The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  ‘She claimed not to know.’

  ‘Claimed?’

  ‘I was reluctant to believe her.’

  ‘We can try again come morning. Who’s on duty tonight?’

  ‘Petrie and Giddons.’ Two of the part-timers. ‘And I’ll hang on for a while, just in case. I took a nap earlier, so I’m good to go.’

  Which might or might not have been true, but Griffin didn’t object. He wanted time at home, and not only to eat and bathe. He required space to think.

  ‘Did Billie clear that desk for Parker like I told her?’

  ‘Over by the window.’

  ‘You could look happier about it. We have an investigation in progress, and some of the expert help we need.’

  ‘This is me looking happy.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Griffin headed for the door. ‘But that’ll teach you to be careful what you wish for.’

  43

  The motel’s honeymoon suite wasn’t exactly somewhere a bride would choose to spend her wedding night, not unless she’d been around the block a few times and was happy to settle for a roof over her head and a kitchenette with a toaster oven. It did come with a seating area: a couch that erred on the side of firm, and a pair of easy chairs that weren’t noticeably easy at all. Parker spread his notes over the burn-scarred coffee table, along with a detailed map of the county, and commenced drawing up a rough plan of action for the days to come. He’d have to wait until morning to see if Billie Brinton could find contact details for the family of Patricia Hartley down in Lucedale, Mississippi, since Jurel Cade claimed to be unable to help. According to Jurel, the Hartleys weren’t actually staying in a property owned by the Cade family, and he wasn’t sure if they even had a telephone.

  Parker realized that he hadn’t eaten. Although he was tired, the prospect of spending the evening in his new accommodations seemed both dispiriting and pointless. The murder of Donna Lee Kernigan was likely to be the main subject of discussion in Cargill that evening, and if a man sat quietly in a bar, pretending to mind his own business, he might learn a lot, assuming the news about his appointment to the local police department had not yet circulated too widely. To combat his tiredness, Parker changed his shoes, an old trick he’d learned from his days on the force, and picked up the novel he’d been trying to read for weeks: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. He had wanted something entirely removed from his own experience, and in which he could lose himself when he chose, but had not been able to concentrate on a book in weeks. His thoughts kept drifting to the dead, and their voices called to him from a past that now belonged to another man. He folded the novel inside a copy of the Burdon County Courant that the motel had provided free of charge. He’d attract less attention with reading material before him, although he supposed that depended upon the nature of the bar in which he ended up. There were drinking establishments in which a man with a book would draw the kind of interest more usually associated with dancing bears and snake charmers on the basis of novelty value alone.

  He left his room and stood for a time watching cars and trucks roll by. Music drifted from Boyd’s: Townes Van Zandt had usurped the Eagles, however temporarily, which could only be considered an improvement. A brand new Lumina pulled into the motel’s parking lot: a classic rental car, confirmed by the Hertz rental agreement visible on the dash as it pulled into a space close to Parker. Two men emerged, both dressed in business suits, but only one of them looked like a businessman. The other was textbook private security, from the bristles on his mustache to the gun in the shoulder rig that his too-tight jacket failed to disguise. Lack of concealment was probably the point, Parker thought, because this did not strike him as a man who cared to hide his worst aspects. He carried himself like one permanently poised to inflict violence, and who would require scant cause to do so, if any cause at all. His gaze, as it drifted over Parker, was like being showered with effluent.

  Parker waited for the two men to head into the motel lobby before taking a stroll past the car. The seats were empty and clean, but the rental agreement on the dashboard bore the name Charles Shire, and the corporate discount came from Torviva Industries, S.A. From Griffin, Parker knew that Torviva, registered in Switzerland, was the parent company of Kovas Industries. He wondered whether the visit was bad timing, or if all of the Cades’ efforts had been for naught and Kovas had sent Shire, its fixer, to find out exactly what was happening in Cargill.

  44

  A similar question regarding events in Cargill, although less politely expressed, had just been posed in Randall Butcher’s office. Unfortunately, Tilon Ward didn’t have an answer, or none that Butcher wanted to hear.

  ‘Another killing,’ said Tilon. ‘That’s what the fuck has happened.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  ‘No, Randall,’ said Tilon, and he wasn’t. The fact that he was in Butcher’s office, with Pruitt Dix hovering in the background, was an indication that the situation was about as far from funny as one could get without blood and weeping. Only under exceptional circumstances did Tilon Ward find himself in these surroundings, Randall Butcher, as has already been established, being minded to maintain degrees of separation between his legal and illegal activities.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was you that found the body when we spoke earlier?’ said Butcher.

  ‘I was in shock.’

  ‘You never seen a dead body before?’

  ‘Not a young girl’s naked body, and not one impaled with sticks.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Tilon heard movement behind him and sensed that Dix had drawn nearer. He didn’t turn to look, though. He didn’t want to see Dix’s eyes, or have Dix stare into his.

  ‘I think you do,’ said Butcher softly, ‘and if I were you, I’d be very careful how I answer the next question, because I’m already unhappy about having to ask it again: Were you sleeping with her?’

  Tilon wasn’t careful.

  ‘Who?’ he said, and a second later Pruitt Dix sliced at Tilon’s right ear with a pocket blade, neatly splitting the lobe. The injury instantly began to bleed heavily, soaking Tilon’s shirt and jeans, and releasing droplets to explode on Butcher’s wood floor. Tilon screamed in pain and cupped his right hand to the wound, the blood dripping through his fingers.

  ‘The next time,’ said Butcher, ‘I’ll let Pruitt take the whole ear. Now, were you or were you not fucking Donna Lee Kernigan?’

  How did he know? Tilon wondered. We’d been so careful.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was fucking her.’

  Butcher smiled at Dix, still hovering over Tilon. ‘See, I told you so,’ he said. ‘He has his old man’s taste for tender meat.’

  He returned his attention to Tilon.

  ‘Pruitt here was sure you were sleeping with the mother, but I informed him he was mistaken. The apple don’t fall far from the tree, and your daddy always did have a problem counting the years when it came to women.’

  Butcher dug a cloth napkin from a container in the corner of the office, where he kept the better tableware for the club’s VIP area, and handed it to Tilon, who pressed it against his ear.

  ‘Did you kill her, Tilon? Was it you that left her out there with a stick at each end?’

  Tilon stared at the floor.

  ‘No, I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I cared about her.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re a regular romantic, sleeping with girls young enough to be your daughter. Do the police know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They will, soon enough. If I could figure it out – and I don’t even live in your godforsaken town – then others will too, and that little girl probably talked to her friends about you.’

  ‘She didn’t. I told her not to.’

  ‘And you think she listened to you? She was a teenage girl. If she could keep anything to herself, she wasn’t human. What about the mother? Did she know about you and her child?
’

  Tilon didn’t reply.

  ‘Jesus, Tilon. Was that why you was asking after Sallie Kernigan at the Rhine Heart, so you could make sure she kept her mouth closed?’

  Tilon nodded. He’d have serious words with Denny Rhinehart once all this was done. If a man couldn’t trust his bartender, whom could he trust?

  ‘What did you give Sallie: some freebies, a discount?’

  ‘Both.’

  He decided not to mention the gun. It would only enrage Butcher still further.

  ‘You told Pruitt you were cultivating her as a dealer.’

  ‘That, too.’

  ‘Bullshit, or near as. And in return for your largesse, she let you sleep with her daughter? That’s some good parenting right there.’

  Butcher sat against his desk. The beat of the music was barely audible from the club next door. He’d largely ceased to notice the noise, but when he did, he found it annoying.

  ‘When did you last see the girl?’ Butcher asked.

  ‘Early Saturday morning. I took her to my place Friday night. My momma was visiting her sister in Dumas. She has cancer.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Still, to every cloud. So Donna Lee stayed over?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then you drove her home next day?’

  ‘No, I dropped her off on Vervain.’

  A number of the roads in Cargill were named after Arkansas wildflowers: Vervain Street, Indian Paintbrush Lane, Goldenrod Way. It made them sound prettier than they were.

  ‘Not many houses around there. You really didn’t want to be seen with her, did you, Tilon?’

  ‘No, but it was close enough for her to be able to walk home. You the police now, Randall?’

  ‘You want Pruitt to even up your earlobes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then shut up and answer my questions. What time was that?’

  ‘Before seven, maybe. It was still dark.’

  ‘You check to make sure she got back okay? You call or anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doesn’t say much for your solicitude. You might have cared about her, but you didn’t care enough. You figure she’s dead because you didn’t drive her to her front door?’

  Tilon didn’t reply.

  ‘Answer me, goddamn you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tilon softly.

  Butcher eased himself from his perch and squatted before Tilon.

  ‘You know, Tilon, I was seriously considering having Pruitt take you into the Ouachita and let you dig your own grave, all the trouble you risk bringing down on us because you share your daddy’s appetites, but it would likely have caused more problems than it solved. Also, right now you cook the best meth in the state, and I’m in need of the cash flow generated by your expertise.

  ‘But Jurel Cade has a hard-on for you, and old Pappy might see a way of using you to get at me, because that old bastard could hear a coonfart in a thunderstorm, and nothing in Burdon County stays hidden from him for long. All things considered, it might be better if you were to disappear for a while. I have a place you can stay before you head back into the woods and get to cooking.’

  ‘Won’t that make the police suspicious?’

  ‘You got an alibi for the rest of the weekend?’

  ‘Mostly I was home. I sat up late Saturday with my momma watching movies on cable. She has trouble sleeping.’

  ‘Police know this?’

  ‘I believe I told them so, or near enough.’

  ‘There you are. You got nothing to worry about.’

  Tilon wasn’t certain of that. He slept in quarters away from the main house, so it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to slip out without his mother noticing, apart from the noise of his truck. He therefore remained vulnerable to suspicion.

  Butcher began moving papers around on his desk. The conversation was clearly drawing to a close.

  ‘What about my momma?’ said Tilon.

  ‘Pruitt will swing by, let her know you’re safe, if that’ll put your mind at rest.’

  It wouldn’t, but Tilon let it slide. He wasn’t in a position to argue.

  ‘In the meantime, we’ll start assembling the ingredients,’ said Butcher. ‘We’re short on muriatic, but that won’t take long to fix.’

  Muriatic – or hydrochloric – acid could be bought in most hardware stores, especially those with a pool section. But locals weren’t doing much with their pools in February, and large purchases risked drawing attention. Butcher had a couple of tame suppliers, but he’d also been stockpiling industrial-sized buckets of drain cleaner, just in case.

  ‘And lye,’ Dix added. ‘We’re going to need lye.’

  Lye was used to neutralize any excess acid in the manufacturing process, but it served other purposes as well. Tilon returned to an incident a year or so earlier, when Dix had asked him to take a look at a stainless steel cylinder out by one of the cookhouses because he thought there was something hinky about it. Tilon had opened it up and caught the smell at the same time as he saw the syrupy brown mix, and picked out what was left of the skeleton poking from the fluid. He could still hear the echo of Dix’s laughter as he threw up.

  Dix placed his hands on Tilon’s shoulders.

  ‘No hard feelings,’ he whispered into Tilon’s uninjured ear.

  Tilon shook his head, and wished he’d run when he had the chance.

