The Innocents

by Ace Atkins

  That Memphis sound always brought her back to Orange Mound, not two weeks on the job, when she saw too much blood spilled on an outdoor basketball court from two teenagers fighting over bullshit territory and kid pride with insults and Glocks. She had to call on the sixteen-year-old’s momma, the woman in shock but handling it, saying, “I always knew it would end like this.”

  Quinn led the way, as Quinn always did, across the big empty floor, around the support beams and over the toppled chairs, desks, and spilled paint buckets. Kenny headed up the open staircase next, followed by Reggie. Reggie moving pretty damn good for a rookie, falling right in with Quinn’s Army drill. Quinn rotated up onto the next landing. Everyone trained muzzles to his own corner, moving fast but careful. Or, as Quinn said, don’t be in a damn hurry to get yourself shot.

  It was hot, humid as hell, and Lillie wiped away the sweat from her right eye, finding the landing again, watching Quinn move down the row of open doors, passing the two empty ones and going right for the third. Quinn lined up, looked in the direction of Lillie, and bolted inside. Kenny followed and she saw the room light up and heard two shotgun blasts. And then silence. Reggie lingered at the door, shining a Maglite over a Glock. Lillie felt that familiar surge of adrenaline, waiting for Reggie to turn around and give a thumbs-up or all-clear sign. He seemed to be talking to someone, Lillie again wiping the sweat from her eyes. She was pretty sure they had them. What a fucking mess.

  When she returned to the scope, a quick dark shape charged from the second open doorway, running toward Reggie Caruthers, who had his back turned. Another Norwood brother.

  The man was yelling something and lifted a pistol from the back of his pants.

  Lillie took a deep breath and squeezed that trigger, her Winchester bucking in her hands. A fucking mess, she thought, the man falling and her cell ringing.

  It was Quinn.

  30

  How’s Lillie?” Anna Lee asked. “Dealing with the shooting and all that crap that came next.”

  “She should have never gone on national TV,” Quinn said. “I should have talked her out of it.”

  “You really think she would have listened?”

  “I guess not,” Quinn said. “I don’t blame her for going off on the host, that blonde woman dissecting every move for the last two weeks, saying that Coach Mills was the true hero, standing up to Nito, and second-guessing that Lillie put his life in danger by what we did.”

  “What’s wrong with blondes?” Anna Lee said, hefting up another box in her arms, turning to walk out from the old Victorian and pack up the truck. The house was nearly cleared out, everything Anna Lee owned either in storage or headed up to Memphis. Anna Lee let Quinn know the commute was getting too tough on Shelby and too tough on her. But, son of a bitch, he’d miss seeing her walk. Anna Lee Amsden moved like a cat.

  “Well, Lillie didn’t do herself any favors by asking the woman if she got her journalism degree in a Crackerjack box.”

  “At least she didn’t say fuck,” Anna Lee said. “Could have been worse.”

  “If you watch it back slow,” Quinn said, “you can hear her say it when she rips out her earpiece. She calls the woman ‘a fucking dumb bitch.’ But you got to really turn up the TV to hear it.”

  “Sheriff Virgil?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you follow me up in your truck?” Anna Lee said, hefting the box into what little room was left in the U-Haul.

  “Luke will be there?”

  “I can tell him you’re coming,” Anna Lee said. “Nobody wants drama in front of Shelby. You can stay the night, help me get settled in, and head back tomorrow. I’ll even buy you sweet potato pancakes at the Arcade.”

  “I promised to take the night shift for Lillie,” Quinn said. “She’s worn out. Hadn’t spent hardly any time with Rose since all this began. I think all of us need a little downtime, hope things go back to normal.”

  “I really hope you’ll consider staying stateside,” Anna Lee said. “Memphis is only ninety miles away. Last time, you were over there for six months.”

  “They did promise to get me home for Christmas.”

  “Nothing to change your mind?”

  “No,” he said. “Not now.”

