Pernicious (18 page)

         
“Hell no!” playfully squeezing her shoulder.

         
A half mile before the bridge that spanned over Fourche Creek, Bob turned on the emergency flashers. Slowing the car to a crawl, he turned off the highway and eased down the grassy knoll toward the footpath that led into Fourche Creek.

         
Bob killed the engine. “He’s running late,” looking at his watch. “He said he’d meet us here at eleven. It’s fifteen after.”

         
“He’s probably come and gone,” Tasha said. “You and him better reschedule, without me next time.”

         
“Detective Montgomery, you’re not letting a little old creek give you the heebie jeebies, are you?”

           
Tasha rolled her window down. An effluvium filled the car. “It sure stinks out here. What is that smell?”

         
“Fish guts, unused bait, trash, you name it. You can’t expect people who are nasty at home to be clean in the great outdoors.” He reached under his seat and retrieved a box of doughnuts. “Want one?” chomping into a jelly doughnut.

         
“No thanks. It stinks out here. I can’t eat.”

         
“Too bad,” grabbing another doughnut.

         
A green Dodge Ram towing a boat pulled in behind them. The front door displayed a picturesque emblem: a duck, a large buck, and a large bass, shadowed by a mountainous landscape.

         
“Here’s our man,” Bob said, getting out.

         
A tall, lean man dressed in camouflaged shirt and pants, spit-shined army boots and a Smokey Bear hat, stepped out of the truck. Below the Smokey, stringy blond hair, a pair of biker’s sunglasses, a spatter of zits, a big nose and a silly grin.
     
A generic Gomer Pyle, Tasha thought.

         
“How do?” he said, his voice squeaky, just like Gomer’s.

         
“Just fine,” Bob said.

         
“Dill Washington. Game Warden Dill Washington. You can call me Dill if you like.” He grinned, as if his name were funny.

         
“Detective Bob Kelvis. Nice to meet you.” The two men shook hands. Bob gestured toward Tasha, staring at them from inside the Taurus. “My partner. Detective Tasha Montgomery.”

         
The man waved at Tasha. She didn’t wave back.

         
“She’s kind of shy,” Bob said.

         
Dill sauntered over to the Taurus and tapped on the window. “Howdy,” lifting the sunglasses to his forehead. “Are you a real detective?”

         
Tasha nodded.

         
“Well, I’ll be dang!”

         
“Hey,” Bob said, “I wouldn’t do that I were you. Let’s get down to business.”

         
“Show your right. First let me back the boat in the water, and we’ll be on our merry way.”

         
“Bob,” Tasha said, exiting the car as Dill backed down the trail.

         
“Yeah.”

         
“What are we doing?”

         
“Getting into a boat.”

         
“With him?”

         
“It’s his boat.”

         
“Bob, is it just me, or does he strike you as someone who idolizes Glenn Beck?”

         
Bob laughed. “He’s a goofy sumbitch, isn’t he?”

         
“We agree there. Why are we getting in a boat with him?”

         
Dill waved at them. “Y’all come on down!”

         
“Come on, Tash,” Bob said. “Don’t let this backwater game warden think you’re chicken. Hell, he’s never seen a female detective before, watch his face go slack when he sees you navigate a boat.”

         
They started toward Dill, standing in ankle-deep water, grinning.

         
“Bob,” Tasha whispered, “why is he grinning?”

         
“I don’t know.”
 

         
At a camouflaged, flat-bottom boat with a Johnson outboard motor, Bob stepped in first, causing the boat to dip low enough to take in water.

         
“Damn!” he said, balancing his large frame near the center. Sitting down he motioned to Tasha. “Come on.”

         
“I’m not sure about this,” Tasha said.

         
Dill laughed. “You can swim, can’t ya?”

         
“I sure can
not
.”

         
“You can’t?” Shocked. “You can become a detective without knowing how to swim? Well, I’ll be dang!”

         
“Maybe I should stay on the bank while you two go ahead.”

         
“Fine with me,” Dill said. “Don’t make me no difference. Uh…” He paused, started chuckling.

         
“What?” Tasha asked.

         
“Water moccasins. The last detective waited on the bank got swallowed up by one of the biggest water moccasin I ever seen. It was this thick.” He patterned a large circle with both hands. “I had to use my truck and a chain to pull him out. Man, what a mess!”

