Текст книги "The Forsaken"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

How’s your ass feeling?” Boom said. “Heard about the supervisors’ meeting and all that shit.”

“Just like you said.”

“Some men don’t have a lick of honor,” Boom said. “Some don’t have no sense. Seems like those on the board blessed to have neither.”

“Bobby Pickens stood tall,” Quinn said. “I’ll remember that.”

“That’s because he ain’t on the tit,” Boom said. “Hadn’t been in the crew long enough to make it work for him. Give him time.”

“That’s hard,” Quinn said.

“But the truth.”

The paved roads and patches on the bridges had started to ice over across the county by midnight. Quinn and Boom kept to the dirt roads, roving up toward Carthage where the shootings had gone down in April. Quinn had been out officially a few times after the storm, walking the ground with investigators and looking for evidence of the unknown shooter. But since the summer, Johnny Stagg had locked up the front gate, surrounding the acreage with six-foot chain-link and wrapping the entire property with a lot of No Trespassing signs.

Quinn parked the Big Green Machine up into a fire road that wound through the woods over the eastern ridge of the valley. The road was grown up in brush and small trees and provided some decent concealment if Stagg had any of his people on patrol. But in all the times Quinn had walked that fire road, watching the airstrip, he’d not crossed paths with a single guard. Stagg too cocky to think anyone would scale the fence and see his operation.

A few months ago, Quinn had cut back a portion of the fencing and closed it back up with metal clamps. He opened it for Boom and himself, and left it open if they needed to haul ass.

The temperature had dropped down to ten degrees, and Quinn wore a black Smith & Wesson shooting jacket, Under Armour thermals, and a black wool sweater with black paratrooper pants and his Merrell boots. He carried his Beretta, a combat knife, a Leatherman tool, and a Remington pump shotgun. Boom wore his old camo Guard jacket and carried a Colt .44 Anaconda, although lately he’d taught himself how to balance and shoot a shotgun using a special harness.

They followed the path nearly two klicks before turning off the road and finding the vantage point Quinn always used to watch the planes land and take off, keeping a log of their tail numbers, with times and dates. He never got any closer than maybe five hundred meters up the hill but had logged in a lot of activity since early November, when the landing strip had been resurfaced and the Quonset huts rebuilt.

Quinn got down on one knee and aimed a pair of Bushnell night vision binoculars. The airstrip was lit up, with tiny blue lights along the runway, and there was a bright white light coming from one of the huts. Three pickup trucks and an SUV were parked along the main road coming from Stagg’s front gate. Ice had gathered on the old oaks and scraggly pines. The wind was cold as hell, shooting through that narrow valley and rattling the brittle branches. Quinn passed the binoculars to Boom and took out a small notepad from his jacket, writing down the tag numbers on the trucks and the SUV.

“Tennessee plates,” Boom said. “Johnny been spending a lot of time in Memphis?”

“Johnny goes to the money,” Quinn said. “He seems to have lost interest in the Booby Trap and the Rebel. He’s there maybe two, three days a week. Most of the time, he’s out of Tibbehah County.”

“Who’s he working with?”

“Don’t know.”

“You gonna lay all this on the Feds?” Boom said.

“When I can find someone to trust,” Quinn said. “The last Feds who came to Tibbehah and I didn’t get along. They blamed me for the cartel action around here and bought Stagg’s bullshit.”

“That was your own damn fault,” Boom whispered, handing back the binoculars. “You screwing one of their goddamn agents. Woman was mad as hell when you kept stuff back from her.”

“I’ve made a few mistakes in my life.”

“Shit, Quinn,” Boom said, “a few? You get a case going against Stagg, how about you keep your dick in your pants?”

“Lesson learned.”

“What else you need?” Boom said. “Ain’t no reason for that motherfucker to have this set up without moving drugs or guns or pussy, right?”

“Not sure what he’s moving,” Quinn said. “Lots of times, I just see a lot of fat cats from Jackson flying in for a quick-and-dirty at the Rebel. They get their pecker pulled and they’re on the next flight out. Sometimes Stagg brings some girls out to the huts here.”

“Men got to fly to get their peckers pulled?” Boom said. “That’s some hard-up shit.”

There was some motion by one of the Quonset huts and Quinn peered down along the roadway where the cars had been parked. Three black males in big jackets, two of them with hoods up, walked out to the SUV, a black Escalade, and stood by the hatch, smoking cigarettes. Quinn again shared the binoculars, then handed them back, the men crawling into the Cadillac. They cranked the ignition, turned on the headlights, but just sat in the road. Exhaust poured from the rear of the vehicle.

“Never knew Johnny Stagg to work with black folks,” Boom said, “unless they was mopping the floor at the Rebel or cooking that chicken-fried steak.”

