The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  ‘My, aren’t you confident.’

  ‘No, I’m just an outsider, which means I’m not duty bound to any of you. I’d like to keep it that way. But thank you again for the offer.’

  Delphia Cade’s mouth formed a near-perfect circle of hostility. Behind her lips, the tips of her teeth remained visible, lending her the aspect of a lamprey.

  ‘Did you really think I wanted to fuck you?’ she said.

  ‘It wasn’t an issue either way.’

  ‘Because you’re in mourning?’

  ‘It’s as good a reason as any.’

  ‘I don’t fuck the town’s hired help.’

  ‘Technically, I’m working for a bed in the honeymoon suite,’ said Parker, ‘but it’s a minor distinction.’

  She flicked a finger in the direction of the lobby, and Cleon, who was doing his best to pretend not to be monitoring proceedings, and failing.

  ‘Go back to your fag,’ she said. ‘He’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Cleon’s waiting for someone, but not for me. Still, I believe he’ll find happiness long before you or I.’

  Whatever Delphia Cade detected in his tone caused her anger to recede slightly, and a measure of sadness rolled in to take its place.

  ‘You ought to leave here,’ she said.

  ‘I know that, but I can’t.’

  ‘Neither can I, but I should have, long ago.’ She took a long, deep breath of the blue-exhaust air. ‘I understand a great deal about the workings of this county. I could probably help you with your work, but I won’t.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Because I believe my father and Jurel are wrong to cooperate with the Cargill PD. It can only harm what we’re trying to achieve with Kovas. I’ve worked hard for this – we all have – and the investigation risks putting a torch to everything.’

  Parker returned to the incident in the Cade house, when Pappy had dismissed this woman in a way calculated to demean her in a room full of men. Her reaction suggested that it was not the first time she had been degraded in this way. No matter how hard she worked, or what she achieved for the family, her father would never forgive her for not being born male.

  ‘Do you know what I think?’ said Parker.

  ‘Tell me. I’m curious.’

  ‘I think you want the deal to go through so you can use the proceeds to buy yourself out of this county, even this state. Kovas represents your best chance of escape, and no amount of dead girls can be permitted to tip the scales.’

  ‘How long have you been here, Mr Parker?’

  ‘Just a couple of days.’

  ‘A couple of days,’ she said, ‘and look how much you’ve learned. We’ll make a native of you yet.’

  Delphia returned to her car, reversed from her parking space, and headed toward the highway, and Little Rock. She did not once look at Parker again, as though she had already excised him from her memory, even as he recognized the foolishness of hoping for any such absolution.

  51

  Jurel Cade didn’t boast personal contacts in New York to compare with Kel Knight’s, and the Cade family name held modest sway beyond the Arkansas border, but after being sent from pillar to post for a while by the NYPD, he was eventually referred to an internal affairs investigator named John Breen. Breen was interested to hear that Charlie Parker was in Arkansas, and pressed for further details, but Jurel was too smart to give something away for nothing – in that regard, he resembled his father – so he and Breen traded morsels of information until a portrait of Parker began to emerge. The final picture disturbed Jurel, but at least he was now better informed than before about the interloper.

  Jurel Cade wasn’t an entirely phlegmatic man. He was engaged to be married to a schoolteacher, and intended to set about starting a family as soon as the nuptials were concluded. He could only pray that he, his future wife, and their children, should the couple be so blessed, would never experience any calamity like the one that had engulfed Charlie Parker. He felt sorrow for the man, but still wished he had decided to indulge his desolation elsewhere. His presence presaged no good.

  Cade thought it interesting that Breen had seen fit to share with him particulars relating to the murder in New York of the degenerate named Johnny Friday. This, as much as a certain barely veiled hostility on Breen’s side, indicated that Parker was short on friends, which meant that little blowback could be anticipated if any further tribulations were to befall him while he was in Burdon County.

  Cade picked up the phone again, called Pappy, and shared with him what he had learned.

