"Brackett, Beverly - Sherrif Funderburk - Booger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brackett Beverly)

= BOOGER
A Sheriff Wallace Funderburk Story
By Beverley Brackett


Booger Adkins was dead. Not run-of-the-mill dead, where a hearse comes, carts the body away, and everyone goes to the funeral a few days later.

No, Booger Adkins was spectacularly dead. The kind of dead that gets a corpse talked about for weeks and remembered for years.

Booger had been shot twice at close range with his own over- and-under as he napped on the shabby sofa in his trailer. There was nothing left of his face, so it would definitely be a closed casket funeral.

Not that there would be many mourners. Anyone who did come would probably just be there to make sure Booger was really dead.

And to kick the casket.

Sheriff Henry Wallace Funderburk stared at the corpse and tried not to smile. Booger's death was going to cut the crime rate in Keowee County by at least twenty-five percent. The only thing that kept this from being a red-letter day was the fact that he'd had to arrest a decent, hardworking man for Booger's murder.

Sighing, Funderburk turned his attention to the cotton-top who'd performed this outstanding public service. Asa Hutchins sat in a ramshackle dinette chair, staring at the floor, his head nodding slightly in a steady, comforting rhythm.

"Asa, you sure you understand the rights the deputy read you?"

The weathered farmer glanced quickly at Funderburk and nodded. "Yeah, I got the right to remain silent and all. But I shot the son-of-a-bitch, an' there ain't a man alive can blame me after what he done to my Nyette. Then he up an' tells me and Rayette we cain't see our own granbabies!"

He leaned over and spat on his dead son-in-law's scuffed linoleum floor.

Funderburk could understand Hutchins' bitterness. His only child, Nyette, had eloped with Booger when she was eighteen. Twelve years, three children, and countless drug possession and prostitution arrests later, she was cold and in her grave. The coroner had found four healed fractures and more bruises than he could count on Nyette's body, along with a lethal dose of booze and pills. Officially it was a suicide. Public opinion, though, held that Nyette had really died of marriage to Booger.

Funderburk hooked his thumbs in his belt and mulled over his options. He decided to try a harsher way of getting the stoic farmer to request a lawyer. "Asa, you realize if you just confess outright, the Solicitor could seek the death penalty?"

The old man took a deep breath and nodded weakly, staring at the floor. Silence dominated the room, then he spoke softly, "It don't matter."

Funderburk rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. "You sure you don't want a lawyer?"

Hutchins shook his head. "No, I done it, and I'll take my punishment. I got no fear. I know my Jesus lives."

Funderburk took a seat in another dinette chair; it shuddered under his weight. "Then, wouldja mind tellin' me how you did this?"

Face to face, it dawned on him that Hutchins had lost a lot of weight. He had the look of a man who'd hit the canvas hard and wasn't getting back up.

Hutchins shrugged and frowned. "There's nothin' to tell. I come by to tell him that me and Rayette didn't think it was right, the way he was treatin' us."

He gestured briefly at the door. "The door was open, so I come in, and there he was, passed out on the sofa, stinkin' drunk at one in the afternoon. I looked out the winda and seen my granbabies out back, workin' in the garden."

He shook his head, the movement small, a mixture of sorrow and resignation. "An' I jes' got so godammed mad. He's never done a lick of honest work in his life, but he works them kids like mules and they always look half-starved. I grabbed the shotgun leanin' up against the wall, checked to see it was loaded, and walked over to the sofa..." Hutchins' voice trailed off and he turned away from Funderburk's gaze.

"And then?"

Hutchins pointed at the sofa. "I went over to where Booger was sleepin' and fired twice. Then I locked the door. I knew the kids would come arunnin' and I didn't want them in the house."

"Then what?"