One Good Deed(77)

“Maybe. God, this place stinks,” said Shaw, covering his nose with his free hand as they headed to the building.

“Wait’ll you get inside,” replied Archer. “You’ll have to hold your nose and your belly.”

The door was locked.

“Do we break it in?” said Shaw, tapping on the stout wood.

“Hold on.”

Archer stuck the gun into his waistband, took out his knife, and worked away at the lock for about thirty seconds. Then it swung open.

“I won’t ask where you learned to do that,” Shaw said.

He clicked on the flashlight and they entered the space. Archer, who knew the layout of the building pretty well, led the way.

When they reached the space where the hogs were sledgehammered and the walls and floor were coated with blood and brain matter and Archer explained what went on here, Shaw said firmly, “I ain’t never eating another piece ’a pork, long as I live, swear to God.”

They moved through the building, listening for any sound of Draper, but there was no noise at all, other than the litany of grunts from the ill-fated hogs penned up outside.

They finished searching the place and went back outside.

“Okay, this is a right puzzle,” said Shaw.

Archer wasn’t paying attention to him. He was looking over at the hog pens.

“What?” said Shaw, eyeing him.

“Seems to be a ruckus going on over there.”

Archer hustled over to the hog pen with Shaw on his heels.

They reached the fence and peered over to where a group of hogs was worrying at something on the ground.

“Give me that light,” said Archer. He shone it on the spot.

“What the hell is that?” cried out Shaw.

Archer pointed his pistol in the air and fired two shots. This scattered the hogs, who ran toward the far end of the pen. Archer gripped the top fence rail and swung over, his shoes softly hitting the muck on the other side. Shaw climbed over the fence and landed next to him. They slowly walked over to the spot.

“Holy Lord,” said Shaw.

Holy Lord, thought Archer as he stared down at what was left of the body. It was not Malcolm Draper.

It was Sid Duckett. Or what was left of him.

*



“His head was bashed in before he died,” said the short, rotund coroner, a cigar perched in one side of his mouth, as he rose from beside the body.

Shaw had called in the police and an ambulance and the coroner from a call box down the road. He nodded to the ambulance men, and they took the unfortunate man’s remains away on a stretcher.

Shaw tilted his hat back and rubbed his forehead. “I’m man enough to admit I didn’t see that one coming.”

“You think I maybe spooked him with my talk about Pittleman’s money problems?”

“Could be.”

While Shaw went over to talk to the coroner, Archer borrowed a flashlight from one of the deputies and examined the dirt in front of the building. He knelt down next to one particular spot.

“Hey, Mr. Shaw.”

The lawman hustled over. When he reached Archer, the man was brushing at the dirt. He stepped back and shone his light on this spot.

“See those tire tracks?”

Shaw nodded. “I can see ’em now. Good eye.”

“They’re fresh, for sure. And I can tell you something else—those tire treads are the same as on the truck Sid Duckett was driving.”

“You sure?”

“I saw ’em up close and personal when I was loading those boxes on it. It had two square misaligned patches, just like you see there.”

Shaw pulled his Buick keys out. “Okay, we got to find Malcolm Draper, fast.”

They drove off, the Buick eating up the miles back to town.

Shaw said, “See, that’s the other motivation to kill somebody: Shut ’em up. Duckett might or might not have been involved in all this. But when you told him about Pittleman’s money problems, he might’ve thought he wasn’t going to get paid. Or Duckett planned to use that knowledge to make a lot more money from folks who didn’t want certain information to get out.”

Archer had a sudden thought. “Coroner said his head was bashed in.”

Shaw glanced sharply at him. “Right. So?”

“Dickie Dill is an expert head basher.”

Shaw eyed him. “You think somebody hired him to kill Duckett?”

“Might be. I mean, Dill would do anything for money. And I’ve never met a meaner man in my life. And he didn’t come to work today.”

“Well, Duckett ain’t talking to anybody ever again. Loose lips sink ships.”

Archer’s thoughts went back to a discussion he’d had the previous night and he suddenly felt dizzy in the head and sick in his stomach.

He cried out, “We need to get to 27 Eldorado Street, fast as this damn Buick will go, Mr. Shaw.”





Chapter 32



THE BUICK HAD NOT YET REACHED Jackie’s house when Archer told Shaw to pull to the curb.

“Don’t want to warn anybody we’re coming.”

They leapt out and Archer led the way, approaching the house from the back.

It was nearly midnight now, and the silence was complete except for the movements of the two men.