A Pair of Second Chances (Ben Jensen Series Book 1) (36 page)

"A shower?" Amanda questioned? "I thought you said you scrubbed till your skin was raw? Up there on the mountain?"

"Well, Darlin'" Ben leered at her; "I didn't have anyone to scrub my back, up there!"

Amanda had taken a sip of water just as he spoke, and spewed it across the table, all over Ben. "You are a lecherous old demon!" she said, still choking on the water.

Ben sat there with a wide eyed grin. "Yes Ma'am." He replied; "That I am!"

Still chuckling, but his confidence growing, Ben listened to the voice mail one more time, to get the number the Police Lieutenant had left.

He dialed it and waited as the phone rang, two, three, four times. He was about to hang up when a man answered; "Lt. Sheinaker."

"Are you sure?" Ben queried.

"Sure? Of who I am? Yeah, I think so Mr." the man growled. "Who in hell am I speaking to?"

"Well, I'm the cowboy you folks have plastered all over the TV, at least from what my daughter tells me. I've not seen a TV yet. According to her you seem to think I'm some sort of wild eyed, gun slingin', super man." Ben retorted; "My name is Ben Jensen."

"Jensen!" the lieutenant exclaimed. Ben could hear the hard rap of what sounded like a chair hitting the floor. The vision of a man leaning back in a chair, his feet on his desk, the front legs off the floor and then slamming down hard as the man sat up suddenly, went through his mind.

"Where the hell are you Jensen? I need to talk to you!" the officer demanded.

"Me? I'm rollin' down the road up by Choteau... and I'm needin' to talk to you too! You bozos got my Daughter havin' seizures with the baloney you've plastered all over the TV. You boys actually do this for a livin'?" Ben chided the man, sounding incredulous. Warming to the game, Ben was actually starting to have a little fun with it.

Amanda sat across the table in stunned silence, her mouth hanging open at his sheer audacity. The man never ceased to amaze her.

"Where are you? We'll come get you." Sheinaker demanded again.

"Aw take a breath deputy. You'll give yourself a hemorrhage or something. Where are you at? I'll just come on by in the morning and we'll settle this all out. Why'd I bother to call you if there was anything real in that nonsense you boys are peddling? I'd just stay gone, wouldn't I? Get real man, you boys really blew it with this one!" Ben made sure the officer could hear him laughing.

Sheinaker, knowing he had little leverage at this point, and yielding to the sense Ben had made told him; "State Police Headquarters in Helena."

Ben knew he'd better not hang on too long or they'd have a chance of locking down a pretty good location on him, so he finished the call with; "In the morning L.T.!" and shut off his phone.

Amanda told him; "You've got brass Ben." Grinning, she made the gesture of a pair of large grapefruit, with her hands. "Great Big Shiny Ones!"

"Yes Ma'am... Now... about my back?" he asked.

Chapter
37

The old green pickup left a blue smokescreen behind it as it rattled and belched it's way through the city of Helena. It turned into the parking lot behind the offices of the State Police at just after nine in the morning.

Ben pushed his way through the glass doors and limped as he stepped up to a female Sgt. at the desk just inside the doors.

"Can I help you she asked?" a look of surprise filled her eyes as recognition dawned.

"Yeah, uh... I'm supposed to have a conversation with a Lt. Sheinaker here this morning?" Ben responded. "Could you point me in the right direction?"

She stumbled on her words in answering; "Lt. Shein... uh Sheinaker... yes... just uh... take that elevator" she said, pointing at the pair of elevator doors in the wall behind her. "Third floor. Just turn left when the doors open. His name is on the door... I'm sure someone will show you" she rushed to add, as Ben stepped toward the elevators.

She was right about that. She must have been on the phone as the doors were closing, because when they opened, three floors later, a half dozen officers were waiting.

They surged through the doors as they parted. As one hit the stop button, two grabbed his arms, spun him and shoved him up against the rear wall of the car, while a fourth pressed his hand hard in the middle of Ben's back. The remaining two couldn't find room to do much else, so they just crowded in behind the others, just wanting to take part.

Ben was quickly cuffed and searched. The most dangerous thing they found on him was the ball point pen in his pocket.

"Be careful with that!" he warned. "It's one of those brand new ones. It'll write under water! I just bought it at Walmart and it's loaded!" He stood there with a silly, wide grin on his face as one of the officers hollered at him to; "Be quiet boy! You're in enough trouble already!"

