The Prairie Chicken Kill Page 9

  "That's not what I asked about," I said.

  Lindeman sat a little straighter in his chair. "All right. Evans and I don't like each other." He indicated the speaker. "I can listen to Rush Limbaugh and some of the others like him, but I think Evans' views are a little extreme, and I don't think he's good for the station. He's well aware that I feel that way."

  "What about Lance? Does he like Evans?"

  Lindeman looked up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. He seemed to be more uncomfortable with the idea of talking about Lance than with the idea of discussing Evans.

  Finally he said, "Lance likes the advertising. That's all he cares about -- the money. But I've been looking into that."

  "What do you mean?"

  He didn't answer for a second or two, as if he'd made some kind of slip. Then he said, "Sponsors have been dropping off the show. The big names. We still sell some local spots, but the Houston advertisers are leaving us."

  "What does Lance think about that?"

  "I haven't really presented the figures to him yet. In fact, that's what I was working on when you came in."

  He smiled for the first time since I'd entered the room and leaned back in his chair.

  "You must like what you've come up with," I said.

  "I guess it won't hurt to tell you. We've been losing revenue for the last month on Evans' show. We haven't been able to fill all the spots, and we're using a lot of public service announcements."

  "So you might have a good reason to pull the plug on him?"

  "Maybe. I'll have to talk to Lance first. He's the owner; I'm just the hired help."

  He said the last sentence with something like bitterness. I probably wouldn't have liked working full-time for Lance, either. I wasn't exactly ecstatic to be working for him even for a day or so.

  Anyway, Lance might be glad to hear Paul's news. It wouldn't matter then who killed the Prairie Chicken. Lance would have a reason to fire Evans. Maybe I could even go home.

  "What about Evans?" I asked. "Does he know what's going on?"

  "He has a pretty good idea. He tried to talk to me about it earlier today, but I didn't have time for him. I'm sure he'll get back to me. He seemed pretty worried about it."

  "When was that?"

  "When? Early this morning. Why?"

  "No reason. Did he get violent?"

  Paul sat up straight again. "No. He leaves that to Gar and Bert."

  The thought of Gar and Bert didn't seem to make him very happy. It didn't make me happy, either.

  "That might have been them in the plane," he said. "I think Bert can fly. Anyway, even if you don't know who did it, I can get the story on the air. It's news, and KLWG will be the first with the story. I'll get Tony in here. We don't have any real news people anyhow, but Tony does some reporting for us. Would you give him an exclusive interview?"

  "No interviews. Tell me about your run-in with Evans this morning."

  "It wasn't much of a run-in. He just said that he knew what I was up to, and I wasn't going to get away with it. He said he'd see me later."

  "And do you think he will?"

  "Who knows? He's crazy. You never know what a crazy man will do."

  That made two people who thought Evans was crazy. I didn't think so, but I was beginning to wonder. Maybe they were right and I was wrong.

  "If he's tied to the dead bird, not even Lance can save him," Paul said. "I hope you find out that he did it, or had it done."

  "Do you think he might have?"

  "It's the kind of thing he might do, sort of a symbolic gesture you might say."

  What was the use of a gesture if you didn't take credit for it? Evans didn't seem like the shy type.

  I stood up. "I'd like to meet Evans. What time does he get here to do his show?"

  "He likes to come in early. He'll probably be here by six-thirty. But he'll have his crowd with him."

  "Bert and Gar?"

  "Them, too. But he has a regular entourage. You'll see."

  "You won't be here?"

  "No. I don't put in a twenty-four hour day, at least not every day. But the station will be open."

  "All right. Say hello to Anne for me."

  He looked at his desk. "I'll do that."

  Then he stood up and put out his hand again. I shook it and turned to go.

  "Do you carry a gun?" he asked.

  I turned back. "No. Should I?"

  "Probably not, but watch yourself about Evans and his crew. They do."

  "That's a real comfort," I said.

