The Devil's Bones

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Jordan's throat was raw. “You need to send a deputy down Huckle Road,” he said, sitting gently on the hot leather seat.

  “Why's that?”

  “There's a dead pig in the middle of the road.”

  Hogue reached around to the backseat and pulled two cans of Coke out of a small cooler. He handed a can to Jordan, looking at him as if he had just said something in a foreign language.

  “A what?”

  “A dead pig.” Jordan popped open the Coke and took a long drink. “It was shot in the head. Had a message written on it. ‘Two dead pigs.’ In blood.”

  “Jesus Christ, what next?”

  “I don't know.” Jordan took another drink, the cold liquid biting his throat as he swallowed. “I didn't have anything to do with this, Hogue. I didn't shoot Holister, and I didn't burn down my own house. I want to know what's going on as much as you do. I want to do my job.”

  Hogue tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Cool air was beginning to circulate in the cruiser. He picked up the mike and ordered two deputies to investigate Huckle Road, and secure the pig as a crime scene.

  Static and an affirmative answer blared over the radio. Hogue turned down the volume.

  “Timewise you're in good shape for the fire. A nurse saw you leave the hospital five minutes before we got the call,” the sheriff said, mounting the mike in the bracket on the dash. “It was definitely arson. Can't pin down the meth lab aspect yet. But the investigators found starter fluid cans. Might never be able to tell; there's nothing left.”

  “I know.” Jordan breathed a quick sigh and took another drink of Coke. He wanted to tell Hogue “I told you so,” but he just nodded.

  “I still think the fire is connected with all of this mess,” Hogue continued. “But I'm a little confused why somebody would do that. You got any enemies, McManus?”

  “Everybody's got enemies. I've been a cop for seven years. I'm sure I've got my fair share.”

  “You didn't answer my question.”

  Jordan stared out the window at a thick stand of devil's plague. His answer was stuck in the base of his throat. “Ed Kirsch,” he finally said. “But I think you already know that.”

  Hogue's face did not change, his stare was expressionless, waiting for Jordan to continue.

  “Ginny and I have a history. Ed found out we, uh, spent some time together recently. He came after me with a pipe a little while ago, down from the house. I don't know if he burned it down. But I wouldn't put it past him.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I'll talk to him. That boy's been a pain in my ass since the day he was born. He's just like his father—no good. I don't know why my sister put up with it all these years. Nine kids and no man to fend for her. Lord knows I've done my share, but I couldn't be a father to all them kids. She thinks the Lord will provide—her and that damned church . . .” Hogue stopped, apparently realizing he was talking about personal business to Jordan. He looked embarrassed, but only for a second. “What happened after Ed found you?” Hogue continued, his tone quickly all business.

  “We got into a fight. My father broke it up.”

  “Big Joe's back in town?”

  “Came back today, as far as I know.”

  “Interesting. You want to press charges against Ed?”

  “No.” Hogue's response concerning his father did not escape Jordan's attention. Why would the sheriff think Big Joe's return to Dukaine was interesting?

  “Well, that gives us something else to look into,” Hogue said. “Maybe Ed shot the pig. He doesn't like you—never has. He's the jealous type. And that wife of his, well, I don't mean to speak ill of Holister's daughter, but she's a wild one, too. Not very smart of you to go skinny-dipping in another man's pool—especially knowing the circumstances like you do.”

  “I've already been beating myself up for days. I know it was a big mistake,” Jordan said. “But why would Ed shoot the pig?”

  “You don't believe he'd do that?”

  “I don't know what to believe. Could Ed Kirsch have set my house on fire? Yes. Was he the shooter? I don't know. I don't know whether or not he's got a grudge against Holister. I can't make the connection. I know he and Holister didn't get along. But Ginny and Holister didn't get along very well, either. Not after she married Ed.”

  “All right. Like I said, we'll talk to him. I don't think he's the shooter either. Ed's a dumbass, but I don't think he's a killer.”

