The Blackstone Commentaries

by Rob Riggan

  Something always felt grand and ghostly about that Dodge. It was part of the theater, Eddie knew, part of what Charlie understood he had to be in order to do what he had to do. Their high beams bathing the taxi, they sat there idling a moment, just for effect, the man at the lectern staring at them a little harder with each passing second. The old man with the cane stopped shouting into the grill and came tottering back just as the taxi driver, a scrawny little man, threw open his door and marched back toward the other car, shielding his eyes with a hand and hollering, “Turn them goddamn lights down!” He hollered like every scrawny taxi driver Eddie’d ever met, which seemed like most of them.

  Because of the bright lights, the taxi driver couldn’t see the antenna, though he might have heard it thunking gently on the rear quarter panel. Nor did he see that single gold star sticking up from the front bumper. He didn’t see anything, he was so mad. Eddie kept the high beams on, the motor idling, because Charlie didn’t tell him otherwise. Charlie got that way sometimes, like he had to prove something.

  The taxi driver pushed through the glare and came to an abrupt halt a couple of feet from Eddie’s door. At the same moment, Charlie eased the rear door open.

  No interior light went on. They always kept it off, so when Charlie emerged, it was like a shadow. Because Charlie was heavy, he seemed less to walk than float toward that suddenly very unhappy-looking man. Eddie could see by the way the taxi driver craned his neck, Charlie was a lot bigger than he expected. Eddie had lowered his window but kept his gaze straight ahead.

  “Hear you been carrying folks out to Pinetown, Lester,” Charlie said, his voice almost impossibly soft, the way he could make it, but conversational, no trace of recrimination. Eddie glanced over and saw Richard Skinner staring from under the awning. “Don’t know anything about that knifing at Natty Moon’s last Saturday, I suppose?”

  “No, sir,” the taxi driver answered, mad once more, Eddie could tell, but now at himself for even being there, like he’d screwed up again.

  “I heard there was a little card playing on a felt-top table, and a bit of whiskey, and one or two men there with guns ought not to have been carrying because they are convicted felons. Gaius Ford, maybe. I heard, too, one of them, not Gaius, got taken out there by taxi. That could be accessory.”

  “Don’t know nothing about it,” the driver said, cramming his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. He glanced wistfully at his taxi and the little old man peering out the rear window.

  “Been a little whiskey finding its way down into Damascus in the back of taxis again, I hear, too, but I don’t suppose you know anything about that.”

  “No, sir.” The voice was sullen and defiant at the same time, like a child who’s been caught and is just tired of the hassle. Eddie saw Lester try to meet Charlie’s gaze and fail.

  “You and I need to talk, Lester. Come see me,” Charlie said, dismissing him as he turned toward the funeral awning, where Skinner stood behind the lectern, still watching. It was as though Lester had never existed, but that was Charlie’s way when he was in a mood like that.

  Charlie was wearing his three-piece suit and a string tie like Bat Masterson on TV, the boots custom made in Nacona, Texas, and that night, just for the fair, the derby instead of the Stetson. It was the second and last time Eddie would ever see him wear it. He’d watched Charlie hesitate a moment, then yank it off the rack and head out with a new energy. Now Eddie saw why, saw Skinner troubling over it: Nobody wears a derby anymore—it’s like the cartoons! Skinner obviously wanted to laugh, but Eddie saw then it was just what Charlie wanted. The man might not know in time not to laugh. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter.

  “You running this … burying?” The voice was gentle.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie echoed, like something was missing, as he stopped not a foot away from Skinner. The contrast was something, Charlie’s big face so close to that little bony one, his ears large and a bit cauliflowered out from under the derby. Eddie could see Skinner still wanted to laugh, was fighting the natural volition of his lips because he was scared, too. Charlie never gave a hint of emotion in such situations, not even the wound-up kind you find so often in drinkers and young lawmen. Just that too-soft voice and Charlie’s incredible politeness and an indefinable sense that everything was all emotion or none at all. Eddie saw Skinner shudder, then saw Charlie’s gaze wander over to the glow showing at the top of the chimney. “You the one they call the Living Dead?”

