The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  She placed the sponge in its bowl.

  ‘Dr Temple?’ she said. ‘I think you should come see this.’

  57

  When Parker arrived at the Cargill Police Department, an unfamiliar face was among those gathered around the table in the meeting room that doubled as a canteen and storage closet. The forty-something visitor was wearing a smaller man’s suit, along with the kind of untrustworthy mustache that caused sensible folk to lay a protective hand on their wallets, while his skin bore the floridity of stress, bad diet, and poor health. If he lived to see fifty, Parker would send him a greeting card, but he believed his money was safe. Meanwhile, the expression on Chief Griffin’s face suggested that if the visitor lived that long, it would be a poor reflection on God’s plan for humanity.

  ‘This is Terry Ridout,’ said Griffin. ‘He’s the prosecuting attorney for this county.’

  Arkansas operated a system of prosecuting attorneys, each of whom was assigned a region that might encompass a number of counties, depending upon their size or population, and Burdon County was all Ridout’s. The position was an elected one, like so many other judicial positions that Parker had come to believe probably shouldn’t have been, which meant that Ridout was answerable to the people, and the people liked results. This, in Parker’s experience, was usually the point where the requirements of justice parted ways with those of politics.

  Since Ridout didn’t rise to greet him, Parker likewise didn’t bother offering to shake hands, but took a seat next to Colson.

  ‘Terry here,’ Griffin continued, ‘obviously has a professional interest in the progress of our investigation, seeing as how he’ll be responsible for prosecuting the case in the event of an arrest.’

  Griffin waited for Ridout to make a contribution to the conversation, which he duly did.

  ‘It’s a fucking mess is what it is,’ he said.

  Nobody made an effort to deny that this was indeed the situation. Parker knew that Ridout had, in all likelihood, signed off on the decision of Jurel Cade and Loyd Holt to ignore the evidence of foul play in the case of Patricia Hartley. But now, following Donna Lee Kernigan’s death, he had been placed in a difficult position – an impossible one, even – which was not helped by Griffin’s persistence. Unsolved murders wouldn’t bolster Ridout’s reelection bid or aid his ascent through the ranks. On the other hand, anything he did that might have the effect of harming the Kovas deal would see him prosecuting minor drug busts and cases of sexual activity with farm animals until the end of his career. He was probably already receiving anguished phone calls from Little Rock.

  ‘And from what I hear,’ Ridout added, ‘so far you’ve kicked up nothing more than dust.’

  ‘The girl was only found yesterday morning, Terry,’ said Kel Knight. ‘And it’s not like we’re oversupplied with manpower.’

  ‘We’ve done more than kick up dust,’ said Griffin. ‘We’ve interviewed in excess of fifty people living or working in the vicinity of the school, and agreed on a way forward with the sheriff’s office. Mr Parker here will meet with Jurel Cade later this morning to examine his files on Patricia Hartley and Estella Jackson in the hope of establishing some point of connection between their deaths and the murder of Donna Lee Kernigan. We’re going to continue talking to people in Cargill today, plus we expect the autopsy results from Little Rock by noon. This is a small town, Terry. Someone saw something. They just don’t know they saw it, not yet.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Ridout. He didn’t sound convinced, and now addressed Parker for the first time.

  ‘I won’t lie to you,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the fact that you’re here.’

  ‘If it’s any comfort,’ said Parker, ‘that makes two of us.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Ridout again. ‘Chief, would you ask your officers to absent themselves for a moment so I can speak in private to you and Mr Parker?’

  Griffin nodded at Colson and Naylor, and the two part-timers present, Giddons and Petrie. ‘Kel stays, though,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you have to say that he doesn’t already know.’

  Ridout didn’t argue, but waited until the door had closed behind the junior officers before resuming.

  ‘There’s a shadow hanging over you,’ he said to Parker, ‘and I don’t mean what happened to your family, for which you have my condolences. You’re a violent man, and your involvement in this affair strikes me as not far off from giving a wolf the run of the pasture.’

