Grave Undertaking (13 page)

At eleven-fifteen, I pulled into the parking lot of what had once been a Pure service station. The pumps were gone, but the cracked cement islands still marked their spot. A windowless, plywood addition had been built out of the double garage bays and
The Last Resort
scrawled across it with all the care of New York subway graffiti. I doubted the designers spent much time debating the font style.

In Laurel County, we have a bar called Clyde’s Roadside. Its cheap beer, all-encompassing menu of peanuts and beef jerky, and full-volume jukebox are the qualities that make it a watering hole for the locals. You would never confuse it with the bar at Asheville’s famed Grove Park Inn unless you had come directly to Clyde’s from The Last Resort.

Outside flood lamps fixed to the building’s corners provided illumination. The Saturday night crowd nearly filled the plowed gravel lot with cars and pickups, but the temperature was too cold for patrons to lean on hoods or tailgates and swig beer and swap lies. All the action was inside.

I stayed in the light as I crossed to the front door. Extra slogans had been painted under the arc of The Last Resort sign. “We don’t care how you did it up north!” was ever popular with this crowd. “What do you call a Yankee with a pension? A Floridian.” Nice spot for Sammy Calhoun to hang out. His New York accent had to have come across like asking for grits in William Tecumseh Sherman’s chow line.

I could hear the bass beat of some country song blaring through the door. I patted my shirt pocket to make sure Calhoun’s picture was still there. The shot of Susan and Sammy grinning in front of the Biltmore House like they owned the mansion had pained me a little. But she said it was the only one she could find.

I opened the door slowly in case someone tumbled out. Another slogan greeted me. “Your sh*t is our bread and butter!—Po’ Boy Plumbers.” Catchy. I wondered if it looked as good in the Yellow Pages as on the yellow tee shirt of the long-haired local swaying in front of me.

Now that I was inside, the basic fact that I had no plan meant I had no next move other than look around. The décor on the walls consisted of vintage auto product posters mixed with license plates dating back to the Fifties. Some of the bar customers might have made them.

Most of the tables had been created from telephone line spools upended with oil cloth draped over them. A token of the season could be found in the frayed silver garlands tying the cloth around the spindle of each table.

I estimated the size of the crowd to be between forty and fifty, counting the line sitting along the bar. The structure had a certain uniqueness, charm being too complimentary a description. The bar consisted of an oak tree split lengthwise and laid in cradles. Rough bark sheathed the underside and coats of shellac built an uneven glaze on the surface. No women occupied the barstools. I noticed only a few sprinkled among the tables, arms linked with a boyfriend.

The talk was loud, spirited, and jumped from table to table so fast I knew everybody knew everybody else. This was the membership requirement for those whose only access to a country club would always be the delivery entrance.

Ages ranged from early twenties to a seventy-plus guy in a corner debating with himself. The man working behind the bar looked about fifty. He carried on three conversations simultaneously while popping bottles and pulling drafts. He scanned the room frequently, watching for warning signs of a spontaneous argument about to become a brawl. When I caught his eye, he nodded, and I took that as an invitation to introduce myself.

I maneuvered to the nearer end of the bar and yelled “Bud” at him. He pulled a mug from a hook in the ceiling, filled it with a fair ratio of beer to foam, and walked over.

“Two bucks,” he said. “We don’t run no credit.”

“Hard to get your product back once I’ve used it.”

“Not in a form even these pissers would drink,” he said, and took a quick glance around the room. “Course, there’s just the plain fun of beating it out of you.”

I reached into my pocket and took my time pulling out the bills I’d folded there. My wallet was safely locked in the jeep in case I stuck my nose into trouble two nights in a row. The bartender grew annoyed until he watched me slip an extra five on the two.

“You buying two and a half beers in advance?” He knew I wanted something. Tips were few and far between in this dive.

“Two and a half questions.”

“What’s half a question?”

“One I get to ask but you don’t have to answer.”

He nodded. “Don’t expect much. People come here to get lost, not found.”

“I’ve already found this person, or what was left of him. How long have you worked here?”

Someone shouted “Mike, beer here!”

“Hold your horses,” yelled the bartender, waving off the customer. He turned back to me. “That one of the questions?”

“Sure.”

“Eleven years.”

I slipped the photograph out of my shirt pocket and held it up to him, keeping my thumb over Susan. I didn’t even want her picture in the scuzzy place. “This guy hung out here for awhile, about seven or eight years ago.”

