by Ace Atkins
“I called the crime lab over in Batesville,” Lillie said. “They’re sending some techs over.”
“What can we do?”
“You’re looking at it.”
The foot of the bed had been raised a foot by a couple concrete blocks. Lillie handed Quinn a Maglite, and he dropped to one knee to shine the light on the man. He had black hair and a mustache, with a pockmarked complexion that looked like he hadn’t shaved for a few days. His black eyes were wide open, and a purplish tongue hung loose in his mouth. He was a big man with a thick body. The blood spilled out in a halo from the back of his head, the wound was small and neat, easily seen after the hair had been parted with a bullet.
“OK if we turn him over and check for an ID?” Quinn asked.
“Already did,” Lillie said. “Guess you figured he’s not from around here. He has a Mexican driver’s license. Francisco Quevedo Sanchez from the state of Chihuahua. Thirty-five years old. Of course he’s not in our system. He has what looks like a real visa in there, too. Runs out in two weeks. Place of employment is an outfit out of Houston called Lone Star Amusements.”
“That’s something.”
“You better call your girlfriend,” Lillie said. “She might be of more help to us than just entertaining the troops.”
“Can we put the bullshit on hold today?” Quinn asked. “Y’all check for his vehicle?”
“He doesn’t have any keys on him,” Lillie said. “All the cars in this shithole are accounted for.”
“Finest motel in Tibbehah.”
“It’s where you stayed when you first came back,” Lillie said. “Good enough for you.”
“That’s a close-range gunshot,” Quinn said. “I’d bet on a .22.”
“See, you aren’t as bad at this as you think,” Lillie said. “What else do you see?”
“Can I check out the drawers and space or will that mess shit up?”
Lillie shook her head, stepped back, snapped some more photos, a flash going off in the small room. The blood had dried in a thick pool around the man’s head, but when he walked a few meters toward the bathroom, Quinn saw more blood misted on the wall of the shower and on the rear of the shower curtain. The drawers were empty of any personal items. It looked like he’d just taken a shower, with wet towels on the floor and some dirty clothes kicked in the corner.
“How long till the state people get here?”
“Maybe an hour,” Lillie said. “They’ll process all this sometime next year.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“State lab is backed up till Easter, they say,” Lillie said. “Even then, it’s going to take some political pull and a swift kick in the ass. This state doesn’t have the money or resources. What we see here is what we get. Besides, looks like someone was real careful on this whole thing. Moved the poor son of a bitch into the tub, might’ve worked him over there. You see the marks over his eyes? Probably see the same thing on his body. Guess Francisco didn’t give it up, and they took his ass out.”
“Or he gave them an answer they didn’t like.”
“There’s always that,” Lillie said, replacing the memory card in the camera. “Can’t help but wonder if this isn’t tied in with Ramón Torres. I know, just ’cause this victim is Mexican doesn’t mean shit. But, hell. We got two major crimes this month, and it’s folks from south of the border. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll call Dinah.”
“Good excuse as any,” Lillie said. “After she meets Francisco, you could take her down to the Fillin’ Station for dinner. I hear it’s chicken-fried steak night. Give her enough time and she can put on a fresh pair of panties.”
Quinn just stared at Lillie. Lillie grinned.
“You know that Mexican woman Donnie was with the other night at the Sonic?” Quinn said. “I saw her picture in a photo pack that Dinah showed me the other day. She was tied in with some cartel along the Gulf.”
“Terrific.”
A framed picture on the wall of the motel celebrated the sweet potato harvest in 1978. Big blooms surrounded an orange spud. Kenny leaned in the door and looked from Lillie to Quinn and then ducked out the door. Quinn could smell Kenny’s cigarette smoke as he stood guard.
“What’s the ATF think is going on?”
“I didn’t tell her yet,” Quinn said. “I wanted to talk to Donnie first.”
“That’s a mistake, Sheriff.”
