by Nick Petrie
“Aren’t you Mister Fancy Pants,” Peter said.
“Dinah wanted some bookshelves made for the living room,” Lewis said. “Cabinetmaker was pretty good. I asked him for a little something extra. Did a nice job, too.”
He lifted the compartment lid.
Inside, laid out on old white bath towels turning gray with gun oil, were a matched pair of Heckler & Koch assault rifles with scopes and lights and retractable stocks, a very nice scoped Winchester deer rifle, a pair of 12-gauge combat shotguns with five-round tubes, a half-dozen pistols with holsters, and assorted spare magazines and boxes of ammunition.
“Dude, this is so lame,” Peter said. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“Oh, no.” Lewis smiled cheerfully. “I bought an old industrial building not far from Dinah’s house. I keep the rest there.”
Peter pointed at an unvarnished hickory ax handle that lay beside the shotguns. “What’s this for?”
“I figgered it was traditional down South,” said Lewis, sounding now like purebred grits and gravy. He picked up the ax handle and took an experimental swing. “Fer whuppin’ ass. I’m jes’ trying to fit in. Ain’t you never seen Walking Tall?”
Peter looked at Lewis in his black silk T-shirt, black jeans, and combat boots, the ax handle in his hand. “Of course,” he said. “How could I have missed the similarity? Sheriff Buford Pusser, in the flesh.”
They heard hounds baying. Lewis looked down the dirt track, which vanished in the trees. “The guy’s a convict and a white supremacist. What do you suppose his wife’s like?”
“We’ll find out,” said Peter. “I’m more concerned about who else might be there.”
44
Peter kept the ax handle and took a Beretta M9 with a low holster he threaded onto his belt and strapped to his thigh. He stuck two extra magazines into his back pocket and climbed behind the wheel of the Yukon.
Lewis sat in the passenger seat with a gigantic chrome-plated automatic in a shoulder holster and the Winchester butt-down in the foot well.
The faint dirt track wound through a green tunnel of trees for almost a half mile, branches scraping the car as they passed.
At the top of a rise, they saw the trees open up ahead of them and the low roof of a house came into view. When Peter slowed, Lewis opened his door, stepped out, and vanished into the woods.
Peter drove forward into the clearing.
The house was old and sagging, with a deep front porch to keep the heat out. It sat beside a modest pole barn in the middle of a vast sea of automobiles. Hundreds of them, with weeds grown up thick and tall in the narrow aisles between them. From newer models to vehicles from the middle of the last century, including a number of heavy trucks and what looked like an old Blue Bird school bus with a stovepipe coming out of the roof.
Some looked like you could hop in and drive away. Others were up on blocks or had their hoods open, parts removed or laid out for repair. A few were upside-down. Many were visible only as long lumpy mounds of kudzu vines.
As Peter continued toward the house, a group of leggy, long-eared, flop-jowled hounds bounded out of the pole barn, howling as they churned around the Yukon. The biggest one stood its ground on the dirt track.
Peter rolled closer, slowing, but the big dog didn’t move. Either brave or very territorial or just not that bright. Peter slowed further still, inching closer, until the dog stared the Yukon right in the grille, baying like it had cornered the world’s biggest raccoon.
Peter shook his head, then lifted his foot off the brake for a count of three. The Yukon gave the big hound a bump. It responded by trying to bite the steel tubular bumper.
Definitely not that bright.
Peter sighed. He liked dogs, but he wasn’t going to be dog food.
He opened his door and the main pack darted away so the big dumb hound could come around to meet him, teeth bared. Peter bopped it lightly on the nose with the butt of the ax handle. The hound jumped back, long ears flopping, but came directly for Peter again. He gave it another bop, slightly harder, followed by a tap on the hindquarters, and the hound yelped and shook its head and sat down. After that, the other dogs backed off, circled the Yukon, sniffing, then lay on the dirt in the shade, tongues out and panting.
The heat of the afternoon sun was thick and oppressive. The door to the pole barn stood open, showing pale fluorescent light and the back end of a big sedan. Peter could hear the sound of a hammer pounding on sheet metal, but saw nobody inside. He told himself he’d worry when the pounding stopped.
A woman came out of the house and stood on the broad front porch. She was built like a weathered old fence post, with irregular iron-gray hair she might have cut herself with garden shears. She wore a faded print dress and a flowery red apron that hung around her neck and tied at the waist.
Poking out of the apron pocket was a thick-bodied revolver with a long barrel. Something powerful and expensive. Her right hand on the grip.
No wonder the mechanic kept working in the pole barn.
Peter leaned the ax handle against the Yukon and walked closer.
“Stand right there. Y’all’s on private property.” She had a face like an albino crow, sharp-nosed with bright darting eyes. “Y’all’s armed and I ain’t seen no badge, so I’m in my rights to shoot you dead where you stand.”
The hammer stopped beating, but nobody emerged from the pole barn. Peter reminded himself that Lewis was somewhere behind him with the scoped Winchester. Then came the metallic whine of a grinder on steel. Peter put on his most winning smile.
“Are you Mrs. Carruthers?”
She shifted impatiently. “You going to show me a badge or not?”
