I'd decided to drop in on my ol' buddy Sherman "Hamhock" Holmes, on the second day of deer season, to say hello and ask if he wanted to go out with me to the woods. He lived alone at Space 221b in the Baker Street Bayou Trailer Park and Laundromat, and liked it when we'd head out into the north forty together. He was sittin', half awake, in his old brown LazyBoy recliner. A half-empty punch of Redman was tucked neatly into the toe end of an old ostrich skin Tony Lama. A crumpled pile of past-due bills, evidently used to clean his Remington, was affixed with a Buck knife to the simulated-redwood coffee table.
He had clearly been in a cogitatin' mood, because I noticed that the barrel of the Remington was still warm, and the letters "G.W." (for "George Wallace") had been spelled into the paneling with bird shot.
On the far end of the table was an old orange ball cap, just broke in good, with part of the black sizing strap missing, and the words "I just do what Mama says" embroidered in bold black letters across the front. Holmes's reading specs and a ratty oven mitt shaped like a Georgia bulldog were pushed up against it, meaning that there was something more going on here than fancy words and snappy dressing.
"What you been up to, Chief?" I asked. "You want me to run out and pick us up some baloney and beer?"
"That you, Bubba? Come on in here. I got some cold ones in the fridge. Grab us a couple and have a tell me what you think of this. It ain't much," he nodded in the general direction of the Mama cap, "but it sure beats a sharp stick in the eye."
I took a slug of my beer, and sat myself down on the faded Naugahyde settee. It was cold, the first real freeze of the season, and I sat on my hands to keep 'em warm. "Well, I reckon, that even though it's a mighty-fine cap, it's got some weird-ass story just waiting' to be told. You don't pull out the glasses and the bulldog mitt unless there's some kinda big-deal mystery that needs to be looked at with both eyes and one good hand."
"Nope. No crime at all that I can see," said Holmes, stuffing an extra-large wad of Redman way back into his cheek, like he usually did when he was in a particularly snippy mood. "There's a whole pile of cap-wearing hunters and truck drivers in this county. The second full day of deer season is crazier'n Uncle Frank with a Victoria's Secret catalog, and there ain't no telling what's fixin' to happen. Lots of strange things that ain't exactly Christian, but not exactly criminal either. I suppose somethin' like that is what we got here, Bubba."
"Hell, Holmes," I told him, "seems to me that about half of that last batch I wrote up for the Weekly Dogwhacker weren't criminal, just damn strange."
"Uh-huh. You're talking' about That Woman, I bet — and ol' what's his name — you know, the guy who kept sloppin' bourbon down the front of his overalls and jugglin' them five little orange seeds. I reckon this is one of those. Say, you know Cyrus Peterson, don't you?"
"The night clerk at the Blue Bird Motel, Post Office, and RV Park? Yeah, I know the guy."
"Mama came from him."
"Peterson wears an orange Mama cap?"
"Geez, Bubba, you want to pay attention here? Peterson found the cap. He brought it around yesterday morning, with a freshly-dressed wild turkey, about 24 pounds, the way I figure. Here's what I know so far. About four o'clock on the first morning of deer season, Peterson, the old booger, picked up a gallon of mash from Old Man Tottenham and was headin' home down Slippery Elm Lane. Now, Tottenham makes a decent sippin' whiskey, even if he uses a bit too much battery acid for my taste. You know me, Bubba," Holmes grinned. "Anything more than seven percent is habit formin'."
Holmes must have choked on his own lame joke, because he suddenly grimaced and spat tobacco juice into an empty beer can. I watched as my buddy pulled himself together and and waited for the greenish color to drain from his face before he continued.
"So. As Peterson pulled his Bronco onto the main road, he saw a tall sorta man, carryin' a burlap sack over his shoulder, passin' by the "Today's Specials" in front of the Piggly-Wiggly. When he got to the corner, a gang of skinheads started pickin' a fight with the stranger. They was a-pokin' and a-pushin' him; one of 'em knocked off the poor guy's cap, and he started swingin' that big burlap sack around like nobody's business, just tryin' to protect himself. He hit the sign that said 'Melons 2 for $2.00' and smashed it. About that time, Peterson had figured out what was goin' on and flashed 'em — with his lights, Bubba. With his headlights! Stop lookin' at me like that! Well, sir, them skinheads scattered like fleas off a dipped hound, and the stranger was so shook up that he dropped the sack, forgot all about his cap, and ran off. He got away so fast that Peterson couldn't give him back his stuff. The turkey, of course, was in the sack."
"He tracked the feller down, then, did he?"
"If he'd have done that, Bubba, we wouldn't be sittin' here talkin' about it, now would we? Go into the kitchen and get yourself a clue, and maybe another couple beers for us while you're in there."
I untangled myself from the warm spot on the settee and stuck my head into Holmes's icebox.
"There was one of them yeller sticky notes on the inside of the burlap that said, 'For Ma Baker.' I see that the initials 'H.B.' are written on the underside of the bill of the cap in black permanent ink – Sharpie Fineliner, 3 for $6.00 at Verl's Discount City."
"But for cryin' out loud, Holmes, there's hundreds of Bakers in this county alone, never mind the tourists that flock in here for a shot at a wild turkey."
"We can figure that the cap belongs to a Mr. Hank Baker, since the Baker clan don't use any H name other than Hank."
"There was that Howard Baker feller that ran for Congress back in the seventies."
"And what happened to him?"
"He ran as a Democrat, I recall. Got chased outta town by a couple dozen angry cousins with a whole lot of tar and feathers."
"There ain't been a baby named anything but 'Hank' by that family ever since. Never could live down the shame."
"So," I said as I tossed my friend a beer, "what did Peterson do?"
