Mad Dog and Englishman: A Mad Dog & Englishman Mystery #1 (Mad Dog & Englishman Series) (13 page)

Wynn didn’t take Bowen straight back to the cages. He didn’t want the man to see what a sorry state of repair most of them were in, not until he was prepared to lock him up and go tell the sheriff he had the murderer (or at least a suspect).

“Take a seat,” Wynn invited, gesturing to one of the old wooden chairs that had been stacked in the corridor for as long as the deputy could remember.

“Thank you,” Neil Bowen said, and took the best one. Wynn had to do some sorting to find another that looked solid enough to offer reasonable support. This was not quite the way he’d pictured the interrogation starting, but then none of the day had born much resemblance to his expectations. He pulled his selection around to put it between a west facing window and the spot Bowen had selected. That put the light behind him and in Bowen’s eyes, except that the sun wasn’t low enough to make it a problem. Still, Wynn didn’t have a collection of lamps to stick in Bowen’s face. This would have to do.

“OK,” Wynn began, “why’d you kill him?”

“Who?”

“The man you killed,” Wynn thought that was a clever rejoinder that might just trip up the professor and start a confession.

“I haven’t killed anyone, Deputy. Therefore I’m afraid I can’t tell you why.”

“What were you doing in front of Reverend Simms’ house.”

“I’ve explained that. I got lost and had car trouble. I’m not very mechanical. Maybe I just ran out of gas. My cell phone wouldn’t work. I was looking for help so I hiked across a field to that neighborhood and started knocking on doors. I hadn’t tried more than a couple when you started chasing me.”

“What’s your connection with the Reverend?”

The black man shook his head. “I’m afraid I have no connection with the Reverend Simms whatsoever.”

“Ah ha!” Wynn pounced. “How’d you know his name then?”

“You just told me,” Bowen replied.

“I did?”

“You did,” Mad Dog agreed. Wynn hadn’t noticed him back there in the cells. “Aren’t you supposed to read him his rights first, Wynn, before you start questioning him?”

“What are you doing back there?” Wynn asked, in the hope Mad Dog and the black man might forget that stuff about rights.

“I’m waiting for Englishman, Wynn. What are you doing with this guy. What makes you think he’s got anything to do with the murders?”

“Aw, Mad Dog, mind your own bees wax, will ya. I maybe got me the killer here.”

“Excuse me, Deputy Wynn,” Bowen said. “I believe you are supposed to inform me of my rights, and one of those rights is the presence of an attorney. Since you seem to think I’ve killed someone, I rather think I’d like to speak with my lawyer if you don’t mind.”

“Jeez, Mad Dog! See what you’ve gone and done.”

Mad Dog stood up from the bunk he’d been lying on, pushed open the cell door, and walked around to the corridor. He offered his hand to the black man and said, “Hi. I’m Harvey Mad Dog. I’m Cheyenne.”

“Really,” Bowen said, accepting it. “I didn’t think there were any around here anymore.”

“Not many,” Mad Dog agreed. “Just me and my brother.”

“Neil Bowen, Mr. Mad Dog. I’m an historian. I hold the Benjamin Singleton endowed chair at Fort Hays State, and I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Wynn got to his feet. “Now hold it just a minute. This is an interrogation here, not a social gathering.”

“Oh, come on, Wynn. What would an historian from Fort Hays be doing murdering one of our local preachers. Give me a break. What’d you do, go after the first stranger you saw just because he’s black?”

That was an uncomfortably accurate assessment. “Course not,” Wynn protested. “I found him prowling around near Simms’ house.”

“And you’ve heard him tell you why. Have you checked to see if it might be true, or where he was when the Reverend was murdered?”

Wynn just stared down at his boots and didn’t say anything.

“He didn’t did he,” Mad Dog asked Bowen who shook his head to acknowledge Wynn’s failure. “Well then, sir, where’d you spend the night last night?”

“Why, at home in Hays. I drove down here this morning.”

“And can you prove that?” Mad Dog continued.

“Well, my wife and children know I was there, and we have company staying with us, my wife’s mother and sister. I stopped for breakfast in La Crosse on my way down. That would have been about eight. I paid with a credit card. Deputy Wynn, I believe you’ll find the receipt in my billfold if you’d care to look.”

