Death in the Distillery (9 page)

"Oh." He shuffled to the sink and filled a glass with
water. "Oh, man, I wish I could die."

"You look like you did."

He tried to muster a grin, but failed miserably. He shuffled back to his dark refuge.

I spent the next several minutes reading and rereading
the file. After transflecting the scalp and piecing the fractured skull together, a blunt trauma to the occipital region
was located. "Probably where he hit the back of his head
when he fell on the frame of the tandem discs," I muttered,
wincing at the horror the poor guy must have experienced
in those last few seconds of his life.

My eyes came to an abrupt halt when I reached the list
of his personal belongings: Alden chukka boots; a Rolex
President, 18 karats, quartz; two diamond rings. Quickly I
reread the list and whistled.

How could a distillery worker, probably making no more
than eight, ten bucks an hour afford that kind of luxury? A
Rolex President had to be twelve, fourteen thousand. And
I had a hunch the diamonds were real, not the diamoniques
most people buy from QVC today. Anyone who wears a
Rolex isn't likely to wear fake diamonds. Then there were
the chukkas. Aldens. You couldn't get Alden chukkas for
less than four hundred, unless you stole them from some
guy's locker.

All of a sudden, I had the feeling I might be looking at
a piece of work that could very well stretch the definition
of accidental death. I'm not one of those PIs whose brain
operates with the intuitive leaps and bounds that always
seem to reveal staggering perceptions. I stumble forward,
one plodding step at a time, but this time, I saw my next
step with amazing clarity. Find out how Emmett Patterson
afforded the luxury of a six-figure income on laborer's
wages.

A tiny flame of excitement ignited in my chest. Maybe
there was something more to this case, something no one
knew about, or no one would admit.

Digging my notes from my shirt pocket, I read back over
them, trying to make pieces of the puzzle fit. Suddenly, I
hesitated, rereading my notes from the maintenance supervisor, David Runnels. He said Hawkins had taken the trac tor out Sunday morning, yet at the scene, Hawkins told
Sergeant Ben Howard that all the tractor work had been
completed. Then why would he take out the tractor if all
the job had been finished?

I glanced at the clock. Not yet six-thirty. On impulse, I
decided to drive back out to Chalk Hills Distillery. Maybe
I could catch Claude Hawkins, and while I was there, interview Tom Seldes, the rackhouse foreman.

Just as I stepped on my porch, I hesitated. A black Lexus
pulled away from the curb across the street. Its windows
were tinted, making it impossible to see who was driving.
I watched the vehicle disappear around the corner. I remembered the black Lexus I'd spotted out at the distillery
during my tour of the facility with Jackson. Could it be the
same one?

"Jeez, Tony," I muttered, discarding the idea even as I
climbed in my truck. "There's probably only ten thousand
black Lexus cars in Austin."

What I didn't find out until later was that as soon as I
pulled out and headed for the distillery, the black Lexus
fell in behind me.

The sun hovered just above the oak-covered hills to the
west by the time I reached Chalk Hills. Evening shadows
stretched their first fingers across the distillery. Lights
shone from the maintenance barn. I spotted Runnels leaning
into the engine compartment of a red Ford pickup. One
thing about the man, he worked late.

Mary Tucker's red Honda, boogered up left front fender
and all, was parked in front of cottage number five. The
battered car seemed to sprawl out, like a worn-out red-tick
hound. Her place showed no sign of life. Either she was
resting up from her two-day party, or she had brought it
with her.

There were four other cottages, the lights on in two.
When I spotted the electric-blue Camaro in front of one of
the darkened cabins, I whistled. I had failed to notice earlier, but the car was a Yenko, complete with white stripe,
chrome rally wheels, and no doubt a monster 427 lurking
beneath the hood. Somehow, I sensed it belonged to the
dead man.

