Текст книги "The Forsaken"

Quinn and Lillie waited at the DA’s office in Oxford the next morning with Sonny Stevens telling them everything was going to be just fine. “I don’t think they found what they were looking for,” Stevens said. “And now they want to slide something across the table? We’ll listen to their bullshit, thank them for their time, and then walk over to Ajax and have a Bloody Mary. What do you say? Be a shame to waste the trip.”

They sat together in the front conference room of an institutional-looking building off Monroe Avenue that had once been the local health department. The office still smelled like ammonia and old people. The floors were a dingy, worn linoleum under skittering fluorescent lights. Someone had tacked last year’s Ole Miss football schedule on the wall. As always, the scrawled Ls outnumbered the Ws.

“I didn’t care for the way I was treated yesterday,” Lillie said. “Dale Childress and his partner came to my front door, shoving that warrant into my face. They acted like they were raiding a drug dealer’s house, tracking mud on my kitchen floor, waking up Rose. They didn’t have the sense or decency to put anything back.”

“So noted,” Stevens said. “This entire matter has been disruptive as hell to y’all’s lives and that of the sheriff’s office.”

“I don’t think they’re making an offer,” Quinn said. “I think they’re about to show us their cards. Grand jury meets in a week. I don’t like the timing.”

“Don’t get your dick in a twist,” Stevens said, looking sharp today in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. He straightened his collar and cuffs. “Excuse me, Lillie. Sorry to be so crude. But let’s wait and see. I just don’t care to do all this sitting around. We’ve been in this goddamn place for almost thirty minutes and my ass is starting to hurt.”

Not two seconds later, the door opened and in walked Childress, followed by a fat man in a blue suit with a florid face and enormous gold glasses. The fat man looked as if he’d just jogged twenty miles to make the meeting. He offered a sweaty hand all around: “Trey Wilbanks, Assistant District Attorney.” Trey knocked over a coffee mug as he was shaking hands, but it was Quinn’s and empty and only made a minor thud as it fell to the floor.

“I appreciate y’all driving over this morning,” Wilbanks said.

“Didn’t know we had a choice,” Lillie said.

Stevens flicked his eyes at Lillie but quickly returned a calm, pleasant gaze back to the men, hands folded in front of him. Wilbanks flipped through some papers as if trying to recall exactly what this meeting was all about.

Childress hadn’t offered to shake hands. He sat beside the fat ADA and slumped into his seat, not smiling or making eye contact with Quinn. All of Childress’s good ole boy Aw, shucks act from their first meeting was gone.

“Deputy Virgil, do you own a fifty-cal sniper rifle made by the Barrett Firearms Company?” Wilbanks asked.

“No, sir,” she said. “You looking to purchase one?”

Wilbanks wiped his sweating face with a napkin. He smiled and glanced to Childress before continuing, showing no emotion as he spoke. “Seems you had one in your garage under lock and key.”

“That’s a lie,” Lillie said. “I know my guns.”

Wilbanks grinned a bit more, sending a What can I do? look to Sonny Stevens, who had ceased smiling a few seconds before. Stevens’s entire posture changed, listening to the questioning. The old man had his index finger covering his mouth, eyes flicking over the sweating young attorney as if trying to shush himself and not let go a tirade he was holding close.

“Our purpose of this meeting is to give y’all a chance to talk things over and perhaps offer another version of the events that gibes with this new evidence,” Wilbanks said. “We found fifty-cal shells in the hills above that old airstrip in Tibbehah County and bullets in the bodies of the two dead men. The fifty-cal rifle we found at Deputy Virgil’s home is now with a state lab with rush orders to get results. None of us want to make law enforcement look bad.”

Quinn took a breath, steadying himself. He stared at Childress, waiting for that sorry son of a bitch to meet his eyes. But Childress didn’t have the courage, keeping his eyes down, a good old dog.

“We’re just trying to make some sense of the events,” Wilbanks said.

“I shot one man,” Lillie said. “I shot a corrupt officer trying to kill Sheriff Colson. I used my Winchester model 70 and turned that weapon over to the state. But y’all can go straight to hell if you believe that in the heat of the moment I put down a gun I’ve been shooting since I was a teenager and picked up a tactical fifty-cal to cover my tracks. That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”

“What’s strange to us,” Childress said, finally speaking, looking up from the floor, “is that some of these puzzle pieces got some weird edges.”

Quinn had to hold on to the armrests of his seat, dig the hell in, or else he felt he might launch over the conference table and grab the bastard by his wispy hair or mustache and bang his head on the table.

