“Don’t have the time, lady.”
“Don’t call me lady. I am not usually a lady. But I am a homicide detective.”
“You a lady, too, lady.”
Oh, pul-ease
, Claire thought.
Why in the world couldn’t things ever just be simple?
“Sit down. All of you. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to and you seem overly excited about killing members of the Fitch family.”
The four brothers then started looking at each other wonderingly and scratching their Greek beards, as if they were mightily confused Athenians. The biggest one and the apparent leader noticed Joe. “Who’s that?”
“That’s my friend. Joe McKay.”
“Yeah, Patrick knows him.”
“Please, sit down, put down all those guns, and have a bite to eat. I’m sure Patrick will be out any moment now.”
They considered all that, mumbled a short and whispered conversation amongst themselves, and then moved over to the snack bar and piled the rest of the fried chicken and fish on their plates. Okay, they didn’t seem that overly distressed at Paulie’s unfortunate circumstances anymore. Weirdos? You bet.
They huddled down together at a table meant for three smaller types and ate silently, their many rifles and shotguns propped in a nearby corner. None of them was crying or carrying on. That was peculiar, too, considering Patrick’s reaction. Claire sat down beside Joe.
McKay said, “Thought for a moment that you were a goner.”
“Yeah, you looked so worried that you continued to tear at that chicken leg with your teeth.”
“This chicken is damn good. Nice and crispy.”
“And you wonder why I’m with Black? He would’ve at least looked concerned for my well-being when confronted by four huge hooligans.”
“I’ve seen you in action. You can handle them. Besides, I left my rifle in the truck.”
“Maybe you oughta go get it.”
“Really?”
“No, too late now. I was joking.”
McKay took a drink of his icy Mountain Dew. “They don’t seem overly grief stricken. Seems to me like they’re more interested in killing ’em some Fitches than mourning their brother.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
For some reason, Claire had lost her appetite. Adrenaline surging through one’s bloodstream could do that to a gal, armed to the hilt or otherwise. But she had the energy and armament that she needed to take on the small herd of four large and heavily armed and mirror-image hillbillies. She looked up as Patrick Parker slammed through the swinging metal door. Oops, make that five large and heavily armed hillbillies.
All the Parkers jumped to their feet like marionettes attached to a single string. So did Claire. Joe took another sip of his Dew. He had been a Marine demolitions expert. He didn’t get overly excited about much. He just came back later and blew the place to hell.
“Are you ready for that interview now, Patrick?” Claire smiled at the stiff-faced newcomer, but she kept her hand close to her Glock, glad she’d sighted it in at Joe’s place.
Patrick’s excited expression faded somewhat. He looked at his brothers, who were looking at Claire’s gun hand. He took a moment to calm his engines. “Yes, ma’am. You met up wit’ my bros, I guess?” Polite, so polite, all of a sudden.
“Not formally.”
Joe laughed. Nobody else did.
Patrick said, “I’ve already told them the bad news.”
“I gathered that by the firepower they brought along.”
Patrick frowned darkly. The other pissed Parkers watched Claire’s gun hand some more.
“Why don’t you introduce us? Let things calm down a notch. We don’t need anybody jumping to conclusions.”
“Okay.” He walked over to the table. “This here’s Percy. He’s the best shot of us all.”
Percy Parker nodded politely, his ire receding admirably. He, too, had that same interesting short brown beard, brown eyes, longish brown hair, except his was pulled back in a curly ponytail. His eyes looked almost normal again, the pupils no longer spinning, which was always a good sign.
“How many brothers in your family?” Claire asked Patrick again, still suspicious about his last evasive answer.
The Parkers all looked around at each other, as if they weren’t sure what to say. Then they all looked at Patrick, as if he would know. They all had the same expression on their faces. Claire wondered if they could even tell each other apart.
Patrick thought it through some more, and then he said, “Six, counting Paulie. Yeah, there are six of us, and that’s all.”
All the big, bearded, brown-eyed brothers began nodding, as if suddenly remembering that was the true number, too. Claire and McKay just stared at them, thinking them nuts, of course.
