Crimes in Southern Indiana (4 page)

Aft erward Deets asked himself what he had done, trusting Brockman, waiting too long, putting it off. He blamed himself.

What she had would deteriorate her to a plot of loose earth in six months or less. And it began tearing her numbers from the calendar, stealing what days she had left, taking with it the bond they once shared. He'd come home from work trying to comfort her,
wanting to lie with her in bed, feel the warmth of her outline next to his. Wanting to bathe her and cook and feed her. He hoped for a miracle, but she'd given up on what he couldn't let go of. She'd mumble pleas, telling him she was like a hound with parvo, she was suffering, she'd lost her quality of life and needed to be put down. It was a choice a husband didn't want to hear about, let alone carry
out.

Now, seated in his Scout, he remembered that scent as he flicked his Zippo lighter. It was that familiar sparking of the flint, so identical, coaling his Pall Mall. Only that day, entering the home, it was like a Zippo that wouldn't light. That flint being flicked over and over without any fuel. No butane, just the spark of sulfur. He remembered coming home early, wanting to surprise her
with flowers. And there sat Dr. Brockman's Cadillac in the driveway. With a sprinter's heart, Deets dropped the flowers, entered their home. The slamming of the wooden screen door, hinges squeaking, needing oil, drowned out the loud blast, leaving only that aftereffect in the air. A scent that he followed through their home into the bedroom. He found Brockman sitting in a chair next to their bed,
blocking his view of Elizabeth. He grabbed the doctor's shoulder, spun him around, revealing what he hadn't noticed at first, that what had stained the walls had stained the bed. It was the stain of what was missing—part of his wife, who was somehow still alive, her hands fumbling with the doctor's hand as if playing a clarinet, the hand that had either helped her hold the double-barrel .12-gauge
to her mouth or tried to stop her from pulling the trigger that had taken the right side of her jaw. Had they planned this? Or like Deets, had the doctor walked in on the attempt?

Weak, her hands trembled and slid, from her failed attempt to end the suffering. Her suicide. Something Deets would never accept.

She grunted, gargling and blowing bubbles, as her thumbs tried to push the hammer back
on that misfiring pin on the right side. Adrenaline took over, and Deets lost control of his temper, unleashed a fit of rage that led to both of his hands becoming a vise around the old doctor's windpipe. Brockman lost his grip on the shotgun as Deets squeezed until he had the doctor on the floor, slamming his skull to the hardwood surface, screaming, “What have you done, what have you done?”

And by the time he'd realized what he'd done, the old doctor was limp in his grip but his wife was still alive, trying to produce syllables with her split tongue and chipped teeth, her complexion half removed. And seeing all of this, he'd no other choice.

That discomforting warmth of a memory, of that final day, was what accompanied Deets, haunted him in every town and every motel room or rented
farmhouse's bed. He could strip the sentiments, but still the guilt of his actions was there. Rooted in his mind. An incurable disease still pricking his conscience after all the time passed, all the distance traveled. What he missed most were her words, which once formed her outline next to his. That warmth of completion, now gone.

Watching the marshal enter the station, Deets stubbed out the
cigarette in the Scout's ashtray and grabbed from the passenger seat the head shots of a wanted man. The history that wouldn't allow him to run or hide anymore.

With the scent of fresh-brewed coffee and a hint of Old Forester thick in the marshal's office, Deets threw the head shots onto the desk. Sipping his coffee, the marshal smacked his lips, savoring the caffeine and bourbon with a late-night
smile, and asked Deets, “Whatcha got there?” He removed the twine, unrolling the head shots, the wanted posters that Deets had collected from all the small-town post offices over the years.

