The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  ‘That’s where Patricia Hartley’s remains were discovered,’ he said. ‘We can take a closer look if you like, but there won’t be much to see. We think she rolled down the slope before coming to rest at the foot of those pines. Even Loyd Holt doesn’t contest that; he just elects to believe she was still alive when she started falling. She had abrasions all over, and the branch in her’ – Griffin paused, and settled for ‘lower body’ – ‘had snapped. We found the other half of it about halfway down the slope, right about where that big boulder juts out.’

  Parker didn’t bother hiding his puzzlement. In the context of what Griffin had told him about the placement of Donna Lee Kernigan’s body – and what he knew about the murder of Estella Jackson, in the event that she had been murdered by the same individual – it made no sense for the killer to have dumped Patricia Hartley so carelessly.

  ‘What am I not seeing?’ he asked.

  ‘You can’t see what you don’t know to see,’ said Griffin. ‘Where you’re standing is federal land. Down there is private property, owned by the Ingram family. The edge here marks the boundary.’

  Parker took in the woods, both around and below, and the distant hills. He was moderating his opinion of Griffin and the Cargill PD by the minute, because the odds had been stacked against them from the start. He squatted, and noted that the ground inclined slightly as it reached the edge, but he detected no sign of any collapses. Patricia Hartley’s body could only have been pushed over the edge intentionally.

  Unless …

  ‘Any indications of animal damage?’

  ‘None,’ said Griffin. ‘We have black bears, and they’d certainly be capable of moving a body, but they’d chew on it first. Patricia had been dead for less than a day when she was found; to a predator, her meat would still have been considered fresh. Bears don’t go in much for rotten meat, not unless they’re starving. Had an animal been involved, we’d know about it.’

  ‘So your opinion is that someone moved Patricia Hartley’s body so it wouldn’t be discovered on federal land, because that would have meant involving the FBI?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘You have anyone in mind?’

  ‘Patricia was found by a woman named Wadena Ott. She’s lived a harder life than many, and gets by on food stamps, whatever she can catch in her traps, and bottles of seventy proof cherry brandy. Like a lot of folk barely holding it together, she has a fear of the law, but everyone tries to be as understanding of her needs as they can, including the sheriff’s office. She called them as soon as she got home. Jurel Cade was first on the scene.’

  ‘Do you know that for sure?’

  ‘He told me so himself.’

  ‘And what does Wadena Ott have to say about all this?’

  ‘Whatever Jurel told her to say, which is that she found the body at the bottom of the slope, not the top.’

  Parker envisioned Jurel Cade, his foot against the naked body of Patricia Hartley, using the sole of his shoe to give her one final push over the edge.

  Where have I come to? What manner of place is this?

  He took a small notebook from his pocket and added Wadena Ott’s name to it. Rain speckled the page. He discerned smoke rising in the distance from a fire that was either being smothered by the rain or refusing to yield to it.

  ‘Tell me about the Cades.’

  Griffin did, giving him a truncated family history, but concentrating principally on those that remained, namely Pappy and his brood: Delphia, Jurel, and Nealus. Parker listened without interrupting, all the while regarding the woods; the rocky slope that had damaged Patricia Hartley’s body still further, inflicting injury upon injury; and the Karagol standing like a great pool of tar to the east of his vantage point. If this was the Cades’ kingdom, they could have it.

  ‘So,’ said Griffin, when his monologue was concluded, ‘what do you think?’

  ‘I’m wondering,’ said Parker, ‘if anyone in this county has a regular first name.’

  ‘You’re named after a jazz musician.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘You’re telling me it’s a coincidence?’

  ‘My parents didn’t listen to jazz,’ said Parker. ‘The name came from elsewhere. My grandfather didn’t leave a great deal of value to my father, except for a brass match dispenser and a spectacle case, both made by the Charles Parker Company of Meriden, Connecticut, in the nineteenth century. They’re very collectible, or so I hear. When I was a child, my father would take them out and show them to me. He liked to claim they’d been made for me, which was why they had my name on them. I even believed him, for a while. When he died, they passed to me, as he’d always promised. I still have them somewhere.’

