Acclaim for Jock Stewart
And the Missing Sea of Fire
Small town hi-jinks delivered with healthy doses of sarcasm and wit. Jock Stewart is like Guy Noir freed from the confines of public radio. A must-read for anyone who likes their sleuths hard-boiled, their women salty, and their plots with as many twists and turns as a plate of the Purple Platter Diner’s spaghetti.
Nancy Whitney-Reiter
Readers who enjoy hard-bitten, wisecracking characters will surely fall in love with Jock Stewart, the main character in the new Malcolm Campbell novel, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. The story of the book revolves around the disappearance of the race horse, Sea of Fire, but it features a wagon load of human “horsing around” by the many colorful characters Campbell created, including Coral Snake Smith, Parker House, a preacher named Cotton Mouth and the Krispy Kreme eating police chief Kruller.
While reading the story and gathering the clues, that frequently came to light as Stewart dialogued with his own intuition, readers may find themselves having great fun picking up the puns, word plays and hilarious cloaked references to cultural and historical items. Jock Stewart is an old time newspaperman, whose “blunt force sarcasm” keeps him in hot water with his bosses, co-workers and the police. But if not for his pressing the issue, the mystery would definitely not have been resolved.
Stewart, Malcolm Campbell’s self-acknowledged alter ego, is also the author’s vehicle to decry the effects of the digital age on the craft of writing and the elegance of language. I found the book entertaining, and it might even become profitable, if I can get permission from the author to use the sermon outline he provided in chapter 13!
Ralph Bryant
Also by Malcolm R. Campbell
The Sun Singer (fiction)
Worst of Jock Stewart (satire)
Jock Stewart
and the Missing Sea of Fire
by
Malcolm R. Campbell
Vanilla Heart Publishing
USA
Jock Stewart
and the Missing Sea of Fire
Copyright 2009 Malcolm R. Campbell
Published by: Vanilla Heart Publishing
www.vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com
10121 Evergreen Way, 25-156
Everett, WA 98204 USA
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to places, events, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-935407-14-0
LCCN: 2009929800
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition
First Printing, July 2009
Printed in the United States of America
For Lesa
Jock Stewart
and the Missing Sea of Fire
by
Malcolm R. Campbell
Chapter One
Jock Stewart woke up this morning with an industrial strength hangover. An empty Scotch bottle lay on the floor next to an empty little black dress that wasn’t his. Last night, a fair amount of Monique Starnes wore it at the newspaper’s office party. Her cleavage, more out than in, was deep enough to kidnap a man’s dreams. Now, there would be hell to pay.
At first glance, he appeared to be alone in the bed. Maybe he stole the dress. Maybe he maxed out a credit card at an all-night Vera Wang shop, then came home and slung it on the floor in an ill-conceived pretense of having a life. “The second glance”—as Star-Gazer editor Marcus Cash always told him—“is always the beginning of trouble.”
Just past the far side of the bed, Monique lay face up on the floor in a 40-year-old birthday suit so worn out no Goodwill Store would take it. She looked like a corpse. Things went too far and he hadn’t bothered to conceal the murder weapon.
If more than one crime had been committed here, she was an accessory beginning with an illegal use of a little black dress—though many women contend that dresses don’t seduce people, people seduce people. When it got late enough last night for everyone to pair up with nobody cared whom—or was it “who”?—she dared him to dance with her. In spite of the chronic animosity between them she danced close enough to display her breasts in an arousing light.
The world resolved into a curious mix of limbo and dream after she said, “I like a man with a cocked weapon in his trousers.”
Now, the best approach to his future might be to draw a chalk outline around her before calling the police to report the accident. Chief Kruller would be pissed, not because he had any love for the newspaper’s gossip columnist but because coming by the house to clean up the mess would force him to give up his space at the counter of the Main Street Krispy Kreme.
Though he wasn’t being interrogated yet, Jock had to admit that Monique was a voluptuous, saucy, black-haired she-devil if there ever was one. It was her mouth and her typewriter that bothered him. No ass kicking, hard-boiled reporter he knew (including himself) could tolerate gossip columnists. They dragged the whole damn paper down to their level. While exciting in bed, that level was bad for the newspaper business.
She did have nice breasts—for a probable corpse.
Even so, newspapering didn’t need columns called Hands Under Society’s Dress with comments like: “Democracy demands that we celebrate the election process at one ball after another. Just think, in some countries, the winners aren’t allowed to have any balls.”
Her luscious brown eyes popped open like they were controlled by a zombified spirit who hadn’t “crossed over” properly.
He jumped back in fear or what looked like fear.
“Jock!”
“Monique, what have we done?”
She sat up, partially covering herself with the sheer window curtain one of his former girlfriends with a name like Bambi or Barbie hung up in the bedroom either as a civilizing influence or to allow his neighbors the dubious entertainment of watching them (Jock and whoever) having sex during blue moons.
“We did what any self-respecting man and woman do when they find themselves drunk in bed,” she said. “Did I scream much?”
“Did I hurt you?”
“You gave me what I wanted.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Want to take another shot at it?”
She put her hands where they didn’t belong—as an incentive.
“Doesn’t either one of us need to take a leak or something?” he asked.
“Let’s do it together and be kinky.”
She stood up and stretched while running her hands through her hair in a way that made her look both wanton and innocent, an oh-God-Jock-you-caught-me-in-a-private-moment kind of way. He had seen such moments before in photography books.
“You go first,” he said.
When she flounced toward the bathroom everything shook. While she was there he got dressed. He heard the shower running, so he went out to the kitchen and made coffee and set out two cups. The midmorning light was too bright. None of the cars out on Maple Street had mufflers. The birds were chirping like they were having hot sex in the locust tree. Air molecules careened into each other as though some asshole just lit a barrel full of cherry bombs.
