Tinker's Maze

By Bach Bakehouse

Lianoma County is hot and dry. Tinker's Maze Park takes up a good portion of the county. A damaged Viet Nam veteran and a young park ranger are sure there's been a murder, but the requisite body has disappeared.. Things are about to get hotter for Patrick Ivers and Jenny Brush.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bach Bakehouse
• Release date: Nov 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310407611

Book preview

Chapter 1

It had been years since Patrick had seen a dead body. The last time had been in Viet Nam, eleven years ago. The memories came rushing back, memories he kept tightly under control in some deep place in his mind. He could once again see Kris walking the recommended ten paces in front of him, could hear the rest of the platoon scuffing along behind, each lost in their own thoughts as they walked as silently as they possibly could along the path through the saw grass and low, twisted trees. His eyes swept as much of the horizon as he could see, trusting that each of the others was doing the same, looking for that unseen Gook that had the uncanny ability to make themselves known at the most surprising and inopportune times.

The mountain air was cool as he looked at the boulder pile in front of him. He listened to the quiet rush of wind in the pines and stared, waiting for his heart to slow to a more normal pace, for the shaking to leave his knees and fingers, the numbing cold to leave his mind. The person lying near the bottom of those rocks didn't look dead. But then, neither had Kris. Pat hadn't even heard the shot until after Kris had crumpled into a pile on the ground, looking like he was sleeping except for a few spastic jerks and the slightly odd angle of his arms and legs. The person in the boulder field looked like he was sleeping, too, except that no live person would dare contort his limbs into the angles and crosses they were presently in. Nor turn his head as far on his shoulders.

Pat felt the blood returning to his face and limbs, looked up and down the pile of boulders and then moved behind one of the Lodgepole pines that covered the side of the mountain, the size of which barely hid his 200-pound frame. The rest of the platoon had scurried for what little cover they could find and then looked into the grass and sparse trees for the source of the single shot, but could see nothing. The sergeant had moved quietly in a low crouch, fanned them out through the grass that was moving ever so slightly in the gentle morning breeze but Pat just lay beside the path and stared at Kris sleeping on the hard dirt in front of him. A little trickle came from the front of his face pressed flat in the dirt, becoming an ever larger stain on the packed earth under him.

Pat moved from behind the pine and took one small step toward the body, feeling as though he should at least try to help while at the same time knowing it was too late for any such gesture. He had crawled closer to Kris, had seen the tiny hole in the back of his head, had reached out with the arm that wasn't holding onto the M16, grabbed the khaki shirt of his friend and rolled him over. The little hole in back hadn't prepared him for the massive damage to the front.

A damp sweat ran down his back, evaporated quickly in the dry mountain air. It took all his concentration to choke back a scream, a chore that had eluded him as he looked at Kris' missing face. The sergeant had shaken him several times before Pat realized that the scream he was hearing was his own, realized he was screaming so hard that his throat and lungs hurt. And then he had broken down and cried, his back to the body that had once been his friend.

He didn't scream, didn't cry. Didn't know the twisted body that lay in front of him. That pile of cooling flesh hadn't traveled the same jungle paths, hadn't suffered through the same tired rations, warm water and dusty, smelly sweat while on patrol. This one hadn't lurched through the night streets, laughing with the local whores and drinking watered down whiskey until he wished he would die rather than puke one more time.

The sergeant had helped to lift the limp pile of bones and flesh onto Pat's shoulders in a fireman's carry and then talked quietly while Pat moved like through a dream the short distance to the little hill where the Huey landed and relieved him of his burden. He had finished the patrol, forcing the memory of Kris into the back of his mind where it receded further and further as the years passed.

Pat stood stock still and stared, feeling dizzy and fighting to keep his stomach in the same place it had been several seconds before. His palms were damp and his legs quivered again as the memories tried once more to get out. He closed his eyes and willed his brain to an almost complete standstill. Then, when he once more felt in control, he took several deep breaths, slipped out of his backpack and stood with his back against the rough bark of the tree. Shading his eyes against the sun with one hand and holding the camera strap off his neck with the other, he looked toward the top of the cliff from which the man had evidently fallen. It was probably the highest of the drop-offs the trail he was now following went past.

