The Blackstone Commentaries

by Rob Riggan

  How long ago it seemed, sitting on the porch of that cabin talking dreams to Dru while shadows rose from the valleys; how fresh and young it seemed now, and hopeful. How utterly irretrievable.

  Who was to blame? Junior? Harlan? No. This was one job you couldn’t survive on goodwill. He’d always known that. You couldn’t avoid politics in anything. Anyone who said you could was a liar. Then there was luck. A little was essential, though that was tough to admit because there was nothing you could do about it, especially when it ran out.

  He found himself looking through a small pane of glass in a steel door into a brightly lit, square room painted a pale cream color. Large lamps, their bulbs enclosed in steel mesh like in a gymnasium, hung from a high ceiling. In the middle of the room was a huge steel-barred cage, in which was another cage with a bench Winthrop Reedy had occupied not too many nights before. Dugan had seen a lot of men sitting on that bench and scarcely bothered to recall who had been there unless he had to. Yet young Reedy had stuck with him. Liz was strong—she’d survive, even come out ahead somehow, at least to all appearances, he thought. No one would see her loss if she didn’t want them to, though it was irrevocable, too. But Winthrop had looked bludgeoned; too much had happened for him to begin to comprehend in so short a time. Dugan felt a special sympathy for him, deeper than he might have had for anyone else who fell on hard times but wasn’t really criminal. Deep enough to be personal, which troubled him because he didn’t quite know why. Or if he did, maybe he didn’t want to admit it. He doubted that Reedy, like so many people he encountered, had ever questioned the expectations placed on him, or their source. He was not like Reedy that way; he knew that. But he easily could have been. Still, that wasn’t why the young man bothered him. No. Reedy had also wanted something, wanted something so bad it damn near killed him. So why aspire to anything at all?

  In one corner of the jail, a toilet rose from the floor like a giant stewpot. The smell of poverty was in that room, a smell that had nothing to do with cleanliness, that wasn’t like something rotten or unwashed but was still offensive. The smell emanated from inside and, like the hunger that drove it, would never go away, even if the poverty did. It was a reminder of how close they all were to the edge, where the conceits of civilized mankind could no longer hide an abyss. He could smell it in himself if he tried, and it didn’t take much effort. Until recently, he’d been ashamed of it, and the shame had come into full bloom the night he’d beaten Elmore Willis, had wanted to kill him. Elmore was the wrong man, and he, Dugan, had known it. More than poverty, the smell was the stench of powerlessness.

  Turning away from the little window, he made his way across the empty nighttime waiting room to his office. It was time to go home. He’d been staying later and later recently, though he didn’t need to. He glanced at the white Stetson on the hat rack, then at the derby hanging on another hook beneath it. He’d worn that derby only twice, and with each passing day the likelihood of his ever wearing it again, of his having that kind of nerve, diminished. He blushed. All life has to be lived on the edge of pain or laughter, take your choice, he thought. If he weren’t at the center of this monster nonsense, he knew he’d be laughing just as hard as anyone else. A woolybooger!

  He blushed again, as though he’d personally made that announcement to the press and the whole damn world, just like he’d dumped whiskey at the courthouse. It was the gift for laughter, the ability—after two horrific nights of near panic of a large portion of a North Carolina county, two days of news updates and finally, late Wednesday morning, the newspaper interview with “Mr. X,” the woolybooger himself, something Harlan, like Dugan, knew all along had to come, damn Harlan’s eyes—to admit they were fools that he especially loved about these people, among the likes of whom he’d been born and whom he tried to serve. Only now it was tearing him to pieces. This monster business felt like the coup de grâce.

  On his desk was a memorandum from the clerk of superior court confirming a telephone conversation the preceding Friday in which he’d learned that, due to the expected impact a further delay of the trial of Dr. Martin Pemberton would have on “the continuing smooth operation of county government,” it was now scheduled to begin on Friday, October 26, which was less than two weeks away. That left scarcely two more weeks before the election. The Democrats had finally posted a candidate. He didn’t even want to think how they were going to run their campaign.

