He was getting pretty loud now, enough so that people were starting to stare.
“Like I said, never would’ve thought it of you. Never.” Tap tap.
I’d had enough of this nonsense. “How long’s it been since you tried a murder case, Charlie? Ten years? Twenty? Ever? I think the world of you, but this is my life we’re talking about, so get a grip.”
He stood there wheezing, his eyes fiery. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. He reached inside his coat and pulled out an inhaler, puffed on it a couple of times. “Mark my words, Gray, you will pay for this.” Tap tap tap tap tap.
Chapter 34
COURTYARD MARRIOTT, SUITE 135
MONTELLO, MISSISSIPPI
“You still haven’t found the body?” Ballard said.
“Not yet, but—”
“Save it, Mitchell. You’re an incomp. And who the hell gave you the authority for Bobby Knight?”
“I had no choice.”
“Neither do I.”
Mitchell saw him cut his eyes toward Docker and nod ever so slightly. Oh shit. He reached for his shoulder holster but it was too late. His hand was on his gun but it was still in the holster, while he was staring at the business end of Docker’s gun, a nickel-plated Colt Government Model .45 ACP. Damn, that was a hell of a hole.
He slowly withdrew his hand, turning it palm out to show Docker it was empty. “Take it easy there, pal.”
Docker said nothing and kept the gun trained on him. Mitchell turned to Ballard. “Please, you don’t have to do this.”
“I think I do.”
“For God’s sake, why?” Mitchell was on the verge of tears now, his voice cracking.
“You’ve become a liability.”
“I’ll straighten it all out. I guarantee it.”
“Your ‘guarantees’ to this point have been worth exactly shit.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
“I’m going to give you one last chance.”
Mitchell exhaled. “Thank you, thank you. What do you want me to do?”
“For now, just get the hell out of my face.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, Sheriff, sir,” Mitchell stammered as he backed all the way to the door, opened it, and backed through it into the hallway before closing the door and beating a hasty retreat.
* * *
Inside the room, Docker holstered the Colt and looked to Ballard for instruction.
“Please kill that whining pussy.”
Chapter 35
Penny and I were back at the shop, studying the digital photos she’d shot of the mystery guy and Ballard at the funeral. “Sure you’ve never seen him around here before?” she said, pointing to Hawk.
“There’s something...” Like a hawk. What was it about that phrase and that guy? Something familiar, though I was sure I’d never seen him.
Penny tilted her head, an “I’m waiting” gesture.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing. I don’t recognize the guy.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah. What now?” I said. I couldn’t get Ballard off my mind.
“We wait.”
“I’m no good at waiting, Penny. I need to do something, not sit around and wait for whatever it is Ballard has in store.”
“Don’t read too much into the fact that he looked at you, Gray. We don’t kn—”
“Yes,” I said, “I do know. Ballard’s involved, and that’s way bad news.”
She arched her eyebrows.
“Ricky Ballard’s grandfather—his name was Critch—was the biggest moonshiner in the state, until the Depression hit. All at once, nobody could afford his product. He had to make a living, so he ran for sheriff. The other candidate moved to Georgia in the middle of the campaign, reportedly because Critch threatened to kill him if he stayed in the race.”
She looked skeptical.
“Oh, it gets better,” I said. “Critch’s son, Harley, got court-martialed in the Navy. He was in the second wave at Normandy. When the door on the landing craft dropped for the men to exit, he shit his pants, literally, and refused to leave the landing craft. Did four years in Leavenworth, then came home. Worked as a deputy for his daddy, got married, had a kid, ran for sheriff when Critch retired in 1952.”
“And won?”
“Ran unopposed. By then it was well understood that this was Ballard country. Nobody had the stones to go up against them.”
“This sounds like a bad movie, Gray.”
“Yeah, well, check out the sequel. Remember, Harley had a kid.”
“Ricky?”
“Ricky,” I said. “He actually had potential as an athlete. Dominated as a linebacker, even though he refused to practice. That worked fine in a high school where no one dared discipline a Ballard, but not college. He got a football scholarship to Ole Miss. Pulled the same crap, thought he could do as he pleased during the week, then show up on gameday and be a star. Coach Vaught kicked him off the team, and when his father raised hell, he found out that his influence didn’t work in Oxford. The university expelled him. He turned eighteen in sixty-eight, Vietnam draft in full swing. Went to Canada, stayed several years, finally came home.”
“After the amnesty kicked in?”
“No, way before that.”