“If we’d known each other then, you could have had my cherry,” Monique announced. She was wearing one of his old work shirts and Irish Spring soap.
“Back where?” he asked. He appreciated the view when she leaned over to fish her cigarettes out of her purse.
“Back anywhere,” she said, smiling when she saw where he was looking. “Where were you in those days?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Light me?”
He took a match out of the tin on the gas stove top and struck it on the zipper of his jeans while she leaned so close he almost dropped the match down the front of her (actually, his) shirt.
“You need to get dressed,” he said.
“Let me enjoy the moment. Act like you want me here.”
He poured the coffee, adding cream to his and sugar to hers. He knew how she liked it because they had gotten drunk before and ended up at kitchen tables before on bright Sunday mornings. If he’d known her “back then,” things still would have ended up like this. Her eyes were on him as they always were on mornings after, but she would pull away if he unbuttoned the shirt and he would pull away if she grabbed his belt buckle.
“I found a Lucinda voice mail on my cell this morning,” said Monique. “I feel so lucky.”
“Some juicy tidbit for Monday’s under the dress column?”
“Jock, don’t.”
She drew out the words and he felt rather sorry for teasing her while they were sharing their faux-vulnerable morning-after coffee.
“What’s she want.”
“She wants her horse back. Sea of Fire is missing?”
“Do you have him?”
She gave him an odd look. Then she looked down the front of the shirt.
“Nope, no naughty horsey down here.”
“Have they called the police?”
“She didn’t say. I don’t know why she called me. It’s not the kind of story I do.”
“I’ll look into it,” said Jock.
Monique sipped her coffee, frowning and thinking. Whatever she wanted, he was going to say ‘no.’ She unbuttoned the shirt and raised her hands.
“Start me out with a good frisking. Then we can go back to bed with no more questions asked. May we?”
She stood close enough for him to touch.
If he did, where would it end? How easily he could visualize the lead to her next column: “My sweets, you might well ask what Maple Street reporter found himself under my little black dress last night.”
No, she did that last time and Monique had a firm rule. She never recycled old material.
“No,” he said. “I have more worries than questions.”
“What, do you think you can’t get it up again?” She pressed both hands firmly against the front of his trousers. “No, that’s not it. So what is it?”
“I forgot to use any protection last night,” he said.
She laughed and momentarily he saw the Monique he wanted her to be 24/7. Her laugh almost made him forget where things ended up when he trusted her and so he put his hand on her ass in a possessive way and she responded more the way a lover than an overnighter responds.
“I started out with a purse full of condoms last night,” she gasped. “We had enough protection for a long, slow weekend.”
“No,” he said, “that’s not what I meant.”
She heard the change in his voice, backed away and pulled the front of the shirt together.
“Protection from me, that’s what you’re saying.”
He was surprised the whole neighborhood didn’t hear it.
“You got that right.”
She grabbed the coffee cup and slung its sugary contents in his face. “You asshole. Go. Just go back to your precious job or wherever else you go when you’re like this. I’ll know how to let myself out.”
Jock pulled a dishtowel off the rack and went out to the car. The keys were still in the ignition from last night. He sat for a while and watched the house. It looked dead. He considered drawing a chalk outline around it and calling somebody.
Chapter Two
Coral Snake Smith was sitting in his favorite booth at the Purple Platter when Jock got there at 11:45 a.m. Smith, who suffered disfiguring burns as a child, ended up with a ruddy, red and yellow complexion that made him unfit for any career other than crime or psychiatry. He dabbled in psychiatry until the review board questioned why 98.6% of his male and female patients were diagnosed with an Electra complex. Subsequently, he practiced crime without conviction.
Now he described himself as a storyteller, an information handler, and an unidentified source. Those who trusted him believed his word was well worth the price of a meal, hash browns scattered and smothered and a Denver omelet. Others hypothesized that he was a stool pigeon.
Jock sat down on the far side of the duplex table and ordered two usuals when the waitress stopped by after a long vacation on the far side of the near-empty dining room.
“Dawn will turn on her hustle when the church people get here,” said Smith.
“True,” said Jock.
“You could have washed that coffee off your face and put on a clean shirt,” said Smith, “unless you were sent packing out of your own house.”
“Why do you say that?”
Smith picked at an itchy place on his face where the hairs in his beard grew in on themselves along the edge of a yellow band. “Red and yellow kill a fellow,” the guys at the paper always said.
Dawn set down two breakfasts that looked like they were cooked yesterday. Smith poured stripes of ketchup across the top of his omelet, and then offered Jock the squeeze bottle. Jock declined.
“I say that because sources close to the action have confirmed that 52% of those attending the Star-Gazer office party last night danced with those they didn’t bring.”
“Right as rain,” said Jock.
Smith spat a mouthful of coffee under the table.
“Dawn, move your beautiful self over here.”
“We have a spill beneath the table.”
She peaked out from under her stringy blond bangs and shrugged.
“Care to know the details?”
“You spit it out,” she said. She seemed condescending, Jock thought, as though she wasn’t sure Smith knew what he had done.
“It was cold,” Smith said. “Damn it, who do I have to f…”
“…Don’t go there,” snapped Jock.”
“I’ll bring you some fresh coffee,” said Dawn. “Just don’t spit it out if it’s not as Chock full o’ Nuts as you are.”
Smith leaned over close and whispered, “She’s got penis envy.” His breath smelled like smelt.
Smith put his hands in his lap (protectively) to avoid ‘accidents’ when Dawn returned with the coffee.
