Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (36) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
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By Roger Owens

Thursday,
August 31, 1922,
12:00 PM

Red hadn’t eaten since his breakfast that morning about four, so when he walked in Jimmie’s Flamingo Café the smell of frying catfish and hushpuppies hit him right in the gut. He could swear just the ring of that little doorbell could make his mouth water. His stomach started growling like a pissed-off hound dog, and he was glad to see Greyson Stikelether at his usual table by the big window.
    According to the clock on the wall it was five minutes to nine. One of the neon legs of the flamingo had gone out, but it stood on the bent one just fine. Tom “Millions” Turpins’ “Buffalo Rag” banged from the Aeriola.

    “There you are!” the Judge said as he walked over. “I heard you’ve been a busy little bee.”
    Red had no idea how much Stikelether knew about the raid, but suspected he knew all of it. He had said plain-out that nothin’ got by him, and Red recalled he had a personal stake in this.
    He dropped into the chair across from the Judge and said “Reckon I have.”
    The Judge hadn’t ordered yet, and the noon bell rang at the train station just as Lilly swayed over and plopped down two tall sweet teas. She was gorgeous, he thought; Jimmie really was a lucky man. Built like a brick shithouse, and just sexy by nature.
    “Los platos habitual?” she asked breezily.
    Red surprised them both by replying, “Si claro, muchas gracias. Y para mi, los frijoles de ojos negros tambien, por favor.” Of course, he’d said, and he would like black-eyed peas as well.
    She leaned down sideways, and he got a fine view of her considerable cleavage. She bestowed a broad smile on him, apparently approving his Espanol. He thought he might be a little bit in love with her.
    “Bustante bien, pero,” and she smiled at the Judge, “nosotros llamamos ‘peas’ guisantes.” Pretty good, she’d said, but they called peas “guisantes.”

He worked the word around in his mouth

    He worked the word around in his mouth for a second. None of the Cubans or Mexicans he’d worked with, and he’d worked with a lot, ate black-eyed peas, or any kind of peas. Only beans. Frijoles. So he’d never heard the word.
    The peas were a Southern specialty that came from Jimmie Owens’ side of the family. Jimmie did ’em up with salt pork and a little chopped red onion, and Red had to admit, the onion made them the best. Sometimes he sold Jimmie the peas right out of his own garden.
    The Judge spoke up. “I’ll take the peas too my dear,” he said, and turned to Red. “One true pleasure on this earth is to be able to walk into a place with good food and say, ‘The usual please.’”
    Red had never done it before, and Grey was right; it was a pleasure. Homey like. He wondered what it might be like to come home to a woman, maybe somebody like Lilly, who would love you and give you children and most of all, just to be on your side. Someone you could always trust, who would never let you down.
    His reverie was broken by the Judge slurping up some tea.
    “Now, Mr. Dedge, I didn’t just call you for lunch, we have some business to attend to. I take it you are no more interested in revealing the whereabouts of that miscreant absconder, your brother, Guy Dedge, than you were the other day?”
    Red started to speak but Stikelether cut him off.
    “I didn’t think so. That will be a bit of a problem later maybe, but for now we have it under control.”
    We? Red’s Daddy would have said “What, ‘we’? You got a mouse in yer pocket?”
    He must have looked skeptical, and the Judge went on. “Right now, we have a criminal complaint against one Guy Dedge for assault with a deadly weapon, for cracking Todd Campbell upside the head with a heavy hunting knife. Tom Campbell is filing for him, as Todd is a minor, and he also has a civil suit against Guy for medical expenses and what-all. He’s asking a thousand dollars.”
    He might as well have been asking for the moon, Red thought. He might have ten dollars to his name and a truck worth just about nothing.
    “He took that knife of’n Floyd Kimball, who’d already beat him with it his own self. And Todd was beating the shit out of Delia Fleming at the time. Jesus, Grey, you oughta seen Guy! He was beat so bad Momma wouldn’t know him. If he belongs in jail, then they sure as hell do too!”

“I know, I know, son”

    Greyson Stikelether nodded, his palms raised for calm. “I know, I know, son. One thing at a time. First we have to outline all of it.”
    Red sat back. “All of what?”
    The Judge sighed. Lilly brought them both plates of fried catfish and hushpuppies. She came back in a minute with two bowls of black-eyed peas and the tea pitcher to give them refills. When she turned away, he looked up at Red as he tucked his napkin in his shirt collar.
    “We also have a criminal complaint against Guy for assault and battery on one Floyd Kimball, also a minor, who received multiple fractures and other serious injuries in the altercation. And a civil suit, both filed by Floyd’s father William Henry, for medical expenses, for the princely sum of two thousand five hundred dollars.”
    Red had been tearing into his fish while it was hot, but finally stopped, his mouth half full. “I cain’t never pay nothin’ like that, an’ they know it.”
    He spit out a bone, snaked another out of his mouth with his fingers and threw it on the plate. “And since I cain’t, if’n I tell ’em where to find Guy they’ll kill him for spite, you know they will. God damn their asses. I’ll never tell those sons of bitches one God damn thing.”
    Grey was nodding, grinning that grin.
    “Good, good, just what I needed to hear. Now, we have one more thing. A complaint from Z Zeuchs against both of you for disturbing the peace.”
    Red put his face down in his hands. Could it get any worse? “What the hell am I gonna do, Judge?”
    The older man smiled his satisfied smile. “Eat your fish, and I’ll tell you.” They both dug in with a will, and when Red had wiped the last bit of juice from the peas out of the bowl with his last piece of hushpuppy, Lilly came and swept the wreckage away.
    Without another word the Judge brought out a sheaf of papers from his inside coat pocket and unrolled them on the table between them. They were extra-long pieces of paper which featured a lot of fancy lettering and stamps and seals and such.
    “These,” he said, “are our answers to the charges. Now, they’re going to want us to produce the alleged perpetrator of these alleged crimes, but we don’t want to, and they have no way to force us to do so. The only charge against you is the one from Z, the charge of disturbing the peace. Z’s problem is, he isn’t a lawyer and doesn’t think he needs one. He’s underestimated us, which is to our advantage.

