3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (10 page)

Chapter 20

Essie Falco hung up the phone and wig-wagged at Ike as he came through the door. She leaned across the booking desk, which put a significant strain on the top buttons of her blouse, and handed him a stack of pink message slips and a note stating that Sam had called in sick. She resumed her seat and straightened her uniform. Ike had watched that scenario dozens of times and had finally concluded the blouse must zip up the back and the front was sewn shut. The buttons were just for show. He raised an eyebrow.

“I already called Billy and he’s okay about working a double. He said he needed Sam to owe him one.”

“Did she say what her problem was?”

“No, sir, she didn’t, but if I was to guess…”

“Is this a woman’s intuition thing, Essie? Because if it is—”

“Ike, have I ever been wrong on things like this?”

“Probably, but I can’t remember. So your guess is…?”

“It’s man trouble. I bet you a jelly-filled doughnut that FBI guy who, as you know, I never did trust in the first place, has dumped her.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Ike, he’s a FBI. They can’t get all tied down with no country police. It had to happen sooner or later. Give her a day or two and she’ll see it’s for the best.”

“You think?”

“Bet on it.”

“A jelly-filled, you said.”

“One jelly-filled against whatever doughnut you prefer.”

“You’re on.” They shook hands and tapped knuckles to seal the deal.

“You call her and see if I’m not right.”

Ike did not call. Whether Essie had it right or not, he didn’t want Sam disturbed just yet. Ruth would have castigated him for not caring, but he figured if Sam was really sick, she’d want to be left alone. He would, and if it was man trouble, as Essie supposed, he would be the last person in the world she needed to talk to.

He proceeded to work his way through the stack of call slips. Half he dealt with by dropping them in the trash. The remainder he sorted by urgency—his, not the caller’s—and began returning the calls. He saved the mayor for last. A robbery at the college that summer, and the attendant publicity with its television and news media, had briefly catapulted Picketsville into national prominence. Before that, it had languished as a small town bypassed by Interstate 81 and remarkable only for its rustic charm, a few local characters, and Callend College. The latter had entered the twenty-first century as possibly the only, or certainly, one of the very few, all women’s colleges still extant. How much longer that status would endure comprised the bulk of the conversations engaged in by the locals at the Crossroads Diner and the faculty in their musty halls of academe up on the hill. In the meantime, the town had attracted all sorts of land speculators, deal makers, and some shady types Ike hoped would soon slither out the way they came in.

The mayor had issues. He had them with the members of the Town Council, he had them with the county, the Commonwealth, and most particularly, he had them with Ike.

“Ike, doggone it, you know how this town works. You can’t go ally—alnate—”

“Alienating?”

“Making enemies of council members. Brent Wilcox said he visited your shop last week and you weren’t…um…receptive to his—”

“Meddling in the affairs of the Sheriff’s Office. You’re absolutely right, Tom, and if you had the gumption eating grits every morning since you were weaned from your mother’s tit is supposed to give you, you’d tell that twerp to take a hike.”

“Now, Ike, don’t you start in on me. I been your biggest supporter and fan—yes sir, fan—but I have a town to run here and whether you’ve noticed it or not, things are changing. We have to go with the times. Wilcox has big ideas and sees the future, like.”

“He’s an over-educated stuffed shirt, Tom. His ideas are as modern as hula hoops—you remember them, don’t you? And if you let him and his sycophant buddies up on the hill have their way, Picketsville is going to turn into a phony tourist town whose chief attraction will be an outlet mall done up to look like Tara.”

“Look like who? Look here, Ike—”

“The plantation in
Gone with the Wind
. No, I won’t look. Tom, this town has to grow and change but it needs its own vision and a plan, not some cookie cutter idea imported from a New York land speculator.”

“New York? What’s that about New York?”

“It’s where he came from, and what he did, among other things, before he decided to move south and civilize us.”

“How’d you know that?”

“I run your police department, remember? It’s my job to check out suspicious characters.”

