The Caswell Girl Murders

A Short Story from Horrormaxx Vol. 2 by H.T. Boyd

It’s the insects that bother me.

I don’t know.

Makes a man feel funny about God. You’d think something pure like a child wouldn’t rot.

A girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, murdered and left indecent in the woods. Discarded like a sack of trash. 

One might think, by God’s grace, that the blowflies, the moths and the buzzards would leave her be. But here, in red hot morning, she is nature’s feast.

Then again. You think about God’s grace and God’s goodness, and you’d think you wouldn’t have to live in a world where a thirteen-year old girl turns up homicided. 

A bullet hole in the back of her skull.

An exit wound at the right nostril.

Her wrists tied up in a section of extension cord. 

Must be near a thousand blowflies. This heat drives them wild. They hang over the scene like a black fog. Most of my men here are holding handkerchiefs over their mouths to keep from swallowing them. Just about every time I look at one of my deputies he’s got as many as three flies on his forehead and the sons of bitches are the size of locusts. 

And it’s hot today.

Damn hot.

You can’t move an inch without baking. Dunking sweat into your uniform. 

Cicada’s are so damn loud you’d think you’re going deaf.  Heat drives them crazy too.

“Chief Babock,” Deputy Haines says my name, “‘Scuse me, Chief Babcock.”

Deputy Haines has got to have the thickest accent of anyone I’ve ever met. He’s a child of hill people. The poor boy is as dumb as a mailbox. Has an Adam’s apple worthy of a freak show. With his fresh buzz cut and his buck teeth he looks like a beaver. 

I hear Deputy Haines. I do. I just don’t care to respond.

Wicked things like this, they, put a shroud around your heart. Cotton in your ears. The actions of the evil make it hard to be patient with the stupid. 

You look at this child. A sixth, seventh, maybe eighth grader, God Bless. You’re forced think about those last couple hours of her life. Some creep swallowing her up in a car. She must have screamed. Screamed so loud. But these woods ate those screams. And somebody, somebody sick with a tremendous emptiness in their soul, they had their way with her. This child. Put a bullet in her head when they were done. Left her here for the scavengers. The bugs.

“Sheriff Babcock.” Deputy Haines says my name a third time. 

“What is it, son?”

“We gotchu that chair what you was asking for.”

“Oh. Thank, you, Set it up for me right there. Just about, oh, eight feet from the Little Missus.”

That’s what we’ve been calling her.

A hunter came about these woods at dawn looking for rabbits. Found this girl here instead. After he drove to the station he’d said he found a little missus in the woods getting pecked at by vultures. 

So that’s her name now. Until we find her christian name.

Deputy Haines has a folding chair. The kind of cheap thing you seat extra kids in at Thanksgiving. Through a cloud of blowflies, he carries it over to the Little Missus and sets me up a seat in the yellow grass of the clearing where we found her.

Haines then takes me by the arm and guides me into an easy sit before our murder victim. 

If I’m gonna work this case I need to sit down.

I’m old. Can’t get around too good.

And I am fat.

And I have white hair now and a face I don’t recognize in the mirror. I felt like I was old for quite a long time, but now I’m very old. I used to tell people I was old but sharp. But now… Almost ninety, God bless, I can feel myself getting dull. Especially in this infernal heat. Stupefies a man. 

I sit.

Closer now, I don’t see any clues. I only see more insects. There’s a bracelet of ants around her ankle. Occasionally, a confused mosquito lands on the fat of her arm before deciding it isn’t interested in still blood. And some kind of gnat bouncing around her undershirt.

That’s the only thing this girl’s wearing. Poor thing. An undershirt and three feet of electric wire.

Deputies criss-cross the scene. And save for them cicadas it’s a real menacing quiet.

Deputy Beving takes photographs.

Deputy Frahm and Deputy Gold are searching the woods for shell casings. I can hear their boots snapping twigs in the dry, dry grass. 

Deputy Budd is going door to door at some of the local farmhouses. None are very close to the scene. But, it’s worth a try. 

And Deputy Haines, he’s with me. He’s my eyes and ears and my extra feet seeing as I’m too old and if I do too much moving around in this heat there’s gonna be a second body at this scene. 

“Son,” I say to Haines, “Go and check the radio for me. See if anybody’s called in a missing chicken yet.”

“Y-Yes Sir.”

Haines is hiding it. But he’s green. It ain’t his first body. He’s seen hobos sliced up by the railroad and old timers who took a tumble in their kitchen, but, The Little Miss here is his first purview into true wickedness. It’s got him rethinking his career choices. 

I watch Deputy Breving snap photographs. He clicks photos. Of her face. Her hands. The scene.

“Number two.” I say to him. 

“Yyyyep.”

“Got us a real monster out hands.”

“Yes sir we do.”

I take a deep breath. “It’s ugly.”

“Yep.”

We had another Little Missus just about… oh, a year ago. 

Just like this. She was younger. And the coyotes got to her first. It was difficult to piece together what a man had done to her versus the beasts. But, once we finally found a skull we was able to tell she’d had her head caved in by a rock.

And to my knowledge Coyotes don’t smash rocks on little girl’s heads.

“Seems like our County has got someone who likes killing youngins.”

“Yes we do, Sheriff.”

“I wonder if the heat’s got something to do with it.”

“Could be Sheriff.”

Cicada’s sing, and the sun gets brighter, and the temperature inches just a little closer to 100. Heat makes people go crazy I guess. Puts a horn on men. Does something to the blood. 

I fan myself with my hat.

“It’s a big problem we got on our hands.”

“Sure is, Sheriff.”

Haines returns. His hands folded behind his back like a nervous waiter. His face is white.

“Sheriff Dugan radio’d us from Eli county. He says he’ll start asking his constituents about missing little girls. He also said if you, uh, need more men, you just go and say the word.”

“Good fella that Sheriff Dugan. Any word from Eddie?” I say.

“Eddie?”

“Little Eddie Thurber? Deputy Thurber. Where is he? We need every pair of boots we got. I thought I asked you to radio him.”

“No. Sir. No, you didn’t.”