I pulled up beside the rusted hulk of an old Chevy Cavalier in front of number three. I got lucky. Hawkins answered my knock. When he saw me, he grinned crookedly
and shoved the screen open. "Wondered when you would get here. Come on in. Beer in the fridge if you don't mind
Old Milwaukee."

I grinned back. "My favorite."

The cottage was two rooms-one the bath, the other
everything else. A worn carpet covered the concrete floor.
In the back corner beyond the door to the bath sat a mattress and box springs. No headboard. In the other rear corner was the kitchen area, a metal table, one-piece cabinet
with sink, a chipped and wheezing refrigerator, and a twoburner apartment stove. The front half of the room contained a sagging couch, two threadbare recliners, and a
brand new fifty-two-inch color TV that had the honor of
sitting on the fireplace hearth.

The entire affair was decorated in contemporary baseball.
A gun rack hung on the wall, but instead of shotguns or
rifles, it held three baseball bats, the barrel of one appearing
to be of a lighter color than the handle. Almost as if it had
been deliberately bleached.

"Nice decor," I said, easing carefully into one of the
recliners, hoping a spring didn't unspring and jab my butt.

He plopped on the couch and muted the sound on the
TV. He gestured to the collection of baseball memorabilia
cluttering his walls. "Yeah. I'm a baseball nut. Play on a
local softball team." He paused, tossed his head to sling his
greasy hair from his face. "Well, what do you want to
know?"

"Same thing I asked the others. Tell me what you know
about Emmett Patterson."

"Besides the fact I still hate the jerk even if he is dead?"

I studied the lanky man facing me, his long hair stringing
down over his shoulders. One thing about this guy, I told
myself, he comes straight to the point. "Even if you hate
him, Claude. Do you mind if I call you, Claude, Claude?"

He snickered. "Just Claude. Not Claude Claude."

Oh, Christ, I thought, now I got me a standup comic.
"Right. So, what do you know about Patterson ... Claude?"

"Not much more than anyone else, I suppose. We partied
together. I'll say this about the dude. He could party. Girls always liked to see him show up because he partied longer
than anyone else, and spent money like it was going out of
style. That's his Camaro sitting out there. Man, the chicks
loved that car."

My instincts had been right. The Camaro was Patterson's. I chuckled and tossed out what I hoped would be a
provocative observation. "He must've won the lottery or
something."

Hawkins just frowned. "Huh?"

So much for provocative observations. "I mean, he wore
expensive clothes and watches. He drove a Yenko Camaro.
If he spent like you say, he had to have a money source
other than the distillery here."

The lanky man's face twisted in concentration, obviously
a most difficult task for him, and evidently, one he seldom
attempted. "Yeah. You know, I never thought about that,
but now that you bring it up, old Emmett did have money
to burn, except when it came to paying me back. In fact,
that jerk is the reason I'm driving that bucket of rust outside. I lost my nineteen-ninety-six Silverado pickup back
to the finance company because of him."

I stilled the surge of excitement bouncing up and down
in my stomach. I gave him a sympathetic frown. "Oh?"

Hawkins pursed his lips. "Yeah. Emmett owes me over
six hundred bucks." He hesitated, shrugged. "Well, hey, he
owed me. Don't figure I can collect from a stiff, huh?"

"Who knows? Probably with the right lawyer."

He laughed. "Yeah. Hey, man, you hear the joke about
the lawyer and the shark?"

Last thing I needed was to get strung out with a good
old boy and his jokes. "Yeah. That was a good one, wasn't
it? Now, what about the money? The six hundred dollars?"

The frown of disappointment faded from his face. "Oh,
yeah. Well, we had words last week. I owed the finance
company two months on my pickup. Emmett claimed he
didn't have the cash. I told him I was going to kick his tail
if he didn't get it."

"Is that when you told him you were going to kill him?"

His cheeks colored. He ducked his head. "You talked to
Runnels, huh?"

I arched an eyebrow.

He shrugged. "Yeah, but I was just running off at the
mouth, man. Honest."

"Did he get you the money?"