“You screwed Monique Starnes last night, then had an argument and took a Maxwell House shower,” drawled Smith.
“You may be right as rain.”
“Why the damn hell do people say that?”
“Say what?”
“Right as rain.”
“I don’t know. It’s just a saying.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Neither does me screwing Monique.”
“Nonsense never stops nothing,” said Smith.
“What do you know about Sea of Fire?”
Smith leaned back in his chair, slightly reducing the smell of fish. Jock hadn’t eaten much of his meal anyhow since as best he could recall, most Denver omelet recipes didn’t include coffee grounds, cigarette ashes, and miscellaneous unidentified material that appeared to have come from a dustpan. Some asshole dropped the omelet and scooped it back on the plate.
“You remember that time Monique stunned the mayor with that cell phone that doubled as a stun gun?”
“I wrote the story.”
“You’re right as rain,’ said Smith.
“What about it?”
“You quoted Lucinda Trail as saying, ‘I do not believe that little tramp tried to kill my husband.’”
“Which meant she did believe it.”
“Exactly. As for the matter at hand, I’d like to draw your attention to your memory of the look on Mrs. Trail’s face when she said it.”
“Like a snake ready to strike.”
“Yes, if looks could kill,” said Smith, scratching at his face again. “Yep, the mayor would be dead. Old Clark’s getting the evil eye big time from his sweet lady.
“On the record, how does that play into our story?”
“Are you going to eat that?” he asked. When Jock shook his head, Smith snagged his omelet on the end of his fork and flipped it over onto his plate. “Okay, let me spell it out for you. According to informed sources shockingly close to Lucinda Trail, the mayor’s handling of the Sea of Fire case was about the same as fixing the barn door after the horse has gotten out.”
Jock made a show of writing that down in his notebook.
“What about foul play?” asked Jock.
“Probably,” said Smith. “Damn fry cook got too many ashes in my omelet.”
“How probable?”
“Even money.”
“Smith, for shit’s sake, I can’t go with that.”
“Go talk to Lucinda, then. She’ll be home after 3 p.m. while Clark takes a little spin around town to give his sweetie a little spin.”
“Does Lucinda know?”
“Not yet, but if you need leverage, some of my associates believe the sweetie is Bambi Hill and some believe she’s the proverbial Lady in Black.”
“Bambi, his first wife?”
“The same,”
“You know, Smith, it’s always a pleasure having breakfast with you.”
“I know.” Smith shoved the last of Jock’s hash browns into his mouth and more or less mumbled, “Are you going to leave a little something for Dawn.”
“Assuming you’ve got enough of what she envies, you can handle the tip.”
“Aw don’t,” he said, drawing out the words.
“Sounds like something Monique would say.”
“She did,” said Smith, “about 20 minutes before you got here.”
“What the hell did she want to know?”
“Sorry, Jock, a dustpan omelet doesn’t buy you than kind of information.”
“Shit.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” said Smith, “the kitchen is calling upon me to make two banana splits.”
“You make the best splits in the state. Nobody knows quite how.”
“They’ll never break the code,” Smith said.
Main Street was filled with churchgoers clubbing and clawing each other to get the remaining seats in the Purple Platter and the Elegant Chef. When the deacons counted the money in the collection plates and found the amounts lower than par, ministers tended to drag out their sermon until half past the noon hour as a punishment. Jock was hard pressed to say whether the practice was extortion or damn good business.
As to Sea of Fire, Jock felt right as rain with the assumption that Monique got more information with her cleavage than he got with cold coffee and bad food. If she were still wearing his shirt, she would have gone directly to the Trails’ house and camped out on the lawn. Conversely, if she were wearing her Vera Wang, she would have gone home first to change. If Lucinda saw the dress, Monique would have a lot of hell to pay keeping things quiet unless she wanted to go right ahead and draw a chalk outline around her future on the staff of the Star-Gazer.
He pondered a lot of things on his way home and he didn’t like most of them.
There was half a note on the back door, “Oh Dammit, Jock,” and then the paper was torn off as though she changed her mind about something or a benevolent guest stopped by and saved him from seeing the worst. The Vera Wang was still on the floor next to his bed. That could mean a lot of things, but two of them were that she borrowed something out of his closet or had a change of clothes in her car.
He left the dress where it lay and tried his best to shower away the other remnants of the evening.
Chapter Three
Jock wanted see Lucinda Trail about as much as a sick granny wanted to see an ice floe. She (Lucinda) was cold to the media, especially Jock, and it was her husband’s fault. If the Honorable Clark Trail hadn’t diligently worked over the years to become Junction City’s most inept mayor since Yorrick Muskrat in 1921, the Star-Gazer wouldn’t have called upon its readers to enjoy so many laughs at Trail’s expense. Trail, whose slogan in the last election was “I’m the Devil You Know,” thrived on imbecility because it gave voters the impression he was too stupid to be blamed for anything that went wrong in the city.
The last time Jock saw Lucinda, she flung open his office door and yelled, “Damn it, Jock, I know it’s true, but why can’t you look the other way once in a while?”
She was referring to that morning’s page-one story:
TRAIL APOLOGIZES FOR USING CONTAMINATED FACTORY AS JUNCTION CITY’S NEW SENIOR CITIZENS HEALTH CENTER
Mayor Mark Trail announced here today that he was “poorly misinformed” when he was told by trusted bloggers that the acronym ‘EPA” stands for “Elderly Potentials Association” rather than Environmental Protection Agency.
