The American Café Read online

  John wiped his face again. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “I'll get these guns back to you in a couple of days,” said Lance. “How long are you going to be in town?”

  John stared into the distance. “I don't know. I imagine my job's already gone over at the pie factory.”

  “Is that where you work? Mrs. Smith's in Stilwell?”

  John nodded.

  “Well, you might want to give them a call. I'm sure they'd understand with a death in the family and all.”

  John nodded again. “Yeah, sure.”

  The locusts had already begun humming their nightly serenade when Lance placed the shotguns in the trunk of his vehicle and headed back toward Liberty. As he guided the cruiser back up Billy Goat Hill, he thought about John Mobley the alcoholic, and about what had happened to John Mobley the Marine. Not every man was good enough to be a Marine. Being a former Marine himself, he knew that. Sadly enough, the shell of a man he had just left sitting in the middle of a junk heap was most likely the direct result of his experiences in the Corps—a classic case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lance knew firsthand there was no cure for PTSD. He also knew John was going to need a lot of help before he could ever learn to live with it.

  As Lance pulled up in front of the police station, he could see Red walking down the sidewalk, a black-and-tan hound following close behind. Lance popped the release on the car's trunk, got out, and began unloading John Mobley's shotguns.

  Red and his four-legged companion arrived a few moments later and offered to help. Red took two of the shotguns, one under each arm, and followed Lance up the steps. The dog followed the two men to the door, stopped, and sat on the threshold.

  Lance laid the guns across the desk and motioned for Red to do the same. Then he turned to close the door. “Who's your buddy, there, Red?”

  Red smiled and nodded. “That's Judy. She's been following me around town all day.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Judy is everyone's friend the day after a coon hunt,” he chuckled. “She belongs to Jake Youngblood. Don't worry. One of Jake's boys will show up before long to get her.”

  “Hmmm.” Lance raised one eyebrow, contemplating the idiosyncrasies of small-town life. Everybody knew everyone else's business, down to the visiting habits of their coon dogs. “I see.”

  As if the dog understood her place, she walked back down the steps, circled twice, and slid down against the wall next to the stairs. Lance shook his head and closed the door.

  “Say, you're going to be at the gospel singing Thursday night, aren't you?” asked Red.

  “Why do you ask? You need a ride?”

  “No, I'm going with some of the singers. Creeks don't miss too many meals.”

  Lance grinned.

  Red nodded at the gun collection. “Did you make a big bust somewhere?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Red patiently waited.

  Finally Lance decided to elaborate to see what Red's reaction would be. “John Mobley's,” he said.

  “What'd he do?”

  “I don't know that he's done anything. I'm still trying to piece together what happened to Goldie Ray.”

  “Seems to me that was fairly apparent.”

  Lance didn't respond as he pulled the notebook out of his pocket and tore out a few pages. He scribbled on each one before attaching it to a gun.

  “Thought Pearl confessed and you already had the murder weapon…and the shell casing.” Red thought for a moment. “I guess that means they didn't match up.”

  Lance remained silent.

  “Why did you need to bring in all of these guns? The shell casing is from a 20-gauge. It can only be tested against these.” Red pointed at the two middle-sized shotguns on the desk.

  “You are very astute, old timer.”

  “I'm not as old as I look.”

  About that time, George Stump walked through the door, pulled off his hat, and hung it in its usual place on the nail by the door. “I wish Youngblood would teach his coon dogs to go home instead of lounging around in downtown Liberty.” Then the shotguns caught his attention. “Hell of a cache, Smith. Somebody must be sorry they ran into you.” He picked up the .410, raised it to eye level, and pointed it out the window. “This is a dandy little piece. Did you confiscate it? We get to keep it?”

  “Not exactly,” said Lance as he searched the chief's face, assessing the seriousness of his comment. “I'm getting ready to put these in the property locker.”

  Stump frowned as Lance proceeded to move the guns into the back room and into the gun safe.

