by Hank Early
Goose lay beside me, his nostrils flaring in the early fall wind. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be a dog on a night like this, a night where the wind carried all the secrets in the world, if you just could read them. Goose read them all, his head still, his ears alert, his nose sucking in the wind and the world in silent anticipation.
I needed to be like Goose, I decided. I needed to somehow get into the world out there, to invite it inside me, and then live there for a moment. I tried to go back to the crime scene, to imagine what must have happened.
Johnny would have had a gun on Mary, and either someone approached him from behind and hit him over the head or Mary somehow did. Accepting the former meant strongly considering that Johnny had been hit by a man wearing a burlap sack as a mask. Accepting the latter meant dealing with why Mary had not recovered either gun. And why she hadn’t turned up yet.
Could there be a third option?
I tried to think of something but drew a blank. Instead, I recalled something else I’d forgotten. When I’d gone to the road to call the sheriff, I’d left Ronnie and Johnny alone. They could have easily split if they’d had something to hide, but neither did. Didn’t sound like the behavior of most guilty men I’d known.
The wind picked up again, and Goose growled at something he must have smelled on it. I looked at my watch. It was almost four in the morning. I decided to get started.
I fed Goose and gave him some water, filling several bowls because I wasn’t sure how long it might be before I was able to check on him again. Then I took a quick shower, ate some sausage and half a hard biscuit leftover from Mary’s visit. I thought about coffee but decided to go with a couple of shots of whiskey instead, to take the edge off.
After the shower and the whiskey, I felt better. I put on my Braves hat and tucked my 9mm into my waistband and put on a long-sleeved shirt that hung low and loose enough over my ass to cover the weapon.
I drove to Rufus’s first, pulling up to the old church just as the sun was coming up. It looked more ominous somehow in the half-light, and I wondered again why a man would choose to live in the place of his first misery, but Rufus was not like most men.
As if to illustrate my point, I found him awake, tottering around the little graveyard where my mother was buried. He wore a pair of black overalls and some old high-top tennis shoes. He wasn’t wearing the dark shades that he usually wore to keep people from getting spooked by his glassy eyes and the attendant scarring.
I parked the truck and killed the engine. Rufus put down the rake and started toward me as I got out. He knew it was me. He could always tell by the sound of my truck.
“I don’t feel the sun up,” he said. “Which means something’s wrong.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Something is very wrong.”
“Want to sit down?”
“No time. I just wanted you to know Mary is missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yeah.” I explained as briefly as I could what had happened the night before. Rufus listened patiently, barely moving.
When I finished, he shook his head. “Ronnie fucking Thrash.”
“I know,” I said. “You lay down with dogs…”
“But from what I’m hearing, you don’t think it was him or Johnny behind it?”
“No. I think Lane Jefferson is.”
Rufus nodded. “You know who his daddy’s big buddy is, don’t you?”
“You mean Mayor Keith?”
“Yeah.”
“No idea.”
“The one and only Jeb Walsh. Thick as thieves, those two.”
“So, Keith is likely a racist?”
“That’d be a fair conclusion.”
“What do you know about the son?”
“Not a lot. People say he’s fucked in the head. That he’s into drugs and guns and conspiracy theories. Shit like that.”
“What kind of conspiracy theories?”
“Hell if I know. Talk to Susan at the library. She knows the mayor and hears stories.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve got another question.”
“Shoot.”
“Who’s Old Nathaniel?”
Rufus seemed taken aback by the question. He was silent for a moment, and I tried to read his expression.
“You know who Old Nathaniel is.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do. You sure you don’t want to have a seat? I got some coffee on inside. I’ll bring us a couple of cups.”
“No. I need to get moving.”
“Where are you going to go? It’s not even six in the morning yet.”
He had a point. I didn’t really have any place in mind other than the cornfield and the woods behind it.
“Okay,” I said, and sat down, hating the wait but knowing there wasn’t much I could do until I had something to go on besides stumbling through the woods and fields by Jefferson’s house.
Rufus ambled toward the church, avoiding a tree easily and navigating a rise just like he had seen it coming. Rufus amazed me with his ability to always know just where he was in the world.
It was an ability that was even easier for me to admire after the disorientation I’d felt in the cornfield. From beneath those stalks, the world seemed to shrink. Without the ability to see over them, it was hard to get any context for where you were in the—
I remembered something else then, something that would give me something to do. The water tower. Before Mary and I had heard the sounds in the cornfield, I’d seen a light coming from the water tower. Was it possible someone had been inside, watching us, waiting until my attention was elsewhere before giving the okay to abduct Mary?
It seemed unlikely, but I couldn’t rule out anything at this point. I’d go to the water tower first and see if I could get inside.
Rufus came back out, carrying two coffee mugs. I met him halfway to take one of them and help guide him to his seat.
Once seated, he took a sip and nodded in my direction. “Put a little whiskey in them.”
“Thanks.”