  The pause before ‘died’ was barely detectable, but Griffin picked up on it. He still elected not to reveal his knowledge of Parker’s own troubled family history, a legacy that amounted to far more than nineteenth-century trinkets.

  ‘So you were named after a match dispenser?’ he said at last.

  ‘Or the spectacle case,’ said Parker. ‘Take your pick.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d go with the musician; that, or say that your parents just liked the name.’

  ‘Some people used to call me Bird. It was a running joke.’

  ‘Your tone suggests you never found it funny.’

  ‘I went along with it. It was easier than trying to correct them. After a while, I even found myself using it, which was odd.’

  Griffin’s radio crackled to life. It was Billie Brinton, informing him that the venue for his meeting with Jurel Cade had been changed from the sheriff’s office to Pappy Cade’s residence.

  ‘Is that usual?’ said Parker.

  ‘Nothing about the Cades is usual, but it means that Pappy is already trying to turn the screws on the investigation.’

  ‘You think he can find an extra chair for me?’

  ‘You may have to remain standing. The Cades’ brand of Southern hospitality is predicated on an affinity with the host, and Pappy doesn’t put out the welcome mat for bluecoats, not unless they have money to spend. He still believes the Mason-Dixon line ought to have a wall along it.’

  ‘The more I discover about this county, the unhappier it makes me,’ said Parker.

  ‘It grows on a person.’

  ‘Not if he doesn’t stand still for long enough.’

  ‘Mr Parker, I think you may be a misanthrope.’

  Griffin began to lead the way back to the car. They took a more circuitous route than before, bypassing areas where the rain had made the ground treacherous. Parker counted three hunting stands: bowhunters for deer, most likely, given the time of year.

  ‘Are you from around these parts?’ said Parker.

  ‘No, I was born and raised in Osceola. That’s Mississippi County, up in the northeast. It’s not so different, though.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’

  ‘I like to think it’s one of my better qualities.’

  ‘Well’ – Griffin sounded doubtful – ‘if you say so.’ He checked his watch. ‘We got some time. I’m of a mind to check on Tilon Ward. He doesn’t live far from here.’

  ‘He’s the one who found Donna Lee’s body, right?’

  ‘He is. He’s also, if in the absence of conclusive evidence, involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine, a quantity of which was discovered in Sallie Kernigan’s bedroom.’

  ‘Is he the only source in town?’

  ‘If the stories are true, he’s strictly a maker, not a purveyor. He’s not the brains of the operation, although it’s not for want of intelligence.’

  ‘So who does he work for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Griffin, ‘but I have my suspicions.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Which are my own, for the time being.’ He patted Parker on the arm and continued walking. ‘I wouldn’t want to overburden you with information so early in our relationship.’

  �
��God forbid,’ said Parker.

  33

  Parker and Griffin arrived at the Ward property just as Tilon Ward was preparing to leave in his truck. Ward didn’t look surprised to see them, but he didn’t appear pleased either. Griffin introduced Parker, describing him as a detective from New York who had offered to assist and advise the Cargill PD in the current investigation. For a police officer dealing with a suspected meth cook, Griffin struck Parker as less adversarial, and Ward less defensive, than might have been anticipated, even as Griffin raised the subject of the meth found in Sallie Kernigan’s home.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to know where that came from, would you?’ said Griffin.

  Tilon Ward’s expression remained neutral.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t.’

  Griffin nodded, as though Ward had answered in the positive rather than the negative.

  ‘Because if you did know, that might lead me to suspect you were familiar with the Kernigan family. Are you telling me you weren’t? Because you looked real shook up this morning.’

  ‘I’d just found a dead girl impaled with sticks. Maybe you’re inured to such sights, Evan, but I’m not.’

  Evan: Parker registered Ward’s use of Griffin’s first name.

  ‘No, I can’t say that I am,’ said Griffin. ‘But you must know Sallie Kernigan. You drink at the Rhine Heart, and she used to work there.’