According to randomly informed sources, the mayor presumed that when the former Muskrat & Company Factory, manufacturers of lead, arsenic and asbestos dinnerware since 1921, was selected as the county’s number-one EPA site, he had the perfect venue for handling “granny’s healthcare needs.”
Councilman Calvin Knox told reporters that the mayor’s venue was as “perfect as consigning granny to an ice floe and waiting for nature to take its course.”
Lucinda Trail opened the door before he rang the bell. She had obviously been waiting for him. She wore white Capri pants, a designer Tee, a braided straw hat and a pair of brown slingback sandals. Her long, platinum blonde hair hung in an elegant body wave across the front of her shirt and a suffocating cloud of perfume served as her aura for the day.
“Walk with me, Jock.”
“I’m sorry to hear the news about Sea of Fire.”
“Thank you,” she said, apparently having forgotten the senior center unpleasantness.
But then she raised an eyebrow and that usually meant she knew a lot of things she wasn’t prepared to tell. He had interviewed her enough to know that.
“There’s not much I can say, Jock. If certain things were to get in the paper, Clark would be greatly compromised.”
“Did you tell Monique the same thing?”
“In spades, black for the black hearted, right?” She put her hand on his arm, guiding him to a circle of white, wrought-iron chairs in the patio at the west end of the house. There was water on the tile and the chairs appeared to have been recently washed. Obviously, she didn’t want him inside the house where, possibly, the mayor might be sprawled in a pool of blood in the foyer, caught in the act of sneaking out of the house for his tryst with Bambi or the Lady in Black. He wondered whether the headline should include TRAIL’S END or TRAIL MIX.
She watched him like she could read his mind, like she knew Monique’s little black dress lay on the floor of his bedroom and wanted him to confirm or confess his role in mistreating designer clothing, like she had been in church and he hadn’t, like she might need to lure him inside, kill him with the fireplace poker and leave him in the foyer making it look like he and Clark had gotten caught in the act of doing something sordid and ugly and without redeeming value for the Junction City.
“So pensive,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said, “I thought you were collecting your thoughts, trying to fathom just what you can say under these difficult circumstances.”
Even though she was five years older than him, she smiled like old women smile when they’re being sweet to problem children.
“I’ll tell you what I told Monique,” she said, “and then I’ll throw in a bonus fact. As you know, Clark and I were in attendance at last night’s staff party. We always attend because Marcus and Clark played football together in some gosh awful college in Alabama and now they treat each other as though they’re still teammates in anything and everything.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I think they’re both going around the block with Bambi Hill, but you’ll notice she wasn’t invited to the staff party even though the entity Coral Snake calls the Woman in Black was at the party.”
“Just as well Bambi wasn’t there,” he said.
“That was off the record,” she said.
“I know,” said Jock.
“We got home about 10:30. Everything was as we had left it. The lights were on, the gates, doors, and windows were locked, and the alarm was still set.” She sighed, watched a small plane make its way over the hardwoods behind the house. “Looks like Hank Kruller’s plane,” she said. “Christ, Clark said they said ‘no police,’ and now that doughnut addict is advertising the fact we called the police.”
“I’ll take a walk around back if you want to put in a call to your husband while he’s in another woman’s arms.”
“Your sources are better than mine, but presumably unidentified,” she said with no raised eyebrows, sarcasm or anger. “Sisterhood only goes so far. Tell me, Jock, do you have any siblings?”
“Yes, one brother, Jake. He disgraced the family years ago by turning into a clean-cut, church-going human being.”
Lucinda looked at him like he was nuts. “What would you do if you woke up one morning and discovered he was screwing your wife and bragging about it?”
“If I had a wife, I’d shoot myself.”
“I can’t abide kiss-and-tell women, Hill or not. Jock, Kruller is having too much fun flying over the woods. Call Clark for me. Then, if a woman answers, I won’t be the one who’s embarrassed.”
“Truly?”
“Sincerely, if you can manage it.”
The mayor answered a nanosecond before the voice mail picked up the call.
“Trail here.”
“Mayor, Jock Stewart from the Star-Gazer.”
“Oh, hello Jock, I expect you’re calling to inquire about Sea of Fire.”
“Yes, but I’m not certain whether it’s wise to talk about this on cell phones. If you’ll tell me your location, I can probably get there in 28 minutes depending on traffic conditions.”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’m looking after a sick friend, if you know what I mean, and your presence here would complicate her recovery.”
“I see, a sick friend, I understand.” He couldn’t help but notice Lucinda’s smile.
“So what is it, Jock?
“Hank Kruller is flying his plane back and forth over Henson’s Woods.”
“What the hell happened to old man Henson? He didn’t kick the bucket, did he? Hell, I just saw him in church this morning.”
“Nothing happened to old man Henson. Mrs. Trail and I thought you might call dispatch and remind them that Kruller’s plane is calling attention to the fact you and/or Mrs. Trail disobeyed your instructions from the perpetrators and contacted the police.”
“Where’s Lucinda at the present time?”
“We’re sitting here beneath the magnolia tree watching Kruller. Ah, now he’s seen us and he’s wagging his wings. Your police chief is still a clown, Sir.”
“Put her on the phone.”
“What is it, Dearest. . .yes, I know you’re in a staff meeting, but Jock called you anyway. . .no, he won’t mention the police or the plane in the story because that’s—what is it Jock?”
“Deep background.”
“Deep background, Clark . . . yes…yes…I understand…see you soon.”
“He’s in a staff meeting,” she said, rolling her eyes up so high it looked like she was staring at something on the brim of her hat. “He’s calling Hank, as we speak.”
“Anything else you can say?”
