New Sheriff in Town
by Ed Lynskey

Bink Ironside sported two lapel pins on his blue serge jacket: one for serving as the senior warden at Saint Jerome’s Episcopal Church and the second denoting his membership in the Society of Mayflower Descendents. As most townspeople knew, both of these claims were, in fact, untrue. However, they affably indulged Bink’s eccentricities. He was a familiar fixture in Joppy, often spotted sitting on a wooden bench busy whittling girls’ rings out of peach pits.
Presently, leaning against the cash register, Bink was back seeking a replacement belt for the riding lawnmower stalled for the past week behind the canna bed in his front yard.
The clerk, tagged simply as Willie, pulled up another schematic on the microfiche reader trying to identify the correct component number. "I just don’t see such an animal for that make and model," he repeated.
Irritated, Bink twisted the old splayed belt around his scarred wrists and yanked. It was useless to stick it back on the mower. "Could be I mixed up the year." He hesitated. "Damn mower is old as original sin. I sure know that much."
Willie peered over his reading glasses perched halfway down the bridge of his nose and winked. "You crotchety bachelors, honestly. I read somewhere your memory is the second thing to go."
Bink’s humorless hazel eyes narrowed. "There’s nothing flawed about my memory," he said "My memory or that first thing, Cochise."
Switching the reader off, Willie re-filed the microfiche cards scattered across the plywood countertop. "Hey, lighten up. I was yanking your chain. Jot down the serial number off the mower, and then pop back. We’re open until three. You fetch that info, and I bet we can fix you right up."
Without another word but scowling his displeasure at the slight inconvenience, Bink trudged through the door jangling a silver cowbell after him.
Willie turned to the Parts Manager who was pouring himself a drink from the water cooler into a Dixie Cup. "Jeez, what’s with Bink? He’s so ready to bite anybody’s head off anymore," he said. Swallowing another aspirin, the Parts Manager ventured no new opinion to delineate Bink’s mental state.
Bink had several more errands to square away. While he was jawing with old Mr. Edmonds, the hardware store proprietor, out the clay-streaked window, he caught a full view of Sheriff Nashwinter’s squad car parallel parking in front of the laundry mat and feed store. It was the only free space available on either side of Main Street.
"Add this to my tab," Bink told Mr. Edmonds. He snatched up the shrink-wrapped coil of rope from the bottom shelf.
After righting his snap-brim hat, Sheriff Nashwinter was cutting across the street, angling straight for the hardware store.
Bink tossed a departing pleasantry over his shoulder and greeted the passing Sheriff by nodding his head before hurrying on. It was almost noon, so his captive locked in the root cellar would soon require sustenance.
* * *
That night, it was Sunday, Bink had finished feeding his captive by six o’clock so that at least she couldn’t grouse again about starving to death. Her complaints concerning the root cellar’s darkness, nevertheless, were true. Bink, in his own defense, pointed out to her that a dehumidifier was on order from Montgomery Wards, due to arrive in a day or two.
"Release me at once." She twisted and squirmed her meaty wrists to loosen the new bonds. "This can’t continue, little man. You’re bright enough to grasp that fact."
Remaining silent, Bink speared several green beans onto the fork to lift before her tight lips. She refused another bite. The jaundice light spilling from the decrepit floor lamp rigged up between them sharpened the malignant cloud besmirching her porcine features.
"No, I don’t want you gallivanting free as an eel," Bink finally declared.
"You’ll never get away with this! She’s my daughter, too!"
Sadly, Bink shrugged his shoulders. He returned the drab silk headscarf to gag her ragged slit for a mouth and snugged the square knot. Her gimlet eyes burned that spot midway between the shoulders as he ascended the stairs.
By the kitchen drainboard, Bink pried open a dented can of tuna fish, then added mayonnaise and celery chunks. After mixing the mess and fabricating a sandwich, he bent from the waist to study the two postcards arranged beside the warm teapot.
Hi Daddy,
You ain’t visited me in a blue moon,
but I need to talk to you awfully bad.
