Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) Page 9

  Captain Bob had been older than Hiram. He would say to Tench with a straight face, “When I get as old as Hiram, I’ll be ornery too.”

  Jones, bent over, worked on his engine, the hatch cover pulled up and set on its side. He tied his workboat at a stake set out about ten feet from shore. The bow was on a loose line to a tiny crooked pier from the muddy shore. This was a poor man’s dock, nothing more than a set of pilings, some of them slanted toward the water as though their underpinnings were loose in the bottom mud and ready to collapse. The uprights had boards nailed to them with their edges to the top and presented the barest of surfaces on which a man could walk above the water without getting wet.

  Jones’s boat was long and narrow, like the Emmy. These boats were of a design developed on the Chesapeake derived from the fast four stack American destroyers running down the Bay before World War One. The boat was developed when the small gasoline engines became available to run workboats in place of sail power. The boat that Hiram owned, one that he, like so many other watermen, had built himself, was about thirty five feet in length. It had a small cuddy cabin in the bow like the Emmy, and with the engine in the center of the hull, about halfway from the bow, made an ideal run in most chops. The stern was round, to give the boat a more graceful flow through the water at working speed and to protect from backwash.

  Hiram was tall and lanky, his head full of white hair covered partly with his ever present yellow Caterpillar cap. He had on dark jean overalls and underneath the wide blue shoulder straps a white undershirt. His white skin was gnarled with age and where the sun had struck it over the years, had a heavy tan line. Tench could hear him singing, his raspy ancient voice still vaguely in tune,

  I saw the crab and the crab saw me.

  There was nothing more to be.

  Tench waved but received no response form the old waterman, even though he was sure the man had seen him on the causeway. He stepped out on the narrow boards and slipped off after a few unbalanced steps. He fell into the mud and got his boot stuck. Pulling it out caused him to fall on his side, getting wet all over.

  “That racing car of your going to run like that?” the old man laughed, a long slow chuckle, as he stood up and reached for a grappling pole to push out to Tench.

  Tench said, “Missed my step.”

  “Guess you did.”

  “Didn’t see you at the funeral. Thought you liked Captain Bob.”

  “Too many black folk for my taste.”

  Tench steadied himself, grasping the grapple, as he splashed ahead in the mud. He looked up, his arms trying to keep his balance, the left side of his shirt and pants soaked with wet mud.

  “That engine working out for you, Mister Jones?”

  “Yes,” the old man turned and said, his voice abrupt as though he were angry at being interrupted.

  Tench had reached the side of the boat. If Hiram had been anything like his own father, silence would prevail. Fortunately Jones was not that non-social. Hiram spoke suddenly.

  “You come out here to ask how the boat’s flathead engine is chugging or something else?”

  “We found Captain Bob’s lost anchor up at the Island. Seems like he had it up there the day he drowned.”

  “How you boys know that for sure?”

  Tench ignored him and said, “I want to know what you saw when you got to his boat.”

  “Why?” asked Hiram.

  Tench replied, “Smote Rojo wanted me to ask you.” He shifted his feet in the mud as he rested his arms over the side of Jones’s boat.

  “He’s my friend.” Tench added, “Smote thinks his grandfather was killed, that the drowning wasn’t an accident.”

  “For all I know, that Spaniard could have done it himself,” said Jones.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s inherited a boat and a big house. He had a lot to gain, mister,” Jones said as he looked up from his engine.

  “You think?” asked Tench, feeling his feet sinking in the mud.

  “Man that anxious to claim somebody killed the old man, people think he might have something to hide himself.”

  “So you suspect Smote?”

  “Look,” he said, leaning toward Tench, “I’ll tell you something for your own good, maybe ‘cause you did me one and I owe you. You just keep away from Smote. He’s trouble you don’t need.”

  “Ain’t just me, Tench. You maybe don’t remember but that boy has always been trouble.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Long before you come to River Sunday. I remember the Captain talking about his daughter over there in Baltimore, how proud he was of her going to the city.”