Whoever the person had once been had evidently done his hiking for the day and was coming back. No one had passed Pat on the trail and he had been taking his time; setting the tripod, changing lenses, snapping pictures of the panorama that presented itself in a different way each time he rounded a bend or got a little higher on the trail. The changing colors that washed the mountains as the sun went from cloud to cloud never ceased to stir his imagination. Nor his camera finger.

The body was not dressed like a hiker. It wore leather loafers, not hiking shoes. There were neatly pleated slacks and a light, soft sweater over a white shirt instead of the standard hiking shorts and sweatshirt. And the backpack that advertised even the most casual day hiker was not there. The person on the boulder pile hadn't come prepared to travel very far on his last trip.

Pat shuddered again, the bile settling back into his stomach. His eyes gained back their full vision and his ears quit ringing.

He called, not too loud, Hello.

'Hello', came the disappearing answer from several different directions as the echo bounced from one cliff to the next.

A small stone tumbled down as the last of the echoes died away. Pat looked up, expecting, hoping, to see another hiker, but was disappointed to see only the rocks with several small junipers growing in precarious little patches here and there. Another stone came skipping from boulder to boulder but still no one appeared on the trail above him.

Hello, he called again, a little louder, expecting to see someone appear on the trail above, inching closer to the edge and knocking the stones loose from the trail as they looked down the cliff.

Hello on the trail, there, loudly this time.

It suddenly seemed very still as the echoes that answered his call died away. The air was completely calm. The few birds and animals that made these lovely but forbidding hills their home had ceased to make their little squeaks and trills, as if in reverence to the dead. Even the omnipresent highway noises were too far away to be heard.

He checked his watch - it was 7:55 - and then looked at the little window on the back of his camera. Nine pictures left on the roll. He moved to the side of the trail and snapped a couple of pictures of the body. Then he moved to the other side and took two more. He looked closely at all of the details of his surroundings so that he could pinpoint the exact spot when he reported it to the authorities and then took one picture which showed the body and the cliff from which it had evidently dropped.

Another small stone came skipping across the boulders. He looked up but still saw no one, took a picture of the trail, almost hidden from where he stood. One more picture from another angle and the sun disappeared behind the top of the mountain. With the sun gone there was not enough light for hand-held snapshots so he left, being very careful not to turn around as he walked on legs that no longer felt like rubber away from the body resting at a crazy angle on the field of boulders at the bottom of the cliff.

The prickles on his neck as he moved away were hard to ignore and just before the first bend in the trail he stopped and turned around. He had the feeling that there would be a hiker swinging along the trail, a welcome intrusion into his day.

Hello, he called once more.

Just the echoes answered him so he took one last look at the body and the cut in the cliff where the trail was, swung his backpack on again, adjusted his camera strap and turned away, settling into a long, easy gait that covered a lot of ground without a lot of exertion. His breathing settled into a deep, regular pattern and the turmoil in his mind began to smooth over. It returned to the thought of the body and the stones that kept falling from the trail above less frequently and focused, from force of habit, more on the best camera angle and lens to use on each scene that spread out in front of him.

As he rounded one of the last few bends in the trail, the little mountain lake appeared below him. The deep shade of the evergreens on the opposite side made the shoreline almost imperceptible. Set into this mass of darkness were the white walls and red roofs of the little private resort that stood out on a small promontory on the other side of the lake. The last of the day's light reflected off the clouds and into the clear, icy waters. He rested the camera on a convenient tree limb for support and snapped the last frames on the roll. He smiled to himself as he envisioned how the slides taken that day would look, went over the ones he might send off, assuming they were of the quality he expected.

As he continued along the trail, he replaced the film with fresh, lifting out the little cartridge and replacing it with a fresh roll while his feet didn't miss a beat along the trail which now opened out onto the little meadow that separated the mountains from the highway. He carefully stowed the empty film box in the side pocket of his backpack, slipped the spent film into the protective plastic canister left over from the new roll, snapped the top on and dropped it into another pocket in the backpack, then checked to make sure the top of the compartment was belted shut.