Deets told the marshal, just up Highway 135, five years ago in the small town of Corydon, a husband walked into his home, walked in on another man helping to hold a shotgun for the husband's ailing wife. What
he believed was the unfinished suicide of his wife. The name of the man who held the gun was Dr. Brockman. And in a fit of rage, the husband murdered the doctor with his bare hands. The husband was then left with his wife, whose face had been partially removed on her right side, as one of the shotgun's barrels had misfired. The husband didn't murder his wife, but he'd no choice with his wife's
mutilated profile. She had reinforced her pain rather than eliminating it. And swallowing the lump in his throat, the husband placed a pillow over her face, hiding what was left of her, and helped her hold the shotgun, helped her push the hammer back, felt the trembling of her hand atop his, guiding his hand to the trigger, hooking it. He turned his head away from her, feeling her trembling and pressing
his finger until his shoulder buckled and her trembling ended. The wife destroyed the tiny ginseng root in her brain that didn't offer energy but robbed her of it. The husband buried his wife in the garden that she once grew, but left the doctor limp and lifeless on the bedroom floor. He then packed up and ran away from what he had done. The partner he'd lost. Traveled from one small town
to the next, searching for the identity of Deets Merritt. The surname of a deceased man he'd come across in a small Tennessee town's obituaries. He couldn't forget who he really was, Scoot McCutchen, the wanted man whose head shots the marshal was holding.

The marshal, whom everyone in the town of Mauckport called “Mac,” took several deep breaths and laid the head shots back on his desk, pulled
a Lucky Strike from his pack, lit it with a match, and blew smoke, muttering to Scoot, “After all these damn years of running, you gotta trot in here and turn yourself in.”

Mac looked Scoot dead in his eyes and told him, “Guilt's a heavy package for a man to carry. It's wrapped by all the wrongs a man'll do, which are really lessons he learns by living life so he don't do them no more.” He told
Scoot he knew his story. Had the wanted posters. The all-points bulletins. Had read in the papers about how his wife's body was exhumed. How the authorities contacted her parents, Scoot's in-laws, so they could identify what they thought was Elizabeth. Aft erward they placed her back the same way they found her. It was how her family believed. The old ways. Made from the earth, returned to the
earth. And they placed a stone over her mound. But he didn't know where they had buried the doctor, only that they auctioned his car, seeing as how he had no next of kin.

The marshal then spoke about the letter left behind by the wife.

Scoot said, “A letter?”

In all the places he'd been, all the stories he'd overheard in passing through towns and truck stops, he'd never heard about any damn
letter.

Nodding, the marshal told him there was a letter detailing how she'd hinted to her husband but knew he wouldn't do it for her, put her down like a hound with parvo, put her out of her misery. How she'd decided to try and do it her damn self or that she might ask her doctor to help her do it. He told Scoot he knew, because he knew how much he loved his own wife, loved her more than the
beauty that God and nature creates and destroys, more than the two kids he and his wife brought into this world, one by one, to carry on their bloodline. Now, if his wife had gone through what Scoot's did, Lord, what with all of that suffering, knowing every damn day was a countdown to her last, he'd want to make the most of it, not cut 'er short. So to come home, see some man helping her to kill
herself, well, he'd have done the same damn thing, maybe worse.

What the marshal wanted was to break the oath he'd sworn to uphold. To hold the head shots over the trash can next to his desk, fire a match, light a corner of the head shots, and tell Scoot that as long as he was the marshal Scoot's identity was safe with him. Right or wrong, the man had suffered enough. But he knew that was no
option for Scoot.

To Scoot the letter made little difference now as he emptied his pockets and the marshal led him to a holding cell, locked him in behind the steel bars. He didn't feel the springs of the cell's mattress, but he felt the guilt he'd carried over the passing years dissipate as he awaited his punishment, his penance.

It was too damn early for this shit, Conservation Officer Moon Flisport told himself as he steered his Expedition down the country road, sweating bourbon through his pores. His heart was pounding in his skull, ready to explode across the front windshield because of the Knob Creek he'd torn into last night after his wife, Ina, had called him a racist.

Moon had
told her about the truck of illegal immigrants he'd pulled over for speeding. Told her about the dope he'd smelled but couldn't find on their persons or in their vehicle. Told her how he'd taken everyone's driver's license, knowing all of them were fake. He'd radioed INS. They gave him the runaround, told him he couldn't prove they were illegal. Told him to let them go. They didn't have the room or
the time to deal with them. He told Ina one of the illegals had a license with the name Bob on it. And that's when Ina blew up. Accused him of racial profiling.

