“You’re backwoods?”
“More than a partway preacher from Titus Grove apparently.”
“I ain’t from here. Moved here from Louisville ten-year ago.”
Spivey almost chuckled. “By the looks of this town, you’re probably the first person in history to move to Titus Grove instead of from it.”
“A business decision.”
“Partway preacher can’t make a living in Louisville?”
“Can’t say. I come here for the crime. Titus Grove and the three surrounding counties play host to the most armed robberies and automobile thefts in the Southeast. Insurance fraud and criminal battery are pretty high on the list, too. A defense attorney like me ain’t short on clientele.”
“If business is booming, what’s with the partway-preacher gig?”
“Well, as it turns out, thieves and thugs ain’t that great at paying my fees. That’s something they don’t teach you in online law school.”
“You get all your credentials online?”
“When I can. We done here? I gotta be graveside soon.”
“Casper the kid-diddler will still be dead whether you’re late or on time…”
The phone rang and startled Gus enough to make him bark out a high-pitched screech.
“Relax, Partway, it’s just the phone,” Spivey said as he followed the ring to the bedroom. “Luna got a brother?”
“You ain’t gonna answer the phone are you?” Gus followed after him.
“I am. Does Luna have a brother?”
“You think it’s wise—”
“Does she have a brother?”
“She’s got a string of ’em. Ain’t a one got the same momma.”
Spivey had his hand on the phone. “Name one off! Not local.”
“There’s George Carl Pike.”
“Seriously?” Spivey grimaced and picked up the phone. “Who’s calling?”
There was a short pause before a woman announced, “Hi, I’m looking for Luna Conway.”
“This is her phone, but this ain’t her.”
“Oh,” the woman said. “I was…Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”
Spivey sat down on the bed. “You gonna answer my question?”
“What question?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Oh, right…This is Deputy Dani Savage with the Baptist Flats Sheriff’s Department…”
“Sheriff’s department? Luna in some kind of trouble?”
“No…Who am I talking to, by the way?”
Spivey rolled his eyes and said, “I’m her brother. George Carl.”
“Well, Mr. Carl…”
“No, it’s just George Carl. That’s the whole front end of my name.”
“Right. George Carl. I apologize…”
“No need to apologize. It’s a stupid name.”
“So, as I was saying, Luna’s not in any trouble. I’m just…It actually may be nothing. I have…We found an ID and there was a slip of paper with your sister’s contact information on it.”
Spivey pulled open the drawer on Luna’s nightstand to see if he’d missed any clues.
“Let me ask you something, George Carl?”
Spivey almost chuckled at the name. “Yeah.”
“Do you know if your sister knew anyone with the ATF? I’m sorry. I mean the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
Stunned, Spivey didn’t respond immediately. He rolled the question around in his head. “Why do you ask?”
“This ID, it’s an ATF ID, and I’m having a hell of a time running down the agent it belongs to.”
Spivey braced himself before he asked the next question. “And what would the agent’s name be?”
“McElhenney. Patricia McElhenney.”
Spivey didn’t reply.
“Hello.”
“I’m here. I…I’m gonna be honest with you, Deputy. My sister…Luna’s missing.”
Dani hesitated before asking, “How long…?”
“It’s been a few days, and I’m sure she’s just pulled one of her stunts. Booze and blow. That sort of thing. She’s probably passed out on some stranger’s couch. She does that every now and again. But you calling…with this ATF question. It’s got me rattled a good bit. You understand?”
“You needn’t worry…”
“Would you mind if I come and meet up with you?”
“Meet up?”
“It’s just that maybe if I see this ID, if I get a look at this agent’s face it might knock a memory loose.”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt…”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You’re an angel. Tomorrow? ’Round nine?”
Dani didn’t answer right away. Spivey guessed she was looking at her patrol schedule for the week. “That’ll work. But, you understand I ain’t got any information on your sister. I don’t know what good—”
“It’ll just set my mind at ease. You understand, Deputy.”
