The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  Griffin tried calling Parker. The detective had a New York cell phone, which would have crucified him with charges, so the Cargill PD had ponied up for a local phone on condition that Parker didn’t go crossing state lines, or even range much farther than the adjacent counties. Parker picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Where are you?’ said Griffin.

  ‘Driving to a meeting with Nealus Cade. He appeared anxious to talk, and I thought it couldn’t hurt.’

  Griffin briefly brought Parker up to speed on developments.

  ‘They’re sure it’s Hollis Ward’s print?’ said Parker.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  Parker explained to Griffin about the statement from Ward that was missing from the file on Estella Jackson’s murder.

  ‘Did Jurel have anything to say about it?’ said Griffin.

  ‘Only that anyone could have removed that document from the file, which is probably true. The sheriff’s office is pretty lax on procedure and we’re already familiar with how it handles evidence.’

  ‘Nothing goes on there that Jurel doesn’t know about. If he didn’t purge that file, he knows who did.’

  ‘I don’t think I can go back and ask him again. Our working relationship shows few signs of improvement. He did say something interesting, though. He thinks we’re looking for two killers: one for Jackson, and the other for Donna Lee Kernigan, and therefore also Patricia Hartley.’

  ‘Did he give a reason?’

  ‘The damage to Estella Jackson was far greater than that inflicted on Donna Lee and Patricia. Also, in Jackson’s case some of it was meted out while she was still alive. The conduct of the Hartley investigation means we don’t have much more than Cade’s word for most details, but we’ve both seen the instant photographs taken by the forensic analyst. Those branches were inserted very deliberately, and very deeply, into Patricia Hartley – even the fall down the slope didn’t succeed in dislodging them entirely – but any other injuries occurred when the body hit the rocks, not from the actions of her killer. With Donna Lee, you got to see the body exactly as the killer intended. Again, he didn’t go tearing at her face or groin, despite the stab wounds: what mattered was the placement of the branches. So, bearing all that in mind, I’m disposed to agree with Cade.’

  ‘Two killers,’ said Griffin. ‘And I already thought events couldn’t get any more complicated.’

  Parker added to Griffin’s woes by telling him of his conversations with Ferdy Bowers and Loyd Holt, and the apparent removal of Wadena Ott from the county, almost certainly at the instigation of Jurel Cade.

  ‘If that’s what passes for cooperation around here,’ said Parker, ‘I’d hate to encounter obstruction.’

  ‘Damn Jurel and his ways,’ said Griffin, ‘but you wouldn’t have got much out of Wadena anyway.’

  ‘I’d bought her a bottle of cherry brandy.’

  ‘Then I retract my last statement.’

  ‘What are you going to do next?’ said Parker.

  ‘I’m going to wait for the autopsy results to come back, just in case they throw up any more surprises, before I go sounding the alarm. I’ve already pulled up the most recent photos of Hollis Ward in the hope that we can start circulating them once we receive the full report from the ME. But most everyone in the county of a reasonable age knows what Hollis looks like, so it’s not as though they’re going to require pictures to jog their memories. We still need to talk to Tilon Ward, but we may have to find Pruitt Dix first, and if we can’t, we’ll rattle Randall Butcher’s cage.’

  ‘And Rhinehart?’

  ‘I’ll be speaking with Denny soon enough. Right now, though, Jurel Cade doesn’t know about Hollis Ward’s fingerprint, and the longer that state of affairs persists, the better.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Tilon Ward. If Jurel finds out about the fingerprint, he’ll use the excuse of the father to go after the son, and this will stop being about dead girls and become more about narcotics and settling scores. Tilon Ward is connected to Randall Butcher. We know that because Pruitt Dix is the one who took Tilon out of town, and Dix comes running when Randall Butcher whistles. The Cades would enjoy nothing better than to see Butcher put out of commission, because he’s unwanted competition in the county, and Ferdy Bowers would be collateral damage. That’s a lot of pieces wiped off the board with one move.’