  ‘Parker is jinxed,’ Cade concluded, using the very word that Breen also had chosen. ‘It could be that he’s brought his bad luck down here, and it will count against him.’

  He waited to see how Pappy might respond. The silence went on for so long that Cade began to wonder if Pappy had fallen asleep. The old man had begun to do this more frequently in recent years, which was why Delphia now preferred Pappy to keep his distance from Little Rock, and show his face only when backslapping needed to be done. Having Pappy nod off during meetings with Kovas would not be conducive to easing any doubts the company might be harboring about the Cades’ abilities to fulfill their promises.

  ‘If what you’ve learned is true, he doesn’t need the quantity of his pain increased,’ said Pappy at last, ‘or not by us. Our arrangement with him and Griffin stands. You give them all the help you can, and stay with them every step of the way. But when you catch sight of the quarry, you move ahead and bring it down. And do it quick and clean, understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re a good boy, Jurel,’ said Pappy. ‘Once Kovas gets to building, you’ll be looked after. We’ll sit down for lunch with the governor and talk rewards, once he’s finished saying grace.’

  This was Pappy’s ultimate aim: to extend the Cade influence to the State House, and then Washington, DC. Delphia didn’t have the temperament for it, and Nealus was too flighty. That left Jurel, who was just bright enough to be a contender, but not so bright as to be perceived as a threat by those whose help they’d need if he were to succeed. The subject had come up occasionally in the past, but Jurel had remained noncommittal, which his father chose to interpret as quiet consent.

  But Jurel had no urge to spend more time in Little Rock, or trade his sidearm for one of those Filofax organizers that Ferdy Bowers liked to carry around with him because he’d seen hotshots use them on TV. There was more of his father in Jurel than he cared to admit, even to himself. Like Pappy, Jurel was of Burdon County. It was in his blood, and he loved it, for all its poverty and pettiness. Where others saw ugliness, he saw the potential for beauty; what some called corruption, he called practicality; and in what the ignorant perceived as racism, he identified only the echoes of the past, reverberations that would fade in time but never entirely cease. This county was his birthplace, and eventually it would be his fiefdom. His desire extended no farther than to run it as he saw fit, and raise his children within sight of the Ouachita.

  Jurel hung up the phone, and from his desk watched the darkness grow deeper. He had erred, he realized, in his handling of Patricia Hartley’s death. He had believed himself to be acting in the best interests of the county, but it might be that Griffin and his father were correct, and the balance had now shifted. Jurel did not place the same value on a black life as he did on a white, just as he accepted that poverty brought with it a diminution of consequence, regardless of color. He was the product of a particular culture and a distinctive set of historical resonances; it would have been foolish of him to pretend otherwise. But to recognize a hierarchy was not the same as to wholly abandon those in its lower reaches. Neither did Jurel wish to inherit a county in which a killer of women might find sanctuary, because that sepsis would ultimately infect the body entire.

  He rose from his chair, went to the records room, and began assembling the material that might help identify this despoiler of the women in his realm.

  52


  Parker elected to walk to the Rhine Heart instead of driving. The evening was pleasantly cool, and after the New York winter it was a relief to be able to linger outdoors without worrying about layers of insulation – a relief, too, to be away from that city and its memories. His encounter with Delphia Cade had left him bemused, and the crudeness of her approach caused him to wonder if the future of the Cade family was in the right hands. He could only hope that, for the Cades’ sake, Delphia’s diplomatic skills improved the closer she got to Little Rock.

  The Rhine Heart was exactly as he had anticipated: a blockhouse with log cladding, designed to resemble a faux German bar in some imagined copse of the Black Forest. A dozen cars were parked in the lot, and oompah music was faintly audible. All that was missing were men in lederhosen and a faint nostalgia for fascism.

