The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  ‘But Griffin asked that we send all relevant information only to him, and he’d then share it with the sheriff’s office. I feel as though I’m tied to a pair of horses pulling in opposite directions.’

  Pickett didn’t have to try hard to look unimpressed. ‘If Jurel Cade had done his job first time around, we might not be cutting a dead girl from his jurisdiction. How far into the autopsy are you?’

  ‘Kiesel was about to clean the body when she found the print. We stopped everything.’

  ‘Then technically you don’t have the full results to share, do you?’

  ‘I guess not,’ said Temple.

  ‘So call Evan Griffin, tell him what you’ve found, and then pick up where you left off. When you’re done, and you have the report ready, you can deal with the sheriff’s office. If Jurel gives you any trouble, just refer him to me.’

  ‘Thank you, Lewis.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, and I mean that in every sense,’ said Pickett. ‘I swear, Burdon has got to be the most dysfunctional county in the Union.’

  64

  Parker drove alone to Hamill, taking some of the back roads to familiarize himself with the land, the browns of branch and earth broken only by new-growth pines. He passed countless iterations of houses of worship – some little more than cabins, others so grandiose that it seemed impossible for them to have any relevance to those who passed through their doors, unless it was to remind them of the distance of their daily lives from the glory of God. Pools of water stood amid the trees where fields had flooded from the recent rains, and here and there lay patches of flattened forest, and the roofless shells of houses, marking where tornadoes had struck. One Pentecostal church had vanished almost entirely, leaving only a sign advertising its former presence and a battered cross that someone had lodged in the earth amid the wreckage. Parker wondered what message the congregation had taken from its destruction. Whatever God was trying to tell them, it wasn’t good.

  All the businesses he saw were small – bait shops, rock shops, auto shops, storage depots, liquor stores, flea markets – and few gave the impression of flourishing, except perhaps the auto shops and liquor stores. As Parker neared the town limits the latter’s number increased. The two adjacent counties were dry, with sales of alcohol banned entirely, which meant that Burdon reaped the benefits.

  He arrived at the sheriff’s office, where a deputy showed him into a small conference room. Two file storage boxes stood on the table. Parker was asked if he needed coffee, or anything else, but replied that he was fine. He removed his coat, hung it on the back of a chair, and opened the first of the boxes, the one relating to Patricia Hartley’s death. It contained only a single slim folder. Inside was a photostat copy of the original report detailing the discovery of the body, signed by Jurel Cade, and a series of photographs of the scene, taken after Hartley’s remains had been removed, all of them replicating pictures already in Parker’s possession. The additional photos received by Parker, and not contained in the sheriff’s file, had been taken with an instant camera. Parker knew that forensic examiners generally preferred not to use instant cameras because the pictures faded over time, but the results could be useful as aide-mémoires or backups in the event of some disaster with the original records. In this case, any other photographs taken at the scene had been destroyed in the car wash incident, but the instant snaps, as Parker informed Griffin, had eventually found their way to him.

  He set aside the photos and moved on to a rough sketch of the area in which the body had been located, with north indicated at the top, and distances carefully and, he thought, accurately delineated, almost certainly to remove any doubt that Hartley had been discovered on county land, not federal. The paper on which the sketch was drawn had suffered water damage at the edges and was stained brown. Finally, there was a copy of the coroner’s report, in which Loyd Holt had recorded a verdict of accidental death.

  And that was it: no notes on a search of the scene; no pictures of the body; no account of the discovery of evidence of any kind; no details of the collection and packaging of said evidence, or of control samples; no chain of custody; no witness statements; no interviews; and most of all, no investigation.

  Parker made some cursory notes and drew a version of the map, including the distances, but there was little that he didn’t already know. He restored the file to its container, put it aside, and went to work on the second box, the one relating to Estella Jackson’s murder in the summer of 1992. Here he had better luck. Eddy Rauls, assisted by the previous coroner, and Vester Stanley, at that time the forensic examiner, had worked the scene carefully, conducted systematic grid searches for evidence, and kept copious notes.

  Unlike Patricia Hartley and Donna Lee Kernigan, Jackson’s body had not been discovered in the open, but in a woodshed adjoining a run-down property about five miles outside Hamill. She had been reported missing six days earlier, but she came from a troubled background and had a history of running away from home, sometimes staying with friends or relatives for days, even weeks, until her domestic situation grew calmer. Typically, though, either Estella or someone else would get in touch to let the family know she was okay. When, on this particular occasion, no word was heard, a sister contacted the county sheriff, which meant that by the time Estella’s body was found, she had been missing for nine days. She was located by a party of local men, one of a number of teams assembled by the sheriff to conduct searches of the area. Among them were an uncle and two cousins of the victim. Her father – a dissolute man, and the cause of much of his daughter’s misery, according to some of the statements included in the file – was looking elsewhere at the time. Estella Jackson’s mother, perhaps thankfully, had predeceased her daughter by two years.