“Clark said, and I’ll quote this for your notes: ‘There’s been a misunderstanding about Sea of Fire that doesn’t need to get in that rag of yours. It’s primarily about scheduling, we have so many friends who help out, we probably just forgot the plan of the day as you Navy men used to say. Paint the picture that way.’”
“I will,” said Jock, “for you.”
“Thank you.”
“How did you bribe Monique to keep quiet?”
Lucinda stood up and straightened her hat. “You’re not going to like this, Jock, but I saw she’d been crying and I pried into her business to find out why. Once I knew why, I threatened to tell everyone else why and that was the last thing she wanted.”
“That’s good,” said Jock. He put his notebook in his shirt pocket, not that he’d written anything on it and, since she was already moving back toward the front door, he stood up and followed.
When they reached the porch, he noted that there was no blood in the foyer.
“Since I can trust you to handle this story properly—just until we know for sure nobody plans to harm Sea of Fire—I’ll tell you that one more thing.” She was speaking in a whisper now as though the police who weren’t supposed to have been called had bugged the place. “She keeps hoping you’ll pop the question.”
“Good Lord, Lucinda, that’s absurd.”
“Sure, I’m just saying…”
Lucinda was still whispering and she looked sane and serious, though her demeanor might be overcompensation for keeping her wits together about Sea of Fire and a philandering husband. He marveled at her well-distanced poise, second only to Queen Elizabeth, yet without the purse.
“Did she tell you that?”
“In so many words.”
“I’m screwed.”
While it wasn’t necessary, she flashed him a sympathy smile. He looked in his rearview mirror has he drove down the driveway and saw her standing tall and straight on the front porch watching him. Her arms were crossed tight and stiff across the front of her white tee shirt. Not a good sign.
He made two decisions by the time he got to the street. The first was that he would take Baker Street rather than Mesa Avenue to avoid driving past Monique’s house. The other was that he would drive around the block when he reached College Boulevard. Suffice it to say, he had no clue whether Monique was home, but his little detour at College showed him that the mayor’s car was parked in Bambi’s carport.
Chapter Four
When he got home, he hung the little black dress in his closet next to his best suit from Sears. That right-as-rain image said all that needed to be said.
Ed Anderson called and said, “Jock, I’ve been calling for hours.”
“Great, nice talking with you.”
“Don’t start with the jokes. Are you sending me anything for the Bulldog Edition?”
“I’ve got nothing,” said Jock, “and it’s really difficult talking on the phone while trying to pour a wee dram of Scotch.”
“Cash wants better than the nothing he got from Monique.”
“Got what? Syphilis, the clap, or a shoulder to cry on.”
“I know it’s against your better nature, but try to be kind. When it comes to Monique, what’s not to like?”
“Ask Marcus.”
“What?”
“You know what he always says.”
“Other than ‘Jock’s an asshole,’ I don’t have a clue.”
“He says he never screwed a woman he didn’t like.”
“Now you see why he always says, ‘Jock’s an asshole.’ Send me something; I don’t care what as long as you leave out the profanity.”
Jock hung up without saying goodbye.
He had nothing and he was almost out of Talisker. Monique had a way of taking his best stuff and leaving him with the bottom shelf dregs, bad whisky, a black eye, and the kind of memories that make a man want to ride out some dark and lonely road and shoot himself in the head with a cheap shotgun.
When he switched on his PC, there was a shitload of e-mail.
COME GET HORNY WITH ME.
He read that one while contemplating the delights of the little black dress. Unfortunately, it was from boobsie69 who apparently had a set of something or other he could look at by logging onto www.kitcatcircusnudiepix.com as long as he was over 13 and had a credit card that wasn’t maxed out.
BANK OF JUNCTION CITY NEEDS YOUR HELP
In short, some clown at the Bank of Junction City had accidentally deleted his account number and social security number and, assuming he had any money and wanted to write any more checks, he needed to send an e-mail to boobsie69@jctcitbnk.com and tell her what those numbers were.
No offense to morons, but they needed to get some cheap shotguns and do the online world a favor.
He called Chief Kruller who claimed he was flying over old man Henson’s woods looking for reports some “redneck trash” were operating a still. That was all he was willing to say about the matter. Then Kruller said “come see me in the morning at the usual place.”
Suffice it to say, the “usual place” wasn’t the police station.
He called Councilman Billy Purvis, who lived in a McMansion across the street from the Trails’ property to get a quote.
“I was asleep when anything missing went missing.”
“What time was that?” asked Jock.
“Past my bedtime,” said Purvis. “Already asleep in my bunny slippers, though you don’t need to mention that.”
“Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
“Now Jock, that’s just flat right as rain. But tell the people, especially those in my district, I’m here to serve. No sacrifice is too small that it can’t be ignored. You tell them.”
“Say no more,” said Jock, and hung up when Purvis’ snoring became audible enough to wake the dead, zombified or not.
Purvis got elected because he was so stupid nobody thought he would be elected. He once told Jock that he (Purvis) had been “carrying on an affair under his own nose with a cheap hooker from Prairie View for years before he discovered what he was doing.” Everyone in town knew about the girl, a stay-away-from-home mom who called herself “Bunny Slippers” so her husband, who was said to be a “one mean son of a bitch trucker,” wouldn’t find out that most of her missionary work wasn’t under the auspices of her church circle.
Anderson was one of those old-school journalists who started out as a copy boy in the noir letterpress days when editors wrote headlines and reporters wrote copy. Consequently, Anderson liked old-school, hammer-out-the-words reporting. Jock gave it a shot in spite of the absence of details:
TRAIL SAYS RAG NEED NOT COVER SEA OF FIRE ‘MISUNDERSTANING’
Innuendos that Clark and Lucinda Trail’s famed Sea of Fire “went missing” surged through town like an F-5 tornado here today while everyday citizens cuddled with their loved ones before heading for the bar or the confessional.