  Anna Lee nodded. They headed back inside together, the house emptying bit by bit, the echoes more pronounced as they walked and talked with nothing to cushion the sound. Quinn moved out a couple antique chairs and latched them to a railing inside the truck, making sure they didn’t jostle too much.

  “But Lillie will need your help.”

  Quinn took off his ball cap, wiped his brow, and pulled it back in his eyes. The sun was setting along the hill above town, looking into Jericho and the oaks surrounding the Square. He shook his head.

  “Lillie doesn’t need me,” Quinn said. “Everyone in town supports the decisions she made to go into that building. Hell, Nito Reece was trying to kill Coach Mills. He was doing worse than waterboarding him up there, taking out some serious rage.”

  “You ever find out why?”

  “He thought Coach was turning on him,” Quinn said. “Something broke in his brain. He killed the Jones girl and went to the next person who wronged him. Mills had gone to Lillie and said Nito had gone nuts, on drugs, getting violent with him. Mills was the one who told us Nito sold off that vehicle to a couple bad dudes in Memphis.”

  “Y’all got the car?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “You going to that big celebration for Coach tonight?” Anna Lee said. “The mayor’s going to give him some kind of award and a lot of his former players are going to speak. I’m sure Boom will be there.”

  “I’ll be working traffic,” Quinn said. “After the presentation, they got some kind of gospel bluegrass group out of Tupelo playing. You know, barbecue, fireworks, the whole damn deal.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  Quinn shook his head.

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry for what the man went through,” Quinn said. “But I never had respect for him the way Boom did.”

  “You never liked authority.”

  “Until the Army beat that outta me.”

  “But that was different.”

  “Sure,” Quinn said. “Respect is a whole ’nother deal. Mills wore all his bullshit on his sleeve and I never bought it. He always came off phony to me.”

  They finished emptying out the house, Quinn unhooking the TV, stereo, CD player, pulling the last few framed prints and photos off the wall. Most of them of Shelby, a few shots of Anna Lee and Luke vacationing down in Costa Rica or someplace. Quinn studied one shot for one moment, Luke’s hand around Anna Lee’s bare waist, pulling her close and kissing her with closed eyes.

  “He wants you back,” Quinn said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because this—us—doesn’t feel the same,” he said. “You put your hand up between us when you kiss me.”

  “There’s a lot to take in.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “This move,” she said. “Let me get settled. I just need a little time.”

  Quinn lifted up the loading platform and slammed it inside the bottom of the truck. He reached up, grabbed the strap to the door, and pulled it closed with a sharp snap of the latch.

  “It’s not over,” she said.

  “I guess it never will be.”

  She lifted up on her toes and kissed him, her mouth stiff and hard, before she turned away and got into the truck. Quinn turned. But, this time, he didn’t watch her go.

  • • •

  You can’t just say shit like that,” Fannie Hathcock said, fanning out a match at Vienna’s bar. “I may not know about being in the public eye, but you can’t call some woman a stupid bitch on national TV.”

  “It’s kind of funny,” Lyle said, scratching at his scrag
gly beard. “If you think about it. I didn’t hear the whole thing. Some people say she called her an old witch.”

  “Nope,” Fannie said, taking a long puff of the cigarillo, spiking the ash, and cupping her chin with her hand. “She straight out said the woman was a dumb bitch. Which was true, but nothing good will come of it. Damn, I can’t wait to see that girl unravel.”

  “Why do you hate that woman so much?” Lyle said, thumping his chest with his fist to stifle a burp. “I mean, she treated me fair. Even got a trusty to bring me some water when I was in the hooch.”

  “She ain’t after you.”

  “You think she’s got a hard-on for you?”

  “In matter of speaking,” Fannie said, puffing on the cigarillo. “Or not.”

  “Can I have another shot and a Bud?”

  Lyle reached into the cooler for a tallboy, poured out the Jack in a tall shot, and turned to the television over the bottles and blazing neon beer signs. She turned her back to Lyle as she watched, casual today in a flowy black silk top and slim black cigarette pants. As she smoked, a little ash scattered on her freckled chest and ruby pendant and she brushed it away with the tips of her fingers, shaking her head at the coverage still in Jericho.