“He’s got black girls working the pole at the Booby Trap.”

“Good man,” Boom said. “Progressive as hell.”

“Those boys don’t look like politicians,” Quinn said.

“Nope.”

“I’ll run their tag,” Quinn said. “I bet that SUV is stolen. A throwaway for whatever they’re taking over state lines.”

“Never knew you racist,” Boom said. “Driving while black.”

“Guilt by association.”

“You want to get down closer?” Boom said. “I don’t give a fuck. Let Stagg’s boys come on out and say hello.”

The SUV finally knocked into gear and made a U-turn away from the huts and back down the road to the exit of Stagg’s compound. Quinn nodded to Boom and they followed a little zigzagging trail down the hillside, worn smooth by deer, to the road, where they walked in the shadows to the main hut. The hillside was steep, Quinn and Boom walking sideways to keep their footing.

The hut was windowless, the front door shut against the cold. The big metal building vibrating to the sound of rap music playing inside. Quinn smiled and Boom just shook his head. “Johnny Stagg got him a little juke out in the country,” Boom said. “Shaking that ass?”

“His property,” Quinn said. “He can do what he likes.”

“Got his black friends coming down from Memphis,” Boom said. “How you like to see Johnny Stagg shaking that bony white butt?”

Quinn was silent. He held up a hand as the front door to the Quonset hut opened and a girl stepped outside. She was young and black, wearing a rabbit fur jacket and tall white leather boots. She lit up a cigarette and leaned against the metal building. She looked exhausted.

“Ten degrees,” Boom said. “Must be hot up in there.”

Quinn used the binoculars again where he and Boom crouched in a little ravine and could see the girl’s hair, face, and neck were damp with sweat. She finished the cigarette and walked back into the hut, the door slamming behind her, and not twenty seconds later Stagg’s boy Ringold walked out and stood in the wide swath of light coming from a security light.

He had on dark utility pants and boots, an Army-green fleece jacket, and a green watch cap over his bald head. He looked to the airfield and checked his watch and moved out of the light and into the darkness by the airfield. He had a weapon in his right hand. As Quinn scanned Ringold with the Bushnells, he recognized a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. The weapon could shoot eight hundred rounds a minute, often holding a thirty-bullet clip.

Quinn put his hand to Boom’s shoulder. Boom and Quinn stayed stock-still.

Ringold walked out onto the airfield, looked to the north, the small blue lights stretching out far into the distance. He was a shadow, machine gun in his right hand, as he moved back to the Quonset hut, still pumping with rap music, and shut the door.

“Feds probably don’t give a shit about Stagg running pussy.”

“Those boys didn’t come all the way from Tennessee for tail,” Quinn said. “There’s plenty of that in Memphis.”

“Wonder who’s doing the buying and who’s doing the selling?” Boom said.

Diane got up early the next morning, earlier than usual, to run by the Sonic and get a Breakfast Burrito for her mother. Her mother lived in an assisted-care facility just down the road from county hospital. Her memory had gotten worse and worse, a radio frequency that would sometimes come in strong and clear and other times faint and distant. That morning, the signal was medium, her mother needing a little prodding when Diane walked in. There was a big warm smile from the wheelchair, her mother sitting crooked in a flowered housecoat, looking out the window, but there was that hesitation of recognition. “Mom, it’s me. Diane.”

And her mother’s smile grew even larger when Diane sat the Sonic sack on the table and opened up the burrito and tater tots. She might have forgotten her own daughter, her own name, and the last twenty years of her life, but she sure knew the burrito and was still exact about the eggs, sausage, and cheese. Tots on the side, and black coffee. And here was her feast.

Her mother, whose name was Alma, shared the room with another woman with Alzheimer’s, this woman just recently moving in and not being able to talk, only putter about and hum. She’d sing spirituals and clap and ask you to join in whenever the mood struck her. Luckily, she was off for some therapy and Diane could sit with her mother, wheeling her over to the table and unwrapping the burrito.

“How you been, Mom?”

“Have you seen your father? He’s run off again.”

Diane’s father had been dead now twenty-two years.

“No, ma’am,” she said. “Haven’t seen him.”

“He’s like that,” she said. “Can’t be trusted.”

That much being true, the tight-ass Holy Roller preacher eventually running off with the Mary Kay saleswoman in town and starting a new family in Tupelo, working for a right-wing Christian radio station. That was her biological father, not old Mr. Shed Castle, her stepfather, also dead.

“Do you remember when I got hurt?” Diane said. “When I was in the hospital?”

“You had a fine boy,” her mother said. “Big, too.”

