Savage Rising is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Alibi Ebook Original
Copyright © 2017 by Richard Ridley
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN 9780425284056
Cover design: Tatiana Sayig
Cover images: Shutterstock
randomhousebooks.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By C. Hoyt Caldwell
About the Author
Chapter 1
The caved-in part of Parnell Carson’s skull was in the shape of a horse’s hoof. He was about as dead as you’d expect a man would be with that kind of defect in his head. Deputy Dani Savage stood at the back of the stall and settled in to the summer-baked odor of blood, sweat, and horse shit. Her slight frame barely made a depression in the thick layer of hay that covered the ground. If not for the heft of her boots, there’d be no evidence at all she had even been there once she concluded her investigation and vacated the premises.
It wasn’t often she regretted being first on the scene. She was the most ambitious lawman—female or otherwise—in the state of Tennessee and quite possibly the entire Southeast. But on this occasion, being the first to arrive gave her pause on her choice of career. More unsettling than the condition of Carson’s skull was the fact that his pants were around his ankles and the rather unimpressive erection he’d died with was still reaching for the rafters.
Sam Walker, owner of the barn, had discovered Carson at daybreak. When the pig farmer first arrived that morning, Cherry Pie, the red grade horse now roaming the pasture, paid little attention to the lifeless body she had created. The fat mare simply chewed away on a mouthful of crimson-colored hay, most likely catching a sizable buzz from the alcohol content of the blood seeping out of the dead man’s mouth and ears.
“He’s dead,” Walker said, stating the obvious. The farmer had sweated through his overworn Charlie Daniels T-shirt and was giving off a stench that was in an odoriferous brawl with every other stink in the barn.
“I was leaning toward that conclusion myself,” Dani said. She attempted to save herself from the swirling offending odors by placing a cupped hand over her nose.
“Told him this would happen. A half-dozen times, I told him. Maybe more.”
“Parnell frequented your barn, did he?”
“At least three times a week. He must’ve put it to my stock a hundred times over the last year or so.”
“Put it to?”
Walker blushed and nervously stepped back. He wanted to turn and run from what he’d just said. “That’s the mixed company way of saying he fucked my animals.” He blushed even more. “I only unmixed it because you’re the law. I apologize to your feminine side.” He attempted a smile, but it came across as a pleading grimace. “Don’t tell the missus I cussed in front of you. She’s got her particulars when it comes to foul language and the like in front of a lady like yourself.”
“I ain’t no lady, Sam.” She pointed to Carson’s crotch. “And there ain’t nothing more foul than the torqued-up condition of Parnell’s diminutive penis.” She smiled at Walker. “That’s my mixed company way of saying he’s got a little bitty hard-on.” She stepped closer to the body and examined the point of impact above the ear. “Why didn’t you ever report him for trespassing?”
Walker shrugged. “Didn’t see the point. You said it yourself. His pecker’s pinky-sized. He wasn’t doing no real harm to the animals, and truth be told, I thought it was a problem that would eventually self-correct.” He spat chaw-infused saliva onto the hay-covered ground and then with a brown-stained, toothy grin said, “And self-correct it did.”
Dani turned to him. “It did do that. Still, you could have saved ol’ Parnell from such an embarrassing fate if you’d just reported him for trespassing.”
“Then he’d be alive and embarrassed. Least now he’s a dead deviant that ain’t aware his perversion’s been found out far and wide.”
“Far and wide?”
Walker hesitated before saying, “I put out a tweet-photograph from my phone before I called the 911 line.” He let out an unintentional snicker.
“Well, goddamn, Sam, what the hell?”
Walker, puzzled by the deputy’s indignation, said, “It ain’t every day you find a pervert with a kicked-in head in your barn. His man-pole stretching
out like that. The fella’s still got a smile on his face. That’s a picture tailor-made for them w-w-w-dot folks. You can make money off a thing like that. Somehow. I ain’t exactly sure on that step in the process. The getting paid part.”