  “That’s my business name.”

  “I see.” Eddie wondered if Skinner had ever encountered such politeness in a person of authority before. He could tell Skinner’s entire body had gone tight on him, like he was waiting to be hit. “So what’s your name?”

  “They call me L. D.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  At that, Skinner turned his gaze off into the night, and Eddie, as he and Charlie had seen before until it was more than old, saw the rage burn its way up into the man’s chest and out onto his face. “Richard Skinner.”

  “From Oswena, Tennessee, like it says on the door of your vehicle there?”

  “No.”

  “No. Harold Skinner’s boy from up in Terpville. Knew your daddy from my days up there as a deputy, before he got the diabetes. I was sorry to hear about that. Who do you have stuck under the ground over here, Richard?” Charlie moved past him toward the grill, the thought of paying two dollars never entering his mind, Eddie knew, nor should it have.

  Eddie saw Skinner hesitate, probably wondering who the goddamn hell Charlie thought he was, getting a freebie, and deciding not to go after him but to remain beside the podium, like any proper businessman. He had his dignity, after all.

  “So, Richard, what’s this boy's name?” Charlie said, still not raising his voice, still soft and almost polite, though he was several feet from Skinner by then. It was amazing how that voice carried.

  “Julius Lippett.”

  “Julius,” Charlie called down through the grill. “How are you doing, son?”

  “I was fine till you come and woke me up,” the boy yelled back, mad as hell. “A fella can’t get no sleep down here for the people coming all the time and crying, ‘Julius? How are you doing?’ or ‘Julius? You there?’ No, by God, I ain’t! It’s just my dead voice you hear! L. D.! You got to regulate these hours!”

  “This is Charlie Dugan, sheriff of Blackstone County. I just wanted to check in on you.”

  “Oh, sure! And I’m Lazarus hisself. Now lemme sleep!”

  Charlie lifted himself from the grill, the look on his face dark. “Richard?” he said, moving into the shadows toward Skinner.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie mimicked. “How much are you paying that boy?”

  “Two hundred dollars cash.”

  “You give it to him before he went under?”

  “Nah, he’ll get it when he gets out. We signed a paper.”

  “Can he read?”

  “Yes, he can read. He’s got a valid North Carolina driver’s license, too.”

  “Let’s get something clear, Richard. If I knew what you were doing before you did it, it wouldn’t have been done. Now, I know you got a lot of money riding on this, but that youngster better be all right when he comes up. And he better get every penny of his two hundred dollars and any expenses. I’ll be here to see to that.”

  “Fine, sheriff. You be here. We’re going to have a gala resurrection.”

  “And Richard.” The voice was softer, if that was possible—Charlie had a way of pressing in on a man in all his finery, though not even beginning to touch him or threaten him, but everything, even the clothes, a threat. He said something Eddie didn’t hear because someone shouted from down the Midway and broke the spell.

  “It’s a free …,” Skinner started to reply, but just like the taxi driver, he didn’t exist anymore. Charlie was on his way back to the car, and the rear door was opening, and the light that didn’t
come on when the doors opened didn’t come on. Eddie slipped the shift into drive and touched the gas, and with hardly the slightest rise in sound from that big engine, the Dodge eased forward.

  “Just drive for a while, Eddie,” Charlie said as they rolled away across the fairgrounds. “Christ, how did I let this one get by me?” Then Eddie heard him slump back in the seat.

  It was almost three hours later when they glided into a fading nighttime Damascus toward the distant courthouse square. The silhouette of the courthouse cupola and its surrounding oak trees was emerging from an orange vapor against a pale streak of sky. Eddie had the window down partway. Charlie had said nothing since they left the fairgrounds. The air smelled of rain.