  Once again, Parker resisted the urge to question Griffin about his own links to Tilon Ward. He had a feeling the inquiry wouldn’t be welcomed. If the mood struck, he thought he might try Colson or Naylor, who might be more amenable to sharing such information.

  ‘What about you?’ said Griffin. ‘What are you planning to do after your sitdown with Nealus Cade?’

  ‘I want to talk to Eddy Rauls. Even if Jurel Cade is right about two killers, there has to be a link back to Estella Jackson. I don’t believe that whoever murdered Patricia Hartley and Donna Lee Kernigan decided to desecrate their bodies with branches just because of some half-remembered detail from an older murder. It means something, and Rauls may have some inkling of what it could be. Also, I want to find out what he remembers about Hollis Ward’s statement, and why it might have been important enough for someone to make it go missing.’

  ‘Call Colson,’ said Griffin. ‘Her father and Rauls have been friends for a long time. It might help to make the old fart more amenable to conversation. He took being forced out of his job pretty hard.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Once I’ve spoken with him, I’ll get back to you. I made a list of names from the case files, and thought we should look at talking again to some of the people on it, but it may be that whatever Rauls has to say will enable us to narrow the focus, especially if he can point us toward anyone familiar with Hollis Ward.’

  ‘Okay. Man, Hollis Ward.’

  ‘Does it surprise you?’

  Griffin ruminated over this. ‘I believe Hollis had it in him to kill someone. He had a streak of cruelty to him a mile wide, and no love for any living creature. But I’d convinced myself he was dead, and I dislike having my illusions shattered.’

  ‘One fingerprint,’ said Parker.

  ‘A perfect fingerprint. I think it would be hard to leave unintentionally. I’ve messed up my share of fingerprints, and I’ve lost count of the number I’ve taken. If it is Hollis, he wanted that print to be found. He wanted us to know it was his handiwork.’

  ‘Did Ward have a grudge against the Cades?’

  ‘Hollis worked for Pappy for a time, until he didn’t. He was a fixer, of a kind.’

  ‘What kind exactly?’

  ‘The kind that dealt with problems requiring a firm hand.’

  ‘What changed between them?’

  ‘That’s a question for the Cades to answer.’

  One fingerprint, thought Parker.

  ‘It’s a shame there was no autopsy on Patricia Hartley,’ he said.

  ‘Because it might have revealed a similar print on her body?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If the evidence hadn’t been destroyed, I could have prevailed upon Tucker McKenzie to go back to the negatives and try to enlarge them.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. If you get Hollis Ward for Donna Lee, you’ll also have him for the Hartley killing. Speaking of which, did Billie have any luck tracing the Hartley family down in Lonsdale?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Griffin. ‘She managed to talk to someone else in the building, though, who said the Hartleys moved out yesterday, leaving no forwarding address.’

  ‘Just like Wadena Ott,’ said Parker. ‘As you said, damn Jurel and his ways. Look, I have to go. I’m at the Dairy Bell now.’

  ‘Be careful of the peach pie,’ Griffin advised. ‘It may look light, but the memory of it lingers in the digestion.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice. I’ll avoid it.’

  ‘Don’t be too hasty. If you see fit to pick one up on your way out, I’ll reimburse you out of petty cash.’

  ‘I thought you said it lingers.’

  �
�It does,’ said Griffin, ‘but it lingers good.’

  70

  Leonard Cresil returned to the motel and knocked on the door of Charles Shire’s room.

  ‘It’s me, Mr Shire.’

  ‘Come in. It’s unlocked.’

  Shire was sitting at the room’s single table. His laptop was open, and connected to the Internet. Cresil did not use the Internet, and distrusted cell phones – all phones, if he was being honest. He had never yet encountered a situation that could not be best handled in person. Those who were forced to contend with Cresil’s physical presence in their lives might have differed, but he bothered little with their opinion.

