The Devil's Bones

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Jordan looked over Johnny Ray's shoulder; the padlock was still on the gun cabinet. He really wanted to ask about the Cordova file, but he wasn't sure if Johnny Ray knew where Holister kept it locked up—and he damn sure wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

  “That's an ongoing investigation, I can't comment,” Johnny Ray said. The comfortable look on his face had changed. There was a look of confusion, mixed with a touch of anger, in his eyes, as if Jordan had told him something he didn't know.

  Johnny Ray sat up in the chair, sweat forming on his lip, and started tapping his fingers on the desk. The air-conditioning had been running constantly, but Holister's office was still warm. The air was moving, but there was no hint of coolness to it, only the humidity had been drawn out of the air. A ceiling fan whirled overhead, the on and off chains clinking together. Louella's radio buzzed with unintelligible voices in the background.

  “You didn't know Holister thought it was Tito, did you?”

  “I said I can't comment.”

  “Did you?” Jordan insisted.

  “No,” Johnny Ray answered, lowering his eyes. “Jesus, after all these years.”

  “Exactly. Now tell me any of this makes sense?”

  Johnny Ray exhaled. He stared at Jordan warily.

  “Why don't you help me, Johnny Ray? Help Holister. Hogue's just going to use you, treat you like you're nothing.”

  “He put me in charge of watching you. And I'm supposed to show the INS agents around when they get here tomorrow.”

  Jordan saw a familiar look cross Johnny Ray's face: He'd just said more than he was supposed to. “Hogue doesn't have the power to put you in charge of anything. See what I mean, he's already at it. What's INS got to do with this, Johnny Ray?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Bullshit. Tell me, goddamn it—Hogue's playing you, can't you see that?”

  “The sheriff is leading the investigation. And I'm part of it.”

  “Then how come he didn't tell you about Tito Cordova? Why's the INS coming? It's too early for them to show up.”

  Johnny Ray exhaled and stared at Jordan. “They found a meth lab out at the pond. A small one. You know, a home-cooker. But Hogue mentioned he'd been working with some federal people tracking a distribution line from Texas to Chicago. Things picked up when the Mexicans came back this year. The DEA is working with INS to see if we have anybody connected here.”

  “So, he's got his eyes on a bigger prize. Damn it, I'm such a fool,” Jordan said. “Hogue wants the shooting to go away so he can make a national name for himself by shutting down a major drug ring. He'd be a shoe-in for mayor, or something even more powerful.” The thought solidified his hunch that Hogue was up to something by trying to pin the shooting on him. It gave him even more reason to focus on Tito and the shooting.

  “I don't know nothing about that,” Johnny Ray said. “He just asked for all of the missing people files we had. There are only three, but we can't find Tito's—Hogue's pissed about that. I didn't think anything about it until now, Holister's never been real organized. You know where it's at?”

  “No,” Jordan said. Lying's becoming too easy, he thought.

  Johnny Ray shook his head. “Tito Cordova. Man, I haven't heard that name in years.”

  Holister didn't include Johnny Ray in the annual review of the case, and Jordan always figured it was because of the marshal's lack of confidence in him. He had to rethink that, now—question everything that had anything to do with Tito and Esperanza.

  The memory of Johnny Ray participating in the search for Tito had not risen in Jordan's mind until that moment. There were so many people, so much going on then, that it was impossible to remember everything, but he was trying harder, trying to pull the memories into focus so he could find a clue, match it with the years of his own existence in Dukaine. It was impossible when he tried, but flashes were coming to him, little boxes opened when he encountered someone new, when he encountered someone who reacted to Tito's name being said out loud. Everyone revisited the past, their past, their version of what happened, what they did or didn't do. The trick, Jordan thought, is to get people to tell me as much as possible.

  Tito was at the heart of everything that was going on, and perhaps the answer to what was happening now lay in the memory of someone who could remember something he couldn't, or tell him something, anything, big or small, that he didn't know had happened.