“You could have at least let us come in and do an investigation before you let the world know Parnell fancied equestrian relations.”
“What the hell’s equestrian relations?”
“He liked fucking horses.”
“Oh.” Walker worked the mucus out of his throat with a hawk and a snort before spitting it across the stall. “Not to get technical on you, but he preferred pork relations.”
“Pork relations?”
Walker scratched away on his red, scaly jawline. “He liked fucking pigs. He normally passed ol’ Cherry’s stall without a hitch in his step on his way to the pigs out back, but something about that red mare caught his interest last night. She was extra sexy to him or something. He made an unfortunate decision, is what he did.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “ ‘Unfortunate’ is the word for it, Sam. Every disgusting detail is more unfortunate than the last.”
“I ain’t told you the worst part.”
“It gets worse?”
He nodded. “It does. Got a batch of piglets that I swear to the good Lord above has got Carson’s eyes. Spooky as Halloween when those things stare you down.”
Deputy Terry Randle approached the stall, deeply distressed over the sun’s decision to rise. The liquor he’d consumed just four hours earlier was still drowning his liver, and his head was giving in after a long battle with a migraine. But, his state of despair nearly vanished in an instant when he saw Parnell Carson with his pecker out and his skull caved in. He eyed the scene for a beat before he said, “There’s a sight that’ll sober you up quick as shit.”
“He’s dead,” Walker said.
“Dead and funny as fuck,” Randle said with a laugh. His migraine pounded at the back of his eyes, but he shook it off. “He ain’t got but a nub for a dick.”
Dani backed away from the body and turned to Randle. “You look like shit.”
“Well, thank the Christ for letting me know, little deputy. I was afraid you’d go the day without commenting on my appearance.”
Dani chuckled. “Since when did you get so sensitive?”
“Since I got called in two hours before my shift to work a horse-fucker case.”
“And you know it’s a horse-fucker case because…?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you just got here, and all you seen is a body. Could be any number of reasons Parnell’s found himself deceased in Sam’s barn.”
“It’s a dead cracker in a horse stall with his snow-white, pimple-covered ass hanging out. Simple redneck math, Dani. Plus, I follow Sam on Twitter.”
Dani grunted in frustration. “Sam, take that damn tweet down before Parnell’s family sees it.”
“Ain’t no use,” Randle said. “Thing’s been retweeted from here to Timbuktu. Parnell’s own cousin added ‘hashtag mydumbasscousin’ to the tweet.”
Dani sighed. “Well, at least the awkward’s been taken out of notifying the family.”
“Most ways.”
“What do you mean ‘most ways’?” Dani asked.
“Ain’t no daddy to notify, far as I know. Caught a break there,” Randle said. “But, his momma and her folks most likely ain’t caught wind of it yet. Them people are way off the grid. The only tweets they know come with feathers and bird shit. I ain’t sure they even got a phone. That family’s a mess. They feud about nothing. Most the time, they ain’t on speaking terms with one another. They’s on shooting-the-shit-out-of-each-other terms.”
Dani pointed toward Carson. “I’ll give you a choice. You can process Parnell’s personal items and fill out the paperwork, including Sam’s statement, or you can notify his momma her boy died romancing a horse.”
“Sam’s statement?” Randle eyed the pig farmer. “You got a statement on this, Sam?”
Sam shrugged. “Yeah. I suppose. Parnell tried to fuck my horse. Got kicked in the head by my horse. Got kilt by my horse. That there’s the beginning, middle, and end of it.”
Randle smiled and shuffled toward the body. “I’ll collect horse fucker’s personals. You can break his momma’s heart.” The hungover deputy squatted next to Parnell’s feet and started rummaging through his pockets. “I’m sure Parnell Carson ain’t got but shit for personals…”
Dani was headed out of the stall when a “holy fuck” rolled off Randle’s hungover tongue.
