Stuart Kaminsky - Melting Clock

Nelson was a wiry little man, about forty, in a lightweight white suit and a straw hat. He squinted at me through the window as if unsure of what he was seeing. I stood still. He moved right up to the window, took off his straw hat, shielded his eyes with his right hand, and looked at me and the.38 in my hand.

I considered my options, put the.38 back in my pocket and moved to open the front door of the Old California Antique Shop so the now-smiling sheriff could enter.

“Mr. Toby Peters, you are a trial and a tribulation,” said Sheriff Nelson about five minutes later as he ushered me into his office two doors down from the Old California Antique Shop. “A trial and a tribulation. You were so on the occasion of our last meeting and you are once again.”

The sheriffs office was a remodeled store about the same size as the one run by the recently deceased Claude Street, but the layout was different. There was a low wooden railing with a gate. Visitors on one side. Cops and robbers on the other. Nelson held the gate open for me and I went in, past a desk and chair with a bulletin board behind them full of notes, clippings, and “Wanted” posters. To the left was a cubbyhole of an office with “Sheriff” marked on the door. To the right were two cells, both with open doors, neither occupied.

Nelson had my.38. He had taken it as soon as I had opened the door of the Old California Antique Shop. He had then walked through the curtain and seen Claude Street’s body. It was when he came back through the curtain the gun in his hand aimed at my chest, that he first declared me “a trial and tribulation.”

Nelson pointed to the first cell. I stepped in. He closed it behind me.

“There have been four murders in the history of this municipality,” he said, shaking his head and looking constipated.

“The Indians probably killed each other from time to time before we came here,” I suggested. “And the Spanish-”

“One of these murders, in 1930-” he went on.

“Woman on the beach brained her husband with rock,” I recalled.

Nelson smiled, a very pained smile.

“You have a memory worthy of remark,” he said. “You are correct. The next murder we had was a little over one year ago and you were very much a thorn in my side during that episode. The third murder should not really count. A Mex farmer south of town shot a man who, he says, was engaged in an unappreciated folly with the Mex farmer’s wife. And now this. Mr. Toby Peters, you have been involved in one-half of the murders which have taken place in Mirador since I became sheriff.”

There was a cot in the cell. I remembered it had a lurking spring. I sat down on the cot and looked up at Nelson, who was wiping the inside band of his straw hat.

“I’m going to tell you something, sheriff,” I said. “I know you won’t do anything about it, but I’ll feel better having said it. The person who killed Claude Street can’t be far away. The paint on the picture and on the floor was still wet. He didn’t have a car parked, at least not nearby. Mine was the only one out there till you pulled up.”

Nelson moved to the chair at the desk and sat. He looked at the phone and then swiveled the chair with a screech like teeth against a blackboard and glared at me.

“I do not care for you, Mr. Peters,” he said. “That you may have surmised from my demeanor. The Municipality of Mirador has grown in population and industry since you were last here. Murder most violent is not conducive to tourism.”

“I noticed the boomtown excitement,” I said.

“See, there you are. Sarcasm. Big city sarcasm.” He plopped his straw hat on the desk and looked at the phone. “That’s what people move down here to get away from.”

“Nelson,” I said. “Pick up the phone and call the Highway Patrol. This is out of your league.”

“You are a truly vexing person,” he said. “I will indeed call the Highway Patrol in a few moments-to inform them that I have apprehended the murderer of a member of one of Mirador’s oldest families.”

“Oldest,” I repeated. “Not most prominent, most beloved?”

“Oldest will suffice,” said Nelson, looking away from me through the front window of the office. Two kids, one boy, one girl, both about ten, were walking down the middle of the street unthreatened by Mirador’s growth of population and industry. “And respected.”

“Respected?”

“Any family which is capable of contributing one hundred and six votes in a town of a little more than two thousand permanent residents is a respected family,” Nelson explained, letting his fingers touch the phone.

“One hundred and five,” I corrected.

“One hundred and six is what I said and what I meant,” Nelson said with irritation. “Mr. Claude Street was a newcomer to this community and had not yet registered to vote.”

“Newcomer?”

“One who has recently come,” Nelson said with a shake of his head, as if talking to a semi-retarded nephew, “from Carmel.” He said “Carmel” as if it were a particularly sticky and unpleasant word.

“It was not easy to rent that store,” he said.

“You own the store?”

“If it is of any concern to you, I own all of downtown,” Nelson said, without enthusiasm. “And as you can see, it has made my fortune.”

“Nelson, I didn’t kill Claude Street,” I said. “You know that.”

His back was to me now and he was staring at the phone.

“I know no such thing,” he said in total exasperation. “The evidence would suggest quite the contrary. I found you with a gun in your hand.”

“It won’t match the bullet in Street’s neck.”

Nelson’s sigh was enormous.

“You could have shot him with another weapon that you disposed of or have hidden,” he said.

“You’ve wasted a good five minutes.”

“Do you know what I truly wanted to do with my existence?” he asked, picking up the phone and lifting the receiver off the hook. He turned to me quickly, and I shook my head to indicate that he had not previously shared this confidence with me-nor had I figured it from the many clues he had dropped.

Into the phone he said, “Miss Rita Davis Abernathy, will you please connect me with the office of the Highway Patrol … No, Miss Rita, you may not inquire … It is police business … I am confident that if you display even a modicum of patience and listen in on the line after you connect me-which I am as sure you will do as I am sure my mother’s favorite child is sitting in this chair … Thank you, Miss Rita.”

While he waited for Miss Rita to put him through, Nelson turned to me and remarked, “I wanted to be a man of the cloth, as my father was before me, and his father before him.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked.

“I did not have the calling,” he said.

“Amen,” I said as into the phone he said, with great animation, “Lieutenant Freese? It is I, Sheriff Mark Nelson of the Municipality of Mirador. A homicide has taken place.”

He looked at me again and continued, “It is likely that I have apprehended the person who committed the crime, but it is also possible that he had assistance or that … I will be happy to get to the point if you will; my father always said that a man should be allowed to finish what he … About ten minutes ago … I have no deputy on duty. As you may recall, I have only one deputy, Deputy Mendoza, who is using his day off to-Thank you.”

He hung up the phone and turned to me again.

“What has happened to civility in this world?”

He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

“A lost art,” I sympathized.

“There is but one church in this town and the minister, alas, is without style or substance.” Nelson stood up.