The Redeemers

by Ace Atkins

  “I just like how it looks, is all,” Chase said. “It’ll do right.”

  “Don’t give a shit what name your daddy gave you,” Peewee said, fluorescent lights flickering on over their heads. “You are a Sparks.”

  A foreign fella, who was Chinese or Mongolian or from Hawaii, walked on past them to the front door and turned on a couple neon signs and unlocked the door. Chase nodded at his Uncle Peewee and turned back to the man, fluorescents still trying to come to life. He nodded to his uncle and his uncle turned and walked away and out the door, strolling across the parking lot over to the Cracker Barrel. Chase moved up to the gun display and unwrapped his free sucker. “Excuse me, sir?” Chase said. “You speak any English?”

  • • •

  Quinn borrowed Caddy’s truck, a beaten-to-shit ’72 Ford that he’d bought while at Fort Benning, to drive north on the Natchez Trace without being spotted. He brought with him a couple good cigars, La Gloria Cubana Blacks, and a couple tall coffees from the Fillin’ Station diner. The Trace took him up into the rolling hills of Tibbehah County, past the turnoff to his farm and the hamlets of Fate and Providence, and on into southern Lee County and a visitors’ center with public bathrooms and a covered area with a view of the mounds where the Chickasaw had buried their dead and made temples to their warriors. As usual, it was empty. And, as expected, the lean, bald man with the beard was waiting for him.

  “You know, they didn’t even have shovels,” the man said. “Did the whole damn thing with baskets, filled with dirt.”

  “True dedication,” Quinn said, and passed along the cigar and the coffee. “And here we are. A millennium later and still looking at ’em.”

  Ringold cut the end of the cigar with a pocketknife and borrowed Quinn’s Zippo to get it going. He leaned against a protective rail while Quinn had a seat on an old picnic table, both drinking coffee and watching frost melt off the trio of mounds. A few cars passed on the Trace. No one stopped. The cigars burned nice and warm in the cold. The smoke lifted and broke apart in the wind. Quinn rested his elbows on his knees. “How’s it coming?”

  “Son of a bitch is getting paranoid,” Ringold said. “The other day he thought the sheriff-elect was working with the Feds. I had to laugh. And this morning it was the guy who owns the lumber mill, Larry Cobb. He accused Cobb of a shakedown. Said the man was threatening him.”

  “How’s that?” Quinn asked.

  “I asked Stagg the same thing and he said it was more in Cobb’s attitude than his words. They got some kind of deal on that new bridge going across the Big Black. Stagg’s got Cobb’s company on rigged bid. The bid hasn’t come through and Cobb wants to know about his seed money.”

  “You get all this solid?”

  “Shit no,” Ringold said. “We have his office tapped. But like I said, he’s gotten squirrelly as hell. Nervous. Doesn’t know how to use a computer. Won’t use the landline. He’ll only talk to folks face-to-face. I got a lot on the man. But I want everything.”

  “How much longer?”

  “He’s real careful what he says,” Ringold said. “Talks in that Johnny Stagg code. Stuff that could be reinterpreted to a jury. We could shut down his dope business out at that ole airfield right now. But the payoffs to state officials isn’t as clear as we’d like. That’s why I was sent here.”

  “Remind me again how you fellas are making a case against a man who’s run wild for more than two decades?”

  “Same way you eat an elephant,” Ringold said, blowing some smoke into the cold wind. “One bite at a time.”

  “I never knew Larry to do much more than timber,” Quinn said. “He’s crooked as hell, but particular about his business. Since when is he into bridge building?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Ringold said. “He started a cleanup-and-construction company after the tornado—him and Stagg. I told you about all that. All of it seems to be on the level. They did do the jobs they promised to do. Never had any competition on the jobs.”

  “Of course not,” Quinn said, shrugged, the tip of the cigar glowing a bright orange. A hard, cold wind lifted up off the roadside as a couple more cars drove slow and steady on past. In the clearing, two large does snuck out from the edge of the woods, heads up, ears twitching, catching the scent of the smoke and scampering back into the darkness.