  Parker went inside and took a seat at the bar. He ordered a soda and a plate of German potatoes. He steered clear of the sausage, because his neighbor’s resembled a meat blackjack and smelled like a drain. His soda came with a free pretzel, which was salty enough to induce a stroke. Parker spread his newspaper before him, flicking through it at intervals, but only to distract from his monitoring of the discourse around him. It didn’t take long for him to pick up snatches of conversation about the murder of Donna Lee Kernigan, and references to the disappearance of her mother. The general consensus was that Sallie Kernigan was probably as dead as her daughter; and, if so, the same individual was responsible for both killings, which sounded plausible to Parker. Sallie had enjoyed a wild streak, according to some of those who appeared to have known her from her time working in the bar. A woman like that was bound to get in trouble someday, they said, but it was a shame that she might have dragged her daughter down with her.

  Parker picked at his German potatoes, which weren’t bad, and had arrived with thick slices of brownish bread, just in case he was suffering from a carb deficiency. Eventually, when there came a lull in service, the bartender stopped by to check that everything was okay, and to interrogate the newcomer. The bartender kept his tone light, but Parker knew that any stranger finding himself in Cargill amid current events would attract interest, even suspicion, from locals. It would be better for all concerned if it emerged that an interloper was responsible for their troubles, some drifter who, having succeeded with one girl – or two – had returned to take another, in the manner of a ravening animal discovering territory rich with easy prey.

  ‘My name’s Denny,’ said the bartender, extending a paw. ‘Denny Rhinehart. This is my place.’

  ‘Parker.’

  They shook. Rhinehart’s hand was greasy from handling food.

  ‘Passing through?’

  ‘No, staying awhile.’

  ‘What is it you do?’

  ‘Oh, this and that. I’m taking time out to consider my options.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Rhinehart seemed set to pursue the matter further, when he was prevented from doing so by a male voice from behind Parker.

  ‘You better watch what you say, Denny. It might be taken down and used as evidence against you in a court of law.’

  Parker turned. The speaker was in his midforties, and dressed much like nearly every other man in the bar: jeans, a heavy shirt worn loose, and work boots. He was probably four or five inches taller than Parker, and carrying more weight than was advisable, but the base was solid. The tips of the ring and little fingers on his left hand were missing, and the scar tissue on the stumps had not yet fully healed. He didn’t have a drink, and carried his coat under his right arm, so he had either just arrived or was about to leave: the former, it quickly emerged, as two more men entered the Rhine Heart and joined the first, unbuttoning their coats as they came.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you, Rich,’ said Rhinehart.

  ‘This is the latest recruit to the Cargill Police Department,’ said Rich, ‘all the way from New York City. Isn’t that right, Mr Parker?’

  Parker didn’t know how the man named Rich had come by this information, but he was hardly astonished. Cargill was a small town, and his involvement in the investigation would soon have become common knowledge. But he didn’t like the vibes he was getting from Rich or the men with him. Rhinehart wasn’t eager for their business, either. Parker could see the bartender’s face reflected in the mirror over Rich’s left shoulder, and the expression it bore suggested that Rhinehart dearly wished the right to refuse service, as set in print above the register, was one he had the guts to enforce.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Parker.

  ‘They call you in because of those girls?’

  ‘They didn’t call me in. I happened to be in town, and the chief asked if I’d be willing to assist with the investigation.’

  ‘And naturally, you obliged.’

  ‘I’m an obliging person. Do you have anything helpful you’d like to share?’

  ‘Not with you.’

  ‘Then I’ll get back to my drink.’

  ‘That’s a soda, not a drink.’

  ‘I have a low tolerance,’ said Parker.

  ‘For alcohol?’

  ‘For everything.’

  Belligerent flares exploded briefly in Rich’s eyes before fading to embers.

  ‘These murders,’ said Rich, ‘they’re something we ought to be able to figure out for ourselves. This is a small town, in a small county, and the people that live here know it best. Whoever killed those girls will be brought down by those most familiar with its ways, not by an outlander like you. We have the chief, and the sheriff’s office. They know how to handle this kind of trouble.’

  ‘Their willingness to involve me would suggest otherwise – that, and an accumulation of bodies.’