“That weapon never belonged to Deputy Virgil,” Stevens said. “Are y’all gonna charge my clients today? Or did you just want to piss a little in their morning coffee?”

Wilbanks coughed into his hand and wiped his face, sweating even more, as the meeting continued. He looked over at Childress and licked his lips. “We’d hoped to get some kind of statement from Miss Virgil regarding these events. To clarify.”

“Chief Deputy Virgil,” Sonny Stevens said.

Wilbanks apologized and looked down at the legal pad on his desk. He tapped a pen on some penciled notes, waited a few long seconds, and looked across the table. “Do you mind if we change topics for a moment?” he asked. “We did have another reason for calling this meeting.”

Stevens cut his eyes over at Quinn, smoothed down his tie, and circled a couple fingers for him to go ahead, tell them what he wanted.

“You’ve reopened a cold case from 1977?” Wilbanks asked.

Quinn nodded.

“How’s that coming?” the fat man asked.

“I’m a little confused here,” Quinn said. “What’s that investigation have to do with the shooting last April?”

“Our office has taken a big interest in that case,” Childress said, speaking up. “The district attorney wanted us to ask personally how y’all were making out.”

“Well,” Lillie said, “we’d be further along if we weren’t being called out for bullshit questions. Or having to wait around while you boys creep my house. Do you know what a fucking mess you left my panties drawer?”

“Just doing our jobs,” Childress said.

“Just like us,” Quinn said. “Without question.”

“Why’s the old case so important?” Stevens asked. “With eight counties, it’s not like y’all are sitting around with your thumbs up your asses.”

“This one has caught the attention of the DA,” Childress said. “It has a lot of personal significance for him.”

“Did he know the victims?” Quinn asked.

“Victims?” Childress said. “I know of only one.”

Quinn stared at Dale Childress and said, “Just which case are we talking about?”

“The lynching,” Wilbanks said. “That black fella who they strung up in the tree, shot and burned.”

“How’d you know about that?” Lillie asked.

“You’re not looking into what happened?” Wilbanks said.

“We didn’t say that,” Quinn said. “But why would you want to know about something that happened nearly forty years ago? Our investigation is tied to a completely different case.”

“The DA would be grateful for y’all making some headway down in Jericho,” Wilbanks said. “The racial edge to this crime is something he’d like to see addressed. We know about the rape and murder that may have sparked this crime. But the law was ignored and this man’s rights were violated.”

“I don’t know whether to punch y’all,” Lillie said, “or stand up in salute.”

“How about both,” Quinn said.

Sonny Stevens raised his hand, trying to quiet his clients. “And why would your office entrust an important case to law enforcement officers they say they don’t fully trust?”

“We have to follow up with the shooting,” Childress said. “Just as sure as y’all will be following up with that lynching. Now that new witnesses have come forward.”

“Y’all really keep tabs on Jericho,” Lillie said. “Did you find that out before or after y’all went through my panties?”

Sonny Stevens held up a hand, telling everyone to settle the hell down. “Am I hearing some kind of quid pro quo situation on the table? Some folks charged in exchange for an end to this ridiculous investigation of my clients?”

Wilbanks swallowed, patted his sweating head, and looked to Quinn and Lillie and then back to Stevens. “No, sir. We’re simply stating the DA and his entire office would be grateful if some headway could be made in a pretty ugly chapter here in north Mississippi. The two items are unrelated.”

“Well, god damn,” Stevens said, shaking his head.

“What’s that, sir?” Wilbanks said.

“Politics do trump all,” Stevens said, stood, and buttoned the top button of his suit coat. Quinn stood more slowly, Lillie following them both, walking out the door. No handshakes, no words said, until they were out of the stale, sour-smelling building and in a parking lot, facing the back of the Oxford town square.

“Sneaky motherfuckers,” Stevens said. “They wouldn’t admit it with their feet to the fire and their cojones in a vise. But they want y’all to come up with results and make this local turd into the next attorney general.”

“I never owned a gun like that in my life,” Lillie said. “They seeded it to make sure.”

“Guess they thought y’all needed some extra incentive,” Stevens said. “But what in the world would make y’all not follow through on an investigation you’re already working on? And this case has been around almost forty years. Who the hell is in such a rush for something so goddamn old?”

