The Last Death of Jack Harbin (7 page)

“Samuel, I'm at Jack Harbin's. I need you to get over here.”

It's three o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, the week after Bob Harbin's funeral. The call is from Dottie Gant, the retired nurse hired to take the night shift caring for Jack. The urgency in her voice alarms me. Dottie wouldn't call without good cause. She's as tough as my boots. I tell her I'll be right there.

I slip on jeans and a T-shirt, but when I go outside there's a nip in the night air, so I go back and put on a blue work shirt. When I was chief of police, I was acquainted with the night, but that was some years ago. The intense quiet seems to invite dark thoughts. There's a little wind kicking up, too, and the dull metal smell of rain in the air. I should have heated up a cup of last night's coffee in the microwave.

Dottie's waiting at the door, dressed in slacks and a blouse, her arms hugging her chest. Her gray hair, usually pinned into a neat bun, is tumbling down her back in a wild confusion.

“Jack is dead,” she says before I'm even through the front door. “I just found him. Somebody killed him. I've never seen anything like it.” She may be tough, but her voice is trembling.

“Killed him how?” A sudden gust of wind swirls into the house and I catch the door before it slams shut.

Dottie gestures toward the bedrooms with a shaking hand. “You better go see for yourself.”

I step into the bedroom and find a nightmare scene of blood and turmoil. The front of Jack's T-shirt and the tangled sheets are splotched and spattered with blood from several jagged knife wounds in his chest. Jack did not die easily. His face is contorted and his head thrown back with his mouth open like he was trying to scream, and there are bruises at his neck. His sightless eyes are damp at the corners, as if tears leaked out as he struggled. In his death throes he flung the covers off and is lying sprawled sideways on the bed. The stump of his missing leg is a horrible thing to see, festered and raw, poking out from the sheets. The air is dense with stale cigarette smoke and the sickly smell of death.

Behind me, Dottie says, “I just can't believe this. I don't know how it happened.” She's breathing hard.

I feel suddenly claustrophobic and I step back awkwardly so that my knee gives way and I have to grab the doorframe to keep from stumbling.

“Steady,” Dottie says.

“I'm all right,” I say. “It's just my damned knee.” I turn away and step into the living room. We stare at each other for a few seconds.

“How did you find him? What made you go into his room? Did you hear something?”

Dottie shakes her head. “I get up a couple of times every night to check on him, in case he needs something.” Her voice is high and tight. “He's more considerate than you might think. He only calls out if he's in distress. When I checked this time . . .” Her voice falters. “I wanted you to see him like I found him, before I touched anything.”

I'm thinking clearer now that the shock has worn off, so I go back into the bedroom to take a closer look at the crime scene. It's hard to escape the sight of Jack's twisted face and body, but I want to fix details in my mind, in case the scene gets contaminated.

I lean over Jack's body and count about half a dozen slits in the T-shirt where a knife went in. I'll leave it to the medical examiner to give me details, but I've seen enough knife wounds to deduce that whoever did this came at Jack with his right hand.

The knife is not in plain sight. Likely whoever did this took it with him. The deep bruises on each side of Jack's Adam's apple mean that whoever killed him grabbed his throat to make sure he wouldn't cry out.

Standing next to me, Dottie reaches for the sheet, as if to cover Jack's body.

“Better leave it,” I say. “Have you called Rodell?”

Dottie shakes her head. “I wanted you here first. I'm sorry I got you out of bed.” It's surprising the number of people who still call me first when there's a need for the police. I haven't been chief of police for a long time, but that time in my life seems imprinted on folks.

“That's okay. But we'd better call Rodell now and get the wheels turning.” Neither of us makes a move to the phone.

“You got a cell phone with a camera on it?”

“Samuel, what would I be doing with something like that?”

“I just know some people have them. Not me.” There's probably a camera around here somewhere, but I don't want to go poking around looking for it.

Jack's bedroom is small and not particularly tidy. There's an overflowing ashtray on the bedside stand. “I'm surprised that Jack didn't die from starting a fire in his bed.” I'm searching for something to say.

“That smoke is awful. He wouldn't let me open a window in here. I don't see why a man with all his health problems wanted to make it worse. But I've seen that before.”

Nudie magazines, veteran's affairs publications, and paperbacks are scattered around the bed, and some have spilled onto the floor in the struggle. His taste in books runs to detective novels with lurid covers, depicting buxom women and guns. Then it strikes me, once again, that Jack couldn't have seen any of these books and magazines.

“Did people read to him?”

“Yes, he liked to be read to.”

“And these?” I point to a copy of
Hustler
.

“His friends got great pleasure out of describing the women to him.” Her voice borders on the disapproving, but she keeps her expression neutral. Dottie is a devout churchgoer, and she's taken to heart the adage not to cast stones.

The bedside stand is crowded with plastic medicine bottles. I crouch down so I can read the labels without touching them.

“I don't know why he didn't cry out. I'm a light sleeper. I would have heard him.”

“Darvocet. Did he take that all the time?”

“Only when he was in pain. But I think he needed a lot of it.”

“If he took one of those, he might have been too sound asleep to know anybody was in the room. And by the time he woke up enough, it was too late to cry out.” I'm wondering how the killer could see in the dark. The light is on, and Dottie said she didn't touch anything. But it seems strange that someone would risk turning on the light. “Did Jack sleep with a light on?”

“Always. He told me it was so Bob wouldn't have to stumble around in the dark. And I kept it up for the same reason.” Dottie gazes at Jack with deep pity. “I don't know how somebody could have been mean enough to do this. What harm could he do anyone?” Her voice breaks and she swipes at her eyes. “He was in a good mood when I put him to bed. We joked. I told him some funny stories about my grandson and he was laughing. Seems like I would have heard something with all this mayhem.”