“Yeah, I remember him. So what?”

I pulled the picture back before he could study it closer. “This guy have any friends here? He was a New Yorker, and from the signs out front, I’d say he might not have been popular.”

“He bought drinks for some of the regulars.” Mike the bartender laughed. “This is an old gas station. Like cars, you keep people oiled and they don’t squawk.”

Annette Nolan’s words rang in my head—“Claimed he was lubricating a source.”

“And the names of the people he bought drinks for?” I asked.

Mike grinned. “That’s the half question I don’t have to answer.”

“You’re right,” I said, and slid my hand out of my pocket again. I opened my fist enough for him to see the fifty. “You don’t have to tell me anything. But I’d be much obliged if you would. Names and why he might be interested in them.”

Mike leaned across the bar and whispered, “This is the guy they dug up at Eagle Creek, ain’t it?”

“This is the guy I dug up at Eagle Creek. You have any information or should I bury President Ulysses S. Grant back in my pocket?”

As I moved my hand, he grabbed my wrist.

“I only remember one person he was tight with. Skeeter Gibson.”

“He here?” I asked, keeping my voice as low as his.

“Nope. Saturday night Skeeter’s at the courthouse.”

“Courthouse? You mean the jail? Is he a weekend drunk?”

“Nah, he’s a full-time drunk and part-time night watchman. Good thing he’s Sheriff Ewbanks’ cousin or he’d lost even that job years ago.” He lifted the bill from my hand.

My neck tingled. Sammy Calhoun had been right. The Last Resort was a gold mine, and I’d just found my mother lode.

Chapter 14

At nine the next morning, I called Tommy Lee. As a regular churchgoer, he should have been somewhere between a shower and breakfast.

“He’s not here,” said his wife Patsy. “Kenny, Samantha, and I will see him at church. Can I give him a message?”

“Is he on duty?” I asked.

She laughed. “He wishes. He’s singing in the choir and has a special rehearsal.”

“I didn’t know he was in the choir.”

“Just started a couple weeks ago. He arrested Stu Callahan on a fourth DUI. Now Stu’s in weekend lockup and Tommy Lee got coerced by our preacher to sing Stu’s bass part. A solo. I’ve never seen him so scared.”

Tommy Lee scared? If so, a few musical notes on a page had finally done what the Viet Cong and our resident bad guys couldn’t. “Should I show up for moral support?”

“Good gracious, no,” Patsy said. “That would push him over the edge. And don’t you tell him I said he was scared.”

“Okay, but if he’s wearing angel wings and a halo, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I’m afraid a red choir robe is as holy looking as Tommy Lee gets,” she said. “Kenny offered to make a matching eye patch. That went over real well.” Patsy thought for a second. “You might just catch him on his cell phone before he gets to church. You have my permission to give him something else to worry about.”

“Thanks, Patsy. Ask him to call me if I haven’t reached him.”

“And remind him to turn off his phone,” she instructed. “With his luck, it’ll ring during his solo and he’ll answer it.”

I dialed his number from memory. Tommy Lee spoke a gruff hello. It wasn’t a joyful noise.

“Patsy said I could bother you.”

“She tell you why I have to be at church an hour early?”

“Something about serving Stu Callahan’s sentence.”

He laughed so hard I was afraid he’d lose control of his car.

“You got that right. He did the crime, I’m doing the time.” Then Tommy Lee grasped at a straw. “Why are you calling? Please tell me it’s an emergency only I can handle.”

“Sorry, pal,” I said. “Strictly information. Ever hear of a guy named Skeeter Gibson?”

“No. Can he sing bass?”

“I need to get him to sing about Sammy Calhoun. Calhoun bought him drinks at a joint called The Last Resort. He’s a security guard at the Walker County Courthouse, and he’s Sheriff Ewbanks’ cousin.”

“Never heard of him,” said Tommy Lee. “Bridges might know something.”

“Would you check with him today? I want to talk to this Gibson as soon as I can.”

“Sure,” said Tommy Lee. “Right after church.”

“You mean right after your encore.”

He hung up on me.

The parking lot behind the Walker County Courthouse was a black void fringed with a wall of dirty gray snow. A sign under a sodium vapor lamp at the entrance directed traffic to different ends. One way led to the courts and county administration building, a domed structure from the 1920s, the typical courthouse gracing town squares across the South. The other direction was for the law enforcement center with subcategories of municipal police, the Sheriff’s Department, and the Walker County jail. I could make out several tan cruisers parked near a building complex resembling an aluminum beehive. A ring of small apertures on the third floor must have been jail cell windows.