  If he was going to get his life back, or any semblance of it, Jordan knew he was going to have to find out what happened to Tito and Esperanza Cordova. Finding José was at the top of his list. But he had other things to do first. It would be easier to get people to talk to him if he wasn't a suspect in Holister's shooting. At least now he had an idea what Hogue was up to.

  For a brief second, he thought about telling Johnny Ray about the note and medallion, but immediately knew it would be a bad idea. No matter how much he wanted things back to normal, it wasn't worth taking Johnny Ray into his confidence. He'd made that mistake before.

  “You remember the search?” Jordan asked.

  “Sure I do.”

  Jordan had a flash of Johnny Ray when he was a kid, before he idolized Elvis. He was a lonely fat kid. He had no brothers or sisters and lived on Wilson Street, across the street from the Catholic church. Johnny Ray's family belonged to the church, and Johnny Ray had been an altar boy. Jordan had seen him in his altar boy outfit once, a long white puffy tunic that kind of looked like a cape. He still lived in the same house with his mother. His father had worked as an accountant for the SunRipe plant; he died ten years ago, wasting away with bone cancer in the front room.

  And then he thought of Father Michael, a tall, white-haired man with a funny accent. Father Michael was from Boston and oversaw the small church with an iron hand. Jordan remembered being scared of the priest. Scared of the man in black. He had coffee and cigarette-stained teeth, and spoke in a sneering, pompous way that made you feel like you were slimy, sinners beyond redemption, not good enough to be in his presence. Migrants came and went from the church at all hours of the day and night. Father Michael always looked tired, and kept pretty much to himself. Kitty avoided the priest. The only thing she ever said about him was that they didn't believe in the same God.

  Jordan and Johnny Ray were not friends, even then. Johnny Ray went to the private Catholic school in Morland. They played on the same baseball team, swam at Longer's Pond at the same time, but beyond that, they had nothing in common.

  “Father Michael made all of us help,” Johnny Ray said. “He never liked this town much. Especially after that.”

  Jordan remembered that there were trays of food on tables inside the volunteer fire department. Fried chicken. Cakes. Green beans that had been canned from the summer before. Coffee and hot chocolate to take the edge off the November wind. Father Michael stood next to Pastor Gleen, dishing up food for the searchers. Every time Jordan saw Johnny Ray, he was in the food line, never in the search line, never in the pickup trucks that transported searchers to and from the muddy fields.

  “What happened to Father Michael?” Jordan asked.

  “He went home after the diocese closed the church. Retired. He died a couple of years later. At least that's what I heard. I quit going to church around then.”

  After you found Elvis, Jordan thought. “That's the problem,” he said. “A lot of people that would remember anything about Tito are dead. They went to church there, didn't they? Tito and his mother?”

  “Yes,” Johnny Ray said. He squirmed in the chair. “I really shouldn't be talking about this, Jordan. Not if them bones are Tito.”

  “Did you ever hear about Tito's father, who he was?”

  Johnny Ray shook his head no. “His mother never took communion, and I never seen her at confession. I don't think she was allowed to. Maybe that was the reason, Tito not having a real father. But you know the rumors. Nobody ever said anything out loud, though. That kind of talk was forbidden in my house. One word agai
nst Buddy Mozel was like taking the Lord's name in vain. He'd fire anybody who speculated he was Tito's father—you know that.”

  “Did Tito take communion?”

  “Why is that important?”

  “I don't know—I'm just trying to figure things out.”

  “I don't remember.”

  “Did you ever talk to Tito? You saw him every Sunday. Were you friends?”

  Johnny Ray stood up. His forehead was wet with sweat. “I told you, Jordan, I don't remember. I'm not talking about this anymore. I can't. Just give me your badge and go out and wait for Sheriff Hogue. I got a headache. I'm not talking anymore.”

  “I'm not giving you my badge, Johnny Ray. I got shot. My house got burned down. And I'm going to find the motherfucker who shot Holister. You can help me—but if you won't do that, the least you can do is help Holister. You owe him that much.”

  “I am helping.”

