Detective Paco in “The Statue of Limitations”

The lamp over the poker table cast an indifferent light through the cloud of tobacco smoke, resembling a full moon on an overcast night. I glanced to my left through the fogbank and saw Wronwright’s spectacles twinkling, his eyes behind the lenses moving back and forth over the five cards in his hand, like two perfectly synchronized metronomes. Karl Rove sat directly across from me, the very picture of cherubic serenity – and no wonder; most of the money on the table was stacked neatly in front of him (this was par for the course; I often wondered if it wouldn’t be more efficient to just mail him a check every week and forego the game altogether).Completing the circle was Constantine Perites, my landlord. Perites had hoped to win from me at poker what he had failed to collect in back rent, but the way things were going, it looked as if he might wind up as Rove’s new janitor. A cigar stub paced angrily from one side of his mouth to the other, and back again, as we waited for Wronwright to make a decision.

Finally, Perites’ temper flared. “Wronwright, you gonna draw cards, or you gonna just wait until we fall asleep and make off with the pot?”

Wronwright, his eyes magnified by his glasses, glared at Perites like an owl made only mildly curious by the yawping of some earth-bound creature. He then placidly consulted the relevant section of his book, Poker for Dummies, and cleared his throat.

“Paco, I can draw four cards if I have an ace, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Do I have to show you the ace?”

“Yes.”

Wronwright sighed. “I’ll take three, then.”

I dealt Wronwright his three cards, and then proceeded, with considerably greater alacrity, to place the orders of the other two players. Rove stood pat. Perites stared at Rove, barked a bitter laugh, and asked for two cards. Wronwright made a larger-than-usual wager and Rove called. Perites, convinced that he was being bluffed, saw Wronwright’s bet and raised him. Sitting there with a seven-high, I folded. Wronwright and Rove simply called the raise and laid down their hands.

Rove was holding a straight, five through nine, hearts and clubs. Perites threw his two pair on the table in disgust. Wronwright smiled brightly and exclaimed, “I win!”

I looked at his cards. “How do you figure you won?”

Wronwright pointed at the table of poker hands in the front of his book. “It says, right here, that a flush beats a straight. And I’ve got five diamonds.”

Rove picked up Wronwright’s cards and held them closer to the light. “No you don’t,” he said (not unkindly). “You’ve got four diamonds and a heart.”

Wronwright grabbed the cards out of Rove’s hand and peered at them. “Damn! You’re right. Well, who can see anything in here with all of this cigar smoke, anyway?”

Suddenly, the squeaking of the hinges on my office door, and a slight swirling of the smoke-filled air, indicated that we had a visitor. I stared with intense curiosity in the direction of the door, wondering who would have business with me at one o’clock in the morning.

A vast, dark shape moved toward the table, like a ghost ship gliding through the murk. When I heard what I took to be a fog horn, I almost leaped out of my chair.

“Excuse me,” Perites said, sheepishly. “Mrs. Perites’ souvlaki was a little spicy tonight.”

The shape finally emerged from, or rather displaced, the smoke and turned out, to my astonishment, to be Al Gore. We all rose from the table. Perites, for all his faults, had one outstanding quality – he couldn’t abide Democrats in any form whatsoever, so, bidding us an ill-natured “good-night”, he hastened from the room (but not without a parting salvo on the subject of my unpaid rent).

Al waved a beefy hand in front of his face to improve the view. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

I had done one or two little things for Gore before, so we knew each other. “Hello, Al,” I said. “What brings you here so late at night?”

“I remembered that your motto was ‘We doze but never close.’” (Actually, that was the motto of Hap’s All-Night Barbecue on the first floor, but I let it go.) “I’ve been pacing the streets, disconsolate over a heinous crime.”

“Don’t worry, fellah,” I said, trying to reassure him. “You’ve got a pretty clean record, maybe they’ll let you off easy, seeing as how it’s your first offense. Er, just what did you do, anyway?”

Gore shook his head. “No, no, no. You don’t understand. I – or rather, the people of Tennessee – we’re the victims. You see…” He stopped speaking abruptly, having finally made an ID on Rove. I saw his concern and moved quickly to allay it. “Don’t worry, Al. Mr. Rove, and Mr. Wronwright, here, are occasional consultants; strictly business, no politics. You can speak freely.”