I chose to park near the courthouse, sliding my jeep between a van equipped to transport the handicapped and a herd of meter maid scooters.

It was a few minutes after eight on Sunday night. Bridges had told Tommy Lee that Skeeter Gibson worked a three to eleven shift. The man was a joke to his job and an embarrassment to his cousin, but Ewbanks had promised his mother to watch out for her dead sister’s only child. The sheriff had tried everything to give his alcoholic relative a break. Gibson had first been hired as a jailer, but too many incidents of open cells and open whiskey bottles had demoted him to guarding empty offices.

I reached under the seat for the brown bag sheathing a sealed pint of Wild Turkey. No ABC stores were open on Sunday, so I’d raided my father’s liquor cabinet that hadn’t been touched in five years. If Skeeter Gibson needed lubricating, I wanted a good supply of oil, and Wild Turkey was premium grade. I had no doubt Skeeter Gibson wouldn’t at least offer a bit of conversation in exchange for a pull on the bottle.

The ramp to the courthouse entrance nearest my car glowed with an eerie aura breaking through from snow-covered walk lamps. The interior of the building shone faintly in the light of exit signs and widely spaced fluorescents that provided just enough illumination to navigate the halls.

I peered through the pane, hoping to rap on the glass when Skeeter made his rounds close to the door. I was prepared to wait until my thermos of coffee ran out or plunging temperatures forced me back to the jeep. Almost as an afterthought, I yanked on the brass handle of the double door. To my surprise, it clicked open. Skeeter Gibson was living down to his reputation.

The damp rubber soles of my shoes squeaked as I walked the corridor. I made no effort to quiet the sound because I didn’t want to sneak up on a half-tanked man who carried a firearm. When I stepped under the dome and into the main rotunda, I decided to risk calling my quarry. Even if someone else answered, I was ready with the cover story that I’d pulled into the lot with car trouble.

“Hello,” I shouted. “Anybody here?”

My voice came back from the curved canopy overhead and vanished down the hallways. No answer returned. I went to the front doors, looking for a guard station where Gibson might be sleeping. A gunmetal desk sat unoccupied with the Sunday Asheville Citizen-Times spread open to the sports section. I noticed a wet spill on the NBA box scores. A quick sniff identified the source as cheap booze.

Maybe Skeeter was on rounds in one of the upper level wings. I could wait at the desk or I could explore.

The layout of the government complex sparked an idea that fit with Calhoun’s tease to Cassie and Annette. He had said the scandal was in the criminal justice system, not simply the jail. Prisoners could be easily walked to the courthouse, a building more deserted in the evenings and yet still accessible by someone like Skeeter. He had even been a jailer at the time of Calhoun’s murder. If sex for favorable treatment had occurred, the liaisons might have happened here rather than in a cell or interview room, either of which could be called into use anytime. I doubted I’d catch anyone in flagrante delicto unless Calhoun’s snooping hadn’t deterred the participants. Still, I decided to look around.

Three hallways intersected the rotunda. I had come in from the rear and that corridor had nothing but tax offices, the Register of Deeds, and other paperwork factories jammed with computers, cubicles, and file cabinets. I walked down the west wing, which ran along the right side of the building. The prosecutors’ offices were on the front with the end suite assigned to District Attorney Darden Claiborne. I jiggled a few of the door handles, but they were all locked.

Across the hall, a bronze plaque beside double doors identified the Senator Hugh Richards courtroom. Enough tarnish had formed that I knew the tribute hadn’t been made in the week since his death. Senator Richards must have had the honor bestowed several years ago. Funny how he kept crossing my life.

One of the doors was cracked open several inches. I slipped inside and found there was just enough light to see walls of fine wood paneling and a judicial bench that would have intimidated Perry Mason. This was a courtroom in the grand sense, and I walked down the aisle with reverential appreciation for its history.

The carpet muffled my footsteps. I heard only the ragged whisper of an antiquated heating system and a rhythmic buzz that grew louder as I approached the bench.

Snoring. The unmistakable sound vibrated through the back wall. I noticed a broad black seam along one of the panels and realized it had to be a door left ajar. Although my eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, the room beyond was too dark to see anything.

I pushed the door open wider, merging its creak with the raspy snores. If the sleeper awoke, he would now see my body outlined against the courtroom, a silhouetted target. Searching for a light, I used my left hand to feel along the paneling inside the doorjamb. My fingers found a double faceplate, and I flipped up both switches simultaneously.