  “I didn’t like his goddamn attitude,” Charlie suddenly declared from the backseat.

  “He’s a Skinner,” Eddie replied gently, relieved Charlie was talking at last, though something still didn’t feel right. “Does it surprise you? None of those Terpville Skinners is ever too easy with the law. Nobody in Terpville is.” But Eddie knew it wasn’t just a Skinner thing, or Terpville, because people were generally like that up in the hills, where Damascus was a million miles away and should stay that way, as far as they were concerned. Charlie had gotten along just fine with those folks. He still did all right up there as a rule, especially in elections. No, it was this particular Skinner, Richard or Living Dead or L. D. or whatever he called himself. Somehow, right away, the man had gotten under Charlie’s skin, though even then Eddie wondered, deep down, if it wasn’t really the Carver thing.

  “He’s going to be trouble. I want to run a check with Raleigh when we get back. One of the Skinners spent some hard time at Burnsville.”

  Eddie remembered, too, that one had been sentenced to prison up there, but still he tried to ease things. “Sounds like he found the perfect idiot to go under.”

  “How can they even call that collection of chiselers and whores a fair anymore?” Charlie said. Eddie knew Charlie was really upset when he started talking about the old days. “Idiots pay three dollars just to get through the gate, then ten times that on nothing. You can get just about any poor sonuvabitch out of the mountains to do just about anything for two hundred dollars. You see that livestock barn? Think what it was! Now all you have is one pathetic little Angus steer. And it’s going to be raffled off by the chamber, then butchered by someone more interested in pussy. Remember how it used to be, Eddie, the mule-and-tractor parade right up North Charlotte Street, and all the barns, livestock and brand-new farm equipment? Dru’s old man could look at that stuff for hours. I used to tag along when we were first married.”

  They were pulling into the parking lot next to the jail. Before they even stopped, Charlie threw open the door. “Don’t make any plans for Sunday evening. We’re going to that resurrection,” he said as he glided off toward the office.

  Eddie didn’t even look at him. He sat facing the little grassy hill that climbed up under the oak trees to the courthouse, as though somehow the cure to his deep uneasiness might be there, if he could just see it. A solitary drop of rain splattered on the glass in front of him.

  “Eddie?” he heard.

  He looked across the parking lot, where Charlie stood in silhouette at the foot of the steps, half turned toward him. “Yes, sheriff?”

  “You know, if he’d laughed at me …”

  “I know.” But I don’t want to, Eddie told himself.

  “Anyhow, I told Skinner that when this is over, he’s not to come back to Blackstone County.”

  “Jesus, he grew up here!”

  “Well, that’s what I did,” and he turned away.

  XVII

  Dugan

  It started raining just after dawn, about the time Eddie went home, the clouds rolling down out of the mountains. In the mountains, rain was cozy, and Dugan loved it. Even in Damascus, with the lights on, the office full of the smell of hot coffee, the rain coming down in the streets and cars hissing by the open windows, it could be peaceful and somehow comforting. But Blackstone County ran almost sixty miles from west to east, and the east reminded him of no place on earth more than Mississippi, especially on a rainy day: flat, the woods and empty fields rolling away into a sodden melding of gray sky and green earth and red clay that ran down the roadside embankments and along rutted paths.

  Crumbling, abandoned cabins and the isolated ghosts of trees emerged through the mist. He was alone on the highway, alone in the big silver Dodge, alone in that signature of his tenancy as high sheriff, alone in a world from which it felt all color was being slowly, irrevocably drained, and he couldn’t stop it. Running on maybe three hours of sleep, he was furious with himself for Skinner the night before—something in him wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let anything go anymore, it seemed.