This happens to me a lot as of lately. I ask people things. Then it turns out I didn’t ask them. Can’t say I like it when that happens. Feels like this damn mind is already halfway out the door. 

Deputy Breving looks up from his camera, “Thurber’s’on a fishin’ trip, Sheriff. He went up to Brandyburg lake for the weekend. ‘member?”

I don’t. 

Breving must see my confusion, he brushes corpse flies off his forehead, “It’s on the calendar and everything. That boy goes fishing on on the Brandyburg every year. It’s his Birthday tradition.”

“Did he leave a forwarding number? I hate to spoil a man’s birthday, but we’re gonna need all the help we can get these next few days.”

“No phone out where he’s at.” Breving explains, ”He’s roughing it. It’s a tee-pee and spear kind of thing. Says he’s trying to find his inner Indian.”

I spit on the ground, hmph, “Well, dang and shoot. Maybe we’ll take up Dugan on his offer and have him float us a few boys.”

“I can call him now!” Haines volunteers, desperate to get some distance from the dead girl. 

“No, no, no, Deputy Haines, why don’t you go in that holler there and use them keen young eyes of yours to look for clues.”

“Yes sir!”

He flies away, almost tripping over a tree root.

Now, Breving stands by me.

“Film Roll’s done.” He says to me. He looks up to the sound of an engine and squealing brakes. “Looks like the coroner is here too. Just in time.”

I check over my shoulder. Sure enough, there’s a black ambulance on the road there. The morticians get out of their car. A certain defeatedness about them. Nosiree, nobody likes cleaning up dead bodies in the heat of the summer. Especially a lady. And especially a little girl, shot and bound.

Kind of thing that makes a man want to quit his job.

The ambulance people wave hello with their rubber gloves, shout ‘howdy.’

We wave back, shout ‘howdy.’

They ready their body bag and stretchers.

I swat the flies that land on my face.

“Gulldurn flies,” I say to Breving, “I ain’t dead yet.”

Breving pulls at his collar to billow some cold air to his breast.

I make small talk, “You said… Thurber’s out fishing, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Brandyburg lake? That’s, er, up there over the border in Marandola, huh?”

“Yep.”

Cicada’s sing. The dead girl rots. Deputies crunch twigs in the holler. Flies buzz. Buzzards circle. The morgue people ready their tools. And the sun bakes it all hotter than hell. 

“What kind of fish they got in the Brandyburg?”

“Don’t know.” Breving answers, “Trout probably.”

“Trout. I never liked trout.”

“I like trout.”

“Do you now?”

“Yep. Mable’s Diner makes a trout and buttered green bean platter. Fills me up good.”

“Sounds alright. I’m fond of Mable’s… You do much fishing yourself, Breving?”

“Not as much as I used to.”

“You said, uh,” I get confused, forget what I was going to say, “Thurber he’s roughing it? Cowboy camping? Teepee and a spear?”

“Yes sir. The man says he likes to find his inner-injun.”

“In this heat?”

Breving shrugs. “Some folks like the heat.”

“Sounds crazy to me.”

“SHERIFF!” A voice shouts from afar, “SHERIFF!”

It’s Haines, out in the holler, he’s jumping up and down, “I GOT SOMETHIN’! SHERIFF! I FOUND SOMETHIN’!”

“What’s he saying to me?” I ask Breving.

“The boy found something.”

“Well tell him to bring it here.”

Breving motions for him to approach.

The young deputy comes sprinting out of the woods. One hand holds his trooper hat down while the other carries some kind of small rag.

“Just what did you find, son?”

“I found… unmentionables… sir.”

“Unmentionables?”

“Panties. Sheriff. Underpanties. I think they belong to the Little Missus. I found them just yonder. Not fifty feet from here.”

He puts these little girl’s unmentionables in my crooked old hands. Raises his chin high to ask for praise, like a show dog.

“Good work, Haines, keen eye.”

I inspect the article of clothing. They’re messied by the forest floor, but, I can tell by their wear and and size it’s hers. Got to be.

Mud stains. White elastic stretched to it’s capacity. Makes me imagine the sick son of a bitch what ripped them off.

“There’s writing stitched in there too.” Haines says.

I fold them open and sure shooting there’s letters and words. 

Bold letters spell F R I D A Y. 

And then beneath it. Adeline Eichenbaum.

I take a deep breath. Sigh. Look up at the dead white buttocks across from me, it’s left up in the air and swarmed with corpse flies.

“Looks like Little Missus had a name.”

—

“She’s Jewish ain’t she?” Haines asks me.

I can’t do too much driving these days. I got these blots of dust in my eyes. The heat only makes ‘em worse. Feel like I can’t see pedestrians. It’d be one hell of a way to end my career, running down some kid crossing the street. 

So, today, like most days, Deputy Haines is my driver.

I sit in the passenger’s seat. A wet towel on my forehead to cool me down. It’s a long drive to Hartwig City. Country roads, an endless view to yellow grass. 

“Eichenbaum.” Haines says again, “Names that end in Baum are usually Jew names. That’s my reasoning. My daddy told me that. When I was growing up, senior year of high school, I was sweet on this girl, Laurel. Last name of Rosenbaum. I took her to meet my folks one night and my daddy nearly up and died of a heart attack. He said we don’t mix families with Jews. I asked him how he knew she was a Jew and daddy said it’s ‘cause her name ends in Baum. Told me never to forget that. And so I didn’t. So that’s why-how I knew little Missus was a Jew the second I saw the end of her name there on them panties.”

Haines is not a smart deputy. But he’s loyal. And he’s kind. Counts for something. I keep telling the other deputies to give him a few years. He’ll smarten up.

“What do you think, Sheriff. You think Little Missus is a Jew?”

“If the little girl dead in the woods is indeed Adeline Echenbaum, then I’d reckon so.”

“It’s a shame.” Haines taps the wheel.

“It is. It is a damn shame. The things men do.”

“No, I mean it’s a shame she’s a Jew. Daddy says Jews don’t go to heaven. They killed Christ. So when they die they turn back into dust just like dogs or horses or birds.”

