Deception on All Accounts Read online

  He thought Lilly was still a beautiful woman. He knew she had been a product of a cultured upbringing, born with a proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. She had never learned to cook until they got married. Her outspoken mother had warned Lilly in front of the entire family one evening at dinner that she was making a big mistake. You should marry into money like you were bred to do, her mother had said. But Lilly and Charlie had fallen fast in love and at the senior prom, in an act of rebellion more than anything else, Lilly had spurred Charlie into marriage by telling him she was pregnant.

  Of course, not long after the shotgun ceremony, the truth came out. Even though Charlie loved Lilly, he could never bring himself to trust her again. He had thought about leaving her right then and there, wedding gifts and all, but she had wrapped her arms and legs around him and convinced him to postpone the separation. That was twenty years ago. Now they stayed together as a matter of convenience. They had grown accustomed to and accepted each other's habits, good and bad. Sadly, any passion Charlie once had for Lilly had perished years ago. They had an unspoken, congenial agreement. He paid the bills and she took care of the house.

  Lilly greeted Charlie with an obligatory peck on the cheek. “Dinner will be ready in ten,” she said. Then she backed away from the stove as grease splattered on her apron.

  Charlie picked up the stack of mail from the edge of the kitchen table and shuffled through it. He had two credit card companies promising the lowest rates in town, the electric bill, and an envelope addressed to him from the Oklahoma State Game and Wildlife Commission. The last envelope made him smile.

  Charlie didn't splurge very often, but he had this time. He had sprung for a $550 lifetime hunting and fishing license. One of the few things Charlie really enjoyed in life was getting away from the asphalt and concrete and disappearing into the blue-green tranquillity of the lakes and the countryside of eastern Oklahoma. He pulled out his billfold, placed his new license in its special place, and announced, “I'm going to the shooting range tomorrow.”

  “What?” said Lilly as she poked at the chicken with a long fork. “It's Saturday. I thought we were going to work in the yard. You know we are going to have to trim that tree in the back or it's going to ruin the fence. And the shrub in the front looks terrible. It's going to frost any day…”

  “Call somebody,” he said. “Have somebody come out here and take care of it. I'm not going to.”

  Charlie hated yard work. It wasn't that it was beneath him, it was just that he had better things to do with his spare time and wanted to do them while he still could. Lilly made a smirk with the right side of her mouth and placed her right hand on her hip. “Fine,” she said. “We'll never get any money put back if we keep spending it on trivial stuff like this.”

  Charlie knew Lilly had never really adjusted to not having a large amount of money in the bank, evident by her clawing at every extra dime. It was a trait she had inherited from her father. He had been very successful at compiling more than a modest nest egg and she thought everyone else should do the same. Her father had invested in oil when he was young, struck it rich, and got out before the bottom fell out of everything. Never one to rest on his laurels, he had bought himself an influential position in the banking community when he became a director on the board of Mercury Savings Bank.

  Lilly's father had offered her a job more than once, trying to convince her to get out of the house. Nepotism was not allowed at the bank, but board members had a bad habit of breaking the rules if and when it suited their agenda. It was no secret, though, that Lilly had no aptitude for numbers, and Charlie doubted she could balance a cash drawer if her life depended on it. Fortunately she knew it, too. So she declined her father's offers in order to save face for him. After the robbery at their own branch, they were all glad she hadn't taken the job. Charlie didn't know what all the fuss was about anyway since she would inherit the family fortune when her father died, but she acted like she was forever stuck in a middle-class quagmire. He just didn't care about money the way Lilly did.

  “I make enough to put a roof over your head, don't I?” Charlie retorted. “And it doesn't look like either one of us has missed too many meals.”

  They ate in silence. Lilly cleared the dishes and Charlie buried his nose in the newspaper while the television blared in the background. Before long, he was snoring on the couch.

  Lilly lay in a fetal position on the right side of the bed with her back to Charlie as the digital clock radio silently flicked another digit in front of Charlie's eyes. It read 5:55 A.M. and he knew in another five minutes those tiny tin speakers would erupt in sound, stealing the luxury of silence.

  Lilly did not stir as he reached over her and slid the alarm button into the “off” position. He skipped shaving, savoring the opportunity to bear a five o'clock shadow all day long. Then he quietly dressed and left the house before she missed his presence on the other side of the bed. He placed his rifle behind the seat of his truck and headed for the Waffle House for some grub.

  When he drove into the diner's parking lot, he was glad to see it wasn't too busy for a Saturday morning. He knew Gladys would be surprised to see the old truck drive up. When he let the door of the restaurant slam behind him, he could see her straightening her cap and checking for debris decorating the front of her uniform. She grabbed a paper napkin, wet it with the end of her tongue, and dabbed at a bright yellow spot right below the top button where cleavage sprang from her tight uniform, her breasts like two warm dinner rolls rising over the edge of a pan.

  “Hey, Red, what's cooking for Saturday morning?”

  Gladys always made Charlie smile. “We got anything your little heart desires, darling,” she said, scrunching up her nose and shaking her red head in the air. “And I think you know the menu by heart now.” Gladys stretched the word heart like a piece of elastic and laughed as she served his usual hot coffee and ice water. “What on earth are you doing out this early on Saturday morning?” she asked.

  “Well, you know, Red, I'm going down to the shooting range this fine morning and tune in the sights on my 30.06. Deer season's just around the corner and I got my gen-u-ine lifetime hunting license in the mail yesterday.”

  “Whoa, look at you go,” Gladys teased. “Sugar, you don't really like to shoot those poor little innocent things, do you?” she added in a melodramatic voice. “Those big black eyes and everything. You could be shooting somebody's momma.”

  Charlie smiled and shook his head as Gladys slapped the top of the counter and burst out laughing.

  “Mommas don't have antlers, Red,” Charlie responded, “and the antlers are the prize. No point in shooting at a deer unless you get to keep a souvenir, is there? How about some biscuits and gravy?”

  Charlie spent about an hour at the Waffle House laughing and joking with Gladys before Lance Smith walked in and joined him at the counter.

  “You making this your home away from home?” asked Lance as he threw a handful of coins on the counter.

  “Want yours black, too, honey?” asked Gladys as she plopped a mug in front of Lance and started pouring the steamy hot liquid.

  Lance nodded.

  “Headed down to the Buck-n-Bear. Want to join me? Thought it wouldn't be too crowded this early.”

  “Sounds like a deal to me.” Lance swallowed less than half of his coffee before following Charlie out the door.

  “You'd think they could air this place out a little, wouldn't you?” muttered Charlie as he held the door open for Lance. The darkness inside the gun club gave Charlie a skewed feeling, as if he were entering one of the east-side nightclubs he used to work as a beat cop. The musty, dark green carpet, saturated with stale cigarette smoke, released its own brand of perfume to everyone who entered.

  “Nah. It'd lose its appeal to the seedier side of life,” remarked Lance. “Whatever happened to target shooting in the woods, anyway?”

  The lack of windows in the dank building created a false sense of security and reminded Ch
arlie of some secret-society assembly hall. Actually, anyone could enter, pay their money, and shoot their firearms at a whole array of paper targets ranging from small circles to large silhouettes, including B-n-B's trademark targets—bucks and bears.

  “It's not the target shooting I need,” said Charlie. “It's the gunsmith.”

  A huge white sign shouted in red letters: “NO LOADED FIREARMS ALLOWED IN THE LOBBY.” Inside, it was Rodney Turner's job to inspect all weapons as they entered the building, making sure everyone observed the rules until the shooters passed through one of two sets of doors into either the indoor or outdoor range. Charlie pulled his Remington 30.06 rifle from its brown suede, zippered tote, careful of the barrel's heading, and handed it to Rodney.

  “Hey, Charlie. Lance. How you boys doing? Haven't seen either one of you in a while.”

  Lance nodded a silent greeting.

  “Oh, don't mind him,” said Charlie. “He's just along for the ride.” He grinned and then added, “Indians don't need to target-practice. It's in their blood.”

  Lance rolled his eyes. It hadn't taken him long to figure out that Charlie only picked on people he liked.

  Rodney handed the rifle back to Charlie without even checking the magazine. He wasn't worried about Charlie's safety habits. He knew the sergeant would be wearing his service revolver in a high-rise holster under his jacket and he knew it would be loaded. It always was and always would be. Charlie was always prepared and he assumed the same about Lance. Rodney respected that.

  Rodney had known Charlie since the gun club had opened some seventeen years earlier when Charlie was a junior officer. Rodney had watched in amazement as the big man honed his skills with his Model 65 Smith and Wesson 357. From day one, Charlie never even had to cock his revolver. He had bobbed the hammer so it never got in his way, never slowed him down.

  As a recruit, Charlie had started out as a sharpshooter. He had smoothed and tuned the action of his gun and made it strictly a double-action weapon. After reaching the coveted title of a distinguished master on the police pistol team, Charlie basked in the glory of holding some of the highest scores in the department's history.

  Now, years later, the new recruits referred to Charlie as a dinosaur, a man unwilling to give up his revolver for one of the new high-powered, semiautomatic weapons. Charlie accepted the ribbing with a good nature, because he knew as well as they did that, if he wanted, he could leave them in the dirt when it came to hitting a target.

  Charlie used to visit the gun club at least once a month. He'd pick up a bucket of wadcutter bullets and tear through the paper targets. Even in later years following his stint as a competition shooter, Charlie had always been a ten-ring man, a perfectionist, accepting no less.

  The center of each silhouette target contained an oblong circle, two inches by three inches—the ten-ring. The ten-ring contained an even smaller one-inch by two-inch circle—the X-ring. When Charlie qualified with his service revolver each year, he continued to maintain his hits inside the ten-ring and usually obliterated the X-ring. Extra practice sessions had ceased a long time ago for the veteran cop, but he still enjoyed his visits to the Buck-n-Bear with his personal long guns.

  Charlie offered Rodney a dollar bill for two rifle sight-targets. Rodney handed him a handful of targets and pushed Charlie's dollar back across the counter. Then, out of habit, Rodney plopped down two pairs of ear protectors. They reminded Charlie of the stereo headphones he'd had back in college.

  “Thanks, I've got my own,” said Charlie as he slid one set of headphones back toward Rodney.

  Lance reluctantly pulled the other pair off the counter and held them behind his back.

  “Is Bennie in this morning?” asked Charlie. “I've got a new scope I'd like to have bore-sighted. That is, if he's got time.”

  “Yeah, sure, go on in. He'll be glad to see you.”

  Rodney motioned with his head toward a fishbowl work area in the corner of the lobby where a bearded man, dressed in a red-and-blue flannel shirt and jeans, worked at a bench, filing a piece of metal.

  Bennie Holt was a gunsmith. The best there was, in Charlie's opinion, and he looked forward to talking guns for the next ten minutes or so while Bennie fondled the new scope, placed it on his contraption, and expertly adjusted the sight to the bore of the rifle. As Bennie worked, he never stopped talking, comparing firearms and commending Charlie's choice of weapon.

  “That ought to do it, Charlie,” said Bennie. “Take it out back and see how it works.”

  “That's where I'm headed, Bennie,” Charlie replied. “Thanks a lot.” Charlie paid Bennie for his services and carried the Remington through the doorway that led to the outdoor range. Lance followed him out into the crisp morning air. The frost had already disappeared from the Bermuda grass along the path, but the men could see their breath as the chilled air floated skyward like smoke. The sugar maple trees lining the far edge of the range sang a last hurrah, dressed in leaves of amber and red. Soon they would turn bronze, then brown, before retiring for the winter.

  “You know,” said Charlie, “I don't know how I'd ever have made it all these years if I'd been tied to some desk job.”

  Lance pursed his lips and nodded in agreement. It took a special kind of person to be a lawman. One who liked being on the move twenty-four hours a day.