  Shire paid Cresil well for his work, and didn’t ask too many questions about how the ends were achieved. Unlike Cresil, Shire was married and had a family. He spoke to his wife twice daily on the road, once in the morning before his children left for school, and once in the evening before they went to bed. Cresil had occasionally been privy to these conversations and was struck by the absence of warmth in the exchanges. Shire might as easily have been checking on a set of underperforming minor investments, or the progress of some repairs on his car. He was a man almost entirely without amiability, or anything approaching character or charisma, yet he was extraordinarily good at brokering agreements and gaining the confidence of politicians and businessmen. Perhaps those with whom he had dealings believed that no man so dull could ever prove untrustworthy, because duplicity required imagination. In this much they might have been correct: Charles Shire was corrupt down to the marrow of his bones, but his corruption was undisguised, and balanced by an innate understanding of the corruption of others, whether actual or potential, which made him an adept negotiator. His was also corruption for its own sake: Shire did not live an ostentatious existence, drive a particularly expensive car, or overly resent staying in motels as unremarkable as the Lakeside Inn. Neither did he indulge in narcotics, drink to excess, or cheat on his wife. It was simply in his nature to manipulate and undermine – whether people, systems, or institutions both private and public – for the ultimate benefit of his employer, Kovas being only the most recent in a long line. Once the Burdon County agreements were signed, Shire would remain in place for a few months to ensure that his efforts were bearing fruit before accepting a generous payoff and moving on to pollute pastures new.

  Cresil would not be going with him, though. His experiences with Kovas in Arkansas, and especially the maneuverings in Burdon County, had caused him to conclude that, at some point in the future, Charles Shire would end up in prison – sentenced, because of the depths of his delinquency, to the kind of period of incarceration typically associated with mass murderers. Cresil did not intend to go down with him. He would finish what needed to be done here, his fee would be wired to an offshore account, and he would stay low for the rest of his life. And if, by some misfortune, his actions came back to haunt him in the guise of state or federal investigators, Cresil would feed Shire to them like chum to sharks.

  ‘How did it go with Butcher and Bowers?’ said Shire.

  ‘As well as could be expected, given the parties involved.’

  Shire continued to tap at the keyboard. He was analyzing figures, and making adjustments where required. His fingernails were trimmed so short that swathes of the nail beds lay exposed. Cresil couldn’t fathom how Shire accomplished this, short of prying the nail itself from the bed before he began to cut. The man’s obsession with his own hygiene knew no bounds.

  ‘Butcher and Bowers,’ said Shire, ‘are both unreliable, but each in their own individual way: Bowers because he sets his sights too low, and Butcher because he sets his too high.’

  ‘Funny that they’re both going to end up disenchanted,’ said Cresil. ‘You’d have thought they could have settled somewhere in the middle and avoided a shitload of trouble.’

  ‘In which case they’d be like the vast mass of humanity, and each aspires to more.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  From the bathroom came the sound of a tap running. Cresil hadn’t known anyone else was in the room with them. He glanced over to see the door open, and a woman emerge.

  ‘Hello, Mr Cresil,’ said Delphia Cade. ‘I hope you’ve been having a productive day.’

  71

  The Dairy Bell was peaceful, with only a sprinkling of customers, none of whom was under sixty or displayed more than a passing interest in Parker’s arrival. Nealus Cade was seated at a booth away from the window, his presence partially concealed by a pillar. He had also parked his red coupe behind a big rig making a delivery to a warehouse in the adjoining lot; Parker wouldn’t have spotted it had he not been watching out, so he doubted a more casual eye would pick up on it. He took a seat across from Nealus. When the server arrived Parker ordered coffee, and a peach pie to go. Nealus already had a hot tea before him.

  ‘You must really like peach pie,’ said Nealus.

  ‘Not so much, but I was asked to buy one for a friend.’

  ‘If the rest of my family is to be believed, it’s a surprise that you have a friend for whom to buy it.’

  ‘Are you trying to prove the exception to the Cade family rule?’

  ‘I don’t know you, but I believe in giving people a chance. I got that from my mother.’

  ‘And from your father?’

  ‘I got little from my father, other than a name.’

  The coffee and pie arrived, the latter wrapped in plastic. It was heavy, with the kind of crust that could withstand an earthquake. Parker set it aside and waited for Nealus to get to the point. If he wanted to unburden himself of his daddy issues, Parker would have to charge him by the hour, or at least ask him to pay for the pie. But when Nealus did speak again, it was with the bluntness of the very young and the very rude.

