The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Pettle asked.

  ‘I hadn’t realized I was.’

  ‘Aren’t you frightened?’

  ‘Some, but not as much as you might think.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because fundamentally I believe that you’re a good man. I wish you weren’t pointing a gun at me, but I’m not going to give you cause to use it. I want to help you. Situations like this never have only one possible outcome. It can appear that way, but it’s not the case.’

  ‘But you don’t know what I’ve done.’

  ‘Then tell me, Reverend. Tell me about the blood.’

  Pettle’s left hand stroked his shirt, as though to wipe away whatever residue remained of his sin.

  ‘He wouldn’t leave Donna Lee alone,’ said Pettle. ‘He was just like Hollis Ward. Neither of them could keep their hands off young girls.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t leave her alone?’

  ‘Denny Rhinehart.’

  ‘Did Rhinehart kill Donna Lee?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said he didn’t, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. Then he said he’d tell the police about Sallie and me. He never did like me, and the feeling was mutual. But I would never have ruined him, not the way he was threatening to ruin me.’

  The phone buzzed again in Parker’s pocket, the vibration audible in the quiet of the room.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ said Parker.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I think that’s Chief Griffin. He’s been trying to call me ever since I got here. I told Kel Knight I was coming to talk to you. If I don’t answer, Griffin will send someone to find out what’s the matter. Once that happens, everything will start to go downhill very fast.’

  ‘You want me to let you answer it?’ said Pettle. ‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot, Reverend. You’ve had a hard time lately, and you’re doing what you feel is necessary to bring it to a conclusion. Sometimes, when we’re under pressure, we act out of character. I’d very much like you to let me answer this call and confirm to Chief Griffin that I’m okay. After that, we can keep talking, and I’ll do my best to find a way to help you resolve your difficulties. I have nothing against you, beyond the fact that you’re holding a gun on me, but it’s likely that I won’t be at ease until we find a solution to your problem. With that in mind, it’s in my best interests to assist you. Can I reach for my phone?’

  Pettle’s inner debate played out on his face.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘but slowly.’

  Gingerly, Parker extracted the phone and flipped it open. It was, as he’d anticipated, Griffin on the line.

  ‘Where are you?’ said Griffin.

  ‘I spoke to Knight.’

  This was met with a confused silence.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just what I said. This isn’t a good time.’

  ‘It isn’t a good time for anyone, least of all Denny Rhinehart. Somebody shot him to death.’

  This put a different complexion on affairs. Parker was watching Pettle, and wondering if some alteration in the reverend’s features might reveal his intentions just before he pulled the trigger. It could be the difference between living and dying.

  ‘I may have an answer to that,’ said Parker.

  ‘Are you in trouble?’

  ‘Very much so, but I’m hoping for a positive conclusion.’

  ‘We’re on our way.’

  Griffin hung up.

  ‘They’re coming, aren’t they?’ said Pettle.

  ‘They’ll give us the time we need, and they won’t enter your home unless they have to.’

  ‘Did they find Rhinehart?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t confront him with that intention.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  He didn’t, or no more than he believed Pettle had just wanted to talk to his wife with a gun in his hand.

  ‘What happens now?’ said Pettle.

  ‘What would you like to see happen?’

  ‘I’d like to rewind time. I’d like to undo all of my mistakes.’

  ‘In the absence of that.’

  Pettle stared at a place beyond Parker, beyond this world.

  ‘I believe Pappy Cade fed children to Hollis Ward before betraying him,’ said Pettle. ‘In return, Hollis Ward has come back from hell to destroy the Cades. Now I think I’d like to die.’