“Well now, I don’t think suspicious—”

“Some advice from someone who knew you when…don’t get into this guy’s pocket and, more importantly, don’t let him get into yours. He’s bad news, and it’s only a matter of time until he will crash and burn, and when he does, he’ll take all sorts of folk down with him.”

“Ike, you’re over the line on this.”

“Tom, remember you heard it here first.” Ike hung up before the mayor said something they’d both regret later.

He told Essie to tell the mayor, if he called back, to say that he, Ike, would be out of the office. He looked at his watch. He had fifteen minutes to meet Weitz for lunch. He heaved himself up from his desk chair, which squealed in protest. He reminded himself for the one hundredth time to fix it, signed out, and left.

Frank Chitwood owned Chez François, Picketsville’s other restaurant. It attempted French cuisine which the locals referred to as Frank’s Southern Fried Frog’s Legs. Weitz met him in the foyer and they took a table in the rear.

“I would stick to the roast beef, if I were you,” Ike said and pulled his red checked napkin into his lap. “I read the book you sent over, thanks. Buffalo Mountain must have been an interesting place before the war.”

“No snails?”

“If you feel brave, go for it.”

“I’ll stay with the beef. Or is it
boeuf?
The mountain? Yes, it was. What I discovered, Sheriff, and should have known from my other studies, but somehow missed, is that stereotypes derive from reality. The idea of feuding hillbillies with their jugs of moonshine, shotgun justice, and the whole costumery come from a people who were at one time, more or less, exactly as they are depicted in the cartoons.”

Their waitress arrived dressed in what Ike assumed Frank Chitwood thought must look like a Parisian maid. She looked more like an Apache dancer. She took their orders and retreated.

“If you look at old films from that era,” Weitz continued, “black and white, maybe even a silent one, the people depicted as living in the mountains back east, the hillbillies, if you will, really dressed and acted and looked very much like the ones in the films, only they were real, not acting in some buffoonery. At the remove of more than three quarters of a century and the two generations who’ve never read the late Al Capp’s
Lil’ Abner,
we think the image must have been overdone and our natural predilection to slip into politically correct thinking means we reject the whole as something bordering on a kind of racism. I am not, by the way, suggesting that what Hollywood and television have done to the accents and humor of the era is representative—shows like
Hee Haw
and so on. They do, in fact, overplay the people—out of a sense of cultural superiority, I suppose. At any rate, the truth is, allowing for all that, mountain folk did look and live pretty much that way at one time.”

“Except for the notion that political correctness is ‘natural,’ I agree. Is there anything you can tell me about the descendents of those folks still in the hills that will help me find a murderer?”

“Well, they are still pretty close-mouthed. Outsiders will not find it easy to get information, and they still distrust the police. They’d rather see to things themselves.”

“I’d need an insider to crack that?”

“And not a policeman, yes.”

“Then I have a problem.”

Their lunch arrived. Weitz seemed to want to ask Ike something and twice started to speak, then shook his head and resumed dipping into his soup.

“Ask it,” Ike said, amused at the academic’s indecision.

“It’s none of my business, Sheriff—”

“Ike. Everyone calls me Ike.”

“Thank you. Leon, then. Ike, you and Dr. Harris, ah…How do I ask this…?”

“Let me guess. Are we what the rumors suppose? That help?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. There’re faculty members who have this inane notion that the intelligentsia should not be seen fraternizing with the
hoi polloi,
mere mortals, you might say.”

“Except when they seduce their students, but of course, that doesn’t count any more than an eighteenth-century squire impregnating a milkmaid.”

“Yes, there’s that, too, I suppose.”

“You can report the following: the sheriff, tugging respectfully at a forelock and shuffling his feet, eyes downcast, begs their lordship’s collective pardon, and suggests, respectfully, that they get a life.”

Weitz grinned. “I’ll do that. Sorry, but I promised I’d ask.’”

“Since we’ve opened up the area of reporting back to our side the activities of the other side, there is something you can do for me. What can you tell me about Brent Wilcox’s relations with the faculty?”

