When the Pirate Prays. James B. Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ around at the different people, I thought at least there was room at this Inn. Which gave me an associative thought and I eyed the pregnant woman. She was standing there staring, her breathing ragged. Well, Gonzáles wasn’t his old self. Not everybody gets to view a newly dead governor.

      Trooper was just standing there; face scrunched up, eyes watery. Realization had paralyzed him.

      The only person moving was the old lady. She was already on the first turn of the broad stairs heading upwards.

      Well, at least somebody had something on the ball.

      To Trooper, I said, “You’d best insure nobody disturbs the evidence for now.”

      “What are we gonna do with him?” Trooper’s voice was a plaintive cry.

      Edging through the crowd, I hit the stairs, my Nikes doing better than the old lady’s pumps.

      We made it to the third floor at the same time.

      Nothing.

      An overturned table against the wall, a busted railing, and a puddle of water, most likely from Gonzáles standing there dripping. I thought again of a life snuffed and the gorge rose once more.

      The old lady was eyeing me and moving around looking at things.

      “Maybe we shouldn’t be up here messing around,” I said, words serving to repel the fluctuating nausea.

      “Says who?” she asked with an eye cocked at me. “Did the governor leave you in charge before he died?”

      I shook my head. “Just common sense.”

      “You’re the one they call Shortcut, aren’t you?”

      “I am.”

      “You’re not from around here, are you?”

      “I’m not.”

      “You talk and dress like a cowboy. I didn’t think there were any cowboys left.”

      “I used to be; I’m not any longer.”

      “What are you now?”

      “Unemployed,” I said and thought, and running from a woman.

      “Why is it that you look like a gill-caught fish?”

      “Beats me.” I shrugged and finally controlled my emotions. “I was shocked at the governor’s death, that’s all. I’d just been talking to him. He was a living, breathing person and now he’s a corpse.”

      “Ghoulish, aren’t you?” Her other eye nailed me. “You were talking to him? You saw it happen?”

      “No. We were coming down the corridor after letting him off at the front door.”

      “You and that tall cowboy?”

      “Yep. He’s not a cowboy any longer; though once you clamp a steer’s ear or dip a cow, I guess it stays with you. He’s a mothballer.”

      The old lady shook her head. There was a beehive of gray hair neatly atop it. Her face was not wrinkled like you’d think. And she was a shade taller than me, not a hard thing to be.

      “A mothballer? Surely you take advantage of an old lady.”

      “No, it’s true. In Tucson, for the Air Farce. He decommissions aircraft and prepares them for what’s called the Boneyard.”

      “Let me get this straight,” she said, springing fingers up. She began ticking them off one at a time. “You’re unemployed, yet on this semi-remote and relatively unknown island for some unknown reason—”

      “Not at all, we were visiting the lighthouses.”

      “Right,” she said and ticked another finger down. “You know nobody, and you were with Henry B. just before he died. It’s all very suspicious.”

      “Who are you and why all these questions?” I said.

      “I, sir, am Angela Maple,” she said with a harrumph in her voice. “Who are you?”

      “Shortcut.”

      “I mean, what’s your name?”

      “Shortcut.”

      “I need all the information I can get.”

      I groaned. “Why don’t we leave the investigating to the authorities?”

      “What authorities?” she asked.

      “Beats me. Trooper?”

      She harrumphed again. “Trooper’s an alkie. Henry B. kept him on because of loyalty to a friend; he’s not much of a bodyguard.”

      Suddenly, I realized I was dealing with a pretty shrewd woman. Aggravating, but intelligent. She’d been thinking while I was reacting. “You know, Mrs. Maple—”

      “Mizz.”

      “Sure, whatever. If we’ve no authorities and we’re stuck here, we’ve a problem. We’ve a dead governor, the outside world doesn’t know it, and he’s not going to get any, ah, fresher the longer he lays down there.”

      “Lies,” she corrected. “But we’ve got the lieutenant governor here, too. And Henry B.’s chief aides.”

      “Then it ain’t our problem,” I countered. “Let ’em sort it out.”

      Gingerly she stepped to the broken railing. “He’s down there now.”

      I figured she meant the lieutenant governor.

      We were both waltzing about, not saying the one thing we both thought.

      Ms. Maple looked at me. “I wonder who killed him?”

      “And why,” I added.

      “There’s the other thing, too,” she said.

      “No authorities, no crime scene investigation; when the storm passes, everybody will be gone.”

      “That about sizes it up,” she said.

      Somebody had deliberately murdered the governor of the fourth largest state in the United States and was going to get away with it—more than likely—because a storm was bottling us all up, and keeping others away.

      On the wall next to the overturned table was a rack from which hung several tennis racquets.

      She started down the steps. “Let’s go see what the future governor has to say.”

      “Right.” As she went down, I knelt and studied the floor. No clues. In all the movies there’s always a clue. Shows to go you real life ain’t like they show us on the big screen—or the small screen, for that matter. By now Perry Mason would’ve had Paul СКАЧАТЬ