Murders in Progress by Eldon Cene

Screening More Pig Shit for Clues

(Episode 43)

 

            Merlin and Leland unhinged the screen door, while Bill Porter pulled out the lengthy cow stall sprayer hose.  Bill said that he wouldn’t mind in the least helping with a murder investigation; moreover, that he’d never ever participated in one and thought he might enjoy it.  So they had Bill drive the pigs out of the pens.  Then, as Bill shoveled the pens and heaved the muck onto the screens, Merlin sprayed the mud away into a slurry, while Leland scoured the bits of twigs and rocks and other debris left on the screens for evidence.

            “It would be pretty nice if whoever died here were our killer,” Merlin spoke above the rush of the spraying water he was zig-zagging about the screens.

            “Nice.  But I wouldn’t get our hopes up,” Leland answered.  “It doesn’t figure.  If our killer talked her husband Bob into accompanying him on his latest murder/rape – I could see her killing our killer, and maybe even Bob, but when I spoke with them, right before both of them getting shot, they were cooing like two love birds.  And also, why would she ask me who I was working for?” 

            “Okay.  Let’s say it was someone else she killed and had Bob dump the bodies in here.  Why would she want to do that?  Who in the world would Harriet want to kill?  Other than the killer?

            “You mean, besides Bob?”

            “I thought you said they were cooing like love birds.”

            “Yeah, but just recently.”

            Merlin thought about this.  “Okay,” he surmised.  “Then who is a person you or Harriet – or anyone, really – are most likely to want to kill?”

            “Someone who’s trying to kill me!”  Leland laughed.  Because this is the way it almost always was in the law enforcement business.

            Merlin and Leland looked at each other, while thinking this over.

 

            “Someone was out to kill either her or Bob – or maybe just Bob – and Harriet drilled ‘em,” Merlin said.

            “Maybe so…”  Leland said, as he collected a few items of interest off of the washing screen.  “Hey!  Hold it up there a moment, will you Bill?  And Merlin?”  He held the items in his palm and mulled them over. 

            “Here, it looks like we have a pretty well gnawed on hunk of a black rubber heel.”  Leland held it up.  Two cobbler’s nails stuck out of it.

            “Man, those pigs were hungry.”  Merlin whistled.

            “It was a few days before I realized maybe somebody ought to come over here and look after the stock, since nobody was,” Bill apologized.

            “And here.  Oh, this is interesting,” Leland continued.  “It looks like a portion of a license, or a legal identification of some kind.  No writing.  But it’s got that plasticized holographic twinkle to it when I hold it up to the light.”

            Leland was getting excited.  “Okay.  It looks like we’re going to be out here for some time.   I want to sluice all of the mud in all of these three pens, and go through it carefully before sundown.  Are you two okay with this?”

            “Just let me make a few calls,” Merlin said, setting the hose and stepping away.

            Bill Porter nodded soberly.

            Merlin halted and turned.

            “Wait a minute,” Merlin said.  “Holographic ID.  And Harriet says, “Who are you working for, Leland?” 

            “Yeah,” Leland agreed.  “We may be looking here at the (fecal) remains of some kind of Government Official.”

            “Is there any other kind?”  Merlin chuckled.

            Leland frowned.

            “Or several?”  Bill Porter’s eyes grew wide, taking in the wide expanse of pens.

            “It can’t be ruled out.”

            “What kind of Government official goes missing and nobody knows a thing?”  Merlin asked.

            Leland considered this.  “The worst kind, maybe,”  Leland said.  All of a sudden, everything was moving very fast…   “You two might want to be very careful who you talk to, and how much you say about this for the next while,” he added.  “Just to be safe,” he said grimly.

            Merlin exhaled slowly, between the crack in his two front teeth.

            Bill Porter looked nervous, like a man who was suddenly in over his head, or having qualms anyway.

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Murders in Progress by Eldon Cene

A Pig Will Eat About Anything and Really Clean Their Plate.

“There’s Gold in That There Hog Pen!”

(Episode 42)

 Leland sat at the dinner table of the old farmhouse and wondered just what had occurred there.  He couldn’t imagine Bob Weeds cooking anything worth eating, so it was probably Harriet.  He looked into the dishwasher.  But it had already been stacked and run following the tourist’s lunch.  The whole crime scene was so polluted by now that anything uncovered now could be used to indict just about anybody, including a ham sandwich.