  A few minutes later, the sound of Judy's barking mixed with the grumbling sound of an old truck with squeaky brakes could be heard outside. Red jumped up and hurried toward the door. “Got to go. Sounds like my ride.”

  Lance closed the gun safe and followed him outside and onto the sidewalk. He watched as Red got in the front seat of Elmer Youngblood's old blue truck and sat next to Judy, the hunting dog.

  “See you Thursday.” Red waved as Elmer backed out and drove off.

  16

  When the alarm on his clock radio kicked on the fuzzy sounds of a country music station at 5:00 a.m., Lance was already awake. Questions had churned all night about Goldie Ray's murder and he'd visited every possible scenario of her death—some while he lay awake, others in his dreams.

  Technically, according to George Stump, the case was closed. In her suicide note, Pearl had said she didn't want to go on living after everything she had done. Stump took that as an affirmation of the murder confession he had overheard at the church. Lance thought it could have meant anything.

  Lance rubbed his face with both hands, shook off his thoughts, and got out of bed. He had been looking forward to this day for a long time and he refused to let his job creep in and ruin it. This was the first day he had managed to take off since taking the job at the Liberty police department three weeks earlier. A well-deserved mental health day, he called it.

  After he dressed, he nibbled on a piece of fried Spam left over from the night before while he waited for a strong pot of coffee to brew. When it finished, he filled a thermos, grabbed his hat and walked into the predawn darkness. He threw his fishing gear in the bottom of the boat trailered in his driveway, connected the battery cables, and checked the fuel tank. With everything in order, he got into his truck, backed it up to the trailer, and connected the two.

  Charlie McCord, his friend and former colleague from Sycamore Springs, had agreed to meet him at daybreak at Lake Eucha. They would rendezvous at the Old Eucha campground, the site where Eucha had stood before the City of Tulsa built the lake, forcing the small town to relocate to its present site several miles away, now known as New Eucha. In less than an hour, the two lawmen would be drifting on the smooth waters of their favorite fishing lake. Lance was ready for a day of relaxation and could care less if they bagged a single fish.

  Lance drove the leisurely back roads north from Tahlequah through Liberty to Kenwood and around the south end of the lake to the meeting place. When he pulled into the otherwise empty campground he could see Charlie waiting.

  After a few words of greeting between the two men, Charlie added his fishing rods and a tackle box to Lance's gear, and Lance backed the boat down the ramp. Charlie shoved the boat off the trailer into the water and at the last possible moment he jumped in and guided the boat to a nearby dock and waited for Lance to park the truck and trailer.

  Lance joined his friend in the boat, turned on the ignition, and cranked the starter no less than a dozen times before the outboard motor began to purr. He guided the boat east toward Rattlesnake Cove, his favorite fishing spot.

  The lake, fed by countless underground springs, had been built in the early fifties and served as the main water supply for Tulsa, ninety miles away. Lance remembered the stories told of a man who supposedly rode his motorcycle through the finished pipeline from one end to the other before they released the initial gush of water. Seemed like a
silly thing to do, but Lance never doubted the tale. Now, with no swimming or speed boats allowed on the lake, most fun-seekers and campers migrated either north to Grand Lake or south to Lake Tenkiller. The wide open lake was now an angler's delight and had supplied the best fishing environment in northeastern Oklahoma for decades.

  Lately, however, high levels of nitrogen had caused algae to grow out of control in the lake, leaving the people of Tulsa with a foul taste in their drinking water. Litigation was underway to stop the chicken farmers in northwestern Arkansas from polluting the streams that fed the lake, but the conflict had turned into a state versus state battle with no end in sight. For now, the fishing remained good, and sportsmen came from miles around to dip their hooks in the water of Lake Eucha.

