by Ace Atkins
“And the other two hundred and fifty shitbirds?” Quinn said. “Most of them were friends of political cronies. Others worked in the governor’s mansion. We don’t have any choice but to live with it.”
“Jamey Dixon didn’t have powerful friends,” she said. “His mother cleaned rooms at the Traveler’s Rest.”
Quinn nodded. “He knew somebody.”
Ophelia nodded. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. Quinn drank some black coffee and let the silence settle over them. He touched the file and slid it closer to him.
“You would have to be a damn moron to believe him.”
“Never a shortage,” Quinn said.
“Can I look at the police file again?”
“I’d rather you not.”
“I am entitled,” Ophelia said. “It is public record.”
“You are entitled, but you’re making yourself sick,” Quinn said. “I don’t like to look at those pictures. I don’t want you to, either.”
“They had to scrape her off the highway with a goddamn shovel,” she said. “My parents still found little parts of her that the county men had left.”
“Ophelia.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Yep.”
“Well,” she said, straightening a bright red scarf around her neck. “I appreciate you meeting me so early. What time do you get up?”
“Actually, I’m headed to bed.”
“I’m sorry, Quinn.”
“Don’t be,” Quinn said. “Just my shift.” He drummed his fingers on the file and smiled over at Ophelia. She was easy to smile at, although she’d worked her mouth into a tight questioning knot. About the same age as his little sister, twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but somehow seemed years older. “Can I buy you breakfast?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I have clients.”
“Dead or alive?”
“Eleanor Taylor,” Ophelia said. “I have to color her hair.”
“She would have liked that,” he said.
Ophelia nodded. She studied Quinn as he drank his coffee. Quinn leaned back into his seat and waited for what he knew she really wanted to talk about. The Bundrens had always been closemouthed people, always some kind of contagious strangeness you wanted to avoid unless you needed someone buried. Kids used to call Ophelia Wednesday Addams behind her back. She’d often get a new boyfriend and then lose him just as fast once she got to talking about embalming.
“Aren’t you concerned?” Ophelia asked.
Quinn drank some coffee. Outside, Hondo was barking at a red truck racing by with rumbling dual mufflers. His coat was a mottled gray and black.
He waited.
“How long has Caddy been with him?”
Quinn took a deep breath. “Few months.”
“And you’re not worried about your sister being with a man who’s done such horrible things?”
“She says his sins have been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb,” Quinn said. “She believes Dixon is a new man.”
“What’s the big brother say?”
“I say it’s hell being sheriff in the same town as your family.”
“What about your momma?”
“Verdict is out with Jean.”
“But you don’t like it?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then we’re together on this.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said, eyes shifting off hers. “Always have been.”
Ophelia straightened up and gave just the flickering of a smile. “Quit acting like we’re old, Quinn,” she said. “The U.S. Army has aged you a hundred years.”
Quinn started to say something but stayed quiet while he stood and Ophelia slid from the booth. He shook her lean hand and the smile was gone. As she passed, she whispered into his ear, “If Caddy was my sister, I’d lock her up far away and not let her get within a mile of that monster. The devil wears many disguises.”
“And plays a guitar and sings old hymns.”
“He can’t contain who he is forever,” Ophelia said.
Quinn thought on that as the bell over the Fillin’ Station door jingled and she was gone.
• • •
Caddy Colson was pretty sure that Jamey Dixon loved her. He had not said it in so many words, but it was more in the way he introduced her to people in the church, held the door for her when they had dinner in Tupelo, or the surprise and joy on his face when she took off her bra and panties and crawled in bed with him. Jamey said he knew what they were doing was wrong but he’d soon be making it right. And Caddy believed him. If she didn’t believe Jamey Dixon, then the whole idea of faith was horseshit.
The winter was behind them, and green leaves had started to appear on skeletal trees, patches of grass showed in the mud of logged-out land, and wisteria, azaleas, and dogwoods had returned even though most of the farmhouses were long gone, the parcels all divided up against feuding families. The air felt lighter and warmer and breathed soft and easy through the wood slats. The hard rains from last night made everything smell rich and fertile, and of flowers and spring planting.