  Paul smiled, and it made him look a little younger. "Glad I could brighten your day."

  Fourteen

  I drove to the Picketville Inn and lay on the bed to think things over.

  Lance had asked me to come to town and investigate the death of his endangered-species bird, but so far I hadn't come up with a single clue.

  The fact that I was clueless didn't seem to matter, however, because someone obviously didn't like the fact that I was poking around. Either that or someone had it in for Red Lindeman, and he didn't seem to think that was a possibility.

  Everyone seemed to suspect Ralph Evans of having killed the Prairie Chicken, but there was no proof that he'd been anywhere near the bird. Certainly no one had seen him. Red Lindeman thought Evans had taken the shots at us from the plane, too, but there was no proof of that, either.

  All in all, it hadn't been a very productive day. I'd had a good chicken-fried steak, however. That was worth something, though I'm not sure it was worth getting shot at. I couldn't make up my mind about that point, and after a few minutes my mind began to drift and then I went to sleep.

  This time I didn't dream about birds. I dreamed that Anne came by to see me at the Picketville Inn. She looked young, as young as she had in high school, and she told me that she was going to leave her husband because life with him was tedious and boring. She wanted a more exciting life, the kind of life that being married to a big-time private-eye could give her.

  I was just about to accept her proposal when someone knocked on the door and woke me.

  I sat up and looked around the room, trying to figure out exactly where I was. My mouth was dry and I had to swallow twice before I could say, "Just a second."

  I went into the bathroom and ran some water from the faucet into the flimsy plastic glass that the Inn provided. I drank a couple of swallows, and my mouth felt better. Then I went to the door and looked through the viewer. Anne was standing outside, waiting patiently.

  I'd never had a dream come true before. I wondered if this would be the first time, but somehow I doubted it. I opened the door, trying to look the way I imagined a big-time private-eye would look.

  "Hi," Anne said, and smiled.

  I remembered that smile all too well, but I got only a minor slug from the guy with the sledge. Nothing at all, really, compared to the hammering I'd gotten while running across the marsh earlier that day. But then that might have been the binoculars.

  "What brings you here?" I asked Anne.

  "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by," she said. "How's that for a corny opening line? Are you going to ask me in?"

  I stepped back and to the side. "Sure. It's not exactly the Ritz, though."

  "I know." She walked past me and into the room. "The Inn has been here longer than I have."

  "I could tell. You can have the chair. I'll sit on the floor."

  Considering the dream I'd just had, I thought it might be a little out of line to suggest that either of us sit on the bed.

  She looked around the room before sitting down. She didn't seem impressed.

  "I've never been inside one of these rooms before," she said.

  "You have a home here," I said.

  "But maybe not for long." She sat down. "I'm trying to talk Paul into leaving."

  "Why?"

  "Because he never has time for anything except his job. He needs to get away from that radio station. He spends all his time there, and I don't th
ink it's good for him."

  I guess she wasn't planning to ask me to take her away from Picketville and make her a part of my exciting life after all. I eased myself down to the floor, trying to keep my bones from creaking, and leaned against the wall.

  "Do you worry about Paul a lot?" I asked.

  "All the time. I care so much for him, and he's working himself to death. And then there's Ralph Evans."

  "Evans isn't much of a threat, is he?"

  "How can you say that, after what happened today?"

  "You know about that?"

  "Everybody in town knows about that. It was on the KLWG news at five o'clock, but people were talking about it long before then. I called Red as soon as I heard, but there was no answer. I called back a little while ago, and he said he was fine. He said you were OK, too."

  "This town doesn't need a local news broadcast much, does it."

  She smiled. "Not really, but it makes everyone feel good to have the gossip confirmed by official sources. Do you think Evans was behind the shooting?"

  "I don't know. The sheriff is supposed to be investigating that end of things."

  "I'm sure. But not too hard, I'll bet. He and Evans are good friends."

