Buckshot

Paul Shoemaker was exactly the kind of guy who would break your jaw if you slept with his wife. I could tell as soon as he walked into the diner on the edge of town. A shade under six feet, muscles going soft but still damned strong from his factory job out near the airport. And the surliness of a guy who feels the world has done him wrong his whole life. He flopped into a chair across the table from me and glared, first at the stack of pancakes on my plate, then at me. I started to introduce myself, but he cut me off.

“I know who you are,” he said. “Jack Cable. That private eye guy.”

“Private investigator,” I said. “Then you know what I need to talk about.”

Shoemaker snatched a menu from the center of the table. “That asshole Mixon. What do you want to know?”

“Did he have any enemies?”

“Hell yeah he did,” Shoemaker said. “He had plenty of enemies, including me. And I’m sure plenty of other husbands all over town.”

“How did you know him?”

Shoemaker explained that he’d hired Mixon—on a recommendation from a friend—to remodel the kitchen of the home belonging to him and his wife, Rhonda. “He did great work,” Shoemaker said. “Then he did my wife.”

“How’d you find out?” I said.

“Rhonda told me,” Shoemaker said. “She had too much to drink one night and just blurted it out when we got home. I figure she felt guilty as hell. Told me she had been banging him for about a month.”

“And what did you do with that information?”

Shoemaker flashed me a look of incredulity. “You shitting me? I found out where he was and then I went to kick his ass.”

“Did you?”

“I’d call it a draw,” Shoemaker said. “But that ended the affair. And I kept an eye on his ass. I know some of the same people as him. That’s how I found out he was also banging Jackie Kingman, the sheriff’s ex-wife.”

I sat up at that. “That seems risky.”

“Right?” Shoemaker said. “Especially since Mixon was an asshole who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I called him out on that one. Told him it’s one thing to get into a fight with me, but messing with a lawman’s ex-wife, especially when that lawman is John Kingman, is risky and stupid.”

“What’d he say?”

“He laughed me off.”

A waitress floated toward our table, and I waved her away. “Did the sheriff know about this?”

“You’d have to ask him,” Shoemaker. “And by the way, in case you’re wondering, I had nothing to do with Mixon dying.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” I said. “But do you think he killed himself?”

Shoemaker scoffed. “Hell no. I don’t mind he’s dead, but no way he did it himself. Fucker was too egotistical for that.”

***

The death of Bo Mixon was the strangest I’d ever seen. Mixon had been found nude in his front yard, half his head blown away by a blast of twelve-gauge buckshot. The shotgun that had allegedly fired the fatal shot lay twenty feet from the body. The sheriff’s department, namely Sheriff John Kingman, had ruled the death, inexplicably, a suicide.

I’d paid the case no mind until the sister of the deceased, Annette Malkin, stormed into my office—actually the front room of my downtown apartment—and demanded I start a murder investigation into Bo’s death. Her check—two thousand dollars—convinced me to do so.

Another factor in my decision was my assistant and sometimes partner, Jobelle Simmons. Turned out Jobelle knew that one of her friends, Rhonda Shoemaker, had an affair with Bo Mixon, which her husband Paul had discovered.

I leaned back in my chair, interested. “And?”

“Her husband Paul found out about it and confronted Mixon,” Jobelle said, standing in front of my desk, looking worried. “It came to blows.”

“So, what are you saying? That Paul had something to do with it?”

“Not saying that at all,” Jobelle said. “But Mixon had something of a reputation around town. Several women, in fact. So, it’s not unbelievable that his death is somehow connected to that.”

I pondered that. As usual, Jobelle was right. “I need to make some calls,” I said.

***

An hour after talking to Paul Shoemaker, I sat in Rhonda’s tiny, glass-enclosed office at the Farmer’s Bank downtown. I’d never met Jobelle’s friend, and after seeing her walk across the bank into her office, I had a suspicion I knew why. Rhonda was beauty-pageant gorgeous: piles of blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a smile that could melt butter. Jobelle probably wanted to keep me far away from her.

Rhonda corroborated her husband’s story, and she did so with an appropriate amount of shame.

“Did you know he was also sleeping with Jackie Kingman?” I asked.

She tried to act casual, but I heard the catch in her voice when she spoke.

“Not until Paul told me,” Jackie said. “But of course he did. I mean, he had a reputation as a player. He was very good-looking—like TV star good-looking—and could charm anybody. Smiled a lot, always good with the easy conversation. And his job took him into people’s homes, you know? A lot of interaction with women. I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

“But you were?” I said, watching her face carefully.