  For the moment, Jordan decided not to implicate Ed as a meth user. He wasn't sure. But Hogue would figure it out for himself—or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he already knew. The drug bust Hogue was planning with the INS and DEA was not his problem at the moment. “You don't think my father has anything to with this, do you?”

  “A lot of old news is becoming new again. We'll talk to him, too, now that I know he's in town.”

  “What about the ballistics report?” Jordan asked, letting the words about his father settle in his mind. The interior of the cruiser was cold now, the extreme change in the temperature made him shiver as he asked the question. Hogue was still being coy.

  Hogue looked at Jordan, made eye contact and held it. “It wasn't your gun that shot Holister. Plain and simple.”

  It took everything Jordan had not to let his rage boil out. “I told you I wasn't involved from the beginning, Sheriff. This whole damn time you had me pegged as a ‘person of interest’ and you could have been out looking for the real shooter. The Town Board fucking suspended me—and asked for my badge. I'm a cop with a mark on my record, thanks to you,” Jordan said, his voice escalating with each word.

  “You're not off the hook yet, McManus,” Hogue said.

  “What do you mean I'm not off the hook?”

  “The gun wasn't your gun. But the bullets that came out of Holister's back belonged to you. The serial numbers match the box of ammunition on your sign-out sheet from the day before. We found the casings near the spring. Right where you said the shooter was. Everything matches. You're still a person of interest, McManus. More so now than you were before. You're directly connected to the shooting. At the very least, you're a possible accomplice. I'd get a search warrant for your house, but that obviously won't do us any good, will it?”

  “No, it won't do any goddamned good—someone burned it down, remember? Jesus Christ, Hogue, you're tellin' me I'm still a person of interest? You can't be serious?”

  “I am. And I'm getting a search warrant for your brother's tavern. He's going to need to come up with an alibi for the time Holister was shot and for the fire.”

  “He's in a wheelchair. How in the hell could he have been the shooter?”

  “Did he ever have access to your weapon?”

  Jordan hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Then he's a suspect,” Sheriff Hogue said.

  CHAPTER 21

  August 22, 2004, 2:09 P.M.

  It was the hottest part of the day and the hospital parking lot was full. The six-floor building cast a long shadow over the entrance, and Jordan had to force himself to walk toward the door. Pigeons fluttered on the eaves, coming to light on top of a two-story limestone white cross to huddle in the shade. Four marble saints stood watch, defiant with swords in one hand and a bible in the other, stationed in an alcove below the cross. The red brick building had not lost its luster of the past, the windows gleamed as if they had all just been cleaned, and the lawn facing the parking lot was manicured and neat, even though it was brown and nearly dead. Sprinklers sprayed water all across the grass in front of the building, a futile ballet of mist rising and falling from the steady clicks of spinning metal heads that pretended to be rain clouds. Two large cement urns full of freshly watered red geraniums sat on both sides of the door.

  Jordan hit the handicap button and the automatic doors slowly swung open.

  “I still think you oughta go see a lawyer,” Spider said, his hands resting on both wheels of his chair.

  They'd been arguing since leaving the pond. Jordan was insistent that they g
o to the hospital, while Spider was adamant that they get help. Hogue was doing everything he could to connect Jordan to the shooting, and Spider felt it was time Jordan faced the reality that they were both suspects. Both of them were dumbfounded by the sheriff's statement that the bullets that were extracted from Holister's body could be traced back to Jordan. For a while, they both had sat in the van silently after Jordan told Spider everything that happened, trying to make sense of it all.

  “I'll call a lawyer when they arrest me,” Jordan insisted. “Hogue's got some work to do to charge me as an accomplice. Meanwhile, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen.”

  He was a little more comfortable with the .38 out of the holster—he'd left the gun in the van next to the shotgun under a blanket.

  “You sure about this?”

  “What choice do I have, Spider? I can't just sit back and wait for them to come and get me. I still have the note and the St. Christopher's medal, and I still have questions Hogue can't answer. Especially now, since those bones aren't Tito Cordova. We really need to find José.”