  Reverend Nathan Pettle put the barrel of the gun beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

  83

  Technically, Jurel Cade ‘escorted’ Horrace Sneed into the Burdon County Sheriff’s Office, although it would be more accurate to say that he virtually carried him inside. Sneed’s face had suffered severe bruising, and he walked as though some of his ribs might be busted. The sheriff, Harold Swanigan, roused himself sufficiently to peer out through the blinds of his office window. Cade looked back at him, daring him to intervene, but Swanigan merely adjusted the blinds so that he could see nothing at all and went back to whatever it was he’d been doing, which was likely to have involved pondering his future once the Cades decided he was surplus to requirements. The Cades had masterminded his election and ensured that his two terms were free of strife and excessive labor, just so long as Swanigan minded his own business and permitted Jurel to operate without impediment. But with Kovas about to move into the county, and Pappy of the opinion that his son was now ready to become sheriff, Swanigan was more of a lame duck than ever. He wouldn’t be sorry to step down. Even for a man with so little pride, he had suffered an abundance of humiliation.

  Lyall Mathis, the office’s longest-serving deputy, arrived to help Cade with Sneed.

  ‘Put him in a cell,’ said Cade, allowing Mathis to take the full weight of the prisoner, ‘and summon Doc Gould to tend to him. No other visitors, and no phone calls. We’ll let him leave come morning.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He obstructed an investigation, but I’m not going to hold it against him.’

  ‘What if he asks for a lawyer?’

  Cade turned to the injured man.

  ‘You’re not going to be asking for a lawyer, are you, Horrace?’

  Sneed shook his head.

  ‘See?’ said Cade. ‘When you’re finished with him, get back up here. We have a lot to do.’

  Mathis led Sneed to a holding cell and laid him flat on the bunk. It was rare for Jurel Cade to leave marks. Usually he didn’t even have to raise a hand to encourage cooperation. Either Horrace Sneed had seriously irritated him, or Cade had been seeking an excuse to vent some rage and Sneed had provided it. Once he had Sneed settled, Mathis called Doc Gould, who knew better than to ask too many questions, and informed him that a prisoner required medical attention. Mathis then rejoined Cade, whose office was bigger than the sheriff’s and saw more frequent use. Cade had a map of the Ouachita spread out on his desk.

  ‘There,’ he said, pointing a finger at an unmarked section.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ said Mathis.

  ‘The old Buttrell property.’

  ‘Where Estella Jackson’s body was found?’

  ‘That’s right, and now owned by a company based up in Little Rock. According to our friend Horrace, it’s one of a number of shell corporations set up by Randall Butcher, although his name doesn’t figure on any of the paperwork. That farm is also where Tilon Ward is currently holed up, cooking meth for Butcher.’

  Cade told Mathis about the discovery of Hollis Ward’s fingerprint on Donna Lee Kernigan’s body, and Tilon Ward’s connection to her.

  ‘Does Griffin think Tilon was fucking the Kernigan girl?’ said Mathis.

  ‘Evan Griffin wouldn’t lower himself to using such language, but that’s about the size of it. And when Tilon was done with her, he either gave her to his father or they killed her together, just as they did with Patricia Hartley. If Hollis Ward is still alive, his son has got t
o be protecting him. Whatever the truth might be, we’ll discover it at that farm, and destroying Butcher’s operation will solve a lot of this county’s problems along the way.’

  ‘Are we working with the Cargill PD or the state police?’

  ‘I think we’ll handle this one ourselves,’ said Cade.

  Mathis looked doubtful. The Burdon County Sheriff’s Office didn’t have the manpower to mount an operation such as this unassisted.

  Cade scribbled some names on a sheet of paper and handed it to Mathis.

  ‘Way ahead of you,’ he said. ‘You call each of these people – just you, nobody else – and tell them I want them here at five o’clock tomorrow morning, locked and loaded. They’ll be deputized before we head out. You don’t share with them anything of what I’ve told you. You don’t speak of it to anyone, not even your wife.’

  Cade then rattled off the names of three more deputies, who weren’t rostered for the next day, and instructed Mathis to let them know that they were to report for duty by 4.30 a.m.