  “So what’s the matter with that?” asked Tench.

  “Old fool wouldn’t admit what everybody knew. She was working up there on Baltimore Street, a black street whore, and all messed up on drugs. She was mother to this boy, Smote, and then she died. Captain Bob was in pretty bad shape for a long time. Had her buried here, but he kept all that to himself. Didn’t put a stone on her grave no how. Only a few of us knew, and that wasn’t because he told us. People find out these things whether they care or not.”

  “So what happened to Smote?”

  “The boy was taken down to South America by his real father, some man who had worked in one of the Baltimore bars that the girl used to work from. Captain Bob, he sent him money to keep the kid away. Then, he heard that the father was dead because he got caught up in some revolution, got shot by the authorities. Captain Bob sent for Smote, brought him here in the summer, kept him with friends of his in Baltimore for school in the winter. When he got older that’s when he come here full time and brought the boy’s girlfriend too. The boy had a lot of trouble, kept the old man worried. I do say he played some baseball.”

  “He and I played together in those leagues. I know him. Smote would never have hurt his grandfather,” said Tench.

  “Ain’t none of my business. I’m just saying what some people think, that’s all.”

  “I don’t care what they think,” said Tench.

  Jones shuffled toward the cuddy cabin of his boat. When he reached the cabin, he picked up a screwdriver. He pointed the tool at Tench as he talked, “Maybe I’m one of them people. Look, here, Mister Tench, I got nothing more to say.”

  “You don’t like him because he’s from Baltimore. I’m from Baltimore, too,” said Tench.

  “Maybe you don’t belong in River Sunday, neither,” said Jones, with what might have been a slight smile.

  Tench persisted, “OK. So it’s important to me too. I came to ask you about what you saw when you found Captain Bob.”

  The old man was muttering to himself. Tench couldn’t understand what he was saying.

  “Is there anything you can think of that might help us understand what happened?”

  Jones remained silent, working on his engine.

  “Look, you’re saying you think it was murder. If you’re blaming Smote, if you think he killed him, then at least you think someone killed him. Why do you think that?” asked Tench.

  “Captain Bob was fair to me. Not like some others around here,” Jones blurted.

  Jones moved back from his engine and poked around among the floorboards and bilge of his boat. He held up a black rubber boot.

  “Here,” he said, “I brought along home his boot. Only one I found. Thought one of them cops might steal it from the boat. The old man always liked them. Said he ordered them special. Paid too much money for them, you ask me.”

  “So you did go aboard the boat?” said Tench.

  Tench noticed Jones’s eyes were watering.

  “Why didn’t he have them on when he was found?”

  “Man has a right to die in his boots,” said Hiram.

  “You know Smote wouldn’t have done that, I mean, taken off his grandfather’s boots,” said Tench.

  Jones stared at Tench, wiping his eye. Then he turned back to his engine repair. Tench waited.

  After
a few minutes, Jones looked up at Tench. He said, “Look ahere, Jimmy. You keep around as long as me, you’ve learned things. Whoever done this to Captain Bob ain’t above doing it to me too.”

  Tench knew with that statement he had learned all the waterman was going to say. He turned to leave, slogging through the mud. Hiram picked up on his song, his voice gravelly and off key but strong, the words drifting out over the evening water and muddy stink of the shoreline. This time Tench noticed that the lyrics were slightly different.

  I saw the man and the man didn’t see me.

  There was nothing more to be.

  Chapter Ten

  8 PM Thursday August 19

  Smiley’s trailer was set in a glen of pine trees, a few hundred feet from the end of its dirt and potholed entry road. No sign or mailbox existed on the dirt road to mark the start of this path into the woods. If anyone ever wanted a location that had privacy and was far away from the closest human, this was it. The lane itself was rutted, barely passable, except that a several acre field along the road, once planted to grass, was torn up with car ruts in a circular pattern.