  ‘Your involvement is an error,’ said Rich.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Rich’s face was growing redder. Parker could see that their exchange had begun to attract attention, because the bar had grown noticeably quieter.

  ‘Don’t patronize me,’ said Rich. ‘How old are you anyway, thirty? What do you understand about the world outside New York City? What do you understand about anything?’

  ‘You know,’ said Parker, gesturing at Rich’s mutilated hand, ‘fingers don’t grow back. You ought to be more careful.’

  It was an unnecessarily provocative remark, but that was the point. Rich tensed to lash out, already signaling the direction of the first blow by the position of his feet and the angle of his body. Parker willed him to take the shot. Even if the punch landed, Parker would ride it, and then he would hurt Rich. The man’s friends would intervene, but Parker was confident of dealing with the one to the right even before he could form a fist, because he looked sluggish and half-drunk, which would leave only the last of them to contend with – assuming the rest of the clientele didn’t decide to weigh in on Rich’s side, in which case the odds would become a lot less favorable.

  ‘Everything okay here?’

  A woman positioned herself between Parker and Rich. It was Lorrie Colson. She was out of uniform and held a beer in one hand, but still radiated authority, even though she was a foot shorter than Rich. Griffin had told Parker about Donnie Stark’s ruptured testicle, and clearly Rich had heard the story too, because he took a step back and allowed his right fist to unclench slowly.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said. ‘We were just talking.’

  ‘Didn’t look like you were just talking, Rich. Looked like you were planning on unloading that big right hook of yours.’

  Rich didn’t try to deny it, so Parker spoke up.

  ‘I might have goaded him,’ he said.

  ‘Now, girls, you’re both pretty,’ said Colson, and Parker instantly felt about sixteen years old, and mildly ashamed of himself. ‘But Rich here ought to know better than to be making a nuisance of himself. You got somewhere else you need to be, Rich? Because if you don’t, maybe you should find a place.’

  Rich moved away, his friends trailing in his wake. Colson stayed.

  ‘M
aking friends already?’ she said.

  ‘The welcoming committee needs to work on its presentation.’

  ‘Tempers may be running high. A killing will do that to people.’

  ‘I’ll write that down, just in case I forget.’

  ‘My, you are tetchy. Probably comes from eating the food here.’

  ‘I was warned against it, but I thought the potatoes might be safe.’

  ‘That depends on when Denny last changed the oil. I always err on the side of caution.’

  Colson took a stool beside Parker and set her beer on the bar. Around them, people returned to their own business, or gave that impression. Someone put money in the jukebox, and Jo Dee Messina earned a royalty.

  ‘So,’ said Parker, ‘tell me about Rich.’

  ‘Rich Emory. He isn’t the worst of them, although that’s a low bar to set. Back in the day, his daddy used to run with Buford Pusser down in McNairy County, Tennessee.’ Buford Pusser: scourge of the Dixie Mafia in the late 1960s, which earned him bullet wounds and a dead wife for his troubles. ‘When Buford didn’t get reelected in seventy-two, Rich’s daddy came back up here and signed on as a sheriff’s deputy. Rich did the same for a few years, but it didn’t take. Now he’s the owner of a sawmill.’

  ‘Is that how he lost his fingertips?’

  ‘Occupational hazard. He’ll lose the mill, too, if circumstances don’t improve, but he’s banking on the arrival of the cavalry.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Parker. ‘Kovas.’

  ‘They’ll need lumber for building, and what they don’t use, the contractors putting up new housing and stores will. Somehow, Rich has managed to keep most of his employees on the payroll, even if it’s short time. You’re going to meet a lot like him while you’re asking your questions, those who are doing their best to keep everyone’s head above water, not just their own. You could try not riling them, see how that works out for you.’

  ‘I’ve found it challenging in the past,’ said Parker.

  ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  She finished her beer and waved the bottle at Rhinehart, who brought another posthaste, and refilled Parker’s soda while he was at it.