The Redneck Detective Agency (The Redneck Detective Agency Mystery Series Book 1) (6 page)

              “Everybody’s a critic,” Rusty said and Duane gave him a high five.

              Ray disregarded it and started saying, “You should have something besides bass fishing. Show a little crappie fishing…”

              “Ray, it’s a bass fishing show. Bass fishing is the operative word here…”

              With those two’s attention on each other, Rusty looked down and commenced to read the article on Elmore “Katfish King” King. The man lived in Florence, Alabama, and was survived by his wife, four kids, and six grandkids.

              He was born and raised in Winston County and graduated from Haleyville High School.

              Rusty stopped breathing, felt something in the pit of the stomach. Winston County was sixty miles away and was where Rusty’s mother was from. This was getting too cozy and coincidental.

              He read the rest of the article through a pulsating haze. No leads on who would have murdered him or why.

              Rusty could well be one of, if not the, last person to see him alive.

              Maybe he should run tell Sammy. Give him all the information. Someone stole King’s two hundred fourteen pound catfish and King came to Rusty, gave him five thousand dollars to find out who. Then got some message on his cellphone that had cut the meeting short. King rushed out, and to his death.

              Maybe all that was valuable information in the investigation of the murder of Elmore King. Rusty remembered: Sammy told him the statistics were the last person known to see someone alive was the person who killed him. Known to was the operative word here.

              Rusty didn’t need to be a suspect in a murder case.

              He needed to get home and Google up Elmore King. No, that was too slow. He might just drive to his office, where he had faster internet.

              Now, Ray was saying, “Duane, can’t you just do some cane pole fishing on that show every once in a while?”

              “Have you ever heard of something called sponsors, Ray? Bass boats, bass lures, bass fishing rods…”

              “Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, Johnson outboards. You got some good sponsors, Duane…”

Chapter 11

Early the next morning, Rusty got into his El Camino, stopped on the highway, topped the tank off and headed to Winston County.

              If anybody there knew anything about King’s past in Winston County, it would be Silas Skye. Silas was about sixty-seven, a businessman, and probably about Rusty’s fifth cousin.

              Winston County was different. It was a strange place. After Alabama seceded from the Union in 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama, forming the Free State of Winston. Even though it was only sixty miles from Travertine County, the geology was a different land. Winston County was mountainous with sandy soil. Mountains, canyons, and small rivers cut through huge rock formations.

              That geology was what made Winston County a strange place, physically and politically. Cotton did not grow well in such terrain. No cotton, no slaves, very little commerce. They had no interest in the Confederacy. They had no interest in fighting for the North. But sometimes life played its dirty, ironical games. The men of Winston County did go off to war. Some one side. Some to the other. It was often a literal case of brother against brother.

              A couple of hours later, Rusty cruised in to the outskirts of Haleyville and there was Skye Market. It had been there ever since he was a small chld and would come to Winston County with his mother.

              Jonas Skye founded that first supermarket in Haleyville. It went through several remodels over the years and was still a thriving business. Now it was owned and operated by Jonas’ son, Silas.

              Rusty parked, walked in through the automated doors, and over to the customer service desk. A man named Anthony, who was an assistant manager—both according to his name tag—walked up to Rusty with a smile on his face and asked what he could do for him.

              “I’d like to see Silas Skye please.”

              “Mr. Skye is the owner,” the assistant manager said, like it would be impossible to see him.

              “I tell you what,” Rusty said. “If you would be so kind to tell Mr. Skye that Rusty Clay from Travertine County would like to see him right now I’d appreciate it. If he’s too busy to see me I’ll politely leave.”

              That ought to make it easy for Anthony, even if Silas had become the President of the United States since the last time Rusty saw him, or if Silas had fallen down a flight of stairs and gotten selective amnesia and forgotten everybody from Travertine County who might be his fifth cousin.

              “Rusty Clay?” Anthony said. “That’s your real name?”

              “It’s one of my many aliases.”

              That seemed to satisfy him. He smiled, turned and walked through an employees-only door.

              Thirty seconds later Silas Skye walked out, big grin on his face. Still slim, still had a full head of gray hair, still emanated charm.