  Ward shrugged. ‘I knew her to order a beer from.’

  ‘No more than that?’

  ‘No more than that.’

  ‘And her daughter, you ever speak with her?’

  ‘Denny doesn’t permit minors in his bar.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I asked.’

  ‘If I’d known who Donna Lee was, I’d have told you when I found her body.’

  ‘I’d like to believe so, Tilon. I’d be discontented with you otherwise.’

  A woman in her late sixties emerged from the house and walked across the yard to one of the outbuildings. Griffin raised a hand in greeting, but she did not return the gesture.

  ‘Must be awkward sometimes,’ said Griffin.

  ‘What?’ said Ward.

  ‘A man your age, living in his mother’s pocket. Hard to keep your business private.’

  ‘We each have our own space. It’s not so bad.’

  ‘That would make life easier, I’m sure. You got a woman, Tilon?’

  ‘No one special.’

  ‘How about someone not-so-special?’

  ‘Not even that. If you think I was sleeping with Sallie Kernigan, you’re wrong. You can hook me up to one of those lie detector machines, and it’ll confirm the truth of it.’

  ‘That seems like a definitive declaration.’

  ‘It is. You talk to her yet?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sallie Kernigan.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because her daughter’s dead, and I was the one who discovered the body.’

  ‘Which gives you a proprietorial interest in developments?’

  ‘Which means I give a shit.’

  ‘No,’ said Griffin, ‘we haven’t found Sallie yet. Should we be worried about her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Should you?’

  ‘I’m starting to be. It’s a hell of a thing, Tilon.’

  ‘It is. A hell of a thing.’

  Ward shook his car keys.

  ‘We keeping you from something?’ said Griffin.

  ‘I got some errands to run in town.’

  A silent exchange passed between the two men. It ended when Ward looked away.

  ‘Then you’d best be about them,’ said Griffin. ‘And drive carefully, Tilon. You’ve had a shock.’

  They stayed behind Tilon Ward as far as the outskirts of Cargill, where Ward took a right while they drove straight on.

  ‘So?’ said Griffin.

  ‘I don’t know him as well as you do,’ said Parker, with deliberate ambiguity, but Griffin didn’t bite.

  ‘Feel free to speculate.’

  ‘He’s hiding something, but not a sexual relationship with Sallie Kernigan.’

  ‘A business one?’

  ‘If that was the case, isn’t it likely that he would have crossed paths with her daughter?’

  ‘Unless Sallie chose to keep any dealings with Ward distinct from her home life,’ said Griffin.

  ‘But what dealings? You said yourself that Ward might cook the product, but he doesn’t sell it.’

  ‘There are always exceptions.’

  ‘So why make one for Sallie Kernigan?’ said Parker.

  ‘Assuming Tilon did make one.’

  ‘Assuming that.’

  Griffin chewed at his lip, then caught himself doing it. He was catching his officers’ bad habits. Next thing he knew, he’d be buying a pipe.

  ‘One of Sallie Kernigan’s neighbors suggested she might be whoring.’

  ‘In town?’

  ‘No, we’d have heard. Over in Malvern, where she works.’

  ‘Does it sound likely?’

  Griffin mulled on it. ‘No, or not habitually. The older generation is not above indulging in a rush to judgment, and I wouldn’t contest that Sallie has a wild streak. We’ll make inquiries, though. Malvern has a population of about ten thousand. Not much easier to keep a secret there than here.’

  Parker made another note. Griffin noticed that the pages of the notebook were heavily annotated. He had not come across it during his search of the motel room, and it had not been on Parker’s person when he was arrested. He must have concealed it well.

  ‘You know,’ said Griffin, ‘I was hoping you might have figured all this out by now, what with you being a detective from New York and all.’

  ‘Former detective.’

  ‘Still.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Griffin. ‘I think the TV shows lied.’