“His complaint is invalid”

    “What he doesn’t know is that because his ‘town’ house isn’t actually in town, the complaint is invalid. The Village of Vero has an ordinance against disturbing the peace, but the house is in the county. And to date, Saint Lucie County has no such ordinance. It has one against public drunkenness, but it doesn’t apply, and no one could prove it anyway. So as of now, no one has anything they can detain you for or make you do anything with.
    “Now, from our side, we need to file a criminal and a civil suit against the Frankenfields for burning down your farm.”
    Red narrowed his eyes. “But they’re all…”
    The Judge was shaking his head. “Not all of them, worse luck, but believe me, they have assets that are now part of the ‘estate,’ against which assets we intend to file a tort case for destruction of private property. We will also ask for criminal charges against anyone found to have known of their intent to destroy your farm or aided and abetted them in any way.”
    Red cocked his head sideways again.
    “Don’t look at me like that, young man, it makes me nervous.”
    Red grinned. “I’ve heard that more in the last few days than you would believe. Just who might it be that has a stake in this ‘estate’ we’re talkin’ about?”
    The Judge grinned back. “Oh, I’d believe it. You’re a pistol, Mr. Dedge, that you are. As for exactly who might be a beneficiary to the estate, I know some, but not all. I can subpoena their lawyers to get names, but as we all know, lawyers lie.”

Red pulled a flask from his back pocket

    Red sat back. He looked around, pulled a flask from his back pocket and took a slash. He figured whatever magical protection the Judge had against prosecution for intemperance, it had to extend to those in his company. Maybe even to his clients, even when he wasn’t around.
    He handed it over to Stikelether, who guzzled a third of the bottle in about two seconds, wiped his mouth and let out a satisfied “Ahhh!”
    He pointed one eyeball at Red as he passed back the flask. “A bit of that Frankenfield ’shine somebody made off with the other night? Same fellas as burned them out, I expect.”
    Red allowed as how he didn’t know nothin’ about any of that and wasn’t ever likely to.
    The Judge nodded. “And you keep it just like that, without fail, you hear me good, son? You were the only white boy there, and the blacks will never talk to any white law, so if some asshole detective says one of them ratted you out, you laugh in his face and tell him he’s full of shit.”
    Well, that answered the question of how much Stikelether knew; all of it, as he had figured. Red grinned like the boy he was. “I can do that.”
    “So,” the Judge continued, “we are filing criminal charges against Floyd Kimball, Todd Campbell, the wives of the Frankenfield men who met their untimely demise just a few days ago, at the hands of suspects unknown at this time.”
    Red knew there was more.
    “We are also filing criminal charges against John Ashley and his whole crew, whoever and wherever they may be. Definitely Joe, Laura Upthegrove, Hanford Mobley and Clarence Middleton. They were behind this attack, even if we may not be able to prove it. Finally, we have criminal and civil suits against Z Zeuchs, William H. Kimball, Roy Couch, Teddy Canova,” and here he hesitated.
    “And, Saint Lucie County Sheriff James R. Merritt.”

“What the God damn hell…?”

    Red had been sipping from the near-empty flask and sprayed the table with a mouthful of top-quality ’shine. Coughing, he gasped, “What the God damn hell…?”
    Stikelether put up a palm to calm him. “Take it easy. We can’t prove most of this stuff, but it’ll put them on notice that we’re on to them. Not only are they co-beneficiaries of the Frankenfield estate, but without doubt they all had prior knowledge of the attack on your farm. Their ownership may be buried deep, but the proof is there. Oh yes, from now on it isn’t your farm, it’s your home. If you, or Guy, if we ever find him of course,” and he smiled slyly; it seemed the only way he could smile, “ever end up testifying in court, you will refer to it as your home, understand? Yours and Guy’s, two honest, hard-working Christian boys just trying to make a living, and getting shat upon by the fat cats. That’ll get you sympathy from most juries, they understand how hard it is to get along. The corruption here goes much further than just the Frankenfields, you see?
    “While we can’t make any criminal charges against Zeuchs, Kimball or Sheriff Merritt stick, we can get restitution, and it will bring the situation to light. Plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the folks likely to be on that jury. And, I just happen to have a friend or two in the newspaper bidness, so these proceedings will get the attention they deserve, of course…”
    It was Red’s turn to grin slyly. He liked this old coot. He was feisty, he had clout, and best of all, he had a hard-on for the Ashleys as big as his own. “Well, damn it all then,” he said, “let’s do it.”
    This time the Judge’s smile was wide and genuine.

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens