The Lost Ones

by Ace Atkins

  Quinn grinned a bit. He whistled for the dog. The dog trotted over, met him halfway, and Quinn moved on up to Mr. Davis. He kept on smiling. His gun was drawn but hanging loose by his leg. Davis had the saber tattoos on his bicep of a man who’d served in Airborne.

  “You miss jumping out of planes?” Quinn asked.

  Davis cocked his head, confused.

  “82nd?”

  “I am Gabriel,” Davis said. “I am charged with protecting the Holy Mother.”

  “Sure like that car, Mr. Davis,” Quinn said. “You kept it nice for a good long while.”

  Davis dropped the gun loose again. Quinn stepped forward a bit and cut his eyes at Lillie. She nodded slow. Quinn stepped forward and snatched the gun from the man’s hand in a single breath. Davis looked at him, saddened, and dropped to the ground, where he buried his face in his hands and started to cry. The one-eared hound licked his face while Lillie called in the situation on the radio. She said they’d need some transport and a mental eval.

  “You take the Holy Mother for a drive in that Olds?” Lillie asked.

  Davis looked up. He nodded at her.

  “I guess she would dig that ride,” Lillie said.

  Quinn spun open the old man’s .45. The cylinder was empty.

  20

  QUINN DREAMED OF CADDY THAT NIGHT, AND THE BIG WOODS.

  It was fall, as it was now, and the cotton had burst out in bolls as thick as his fists, the earth still warm and giving off heat on a chilled morning as he’d packed. He’d known the woods his whole life and hungered to get far into them, deep into the national forest, as Caddy trailed behind him. He could see the gentle roll of the green hills just beyond a forgotten tin-roofed barn, rusted and worn. The fields were choked with fog.

  “Can we stop and eat?” Caddy asked.

  “When we get to the forest.”

  “I brought peanut butter cookies.”

  “I got some dried peaches and jerky,” Quinn said. “Salt and pepper and shortening. Cornmeal for fish. I’ll catch us some brim for dinner.”

  “You think he’ll follow?” she asked.

  “You can bet on it.”

  Caddy was little, with light hair and dark skin from the summer. She wore overalls and cowboy boots, kicking at the clumps of earth between cotton rows. Her hair had been tied in a ponytail with pink string.

  “I don’t like that man, the warden,” Caddy said. “He’s got eyes like a pig. He looks at me strange.”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  “He told Momma he was gonna arrest you for those deer.”

  “If he can catch me.”

  “He won’t catch us,” Caddy said. “We can live in the forest forever. We’ll take care of each other. We don’t need nobody.”

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “You need me,” she said.

  “You’re just a kid.”

  “What are you?”

  “I’m not a little girl,” Quinn said. “I wish you hadn’t followed.”

  “I ain’t leaving you.”

  Quinn didn’t say anything. He kept walking through the fog, knowing the way up into the hill more by feel than sight. He couldn’t see much beyond that old barn but knew the big woods stretched out for miles and miles beyond it, leaving Tibbehah County far behind.

  “I can keep house,” Caddy said.

  “I brought a hatchet,” Quinn said. “I know how to make a shelter like the Choctaw. We got a lot of work to do before it grows cold.”

  “What if the warden finds you?”

  Quinn carried his Captain Planet backpack and his dad’s .22 rifle.

  “We run,” he said. “He keeps coming, and I’ll have to shoot him.”

  “I don’t know why Uncle Hamp can’t make him go away,” Caddy said. “He’s the sheriff. Why can’t the sheriff tell him what to do?”

  Quinn stopped and turned to his sister. She stood on a turnrow, making her seem taller.

  “Those deer were killed on state land,” Quinn said. “He’s the law there.”

  Caddy kept following as the farmland ended and the trees bucked up far over the hills and into the west. A white fall sun tried to break through the clouds above.

  “I heard Uncle Hamp tell Momma last night for you to just take your licks,” Caddy said. “He said the warden was coming for you on account of what you did to his truck.”

  “He deserved it.”

  “You really have to cut his tires?”

  “He was following me.”

