Country Rube

Country Rube

by Damon Nomad

Sheriff Curtis Fleming raced slowly across the gravel parking lot towards his office. The sound of gravel crunching under his boots. He wiped a bead of sweat away from his brow. As Fleming got to the sidewalk, he realized his wife was right, he needed to lose some weight, husky is what she said last night. These hot Georgia summer days just helped make her point.

"Mornin Rufus", Fleming felt the cool air of the AC as he gave a mock salute in the direction of his deputy. "Weekend update in my office."

"Mornin Sheriff, be right there."

Fleming tapped his fist lightly on Lucille's desk as he slid past, "Mornin' Lucille, no coffee too darn hot, how bout a nice cold iced tea, but no sugar."

Lucille growled, "How bout you get it yourself, I'm the dispatcher, not a waitress." She kept her attention on her nail file, gliding across her fingertips.

Fleming pivoted slowly back around, "Lucille would you please bring me some tea. It's right on your way." He figured he had been a little chauvinistic in his request, even though her title was actually office assistant and her job included kitchen duties.

Lucille put the glass of iced tea on Fleming's desk with a smirk. "Gonna take more than cutting sugar from your tea to lose weight." She plopped down into the seat at the small table next to Rufus. She opened her notebook to take notes for the weekend report.

Fleming slurped a quick sip, "Okay Rufus, what you got from the weekend duty?"

"It was pretty darn quiet to be honest, except for Friday night. There was a bit of a scuffle outside the Lucky Stripe Bar." Rufus glanced at his notebook to check the time, "I got the call on the duty phone from the bartender just after ten o'clock. Said there was some yelling in the parking lot and it looked like it could get violent. Bubba Moore was involved, drunk as a skunk. Some other man waving a baseball bat and yellin at Bubba. When I got there, a car was peeling out of the parking lot, all I could see were tail lights. Bubba was on the ground more drunk than hurt, and some woman was pacing nervously close by. I don't know her and she refused to give her name and would not say who took off in the car."

Rufus leaned forward and gestured to Lucille, "Ya can stop writing now, rest is mostly speculation." She closed her notebook, studying her nails as Rufus continued with the story. "Knowing Bubba, it must have been the woman's husband with the bat. He found out they were fooling around and he came after Bubba. She was pretty shaken up and said she just wanted to leave. I could not hold her and I did not see her vehicle. I let Bubba sleep it off in the holding cell. Like I say he wasn't hurt. Let him out Saturday morning, he wouldn't say who came at him with the bat or who the woman was."

The phone rang, Lucille jumped up and scurried to answer it, "Berry Creek Sheriff's Office."

Fleming saw the worried look on Lucille's face. He got up from his chair and walked in her direction, Rufus trailing behind him.

"Sheriff Fleming will be right there." Lucille sighed as she hung up the phone, looking at Fleming with a pained expression. "That was the site safety manager from that construction site, that new factory. There was an accident a few hours ago, an ambulance is there but nothing they could do. Bobby Moore is dead. The state safety inspector will not be there for several more hours and you are on the call-out list for fatalities." Lucille didn't feel it was proper to call him Bubba, given this news.

Fleming rubbed his chin, "Hmm, you two hold down the fort, I will head out there and see what happened."

Fleming pulled into the large parking lot, reading the big signboard on the edge of the lot as he got out of the SUV. Welcome to Voltage Inc. Berry County High Capacity Battery Factory. The Future is Here. A small placard with replaceable numbers hung from the bottom, Four Hundred and Two Days Without a Lost Time Accident. He spotted the gatehouse entrance and headed in that direction. He knew it was going to be really hot soon, as the sun climbed high in the sky.

As Fleming approached the entrance, a man carrying a white hard hat greeted him with a wave. "Glenn Morris, site safety manager, you must be Sheriff Fleming."

"That's me, just call me Curt everyone in town does."

"I think I will just go with sheriff. This is our first serious accident, we stopped activities in the immediate area. The corporate lawyer told us not to touch anything until you and the state safety inspector give us permission."

Fleming kicked at some pebbles on the ground, "Very good, I understand the state inspector will not be here for some time. Did you know the victim?"

Morris stared at the ground answering in a quiet voice, "His name is Robert Moore, I personally did not ...."