Patrick continued the intros. “This here is Phillip. He fries up the chicken.”
“Hello, officer.”
“Hello, Phillip. You’re quite the cook.”
“Thank you kindly.”
“And this here one is Phineas. We call him Phin ’cause he likes to fish. And that one’s number four, Petey.”
Petey just looked at her and grunted. Claire assumed he had no mentionable talents.
Okay, first off, it appeared that their mama had enjoyed a true love affair with the letter P. That was a given. Good thing the poor woman didn’t have any more sons. There weren’t all that many male P names left. At least, Claire couldn’t think of any. Except Pancho, maybe. Or Paco.
“I’m very sorry for your loss. It’s a terrible thing to lose a brother.”
“The Fitches did it.” That was Phin, speaking for all of them, no doubt.
“Mind if we push the tables together so that we can all sit down and talk about this in a civilized manner?”
The nodding of various heads gave her the go-ahead. Joe did the honors with a lot of scraping and heaving while everybody else watched. They all sat down and stared at each other. Claire got out her notepad and pen. “Okay, first thing, maybe you should tell me a little bit about all these accusations you were throwing around concerning the Fitch family. I take it that you’ve got a beef with those guys?”
“They is our mortal enemies,” said Percy aka best shot.
“And the reason for that is?”
“They just always has been,” said Phillip aka Colonel Sanders.
“Which one of you fellows would like to explain the genesis of this feud, if it is a feud.”
“They kilt one of my great-granddaddy’s cousins, and then they stole some of our hill pastures back in the thirties.”
“So it goes back a good long while.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They were awfully polite all of a sudden, which made Claire think maybe they were playing her until she drove off with Joe, none the wiser. Then they would go find and annihilate a serious amount of Fitches. She would have to put the FEAR OF THE LAW in them and make it stick.
“Tell me, boys, do you murder Fitches often? Or vice versa?”
Joe smothered another laugh, but not very well. Claire would never, ever bring him on an investigation with her again, no matter how helpful he could be. But the Parkers were smiling slightly, too, under their chicken-greasy mustaches.
Patrick seemed to take the helm then, so to speak. That was probably a good thing. He was the articulate one. “No, detective. We ain’t murderin’ them. Ever. Unless they murder us first.”
“I see.”
And then I arrest you, each and every one,
Claire thought
.
“You do know that all these threats are gonna come back and bite you, if even one Fitch reports any assaults.”
“We’re calm now. It was just a real hard thing to process.” There you go. Patrick was waxing articulate.
“Do you think everyone is calm enough now not to commit murder the minute my back is turned?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, now that’s settled. And you’re saying that Paulie’s wife, Blythe, did not call you and tell you what happened?”
“No, ma’am, but she wouldn’t. She hates us all. Says we’re cretins.”
Okay, now that was a woman getting it out in the open with no concern for hurt feelings. “So I assume that means that you guys don’t get along well with Blythe Parker.”
“No, we like her just fine. She’s real good to Paulie.”
Maybe they just didn’t know what the word
cretins
meant. Yes, that was entirely possible. Maybe they thought it meant sweet or talented or brainy people. “Do you have other relatives that we should notify?”
“No, ma’am. It’s just us boys now.”
“Are you fellas married?”
“No, ma’am.”
“None of you are married?”
“No. We all live together up at the old house place.”
Supersonic creepy? It did seem to be.
“Where exactly is that?”
Patrick sort of swung his arm toward the secret enclosure and related to her some rather roundabout, confusing directions, but it didn’t sound far from where they now sat. “Okay, let’s just forget about the Fitches for a minute. Has anybody else ever made threats against Paulie? Or has he had an altercation with anyone that you know of? Perhaps his fellow fighters?”
“We don’t go down to town much to see him. He brings us videos of his fights and shows off his medals and trophy belts now and again.”
“Has he ever mentioned anybody that he didn’t like or that he had a problem with?”
“No, ma’am. He was the most popular of us all.”
“Popular in what way?”
“Well, people liked him the best.”
