The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  All this he shared with Parker in his main office, which lay on Cargill’s eastern edge, and abutted a small strip mall containing a laundromat, Ferdy’s Wash-N-Go; a store selling ‘previously loved’ clothing, a description that made Parker uneasy, for reasons he didn’t care to contemplate; and the local video library, which was banking on Chuck Norris movies to make it through to summer.

  ‘He keeps the adult stuff in back,’ said Bowers. ‘Some of it has to be illegal. If it isn’t, it ought to be. I’m no prude, but Jesus Christ …’

  Parker didn’t ask Bowers how he had become aware of the depths of the video library’s depravity. He supposed only that a man ought to know his neighbors – and, in Bowers’s case, his tenants, since he also owned the strip mall. Ferdy Bowers was a short, bullish figure with bright red hair and freckled skin, but he dressed well: his suit was unwrinkled and nicely cut, his shirt a crisp white, and his tie a subdued shade of blue. He was a man who dreamed of better things and, like all such men, was ultimately destined to be disappointed.

  ‘About the Cades,’ said Parker.

  ‘They run this county. Soon, they’ll run the state, or near as makes no difference.’

  ‘Because of Kovas?’

  ‘The Kovas investment is important in itself, but also for what it represents: an expression of hope for the future, and a marker for generations to come. If it succeeds – and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t – it’ll attract similar industries, and the kind of federal funding that will permit large-scale infrastructural improvements. Within a decade, this county could be transformed. A lot of people will be better off, and a small few will become very wealthy, all because Pappy Cade had a vision and never deviated from it. He and his family will rise. Whatever they want will be theirs, and whatever isn’t offered willingly, they’ll be able to buy.’

  ‘And where does that leave men like you?’

  ‘Begging for scraps from the table.’ But Bowers was smiling as he spoke.

  ‘Lucrative scraps?’

  ‘Enough to feed a man and his family well.’ The smile faded. ‘Still scraps, though. A man might wish for more.’

  ‘And the Cades aren’t the sharing kind.’

  ‘They’ve tried to buy me out over the years,’ said Bowers. ‘It’s not so much the businesses they’re interested in as the land. I’ve been forced to sell a couple of parcels because the Cades acquired some of my creditors, or pressured them into making me settle my debts. But as of now, I’m secure. I’ve restructured loans, and closed down operations that weren’t profitable. I’ll benefit along with everyone else when Kovas comes, and it won’t have cost me a dime.’

  Bowers smoothed his tie and examined the shine on his shoes. His office was filled with pictures of himself, frequently surrounded by men of a similar aspect, grinning, glad-handing. Parker counted only a handful of women, and they were either arm candy or wives that had been dusted off and allowed out for the evening. The walls were freshly painted, and the furnishings new. Even the parking lot outside had recently been resurfaced with asphalt, and Parker suspected that the video library, with its secret cache of pornography, was not long for this world. Ferdy Bowers might not have liked the Cades, but his antipathy toward them was insufficient to cause him to seek his own destruction. He wanted the Kovas deal to go ahead. The murders of young women would not easily be laid at his door.

  ‘Did you know Donna Lee Kernigan?’ said Parker.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or her mother?’

  ‘Sallie I knew.’

  ‘May I ask how?’

  ‘She worked for me, for a while.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘She cleaned my home.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Many years back. I fired her for being under the influence of narcotics.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Not the kind that makes a woman scrub faster.’

  ‘But you never met her daughter?’

  ‘Sallie Kernigan was a housemaid, not a social intimate.’

  ‘And Patricia Hartley?’

  ‘I wasn’t familiar with her or her people.’

  ‘What did you think when you heard she was found dead?’

  ‘I didn’t think anything at all. Loyd Holt said that her death was an accident, and I accepted him at his word.’

  ‘So you spoke to the coroner about her?’

  ‘I play golf with Loyd, and naked dead girls aren’t a usual occurrence in this county – or weren’t, until recently. Therefore, yes, the subject came up.’

