The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  ‘What was done to those young women involved planning, and viciousness,’ Parker continued. ‘It wasn’t enough just to take their lives: they had to be violated after death, and their bodies displayed.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘It shows real hate, and that hate is growing stronger.’

  They were nearing the outskirts of Hamill, the county seat, even though it was smaller than Cargill. Nevertheless, Hamill resembled the latter, right down to the crumbling strip mall on the edge of town. It was as though the two men had come full circle and arrived back at their point of origin. Parker had the uncomfortable sense that he might never be permitted to leave Cargill, and had somehow wandered into a hell of another’s making.

  Griffin turned off the main road. They drove for another mile, until they came to a lane on the right signposted PRIVATE. Griffin turned again, and followed a trail marked by stunted trees to a cluster of four dwellings, three of them new and one, the largest, of older vintage. Made of dark wood and darker stone, it spread over three floors, the boundary marked by a low wall that circled the property. Four cars were parked in the driveway, one of them a Burdon County sheriff’s cruiser.

  ‘The big house is Pappy’s,’ said Griffin. ‘The others theoretically belong to each of the kids, although Delphia now spends most of her time in Little Rock, and Jurel has a place of his own in town.’

  ‘Nothing like a close-knit family,’ said Parker.

  ‘True,’ said Griffin, as they came to a halt. ‘And the Cades are nothing like a close-knit family.’

  38

  Any number of people might have been on the list of those who Tilon Ward didn’t wish to see waiting at his mother’s property when he returned from driving around Cargill and its surrounds, half hoping to catch a glimpse of Sallie Kernigan or her vehicle, and all the time thinking about Donna Lee. High on that list would certainly have been Pruitt Dix, and not just because, even in repose, Dix possessed the demeanor of a man who got off on smothering infants. His malignant singularity made him also a fixture, if only in the abstract, on the lists even of those who had yet to encounter him, like a nightmare waiting to be lent flesh.

  Dix was Randall Butcher’s enforcer. Butcher maintained two faces. The first he displayed to the organs of federal and state government, including the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division, the IRS, and anyone in possession of a badge. When Butcher wore that identity, he accessorized it with a suit and tie, and the genus of Little Rock lawyer that didn’t need to advertise on highway billboards.

  Randall Butcher’s other face, the one with which Tilon was more familiar, was very different, typically complemented by jeans, a check shirt, the threat of violence, and the instrument of that violence in the guise of Pruitt Dix. But Dix rarely made house calls, and when he did, it was usually with an eye to ensuring that someone’s health took a turn for the worse. Dix wasn’t a big man, but God had packed a lot of meanness into that small space. Dix kept his head and face completely shaved, his dark eyebrows excepted, wore no earrings, and eschewed tattoos or other markings. Neither did he smoke or drink. His only vice was hurting people, and since this was how he made his living, it had assumed the status of a virtue.

  Dix was leaning against a 1970 Chevy Chevelle LS6 in forest green. The paint job looked as though it could have done with some work, but this neglect was deliberate. Beneath the shabby exterior, the body was pristine, and it boasted a 7.4-liter engine to make a dead man weep. The car stereo was playing some classical music that Tilon recognized from the meth labs, because Dix always determined the soundtrack while they worked.

  Tilon could see his mother peering out through the kitchen window. He hoped she hadn’t called the police. He could understand the impulse, but it would be better for all involved if she resisted. He parked his truck alongside Dix’s Chevy and got out.

  ‘Pruitt,’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

  Dix didn’t answer directly, but instead inclined a thumb toward the house.

  ‘I told your momma I was a friend of yours. I didn’t want her to become concerned.’

  His voice held just the faintest of lisps. It was the kind of speech defect that children and ignorant men were tempted to mock and imitate. No one had done so in Pruitt Dix’s presence for a very long time.

  ‘No, we wouldn’t want that,’ said Tilon.

  ‘Maybe you ought to wave to her, just to confirm my bona fides.’

  Tilon waved a hand with all the enthusiasm of a man who fears having his fingers shot off. The drape on the window fell, and he could see his mother no longer.

  ‘She seems like a nice lady,’ said Dix.

  ‘She is.’

  ‘You think she still has urges?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Needs – of a sexual nature.’

  ‘I don’t know, Pruitt. I try not to speak of such matters with her.’

  ‘Just curious. Because your poppa’s been gone a long time, right?’

  ‘He has.’

  Dix had not blinked once since the conversation began. His eyes were yellow-green, like those of certain cats, and Tilon could not recall ever witnessing the dilation of their pupils. The neutral expression on Dix’s face rarely changed, even when he was causing pain to another, and so it was difficult to know when one was being baited by him – with predictable consequences if one rose to it – or if one was merely engaged in an exchange with an entity that did not think or reason as other humans did.

  ‘I would not be inclined to fuck her myself, you understand,’ said Dix. ‘It was by way of being a general inquiry into the physical appetites of her gender in the mature years.’

  Tilon had no desire to pursue the topic. He could not conceive of the workings of Dix’s mind, but a day that had started as badly as a day could begin, short of his own extinction, now appeared intent on deteriorating still further.

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you’re here,’ said Tilon.

  ‘I’m here because you lied to Randall.’

  With Dix, it was important not to react. His placidity was only skin-deep, and he associated excessive displays of emotion with insincerity.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Tilon. ‘I wouldn’t lie to Randall about anything.’

  ‘You lied by omission. You neglected to inform him that it was you who found the Kernigan girl. He’s curious as to why that might be.’

  It was fortunate for Tilon that he had already prepared himself for this eventuality. He had just not expected it to arrive so soon, although its inevitability was entirely a product of his own actions.

  ‘I was in shock. It didn’t seem to matter who found her, only that she was dead.’

  ‘Randall doesn’t believe that was your call to make, under the circumstances.’

  ‘These aren’t ordinary circumstances.’

  ‘Which is why he’d like to see you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘I’m busy, Pruitt.’

  ‘Not so busy that you couldn’t take time out for a beer at the Rhine Heart.’

  Tilon mentally ran through the faces at the bar in an effort to establish who might have ratted him out, unless Dix had been following him since this afternoon, which was unlikely. It could have been any one of the customers, but Tilon had the feeling it might have been Denny Rhinehart himself, which meant that Denny and Randall Butcher were closer than Tilon had believed. This realization did not make Tilon happy.

  ‘I’ve been trying to find Sallie Kernigan before the cops do,’ he said. ‘I thought Denny might know where she was.’

  ‘Why? You want to console her in her time of loss?’

  ‘She works for us.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘She sells.’

  ‘I wasn’t cognizant of that.’

  ‘It’s a recent development. I’m trying her out.’

  ‘And when did you start taking such a direct interest in distribution?’

  ‘We’re g
oing to need people on the ground when this Kovas business kicks off. I considered it advisable to begin cultivating contacts we could trust. Sallie has a good manner. People like being around her.’

  ‘Do they now?’

  He sounded skeptical. Pruitt Dix didn’t like being around people, with the exception of Randall Butcher. Enjoying the company of others was an alien concept to him.

  ‘She might work for you,’ he said, ‘but you work for us.’

  ‘I work for Randall,’ Tilon corrected.

  Dix’s right hand jerked, as though he had only just restrained himself from inflicting an injury on the man before him. Tilon wondered how many others had been less fortunate, and ended up being deprived by Dix of the use of a limb or blinded in one eye. And Dix had done worse than that: he’d buried bodies in the Ouachita for Randall Butcher.

  ‘You do enjoy walking close to the edge, Tilon,’ he said.

  ‘We have that in common, Pruitt.’

  Dix danced his fingers on the body of his car, permitting some of his anger to leach away through the action. Tilon would not have been shocked had the paintwork bubbled beneath Dix’s touch.

  ‘I can’t go back without you,’ said Dix. ‘It would look bad.’

  ‘I’m asking for a few hours more. I’ll be with Randall soon enough.’

  Dix mulled over this before nodding his acceptance. He slid behind the wheel of the Chevy in a single graceful movement, the action bequeathing a trace of his scent to the air. He smelled like the sediment in a vase of dead flowers.

  ‘Were you fucking her, Tilon?’ he asked through the open window.

  The question threw Tilon.

  ‘Who?’ said Tilon, which was the wrong answer, and Dix let him see that he knew.

  ‘Sallie,’ he said. ‘Who else would I be asking about?’

  ‘No,’ said Tilon, ‘I wasn’t fucking her.’

  Dix shrugged.

  ‘Good-looking woman,’ he said. ‘I could understand if you were. What about the daughter?’

  ‘Randall asked me that already.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said no.’

  ‘I guess that clears it up. Shame about the girl, though. I hope they find Sallie soon. A mother has a right to know the fate of her child.’

  The car started with a growl, but Dix didn’t gun it. That wasn’t his style. Tilon watched him drive slowly away before returning to his apartment. His mother intercepted him in the yard.

  ‘You ought to be more careful in your choice of friends,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not my friend.’

  ‘He said he was.’

  ‘He lied.’

  Tilon tried to pass around her, but she gripped his arm.

  ‘Erma Glass called. She says the talk around town is that you found the Kernigan girl.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You ought to have told me so.’

  ‘Why, Momma?’

  ‘Because I got a right to know. I shouldn’t have to wait to hear about it from the likes of Erma Glass.’

  Tilon’s temper broke.

  ‘What do you want me to tell you?’ he shouted. ‘You want to know what was done to her? Is that what you want to hear? The one who killed her, he stuck branches in her, jammed them in her mouth and her privates, same as was done to Patricia Hartley and Estella Jackson. He fucked Donna Lee with a stick. He fucked her. With a stick. You happy now? You satisfied?’

  His mother’s face crumpled, and he took her in his arms.

  ‘Jesus Lord,’ he said, and then he was crying too, and the sobs shook him so hard that he couldn’t stay on his feet. He sank to his knees, and his mother descended with him.

  Because she knew. God, she knew. She had eyes to see and ears to hear.

  ‘What will I tell them if they come asking questions about her?’ she whispered.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Tilon. ‘Tell them nothing.’

  39

  Parker and Griffin were shown into a wood-paneled office that was too dark to be anything but depressing, and smelled like the lobby of an old folks’ home. Four people were waiting for them: one woman and three men. None appeared particularly enthused by their arrival, but Jurel Cade looked more resentful than the rest.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ he asked Griffin, pointing the toe of a boot in Parker’s direction.

  ‘I could ask a similar question about your family,’ Griffin replied. ‘Last time I checked, none of them was an officer of the law.’

  ‘Just answer the damn question,’ said Cade.

  ‘He’s assisting us with our investigation. He’s been sworn in as a volunteer member of the Cargill Police Department.’

  ‘Really?’ said Cade. ‘Because last time I saw him, he was behind bars.’

  ‘That was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Get him the fuck out of here, Griffin. I don’t know—’

  ‘Wait!’

  The voice came from the man seated behind the desk. He was older than the others, and his presence, even seated, was imposing. Only the slightest tremble of his hands gave any obvious indication of infirmity, but Parker guessed he was in his early eighties, and the lineaments of his skull were clear to see beneath his skin, so that he might bear witness to his own impending mortality each time he looked in the mirror, and force all those who met him to do likewise.

  This, then, was Pappy Cade.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said, addressing the question to Parker.

  ‘My name is Charlie Parker. Chief Griffin asked me to assist with the investigation into the murders of Donna Lee Kernigan and Patricia Hartley, and I agreed.’