I watch the trees outside. Dead oaks. Old beer cans. Red barns and Guernsey cows in the shade of trees. 

“I don’t know about that one, Deputy.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You gotta have Jesus in your heart to go to heaven, Sheriff. That’s the first thing they teach you in Sunday school. Day One. You gotta let him inside, otherwise, when you die, you’ll show up to heaven without a key to the door. It’s a damn shame what happent to that little girl but she’s with the devil now.”

“Like I said, I don’t know about that.”

“What don’t you know Sheriff? That’s God’s word.”

“I… don’t know… sometimes I think… I think kids get a pass. How old was that girl? Twelve? Thirteen? You gotta think that… well, you gotta hope that… some menace takes a little girl like that out to the woods and… God comes in… Spares her soul. Shelters them from that storm…”

“I don’t think so, Sheriff. I mean. Her great grandparents nailed Jesus to a cross. He didn’t get no shelter from that storm. I don’t think it’s his nature to go about forgiving people who haven’t asked for it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Sheriff, it’s sad. It’s real sad. But Hell is full of people who never got to know Jesus. It’s full Africans and babies and Indians. I’m sure hell is chock full of halfway decent folks. I got nothin’ again’em. It’s just the rules is all.”

I watch the sun. It feels bigger today. Maybe it’s falling out of the sky. Swallowing the whole world up. 

“Sheriff?…. Sheriff?… Sheriff?”

“What is it son?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Oh, well. I got nothing else to say on the matter. How about you focus on the road.”

—

Turns out the Echenbaum’s are tailors. 

We talk to a local policeman when we get to Hartwig City. 

The boy in blue tells me The Eichenbaum’s are respected folks. There’s about thirty of them. 

They make blue jeans for cowboys and do alterations on Wedding dresses. They got a laundromat and a coffee shop too. Successful folk. Honest. Industrious. 

While there’s a few families with this name and a few addresses, Adeline Echenbaum was the daughter of Frank and Rina. She lived in an apartment unit above their tailor shop. 

Big black windows are painted with cursive. EICHENBAUM TAILORING AND ALTERATIONS.

Haines parks the squad car just outside.

“Now, Deputy Haines, I need you to do three things for me, alright, son, you got that? Three things.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“One. I need you to listen. Two. learn, and three. Keep that mouth of yours shut.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“I don’t want you saying nothing to these fine people about their murdered baby girl being in the fires of eternal damnation.”

“Yes, Sheriff, of course.”

“Let me do all the talking. You just stand behind me and… look strong… look smart? Look…Regal. Can you do that?”

“What’s that word, sir?”

“Regal?”

“Yes, sir, what does that word mean?”

“It means… quiet… just stay quiet.”

—

“AHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHH HHHH.” A pause to moan, ““AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHH HHHGHHHHHH.”

Adeline Echenbaum’s underpants lie on the family dining room table.

She didn’t come home last night.

They hadn’t reported her missing yet, but, they’ve been out looking for her. 

A quick glance at a family photo confirms it.

The Little Missus they found down there in Hogseye is none other than Adeline Echenbaum. It’s the same face I saw when I first showed up and shewed away the vultures.

Puts a splinter in me. Deep in my soul. Seeing that little girl, timid and alive in grayscale.  

There must be twenty people in this crowded apartment above the tailor shop. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Grandparents. And more keep showing up. They all sort of look like Adeline. Pale with dark features. A narrow face and tall neck.

A few of the women have taken to severe hysterics. 

They’re in the bedroom now. Crying in a lady piles. Well, not crying, more like screaming. Sounds like another murder. It ain’t an easy sound to hear. All that hoarse throat moaning. Kind of sound puts a fella on edge. 

It certainly makes Deputy Haines uncomfortable. He stands behind me where I sit on a dining room chair. The boy’s absolutely shellshocked. 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH.”

“She is with God now, Rina.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGHHHHHH. NO! NO! NO! NO! MY CHILD! MY ONLY CHILD! I CANNOT BURY MY CHILD! I CANNOT PUT MY CHILD IN THE EARTH! NOT BE BELOVED ADDY! MY BABY! MY BABY! MY BABY!”

The bedroom door opens. A man emerges. Tall. Bald. Circular spectacles. Frank Echenbaum. The girl’s father. He’s timid too. Seems like he’s taking this all surprisingly well.

While cousins and uncles crisscross the room or make phone calls or bring food and liquor to the mourning pit, Frank Echenbaum sits down across from us.

“I apologize, Mr. Sheriff Babcock. Rina, my wife, she is not taking the news so well.”

Deputy Haines leans down to my ear, whispers, “He sure do talk funny.”

“She asked… um… Have they, um,” Frank twirls his hands, “Have they… um… checked. Has someone er… confirmed my daughter is deceased? Has a medical doctor seen her.”

Deputy Haines and I exchange a glance of pure pity.

Haines speaks, “Oh, she’s dead, Mr. Echenbaum. She’s… very dead. Flies and everything. Hole in both sides of her head.”

I remind Haines of my request by touching a finger to my lips.

“Sorry.” He says.

Frank puts a thumb to his chin, and pointer to his temple. “And…I apologize… I’m trying to put this all together. When can we… who do we… how do we go about receiving my daughter’s remains?”

“I’ll leave a phone number for you. We’ll get you in contact with the county morgue. Shouldn’t be more than a day or so.”

“And she is there now? She is at the morgue?”

“Yes, Mr. Echenbaum.”

“MY BABY! MY BABY! NO! ANYONE! TAKE ME LORD! TAKE ME! OH GOOOOODDD! It’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare. It can’t be true. IT CAN’T BE TRUE. I’M GOING TO THROW UP!”

“SARAH! GO AND GET YOUR AUNTA RINA A BUCKET!”

Hughh-Hugh-Hugh.

“Hurry Sarah! Hurry!”

A young girl emerges from the grieving room. She grabs a mixing bowl from the kitchen. Returns where she came from.

The sound of grief-vomit fills the little apartment. 

“MY CHILD! MY CHILD! MY SWEET ADELINE!” Rina Echenbaum screams, her throat thick with undigested breakfast. 