“Wynn,” Mad Dog said. “From what Doc tells me, Peter Simms was killed between two and six this morning. Sound’s like Professor Bowen can prove he was a considerable distance from here in that time frame, and like he’s maybe got a good reason to consider suing Benteen County for false arrest. I’m not too sure the county commissioners would look favorably on retaining the deputy who drove the county into bankruptcy by violating an esteemed academician’s civil rights, even if your old man is chairman. Might be a good time for an apology, and maybe a little assistance in helping the professor find his car and getting it towed in and running so we don’t waste any more of his day.”

“That would be very kind of you,” Dr. Bowen agreed.

“Yeah, well,” Wynn muttered. “I may have made a mistake here, but you just set tight a few minutes while I make a couple of calls and check out your story. Then, if everything’s like you say, you can go.”

“After you find and fix his car,” Mad Dog supplied.

“Yeah, after that,” ‘Lose Some’ agreed.

***

The gossips of Buffalo Springs had enough material to last a month. Not that they’d managed to pry much from Mrs. Kraus. She was too busy, but they had overheard some interesting phone calls and witnessed more than a little first hand drama. The phone had kept Mrs. Kraus almost constantly occupied. Then some folks who’d been at Bertha’s came in with a picture of Heather English and a wild tale about a stranger who was looking for her. Just after that, the frightening and newly bald Mad Dog arrived and asked for his brother. When he heard the sheriff was still out of touch, he’d solemnly let himself back into the jail. As the phone started ringing again, Mrs. Kraus whispered that the always peculiar half-brother of the sheriff was acting even more oddly today and had—perhaps coincidentally—discovered the bodies of both Reverend Simms and his father. Then along came Wynn, riding up to the front of the courthouse in the back of the Meisenheimer’s pickup without his patrol car, his gun, or his radio. He did have a colored prisoner, though, a dangerous looking stranger who came in with his hands lashed behind his back. It was a thrill to watch Deputy Wynn dig out a pistol and load it, unbind the Negro, and lead him back into the jail for an interrogation that would not begin to match their imaginations.

That was when Deputy French finally called in. He was about half-way across the county at his sister’s place. He’d just gotten word and was ready to come back on duty wherever the sheriff needed him. Mrs. Kraus filled him in, adding a few details for the gossips, and then French asked her what she thought he ought to do. Should he come into the courthouse? Should he try and find the sheriff—drive around the county using the radio every few miles until he got within range and could raise him? Should he drive over to Crawford and see if maybe the last of the Simms men happened to be home and/or inform the man of his tragic family losses—maybe make sure there wasn’t another Simms in danger, or establish that the survivor wasn’t the perpetrator? Should he try to find Judy and Heather English and let them know some stranger was looking for them.

What French and Mrs. Kraus had was an abundance of options and an uncertainty of priorities. French finally made his own choice. “I’m only maybe twenty minutes from Crawford. I’ll start there. I’ll turn my radio on and start hailing the sheriff as I go and keep an ear open for anything new from you. After I check on Tommy Simms, I’ll circle around to the south so my radio should reach that end of the county and keep trying the sheriff as I head back to Buffalo Springs. Hopefully, by then, we’ll have found him and somebody’ll have orders for me. If not, we’ll see where things stand and go from there.”

Before Mrs. Kraus hung up, Wynn was back in the office pestering her for the phone to make some important calls, but the minute she disconnected French, Doc Jones was back on the line with preliminary results about Old Man Simms.

“Natural causes. Massive heart attack. Must have broken his neck when he collapsed on the stairs. Maybe, whoever cut him scared him to death. Of maybe they found him that way, then decided to leave us a message connecting him to his son, though the scalp was just stuffed in one of the old man’s pockets. The sheriff might want to send somebody to check the place out for signs of who did it. Don’t think Mad Dog and I disturbed much and whoever scalped him is probably the one who carved up his boy.”

Mrs. Kraus thought about sending Wynn, but the way his day was going he was the last person the sheriff would want to give the opportunity to contaminate a crime scene. Simms Senior’s residence would have to wait.

So would Wynn’s demand for a phone, since the moment Doc hung up the Sheriff’s line rang again. This time it was a concerned citizen reporting the sound of gun shots from Sourdough ranch, followed by a high speed exit from the same location by a man on a motorcycle hotly pursued by someone in a new Chevy pickup.

Mrs. Kraus put her hand over the receiver for a moment and glared at Wynn. “Can’t you see I’m tied up with official business right now. You need a phone, go down the hall and borrow your daddy’s.”

It was a good idea, though Wynn was surprised to find it ringing when he let himself into the abandoned office. Who would be foolish enough to call the commissioners on a Sunday? Wynn picked it up and announced, “You got the wrong number.”.

He just managed to stop from breaking the connection when he heard the sheriff shout, “Don’t you hang up on me Wynn or I swear I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

“No sir,” Wynn said.

***

The sheriff thought that eliminating Wynn’s County Commissioner father would be preferable to doing in “Wynn some” himself. After all, it was Wynn Senior who was behind the preferential hiring policy that had forced the sheriff to trade a deputy’s position for Wynn Junior in exchange for a vote to maintain his department’s marginal operating budget. If something were to happen to the commissioner, the sheriff thought he could deal with “Wynn some, lose some.” At least Junior meant well, even if he was generally incompetent, and it wasn’t like the sheriff had been able to keep all his low paying positions filled. Besides, the county usually didn’t need much in the way of law enforcement. If Wynn could be controlled, made to fear the possibility of, say, losing his job, the sheriff thought he could turn him into an acceptable law officer. At a moment like this, for instance, when Wynn seemed to believe the sheriff was angry enough to inflict bodily harm, he became the soul of efficiency. He hadn’t even tried to explain everything that had happened in the sheriff’s absence, not his questionable arrest, nor the damage he’d caused to county property. He just did as the sheriff asked and ran down the hall and got Mrs. Kraus to come provide the synopsis in her precise if opinionated fashion.

It was a lot to take in. Then the sheriff reciprocated. He gave a description of the motorcycle operator. She didn’t match it to the odd guy the folks from Bertha’s had told her about. The flyer with the picture had ended up face down on Mrs. Kraus’ desk, its back covered with hastily scribbled notes to herself. It wouldn’t resurface for days. What with all the insanity she and the sheriff were encountering, they both missed the crucial link.

“The man’s to be detained as a material witness,” the sheriff told her, “so far, nothing more. Make sure the deputies know and circulate the word around town as best you can so folks can tell us if they see him.” The word was already circulating, and given the velocity of the galloping gossips, it would spread beyond the county line before dusk. “I’ve got a few more questions for Mrs. Lane, then I’ll be headed back. I’ll call and leave a message on the answering machine for Judy if she’s not home—Mrs. Lane tells me she probably won’t be before nine or ten—and I’ll maybe swing by the house just to be sure before I come back to the office. Get French to examine both the Reverend’s and Old Man Simms’ homes for evidence and have him take pictures of the shoe prints under Peter Simms’ fuse box. Have Wynn check out this Professor. Unless his story’s a house of cards, Wynn should apologize, get his car brought in and repaired, and otherwise offer the county’s hospitality.

“I’m here at Sourdough for a while if you need me, then I’ll be on my radio and should be in range within ten minutes of when I leave. If anything breaks, let me know.”

“You got it,” Mrs. Kraus rasped. “You want I should accidentally shoot Wynn in case he decides on his own to do any more investigating?”

“Placating his professor ought to keep him busy for a while, Mrs. Kraus, but use your best judgement—and maybe your hollow points.”

Mrs. Kraus’ cackle easily carried across the stable to where Ellen Lane sat on a bale of hay and listened curiously. Her attitude seemed a little shy now. It was hard for the sheriff to reconcile this meek figure with the naked hell cat he clearly recalled being a willing participant in savage acts of sex and violence.

“OK.” the sheriff turned to her. “Let me run through this one more time to be sure I’ve got it straight. You’re Ellen Lane.
You’ve
got a daughter named Heather who just happens to have gone off to Hutchinson for the afternoon with
my
daughter Heather and
my
ex-wife.”