"Yeah you're right" Ben agreed. "Man shouldn't be allowed to walk the streets of Helena with a loaded, ball point pen!"

He laughed out loud. "Jesus! You folks have all gone stark, raving mad!"

"Here he is Lieutenant, its Ben Jensen sir." An officer handed the man Ben's wallet with his driver's license showing. Two other State troopers stood flanking Ben, tightly gripping his cuffed arms.

"Yeah, L.T." Ben spoke to him with the military acronym. "Better watch out, or I'll get loose and write dirty words in your report book!" Again Ben laughed out loud. "Damn! I crack myself up sometimes!"

"Watch your mouth Jensen. I already warned you once." The officer who'd warned him to be quiet, repeated his warning.

"Oh shut up asshole." Ben snapped back. "I can't help it if you Yahoos ran off on some monkey humpin' wild goose chase. I don't know how you somehow came to the knot headed conclusion that a drunked up, broken down, wore out, Montana cowboy was some new fangled super vigilante."

"It ain't my fault that now you're all embarrassed, and wonderin' what the hell? I can see that the truth is startin' to sink into those peeeee sized brains ya'll run around with rattlin' between your ears. I realize you're all comin' to understand that the whole damn world is gonna see ya'll are nuthin' but a bunch of stumblin', Barney Fife, keystone cop, Montana morons! It is embarrassing. But the fact that your momma's bred a litter of idiots, ain't my fault." The anger in Ben's voice echoed with a sincerity that almost made him laugh... just, almost.

"All right!" a new voice thundered. "Everybody shut the fuck up in my squad room!" The new voice belonged to Lt. John Sheinaker. He was the man assigned by the Commanding Officer of the State Police to head the investigation. The State Police were under growing pressure from the Governor. The state's Chief Executive was fearful of what seemed to be a drug war in Montana. Sheinaker's orders were simple; "Button this thing up, and get it done fast!"

With twelve dead Jamaicans, late of Chicago, in three separate locations across the state, and little to no hard evidence, the investigation now centered on Ben Jensen. Their only person of interest was a widowed, nearly bankrupt, aging, reported chronically drunk, rancher; and three hitch veteran of the United States Army.

"Jensen? You gonna be a problem here?" Sheinaker's voice again thundered across the room.

"Look L.T., did I call you? Did I say I'd be here this morning? Am I here? Have I done anything more than do what I promised you I would? So I wounded the pride of these high grade dog catchers, big deal. Sue me. Jesus L.T. you boys are acting like a bunch of bullyin' runts on the playground! I wasn't impressed then, and I ain't now! You make up your own damn mind!" Ben replied.

"Ok... Ok... take the cuffs off him, put him in interrogation 1. I'll be right there Jensen. We'll find out who's impressed with what!" Sheinaker commanded.

The two officers herded him down the hallway to a door with a small, one way glass window and pushed him thru. They didn't remove the cuffs until he was in the room and the door was closed, with several other officers outside.

"Many thanks girls" Ben told them as he sat in the plastic chair beside the small table in the room. "You girls really need to cool out some. You're gonna get a rash!" his laugh just made them glare ever more.

Ben raised his hands as if to ward off a blow. "Sorry. Don't hurt me girls. I didn't realize I'd hurt your feelings. I'll just sit here and be quiet." He sat back and met their glare with his wide eyed, innocent grin.

More than five minutes later the door was opened by one of the officers standing outside to admit Lt. Sheinaker. He entered carrying a thick manila folder in one hand and two cups of coffee in the other. He told the two officers guarding Ben to leave as he walked over and sat down. He tossed the file onto the table and set down the cups. He picked up one and nodded to Ben to take the other.

He sat, looking at Ben silently, for many long seconds.

"Is this where I break down and start crying out my confession about how I raped the Pope, cleaned the gold out of Fort Knox, and stole the peanuts out of the M&M's? All 'cause you sat over there, starin' at me with those purty blue eyes of yours?" Ben asked, that lopsided grin still creasing his face.

"Smart ass all the way, eh?" Sheinaker spit at him.

"Eh? Damn, didn't take you for a kanuck L.T.!" Ben told him, still grinning.

