John Miller - Too Far Gone

“With a meat-tenderizing hammer, not a pipe,” Manseur said.

“Perhaps the hammer was a weapon of convenience. Maybe he knew the pipe would point to him. He could have attacked Gary West with a lead pipe. Maybe he was hired by Fugate to do the West grab and he wanted to up his percentage.”

“Money could have been his motive for attacking Gary West?”

Alexa said, “You’ve never been open to considering that LePointe might be directly involved. A blind spot.”

“No. I still can’t see it.”

“Maybe LePointe knows Leland from the hospital and hired him to kill Fugate.”

“Alexa, think about this. Dr. LePointe hired a retarded giant mental patient to kill Nurse Fugate and abduct Gary West?”

“It’s easy for me to imagine Fugate knew far too much about him and Sibby. Maybe he wanted to get rid of Fugate and stuck her with the responsibility of springing Sibby, and he got Leland to get rid of one or both of them. Maybe he worked all of it through Decell. Arm’s-length transaction. And if he did that, why is it unimaginable that he grabbed West while they were settling family business. Whoever was in an old green panel truck was in both places. They took Sibby out of Fugate’s and they abducted Gary West using it. What are the chances two such trucks were involved?”

Manseur nodded slowly. “I’ll concede that point. Somebody did both. I can’t picture LePointe risking everything by leading a conspiracy, because he knows enough about people who conspire to know they rat out each other.”

Alexa picked up the handwritten list of staff Veronica had furnished and read it.

Ward 14 Staff:

Nurses:

Judi Bodiker

Vicky Lane

Kerry Hamilton

Abbey Dunn

Jamie Smith

Orderlies:

Bunky Bouvier

Bob Waller

Andrew Tinsdale

Terry Fourchet

Jack Warden

Janitorial:

Tommy Dogrel

Raymond Carrouth

Joe Jefferson

“Sometimes very smart people don’t think they can be foiled by what fells lesser men. We’re not dealing with a man who believes normal rules apply to him. Arrogance, a sense of entitlement, intelligence, and power can make for a deadly combination. No guns or knives-all blunt force. We find Mr. Ticholet, we’ll know the truth. What do you suppose Swamp Boy is driving these days?” Alexa asked.

Manseur shrugged. “I can find out easy enough.”

“Fifty dollars says it’s something old and green.”

Except for a few fish camps scattered along the bayou-owned by people who didn’t live in them-Doc’s house was in a very isolated area. There was a seldom-used parish road that ran parallel to the water that made the camps accessible by land or water. Leland thought that made the sites unacceptable to someone like him, who appreciated privacy.

Leland carried Doc’s sleeping man over his shoulder up the gentle slope to the house. Once inside, Leland dumped his burden into a chair and, after peeling back the bedsheet he’d wrapped him in, watched while Doc used rolls of duct tape to secure the bastard to the chair, looping the whole deal to a wooden six-by-six post that held up the center roof beam.

“He don’t look barely even alive,” Leland said. “Ought to put him out his misery.”

“Dear boy, he’s in acceptable physical condition. Mr. West is a remarkable example of youth and virility,” Doc said, his words spilling out like cigarette smoke, all silky and smooth. “He’s been cleaned up since I last laid eyes on him. Florence Leland Nightingale now, is it?”

“What?”

“She was a nurse. She bathed the faces of the ill and those put under the weather thanks to the ravages of lead balls and saber slashes.”

“She cleaned that old blood off his face.”

“She who?”

Doc’s face twisted itself up and Leland knew he’d have to tell him about it, even though it was none of his business. Leland didn’t like nosy people. But he didn’t see that telling would hurt anything.

“Game warden and lady warden came to my camp this morning. They had this camera stuck up on a tree to spy on me. He was going to get his radio to get help, but I caught him, and she was cleaning the blood off this guy’s face when I came in.”

“Holy shit! Game wardens? And you did what?”

Leland shrugged, taken aback by the dumbness of the question. “They was trespassers. I killed ’em.”

“And then?”

“I got shed of them and I sunk their boat where nobody won’t never find it. A deep hole I know of.”

After thinking for a few seconds, Doc smiled. “Not a problem. Good thinking, Leland. You did the right thing.”

“You mean on killing those wardens?”

“You, a specimen endowed with such suspect genetics, take instruction amazingly well for an overly muscular individual blessed with the intelligence usually associated with invertebrates and the inanimate. You actually showed initiative and took what might have been a disastrous situation, and-I have little doubt-handled it with the thoughtful planning of an enraged primate encountering a potential Armageddon. You never fail to astound me with your Kong-like aplomb, your measured directness in solving complex problems with straightforward acts. Leland Ticholet, I am more certain than ever that for you the world holds no mysteries whatsoever.”

Leland felt his face flushing. He couldn’t help but smile when Doc laid on fancy compliments. “I just do what needs to get did, I reckon. Nothing nobody else like me wouldn’t a’ did in my place.”

“If you could accomplish another complex assignment, get that stepladder out of your old truck for me? We have a lot of work to do in preparation for this evening’s festivities. Perhaps you can observe what I do and give me unsolicited, and undoubtedly moronic, advice while I connect up my little devise du demise.”

Leland went out and brought back the ladder, which was in his father’s old truck. Doc had gotten a mechanic to fix the truck up so it worked pretty good and he’d told Leland he would be able to use it after things were settled, and the wheels would come in handy for getting up groceries and like that. All Leland wanted to do now was get back to the swamp, but since Doc had asked so nicely, he’d stay and watch him put his little contraption together. Doc was a very smart man, and Leland listened to what Doc was saying without being interested in any of it, or caring how rich the man was going to get from this.

Doc didn’t talk much about things that Leland cared anything about. He told Leland he knew more about most anything than any man alive, teachers even, and Leland believed him. Doc was the best electrical man, the best plumbing man, the best car driver, the best food cooker, the best wine drinker, the best lover of beautiful women. Hellfire, Doc was about the best there was at whatever the hell it was he decided to tell about.

An hour later, Leland had to admit the deal Doc had built in the little house was something to look at. All those wires that went all over the place through the pulleys and the way it was all hooked up to that bowl. Doc explained it, but it seemed like a bunch of showing off to Leland. Why go to so much work for something so simple to do and be done with?

Why would anybody waste all this time and effort when all he needed was a piece of pipe? Maybe the smarter you were, the more you figured you had to show off. Leland couldn’t figure out why Doc was always telling him what he was going to do and exactly how he was going to do it. Leland didn’t care if the little man could light a match to his fart and fly up to the moon from the flames shooting out from his ass.

Leland was, as usual, bored enough to bash Doc’s head in and go back out to the cabin where he had traps that wouldn’t set their own selves.