn’t all that surprising considering the fact that he had disappeared with the blink of an eye out at the mine. He knew that the whole thing should have seemed preposterous and yet there was a strange acceptance and so he took another drink. “What do you want, Mr. Grange?”

“I believe that the question is what do you want, Mr. Dinkins? What is it that drives such sorrow in your heart? What is it that you seek to obtain? And what would you be willing to pay for such a delicate morsel?”

Marshal watched as the neat man pulled out a clean sheet of paper from a leathery case that seemed to have suddenly appeared at Grange’s immaculately buffed shoes.

“I want to be remembered, I want to have mattered on this stinking planet,” Marshal slurred, gripping the whisky bottle in an iron fist of self-pity and anger. “A hundred years from now I want people to know my name.”

“Well now, Mr. Dinkins, that is certainly manageable,” Grange said with a smile. “As long as you’re willing to pay, of course.”

Marshal met the man’s eyes and cared little for the reality of this situation. He had nothing much to give and even less to lose. “I’ve got some money,” he offered, trying to clumsily drag his wallet from his jean pocket.

“Really, Mr. Dinkins? Do I look like a man who is interested in the contents of your wallet?” Grange smiled coldly. “What I seek is a rather more substantial payment.”

“Take what you like,” Marshal shrugged as the thick enveloping arms of a drunken stupor reached out to take him. “Take anything you like. I don’t care.”

“If I could just have your signature, Mr. Dinkins, then we can both be on our way. I have other business to attend to and you have a whole new life to start. I’d imagine that you’re rather eager to begin.”

Marshal felt, rather than saw, the paper thrust into his hands; he took the silver pen offered and dimly felt a small stab in his finger as he scrawled his name in barely legible writing.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Dinkins,” Marshal heard as he started to snore. “A pleasure indeed.”

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Becky had ridden out to her boss’ house in the front of his truck that she coveted. There was a Town Council meeting tonight and she picked up a little extra cash in hand for taking the minutes of the meetings. It was usually a dull job, having to suffer through bureaucratic nonsense, but the extra cash was always useful.

She probably wouldn’t have minded if Glenn had made a pass at her. The guy seemed nice enough - if a little too old - but he did have money, a smattering of intelligence and, more importantly, he had aspirations. Sure, it might have only been to open some kind of restaurant on the other side of town, but it was far more than anyone else that she had met.

The council meeting was supposed to have been about the deaths at Mr. Harris’ hardware store but there seemed to be precious little information given out by the police department. She was not surprised to find that the Sheriff was absent, as the woman was not seen as an integral component of running the town business from behind a desk. Becky had always admired the big cop who seemed to take no shit from anyone and carried herself with an air of natural authority that made even the hardened miners toe the line. The town relied on her,  much to the annoyance of some of the men who sat on the council, who thought her very gender was a threat to their very manhood.  

Bobby Cohen was the town manager and sat at the head of the council, but nobody was in any doubt as to who was the most important man in town: Jim Lesnar. The mine owner was a freaky looking guy and he always gave her the creeps. He was the most powerful and wealthy guy in town by some distance. Becky normally drew the line somewhere, but the older she got and the more nails she cracked at the diner, the better the troll looked. The guy seemed to be like some kind of ape - all thick torso and long gangly arms that threatened to drag on the floor. She could easily picture him in his mine below the ground, away from direct sunlight, hoarding his gold or whatever the hell it was that they clawed out of the earth out there.

Bobby was a nervous little man, all skin and bone with a quivering top lip that sported a ridiculous pencil thin moustache. He was supposed to be in charge but, as far as Becky could tell, the guy spent most of the time asking questions instead of giving answers. Whenever any subject arose, Bobby spent the entire time looking around to men like Jim or even Glenn to see which way the wind was blowing before daring to voice any opinion.

After the meeting Glenn drove the truck back to town to drop her off home again. She wore a pair of stone colored shorts that rose up a little tight and high on her thigh and she wondered just what it might take to make her boss grab himself a legful. She was sure that she could put up with a few of his fumblings for the sake of a better life. Being ‘Mrs. Owner of A Diner’ seemed a damn sight better than “Little Miss Works in One”.

She was about to try for some playful banter when she spotted a man walking down the road towards them. The man strode purposefully alongside the dirt verge as though he was walking through the town square in the middle of the day rather than strolling out towards the middle of nowhere in the pitch black.

Glenn slowed down, presumably to see if the guy was lost or had car trouble, and Becky recognised the man from being in the diner. He was dressed in a smart, expensive looking, tailored suit and was merrily swinging an old dark leather case in his hand.

“You need any help there, fella?” Glenn asked as he drew up alongside the man.

“Well now, good evening to you and your pretty young friend,” the man said, doffing his hat formally. “I must say that it’s so nice to see that good manners are not lost this far out into the wilderness” he smiled cheerily.