Rhonda sucked in a breath and nodded. “Hurt, too. Stupid, I know, but it hurt me.”

“Do you know of any other women he may have been involved with?”

“Not really,” Rhonda said. She paused. “I recommended him to Alison and Brad Penny, though. They wanted a kitchen remodel, and Bo did great work for us.”

“Did he take the job?”

“He did, and things got a little … strained between Alison and Brad after that.”

I rolled that over in my mind. Bo Mixon, loudmouth philanderer. I had a feeling he’d left his own trail of tears.

***

“I really don’t like talking about this,” Alison Penny told me as we sat at her kitchen table with coffee mugs between us. “I hate it, actually. It ruined my marriage.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, meaning it. This was one—of several—parts of my job I didn’t like. Dragging people through their worst mistakes, reliving the ugliness all over again. But it was necessary. Most of the time. I looked around the refurbished kitchen, which sparkled in black and white with brushed steel appliances. Mixon did beautiful work. Granite countertops, black cabinets. A monochrome masterpiece. “What about your husband?”

“Brad?” Alison said. “Estranged husband. He moved out shortly after he found out about me and Bo. He was furious, as you can imagine.”

“Yes, I can,” I said. “You may not be able to answer this, but did you know about any of the other women Bo was sleeping with?”

Alison picked up her mug, slurped black coffee, set it down. “Of course. I know Rhonda, and we were out for drinks when she told me she’d had a thing with him. And that Paul told her that Bo was sleeping with Jackie Kingman. I broke it off with Bo shortly after that.”

“When was that?”

“About three months ago, I guess,” Alison said. “It was just that he was sleeping with Jackie. That scared me.”

“Why is that, Alison?”

“I tried to tell him that fucking the sheriff’s ex, even if they had been divorced for a year, was dangerous. Everybody knows about John Kingman, right?”

I nodded. I indeed knew that Sheriff John Kingman had a long and well-established reputation as the kind of lawman who would beat the hell out of you first, then—maybe—ask questions later.

“What about Brad?” I said. “Will he talk to me?”

Alison looked at me with sad brown eyes. “Doubt it. I’ll give you his number, though.”

I put the number into my phone, thanked Alison for her time and coffee, and saw myself out. Back in the Benz, I pointed the car in the direction of town, crossed over the Tombigbee River, and punched up Ben Riker’s number.

Deputy Ben Riker was not technically a bent cop. He didn’t take bribes or work outside the law. He was one of my poker buddies who fed me tips from time to time about the goings-on in the local crime scene, which, granted, in a Deep South town as small as ours, wasn’t much. In return, I dropped an occasional dime on a local hood for Riker to snap up and look good for his bosses. The arrangement worked for both of us. He was idling at a coffee shop on the edge of town when I called. I explained to him my meeting with Annette Malkin and told him I needed to see the police and coroner’s reports.

“You sure about that, Jack?” Riker said. His voice was low over the phone.

“Yes, I’m sure. Can you get the reports or not?”

“Sure, I can get them,” Riker said, dropping his voice even lower. Unusual. “But I got to tell you, this case is loaded.”

“What do you mean?”

“I ain’t never seen a case closed so fast, and the sheriff himself worked it,” Riker said. “I don’t know what’s behind that, but I do know when to leave things alone.”

“You going to get me the reports or not?” I said.

Riker grunted. “Give me the rest of the day. I’ll call you. And if I were you, I’d watch my back.” He ended the call.

I turned onto Main Street and called Brad Penny. After introducing myself, I started to give my spiel, but he cut me off.

“I ain’t talking about that, especially to some prick private eye,” Penny said.

I braked at a red light. I’m used to people disparaging both my profession and me personally, but the anger in Penny’s voice surprised me. “Mr. Penny, I’m investigating Bo Mixon’s death as a possible homicide, not a suicide.”

“I don’t give a fuck if you’re investigating the president of the United States,” Penny said. “That asshole wrecked my marriage, and anything I say is going to stay between me and my psychologist, you hear me?”

“I do, indeed, sir, and I apologize for intruding,” I said, then ended the call.

Back in the office, Jobelle brought me up to speed on her efforts. She’d contacted some of Mixon’s co-workers, most of whom said the same thing: Bo was a good guy, liked to have a drink or two, got on well with the ladies. They were all shocked when he was found dead.

“One guy, Denny Trimble, said he was with Mixon the night he died,” Jobelle said.

“Oh?”

“That was my reaction,” she said. “They went to what Trimble called their usual place, a place in town. Dive bar called The Store. Had a couple beers, then Bo went home around ten-thirty.”

“He was sure? Ten-thirty?” I said.

