Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 75, No. 2. Whole No. 436, February 11, 1980

On the CB by Jack Polk

© 1979 by Jack Polk.

This is the 543rd “first story” to be published by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine... Join Bird Dog in his six-wheeler truck on U.S. 87 just past midnight and listen to the lingo of the CBs as the mystery slowly unfolds...

The author, Jack Polk, is an inspiration to all of us. At the age of sixty-six he gives us, as his first fiction in print, a story as contemporary as this morning’s news bulletin. Mr. Polk has been an airplane pilot since the 1920s. He was the pilot on the first flight from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, in 1937. He retired in 1958 as a Captain, U.S. Navy, and was Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Corpus Christi (now Corpus Christi State University) for a number of years.

There is a lot more we can tell you about Jack Polk, but we’ll save it, hoping to use it soon to preface his second story. After all, he’s a young sixty-six...

I slowed when the black rubber strewn along the highway showed up in my headlights. I stopped before I reached a truck about the size of mine stranded on the shoulder. The right-rear wheels were on bare rims. That’s a problem with dual rear wheels: if one tire goes flat unnoticed, the other can overheat and literally explode. I saw no one around, so I drove on, fighting sleep with what Mattie calls my “what if’s.” What if that was a circus truck and the tigers had got loose in the Big Thicket?

There’s nothing blacker — or scarier — than the Big Thicket on a cloudy night. The headlights on my six-wheeler truck, pointing down the canyon that U.S. 87 slashes through the towering pines, only intensified the darkness along the sides. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I adjusted the squelch on my CB radio to keep the static down.

I tried to push off the creepy, closed-in feeling I always get along this stretch of road. When I passed through the little town of Village Mills, graveyard-dark and quiet, I looked at the goodbye watch the boys had given me last year. Mattie said it was the best present she ever got. Twenty minutes past midnight. Saturday already. Mattie always worried, but not as much as before I retired. I figured I’d be home before long. As my eyes distance-focused again, a glimmer of white materialized in my headlights far down the highway.

I mashed my dimmer switch and slowed down. Maybe imaginary tigers or even a ghost can’t hurt you, but a cow on the highway is nothing to argue with. As I drew closer, my side beam lighted up a woman in a long white dress.

I pulled to a stop a few feet short of where she stood waving me down. Out of habit I checked the odometer mileage even before I noted how the dress hugged her figure. She walked in the lights toward the truck, her blonde hair somewhat askew. She carried a huge brocaded handbag that bulged and sagged. I noticed a dark splotch near the hemline of her dress. She had on one white shoe and one dark one.

She opened the door and climbed into the cab before I could say anything. She smelled of gasoline. I rolled down my side window, and the gas smell became stronger.

“These shoes are ruined,” she said. Then she added crossly, “You’re late.”

She was right. It had taken me longer than I had expected to get rid of my load of produce in Dallas and to pick up the stuff I needed. I shifted gears and started off.

“Where are you going?” she snapped. “That pig’s still over there. You’ve got to—”

I turned toward her. She was staring at me in the dim light of the instrument panel. She wasn’t as young as I had thought, but she wore a good paint job.

“Who are you?” she asked hoarsely. “Why are you in this truck?”

“Name’s Thompson, ma’am, and it’s my truck.” I pushed the accelerator down. The engine coughed and then smoothed into a whine. I shifted through second into high. “What is it I got to do?”

“Let me out!”

We were rolling along pretty good. Sheet lightning shot a silvery glow through the dark sky in front of us.

“A lady got no business out in the thicket on a night like this, ma’am,” I said slowly. “I’ll take you where you can make a phone call or do whatever you need to do.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me, old man,” she said, her voice rising. “Stop this thing!”

I cut my eyes toward her. She had her right hand inside that big brocaded bag. It seemed to point in my direction. Just as I took my foot off the accelerator, the CB blared out.

“Hey, there, Southbounder,” the speaker said. “This is Arkansas Traveler, getting kind of lonesome. Got your ears on?”

The woman jerked. “What’s that?”

“Citizens band radio.” I pointed down the highway to twin points of light in the distance. “That fella comin’ toward us is calling me.”

I took the microphone out of its holder and pressed the transmit button carefully. If I jam it all the way down, it sticks. I got to get me a new mike one of these days.

“Arkansas Traveler, you got Bird Dog,” I said. “Bring it on.”

I pulled on the transmit button to make sure it had released and laid the microphone across my lap. We continued to slow down.

“Mighty fine, Bird Dog,” the speaker said. “You got rain ahead on the twin slabs. How’s it look over your shoulder?”