Quinn reached for his cell phone in his coat and stepped outside. Kenny leaned back into the room, and Lillie told him she’d punch him in the throat if he took one step in her crime scene. Kenny ducked his small goateed chin and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Quinn dialed Dinah’s number. He’d have to tell her everything.
28
QUINN LEARNED ALL OF THIS FROM HIS UNCLE, MUCH LATER AFTER IT ALL happened. His uncle said he never had much patience or time for fools, the man being the most foolish man he’d known. Hamp told Quinn that the warden Porter had waited overnight at the Colson home, worrying the hell out of Jean, asking for some cold fried chicken and downing a six-pack, using her phone and cussing to high heaven. Jean didn’t need any more trouble, as those had been the days when she’d drown herself in boxes of wine and stories about Elvis rather than facing what Jason Colson had done to her.
Porter had been so drunk on some Jack Daniel’s that Quinn’s daddy had left behind that Hamp Beckett had to kick his legs out from under him to wake him up. Porter’s eyes narrowed on the sheriff, fired up with frustration and plain meanness.
“You got ’im?”
“Nope,” Beckett said. “Not my job.”
“Well, it should be your job, since that boy is your nephew,” Porter said, pulling himself to a few inches below Hamp’s chin, trying to look like a lawman in charge. They’d stood on the back deck of the Colson house, loaded down with dead potted plants and Jean’s flowers that had burned up in the first frost.
“How far can a kid get?” Porter said. “Holy Christ. Where the fuck would he have gone?”
“You know if I knew, I sure as shit wouldn’t tell you,” Hamp said. “Why are you here? You’re drunk as hell and worrying the crap out of my sister. I’ll call you when I find them.”
“Them? Who’s them?”
“If he killed those bucks like you say, he’ll have to answer for it. But why you think you can run roughshod over this whole family is a riddle to me.”
“He broke the law,” Porter said. “He slashed my tires. Rurned my property. And you said ‘them,’ god damn it.”
“OK,” Hamp said. “He killed some deer. But he’s also a ten-year-old boy without a daddy.”
“I don’t get involved in no family drama,” Porter said, taking a pack of Red Man out of his shirt pocket. “His sister with him? I knew it. I think she come back here for some supplies. His momma said they’re missing some food items. Sounds like someone taking to the woods.”
“Then what are you doing dead drunk on this porch?”
Porter made a show out of taking a generous spit and headed back to his state truck, the back window obscured with a loaded gun rack. A hand-painted sign on the door, bragging on the title the state had awarded him. He hung off the door and watched Hamp Beckett follow.
“I don’t care if they’re kids or not,” Porter said.
“You better care, you cocksucker.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you are a lazy, stupid, splayfooted cocksucker,” Hamp said. “Don’t you know who I am?”
“I know who you are.”
“Know who I am from some time back?” Hamp said. “You remember me from when those black students from up north went missing? When they found them all buried twenty feet down on Ronnie Hankins’s land. They burned Ronnie’s ass up like a candle, but he didn’t do it alone.”
“You’re crazy as hell.”
“And you ran the backhoe, you cocksucker,” Hamp said. “People like you have nothing in your soul, still passing the collecti
on plate on Sunday with a smile on your face.”
“That mess don’t have shit to do with that boy,” Porter said. “And I’ll sue your ass out of office, I hear that talk again.”
“Sue me, cocksucker.”
“I’ll fix you.”
“Go ahead.”
“They got supplies,” Porter said. “They took to the woods. I’m the best damn tracker in this county. You better pray you find them first.”
Porter slammed the door and pulled away.
Hamp walked back into the house and held his sister’s hand. She had already finished off half a box of wine.
“Quinn had a special place, Jean,” Hamp said. “He said there was a lake or a pond in the National Forest. What’s he told you about it?”
“I don’t like that man,” Jean said. “He smells rotten.”
“That’s ’cause he is rotten,” Hamp said. “Where’s that special place? Can you draw it for me?”
