Going Nowhere Fast (5 page)

"No. How could we?
We didn't know the man
."

"I see," Cooper said, though he quite clearly didn't.

"Look," Bad Dog said. "I don't get it. This Bettis guy's wallet was missing, right? And all his cash?"

Cooper nodded solemnly.

"So what's the mystery? The man was robbed. Somebody probably entered my parents' trailer through the open door, just like he did, and held him up at gunpoint. Cleaned him out, then shot him dead."

"Why?"

"Why what?

"Why shoot him dead? Why shoot him at all? He was sitting on the toilet with his pants around his ankles, for crying out loud. Why would the thief need to shoot him?"

Bad Dog thought about it for a moment, then said, "That's a good question."

Big Joe lowered his head and shook it from side to side, the way fathers with little patience for thickheaded sons so often do.

"Maybe he gave the thief an argument," I said, trying to come to Dog's rescue. "I know I certainly would have, if someone had burst in on me while I was… while I was…"

"Indisposed," Cooper offered.

"Yes. Indisposed. I mean, that's such an
inopportune
time to rob someone, don't you think? I would have been very upset if someone had done that to me, when they could have just as easily waited until my business was through to conduct theirs. If you know what I mean."

I suspected what I'd just said had sounded foolish, but I wasn't really sure until I found my husband shaking his head at the floor again, a little more emphatically this time.

Generously ignoring Joe's wordless editorializing, Ranger Cooper smiled at me and said, "You make a good point, ma'am. Mr. Bettis may have put up a fight, at that." He shrugged. "However, I should point out that if he did, it would have had to be a very short one."

"Why is that?"

"Because there were no signs of a struggle in the bathroom," Joe said.

"I didn't say he put up a fight, Ranger Cooper," I said, turning to our host again. "I said, perhaps he gave his killer an
argument
. In other words—"

"It was something he said that got him killed, rather than something he did."

"Yes."

After a while, Cooper nodded. "I suppose that's certainly possible, yes, ma'am. If he was killed by someone who was already highly aggravated, for example, it could have easily been a wrong word here or there that got him shot." He turned to face Big Joe. "Wouldn't you say so, Mr. Loudermilk?"

Joe didn't like the sound of the question, and neither did I. "That all depends on what you mean by 'highly aggravated,' " Big Joe said.

"I mean angry. Upset. The way someone might be if they thought they'd just caught a stranger in the act of burglarizing their home, for example."

Big Joe just sat there, doing a slow burn.

"You wouldn't happen to own any firearms yourself, would you, sir?" Cooper asked him, pressing his luck.

"I'm afraid not," my husband said.

"Really? You mean an ex-lawman like yourself doesn't keep a little protection of some sort close at hand, just in case?"

"No. I don't."

"I take it they haven't found the murder weapon yet," I said, trying to steer Cooper away from the fight he seemed determined to lure Big Joe into.

"No ma'am. As a matter of fact, I regret to say they haven't."

"Well, lookee here," Big Joe said, jumping right back into the fray. "You're not going to find it by hassling us. I can promise you that. But you wanna pat us all down to see for yourself, rather than just take my word for it, come on. All right? Come on ahead, you can start with me…"

"Now, Joe—" I said, sensing a bad scene coming on.

"No. No! The man obviously isn't satisfied that the three of us are all just innocent bystanders in this whole mess, so I say, let him do whatever he has to do to
become
satisfied. We've got nothing to hide, right?"

"Mr. Loudermilk, I think you're overreacting," Cooper said mildly.

"Overreacting? I beg to differ with you, officer. When Joe Loudermilk overreacts, heads roll and molars fly. You understand what I'm saying?"

"Pops, take it easy," Bad Dog implored his father.

"Take it easy, nothing! He's accusing me of murder!"

"I didn't accuse anyone of anything," the ranger said. "I merely suggested—"

"That I mistook Bettis for a burglar and put a bullet in his chest."

"He
was
in your home uninvited, was he not? Isn't that what you've been telling us all along?"

"Yes, but—"

"So what else would you have taken him for but a burglar? If he had come into your trailer while all of you were out, like you say, it could have only been for one reason: to burglarize the place. Not just to use the bathroom. He could have done that as an afterthought."