         
Glaring at him, Tasha stepped into the boat. It shifted under her weight and she started to step out when Dill grabbed her under the armpits and urged her forward.

         
“There you go,” he said.

         
“Just relax,” Bob said. “This boat is safe, isn’t it, Dill?”

         
Dill pulled hairs on his large Adam’s apple. “Sort of and sorta not of.”

         
“Meaning?” Tasha asked.

         
He started to explain but Bob cut him off. “Warden Dill, why don’t we get started?”

         
“Yeah. I gotta pull the truck up,” he said, and sloshed off.

         
“Bob, how much do you weigh?” Tasha asked.

         
“Between two hundred and two-fifty, give or take a few ounces. Why?”

         
“I weigh a buck forty. Our tour guide looks a buck seventy-five, plus your three hundred, and that’s, uh, six hundred and fifteen pounds!”

         
“I’m coming!” Dill shouted, running toward them, carrying a double-barrel shotgun.

         
“What the hell he need a shotgun for?” Bob said.

         
“Water moccasins…I hope.”

         
“Let’s do it,” Dill said, “with do-it fluid.” He pushed the boat into deeper water before jumping in.

         
“Why the shotgun?” Tasha asked, forgetting her concern about the boat’s weight limitation.

         
“Just in case.”

         
“Just in case what?”

         
Dill didn’t answer. He fetched two wooden paddles out of a side compartment and handed one to Tasha, who in turn handed it to Bob. “We gon’ hafta paddle,” he said.

         
“How far?” Bob said, paddling through muddy water.

         
“Not too far. Just a bit up yonder.”

         
“Would you please explain to me,” Tasha said, “why you need a shotgun?”

         
Rowing and grinning, Dill said, “Every now and again I meet someone deaf and dumb. I tell em to stop and they keep going. Had an old boy the other day--he knew he’d caught his limit--told him to stop, you know, real nice-like. ‘Sir, would you stop?’

         
“He looked at me like I was a dyke with a bloated lip, let out a hoot and holler and hauled ass, paddling like crazy. We were in the stumps--I couldn’t use the motor. Wasn’t a race, old boy left me by a mile. Now I carry this.” He held up the shotgun.

         
“You intend to shoot someone who caught the limit in catfish?” Bob asked.

         
“Nope. We can’t do that. I asked em, and they said don’t do that. Wish we could, though. What I plan to do is catch a fellow’s attention. He hears this baby and there’s one of two things he’s gonna do: foul his Fruit of the Looms or stop. Either way I’m happy.”

         
“Dill,” Tasha said, “does Arkansas Game and Fish require applicants to pass a psychological profile?”

         
“You wanna hear her scream?” Dill said, grinning.

         
“Excuse me?” Tasha said.

         
“You wanna hear her cut loose? Bobbi, my shotgun?”

         
Bob and Tasha shook their heads.

         
Despite unanimous objection, Game Warden Dill Washington pointed his shotgun at the water and fired…Kaboooooooom!…A split second later, another: Kabooooooom!…A flock of crows lifted uniformly and flew off in different directions…A series of splashes resonated near and far, animals of all scales and stripes seeking safety below the water.

         
The various insects that hummed and buzzed before the blasts were conspicuously silent. The only sound Tasha heard now was her heart thumping.

         
“Would you not do that?” Bob said.

         
Dill gave Bob a goofy grin and laid the shotgun down.

         
A few minutes later, Dill said, “Hold up. We’re ‘bout here.”
         
“This the spot?” Bob asked.

         
“Yup,” Dill said. “The body was floating right about here.” He pointed at an area a few feet away, thick with algae and lily pads. The boat rocked against a cypress tree stump and made a loud screech.

         
“Was the water this murky that day?” Bob asked.

         
“I believe so,” Dill said.

         
“In your expert opinion,” Bob said, “would this be the ideal place to fish?”

         
“Not hardly. You can go farther down and the water clears up.”

         
“How was the body positioned?”

         
“What you mean?”

         
“On its back or facedown?”

         
“Belly. This colored woman found him; she could have turned him over, but I doubt it. She was all shook up, just a shivering and shaking like a wet pup. I asked her, ‘You ain’t never seen no dead man before?’ and she went to screaming and hollering like I’d showed her my private credentials.”