Gore started to talk again, but was overwhelmed by the smoke in the room and suffered a coughing fit. He staggered toward the window. “I’m sorry, gentlemen - *hack!* - far be it from me to impose my preferences on others,” (Rove’s rolling eyes and mine collided in the same arc) “but I can’t abide polluted air.” He squashed his shoulders through the window - presenting us with a view that made me wonder, irrelevantly, what people do with the rest of the moose after mounting its head on the wall – and took a few deep breaths.

Speaking over his shoulder to us, he said “Ah, that’s better! Now, down to business. The Tennessee state legislature voted to erect a statue of me in Nashville, to honor me for winning the Nobel Peace Prize in connection with my global warming crusade, and the unveiling took place last week. Here, I’ve got a photo in my jacket pocket…if I can just reach it…There!” He squeezed his right hand under his left arm and held the picture out for us to take. Wronwright latched on to it, clapped a hand to his mouth to suppress a laugh, and passed the picture to Rove and me.

Fortunately, with Gore’s head sticking outside the window – looking, no doubt, like an ornamental gargoyle on the side of the building to any casual passerby – he was unable to see our reaction to the photo.

The statue was a sight to behold. It was a life-size rendering of Al, dressed in a toga and wearing a laurel wreath. In one hand, he held a thermometer (reading 85 degrees, Fahrenheit) and in the other, a globe (it appeared that the Arctic polar cap was melting, but the first thing that popped into my head was a recollection of the logo of the Sherwin-Williams paint company – you know, the picture of an upturned can of red paint slopping its contents over the earth). To complete this comedy in bronze, there was a bird standing on one shoulder. I guess it was supposed to be a dove, but it looked more like an oxpecker, to me: the kind of bird that eats ticks off the backs of rhinos. Whatever one thought of the accoutrement, however, you had to admit that the sculptor had captured, perfectly, Al’s habitual wooden expression. Put a war bonnet on the thing, and it could have been stood outside a cigar store, no questions asked.

With some effort, I shook off my urge to guffaw, and made a dogged attempt to establish a serious, professional attitude. “So…ah...hah-hah…*cough*!…What’s the deal, Al? You and the taxpayers want to get your money back, is that it?”

“Get our money…What do you mean? No, that’s not the problem, at all! Somebody stole the statue, and I want you to find it and return it to its rightful place outside the state capitol building!”

I glanced at my colleagues, who were both biting their lips. I whispered to them, “Listen, guys, this could be an easy touch. How hard can it be to find that thing?” We agreed that we’d take the case, and I reported the same to our new client.

“Anything else we can do for you, Al?”

“Yes. Can you help me back in? I seem to be stuck!”


* * * *
The next morning I breezed into the office waiting room – reflecting on the amazing things you could accomplish with a few yards of rope and some WD-40 – and found Sheila sitting at her desk, going through the bills. The morning sun streaming through the window suggested, rather than clearly revealed, the silhouette of her upper-story charms, swathed in a loose (and maddeningly semi-opaque) blouse. She pushed a strand of blond hair off her brow, gingerly patting it back into place with her slender fingers, and trained her lovely, but troubled, arctic-blue eyes on me.

“Paco, I’ve got a demand letter, here, from Mr. Perites. He says that if you don’t bring the rent current, he’s going to have us evicted.”

I pulled a check from my shirt pocket and unfurled it under Sheila’s lightly-freckled nose. “Not to worry, doll face. Cast your glims on this: a $5,000 retainer from none other than Mr. Al Gore; enough to pay the rent, with plenty left over. Put that in the bank, and cut a check for Perites – oh, and hold back a hundred dollars until he repairs the window frame in my office.”

She glanced at the check, then cocked an inquisitive eyebrow in my direction.

“Al Gore, late Vice President of the United States, Nobel Prize winner and Cli-Fi fabulist, wants to find a statue of himself, recently stolen from its pedestal in Nashville, Tennessee.” I showed her the photograph (I loved the sound of her laugh; like harmonic chords played on a glockenspiel).

A moment later, as she wiped away the tears, she said “He looks like the god of bowling.”

“No, no. That’s a globe.”

“And he wants you to find the statue or bury it?”

“Find it, of course. A little respect, please, my golden-haired comic. Think of the loss to the people of Nashville.”

“You don’t think they could muddle through without it?”

“I’m sure they could, but for this kind of dough, they’re gonna get it back and like it.”

The door opened and Rove and Wronwright walked in – the latter gesticulating wildly.

“That’s my point, Karl! The odds of drawing to a Royal Flush are a couple of million to one, so how is it you got two on the same night?”

They halted and stood before the desk. Rove disengaged himself from his companion and wished Sheila good morning, prompting her to flash a dazzling smile.