‘Didn’t matter.’  Leland was just here to get a feel of the place, to get a feel if he could for Harriet’s mental state.  He looked around.  He couldn’t say, in any way, that it looked like the house of a crazy person.  It was all fairly clean, and all fairly orderly.  Just about the housekeeping you’d expect a working dairy farmer’s wife to be able to manage.  There was a magazine about cows, and one about guns.  Another one over by the plant on a stand was full of household hints and recipes.  ‘Jeeze,’ Leland thought.  ‘How does it go from this, to getting shot?’

He walked outside, squinted up into the sun and noticed Merlin waving to him.  So he strode over there.

“I was talking to Mr. Porter here…”  Merlin nodded.

“Call me Bill.”

“…Bill.  And he showed me something.”

Bill Porter held up something bright between his thumb and forefinger.  “There’s gold in that there hog pen!”  He said, delighted.

Leland looked at it.  Bill Porter handed it over.

“Old Bob must have lost a cap at sometime.  I was just over here taking care of the animals ‘till some arrangements have been made for them, when I noticed this little nugget glowing up at me.  Can you beat that?  Must have been for doing a good deed,” Bill said, smiling.

“Must have been,” Leland agreed, smiling.

“Are you wondering what I’m wondering?” Merlin asked.

Leland nodded.  “Bill,” he said, “would you mind waiting around here for a while with us?  I’d like to make a phone call.”

“Sure, Sheriff.  No problem.”

Leland stepped a few paces to the side and called the office on his cell.

Meanwhile, Merlin chatted with Bill Porter about what and all, and about the pigs.

“Ruth,” Leland said.  “Could you give me Ramey, please?”

“Sure, Leland,” Ruth said.  “What’s up?”

“Don’t know.  Maybe something.”

“Okay.  Let’s hope it is.  Here’s Ramey.”

But it wasn’t Ramey who came on the phone.

“Sheriff Leland!  I’ve been in this cell for over 3 weeks now, or more.  I’m starting to lose track of the days.  And it seems I don’t know one more thing about why I was murdered than I did the night of the attack.  What in the world are you doing out there?”

“Nancy.  Would you please channel Ramey for me?  I need some information.”

“For your information, I don’t ‘channel’ anyone.  I’m just stuck here, inside of a dentist – for Godsakes – and I don’t know why.”

“I don’t know either, Nancy.  Now could you please give me Ramey.  Poke him, or prod him, or mumbo jumbo him up out of the ether, however you two have it worked out, but give me Ramey please, so that I can get back to the crime scene and do my job.   Please?”

Merlin, meanwhile, heard the argument and stepped over.  “Who’s ‘Nancy’?”  He asked.

Leland covered the phone and exhaled.   “You wouldn’t believe…   …I’ll have to introduce you!”  He smiled at Merlin.  Merlin’s brows rose.

“Yes?  Who is it?”  This was Ramey’s voice.

“Ramey?  Is that you?”  Leland asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you and… that woman in your head, have things worked out?  It seems every time I want to talk to you, I have to go through her.”

“Well.  Err, it’s difficult to explain Leland.  But I think it might have something to do either with, well, just her nature, or the way she was raised…  I can’t really tell.”

“Nevermind!  Listen.  You did Bob Weeds dental work.  Did he have any gold caps?”

“Ha!  That would be the day.  He was a ‘fly to Tijuana and have them all pulled kind of a guy.’  He joked that he would “spare no expense”.  He thought that was funny.  I think it was his wife, Harriet, who’d thought of the retort.”

“Okay.  How about Harriet?”

“Harriet?  Well, she had pretty good teeth.  Not many fillings as I recall.  But they were all amalgam.  She wasn’t the type to go spending money on pretties.”

“Thanks Ramey.”  Leland clicked off.

“That’s not Bob or Harriet’s gold cap,” Leland said.

“Then whose is it, Sheriff?”  Bill Porter, who had come walking over, asked.

“That’s a good question Bill,” Leland said.

Merlin nodded thoughtfully.

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