Jamey’s church had moved into the old barn only a few weeks ago, but they’d already painted the outside a bright proper barn red, laid out a number of flower beds in creosote-soaked railroad ties, and had a local welder named Fred Black craft them a handmade sign that read THE RIVER, set off the county road for the short drive down the gravel road. She stood back, the wide doors of the church full open on what felt like the first day of spring, and admired Jamey, who was hanging a string of white lights across the big, empty space of the church. He had crisscrossed several different strands, plugging the lights into an orange power cord while he worked, the church coming into a soft white glow, making everything pleasant down and around the grouping of wooden folding chairs and hay bales, and on up to a pulpit fashioned of barn wood, copper nails, and barbed wire. It had been Caddy’s idea to use the barbed wire to give a solid reminder of a crown of thorns. It had also been her idea to keep the barn looking like a barn and to embrace the message rather than tear it down and build some kind of facility made of prefab metal like an airplane hangar.
“Give me a hand, baby?” Jamey said from the ladder. He wore Birkenstock sandals, a pair of tattered Wranglers, and a faded black Johnny Cash T-shirt. She stood below him and helped thread the string of lights up into his hands. He smiled down at her, all rugged and handsome, with long, blondish hair and a solid manly jaw and blue eyes. A tattoo of Christ on the cross ran the length of his muscular left forearm, crudely inked during his time inside, a reminder of a bad stretch of road.
He moved the ladder one more time, set the end of the lights on a crossbeam, climbed down from the ladder. Jamey stood back and admired his handiwork.
“What do you think?”
“I love it.”
“Yeah?” Jamey said. “Well, that’s the idea. Just like you said. We don’t need a pretense to get people to worship. This isn’t social. At The River, we won’t ask what you do for a living. We don’t ask where you’ve been.”
He rested his arm around her shoulders, and Caddy smiled so big, she felt like she might lose her breath. Her son Jason, now almost five, wandered into the barn with his head tilted upward, amazed by the bright light in the old place. The PA system lightly played George Jones singing “Peace in the Valley,” a song that had been a favorite of Jamey’s grandmother’s. Jason walked over to them and Caddy snatched him up, twirling him around the empty space, feeling so happy she could explode.
“You get that compost dumped?” Jamey asked.
“Yes, sir,” Jason said with a thick country accent. The accent sometimes threw them because of his curly hair and light brown complexion with African features. Jason was Caddy’s reminder and the only blessing to come from some dark days. And not once had Jamey spoken to her about that time. It’s all ahead; the past is nothing but junk in our rearview mirror.
“Can you make dinner at Momma’s?” Caddy asked.
“I’ll try,” Jamey said. “But Randy is coming by with his Ditch Witch. We’re gonna try to put in that water line. Can’t have a church called The River without water.”
Caddy nodded and smiled, trying not to show the disappointment on her face. Jamey pulled her in close and kissed her on top of her head. “Just let me get this church going and I’ll make your momma’s Wednesday nights.”
“I just figured you didn’t want to come.”
“Why’s that?”
“On account of Quinn.”
“Your big brother doesn’t scare me,” he said, grinning. “After ten years, I’ve grown accustomed to law enforcement watching me eat. Kind of makes me feel comfortable, in a way.”
“He shouldn’t have spoken like that to you,” Caddy said. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I think Quinn got his brain scrambled in Afghanistan.”
Jason had lifted himself up into the low loft, where bales of hay had been artfully placed. He jumped from small bale to bale, playing and laughing. George Jones was now singing about what a friend we have in Jesus.
“Just words.”
“He doesn’t know you,” she said. “He will after time. Quinn has always been hard on my boyfriends. He thinks he’s doing the right thing.”
Jamey looked down at his empty arm and the long tattoo of Jesus on the cross. He leaned into Caddy some more and said, “Has your brother been saved?”
“He goes to church.”
“But has he really thought of the reason?”
“Whatever you do, please don’t ask him that question.”