Mr. Echenbaum falls back in his seat. Gray. Wilted.

“So she was shot?”

“Yes sir. Once to the head.”

“Was she… violated?”

I look around the room. There’s aunts in the doorway and young siblings watching from cracked open doors.

“Perhaps we could go somewhere more private to discuss such a matter.”

He’s strangely aggressive, “I’d be more comfortable speaking to you here, Sheriff.”

I fold my hands on the table, “She was… indeed violated. We found her… with her clothes removed. A section of electrical cord was tied around her wrists. And… we recovered… a prophylactic near the scene.”

The girl’s father breathes hard. He’s forced to imagine it. 

“Where was this?”

“She was discovered in a patch of woods just north of Hogseye. A rabbit hunter discovered this morning. We’ve cleared him of any suspicions.”

“Hogseye?” The dad asks.

“Yeah. A little town about twenty miles south of…”

“I know Hogseye, Sheriff. That’s where the last girl was found, no? A year ago? The Flowers girl?”

“Yes. Matter of fact. It’s the same pocket of woods. Same square mile even. We’re looking into that. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“I WANT TO DIE! I DON’T WANT TO LIVE! I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT MY ADELINE! I WANT TO DRIVE A KNIFE INTO MY OWN HEART! I CANNOT BEAR THIS PAIN!”

Frank Echenbaum turns bitter. He casts his hand wide over his face, like a mask.

“Sure. Ask your questions.”

“When did you last see Adeline?”

“Yesterday morning. Breakfast. Then she didn’t come from school. We called the school they said she was missing from her fifth and sixth period classes. We looked for her all last night. We were about to contract the authorities… but… then you showed up.”

“Right. I know this might be a hard question to hear, but, did your daughter have any inappropriate relationships with older boys?”

Frank’s face goes tight. It’s a strange expression. Like he was blinded by sunlight.

“She wasn’t that kind of girl, Sheriff.”

“Kids. They grow up faster than they used to. Girls sometimes have secrets. Is there a diary we could read or a girlfriend of hers we could speak with?”

Frank Echenbaum holds his bald head. His lips move but he doesn’t speak. He tries several times before he gets it right. 

“Adeline had no secrets, Sheriff…” he begins, “I’ll be honest with you. I have no doubts in my mind of who killed my daughter.”

“Okay.” I say, and I nod, “Well, uh, in that case, uh, who?”

Frank Echenbaum makes eye contact with an old woman hovering in the dining room like a shadow. Dark. With white hair. She shakes her head. Don’t say it.

But Frank says it, “She was killed by one of your men, Sheriff.”

I was worried he might say that.

“He has been terrorizing her for half a year now. Terrorizing all of us. We’ve been dreading this day for months, but, it does not come as any surprise.”

Suddenly, while the apartment was so full of people. It seems to clear out. People go hiding in other rooms. Or they leave.

Deputy Haines speaks up, a voice I’ve never heard him use before, furious and violent, like an alligator snarl, “You better watch your mouth saying words like that!”

I put a hand on his chest to shut him up.

“Just what are you talking about mister?” I ask, a few shades gentler. 

“Deputy Thurber.” Echenbaum says, “I believe you call him Little Eddie. He’s been terrorizing my daughter and her cousins for months. He terrorizes all the little girls in town. Chases them. Chastises them. Sometimes he beckons them to his window and shows them his erect… member…Why, just last month he put one of the Powell girls in handcuffs. Baselessly accused her of shoplifting and wouldn’t let her go until she kissed him. We’ve had to form our own neighborhood watch to protect ourselves against this… this predator. There are many concerned mothers and fathers around this neighborhood, and for a long while we’ve been saying it’s only a matter of time. And now that time is up. And it is my daughter —My only daughter— Who pays the price.” 

The room gets hot, he hangs his head, “She was a sweet girl, Sheriff. She was good. She was smart. She was kind. Wise beyond her years.” 

The dead girls father pulls his hand away from his face, “Your deputy killed that Flowers girl too. We all know it.”

Deputy Haines throws a fist at the table, “You better watch your mouth Jewboy! That’s my very good friend you’re running your mouth about!”

“Easy, Haines. Why don’t you go down to the squad car. Get the A/C up and running.”

“And you leave you alone with this… this trickster… I don’t think so!”

“I can watch out four myself, Deputy. Go and start the car, please.”

He exits.

And now I am alone with a grieving father, and the sound of his wife’s retching.

I adjust my badge. Wipe sweat off of my upper lip where a starchy mustache has started to come in white, “Little Eddie… he’s got a hot streak. But if he’d been misbehaving the way you say he’s been misbehaving, I feel like someone would have told me.” 

“We tried. This wasn’t the first incident with your Deputy. We’ve called your office. We’ve written you. And the chief of police. And the mayor. We even tried contacting the governor. At the start of the summer, we signed a petition. Two days later my brother’s car was set on fure, and a day after that, a man in plainclothes showed up at my door and breaks my finger and tells me to never call or write again lest I meet serious consequences.”

He holds up his hand. Beside his wedding ring is a nasty bruise and a finger that’s still not bent the right way.

“Now, may I ask you a question, Sheriff?”

“Of course.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you had no idea this was going on?”

—

“I think it was injuns.” Haines says to the windscreen.

Summer’s dormant corn fields roll out the window.

I shake awake. I must have drifted off. 

“Pardon?”

“Injuns.” Haines says again, “The reservation’s right there over the border. Lord knows some of them got trucks. Come sniffing around Caswell looking for work. Them’s Comanches I think. You know, tying people up, it’s in the very nature of the Comanche. You might consider that a clue. Write it down even.”

“That’s sure something to consider, Haines.”

“I know that Echenbaum man’s hurt bad, losin’ his only daughter and all, but he ain’t got no right pointing a finger at one of our own boys. He’s lucky you was there sheriff ‘cause if you weren’t there, I’d’a caved that nose of his in saying something like that. We uphold the law around these parts. We don’t abduct girls. Show ‘em our members. What makes a man lie like that? Why is it that people go around making shit up? Makes me mad, Sheriff. When I was growing up, my daddy, he used to catch me lying and he’d say, boy, you’re lying like a child. And so I grew up thinking that only children told lies. But you know, Sheriff, the older I get the more I think that everybody lies.”