A short, thin man rushed up interrupting Morris mid-sentence. "You the Sheriff?" The man took off his hard hat, exposing a serious comb-over that did not come close to covering his bald spot. "When can we get back to work? I got trucks backed up. The ambulance is just sitting there. I don't want to be insensitive, but time is money!" He looked bug-eyed at Fleming tapping a finger on his hard hat as he held it with the other hand. Like a clock ticking off seconds.

Morris cocked his head with a hint of a frown, gesturing to the man. "This is Herbert Miller, Site Construction Manager." Morris nodded toward the sheriff as he continued, "Mr. Miller, this is Sheriff Curtis Fleming."

Fleming nodded toward Miller, "Just Curt, don't want to hold you up any longer than necessary. Georgia law requires that I take a look as well as a state safety inspector. I just need to be sure this is nothing more than an industrial accident. Shouldn't take much if Glenn here can walk me through it."

Miller put his hard hat back on. "I will take you to the spot myself, let's get this done with."

He snatched the hard hat Morris was holding and shoved it into Fleming's chest, "A steel partition wall fell on a man. Hopefully, it will be obvious to you that this is just a simple accident. Keep up, and tell me if I am talking too fast for you. Stay close, it is a construction site. There are lots of hazards." The wiry little man bolted off like a meerkat running from a jackal.

Fleming put on the hard hat as he tried to catch up. "Yes sir, I will try and keep up."

Fleming struggled to keep pace as they zig-zagged in and out of concrete and steel buildings popping up across the site. Past the sounds of compressors and drills and the sparks of welders. Workers smoking cigarettes looking at blueprints, glancing as they went past. Fleming was starting to build up a sweat. He was ready to yell out for Miller to slow down when he saw Miller come to a stop up ahead.

Miller waited with arms folded across his chest as Fleming caught up. He nodded toward a blanket covering a body on the ground. "This is the supply yard; the body is right over there." Miller pointed further to the right. "That's the wall that came down on him, the crane is still holding it up. Like I said the poor man was crushed under a steel wall. Let me know if you have any questions. I got a line of trucks out the east gate waiting to deliver materials to this supply yard." Miller tapped on his watch, leaning back against a stack of thick metal sheets. Fleming didn't see a drip of sweat coming off the man.

Fleming plodded past Miller, toward the ambulance near the mobile crane. He waved to the two county EMTs sitting in the rear with the doors open. "Ya got one of them cold packs in there by chance?"

The smaller man reached into a box in the ambulance, "Put this on your neck, it will cool you down."

Fleming took off the hard hat, wiped the sweat off his head with his handkerchief, and put the hard hat back on. He put the cold pack on the back of his neck. "Oooh yeah, thank ya. What did you two find when you got here?"

The taller EMT stood up, pointing to the body covered with the blanket, maybe twenty yards from where they were standing. "We found him right there, not far from that ditch in front of the small hill. The crane holding up that wall was on this spot, they said they got it off him about twenty minutes before we arrived. The company first aid responders couldn't do anything, we are guessing he died instantly. Either head injuries or internal organ damage from being crushed, an autopsy will get you that. Coworkers said he was up on that ladder welding when the wall fell over on him."

Fleming handed the ice pack back to the shorter guy and wrote a few notes in his notebook. He looked around the supply yard. There was rebar, sheets of steel, PVC piping, 50-gallon drums, and other construction supplies filling up most of the space. Except for the open area where they were standing in front of a small hill with a long shallow ditch in front of the hill. He waved to Miller, "Have someone mark a chalk outline around the body." Fleming turned to the EMTs, "You can take the body after they mark it out."

After the body was gone, Fleming moved closer to the spot. He turned looking at Miller, raising his voice but not quite shouting. "Mr. Miller, can you explain what Moore was doing? EMTs said he was welding."