“So, you boys were playing poker again last night, is that it? Paco, that explains why your office smells like the aftermath of a five-alarm fire in the Tampa cigar-manufacturing district.”

“I’ve always found fresh air to be a little bland” I said. “I like to think that the air in my office has character.”

“Well, it was certainly produced by characters. I’ll take this check down to the bank.” She squeezed between Rove and Wronwright – I would have laid money that their blood pressure had just shot up – and left us to ourselves, moving with the graceful sashay that had been known to generate an epidemic of whiplash among male pedestrians outside of the building.

We walked into my office and held a conference (Sheila had been right, of course; the place smelled like the ashtray of the gods).

“Ok, boys, here are our plane tickets to Nashville. This is how we’ll divide up the work. I’ve made an appointment to see the chief of police and find out how far they’ve gotten in their investigation. Karl, maybe you could check out the junk yards and scrap metal dealers.”

“Check.”

“And Wronwright, you can start by making inquiries at the local landfill.”

Wronwright pursed his lips. “Why do I always get the landfill assignment?”

I knew that was coming. I put an arm around his shoulders and spoke to him confidentially. “Because it’s a big job, buddy. It’s like…it’s like the special ops of detective work.”

His eyes lit up. “Does that mean I get to wear my black S.W.A.T. team overalls?”

I hesitated. The last time Wronwright wore those things he looked like a member of a rural Goth cult. Still, if it secured his cooperation…”Ok, fine”, I said. “But no riot helmet.”

* * *

Curious, very curious. I had hoped to have the case wrapped up in a couple of days, but we had been in Nashville for nearly a week and were no closer to finding the missing monstrosity than when we started. And the really strange thing was the lack of cooperation by the local authorities. The police chief had dodged me for two full days. I finally button-holed him at –where else? – a Krispy Kreme donut store a block from police headquarters, and he had been extremely shifty. No, he said, he hadn’t assigned any officers to the case yet (“strained resources”). No, they didn’t have any clues or leads. But he was “closely monitoring the situation.” And wiping the powdered sugar off his lapels he had exited with a curt “See ya around.” It was pretty much the same thing with the sheriff’s department and the capitol park employees; nobody wanted to talk about the theft.

Rove and Wronwright hadn’t run into any uncooperative folks in their respective lines of inquiry, but they hadn’t turned up anything, either.

Friday night we convened after another fruitless day’s search at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s Bar-B-Q. “You know, it’s odd”, Rove speculated, “but it’s almost as if nobody wants the statue to be found. Certainly, nobody seems to care very much.”

Wronwright took a sip from his glass of iced tea (sweetened). “That’s right. The guy down at the dump sounded pretty miffed that the state legislature had voted Al a statue in the first place, and he told me that he was sure it hadn’t been hauled to his landfill, because if it had, he’d take pleasure in pushing dirt over the thing, himself.”

I shook my head, sullenly. “Well, I sure hate to give up on a case. Maybe we ought to start thinking about expanding our search.” We talked for a while, finished our meal and then strolled back in the direction of our hotel.

It was only four blocks away, but it was the first time we had done much walking in the city limits. On the way, I stopped to light a cigarette, and Rove drew my attention to a tiny little park – not much bigger than a courtyard – located between two buildings. We entered and sat down on a bench and enjoyed the evening air.

As I said, the park was small. About all there was, was a young magnolia tree planted in a wide circle of grass, the bench we were sitting on, and one of the innumerable statues commemorating country-western stars that dot Nashville. This one seemed to be a statue of Minnie Pearl, judging by the gaudy hat and the $1.98 price tag hanging from it. Something about it, however, puzzled me, so I rose from the bench and walked over to take a closer look.

In the first place, the statue was placed oddly, practically hidden behind the tree. In the second place, the straw hat was a genuine straw hat, not part of the sculpture. The figure seemed to be holding a very thin vase in one hand, with a plastic daffodil taped to it, and the other hand was engulfed in an enormous purse. And on her shoulder appeared to be…an oxpecker.

My excitement mounting, I called my partners over. “Boys, take a close look at this sculpture.”

Wronwright read the words inscribed on the pedestal: “Minnie Pearl (born Sarah Ophelia Colley, 1912, Centerville, Tennessee. Died 1996, Nashville)”. He gave the statue a once-over. “Yeah, it looks like her, all right. Except…she never wore a dress that short, did she? And why has she got a bird…” Wronwright cut himself off in mid-sentence and gasped.