“And he wasn’t prosecuted?”
I laughed. “Like I’ve been telling you, Ballards are untouchable in Pontocola County, Penny.”
“But the feds, they—”
“Never heard a word from them. Ricky went about his business until Harley was tired of being sheriff, then took over in yet another one-man race. That was in eighty-eight, and as you know, he’s still with us.”
“Aside from the political monopoly, you think he’s corrupt?”
“More than corrupt. There are rumors that he’s had people killed, even that he’s personally killed people.”
“And you believe it?”
I nodded. “I’ve seen him in action, Penny. With my own eyes. Couple of years ago, a carload of kids from over in Lee County were here on a Friday night, riding the main drag like the local teenagers. Abby and I came out of the theater about the time they drove by.
“One of them whistled at Ballard’s daughter, Juliet. She was maybe fifteen, sitting on the trunk of a parked car. Drinking beer, dressed like a slut and showing it off bigtime. We didn’t think anything about it. Hell, guys whistle at loose-looking girls, you know?”
“Sure,” Penny said.
“Anyway, they keep a uniformed cop downtown on weekends, usually a reserve. He walks around, just keeps an eye on things. Well, this guy keys up his walkie-talkie and tells the dispatcher that ‘some Romeos from Tupelo are serenading Juliet.’ Then he demonstrates with a whistle on the radio. Just joking around on a Friday night, nothing to it.”
“The sheriff heard it?”
“Next thing we know, his Escalade comes screaming down the street, strobes firing, siren screaming. He slides to a stop, blocks the street, jumps out. Swearing at the top of his lungs, demanding for the officer to point out the perpetrators who insulted his little girl.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah. The cop knew he’d screwed up. He hadn’t intended to get the boys in trouble, and he sure didn’t want them to get hurt. So with Ballard standing there bellowing, the guy just sort of freezes.
“‘You point out those bastards right now!’ Ballard says. The cop still just stands there, dumbfounded. Ballard yanks a slapstick out of his pocket and hits him across the side of the head. I couldn’t believe it. Ballard takes off toward his truck, and I run over to the cop. He had a bad gash across the cheekbone and it was pouring blood. I yell for Abby to get me something to put on it to try to stop the bleeding.”
Penny’s eyes were wide now, her mouth open.
“Abby hands me one of those little purse packs of Kleenex, and then I hear this weird grunt behind me, in the street. I turned around, and get this: Ballard had Tasered the boy who was driving the car.”
“Oh, my God!” Penny said.
“It’s summer, the car windows were down. Ballard had just walked right up and fired in through the driver-side window. The barbs were stuck in the kid’s face, Penny. He was convulsing, foaming at the mouth. Ballard looks absolutely insane, screaming, still pouring on the voltage.
“I was stunned. One of the kids on the street had obviously dialed nine-one-one, because I heard sirens heading our way from several blocks away. For the moment, though, Abby and I were the only conscious adults there except for our crazy sheriff, and I was afraid the boy would be dead if I waited.”
“What’d you do?”
“I tackled him. Held him down until the cruiser got there with a pair of officers. They might’ve shot me if not for the bleeding cop on the sidewalk. He backed up my claim that Ballard was out of control. When I let go, Ballard got up, glared at both of us, then walked to his fifty-thousand-dollar police SUV and drove away. That cop moved the next week. The kid’s parents filed a lawsuit, but it settled before it went to court. I’ve never heard another word about my end of it.”
“Think Ballard’s holding a grudge?”
“Until today, I was hoping he didn’t. That was delusional. Bastards like him don’t let anything go. There’s also the fact that I’ve somehow mucked up the works of his latest scheme or operation or whatever you want to call it. To hell with him, though. I want my life back and I intend to take it, as much of it as possible, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head.
“You found out about Knight and Abby, didn’t you?” she said.
“How’d you...”
“It’s my job to find out what’s going on, Gray.” She reached over and squeezed my hand, looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Seems the old cliché about the last one to know...” My voice sounded like it was coming from someone else, disconnected, distant. To think that a stranger knew, a woman, especially this woman, was so humiliating. Who else knew? Everybody in town? How could Abby have betrayed me, made such a fool of me? At that moment, I hated her. Really, really hated her.
“Let’s do something constructive,” Penny said. “We don’t have the surveillance tape, but we do have both living eyewitnesses right here.” She nodded down the counter-line toward LungFao. “Let’s go through exactly what happened, and don’t leave out anything.”
