WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (Part 3)

13

Page County Sheriff Mike Bridges parked his cruiser in the driveway. Two large dogs raced up to meet him, stopping only a few feet away, barking ferociously. Instinctively, the sheriff placed a hand on his .40 caliber Glock.

“Bandit! Oscar!” the woman standing on the porch shouted. “Shut up!” The two mongrels momentarily looked away from the sheriff to their owner, then resumed barking.

“Easy there,” Sheriff Bridges spoke to the dogs in a calm, steady voice. He had dealt with this sort of thing many times during his twenty-three years in law enforcement. Don’t look a threatening dog in the eye. Don’t smile, or they will think you are baring your teeth, challenging them. Step back slowly, in a relaxed manner. And never, ever, turn your back to them. Every now and then, even if you followed all these guidelines, you still had to shoot one.

The woman hustled down the porch steps to the water spigot on the side of her house, grabbed the nozzle of the garden hose and began spraying the dogs. Bandit and Oscar decided their owner had things under control and it was time for them to move on. “Sorry about that, Mikey,” the woman said.

The sheriff brought his hand away from his duty weapon.  “No problem, April,” he said. “I guess you don’t need a home security system with them around.”

“Nobody’s gonna sneak up on me, that’s for sure,” she said. “Thanks for coming all the way out here.”

“I need to get out of the office every now and then,” he said. And it was true. April Meyers, the sheriff’s sister, lived a good twenty minutes out of town, and the drive through the country always helped him clear his head.

“Dispatch said you told them it was important, but not an emergency. And that you’d only talk to me,” he said as April gave him a hug. He wrapped one arm around her, kissed the top of her head and sniffed. “You smell good. Glad to know you’re still off the cigarettes.”

“Six months now,” she said as they made their way up the steps. “Still want one now and then, but I know that I don’t dare. Like they say, ‘One’s too many, and ten thousand’s not nearly enough.” She held the screen door open for her brother and motioned him in. “I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee on if you’d care for a cup.”

The sheriff stepped into the kitchen, pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and nodded. “I’ll take you up on that.” His eyes were drawn to the photograph on the refrigerator as his sister went to the cupboard for a cup. Three smiling faces. April, her husband Raymond, and their daughter, Shelby. “How long’s it been?” he asked, “since Raymond passed?”

“Two years next Wednesday,” April said, setting the steaming cup on the table. “I still miss him.”

“I always liked him. He was a good man,” the sheriff said. “Took good care of you. And Shelby.”

April nodded. “Not every man would have wanted a ready-made family. He was her daddy from day one.” She looked at the picture, and sighed heavily. “Cancer doesn’t care how good you are. It just takes you because it can,” she said. “It’s on account of Raymond I gave up smoking. He was so worried that Shelby would be orphaned if I kept it up. Took me a while to do it, but I’m done with cigarettes for good.”

April placed a steaming cup on the table for him. “So tell me, how are your boys doing?”

“Okay, I guess,” he said. “Mike Junior is in the Coast Guard. Training to become a rescue swimmer. And Randy works for his father-in-law—He’s a contractor in Indianapolis—installing gutters on houses and commercial buildings. His wife’s a dental assistant.”

“You tell them hello for me. And if I ever hear that they come back to Page without looking up their aunt, they’ll be in more trouble than they can handle.”

“Okay, I’ll tell them,” he said, then sighed heavily. “Oh, hell, April. The truth is I don’t talk to either one of them all that much since I split with their mother.”

“Understandable.”

“It’s like they blame me for us breaking up.”

“Well, duh!” April said, smacking her older brother on the forehead. “Ya think?”

She had him there, and the sheriff had nothing to come back with. After a long moment, he said, “Am I here on family business, or police business, April?”

“A little of both.”

14

“You know how kids talk,” April began.

The sheriff nodded.

April sighed. “Half of what they say is half true. The rest is complete bullshit.”

“I find that’s true of most people,” he said. “Not just kids.”

“Well, I was taking a load of laundry down the hall to the utility room this morning, and as I went past Shelby’s door I could hear her talking on the phone. You know, to one of her friends?”

He nodded again. “And what did you hear that you were not supposed to hear?”

April sighed, looked out the window. “It’s probably nothing, Mike. But if there’s a chance that it’s true . . .”

Her brother waited. This wasn’t the time to press her. April was not a suspect under interrogation. She was under no obligation to tell him anything. She would tell him more if he let her do it in her own time.

“Mike, I think she may has seen something. Something really bad.”

15

Perry Winters had just returned from the cemetery and parked the hearse in its usual spot, next to the sidewalk that lead to his office at Winters-Snowden Funeral Home. He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, looking straight ahead. Twenty-six years in the funeral business—half of which he had also served as county coroner—had conditioned him to dealing with death, but every now and then, it hit him hard. Like today. Laying to rest twin sisters, three years of age, victims of a fiery hit and run out on Round Barn Road. Their father had managed to get out of the car, but couldn’t get to the girls. He was still in critical condition with third degree burns and a bleak prognosis. Poor guy couldn’t even make it to the funeral, to say goodbye to his babies. Senseless.