  ‘Patricia Hartley wasn’t—’ Jurel Cade started to interrupt, only to be quieted again by a look from his father.

  ‘And what brought you down here to begin with?’ said Pappy.

  ‘I wanted to get closer to nature.’

  Pappy’s washed-out blue eyes regarded Parker for a time before his death’s head split, exposing gravestone teeth.

  ‘Well, ain’t you a character. Is that New York humor?’

  ‘No, that’s not humor at all.’

  Pappy’s eyes flicked to Griffin.

  ‘What would happen if I were to object to this man’s involvement?’

  ‘It wouldn’t make much difference,’ said Griffin, ‘beyond disimproving my mood.’

  ‘I thought you might say that. Jurel?’

  ‘Chief Griffin is entitled to hire and fire as he sees fit. The county sheriff isn’t obliged to cooperate, though, if he believes the appointment runs contrary to the best interests of law and justice.’

  ‘Did you just make that up?’ said Parker.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Because it sounded made up.’

  ‘I said—’

  ‘Yeah, I heard you.’

  Griffin held up a hand. God preserve me, he thought, from young hotheads.

  ‘I’d be obliged if we could discuss this in a civilized fashion, because I think we all have the best interests of the county – and law and justice – in mind.’

  The woman spoke for the first time.

  ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘We should be more hospitable toward our new guest.’

  She appraised Parker openly, stopping just short of checking his dentition. ‘My name is Delphia, by the way, seeing as how we’re to be spending time together. This is my younger brother, Nealus. Jurel, you’ve met. And our father, Delane, although he answers to Pappy.’

  Delphia Cade was as lean as her siblings, but her face was fuller, softening the ravenous look that was a family trait, so that being in their company was akin to confronting a pack of wolves. She was undeniably attractive, if only in a way that promised a great deal of trouble in return for only the barest of efforts. Her fingers were unadorned by rings, and she wore a single gold chain around her neck. Her hair was brown, and had been styled to disguise the fact it was thinning. Parker wondered if it might be stress, because as she rose to shake his hand he saw tha
t the skin around her neck and ears was raw and irritated. Her grip was very firm, and she held his hand for slightly longer than was comfortable between strangers, so that he felt she was releasing him almost reluctantly. He resisted the urge to count his fingers when she was done.

  Nealus didn’t get up, but waved from his chair. He resembled a softer version of Jurel and Pappy, but was more of a clotheshorse than either. He was dressed in a blue blazer and tan pants combination more suited to an older man, and his shoes were brown slip-ons. He lacked only a monocle and a cocktail glass to complete the picture.

  The housekeeper who had shown in Griffin and Parker reappeared with coffee and pastries on a tray, and Nealus roused himself sufficiently, if only at his father’s instigation, to source an extra chair for Parker once it became clear that the latter had no intention of absenting himself from the proceedings. The woman poured the coffee, added milk and sugar as required, then left.

  ‘I still think he has no cause to be here,’ said Jurel, this time without even indicating that Parker was the subject of his complaint. ‘This is police business – local police business.’

  ‘If it was just police business,’ said Griffin, ‘we wouldn’t be meeting in your daddy’s study.’

  Parker noticed that he didn’t look at Jurel when he spoke. His attention was fixed principally on Pappy, but his eyes did divert briefly toward Delphia. Here, then, was where the true Cade power resided, and none of it was being wielded in defense of Jurel. Griffin had slapped him down, and the others had permitted it to go unremarked.

  ‘Your objection is noted, Jurel,’ said Pappy, ‘but we’ll be moving along now.’

  An additional ‘there’s a good boy’ remained unspoken, but everyone heard it anyway. Jurel bristled, but held his tongue.

  ‘So,’ said Pappy, ‘Donna Lee Kernigan. I believe that was the young woman’s name.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Griffin.

  ‘A terrible thing to have happened.’

  ‘Again,’ said Griffin.