“Illegals can have American names.”

“His license IDed him as Bob Dylan.”

Ina told Moon he cared more about his job, hunting, training his coonhounds, and catfishing on the Blue River than he cared about her. Said she was tired of it
and locked herself in the bedroom.

Moon went swimming in a bottle of bourbon on the basement couch.

 

He'd been phoning the house all morning, in between answering calls for trespassers on private property and hunters drinking beer at the Harrison County weigh station. Being a conservation officer during deer season meant that Moon had been busier than a champion mountain cur stud mounting
a female cur to pass on his champion bloodline. That's what Ina didn't get, Moon thought, being a conservation officer meant he'd more jurisdiction than regular law, could pull over a drunk driver, answer a domestic dispute, or bust a dope farm or a meth lab.

Now it was near lunch. She still hadn't answered. He knew he'd hurt her feelings, telling her to get a fuckin' hobby. But she'd accused
him of being a heartless racist. Heartless he could swallow, but not racist. In his mind he was a fair man, and it burned his ass to be accused otherwise. Then he came upon a truck in the distance, parked in the center of the road, hazard lights flashing, the grill busted, one headlight hanging down by the wires. He keyed his mic. “Earleen?”

“Go 'head, Moon.”

“Looks like I might have a 10-50.”

“Another person hit a deer?”

“It's lookin' that way.”

Moon pulled off the potholed back road in front of the truck, next to a field of dead grass bordered by a pine thicket. Woods once owned by Rusty Yates. Someone he'd not seen, let alone thought of, in ten years. They'd taken many trips down into Jackson and Hazard, Kentucky, on coon hunts, each of them passing a thermos of Folgers, nipping
bourbon, and words on their wives, how each was as stubborn as a young pup. And they wished they could break their mule streaks same as they would a pup. Looking back, it was as if the earth had sucked Rusty up after his wife left him.

Moon got out of his Expedition and realized whose truck it was. Brady Basham was a little colored man who lived on down the road a ways where the mill once stood,
now gone because of a fire some years back. Brady was old-school. One of the best carp and cat fishermen in all of the county.

Moon smiled and asked, “Hit a deer?” With curls the shade of a gray squirrel poking out from beneath his black-and-red checkered hunter's cap, he looked up at Moon with eyes cracked by tiny red veins across the surface and big black dots in the center and told him, “The
cocksucka 'bout gave my old bony ass whiplash.”

He pointed to where it had jumped out, said he'd slammed his brakes. But it took a pretty good dent and gave an even better dent to the front of his rusted Ford Courier, though it was still drivable.

Taking in the damage to Brady's truck, Moon kept noticing the faint scent of cooked bleach in the cold country air. Brady was holding the headlight
that hung out like a eyeball, said the deer went down; when he got out the damn deer got up and limped into the field.

Moon nodded. He asked Brady, “Got a question for you. Think I'm racist?”

Brady sucked on one of his four teeth that wasn't black from too much smoking and drinking, running his tongue over his gums, and he said, “Nah, Moon, seeing as we shared the bottle many a night, catfishing
on the Blue River. I'd say you 'bout as fair a man as any black blood I ever knowed.”

Moon looked into the old man's sour-mash soul, told him he appreciated the kind words, because his wife had called him a racist after he'd told her about a truck of illegals he'd pulled over for speeding. He'd known they were illegal but was unable to do a damn thing about it.

And Brady told him, “Women. Never
had much use for one unless we was swapping the spit, you know what I mean.” Then he hit Moon on his shoulder with his frail pigeon-wing hand and both men busted up into laughter.

Basham wanted the deer if Moon could find it. He'd had a hankering for some fresh venison. Especially the tenderloin and some ground deer burger to make some homemade summer sausage. He pointed out the direction in
which he thought the deer had gone. Moon told him to wait by the truck, he'd give him a shout or come back if he found it.