A sheriff’s cruiser backed into the spot next to him. Winters got out of the hearse, offered his right hand. “Afternoon, Sheriff,”

Mike Bridges nodded, shook the coroner’s hand. “How you doin’ today, Perry?”

“I’ve had better days.”

“Carmichael twins?”

Winters nodded. “I hope you catch the son of a bitch, Mike.”

“We will,” Sheriff Bridges said. “Well, between me and you, I hope we will. We’ve got a couple of witnesses. And all the body shops are looking for anything matching the description coming in for body work on the right front. Hopefully somethin’ will turn up. These things take time.”

“I suppose so,” Winters nodded thoughtfully. “But that’s not what brought you here, is it?”

“No.” The sheriff shook his head.  “No, Perry, it isn’t. We need to talk, privately.”

“Come on in to my office.”

Winters led the way up the sidewalk to a door off to the side of the main entrance. He removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and made his way to the coffee pot that sat on a table along the wall.

“What can I do for you today, Mike?” Winters asked, as he poured coffee into his favorite cup. “Care for a cup?”

“No thanks. Already had my limit for the day,” Sheriff Bridges said. “We may have a problem, Perry.”

“What sort of problem?” Winters said, taking a seat in the swivel chair behind his hardwood desk. He invited the sheriff to sit across from him with a gesture. “Somebody wanting more money?” From time to time, the sheriff and the coroner had supplemented their incomes by taking advantage of the opportunities that fell into their laps during the performance of their sworn duties. It was seldom, if ever, legal. Almost always lucrative. Every now and then, it was necessary to pay certain associates in order to keep the wheels turning. Share the wealth, so to speak.

“No, nothing like that.”

Winters took a sip, made a bitter face, and then sat the cup off to the side, nearly out of reach. “David makes the worst coffee. He’s a damn good assistant funeral director, though. I’d have a hell of a time running this business without him. I’m thinking of offering him a partnership, so he won’t go somewhere else. Lord knows my boy Jimmy doesn’t want anything to do with running this business when I retire.” He took another sip, made another sour face. “Well, if it’s not money, what then?”

“It is a family thing.”

“Yours, or mine?”

“Both,” Sheriff Bridges said. “Your son. My niece.”

“My boy knock her up?” Winters shook his head. “That little son of a bitch! I told him once, I told him a thousand times, if you’re gonna do that, you gotta—”

“No, no. Nothing thing like that,” the sheriff waved both hands back and forth, cutting Winters off. “At least as far as I know.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Actually it’s more serious, Perry.”

“Mike, I’ve known you a long time. You’re not one to beat around the bush. Out with it.”

Sheriff Bridges stood up, walked to the window, peered out through the blinds, then crossed the room and opened the door to check the hallway. Satisfied that no one was around to overhear him, he said, “My niece, April’s girl, Shelby. . . she and your boy were out partying with some friends. The kind of friends that aren’t good for them, if you know what I mean.”

“And?”

“And they got into some booze. A little weed.”

“As kids will do.”

“As kids will do,” Sheriff Bridges agreed. “But then they picked up a couple of homeless guys. Paid them to fight. Your son got it on video.”

“Okay, not good,” Winters said.

“I had to lean heavy on Shelby,” Bridges said. “Made her see me not as her Uncle Mike, but as Sheriff Bridges. Made her see that she’d be better off telling me everything.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Oh, at first she thought she could lie her way out of it. But when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can smell bullshit a mile away. She eventually told me enough that I could start putting the pieces together.”

Winters removed his tie, undid the button on his shirt collar. “And what did she tell you?”

“The fight got out of control. One of the homeless guys got killed.”

“Jesus.”

“So instead of calling it in and giving us a chance to sort things out, they took matters into their own hands.” Bridges paused, rubbed his hand across his mouth. “In fact it was your son came up with the idea how to destroy the evidence, get rid of the body.”

Winters inhaled deeply, closed his eyes for a moment, then let it out slowly through his nose. “The crematory.”

Bridges nodded. “The crematory.”

16

Ty Hamilton

“Did you get the promotion?” Dianna asked.

I shook my head and sighed. “No.”

“Who’d they give it to? Not that new guy, the one that resigned from the Muncie PD? You know, the one all those rumors are about?”

“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know who they gave it to. I just know it wasn’t me.”

“I thought you said—”

“I KNOW WHAT I SAID!” I shouted, and regretted it immediately. “Sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” There was an awkward silence. Dianna finally ended it. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“I got fired.”

“What?”

“Fired.”

“Fired? Why?”

I shrugged, “Evidently they don’t want their security officers calling 911 when they hear gunshots or find intruders on the property.”

“What?” Dianna’s jaw dropped. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You thinking about flying again?” she asked. “I saw Fred Jones at church last Sunday. He said to tell you to let him know anytime you want to come to work for him.”