Rove reached up and yanked the straw hat off, and I removed the handbag – revealing, respectively, the unmistakable dim-witted mug and the melting globe of Al Gore’s statue. The “thin vase” holding the daffodil was, of course, the thermometer.

“Karl, call Al on your cell and tell him we found his statue. I’ll contact the police.”

Karl couldn’t reach Al directly, but left a message on his voice mail. I had better luck and got the chief on the second ring. I told him we had cracked the case.

“Where are you?” he barked.

I told him about the little park.

“Stay right there. I’m on my way.”

True to his word, the chief was there within minutes – followed in his squad car by a paddy-wagon. He got out of his car, as did his plain clothes driver, and two cops climbed down from the wagon. They approached us, the chief scowling strangely.

“So, you’ve found it, I see. Ok, here’s what I want you boys to do. I want you to get in the back of the paddy-wagon over there; we’re going to take a trip downtown.”

Rove, Wronwright and I exchanged startled glances. “What is this, chief?” I asked. “It sounds like a kidnapping.”

The chief got a steely gleam in his eye. “That’s because that’s exactly what it is.”

* * *

A half hour later we were seated in the mayor’s office. We had been greatly mollified by coffee and donuts and the mayor’s profuse apologies. The mayor mopped his brow with a handkerchief and cleared his throat.

“Gentlemen, again, I deeply regret having to bring you here in secret, but, unfortunately, you’ve stumbled across something in the nature of a conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy, Mr. Mayor?” I asked. “Who’s involved?”

The mayor looked at his aides, who looked at the police chief, who looked at the deputy police chief, who looked at the city attorney, who looked at a couple of stray city councilmen who had been rounded up on short notice. They all nodded at each other, and the mayor, taking a deep breath and clearing his throat, proceeded to disclose the dark truth.

“All of us.”

Wronwright blurted out, ”You? You people stole the statue?”

“Yes”, the mayor sighed. “The fact is, even though the state legislature voted to erect a statue of Al Gore, the decision was wildly unpopular, particularly with the folks here in Nashville. I mean, it was bad enough that we were stuck with a statue of Gore, let alone one that looked like an advertisement for a Little Caesar’s Pizza franchise. We almost had a riot on our hands. Given the increasing potential for violence, we decided to ‘steal’ the sculpture, disguise it, and put it somewhere where it wouldn’t cause any fuss. Then, of course, Gore shoved in his oar and hired private detectives. The rest, you gentlemen know.”

At that moment, Karl’s cell phone rang. “Hello? Who? Oh, how are you, Mr. Gore?” Our hosts uttered a collective gasp. Rove, however, smiled at them, covered the phone with his hand for a second, and whispered, “I’ve got an idea.” Then he chirped merrily into the phone. “Great news, sir! We found your statue!”

* * *

I had paid the rent, but Perites still hadn’t fixed the window frame, which meant that the window was stuck half-way open. I wasn’t complaining, though, because a fresh breeze occasionally broke the cigar smoke up sufficiently so that Wronwright could actually see his cards. He was staring at them intently.

“So, Karl” Wronwright asked. “What are the odds of drawing to an inside straight – not that I’m going for a straight, mind you; I mean, just hypothetically?”

“Forget it, Wron” I said. “Karl, where do you suppose Al’s statue is right now?”

Karl smiled and fingered the cards in his hand. “Oh, I imagine it ought to be half-way to Oslo, by now. Then after that, Sweden, then Germany. With any luck, it’ll wind up in some remote hamlet in New Guinea, where, no doubt, it will probably be spirited away to the jungle by headhunters and worshiped as a god.”

I shook my head in admiration. “That was sure quick thinking on your part, telling Al that the statue hadn’t been stolen, but had been sent by the grateful people of Nashville on an international global warming awareness tour.”

We all drew cards, completed our betting and threw down. Wronwright, grinning with fiendish glee, displayed a straight, beating my three nines and Perites’ customary two pair.

I noticed that Rove still held his cards. Wronwright jutted his chin out and cried, “Beat that straight, Karl!”

Karl looked at Wronwright, with something resembling a strange sort of fondness, and quietly put his cards on the bottom of the deck. “No, looks like you got me this time, Wron. The pot’s yours.” Wronwright let out a triumphant holler and scooped up his winnings.

It was the last hand of the night, and the boys drowsily climbed into their coats and bid me good night. After they left, my curiosity got the better of me, and I fished Karl’s last hand from the deck – a Royal Flush.