  Fog rose like steam from the water, and as the boat gained speed they passed through alternating pockets of warm and cool air over water hovering at a warm eighty-five degrees. Lance guided the boat slowly eastward through the misty patches as pink-fringed clouds appeared, announcing the arrival of the new day. Charlie pointed at a dozen mallards, disrupted by the boat's early morning appearance, taking flight in their customary formation. Lance acknowledged with a nod and a smile. Minutes later the fiery sun burst into view, evaporating the fog. By then, Lance had completely forgotten Goldie and Pearl. Everything in life, he thought, could probably be solved from the fisherman's end of a rod and reel.

  When he found the cove he was looking for, Lance eased the boat near the shore and killed the motor. The two men began to plot their strategy.

  “What do you think, Charlie? Worm or lure?”

  “Well, what are you fishing for?”

  “Everything and anything.”

  “Then it doesn't matter.” Charlie laughed.

  They both chose squiggly plastic lures that resembled small fish, in the hope that the bigger fish in the deep water below would buy into the ruse and bite into the hidden hook. Then they fell into the quiet rhythm of cast, reel, and cast again.

  Water lapped against broken layers of the ancient bluffs that created this part of the shoreline of the manmade lake. The sound soothed the two men into a comfortable silence as the boat bobbed slightly in the water. It was good, Lance thought, to be with a friend who knew when conversation wasn't necessary.

  Finally, Charlie broke the silence. “Heard you had a prisoner go south on you, Smith. What happened?”

  Lance groaned. “Yeah, you would have thought she could have at least waited until she got to county jail.”

  “Maybe she was just saving the taxpayers some money. Murder, wasn't it?”

  “So she said. I'm not so convinced.”

  “Oh?”

  “The consensus seems to be that she was nuts. And I'll agree she was a little strange. But why she would want to confess to a murder doesn't make any sense to me, except there seems to have been some bad blood in the past between her and the victim. Maybe she was so glad the old woman was dead, she was willing to take credit for it. I don't know.”

  “Murder weapon?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Charlie looked blankly at Lance, placed his rod on the deck of the boat, and picked up a different one dangling a plastic worm. He cast again, waiting for Lance to explain.

  “The buckshot the coroner took out of the victim was from a Field and Dove load. Probably came from a 12-gauge, or a 20-gauge at full choke. I've got a shell casing that was found at the murder scene that came from a 20-gauge, I've got a sawed-off 20-gauge that was taken off the crazy woman about an hour after the murder, and I've got a whole bevy of long guns gathered from the crazy woman's house. Now you'd think something would pretty well wrap it up, wouldn't you?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Sounds like it.”

  “Well, it doesn't.”

  “Ah.” Charlie nodded as if he already knew what Lance was about to say. “What about fingerprints?”

  “The lab says they couldn't pull any identifiable prints off the shell casing, and the marking on the shell doesn't match the firing pin on any of the confiscated shotguns,” Lance said. “So who do you believe? The crazy woman or forensic science?”

  “Oh, I'd pick the crazy woman every time,” quipped Charlie, “if I was basing anything on the accuracy of the OSBI. They're not exactly batting a thousand these days.”

  Lance rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Charlie.”

  “No other suspects?”

  “Red, the guy who turned in the shell casing seems a little suspect, but Sadie's made friends with him.” Lance glanced at Charlie. “Does that sound familiar?”

  “Oh, boy.” Charlie whistled through his teeth, remembering another questionable man from Sadie's past.

  “Right now I don't have anything to else to go on. If it wasn't the crazy woman, then we both know if the perpetrator is still hanging around, he'll screw up.” Lance adjusted his hat. “I can wait.”

  They continued to fish in silence until they lost the cool comfort of the early morning hours. The sun, moving high into the sky, sent the August temperature climbing toward triple digits. Perspiration soaked through Charlie's shirt and pooled under the brim of his fishing cap.

  “You know, Smith, these fish are smarter than we are. Let's find some shade.”

  Lance agreed.