  So Ridout had made some calls, thought Parker, or calls had been made to him.

  ‘He’s police,’ said Griffin. ‘Was, and is.’

  ‘And we need him.’ Parker was surprised to hear Kel Knight intervene on his behalf. ‘Unless you’re planning on letting us bring in state investigators.’

  Confronted with the worse of two bad options, Ridout backed down.

  ‘You know that’s not going to happen, not without cause.’

  ‘You mean if we find another body, it might?’ said Griffin.

  ‘You find another body, and this county will still be poor in a hundred years’ time. If you’re going to do this thing, Evan, make it count, but my reservations about Mr Parker stand.’ Ridout got to his feet. ‘I think I can file this meeting under “inconclusive”,’ he said, ‘maybe even “unsatisfactory”.’

  ‘It’s symptomatic of the human condition,’ said Kel Knight.

  Ridout tried to button his jacket, before thinking better of it.

  ‘Save that shit for church.’

  When Ridout was gone, Griffin went to round up his officers, leaving Parker alone with Knight.

  ‘Thanks for the support back there,’ said Parker.

  ‘I prayed on the matter last night,’ said Knight.

  Parker considered whether he might be joking, and decided he wasn’t.

  ‘It led me to decide,’ Knight continued, ‘that in the face of moral collapse, we find our footholds where we can.’

  ‘When you put it that way,’ said Parker, ‘your support doesn’t exactly sound unconditional.’

  ‘Plus, Terry Ridout’s a jerk,’ Knight added.

  He pronounced it ‘Rid-out’, to rhyme with ‘shout’, while Griffin had pronounced it ‘Rid-oo’. Parker raised this point.

  ‘It’s “Rid-out”,’ said Knight, ‘or was, until Terry’s old man got pretensions on account of marrying a woman from Richmond, Virginia.’

  ‘I’ve been to Richmond,’ said Parker.

  ‘That,’ said Knight witheringly, ‘does not surprise me.’

  58

  Faced with what was clearly an exemplary fingerprint, Dr Ruth Temple temporarily suspended any further examination of Donna Lee Kernigan’s remains and summoned one of the lab’s latent print experts.

  ‘Pristine,’ said the technician, whose name – thanks to parents for whom Watergate might never have happened – was Spiro Nixon, ‘particularly for a victim recovered under those conditions.’

  Changes in body temperature, the actions of weather, and the handling of remains during their removal from a crime scene often militated against getting good prints from human skin.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Temple.

  Nixon and Temple exchanged a look that verged on the skeptical.

  ‘What do you think that residue is?’ asked Temple.

  Nixon regarded it under a magnifying glass.

  ‘Charcoal, I’d say. Anything in the forensic examiner’s report about a fire nearby?’

  Temple checked Tucker McKenzie’s notes. ‘No.’

  ‘You find any other prints?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Nixon finished photographing the print before carefully lifting it from the remains.

  ‘Let’s check her out.’

  Temple and Nixon, assisted by Kiesel, conducted a thorough inspection of Donna Lee Kernigan’s body, but discovered no further obvious fingerprints.

  ‘Just that one, then,’ said Nixon.

  ‘Carelessness?’ said Temple.

  ‘
It happens. Sometimes you catch a break. We could try fuming, if you want to protect against destroying latents.’

  Fuming involved heating glue, directing the fumes toward the skin of the victim, and using black magnetic powder to make any latent prints visible.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ said Temple. ‘But can you run that one first?’

  Nixon told her he’d do it immediately, and have an assistant get them set up for fuming in the meantime. Soon after, he called Temple with a hit.

  ‘Hollis Ward,’ he told her. ‘Sixty-two-year-old male from Burdon County. Convictions going back to the womb, but mostly misdemeanors, apart from possession of child pornography in ninety-one. That’s the good news.’

  ‘And the bad?’

  ‘Hollis Ward was reported missing more than four years ago.’

  ‘Well,’ said Temple, ‘it looks like he’s back.’