I’ll make Joppy on the Sun. p.m. bus.
Luv,
Dottie
The glossy front of that postcard comically depicted a colossal mudcat strapped down to tote home on a flatbed Peterbilt truck. The caption read: "Gone Fishin’". On the generic beige postcard, the message written in the identical prim cursive handwriting sounded significantly less friendly.
Hello Mother,
I’ve made up my mind to live w/Daddy.
I’ll send for my stuff. Don’t try to bring
me back. I hate you for what you did.
Good-bye forever,
Dorothy
Bending the postcards into fourths, Bink tucked them into a saucer, then lit his new Zippo. Before his stinging eyes, the desire to leave things in the past quickly went up in smoke. It’s my ruination, Bink bitterly thought, before a calm overtook his deep-seated self-pity. He realized, for once in his life, even if just a token effort, he should do the right thing. Putting on the porch light, he staggered toward his rumpled cot.
Around midnight, Bink bolted up at the loud crash. Seizing the Fox pump action twelve-gauge shotgun lodged beneath the cot, he toggled on the hall light. Wobbling out front, he was alarmed to behold the door ajar, and hurrying into the kitchen, saw the root cellar door hanging loose, collapsed on its piano hinges. Somehow, his captor, furious as an Amazon, had untied herself and fled into the night.
* * *
Having alighted from his squad car, gingerly trudged across the iron truss bridge due to recent spleen surgery, Sheriff Nashwinter through half-lidded eyes gazed down. The Rappahannock River roiled below, its white water rapids thrashing over blunt black boulders. Daredevils called this place "Snake Castle".
"Poor little thing, she dropped like a sack of claw hammers." The M.E. shook his head. "Death, though, was instantaneous. If that’s any consolation for a suicide."
"Nope. You’re wrong," Sheriff Nashwinter said.
"Huh?"
"The girl was dead as a dodo before someone heaved her over the side." Nashwinter continued to study the river. "As for this shank of hemp, it’s only the killer’s prop." He fingered its seven meticulously formed knots.
The M.E. tugged the Sheriff’s elbow to steer him aside. "Look, Ernie, this is not the time to flex your official muscle. Word, you see, has leaked out this is a suicide. Murder is alien to Joppy. We’re a law-abiding town."
"A gorgeous gal hangs herself under a June full moon?" Nashwinter gravely locked his jaw. "Nope. Doesn’t make a speck of sense."
The "jumper" had been an unknown young girl, a crumbled heap discovered clad in a blue sundress who was presently being hustled up the craggy slate embankment by two deputies. As they approached clacking the gurney and its sheeted bundle over the macadam, Nashwinter slightly raised his hand. Both deputies halted. Shifting to free his elbow, Nashwinter doffed his snap-brim hat to slick away gouts of sweat.
Half-turning, the M.E. spoke behind his cupped hand. "You’re labeling this a homicide?"
"Make sure the cause of death reads murder," Nashwinter directed his deputies before waving them on. After the M.E.’s yellow stationwagon backed around and angrily clattered across the bridge, Nashwinter, alone now, leaned on the rust-pitted iron railings. The residents of Joppy had better settle down to face a tedious, hot summer, he contemplated. Their newly elected Sheriff packed grit enough to knock over a rock or two in order to nail a cold-blooded killer.
Under the broiling sun, Nashwinter hefted himself onto the canted rail and shimmied up with agility surprising for a heavy six-footer. Standing upright on the topmost rail, where the rope was secured, he swayed a bit but peeked down anyway. It was a long, dizzy fall. The theory that the girl had hung herself struck him as pure hogwash. There were too many far easier methods to bump off oneself.
Lowering himself back to the bridgespan, Nashwinter grimaced at the seven surgical stitches ripping free. Then a darkish patch underneath a near willow branch snagged his attention. Crouching in pain, he flung the cut branches aside. The shaft of sunlight showed a shotgunned-dead Bink Ironsides obtusely smiling there in his blue serge jacket with the two counterfeit lapel pins.