“Did you break down somewhere?” Becky asked, straining her eyes into the distance looking for a vehicle.

“Not at all, my dear. I just often feel a certain restlessness after conducting business; it gives an old codger like me a little spring in the step.” The man grinned. “Excuse me, I’m Grange, Gilbert Grange.” He smiled broadly.

At the sight of the man’s perfect white teeth, Becky suddenly felt a twinge of uncertainty. The guy was old and slender, giving off no physical threat, and his prissy accent only added to his harmless demeanor. Yet she was oddly wary of the man as his eyes seemed to rotate and sparkle like stars in the clear desert sky. Suddenly, she wished that Glenn would just floor the truck and take off just as quickly as the V8 engine could manage.

“Business?” Glenn asked, curious about the stranger in town.

“Oh yes, Mr. Jordan; it has been a most productive evening, most productive indeed.”

Becky noticed a foul smell wafting in through Glenn’s open window. She leaned over and looked down to see a splattering of road kill just below the stranger’s feet, but the well-dressed man didn’t seem to notice the stench. His shiny buffed shoes were only centimeters from a split open fur-lined bag of red and pink innards that had been run flat by a passing car. 

“Can we give you a lift somewhere?” Glenn asked and Becky was relieved to hear a touch of uncertainty in her boss’ voice.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Grange replied. “I find the night air most welcoming after a sale; it gives one quite the appetite.”

“Well, we’ll be on our way then,” Glenn said nervously, but without wanting to appear rude.

“As you wish,” Grange said bowing slightly. “I’m sure that I will be seeing you again, Mr. Jordan. You too, Miss James.”

As they pulled away, Becky noticed that Glenn was driving faster that he normally would have. She couldn’t help but turn and look behind at the odd Mr. Grange, who was just illuminated by the fading rear lights of the truck. The man was leaning down to inspect the splattered animal corpse lying by his feet. As the darkness swallowed him, for a split second Becky could have sworn that he gleefully scooped up a handful guts into his mouth before he disappeared behind them into the dark night.

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  Cassie woke early the following morning, half expecting the phone to have already shaken her with more tales of the unexpected, but she was relieved to find herself bathed beneath the early sun’s rays undisturbed.

She showered slowly as she planned the day ahead in her mind, checking through her mental Rolodex, pulling notes from the previous day. First up was a trip over to Mrs. Fiorentino’s boarding house to get a look at the new guy in town. She wanted to meet the man, preferably before he’d had his breakfast, and catch a snapshot of him before his guard went up. Visitors were seldom seen in Granton and it didn’t hurt to play the small town card and be wary of the stranger, especially given the grisly discovery at Harlan’s hardware store.

Next up would be a look behind the late Harlan’s business affairs. Dr Toby Stewart was an old hippy who apparently had been purchasing under-the-counter products from Harlan. She still didn’t quite know what to do about that particular nugget of information, but right now she had bigger fish to fry.

The Doc’s autopsy results still hung fresh in her mind and cast more shadows than light when it came to understanding what had happened between Harlan and Davey Mackie. At the thought of Davey, she added a mental note to pay Susie Mackie a visit.

She had a meeting scheduled with Bobby Cohen, the town manager, out of courtesy more than anything else. Small towns had a tendency to attract those with delusions of grandeur who wanted to sit upon seats of power and play with the grownups. Bobby was a nice enough guy, but she knew full well that the man took his cues from Jim Lesnar on all subjects that the mine owner deemed his property. Thankfully, she was the only person in town with any real police procedural experience and even if any of the town councilors wanted to interfere, none of them would even know where to start.

She dressed in a fresh uniform and tied her hair back into a ponytail before heading downstairs. She felt a strong stab of guilt as she realised that her mind had been full of police business pushing aside her daughter’s health and bills. She was honest enough with herself to admit that it was a relief not to be consumed with Ellie’s ongoing battle for once. With two dead bodies lying in the town’s morgue, it was an undoubted sign that things could always be worse.

She found Ellie in the kitchen, as per usual, making breakfast. The air was full of a rich coffee aroma and Cassie filled her insulated travel cup, feeling her daughter’s disapproving glare. “I’ve got to leave early, hon.”

“You know, I’m sure that I read somewhere that breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Ellie said primly.

“And so it is, sweetie,” Cassie said, grabbing a candy bar from the counter and waving it in the air grinning.

“Mother, you’re hopeless,” Ellie replied, unable to hide her own smile.

Cassie kissed her on the forehead, using the contact to check her daughter’s temperature and take a closer look at the bags under her eyes. She was glad that Ellie hadn’t wanted to talk about the events of yesterday, as she wasn’t sure what she could have told her that wouldn’t have only added fuel to the no doubt countless rumors that must be circulating around town by now.