  Evan Griffin struck Parker as being a lot more energized upon his return, Naylor and Colson at his heels. Knight picked up on it too.

  ‘What have you got?’ he said.

  Griffin let Colson do the talking.

  ‘Billie took a call from a Mina Dobbs,’ said Colson. ‘She lives near the school.’

  ‘Miss Mina,’ said Knight. ‘I know her. She’s a good woman.’

  ‘She noticed a truck near the school on the evening Donna Lee was last seen. She doesn’t like seeing vehicles parked with their motors running when school kids might be around. Says it stunts their growth.’

  ‘Did she get a license number?’ asked Knight.

  ‘No, her eyesight’s not that strong, but she thought it was a red truck, and kind of new.’

  ‘Not many people around here driving shiny new red trucks.’

  ‘She said “kind of”,’ Griffin corrected him.

  ‘Still, I can only think of one.’

  ‘Tilon Ward,’ said Griffin. ‘Damn.’

  ‘The same Tilon Ward who found the body?’ said Parker.

  ‘None other.’

  ‘Could Miss Mina be mistaken?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Griffin, ‘but Kel is right: not many people around here have the cash to drop on a new truck. Most everyone else keeps the old one running until the wheels come off.’

  ‘What was Ward’s demeanor at the scene?’ asked Parker.

  ‘He was shocked, but that’s not surprising, not after what he found.’

  ‘Shocked, or in shock?’

  Griffin thought about this. ‘I guess he might have been more than shocked, now that I come to reflect on it. But—’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I don’t contest that Tilon may be involved in narcotics, but he’s not a violent man.’

  ‘Evan has a soft spot for Tilon,’ said Knight.

  Griffin gave Knight a look that suggested he ought to drop the subject.

  ‘Tilon had a hard upbringing,’ said Griffin. ‘His daddy was a deviant.’

  ‘What kind of deviant?’ said Parker.

  ‘Isn’t “deviant” sufficient?’ said Knight.

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Hollis Ward was arrested on child pornography charges in nineteen ninety-one,’ said Griffin. ‘He did six months in Varner for it. But there was a suspicion that where Hollis was concerned, it might have gone further than looking at pictures.’

  ‘Abuse?’

  ‘Rumors, but no proof.’

  ‘And where is Hollis Ward now?’

  ‘He went missing about four years back, give or take. Nothing’s been heard from him since – or if he’s been in touch with his family, they haven’t seen fit to share the fact with anyone else.’

  ‘Would you?’ asked Knight.

  ‘Probably not.’

  Parker was making notes. ‘If the witness is right, Tilon Ward could be the man with whom Donna Lee was having an affair. If so, that would explain why she wanted to keep it quiet: an older white man and a black schoolgirl sleeping together would raise eyebrows anywhere.’

  ‘Or maybe he was seeing Sallie Kernigan,’ said Colson, ‘and was just doing her a favor by picking up her daughter from band practice.’

  ‘No point in ruling that out,’ said Parker. ‘It’s a hell of a coincidence for the man who was sleeping with the victim to find her body, but I’ve come across stranger. And it certainly makes more sense than Tilon having an affair with Donna Lee, then killing her, dumping her body in the open, and reporting it to the police in the hope that he might be able to brazen things out.’

  ‘He wasn’t around when I dropped by his place last night,’ said Knight, ‘and his momma said she didn’t know where he was, or when he’d be back.’

  ‘Except that woman would lie in her sleep,’ said Griffin, ‘especially to protect her boy.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Knight. ‘She has a tendency to err on the side of untruth.’

  They agreed to divide up the duties for the day accordingly: Griffin and Knight would tackle Harmony Ward, Tilon’s mother; Colson and Naylor would take care of some court scutwork before continuing the canvass of the townsfolk, aided by Giddons and Petrie; and Billie Brinton would hold the fort at the station. Parker would head to Hamill to see what Jurel Cade had come up with, but he also wanted to talk to Ferdy Bowers, who was one of those reputed to have little love for the Cades; Wadena Ott, who had discovered the body of Patricia Hartley; and the coroner, Loyd Holt, if he had the time. He didn’t expect to learn much from any of them, but all represented important pieces to the puzzle, and he wanted to put faces on the names. Ideally, Griffin would have assigned Colson or Naylor to accompany him for the day, but the department was already stretched to breaking, and the next twenty-four hours would be crucial to their efforts.