I pushed the microphone button gingerly. “Clean and green and dry all the way to Jacksonville, Arkansas Traveler, but mighty black to Woodville. Watch out for a six-wheeler with blown tires about five miles north of Village Mills. No lights showing.”

“Six-wheeler? A truck?” the woman said. “Damn that Vern!” She slumped back in the seat.

“That’s a big ten four, Bird Dog,” Arkansas Traveler said. “Some state smokies and a county mounty around Kountze. Keep your eyes peeled and your foot light on double nickels.”

“What’s he saying?” the woman asked.

The Arkansas Traveler’s lights were coming up fast. I pulled over on the shoulder and rode the brakes.

“What are you doing?”

“Stopping, ma’am. Like you said.”

“You can’t stop now!”

I shrugged. “Whatever you say, lady.” I romped on the accelerator and twisted back on the pavement.

“Got problems, Bird Dog?” the speaker blared.

“Nothing I can’t handle, Arkansas Traveler,” I said. “I think.”

We had not reached my usual cruising speed of 55 — double nickels — when Arkansas Traveler roared past — a big eighteen-wheeler, the top outlined in amber running lights.

“I’m on my way to old Tyler town, Bird Dog. Have a good night tonight and a better day tomorrow. This is Arkansas Traveler, standing by on nineteen. I’m gone.”

“Where did you say you were going?” the woman asked.

I hesitated. “Kountze is the next town. A few miles to Beaumont from there. Then Interstate Ten clear to Houston.”

The red lights of Arkansas Traveler receded in my rear-view mirror. I glanced toward the woman. She was watching the mirror on her side.

I pushed my glasses farther up on my nose and turned my attention to the road. Night driving bothers me. My eyes just aren’t as good as they used to be, particularly my “peripheral vision,” as old Doc Trumbull Called it when he examined my eyes last year. “As we get older, Charley,” he said, “we begin to lose our side vision. Then our foresight. But we never lose our hindsight.” His fat belly shook with laughter, and he charged me $25.

“Whooee!” Arkansas Traveler’s voice broke in. “What we got here?”

“Don’t answer him,” the woman said.

I shrugged. “He didn’t call me.”

We drove on. The lightning flickered continually ahead of us, and static began to hiss again on the CB. Drops of rain speckled the windshield. As the highway widened into four lanes, I felt the first gusts of wind shake the truck.

“Gawdamighty!” Arkansas Traveler’s voice was high-pitched and shaky. “Bird Dog, you still there? We gotta get the smokies — quick! I’m gone to the emergency channel.”

“Shut that thing off,” the woman said slowly and ominously.

I turned my head. She was facing me, her hand buried deep in the handbag. I could see the whites of her eyes. My gut felt queasy, and my legs tingled like they used to when someone pointed a gun at me. I wasn’t tired any more.

“Take it easy, lady,” I said soothingly. When I placed the microphone back in its holder on the dash, I jammed the transmit button down hard. I turned the channel selector to 9. The only sound was the roar of the engine, the rush of the wind by the open window, and the hiss of the tires on the pavement.

“That’s better, old man,” the woman said. “What did he mean, smokies?”

“State highway patrol,” I said loudly. “Sounded like he found something back there — about where I picked you up.”

“You say you’re going to Houston?”

“Could be, lady — if I don’t get too sleepy.” I looked at my watch again. I peered hard down the highway. There was practically no traffic this time of night, but the Department of Public Safety boys sometimes made a pass up this stretch of the thicket fairly early in the midwatch. It is a bad place for a motorist to get stranded.

“Stop calling me ‘lady,’ ” she said petulantly.

“Okay, Delilah.”

She sniffed. “Delilah?”

“Had to be Delilah,” I said slowly. “I figure you to be the kootch dancer with that carnival I saw in Beaumont — the one that uses a big snake in her act.”

“You’re crazy,” she said. She straightened decisively. “I’ll go on to Houston with you.”

I rolled up the window to cut down the noise. “You’ll have to talk louder, Delilah. My old ear ain’t so good. What were you doing out there at this time of night?”

“My car broke down.”

“I didn’t see any car.”

“I had to get it off the highway, didn’t I?”

I thought I could detect a reflection of headlights on the clouds in front of us. “Did you leave Samson back there, Delilah?”

“Very funny.”

The headlights came into view. “The driver of that eighteen-wheeler figgered it was funny enough to want the state police to help him laugh.”

“Just keep driving, old man,” she said shortly.

