Death in the Distillery (12 page)

He knit his bushy brows, then shrugged. "Yeah. Her application is upstairs in the file cabinet, but that was over
ten years ago. What good could she do?"

I gave him a conspiratorial grin. "Probably nothing, but
you know how Mrs. Morrison is. As sure as I leave out
someone, she'll want to know why. I figure if I talk to
everyone, then she can't fault me for anything. Right?"

He pondered my reply. "I suppose. Though, it don't
make a whole lot of sense to me. Ten years." He turned
and headed up a flight of stairs. "Up here."

Maybe it was his physical features, the fact that he resembled a gorilla, bowed legs, long arms, that made me
anticipate a cluttered office in chaotic disarray. To my surprise, the small nook above the rackhouse that served as
his office was meticulously clean, judiciously arranged, and
surprisingly orderly.

I stepped into the office and closed the door behind me
while Seldes squatted easily and thumbed through a set of
folders in the bottom drawer of his file cabinet. I couldn't
help noticing the breadth of his shoulders and imagining
the power in his arms. And what was more astounding was
that the man had to be in his mid-sixties at least, maybe
older. Yet, he had the build and agility of a thirty-year-old.

Throwing all those barrels around and shoveling all that
barley, I guessed.

"Did Emmett work a second job?"

Seldes shook his head. "No." He straightened his back.
"Here we are. Katherine Voss, Benchmark, Kentucky." He
rose and handed me the application.

Quickly, I jotted down the pertinent data, address, father's name, telephone-that sort of thing. I glanced at the
date: June 18, 1988. "I'm impressed, Mr. Seldes. This application is ten-years-old, and you went right to it."

"I like for things to be organized." He offered no other
information or explanation, so I figured the interview was
over.

"Thanks, Mr. Seldes. You've been helpful."

"Why did you ask about Emmett working on a second
job?"

I folded my notebook into my shirt pocket. "He spent
more than he made. Fancy clothes, fairly new car. And a
Camaro like the one he drove doesn't come cheap. I'm
trying to figure out how he did it."

At first I thought I imagined the slight stiffening of Seldes' body, but dismissed it as simply my imagination.
Later, however, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that my remark had struck a nerve with
Tom Seldes.

Sitting in my pickup, I gazed at Emmett Patterson's
cabin as I ran back through my interview with Seldes. He
believed the incident was accidental. At least, that's what
he said. And that's how it appeared, except for the injury
to the back of Emmett's skull.

On impulse, I drove across the parking lot and pulled in
beside the Yenko Camaro. I wanted to look inside Patterson's cabin.

Making an effort to be casual just in case anyone was
watching, I paused by the electric-blue vehicle, inspecting
the Yenko racing stripe. I studied the vehicle, taking my
time, giving the impression to whoever might be watching
that I was carrying out the job for which I had been paid.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far sheer gall will
take a person.

I jotted a few scribbles in my notebook for the benefit
of any hidden observer, slipped it back in my pocket, then
casually tried the door to the cabin. It was unlocked. I
stepped inside, deliberately leaving the door open. Same
layout as Hawkins', except Emmett must have been a drugstore cowboy.

A set of six-foot horns adorned one wall, a ten-gallon
hat on one tip, a baseball cap with the Chalk Hills Distillery
logo on the other. Two pairs of alligator boots-one
scuffed, the other shiny and polished with silver-tipped
heels and toes-sat at the end of the bed, which was a facsimile of a cowboy's bunk. On the wall was a clock
with a Lone Star face. On either side of the clock was an
oaken plaque, each holding a Navy Colt ball and cap pistol,
the muzzle of each facing the clock. Various pictures decorated the other walls; bucking broncs, a Charles Remington print, a Russell print, and a map of 1870 Texas.

