Laying Down The Law

I had just hunkered down to pee in the ditch when I heard the shotgun blast. One of the many discriminations against women in our society is that there just isn't any polite way to relieve yourself without dropping your jeans to your ankles, and in that condition it's hard to react with as much enthusiasm as if you were unencumbered, but I flung myself flat. I made myself as small and inconspicuous as possible consistent with having landed in a blackberry patch.

After the reflex wore off I lifted my head back up and took a wary look around. It was hunting season, but most folks shoot deer with rifles. I wanted to see exactly where I was, too, besides in the ditch I mean on account of those two beers I had for breakfast. You know what they say about getting your B vitamins in early in the day.

It looked a lot like the road from Olustee, which made sense. I recalled having a heavy date in Cowtown last night, Jacksonville that is, and I must have taken the back way home to Watermelon County. The open off-side door of my pickup truck revealed that it was littered with empty beer cans and discarded items of clothing, but that was its normal state and no real indication of how the evening had turned out.

I went on and finished my business and stood up, yanked my jeans up over my butt and hips, and sighted off across the fields. I thought the shotgun boom had come from the ryegrass pasture to the west rather than the slash pine forest behind me. I rubbed my eyes to clear them a little and took another look.

There was a house of sorts right over there in a little grove of live oak trees. While I watched, a door banged open and someone came out, running backwards it looked like, and jumped into an old brown Chevy that was sitting in the yard. The car jerked and hopped before the person got it running smooth enough to drive off.

I frowned. Liberty Mellers Perkins, I told myself, it certainly isn't any business of yours. But maybe someone had been hurt. Unlike city folk, country people tend to stick together and help each other out. I wondered if the running figure might have been going for medical assistance. There was no telephone wire running to the house.

I got my pickup yanked around and drove on the border of the ryegrass field until I reached the yard. I honked the horn politely. No one responded, so I got out and went up to the back porch.

Anybody home? I called out.

I rattled the back screen door good and then stepped into the kitchen. The old man inside was in no condition to hear anything ever again. Most of his head was gone, and pink brain tissue and bright red blood splattered in vivid streaks against the faded cabbage rose kitchen wallpaper behind him. The body was slumped in a straight chair like he had been sitting down to breakfast when he was shot. There was an old pump-handle shotgun on the floor.

I backed out the screen door, swinging it open with my hip, and sat down on the back step to take a few deep breaths. I regretted the breakfast beers. I regretted my original hangover that had suggested the idea of the breakfast beers. I knew from past experience that a chain of regrets like that could go all the way back to regretting that my Momma had poured that wine in my baby bottle so she could enjoy the Johnny Cash concert in peace, which I never held against her, so I left well enough alone at that point.

When I had temporary control over my nausea I went over to the truck and dug around in the litter on the floor until I came up with a couple of pill bottles. I wasn't about to go back into the kitchen to get any water but there was a hose spigot at the corner of the house. That made two things I had touched, the back porch door and the spigot. I was going to have to own up to being here. The sound of the pump clicking on made me jump. The water in the hose was warm and rubbery and made me gag, but I got the pills down.

There was no chance the person I saw was going for help; the situation was long past help. I tried to decide how long it had been between the time I heard the shotgun blast and the departure of the brown Chevy. More than a couple of minutes but less than five was the best I could come up with.

The running figure itself had been slightly built and blonde. I closed my eyes to try and see it again. I couldn't be sure - wait. I thought I knew the person. I'd seen him run backwards the same way, trying to get away from me and the dog when I caught him stealing apples in my orchard. Billy something, that tow-headed kid from town, the whole family was white-blonde and burned red in the sun. Somebody'd said they were of Swedish descent. The mother was widowed - Norwood, that was it. Billy Norwood.

Well, shit. I tested my condition by shaking my head a little and was disappointed to find that the chemicals hadn't kicked in yet. Some days were like that.

I went back into the kitchen anyway and looked around again, appraising the situation and being careful not to touch anything more. There was a smashed cup at the feet of the deceased and a pot of coffee still keeping warm on the stove. There was a bowl sticky with grits sitting in the sink. A woman would have automatically rinsed it out before the grits got stuck like cement so I guessed the old man lived alone.

There was nothing in the kitchen to tell me who the old man was, and there sure wasn't enough of his face left to make an identification. I went into the front room and took a quick look at the papers spread out on a secretary desk. Uh-oh. I looked back at the body, the set of his hands, the gnarled arthritic fingers. Shit. Now I knew him. He was actually a client of mine, Mr. Albert Edward Peddie. I'd only seen him the once, when he'd had me draw up his will, and since he'd come to the office I didn't know where he lived.

Well, goddamn that little Billy Norwood anyway, he'd cost me a client, and as a matter of fact I had liked Mr. Peddie. He'd had a clever idea about how to make a real smart-ass will to take care of his no-good daughter Pearlie Mae and her shiftless husband and I admired him for his gumption.

I was obliged to report the crime because as a lawyer I'm automatically an officer of the Court. I supposed I'd better break the news to the family, too. I knew for a fact that Bernie Jackson, our police chief and only sworn officer in Lulu, wasn't the soul of tact.

I drove out of the yard and on into town. It was possible to follow the car tracks down the unpaved road until they turned onto the hard road and then of course I lost them, but it didn't matter. I drove to one side of them, over in the loose sand with the panther paw prints and the fox traces. It hadn't rained since the early morning animals had made their territorial rounds. Bernie Jackson would be able to match the tire markings and how many old brown Chevys could there be in the our little town, anyway. Even Bernie ought to be able to handle that.

I parked the pickup behind my office and rounded the building to poke my head in the general store next door.

