The German by Lee Thomas Page A

or the Ranger’s Lodge for beers and whiskey. The German men would gather at Mueller Beer Hall to the east.
    A cold beer sounded good to Tom, and maybe a few shots of whiskey as well. He hadn’t had so much as a sip since the morning they’d found the boy in Blevins’s woods, but today the call of intoxication was just too loud.
    So he left the fairgrounds and drove the Packard back into town. He parked in front of his office. Gil limped across the room, carrying a short stack of papers. Rex had beaten Tom back to the station and sat in a chair, reading over a ledger and shaking his head. Don Nialls would be at home with his family; he’d become obsessive over their protection in the last few days, and Tom didn’t blame him in the least. Dick and Walter wouldn’t be in for another hour to monitor things on the night shift. Tom had given their dispatcher, Muriel Iverson, the day off so she could attend the Independence Day celebration with her family. Six officers were out on general patrol, so that left Rex and Gil.
    The three men exchanged exhausted greetings and Tom nodded at the ledger in Rex’s hands.
    “Anything useful come in today?”
    “Not really. Same old horseshit. Mrs. Reeves over to Fredericks Street thought she saw someone prowling around her neighbor’s yard last night. Couldn’t describe the guy, except to say he wore a long gray duster and a gray Stetson.”
    “A duster? In this heat?” Gilbert asked.
    “Who’s the neighbor?”
    “That’s the Williams place. Deke and his son David.”
    “Sure,” Tom said, having known Deke Williams since their school days. “Those two can handle themselves just fine. Anything else?”
    “A missing cat. Someone else spotted Hugo Jones and his friends walking through the lakeside neighborhood.”
    “A bunch of donkeys,” Tom said. He shook his head and crossed to his office. At the door he paused and said, “Once Dick and Walter get in here, I’m buying a round at the Longhorn for those law enforcement officers interested in joining me.”
    This brought out a “Whoop” from Rex and a smile from Gil.
    “Count me in,” the young deputy said.
    “Good.” Tom turned on his heels and returned to his desk.
    The phone rang off and on for twenty minutes, but Tom let his deputies take the calls while he rested his head on his arms. Sleepless nights and a day in the sun had sapped his energy and despite the phone’s constant interruptions Tom fell into a deep sleep.
    It felt as if he’d just dozed off when a strong hand shook him awake. Rex was saying his name urgently, and Tom shot upright. He rubbed the fog from his eyes and was almost startled to find himself at the office rather than at home.
    “Tom,” Rex said for the third time. “You need to pick up the phone.”
    “What’s going on?”
    Instead of replying, Rex lifted the phone from its cradle and handed it to the still-disoriented sheriff. Tom put the device against his ear and then quickly pulled it away.
    Two people were screaming: one was a man insisting Tom come at once; and the other was a woman who made no requests but rather shrieked incoherently like two saws trying to cut each other down. Tom eased the phone back to his ear.
    “Who is this?” he asked.
    “Sheriff Rabbit,” a man shouted. The shrill cries of the woman continued in the background.
    “Yes, who is this?”
    “This is Mort Grant from the Ranger’s Lodge. You have to get over here.”
    “What’s the problem, Mort? Who’s making all that racket?”
    “It’s another boy,” Mort said. “Here at the lodge, we got us another dead boy.”
    The phone began to shake in Tom’s hand, so he pressed it tightly to his head to keep the tremors from showing and to keep the plastic cup from rattling against his ear. “At the lodge?” Tom asked, because he could think of nothing else to say.
    “Hurry,” Mort insisted. The woman screamed again to punctuate the demand.
    Tom slammed the phone down and leapt to his feet.