  Charlie attached his targets at both 100 yards and 300 yards. Then he fished in his coat pocket for a handful of cartridges and popped five into the internal magazine of the bolt-action rifle and slammed one into the chamber. In less than fifteen seconds he had wiped out the two-inch center X-rings of both targets in grand style.

  “Sure don't take you long, does it?” said Lance.

  Charlie reloaded the rifle and handed it to Lance. Then he stood back while Lance tried his hand at a different target. His results rivaled Charlie's.

  “See there,” said Charlie. “That proves it. Anybody can hit a deer with the right weapon.”

  “Yeah, but I've got an advantage,” teased Lance. “It's in my blood, remember?” Lance handed the rifle back to his friend and they both laughed.

  “Yeah, right,” said Charlie.

  Pleased by the performance of the new scope, Charlie placed the rifle back into the suede carrier and the two men returned to the indoor lobby of the gun club.

  The traffic inside the B-n-B had begun to pick up. Sounds of someone target-shooting came from the indoor range while Rodney explained the safety rules to a young couple at the counter. Charlie stood outside Bennie's work area and let his eyes adjust from the bright sunlight.

  “Hey, Charlie,” said Bennie. “How'd it work?”

  “Like a champ, Bennie.”

  “That's what I like to hear. How about a cup of joe? I've been at it since six this morning and I could use a good excuse for a break.”

  “You got it, my man. The first cup's on me.”

  The two officers and the old-timer walked across the lobby and into the lounge area. The coffee machine took up one end of the counter, alongside a mountain of white Styrofoam cups, a box of sugar cubes, and a jar of powdered coffee creamer. A rubber mat lay on the floor in front of the machine, soaking up as many spills as possible. The swinging door on top of the trash container hung open, exposing yesterday's trash.

  They chose a small table in the viewing area, designed to allow customers a comfortable vantage point to observe the shooters in the indoor range. The three men made small talk while absentmindedly gazing through the thick bullet-resistant glass at a lone shooter. The man would shoot first with one hand and then the other. Then he would flick the switch on the clothesline-type contraption that carried the targets to the desired distance and back again.

  As the man inspected his targets time and time again, Charlie couldn't help but notice something out of the ordinary. As a veteran cop, Charlie had developed a keen ability to pick up on things out of place, and this man piqued Charlie's interest. The shooter stood, aimed, and shot with complete confidence. A dam
n good shooter, Charlie thought, and wondered if he were a competition man.

  “Who is that character out there?” asked Charlie.

  Lance turned in his chair to get a better look and took another sip of coffee.

  “Can't say as I know him,” said Bennie. “I saw his weapon, though. It was a Colt .45. The other's a wheel gun. A 357, I think.” A wheel gun meant it was a revolver, a term used by those who appreciated the weapon's simple mechanics. “One of yours?” asked Bennie, referring to perhaps a past collar for one of the lawmen.

  “Not mine,” said Lance as he lost interest and turned back to the table.

  “No, I don't think so,” said Charlie. He continued to observe the shooter.

  As the man shot, he stood with one sneaker slightly behind the other and leaned somewhat forward on the balls of his feet, with the appearance of someone who was about to run. The man practiced with both hands.

  “Ambidextrous,” commented Charlie.

  “Oh, yeah?” Lance turned again and watched the shooter for a moment.

  The man was clean-shaven and wore a baseball cap over short, dark hair. Not too tall, maybe five-foot-ten or five-foot-eleven, muscular build, about 175 pounds. Charlie couldn't tell for sure, because of a thick, heavy jacket. That was common, though, as the range ventilation unit piped in cold, outside air to help disperse the gun smoke. The shooter seemed to be pretty average-looking to Charlie, nothing outstanding—except for his shooting.

  “Say,” asked Bennie, uninterested in the shooter. “How's Lilly doing?”

  “Oh, fine. About the same,” said Charlie. A simple answer to a complex question.

  After a while, the men rose and shook hands.