“He was.”

“The 911 call came in at ten after midnight, so that’s nearly two hours, and that’s a long time. So, what happened in those two hours? Nobody saw anything. There’s no surveillance or doorbell cameras.”

“And why was he nude?” Jobelle said.

“I’ve been wondering that since the beginning,” I said.

“What now?” Jobelle said.

“Jackie Kingman.”

Jobelle gave me a look as she settled onto the couch against the wall in the front part of the apartment. The look that really said, “Are you sure about that?”

“What?” I said.

“Just be careful,” Jobelle said. “You know how it is around here. Anybody sees you talking to her, it’s going to get back to the sheriff. And you and the law in this town … you know what I mean.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said as I headed out the door and down the stairs.

Halfway to my car, I realized I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise to Jobelle. Standing between my car and the one next to it was a man I wish I didn’t recognize. And he’d seen me, so I had no choice but to confront him.

I stepped into the space between the vehicles, which had been filled at one end by Jerome Parker. Six and half feet of solid oak and surliness. Before I could even render a greeting, Jerome threw one of his brick-sized fists at my midsection. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer. My knees buckled, and I grabbed for the side of my car, unable to breathe, much less speak.

I held up my free hand in surrender while I tried to suck air back into my lungs. Jerome leaned over, blocking out the sun in the process. “You’re late,” he said. “You know Mr. Richards hates late payments.”

I winced. “I know that, Jerome. I was going to call him today, I swear. It’s just that I’ve been on a job.”

“Mr. Richards don’t care. He just wants his money.”

Pat Richards was a bookie. The only bookie in town, mainly because of the man standing over me. I owed him money lost on a bad bet on a football game. Bad because who would have thought Alabama would lose a home game?

“I’ll pay him,” I said.

“When?”

I squinted up at Jerome, who looked like he was readying another haymaker. “Today. Two grand.”

“You owe more’n that.”

“I know that, too, Jerome, but it’s all I got. Tell him I’ll give two grand today, the rest next week.”

Jerome smiled—if a man as ugly as he can smile—and surveyed my car. “So, you won this Mercedes in a poker game. Be a damn shame if you have to give it up, Cable.”

I pulled myself to my feet, tested my knees. They still worked. “It would be, yes. But I’ll have Richards’ money.”

Jerome threw a fake punch at my head, probably just to see if I would flinch. I didn’t. He grunted and lumbered onto the sidewalk. I slid into the Benz and drove away, hoping I could keep breathing the rest of the day.

***

If Jackie Kingman was worried about being seen in public with me, she didn’t show it. On one of those rare, sort-of-spring, pre-summer Southern days, we sat on the porch of a small restaurant that sat perched next to Fifth Street, one of the busiest streets in town. Jackie was pleasant company. Blonde, long legs crossed demurely under a flowing white skirt, and blue eyes that held only the tiniest clouds of past transgressions. I could tell she’d been crying. But she’d said on the phone that she was willing to speak to me.

“Of course, I knew he had other women,” she said. “I’m no fool. I thought I knew what I was getting into. And I thought, stupidly, that I could change him. I’m sure you’ve heard that many times before in your line of work.”

I managed a weak smile. “I have, yes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t without merit.”

“I suppose,” she said. “Still, I don’t feel less stupid.”

“I understand,” I said. “So, how long were you and Bo seeing each other?”

“I guess two or three months. Long enough for me to fall for him.”

That surprised me. None of the previous women had mentioned anything about falling in love, or even in like, with Mixon. “Really?”

She nodded. “Sure. Didn’t mean to, but it happened.”

“So, how did it come that y’all broke up?” I said. “Supposing, of course, that you did break up.”

She stared at the traffic hissing past the downtown stores. “Yes, we did break up. Like I said, I knew about the other women. Right from the git go. And at the beginning it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. We were both looking for a good time, having some fun, making each other feel good. But then it changed. I realized that I wanted more than that, and that I wanted him to myself. I wanted us to be a couple. A real couple, you know?”

I nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“We argued about it,” she said. “But not really arguing. Not like with my ex-husband. Just pointedly discussed it, I guess you could call it. Bo made it pretty clear that he was content with our arrangement, which of course meant he wasn’t about to stop running around with as many women as he wanted to. Regardless of what I thought.”

“What was your reaction to that?”

Jackie looked at me from her chair. “What else could it be? It hurt my feelings. Badly. I told him that we wanted different things, and if that was the case, then we shouldn’t be together.

So, I ended it.”

“And he was okay with that?”

She laughed, a bitter barking sound. “Oh, he was just fine with it. Basically said, see ya later. And that was the end of that.