  Mathis departed, leaving Jurel Cade to make some calls. Between them, Evan Griffin and Horrace Sneed had handed him Tilon Ward and Randall Butcher on a plate. If he could take down Tilon and his crew, Butcher would fall, because one of them would inevitably rat him out, assuming Butcher wasn’t dumb enough to be supervising the Ouachita cook himself. If Cade could apprehend Hollis Ward as well, thus solving the mystery of the killings, the Kovas deal would go through without a hitch and the rule of the Cade family would be confirmed in Burdon County, providing a stepping stone to greater influence in the state of Arkansas and beyond.

  Within minutes, Cade had apprised both his father and sister of developments, but Pappy barely reacted to the mention of Hollis Ward’s name.

  ‘It makes sense,’ was all he said. ‘Hollis did know how to bear a grudge.’

  Finally, Jurel Cade made one more call, this time to Charles Shire.

  ‘If we handle this right,’ he told Shire, ‘it’ll show Kovas that we’re serious about dealing with our share of the meth problem, but it will also mean no more Randall Butcher and no more dead girls.’

  ‘I’d like Leonard to go out there with you,’ said Shire.

  Cade didn’t want Cresil anywhere near this. Being in the enforcer’s presence for too long always made him feel as though his skin might erupt in boils.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘We’ve been hearing rumors out of Little Rock,’ said Shire. ‘It appears that Randall Butcher has vanished, just as he was hours away from being indicted on federal charges. He’s gone into hiding, and now it seems you might have found out where he is.’ Shire paused for Cade to absorb this information, then resumed: ‘It would be better if Butcher didn’t return to Little Rock to face those charges. Who knows what lies he might tell to save himself?’

  Jurel Cade didn’t want to hear this. It was one thing to see Butcher ruined, but another to let Leonard Cresil put a bullet in his head. Cade had done many bad things in his time. He had manipulated and broken the law, sometimes in what he perceived to be the larger interests of justice, and occasionally out of expediency or to benefit his family or its confederates, but he had yet to collude in a killing.

  ‘That’s not how we operate here,’ he said.

  ‘It is now.’

  84

  It was called a delayed discharge. Parker didn’t know how old Pettle’s gun was, or the condition of the ammunition. Given his success in using it to kill Denny Rhinehart, the cartridge might just have been a dud. Whatever the reason, when Pettle pulled the trigger, the primer in the cartridge went off, but the bullet didn’t immediately fire. Parker didn’t bother reaching for his own weapon as soon as Pettle turned his gun on himself, because there was no percentage in threatening to shoot a man already intent on suicide. The priority was to disarm him.

  But Pettle wasn’t used to handling a gun, particularly not one that had malfunctioned. He removed the barrel from beneath his chin just as the pressure from the propellant built up sufficiently to fire the bullet. It entered Pettle’s lower jaw from the right, and exited through his left cheek, taking bone, teeth, and most of Pettle’s tongue and palate with it. By the time Evan Griffin arrived with the cavalry, Parker was holding a towel to the injury with one hand and trying to dial 911 with the other. He let Lorrie Colson, who had emergency medical training, take over, and sat back against the kitchen cabinets. His ears were ringing from the shot and he was shaking from the rush of adrenaline. Griffin handed him a bottle of water before walking with him to the front yard. The neighbors had already gathered, and Kel Knight and Naylor were keeping them back.

  ‘Why did he kill Rhinehart?’ said Griffin.

  ‘I’m still not sure,’ said Parker. ‘I think Rhinehart was threatening to ruin him by informing you – and, by extension, the rest of the town – about his affair with Sallie Kernigan, potentially bringing him into the frame for Donna Lee’s murder. But Rhinehart was also bothering Donna Lee, and Pettle felt very protective toward her.’

  ‘Anything more than that?’

  Parker shrugged. ‘Who can tell?’

  ‘Could Pettle have murdered Donna Lee?’

  ‘I don’t think he did.’

  ‘What about Rhinehart?’

  ‘Pettle didn’t say that he held Rhinehart responsible for Donna Lee’s death. Mainly, he just didn’t like him.’

  ‘There are a lot of people I don’t like,’ said Griffin, ‘but I’ve left their skulls intact.’