I wish he would stop talking.

I scratch my arm. Suffer a short cough.

“You say something, Sheriff?”

“No, Haines. I coughed.”

“Hmmm… Well, my money is on Injuns. That’s who I think kilt The Little Missus.”

“Mm-hmm.”

We pass by an armadillo. It’s been flattened by an automobile and five buzzards are standing around the body like doctors holding consult. A planning committee of scavengers. 

“My daddy grew up north you know. He was a deputy too. You ever been way up north, Sheriff?”

“No, Haines I have not.”

“Yeah. Not much to see up there. But daddy has stories. See’s that what why I think injuns might have killed the Little Missus. On account of all them stories my daddy used to tell.” He breaks into laughter, “Once he told me he wasn’t po-lice, he was injun control. You know, straight up north’a’here, it’s just one big injun reservation after another. They got more red people out there than white.”

“That so?”

“He told me this funny story once. His office used to get rid of problem injuns in the wintertime by playing this game they called Johnny Moccasin.”

I close my eyes for a little rest.

“Sheriff? Aren’t you gonna ask me what Johnny Moccasin is, Sheriff?… Sheriff?”

“…Sure. What is it?”

“See, up there in the North it gets a whole lot colder than it does here. Winter time’s are right fierce. There’s some places that snow falls and it don’t melt t’ill spring. Used to, the Sheriff’s Department up there they’d get rid of problem Indians by picking them up when they was drunk, taking their shoes off, and driving them way way way out into the badlands. Then they’d dump them on the side of the road in this little placed called Handler’s Gulch.”

Haines chuckles again, “Call that a Johnny Moccasin. Take you a bad Injun and give him a new home in the gulch; see how far he gets without shoes! Anyways… that’s not the funny story. Funny story was, one of the local towns had this problem Indian. Folks just called him Big Feller. Guy was huge. Crazy as a… well, crazy as an Indian…drunkert and fighter and a cheating card player. Had a reputation for whistling at white women. Damn near every deputy wanted to get rid of Big Feller but they were too afraid to do it! So, there’s this one night. October. But an unusually cold October. First snow of the year. My daddy is out on patrol and he sees this big huge injun stumbling out of a bar. Now usually, if you saw Big Fella drunk off his ass, you steered clear of him ‘cause he could flatten you like a pancake, but that night, the boy was properly ossified. And so my daddy—who had balls like a longhorn, he did—he thinks tonights the night. So he’s goes up to Big Fella, and he says real kind: Hey there buddy, awful cold, why don’t you hop in my squad car, I’ll give you a ride home. And, wouldn’t you know it, Big Fella is so drunk that he’s feeling nice. And he tells my daddy thank you and he hops right in no problem. The big guy passes out in the backseat, and my daddy drives him out to Handler’s Gulch. Takes his shoes off. Lays him out in the snow never to be seen again.”

“…”

“Sheriff? You listening to me, Sheriff?”

“I’m listening, Deputy Haines. Your daddy just pulled a Johnny Moccasin on an Indian nicknamed Big Fella.”

“Yeah. Right. So the next morning…” Haines, slaps the wheel, he’s giggling so hard he can’t hardly reach his punchline, “This is the funny part, Sheriff. My daddy shows up to the station the next morning and he’s bragging to all his friends that he got rid of Big Feller, and his Sheriff looks at him and says: boy, Big Feller is right there in a jail cell. He’s been there since Friday! And my daddy says: Well then who the hell did I drop off in Handler’s Gulch?”

Haines chuckles so hard he has to wipe a tear from his eye.

“Oh! I used to make my daddy tell that story every night. Sometimes I’d make him tell it twice.”

—

The Thurber’s live on the south side of Caswell County.

They are neighbors of mine, matter of fact. There’s is one of the little pink houses out where the woods meet the plainlands. Not so far away from the high school and country club in El Mirlo.  

It’s about, oh, noon or so, when we pull up.

“Seems like a waste of time, you ask me.” Haines says as he has said many times.

He thinks I just haven’t heard him, but, these ears work fine. I’ve heard him plenty.

“Ain’t no way one of our own deputies is going around shootin’ little girls. What are we gonna do here anyhow? Why we gotta go and upset the man’s wife?”

“Just gonna talk to her a few minutes is all, Haines.” 

—

“Another one?” 

This is what Mrs. Thurbur says when she hears about the Little Missus. She then goes to the kitchen to get us men some cola and pie.

Deputy Haines and I sit in the living room. Hotter than hell in this house. Windows are open. A rotating fan is plugged in, it sways side to side. Blows me. Then Haines. Back to me. Then Haines.

Either of us take off our hats to fan our faces.

The Thurber household could use an A/C. It could also sure use an interior decorator. Not much in the way of decor here. There’s a Mexican blanket on the couch. And a wall of chipped paint has got a crucifix. 

Their wedding photo hangs over the rotating fan. Little Eddie and his bride on their wedding day.

Funny looking man, Little Eddie. Might be rude to think it, but, to me, he looks like a giant baby.

They don’t call him Little Eddie because he’s big. It’s not that kind of joke. No, he is about five foot even. Scrawny but fat faced. Big blue eyes. Some bad genetics too. The boy lost all his hair before he was twenty-one. Got this, young, shiny bald head.

Hanes fans his face. He’s got sweat dripping from his nose.

He points at the wedding photo, asks me, “You go their weddin’?”

“Who?”

“Little Eddie.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He got married before he was a deputy. I was not yet acquainted with the man.”

“Oh.”

“You been to any good weddin’s lately?” He asks me. 

“No.”

“Hmph. I like weddin’s. I’m awful partial to cake. And they usually serve the really good cake at weddin’s. And I like dancing too. I don’t get to do much dancing now that I’m a Sheriff’s Deputy. But I can do lotsa dancing at weddings…Can’t say I care much for sham-pagan though.”

“What?”

“Sham-pagan. That fritzy yellow stuff they got at weddin’s. It’s like it’s spicy or something.”

