“Apparently…” Shep hocked up phlegm from deep down his throat and spat it out the window. “Horace killed himself.”
“He didn't seem like the suicidal type,” Scratch said.
“The old man didn't think so either,” Ralph added.
“He wants me to look into it?” Scratch sat up in the back seat. “He'll have to look into it himself. I'm busy trying to figure out who set me up.”
“You know you'll end up doing it,” Shep said. “I know first hand, Scratch. You can't defy the old man.”
“I'm different from you, Shep.”
“I know.” Shep's voice raised up a few decibels “I know, Scratch. But I used to be the yardbird in these parts. I'm just…”
“I'm different from you,” Scratch said.
Shep chuckled. “OK,” he said, throwing his hands up. “You're different. I guarantee you'll be doing what the old man wants. Priority is Horace and who put in that news story of Gardner's death.”
“Shep?”
“Yeah?”
“Would the old man set me up?”
“What the hell for? You work for him.”
Scratch shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe to keep me in line? A way out of something else?”
“Scratch, he don't operate that way,” Shep said. “Now, if you left the company for any reason… and you made threats… or if he didn't trust you anymore…”
“Any reason he shouldn't trust you?” Ralph glanced at Scratch in the rearview mirror. “Or we shouldn't?”
“That's a hell of a question, Ralph!” Shep yelled.
“I'm sorry, Scratch. I had to ask,.” Ralph said.
There was a moment of uneasy silence. Scratch's mind had drifted back to the incident at the Primrose. How he reached for that hatbox, how upset Gardner got, and suddenly he was out cold.
“Shep. I need to get back in that room at the Primrose,” Scratch said.
“Well… I guess you can. The city boys are in there. County took the body already. In a few hours Gladys and her girls will start cleaning up blood and brain.”
“What about my car, Shep?”
“Rooster getting a wrecker to bring it to the station. Pick it up there this afternoon.”
The police car turned down a long, wooded lane that circled around a hill, stretching two miles. The car stopped at a gate with the old man's initials made out of elephant tusk. Scratch dreaded it. Riding along with Shep and Ralph was OK. Talking to Shep was always good. Any time spent inside the mansion, or in the old man's presence, turned Scratch's stomach upside-down.
The guard opened the gates, waved the police car through. He looked miserable, too. As a matter of fact, most of Spiff's employees looked miserable, except Shep and Ralph. That's because they only saw him when they were called in. The butler let them in. Cecil said Spiff was out back shooting skeets. Cecil had been a vet of World War One and carried a shrapnel scar on his chin. He was a lean old man who looked like he'd been an athlete at one time. He knew Spiff's old man from a long time ago. Rumor had it, they rode together before World War One and may have robbed a few banks out in New Mexico. They were chased by a posse and Cecil was shot, left for dead. A few months later, Spiff's father showed up and busted Cecil out. By then though, Spiff's father had claimed all the money and left Cecil with zip. A broken man, he became subordinate to Spiff's father – a slave and an employee.
Wonderful to have friends, right?
Spiff was out by the lake he had built last spring, playing skeets. His gruff bellow announcing, “Pull!” didn't jibe with nature. No birds were singing, and even the ripples on the lake were quiet. The blast from the shotgun disrupted Scratch's thoughts, too. He had to close his eyes and quickly think of something else. The sound of gunfire took him back to that mountain in Korea. For the most part, Spiff was terrible at skeets, he would only hit one plate out of five.
When he hit a plate, he acted overconfident, looking at his lawyer, Dan Lowery, like it was meant for Spiff to be the best at everything. When he missed, he cursed and stomped his feet like an oversized child.
“See that?” Spiff said to Lowery.
“Yes sir.” the young man in a powder-blue suit tugged at his tie and adjusted his glasses.
“That's how you do it, Lowery!” Spiff chuckled. “You can learn a lot from an old coot like me.”
“Yes sir.” Lowery acted as if he was too scared to say anything else but yes sir.
Spiff was still in his pajamas. He often did that. Went to lunches, or in town to shop. Even went to business meetings and board meetings in his nightwear. No one knew exactly why.
“If it isn't the Three Stooges,” Spiff said.
Shep wasn't amused. He kept a sour demeanour when he was around Spiff. Keeping it all business curtailed the abuse. Might have been one of the reasons Shep was the only one Spiff had any respect for.
“Let's get this over with, old man,” Shep said. “I got some fishing to do.”
“Don't you have a county to protect? You're always fishing or hunting,” Spiff retorted.
“I have to relax somehow after dealing with you,” Shep said.
Spiff smiled. He liked that. The bantering and the way Shep stood up to him.
“How about you?” The old man asked Ralph.
“I don't understand the question, sir,” Ralph said.
“You going home to diddle the little lady?”
Ralph didn't like that. He didn't like it at all.
“Make some more children you can't afford to have?”
“Yes sir,” Ralph said. “A whole clan. So one day they can take this godforsaken town from you and make it decent,” Ralph snarled and turned to Shep: “I'll wait in the car.” He walked to the car, looked behind him every step of the way.
The old man laughed. Everyone around the old man felt uncomfortable. But he was king of his world and he showed it. He
