Shotgun Saturday Night

Chapter 1

Sheriff Dan Rhodes knew it was going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey brought in the arm and laid it on the desk.

The arm was neatly wrapped in a sheet of clear plastic, which was circled in three places with plastic strapping tape, the kind with fibers running through it. The arm was pale and bloodless and had been cleanly severed from the torso at the shoulder.

“Got another one out in the truck,” Bert said around the wad of snuff he had tucked between his cheek and gum on the left side of his mouth. “Got a couple of legs, too, but they don’t match up with each other.”

Bert Ramsey was a short, wiry man with a sun- and wind-burned face. Rhodes had once seen a briefcase made of industrial belting leather. Ramsey’s face looked as if it were made of the same material.

Hack Jensen got up from his broken-down swivel chair by the radio and walked over to Rhodes’s desk. He was a tall, thin old man, who had always reminded Rhodes of the comedian Bud Abbott, though he certainly didn’t sound like him.

“Good Lord,” Hack said. “Where’d you find that thing?”

Ramsey reached out and touched the arm, making the plastic crackle. “Down to the old Caster place,” he said. “I been clearing brush down there.”

Bert did odd jobs all over Blacklin County, preferring to work outside and with his hands. He strung and stretched barbed wire, roofed houses, built sheds, baled hay, painted, cleared brush, and generally did whatever came to hand.

Rhodes sighed and leaned back in his chair, causing the spring underneath it to make a high-pitched squeal. “Who owns the Caster place now?” he asked.

Hack answered. “Some folks named Adams. Bought it a couple years ago.”

“That’s right,” Ramsey said. “They live down in Houston. Called me last weekend to ask about me clearing the brush.”

Rhodes slid his chair back and stood up. “I guess we better have a look in your truck and then go on out there,” he said. He walked over to a scarred hat rack that had been there since long before he had taken office and took down his hat.

“You want me to let Buddy or the new deputy know about this?” Hack asked.

“No,” Rhodes said. “Not yet. Let’s go, Bert.”

Outside, the late-August sun and the scorching westerly breeze were enough to take your breath away. As the two men walked down past the low wrought-iron fence that surrounded the jail, Rhodes looked back wistfully at the back of the window-unit air conditioner hanging from the side of the jail. Condensation from its coils was dripping down into the red dirt, turning it to mud.

Bert Ramsey’s pickup was parked in front of the walk. It was a blue Chevy S-10, and in the back Rhodes could see three more of the plastic packages, all neatly wrapped, the ends turned carefully down and bound with the strapping tape. There was another arm and the two legs Ramsey had mentioned. One of the legs was short; the other was quite a bit longer.

Rhodes laid his left hand on the hot side of the pickup and pushed his hat back slightly with his right. “I wouldn’t believe this if I weren’t seeing it,” he said.

“Me either,” Ramsey said. “And that ain’t all.”

“There’s more?”

Ramsey nodded.

“Let’s have the whole thing,” Rhodes said.

“Well,” Ramsey said, “I went down to the Caster place this mornin’ to burn some brush. I been clearin’ down there since Monday. Lots o’ brush stacked up here and there.” He paused.

“I can imagine,” Rhodes said. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and he could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down his ribs.

“Yeah,” Ramsey said. “Anyways, I went down there, and all up in one of the brush piles was these boxes.”

“What kind of boxes?”

“Just boxes. Cardboard boxes. Good, solid cardboard, though. Corrugated. All wrapped up with brown plastic tape, tight as drums. I naturally wondered what was in ‘em, seeing as how I didn’t put ‘em there. They sure as heck weren’t there when I left yesterday afternoon, late. So I opened one of ‘em up.”

“And this is what you found?”

“Yep. Scared the hell out of me, I can tell you that. A whole box full of arms and legs, just comin’ out of nowhere, almost. I don’t usually scare easy, but that set me back some. I figured I better bring ‘em in to you.”

“You said ‘boxes.’ You mean there’s more than one?”

“Two more I didn’t open,” Ramsey said. “I figured if it was arms and legs in the first one, I didn’t even want to see in the others.”

Rhodes didn’t particularly want to see, either. He’d never dealt with mass killing before, never even considered the possibility of it. Not in a place like Blacklin County. “I guess I better go on down there and check it out,” he said. “You go in the truck. I’ll follow you in the county car.”