  Dugan had called the solicitor for superior court, told him they’d tracked Ronnie Patton—the alleged shooter who blasted the Carvers off the road in April—out west, probably somewhere in Arizona, it was believed. If they found him and brought him back, Patton could make a big difference—if he were to be believed, of course. The solicitor had listened politely, then told him how, given the circumstances, he’d agreed to the new trial date, tough though it was, and didn’t think the judge would go for another continuation. The judge was old Tidewater, he explained. Seeing Pemberton was up for reelection, the judge felt it was better to get this thing resolved—“get it behind us,” was what the solicitor said he’d said. Then neither he nor Dugan spoke for a long moment, reading between the lines. But the solicitor didn’t think Charlie would need any more evidence. Mary Stacy was all they needed. “Solid, Charlie, a fine piece of investigative work,” the solicitor said.

  I’m now seen as vulnerable. Hell, I’ve always been. That’s what the show was about, the theater: boots, fancy suit, dumping whiskey on the square, even the Dodge. So I might continue to believe in a possibility, and they might, too. “Did you call the Carvers’ lawyer over in Morganton?” Dugan asked.

  “Yes, I did,” the solicitor replied. “He understood.”

  I bet. “Did you call the Carvers?”

  Silence for a moment. “I believe their lawyer said he was going to do that.”

  “Perhaps I’d best call, just in case?”

  “Yes, I expect it wouldn’t hurt,” the solicitor conceded. Not a bad fellow, really, much better than the stooge in district court. This one actually won cases. But he also knew on what side his political bread was buttered. He’d do what he could for Charlie, now that he’d acquiesced to all he had to. If he could win, he would.

  Though Dugan had never said it aloud—hadn’t even breathed it to Dru because he was loathe to admit it to himself—he had an inordinate sense of smell. Sometimes it seemed like he could smell the past lying close to the surface of the present, smells like old dust heavy with heat and sun, and maybe horses and mules where none now existed. Or maybe a killing, the sour stench of sudden fear in a room, of sex, passion and maybe blood. No proof, just something in the air. Until he’d gone to Alabama a few weeks earlier, Dugan had believed the law was his power. Without it and the direction and force it gave him, what good was he? What use as a human being? Now he knew his passion was his real power—his maddening insistence on being as honest as possible, and being true to himself and his beliefs about the world, and being courageous enough to act that way while not becoming too tight-assed in the process. All because of something that, like his sense of smell, you couldn’t prove, couldn’t demonstrate. You couldn’t say, See! Here I am. My power, the law, is indisputable. I will not, cannot, be touched by shame.

  Growing up, he’d heard people say that what was lost during the War Between the States was a sense of ownership, not of humans—which most, whether they believed it or not, said they deserved to lose—but something else. When the war was over and that thundering, openly violent world had departed, it left behind the reconstituted rule of law, but law imposed, no longer mutually forged. By going to war and losing, the South had abdicated that mutual ownership. The reassertion of white, economic and any other kind of dominance ever since—the violence, the underlying shame, like his own—had less to do with black people and slavery and soldiers and battles than with what they symbolized: loss, a failed effort to claim, or reclaim, something of their own.

  He recalled the old preacher throwing all his weight behind
a finger one Sunday, pointing down on a little congregation somewhere up in Tennessee: “Moses looked out across that riot of self-indulgence, he did, and saw that little golden calf—it was never real big like some say, and it didn’t need to be. He saw it rising out of the dust of that steaming-hot orgy at the foot of Mount Sinai, and he smashed God’s tablets into itty-bitty pieces, such was his fury. ‘Now you will get only what He believes you deserve,’ he told them. ‘You’ve lost your claim!’ ”

  Dugan actually believed that about himself and the people he lived with, only he didn’t believe they’d lost it in any war. They’d never had it. The war only hung out what they’d never had for all to see, made the shame, the lack of respect and self-respect, finally unbearable. It was just nuts the way they went about trying to reclaim it. So he’d tried another way, the only one he knew, and ended up losing his course. Now he was afraid he’d lost belief in the law, too, or if not the belief, the sense of possibility it offered. The law was somewhere out there still, as was his commitment to a way of being he adored, but it was eluding him now. What, then, for all his passion? It was like the end of a love affair; the world was proving itself a desolate place.