Yet, according to informed sources shockingly close to Lucinda Trail, the mayor’s handling of the Sea of Fire case was “about the same as fixing the barn door after the horse has gotten out.”
Called away from a sick friend in her time of need, Trail said, “There’s been a misunderstanding about Sea of Fire that doesn’t need to get in that rag of yours. It’s primarily about scheduling. We have so many friends, we probably just forgot the plan of the day.
Chief Hank Kruller, who said an aerial surveillance team was in the neighborhood searching for reports of a still in Nat Henson’s property, had nothing to say about Sea of Fire. Since the investigation was still underway, Kruller would not elaborate on how the alleged reports could be seen from the air.
Lucinda Trail, who attended the Star-Gazer office party with her husband Saturday night, said they returned home at 10:30.
“Everything was as we had left it,” she said. “The lights were on, the gates, doors and windows were locked, and the alarm was still set.”
She acknowledged discussing Sea of Fire with several individuals who told her there was no reason to contact the police.
Councilman Billy Purvis said he was already in his bunny slippers and knew nothing about any illicit activity across the street at the Trails’ house.
According to Purvis, “No sacrifice is too small that it can’t be ignored.”
While those who have been burned before say the odds of foul play in this matter are even money, this reporter sees that ineptness and plausible deniability are still in a dead heat in this race.
-30-
Jock clicked on the SEND button and hoped the thing would get past Anderson with no questions asked. Cash probably wouldn’t see it until tomorrow since Ms. Hill probably had him tied up by now.
He took another shower because he still smelled like Lucinda Trail’s perfume and while that wasn’t the last thing he wanted, it was bad enough. The bed still smelled like Monique which was the last thing he wanted. The living room recliner would have to do; that and The Apartment running on the TV. Last thing he remembered was Dr. Dreyuss forcing Fran Kubilek to throw up the overdose of pills she took in C. C. Baxter’s bedroom.
Chapter Five
When Jock crawled out of the recliner at 7:30 a.m. the first thing on his mind was that Fran Kubilek would never try to kill herself in his bedroom. Only a mensch like C. C. Baxter had that kind of luck.
An abnormally bloated human being, Chief Kruller was holding forth at a sidewalk table in front of the Krispy Kreme place on Main Street with everyone else on the force that would have a heart attack if they were ever called upon to chase a perp down alleys and over fences like TV cops.
Here comes the asshole who made you look like a schmuck,” Sergeant Bismarck shouted two or three times to make sure Jock heard it while jaywalking across Main Street.
“Good Morning, Mr. Night Beat,” said Kruller, spearing one of the three remaining glazed doughnuts on his plate. “Have one on me.”
The chief’s finger looked like it had been under the hood of a car. Jock slumped down in a chair between Bismarck and Patrolman House. He (Jock) was dead dog tired and was here only because Cash and Anderson expected it.
“Move over, Parker,” said Bismarck, “and give the asshole a little space.” Parker laughed at that, but Kruller didn’t.
“What’s your beef, Kruller?”
The chief, who didn’t mind talking with his mouth full said, more or less, “you know damn good and well that we were pretending to look for a still in old man Henson’s woods and not pieces of paper with the word ‘still’ written on them.”
Parker laughed at that, but Bismarck didn’t. The sky looked like rain and Jock took that as just as much of an ill omen as Lucinda Trail standing on her front porch with her arms crossed. Jock flipped open his notebook and stared at it in an overly puzzled manner.
“Ah, here it is, doughnut boy, your words exactly: ‘We are looking for reports some redneck trash were operating a still.’ You pretended that was why you were watching the Trails’ house and I pretended to believe you.”
The chief wiped off his mouth with both sleeves while Parker observed that “that sounds like you, chief.”
“House has a point,” Bismarck said, “seeing how he was flying the plane.”
“You know what I meant, Jock.”
“I did.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you clean up after me.”
“I can’t even clean up after myself.”
“You’ve got that right.” He slid a copy of the bulldog edition across the table scattering plates everywhere. “Take a look at what Ms. Starnes found under society’s dress.”
“Are you going to sit there and watch me read it?”
Three radios squawked as dispatch said, “Chief, see the lady at 3419 College Boulevard.”
“Details, Sue, details,” said Kruller.
“A certain party needs assistance opening a pair of handcuffs.”
Three squads sped off down Main Street with blue lights and sirens. Jock had to laugh. That was Bambi Hill’s house. The wind was up. He had to hold down the paper with both hands to read Monique’s column.
Hands Under Society’s Dress
STAR-GAZER BASH BRINGS REAL AND IMAGINED LOVERS OUT OF THE WOODWORK
My sweets, while tales of missing horses danced from Maple Avenue to Elm Street, love stalked the annual gala for Star-Gazer staffers and their guests at the Civic Center last night. While you know I don’t wear Prada, you do know I’m gauche enough to air out everyone’s dirty underwear.
Councilman Billy Purvis arrived early and left early with a blond who appeared young enough to be his daughter. I hope he gave her a good spanking after they left for coming out in public looking like that.
I don’t know if that pimply faced bartender with the green hair was old enough for a legal pouring license, but he knew how to mix a fine drink as evidenced by the fact just everyone was over-indulging.
But darlings, Clark and Lucinda Trail came and left stone cold sober. Obviously distracted, she wore that tired old burgundy and powdery silk cocktail dress again. They danced apart more than together. When they were together they hissed at each other with angry whispers about something that is so hush hush nobody will say anything substantive to the press about it. Perhaps a resident on College knows more than we do.