“I’m not with the police, ma’am. I’m not here to harm you in any way. I’m here about a car you own, or maybe used to own.”
She took the pistol from her apron pocket and gestured at the vast collection of vehicles arrayed around her. “Y’all can see we got a few,” she said. “They ain’t all ours, neither. So I can already say I don’t got the faintest idea what y’all’s talking about.”
“The one I’m interested in,” Peter said, “is a late 1960s canary-yellow Country Squire station wagon, long and low.”
She looked at him with her bright crow’s eyes. “That one’s gone.”
“Who’s got it now?”
She shook her head slowly from side to side, just slightly. As if examining him first with one eye, then the other, down the long beak of her nose. “It’s my husband’s. I don’t meddle in his affairs.”
“I know who’s got it,” Peter said. “A man with a blue skull tattooed on his face.”
She didn’t quite react, but even from twenty feet away, he could see the tension humming through her body. “I’m done talkin’.” She flapped her free hand at him. “Y’all best get gone, and I mean right now.”
“What’s his name? Did he know your husband at Parchman?”
She raised the big revolver and thumbed back the hammer and held it out at arm’s length with both hands. “I’m a real good shot,” she said. “I got a practice range behind the house. Y’all want to see how good I am? Get buried in the hill out back?”
Peter held his hands out and shook his head, hoping Lewis got the message not to shoot.
“No, ma’am. I’ll take your word for it. I’ll just be on my way.”
He felt a tingle between his shoulder blades all the way back to the Yukon.
* * *
• • •
Lewis was waiting beside the dirt track outside the clearing, the Winchester at port arms. Peter was already on Wanda’s phone to Gantry. Cell reception was spotty, but Peter made himself understood.
“Call the warden or whoever at Parchman Farm. I’m pretty sure our guy was an inmate there. He has a blue skull tattooed on his face, and he knows Carruthers. Someone in that prison
sure as hell knows who he is.”
45
When they got off the dirt track at the gravel road, Peter pulled over so they could return the artillery to the Yukon’s secret compartment. Lewis got behind the wheel for the ninety-minute drive back to Memphis.
As the road wound back through the low wooded hills, Peter told Lewis about his conversation with Mrs. Carruthers.
“I don’t care who her husband is, or how much of an asshole he might be. I can’t imagine that woman being intimidated by anybody. Whoever was in that pole barn had been so confident she could handle any visitor, they didn’t even bother to stop work to check on her. She didn’t care about me at all, not until I brought up the guy with the blue skull tattoo. Whoever he is, that mean, tough woman with a pistol in her apron is scared to death of him.”
“Maybe he’s why she’s got the pistol in her apron.”
Peter nodded. “Fair point.”
Wanda’s phone buzzed in Peter’s pocket. It was Dupree.
“I got a text from Nadine,” he said. “She’ll meet us with Eli tonight after dark. She’ll send the address right before.”
“Sounds good. Anything else?”
“She told me she’s going to see Wanda. Wants to help.”
“How does Nadine know where Wanda’s staying?” Peter hadn’t told anyone.
“You’ve met the girl,” Dupree said. “Some things she just knows.”
“She better not tell anyone. This thing is getting ugly.”
“She knows that, too. She wouldn’t tell me a damn thing and I’m her grandfather.”
“Okay. I’ll call when we get closer. You making progress over there?”
“Paint’s only so thick,” Dupree said. “It’s not gonna fool anybody for long.”
“It won’t have to, I hope. Do as many coats as you can.”
After he hung up, Lewis said, “You have any clue what you’re doing?”
“I thought you were supposed to be the brains of the outfit.”
“I’m serious, motherfucker.”
“I’m working on a few ideas.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
The burner phone buzzed in his lap.
“You got a lot going on,” Lewis said.
“Tell me about it.”
It was a text from June. I’m at the hotel. Call when you can.
He had two bars. He hit the call button. She answered by saying, “This hotel is fucking awesome. How long until you get here?”
“Well, I’m in Mississippi with Lewis right now, but we’re on our way back to Memphis. How’s Wanda?”
“She’s asleep. You know how many prescriptions she has?”
“A lot, and from a couple of different doctors, too. I don’t even know if I found them all.”
“I’ve been online looking up her meds. I found a couple of pretty gnarly drug interactions, and instructions on three of these bottles say to avoid alcohol entirely.”
“She’s definitely not doing that. She’s caught in a pretty bad spiral. It’s why I wanted you to come. But don’t leave the hotel, okay?”
“I’m not leaving Wanda, period. I talked to that gallery owner. He’s not fucking around. Wanda’s blown off three deadlines already. I did some research on his gallery, it’s a very big deal. Wanda really shouldn’t screw this up.”
“Can’t the gallery owner just pick the photos for the show?”
“He wants between twenty and twenty-five images to print in large format, but he’s only seen a dozen, and he wants at least fifty to choose from. He also wants Wanda to be part of the decision. I think he’s actually a pretty decent guy. They made this deal over drinks, basically on a handshake, before her last overseas trip to Syria. He told me she’s a different person since she came back.”
Peter knew how that felt. “Did she talk to you about that trip?”