“Why?”
“Dunno.”
Man, this was not going well. She wondered if Patrick was now holed up inside his head, just waiting for her to leave, or if he and his band of brothers were merely mighty unpopular dudes on the hill farm circuit.
“Tell me about his relationship with his wife’s family.”
They all looked around at each other, and got all quiet again. Then Patrick said, real slow and careful-like, “We don’t know nothin’ ’bout her family.”
“Okay, so this was not a close family relationship then?”
“Are they all albinos like her?” That was Phin, definitely not the brightest bulb in the pack but no doubt hell to pay when catching bass and crappie.
“I can’t really say. Now, when was the last time you saw Paulie?”
“Last week, right ’fore he went up to KC. He came out here and spent the night with us up at the house.”
“Did he seem strange or act any differently while he was with you?”
“No, he was the same old crazy Paulie.”
“Crazy?”
“He liked to have fun, stuff like that.”
“Did he seem worried or nervous?”
“Nope.” Patrick looked at the others, all of whom had now settled down into near catatonic states. Initial adrenaline levels were washing out now, to be sure. Still, the collective lack of grief for their recently dead but fun-loving brother bothered Claire a bit. Go figure.
“Do you know a fighter by the name of Shorty Dunlop?”
“No.” They all concurred with a rather somnolent lack of human expression.
“Do you know of any reason why anybody would’ve helped him leave a hospital up in Kansas City before the doctors released him?”
Slow shaking of shaggy heads. “Did your brother bring that guy up here and hide him out at your place?”
Percy answered for everyone. “No way. We’d a seen ’im by now.”
After that obtuse response, Claire blew out a frustrated breath. She stared at Percy for a moment. Wow. Just wow. Then she asked, “What’s out back inside that enclosure?”
Patrick looked surprised at the question, which was why she asked it. “Just a junkyard with old cars, and stuff. Goes way far back on our property. They made us put up that fence ’cause they called it an eyesore. You wanna go out there and have a look-see around?”
Since he offered, she didn’t expect there was much to see. “Maybe one of these days. I’ll be around again. Not to worry.”
Claire hesitated. Their lack of emotion concerning Paulie’s death was puzzling and bothering her big-time. She didn’t want to appear rude. She already had, not to mention threatening to jail them if they didn’t settle down, which wasn’t exactly not rude. All right, when in doubt, don’t mince words. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem like any of you are very upset by your brother’s death.”
Petey took offense and instantly became verbose. “We just real bad upset. Enough to kill us some Fitches first off. But that’s done over with now. Once we stack our guns in the corner, we done over it. Done for the day.”
Man alive. These guys were not exactly dripping with smarts
. “Well, I hope so. That’s against the law, you know. Murdering your neighbors, and such as that.”
McKay was frowning now. He hadn’t been on many police calls out in the hills, obviously. But neither had she. But he was keeping his mouth shut and not laughing, which was a good thing and unusual for him.
“We ain’t gonna go out killin’ nobody. I promise. Cross my heart.”
Petey’s solemn oath was just so reassuring. Kind of. After all, he had crossed his heart, even made the sign with his forefinger.
“What do you guys do for a living?”
“I run this store, and they take care of the farm and the cattle. And we fight sometimes for the cash prizes.”
“You do all right here, I guess?”
“Yes, ma’am. We do really good.”
“What do the Fitches do for a living?”
“They get drunk and cause trouble and go to church like they ain’t as bad as us. Fight and stuff. That’s why nobody wants them around. They’re real bad, all of ’em. Not very popular, no.”
Sounded like everybody within fifty miles was highly unpopular. “Where do they live?”
“Their farm butts up close to ours. They try to rustle our cattle, but we keep a close watch and make sure the barbed wire fences are in good repair.”
Now Claire felt as if she had been thrown into an episode of
Rawhide
, that old Clint Eastwood television show where he looked down and scuffed the toe of his boot in the prairie dirt. All these guys needed were some cowboy hats, spurs, lassos, and a hangin’ tree. “Well, having rustlers in the neighborhood is always irksome.”