  The other officers departed, but Parker and Griffin stayed.

  ‘I hope you noticed Kel making a stand on your behalf in front of Terry Ridout,’ said Griffin.

  ‘I thanked him for it. I probably shouldn’t have. His reply spoiled the effect. But I will concede that people down here have perfected the art of being impolite in the politest possible way.’

  Griffin took in his town from the window, drew a breath, and reminded himself that this was a troubled man before him, one who had been through more than any individual, young or old, should have to endure.

  ‘Kel has had experience dealing with Northern visitors in the past, as have I,’ said Griffin. ‘He’s had his fill of being patronized, or dismissed as a hillbilly by people who derive their cultural knowledge from Smokey and the Bandit and The Dukes of Hazzard. It may be that he detects some of that attitude in you, even if you’ve given him no outright cause to suspect you of it, or it could be that he’s preempting what he considers to be the inevitable. But he’s also aware of your history and reputation, as am I, which includes rumors I won’t dignify by repeating aloud. Terry Ridout is familiar with them too, as he made clear to you this morning, although he didn’t hear it from us.

  ‘But just so we’re clear: this department doesn’t prioritize investigations according to color, and it doesn’t employ racists or hillbillies. That’s not to say the county doesn’t have its share of both, and some other places’ share as well, but you won’t find any of them working for me. Yes, we nurture ignorance of a most particular stripe down here, but look up north and you’ll find its cousin. And while it may seem like we’ve been left alone to sink or swim because no one wants to frighten off our saviors from Kovas, we have friends in the state police and in the crime lab up in Little Rock, and they don’t like what’s been happening, or the way it’s been handled, any more than we do. They’ll help in whatever way they can, but they’ll do it quietly, because that’s just how it has to be when so many others are of a contrary opinion.’

  ‘So it’s us against them?’

  ‘And there’s more of them. Where this case is concerned, Mr Parker, you’re deep in the Dirty South. You remember that when you get to talking with Jurel Cade.’

  He opened the door and waited for Parker to walk ahe
ad of him, as though fearful that if left alone the detective might waver and consign them to struggling on with their numbers depleted.

  ‘You know, my grandfather was a state trooper up in Maine,’ said Parker, as Griffin closed the door behind them.

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘I spent a lot of time with him, after my father died. He’d let me ride along with him sometimes. He changed my mind about a great many subjects, just by permitting me to sit beside him in that car.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as about becoming a police officer, because I didn’t want to, not after what happened to my father. But I saw how my grandfather dealt with people, and the obligation he felt toward them. So I didn’t follow in my father’s footsteps. I tried to follow in my grandfather’s.’

  ‘And do you see similarities between Maine and here?’

  ‘I do. It’s just a divergent shade of green.’

  ‘People don’t differ much,’ said Griffin. ‘Only the scenery changes. But the Cades are both a symptom of a particularly Southern disease and an infection all their own. Don’t let Jurel pull the wool over your eyes, because he’s all twists and turns. Just watch him. If you have any questions or doubts, and you don’t like his answers, we can follow them up later. Is there anything else you need clarified?’

  ‘Can I ask him if he kicked a girl’s body down a slope?’ said Parker.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Griffin. ‘But then, I’m not from New York.’

  59

  Ferdy Bowers kept three offices around the county. He bounced among them according to the demands of commerce, including various creditors, of which there were more than he would have liked; and debtors, of which there were, regrettably, fewer, notably debtors of the stripe that might be in a position to make more than nominal payments on their arrears. His assorted business ventures earned him a decent living, but Bowers, like many in Burdon County, aspired to more than that. In his view, a number of factors conspired to thwart this ambition, not least among them the actions of the Cade family.