“Oh, I will — if I don’t go to sleep. I figger you got that snake in that big handbag, Delilah, and old Bird Dog ain’t about to argue with a snake.”

“Now you’re getting smart, Bird Dog.”

The headlights were too low and too close together to be a truck.

“Know what else I figger, Delilah? You were with Olga and her trained Bear act in a pickup camper on your way to the next carnival stop. You thought my truck was the carnival truck, didn’t you?”

“Shut up!” she said viciously. “Why is that car slowing down?”

“If that’s a state-highway patrol car, he wouldn’t bother old Bird Dog,” I said slowly and distinctly. “He would go on up the highway” — I looked at the odometer — “about six miles.”

The car flashed past us, picking up speed. I thought I caught a glimpse of a dome on the top.

Delilah jerked around. “Was that a police car?”

I let the front wheels wander off to the edge of the road. There was a wrenching jerk as one of the double rear wheels went off the pavement.

“What are you doing, old man?” Delilah shouted.

“Guess I nearly went to sleep,” I mumbled. Then I spoke up loud and clear. “If I’m going to drive you to Houston tonight, I got to have some coffee.”

“You got a Thermos?”

“Nope,” I lied. “Bet you could use a cup of coffee, too.”

“Shut up!” Delilah snapped. She hunched back in the seat. “Where could you get coffee?”

“In the next town. Roy’s Barbecue Stand.”

“Curb service?”

“I’ll have to go inside.”

She was quiet for a while.

“No tricks?” she asked.

“With you holding a snake on me? I ain’t no fool.”

“I’d better go in with you.”

“You don’t have to. Roy’s got big glass windows in his place. You can watch every move I make.”

Hard rain suddenly drummed down. I turned on the windshield wipers. Delilah and I were suspended in a dark, noisy little cocoon, with the flow of our headlights against the downpour our only connection to the outside world. I slowed down.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” I said, being careful to enunciate each word. “I’ll park outside Roy’s. You squinch down in the seat. I’ll go inside, drink a cup of coffee, and order one to go for the road. You stay real still, ma’am, and nobody can see that you’re in the truck.”

“You are mighty cooperative, old man. Why?”

I thought a minute. “I reckon I just want to get you where you gotta go with the least fuss and bother. Then I can tend to my own business.”

“What is your business?”

“Me and my wife got a little piece of land. We got beans, peas, tomatoes, and sweet corn right now. Watermelons and cantaloupes later on.”

The woman laughed. “A farmer! And I was worried. Okay, Bird Dog, you can get the coffee.”

The rain had slackened some by the time we reached Kountze. I pulled under Roy’s big red sign and parked parallel to the highway. There were no other customers. I opened my door. Reaching out, I twisted the rear-view mirror outward as far as it would go.

Delilah scrambled across the seat and grabbed my arm hard. “What are you doing?” she snarled.

“You want to be able to see me, don’t you?” I said patiently. “In this rain, any headlights coming from behind would reflect right in your eyes.”

Her grip slowly relaxed. Then she laughed. “You’re something else, farmer.”

“Yep.” I got out, pulling my collar up to keep the rain from going down my neck. I walked around the truck and twisted the right-hand mirror. She didn’t say a thing.

The air conditioner hummed noisily inside Roy’s Barbecue Stand. I felt its chill through my damp clothes. I blinked in the bright fluorescent lights. Otis Johnson, the night counterman, just looked at me, his lined face impassive. I picked a stool near the middle of the counter and sat down, my back to the highway. Otis got up, filled a mug at the coffee machine, and set it in front of me without a word. Old friends don’t have to talk much.

I sipped the hot black coffee. Mattie would be waiting in the living room at home, all the lights on, wondering why in tarnation I was so late. If all went well, I might be home in a few minutes. If not—

I was still dawdling my way through the coffee, staring down into the half-empty mug, when I thought I heard a noise outside followed by a muffled scream. I waited a while before I looked up to where Otis sat hunched on his stool back of the counter. His hair was nearly as gray as my own. Otis was watching me from under drooping eyelids.

“My wife says things like that ain’t none of my business now,” I explained apologetically.

Otis nodded.

The dregs in the bottom of my mug had been stone-cold for a long time when I heard the door finally open. Otis slid off his stool and went to the coffee machine. I turned slowly around. A man clad in a glistening yellow slicker stood in the door, water dripping from the wide brim of his state-high way patrolman’s hat. He came inside and closed the door.

“No coffee for me, Otis,” he said, taking off his hat and shaking it.

“This one’s for me, Mr. Cook,” Otis said.