  “And you dug that hole,” Caddy said. “Covered it with branches. Is that how he got hurt?”

  “I guess.”

  “He sure is mad,” Caddy said. “Said you need to go into a state home for boys.”

  “Over two bucks.”

  “Warden said it was six.”

  “He’s a liar.”

  “Momma said he’d been youth pastor since she was a kid.”

  “Doesn’t make him any more honest.”

  “He sat on our porch waiting for you to come home from school,” Caddy said. “He’s probably still there.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “I think he found Daddy’s whiskey.”

  “Is he talking to Momma?”

  “She’s real scared, Quinn.”

  “Well, we won’t be trouble no more.”

  They followed a fire road high up into the second-growth timber of red oak and birch and pine, big thick pines, not the skinny scrub stuff that grew on cleared land, Quinn remembered from when he’d found the hidden lake that first time. That was when his daddy had left, Quinn knowing he’d gone to Hollywood for good. Finding the lake had been some kind of gift.

  “How much money did you bring?” Quinn asked.

  “I got seventeen dollars.”

  “Aunt Halley will give us some money.”

  “What about Uncle Hamp?” Caddy asked.

  “She won’t tell him,” Quinn said. “She’s mad at him for not getting that warden off my ass.”

  “You’re not as bad as people say. Why do you want people to think you’re so bad?”

  “I’m not bad,” Quinn said. “I just don’t have much luck. Seems like every stupid thing I do, I get caught. I’d like a break every once in a while.”

  “If something happened to you, I’d die, too. I can’t sit at home and just pray.”

  Caddy stumbled on the slope of the hill and Quinn reached for her hand. He held her hand up and over the hill and around the twisting fire road until he found that deer path. The deer had led him to the secret lake, and that’s where they’d live until there was no more trouble.

  He’d wait there till forever.

  21

  FOUR DAYS LATER, LILLIE CALLED QUINN INTO HER OFFICE AND PLAYED the tape.

  “When’d she make the call?” Quinn asked.

  “Last night in the jail common,” Lillie said. “Mary Alice logged it, and I played it right before you got in. By the way, did you know you were late?”

  “A whole fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re not gonna get fat and lazy on me, are you?”

  “What do we do?”

  “This will add pressure to Mara,” Lillie said. “I say we play it for her, and let’s see what shakes out. Momma sure was hard on her.”

  “Who’s the girl’s attorney?”

  “Public defender out of Oxford,” Lillie said. “I think he’s a whole six months out of law school.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “You look tired.”

  “Had a hard time sleeping last night,” Quinn said. “Weird dreams. I think it’s that old house does it to me.”

  “What happened to you bragging about falling asleep at will?” Lillie said. “You said in the Shitbox, you could close your eyes and sleep but still kind of be awake.”

  “Wasn’t like that,” Quinn said. “I finally got up, took out Hondo, and made a pot of coffee at three a.m.”

  “And still late,” Lillie said.

&nbs
p; “Do we have to call the lawyer?” Quinn asked.

  “Mara will ask,” Lillie said. “She’s dumb, but she ain’t stupid.”

  “Can you imagine growing up with that woman as your mother?” Quinn asked. “She called her own daughter a fat, lazy piece of shit. And then expects her to keep her mouth shut.”

  “She said if she talked, that she’d have her killed.”

  “Sweet woman.”

  “You know that’s witness intimidation,” Lillie said. “We got her now on more charges. Janet can just keep on talking.”

  “What about the phone number Mara called?”

  “Came back to a disposable cell bought at a Walmart.”

  “We know which Walmart?”

  “Working on it,” Lillie said. “Don’t expect much. If Janet and Ramón pitched their IDs and credit cards, they’re not going to mind throwing away a twenty-dollar phone. Man, she was pissed.”

  “Well, at least we know Mara’s been holding out if she knew where to call.”

  Lillie nodded.

  “And playing that tape for her, whether she’s got her attorney or not, may jog loose some details.”

  Lillie nodded again. “You want some coffee? Mary Alice also brought some homemade biscuits in. I sure like that woman. Nice hire, Quinn.”

  “After thirty years with my uncle, you know she came with the place.”