This done he paused a moment, feeling a bit strange, as if there should be someone there that wasn't. He turned around and scanned the line of trees from which he had emerged, the little hairs at the back of his neck standing straight out once again.

What did you expect? he said to himself. You've just seen a stiff and you're half spooked. Maybe more 'n half. What did you really expect?

He started off again, fighting the impulse to turn around and check to be sure no one was there. By the time he had crossed the small meadow and reached the gravel car-park, darkness was quickly gathering around him. There were not really any sunsets here, at least not like he remembered them when he had been small and lived with his mother and her assorted friends in New Bowers Grove, high (for the flat plains that surrounded them) in the loess hills along the east side of the Missouri River, anyway.

Pat looked over at the other vehicles in the trail head car-park. The car had been there when he had arrived. The oversized, overpriced, over-excessive and damned road maggot hadn't. The two people in the belly of the maggot were evidently eating supper. All the lights inside were on and he could see them moving around, like in a silent movie, going from table to oven as they heated their instant suppers. He couldn't hear them, though. The oven and lights required energy and the generator was working overtime, filling the air with its whirring, muffled din and a choking blast of spent hydrocarbons.

The car, a big black Lincoln, looked only slightly out of place when compared to the monstrosity next to it. One would more likely expect to see a Jeep or a VW or a little Chevy equipped with a car top carrier and trailer hitch. Pat looked at the Meal-on-Wheels again.

Maggot, he sighed, and then returned his gaze to the Lincoln. When he met no one on the trail he had assumed that the person (persons?) had an overnight permit and wouldn't be back for a day or two. There was still no one in the car so he thought his assumption still correct.

Pat set his camera on the hood of his car, took off the backpack and placed it beside the camera, and then started fishing for his keys in his pockets. Finding them, he unlocked the driver's door and retrieved a small cooler from the back seat. He took out a small bottle of water and sipped. The light from the windows of the maggot made everything else seem very dark, the generator noise made everything else seem very quiet, the fumes made his head hurt. He guessed that he really disliked those things. They were bad enough on the road, slow, aggravating and dangerous, but worse when parked.

He turned and rested his head on his fist on top of his car. This was not normal. He was very fastidious about the black and grey Pontiac, a low slung Trans-Am with a bubble in the hood to make enough room for the engine, a V-8, originally 6.6L but with high-performance heads and cam and oversized pistons, a balanced crank, ported and polished and turbo-charged. It was one of the things he valued highly, second, perhaps only to his camera or horse. Walt had spent the better part of a year helping Pat restore it after Winston had wrecked it, nearly killing both occupants of the car.

Pat raised his head, shook himself involuntarily and looked around, just in time to see a dark shape come hurtling from behind the trash barrel that stood anchored in front of the car.

Jeez! he cried, and jumped back. The figure ran by, grabbed the camera from the hood as it swept past and continued on toward the front of the maggot, its feet making crunching sounds in the gravel of the car-park.

Hey, he shouted it loudly this time. What the hell do you think you're doing?

Pat was long limbed and took only a few steps to catch up with, reach out and grab the back of the fleeing figure's shirt. He straightened up and yanked, sending the thief and himself lunging into the front of the maggot. They both managed to straighten up and push away from the giant vehicle, each grunting and trying to get some favorable purchase on the other. They struggled just an instant, Pat stronger, the other quicker, then went over in a tangle onto the grass as their feet stopped short at the log set in concrete that prevented vehicles from continuing on into the meadow.

Pat got his hand on the camera and stood up. So did his assailant, who sent off a roundhouse right. He started to duck, caught briefly the reflection of the moon off of something shiny as it came toward his head. But his reflexes weren't fast enough and, while a certain amount of the blow was deflected by his shoulder, whatever it was that had caught his eye also caught him in the temple.

The pain was intense and Pat sagged, his limbs heavy and his vision blurry as he dimly watched a pair of legs scurry around the maggot with his camera.