The patrolman turned in my direction. “Sheriff—”

“Not any more, son,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m retired — and Mrs. Thompson’s bound and determined to keep it that way.” I peered at him closely. “You Ab Cook’s boy?”

He nodded. “Jim.”

“Well, Jim?”

He sat on a stool and laid his hat on the counter. “When you were sheriff, your policy was to do things peaceably — if possible. Right?”

“Fewer people get hurt that way.”

“The night deputy and I worked it your way. He eased up from the back on one side, and I came on the other. We snatched the door open and had handcuffs on her before she knew what was happening.”

“I wish I didn’t know,” I said. “Where is she now?”

“In the sheriff’s office — cussing you and somebody named Vern. You know what was in that bag of hers?”

“A snake, Jim. A great big snake.”

Jim Cook just looked at me. Otis put his coffee down and moved closer.

“Delilah used it in her act,” I said. “She’s the kootchy dancer with a little carnival sideshow. What about the eighteen-wheeler?”

“One of our officers is at the scene. I’ve just had a long session on the radio with him.”

I shook my head slowly. “Old Arkansas Traveler really got excited about them bears, didn’t he?”

“What bears?” Otis said, his eyes wide.

“Three of ’em,” I said. “Prancing on their hind legs around a stalled pickup camper.”

“I knowed they’s supposed to be bears in Big Thicket,” Otis said, “but I ain’t never seen none.”

“These are trained bears from Olga’s carnival act. She let them out of the camper to get some air.”

Jim Cook continued to stare at me. “There was gasoline—”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I figger Delilah and Olga had been trying to get the camper engine started. They got it to flooding and leaking gas. Olga thought maybe it needed oil and spilled some on Delilah’s dress and shoe. Delilah got mad and crossed the highway to flag down the carnival truck that was coming back for another load of gear. But I came along instead.”

Jim got up, put on his hat, and walked over to the door. He turned around, his hand on the knob. “I remember when you helped us get CB radios for our patrol cars, Mr. Thompson.”

“We had ’em in the county cars. I figgered you boys needed CB.”

“Sure.” He hesitated. “There is one thing, though. The Arkansas Traveler said he ought to report you to the Federal Communications Commission for tying up the emergency channel.”

“My mike musta got stuck accidentally.”

Jim grinned. “Sure it did. Good thing, too. You could have been wrong, you know.”

I could have been. But I wasn’t.

“Samson was middle-aged,” I said slowly. “Medium height. Partly bald, and maybe a little overweight. Wearing glasses, probably.”

“Samson?” Jim reached inside his slicker, took out a little black notebook, and glanced through it. He gave me a questioning look.

“That’s the kind of guy I figger would fall for a fancy woman like Delilah — run off with her, even,” I said. “I reckon she had different ideas. How many bullet holes?”

“Two,” Jim said, putting his notebook away. “How did you know?”

“Oil ain’t red, Jim. Besides, that handbag didn’t go with an evening dress. And there was Delilah herself.”

“Apparently she pulled the body clear,” Jim said. “Then she siphoned gas and soaked down the car. Why?”

“Probably planned to torch it as soon as her boy friend arrived and loaded up Samson’s body,” I said, studying the dregs in my mug. “That would be Vern, I reckon. Once they dumped poor old Samson in a swamp somewhere, they would have been free and clear.”

Jim nodded. “And Samson, as you call him, wouldn’t have been missed until Monday. Then everybody would think he had skipped out.” He opened the door and paused. “You know what was really in Delilah’s handbag?”

“Besides the snake? Money.”

“Still in wrappers. Samson, or whoever he was, must have been pretty high up in a bank to get to that much. Too bad we didn’t get Delilah’s boy friend, too.”

“He can’t have got far,” I said. “He left his truck on the highway shoulder about five miles above Village Mills.”

Jim’s eyebrows went up. “I’ll get to work on it. Give Mrs. Thompson my regards.”

“How can I?” I growled. “I haven’t seen you.”

“Don’t look at me,” Otis said. “I ain’t seen neither one of you. I ain’t hear nothin’, either.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” Jim said, grinning. He went out into the rain, closing the door behind him.

I wasn’t happy. I got up to leave and paid Otis for the coffee. His mouth spread into a smile, showing natural teeth that were a lot whiter than those contraptions Doc Turentine had built for me.

“I’d druther sit next to a gun than a snake,” Otis said.

I didn’t worry about Otis talking. He never gets involved in things that don’t concern him. In twenty-twenty hindsight, I could see it’s a policy I’m going to have to work on.