  Lillie’s office faced the front parking lot. Quinn’s old truck sat next to Lillie’s Jeep and a couple aging patrol cars.

  “Last time I interviewed Mara, I brought along the ATF agent from Oxford.”

  “You mean Dinah?”

  “I know her name.”

  “I bet you do.”

  Quinn smiled.

  “See it,” Lillie said, pointing. “I see it right there.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That shit-eating Quinn Colson grin,” Lillie said. “Since when are you into redheads?”

  “I’ll call her and tell her what’s going on,” Quinn said. “I worry your professionalism might be on the decline.”

  “You think I’m going to ask if the carpet matches the drapes?”

  “You know, if I said that, you could have me fired.”

  “It’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

  Lillie grinned at him and walked out to Mary Alice’s desk, where she lifted a couple sausage biscuits wrapped in foil. She tossed him one and sat back down at her desk, lifting her boots off the floor and placing her hands behind her head. She spun her office chair back and forth on the swivel.

  “You gonna ask her out?”

  “Lillie, just set up the interview. I don’t need for you to pass notes for me in class.”

  “She likes you,” Lillie said. “I can see it.”

  “Set it up,” Quinn said. “I want to know everything Mara knows. She can’t hold out on us anymore.”

  “You mind just us talking to the girl?” Lillie asked. “You bring in a Fed and it’s gonna spook her. This isn’t about the guns to me. It’s about those kids.”

  THE PUBLIC DEFENDER HAD a fraternity boy haircut and wore an awkward-fitting pin-striped suit. Quinn noticed his hands were sweating before they started the questioning. He kept on referring to Quinn as “sir,” although he was only a couple years younger. Mara was “Miss Black.”

  Quinn and Lillie sat them all down in the interview room, a windowless cinder-block space that still smelled of sweat and cigarettes after countless pressure washings. Quinn had found a long table in county storage, and it comfortably sat about eight in folding chairs. Mary Alice served coffee. Mara and her attorney had Coca-Cola.

  Quinn sprung for both bottles.

  A lot of pleasantries were exchanged. Quinn learned that Mara’s attorney had been a Sigma Chi at Ole Miss when Lillie was there. They didn’t know each other. His father owned two McDonald’s in Jackson.

  Lillie pressed play, and they all sat around and listened. Just as the attorney looked like he might protest, Mara starting to sniffle and cry, the tape was over. The whole exchange between mother and daughter lasted about ninety seconds.

  “You don’t owe her a thing, Mara,” Lillie said.

  “Your client had some pretty good information that she withheld,” Quinn said.

  “What’s that?” the attorney asked.

  “Momma Janet’s phone number.”

  The attorney’s face reddened. He asked, “Can we have a second?”

  Lillie lifted her eyebrows. Quinn walked with her outside, where Lillie lit up a cigarette and blew some smoke into the wind. “Give him two minutes, he’ll want to cut some kind of deal. You know the D.A.?”

  “Met him at Johnny Stagg’s party.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “I think he had his teeth capped and gets fifty-dollar haircuts.”

  “This kid doesn’t have to be Matlock to be working the Mara-as-victim defense,” Lillie said. “Just let him roll with it. See if she’ll tell us more about what was going on in that shithole.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “She gets to the point of getting tired, emotional,” Lillie said, “maybe we find out where they stashed those kids. Janet didn’t say shit on that tape, but that doesn’t mean Mara doesn’t know. That woman has her scared shitless.”

  The attorney opened the side door. He asked for directions to the bathroom. His suit jacket looked two sizes too large.

  After a couple minutes, they were back at the old school table. Quinn sat at the head and Lillie sat across from Mara and her public defender. “Miss Black wants to help out in every way with the investigation,” he said. “You know she was taken out of high school to help her mother? She saw a lot of things.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “But for her to implicate her own mother, she can’t be charged as an accessory in the death of the child. Miss Black was as much a victim as those missing kids.”

  Lillie cut her eyes at Quinn. She nodded.

  “Let’s hear what she has to say,” Quinn said. “If it gives us more on Janet and Ramón, I give you my word I’ll put in a good word with the D.A.”