“Why’s that?” Jamey said. “That is the question.”
“Because Quinn is bound to answer you in some profane way,” she said. “He may have left the Army, but he’ll always think like a sergeant.”
“There will be a time,” Jamey said. “I know him seeing what he’s seen in the last ten years must have been a profound thing.”
“Same as you,” Caddy said. “Only he loved what he did and wasn’t forced to do it. Of course, he won’t talk about it.”
“With no one?”
“Nobody but Boom.”
“Why?”
“’Cause Boom lived the same thing but came out worse,” Caddy said. “Quinn and him have always been like brothers, and now even more so.”
“Boom doesn’t care for me much, either,” Jamey said. “Looks at me like I’m something scraped from the bottom of his shoe.”
“You said yourself that people would doubt your mission,” Caddy said. “Isn’t that why you came home to Jericho? To face your persecutors? To build something that will outlast all of us and our problems?”
Jamey smiled down at her and kissed her nose. She felt his strong arm around her neck, hardworking sweat and heat against her. Jason followed them outside to the gravel lot where she’d parked their car, finding a mud puddle to toss sticks and rocks into to make the muddy water ripple. He looked up at his mother with a big grin at what he’d done.
Esau and Bones came onto the Parchman fence line at daybreak, sliding off the stolen horses and whipping them back toward the twenty-six miles they’d just crossed. The horses’ mouths foamed with exhaustion, and they turned for a slow moment before dropping their heads to the nearest ditch of muddy water. Esau had pocketed a pair of wire cutters, and in less than thirty seconds, they crawled out and under the fence and into the real world, still and gray in the false dawn. They stood well back from Highway 49 at the edge of a creek bed, Esau consulting the map he’d hand-drawn. Bones unwrapped some Hershey bars and peanut butter crackers he’d bought from the canteen and a couple bottles of water they’d filled up back at the ag shed. Both of them wet and sore and hungry as hell. Esau’s heart raced just hearing the sound of cars speeding past on the highway, going about business the way normal people do.
“First thing I want is a bottle of Aristocrat vodka and a goddamn cigarette.”
“They gonna have helicopters out,” said Esau. “You hear that?”
“I only hear the fucking mosquitoes,” Bones said. “Can you try her again?”
“Can’t get a signal,” Esau said. “That’s what you get for buying a cell that’s been stuck up someone’s ass.”
Bones nodded as if he hadn’t been the one who’d gotten the cell smuggled in for him. Esau had tried to get through to Becky for the last ten days. He couldn’t speak to her directly, with every word said on a Parchman phone going right into the superintendent’s ear. He thought about leaving a coded message where she worked at the Dollar General but then thought better of it. Becky had planned to drive down from Coldwater and pick them up, bring them fresh clothes, guns, and cash. But he hadn’t been able to tip her off.
He tried the cell again. Nothing.
“We could steal a car,” Bones said.
“Got to find one first,” Esau said. “Let’s keep off the road and head straight. We got maybe two miles to Tutwiler.”
“Home of the blues.”
“Every fucking town in the Delta says they’re the home of the blues.”
“Yeah, but in Tutwiler they got a sign and shit.”
They walked a good two miles not seeing a thing but plowed fields and road signs telling drivers DO NOT STOP OR SLOW DOWN for the next ten miles. They finally came upon a half-dozen rusted-out trailers off Highway 49. Just as they were about to cross the road, a couple highway patrol cars sped past, their sirens and lights on. Esau waited until they were long gone, crossed and walked into the group of trailers, testing the knob on the first one they found. Inside, a fat woman holding a Chihuahua looked up from a flat-screen television, a half-eaten Toaster Strudel in hand.
Bones coolly walked up to the woman, snatched the remote, and turned it from a sitcom with a lot of canned laughter over to the morning news out of Memphis. The Chihuahua on her lap wouldn’t stop yapping at the men, finally not being able to stand it and going right for Bones, jumping up and biting him on the pecker. He knocked the dog away, the dog whimpering and crawling under the couch. The big woman hadn’t said anything, just looked at them both with her piggy eyes and slack jaw.