Two councilmen who had not planned to come out of the closet found themselves more tangled together than old coat-hangers when multiple drunks opened the door thinking they had found a place to pee. What an embarrassing golden shower that was—or so we might imagine if we ever thought of such things.
Marcus and Esther Cash sang five or more encores of “You Are My Sunshine,” sounding just as rough as the old 78 rpm Bluebird Records version from Marvin and Doug. Cash reminded horrified patrons that he was, after all, paying for the booze. On the plus side, it was obvious both Marcus and Esther were still finding love somewhere else after all these years of newspapering.
Jim Exlibris, bless his heart, he finally gets his nose out of a book and struts out on the town with a real looker of a date only to spend the evening with his fly open all night, even before he got the girl back his apartment.
Our city’s finest, looking positively naked in an unpleasant way without their uniforms and guns, staked out the chips and dip rather than the mayor’s house where the unfolding story was likely to be less fattening. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times that I still love a guy with a gun in his pocket or at least a little enthusiasm for my own Wang.
But sometimes a girl gets her heart broken. Sure, she may have played the field for more years than was right as rain, but there comes a time—assuming some murderous wretch hasn’t mistaken her for a two-dollar hooker and cut her throat behind the hardware store—when she wants a loving husband and a warm home and kids on the way. So, she goes home with a guy and come the next morning when she’s sitting in his kitchen wearing only his old work shirt, he leaves without saying jack squat about tomorrow or happy ever after. It makes a girl wonder if it would have been better if she actually had danced all night or if she shouldn’t have danced at all. Girls, take it from me, a little black dress will bring you a lot of attention but very little respect,
The rain had been coming down steadily for the last two paragraphs. He couldn’t possibly have been more wet. Jim ran across the intersection from his book store with several of his huge “guest umbrellas” and escorted Jock out of the glare of the madding crowd.
Jim had plenty of coffee and didn’t seem to care about the fact Jock was dripping all over the café floor.
“Don’t get near the books,” he said. “So what the hell news was so important you couldn’t even come in out of the rain.”
“I was distracted by Monique’s column.”
Jim checked to see if his fly was open.
“Why can’t Monique leave people alone?” asked Jim.
Jock wiped some of the water off his face with a stack of paper towels from the men’s room, compliments of the guy manning the information desk.
“I’ve wondered that, too,” said Jock.
“She needs to retract that nonsense about my fly being open all night,” said Jim. “Maria zipped me up after the first dance and I appreciated that. Maria called me the first thing this morning and said we weren’t going out together again. I didn’t appreciate that.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t ask her for a retraction,” said Jock. “These sweet rolls are good. If you ask Monique to take it back, she’ll make sure twice as many people know about it. How would you like: EXLIBRIS CLAIMS MARIA ZIPS UP HIS FLY AFTER FIRST DANCE.”
Jim laughed. “How do you think up stuff like that?”
“How can you not?”
“As angry as she is, she’d do it, too,” said Jim, checking his fly again while pretending to brush pastry crumbs off his shirt.
“Angry?”
Jim stared at him like he was born yesterday. Sure, part of him was, but not enough for anyone to notice.
“You bet. Somebody broke her heart.”
“I didn’t know she had one.”
“Go write something.”
“How about ‘Thanks for last night’?”
Chapter Six
Coral Snake Smith needed two omelets to loosen his tongue. For an informed source who made his living trading information for food, one might think Smith would have picked up some table manners along with the details of everyone else’s life. Jock drank half a cup of cold, gritty coffee and tried not to watch. Smith’s pig-in-a-trough noise was bad enough.
Jock’s dear old daddy always said, “Jock, take my word for it. Sloppy people are all going to hell.” He also said, “If a man smells like a whore house, he’s going to hell.” Smith had two strikes against him today and it wasn’t even noon yet.
“What did Lucinda Trail have to say?” asked Jock while Smith was licking his plate like an all day sucker.
Smith almost dropped the plate.
“Are your people following me around?”
Jock shrugged. “That, plus you’re wearing her perfume.”
“We were together, but not in the Biblical sense,” said Smith, and he grinned like it was something he spent a fair amount of time contemplating. “A man can do worse.”
“Word is, Clark has.”
Smith did a spit take with the remains of his coffee. “So has your boss, but none of this is what Lucinda asked me about. She wanted to know why Monique Starnes bought two sacks of Race Ready.”
“What is that, some kind of Viagra knockoff?” asked Jock, recalling that while his Scotch tasted funny last night his performance had been better than usual.
Smith sat there with his mouth open, for once empty of anything approaching food. He looked like he’d seen a dunce.
“Race Ready is a brand of horse feed,” Smith said, with a fair amount of exasperation and condescension. “Martin and Brian Bentley over at the seed and feed stock it especially for Clark Trail. A new employee who didn’t know the feed had been set aside for Sea of Fire, sold one sack to Ms. Starnes at 7 a.m. and another sack at 7:32 a.m. Brian called Lucinda and apologized for being out of stock.”
Since the waitress had temporarily lost interest in her job, Jock went to her station, selected a pot of coffee with the least amount of sludge in the bottom, and refilled Smith’s cup as well as his own. Doing this gave him time to collect his thoughts such as they were. Out of the universe of probabilities, one begged him to allow it to come to mind. But he wasn’t ready to think that way. So Jock temporarily dodged that line of thought by considering why Lucinda came to the Purple Platter.
“What was a woman like Lucinda doing in a place like this?”