"Naw. He come begging me for a little more time. Said
there was no way he could get the cash until the end of the
month. I slapped the snot out of him, and he started bawling
like a baby." He paused and gulped down several swallows
of his beer. Sheepishly, he added, "I couldn't hurt nobody.
Truth is, I felt sorry for the whining creep, even if he was
into me for six big ones. Anyway, finance company took
the Silverado, and I ended up with that piece of junk out
there."

"Sounds like the guy was a real winner," I remarked, my
tone heavy with sarcasm.

Hawkins shook his head. "Huh? Oh, no, man. He wasn't
no winner. The guy was a loser."

For a moment, I stared at him. Then I cautioned myself
to limit my conversation with Claude to simple, direct
words. No insinuations, no implications. I had the feeling
he was down to his last few hundred brain cells.

"Yesterday, you told Sergeant Howard that you weren't
scheduled to work except to clean up after the reception."

He nodded and leaned back on the couch, propping his
feet on the coffee table. "So?"

"Well, I'm sure it was a misunderstanding, but Runnels
said you took out the tractor yesterday. Why would you do
that if there was no work to do?"

"He's full of it. I didn't take no tractor out. Either Emmett or Tom did. I think I saw Tom on it yesterday morning."

"Tom?"

"Yeah. Tom Seldes, the rackhouse foreman. He lives
next door."

I jotted in my notebook. Like the puzzled remark Alice
uttered on her trip through Wonderland, things were getting curiouser and curiouser. "So, you didn't take out the tractor?"

"Nope. Hey, old Runnels is wacky. Between him and
those aliens he claims are hiding all over the place, you
never know what to expect."

"Why would anyone take the tractor out? Everything was
already disked."

He gave me a lopsided grin. "My question exactly."

"You said you saw Tom Seldes on it?"

He screwed up his face. "Yeah. I think I saw him on it.
Truth is, I never paid much attention. I saw somebody, but
I ain't sure who. He might not have been the one."

"Say Tom Seldes was on the tractor. Any reason for him
to have it out?"

"Not that I know of. Like you said, the disking was
done."

I glanced back over my notes for any other questions I
wanted to ask. "So Emmett was a ladies' man, huh?"

Hawkins grinned, revealing a set of yellow teeth with
some kind of unidentifiable fungus growing between them.
"Man, as much as I hate the creep now for stiffing me, I
got to admit he sure was one for the ladies. And good
lookers, no old ones who sagged. He liked them young and
firm. He was fast, too, man. Why, way back, some girl
come through. Hitchhiker." He leered. "Never forget her.
She wore a red shirt that showed her belly. Her pants pulled
up tight." He shook his head and blew through his lips.
"She was sure a looker. She hadn't been here ten minutes
before old Emmett had her out in back of rackhouse number two. That's how fast he was. Just about the time they
finished, old Tom, Tom Seldes ... you know, the one we
was talking about."

"Yeah. Go on."

"Well, old Tom walked up on them. According to Emmett, him and the girl finished up while old Tom stood
there watching, his mouth hanging open."

"What happened then?"

He wrinkled his thin face in concentration. "Seems like she went over to the lab then, but I ain't sure." A lazy grin
popped back on his face. "Anything else?"

I shrugged. "No. Not really. What'd you do after the
cops left?"

,.You mean yesterday?"

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I remained professional.
"Yes. You know, after they took Emmett away."

He gave me a sheepish grin. "Crashed. I was drunker'n
a skunk. That's why I don't remember much. I slept 'til
old Tom woke me to clean up after the reception."

"You talk to anyone about Emmett?"

He frowned. "You mean yesterday?"

"Yeah. Yesterday."

"Naw. Except when the cops was there. Me and Tom
talked about it later when we was cleaning up. That was
all."

I was out of questions. I pushed myself to my feet. "Hey.
Appreciate your time."

Claude winked. A happy grin leaped to his lips. "Anytime, man. Anytime. Glad to help."