I took a beat, studied her face. I could still see the hurt. “Did your ex ever find out about you and Bo?”

Jackie narrowed her eyes at me. “I have no idea, nor do I care.”

“You mind me telling me why y’all divorced?”

Jackie drew in a breath and smoothed her skirt in her lap. “John is an asshole, Mr. Cable. A volatile, controlling, uncaring asshole. Plus, he cheated on me. So, I cheated on him—this was way before Bo. He couldn’t have cared less. We had a twisted relationship where all we tried to do was inflict pain on each other.”

“I see,” I said. “I have to ask, Jackie, do you think John would be capable of murder?”

Her eyes met mine. “John never met a law he wouldn’t bend. But no, I don’t believe he’d actually try to kill somebody. That would be stupid, and, though he’s many things, he’s not stupid.”

“Do you know where he was the night Mixon died?”

“I have no idea.”

I turned my head toward the street for a moment, then back to her. “How about you?

Where were you that night?”

“I went out with a friend for a drink, then I went to a movie,” she said. “At the theater in the mall.”

“A friend?”

“Yes,” Jackie said. “Lisa Graham.”

“You have the ticket stub from the movie?”

She sat up. Wary or offended, I couldn’t tell. “No, sorry, I don’t.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I appreciate you taking the time to have a word. I know it’s not easy.”

“Thank you for understanding,” she said.

***

I managed to get settled into my office chair without Jobelle noticing that I’d been pounded on earlier in the day. When I told her about my conversation with Jackie, she paced the living room, tapping a red fingernail against her teeth. “Did she ever mention that she was followed by a deputy sheriff?”

“No. When?”

“After she and John divorced.”

“She ever say why?”

“She figured it was John keeping tabs on her.”

“That’s creepy. And maybe illegal. But she did say that he never met a law he wouldn’t bend.”

Jobelle stopped pacing, faced me with her arms crossed. I could tell her brain was in high gear. “Maybe he found out she was seeing Bo.”

“You saying the sheriff did it?”

“Who knows? I looked at the call logs for that night, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than he showed up first. I know Kingman is scary. I met him once at a fundraiser. No wonder Rhonda left him.”

I thought about that from my chair. Standing hurt too much.

“Okay, work with that,” I said. “I’m not going to confront him with that just yet. But how does that fit into the timeline?”

Over the next half hour, we worked our way through the witnesses and their alibis. All accounted for except one—Brad Penny.

“You said he seemed pretty angry,” Jobelle said as I punched up Alison Penny’s number.

I identified myself when Alison answered. “What can I do for you, Jack?” she said.

“Where does Brad work?”

“From home, mostly,” she said. “He’s an IT consultant, so he works remotely.”

“Do you know where he was the night Bo Mixon died?”

I heard her breath catch. “No, I don’t. Are you accusing him of something?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Just trying to eliminate people as part of the investigation.”

“I don’t know where he was,” Alison said. “We don’t talk much lately, and since he moved out, I don’t have any idea of his whereabouts.”

“Thanks, Alison,” I said, teeing up my last question. “Tell me, does Brad own a gun?”

“Jack, if you’re accusing him of killing Bo, you need to say so. And I can tell you that you are terribly mistaken.”

I took a beat. “You didn’t answer the question.”

A ragged sigh. “Yes, he has guns. Or did. He got rid of them when he went into therapy.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Alison said. “It was one of the conditions of his getting therapy. He sold them to a pawn shop.”

“When?”

“Months ago.”

That settled that, for the moment, at least. “Thanks, Alison.”

I laid the phone on my desk and looked at Jackie. Tried to remember where I’d left the painkillers I keep around the office. “It’s not Brad Penny.”

“So, who does that leave?” Jobelle said.

I rewound the interviews in my mind. It had to be somebody we had yet to suspect.

Except.

“Jobelle, do you know a woman named Lisa Graham?”

Jobelle had poured herself a drink from the bar I keep under the TV and had taken a seat while I was on the phone. She turned toward me. “Sure. She works at the courthouse. She goes out with Jackie and me from time to time.”

“Jackie said she had a drink with Lisa, then went to a movie alone on the night Mixon died.”

Jobelle shrugged. “Possible. What are you saying?”

“That maybe we’re looking at the wrong motive. Or at least the wrong gender.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you have Lisa Graham’s number?”

“Of course.”

“Call her and ask if she and Jackie went out for drinks that night.”

Jobelle looked at me like she wanted to say something, but she picked up her phone. I pushed myself to my feet and stepped into the kitchen. Went to the cabinet where I keep meds and shook a couple of painkillers out of a bottle. When I walked in, Jobelle was standing. And looking rattled.