“I got to say, I don’t like that Old Nathaniel reference.”
“Why?”
“I can’t believe you don’t remember. I’m sure your mother told you the same stories my mother told me. He was just some boogeyman, made up to keep kids out of the valley, where the blacks lived.”
“I do remember both my parents warning me about the valley, but nothing about Old Nathaniel. Daddy just said the people there weren’t our kind.”
“Yep, that sounds like your daddy. He probably didn’t want to give any credence to the stories because he didn’t come up with them. Your daddy could be amazingly rational when it came to other people’s bullshit. When it came to his own? Well, that shit was inarguable.”
I almost laughed. Rufus knew my father almost as well as I did. “True. But what about Old Nathaniel?”
“I’m getting there. The point you should understand is that the stories about Old Nathaniel were told to me for the same reason your daddy told you to stay out of the valley.”
“Because that’s where the blacks lived?”
“Way back, before you would remember, they called it the Valley of the Devil or the Devil’s Valley.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“Yeah, that was the point. It fed into a larger narrative, that people of color were Satan’s own, and the good white folks like me and you shouldn’t mix with them.”
“So where does Old Nathaniel fit in?” I couldn’t help but feel like Rufus was taking his time. I needed to already be gone from here, making progress toward finding Mary.
“Well, the real story—the one the blacks down in the valley grew up hearing—is that Old Nathaniel only killed blacks. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to meet some folks that came up in the valley. They all said Old Nathaniel was supposed to be like an old white farmer. Apparently, he was angered by the presence of blacks near his land, blacks that were free, and he decided to move his family into the
mountains.”
“You mean the Fingers?”
“That’s right. Or maybe Summer Mountain. These legends ain’t an exact science.”
“Sure, but it sounds like this one mirrors reality, because, other than Lane Jefferson, all the whites live in the mountains or in Riley, and all the blacks live in the valley.”
“Right, legends always mirror reality. It’s why they resonate so much.”
I considered this and decided it made a lot of sense. But what I couldn’t get my head around was how Old Nathaniel could still have any power today.
“Does ‘AOC’ mean anything to you?”
“A what?”
“‘OC.’ It’s something Mary and I found on a cave wall. ‘Old Nathaniel’ was spray-painted right next to it.”
Rufus shook his head. “AOC.” He said each letter slowly. “Don’t know that one. Did you try the Google on it yet?”
“Not yet. It’s all come at me so fast, I can’t even figure out what to do first.”
“I’d drop by the library. Susan knows a good bit about the history of this area. If this AOC is a real thing, she’ll know about it.”
“Thanks.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
I told him about the water tower.
“Want some company?”
“Don’t you have protest stuff to do?”
“Not until Walsh’s book thing. Then I’m going to wear the mic and have my say. If they carry me out, then they carry me out.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“No, don’t worry about it. You’ll be busy looking for Mary.”
That hit me like a gut punch. “No,” I said. “She’ll be back by then.”
Rufus said nothing. He wasn’t the kind of man to believe in false hope, or to give it. Usually it was something I appreciated about him, but just then I hated him for it.
17
We arrived at the water tower right as they were letting the dogs loose into the cornfield. I watched as a police officer from Atlanta held a jacket that must belong to Mary in front of the dogs. They bayed loudly, and the handler let them go.
We parked behind Sheriff Patterson’s squad car, but he was nowhere to be found. Instead, a big, bearded deputy came over.
“Help you boys?”
I held out my hand. “Earl Marcus. Mary’s my girlfriend.”
He didn’t look impressed. “This is an active police investigation. You’re going to have to move on.”
“I’m a private investigator.” I resisted the urge to add, Maybe you’ve read about me, and it was a good thing too. That would have probably sealed our fate. Instead, I pulled out my state-issued badge. “Can you call Sheriff Patterson? I think he’ll say it’s fine that I’m here.”
The bearded deputy—Nichols, according to his breastplate—pressed a button on his two-way. “Sheriff? Come in, Sheriff.”
“Yep,” Patterson replied.
“You know an Earl Marcus?”
It was barely audible, but it sounded like Patterson cursed softly.
“Sheriff?”
“Yeah, I know him.”
“Okay for him to be snooping around?”
“It’s okay. Just keep an eye on him, all right?”
“Will do. Over.”
The deputy shrugged. “You heard him. I’ll be watching.”
* * *
Because of Deputy Nichols’s watchful eye, Rufus and I decided to drive back down the road and park out of sight. Then we worked our way up through the scattered stalks on the left side of the road, unobserved by Nichols. We stopped when we reached the underside of the water tower. I stared up at its large corrugated belly about ten yards above our heads. There was a large tear in the bottom of the basin, but I didn’t see a way to reach it short of a ladder, which we didn’t have.
“Well?” Rufus said.
“There doesn’t appear to be any way up.”
“That’s bullshit. There’s got to be a ladder.”