29
QUINN’S MOTHER SAT IN THE DARK WITH JASON ASLEEP ON HER LAP, watching a late-night movie starring Robert Mitchum as a hell-raising moonshiner. He couldn’t remember the name of the film but recalled it being one of his daddy’s favorites. Jean put a finger to her lips and began to carry Jason back to his bedroom, but Quinn met her halfway and tucked him in himself. Jean had recently converted Quinn’s old bedroom, since it was larger than the guest room, into Jason’s. And Quinn was proud to see that Jason wanted to keep some of his old things: a picture of a samurai warrior and a hand drawing of the Knights of the Round Table. The bookshelf had changed some, with Treasure Island, Greek mythology, and Nick Adams hunting stories side by side with The Very Busy Spider and Duck Goes Potty.
Quinn softly laid the boy in bed and closed the door. Jean had the sound off on the television and had lit up a cigarette.
“You want some dinner?” she said. “I put some up for you. I kept the oven warm. Some chicken spaghetti, and I left you a little salad in the refrigerator.”
Quinn made a plate and brought it out to the dining room, where you could still see Mitchum on television running shine and ducking cops.
“At least you don’t have to chase down moonshiners,” Jean said.
“Want to bet?” Quinn said. “We still got the old-timers up in the hills around Carthage who love it. I can see how a man would make shine when the real stuff is illegal. But can you imagine liking the taste?”
Jean shuddered and blew out a trail of smoke by lamplight. “Your granddaddy sure loved that stuff.”
“I’ll stick to beer.”
“Heard you had quite a day,” she said.
“Yep.”
“Poor Caddy,” his mother said. “I know in her mind she was trying to do the right thing. She was supposed to just drop off Jason. I thought it would give her some responsibility, make her feel good about being a mother. Jason must’ve said something to her on the way to school about all that Africa mess.”
“You know I was the one who told him his people came from Africa?”
“Oh, Lord, yes,” Jean said. “Caddy told me.”
“So now she’s pissed at me?”
“She’s just mad in general,” Jean said. “She’s keyed up. I think she’s coming down from whatever kind of high life she’s been living. Makes her edgy.”
“You know what she was on?”
Jean shook her head and walked to the kitchen. She poured a little coffee and sat across from Quinn. The chicken spaghetti was very good. He added a little ranch dressing to his salad that wasn’t much more than some lettuce and a slice of tomato. A piece of garlic bread sat at the edge of his plate.
“What I’m worried most about is probably the same thing that worries you,” Quinn said. “Stop me if I’m wrong. I’d love to be wrong. But Caddy has come to town with some kind of agenda. She may believe she’s going to get her life straight and take Jason back to Memphis.”
As soon as he’d said the word he wished he hadn’t, as his mother’s face changed hue. Jason was her entire world.
“But then it will fall apart, and Jason is going to be the one switching schools and being around God knows what. She pulls that crap again, and I want us to get an attorney.”
“I believe she’s changed.”
“Since when?” Quinn asked.
“We’ve talked at length.”
“About everything?”
“Some of it.”
Quinn walked back to the darkened kitchen and fetched a beer. He sat back down. “Just what did she tell you?” Quinn asked.
“She wouldn’t tell me some specifics, but talked about some rough stuff that happened when y’all were kids. I was hoping you could shed a little light.”
Quinn took a deep breath and dug into the chicken spaghetti some more. Probably the one thing he missed more than anything being away from home for ten years was honest-to-God real food. If he could only eat in peace without the world coming to head over a set table, he’d like it even more. He stopped eating for a moment and studied the wall. He didn’t know quite what to say.
“Quinn, honey?” Jean said. “I asked you a question.”
Quinn nodded. He drank some beer. Black-and-white images flicked across the living room. “I think that’s something that’s up to Caddy, Mom,” he said. “It’s not for me to speak for her.”
“But you know,” Jean said. “You know what she’s talking about? Did it happen to you, too?”
“Shit, what does it matter now?” Quinn asked. “It’s all over. It’s been taken care of a long time ago.”
“Did someone hurt you two? Was this something that happened when I was drinking? Lord God. Please tell me it wasn’t while I was such a mess. Please, Quinn.”