  “Least those cameras and shit ain’t here,” Lyle said.

  The ticker below the reporter read MISSISSIPPI TOWN CELEBRATES HERO AMONG US. The woman was someone different, not the one who the sheriff called a dumb bitch. She stood in the middle of the Jericho town square, having a little heart-to-heart with Bud Mills about his near-death experience and exposing a killer. Coach did his best to look modest, wearing a gold T-shirt that read WINNERS FOR JESUS and a Tibbehah High ball cap. He thanked God a lot, his wife, and all his players and assistants. He said the will to survive and something he’d read in a book called Shout it from the Housetops by Reverend Pat Robertson gave him strength in a time of need.

  “I tried to minister to the boy some,” Coach Mills said. “Make him understand there was another way. He didn’t have to keep on hurting people. What he did to Miss Milly Jones was a downright abomination.”

  The woman on TV nodded at the coach. “Can you talk a little about what Mr. Reece did to you?”

  “He tried to get rough,” Coach said. “But I fought that boy, tooth and nail. I can promise you, he never broke me. That’s when the Reverend Robertson’s words came to me.”

  “The sheriff mentioned something about the use of a pressure washer,” the reporter said. “Can you tell us about that?”

  Coach shook his head, wiping away a tear. “I don’t want to focus on the negative,” he said. “I just want to pray for the boy’s family, friends, and his former teammates. There’s little doubt drugs and alcohol got their hooks into him.”

  Fannie reached over, snatched up the remote, and turned off the television. “That sanctimonious son of a bitch.”

  Lyle bit the shot glass and tossed his head backward to drain it. He set it back down with his mouth and smiled at his talent. “You know him?”

  Fannie nodded.

  “A friend of the working girls?”

  Fannie shook her head. “Knew him a while back,” she said. “He had a specific kind of taste back then. And it had nothing to do with ministering to the youth.”

  “Damn, that Jack stings,” he said. “Can I have another to take off the burn? I got to ride down to Natchez tonight.”

  “If that dumb hick sheriff had shown me an ounce of respect, I could have helped her out,” Fannie said, stubbing out the smoke. “But I’ll let her just keep talking and grinning and missing the point of the whole goddamn story.”

  • • •

  Lillie had brought dinner home, a couple take-out plates from Pap’s Place, a restaurant that celebrated Elvis, fried catfish, and Jesus in somewhat equal portions. Rose loved the fried catfish filets, fries, and peach cobbler for dessert. For a little Mexican girl, she had grand Southern taste.

  They ate together in the kitchen, Lillie feeling good to have the night off. She thought about making an appearance at the appreciation night for Coach Mills on the Square. Rose would love the music and fireworks. But she didn’t really feel like walking around and kissing asses tonight, there’d be enough time before November to make sure all that was in hand. The way Bud Mills had been talking to reporters, he’d make sure to thank the sheriff’s office for saving his skin. He was also appreciative no one had mentioned him being sodomized by a water hose.

  The night had turned unseasonably cool and she opened up the front porch to her bungalow, leaving the screen door shut while she did the dishes. Rose had settled into the living room, in the same house where Lillie had grown up, to watch a show called Adventure Time, about a bubblegum princess, an elastic dog, and heroes who could be made of root beer.

  She’d turned on the radio, listening to a classic country station playing “Dead Flowers” by Townes Van Zandt, trying to think on things other than what Nito Reece had done to Milly Jones. And feeling good he was dead, that maybe for a short while evil didn’t walk among them and that Tibbehah County could be an idyllic community. A countrified Pleasantville, if she worked hard enough.

  Lillie rinsed off a china plate, dried it with a dish towel, and set it in a rack. She helped herself to a big glass of wine and walked out onto her modest porch, Townes now singing “I’ll Be Here in the Morning.”

  Lillie closed her eyes, resting, nearly falling asleep, until she heard a car pull into her driveway. Nikki Rowland headed down her walkway, past the tall red canna lilies her mother had planted decades ago and a small garden of purple verbena and bright orange lantana.