“Ah, that’s something I am happy to talk about. He has a following in the group that, by the way, is most concerned about your
bona fides
, they are…Let me start again. Except for the men and women in the business school, faculty members are incredibly naïve when it comes to business and money. We deny it, of course, because we think we are smarter than people. Wilcox has caught the fancy of some of them because of his presumptive knowledge of real estate and land brokerage. They are looking for some windfall income by investing in something called the New Options Investments.”

“He is recruiting investors?”

“Yes, no…I think so. I would assume they will surface soon enough.”

“Leon, I will happily keep your nosey friends posted on my relationship with their president, within the bounds of decency and discretion, of course, if you will keep me posted on Wilcox. Oh, and don’t buy in yourself. He’s a scam artist.”

“Hadn’t planned to. I am smart enough to know when I’m not smart enough to know, if you follow me. I will keep you posted. There’s no need to reciprocate at your end. Their fertile imaginations will serve them better than the truth.”

Ike said goodbye and left wondering what new can of worms he’d just opened, and if he might end up having to arrest the mayor.

Chapter 21

Sam expected a call from Ike. None came. That left her both disappointed and relieved. On the one hand she thought no call meant she might not rank high enough in his mind to warrant a “how’re you doing?” On the other hand, if he had called, she would be duty bound to tell him about Cutthroat and Karl. The thought of Karl sent her back to her tissues. She blew her nose and called the office. Billy Sutherlin answered. “Hey Ryder, what’s up with you? You got the ‘blue-flu’?”

“Is Ike there?”

“Nah, he’s off to a meeting with one of them faculty dudes, probably trying to get the low-down on Ms. Harris.”

“Billy, forget that. President Harris is a really nice lady and Ike—well, he’s lucky she sees something in him.”

“He’s lucky? You women always stick together. So, when are you coming back?”

Good question. She knew she needed to get back to work, to put Karl out of her mind. “I’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Okay, that’s good. Say, now that you owe me, I want to get down to Talladega for the NASCAR meet. I need you to cover one day for me.”

“No problem.”

“It’s a weekend, Ryder. It might interfere with your love life.”

“And I said no problem. You just plan on having a big time inhaling exhaust fumes.”

“You’re sure?”

“You heard me. Put Essie on, will you?” Sam needed to talk to a woman. Essie was the closest one available. Essie listened for a minute and whooped something about a jelly-filled.

***

Before he left Picketsville for Harvard and a different life, Ike had his hair cut at Melvin Cushwa’s barbershop on Main Street. Everybody did. It was the only barbershop in town. There were five chairs—the old-fashioned kind that had the big adjustable bolster on the back where you could rest your head while the effects of a hot towel worked their magic on your face and soul. Mel and four other men honed their straight edge razors on leather strops, applied hot lather with badger hair brushes, and gave everybody the identical haircut. When he returned to Picketsville, Ike discovered Melvin had retired to Florida, the other men had drifted away, and a Pakistani who talked too much and giggled had assumed ownership of the shop. One haircut by Pradesh convinced Ike he needed an alternative.

He’d discovered Lee Henry quite by accident. She was in the Shop n’ Save when he stopped in for some ground beef and hamburger rolls. He’d just had his hair cut and she happened to look up from a conversation she was having with several of her cronies. She frowned and shook her head. “Mmm, mmm, mmmmmm! That there is the worst mess I ever saw on the top of a man’s head in a long time. You need help, honey.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I do. Question is, short of driving to Roanoke, where will I find it?”

“You come see me. I’ll see if I can fix that disaster.” She dug a crumpled business card from her purse and handed it to him. “Don’t wait too long, sugar.” She turned to her companions and Ike heard her murmur, “He’s been done by that Indin.”

A week later, he pulled into her driveway. Her house had started out as a split-level but the area usually assigned as a utility room had been expanded to the rear and was fitted out like a salon. Not a barber shop. There were no chairs raised by pedaling hydraulics, no men’s magazines lying about. Just shelves loaded with shampoos and conditioners, brushes with wide-spaced, knobby teeth and the perpetual odor of wet hair. If he had any second thoughts about using Lee, however, they were immediately dismissed by her raucous personality and endless optimism. She cut hair for men and women. “I’m unisex,” she’d said. “That means I only do it with one guy at a time.” And she’d bubbled over with the kind of laughter that would do more good in a hospital than an entire pharmaceutical company. She told stories, the latest gossip, and jokes. She and Ike struck up a friendship that became an important part of his life. When she finally kicked her alcoholic and abusive husband out, Ike was there to console. He sometimes would drop in “for a trim” simply to get away from the dark side of his life.