"Except that he was already dead when we found him," I said.

"Yes," Cooper said, turning. "So you say."

"So I
say?
You mean, so it
is!
We don't have to lie to you, Ranger Cooper. And you don't have to follow us around all over this park just to be sure of that. We're not hiding anything. From you, or anyone else."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Loudermilk, but nobody's been following you people anywhere. Nobody from
my
office, anyway."

"I don't care whose office they're from. I don't like being spied upon, and I want it to stop."

"But—"

"Look," Big Joe said, demanding the ranger's attention again. "If we'd killed that white man for the reasons you're suggesting, we would've told you so, all right? We'd have caught a little hell for shooting an unarmed man, sure, but that would've been about it. Two frightened
old
people protecting their home against an unknown intruder, that's all it would've looked like to you. Just an unfortunate episode, highly regrettable yet ultimately harmless. You would've let us all go without filing charge one, I'll bet. Wouldn't you?"

Cooper didn't want to, but eventually he nodded his head. "I imagine that's how it would have worked out, yes."

"All right then. That means we had no reason to lie to you, doesn't it? Why lie when the truth can set you free?"

"Amen," Bad Dog said.

Big Joe turned to glower at him.

"Sorry," Bad Dog said.

"What you say makes sense to me," Ranger Cooper said, admitting the fact with as much grace as he could muster, "but those Sheriff's Department boys, they're a sight more skeptical about these things than I am. They like to think everybody's lying, all the time. Me, on the other hand, I believe most people will tell you the truth the very first time they're asked for it. Or at least the
second
time they're asked, anyway."

He was looking at me expectantly, thinking he could charm me into making some kind of confession. When I failed to offer him one, he sighed and said, "Well, I've imposed on you people enough for one day, huh? Thank you all for coming in, and enjoy the rest of your stay at the park."

He smiled, and his mustache did its sexy little dance, but this time I didn't feel much of anything for it.

In fact, the nasty little fur ball just made me nauseous.

*     *     *     *

"Dynamite stone guard. What'd that hit you for?"

"Two-ten. I got a great deal on it."

"Had any trouble with your door gaskets? I've always heard the door gaskets on Sovereigns need constant replacement."

"Not mine. I had a guy I know back home in St. Cloud treat my gaskets—windows, doors, everything—and I've only had to replace 'em once."

"St. Cloud? You're from St. Cloud?"

"That's right."

"Then you've gotta know Artie Dobbins. He's WBCCI out of St. Cloud."

"Sure, I know Artie. I met him at the International back in '91. We lived less than twenty miles from each other, and never even knew it until then. He's a funny guy, Artie, isn't he?"

Big Joe and Albert Gunderson began to laugh, just thinking about how funny a guy Artie Dobbins was.

We had just made Albert's acquaintance ten minutes ago, as we were walking through the trailer park we had spent Monday night in, feeling more at home here than at the hotel. It's a difficult thing to explain to laymen, but once a person becomes a full-timer—someone who, like Joe and myself, lives year-round on the road—he can't take the sensation of solid ground beneath his feet for very long. For just as a sailor eventually learns to move with the rhythm of the sea, full-timers have learned to walk in accordance with the quirky bounce of a trailer's suspension, a soft, often noisy motion the earth simply cannot duplicate.

Our Lucille had been gone now for less than eight hours, but already withdrawal from this sensation was making a nervous wreck out of Joe. I knew when he suggested the diversion to the trailer park that he would find another Airstream within fifteen minutes of our arrival, and that he would get himself invited inside of it only seconds after that.

Enter Albert Gunderson of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and his gorgeous little twenty-one-foot Sovereign. Joe had pounced on him as he was making a careful inspection of his butane tanks, and immediately struck up a conversation. Once Joe had established our credentials as members in good standing of the Wally Byam Caravan Club International, Region 12, Albert took us to his bosom like a shepherd embracing his sheep. For invoking the name of Wally Byam—the late, great founder of the Airstream empire—is a sure-fire way to make any Airstream owner a friend of yours for life.