  “Mr. Setzer’s here, sheriff.”

  He hadn’t even noticed the time. The sun was almost down, and shadows were taking over the streets. He could feel an autumn chill through the open window. He’d called Herb Setzer down at Damascus Chicken that morning, and his secretary said he was out of town for the day. But when Charlie had told her what it was about, she’d called back about an hour later saying Mr. Setzer could be there around six-thirty, if that was all right. He would come downtown and save the sheriff a trip to the factory.

  Herb Setzer was one of the two brothers who owned Damascus Chicken, the one who oversaw the day-to-day physical operation and had the practical sense of how things worked, or ought to. He entered the office with an insurance adjuster in tow, the two bringing in a cool smell of evening. “Sorry for the late hour, Charlie.”

  Dugan indicated the empty chairs across his desk, and the men seated themselves. He knew Setzer, a Republican Party man, about fifty, hardworking, a bit pudgy, bald. He wore a sports coat and tie over a white shirt with a pocketful of pens and pencils. The adjuster, from Durham, was wearing slacks and a sports coat, too, a light beige coat against a nice blue shirt. He even had a tan to match his seedy athletic appearance, and a look in his eye that suggested he’d seen just about everything the world had to offer. The way he took his seat, like he was born to such surroundings and couldn’t be intimidated, told Dugan a lot. “You were in law enforcement?” he asked. The adjuster smiled. “I received a call from Pennsylvania this morning, Herb,” Dugan began.

  “That’s what my secretary said. From the state police up there.”

  “Yes. They said they found one of your trailers back in the pucker-brush at some old coal mine. The roof was peeled right off. The smell of those chickens—what, twelve-or-so thousand?—was so bad they had to go in with masks. They said every buzzard east of the Mississippi had come to the banquet, that that’s how they found it. And because I didn’t know one was missing, I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. You mind filling me in?” He let a little irritation show.

  “Charlie, I apologize,” Setzer said. “I was told that trailer had been hijacked—state police up there told me themselves—and I was disinclined to make an insurance claim for it, because it was old and my rates would have gone up more than the damn thing was worth.”

  “Well, now they have a warrant out for the driver.”

  “That Skinner fellow?” the adjuster asked.

  Dugan turned to the man. “Did you know about this?”

  The adjuster nodded, the two men holding each other’s gaze a moment, sizing each other up. These pissing contests get old, Dugan thought.

  “I talked to Frank here right after I got the call from Skinner, oh, maybe three or four weeks ago, when it happened,” Setzer explained. “I just didn’t see any need to bother you. It had been hijacked, for all I knew, and in Pennsylvania, not North Carolina.”

  “Might have had a leg up on this if you’d called, Herb, just to keep me filled in.” He wouldn’t have bought any damn story about a stolen trailer load of chickens, that’s for sure, not from Skinner. “We’ve been looking at Skinner for other reasons.”

  “Yes, I saw in the paper he was involved in some fracas with that young Reedy and his wife. Well, I am truly sorry, Charlie. Not only does it turn out it wasn’t stolen, I’m facing a huge bill for the cleanup.”

  “I expect he’s somewhere here in the county, Herb, but I don’t know for sure,” Dugan said, beginning to feel somewhat mollified.

  The adjuster broke in. “What makes those Pennsylvania officials so sure Skinner’s responsible?”

  “Seems about the same time that trailer was reported hijacked, they found the remains of a trailer roof lying in the road under a railroad trestle near Goshen, Virginia,” Dugan said. “They couldn’t put it all together until they found the trailer and chickens.”