  “She doesn’t know where they are,” the attorney said. “But she wants to help.”

  “You mind me doing the asking?” Lillie asked. “Mara? I don’t have any doubts about how rough you had it. We just need to hear it from you. What happened in that house? You shut down when we were talking last week. But we need to know.”

  Mara leaned back in her chair. She was crying pretty freely and used the back of her hand to keep her face dry. She shook her head and did some more face wiping. “She said she’d kill me then, too. This wasn’t no different.”

  “What did she say?” Quinn asked.

  “If I didn’t change the diapers, keep them from crying. She hated the crying. She said it made her blood pressure go sky-high. Sometimes I’d try to calm the babies so she wouldn’t come in screaming.”

  Mara dropped her head into her hands. She closed her eyes.

  “What would she do if she was mad?” Quinn asked.

  The attorney took some notes. He looked up from his notepad and listened, waiting for Mara to continue. He loosened his tie as if the real work was about to start and leaned back in the folding chair.

  “She hit them,” Mara said.

  “For crying?”

  “For crying, for being dirty. For it all. Sometimes there would be handprints on the crib. It was their own mess. You know, shit. Kids trying to clean the shit off themselves, and she got mad about that. If they wouldn’t stop crying, she made me pour Tabasco in their mouths.”

  “She made you,” the attorney said. “Right?”

  “We heard her, Counselor,” Lillie said.

  “What else?”

  “When they got older,” Mara said. “You know, the ones we sold?”

  “How many?” Lillie asked.

  Mara thought about it for a few seconds. “I guess ten?”

  “Same routine?” Quinn asked.

  “Momma wou
ld strap them to their bed with a belt, so they couldn’t move. They try to fight it. These were the kids who were two and three, and Momma would hold their heads under water in a tub out back. I tried to stop her. Jesus, I tried to stop her. She about killed two of ’em. I thought one was dead till he started choking out water.”

  Quinn didn’t move or speak. Lillie rubbed her forehead as she listened. Mara’s attorney’s face dropped all color. He took a deep breath and sat up straight in the metal chair, cheek twitching.

  “Where are they, Mara?” Lillie asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You knew a phone number,” Quinn said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t have anything happen to those kids,” Lillie said.

  “I had forgotten her number,” Mara said. “It came to me last night. That’s all.”

  “You can set this thing straight,” Lillie said. “You never have to deal with your momma ever again.”

  The attorney stood up. He looked to Mara and motioned for her to do the same. He buttoned the top button of the big coat. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s all. That’s all.”

  “You have to go through law school to learn that?” Lillie asked. “We don’t think Mara hurt those kids. Mara, what would happen if you disobeyed Momma?”

  “She’d come at me,” Mara said. “She’d hit me in the face. Take a belt to me. Said I was a worthless piece of shit. A fat nothing. She said she’d kill me. Just like she said last night.”

  “Where are those kids, Mara?” Lillie asked.

  “I swear to Jesus, I don’t know.”

  Quinn looked to her attorney and held up the flat of his hand. The attorney looked at Quinn with an open mouth but stayed silent. “If you were going to take a guess, where would you guess they are?”

  Mara shook her head and watched Quinn with flat eyes. “They’re in Mexico. Things got rough, that’s where Momma said she’d head. Don’t ask me where in Mexico, ’cause I don’t know. But Ramón’s people were there. Momma said they controlled the law.”

  22

  JOHNNY STAGG HAD LOANED DONNIE A ’99 KENWORTH WITH A 455-HORSE engine and a big condo sleeper in back. The rig was powder blue with a lot of chrome and an airbrushed Mississippi flag on the door that read Heritage Not Hate. The cab had a comfortable seat, still slick from a rubdown with Armor All, and a knicked and worn gear shifter that felt solid and smooth in his palm. Donnie wound the gears down, brakes hissing with a step on the pedal, as he took the exit off Highway 78 and onto Bratton Road, looking for the road Luz had told him about. He hadn’t been out of Tibbehah County long enough for his coffee to grow cold in his Rebel Truck Stop travel mug. He wished maybe the trip was longer.