  “I didn’t want to just bust up in your house, but I needed to talk.”

  Lillie told her it was fine, pointing to an old metal porch chair, where the girl took a seat. She had on small khaki shorts and a black T-shirt. Her dark hair had been highlighted in some kind of purple wash and she wore a little nose ring in her nostril.

  “I wanted to give you something.”

  Lillie nodded and asked if she’d like something to drink. She had some white wine and lots of sweet tea. Nikki shook her head, opening up the top of a shoe box on her lap.

  “Milly give this to me the night she died.”

  Lillie’s mouth felt dry and she swallowed, reaching for the wine. Nikki showed Lillie an old blue Samsung phone and three small journals wrapped in rubber hair bands. From inside the house, she could hear Rose’s laughter.

  “I couldn’t make sense of it,” Nikki said. “And I was afraid if I handed it over, Nito might come for me. He had threatened Jon-Jon.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “Most I can tell is that Milly was writing some kind of inspirational book,” she said. “There’s a lot about her brother. Well, it’s made up, so the character who is like her, it’s that character’s brother. The phone, I don’t know. That was most important to her, but I couldn’t get it to work. It has a passcode on it. It’s a few years old and takes an old kind of charger that I couldn’t find.”

  “Her phone got burned to a crisp,” Lillie said. “Maybe she used two?”

  “This isn’t hers,” Nikki said. “It was Brandon’s. She’s kept this phone ever since he died.”

  Lillie nodded, checking out the outdated cell.

  “She was a good girl,” Nikki said. “What’s been written about her being fast, a town tramp and all that, is just a bunch of trash. She took that job with Fannie Hathcock because she had to. I can tell you one thing, it never broke her. Milly was my bright light. I think about her every minute, send her texts, thinking that one day I’ll hear back or maybe she’ll know she was loved.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not a coward,” Nikki said. “But I got my son to worry about.”

  “I understand.”

  “If I’d known he would do that to Milly, I’d have gi
ven up my own life.”

  Lillie nodded. Nikki began to cry and Lillie patted her shoulder, before going inside to pour her some ice tea. When she came back, Nikki was backing out of the driveway.

  The shoe box filled with Milly Jones’s most valuable possessions was sitting on the old metal chair.

  31

  They found Wash Jones four days later at the local Chevy dealership, doing a live interview on a right-wing talk radio show about the decline of morals in America, a recent loss by Ole Miss, and the tragic and untimely death of his eldest daughter. He sat at a card table in the middle of the two talk show hosts, headphones on, still wearing the image of Milly’s angel on the front of his T-shirt. The owner of the dealership stood nearby, showing a Hispanic couple the insides of a metallic orange Silverado 2500.

  “Almost like he’s enjoying himself,” Lillie said.

  “‘Almost’?” Quinn said.

  At a station break, Wash shook the hands of the radio hosts and limped his way over to Quinn and Lillie. He wore a Tibbehah County Wildcats ball cap and a big smile. His face shone with sweat, big belly stretching the material of his T-shirt. “Missed you the other night, Sheriff,” he said to Lillie. “Heck of a night. I ’bout broke down when the band played ‘Angel from Montgomery.’ I hugged Coach Bud and thanked him for all he did to get Milly’s killer to justice. Want to thank you, too, Miss Virgil. I don’t think I could have gone living with her killer being out there, unknown to us all.”

  Lillie smiled and nodded.

  “You mind if I ask which one of you shot up that black son of a bitch?” he said, grinning. “’Cause I’d sure like to shake your hand.”

  “Mr. Jones,” Lillie said. “We’ve just gotten some new information about what Milly might’ve been doing that night. And we’re hoping you might help us understand.”

  “So you won’t tell me?” Wash said. “I heard it was one shot. A dang killshot right through the brain. Listen, y’all want a hot dog or something? Dealership has free hot dogs and balloons for the kids. Also might let you take a test-drive, Quinn. Get you out of that old Ford you been driving.”