“Momma, you didn’t do anything,” Quinn said. “What happened, happened. I don’t want to talk about it. OK? In fact, I never want to talk about it. But if Caddy does, that’s her own deal.”
Jean stared at him for a long moment. She drank some coffee. When Jean wanted to show you her disapproval, she grew very quiet. His mother was the master of the long silence.
“Caddy is getting too old to make a scene like she did today,” Quinn said. “And I don’t think you need to coddle her, either. She blocks traffic again, and I’m going to have to arrest her. You know that?”
“I know, I know,” Jean said, adjusting the narrow old watch on her wrist. “What she did today wasn’t smart. It was a step back to her old ways even though she thought she was looking out for Jason. But this thing, whatever it is in her, has been bottled up so damn long. If she could make sense of it, it would be like cleaning house, throwing open the windows. I want to help her with that. I think you should, too.”
“You can’t make sense of it,” Quinn said. “And it’s not my place. But I’ll talk with her. If that’s what she wants.”
“You know, Quinn,” Jean said, “this may be that one step she has to take before she gets her life in order. I had to make myself understand that your dad was gone and wasn’t coming back before I straightened up. We all got things that we have to set right in our heads.”
“All that was twenty years ago,” Quinn said. “You make decisions, act on them. If the outcome doesn’t work, you study it a bit. But you don’t let it sink you. You start to backtrack, and it can kill you.”
“Army talk?”
“It’s the truth.”
“I think a preacher might put it another way.”
“I’d rather listen to a warrior than a holy man.”
“Just like your father.”
“He wasn’t a warrior,” Quinn said. “He was a pretender. He’s the one where you should place the blame. Not you. You were trying to hold us together. OK? This thing didn’t have anything to do with you.”
Most everything in the house was untouched, the same as he always remembered it. The framed pictures of Elvis and Graceland and cheap oils of rolling farmland and simple white houses. Jason had changed some of that and had added a lot of life to the house and to
his mother. Everything felt so still here and safe.
“Mitchum was one handsome man,” Jean said, trying to compose herself. She snuffled and smiled a bit, trying. “Did you know he was sentenced to time on a Georgia chain gang? I think he wasn’t but fourteen or fifteen. He escaped and went to Hollywood.”
Quinn reached for his mother’s hand and squeezed. Jean Colson started to cry and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. She gave a weak smile and turned back to the television.
“He was good as the drunk sheriff in El Dorado.”
“You want some more supper?” Jean asked, picking up the empty plates. “Or another beer?”
“I’m good.”
“So how’s the rest of your day?” Jean asked. “Anything else interesting happen?”
30
DONNIE WENT TO THE TIBBEHAH HIGH SCHOOL BALL GAME ON FRIDAY night to deliver the gun money to Johnny Stagg. Stagg had told him through Leonard not to even think about dropping by the truck stop unless he wanted a mess of federal agents crawling up his ass. Donnie told Leonard that he preferred not getting his ass crawled and for Stagg to let him know where he wanted to meet. When Leonard called back, Donnie broke out a new pair of Levi’s, his best pair of boots, a white T-shirt, and his old Wildcats letter jacket. He’d been a wide receiver for the Wildcats back in the day, playing ball with Boom and Quinn Colson and a fella named Wesley Ruth. In truth, they weren’t worth a shit, losing as many games as they won. But like they say, you only get better with age, and to hear the class of ’99 tell it, they all could have played D-1 ball if they’d had the grades.
The home bleachers were old and concrete, with narrow steps stretching up to the high seats. The lights shined bright across the crisp green field where Tibbehah and Water Valley were tied up at the half. 7 to 7.
Donnie walked up the far corner of the packed stadium and took a seat by Johnny Stagg. Stagg ate salted peanuts from a paper sack and threw the busted shells at his feet. He wore a bright red sweater and an Ole Miss ball cap, not even acknowledging Donnie as he reached into the sack and grabbed a handful.