  He saw Smiley’s Harley motorcycle, Katy's modified Ford, and a couple of muddy Chevrolet pickups. They were pulled up askew to the side of the trailer, a blue steel box with an awning in front and several plastic chairs. A ring of piled stones held the charred remains of a campfire. Tall grass grew everywhere hiding the otherwise muddy ground and in between the grass clumps were clusters of small flowering shrubs, all of it spreading back into the enclosing loblolly pine trees. Beer cans were piled beside the stones of the fireplace, arranged in a pyramid of red and white metal.

  From the end of the trailer a large Confederate flag hung, its red and white colors bright even in the evening dimness. A dog came up to him, sniffing, its face moving across the axle grease spatter on Tench’s trousers. Tench knew the Labrador, an elderly Chesapeake retriever called Stinker because Smiley never helped him wash off the mud on his fur. The animal went back to its spot near the steps of the entrance door, put its head in its front paws and watched him, panting slightly in the evening heat.

  The screen door opened and Smiley stuck his head out.

  “I’d about given up on you,” Smiley said, holding the door open as Tench squeezed by him to step up and into the trailer. Smiley was barefoot and wearing a pair of cut-off jeans. His bare stomach showed a rambling tattoo of racial stereotypes such as Jews with long noses, Catholics mouthing fish, blacks with big lips and Latinos with sombrero hats. Underneath at the level of his navel, a slogan on a crinkled red white and blue banner stated

  “hot lead yes, hot bread no.”

  The smell in the trailer was a mixture of beer, burned chicken and sweat.

  “When you going to get rid of that battle flag?” Tench asked.

  “Not likely,” replied Smiley. “Makes my little home complete.”

  “You aren’t related to any Confederate soldiers, Smiley. You came from New England.”

  “It’s my adopted nation,” he grinned.

  “Count us too," came a chorus of voices from others sitting around the small table near the stove where Katy was cooking, her hair in a ponytail held with plastic ribbon. Tench didn’t remind them that the nation they swore allegiance to was out of business and had been for a long time.

  “Katy,” Tench said.

  She nodded, turned for a moment and said, “Been saving some chicken for you.” Then she was intent again, carefully adjusting the smoking chicken parts in the fry pan like she was tuning a carburetor.

  At the table were other white men Tench recognized. Leroy Tilghman was a man of brute size and Chuckles Harmony had his traditional sad face. A man he didn’t know, and younger than Smiley and Tench, also sat at the table pulled down from the trailer wall. This man raised his free hand in greeting, his other hand remaining around a half empty longneck.

  “Jimmy, this is Buddy Nichols.” said Smiley, motioning to the man.

  “Pleased to know you,” the man said, his voice gruff. Tench nodded with a smile.

  “Buddy and I do some riding,” said Smiley.

  “One of these days, I’ll ride with you guys,” said Tench. He had not spent much time on the two wheelers. His mechanic friends in Baltimore had been all car people, not motorcycle fans.

  “Hard to get away on the bike,” said Buddy, shifting in his seat so that Tench could sit down. “My wife, she don’t ride with me no more. Likes the car.”

  “Buddy lives on the Island,” said Smiley. “He and his family work one of Strake’s farms.”

  “Lot of activity up there,” Tench said.

  “Too much,” said Buddy. The man’s face had a day’s stubble and his neck was red from the sun.

  “You have a family?” he asked Tench.

  “No, not yet,” Tench replied.

  “He’s got it for Julie Strake,” said Smiley. “Only, she went off and left him lonely. Calls her all the time.”

  “That ain’t good," said Buddy. The others nodded

  “She’s not that bad,” said Tench.

  Smiley added, “Party with them and then let them go, is the best way.”

  “You don’t do that,” said Katy, from the stove area, her voice sarcastic.

  “Sometimes you can’t let them go,” Smiley said, looking at her with a grin.

  “Better not,” said Katy, scraping harder at the fried chicken. “You boys get your plates over here.”