  “Fine, help Hogue. But I guarantee you this: The ballistics test will clear me. Other evidence will clear me. Even if Hogue takes me in, which he can't at this point, I'll walk out of jail and be right back here, where I belong. And while you're sitting on your ass eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches, playing Mr. Big Shit, the shooter is still out there. How are you going to feel if he strikes again? Shoots somebody else? Or if Holister dies? Tell me none of that matters, Johnny Ray, and I'll leave you alone.”

  “Get of here, then. Just get out of my office.” The Elvis trill returned with a vengeance.

  Jordan ignored the claim of possession to Holister's office, other than it reignited his anger, threw a little more gas on the embers that were already about to flame up. “Where's Hogue? We need to get some things straight. And, I'd like to talk to those INS agents myself.”

  “I told you, I don't know. Hogue's supposed to be here sometime this afternoon.”

  “I'll find him and get this straightened out. All I got to do is turn on the TV to figure out where he's at. My guess is he's out at the pond, anyway,” Jordan said.

  “They won't let you near it.”

  “We'll see about that. Get on the radio and tell him I'm heading his way.”

  Jordan couldn't remember the last time he was so angry. His mother's funeral? When he caught Monica? When Ginny broke it off with him and eloped with Ed Kirsch?

  Those were all times when he was on the verge of losing control, but now—now he felt like beating the shit out of Johnny Ray, ramming his head into the nearest toilet. He wanted a piece of Hogue, too. Jordan knew if he got started, he wouldn't stop. He was frustrated. He wanted answers and he wanted to hurt something. And he wanted it bad. So, he turned away from Johnny Ray before it was too late, stalked out of the office, past Louella and into the blinding sunlight.

  The heat had intensified, but Jordan didn't notice. He stopped, started to head toward the tavern, but went the other way. He knew he needed to calm down. He didn't want to talk to Spider. He didn't want to talk to anybody.

  In the distance, the heat shimmered off the sidewalk, distorting his view of the street, the houses and the trees. They looked like a mirage, no matter how close you got to it, everything seemed even farther away, just out of reach. But Jordan walked forward anyway, taking the same path home he'd walked for years. Knowing with each step he took that Kitty's house wouldn't be there. His home was gone. The past was a big pile of ashes. The promise of an oasis in the desert was nothing but sand.

  CHAPTER 16

  August 22, 2004, 8:57 A.M.

  Jordan stood at the corner of Lincoln and Harrison. He could see yellow police tape surrounding the house from a block away. Or what was left of the house. The roof had collapsed. Even from a distance there was nothing to see except three or four blackened poles that had supported the beams, standing straight in the air, monuments to the hardwood the house was built with. A white van was parked in front of the house with ARSON INVESTIGATION painted across the side in bold red letters. Two other cars, a county police cruiser and a black unmarked sedan, were parked in the driveway. The hum of air-conditioners and cicadas joined together, a loud resonating chorus rising and falling like a heartbeat, and drowned out the silence, the empty street, the screams inside Jordan's head.

  He was frozen, couldn't move. It was like standing at the back of the funeral home, knowing he had to walk up to his mother's casket, but not wanting to, not wanting to believe he was there, that she was really dead. God, he didn't want to see death one more time. He didn't want to see the house, what was left of it, what was gone. Kitty's books, the piano, all of the family pictures.

  The wound on his shoulder had begun to burn, throb with pain. He touched it, put pressure on it, but that only made the pain worse. Sunlight stabbed through the leaves of the tall oaks and elms that lined the street. There was no breeze, just the thick, heavy air that made the pavement sweat. His knees grew weak, and Jordan sat down on the curb.

  He had been too young to consider his own mortality when the accident happened. All he understood then was that he had lost something very dear, that his life and Spider's life had changed forever. There was no way he could imagine his own death, not at twelve. But now, reality crept up on him. If the bullet had hit him a few inches to the left, it would have gone straight through his heart. No second chances, no time to change anything, no time for regrets. The curtain closed, and the world as he knew it, gone, swallowed up in darkness, game over.