Moon went out in a field, walking around like a hound that had lost its trail. His head was a throbbing knot even though he'd taken four or five aspirin already. Taking in the patches of briar that ran along the sides of the field, he was reminded of all the rabbit he'd hunted
with Rusty years ago, nipping a bottle of whiskey to cut the chill from their bones.

Moon couldn't place what had happened to Rusty after his wife left him. It seemed that with age and a person's job, the responsibilities of everyday life just kind of distanced a man from a friend until he'd not even realized he'd forgotten about him.

Inhaling the cold air through his nose, he noticed the cooked
bleach scent was getting thicker but couldn't tell the direction it was coming from. He stood looking around, said fuck it and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, checked his signal, thought he'd phone Ina again before he got too far out of range. Still no answer.

With each step his head pulsed as he searched the earth beneath the dead reeds of grass for a hint of blood, hoping the deer was
laid out somewhere close. He thought of all the hit-and-runs he'd worked over the years, and how the deer had never gotten more than a few feet and dropped deader than a doornail. Or on impact. Not this tough son of a bitch. He just kept on running. And Brady wanted it. Snaggletoothed old crow had maybe two teeth. What the hell was he gonna do, gum him to death? Put him in a blender, suck the pulped
venison through a straw?

A few more steps forward and he saw a thick mess of red painting sections of grass in front of him. He swiped it for freshness and it smeared warm. It was injured. Running on adrenaline.

Moon trailed the blood through the field and into a pine tree thicket.

Trees scattered out every so many feet ran all the way up into the dead sky. Vines or plants grew here and there.
He stepped into the dank silence, boots cracking the foliage of yellow pine needles splotched by blood. Every step grew louder and louder, breaking the silence of the woods.

He stopped, his head a mess and his stomach in a bind. He was hungover and hungry. He cursed Ina for not answering her damn phone and Brady for hitting the deer. He hoped Ina would cook some fried chicken when he got off
work this evening, with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, rolls, and some fried apples with cinnamon. Damn, that made his stomach ache. To hell with Brady's snaggletoothed ass for wanting this damn deer.

In a few more steps, the blood trail stopped. The smell of cooked bleach suddenly blistered his eyes and nose. Glancing around the deaf woods, he knew from hunting the area years ago that Rusty's
farmhouse was on the other side of the thicket. He didn't know if he heard it or felt it first, but an explosion stung his left shoulder worse than a hornet. He'd been shot.

His ears rattled. Adrenaline took over. He hit the ground like a bushel of potatoes. Lay on his back unholstering his .40-caliber Glock handgun with his right hand. Thumbed the safety off. Rolled to a tree. Pushed his back
into a pine, taking away his chances of getting shot in the back. Lungs elbowed his ribs to find air, red stained his jacket. The blood weighed down his left arm. His left shoulder had been separated by a shotgun slug. Could be a hunter mistaking him for a deer or just some crazy son of a bitch.

Laying his pistol down, he tugged his radio off the side of his stiffening arm, keyed it. “Earleen?
10-78. I been fuckin' shot. 'Bout one mile from where I's parked on Rothrock's Mill Road. Takin' cover in a pine thicket on Rusty Yates's property.”

“Sit tight, Moon. Another conservation unit, county K9, and state police are on the way.”

Moon picked his Glock up from the ground. Adrenaline turned to panic. Footsteps crunched. Moon looked about the trees, saw no movement in the open silence.
He wondered what direction the shot had come from, remembered he was on duty, and yelled, “Stop fucking shooting, I'm Conservation Officer Moon Flisport!” Before he could finish a voice screamed, “Fuck you, squirrel cop!”

Just what Moon needed, he thought, some crazy-ass redneck. He hoped Brady's frail ass didn't try walking into this mess, having heard the shot fired, thinking Moon had found
the deer, put it out of its misery.

He heard twigs breaking around him, closing in, but couldn't see anything. He was becoming light-headed from the loss of blood. His mind played tricks on him—vibrations ran down into the marrow of his sternum.

