A Dredging in Swann

by Tim Garvin

  Bug laid his head to the side and gave off a slant smile. “I wondered you didn’t mention Mickey. Come right to it.”

  “Mickey’s selling cars in San Diego.”

  “Last count he was. You probably see more of him than I do with Facebook.” There was a silence. Seb out-patiented him. Bug said, “The will that gave the hunting lodge to the Sacklers? So Leo was murdered, and you’re looking for motives.”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “So did my dad screw Granger Sackler? Probably. The Klan never got much going around here, but if they did, my dad would have joined, pretty sure. He did not like Marshall Britt and that nigger—his words—being friends.”

  “I always thought Swann County sort of missed all the fuss in civil rights times.”

  “It did. Folks around here weren’t aware enough to hate. They were prejudiced, but that was just the air they breathed. Someone did bomb the high school though. Then the war brought the Marines and the modern world. So you think maybe I killed him? Something to do with my prejudiced father?”

  “Well, just to get it out of the way, where were you yesterday afternoon, around one, say?”

  “Right here. Ask Maddy on the way out.”

  “You’re asking me to leave?”

  “Hell, no. I want to hear about this. Why would a son of Bentley Branch kill Leo Sackler?”

  Seb looked into space for a moment, then back. “How about, Leo had proof that your dad had cheated his family and was going to disclose that and ruin the reputation of the eminent Branch clan, which incited you to murder.”

  Bug’s mouth opened, then closed in a smile. He said, “Fuck.”

  Seb said, “Bug, I got no clue. I really want to ask about Germaine Ford. You knew her, right?”

  “I believe she snuck into my masturbation fantasies occasionally. My older brother dated her. Once. She got hooked up with Hugh Britt, and that’s what you’re looking for, right? All that.”

  “That’s it. Who did she run with?”

  “No idea. Except for Hugh Britt, which you already know, I guess. The Fords came down from New York and brought money and a beautiful girl. I’d see her downtown, and it looked like she stepped out of a magazine.”

  “Did you know Hugh?”

  “I knew he was an asshole. He had a preemptory way, you might say. I didn’t spill no tears.”

  “What did everybody think about that murder?”

  “Oh, lord, here comes Seb. God almighty, good luck. We all been waiting on you. Ever since Germaine’s will come out and give it all to Leo. You’re going to be the finger of justice.”

  “That’s what Virginia Sackler said.”

  “I bet she did. She’s got that house and land now. And that money.”

  “She said Germaine did it.”

  “When that will came out, that’s what I thought. What everybody thought. I remembered she had a black eye.”

  “When was this?”

  “Back then. Sometime around there when Hugh got killed. I didn’t see it, but I heard she did. I cannot remember who told me, but I was definitely told it.”

  “A man or a woman tell you?”

  “Can’t think, Seb. But there’s your two and two make four. They had a physical brawl, and she killed his ass.”

  “Was Hugh cheating the black fishermen?”

  “No idea. Why?”

  “That’s what the fight on the dock was about, supposedly. When Hugh gaffed Leo Sackler.”

  “Now I remember. Magnets underneath the scale pan. You know how that’s done? You reverse them and tape them down. I could see him doing that. Just a little sneaky meanness he could get in.”

  “And you don’t know who she ran with?”

  “I do not. She was only here off and on. She was in college. After the murder she went hermit and became the ghost lady of Swann County. She had housekeepers, and I believe it was various ones of the Land family. You know them? I bailed Junior Land out twice.”

  In his smartphone, Seb texted himself: Lands, housekeepers. He said, “What am I forgetting to ask?”

  “No idea. But tell me this—how are the murders of Hugh and Leo connected? I mean, even if Germaine killed Hugh, why does someone kill Leo? Why wasn’t he just robbed? Was he robbed?”

  “He might have been a little bit robbed.”

  Bug laughed. “What’d they do, take ten and leave five?”

  Seb stood. “Thanks, Bug.”