Miller gestured to the sheets of metal and beams near the spot where he was standing; "They were using these sheets and beams to make walls for large chemical tanks." Miller walked toward Fleming, pointing to metal braces laying in and around the long shallow rectangular ditch in front of the hill. "I don't know Moore, but he must be a welder. We were using this spot as a temporary laydown area to fabricate the walls. Those braces are meant to keep the metal wall stable, while the seams in the wall are permanently welded together." Miller kicked at the partially crushed ladder on the ground near the ditch not far from the spot where the body had been. "He must have been welding the vertical seams, from the top down, using this ladder"

Miller continued past Fleming to the edge of the ditch. He pointed back to the spot he had just come from. "The metal sheets are tack welded together over there with the beams welded on the back." He looked back over his shoulder and thrust his thumb back towards the crane, "The portable crane stands the wall up in this ditch." He continued, eyes darting around looking around the ditch, "This is about six inches deep, the bracing is put on both sides of the wall and anchored into the ground, it should be absolutely safe. The crane moves away after the braces are in place, they permanently weld the horizontal mid-seam and back braces. They use the ladder to permanently weld the vertical seams." Miller nodded with confidence, "We have construction engineers who check these bracing designs, I am an engineer myself it looks fine to me, so long as the bracing is installed properly."

Fleming studied the ditch and the braces laying about, "Well somethin went wrong, I need to know why it came down. Did someone check the bracing this morning?" Fleming continued jotting notes in his notebook.

Miller grabbed the walkie-talkie from his belt, "I need McDermott, where the wall came down on this welder."

Moments later, Brian McDermott arrived, "Mr. Miller sir, what do you need?"

Miller gestured to Fleming, "This is the sheriff, can you explain what happened this morning? Did anyone check the braces?"

McDermott clenched his jaw staring at Miller for a moment then turned his attention to Fleming. "I'm a welding supervisor, the schedule changed over the weekend or early this morning. All of my welders working on these walls were assigned to the south piping work this morning. The vertical seams on this wall segment had to be finished today. Moore is the only one on this crew with the qualifications for this vertical welding. So he was here working alone. I did not like it, but it was the only way to get this segment done today and have the rest of the crew on the south piping work. I double-checked the bracing and the ladder to make sure it was safe before he got started."

McDermott pointed to a large cart at the edge of the ditch, "Best we can figure, the cart must have come down the concrete incline. It's full of gravel and it must have dislodged some of the braces on that side of the wall. Once they came loose the rest of the braces on that side were not enough to hold the wall up. He was up on the ladder on this side of the wall and the whole damn thing tipped over onto him. There was not supposed to be any gravel moved into the ditch while we were using this as a laydown area for welding the tank walls. I can't be held responsible for that, that's not on me. No one saw it happen, we heard the wall when it came down. We got over here as fast as we could and used the crane to get the wall off of him. We called the first aid team, but it was too late."

Sheriff Fleming tapped on his notebook with his pen, studying the cart and the concrete incline that ran up the hill. "Thank you Mr. McDermott, sounds like ya did all ya could. Mr. Miller, what is this cart and this incline all about?"

Miller waved for McDermott to leave, "We make most of our concrete in large batches in a plant on the west side of the site. For smaller pours, we have portable mixers around the site. This ditch is empty now, while it was being used for this welding work. The ditch is intended to hold gravel, workers come with a pick-up truck or wheelbarrow and pick up gravel for making concrete in the portable mixers. McDermott is right, there was supposed to be a halt in gravel movement while this area was being used for welding the walls. The cart is used to fill the ditch up with gravel, traveling up and down the incline that runs up the side of this hill." Miller shrugged holding out both hands, palms up. "Now you know why the wall fell, it was bumped by this cart full of gravel, a terrible accident. Are we done?"

Sheriff Fleming rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head. "The problem wasn't with the wall bracing. I get that is what you are saying, but why did the gravel cart come down the incline? You said yourself there was not supposed to be any gravel movement." Fleming pointed at the cart, "How does this cart work, did something go wrong with it?"

Miller chewed on his bottom lip, as he marched toward the cart, "I can't make you into an engineer in a day, but it's pretty simple. You see it rolls down this long concrete incline. The cable and side rails keep it moving in a straight line and the cable is used to pull it back up using an electric wench after it empties its load into the ditch. There is a cam lock at the top of the incline that acts on the axle and keeps it from moving when it is empty. The cam lock is automatic when the cart is in place at the top." He gestured toward the top of the hill. "You see that overhead conveyor belt, it dumps the gravel into the cart through a chute at the top. The cam lock automatically releases the axle due to the weight of gravel when the cart is nearly full."