  With scarcely a flash of brake lights, the car swung off the highway onto an unpaved road, fishtailed on the greasy surface, then caught as gravel and mud clattered in the wheel wells. It wasn’t unusual for him to go off without Eddie, not when he had a particularly delicate problem to solve or simply wanted to be by himself. But it wasn’t like the former days when he’d been a deputy up in the mountains. Everything had seemed possible then; the solitude had sung to him, had been a way of life. Not like this day, driving into his memories, into that Alabama country with its feeling of desecration.

  He’d been an idiot the night before, and even if only Eddie saw it, it rankled. He’d been dealing with people like Skinner all his working life, so why was this particular Skinner so damn irritating? He shook his head in an effort to clear his mind. Lester, the taxi driver, now he totally mishandled that. He didn’t have to treat Lester that way, act like the Law Almighty, shove the man’s face in it just because he happened to be there at the wrong time. He’d always gotten along with Lester. Lester was like so many of the people with whom he had to deal. Being sheriff had once seemed more than a holding action. It still could be, he supposed, if he could only believe what others said.

  After several miles, the fields gave way to young second- and third-growth hardwoods, then scrub pines, the grayness of the day less corrosive as this new landscape began to enfold him with anticipation. He’d gone and found Lester first thing that morning, waded across the uncut grass and weeds of the yard to that bungalow Lester rented down on Railroad Street near the chicken factory, his pant legs wet before he got to the rotten steps leading to the porch and the front door. Lester, wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, his hair all shaggy from the pillow, had appeared at the screen door scratching himself. In an instant, the memory and wariness were there.

  “Lester, I was a tad hard on you last night. I had other things on my mind, I’m afraid.” Like Skinner and that boy he’d buried, but he didn’t say it. Still, it was an apology of sorts, especially for Dugan, who wasn’t known for it. He didn’t usually make mistakes on the job. He stood on the porch, not humble but not obviously insistent, as he often was through his body language, if nothing else. He wasn’t expecting to be invited in even if it did occur to the other man, which it didn’t. Dugan was accustomed to that, and this day even felt comfortable with it. He knew that screen door, that gateway, was a vital illusion to the man behind it, and, call it penance, but he wasn’t allowing himself to be irritated by illusions this day. So he saw Lester’s face clear. “I do have a couple of questions, though, if you don’t mind,” he added gently.

  Then, neither contrite nor angry anymore, resigned perhaps, but not so anyone could prove, just half awake, Lester listened while Dugan asked if he’d taken anyone out to Pinetown the night the Carvers’ car was shot up.

  Lester scratched himself some more, then shook his head. “Hell, sheriff, that was weeks ago. I can scarcely remember anything from yesterday. I run a business.” He glanced out where his four-door Ford sedan, “County Taxi” painted on its front doors, was parked on the edge of a huge puddle. Nineteen sixty-five, Dugan figured, following Lester’s gaze, a hard 1965, judging by the dents and the faded pain
t. Dugan listened to the rain on the tin roof overhead, listened to Lester’s heavy breathing and waited. The two men looked past each other a few moments more, consciously not being assertive, though keenly aware of precisely where the other was.

  “Yeah, well, I did take the fire chief’s wife out there earlier that evening. She’s something else again, I tell you. If I were him, I sure wouldn’t go to school so much.”

  “Maybe that’s why he goes.”

  “Ha!” Lester looked reflectively at the floor, nodded and almost gave in to a grin.

  “See Billy Gaius Ford’s car there that night?”

  The eyes rose slowly to meet his own, red around the edges like a dog’s, red from hard living and never enough sleep, still not angry or contrite but calculating as they took Dugan in. That was better—it was always better if a man felt like he could stand on his own two feet, if you didn’t take him by surprise and remind him how helpless he really could be, if he could lie to you if he wanted. Looking down again at the floor, then back into the shadows of the bungalow with its hint of sour milk and bleach, Lester said, “That might have been a Monte Carlo I saw.”

  “Thank you, Lester.”

  “But I won’t swear to nothin’, sheriff!”

  Dugan, already wading to his car across the uncut grass and weeds, had waved without looking back.