Dani assured him she did and ended the call.
Spivey looked at the phone in his hand for a beat before resting it back on the cradle.
“I ain’t sure what just happened,” Gus said, “but this much I got. Some deputy called here looking for Luna, and you pretended to be her brother. That it?”
Hyperfocused on the ATF ID, Spivey barely paid attention to the partway preacher. “That’s about the size of it.”
“And you think that’s wise?”
“Sometimes you play the pocket deuces you’re dealt.”
“You do what with what now?”
Spivey stood. “Let’s get you graveside so you can send off your kid-diddler. Then you’re gonna take a trip with me.”
“A trip? What trip?”
“We’re going to Baptist Flats.”
Chapter 5
Deputy Friar squirmed in the passenger seat as Dani navigated the cruiser along the unnamed logging road on the far northern corner of Baptist Flats County. His round belly tested the limits of his seatbelt, and he tugged it away absentmindedly from time to time. Then again, Friar rarely put much thought into any activity he engaged in.
When Dani failed to slow down to absorb the shock of running over a rut in the road, Friar protested with a grunt. “I’ll piss myself you take any more bumps like that.”
“You do, and I’ll toss you in the trunk.”
“It ain’t like I wanna piss myself. I got me a trick bladder. It goes off on its own. This road and your driving are bound to set it off.”
“You know that ain’t normal, right?”
“It is what it is. I’ve grown to accept it.”
“Well, that’s good for you, but it ain’t that great for those of us that gotta spend time with you.”
“What the hell you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to get treatment from a doctor like the rest of the world does when they spontaneously piss themselves.”
“What the hell is a doctor gonna do?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Are you not familiar with the concept of modern medicine, Deputy? Are you completely unaware that they’ve developed procedures and medication to help people stop from pissing themselves?”
Friar dismissed her with a head shake of his own. “A doctor will just tell me to lose weight or something.”
“You ain’t pissing yourself because you’re fat, dumbass. I’ve known fat folks my whole life, and you’re the first one that can’t control his bladder. You got something else going on, and you ain’t doing yourself no favors by not doing nothing about it.”
He was about to respond to her comment when she slammed on the brakes and brought the cruiser to a dead stop. He lurched forward, only to be snapped back by his tightening seatbelt. He half expected the airbags to deploy. “What the shit, Dani?”
“We’re here.”
She pointed past him, and he turned to the sight of a narrower stretch of road that was gobbled up by the woods on either side of it. “I can’t believe you b
rung me out on this. I spent most my life avoiding the Carsons, now here I am about to knock on their door…if they even got a door.”
Dani unlatched her seatbelt and prepared herself mentally for what she was about to do. “You do know you’re armed, right?” She pushed the cruiser door open.
“Where you going?” Friar asked in a panic. “We ain’t driving?”
“We’ll most likely get stuck if we do. Randle said it ain’t but a couple hundred feet off this main road.”
Friar threw a quiet fit before working his way out of the cruiser. He stood and adjusted his gun belt. “Randle comes out this way all the time. I can’t figure why we didn’t just send him out here to deliver the news.”
“Traded him off for it,” Dani said as she stepped onto the narrow dirt road. The sound of cicadas grew louder the deeper she penetrated the woods.
Friar lagged behind. “Might be a good idea if I stay with the car. We don’t wanna leave it unattended.”
“I did this thing they call locking the doors. The car will be fine.”
“Well, what if we were to get ambushed? Better one of us stays behind to avoid such a thing.”
“Okay, then I’ll stay.”
“Now, I wouldn’t allow such a thing. That might come off as anti-woman. I stay behind, and I announce to the world that I believe in you, Dani. A set of tits don’t make me think no less of your abilities as a lawman…”
Dani stopped suddenly and turned, carrying as sour an expression on her face as she’d ever carried. “Deputy.”