Today, he needed a haircut.

“Well, look at what come in with the north wind. Say, Ike, you must be feeling right at home with all this snow since you lived up north all them years.”

“This isn’t a snow, Lee. This is a dusting. A real snow is when it piles up to your hips.”

“Well, I don’t ever want to see no real snow then. Sit down, put your feet on the foot rest thingy, and let me get to work.” She tucked a vinyl sheet around his neck and spritzed his hair.

“Okay,” she said, and Ike knew he was in for
the story
. “Did you hear about the Tices’ daughter and her car?”

“No, what about her?”

“This is a true story, Ike. Swear to God. Georgie Tice gave little Tiffani—that’s with an ‘I’ instead of a ‘Y’ and a little heart instead of a dot over the ‘I’. He gave her a Ford Mustang when she turned eighteen. Not a new one but nice, you know. Lordy me, the times I had in a Mustang…my, my…Well, anyway, she’d been away to college over in Charlottesville and came home for the weekend. Drove home, mind you, in the ’Stang. She pulls up and old Georgie hears the worst noise you can imagine. Bangity, bang, bang. He runs out and that old Mustang is jumping and rocking. It sounds like the rods and lifters are about ready to fly out the top of the engine. She pops out all gushy and such and George just stands there. Then he goes to check the car to see what’s wrong. She comes back for her bags and the car’s about to shake apart. He says, ‘Tiffani, you see this oil pressure gauge? It’s dead on zero.’ And she says, ‘Oh that. Don’t you pay no attention to that old thing, Daddy. It ain’t worked for weeks.’” Lee burst into her patented laugh. “Cost him twenty-five hundred dollars for a new engine and he made her go to the Vo-Tech at night and take an auto mechanics course before he’d let her drive again. Ain’t that a scream?” She put the electric trimmers to work on the back of his neck. “So what’s new in the policing business? You got any juicy stuff for me?”

“You know more about what’s going on in the Sheriff’s Office than I do. You tell me.”

“Well, there’s the body you took out of the woods a while back. Anything new there?”

“How’d you hear about it?”

“I got other customers ’sides you, Handsome. Picketsville is a small town. We don’t have much in the way of secrets here.”

“Nobody’s supposed to know about that.”

“No? Too late on that one.”

“What else?”

“Mavis Bowers told me she was out that way the night before. I don’t know what that woman was doing out there in the middle of the night. Getting out of the house, I expect. Her husband is a hard shell Baptist and she’s an E-whiskey-palian and needs a pick-me-up every now and then. I expect she slipped out for a nip, bless her heart.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Oh yeah, she said she saw a truck parked on the side of the road. Not likely it was kids slipping into the woods to get it on—too cold—so it must have been someone else.”

“Did she say what kind of truck?”

“No. Mavis doesn’t know about vehicles.”

“But you do.”

“Twelve years living with an alcoholic over-the-road trucker—I do.” She combed his hair and trimmed his eyebrows. “Got a jungle started there, Ike. Means you’re getting old.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. What do you hear about Brent Wilcox?”

“Oh, now you got a good one. What do you want to know?”

“Anything I can’t pull off the internet.”

“Let’s see. Where to start? He’s been out to the old Craddock place a time or two. It don’t seem likely he’s interested in any of them girls, so it must be something else has caught his eye. And then he’s been moving all around town asking questions about folks—you especially. Why is that, do you suppose?”

“Probably because I’m the guy who’s most likely to bust him. He would not like that to happen.”

“He’s been squiring Agnes Ewalt around.”

That was news and definitely not good news. Agnes was too close to Ruth. Ike pushed away the images that struggled to form in his mind.

Agnes and Wilcox!