  They shook hands across the desk. Bug picked up the phone. He said, “Let me just call my secretary, get that alibi straight.” He smiled, hung the phone up. “Tell Mickey if you see him on Facebook he can call his old dad once in a while.” He came around the desk. “C’mon, I’ll walk you out.” Seb preceded him down the hallway. In the reception room, Bug said, “Maddy, tell this man the truth.” Then to Seb: “You figure this out, you’ll get your fifteen minutes.”

  A Skillful Display

  of Violence

  Cody rode past Keisha’s trailer, number thirty, and saw her mother’s station wagon was gone. He had been her friend for six months, and her boyfriend for four weeks. She was friendly with everyone, but sarcastic only with him, which clued him that she had singled him out. They’d had sex twice, once in his car, once behind her mother’s trailer on the grass. One day, if he wasn’t in prison, he would marry her, and they could get their own place. Keisha was black, so their kids would be black, so his life would become black, which could be a relief.

  He pedaled back to the hot tub yard and leaned his bike against the fence. Mo Stevens and his half brother, Perk, looked across the yard at him, both silent. Three ten-foot benches padded with clip-on seats made the yard’s perimeter. Five plastic table-and-chair sets were scattered in the center.

  Perk was in a tub with a too-big fire flaming up one side. The Stevens brothers had gradually become Cody’s enemies, a process begun by Cody getting involved with Keisha, which Perk, who was half black, did not appreciate, having tried there himself and failed. Mo, who had Cody’s old handyman job, had turned against him after Cody mentioned the grass around the Coopertown entrance sign had gotten over the brick foundation, which, he noted as he pedaled past, was where it was again.

  Perk passed his hand through the flame. He was a tall, well-muscled young man, just out of high school, down from Raleigh on an extended visit to his older brother, Mo, with whom he shared a father. He wore a sideways baseball cap. His black boxer shorts were a water-blurred hyphen between his bare brown thighs and thick chest. He said, “Do one thing, Cody. Sell me an ounce. I’m heading home tomorrow.”

  Cody settled on the boat-cushioned bench. He said, “An ounce of what?”

  “I know you have some of that twenty-five percent Blue Dream. I know that.”

  “You know wrong.”

  Mo said, “You calling him a liar?” Mo was smaller, thinner, in baggy jeans and a pale green T-shirt. He was tilted back in a plastic chair, one foot on a tabletop. He was excitable. He wagged his head. He had gotten off a good one.

  Cody said, “I notice the grass up by the sign is long again.” He gathered Mo’s hard look with an amiable glance. He said, “Just kidding. It is though.”

  Perk said, “You act like you own the place.”

  Mo said, “His daddy own it. He on a throne.”

  Mo’s diction, Cody noted, had become blacker as his Perk-bond firmed his anger.

  Mo said, “Why you be a dick? Sell the man his ounce.”

  “I don’t sell dope, if I ever did. Where’s Elton?”

  Mo said, “He’s around.”

  Cody said, “You built that fire too high, Perk. A man cracked a tub that way.”

  “I built it like I like it.”

  Mo said, “Like he like it, like he like it. That sound like hip-hop. Why you be a dick, Cody.”

  Perk g
ot out of the tub on the flameless side, slipped a hand inside his underwear to adjust his genitals, and crossed the grass to sit beside Cody on the bench. He put his arm around the bench back and hard-tapped Cody’s deltoid with his middle finger. He said, “One ounce of Blue Dream. I’ll take six if you got it, and I want the discount.”

  Cody watched a trickle of water from Perk’s dripping body and shorts creep across the bench top and darken his brown pants. He said, “You’re getting me wet.” It was interesting. His Stinger-missile problem made other problems boring. He had lost fear. He stood. Perk gripped his forearm and pulled him hard onto the bench again, onto the growing puddle.

  Perk said, “We doing business.”

  Mo said, “Got to, Cody.”