"Ok, can the bull shit. Let's get down to it." Sheinaker sat up straight and opened the file folder in front of him. Several, 8x10 glossy, color photos topped the stack. One by one the Lieutenant picked them up and laid them out across the table in front of him.

"The first three all killed at a cabin near Ennis." Sheinaker laid out the chronology as he lined up the photographs.

"These" he dropped two more, a photo of a man with a bloody slash on his neck and the other with two round holes in his forehead, and what looked to Ben like much of the back of his head missing; "At a house just a few miles outside Helena."

"And these," Sheinaker laid down seven photographs of also, obviously deceased men; "At an ambush site fifty miles or so, southwest of here. All twelve from a known drug smuggling ring operating out of Chicago."

Ben looked over the photographs and then up at the police lieutenant. The blank, emotionless mask, had descended over his face, once again.

"So? You mind explaining how this has any thing to do with me L.T.? Hell, I don't see my picture anywhere here!" Ben reached out with one hand and shuffled the pictures around. "Is that all you got? Some photographs of guys that, let's be honest here, don't look much like choir boys? So, apparently they went and got somebody, really pissed with 'em, and then you boys go to doin' some pretty creative story tellin' and try to hang this on me? How'd you even come up with my name? Hell what'd you guys do? Just open the phone book and pick out a name? Jesus!" Ben sat back and just stared at the lieutenant.

"Look smart ass. We've got a waitress in Red Lodge that claims these men" he picked up the photos of those killed near Ennis, "told her they'd had an altercation of some sort with you."

"We've got statements from several people that they subsequently were asking around about the whereabouts of your ranch."

"We've got statements from the doctors at the hospital in Columbus that these men" he shook the three photographs at Ben, his voice rising a notch; "came into the emergency room with rope burns, contusions, and horse tracks all over them! What have you got to say to that?"

"Well damn L.T.! You girls have been busy. Yeah, I had words with 'em some time back. I was pushin' horses up above the lodge pole, more'n a week ago. Came on them fellers givin' a lady a real hard time in the camp ground up there. When I asked 'em nice to behave themselves, why, they got right nasty about it and told me to mind my own business. Fact is one of 'em even started to pull a pistol on me!" Ben said with mock shock.

"I'm listening Jensen." Sheinaker said.

"Well sir, we had us a little go 'round for a minute or two. But then the lady told me she was ok and I rode away. And just to say it, so it's on the video I'm sure you're makin' of our lil' conversation, from what you tell me the Doctors have told you, those boys were alive and well, if scuffed up a mite, some hours after the last time I ever saw 'em!"

"So, where's the witness that saw me runnin' around with the machine gun ya'll think I used to cut those boys down with? I got a right to be confronted with my accuser don't I?" Ben demanded. "Bring him in here. I'd like to meet that fool."

"It wasn't a machine gun" Sheinaker said smiling, he had the idea that this would shake this cowboys cocky attitude.

"No? What then?" Ben asked innocently

"A thirty thirty! You've got one of those don't you Jensen?" The officer thought everyone in Montana owned at least one, thirty thirty lever gun.

Ben had raised the cup to his mouth when Sheinaker made the revelation about the rifle. He choked on his coffee in his attempt to not spew all over the table. He coughed and choked and sputtered for several seconds, coffee running down his chin and dripping onto his shirt.

When he'd regained some composure, Ben exclaimed; "You've got to be fucking kidding me! That, is your story? THAT, is what you're gonna take to the press and the world? A beat up, drunken old fart of a cowboy, went at it with, what? a heavily armed drug gang, with a fucking thirty thirty? Took 'em on in three different locations did you say? And greased the whole damn lot of 'em? With nuthin' but a thirty thirty? With not one, single, solitary, witness?... and to top it off, this super cowboy hasn't got a scratch on his ass?... AND, you captured him when he walked into your office to find out why you were maligning his character all over the state of Montana?! Jeeeeesus Chur-ist! Are you sure ya'll are in the right line of business L.T.? Ya'll should think about writin' childrens books. Fairy... Fucking... Tales!" Ben sat back and looked at him with that adopted look of indignation and disbelief he was quickly perfecting.

"And, just to answer your question, No, I don't own a thirty thirty. Not in four, maybe five years. If you want to get your shorts in a knot and waste state money testing guns, there is a damn nice AR-10 behind the seat in my old truck out in the parking lot. Have fun trying to match that to your crumpled bullets!" Ben told him