  The thought churned his stomach. He shivered, spit bile into the street, cupped his face, and felt a tear stream out of his right eye. Reflecting on his life was not a strong suit. If there was pain he numbed it with beer, with busyness. He probably should have gone back to the tavern, got Spider, and came to the house like he planned. He would've been strong then, put on a false face to hide his pain from Spider. But Johnny Ray had tapped his rage and brought it so close to the surface that it would've taken a lot more than a few beers to numb what he was feeling. Tears filled his hands and evaporated on the street. The cicadas laughed at him.

  Everything was a jumble in his mind. Fleeting images of Tito Cordova walking alone on the road, head hung down, books under his arm. Esperanza at Miller's Grocery, standing in line, solemn, stiff as two migrants walked into the store, standing her ground against Maddie Miller behind the cash register. Buddy Mozel's black Lincoln torn and twisted, the front end smashed beyond recognition—just like Buddy's face. Ginny's body writhing under his, biting his shoulder, her fingernails raking across his back. Kitty waiting for him on the porch after school. Spider lying in piss on his bed. His mother playing the piano, Beethoven's “Sonata Pathetique,” on Sunday mornings. Easy summer days walking to Longer's Pond, swimming, laughing, wishing he were a grownup so he could do what he wanted, when he wanted. And Johnny Ray singing “Kentucky Rain” at the Super Six Motel, the last bass lines quivering in his memory.

  The barren landscape of his marriage followed, a death unto itself. Monica on their wedding day, her eyes hopeful, her brown hair silky, perfect on her shoulders, a striking contrast to her white lace wedding gown. Silence and anger in the midst of their many arguments. The time two years into the marriage when they sat in front of a marriage counselor, his eyes glued to the floor, searching for an answer to the prickly woman's question: “Why are you so afraid of intimacy, Jordan? What are you scared of losing? Can't you see that Monica really loves you?” She tried with all of her might to unlock the bank of his tear ducts, but that vault was sealed shut.

  The counselor's words echoed in his memory. He didn't have an answer then, and he didn't have one now. It was more than Ginny. Monica faded away. He could barely remember what her voice sounded like. Nine years of his life vacant, stuck in a pattern, his marriage like his job. A job that required little of him other than showing up, where one day meshed with the next, driving up and down the streets of Dukaine hoping to catch a glimpse of Ginny. Mostly his job was mundane; a complaint about a barking dog, migrants sleeping on private land, writing speeding tickets, Earl Crebbs beatin
g the shit out of his wife again. And that was OK with him. He had very little aspiration for anything else. He was just passing the time, day after day. Eventually, he had thought, taking Holister's place as marshal would be in his future. Becoming an old man in Dukaine, working his way slowly to Haven Hill, into the plot reserved for him next to his mother.

  He kept his hands cupped, the darkness shaded the bright sunlight. He had little awareness of himself, of a grown man sitting on the curb crying.

  Monica knew about Ginny. But she didn't know everything. Nobody knew everything. Not even Holister. And that hurt worst. That hurt the worst, now.

  Jordan had kept his memories of Holister at bay, afraid to look at them. There were so many. Beyond the car wreck, especially once he went to live with Kitty. Simple things like Holister mowing the yard in his work pants and an undershirt on a summer evening. The many Christmases, knowing the holidays were the darkest for Jordan, when Holister would force him to help string lights on the house. Taking him sledding when it snowed. Stepping into Big Joe's shoes, but somehow staying out of the middle, somehow not trying to be his father, but always willing to be his friend. A mentor in the police station, and an advice giver when things were going south with Monica. Holister had always been there. Always. Even when things with Ginny got bad. Even when Holister caught them together on the cot in the basement when Jordan was sixteen, and they had got into a fight that had threatened everything.

  Holister's words at the pond came to mind. “Tell Celeste I'll make things right,” he had said. “Tell Ginny it was my fault.”

  Jordan didn't know what Holister meant then, and he was even more uncertain now. What did Holister have to make right? What was his fault? What had Holister done to his wife and daughter that his last words, or his potential last words, were steeped in a painful apology?