  The autopsy concluded that Jackson had probably been dead for a week, meaning she was killed on the second or third day after her disappearance. She had been badly beaten, and the branch lodged in her mouth had been put there before she died, possibly in an effort to silence her. The branch between her legs was inserted postmortem, but the medical examiner was of the opinion that she had probably been raped before she died.

  Parker worked his way through the photographs from the scene. Again, he was familiar with some of them, and the rest didn’t do much beyond making him feel depressed. He moved on to the witness statements, and the interviews conducted in the days that followed, most of them by Rauls. They were, Parker thought, more perfunctory than the paperwork from the scene, most amounting to barely a paragraph or two. That in itself wasn’t unusual: not every interview carried out in the course of an investigation would prove productive, and the majority involved checking boxes, eliminating suspects, or closing down avenues of inquiry that might otherwise prove wasteful of resources. Only the interviews with Jackson’s father extended to multiple pages. From their tone, it was clear that Rauls liked him for the killing, but had no evidence, and no confession, so any suspicions remained just that. No additional paperwork had since been filed.

  The door opened behind Parker, and Jurel Cade entered.

  ‘You find our murderer yet?’ he asked.

  Parker didn’t reply, but continued noting the names and addresses on the statements accumulated by Rauls during the Jackson investigation. Cade took a seat and leafed through the Jackson photos.

  ‘You planning on talking to all those people?’ said Cade, once Parker had finished writing.

  ‘Some of them.’

  ‘Good luck with that. They didn’t have a whole lot to offer first time round, and at least three of them are dead by now.’

  Parker thought that Cade’s familiarity with their contents must mean he’d looked at the Jackson files recently.

  ‘Did you return to the Jackson case after Patricia Hartley was found?’ said Parker.

  ‘Out of curiosity.’

  ‘And it didn’t inspire you to investigate further?’

  ‘I saw no reason to disagree with the coroner’s recommendation.’

  Ther
e was no point in raking over those old coals, Parker knew. It would get him nowhere. Jurel Cade’s decision had been made as soon as he nudged Patricia Hartley’s body over the edge of a hill and watched it tumble down the slope. Everything that followed – including the probable destruction of evidence in a car wash, and the relocation of the Hartley family – was a consequence of that act.

  ‘Why didn’t Eddy Rauls call in the state police to help investigate the Jackson murder?’ said Parker.

  ‘Eddy was always willful. He’d dealt with enough killings in his time, and solved most of them without outside help. He felt he had this one in hand.’

  ‘But he didn’t.’

  ‘No, but he did have a suspect.’

  ‘The father.’ Parker picked out the relevant statement. ‘It doesn’t seem to have amounted to more than a hunch, in the absence of anything better.’

  ‘Aaron Jackson was a violent man. He had that reputation.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Dead: poisoned himself with alcohol. He’s one of the three.’

  ‘Who are the others?’

  Cade gave him two more names, adding, ‘But they’re of no consequence.’

  Parker flicked to those statements and was inclined to agree. One was from a woman named Edith Akin, who was ninety-two years old at the time, lived near the Jacksons, and could only swear to having heard loud arguments and crying from her neighbors’ home over the years; and the other came from an interview with a man named James Darby, who had seen Estella Jackson buying candy at the local IGA the night before she went missing.

  ‘I do have another question,’ said Parker.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘I count twenty-two statements in the Estella Jackson case, but the covering page lists twenty-three. One is missing. It’s a statement from Hollis Ward. Would you know anything about that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you maintain a log of those who access records or evidence from your storage rooms?’

  ‘In theory.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that people are supposed to sign for anything they examine, but our evidence storage includes the space next to the janitor’s closet, and a former restroom. We keep them locked, but everyone knows where to find the key.’

  Parker examined the label on the top of the Estella Jackson box. The last person to sign it out was Eddy Rauls, five months after Jackson’s death. Even Jurel Cade hadn’t bothered to add his name to the list when he chose to browse the contents after the Hartley killing.

  ‘Was he the same Hollis Ward who was father to Tilon Ward?’ said Parker.

  ‘Look at you,’ said Cade, ‘keeping up with the local color. Yeah, that’s him, but he hasn’t been seen around here in years. The general opinion is that he’s not coming back anytime soon, either, or not before Judgment Day.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Most likely.’

  ‘Natural causes?’

  ‘Most unlikely. He wasn’t a popular man. He got charged with possession of child pornography, and did a few months for it, but the story was that he might also have been more hands-on with his vices. When he turned to smoke, nobody was too shocked. They’d be more surprised if he showed up again.’

  All this Parker already knew, but he was content to let Jurel Cade talk. He’d learn nothing from silence.

  ‘Assuming he’s dead, any suspects?’

  ‘The bulk of the county, but I’d be prepared to narrow it down to his wife and son.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Who knows what went on behind the doors of that home?’

  ‘Abuse?’

  ‘Like I said, hands-on.’

  Parker took a few moments to think.

  ‘Hollis Ward went missing the same year Estella Jackson died,’ he said.

  ‘One month after.’

  ‘Could there be a connection?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What I mean is this: Was Hollis Ward suspected of involvement in Jackson’s murder?’