Western shirts, bell-bottomed slacks, and two belts with
buckles the size of washtubs hung in the closet. Next to the
clothes chest sat a gun cabinet with glass doors. "What
were you planning on doing, Emmett," I muttered, shaking
my head at what I considered a fairly extensive collection
of rifles and revolvers. I had to admit, he knew his guns.

My own collection is limited to a shotgun that belonged
to my grandfather, and an airweight Colt Cobra, a snubnosed .38 revolver with a bobbed hammer so it won't snag.
And I certainly wouldn't call it a husky weapon. On a scale
of one to ten, maybe a four, and that was a deliberate decision on my part. I don't want to get into situations that
demanded heavy exchanges, and with the little .38, I was
always somewhat more discreet in whomever I took on.

On the top of the clothes chest, a stack of crossword
puzzle books lay next to a heavy ashtray heaped with assorted cartridges, 30-30s, .45s, .22s, 30.06s. I noticed some
of the 30-30s had crosses cut in the slug, a simple trick to
force the slug to expand upon impact. Now why would he
want to do that? For the deer around the area? I picked up
the slug to study it more closely. It slipped from my fingers
and bounced off the concrete floor, then rolled under the
gun cabinet.

I muttered a curse as I dropped to my knees and felt
under the cabinet for the cartridge. I froze when my fingers
touched a metal plate recessed in the concrete floor. I
pressed my face against the floor in an effort to peer under
the cabinet. "Damn," I muttered, glancing out the open door
to see if anyone was coming.

Hurriedly, I slid one end of the gun cabinet away from
the wall and stared down at a torch-cut metal plate set in
the floor. I ran my fingers over the rough edges of the concrete around the plate, then using my fingernails, pulled
the plate up.

I caught my breath. "Well, I'll be . . ." Beneath the plate
was a safe with a combination lock. "Well, well, well. Now
just what did you keep in here, Emmett?" I muttered to
myself.

Even a pedestrian PI like me could tell that the safe had
been installed after the original floor had been poured.

Gingerly, I touched the dial, pulling up on the remote
possibility it might not be locked. Foolish dream. The vault
at my bank couldn't be locked any tighter.

I glanced around the corner of the gun cabinet just as
Claude Hawkins stepped through the door. He frowned.
"Something wrong in here?"

"Huh?" Gripping the 30-30 cartridge tightly, I rose and
casually pushed the cabinet against the wall. "Oh, no." I
held the cartridge between my thumb and forefinger. "I
dropped a slug, and naturally, it rolled under the cabinet."

He shrugged. "I was going to my place for a bite of lunch
and saw the door open." He hesitated. "You talked to old
Tom this morning?"

"Yeah." I dropped the cartridge in the ashtray and picked
up one of the puzzle books. "Looks like Emmett was a
crossword puzzle freak."

Hawkins nodded to the stacks of magazines and papers
on the chest and then pointed to similar stacks next to the
push-button telephone on the battered coffee table. "All
kinds of puzzles. I never had no use for them, but he carried
them in his hip pocket and worked them at breaks and
lunch. He was a nut on puzzles. All kinds. You know, especially them that had three or four numbers and then asked
what the next one was. You know the kind? Two-four-six.
Now what comes next? He was always showing off about
them. Me, I never could do any kind of puzzle," he added
with a laugh.

I tossed the magazine on the chest, looked around the
room, and headed for the door. "Me neither."

"You just about got your stuff finished?"

"Looks that way unless Mrs. Morrison wants me to do
any more."

Claude stepped back outside. "What more is there?"

1 -gave him a crooked grin. "Who knows?" 11

He laughed. "Yeah. Who knows?"

I moved to Austin with my mother from Church Point,
Louisiana when I was in the eleventh grade. That was
twenty or so years ago, a few years after my old man left
us. Mom and I liked it just fine in Austin, but she moved
back to Church Point a few years later to take care of her
ill sister. I remained.