“Jackie didn’t go out with Lisa that night, did she?” I said.

Jobelle shook her head.

I grabbed my phone and headed for the door as quickly as I was able, alarm bells going off in my head. At least it was better than the throbbing pain.

I caught up with Jackie Kingman as she climbed out of her car in her driveway. I saw her eyes flicker when she recognized me, and I knew. I gave her a wave.

“Hi, Jackie, sorry to bother you. If you don’t mind, I have just a few more questions.” She huffed out a breath, flashed me an all-too-familiar look of annoyance. “Jack, I just got off work, and I’m beat. Can it wait?”

“Not really,” I said.

“I’m not sure what this is all about,” she said, walking to her front door. “This case was already ruled a suicide.”

“But it wasn’t, was it, Jackie?”

She stopped, key in the door. Looked at me with the hardest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She left the keys jangling in the lock and turned to face me. “What exactly are you saying?”

“You didn’t go out with Lisa Graham. And I’m going to guess you didn’t go to a movie. I’m guessing you and your ex-husband killed Bo Mixon that night, and he bent a couple of laws.”

There’s often a moment in a case when you can watch a person’s transgressions play out on their face like a feature film, only out of focus. Shapes and movements and shadows. That’s what I saw when I stared at Jackie Kingman. She closed her eyes for a long moment, and her shoulders slumped. She put her back on the door and slid down a couple of inches, like her entire body had just given out.

“Bo Mixon hurt me,” Jackie said. “Not like John. Not physically. Bo hurt me worse. Much, much worse. Do you understand?” She opened her eyes and stared up at me. The blue was still hard like steel, but her eyes were wet.

“I’ve had my heart broken,” I said.

“Not like this,” she said. “I couldn’t take it. After those years with John and his horribleness, I just couldn’t take another minute of humiliation. I went over to Bo’s place that night, yes. I seduced him, if you must know. Told him to go into the bathroom and get undressed for a sexy surprise. When he came out, I had a shotgun pointed at him.”

I held up a hand. “You went to seduce a man with a shotgun?”

“I’d left it on the front porch.”

“You own a shotgun,” I said.

“John does,” she said. She pushed herself upright, swiped her nose. “I borrowed it.”

“So, he knew what you were doing.”

“Of course he did.”

I had that feeling I was being watched, that I had somehow walked into a deadly trap. It was my imagination but hearing this woman—someone you could find yourself sitting next to in church—describe a cold-blooded murder made me want to look over my shoulder.

“I marched him out to the front yard,” she said, her voice steady and detached. “I wanted to humiliate him more than he humiliated me. And then I shot him.”

I’ve been face-to-face with some bad people in my life. Killers, abusers, rapists. I’ve done a combat tour with the Marines, where I was first introduced to senseless killing. But I’ll hear that toneless, flat voice say those last five words for as long as I live.

“And then you called your ex-husband.”

She nodded. “Threw the gun down and drove away. John said he’d take care of it, and he did. He’s still in love with me.”

“That’s not love, Jackie,” I said. “That’s a twisted need to control you.”

She raised her chin, her confidence rushing back after unburdening her conscience. “Well, it’s done now, and there’s nothing you can do. John ruled it a suicide, case closed. The DA won’t touch it because he and John work together.”

“That’s not the way it works,” I said, even though I knew better.

“Really, Jack?” Jackie put her hands on her hips. She knew she was untouchable. “This is a small town. You really think you’re going to pull away at the fabric of this place? Not a chance. Nobody dares go up against John or anybody else with any power. And now that includes me.”

We stood facing each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. She held the winning hand, and we both knew it.

***

A week later, Annette Malkin walked up the stairs, and I showed her in. We exchanged pleasantries, and she broke out her checkbook to settle her account with me. We both felt the uncomfortable silence, broken only by the scratching of her pen and then the sharp rip of paper as she peeled off the check. I glanced at the amount: four thousand, seven hundred dollars. Almost enough to square me with Pat Richards.

“I’m really sorry for your loss, and for the way this turned out,” I said.

She looked at me with something close to sadness, but also a quality I couldn’t define.

“Thank you, anyway, Jack,” Annette said. “I know you tried.” She shouldered her purse and turned toward the door. When she opened it and stepped over the threshold, she stopped and turned toward me.

“Don’t know if you heard, but there’s rumors that Jackie Kingman committed suicide late last night,” she said. Her face bore that same expression, something close to sadness, but not quite.

I sat in my chair and listened to her steps going down the stairs.