  The men secured their rods and Lance revved the engine. The boat sped across the water. Before reaching the boat ramp, they had to pass an area on the north shore known as Powderhorn, a popular recreational area that had delighted visitors for decades. The terraced landscape, natural stone stairs, and pools of sparkling springwater had once sheltered over a thousand kinds of plants and cacti. Unfortunately, the enchanting site now rested at the bottom of the lake, all except for a flat limestone shelf that created a landing several feet above the water's edge. Now, it served as a favorite fishing spot for many locals.

  Lance slowed the boat. “Let's try just a little while here. Lots of places for fish to hide.”

  Charlie nodded and the two resumed fishing. The water slapped against the boat and Lance lowered the trolling motor into the water to give him the control he needed to maintain a safe distance from the rocky shoreline.

  “Say,” Charlie said. “How's Sadie doing?”

  Lance grinned and shook his head. “Poor thing. She bought a restaurant, of all things, and right off the bat she had a run-in with Pearl. The woman who committed suicide,” he explained. He pulled in his lure and recast. “Pearl about scared her to death with a shotgun, then the old woman came back a little while later and smashed out the front window of the café with a rock. Then, of course, the former owner being murdered didn't exactly make her day.”

  “Well, at least she's out of the banking business.”

  “It's too bad I'm not ten or twelve years younger.” Silence fell between the men again and Lance lost himself in thought. Sadie's slender build and long coal-black hair reminded him of someone else. Someone from another time and place—the tail end of his tour in Vietnam.

  He had been in country for over a year, thankful for each and every day he remained alive. Only two wake-ups to go and he would be on a long and welcome plane ride home. It was to be the happiest day of his life. He had prearranged everything through the Marine Corps to return as a civilian with the love of his life, a Vietnamese woman named Mai. Her name meant “yellow flower,” she had told him, the yellow flower that brought good luck and bloomed every year on the first day of Tet, the lunar New Year.

  He had held her in his arms and kissed her before she pushed him away. She wanted to spend her last night at home with her family. He protested. She insisted. He could hide her, he told her, and she would be safe. Instead, she kissed him again and hurried away. Before she faded from sight she looked back at him, smiled, and waved.

  He awoke a few hours later to the sound of incoming mortar rounds and instinctively ran to his post to return fire. The fire fight lasted for several hours, and with every passing moment the dread in the pit of his stomach grew. As soon as morning
arrived and he could safely escape the Marine stronghold, he ran the entire two miles to her village. What he found when he got there was seared into his memory forever.

  Wisps of smoke rose from the burning remains of what had been the small structures the villagers called home. He searched in desperation but it was too late. The entire village, along with his lovely Mai, had been wiped from the earth. The thought that it could have been his own artillery that took those lives—her life—tore a hole in his heart more painful than he could bear.

  When he returned home to Oklahoma a few days later, he struggled to forget that horrific scene. But the sights and smells had never left him and he knew they never would. And on those nights when she came to him in his dreams, he would sit straight up in bed, shaken and drenched in sweat. Heat crawled up his spine for only an instant before he regained control of his thoughts.

  “You okay, Smith?” asked Charlie. “You look like you just seen a ghost.”

  Lance shook off the memory. “Yeah, I'm okay.”

  “What are you? About fifteen years older than Sadie?”

  Lance nodded.

  “You know, these days, folks don't pay much attention to age. Especially when it's someone you care about, and it seems like you care for Sadie.”

  Lance stared at the water while he thought about Mai, how much he had loved her and the ache that clung to the inside of his heart about how she had died. The pain was buried so deep, he couldn't even share it with his friend Charlie.

  “’Course Sadie had quite a roller coaster ride with that guy she was so crazy about in Sycamore Springs.” Charlie shook his head. “Man, he turned out to be a bad deal all the way around.”

  “Yeah, I think she was really crazy about that guy too.”

  “You ought to pursue her, Smith.” Charlie grinned. “However,” he added, “my track record with women is pretty dismal, so take it for what it's worth.”

  Lance laughed and agreed.

  Charlie cast his lure and it fell close to the rocks, where it dropped into a crevice and became entangled. “Damn it,” he said. “That was my favorite lure.”