“When that man hurt me, Mom,” Diane said. “When I got shot?”

“Who shot you?” her mother said, tilting her head. “You look fine to me.”

“A long time back,” she said. “I was with Lori Stillwell.”

“A sweet girl,” her mother said. “A lovely girl. Hair down to her butt. Shiny like a shampoo commercial.”

“Yes,” Diane said. “Lori was beautiful. Do you remember when that man came for us? That man who hurt us?”

There was a darkness, a passing of light, in the dim blue eyes of her mother. She had a mouthful of the burrito and kept on eating, but there were wheels turning, a shifting and searching somewhere in the mind, trying to place what was being asked. She chewed and chewed. Diane just sat there, a bright sun coming up over the little parking lot facing Cotton Road. “Lori died.”

Diane turned to her mother. “Yes, Mom,” she said. “Do you recall?”

“Poor girl died,” she said. “You almost died. God. Are you all right? Where is your father? Where did he go? I told him he’d get hurt. Those people would hurt him.”

“Who, Mom?” Diane said. “Who would hurt him?”

Her mother chewed some more, thinking on things. “These tater tots are crispy. They are just so tasty.”

“Where did Dad go?” Diane said. The morning sun seemed to leach all the color from the hoods and roofs of the cars, everything in a dull gray light, cars zipping past on Cotton Road. A sad concrete birdbath outside the window, dirty water frozen in the bowl.

“Lori’s father,” her mother said. “He wanted your father to come with him. He knew what to do. He was a very bad man. All of those men were bad.”

“Who?”

“He had very strange eyes, that one,” she said. “He looked like a wolf, with long black hair. Gray eyes. He wanted your father to come. He wanted your father to see what they had done. They were all very proud. I told him no. Where is he? Did he go with them?”

“Where?” Diane said. “Where, Mom? Who are you talking about?”

“Out to that tree,” her mother said. “There was a gift hanging from the tree. The man had something for us. He was very happy.”

“Who?”

Her mother took another bite, body and head crooked as if the world was spinning a little strange for her, trying to find her balance. Light passed in and out of her eyes. She swallowed. Her hands shook as she lifted the coffee and took a sip, some spilling on the table. Diane wiped it up. Her mother looked up at her, smiling. “Hello,” her mother said. “You are somebody? Aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Diane said, patting her mother’s hand. “Just a friend.”

•   •   •

Lillie Virgil ran roll call at the morning meeting with deputies Dave Cullison, Art Watts, Ike McCaslin, and Kenny. Kenny hadn’t missed a patrol since the tornado ripped through his family home, killing both his parents. He’d driven his father, mortally wounded, on an ATV out to the field where his dead mother was found, sucked from their house and tossed a quarter mile away. He buried them, tended to their legal affairs, and set about clearing the destruction on his family land. Lillie had tried to speak to him about it many times, but instead Kenny would rather talk about his dog, a black Lab he’d rescued a year earlier who’d become his best friend.

Kenny arrived first, husky and beaming, looking forward to the day’s patrol.

The night had yielded a little action: attempted robbery at the Dixie gas station (“attempt” perhaps too strong a word, as the robber fled immediately when the cashier, Miss Peaches, pulled Luther Varner’s .357 from under the counter), a thirteen-year-old girl had run away from home for two hours before being found eating raisin toast at the Rebel, a domestic between a common-law couple, fighting over the purchase of a fifty-inch television, and eight traffic accidents, on account of the iced roads. Most of the ice had started to thaw at first light, but another cold front was expected to pound them tonight and Lillie ran through which wreckers would be on call.

“What’d Miss Peaches say to the robber?” Ike McCaslin asked, rubbing his eyes and giving that slow, easy smile of his. He was a tall, reedy black man who’d been with the SO longer than anyone.

“She knew him,” Lillie said. “It was the youngest Richardson boy who lives with his sister up on Perfect Circle Road. He just walked in and said, ‘Give it up,’ and Miss Peaches aimed the weapon at his crotch and told him to go get his narrow ass back home or she’d shoot his pecker clean off.”

“Miss Peaches,” Ike said. “She don’t take no shit.”

“No, sir,” Lillie said. “Kenny, you got anything needs a follow today?”

“Need to check up on those mowers getting stolen out on 351,” Kenny said. “Mary Alice had a call about another theft last night, but it was on toward the Ditch. Mr. Davis had a zero-turn Toro that he used for work. Someone hooked up the mower to the trailer and just rode off.”

“Art? Dave?”

“Same old shit,” Dave Cullison said. Dave was still wearing a heavy parka and gloves from running traffic detail at the high school.

“Where’s Quinn?” Art said.

“Had a meeting,” she said.