  45

  Reverend Nathan Pettle stood before his congregation, his wife seated in the front row alongside their daughter, Melissa, who was in the year below Donna Lee Kernigan at Hindman High, and had known her by sight. The Pettles’ only son, Robert, was an electrical engineering major at the University of Arkansas up in Fayetteville. He’d offered to come down and lend his support to the community, being that kind of boy, but his father had instructed him to stay where he was. Pettle had been assured of a place for Robert at Kovas after his graduation, a small acknowledgment from the company of the reverend’s support for its endeavors, and the last thing he wanted was for Robert to be in any way associated with the fallout from Donna Lee’s murder. Robert had a conscience, which was good, but had yet to learn when it was appropriate to speak truth to power, and when it was better to keep one’s mouth shut in order to determine which way the wind was blowing. Right now, that wind was blowing the stink from Donna Lee Kernigan’s corpse straight into Nathan Pettle’s face.

  Robert was also better than his younger sister at gauging the relative health of his parents’ relationship, so the increased tension between husband and wife was unlikely to escape him. Even Melissa’s teenage self-absorption had been pierced by the barely concealed rancor in the family home, although she hadn’t yet raised the subject. In any case, she was more likely to broach it with her mother than her father, and Lord knew how Delores might answer, especially in her current mood.

  And there was Delores, glaring up at him, wishing she could expose him for the hypocrite he was, imagining herself standing before these fine people, her husband’s flock, and announcing that he, their shepherd, had fucked the mother of the girl they were gathered here to mourn, fucked her like the low-life animal he was. Maybe he’d have to exercise both his husbandly and pastoral authority once they were alone, and remind her that, regardless of the resentment she persisted in harboring toward him for his failings, a young girl was dead, and she ought to set aside her bitterness and weep for this lost life, and possibly shed a tear for Sallie Kernigan, wherever she was. Yes, he might just do that.

  Or – because Delores’s face seemed in that instant to grow hard, as though she were eavesdropping on his musings – he might not.

  The choir reached the conclusion of ‘Little Innocent Lamb’. Pettle had made the hymn selections himself, and the gathering had already been treated to ‘There Is a Balm in Gilead’ and ‘Jesus Lay Your Head in the Window’. Even if he was a sinner, Pettle knew how to put together a service.

  The last notes faded, but he allowed a moment or two longer for the silence to b
ed down. Just as he was about to speak, the rear door of the church opened, and a man appeared, a single white face among the black.

  And Pettle had to bite his tongue to stop himself from swearing aloud.

  46

  Evan Griffin had taken his bath and changed into fresh clothes. He’d also instructed Kevin Naylor to attend the hastily convened service at Reverend Pettle’s church, and take note of what was said, and who was in attendance – as well as who might be absent, because that could be interesting too. Naylor was technically off-duty, but this was a time of crisis. He was also the only black officer in the department, and Nathan Pettle’s congregation was entirely non-white.

  Kel Knight called while Griffin was buttoning his shirt, and confirmed with him the wording of the statement to go out to the local press. Jurel Cade might have preferred a full media blackout, or its closest equivalent, but the death of a young woman and the disappearance of her mother couldn’t be ignored entirely, so a compromise had been reached. The statement acknowledged the discovery of Donna Lee’s body and an ongoing police inquiry into the circumstances, but not much else. Still, at least they’d be circulating a picture of Sallie Kernigan, and requesting that anyone in the vicinity of the discovery site over the weekend, or by Hindman High on Friday evening, should come forward, even if they didn’t believe they’d seen anything of importance.

  Griffin padded barefoot to the kitchen, where his wife had already placed the evening meal on the table. He noticed that she’d put out the good silverware and was using the plates they kept for parties and Thanksgiving. She had also lit a candle. He experienced a brief surge of panic at the possibility that he might have forgotten their anniversary, before remembering that it wasn’t for another week. He counted the days on his fingers, just to be sure, before taking his seat.

  ‘This is all very elegant,’ he said, when she joined him.

  ‘I know it might seem strange, after what happened today,’ she said, ‘but I had some good news. Well, we had some good news.’