Miller tapped on levers on the side of the cart, "Before the gravel transfer starts, you need to have this manual brake and clutch engaged to keep the cart in place. Then release the brake and engage the clutch to control the speed once you are ready to send it down the incline."

Miller glared at Fleming, "Are you able to follow that?"

Fleming continued scribbling notes, "Yea, I think I follow ya so far."

Miller gestured to the top of the incline, "I am guessing the manual brake and clutch were not engaged since there was no scheduled gravel movement. The gravel conveyor started up, dumping gravel into the cart. The cam brake automatically released like it is supposed to when the cart was nearly full." He shook his head, "Gravity took over and the cart coasted down the incline, the speed constantly increasing since it was not controlled by the clutch."

Miller pointed to a spot on the ground at the edge of the ditch, "The cart's wheels hit these stops at the end of the incline." Miller threw his hands forward, "All that weight and velocity caused the cart to nearly tip over, hitting the bracing on the backside of the wall." He waved his right hand towards the ground, "The wall coming down, a terrible and unlikely accident. I think that is the end of the story."

Sheriff Fleming blew out a long sigh, rolling his eyes. "Man, oh man. That is terrible and unlikely. The state safety guy is gonna have a time with you sorry to say."

Fleming tugged on his ear, nodding his head. "Not a problem with the wall bracing or the cart, but there was not supposed to be any gravel movement. Why was the conveyor dumping gravel into the cart, what starts that conveyor belt movin?"

Miller's face reddened and he clenched his fists with his arms at his side. Then he relaxed and smiled, "We can see that from my office, we can cool off in the AC and get something cold to drink."

The two men walked into the two-story air-conditioned office building in the northeast corner of the construction site. Fleming smiled with a sigh of relief, "That feels good."

Miller plastered on a fake grin, the country bumpkin should lose some weight, he could tolerate the heat a little better. "My office is on the second floor; we can see the entire conveyor belt route from there."

Miller opened the door to his office suite, "Go on into my office, I will have Agnes get us something to drink, what do you want water, soda, or tea?"

"A diet soda with ice would be nice if you have it, if not iced tea with no sugar." Fleming looked around Miller's office, looking at his pictures, wall hangings, decorations, and knick-knacks. He took a quick picture with his mobile and sent it with a short message to Rufus.

Miller returned with Agnes following him, she handed the sheriff a glass of ice and a can of diet soda. "Sheriff, let me know if there is anything else, I am right outside this door, always there if Mr. Miller is here."

Fleming returned the pleasant smile, "Thank you kindly, mam."

Miller waved dismissively toward the door, "Thank you Agnes, please don't hover, nothing more for the moment."

Miller got a pair of binoculars from a bookshelf and handed them to the sheriff, "You can see the gravel pile and conveyor belt path from the window. We are about a hundred yards from where we came from in the laydown area."

They moved close to the window, Miller pointed toward the right, "That is the gravel pile right there." Miller traced out the route of the conveyor with his hand. "You can see the conveyor belt is buried in the gravel pile near the bottom. It climbs up vertically to about ten feet above the ground and runs down to the top of the incline where the gravel cart sits. The gravel falls off the end of the conveyor, into that chute right into the cart."

Fleming peered through the binoculars following the gravel route, "Okay, yeah I get ya. When the belt is dumping the gravel into the cart, nobody working on those walls down below can see what is goin on at the top of that incline. Cart fills up, coasts down the hill, knocks down the wall, and crushes poor Bobby Moore. You could have seen the whole thing right from here."

Miller sighed pointing to his desk, "Yes, well I was working on my computer and with the window closed I never even heard the conveyor start or the wall fall down."

Fleming put the binoculars down on the window sill, "Where is the switch or button that starts the conveyor?"

Miller pointed towards a spot not far from the back corner of the building, "You can just see it, the push button is on the top of that gray metal box. Quite a bit of traffic in that area, that is a supply shed right next to it."

Fleming studied the area, "I see what you mean, someone lays somethin on top of the panel and accidentally starts the conveyor. If they aren't paying attention, they might not even realize it started running. Does the thing keep runnin forever?"

"No, it has a timer shutoff after one cartload, just in case someone forgets to turn it off. It only takes about twenty minutes to fill the cart with nearly a ton of gravel."