“Are those bastards in Oxford going to leave both y’all alone?” Art said. “I’m about getting sick of everyone asking me about it. It’s as if people in this county can’t recall old cross-eyed Leonard Chappell being an A-1 shitbird since we were kids.”

“Don’t know,” Lillie said, hopping off the desk. “Don’t care. Let’s hit the road.”

Lillie snatched up her cold-weather coat and Tibbehah ball cap as Mary Alice poked her head into the SO meeting room and said that Lillie had some company. “I went ahead and sent him to your office,” Mary Alice said. “Hope that’s all right. E. J. Royce.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lillie said, and then muttered “Shit” to herself, following the hallway to her door. The door was old and heavy, with the top half pebbled glass reading LILLIE VIRGIL CHIEF DEPUTY, along with the official shield of Tibbehah County law enforcement.

She opened the door to find Royce standing by her desk, puttering about, looking through some of her personal effects and smiling up at her as if there was nothing to it. “Morning, Miss Virgil,” Royce said. “You asked that I stop by if I wanted to follow up on that old case. So here I am.”

It looked and smelled as if Royce hadn’t bathed in a few days. He still had that ever-present dirty white stubble on his face. He wore the same threadbare flannel shirt and wash-worn Liberty overalls. He’d removed his trucker hat, the meager white hair that remained on his head stuck up high like a rooster’s comb.

“You want some coffee?” Lillie said.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Just figured me and you might have a heart-to-heart, you being the senior of the folks in this office. Quinn kind of came to the scene late. I don’t think he understands or respects the work of Sheriff Beckett.”

“Sheriff Beckett was on the take.”

“That hadn’t been proven.”

“What you got, Mr. Royce?”

The old man scratched his stubbled cheeks and smiled. His teeth were yellowed and crooked, one eyetooth capped in gold. “Just wanted to see how things was progressing from one lawman to another.”

He kind of grinned when he said that last bit, eyes taking in Lillie’s posture and hands on her wide hips. Lillie eyed him and nodded a bit. “You just want to know what we’re doing since this was your case at one time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You didn’t seem to be interested the other day.”

“Y’all kind of caught me with my pants down,” he said. “I was just waking up and not thinking. When y’all left, I started to kind of wonder why you and Hamp’s nephew would be kicking all this mess up. Are you some kind of special friends with the Tull girl?”

Lillie was five foot eight in bare feet but five foot ten in her boots that day. She stepped forward two paces and looked down at E. J. Royce’s bald head. “Do you have something to say?”

“Relax there, darling,” he said. “I don’t care which way y’all’s pendulum swings. What concerns me is y’all making a mess of what happened. I mean, when it all gets down to it, who gives a shit?”

“Who gives a shit that a young woman was murdered and another raped?”

“That ain’t it,” Royce said, his eyes glowing with an alcoholic heat. His cheeks so red, it looked as if he’d applied some rouge. “I just can’t figure out why y’all have interest in that nigger they strung up.”

“Excuse me?”

“We got the right man,” he said. “That nigger took them girls. Why on God’s Green do y’all want to make something of it? Justice was done.”

Lillie crossed her arms over her chest. “Sit down, Mr. Royce.”

“I’m just fine.”

“Sit the fuck down, Royce.”

Royce sat. He seemed amused by the whole thing, grinning and sort of laughing, thinking the world sure had turned into a funny place. He craned his head back and forth, studying Lillie’s personal mementos on the way. “Who’s that with all them medals on their neck?”

“That was the SEC championship,” Lillie said. “I shot a perfect score. I’m prone to steadiness when my mind comes to it.”

“Oh, hell,” Royce said. “You are a pistol. I can’t even imagine what old Sheriff Beckett would think about his wild-ass nephew running the show, ruining his name for some wandering nigger and having some smart-mouth dyke woman as his sidekick. What’s the world coming to?”

Lillie did not speak. She breathed slowly. The door cracked open a little and Kenny stuck his portly body inside, obviously listening from the hall. “Everything OK?” he said.

“Mr. Royce was just leaving.”

Royce laughed, showing rows of uneven teeth, and stood, putting that old trucker hat on his rooster hair. His entire being smelled of burned-up cigarettes, ashen and dead.

“You know why people like you don’t bother me?”

Royce grinned.

“’Cause all of y’all are dying off,” Lillie said. “Less and less of you every day. You lost. Thank Jesus.”

Royce turned to Lillie, clenched his jaw, and spit on the floor, before following Kenny out of her office. Kenny hung by the door, wide-eyed, before shutting it.

“This man gives you a bit of trouble, you toss his ass in the tank,” Lillie said. “And, for God’s sake, make sure he takes a shower. He smells like flaming dog shit.”