Rhodes turned away, but Ramsey called him back. “What about these?” Ramsey asked, gesturing toward the back of his S-10.

“We’ll just have to take them with us,” Rhodes said. “I guess a few more hours in the sun won’t hurt them.”

He remembered the arm that was still in his office. He hoped that Hack would have sense enough to get it out of sight, just in case anyone happened to come by. “After we check out the other two boxes, well, we’ll just have to see.”

“I guess so,” Ramsey said, not looking any too happy about it. He got in his pickup, and Rhodes walked around to the side of the jail to get the county car. He was looking forward to turning on the air conditioner, but as soon as he did, a blast of hot air hit him in the face. It would take a while for the air to get cool enough to help.

The Caster place was about nine miles from Clearview, the county seat of Blacklin County. The road was straight and narrow, with deep ditches on either side.

Rhodes had heard that it was built in an old railroad bed, which was probably true. As he followed the little blue pickup, Rhodes thought about the body parts in the boxes. He could hardly believe that something like that could turn up in an out-of-the-way place like this, but on second thought he decided that no one would try to dispose of arms and legs in a public park in Houston, either. Or maybe they would.

In fact, the more he thought about it, the more logical it seemed. The road he was driving on was a farm-to-market road that was actually only a few miles from an interstate highway, and connected to the highway by another farm-to-market road. Someone looking to get rid of a body or two might easily come off the interstate, look for a wooded area, spot the brush piles, and leave the boxes and their grisly contents there. If whoever had dumped the boxes had been lucky, Bert Ramsey might have burned them without ever looking inside.

The thought that the boxes might have come over from the interstate made Rhodes feel a little better. He couldn’t think of anyone missing in Blacklin County, much less three or four people. At least, people weren’t disappearing right under his nose.

The blinker on Bert’s pickup began flashing for a right turn, and Rhodes followed him through a patch of white, sandy loam. They bumped across a cattle guard and then followed the rutted trail for a quarter of a mile to where Bert had stacked the brush.

The brush was in three huge piles, ready for burning. Off to one side was Bert’s tractor, with a front-end loader attached. Some of the brush had been cleared by hand, but most had been pulled or pushed up by the tractor and then stacked.

Bert stopped his pickup near one of the piles and got out. Rhodes stopped behind him. He could see the boxes even before he got out of his car. Whoever had put them there had made little or no attempt to hide them.

Bert was pointing when Rhodes walked up. “Right out in the open,” Bert said.

“Hard to figure,” Rhodes said, and it was. Though the foliage on the brush was scanty, the boxes could have been hidden easily if a little effort had been expended.

“Maybe they was in a hurry,” Bert said.

“Maybe,” Rhodes said. He was looking around in the white sand for tire tracks, though Bert had already driven over the road twice and Rhodes himself once. The sand was so dry and fine, however, that even the recent tracks had left no clear impressions.

“Well, I guess I might as well get to it,” Rhodes said.

“I’ll just stand over here if you don’t need my help,” Bert said. “I’ve looked in enough boxes to suit me already.”

Rhodes didn’t say anything. He reached in the right-hand pocket of his pants and took out his little Schrade-Walden knife and opened the blade. It wasn’t a pig-sticker, but it was sharp enough to do the job. He walked over to one of the sealed boxes and slit the tape.

Inside were more body parts, carefully wrapped in plastic. Arms and legs.

Being careful not to touch the box with his hands, Rhodes used the tip of the knife blade to close the flaps. Then he stepped over to the third box and slit the tape. The flaps raised slightly, and he flipped them up with the knife blade. Arms and legs.

“I don’t know what’s happened here, Bert,” Rhodes said, “but I can see that something’s missing.”

“I don’t care about lookin’,” Ramsey said.

“I don’t blame you,” Rhodes said. He pushed the box lid down with the knife. “I am going to have to ask you to help me, though. These boxes are evidence, just as much as what’s in them. If you don’t mind it too much, maybe we could load them in your truck and you could take them back to town for me.”

“I guess I could do that,” Bert said. “After all, I been haulin’ parts around for a while already.” He walked over to his truck, got in, and backed it up near the pile of brush.

When he got out, Rhodes said, “Just kind of grab the boxes by the edges. Try not to handle them too much.”

Bert lowered the tailgate of the S-10. “I get it,” he said. “Fingerprints.”

“I doubt it,” Rhodes said, “but it’s a possibility.” They set the boxes on the tailgate and then slide them to the front of the bed near the cab.