  "Then he should be working to clear his friend."

  "Oh, he'll clear him, all right. Probably by tomorrow. You should stay away from Sheriff Peavy if you can. He's a dangerous man."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Paul's having someone at the station look into things that happened at the jail."

  "Like what?"

  She hesitated as if she wished she hadn't mentioned it, but then she said, "You might have heard the story of the prisoner who hanged himself a few months ago. Or he was supposed to have hanged himself. There was a rumor going around that said he had a lot of help. Sheriff Peavy headed up an internal investigation, and the department came out with clean hands. But Paul says there might be a lot more to the story."

  I hadn't heard anything about that incident, but it was one more thing for me to think about. Peavy didn't look like the kind of man who would appreciate having someone poke into his business.

  "Does the sheriff know about the investigation?" I asked.

  "Oh, he knows, all right. He knows a little about everything that happens in this county."

  "So how does he feel about it?"

  "He doesn't like it a bit. Paul has had several anonymous calls telling him that it would be better for him if he called off the investigation."

  "Were the calls from Peavy?"

  "Probably not. If they were, he was disguising his voice. But he's behind them. I don't have any doubt of that."

  "What about Martin York?" I asked.

  "Martin? What do you mean?"

  "How does he fit into all this, aside from the fact that he's a birder?"

  "Well, of course he probably knows as much about Prairie Chickens as anyone, and he's done a lot to help Red with the ranch. He and the Greers are about the only people that Lance gives free access to the ranch."

  I thought that was interesting. Whoever killed the bird had to know where to find it, and from what I'd learned so far, the birds were pretty shy. It wouldn't be easy just to drive out to the ranch and shoot one.

  "York seems to like you quite a bit," I said.

  Anne laughed. "You noticed? Well, I suppose it's obvious. Martin could become a bit of a problem, I think."

  "How?"

  "He's a little too aggressive. I can handle him, but he can be a real pest."

  I knew I hadn't liked Martin for some reason, and now I liked him a whole lot less.

  "Do you want to give any details?"

  "Not really. He seems to think that I should leave Paul and go away with him. He has some idea about traveling around the world, looking for birds."

  Apparently York was having the same kind of dreams I was, but he was more willing to act his out.

  "What does your husband think about that?"

  "He doesn't know, and I'm not going to tell him. He might do something he'd regret. I can handle Martin."

  That was the second time she'd said that. I wondered if she was trying to convince me or herself.

  "Maybe I should have a little talk with him," I said.

  "You men. Always looking for a chance to flex your muscles. Don't worry about Martin. He's harmless."

  Spoken like someone who hadn't shaken hands with Martin York lately. I hoped she knew what she was talking about.

  "And then there's Ralph Evans," I said, getting back to our original topic.

  "Ralph is a real problem. I think Paul is going to do something about him soon, and I'm a lot more worried about that than about anything Martin might try with me. Martin isn't dangerous, and maybe Ralph isn't either. But he has dangerous friends. I'm afraid of what they might do."

  "For example?"

  "There have been a few people who disagreed strongly with Ralph and who have made their feelings known. One of them was Bob Greer, and a few nights later his car was run off the road and into a ditch by someone in a black truck. He was lucky that he wasn't seriously hurt."

  "Does he know who was driving the truck?"

  "He couldn't see. It was too dark, and he was too busy trying to steer his car. He thinks it was Ralph's friends Gar and Bert, but there's no way to be sure. There are a lot of black trucks around here."

  It was beginning to appear that Evans was blamed for everything bad that happened in Picketville, or at least he was being blamed by the people I was talking to.

  I looked at my watch. It was six forty-five. I said, "I'm going out to the station in a little while to talk to Evans. Do you want to go with me? You can make the introductions."

  "Why not? It might be fun."

  Fun wasn't the word that had occurred to me. Interesting, maybe, but not fun.

  I stood up slowly. It wasn't easy to do without groaning, but I managed it.