Holmes looked at me with disbelief. "I don't know, maybe he took some aspirin and a bath. Geez, Bubba, you gotta get them ears cleaned."
He always got a little cranky at this time of day.
"Like I told you, he brought the cap and the turkey here yesterday morning. I was gonna put the bird in the fridge, but it was a big sucker, and there was room for either the bird or my beer. Since I don't cook, I told Peterson to take it on home to his wife. Molly-Jean is one of the finest microwavers in the state. By now she's probably got it all fixed up with canned gravy and instant stuffin', and is zappin' it for all it's worth. All I have left is this cap and an annoying rash, but that a whole 'nother story."
"Anybody been askin' around about the cap or the turkey?"
"Uh-uh. Not a soul."
"Then how you gonna find the rightful owner?"
"Deduction, my dear Bubba. Deduction."
"From the Mama cap?"
"Yep."
"What else can you possibly get from that ratty lookin' thing?"
"Here's my bulldog mitt. You know how I roll. What does the cap tell you about the feller who wears it?"
As I put on the mitt and picked up the cap, the phrase "sanitized for your protection" popped into my brain. I turned the cap over. It was just a regular old orange Mama cap, stained with the sweat of a whole lot of turkey shoots. The "made in Taiwan" tag was still intact, and the initials "H.B" were written in Sharpie, just like Holmes said. It was generally dusty and well-worn, and it seemed that a lot of 10W30 had been wiped off of it at some point, probably against the upper leg of an old pair of jeans.
"Looks pretty normal to me," I said, dropping the cap on the table and handing back the bulldog mitt.
"Ah. You see, but you ain't observin'," said Holmes with a knowing little smile.
He picked up the cap and gazed at it with a look that meant he was either lost in thought or was sorry he'd had that extra helping of baked beans at dinner. "It may not have as much to say as it used to," he mumbled, "but there is still some stuff here that can't be doubted, and quite a bit more I figure to be to be pretty sure. He certainly is a smart feller. He used to be well-off within the past three years, though he's been strugglin' a bit lately. He had foresight back then, but not so much now, which means he's fallen off the wagon and spent most of his savings on moonshine. I figure that's why his wife don't love him anymore."
"Holmes! That's pretty cold. How could you possibly know that?"
"He has, of course, kept hold of some of his self-respect," he continued, ignoring me as usual. "He doesn't get out much, has the beer belly of the middle-aged good ol' boy that he is, and has just gotten his curly hair cut in the last couple of days. This is certain, based on the cap. And I can see that he probably doesn't have indoor plumbing."
"You got to be kidding, Holmes."
"I never kid about plumbing. Can't you see it yourself, now that I've given you all the answers?"
"I guess I must be dumb as limestone. I ain't got a clue how you got all that. Like, how did you figure out he's so smart?"
Holmes slapped the cap onto his head. It slid down over his forehead and ears. "It's a matter of size," he said. "A man who wears an XXL cap must have something in his head to fill it up with."
"Okay, what about his money situation?"
"This particular style and color of Mama cap was only available three years ago. When these babies went on sale down at Verl's, they went for a whoppin' $29.95. If he could afford to spend that kind of money for a cap back then, and he's been wearin' it ever since, it's clear that he used to have money, but don't have none no more."
"Well, I'll be. I'll give you that. But what about the foresight and the moonshine?"
Holmes laughed. "Here is the foresight," he said, pointing to the initials "H.B." under the bill. "Most people don't bother to put their initials on their caps, and them that does writes it in ball-point pen. But this man invested in a Sharpie – a pen too expensive for most cap-stealin' folks to bother with – to make sure that nobody could steal his cap without bein' caught. And since the sizing strap is broken and he didn't even bother to duct-tape it back together, it tells me he ain't so foresightful these days. And take a look at these here spots! Every last bit of color's been bleached right out of these spots. Moonshine that good don't just come along every day. If he's still drinkin' good mash, you know he's got enough self-respect left to look after his liver."
"Makes sense to me."
"that he's middle-aged, has curly hair and just got it cut, is easy to tell by looking at the liner. My reading specs show a fresh-cut mixture of gray and brown hairs, stuck to the cap by the Vitalis they use at the barber shop. And there's dust on it. Indoor dust, not huntin' woods dust, which means he now spends most of his time indoors. These here marks show he sweats like a pig, and therefore isn't in real good physical shape.
"But what about the fool notion that his wife don't love him no more?"
"The cap's dirty. Real dusty, you know? Now let's imagine that I were to see you, Bubba, with dust on that John Deere cap of yours. If your wife let you go out in a sorry state like that, it'd mean that she didn't care enough about you to throw the cap in the washer along with your underwear. And since I don't even want to think about the condition of your underwear, I think it'd be safe to assume that your wife was ticked off.
"He could be a bachelor, you know."
"Nah. He was bringing a turkey home to Mama, probably as a peace offering so he wouldn't have to sleep on the porch. Remember the phrase on the cap and the yeller sticky note in the burlap sack."
"You know everything, don't you, Holmes? But tell me, how do you figure there's no indoor plumbing at his place?"
With that, Holmes shoved the cap under my nose and the answer became painfully clear. "That, Bubba, is the aroma of an outhouse. A two-holer, if I'm not mistaken. Satisfied?"
"Well, that's real good," I laughed. "But if, like you said, there's been no crime committed, and nothing was lost except the cap and a turkey, it sure seems like you're spending a whole mess of time wasting time."
Hamhock Holmes opened his mouth, either to reply or to spit, when the door of the trailer flew open and Peterson, the Blue Bird's night clerk, rushed in, out of breath and with a look of shock and surprise on his face.