Seen Bernie Jackson? I asked.

I nodded hello to the usual group, my brother-in-law, Carter Bass; Hoy Lurton, the grocer; Pesky Adams and Martha Hoffman, who ran an antique shop apparently designed to trap unwary tourists into buying old farmhouse attic junk. They did a brisk business in artificially distressed country quilts, pulling some of the stuffing out of modern factory-mades and beating on them with broom handles and staining them up good with iodine. Pesky had explained to me that the tourists all wanted quilts that some old grandmother had birthed a household of babies on and the iodine simulated old bloodstains.

Might as well come on in, Lib, Carter said. Bernie went up to Co City this morning. No telling when he'll be back.

Can't stay, I said.

I took a bag of chips off the rack and got a bottle of cola out of the cooler, chalked two marks next to my name on the blackboard.

Take a good hit off that, Pesky instructed.

He held up a pint bottle of bourbon whiskey and waited until I'd swallowed some of the soda, then poured it back up to full. I held my thumb over the top and let the contents mix slow. I took another couple of swallows.

That improves it, I said.

Kills germs seven ways.

There's hope for me yet.

Nobody said anything about killing viruses, Pesky said.

Gah.

We sat and drank in silence. I crunched a few of the chips but couldn't get real enthused about the idea of food just yet. I threw the rest of the bag over behind the potbellied stove for the livestock and drank off my bottle.

Get you another, Pesky said. He waved the whiskey.

Got to go, I said. Haven't been home yet. You see Bernie Jackson, get him to call me, okay?

I went next door and opened the office, stared at the telephone awhile. It probably wasn't any use calling the police station. There was never anybody there except Bernie unless there was a prisoner in one of the two cells; any prisoner in Lulu was automatically promoted to trusty and got to keep the phone inside the bars in case of messages, but there weren't any prisoners in residence that I knew of. I rang the number anyway. There was no answer.

The state police were out of the question. They tended to have a very rigid and literal interpretation of the law that bumped up pretty hard against small town folks who were just trying to get along. One time the state cops sent the entire town of Steinhatchee to prison for dealing marijuana. It was true they were dealing, but that was because the gulf waters got fished out by big corporations and the small boats couldn't make a living any more.

I suppose I could have cranked up old Junior Parker, the funeral director, to go out and fetch Mr. Peddie, but Bernie would be annoyed if the scene was disturbed before he got around to it. I should have turned off the coffee before it burned, too. And closed up the house against the flies. While I was thinking about regrets and shoulds, I had a list of about another hundred or so unrelated but equally guilt-provoking notions if I really wanted to wallow in that swamp. I decided against.

That left Pearlie Mae. She was entitled to be notified of her father's death, especially so she wouldn't wander in unawares, but from what Mr. Peddie had said about his daughter I expected her dutiful visits would be few and far between. I believed she could wait.

That left me. It was a hard decision whether to curl up on the floor in the office or drive home. The trench coat had fallen off the dress dummy and made a tan splotch on the faded brown rug. It would serve for a pillow. It wouldn't have been the first time I slept on the floor in the office and it probably wouldn't be the last, but the lure of a real bed and the promise of fewer fleas decided the issue. My old setter dog, Lady, had formed the habit of coming to work with me and had infested the office with a selection of her most vigorous fleas. So far I'd managed to discourage her from sleeping in my bed, not by virtue of my authority but because there were lots more interesting places for a dog to sleep out on the farm.

So once more into the breach, and with the prospect of a real bed before me, I slammed the door behind me. It sprung back open like it always does, which didn't matter because I don't lock it any more than I do my house door. It would be a kind of insult to the fine folks that lived in Lulu. Any thieves come along with undernourished morals or teevee delusions would have me to contend with first and then Bernie Jackson, who needed a new receptionist anyway.

In lieu of a handy thief, I left a note on Bernie's desk. He never locked his door either.

Chapter Two

Some damn thing kept buzzing in my ear and the dog was barking. I pulled the covers tighter over my head but after a while I realized it must be the phone that was making the noise. I wondered how long I'd slept, it was afternoon by the sun slanting in the window. My clock had suffered a terrible fate one morning when duty had driven me to set the alarm so I had to guess at the actual time.

I yawned and stretched good before I got up. The phone was still yammering. It would keep on until I answered it, probably. Most folks in Lulu were used to having to wait until the farmer came in from the field or the cows came home or the green beans came out of the canner. Things moved at a different pace in a small town and my clock was a small loss when most folks measured time by the moon or the season.

Right about then I remembered the problem of Mr. Peddie, though, so I rooted around on the floor until I found where I'd dropped my clothes and got back into them. Luckily I'd left the underwear handily in place inside my jeans and my t-shirt was still inside my sweatshirt so two quick moves got me dressed.

I went downstairs and grabbed the phone. Perkins, I told it.

Hey, Lib, it's Bernie Jackson, he said. What you need, sweetheart? Pesky Adams said you were looking for me. Do you know what those crazy counterfeiters are doing now? Pesky says he and Martha are staining cheap pine furniture from the discount store and then beating on it with whips and chains to make it look antique. Can you believe it?

I believe that, what I have trouble with is the idea that anybody would buy it.

"I don't know, they're making tourists pretty dumb nowadays. I saw one man up in Co City this morning coming out of a souvenir shop carrying a whole herd of pink plastic flamingos. I never knew they came so many ways. He had every kind from a chick-sized one up to one that looked like a big pink mule with a stretch neck. Tell you what else, I saw Pesky going through a shipment of new chamber pots with a ball peen hammer trying to crack the glaze on them the