  ‘What about Estella Jackson?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Did you know her or her family?’

  ‘Only as names. After she died, I tried to acquire the property on which she was found – it was being sold cheap for obvious reasons – but someone else got in there ahead of me.’

  ‘Pappy Cade?’

  For the first time, Bowers became evasive.

  ‘No, a company up in Little Rock. They’re using it for timber farming. You seem determined to connect the deaths of those three girls, Mr Parker.’

  ‘All died in a similar fashion.’

  ‘Loyd Holt says different.’

  ‘Loyd Holt is being willfully delusional. Chief Griffin thinks so too.’

  ‘What about Jurel Cade? He’s the chief investigator for the county.’

  ‘He may be coming around to our point of view.’

  Bowers looked around his office, at the evidence of his own investment in the future of the county, and could not hide his concern. He envisioned it all slipping away from him.

  ‘The Cades won’t stand for an investigation, not right now,’ said Bowers. ‘Those negotiations with Kovas are balanced on a knife edge.’

  Parker thought it an interesting metaphor.

  ‘If another young woman dies,’ he said, ‘the negotiations will come to a sudden and permanent end.’

  Bowers buried his head in his hands for a time before surfacing.

  ‘All it needed was another week, if that,’ said Bowers. ‘Now we got Evan Griffin bumbling around, pretending he’s a detective.’

  ‘And me,’ said Parker. ‘I’m also bumbling around.’

  Bowers scowled at Parker over steepled fingers. His wedding ring was wide and bright, and cast a glow over the framed photo on his desk, which showed him with his arms around three slim, dark-haired women, two young, one older. The girls had inherited their mother’s looks, which was fortunate for them.

  ‘It would never have crossed Griffin’s mind to do this if you hadn’t wandered into town,’ said Bowers.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Parker, ‘but we’ll never know.’

  ‘And if you fuck up our deal with your efforts, what then? You just get to walk away, and leave us to stew in our shit?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘You’re an arrogant man.’

  ‘That may be true, but I’m here to help.’

  ‘Help who, those girls? They’re dead, and this investigation will send the rest of us to join them.’

  ‘Or it could save you.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not here to save anyone, except maybe yourself.’

  It was an odd remark to make, and threw Parker slightly. Bowers picked up on it.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You’re the talk of the town: the ex-cop with the dead wife and child, come south to make up for his failings. You go down to the Dunk-N-Go, you may even find photocopies of the news stories, because they’re being shared around. No one wants you in this county, Mr Parker, and we don’t relish our futures being sacrificed at the altar of your grief.’

  Parker stood to go. As anticipated, he hadn’t learned much of use, just enough to know that while Ferdy Bowers might not have been directly involved in any killings, he was complicit in the greater evil that had found a home in this place.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Bowers,’ he said. He pointed at the picture o
n the desk. ‘You have a beautiful family. I’d keep them close, if I were you.’

  60

  Parker made two further stops on his way to meet Jurel Cade. The first was to the funeral parlor run by Loyd Holt, the county coroner, but it was a wasted journey. Holt had little to say, beyond a recitation of the facts as he saw them, and the only questions that remained to Parker by the end of the encounter were how much of Holt’s story might be lies and, of that proportion, how much of it Holt had by now convinced himself might well be true. Parker left the coroner’s place of business no wiser than when he arrived, and its proprietor looked relieved to be returning to the corpse of a dead infant.

  From Billie Brinton, Parker had received directions to the home of Wadena Ott. It lay at the end of a dirt road, along which houses of increasing decrepitude made their stand against nature and decay. On the seat beside him sat a bottle of cherry brandy.