              They shook hands. He took Rusty back to his office.

              How you been doing and all that. Rusty knew he was going to have to hear: Did I tell you about the time me, Daddy, and your granddaddy went out into Bankhead Forest deer hunting? We took twenty-four cans of Beanie Weanies and two gallons of moonshine. Three days later we run out of moonshine.

              As soon as they sat down, Rusty got right to the point.

              “Did you know Elmore “Katfish King” King? He was from Winston County.”

              “Yes, I did.”

              “Did you know he was murdered?”

              “Yes, I’ve heard.”

              “This is confidential.”

              “Of course.”

              “A couple of days before he was killed he walks into my office, thinks I’m a private investigator, wants me to investigate who stole his two hundred fourteen pound catfish, hands me five thousand dollars. Then he gets some pressing message on his cellphone and leaves. Next thing I know he’s sprawled all over
The Dolopia Democrat
as a murder victim.”

              “If you want to try to figure out who murdered him, get out the phone books of all the three states around here.”

              “He was not a well-liked man?”

              “Not people who had business dealing with him like me.”

              “Do tell.”

              “Before he hit the big time, he’d get a partner, an investor, and put up one of his restaurants. And then he would spend all his energy pissing the partner off until he had run him off and bought him out at pennies on the dollar. I know. I was one of his first partners. I should have made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but I was more than happy to get my original investment back just to get away from the annoying, back-stabbing son of a bitch. He knew just how to play the borders of ethics and the law.”

              “I see. You take out any curiosity of wondering who killed the man.”

              “Did I help you out any?”

              “Yes, you did.”

              “My advice is not do anything stupid.”

              “Like what?”

              “Like trying to give the five thousand dollars back to his widow or something. Or running and telling the authorities you have some important information on the case. I don’t think it means shit. Hey, let’s go get something to eat. Did I tell you about the time me, my daddy and your granddaddy went deer hunting out in the Bankhead Forest?”

Chapter 12

It was sort of eerie to Rusty. He hadn’t eaten a piece of fried chicken in some time and the fried chicken breast he had at Ma’s Kitchen tasted uncannily like what his mother’s mother made. Maybe he read too much into certain things. Or maybe a non-crispy chicken skin was a non-crispy chicken skin. And then he expected Silas to drone on and on about hunting or something, but the man was a complete encyclopedia, not unlike Cousin Ray, of the bizarre, unusual and conspiratorial.

              He claimed, as a child, to have witnessed a creature very similar to Big Foot in the Bankhead Forest. Sitting there with the man, Rusty realized he was probably Rusty’s third of kin. There was Ray and Cousin Essie on his father’s side. And then in Winston County he had a bunch of fifth cousins, most of all which he wouldn’t know nor recognize if they walked up to him.

              After lunch, complete with dessert, Silas invited Rusty to come be his and his wife’s house guest any time. Rusty returned the offer and they shook hands and went their separate ways.

              Rusty got back in the El Camino and headed straight for Travertine County. Or as straight as you could travel on the winding mountainous road.

              When he crossed over the Sipsey River in the Bankhead National Forest, Rusty got to wondering. It had been at least forty years. He wondered if it was as a mysterious place as he remembered.

              He drove to the next intersection--he was still in the middle of Bankhead Forest--and instead of turning right to go to Travertine County. Right when he got out of the official boundary of the Bankhead National Forest, there’d be a gravel road going off to the left.

              And there it was--the gravel road. This would be a great place to Rusty to get a little rest, to get a second wind. All this Jenny stuff. Now, on top of it, the Katfish King stuff.

              Everything might be changing all the time. The world might be going to hell in a hand-basket, but Rusty was going to the land that time forgot.

              The paved road veered off onto a hard packed dirt road. At a small bend, Rusty pulled off the road and over to the edge of a ledge and parked.

              He reached back behind the passenger seat expecting to find some running shoes and not only found them but an old faded pair of carpenter jeans, a blue denim long-sleeve shirt and a blanket.

              He changed clothes, looked out over the canyon, at the treetop canopy, and then spotted the trail and started descending the canyon into the primeval forest.