Inside the maggot the man interrupted his supper long enough to push back a fluorescent green hat with bright orange letters across the front that spelled out OLD FART and a mass of black filigree on the bill, what enlisted men would call bird shit. He opened the window and put his overweight and flushed face to the screen.

Keep it down out there, fer chrissake, he shouted.

To Pat, the voice seemed to come from the other end of a long culvert, the sounds echoing and booming as they crashed from one corrugated wall to the other, becoming strange and far away by the time they finally reached his ears. A shower of gravel pelted him as the Lincoln backed out and he was dimly aware of tires squealing, horns honking and people shouting as another tourist barely got stopped in time to avoid hitting the big car.

Goddam. Can't even get any peace here in the Park anymore! Filthy, uncultured kids! C'mon, Mother, we're outta this goddam place!

Bird Shit in the Belly of the Maggot slammed the window shut and honked in response to the chorus of other horns. The behemoth moaned to life and crawled with jerky, uneven movements into the night, honking at another, smaller vehicle that had the audacity to be in the general vicinity.

Jeez, Pat muttered and gingerly felt his head, waiting and trying to collect his wits. He could feel no blood. His other hand moved instinctively to his leg and he could feel the scars, hard and smooth, beneath the blue jeans.

Jeez, he muttered again and sank back onto the cold grass of the meadow.

Against his will, he conjured up the smell of cordite as it had drifted past, the shouts and shots, the flashes as they twinkled in the night. There was no sergeant to stop his moans or the screams of the other wounded, to shake them out of their fright. They had become the perfect fighting machine, terrified into fearlessness, shouting and shooting, charging, slipping and dodging low tree limbs and dripping leaves, impervious to the shouts and tracer rounds and thuds around them. The rest of the platoon had followed, needing only a leader to get them to move ahead through the darkness. Pat was dimly aware of two black-clothed figures that rose up in front of him, pitched and spiraled when he squeezed the trigger, their rifles going a direction opposite from their twitching, dying bodies. He rammed another, crashed the butt of his weapon into its mid-section, pressed the muzzle tight against the prone figure and fired again. He was dimly aware of a sudden pain above his right eye, kept blinking trying to clear whatever was in it so he could see better. Another thud, so close it numbed his hearing, and his world turned upside down. Slowly and silently the trees silhouetted against the moon moved in a graceful arc until they hung from the sky, then continued their sweep until they disappeared in blackness. He landed in a clump of prickly bushes, unaware, now, of the shots and thuds around him, the screams of fear and dying. He brushed some slippery sticky out of his right eye, tried to stand but couldn't get his leg quite under him, then became completely immobile, horrified. The sergeant was no more than five feet away, lying with his head down the hill, his eyes wide but clouded over and unseeing, his neck almost severed and glistening black in the moonlight, his intestines a ghostly white against the soiled shirt where the spinning, white-hot shrapnel had cut him almost in half. His vision blurred from the corners toward the middle, his body relaxed and he leaned back in the underbrush, felt the warmth of his blood and urine as they trickled down his leg. He no longer cared. He dreamed of home.

Jeez, jeez, jeez, he mumbled quietly, under his breath.

He felt uncertain and bewildered, afraid that he would slip back into the nightmare that had followed him when he was again stateside. He could feel it creeping under and around, straining the still fragile bonds that held it in check.

Jeez, he whispered again, and lay on his back looking up into the darkness, trying to think of absolutely nothing at all.

Chapter 2

Russell Botts leaned back against the bar in the smoky din of Dirty John's Saloon, one elbow resting on the brass plated edge and the worn heel of one tooled leather boot hooked in the brass rail that ran along the bottom. He watched the figure on the stage over the rim of his beer mug, his eyes smarting in the blue cigarette haze, a vice he had never taken up, nor could he understand those that had and minced few words stating his position to anyone who would listen. The picture on the poster tacked to the door had caught his eye but he didn't take particular notice of the writing. Now his attention was riveted.

Mercede McMilion

Exotic Dancer

He ran the name over in his mind. As far as dancer was concerned, he wouldn't have known a polka from a minuet. But exotic he could recognize. He knew without even thinking about it that Mercede McMilion was definitely exotic!