Dani turned in his direction. “What?”
Randle held up a leather ID holder and let it drop open, revealing credentials for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “What the fuck is Parnell Carson doing with an ATF ID?”
Chapter 2
Jack Spivey never flew when he traveled. He never paid travel expenses with plastic. He never wore anything but khakis, a blue button-down, and a plain black baseball cap. If a jacket was required, it was something as unassuming as the rest of his attire. His car was a silver Honda Accord for which he made regular payments at a too-high interest rate. Everybody drives a fucking silver Honda Accord, and everybody gets screwed over by ridiculously high interest rates. He could have paid cash for the car a hundred times over, but a cash transaction at a car dealership draws attention, and he wanted to be just like every-goddamn-body. He dyed his hair and beard brown because that’s what about every third man in America looks like. He stayed in shape, but not so much that he looked like a muscle-bound freak that lived in the gym. He kept himself thin enough to be confused for a half-dozen assholes living on Average Citizen Street, USA.
Spivey wasn’t invisible, but he was pretty damn near it. He was tethered to a checkered past that included stints in juvie and prison, but those days were stretched out long behind him, and his profile was as low as a belly button on an earthworm.
He sat in a booth in Pep’s Roadside Flapjacks and sipped on a cup of black coffee. It was early, just after sunup. Truckers and tobacco farmers crammed into the booths and tables all around him. He was a stranger to them, but they could tell he was their kind. He’d worked away the rough spots of his upbringing—changed the way he talked, ditched the hickbilly bravado, and threw out every belt buckle and sleeveless shirt he’d ever owned—but that didn’t change who he was. He was a backwoods cracker, and every now and then, it was the sort of thing that got him into trouble.
A short, fat man dressed in clericals stepped inside the restaurant and scanned every patron before walking to Spivey’s booth.
“Spivey? Jack Spivey?”
Spivey looked the man up and down. “What the shit are you wearing?”
The man tugged on his white collar. “Got work after.”
“You’re a fucking preacher? I thought you were a lawyer. That’s why I hired you.”
“I’m a partway preacher. Law’s my primary.” He motioned toward the booth. “You mind if I sit?”
“What the hell is a partway preacher?”
“I do ceremonies and such. Weddings. Funerals. Anything that needs an officiant. Can I sit?”
“What else needs an officiant besides weddings and funerals?”
“I do swear-ins here and there. I’d like to sit, if you don’t mind.”
“Swear-ins?”
“At lodges and clubs and the like. I swear in officers. President, treasurer, and whatnot. Can I sit?”
“You need a preacher to swear in some shithead president of the fuck-a-moose-in-the-ass lodge?”
“You do if you want the Almighty to bless his term. Now, can I sit?”
“Well, goddamn, man, I don’t own the fucking booth. Sit if you want to.”
The partway preacher–full-time lawyer sat. “How’s the coffee?”
“Lukewarm. So, what’re you swearing in today, a president, a treasurer, or a whatnot?”
“It ain’t a swear-in. It’s a funeral. Old Ben Caspe
r. A fella of about eighty, slipped on a spot of cooking oil in his kitchen. Hit his head on the counter. Turned up deader than a Democrat at a pro-life rally.”
“And this Casper, he doesn’t have a regular preacher? They had to call in a partway preacher?”
“Churches around here wouldn’t have a thing to do with him. He got caught diddling a kid or two some time back. His sister give me a call. She’s got one foot in it herself. Wouldn’t surprise me if I end up doing a doubleheader today. Of course, that would be unfortunate because it wouldn’t leave no one to pay.”
“So, you’re going to pray for this kid-diddler? You don’t have a problem with that?”
The partway preacher waved him off. “Won’t nothing I say take. I ain’t ordained by no particular religion. Got my credentials off a website for thirty bucks. I ain’t got God’s ear. I’m just for show, to make folks feel like things are done holy.”
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