  The ambulance arrived, and they stepped back to let the crew enter the house.

  ‘I think Pettle was going to kill his wife,’ said Parker. ‘After that, he’d have killed himself.’

  ‘He may wish he’d succeeded with that last part. His face is a mess.’

  ‘I should never have let it get that far.’

  ‘Do you feel sorry for him?’ said Griffin.

  ‘Just enough. Don’t you?’

  ‘The prosecutor will probably push for second-degree murder, so he’ll be spared the needle. I was going to call in the state police to help us with the Rhinehart case, and to hell with the consequences. Not much cause to do that now.’

  Parker sipped the water slowly. His belly felt ready to rebel and his hands were shaking. Had he eaten more during the day, he would probably have puked on the lawn.

  ‘Pettle told me that Pappy Cade might have colluded with Hollis Ward in the abuse of children,’ he said.

  ‘Did he offer any proof, or names of victims?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then where does that leave us?’

  ‘As we were. Still, it’s interesting to know.’

  ‘I have another question,’ said Griffin.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Why is there a dead possum in the department’s freezer?’

  But before Parker could answer, a car turned onto the street and pulled up behind the crowd of onlookers. Delores Pettle emerged from behind the wheel, one hand raised to her mouth. Griffin prepared to meet her.

  ‘I don’t even know,’ he told Parker sadly, ‘where to begin.’

  85

  It was not that Delphia Cade was devoid of faith in her brother Jurel, but rather that she lacked sufficient trust in him to rely on his word or authority alone in any given set of circumstances. Nevertheless, the news that Randall Butcher’s future was likely to include extensive involvement with prosecutors and defense lawyers, followed by a long period of federal incarceration, was a source of no small pleasure and relief to her. If Jurel could be the one to lay hands on Butcher, so much the better, but even should he fail to do so, Butcher’s ambitions would no longer be a problem for the Cade family.

  On the other hand, having spoken briefly with Leonard Cresil, Butcher’s flight from justice meant that it would now be impossible to call off the men he had dispatched to deal with Charlie Parker. This fact did not unduly trouble Delphia. Parker was an outsider, a jinx, and in all likelihood a killer. There was also the matter of her p
ersonal pride: he had rejected her offer of an olive branch, and Delphia was not about to let that slight pass unpunished.

  Now, in her apartment in the Hillcrest area of Little Rock, she sipped vodka with just a splash of tonic, and leafed through the clippings file on Parker assembled by her assistant. The reports on the deaths of his wife and child were frustratingly discreet, but Jurel and Cresil combined had provided her with a more detailed description of the end suffered by Parker’s family. It had been almost artistic: cruel, yes, but also strangely beautiful. Delphia thought she would be most interested to meet the man responsible for killing them.

  If nothing else, he had an admirable level of ambition.

  Parker returned to the Lakeside Inn shortly after 8 p.m. He showered and changed his clothes before driving out to Evan Griffin’s home for a late supper. He had been reluctant to accept the chief’s invitation, but Griffin had insisted. His wife, he said, felt they were being inhospitable to a stranger; and after the day Parker had endured, a home-cooked meal would do him more good than eating at Boyd’s or alone in his room.

  The table was set for three when he arrived, and Ava Griffin came out of the kitchen to greet him. She was a tall, slim woman, with a touch of austereness to her looks, although it disappeared as soon as she smiled. Her hair was very dark and her skin very pale. Parker guessed that she was at least fifteen years younger than her husband.

  Griffin offered him an O’Doul’s, apologizing for not having anything stronger at hand.

  ‘I’ve lost my taste for beer,’ said Parker. ‘Water or soda is fine.’

  Griffin went outside to bring in some more wood for the fire, although the night was not cold, leaving Parker alone in the kitchen with Ava and the dog, Carter.

  ‘I’m glad to meet you at last,’ said Ava. ‘Evan’s told me a lot about you.’ She put a hand on Parker’s arm. ‘And I am sorry for all you’ve been through, and all you’re still going through.’