Friar’s bladder nearly gave way at the sight of her stony glare. He stopped and took a half step back, bringing his hands up slightly to protect himself from a slap or a punch.
“You talk about my tits again, and I will pistol-whip you with your own gun. That clear?”
He nodded.
“And for the record, I ain’t never thought your tits interfered with your abilities as a lawman, neither.” She smiled and turned to continue toward the Carson property.
Friar let her walk away for a beat before grabbing at his shirt and pulling it away from his chest. “You ain’t gotta be mean about my weight…” He yelped out a scream when a pencil-thin figure of a man lurched out of the woods behind Dani and stomped into the middle of the dirt road.
Dani spun around with her hand on her holstered firearm. She quickly assessed that the man wasn’t a threat. His eyelids drooped while a string of saliva dangled from his dirt-caked chin. He swayed and smacked his lips. She looked past him and caught a glimpse of Friar struggling to unholster his weapon. “Settle yourself, Deputy.”
“Po-lease,” the man managed to say.
“I’m Deputy Savage with the Baptist Flats Sheriff’s Department.”
The man shook his head. “Po-lease.”
“Right, and the fella behind you is Deputy Friar. We’re looking for the Carson place.”
The man turned and gave Friar a stoop-eyed once-over. Turning back to Dani, he held up three fingers and said, “Two po-lease.”
Dani looked at his bony arms and noticed the needle tracks and heavy bruising. “You know the Carsons?”
The man laughed and nodded. Thumping his chest with a finger, he said, “Carson.”
Friar spoke up. “I believe that’s Wendell Carson, Dani. Or what’s left of him, anyway. I ain’t seen him in about three years, but last I did he was headed in this condition.”
The man donned a two-toothed grin and clapped his hands. “Fat Friar. Fat Friar. Fat Friar.”
“Well, there you go,” Friar said. “Another comment on my weight. You happy, Dani? You sound like a drughead.”
Dani hid a chuckle and waved the man ahead of her. “Get around me and take me to your house. I gotta speak with Wanda Carson.”
“That’s his momma,” Friar added.
Wendell shuffled around Dani and staggered ahead of her, mumbling “Fat Friar” as he walked.
“Keep talking, Wendell,” Friar growled. “I got a gun and a lack of witnesses that may move me to shut you up.”
“You don’t count me as a witness?” Dani asked.
“You’d take his side over mine?”
“I take the law’s side, Deputy.”
Friar laughed. “That’s funny coming from you.”
She stopped and looked at him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just saying I’ve seen you toss the law aside. I mean, I ain’t saying you did wrong by doing so, but that don’t change the fact that you chucked it when it got in the way of doing the right thing.”
She considered his point. “You’re talking about shooting a man for calling you fat. That ain’t exactly the right thing.”
He rolled his eyes. “First off, I was kidding. Second off, my point still stands. That don’t mean I ain’t a fan of what you did. Those folks Step and Kenny go after? They deserve to be dealt with outside of what the law can do.”
Dani let Friar pass her without responding to his comment. She didn’t like to be reminded that she had abandoned the law. She didn’t exactly regret that she had done so, but she liked to think that she was a good cop. She’d shot a man dead and looked the other way while two men she knew to be hired killers took money that belonged to a crime syndicate and traveled the globe killing shitheads who dealt in human trafficking. That’s not the sort of thing good cops are known for. It didn’t matter that the route they all took was the only means to meet the justifiable ends. It still sometimes made her feel less than lawman-like.
Wendell and Friar made their way around a bend in the road and disappeared behind an overgrowth of vegetation. Not long after they were far from view, Friar blurted, “Goddamn.”
Dani snapped out of her funk of regret and jogged around the tangle of tree branches to find Friar standing on the edge of the Carson property. There was no surprise that it was in a dilapidated state. The rusted-out hulls of two trucks lay in a V-shape to the right. The charred remains of a shed stood to their left. Various other items existing beyond their viable use occupied space on the bare-earthed yard. A herd of strung-out crackers occupied the farthest corner of the property. They milled about mumbling to one another as they stood in a semicircle in front of an open-pit fire.