“I do not want to be a flight instructor,” I said.

“Why not? With all your experience, you’d be great. You were always good with the kids at the martial arts school, teaching them while you were working toward earning your black belt. I remember at one time you were even talking about running your own school when you retired.”

“I did kick that idea around. But that was a long time ago. I’m out of shape, now. And rusty. I haven’t been to a class in at least three years.”

Dianna sighed. I could tell she was losing her patience. “Well, I still think you should at least go talk to Fred.”

“Nothing against Chandelle Aviation. I think Fred’s flight school is a good one. But, Dianna, I did the flight instructor thing all those years ago, when I was just starting out. It’s a time-building job. Not something you do when you have thousands of hours in jets.”

“Reality Alert!” Dianna shouted, extending both hands upward with the fingers spread. “You don’t fly jets! You are not a 767 captain anymore, Ty. You’re not a pilot at all now. You could pass on some of what you learned over the years to new pilots if you’d just get over yourself.” Dianna paused, allowing what she’d said to soak in.  “And let’s face it,” she said, “It can’t pay any worse than your security job,” she said. “I know you miss flying. I see you looking at that web site on the internet every day.”

“Yeah. Most of the good jobs are overseas. But, I’m too old.”

Dianna said, “What do you mean, too old? They raised the retirement age to sixty-five. You’re barely sixty.”

“Sixty-one,” I reminded her. “I had another birthday last week.” I let that hang in the air for a few seconds. Dianna hadn’t even wished me Happy Birthday. Must have slipped her mind. “But to get hired in China, where the big money is, you have to be under fifty-five. Some of the jobs, they want you to be under fifty.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“I guess it makes sense, if you think about it. They don’t want to invest in your training and then only get a couple years of service out of you,” I said. “Plus, China’s a helluva commute. Six weeks on. Two weeks off. Spend half your off time just getting back and forth from home to work and resetting your body clock.” I sighed, shook my head. “So, I keep looking, hoping something local might come up.” I shrugged. “You know, part-time corporate or maybe fixed base operator manager.”

Dianna shook her head and gave me “the wife look”—if you’re married, you know what I mean—her eyebrows narrowed together as one uni-brow, her lips pressed together like a duck’s bill. She sighed, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Ty. I just know you need to do something. You’re too young to sit around the house all day. And we do need the money.” There was a pause. I knew what was coming. Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . .

“Need I remind you,” she said,  “we are two months behind on our house payment?”

“No,” I said, “you need not remind me, but I appreciate the fact that you do anyway, at least once a day. We’ll be okay. I still have my pension.”

“And your motorcycle,” she said. “And your boat. And your spending habits!”

“My spending habits?”

“When you were flying, and you wanted something, like your fishing boat, all you had to do was pick up some overtime, fly an extra trip or two every month. It didn’t bother me then, but your pension is nothing compared to what you used to make when you were flying.”

I sucked in my cheeks, not wanting to say anything that would throw us into a full-fledged argument.

“What?” Dianna put a hand on her hip. Her eyes were narrowed. “You have something to say?”

“You’re a fine one to talk about spending habits,” I said, unable to keep it bottled up inside me.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I said. “You were the one who couldn’t be happy living in the old house. Remember? The one that was all paid for? No mortgage?”

“It was too small, Ty, and what, a hundred years old?”

“It was in my family for four generations,” I said. “My father was born in that house.”

“We needed an upgrade,” she said, sticking her chin out defiantly. I swear, every time she does that, I think of Jackie Gleason making a fist and saying, “To the moon, Alice!”

“And a big, new house wasn’t enough,” I pressed on, not knowing when to quit. “You had to have a nice new, state of the art barn and stables, complete with an indoor riding arena.”

“If I’m going to show my horses at the highest level, I have to train year-round.”

“Just saying, I think the one with the spending problem is you, not me,” I said.

“You were the one making the money, Ty,” she said.

“True that,” I said, “And—”

“And you were the one who walked away from it. And you are the one who needs to figure it out before the bank takes it all away!” She glared at me, burning a hole through me with her eyes. “I don’t do poverty, Ty.”

My lower lip began to tremble a bit. It was embarrassing. Why was I having this type of reaction? I didn’t even like the security job. I suppose it was a matter of pride. I’d been fired. Me. A former airline captain. Fired from a minimum-wage security job. It was humiliating.

When I took the early retirement, I thought I had the money issues all worked out. My pension, Dianna’s job, and the additional income began coming in from the business that our son Travis and I were starting up should cover everything with plenty to spare. But then, Travis quit, and that was the end of that.

“You need to quit feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and do something with the rest of your life, Tyler Hamilton.”

“But—”

“Don’t give me ‘but’,” Dianna said. “Give me back the man I married.” And then, she left the room.

“I don’t know if I can find him,” I said to myself. “Hell, I don’t even know where to look.”