Fleming shuffled away from the window picking his diet soda up off the coffee table, "That seems to be the last piece of the puzzle."

The door to the office opened, and Agnes peeked in, "Mr. Peckner from the state safety office is downstairs. Should I go get him?"

Miller headed toward the door, "I will do that, please get the sheriff another diet soda." Miller pointed to a large table, "Let's use the meeting table to meet with Mr. Peckner, maybe we can get this all wrapped up quickly."

Miller zipped out of the room. Fleming felt his mobile phone vibrate in his pocket, he looked at the short text message response from his deputy Rufus, that is her. Fleming quickly typed some instructions and hit send.

A few minutes later, Miller returned with Peckner following. Miller gestured to Sheriff Fleming, "This is Sheriff Curtis Fleming, I have already walked the accident location with him, I think he understands what happened this morning."

Arnold Peckner smiled with a small wave, "Professor Fleming, good to see you again it's been a while."

Fleming grinned holding up his drink, "Just Curt or sheriff is fine, how you doing Arnold? Looks like you could use a cold drink."

Miller was surprised by the men's familiarity and the odd use of the salutation professor for the bumpkin sheriff, "Of course, water, soda, or tea?"

Peckner brushed away a bead of sweat from his forehead and took a seat across from Fleming at the table, "Iced tea would be good, one teaspoon of sugar."

Agnes spoke up from the next room, "I heard Mr. Miller, iced tea with one teaspoon of sugar for Mr. Peckner."

Miller sat at the head of the table as Agnes brought the tea. "You two know each other?"

Peckner gestured to Fleming, "Professor Fleming - - - er, Sheriff Fleming was a professor of mechanical engineering, for what twenty years?"

Fleming finished a sip of soda, "Twenty-two years. I retired and ran for Sheriff several years ago, kind of a second career. I grew up on a farm in the area, loved to tinker with the machinery, and was pretty good with math and physics in high school."

Peckner got his eyeglasses out of a case, "He consulted with the state bureau of safety on industrial accident reconstruction for years, complex cases where we needed help. He was kind of famous several years ago on television. His students won the international Rube Goldberg award. You know, those crazy contraptions, built to do silly things."

Peckner rubbed his glasses with a soft lens cleaner and put them on. "If you have already done a full walk down, why don't you lay it out for me sheriff and I will take notes. I cannot imagine I would see anything of importance you have not already picked up on." He opened his notebook ready to take notes.

Peckner and Miller listened as Fleming described the sequence of events in great detail using a composite sketch in his notebook. Starting with the conveyor belt push button and ending when the gravel cart tipped striking several support braces which caused the wall to collapse on Bobby Moore.

Peckner finished writing some notes, "This is one for the books, none of the individual safety violations is significant Mr. Miller. The brake and clutch on the car should have been engaged, and the conveyor power should have been cut off. Like I say these are relatively minor, but given the loss of life, there will have to be a fine, a significant fine."

Miller nodded slowly in agreement looking down, "I understand."

Fleming felt his mobile phone vibrate as it sat in his lap. He glanced down and saw the text message from Rufus. Found her, she gave a statement husband was the man with the bat.

Peckner laid his glasses on the table, "Sheriff the ambiguity of how the conveyor belt started this incredible sequence of events bothers me a bit. Any theories on that?"

Sheriff Fleming tapped his fingers lightly on the table, "Yea, I have a theory. You might even change your mind about the company paying fines, once you hear it."

Peckner took a breath and exhaled slowly, "There is a fatality professor, there needs to be a fine."

Fleming raised an eyebrow, "Even if it's murder?"

Miller bolted upright in his seat, "Murder, what are you talking about?"

Peckner leaned back in his seat, eyes wide open, "How could this possibly be a murder? This intricate sequence of mistakes and mishaps. What makes you suspect murder?"