Her tiny vest covered nothing but her shoulders and back. An even tinier bikini bottom was sequined in red to match the vest. The seam of her black, diamond patterned stockings accentuated her legs, making them seem longer than they actually were. She was accompanied by a similarly attired three piece band. The music was awful and the dance grotesque, but no one in Dirty John's noticed. They hadn't come expecting the artistic and they got none of it. Each had come to look, to stare, to admire, dream, and fantasize. They were getting every bit of what they had come for.

Russell emptied the mug and licked his lips, mildly upset at the rowdy group standing at the edge of the stage that blocked his full view of the bouncing Mercede McMilion. He hadn't come specifically to see the dancing, but now that he was here he wanted to see as much as he could.

The ones standing nearest the stage were fairly well along in their evening ritual and, as such, were less than inhibited. One ran a hand up the inside of her leg as she bumped along the front of the stage. She merely smiled, bent toward the group in a move calculated to be most provocative and wagged her finger back and forth.

Naughty, naughty.

He couldn't hear over the noise of the band and the crowd but the way her lips moved, that was what he thought she said.

Dirty John replaced the empty mug with a full one. Russell turned and nodded, understood that this one would probably go on his tab, a tab that grew to a hefty amount each week, even with the perks. Never any liquor or name brand beer, but a lot of the light, watered down stuff on tap.

He turned back to the spectacle on the stage. The drummer beat on the snare, the pianist slammed all ten fingers down in a cacophonic chord, and Mercede McMilion twirled awkwardly several times and then let her vest slip to the floor. A chorus of whistles and catcalls rose from the crowd. The vest hadn't hidden anything before, but Russell was now engrossed.

She shook her shoulders and both breasts whirled clockwise. A cymbal crash and she stopped, then shook her shoulders again so that they whirled in the opposite direction. Another cymbal crash and she shook so they went round counter to each other.

The grand finale, that. A crashing chord from the badly tuned piano, a series of thuds from the drums and tinny peals from the cheap cymbals, hisses and groans and static from the guitar amplifier. Mercede McMilion bowed low as the music stopped, retrieved her vest, and pranced the four steps across the stage, stepped into the rowdy crowd gathered at the side, and retreated through the door, followed by the three musicians.

Russell licked his lips and set his nearly empty beer mug on the once polished, now viscid bar top. He nodded to the diminutive barkeep and went through the same door as the entertainers, into a hallway lit entirely by a red EXIT sign at the far end. The first two doors were marked Cowgirls and Cowboys. He walked past, the heels of his boots tapping hollowly against the bare wood floor. The boards squeaked under his weight, then hissed as years of beer and greasy food tried to keep him attached.

He knocked at the next door.

Yeah, came a hoarse, female voice.

Botts, he said to the closed door.

You don't say, the same hoarse voice.

Deputy Russell Botts, Lianoma County, he said in a voice full of self-importance. Open up, I need to speak with you.

He thought about the mole approximately two inches to the left of her navel, the twirling, shaking finale, her pale, soft stomach, her twitching rump as she left the room.

The door opened just slightly and revealed the bleached blond head of Mercede McMilion, christened Beatrice Kloeckner.

So where's the ID? she croaked. Anyone could claim to be a lawman and she was being careful.

Russell dug in his pocket and produced a wallet which he flipped open to reveal a badge and plastic covered ID card.

Just a minute. She closed the door.

Deputy Russell Botts stood there, wallet still in hand, and looked at the pink paint peeling off the panels of the door. He heard a rustling inside, then it opened and he stood looking at Mercede McMilion now covered with a short, beige terry cloth robe wound around with a wide cloth belt that struggled to hold it closed. The wallet didn't move and neither did he. Her circling breasts still burned vividly in his mind.

Well, she said.

Need to speak to you, he replied and, suddenly realizing it was still in his hand, hastily put his wallet back into his pocket.

Yeah, so come in, she said and stepped back, opening the door even wider.

Russell smiled what he thought was a masculine, relaxed smile but which actually came off as quite goofy. He stood for just a minute and then stepped into the small room, flexing his arms and chest surreptitiously so