  ‘Did you give up being a detective because of what happened to your wife and daughter?’ said Nealus.

  Parker guessed that this information must have come from Jurel.

  ‘I haven’t “given up” being a detective, otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here.’

  ‘I think you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I just don’t believe it’s any of your business.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it is. Consider it unsaid.’

  ‘Mr Cade, I’m very busy, so—’

  ‘Do you know a man named Leonard Cresil?’

  Parker tried the coffee, but it was lukewarm, so he set it aside. He had a vision of his life, the days marked by countless unfinished cups of bad beverages.

  ‘I know of him,’ he said, ‘but we haven’t been formally introduced.’

  ‘He’s not a very nice human being.’

  ‘I can believe it. Do you have personal experience of this?’

  ‘I only know what I overhear.’

  ‘And what have you overheard?’

  A mist had descended over the land. Nealus Cade watched a state police cruiser drift through it, like a big fish hunting amid turbid waters.

  ‘My family doesn’t communicate very well,’ he said, ‘or not with one another. My father likes to believe he’s still in charge, but he seldom leaves the house anymore, not since he got sick. Of course, he won’t admit that he’s seriously ill. It would be a sign of vulnerability, but I think he’s also afraid that to acknowledge his infirmity would be to allow it dominion over him, and hasten his end.

  ‘It’s hard to maintain control when you’re largely trapped inside your own four walls, so he has to work through my brother and sister. Jurel is his voice and strong hand in Burdon County, and Delphia performs the same functions in Little Rock. Jurel listens to him, Delphia less so. Jurel wishes he didn’t have to cooperate with you and Chief Griffin, but he understands why it’s necessary. Delphia contends that it would be better if you weren’t involved.’

  ‘And how does Leonard Cresil enter into this sibling difference of opinion?’

  ‘Delphia has asked Cresil to find a way to harm you.’

  In the kitchen of the
diner, two male voices were discussing the fortunes of the Razorbacks. Everyone in Arkansas had an opinion on the Razorbacks. It was the Razorbacks or nothing.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I heard her speaking to him on her cell phone. I didn’t catch everything she said, but she doesn’t want Cresil to do it himself. She wants him to get Randall Butcher to take care of you instead. You can be hurt up to a point, but she’d prefer to avoid a killing. Did you do something to offend her? Because her grievance sounded as much personal as professional.’

  ‘I may have declined to be employed by her, or sleep with her – or perhaps to be employed to sleep with her. The terms of recruitment weren’t completely unambiguous.’

  ‘That would suffice to aggrieve her,’ said Nealus. ‘If it helps, my sister is more particular about her bedmates than rumor might suggest.’

  ‘Should I be flattered?’

  ‘It’s probably too late for that, if she’s involving Cresil and Butcher. Do you know who Randall Butcher is?’

  Griffin had given Parker a brief account of Butcher in the course of their earlier conversation, which meant he didn’t know a lot about him, but enough.

  ‘I’ve heard the name.’

  ‘My father thinks that Butcher and a local businessman named Ferdy Bowers are working against our family interests, and may even jeopardize the Kovas negotiations, if inadvertently.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Butcher is a criminal, and therefore unpredictable. He’s also an exploiter of women. He wants his share of the Kovas wealth, but my father believes that no good can come of him being involved, and Delphia agrees. Leonard Cresil works for Charles Shire, who is set to make a great deal of money in bonuses and kickbacks when Kovas finally arrives in Burdon County, on top of whatever he’s already earned in bribes. My father has been cultivating Shire, and Shire has been cultivating my father in turn, but Shire is also engaged in discussions with Butcher, and to a lesser extent Ferdy Bowers. Shire likes to keep his options open, but in the end, he’ll almost certainly be forced to cut Butcher and Bowers loose. My father will insist upon it, but the severance will also make sense for Kovas. The company has a reputation to protect, which is why it’s letting Shire and Cresil do the grunt work before it formally sets foot in the county.