  The seats at the table were hung on bars of steel from a hinge on the trailer wall. Tench moved against the window to allow Katy to sit down next to him. Smiley sat next to his friend, Buddy. Tench picked a plump drumstick. The others filled their plates and for a few minutes the only noise from scraping of plates and chewing.

  Tench could see Smiley’s back yard from the window. He noticed a small shed and a large wooden wall of plywood set back among the trees, with sandbags on both sides. On the plywood Smiley had painted a white and black bull’s eye that was about four feet across. In the center of the bull’s eye the plywood was chewed by many small holes.

  “You got a target range out there,” said Tench, pointing with his chicken leg.

  “I’ll show you about it after we eat,” said Smiley, grinning at Katy who ate with gusto next to him.

  Smiley put down his chicken and said,” I thought you’d like to hear what my friend says about living up at Strake’s place these days.”

  Tench said,” He know that I think Strake’s daughter Julie is missing?”

  Buddy looked down at his plate, “I don’t want no trouble, Smiley. I was just talking.”

  Smiley said, “You told me the noise up there at night shakes the ground sometimes.”

  “What kind of noise?” asked Tench.

  “The noise wakes up my kids in the middle of the night. Like a lot of engines turned on at once,” Buddy said.

  Tench said, “He runs up the cars in the collection. Keeps them tuned that way.”

  “Not cars,” said Buddy.

  “Strake must have over a hundred cars in that barn. I see the containers coming in,” said Tench.

  “I seen them outside when they were painting the floor. Only ten cars,” said Buddy.

  “The other cars must have been left inside.”

  “Don’t’ think so and not at night anyway,” said Buddy. “I had to go up there to see Stagmatter, maybe two weeks ago. Ten cars, maybe eleven, all parked outside with one of Stagmatter's mechanics hosing them down.”

  “Trading up,” said Tench.

  “What do you mean, trading up?” asked Katy.

  Tench explained, “He’ll trade a not so valuable car for a better one. He might end up with fewer cars but the ones he keeps are more valuable.”

  “Yep, I see,” said Buddy, his face blank as if he didn’t really understand.

  Tench didn’t want to explain the intricacies of car auctions to him and the others because he felt he might be betraying Strake’s private business. However, if
Stagmatter was doing this with Strake’s cars, Julie would want to know. She had been worried about this kind of thing, perhaps theft, with her father’s property.

  “Those mechanics too,” said Buddy. “They don’t know much about engines.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “We had a tractor busted, wouldn’t start. Stagmatter and two of his men, they couldn’t get her running. Afterward, I went up and found the damn battery cable that had come loose. Bunch of overpaid fakes if you ask me.”

  Smiley stared at Buddy, Smiley’s fingers idly picking at the remaining chicken on a breast. “My boss thinks his friend’s grandfather was killed up there on the farm.”

  Buddy looked at Tench. “That the little Spaniard’s grandpa? Them Africans got itchy trigger fingers. They shoot at anything.”

  Smiley stood up. “They ain’t coming around here nossir. Come in the back room. I’ll show you boys some guns that make a lot of noise.”

  He led the way to the bedroom. Katie jumped up in front of him.

  “Let me go in there and tidy up,” she said.

  They waited a couple of minutes until Smiley said, “Let’s go on in.”

  Katy gave him a scowl as he brought the men into the bedroom. She was pulling the cover back over the tangled sheets. On the left side of the bed was a shorty pink nightgown and on the built in table at the right was a stack of men’s magazines. One sat opened to pictures of a nude blonde woman about the size and shape of Katy. Katy moved to the table, closed it, and quickly hid the magazines in a drawer.

  Smiley’s hand pointed to the wall above the bed. There on metal hangers was an arsenal of blue and brown gun shapes. At the bottom running across the wall were four revolvers, the middle one Tench recognized as a Colt police model thirty eight. Above the handguns were three rifles, at least one of which was a powerful deer rifle with a scope. The other two were machine guns. One was a World War Two automatic, the kind that was known as a grease gun because it looked like the grease pumping tool. The other was a regulation M16, the light machine gun once used in Vietnam.