  He found Ott’s property easily enough, because her name was on the mailbox. He parked in the empty driveway, facing a similarly empty house. Even without knocking or entering, he sensed its abandonment. He picked up the bottle of brandy and tapped on the front door without receiving a response before making a single circuit of the shack. A covered woodpile in back had recently collapsed, scattering itself on the sparse grass. When he peered in the windows of the house he saw open closets, as though the occupant had left in a hurry. Canned food still sat on some of the kitchen shelves.

  Parker returned to his car and drove as far as Ott’s nearest neighbor. An astonishingly thin woman of indeterminate age was hanging washing from a line, even though the air was damp. Parker identified himself, and asked the woman, who said her name was Leatrice Wages, about Wadena Ott.

  ‘She left,’ said Leatrice Wages. A breeze blew her dress against her body, displaying a frame that was virtually sexless. The clothing in the basket by her feet, and on the line by her head, looked as though it had been washed and dried too many times already. Some of it was coming apart at the seams, but would soon be mended like the rest. A fat dog waddled from the house to the porch, and barked once at Parker before waddling inside again.

  ‘When did she leave?’ said Parker.

  ‘Yesterday evening. A car came for her, and she packed her bags and went away.’

  ‘Did she mention where she was going?’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to ask, not that she would have told me anyway. Wadena is an odd bird.’

  ‘Did you notice the license number of the car, or the make?’

  ‘No, but it was one of those black sedans, the kind that follow a hearse. Two people helped Wadena pack her stuff into it, a man and a woman. I never saw them before.’

  ‘Did Wadena look frightened?’

  ‘Just confused, but then she always looks confused.’

  ‘Did she ever speak to you about the discovery of a body?’

  The shutters came down on the face of Leatrice Wages.

  ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

  ‘No, ma’am, I do not.’

  ‘Then don’t ask foolish questions.’

  Parker departed, leaving her with the bottle of cherry brandy.

  61

  Harmony Ward, mother of Tilon, worked part-time for Ferdy Bowers at the Dunk-N-Go, where she covered the 8 a.m.–2 p.m. shift four days a week. Bowers employed a lot of older people in his businesses, because he believed them to be more honest than the younger generation. Where Ferdy’s Dunk-N-Go was concerned, this applied only to the register, as it was widely known that Shelley Benson ate virtually her own weight in free doughnuts every week, and anyone wishing her to take their order had to cool their heels while she swallowed whatever happened to be in her mouth at the time.

  Shelley was at the counter when Griffin and Knight arrived. Harmony Ward was behind her in the kitchen, helping Dean Bowman, the chef and manager, with a backlog of breakfast orders.

  ‘You got time for us, Harmony?’ said Griffin.

  ‘We’re real busy right now, Chief,’ said Bowman. ‘Can it wait a couple of minutes?’

  Griffin didn’t want to wait even a couple of seconds, but there was no sense in riling Dean, who was always willing to make time to feed patrol officers and had demonstrated considerable generosity in the aftermath of the recent tornadoes – more than Ferdy Bowers might have preferred, or even authorized.

  ‘We’ll take a seat,’ said Griffin.

  Dean instructed Shelley to supply them with coffee, and whatever else they might require. They stuck with coffee. Griffin didn’t mind his people accepting a complimentary cup from Dean, but he always made it clear to them that anything more should be paid for. After ten minutes the kitchen managed to get on top of the orders, and Harmony Ward trudged over to their table like a woman on her way to a punishment detail.

  ‘Chief,’ she said. ‘Kel.’

  ‘If you prefer, we can talk outside,’ said Griffin, but he was already standing as he spoke, making it clear that Harmony’s partialities didn’t enter into it. The other diners failed to make even the pretense of not watching them leave. Soon it would be all over town that the police had been talking to Harmony Ward, wife of Hollis Ward, formerly the local Chester the Molester, and mother to Tilon Ward, currently high on the list of Residents Most Likely to Be Sentenced to 10–15 Years in Varner on Narcotics Charges.