  The doors swung completely open and jerked to a stop.

  “I'd be looking for Johnny Ray if I were you. He tore out of there right after you walked down to the pond. Who else had access to your ammunition?”

  “I told you, he was off the night before. Holister was on shift. Johnny Ray probably left because he got a call. He is the only cop Dukaine has at the moment.”

  “That's comforting.”

  Jordan hesitated, stepped aside as an elderly couple made their way out of the hospital. The pair walked slowly by, lost in their own world, faces expressionless, eyes glazed. “But you're right,” he said as the couple stepped off the curb, out of earshot. “I need to figure out who could have snatched some of my bullets and who else has a Glock.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “To see how Holister's doing. He might be able to help, if he can talk.”

  “How come I get the feeling you're not telling me everything?” Spider asked.

  Jordan stared at the sky, watched a pigeon flutter in for a landing on the eave. Spider knew him better than he thought. Jordan wasn't telling him everything. He could hardly bring himself to admit what he was thinking, but the sad fact was there was only one place he was at before all of this happened, when his gun wasn't on his hip, when the ammunition was not locked up and accounted for. And that was when he was in Ginny's bed.

  He was at the hospital to see Ginny as much as he was Holister. There was no way he was going to tell Spider that, and start another argument. “Trust me,” Jordan said, trying to deflect Spider's remark. “I've worked with Johnny Ray for a long time. He isn't capable of anything like this. His only crime is being an idiot.”

  “And a bad singer.”

  “That doesn't make him a psychopath.”

  “Fine. Have it your way. But you still need a lawyer, and obviously I do too,” Spider said, rolling ahead of Jordan with a vigorous push on his wheels.

  A long glass corridor stretched out in front of Jordan. The sun beat through the windows, the heat's intensity overcoming the blast of air-conditioning that did little to welcome him. He watched Spider speed through a second set of entry doors and followed slowly, running his brother's concerns about Johnny Ray through his mind. No matter how he looked at it, Johnny Ray as the shooter just didn't make sense. But maybe Spider was right, maybe he ought to have another talk with Elvis if his hunch about Ginny was wrong. There were starting to be too many people to talk to—at the moment Johnny Ray would have to wait. Right now José Rivero was number one on his list after they left the hospital.

  A tall young Mexican man dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt with a gray smock over it was washing windows on the doors. He stood back as Jordan walked by.

  The sight of migrants working outside the fields was becoming more and more common in Carlyle County. The Mexicans were beginning to stay year-round, fill low-level service jobs. Jordan had given very little thought to the change, had barely noticed it was happening because the way of life in Dukaine was so entrenched in his thinking, in his view of the world. But washing windows surely had to be better than picking tomatoes, less labor intensive, safer, steadier income. He could hardly blame anyone for not wanting the kind of work he saw in the fields, but he wondered immediately if the man knew José, and then realized how stupid the thought was. The world José walked in, held power in, was twenty miles away. Asking the Mexican if he knew another Mexican was like assuming all black people knew each other or all white people knew each other. It was a flash of his own prejudice, his own lack of understanding, and he didn't like how it felt.

  Jordan nodded to the Mexican as he passed through the second set of doors.

  The man lowered his eyes to the floor, refusing to nod back, to acknowledge the gesture.

  The lobby was brightly lit, row after row of fluorescent lights beaming down on a field of padded gray chairs. A fish tank sat in the center of the seating area, and in the corner a table for children was filled with Dr. Seuss books, blocks, wood puzzles, and other small toys. Keeping the children occupied was not working. Three small children were running around the chairs, playing tag, screaming and laughing, while their overwhelmed mother sat in a chair and stared at the ceiling. A baby was crying. The television in the opposite corner of the play area was tuned into a daytime talk show, the participants lashing out loudly at each other. A parade of people walked through the lobby, coming and going to the gift shop that sat at the right of the entrance, stopping at the service desk, or leaving the hospital. All with stone faces, eyes half-closed, their expressions restrained and their voices low. The bronze Christ stood with open arms against the wall and watched the world go by.