Wendell staggered toward the zoned-out hickbillies shouting out in barely decipherable English, “Po-lease! Two po-lease! Fat Friar!”
Friar yanked his hands up in disbelief. “Well, you ain’t gotta disrespect me in front of your people, too.”
“Momma,” Wendell continued. “Po-lease.”
A woman as thin as Wendell broke away from the herd with a cigarette hanging from her chapped lips. She peered in Dani and Friar’s direction and studied them before yelling with the cigarette deftly perched in her mouth. “Wha’cha want?”
“I wanna go the fuck home,” Friar said under his breath.
Ignoring him, Dani stepped forward. “Looking for Wanda Carson. You her?”
“You here to arrest her?”
“No. Just talk.”
“Then I’m her. Wha’cha want?”
“Can we go inside?”
Wanda considered Dani’s request. “You wanna search my house?”
Dani shook her head. “Told you. We just wanna talk.”
“Can’t talk out here?”
“I’d prefer to do it in the house.”
Wanda finally extracted the cigarette from her mouth. “Suit yourself. Smells like cat piss in the house, but you wanna go in the house, we’ll go in the house.”
The skinny woman wore a flannel shirt that was worn through at the elbows and a pair of jeans that were covered in mud from mid-shin down. Her flip-flops smacked her heels as she led the way to the porch.
“Mind the steps,” Wanda said. “Got a nest of dirt daubers that get stirred up under there. Best to hoist yourself up over them.”
“Cat piss and dirt daubers,” Friar said. “Thank the Lord you brung me up here, Deputy Savage. Thank the Lord.” H
is delivery was as deadpan as it was sarcastic.
Dani followed Wanda into the house and turned to help Friar skip the dirt-dauber steps. Once inside, the smell of cat urine assaulted them as violently as a punch to the face. Friar fought his gag reflex while Dani bit her cheek to help absorb the shock of it.
Wanda breathed in deeply. “It takes a bit to get used to. Damnedest thing about it is we ain’t even got a cat.” She took a drag from her cigarette before adding, “That I know of.” She turned down a short hallway and led the deputies into what was most likely considered the living room. It had a couch that lacked cushions and half its decorative fabric, and a recliner that was held together with duct tape and rope. A number of ruptured beanbag chairs served as the rest of the furniture. The carpet was various colors due to the high volume of stains and cigarette burns. The only item that was in pristine condition was a seventy-two-inch flat-screen TV that was far too big for the tiny room.
Wanda chased the crackers watching a TV show about truckers in Alaska out of the room and muted the volume. Friar turned his back to the image because the bright colors from the enormous screen in the small space nearly blasted the corneas off his eyeballs.
“Well, wha’cha wanna talk about?” Wanda asked.
Dani looked at Friar for encouragement before answering. He gave her a pleading look instead. “Mrs. Carson…”
“I ain’t no Mrs.,” Wanda said. “I was born a Carson. I’ll stay a Carson. Call me Wanda.”
“Fine. Wanda,” Dani said, clearing her throat. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“Parnell’s still dead, ain’t he?” Wanda asked, scrutinizing the amber glow of her cigarette.
Dani swallowed a gasp and turned to Friar who gave the slightest shrug. Back to Wanda, Dani said, “You know? About Parnell?”
“Hell, I don’t live on Mars. News gets up our way pretty damn fast. That’s all these idiots around here have been talking about.”
“You don’t seem that upset.”
Wanda took a seat on the broken recliner. “What’s to be upset about? I mean, the boy was into fucking animals. Son or no, that ain’t the kind of shithead you want sleeping in your house. I ain’t saying I’m glad he’s dead, but I am glad I ain’t gotta see him every day no more. His face and ways just ate away at my smile.”
Savage Rising Page 3