  “Got to what, Mo? What’s he got to?” It was Elton Gleen’s fast, country-­thin voice. As he left his trailer and crossed the deck, he picked up a bamboo cattle cane from the railing top. He strode through the yard, tapping the bamboo on tubs, chairs, and benches. He wore jeans and a pink tank top that exposed the orange and black of his shoulder-wide tiger tattoo, created in San Francisco by a famous Chinese inker. Elton’s head was shaved and on the right side was another tattoo, nine black numbers he had seen on a woman’s wrist in a book about the Nazi death camps. He had them done fuzzy, like on the woman’s wrist, to express his displeasure with the state and its minions. He was in his fifties, slim-waisted, long-legged, wide-shouldered, with a tanning-bed tan.

  Now he stood with his legs spread before Perk and Cody. He said, “The subject under discussion is will Cody here sell off a lid of marijuana. His answer was no, and you two are deviling him. I keep this cane for devils, just so you know. Also, Perk, you dumb shit, you built that fire like a child. That tub cracks, you will haul it off and bring me another.”

  Perk stood, broader and two inches taller than Elton, who retreated a half step. Perk said, “I’m not hauling shit for you.”

  “You’re not?”

  “I don’t give a fuck who you are. Don’t interfere with me.”

  “I must and I will. Cody is my friend.”

  “You best put that cane away, old man.”

  “No, sir! I need this cane for ones like you.”

  “Get it out of my sight, or it’s going up your ass.”

  “That’s a threat against me.” Elton smiled, showing large even teeth. He said, “You a dirty N-word,” and emitted a shrill laugh.

  As Perk lunged for the cane, Elton stepped nimbly back, lifting the cane to the side. He said, “I’m retreating. Everybody note that.”

  Perk took a fast step forward. The butt of the cane darted hard into his midsection, folding him. Elton’s hand flashed from his left front pocket with an eight-inch sap, which made a fapping sound against the back of Perk’s baseball cap. Perk dropped silently to the grass, facedown. He did not move.

  Mo had put his foot down from the table and now stood. Elton crossed to him, laid the cane across Mo’s shoulder like a sword. He said, “What I do not like is feet on the tables, Mo.”

  Mo ran a hand across his long hair, ducking his head into the motion. He said, “Sorry, Elton.”

  “Now throw some water on your brother and haul him off. Are you still my employee?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll agree this was all done legal, with a witness. He advanced, and I retreated. Do you agree?”

  “I agree.”

  Mo poured his soft drink gently over the back of his brother’s head. Perk got to his hands and knees, then sat for a moment, then pulled himself to his feet using a bench. He stood. Mo gathered Perk’s clothes and shoes beside the hot tub, then pushed him forward. They began to walk.

  Cody and Elton watched them proceed slowly down the trailer park lane. Elton said, “You’re most welcome, little man.”

  Cody said, “Thanks.” He had just witnessed a skillful display of violence. He was not impressed, or interested.

  With his cane, Elton scattered the fire beside Perk’s tub, then walked to his cushioned Adirondack chair and sat. He said, “I heard those fools on my baby monitor. That Perk needed a whipping before he went back home anyway. The big ones generally do, or they’re hard to live with.” When Cody didn’t reply, he said, “You wouldn’t sell him any marijuana, which I was surprised.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Well, things change. You keep flytrapping you’ll be back to prison, that’s one thing I do know. I wouldn’t consider flytrapping much of a career improvement.”

  Cody could say he was done with flytrapping, that he had seen the choppers, had seen the missiles fall, had stolen the missiles, there was a video. He said, “Well …” Then his mind drifted. He thought of Keisha. He said, “How long ago did Keisha leave?”

  “Let’s see. I believe it was forty-one minutes ago.” Elton let off a spasm of hee-hees. “Love in the young is the engine of life. Cody Cooper, you look glum.”

  Cody deep-breathed. He lifted his arms and threw out his chest, then fanned them slowly down, exhaling, a seated greeting of the sun. He deep-breathed again. The air could not seem to penetrate him. He said, “What job? What did you want?”

  “I needed a collection, but the collectee died on his own hand.”