Before I can give Haines a much needed grammar lesson, Mrs. Thurber enters the room with two cans of pop and two plates of Strawberry pie. She sets them down before us.

“Sorry about the heat, gentlemen. We’re still saving up for a unit.”

The pie looks real good. She, however, does not. Mrs. Thurber is not a pretty lady. Not all ladies can be pretty, that’s the long and short of it. She’s got no neck. Big gorilla hands. Small face on a big head; not enough make up in the world can fix that. Though, God Bless Her, she sure tries. 

“What was her name?” Mrs. Thurber asks, “The girl they found this morning?”

“Adeline Echenbaum.” I explain, “Thirteen years old.”

Deputy Haines pops his cola top, “Jewish.”

He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head as if to quietly say, you know what that means. 

I hold my cola to my forehead, let the condensation cool me down.

“Know her?” I ask.

“No. Not her. But I recognize the name. Is she with those tailors up there in Hartwig City?”

“Yessum.”

“Why, I think I got Eddie’s Uniform fitted there. Took in a dress there too. Maybe two, three years ago… You said the girl was Thirteen years old? That’s a rotten shame that someone could  do those manner of things to a child.”

She takes to a seat in a rickety antique chair. Watches us. Sweats.

Deputy Haines ignores the fork provided to him, he picks up his slice of pie and starts to take it down his gullet like a bird.

“Mind your manners.” I hit him with my hat, “Mrs. Thurber, how is Eddie doing these days?”

“He’s good, Sheriff. He’s good.” She wrings her hands, and those wrung hands tell a different story, “He likes working the evenings. He does. He wakes up. Takes care of things around the house. We have an early lunch. Then he goes to work. Out on patrol or whatever it is you have him doing. You’d know better than me, I suppose. He usually comes home around ten or so. He wakes me up if something interestin’ happened. Otherwise he just takes a shower and goes to bed. It’s been good for us. The routine. It’s helped him.”

I finally partake in a sip of that cola. Haines dings his fork on his plate. This quiet, it seems to make Mrs. Thurber uncomfortable.

“Eddie’s not in trouble is he?”

Haines answers for me, “No m’am! Of course not!”

“He uh…” how to put this delicately, “When I married my wife, Mrs. Thurber, I made her a promise. I told her every part of me was hers, every part of me but my left eye. You know what I mean… Mrs. Thurber?”

“No, Sheriff, I’m afraid I most certainly do not know what you mean.”

“I told my wife I was gonna allow myself that, when I was out in the world and saw a pretty woman, that I’d take a real long look at her with my left eye. Our Little Eddie. He’s got an unmarried left eye himself, don’t he? A certain fondness for younger women?”

“Little Eddie… He’s got a lot fire in his blood. That’s for sure. I married me a real horn dog.”

“Right. It’s not my place to pry, Mrs. Thurber, but, you ever catch him flirting where he shouldn’t be flirting?”

“Well, he’s a talker. He loves talking. He’s got lots of friends there at the high school. The youngin’s they look up to a man with a badge… That’s where he starts his day, every day. Goes by the high school right’chere. Makes sure the young folks are doin’ alright… Sheriff, is my Eddie in trouble? You yourself never did say he wasn’t.”

“Miss Adeline Echenbaum; her father, Frank, he says that, uh, Eddie used to… flirt with her… He seemed to always have an eye on her when he did his patrol of Hartwig.”

“What do you mean flirt?”

“Oh… Follow her. Talk to her… and… the father says… he’d sometimes flash her his pecker.”

Her bottom lip swallows the top. Her chin seems to curdle. Like spoiled milk. 

“Here, I thought that funny business was behind us.” She admits, “How recently was this going on?”

“Don’t know. The man implied it was recent.”

“He got a stern talking to by the Reverend. Eddie’s been good for a few years now. He’s kept his zipper shut.”

“I know he has. I know. But, by chance, have there been any flare ups of these… bad habits?”

“No…” she answers, coy, “Well. A few. Here and there. If he’s at a social gathering and had enough to drink. The heat gets to him too, Sheriff. The summer, it, gets in his blood. But I don’t think he’d go and hurt a child, Sheriff. He just… he picks a wild hare is all. He’s real proud of what the good Lord gave him, if you know what I mean.”

I’m careful not to say anything at all. 

“There’s a lot of people in Hartwig.” Mrs. Thurber reminds me, “It’s startin’ to turn into a right big city out there. Has anyone looked into this little Adeline? Maybe she was some kind of hussy. Maybe that girl was messing around with men she shouldn’t have been messing around with. My daddy always told me, you can’t raise a lady in the city. Girls who grow up in cities don’t go grow up to be ladies.”

“And this girl will never grow up at all.”

“Jews is city people.” Haines dings his fork dings on a plate, “My daddy told to me that…”

“A lot of people remembering things their daddy’s told’em today.” I comment. 

Now, I am ignored.

Haines raises his plate, “This is some good pie, Miss Thurber. Strawberry. I like strawberries and I like pies too. Some folks don’t like strawberries, but me, I’m sweet on them. Heck I’m partial to just about anything you put it in a pie. You bake it yourself?”

“I got it at the super. I’m not much of a baker myself.”

“Well, it’s darn good, ma’am if you don’t mind my saying.”

Mrs. Thurber squirms in closer to me, “I don’t understand. Sheriff, you still have not put me at ease, is Eddie in trouble?”

I hold up my hand, “I’m just checking into things right now, Mrs. Thurber. Nothing to get alarmed about. Seems like Eddie knew the girl is all. He was acquainted. Maybe Eddie knew something we don’t.”

She moves uncomfortable in her seat. I sip my cola. Deputy Haines chugs his in one go. Dang boy was raised in a barn. 

I ask, “It’s his birthday tradition, right? Roughin’ it up in Marandola?”

“Yes sir.”

“And how old did Little Eddie turn this birthday?”

“Thirty-three, Sheriff.”

“Thirty-three. Oh to be thirty-three again. You do anything special for him?”

“Just a steak dinner here at the house. And I bought him that pie.”