  “What do you know about Cobb?”

  “He’s the uncle of a woman I know,” Quinn said. “One of the richest men in town. Church deacon. Civic leader. Oh, and he hates the shit out of black people and thinks his success in business was a gift from God.”

  “Is he as bad as Stagg?”

  “He’s a cheater,” Quinn said. “Some might say a liar. But I don’t think he’s got ole Johnny’s ambition. And truth be known, he’s not as smart.”

  Ringold nodded, smoking, watching the wide-open empty field. The deer were long gone after the smoke hit their nostrils and sent them hightailing it far away. Quinn had been trying to teach his nephew Jason about smells as they walked the woods. He’d told him to walk lightly without leaving a mark, not letting yourself be known to the animals, or even plants, around them. Walk soft. That way, you could be part of the whole woods, feel it and sense it. It didn’t matter if you were hunting or passing through, you treated the woods, the natural world, with a sense of respect.

  “Nothing changes after you step down,” Ringold said. “You got that?”

  “Shit,” Quinn said. “Like a neutered hound.”

  “You can do things, talk to people, outside your work. Outside your duties.”

  “OK.”

  “Let me ask you something.”

  Quinn looked up and ashed his cigar at the edge of the picnic table. Ringold took a puff on his and then rubbed his thick, almost biblical-looking beard. “Does all this seem familiar to you?” he said. “Folks blindly listening to whoever is in charge without asking a thing? Drug running. Political corruption. Bullshit road projects and nation building.”

  “Tibbehah and Trashcanistan?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ringold said. “Nobody gives a shit as long as they can sit on their ass and watch football on Saturday and stuff themselves after church on Sunday.”

  “Southerners aren’t real good on change,” Quinn said. “Or calling out the folks in power. In case you need a reminder.”

  “I’m not Southern.”

  “No kidding,” Quinn said. “Just where are you from anyway, Mr. Ringold?”

  Ringold smiled, thumbed the side of his nose, and turned his back, walking away. “Appreciate the smoke, Quinn,” Ringold said. “You’re too good for these folks.”

  “Maybe,” Quinn said. “But a man’s never too good for his family.”

  8.

  Hello, Momma,” Quinn said as he walked into his farmhouse and removed his ranch coat and dark green ball cap, hanging them on a single hook. He lifted the Beretta 9 off his belt and locked it away in the side drawer of his office desk, while Jean Colson followed him, drying her hands on a dish towel, a worried look on her face. She had on a gold scarf draped around her neck and an oversized green sweater dotted with snowflakes and gold ornaments. She was a slightly heavy but beautiful woman with a lot of red hair and love for all things Elvis Presley. A long time ago she’d ridden around north Mississippi on the back of Jason Colson’s Harley, wearing hot pants and boots.

  “She wants to see him,” Jean said. “All she’s been talking about this morning is little Jason. I think it’s a terrible idea. She looks like hell.”

  “She sure does.”

  “No six-year-old boy needs to see his momma like that,” Jean said. “It might do her some good, but it will scare the boy.”

  “Roger that,” Quinn said. “We all need to keep them far apart. I don’t care what Caddy wants right now. She’s not in her right mind.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Jean said. “This whole thing’s a mess. Y
ou want some coffee?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I finally got her to sleep in your room,” Jean said over her shoulder. “Hope that’s OK. Luke told me to double those pills if they weren’t working. It made her tired, but she wouldn’t stop talking. Kept on rambling on about things that didn’t make any sense. She was remembering some trip you and her took to Opryland as kids. You recall that?”

  “I do.”

  “Where was I?”

  “That was after you and Dad had separated,” Quinn said. “Uncle Hamp drove us to Nashville to meet up with Dad. We got to see the Oak Ridge Boys open for Dolly Parton.”

  “Did you meet Dolly?”

  “Dad got us backstage passes.”

  “Of course he knows her, too,” Jean said. “He probably has played with her big titties.”

  “Mom.”

  “Well, would it surprise you?”