  "My car or yours?" I asked.

  "I saw Red's truck outside. I think my car would be more comfortable."

  That was fine with me.

  It didn't take long to get to the station. It didn't take long to get anywhere in Picketville. When we arrived, there were more vehicles in the parking lot than there had been earlier in the day. Most of them were trucks, some of them even more battered than Red's. One of them had more Bondo on it than metal, and a couple of the others were covered with camouflage paint.

  "Ralph's army," Anne said. "Or his camp followers. I'm not sure what to call them."

  "How about his butt-boys?"

  She laughed. I liked to see her laugh. "I think I'll stick to letting Red call them that."

  I looked around the parking lot and counted the cars and trucks. There were seven. And there was no way of knowing how many men might have arrived in each one.

  "Are you sure you want to go in there?"

  Anne got out of her car and leaned her head back inside. "I've seen them before. Come on."

  I got out. I wondered if Ralph Evans would talk to me or just have his followers throw me out of the building.

  Well, there was one way to find out.

  "Can I count on you to protect me?" I asked.

  Anne laughed, and we went inside.

  Fifteen

  There were ten men sitting in the station lobby. Most of them had cigarettes dangling from their mouths, and the air was thick with gray smoke. The ones who weren't smoking were working on either a dip of snuff or a chaw of tobacco. Maybe they couldn't read the Surgeon General's warning, or maybe they just didn't like to take the government's word for anything. Maybe they just didn't care.

  Some of them were dressed in combat fatigues, some in camouflage, and some in jeans and work shirts. All of them had on either hats or baseball caps, and all of them looked toward the door when Anne and I entered.

  I felt a little like Tom Landry in that old TV ad where he finds himself surrounded by Redskins, so I followed his lead and said, "Heighdy."

  They just looked
at me, smoke curling upward from their cigarettes.

  "Hey, fellas," Anne said. "Where's Ralph?"

  "He's back in the Green Room, Miz Lindeman," the man closest to us said. He didn't bother to remove his cigarette. "Gar and Bert are back there with 'im."

  I'd wondered about those two. I'd been hoping they were somewhere else. Thailand, for instance.

  "This is Truman Smith," Anne said, nodding toward me. "Paul told him to drop by and talk to Ralph."

  The man looked at me the way he might have looked at something particularly nasty he'd discovered on the bottom of his combat boots.

  "We know who he is," he said.

  "Well isn't that nice," Anne said. "Come on, Tru. We'll go on back and talk to Ralph. See you boys later."

  The man squinted his eyes and waved his hand in front of his face, fanning away the smoke from his cigarette.

  "Sure, Miz Lindeman," he said.

  As we walked down the hall that led to the Green Room, conversation in the room started up again. I heard someone ask about the price of Israeli gas masks, and someone else told him where he could get two for less than twenty dollars by mail order.

  "They come with one canister apiece," he said. "You got to pay the postage and handling, though."

  Not being in the market for a gas mask at the moment, I didn't listen to the rest.

  "You know those guys?" I asked Anne.

  "I've seen them around the station sometimes when I've come by on days that Paul was working late. They're not so bad. Most of them are farmers, and they think they're getting a raw deal from the government because their taxes are so high. They think Washington should be thinking more about the plight of the American farmer than about what's happening to someone across one of the major oceans. Here's the Green Room."

  We were standing in front of a green-painted door.

  "Cute," I said. "Should I knock?"

  "I think so. We don't want to get shot because someone thinks we're A.T.F. agents coming in with a no-knock warrant."

  I tapped on the door with my knuckles and a voice that I recognized as belonging to Ralph Evans said that we could come on in. When I opened the door, I saw Evans sitting directly across from me on a couch that might have been brought there directly from the Picketville Inn. Bert was to the right of the door with his hand in the pocket of a lightweight nylon jacket. The pocket was bulging with something more than just his hand.