“This was last night?”

“Yes sir.”

“And, what, he left for his trip right after dinner?”

“Yes sir.”

“About what time?”

“Seven. Maybe. Seven-thirty.”

“Seeing as the Ford is out front, I am left to presume he took his county patrol car?”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Was he wearing his uniform?”

“He was.”

“He wore his uniform and took the patrol car to go camping?”

“Yes. He’s proud of this job, Sheriff. Fiercely. He loves that car. He loves that uniform. He polishes that badge of his every morning. Plus, he says it keeps local cops from pulling him over. That ain’t a crime is it?”

“No. No. No.”

I slap my knees. Stand. 

“Welp. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Thurber.”

“Right, of course. I hope you catch the sick son of a bitch what did this to that child.”

“Rest assured, M’am. We will.

“You don’t want your pie, Sheriff? You didn’t touch a bite.”

“Uh. No. Now that I’m in my old age, too much sweet food gives me a headache. Looks good though. I’ll have to try some next time…” I head for the door, but, pause, “I’ll tell you what though, I got one more question. Did Eddie tell you where he was gonna be about? Does he have a usual spot he goes to up there in  Marandola?”

“Why, sure he does.”

“Think you could point it out to you on a map?”

“You gonna go see him? It’s an awful long drive.”

“Yeah. I think we are gonna go pay him a visit.”

Her face cracks and, God bless her this woman just looks so incredibly challenged, “Why?”

“We’re gonna go and see what that boy knows.”

—

I wake up to the sound of a window rolling down. 

I had fallen asleep into a nap so deep I thought I might have been dead for a few seconds there.

For all I know I was waiting in line to meet St. Peter. That fresh wind might have saved my life.

I blink away the sand from my eyes. I find Deputy Haines at the wheel. He has a handkerchief over his face. 

“You was passing gas in your sleep, Sheriff. I don’t want to be rude, but it stinks something awful. Have you been eating funny meat or somethin'?”

I don’t care to give this boy the satisfaction of an apology. But I let the squad car air out. Give it a minute.

“Roll that window up now boy.”

“But Sheriff—”

“Roll it up now, son. Car’s aired out fine.”

I look out my window. Almost dusk. Not quite. Hill country now. Black rocks. Yellow grass. Rattlesnake and scorpion territory before the mountains.

“Where about’s is we?” I ask Haines.

“Almost there. You slept over the border. We already in Marandola. Brandyburg lake is just about five more miles up.”

Haines has his hat on his lap. He rakes his sweaty head of brown stubble. 

“I sure do hate to interrupt a man’s rest and recouperment. You really think he knows something, Sheriff?”

I watch the a muddy old river as it comes toward us. Blink. 

“Sheriff? Sheriff? You really think Eddie knows something about the Little Missus?”

“I do, Haines. I do.”

—

We find his squad car up on a hill, resting beneath a lonely Ponderosa tree.

There’s a neat view to a black river, and, far, real far away, the sun sinking toward the first purple mountains of the State. 

Eddie has a little camp here. We find it just where his wife said we would. A tent is erected by the trunk of his car. A clothesline holds his police uniform. Nearby is a rock perimeter has been built around a stack of logs for tonight’s fire.

Haines and I get out of our squad car.

“That’s a real purty view.” Haines says, “Maybe I oughta take up camping. Find my inner injun or what have you.”

I look inside the driver’s window of Eddie’s patrol car. He left his damn gun on the passenger’s seat. The fool.

—

We find Little Eddie just down the hill.

He’s in a shallow section of river. Bathed in the shadows of the hills surrounding him as early dusk turns to red dusk. 

He’s wearing nothing but blue jeans and his Deputy Badge, it’s pinned there by his belt loop. He casts a fishing line. Smokes a cigarette without holding it, kissing it to switch it between corners of his stubbly smile. 

He doesn’t notice Deputy Haines and I as we emerge from behind the bush.

I wolf whistle for his attention.

He see’s me and… well… it’s the face that tells me everything I need to know. Those eyes pop out of his head like a buzzard was yanking them from their sockets. 

“Sheriff? Sheriff Babcock? What the hell are you doing out here? Am I dreaming?”

The river is loud, babbling they call it, over smooth rocks.

Eddie sets his fishing line down, “Something happen?”

It’s hard for me. This old, crooked body of mine. Feels like I’m built’a damn toothpicks and marshmallows. But I sit on a rock. Remove my shoes. Remove my socks. 

“You wait here,” I instruct Haines.

“What am I s’posed to do?” He asks.

“You just make sure nobody steals my shoes, son.”

And I walk right into that river. 

I march through the mud and the rocks. 

I walk right up to Little Eddie, and I might be old, and my muscles might be weak, but I strike this man with every once of strength I have left. 

The cigarette tumbles from his mouth. I can feel his teeth cut his cheek as my fist makes him bite his own mouth. 

I strike him a few times. I aim for the chin and the eye sockets and the ears. Those most sensitive bits a boxer aims for.

Haines calls from the river shore, “What the sam hell are you doing, Sheriff!”

And Little Eddie, he’s small, but he’s wiry. I see him think about fighting back, and he probably could take me just fine, but, he does not dare. He does not dare strike a near ninety year old man, especially in light of what he’s done. 

He holds up his hands and lets me beat him.

I wail on him. I break my pointer finger. I box his ear. Hammer his bald head. 

“Wait!” He says after he thinks he’s had enough.

“Sheriff!” He says, “Now, hold on! Sheriff! Hold on!”

I give him a good bop to the nose. I pop the bone there. I might break it, or maybe it’s my middle finger that breaks, but blood does indeed shoot out of his nose the same color as that strawberry pie and gets onto his chest hair. He slips on a rock. Tumbles into the shallow waters. His badge falls from his beltline and when he resumes a stand he is a deputy no longer. Just a man in wet blue jeans. 

He raises his hands, “Sheriff! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

It hurts my throat sounding scary, but, I use what I used to call my bobcat call. That scare-the-shit-out-of-anybody voice.

“The hell’s wrong with you, Little Eddie Thurber. That girl was thirteen years old!”

