Gay Hendricks - The First Rule of Ten

“Yeah?” I heard. Then, “Right now?” Dardon shot a look in my direction. “I’m talking to him this very moment.” He mumbled a few final words to his caller. Then he walked over to my car again, his eyes sparking with some new mischief.

“You headed for John D’s?”

I nodded.

“You strike me as a stand-up guy. Norman wants me to help him declare his father mentally incapable. What say you follow me up there, see how well that flies?”

Norman was waiting on the front steps of his father’s house. He glanced at me, then barked at Dardon. “What the fuck?”

Dardon’s jaw tightened. “Norman, watch your mouth.”

So Norman and the deputy were not as tight as I had thought. Good. Even better, Norman chose to ignore Dardon’s warning. Face darkening to a dull maroon, Norman actually started to sputter. “Goddamn it to hell, I’m a tax-paying citizen and a county official. You’re supposed to be helping me here.”

Dardon said, “Norman, I’m not supposed to be doing anything but finding out what the heck is going on with your daddy. Which I am now going to do. You can just stay outside until you get your head straightened out.”

Norman huffed at that, but didn’t move as the deputy sheriff left us both and walked straight into the house. Norman glared at me, but somehow managed to hold his tongue until the officer returned. Dardon hooked a finger at me. “John D wants to talk to you.”

Norman exploded. “-the fuck d’you mean? This guy is a total-”

“Shut it, Norman,” Dardon said, and we walked inside. John D was enthroned in his recliner, chuckling at an old caper movie. He paused it and turned to look at us. His eyes appeared suspiciously red to me.

“Hey, Ten. How’re you doin’?” His gaze latched onto the bag of chips poking out of my grocery bag.

“Doing great,” I said. “In fact, I found a copy of that DVD I told you about. Maybe we can watch it later.”

The Chief canted a curious eye in my direction.

“John D and I are big movie fans,” I explained.

“Movie fans. Right,” Dardon said.

“So Ten,” John D drawled, “seeing as how we been spending quite a bit of time together lately, why don’t you tell Jack here whether or not you think I’m okay, that my mentus is, you know, compus.”

“I think you are,” I said.

“How about you, Jack? Based on what you’ve seen so far, you think I can handle my own affairs? Or am I a nut job, like Norman out there claims?”

Dardon stretched it out a bit, but the corners of his mouth were twitching, so I knew it was all in fun. He said, “No, John D, I think you’re the same stubborn, ornery SOB you’ve been as long as I can remember.”

John D gave us both a beatific grin, which froze at Dardon’s next words.

“And I also think Norman’s a chip off the old block.”

Perfectly timed, Norman bellowed from outside, “You guys having a fucking party in there?”

Dardon shook his head. “You two don’t need a sheriff. You need a therapist.”

“Tell Norman that,” John D growled. “He’s the one causing all the trouble.”

Dardon opened his mouth as if to say more, then closed it again.

Halfway out the door, he paused. “I assume you have a prescription for your marijuana, John D.”

“I do, but I wish I didn’t,” John D grumbled. “If something’s legal, it ain’t half the fun.”

The sequence of black-and-white surveillance images jittered forward in a repetitive, deja vu kind of way. The sizes, shapes, genders, and ages changed, but the actions were almost identical: fish out a card, squint at the screen, feed the machine its slice of plastic, tap in a code, remove tongue-thrust of cash, more squinting, count cash, remove card, remove receipt, walk away while pocketing all of the above.

“When was it?” I asked, keeping one eye on the time code.

“Around eight-thirty,” John D said.

“Okay. We’re getting close.”

“There,” he said.

I used slo-mo. John D shuffled up to the ATM, digging out his wallet. Fished, squinted, fed, tapped. The ATM spat out five bills. He counted the cash twice and turned away from the camera as he started to place the bills in his wallet. Still in slow motion, a smallish man materialized from somewhere left of the frame, his arm extended outward, moving as if he had all the time in the world.

Frame by painful frame, we watched him pinch the bills from John D’s hand, shove him hard, then move off to the right, crossing paths with a second, taller man, who rolled in with his head lowered like a bull’s. He body-blocked John D, who slow-tumbled to the ground, his mouth opening into a perfect circle of surprise. It would have been comical if it weren’t so awful.

The man drew back a cowboy boot, the sharp toe sleeved in metal. One, two, three kicks to the ribs. I flinched with each pointed thrust. His mouth stretched into a sneer at the crumpled body below him. Then he executed a slow half-pirouette and followed his partner off screen. I checked the time code. Less than 30 seconds from start to finish. It had felt like a lifetime.

Then I checked John D. He was hunched forward in the recliner. His arms were crossed high and tight over his chest, and his breath was shallow. Well, mine was, too. My body had gone bulletproof, tightening into an armored state of readiness, as if to ward off the blows on the screen. I ran the segment again, and freeze-framed the first assailant.

I leaned closer. I knew him, only last time he had a sponge in his hand and was lathering up the muddy underside of a luxury coupe.

The second guy, the one with the boots, took longer to identify. He had the requisite black hoodie pulled low over his face. I guess some assaults don’t count unless you wear a hoodie. I rewound and froze the image of him sneering at John D’s crumpled body. The garment hid his face, but it couldn’t hide the small bowling ball of a paunch.

“Nehemiah,” I said. “Why, I’d know your paunch anywhere.”

My first verifiable link between Barsotti and Brother Eldon.

John D pushed himself off his chair and peered at the grainy image.

“Yep, that’s him,” he said. He scratched his grizzled chin.

“I guess he didn’t get the memo from Brother Eldon,” I said. “The one about being polite to you.”

That got a laugh out of John D, then a wince. “You got any idea what these two are up to?”

I thought about that. “Not exactly, but my partner Bill always says that most crimes can be found hunkered behind one of two motives: love or money. Since I truly doubt you’re Nehemiah’s type, I’m choosing money.”

“Okay,” John D said, “but what’s the payoff? Setting aside the hundred bucks I withdrew.”

“Eighty acres,” I said. “The payoff is eighty acres of land. John D, who besides you knows about your plan to donate the land to the Conservancy?”

John D shook his head. “Nobody. I mean, one of their lawyers is helping me set up the trust, but nobody else …” An odd look crossed his face.

“What?”

“Well, the Conservancy sent out a young man, one of them notaries, a few weeks ago, with some preliminary papers for me to sign. He told me I needed a witness, and could I think of anybody to ask, a neighbor or someone. Only one handy was Brother Nehemiah.”

“God will provide.”

John D put his head in his hands.

So now we had a ticking clock, and a hog farm and cult looking to expand their operations at the expense of the Conservancy. Not to mention John D’s sole surviving heir, though I had a hard time believing that Norman would resort to violence against his father. He struck me as just a basic run-of-the-mill loser: more grown-up brat than criminal mastermind. Still, I couldn’t completely rule him out.