Fleming leaned forward, arms folded on the top of the table, "I got suspicious this morning when we first got the call about the accident. Let me explain, my deputy Rufus Kline was called out for a dispute at a local bar late Friday night. Rufus does not have a lot of formal education, but he is smart and very observant. Anyway, he got a report of two men fighting in the parking lot. One of them was Bubba Moore, Robert, or Bobby as he was known here on site. He grew up in town and we always called him Bubba. Bubba has quite a history of getting involved with married women. Not a bad guy really, besides his drinking and chasing other men's wives. My deputy got there too late to see who he was fighting. The woman involved was still there but Rufus did not know her and she would not even give her name. Bubba would not say who the fight was with or who the woman was. When we got a call this morning that Bubba was killed at work so soon after this fight, it sounded kind of suspicious."

Miller cleared his throat, "So you think it was one of his coworkers, here on site? But there are more than two hundred workers here, you didn't interview or investigate anyone while you were here. Besides, it is just an unfortunate set of circumstances, no one could have planned for the wall to fall on this man."

"I did not investigate anyone directly, but there were clues along the way."

Peckner suppressed a smile, he had watched Fleming's clever mind dissect industrial accidents for years. A murder should be quite interesting. "Okay, please explain."

Fleming held up his index finger as he started, "The first real clue was from the welding supervisor, he said there was a recent change to the schedule for his crew and Bubba was the only one qualified for those vertical welds on the wall. Someone worked it out so that Bubba would be working alone this morning on that ladder. Behind that big steel wall, he would never hear the gravel pouring into the cart at the top of the incline, he never heard it comin."

Then he pointed to Miller, "The rest of the clues fell together for me in your office, it is the perfect spot to see everything. Someone here could see Bubba working on the ladder behind the wall. Then it's just a five-minute walk to the console right outside this building. Push the button to start the conveyor."

Peckner scooted his chair away from Miller, looking at him suspiciously as he waited to hear some more of the clues.

Miller's eyes narrowed, "I told you I was in my office at the time, no one could have been in here except me. Surely you are not suggesting it was me."

Fleming focused his gaze on Miller, "I suspected you when I first walked into your office, looking around when you went to fetch us drinks. The baseball bat there in the corner, Rufus said the guy went after Bubba with a bat, quite a coincidence."

Miller chuckled nervously, "How many men on site have a baseball bat at home?"

"Yea I thought the same. Then there is the picture there on your desk, must be your wife. A very attractive woman."

Miller swallowed spinning his wedding ring with his thumb, "Yes, that is my wife. So what? I have a wife."

Fleming's attention stayed on Miller, "After I saw the bat, I took a picture of that photo and sent it to Rufus with a text message asking if that was the woman he saw Friday night with Bubba. He confirmed that was her and he looked up your address and found her at home. He told her Bubba had been killed at work. She gave a statement saying it was you who went after Bubba with the baseball bat on Friday night."

Miller sneered shaking a finger at Fleming, "So I went after the clod hopper with my bat on Friday. I admit doing that, nothing to do with this accident being a murder, much less me being the killer."

"Naah it was no accident; it was murder and you are the killer. Mostly circumstantial but a pretty strong case. I am guessing that computer records will show you were the one who modified the schedule for Bubba's work crew and that you looked up his welding qualifications. As site construction manager, you would have the authority and access and you knew the vertical welding on that wall needed to be complete. You knew he would be up on that ladder alone first thing Monday.

Fleming laid a hand on his notebook, "You also seem to be a reasonably competent engineer, capable of designing this complex sequence of events. You already described every step of it to me in great detail, almost like a confession. I have your description in my notes. I think the most important piece of evidence is going to come from Agnes. I'm speculating a bit here."

Fleming continued with a sly grin, "Agnes saw you leave the office, you probably told her you were goin to the men's room or something. It only takes ten minutes to get to the gray box and back. I think she watches you pretty close and she saw you head for the stairwell. Her spot in the outer office has a window with the same view you have here. She saw ya punch that button."

Miller smirked shaking his head slowly, "Fat chance, she is clueless."

The door burst open Agnes waving a finger at Miller. "I saw him! Miller hit that button on that big gray box. He was walking fast when he headed back up here and less than an hour later, I heard that the poor man was dead. I did not know the button had anything to do with it, but it was suspicious. I'm not stupid you arrogant, pompous jerk!"

Miller gripped the arms of the chair, his lips drawn tightly into a frown as he stared at Fleming, "I thought you were just some country rube!"

Sheriff Fleming chuckled, "I guess I am. Grew up in the sticks and I know a Rube Goldberg machine when I see one."