“We’ve barely talked since our last project together. She’s been passed out since I got here. I practically had to stick a mirror under her nose to make sure she was breathing.”
“I could tell when I showed up that something was wrong, but I thought it was just the dump truck in her living room. I didn’t realize how bad it was until the next day. I tried to get her to talk about it, but she wouldn’t. Plus she was always wired to the gills.”
“We’ll figure it out,” June said. “The concierge put me in touch with a doctor who’ll come to the hotel.” She sighed. “I feel like it’s my fault. We used to talk every few weeks, but she started returning my calls with texts. I should have known. I should have come sooner.”
Peter knew how that felt, too.
“Listen, you’re probably going to get a visitor, a young woman named Nadine. I, ah . . . I don’t really know how to describe her.”
June must have heard it in his voice, some echo of that feeling when Nadine had touched his hand. “Peter?”
“She’s just a schoolgirl. Fourteen or fifteen years old. But there’s something about her. You’ll see what I mean.”
Wanda’s phone buzzed on the center console. It was Gantry again.
“Hey, I gotta go,” Peter told June. “Talk to you later.”
“No, I’ll see you later,” she said. “Don’t make me come after you. And you better be wearing that goddamn vest I bought you.” She hung up.
Lewis laughed. The last part had been loud enough for Lewis to hear, even though she wasn’t on speaker. “Woman’s got your number, Jarhead.”
“Don’t even start.” Peter picked up Gantry’s call, this time on speaker. “What’s up?”
“Where are you now?”
“Almost back to Oxford. You find him?”
“My boss called an old friend in Jackson, who talked to Parchman’s superintendent. You were right on the money with the tattoo. Our guy’s name is Judah Lee Burkitts. His parole officer says he’s staying with his older brother, name of Albert Burkitts, at the family farm near a tiny place called New Canaan, Mississippi. Albert’s on some kind of disability. Highway 7 north from Oxford, the farm’s off Highway 72. I’ll text you directions and a photo. Mississippi DMV shows Albert owning a 1986 red Ford Fiesta and a 1954 Mack Model B, some kind of big farm truck.”
Gantry still sounded like Elvis, but now in a movie as a tough cop. Peter didn’t think Gantry was going to break into song anytime soon. He figured Gantry was a pretty capable detective.
“By the way,” Gantry added, “tell Ms. Wyatt she did good with those pictures. The Fiesta showed up on that flash drive you gave me. Maybe Judah Lee borrowed his brother’s car. He’s got no current vehicle in his name.”
“She’ll be glad to hear that,” Peter said. “What did your boss tell his friend in Jackson to get such quick results?”
A short laugh. “As little as possible. His friend has a lot of pull, but there might be some leakage, if you know what I mean. Law enforcement in Mississippi has a long history of not always being on the right side of things. You better haul ass if you want to get there first.”
“Tell me about Burkitts.”
“He’s the number-two guy in the biggest white-power faction at Parchman. Six foot seven. The skull tattoo is full-face. He’s filed his teeth to fucking points. He obviously couldn’t care less what anybody in the straight world thinks of him. The superintendent was fairly certain Burkitts had killed seven men during his time at Parchman, all of them black, one of them a guard. All of them with a knife. But nothing caught on video, and nobody would testify.”
“So he’s big and scary and probably a little crazy. But not stupid.”
“Right on the money. So drive fast and watch your ass.”
“How in hell did Burkitts manage to get probation?”
“His father died. Either some idiot felt sorry for him or somebody else got paid off.” Gantry paused a moment. “You got anybo
dy with you on this?”
“You don’t want to know.” Peter looked at Lewis. “You have any questions for Detective Gantry?”
“Just one,” Lewis said. “Anybody gonna get officially upset if this guy ends up dead?”
“I’m sorry,” Gantry said. “You’re breaking up. I didn’t hear the question.” They were in the outskirts of Oxford by then, and the reception was perfect. “Call me back when you get to the farm.”
Lewis put the pedal down.
The big engine roared and the Yukon leaped forward.
46
They drove north through long stretches of good two-lane highway with nothing but trees crowding close alongside. Every few miles they passed a prosperous farm or a small house or a ragged trailer. The hot Southern sun cooked through the window glass.
Gantry’s text came through with directions to the Burkitts farm and an institutional photo of a square-headed man with cropped pale hair like a field’s winter stubble. A ballpoint-blue skull tattoo accented his brow, his jawline, his cheekbones, and around his eyes, turning them into deep hollow caves. The jailhouse artist was pretty good, Peter thought. Tombstone-shaped teeth were tattooed directly on his upper and lower lips, which were clean-shaven and drawn closed.
There was another picture where Burkitts opened his lips, showing rough, pointed teeth turning black at their roots. His face devoid of expression.
The result was unnerving.
Peter wasn’t sure he truly believed in evil, but that picture put a heavy thumb on the scale.
Traffic was thin and Lewis slid through it like a blade, driving so fast that cars he passed seemed to be standing still. Past I-22, through Holly Springs, angling northeast until they hit US-72, a four-lane, then due east for a few more miles to a turnoff on the right.