  ‘I don’t have that information.’

  ‘But you were a deputy at the time.’

  ‘I was, but Eddy Rauls wasn’t in the habit of sharing his every thought with mere deputies.’

  ‘Or just not with deputies from the Cade family?’

  ‘There you go again, listening to idle gossip.’

  ‘The question stands: Was Hollis Ward a suspect?’

  ‘No more than anyone else.’

  ‘And his arrest for possession of child pornography didn’t cause Rauls to look at him again for the Jackson killing?’

  ‘Getting off on naked children is one thing, and maybe abusing your own son, but raping and killing a seventeen-year-old girl is another. Still, you’d have to ask Eddy Rauls yourself. I couldn’t claim to understand his reasoning when I worked under him, and I’m no wiser about it with the benefit of years. Now I have a question.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Cade leaned forward.

  ‘How’d you come by those scars on your hand?’

  65

  Evan Griffin took the call from the crime lab as he and Knight were discussing how best to handle Randall Butcher.

  ‘Hollis Ward?’ said Knight, after Griffin had hung up the phone and shared the substance of the conversation with him. ‘Our Hollis Ward?’

  ‘Unless there’s two of him, which would be unfortunate for all concerned.’

  ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘Fingerprints don’t lie.’

  Knight searched for his pipe, and began filling it with tobacco in order to give his hands something to do while he tried to think.

  ‘You never did believe that Hollis left the county,’ he said.

  ‘Because,’ said Griffin, ‘like most everyone else, I took the view that he was buried somewhere in it. I didn’t buy the idea that he’d left of his own volition, because Hollis didn’t even like visiting Little Rock, and he only tolerated Hot Springs when the horses were running at Oaklawn. His roots were here, and if a man like that pulls up his roots, he dies.’

  ‘Or so you thought.’

  Griffin watched Knight go through the motion of tamping the tobacco and plucking the loose leaves from the bowl. He knew that his sergeant was aching to light up. Griffin was momentarily tempted to allow it within the confines of the station house, if just this once, but knew that if he gave in he’d never be able to prevent it in the future, and he’d arrive home every night stinking of tobacco, which wouldn’t please his wife one bit, especially now that she was pregnant. He’d considered telling Kel about the pregnancy, but decided against it. He and Ava had agreed to wait a while, just until they were sure everything was okay.

  ‘Yeah, so I thought.’

  ‘Hollis could have gone to ground somewhere else in the state,’ said Knight, ‘and replanted those roots in soil that wasn’t unfamiliar to him.’

  ‘We’d have heard.’

  ‘Would we? Hollis could lie low when he chose. All we ever got him for was the child pornography, and even his own lawyer didn’t believe that was an isolated incident. Hollis knew the Ouachita, and the Ozarks. He made good money as a guide. It wouldn’t have been beyond him to find a place to hole up, even under the nose of the Forest service.’

  ‘But why? He’d served his time.’

  ‘Everyone knew what he’d done. Like his lawyer, a lot of them were of the opinion he’d probably done worse, and there was every chance he was going to do it again. Even his wife wouldn’t let him back in the house after he was released. Mind if I light my pipe?’

  ‘Yes, I do mind,’ said Griffin.

  Knight looked disconsolate, but didn’t argue.

  ‘I’d buy Hollis going to ground for a few months,’ said Griffin, ‘but not for years. It wasn’t in his nature.’

  ‘What if he had no choice about where he went?’

  ‘You’re thinking prison?’

  ‘It would make sense.’

  ‘No,
he had a record. We’d have been informed.’

  ‘Mistakes happen, and Hollis wouldn’t have been rushing to share details of his previous convictions. Sex criminals do hard time.’

  AFIS, the federal Automated Fingerprint Identification System, wasn’t perfect – no system requiring human input ever was – and it was possible that Hollis Ward might have slipped through one of the gaps.

  ‘Get Billie to put out some terminal requests,’ he said. ‘I don’t recall Hollis ever using an alias, but tell her to check our records, just in case. Then go smoke your damn pipe outside. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Look for a last known address for Pruitt Dix.’

  ‘And Randall Butcher?’

  ‘I know how to find Randall,’ said Griffin. ‘I’ll just look under the nearest rock.’

  66

  Parker stretched out the fingers of his hands and heard one of the knuckles crack. Most of the pain was gone from the joints, and he supposed he was fortunate not to have sustained any broken bones to match the scars.

  Fortunate not to be in jail.

  But not fortunate to be alive.

  No, not that.

  ‘I don’t think it’s any of your business how I came by them,’ he said, in reply to Jurel Cade’s question.

  ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’

  ‘Curiosity is a common ailment. Mortality seems to be the only corrective.’

  ‘You have a clever way with words, don’t you?’

  ‘There’s no point in having any other way with them.’

  ‘I made some calls to New York about you. I know Evan Griffin did too, although he and I have differing responses to what we learned. He elected to involve you in his department’s business, while I would have escorted you to the county line and told you not to come back if you valued your liberty.’

  ‘Get to the point, Deputy.’