“Because tonight he’s with Mrs. Baker,” the marshal explained, “and it seems plain to me that Mrs. Baker’s got—”
The marshal broke off with a sudden look at Miss Parson. He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is...”
“What?” Patrick asked.
“If you’ll permit me,” Miss Parson offered. “I think that the marshal is trying to say that the revelation of Mr. Baker’s killer instinct makes it likely that the Bakers have some... marital business to discuss tonight.”
Patrick’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed. “Oh.”
“So you see why I thought you’d have nothing to worry about tonight,” the marshal finished. “I’ll lock him back up during Callaghan’s new fight with Thunderin’ Joe just to be certain, but after that... Well there will be a trial but it’s not likely the townsmen will convict Baker of killing Collins.”
It made sense to Corey, but he was still bothered that the marshal seemed unconcerned by Baker’s attempts to shoot him. “And you’re not planning to try him for trying to kill me?”
The marshal shrugged. “That’s completely up to you. Do the three of you want to stay in Flat Rock long enough to testify at the trial?”
The three friends didn’t even glance at each other before answering, “No!”
“There you have it,” the marshal answered.
“The morning after the fight,” Patrick promised, “we’ll all be on our way out of here.”
For the second time in three days, Rock Quarry Callaghan and Thunderin’ Joe Bullock faced each other across the ring. Bullock’s neck was still bandaged, but the wound didn’t appear to be bothering him none. Corey also felt ready. With both Mr. and Mrs. Baker sharing a jail cell for the afternoon, there was nothing to distract him from breaking Joe Bullock.
The bell rang.
Both men darted out of their corners, fists up and feet dancing.
Thunderin’ Joe Bullock was fast as lightning.
But so was Rock Quarry Callaghan.
Copyright © 2008 Gilbert M. Stack
200 Big Ones
by John C. Boland
Bartels slowed his car as he approached the village. Though it was barely four o’clock in the afternoon, a glowing mini-mart sign cut fuzzy red circles in the mountain dusk. Ahead lay a single pumping island, and farther on several clapboard houses hugged the road beside a ravine that wrinkled down from the hills. A sign at the outskirts of the village, where the highway petered down to two lanes, had said WHIST POP 708. Bartels liked these upstate crossroads. Nine months ago and eighty miles south, he had found the Hepplewite. Mary Anne never understood, you had to dig hard to find the good stuff. This trip he was running three days behind. He had poked around in every attic and barn in Buckham County. Not quite desperate but getting that way.
Mary Anne didn’t know antiques. The only one she’d ever latched onto wasn’t really antique, just middle aged and fat.
He waited as a pickup truck fishtailed onto the road ahead of him, then he took its place in front of the mini-mart, got out, went inside, and stood on the wet cardboard that had snow melt on it. Then he saw that on one corner, near the beer fridge packs, blood had soaked the cardboard black.
Henry’s blood. That was the name on the pocket, HENRY, of the man who lay on the floor in a blue-striped shirt and green work pants, arms splayed the way kids do to make snow angels, at least two holes in the shirt, a pistol half under his left leg, so maybe he had come around the counter to argue. He had a grim face with sparse gray whiskers and smoker’s wrinkles. An argumentative-looking face, Bartels thought.
It was a small market. No security camera that he could see. Back past the pet food would be a door to a stockroom. Maybe an alley for filling the drinks cooler from behind. He could see through a connecting glass door into the repair shop, where the single lift bay was empty. Corners in the repair shop were out of his line of vision. But the shooter probably wouldn’t be hiding there. The way Bartels read it, the shooter had left in that scabrous pickup truck that burned out of the lot ahead of him.
His glance stopped at the cash register. The money drawer was closed. What kind of robber closed the drawer?
There were two sheriff’s deputies, middle-sized men with heavy belts. One held a shotgun while the other patted Bartels down and handcuffed him. “Where’s the gun you used?”
It was never easy telling cops they had made a mistake. “If I robbed the place,” Bartels said, “would I have called you and waited?”
What kind of robber closed the cash drawer?
“Jeanie Hanigan called us,” the older guy said. But he lowered the shotgun. He had a big flat-brimmed hat that came down almost to his blond eyebrows. Pug nose, little inverted-U for a mouth, a regular Officer Sunshine. He moved aside to talk on the radio, then both cops turned their heads as the rust-spackled pickup slid to a stop on the road and a small woman popped out.
“You get him?” she cried, then slowed, did a double take at Bartels’s car and said, “Ah, you bumpkins! That’s the guy came in as I was leaving!”
“Maybe he come back to cover his tracks,” said one deputy.
“Give it a rest, Lou,” the older one said. “Office says we got a call from a Bartels too. Sorry mister. We’re jumpy around here since the bank got hit. Jeanie, you got the news on the air?”
“For all the good it’ll do.” She had a ferret face and large teeth. Not bad even so. Nice hair in a ponytail, pert shape in blue jeans, snow boots, and some kind of blanket-plaid jacket that hung open at the front. She looked at Bartels, giving him some kind of appraisal. “Thursday the bank got robbed big time. Joey, that’s the manager, went missing. That’s his brother Henry on the floor.”
“You mind showing some ID?” said Lou.
Bartels produced a driver’s license followed by a business card.
The older deputy looked them over. “Bartels Antiques, New York City, huh? You’re a long way from home, buddy.”
“Buying trip. Some of the best opportunities are in small towns.”
“You pay good money?” Jeanie asked.
“I don’t give it away.” But since she had got him cut loose, he smiled at her. “Do you have something?”
“Got a few things I’d like to get rid of, starting with my hubbie. Since you won’t want him, we got a desk at the radio station that might be worth something.”
Lou was watching him.
“I’ll take a look,” Bartels said.
They were clearing things up with the deputies — sorry, they hadn’t seen anyone, except each other sort of — when a black SUV jerk-stopped on the road and a big woman came boiling out. She had popped eyes, wild gray-blonde hair. She hurled herself across the pavement, aiming at Bartels, screaming at the deputies, “Is that the man?”
Lou stepped to block her, which took some doing because she was both taller and wider than the deputy and she bounced him back a step. He said, “No, no, Katie! He’s just a witness.”
“Is my Henry really dead?”
“Yeah, Katie, I’m sorry.”
She moved restlessly, ready for a go at Bartels just because he was there. “Sheriff Sully called, and I just couldn’t believe it. Can’t now. Henry never hurt nobody.”
“Yeah, Katie, we know.”
“Course, Henry never did nothing for nobody either,” Jeanie Hanigan said. Bartels had followed her pickup down the two-lane to the radio station, where she was co-owner, assistant manager, news director and — as of this afternoon — crime reporter. The building was low, white painted, with display windows in the front so it could have sold snowmobiles like the building across the road. But the signs in the window said Mountain Fire Radio Network, the network consisting of a single low-power transmitter out back that sent a signal over about three hilltops. Jeanie’s husband Roy was the manager. On Sundays and Thursdays, they opened the front of the little building for church services over which Jeanie presided, followed by a potluck supper that Roy organized.