"So you and Artie made the International in '91, huh?" Joe asked Albert, obviously envious.

The small man with the skittish toupee nodded proudly. "Sure did. Didn't you?"

"Wish I could say I did, but no, I'm afraid I didn't. The wife and I didn't come aboard until just last year. But we were up in Dayton."

"Dayton was a blast!"

"Tell me about it!"

"You've gotta see this beer mug I bought in Dayton. It'll crack you up!"

Albert started for the door to his trailer and gestured for us all to follow.

"
I'm
not goin' in there," Bad Dog said to me, under his breath so his father wouldn't hear. He and I had been standing together off to the side, listening to Joe and his new best pal chatter without really hearing a single word.

"Come on," Big Joe called to us, waiting to see what we were going to do.

"You go on ahead," I told him. "We're just going to wait out here and talk."

Joe wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, but he was sharp enough to see that I didn't care to elaborate, so he simply entered the trailer after Albert and let us be.

"I think you need to get Pops to a doctor, Moms," Bad Dog said moments later. "He's takin' this 'King of the Road' business way too seriously."

"Theodore—"

"But he was somethin' else back at the ranger's office, wasn't he? The way he stood up for me like that, I mean?"

"Your father loves you, Theodore. Very much."

"Hey, and I love him. It's just that, I don't know, sometimes—"

"Listen. We're not out here to talk about your father."

"We're not?"

"No."

"Then we must be out here to talk about my money. Right?"

"Among other things. Yes."

A grin slid snakelike across his face, putting every tooth in his mouth on display. "You're gonna give it to me, aren't you? Man, I knew it! I knew I could count on Moms!"

"You mean, you
thought
you could count on Moms. Moms isn't having any of your nonsense this time, Theodore. This time, you've gone too far."

"What? What'd I do now?"

"You know perfectly well what you've done. You've mixed your own parents up in murder, that's what, and you don't even have the decency to tell us
why!
"

"
Me?
"

"Your father and I have been lying through our teeth to protect you up to now, young man, but no more. You understand? I want the truth, and I want it now. Every single word of it."

"The truth?"

Again, the overwhelming power I held over my son was beginning to work its magic. His eyes were expanding with fear and his lips started to tremble as the dreadful realization that he was about to tell me everything I wanted to know slowly hit him.

"Moms—" he started to say, before all hell broke loose in the park behind us.

''
Lemme go! Lemme go before I hurt somebody!
" we heard a booming voice cry, in the midst of what sounded like a small riot breaking out. We turned around to find a handful of park rangers falling all over themselves trying to subdue a gigantic black man, less than thirty yards from where we were standing. They had managed to get a pair of handcuffs on him and were now trying to shoehorn him into the back seat of a patrol car, but they would have probably had an easier time wrestling with a live rhinoceros. The big man wasn't budging.

"I was just askin' the man a couple'a questions!" he growled, standing his ground against the wall of uniformed bodies pressing against him. "What's wrong with that?"

He was the biggest human being I had ever seen. His chest was as wide as a small Toyota, and his thighs were as thick as oil barrels. He had a diminutive waist, no neck to speak of, and was wearing a pair of wraparound sunglasses that made his bull-like countenance even more imposing than it already was.

"Hey! Isn't that—?" Big Joe started to ask, suddenly standing right beside me.

"Come on, pal! Get in the goddamn car!" one of the exhausted rangers pleaded, before Joe could finish his question.

"We just want to ask you a few questions! Take it easy!" another ranger promised the big man, even shorter of breath than his friend.

As a growing crowd of people gathering in the trailer park watched in awe, the giant held firm for a solid minute more, unshaken and unbowed, then simply shrugged his massive shoulders and said, "Okay, okay! I got nothin' to hide. Let's go."

And with that, he lowered himself into the back of the patrol car with the greatest of ease, like a little boy going for a Sunday drive with the family. Visibly relieved, and amazed by their sudden good fortune, the rangers slammed the door on him quickly, before he could change his mind, then piled into their respective patrol cars and escorted him away, leaving all of us at the trailer park to speculate wildly about what we had just seen, and what it could have possibly meant.