Twenty-odd years is not long enough to build an extensive good-old-boy network that allows a first choice on box
seats for the UT games in Darrel Royal Memorial Stadium.
A tour de force of that magnitude is the result of a fiftyyear network. My puny twenty-year network would get me
end-zone tickets, and provide me with a few, not very influential contacts in various agencies. Luckily, some were
in the right agencies, and unluckily, some were not.

Contrary to a lot of fiction, PIs are not the love children
of the local cops. The native gendarmes take a dim view
of anyone interfering with their investigations; consequently, you have as much chance leaping the Grand
Canyon as taking a look at evidence they've compiled.

Unless.

Unless you have a friend who works in the Evidence
Room of the local police department. Joe Ray Burrus transferred from UT to Sam Houston University at the end of
his junior year, changing his major to criminal justice. We lost touch for six or seven years until we ran into each other
at a boat show at the Convention Center in Austin.

Joe Ray was one of those free-thinking rebels who preferred staying just within the bounds of convention for the
sake of comfort, the comfort of a steady paycheck. From
time to time, depending upon how the proposition struck
him, he pushed on the envelope, even on occasion kicking
a hole in it.

"No problem," he replied with an impish grin at my request. "It's about time to stir up things down there. We
haven't had any evidence stolen in two months."

"Hey, not steal. I just want to look."

"Like I say, no problem."

He was right. No problem.

I entered the side door of the police station, took the
basement stairs instead of the lobby and, two minutes later,
he stuck me at a table in a corner behind a dozen rows of
shelves. On the scarred table lay a plastic bag and a pair
of latex gloves. "Here's Patterson's belongings."

Even though I put on the gloves, I shuddered as I sorted
through the torn and bloody clothing. I checked the brand
of his chukka boot. Alden. Just like the report said. I looked
for the Rolex President, but surprise, surprise. The Rolex
had vanished along with the two diamond rings, probably
accidentally flushed down the toilet or swept out with the
trash. His wallet was hand-tooled leather, containing two
credit cards, four gasoline stamps from Shamrock, no cash,
naturally-which, just like the Rolex and diamonds, was
accidentally lost-and several folded pieces of paper.

The papers contained nothing much, a few women's
names and telephone numbers. One had a number which,
at first, I figured was probably some account number:
1210841084284212.

Suddenly, my brain took one of those giant leaps into
the realm of speculation. "I wonder," I muttered, considering the number. Why does anyone carry anything in a
wallet? Because it has value, which meant this number had value. Obviously this one wasn't a telephone number, nor
an address, nor a lottery number.

I chewed on my bottom lip. What could be so important
about this set of figures that he carried it in his wallet?

The floor safe in his cabin flashed into my mind. My
heart thudded in my chest. "Maybe it's the combination."
With shaking hands, I quickly copied the sixteen numerals
into my notebook, checking three times to make sure I had
them in proper order. I paused. Maybe that giant leap had
been too long. Whoever heard of a combination with sixteen numbers? I knew nothing about combination locks. I
did know that the safe had been added after the cabin was
built. That being the situation, he probably could have had
any combination he wanted put in.

Maybe.

My initial enthusiasm somewhat dampened by realistic
skepticism, I copied his social security number and, from
his checkbook, his bank account number. According to the
check register, which was only three weeks old, he had
made a five-hundred-dollar deposit two weeks earlier. The
register showed no balances. I tore out a blank check and
slipped it into my shirt pocket with my notebook.

At the nearest Southwestern Bell carrel, I dialed his
bank. Finding the balance was a snap. I had his most recent
deposit and social security number. I listened in disbelief
as the bookkeeper informed me Patterson's balance was six
thousand, two hundred, and thirty-one dollars. Oh, and a
few odd cents.

I whistled, staring at the receiver in shock. Six grand. I
thought of Claude and the six hundred Patterson had stiffed
him for. I grunted. "Emmett, you cheap little creep." Still,
where did he get the money? He had told Claude he
couldn't put his hands on any until the end of the month.