  Harmony didn’t bother getting her coat. They walked to the picnic tables on the lawn, and Griffin used his handkerchief to wipe the residue of rainwater from the wood before they sat. Harmony dug in her apron and pulled out a pack of menthol cigarettes and a lighter. From the moment they had entered the Dunk-N-Go until now, Griffin noticed, she had yet to make eye contact with either Kel or him.

  ‘Harmony?’ said Griffin.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She was still taking in the surrounding buildings, the grass, the trees, and the sky above.

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d look at me when I’m talking to you.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘It’s good manners. It also makes it harder for you to lie.’

  Now she did look at him. He’d given her an opening, and she took it.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘No,’ said Griffin.

  ‘Yes,’ said Knight.

  Harmony was perplexed. Whatever response she’d been anticipating, this wasn’t it.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘which is it?’

  ‘Let’s say we’re undecided, pending further developments,’ said Griffin.

  ‘I still don’t know where Tilon is at, if that’s why you’re here.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you where he was.’

  ‘That’s what you want to know though, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t deny that’s part of it.’

  ‘So there you are. The situation hasn’t changed since last time you people came calling. Can I go back inside now?’

  Griffin ignored the question. Harmony wasn’t going anywhere, or not until she’d finished her cigarette. He arranged his hands before him and stared at the cross formed by his thumbs, just as he’d been taught to fold them in church. Griffin was one of the few Catholics in Cargill. He and his wife had to drive five miles to worship on Sundays, but he preferred it that way. The distance, and the sprinkling of faces to which he could not put a name, helped him to concentrate on his prayers.

  ‘Harmony,’ he said, ‘what does Tilon do with his evenings?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Does he watch TV, play video games, read?’

  ‘All those things, I guess. He has his space, and I have mine. Sometimes we watch TV together, but he doesn’t like my shows and I don’t like his, so it’s hard.’

  ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

  Harmony sucked on her cigarette, and gave a good impression of a grande dame offended by any implication of carnality on her son’s part.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘He’s never introduced you to anyone?’

  ‘No.’

 
‘How long has he been divorced? Two years?’

  ‘Going on three. I never cared for her.’

  The feeling, as far as Griffin knew, had been entirely mutual. LeeAnne Estes had hated Harmony Ward the way up hates down. Last Griffin heard, LeeAnne was living up in Juneau, Alaska, which was as far as she could go to get away from the Wards without moving to Russia.

  ‘And all that time he’s been living like a monk?’

  ‘I told you: I wouldn’t know. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘None of your business.’ Griffin laughed, and even Knight cracked a smile. ‘Harmony, there’s not a car or truck goes by your window that you don’t notice, and not a word of conversation in the Dunk-N-Go that you don’t pick up on and file away. If I thought for one moment that you weren’t able to keep tabs on your own boy, I’d begin to doubt my own name.’

  ‘He’s introduced me to a girl or two,’ Harmony conceded, ‘but none of them was recent.’

  ‘And what about the ones he didn’t introduce you to?’

  Harmony Ward watched as a breeze plucked the ash from her cigarette and caused the smoke to billow, as though a portal had briefly opened to reveal a world into which she did not wish to step. She had been a fine-looking woman in her youth, and held traces of it still, but the two men in her life had stolen all that was best from her, and now two more were trying to take what little she had left.

  ‘I got nothing to say.’

  ‘We have a witness claims she saw Tilon’s truck near the school on the evening Donna Lee Kernigan went missing,’ said Knight, which might not have been entirely true, but was close enough to a possible truth as to make no difference, not here. ‘Says she saw Donna Lee get in, and the truck drive away.’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  It was said without conviction.

  ‘It’s enough for us to ask for a warrant to search Tilon’s truck,’ said Griffin. He didn’t think it was – and anyway, asking wasn’t the same as getting – but that wasn’t for Harmony to know. ‘If we find one hair from that girl’s head in there, it won’t go well for Tilon. We think he was seeing Donna Lee, but I don’t believe he had anything to do with what happened to her. I don’t figure Tilon for that order of man.’