  “Where the hell is Goshen?”

  “In the mountains above Lexington, thirty or so miles north of I-81. And a long way from Pennsylvania, I might add.”

  “He was supposed to be going to New York. What was he doing in Goshen?”

  “Skinner?” Dugan shrugged. “Anyone’s guess. Woman, maybe. We catch him, you’re sure free to ask.”

  “Ever since Skinner called reporting it hijacked, Charlie, I’ve been asking myself why anyone would steal a truckload of chickens,” Setzer said. “Not like whiskey or cigarettes. In a way, I’m relieved they found it.”

  “Where did he say it was stolen?”

  “Near Harrisburg, at a motel,” Setzer said. “At the time, he told me he went to sleep late, woke up and found the trailer gone. State police confirmed that’s what he told them. Said he called them soon as he discovered it. Hijacking’s not all that rare up there, I guess, and they confirmed he was pretty upset. He’d been doing all right for us, and I guess he was afraid I was going to fire him.”

  “Did you?” the adjuster asked.

  “I didn’t have any reason to doubt the man. Anyhow, he resigned a week or two back. I assumed he just felt bad about the whole thing. Amazing he drove that far with no roof without being caught, but it was nighttime.”

  “Now, if he said he’d broken down on Flatbush Avenue …,” the adjuster observed, slouching in his chair a bit, beginning to enjoy himself.

  “Where?” Setzer asked, annoyed by the introduction of levity. The more he thought about it, Dugan saw, the more upset Setzer was becoming. Well, it’s somebody else’s turn.

  “Up in New York. Kids’ll strip anything that moves. You told me this Skinner was a good driver. Any prison record, Herb? Debts? Did you check when you hired him?” The adjuster folded his hands over his stomach, his questions revealing polite but definitely amused curiosity. This was shaping up to be one for the books.

  Setzer looked doubtfully at Dugan, began to say something, then stopped himself.

  “Well?” the adjuster prompted.

  “Well, Frank, he buried this ol’ boy alive at the county fair this past summer, made thousands of dollars on it, so I assumed his credit was good.”

  “He what?” The adjuster turned his look of astonishment from Setzer to Dugan. “Where am I?”

  “He served time in Burnsville,” Dugan added, suddenly enjoying himself.

  Dugan followed Setzer and the adjuster out to the parking lot, where they all shook hands, then watched the brake lights of Setzer’s Ford go bright in the darkness as it glided out of the parking lot onto North Charlotte Street. Setzer didn’t want to bother the law unless there was something to bother the law about. Dugan shook his head. How many times have I heard that?

  “Sheriff?” the radio operator called as he reentered the jail. “Junior called in, believes he’s found Skinner.”

  “Where, Ranny?” Why does this feel bad?<
br />
  “In Jessup, at Puma’s house. He called Stamey and J. B. for backup.”

  “Does anybody call me anymore, not to mention wait for my decision?”

  “Why, sheriff, you were out in the parking lot with Mr. Setzer there.”

  “Get on that horn and tell Junior not to do a goddamn thing till I get there, hear? Not even move! Where’s Eddie?”

  “Junior was getting out of the car when he called, sheriff. Don’t believe I can raise him.”

  XLI

  Dugan

  “County Three, County Three …”

  Silence.

  “County Four, you there?”

  Eddie was driving, the needle creeping up over a hundred, then falling back, the silence between Dugan in the rear seat and his driver tense, smothering the prattle of the radio.

  He could see it was taking all Eddie’s concentration just to drive. There’d been a shower, and the highway was still slick in places. It seemed darker than dark itself, everything feeling on the far edge of control. He saw Eddie lean forward slightly in an effort to clarify the world rushing out of the darkness at them, as though he were half-expecting it all to fly to pieces.

  Dugan was dying to crack a window so the autumn night might pour into the cabin, wash away this feeling of blind rushing, make it all okay again, the way it once and for so long had been, back when they could go looking for the top of the world, when they had the peace and confidence to do that.