•   •   •

Stagg heard them as he was finishing up a plate of fried catfish, coleslaw, and beans at the Rebel. The sound was something terrific, drowning out even the 18-wheelers rolling in off Highway 45. He watched from the red-padded back booth and saw a good thirty, forty of those shitbirds on two wheels zip between the gas pumps and the restaurants, finding a place to gather above the semi lot. Mr. Ringold excused himself to go out and get himself a better look. Stagg stood, dropped a couple bucks on the table as was his custom with the waitresses, and walked down the long row of stools at the dining counter, past the truckers hunched over their meat loaf and chicken-fried steak not giving one shit about the noise shaking the plate glass. Only a couple of his longtime waitresses gathered by the register, witnessing the entire Born Losers Motorcycle Club come back to town.

Stagg kept standing there with hands on hips, reaching over by the candy displays and finding a couple peppermints in a big white bucket, offered on the honor system to benefit a home for abused kids over in Grenada.

He walked out slow and easy, seeing the men getting off their bikes, taking in the bright and cold day. The sound of their growling pipes still ringing in his ears as he made his way to the pumps and over to the higher ground where they’d parked. Hot damn. Here we go.

One man separated himself from the others. He had a shaved head and wore a thick black leather jacket with leather pants with high leather boots. He had on dark sunglasses and his face was a mess of tattoos, ink on his chin and down his cheeks and over his throat. The closer he got, Stagg could make out that the ink on his chin was that of a devil’s goatee and the one on his neck was one of those dreamcatchers that he sold in the Rebel for four dollars and ninety-nine cents. Genuine Choctaw but made in China.

“You Johnny Stagg?” the man said. His voice was gravelly and thick, accusing as an old woman’s. Stagg figured the boy was in his late forties or early fifties, hard to tell without any hair and all those goddamn crazy tattoos.

Stagg just nodded.

“You sure don’t look like much.”

Stagg didn’t say anything.

“I hear you run this shithole.”

Stagg grinned, not being able to help himself, this boy was the genuine article of swagger and bullshit. He was pretty certain that even this boy’s momma didn’t love him.

“Y’all’s food any good?” the man said. “We’ve been riding all morning from Meridian.”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Stagg said. “Try the lemon pie.”

“And the titties out back?” the man said. “We talking local talent or Grade A? I don’t want some toothless, pregnant skank grinding my pecker for a dollar.”

“The bar doesn’t open till four,” Stagg said. “You might have noticed that on the billboards if you boys could read. You sure do have a mess of them with you.”

“Johnny Stagg,” the man said. “Damn, it’s good to see you. I sure have heard a bunch of things.”

“Is that right?” Stagg asked, not giving a damn but drawing things out, seeing Ringold making his way out through the dozens and dozens of parked trucks and finding some land up above the Rebel.

“I heard you were sneaky as hell,” the man said. “Smart. Tricky. That if a man turned his back on you, you’d stick it hard and high inside him.”

Ringold was just a shadow on the ridge over the tattooed freak’s shoulder. Stagg just now caught the glimmer of a rifle scope from above. Money well spent.

“Might be true,” Stagg said. “Might be true now.”

“We didn’t come for trouble,” the man said. “We came to eat country chow and see some big ole titties. If they ain’t dancing now, you better go wake them up and say you got company. Shake ’em hard and long.”

“We don’t open the Trap till four.”

“The Booby Trap,” the man said. “That’s clever as hell. You think of that all by yourself, Mr. Stagg?”

“I sure did,” Stagg said. “And it’s made me a rich man.”

“But you didn’t get really rich until about twenty years ago,” the man said. “I was there. I remember. You just don’t remember me, do you?”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Animal.”

“Your momma name you that?”

“It’s what you’ll call me from now on,” the man said. “And, sir, we’ll be regulars here for a while. Just getting things ready.”

“I’ve been expecting y’all,” Stagg said. “As long as you tend to your manners, there won’t be no trouble. Buy your gas, buy a plate lunch. Y’all can go in like normal folks to the Booby Trap when we open. But, son, just don’t try and get tough with me. I got myself a real weak stomach and the indigestion.”

“You know that hell is coming,” Animal said. “Right?”

“I’ve gotten his letters from Brushy Mountain,” Stagg said.

“This is our county now,” he said. “Understood?”

“Is that so?” Stagg said. “Hmm.”

“Goddamn right.”

“OK,” Stagg said. “But I sure would be careful about gloating too much on your big ole fucking hog. There’s a high-velocity rifle aimed right at your head, boy. Have you ever seen what one of them things can do to a watermelon? When it explodes, it makes a hell of a goddamn mess.”

The man, Animal, kind of laughed. But when he turned to look over his shoulder, his face turned a few more funny colors. He didn’t say jack as he walked back to his men and their rows of shiny chrome Harleys.

Stagg flipped a peppermint into his mouth, crunching it with his back teeth.