  34

  Tilon Ward parked his truck behind the Rhine Heart, and entered through the rear door that sat between what passed for the kitchen on one side and what qualified as restrooms on the other, both bearing only a tangential relationship to the requisite hygiene standards in either case. If Boyd’s represented the closest to upmarket dining that Cargill offered, then the Rhine Heart was its opposite. It took its name from a play on the owner’s surname, Rhinehart, and served hot dogs and schnitzel if the proprietor was in the mood. Mainly it offered beer, liquor, and pretzels, which amounted to three of their five-a-day for a considerable section of its clientele.

  But the Rhine Heart was also where a man could go if he wanted to find out what was happening in Cargill without being called on his curiosity – or more pertinently, where Tilon Ward could go, since Denny Rhinehart’s premises offered a safe, nonjudgmental environment in which Tilon sometimes conducted his business affairs, with Denny receiving a sweetener in return for his facilitation.

  And Denny also knew Sallie Kernigan. As Griffin had so recently pointed out, she had formerly tended bar at the Rhine Heart, until a disagreement with Denny over where his hands should be permitted to wander caused her to seek employment opportunities elsewhere. Tilon had offered to intervene on her behalf, but she didn’t like working at the Rhine Heart anyway, its patrons sharing a similar mind-set to its owner when it came to feeling up the staff. By then Sallie didn’t need the extra money, since she was earning enough from the meth she was selling. Tilon had helped her to establish herself by advancing a thousand dollars’ worth of product on trust, and in return Sallie hadn’t objected when Tilon began sleeping with her daughter.

  Tilon was still shaken from his encounter with Griffin and the stranger, Parker, who hadn’t spoken beyond the initial greetings, but only listened and watched. By this point, Tilon was having trouble keeping track of all the lies he was being forced to tell. Once more, he wondered if he should have come clean with Griffin the moment he stumbled on Donna Lee’s body, but that would have brought its own difficulties. And he hadn’t been thinking strai
ght. How could he have been? Now he had to live with his falsehoods, and hope that the damage from them could be contained.

  Denny Rhinehart was working the bar alone, which meant using a dishcloth to redistribute the dirt on the glasses while watching some shitty comedy rerun on the ancient TV set high in a corner. Tilon counted four other patrons, two of whom greeted him by name, and two of whom ignored him, Cargill being a small town in which people nursed grudges the way regular human beings cultivated house plants. Tilon took a seat at the bar as far from anyone else as possible and ordered a beer. Denny deposited it before him, the bottle wrapped in a paper napkin, and told Tilon it was on the house.

  ‘I heard what happened,’ he said, ‘about how it was you that found the Kernigan girl.’

  Tilon looked Denny in the eye, but could perceive no intimation of duplicity. Denny didn’t know about Tilon’s relationship with Donna Lee.

  ‘Yeah, it was.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ said Denny. ‘I always liked Sallie.’

  Tilon resisted the urge to break the bottle against Denny’s nose, if only because he’d have damaged his own hand. If you liked her so much, he wanted to ask, why couldn’t you have kept your fucking hands to yourself? Instead he said, ‘Any of her friends been in?’

  The Rhine Heart might have been many things, filthy not least among them, but it welcomed anyone with money to spend, regardless of creed or color, and Denny had no tolerance for racist talk. Even after she’d quit her job behind the bar, Sallie Kernigan had continued to drink at the Rhine Heart once or twice a week.

  ‘No,’ said Denny, ‘but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of them later.’ He wiped the bar with the same cloth he’d used on the glasses, the same cloth he probably used for everything, and had for days. ‘But Kel Knight was in here asking after her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘An hour ago. Seems Sallie doesn’t know about her daughter yet. Cops are trying to track her down.’ He squinted at Tilon. ‘You wouldn’t be able to help them, would you? I mean …’

  Denny trailed off. Even in the comparatively sympathetic surroundings of the bar, some subjects were better off not discussed aloud. Denny might not have been aware of Tilon’s relationship with Donna Lee Kernigan, but he’d noticed that Tilon was tight with Sallie, and it wouldn’t have been beyond him to speculate on meth being the source of their bond, Sallie Kernigan having a fondness for a good time.