“We keep in touch on a daily basis,” said Smith. “She facilitates that by sitting where you’re sitting now. She’s not exactly eye candy, but she trumps your sourpuss look without having to bat an eyelash or shove a shoe up a man’s trouser leg under the table.”
“Fine.”
So far, Smith had slung four sugar cubes into his cup. Now, he seemed to be studying the sugar bowl as though, what with the rain and all, Monday was turning into a five-cube day. He tasted his coffee, and then he dropped in another cube.
“Lucinda came in this morning dressed to the nines even though it was only 8:30. Her face was blanched out more than her hair. She was disappointed when she learned that my network of quasi-ubiquitous sources knew nothing about the two sacks of Race Ready.”
“You’re not a seed and feed kind of guy,” observed Jock.
“Hardly.”
“So.”
“Let me spell it out for you, greenhorn. A highly informed source stated that he will, for the next several days, be keeping his nose—quote—shoved up Monique’s ass—end quote.”
Even though he suddenly hated the woman, Jock felt a sick feeling in his loins visualizing Smith doing anything whatsoever with Monique’s hindquarters.
“Well then, you’re sniffing around to see if she’s shitting horse chow.”
Smith did a spit take with his coffee. It was his signature show of surprise, being sloppy and headed for hell as he was.
“Christ, you must really love the woman.”
“Hardly.”
“Okay,” said Smith. “Your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders, but I’ll make allowances due to your age, profession and getting rode hard after you got home from your office party hoo-haw. That said, I’ll spell it out with greater care. I’m moving forward on Mrs. Trail’s theory that Ms. Starnes, working with or without a partner, kidnapped Sea of Fire.”
“She was with me in the manner you just described.”
“That’s why Lucinda—and to some extent Patrolman Parker House—are eyeing you as the accomplice.”
Jock felt like doing a spit take but his mouth was drier than desert sand.
“Parker House rolls with whatever the Chief’s rolling with.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Do you think either Monique or I know anything about horses?”
“Nope.”
“Then how would we know to buy the exact same feed Sea of Fire’s getting?”
“Good question?”
“I thought so.”
“Let’s wrap this up,” said Smith, “unless you’re planning to buy me lunch. I’ll tell you what I told Lucinda. When Monique’s uncle Grayson died two years ago, he favored her in his will with a 75-acre spread 12 miles east of town on County Road 3724. She leased it out for a while, but those people went broke, got drunk or just moved on.”
“Interesting.”
“Lucinda thought so.”
“Did she leave here headed for points west?”
“Not yet. But she’ll point her midnight blue Boxster S that way as soon as her power luncheon lets out at the Civic Center.”
“Lucinda and Monique have the same taste in Porsches.”
“Maybe that’s not the half of it,” said Smith.
Chapter Seven
County Road 3724 closely followed the lay of the land like the arm of a lover or a python crushing its next meal.
While his ancient Kaiser Jeep CJ-5 followed the road well enough through the scrub forests and pastureland, it lacked the feline grace of the midnight blue Porsche that sped by on a blind curve with the top down and a woman’s hair free of restraint.
Ten minutes later, he reached a place with a black mail box marked “G. Starnes” perched on top of a leaning 4x4 post next to a mixed pea gravel and mud farm road. About 100 feet off the right of way, Grayson had built a small white-washed ranch style house with no landscaping or other embellishments flanked by a three-horse gabled barn. Two of the house’s front windows were covered by sheets of cardboard and the barn’s Dutch paddock doors had been left open to the elements. Two things in the resulting pastoral were as out of place as bullshit on a Minton Bone plate, the lady and the car. Both were parked next to the paddock at a rakish angle.
He pulled up close enough to the Porsche to see the world reflected in more than one of its mirrors, but Lucinda didn’t flinch.
“Let’s stipulate that each of us talked to Smith and then drove out here with contrasting agendas,” she said.
She looked him in the eye when she talked and kept looking while he was responding. Her eyes were hazel but not always the same hazel.
“I came here to substantiate my assumption that Sea of Fire wouldn’t be here,” said Jock. He waved at the barn sloppily enough to go to hell and that broke her eye contact. “Lucinda, you will have already noted the doors are open.”
“I came here to catch a tramp and potentially a thief,” she said evenly, then turned and walked into the barn.
He was damned if he was going to follow her. When she didn’t immediately return, he checked the house and found an unlocked door and five empty rooms. The power and water were off. He looked out the kitchen window at the crumbling remains of long-neglected four-board fences, bird feeders and a child’s swing.
“Your omelet payment this morning has gone for nothing,” he told her when she came inside with two ice cold cans of beer.
She opened both and gave him one of them.
“I’ve never bought Coral Snake an omelet. The man is such a pig, I won’t let him eat while I’m at the table,” she said. She ran her hand along a discolored section of wall beneath an equally discolored section of ceiling. “It’s a shame how Ms. Starnes has let this place go. It was well built.”
For a woman on the cusp of her retirement years, Lucinda still appeared well built, too. It’s a shame, he thought, how he’d let himself go, let himself turn into the kind of man whose nature had become so vile that if a pretty granny offered herself to him he would be only too happy to oblige (with out without an ice floe).
Lest she was reading his mind or the front of his trousers, he downshifted to a safer line of thought.
“How do you get anything out of Smith?”
“He works for me.”
Jock almost dropped the beer.
“Your personal information broker, would you say?”
“I would not,” she said her face relaxed into an unrestrained smile. “Don’t you just love telling secrets to unsuspecting oafs?”
“I do.”
“He manages my restaurant,” she said. “I own the Purple Platter lock, stock, and coffee grounds. I took it from my first husband Caleb Vance during our less-than-amicable divorce proceedings. I kept his money and he kept his ass.”