  Quinn had no answer as he followed his mother back through the long shot of the house, morning light streaming through leaded-glass windows, to the kitchen. She had a fire going in an old black stove, the room smelling of burning red oak and fresh coffee. Quinn sat down at the kitchen table, covered in red-and-white-checked oilcloth, and his mother brought him the coffee. He kicked off his cowboy boots. It had been a long night on patrol. Two drunks. One domestic. And an arson at an abandoned convenience store. Fire department was handling that mess.

  “Did Luke say anything else?” Quinn said.

  “He said if she didn’t get professional help, she’d go right back to where you found her.”

  “And Caddy thinks she’s fine.”

  “She says she just slipped,” Jean said. “Says she’s back on track since praying on it. Said she’d started to think about what happened in the storm, with her house being torn up. And with—”

  “Jamey Dixon.”

  “You bet,” Jean said. “That’d throw anyone for a loop.”

  Quinn drank some coffee and looked out a side window at a half-dozen peach, apple, and pear trees neatly aligned down a sloping hill. His cattle dog Hondo trotted through the thick of them, covered in mud and shit from his daily messing with the cows. Despite all Quinn’s attempts, man cannot change a dog’s instincts. Hondo was a tough, strong Australian shepherd with two different-colored eyes, one of the smartest animals he’d ever known.

  “I found this place in Tupelo,” Quinn said. “Actually, Lillie found it. It’s a nice facility not far from the mall. Lillie checked out the staff and called some folks at Tupelo PD for recs.”

  “Well, we can’t force her,” Jean said. “You know how Caddy can get. You force her into something and she’s gonna take another path. Luke said it has to be her idea.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, Quinn Colson,” Jean said. “This hasn’t been easy. She’d been so good. Done so well with coming back last time. I thought all this was over. And now I’m back raising Jason. I love that boy, but I’m not his mother.”

  “I guess it’s time for the finger-pointing and tears,” Quinn said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Intervention.”

  Jean put her hand to her mouth, nodding and thinking. After a few moments, she said, “I guess we should bring in Diane Tull, too. Boom and Lillie. Ophelia, of course.”

  “Maybe not Ophelia.”

  “Why’s that? She’s Caddy’s friend.”

  “Have you forgotten about the steak dinner?” Quinn said. “That knife thrown in my kitchen wall?”

  “Can you blame her?” Jean said. “You just told her that you didn’t have deep feelings for her. That you didn’t ever see y’all getting married. Ophelia wasn’t trying to hit you with that damn knife. She was just trying to make a point.”

  “Appreciate that, Momma.”

  “OK,” she said, still thinking about the list. “Well, Jason can’t be there, but he can write a letter.”

  “Which Jason?”

  “The good one.”

  “You don’t think her own father should be there?”

  “Jason Colson hasn’t earned a place at our table,” Jean said. “He forfeited that right about twenty years ago to go chase tail around Hollywood and race dirt bikes in the desert.”

  “Or he could have stayed in Jericho and been hung from the tallest tree by a motorcycle-riding group of thugs,” Quinn said. “And have all of us threatened and harassed. Things were more complicated then and you know it.”

  Jean Colson shrugged and looked out at the field, out at the orchard, where Hondo had disappeared. Soon Quinn heard scratching at the back kitchen door. And Jean got up, walked to the door, and let in the dog. Quinn told her she better not, on account of the dog being covered in cow shit and most likely heading right for the couch to take a rest.

  “Then why do you let him in this house?” Jean said.

  “After I hose him down,” Quinn said. “That dog can’t resist cow shit.”

  “Not a lot of difference between a dog and a man.”

  Quinn raised his coffee mug. “So when?”

  “Sooner, the better?” Jean said.

  “Tonight?”

  She nodded with a weak half smile and turned back to the farm sink, nearly overflowing with soap bubbles, and continued with the dishes. From the window, Quinn could see way out in the pasture to the silhouette of his father, working on that old cherry-red Firebird. The older man’s body bent over the engine, taking inventory of rusted parts that he didn’t have the money to replace.