Overhead, fluorescent fixtures hummed as the tubes came to life, their greenish-white glow illuminating walls of law books, a mammoth desk with a scarred surface cleared of everything except a leather-bound blotter and telephone, and to my left, a long leather sofa bearing the body of a man. He lay flat on his back, black shoes propped up on the padded armrest near me and his head lolled against the far one.

His tan shirt and trousers were a spiderweb of wrinkles, and one missing button above his belt buckle revealed a dingy undershirt. The green plastic nametag, askew over his chest pocket, read
GIBSON
.

The narrow visor of his hat covered his eyes, and unshaven stubble covered his chin. His holstered revolver was wedged between the cushions so deep he’d have to roll over to reach it. His right arm bent back against the sofa and his left dangled to the floor. A silver flask lay a few inches from his fingertips. He was scrawny and smelly, a pathetic excuse for a law officer.

I kicked the bottom of his shoe. “Hey, buddy,” I shouted, “you okay?”

He snorted and jerked his head up. His hat tumbled off and his bleary brown eyes struggled to focus.

I held out my hands to show empty palms. “It’s cool, man,” I said. “I’m just looking for some help.”

He swung his legs around and sat up, shaking his head in a losing effort to think. He reached down and nudged the flask under the sofa, and then looked at me, squinting against the light. “You hurt?”

I realized he wasn’t so intoxicated that he couldn’t see Stony McBee’s handiwork.

“Walked into a door.”

To a drunk, the answer made perfect sense.

“What do you want?”

“Can you believe my car overheated? It’s twenty degrees outside and the radiator’s boiling over.”

He looked to the desk. “Need the phone?”

“No. Used my cell. A friend’s driving over from Gainesboro. But I can’t run the heater without the engine. Glad the building was open. I was getting cold.” I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the Wild Turkey. “Mind if I take the chill off?”

His eyes stared at the bottle as if it would disappear if he looked away. “Nah,” he whispered.

I broke the seal, unscrewed the top, and tipped the bottle back. Although the motion was exaggerated, I let very little of the liquor into my mouth. After a noisy swallow, I wiped my other hand across my lips like the cowboys in the movies. “You want a nip?”

Without waiting for him to answer, I walked over and handed him the whiskey. He grabbed it with a trembling hand and took three quick swallows. I eased into a side chair in front of the bookcases. Gibson clutched the bottle as he leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes.

I knew there was a good chance he’d drink himself back into a stupor. Interrogating an unconscious man was beyond even my police training. The dilemma was to extract information without coming on so strong I spooked him or waiting too long and watching him pass out.

“When do you get off?” I asked.

He opened his eyes and looked down to make sure he still had the bottle. “What’s it to you?” he mumbled.

“I might need to be here awhile. My friend’s at a party. If somebody else is coming on duty, he might not be as considerate as you are.”

Gibson took another hit. “Relax. It’s just me.”

“Guess Sunday nights are pretty dead,” I said.

He took a deep breath, but didn’t answer. I was going to have to jump-start the conversation soon or listen to his snoring again.

“Course, I guess something’s always going on over at the jail.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “The jail.”

“You work over there as well?”

He shook his head. “Use to. I like it quiet.”

“Officer Gibson, right?”

He looked at me, surprised that I called his name, oblivious that I could read it on his chest. “I know you?”

“From The Last Resort,” I said. “Somebody introduced us once.”

He blinked a few times, and I knew he didn’t have a clue as to whether I told the truth.

“Take as much of the Wild Turkey as you want,” I said. “Won’t find that behind Mike’s bar.”

He grinned and tipped the bottle toward me. “Yeah, now I remember you.”

“My buddy said if I ever needed to meet a woman, Skeeter Gibson was the man to see.” I winked at him. “He said you had a whole stable of fillies locked up and waiting.” The cowboy lingo sounded a bit much to my ear, but the drunk grinned.

“Some of them wimmen,” he slurred, “some of them wimmen let you know right quick what they’d do for a break.”

“That’s what I heard. Guess you have to be careful they don’t try to use it against you.”

“Against me?” he said, and took another heavy swallow. “Shit, I know how to cover my ass.” He leaned forward and tried to focus on my face. “Give ya some advice. Always make sure somebody else has farther to fall, and they know you can take ’em with you.” He knocked back the bottle again until it was two-thirds gone.