  Spider was at the service desk talking to a young blonde woman in a white uniform. She giggled and picked up a black telephone receiver as Jordan eased up behind him.

  “She's checking ICU,” Spider said, looking up, over his shoulder.

  Jordan tensed as he saw the smile fade from the girl's face. She gently hung up the phone and said, “There's somebody you can talk to in the waiting room.”

  The blonde, who couldn't have been more than twenty-one years old, pointed down a long hall that extended south of the desk.

  “It's through the second set of doors on the right-hand side. You'll see it.”

  “Is everything OK?” Jordan asked.

  “I'm sorry,” the girl said softly. “You need to talk to the people in the waiting room.”

  Jordan heard Spider exhale, his face had turned ashen. Gray with dread. He nodded and started to roll away.

  “Hey,” the nurse called out. “Here's my number.” She hesitated, flashed a smile, her teeth perfect, her blue eyes holding onto their initial sparkle. “Just in case you need somebody to talk to.” She scribbled on a torn piece of paper quickly and offered it with a steady hand.

  Spider stopped, rolled back, and grabbed the paper.“Thanks . . .” He stuffed the paper in his pocket and returned the smile.

  Jordan watched the transaction and shook his head—he was still surprised by Spider's ability to get a phone number. His gut told him to expect the worst from the girl's reaction on the phone, even though he didn't want to believe it.

  Spider rolled off again, his hands flicking the wheels forward, the sound echoing off the sterile white walls and the glossy, waxed white floor. Jordan followed, his footsteps matching and reverberating with Spider's pace. He slowed as he passed a large refrigerated vending machine with an all glass front, offering flowers for all occasions. Blue carnations for the baby boy. Pink roses for the baby girl. Purple irises mixed and daisies centered delicately around a get well card. He could smell the flowers, a hint of sunshine that fought to overcome the constant antiseptic odor filling the hospital.

  An image of Kitty's garden entered Jordan's mind—in his memory he saw her stooped over, her floppy straw hat on her head to shield the sun, digging up iri
ses along the house, splitting the rhizomes for a new bed. “One thing always leads to another, Jordan. You just got to hope things will grow, have faith that they will bloom after the long winter. Sometimes, that's all you have when things seem to be the worst, when things are hopeless. The bloom is the reward,” she had said. “It'll come if you tend to it right.”

  Damn it, he wanted to ask Kitty some questions . . . not hear her fables about flowers. “Did you know what happened to Tito Cordova? Or Rosa? Why did you keep secrets from me?” Kitty could not answer his questions from the grave—and if they existed in his memory, he couldn't find them.

  Faith, it seemed to Jordan at the moment, was an overrated concept. It had nothing to do with reality. Not his reality. Not now. Walking with lead feet toward the ICU.

  The second set of doors flung open with a tap on a button on the wall.

  Jordan and Spider entered the waiting area, a smaller version of the main lobby, fish tank and all, and came face to face with Big Joe. He was the only person in the room.

  It took Jordan a second to recognize his father, even after the ride back to the tavern from the house. It was hard to see him as an old man, shrunken and white-haired, a little bent over, yet still strong, with eyes that belied surprise. It was the eyes that finally registered with him, the sunglasses gone.

  “I didn't expect to see you boys here,” Big Joe said, standing back against the wall, making room for Spider to navigate past a row of chairs.

  Silence settled between the three of them for a moment, tension bouncing off each one, growing stronger by the second. The feeling was as normal as a summer storm.

  “You're a little late,” Big Joe said, easing into a chair, facing Spider.

  Jordan remained standing, unconsciously holding onto the handle grips of the wheelchair.

  “I didn't know we had an appointment,” Spider said.

  Big Joe shook his head. “Holister died about a half an hour ago, smartass.”

  “Fuck,” Spider said, barely audible, a loud whisper that echoed in the small room.