  • • •

  Lillie Virgil had already had a hell of a morning even before coming on the day shift. Her three-year-old Rose had woken up at a quarter to five, screaming and terrified with a nightmare, and then after Lillie had gotten her calm, the phone rang, waking the child again, crying and wanting Lillie. She finally said to hell with it, getting up, making breakfast for them both, and then, before they were headed out the door to day care, a plate of eggs and fruit got dumped across Lillie’s uniform. Change of clothes, change of attitude, and race across town, and she was still late by fifteen minutes. Her hair was damp from the shower but pulled back into a neat bun; she was wearing a pair of Levi’s and a fresh uniform shirt, the one with the star on the pocket and the embroidered title Assistant Sheriff, under a warm satiny jacket with TIBBEHAH SHERIFF on the back.

  The big door of the County Barn was open, and inside the metal-frame building she saw her vehicle up on a lift and Boom Kimbrough under it with an orange bucket. The barn smelled like gasoline, diesel, and engine grease, the place where all the county’s vehicles were fueled up and maintained and where backhoes, bulldozers, and mountains of crushed rocks sat waiting for the roads that haven’t been paved yet.

  “Don’t smoke,” he said. “I’m draining out the gas.”

  “Fuel pump?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Boom said in his deep but somewhat soft voice for a man who was six-foot-six and two hundred and sixty pounds. Boom had dark skin and a wide, flat face. He moved slowly, with a lot of purpose, and spoke in careful, deliberate ways, often communicating more with his eyes than his mouth. One of his arms had been severed at the elbow while delivering water for the National Guard in Iraq. He wore a prosthetic hand with fittings for various tools he needed as a mechanic.

  “How long?”

  “Right after lunch,” Boom said. “Unless there’s more.”

  “There’s always more.”

  “Not always,” Boom said. “Fuel pumps in these Jeeps are always going out. Surprised this didn’t happen two years ago.”

  “Maybe I’ll get a new vehicle?”

  “Doubt it,” Boom said. “New sheriff said he was cutting the budget. Figure my ass is gone.”

  “You work for the county supervisors.”

  “You know how I got this job,” Boom said, fi
tting a flat-bladed tool into his hand, reaching up under the Jeep, and scraping away. He used another hand to twist and pry and he came down with a fuel-soaked pump in his hand, dripping gas.

  “I’m gone, too,” Lillie said.

  “What did Rusty say?”

  “Doesn’t matter what Rusty says,” Lillie said. “Quinn’s out and so am I. Besides, I’d really rather not raise my daughter in Tibbehah County. Both of my parents are dead. Most of my kin who have sense have moved away. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Fixing shit.”

  “Besides fixing shit?”

  Boom wandered over to a long tool bench and set the bad pump on a dirty rag. He craned a light overhead and began to write down something in a notebook. “My dad’s alive, most my brothers and sisters still live here. I leave and things don’t get done at my dad’s farm. At the church.”

  “Screw ’em.”

  “Way it works.”

  “How the hell could this goddamn place do this to Quinn?” Lillie said, slipping her hands deep into her coat pockets. A chill coming in through the open bay door, despite heaters burning bright from the ceiling.

  “You hear from Miss Jean?” Boom said.

  “About the intervention?” Lillie said.

  Boom nodded. He crossed his good arm over his chest and held the upper part of what was left of the bad one. Behind him, all of his tools had a place, gleaming silver and bright in the lamplight. On this year’s Playboy calendar, Miss December wore a red bikini and frolicked poolside.

  “You going?” Boom asked.

  “I don’t think Caddy Colson gives a shit what I have to say.”

  “But Miss Jean—”

  “OK,” Lillie said. “Son of a bitch.”

  “All you got to do is be there,” Boom said. “No one is asking you to hold hands and sing and shit.”

  “I guarantee there will be plenty of church folks around,” Lillie said. “Quinn and Jean don’t think they know about Caddy and where she’s been. But, come on. They all know she’s a mess, back on drugs. I heard she was wasted out at The River right before Thanksgiving. She was unraveling. Couldn’t keep her shit straight.”