“I’m sure there was at some point, but it’s gone now. Based on the hole in the bottom of this thing, it hasn’t been in use for years.”
But Rufus wasn’t listening. Instead, he had his hands out in front of him, feeling for the nearest leg of the tower.
“A little to your left,” I said.
He clutched it and felt the length of it, obviously looking for notches or footholds. I followed his example and did the same with the one across from it.
On the second leg, I found something I would have overlooked if not for Rufus. There was a thin cord someone had nailed to the wooden leg. I yanked on it, trying to pull the nail out, but it held fast, and I realized it had been nailed in multiple places.
“Be right back,” I said. “Going to the truck.”
I opened the toolbox I kept in the bed of my truck and glanced around to make sure Nichols hadn’t wandered this way. The road was still clear, so I grabbed the hammer and jogged back over to the tower.
Rufus was leaning against one of the legs. “Haven’t heard much out them dogs,” he said. “Not sure that’s a good sign. Usually the louder they are, the more they’re on the scent.”
I ignored him and went straight to the wooden leg with the cord and pulled the nails out. Once I had them out, I gave it a good tug and something clattered inside the tower. I pulled harder and heard it sliding across the metal floor of the tower. A little more …
Water dripped out of the opening, followed by something solid. A rope ladder unfurled itself right beside me.
“What was that?” Rufus asked.
“Our way up.”
I climbed up first and then leaned over the opening to direct Rufus to the ladder. Once we were both safely inside, I looked around. My suspicions about the place were confirmed. Carved into the corrugated tank was a small window. A stool sat by the window, and beside that, a table and some chairs. A pair of binoculars lay on the stool.
“Watch yourself,” I said to Rufus. “There’s a gap right in the middle of the floor.”
“I know that,” he said, impatiently. “Why don’t you tell me what else is here?”
Before I could, my cell phone rang.
“Shit,” I said, looking at it. “This is a sheriff’s office number.”
“Better answer it.”
“Okay, just … step back, okay? You’re worrying me.”
“I’m fine. Answer.”
I answered, and in one phone call, everything changed.
18
“It’s Patterson,” the voice said.
“What’s the word?” I found myself hopeful. Maybe the dogs had already found her.
“A bit of good news and … some bad,” he said. “The bad news is that the dogs haven’t found anything yet. We’ll keep them out here, but they’re just circling the same damned area over and over, and there’s nothing there. We’ve even had a helicopter up this morning because there’s places in the cornfield where it’s flat out hard to get to, but they didn’t see anything either. We’ll keep them out here until either they give us something definitive or they wear themselves out, but generally by this point they would have found a scent if they were going to.”
“And the good news?” I had no idea what he could possibly say that was going to be good if Mary hadn’t been found.
“We got a confession today.”
“A confession? From who?”
“Johnny Waters. He confessed the whole thing to one of my deputies. Got it all on tape. It’s compelling.”
“So, what did he do with her?”
“Well, that’s the thing. She knocked him over the head with a rock, and now it’s just a matter of finding her.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You just said the dogs weren’t getting anywhere.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean she’s not out there somewhere. Their handler says the cornfield confuses them. She could have very easily gone the other direction, up Summer Mountain and gotten lost in those woods. We’ll find her.”
<
br /> I was silent, trying to make sense of it.
“Earl?”
“Yeah?”
“This is good news. It means she’s out there. We’ve just got to find her.”
“Did he say anything about Ronnie?”
“He said Ronnie wasn’t involved.”
“What about Jefferson?”
“It was Johnny from the beginning. Just Johnny.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would Ronnie make up that story about Jefferson?”
“I already explained it to you once. Ronnie has been out to get Jefferson for some time.”
“Doesn’t add up.”
“It’s a confession. And a strong one. He goes into some detail about the whole thing. Calling Jefferson was part of the ruse. He was going to say she escaped at the stream. He won’t say what he was going to do to her because … well, why would he confess to something he didn’t ever get a chance to do? But you can figure it out for yourself. A stream is a good place to wash up afterward.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does.”
It felt like anything but good news to me. I couldn’t get my head around Johnny confessing.
“You still there, Earl?”
“Yeah. Has Johnny had any visitors?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Can you check?”
“Sure. I’ll check. You think somebody talked him into it?”
“Or threatened him.”
“Okay,” Patterson said. “I’ll keep it in mind. My deputy said you were snooping around the cornfield earlier. Find anything?”
I was about to tell him about the water tower and the binoculars, but suddenly it felt wisest to just keep it to myself. Maybe it was learning about Johnny’s suspicious and sudden confession, or maybe it was just my gut, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that the fewer people who knew about this, the better.
“Nothing of any interest.”
* * *
After I told Rufus the news, he agreed I’d done the right thing about keeping the info from the sheriff.
“I can’t help but think he was threatened,” I said.
“Well, you should be able to check the surveillance footage at the jail. If Patterson tells you nobody signed in, push the issue. Ask to see the footage.”