“You got a car?” Esau asked.
The woman kept on staring.
Bones slapped her on the back of the head. “Listen up.”
She shook her head. Her mouth was still filled with Toaster Strudel.
“Who does?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Where’s he at?” Esau said.
“Gas station,” she said. “Went to get us some breakfast.”
“What the fuck you eatin’?”
“Just a snack.”
“Well, sweet Jesus.” Bones grinned. “You done look like you had too much breakfast.”
He ripped the plate of Toaster Strudel from her lap and grabbed a couple. He broke his in two and tossed half to Esau. Esau didn’t think he’d tasted anything so good in a long while. He asked Bones for another, and they both found a spot on the woman’s sagging flowered couch, listening to the news like they were all part of the same family. The woman didn’t say anything, just held the Chihuahua tight to her fat bosom, eyes shifting from the men to the shabby door hanging half open. The dog started yipping again, and Bones growled back, as the woman held the little dog’s mouth closed and tugged him closer.
“Bad storm last night,” Esau said.
The woman didn’t answer, only held the dog so close that it disappeared under her heavy breasts.
“Another bad front tomorrow,” Esau said.
“Shh,” Bones said. “Trying to hear this shit.”
The anchor was blond and had a nice thick body and talked with a big grin about the storms that had passed through the mid-South and a double homicide in West Memphis. They waited until she started talking with the goofy weather guy, who seemed to be getting a hard-on about another front moving in from Texas. Bones looked up from the television, just hearing a car drive up and the motor quit.
He turned off the television and nodded in the silence to Esau, wh
o stood up and found a place on the wall beside the door. He picked up a ceramic cat statue on a little bookshelf and waited for the door to open wider. A little redneck strutted into the room with a big white sack, grinning like he’d done something special until he spotted the black man on the couch with the woman.
“Who the hell are you?” he said.
“Guy who’s gonna take your car out for a ride.”
“Shit,” said the little man. He reached for something in his red Windbreaker.
Esau came down hard and quick on the back of the man’s head with the statue, the cat’s head breaking off and the skinny little redneck dropping to the floor. The big woman screamed and the dog jumped from her lap, trying to attack Esau this time, yipping and tearing at the leg of his coveralls, and finally getting distracted by the smell of whatever was in the paper bag. Esau opened it, snatched out a big greasy sausage biscuit, and handed it to Bones. Three more inside.
“You got some coffee?” Bones asked the woman.
She shook her head.
“Well, damn, get off your thick ass and make some.”
The woman was nervous, and she had trouble standing, her hefty legs a little woozy and weak, but she made her way back to the kitchen and started to fill the pot with water.
Esau reached into the man’s heavy work coat and found a .357 fully loaded in a side pocket. “Well, hello there.”
Bones had already stuffed the whole sausage biscuit into his mouth and was chewing as he pulled aside a sad yellowed curtain and looked outside the trailer. “Sweet Jesus.”
The man on the floor was coming to and rolling onto his hands as Esau walked past and kicked him hard in the head, sending him flying against the wall. He joined Bones at the window and looked out in the trailer court to see a Chevy Chevelle with dual chrome pipes and a slick blue paint job with a narrow white stripe down the hood.
“Bad taste in women,” Bones said, swallowing, looking to the big woman measuring out coffee into the machine. “But great taste in an automobile.”
• • •
Quinn got five hours’ sleep, waking up at 1200, and spent the next couple hours on his tractor, delivering hay to his cows, with Hondo riding shotgun. After his chores were done, he showered and shaved, dressing in a crisp khaki shirt with patches for Tibbehah County Sheriff, a pair of laundered blue jeans with a sharp crease, and a pair of cowboy boots. By the time he finished his second cup of coffee and first La Gloria Cubana of the day, he had pulled his truck into the sheriff’s office lot. He walked through the front door, saying hello to Mary Alice, who was the office administrator and answered the phone, did the filing, and also ran dispatch for the seven-man and one-woman office.