“Where you plannin’ to take these things?” Bert asked.

“Good question. I think we’ll take them to Ballinger’s. Clyde ought to know what to do with them if anybody does.” Clyde Ballinger owned Clearview’s oldest funeral home. In the course of his job, Rhodes had gotten to know him fairly well.

“Good idea,” Ramsey said. “I’ll meet you in the back.”

Ballinger’s Funeral Home had once been the home of one of Clearview’s wealthiest citizens, and it was located on one of the town’s main streets, conveniently near both a large Baptist church and the town’s only hospital. Its immaculate grounds, shaded by huge oak trees, had once held Clearview’s only private swimming pool and tennis courts. The pool had long since been filled in, and the tennis courts had been replaced with lawn grass.

The building itself was an impressive affair of red brick with a semicircular walk in front and large, white columns running the length of its fifty-foot porch. A side street led to the driveway, which in turn led to the rear entrance, the one through which most of Clyde Ballinger’s clients, as he preferred to think of them, were admitted to his place of business.

Behind the main building was a much smaller house, also of brick, which had once served as servants’ quarters. Now it was Ballinger’s private office and retreat, a place where not just anyone was allowed to enter. Rhodes was one of the privileged ones, however, and he was there to explain to Ballinger about the three boxes sitting in the driveway.

“As you can see, Clyde,” Rhodes was saying, “I’ve got a little problem here.”

“Little’s not the word I’d use,” Ballinger said. His voice boomed in the small living room where the two men sat. Everything Ballinger said was loud, except when he was engaged in the practice of his trade. He was, in fact, a very unlikely funeral director, or at least unlikely to anyone who thought morticians wore black suits and gloomy looks. Ballinger was short, fat, and dapper. He knew all the latest jokes, and he never wore black except to funerals.

“In fact,” Ballinger said, “it looks to me like you got something that would even give the boys at the 87th a bad time.”

Rhodes looked around the office at the bookshelves that lined three walls. They were filled with paperback books. Ballinger was an inveterate garage-sale shopper, and he bought nearly any crime-related paperback that he could find. One shelf was filled with old books by authors Rhodes had never heard of-Harry Whittington, Charles Williams, Jim Thompson, Gil Brewer. Another was devoted to John D. MacDonald and the 87th Precinct stories of Ed McBain. Rhodes had read a few of the latter, though he usually stuck to Louis L’Amour.

“I don’t know, Clyde,” Rhodes said. “Seems like crime stories in books are a lot worse than the real thing.”

“Aw, come on,” Ballinger said. “Parts of bodies dumped in a brush pile? Three boxes of parts? Hell, Sheriff, that’s like something the Deaf Man would come up with. I remember one time-”

“Not now, Clyde,” Rhodes said, cutting him off. He knew that if Ballinger got started telling about one of his favorite plots, they’d be there all day. “What I need right now is a place to store those boxes. And I need for you to keep quiet about what’s in them.”

Ballinger was clearly a little put out at not getting to tell his story, but he wasn’t one to hold a grudge. “All right, Sheriff. All right. I got a nice cool place where you can put those things. But it’s asking a lot to ask me to keep quiet about them. What am I going to tell Tom?”

Tom Skelly was Ballinger’s partner, the one who did a lot of the actual work. Clyde was more or less the public relations side of the business. “You can tell Tom,” Rhodes said. “But no one else. If this gets out, we’ll have the biggest scare this county ever saw. It’ll be like they were filming The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and everybody believed it was for real.”

“I guess I can keep it quiet,” Ballinger said. “You’d be surprised at the things I’ve had to hush up in this place. I remember the time that Old Lady Piikston died-”

“Don’t tell me,” Rhodes said. “Remember, you hushed it up.”

“Right,” Ballinger said.

“I’ll be sending someone over here later to fingerprint those boxes,” Rhodes said.

“I’ll tell Tom,” Ballinger said. “I guess you want to move them into storage personally.”

“That’s right,” Rhodes said.

“Well, let’s get on with it.” Ballinger stood up. “Did I ever tell you about that Jim Thompson book with the deputy sheriff in it? He’s a psychotic killer, see-”

“Yeah, I think you told me about that one,” said Rhodes, who had had some trouble with a deputy of his own fairly recently.

“It’s a good one,” Ballinger said as they went out the office door.