              The oak and hickory trees were old and huge, gargantuan, towering a hundred feet or more. He recognized the trees with the huge bay leaves. Other vegetation was deep green in color and was large and lush and looked almost prehistoric.

              He followed the trail, walked between large boulders. Rocks and tree trunks were covered in ferns and lichen. Rusty had lived in the tropical rain forest on the Esmeraldas River in Ecuador, and still this place looked more mysterious. And actually it was a sacred ritual ground of the Choctaw Indians.

              And not a person in sight. Rusty was not just in a land that time forgot. But in a land that people forgot. Or that most people didn’t even know or care about.

              He looked at his watch. “I’m looking at my watch in a land that time forgot. That is called irony, Gloria.”

              Somehow it had managed to become three-thirty in the afternoon, so he’d have a few hours before darkness. Darkness would come earlier here in the canyon, with the thick canopy.

              Darkness. The idea thrilled him. He would stay to see the lights.

              He walked on down to the river, a fast moving stream with cool, clear water that ran over slick plates of slate rock.

              Down in the canyon it was damp and a good fifteen degrees cooler. Rusty retraced his steps, and got the blanket out of his car. He walked back down into the canyon.

              Upstream a bit, he came to the most magnificent sight in the canyon. A cascading waterfall fell some hundred feet in three different stages into a large crystal clear pool, which was over ten feet deep in most places. On the other end it overflowed about a foot deep over a small ledge and ran into the stream.

              And here was a break in the canopy. The sun came down on almost the entire pool and much of the little sand crescent beach at one end. Opposite the beach and to the right of the waterfall was a ten foot rock ledge where you could jump off into the water.

              Paradise.

              Rusty laid out his blanket on the little beach and looked out at the waterfall and the pool. It was inviting but he was just too lazy for a swim right now.

              He couldn’t believe it. He had never brought Jenny here. Never brought Crystal here. Told them about it, but never got around to it. What in the hell was so important that they couldn’t get away to this place? All that running around and trying to make a living was a trap.

              Hell, this place was magic. Why not let it work a little magic on Jenny? If he could just lure her here. Just during the daytime.
Just go to Dismal Canyon with me, Jenny. Somewhere I never took you. I won’t even talk about your marriage. I won’t make any moves on you, anything. Just let’s be together for a couple hours, for old time sake.

              She would get here and it would clear her head up of all the power couple, trophy wife, trophy husband crap and Jenny would see the truth for herself. No sales job, no arguing. Just the mystic canyon.

              Rusty took off his shirt, shoes, and socks, rolled his jeans legs up and went down to the stream and waded in to the calf deep water, picking up small polished rocks.

              After collecting about five pounds of rocks, which he wrapped in his towel, he put his shirt and shoes back on and then dozed off. When he woke up, it was still daylight up through the canopy opening, but not a ray was coming down into the canyon.

              Rusty collected up all his stuff and went back under the thicker part of the canopy. He found a place near the Choctaw dance site and laid out his blanket. He stared up into the trees.

              The food from Ma’s Kitchen held. He was not hungry. His body felt light. The ground, even with the blanket, was hard and cool. Here in this time and place and circumstance, it felt comforting in some strange sort of way. He was in a strange land, but he was not a stranger. Rusty Clay belonged in a place like this.

              It was so peaceful that Rusty dozed off and when he woke, he looked up to see the millions of dim blue lights shining above him as if he had woken up in another universe. They looked to him like little blue stars in a deep black sky.

              They were dismalites--fluorescent larvae that hung by the millions up in the primeval trees. He had been told there were two places on the world these dismalites existed. Right here in this one canyon and somewhere in New Zealand.

              Rusty could hear the waterfall, the creaking up in the trees, some night birds whose call he could not recognize. Perhaps they were a prehistoric species.

              With the rocks and towel, Rusty made him sort of a bean bag pillow and put it underneath his head. He pulled the blanket around him like a cocoon and stared up at the little blue stars. And sometime, two hours later, two minutes later, he would never be able to tell, for he was in a land that time forgot, he drifted off into a deep, restful, dreamless sleep.