“She—”

“She was thirteen years old, Little Eddie Thurber. You are sick in the head, son! You are sick! You are deranged! You are gruesome, Godless scum!

“—Don’t say that Sheriff! Don’t you say I’m Godless—”

“Thirteen years old, you-you-you repugnant, chicken-hearted bastard! You cockroach! I ought to slap your mother for raising a child so wretched as you.”

“It wasn’t my fault. She bit my hand. I was gonna take her back home. I was! I swear. But she kept… she was acting wild. She was saying all sorts of things and she wouldn’t shut up. And then she bit me, Sheriff. Real, real hard. She did it to herself, Sheriff. Honest. I had to pop her. She gave me no choice.”

I slap him again. This time to the cheek. 

“Please stop hitting me, Sheriff. Please.”

I hit him anyway. A hammer fist down on the forehead and another slap across the face. 

“Sheriff! Stop! Please!”

Deputy Haines stands idly on the riverside. The conflict has reduced him to a five year old. He has his arms hugged in around his ribs. His fingers are together at his mouth. His knees are buckled. He’s about one second away from sucking his thumb. 

“Another one?” I ask Eddie.

“Hey now!”

“Another one? Helen Flowers and now Adeline Echenbaum. A second girl, Eddie. I thought this was behind us.”

“It wasn’t my fault this time.” He raises his hand, “And I didn’t think nobody’d find her. Honest! I thought her folks’d just think she run off!”

“That girl was sixty feet from the road, son. Are you dull? You might as well have left her hanging on the steps of the town Library. You are one stupid son of a bitch, Eddie. Have you any mind at all?”

“I had to get moving. You don’t understand Sheriff. The noises this little hellion was making. Screaming like a… like a… like a bat out of hell. Like a witch.”

“You know what I ought to do?”

“What?”

“I ought to arrest you.”

“No.”

“I ought put you in handcuffs. Let them string you up for this.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Why can’t I, son? You’re some kind of maniac. Killing girls. What are you gonna keep doing this once a year? Is it part of your birthday tradition, now? A medium rare steak, a cut of strawberry pie, and taking a little girl in the woods?”

“You don’t understand, Sheriff! Please! Please listen! There’s a devil in me, Sheriff. Honest! I don’t mean to hurt these girls. They just… I see them out in the streets. Walking at night. Someone has to teach them. And I…try to do good, honest. I try to be like a shepherd. I act the way I do to show them what might happen if somebody really bad got to them. But, sometimes, I take the teaching too far. I’m trying to be a good Christian, Sheriff. A—a teacher. An educator. A protector! Honest! I’m trying to do right by the womens of the world.”

I shove him so he tumbles again into the water. And he stays there. Hands held up at his face. 

“Helen Flowers was nine years old you sick sumbitch. What lesson did you have to teach her?”

“It’s the devil Sheriff! Really! It’s the devil! He worms his way into their hearts younger and younger. He does. I got demons. The girls got demons. There’s demons damn near everywhere. Everywhere you look.”

“The only demon I see is right here in this river. Give me one good reason, Little Eddie. One good reason I shouldn’t put a bullet in you and let this river wash you away.”

“Because,” He puts a hand on his heart, “I uh… I… I’m done. Sheriff. I mean it. Hand on my heart. I mean it. It won’t never happen again.”

I put my right hand on the grip of the revolver holstered to my belt. Thumb on the hammer. 

Deputy Haines calls out to me, whining worse than the dead girl’s mother “Nooo! Sheriff!!! He means it, Sheriff! He means it! Don’t kill him! You can’t kill him! You can’t!”

I look back. Deputy Haines has gone and pissed himself. He’s got urine running down his uniform slacks.

Little Eddie is sobbing too. Blood and snot and tears runs down his face. Mix to a brownish yellow off his chin.

Gently, carefully, he reaches forward and grabs my wrinkled old left hand and kisses a broken finger.

“Please, Sheriff. Please… Please… Please… Please… Please!… Please!… Please!”

He must say this word a dozen times. Kissing my finger between each plead. 

Finally, he is mewling, “I’ll be good, Sheriff. I promise. I promise it won’t never happen again. Me and the Mrs., we’re trying for a child! I want to have me a son, Sheriff. Please! I mean it. I mean it. I’ve made my mistakes. Twice, I know it. But I will not falter again. I swear it. I do! It won’t never happen again.”

“It won’t never happen again?” I ask.

“No Sheriff! Never again!”

I suck my lower lip. “Stand up.”

He wails and laments and his face leaks.

“Damnit boy, I said stand up.”

He complies. Takes a step back. His eyes are wide and terrified. He’s expecting me to shoot him now.

Which is what he ought to be expecting. Maybe it’s what I ought to be doing.

But.

I don’t know.

I… don’t know…

I bend down, which hurts in this old age, and I retrieve Eddie’s badge from the muddy waters. I wipe it clean on my pants leg. I approach this man. My deputy, and I fix the badge back to his belt line.

“Say it again, Eddie. One more time.”

“It won’t not never happen never again. I swear it in your name, Sheriff. I swear it on my own daddy’s grave and in the name of my unborn son. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It won’t never happen again.”

“Alright.”

I step out of the water. 

I’m wheezing now. Heart’s beating funny. The sun’s so bright it’s drilled it’s way inside my head. Feel like the sun is shining out of my eyes. 

I haven’t thrown a beating in almost a decade now. Somehow, I feel like I lost a fight even though I never received a single blow. 

Deputy Haines buzzes in my ear, “Sheriff, I’ve soiled my pants. What do I do sheriff? I’ve done and soiled myself.”

He is ignored. I sit down on a rock and watch Eddie. 

He’s consorting himself in the river water. Baptized in a way. He’s rubbing blood on his wrist. He’s removed his badge and he’s holding it in his hands like a pocket mirror.

“And Eddie,”

“Yes, Sheriff?”

I have to pause. Catch my breath, I feel like my heart is beating louder than my voice, “If you find that left eye of yours wandering to young women, at least have the decency to do what you gotta do a county over.”

He nods his head. 

“You got it, Sheriff.”