  Elton spoke this casually, but with a glance, and Cody felt himself under Elton’s measuring. He could ask more, get the details, form judgments, but that was effort and unappealing. He said, “I might just have a hot tub.”

  “Go on. You should. Except I don’t have pine. I’m ran dead out. Things are falling apart around here.”

  Cody got up and crossed to the scent cabinet. Open boxes of scent packets were stacked neatly on four shelves. He reached behind the eucalyptus box and brought out two green packets of pine scent. He fanned them for Elton. He said, “Two left. My private stash.”

  Elton laced his fingers behind his head. He said, “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll raise you to fifteen bucks an hour. Get rid of that Mo. C’mon, goddammit.”

  Cody went to the woodpile and began to select kindling. He had been offered two jobs today, when it was too late.

  He said, “I just want a tub.”

  A Really Pussy

  Heart Song

  The new county law center was a three-story, block-wide box of red brick with white-painted concrete trim and housed the sheriff’s department, the new jail, and three courthouses. As Seb swiped himself into the rear door, a tan SUV stopped in the street. Charlene dropped her arm outside the window and looked across to him.

  She said, “Well, I found you. I was taking potluck, and here you are.”

  “Hey, Charlene.” He felt himself tighten. Had she heard about his coffee with Mia?

  She said, “You look worried.”

  He slumped. He smiled.

  She said, “Come follow me. I’m going to pull over.”

  She drove ahead fifteen yards and slid the SUV into a space on the curb. They met on the sidewalk.

  She said, “Seb Creek. Give me one hug, and that’ll do me.”

  They embraced. She stepped back and folded her arms determinedly across her chest.

  She said, “Don’t worry, I’m over caring if you broke my heart. Emotions are so selfish anyway.”

  It was not about Mia then. They gazed at each other and half-smiled their forgiveness.

  She removed her e-cig from her shirt pocket and gave it a puff. She said, “I promised Cody I would quit this if he straightened up. You said it didn’t bother you, but I bet it did.” She capped the e-cig and pocketed it.

  He said, “It didn’t bother me.”

  “Well, something did.” She smirked. “Sorry. I’m in another relationship, and I think I got another heartbreak coming already.”

  He opened his mouth, then waited.

  She unfolded her arms, reached with one hand as if to tap his shoulder, didn
’t, then stood, hip cocked, with an arm akimbo. “I have not come for myself. I’ve got two poor souls in mind. One of them is my brother, Cody, and the other is a young girl named Rubella Peters. I know … Rubella. But that’s her name, and it’s pretty if you forget it’s the measles. So Rubella is having trouble at home. She’s been coming to my office every week. There may be some abuse there, not the father but his younger brother. I’m digging and don’t need you for that. What I do need is you to speak with a man named Elton Gleen. Do you know him?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, last night in the big storm, Rubella did not come home. She stayed all night in the Coopertown trailer park with her cousin and did not call or answer her phone. She called her mother this morning, and her mother called me, and we picked her up in a trailer with a group of young women. And there was Elton Gleen sitting in the living room playing strip poker with Rubella and two more. He had his shirt off, one of the girls was down to her bra and underpants. Rubella only had her shoes off, so I guess she was winning. She’s sixteen. We got her out of there, and I told her mother I’d talk to the police, whether or not it was a crime.” She waited, then said, “Was it?”

  “You probably got her out too soon.”

  “That’s what I thought. I thought you might have a serious conversation with Mr. Gleen though.”

  “Was it trailer five?”

  “Yes, it was. Is it a whorehouse? Because that’s sort of what I thought.”

  “We’re not sure. Might be something Elton’s got going. I’m going out there today on another matter. I’ll have a word with him.”

  “Thank you. That’s poor soul number one. Number two is my little brother, Cody, who you know well, since you arrested him, which I never did blame you for and still don’t.”

  “What’s up with Cody?”

  “I want you to go see him. I want you to get him into the singers. I know you talked to him that once, when we were dating, but it didn’t catch him. You’ve got to catch him, Seb. You can do this. He’ll get into something again. Actually, he’s already into something.”