He was searching for his breath, squeezing his lids over his eyes. He searched through the confusion of his mind for some sense of control. Remembered
his academy training. Fight or flight. Moon was a hunter. Who the hell did this crazy ass think he was, shooting a conservation officer. He didn't just check fishing and hunting licenses, arrest poachers. He'd more authority than the town, county, or state police.

Footsteps stomped close, then stopped, and Moon yelled, “You got one more chance to put your damn gun down and—” Disoriented, he saw
what he thought was boots on a man dressed down in splotches of puke green, black, and mud brown clothing, aiming the bored end of a shotgun at him. The skin of his face was depressed and scabbed, cleaved by strawberry whiskers, eyes expanding into the red webs that had replaced his whites. The man was Rusty Yates and he told Moon, “Come passin' where you've no business, squirrel cop. Think you
gonna bust me?”

Moon thought about Ina, their argument, not speaking with her, and all at once the shotgun blast gripped the air. Moon fell to the left, squeezed the Glock's trigger. Once. Twice.

He lay on his side staring at Rusty on his back, quivering. Coughing. Trying to breathe as his lungs filled with fluid. He was dying. The sound of sirens came from a distance, wavering through the trees.
From somewhere behind Moon a voice screamed, “Fuck! Fuck!”

Moon was spent. Rusty had just missed him. But his body felt waterlogged. He couldn't distinguish the cursing voice from the voices yelling, “Moon! Moon!”

He held his pistol tightly, anticipating a slug in the back, watched Rusty's chest heave. Moon had shot him there. Crimson spewed in a spatter-shot pattern from his mouth. Moon wanted
to help him, roll him onto his side, but his body snuggled with cold, his hearing flatlined, and the surrounding woods lost its hue.

 

Moon sat in a wooden chair, his arm stiff from the gunshot wound, his ears ringing from the sound of a .12-gauge slug, his .40-caliber Glock, and Rusty Yates laid out, exhaling his last moment.

He'd flipped the actions over and over in his mind. Waking in the
Harrison County ER. Phoning Ina. But just like the nurses who'd phoned her, he never got an answer. He was released the next morning. Fisher, a conservation rookie, escorted Moon to the Sellersburg State Police post for a debriefing of what had happened. A man sat recording the events; Brady, the deer, the charred smell of bleach. The damp silence within. And the pain that ignited his arm and brought
the cold.

The Indiana State Police knew Moon had no other choice, ruled it a clean shoot. Aft er the debriefing with the state boys, Fisher escorted Moon home.

Now he was seated at the kitchen table, where a manila envelope inked with the bold print MOON lay torn open. A letter from Ina, next to his glass, empty like his house. He shook his head, everything gnawing away at him.

He'd done more
than shoot a man. He'd killed someone he'd hunted with. An old friend. And for the first time in his life, Ina wasn't here to talk with about it.

Filling his glass with the tea-colored liquid, he sipped the bourbon, tasted the burn that coated his throat, lined his gut. Being a part of the law was all about choices. Moon had made plenty of them, always involving people and their families. The
struggles within their trees, the branches, limbs, and roots. They were the community he served. But in a world that took and took from the workingman, Moon guessed there was a breaking point between right and wrong.

He hadn't seen Rusty Yates in years. His wife had left him after he'd lost a good factory job, at a battery separator plant that had sold out, moved to Mexico. Hired a cheaper workforce.
Cost a lot of men and women their livelihood.

Rusty owned more than two hundred acres out in the middle of nowhere, needed a way to get by, hooked up with Ray Ray, the other voice Moon heard yelling
fuck
, started cooking crystal meth. And by dumb luck Moon had gotten too close while trailing the deer for Brady Basham. Rusty and Ray Ray had been out in the woods hunting, tweaked out of their minds
on amphetamines, and seen him in his uniform, thought he was sneaking in the back way to bust them.

Fisher said they'd caught Ray Ray and sent Brady home without the deer they never found.