Jim Tile said, “What did you see, Ozzie?”
“Mainly I stayed in the truck.”
“Then what did you hear?”
Ozzie looked down. “Jesus, I don’t know. Mainly some yelling… ” The words tumbled slowly, trailed off. Jim Tile imagined Ozzie’s fevered brain cells exploding like popcorn.
The trooper said, “What did Ott tell them?”
“We made a fire, drank some beer, fell asleep. About three hours before dawn we headed for the slough.”
“Was Mr. Pickney still alive?”
“He didn’t tell them hardly nothing, according to Tom and Lemus.” Ozzie was untracked again, answering Jim Tile’s questions in no particular sequence.
Jim Tile said, “You were the driver, that’s all?”
“He was still alive when we got there. Banged up but still alive. See, I thought they was gonna let him go. I thought they was through with him. Tom and Lemus, they said to stay in the truck and I did. But it got cold and I couldn’t figure what was takin’ so long. Finally I got out to whizz and that’s when I heard the splash.”
Jim Tile said, “You didn’t see anything?”
“It was a damn big splash.” Ozzie sneezed, and more gunk came out of his nose. He said, “Truth is, I didn’t really want to look.”
Jim Tile untied Ozzie’s wrists and ankles and helped him to his feet. Together they carried Culver out to the pickup and laid him on the flatbed. Ozzie put the tailgate back up. Jim Tile got an extra pillow and a blanket from his apartment.
“Think you’d best get him over to the hospital in Melbourne,” Jim Tile said. “Nobody here in town can fix that jawbone.”
Ozzie nodded glumly. “I gotta go by the house and fetch Momma.” He got in the truck and started the ignition.
Jim Tile leaned in the driver’s window and said, “Ozzie, you understand what happens if I have to arrest you.”
“Culver goes to jail,” Ozzie said wanly.
“For the rest of his natural life. When he gets to feeling better, please remind him, would you?”
“I will,” said Ozzie. “Sir, I swear I don’t think he meant to shoot you.”
“Of course he did,” said Jim Tile, “but I’m inclined to let the whole thing slide, long as you boys stay out of my way for a while.”
Ozzie was so relieved that he nearly peed his pants. He didn’t even mind that the black man had called them boys. Basically Ozzie was happy to still be alive. The trooper could have killed them both and gotten away with it, yet here he was, being a true Christian and letting them go.
“Just one favor,’ Jim Tile said, resting a coal-black arm on the door of the truck.
“Sure,” Ozzie said.
“Where can I find Thomas Curl?”
Richard Clarence Lockhart was buried on January 25 at the Our Lady of Tropicana cemetery outside Harney. It was a relatively small turnout, considering Dickie’s fame and stature in the county, but the low attendance could be explained easily enough. By unfortunate coincidence, the day of the funeral was also opening day of the Okeechobee Bass Blasters Classic, so almost all Dickie’s friends and colleagues were out fishing. Dickie would certainly forgive them, the preacher had chuckled, especially since the tournament required a nonrefundable entry fee of two thousand dollars per boat.
Dickie Lockhart was buried in a handsome walnut coffin, not a bass boat. The hearse bearing the coffin was escorted to Our Lady of Tropicana by three police cars, including a trooper’s cruiser driven, none too happily, by Jim Tile. Dickie Lockhart’s casket was closed during the eulogy, since the mortician ultimately had been frustrated in his cosmetic efforts to remove the Double Whammy spinnerbait from Dickie’s lip; in the clammy New Orleans morgue the lure’s hook had dulled, while Dickie’s skin had only toughened. Rather than further mutilate the facial features of the deceased, the mortician had simply advised Dickie’s sisters to keep the coffin closed and remember him as he was.
Ozzie Rundell was extremely grateful. He couldn’t have borne another glimpse of his murdered idol.
Culver Rundell did not attend the funeral, since he was hospitalized with thirty-nine linear feet of stainless-steel wire in his jaws. On Culver’s behalf, the bait shop had ordered a special floral arrangement topped by a ceramic jumping fish. Unfortunately the ceramic fish was a striped marlin, not a largemouth bass, but no one at the funeral was rude enough to mention it.