I lay a hand on her arm. “This is not your fault, Dottie. It may have been good that you didn't hear anything, because whoever murdered Jack might have killed you, too.”

“Well, I hadn't thought of that.”

I go into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee, and while it drips through, I call down to the police station and rouse James Harley Krueger. He tells me he'll call Rodell and the coroner's office in Bobtail and then he'll come right over.

“No need for the siren,” I say, wanting to spare the neighbors. James Harley uses the siren liberally.

When I get off the phone, Dottie has put on a sweater, smoothed her hair into its usual bun, and applied some lipstick, although her face is still deadly pale. I tell her I've called the police, but that I'll wait a couple of hours to call Curtis. “Nothing he can do right now anyway,” I say.

“I'm sure he'll appreciate not being bothered,” she says. From the sarcasm in her voice, I can tell she shares my opinion of Curtis.

Marybeth should be told what happened, too. But this time I'd better go tell her in person.

I wander into the living room and see that the back door is open an inch. “That's how he got in,” I say.

Dottie stares at the door, frowning. “I know I closed that door.”

“But was it locked?”

“No, not locked. Jack said he hadn't bothered to lock the doors since his daddy died. I guess for a few days his friend Walter was camping in the backyard and that door was left unlocked in case he wanted to come inside for anything in the night, and Jack didn't get back in the habit of locking up. But I know I closed it.”

I turn on the back patio light and step outside. Leaves are skittering across the yard, and I feel a few scattered drops of rain. If there are footprints, the rain will soon obliterate them. And besides, with all the activity here in the last few days, there must be hundreds of footprints.

Dottie and I sit down in the living room to wait for James Harley. I feel both restless and useless, and the change in weather is making my knee throb. In the back of my mind, I'm trying to make some sense out of Jack's death. “Do you know if Jack has had a bad run-in with anybody recently?”

Dottie considers. “I get here at ten o'clock every night, and the other night when I arrived he and his friend Walter were hollering at each other. But by the time he left, they were laughing.”

“You know what they were fighting about?”

She sighs, thinks, and then shakes her head. “Something silly. Probably football. That's what usually gets everybody riled up. I remember thinking at the time it was just an excuse to butt up against each other, to keep from getting bored.”

“Anything else unusual? Anything that struck you as odd?”

“No more than usual. I always thought Jack was odd. He could have done more for himself, but he seemed more than happy to be taken care of.”

“He had bad injuries.”

“I've seen worse in my years as a nurse. People who could barely move managed to make a life for themselves. People who wanted to be independent.”

“I imagine his was a hard combination. Even if he could get around on crutches, he couldn't see where he was going.”

“I'm just saying there are those who wouldn't have taken advantage the way he did.”

Even though we are expecting James Harley, his sharp rap on the front door startles us. The first thing I see when I open the door is the barrel of a gun.

“James Harley, put the gun away,” I snap.

James Harley is plastered up against the front of the house, to the right of the door. He peeks his head around the side. “Everything okay here?”

“We're not fixing to shoot you, if that's what you're asking.”

“Oh, for pity's sake,” Dottie says under her breath to me. “That's why I called you.”

James Harley edges into the living room, sticking his gun back in his holster. He's Rodell Skinner's favorite lieutenant, being not too bright and inclined to go along with Rodell in most things. He yawns and scratches his considerable belly that seems to get bigger every time I see him. “Chief Craddock, I'll take it from here. I called the ambulance and they should be along after a while. They'll take the body to Bobtail. Then it's T. J.'s problem.”

T. J. Sutter is the justice of the peace charged with the duties of the medical examiner. In the instance of a murder, the JP usually calls in an ME from Houston or San Antonio to do the autopsy. But it isn't T. J.'s job to investigate the crime. “Why would it be T. J.'s problem?”

“I just mean he'll have information for us.” James Harley speaks in a lofty tone to dismiss my impertinent questions. “Jack back there?” He points toward the hallway. I tell him the body is in the bedroom on the right. James Harley saunters into the bedroom, and I don't hear any movement. When he comes out his expression hasn't changed, as if observing a grisly murder is all in a day's work.

“You going to call in somebody to get forensic evidence?” I ask.

James Harley glares at me. As former chief of police, I know how all this works. And I also know he never would have thought to get evidence if I hadn't mentioned it. “You don't need to worry about that,” he says. “We're on it.”

“Where is Rodell?” I ask. “Is he on his way?”

“He'll be along.”

Somewhere along the line, talking to James Harley always makes me feel testy, and I've just about reached that point. “Well did you talk to him?”

“I said he'll be along. And you two need to vacate the premises.” He waves Dottie Gant and me toward the door. “We've got a crime scene here.”

I'm reluctant to leave. I'm pretty sure James Harley hasn't reached Rodell. Big surprise. And no telling what James Harley will do left to his own devices. Probably lie down on the couch and sleep until the ambulance arrives, and never bother to call the highway patrol.

“Listen here.” I step up toe to toe with him to make my point. “Jack Harbin has been murdered. It's got to be taken seriously. Somebody needs to take pictures and collect evidence.”

His face is flushed—he's not happy with my interference. But he goes into the kitchen to contact the Texas Highway Patrol so they can send somebody to help out. When he gets off the phone, things are quiet in the kitchen. Then I hear him dialing the phone again. “This is Deputy James Harley Krueger from the Jarrett Creek Police Department. I just called for an ambulance on a homicide, and, uh, we need to hold off on that. THP will call when they're ready for you.”