I thought it was a waste of time, given the gazillion times I’d already replayed the scene in my mind without coming up with anything different, but she was the pro. The shop was empty, so I gave my version of what happened, then motioned LungFao to the front to give his.
While he recited, I pondered, trying for the millionth time to make the puzzle pieces come together.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Penny said, causing me to turn around.
“What?” I said.
“He just gave a different account as to what Johnny said.”
“How so?”
“You said he demanded money. LungFao says he demanded ‘what he came for.’ Which is it?”
I looked to LungFao. LungFao looked to me. He seemed sure. I pondered. “You know, I think he’s right,” I said. I scrunched my lips and played it back again in my mind. “Yeah, he is right. He said, ‘As soon as I get what I came for, I’m out of here.’”
“Could still mean money,” Penny said.
“No. Think about it: what I came for. And then there’s RoboVoice, who keeps talking about giving it to him.”
A customer came in and I gestured for LungFao to take care of her, then turned back to Penny.
“But what?” she said.
I shrugged.
“What do people normally ‘come for’ in here?”
“Lots of things, obviously, but at the core? They usually come in either to pawn something, buy something, or redeem something.”
Penny chewed on her bottom lip. “So, how do we figure out which one of those three Johnny was here for?”
I was already on my way to the door. “You two mind the store. I’ll be back.”
Chapter 36
COURTYARD MARRIOTT, SUITE 135
MONTELLO, MISSISSIPPI
Ian Wainwright stood pole straight at the window, hands clasped behind his back. He was tall and weedy with a chalky complexion that bordered on cadaverous, contrasting sharply with his dark hair, which he wore slicked back with a gel that made it look perpetually wet. He stared out at the most pathetic excuse for a view he had seen in his fifty-three years: a bourgeois street in a bucolic town in a benighted state in a bastard country. It was as if the gods had retched, then deposited him right in the middle of their divine discharge. He smiled in admiration of his clever mix of alliteration and metaphor. He would most assuredly have to work that passage into the manuscript. Perhaps he could even work in an entire chapter from this miserable affair. Mayhap multiple chapters, everything from the clinical trials to the clichéd graveside ceremony, complete with an off-key group wailing of “Rock of Ages.” Yes. Perchance something useful could indeed be harvested from this most tawdry of life experiences.
“Please kill that whining pussy,” he heard the bumpkin say to the lummox. How very crass.
Wainwright glanced back over his shoulder. Docker stood, nodded his melon of a head, and left the room. Wainwright turned back to the window.
“The hell you looking at?” Ballard said.
“Simply admiring the lovely view, my good man,” Wainwright said, his British accent clipped and precise.
Ballard chuckled. “Yeah, that bait shop’s some kind of beautiful, huh?”
Wainwright wasn’t sure how to respond. The sheriff, simpleton or no, apparently had something of a penchant for brutality when offended, if the tales were to be believed.
Ballard stood, walked to the window, and stood beside Wainwright. “This whole place is a pus-filled boil on the ass of the world.”
Wainwright cocked his head, then slowly cracked a yellowed smile. “Indeed?”
Chapter 37
Doc always reminded me of Doc Brown in Back to the Future—his mannerisms, his hair, that crazy wild-eyed look—and this was a perfect example. He had on his white lab coat and spun around with a goofy, shocked look on his face when I posed my question: “When Milton brought the body to you, was it naked?”
“No, but how was I supposed to dissect him without undressing him?”
“I’m not accusing you of necrophilia, Doc, just wondering if his clothes are here.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Are they here?”
He disappeared into the mess that was his office and returned shortly with a black garbage bag. I dumped it onto the floor. Shoes, socks, pants, shirt, overcoat, the latter two with dried blood stains that were flaking off in places. I rummaged through the pockets. They had already been emptied. No wallet. No keys. No money. Of course no gun. I started stuffing things back into the bag and on about the third downstroke, my hand brushed against something.
My breath caught as I pulled out the folded piece of thin yellow paper. A pawn ticket from my shop! Correction. A piece of a pawn ticket. Just the top part that had my shop name and address. Anything that could have identified a particular pawn transaction or item was gone.
Nonetheless, it did narrow our search somewhat. He was probably there to pick up a pawn. It wasn’t a robbery. I had shot a man in the head who wanted to pick up a pawn, a customer? Of course, there had been the fact that he had a gun on me. But would he have used it? In that instant, it dawned on me that I would never know the answer to that, that for the rest of my life I would wonder whether I had acted in self-defense. Or not.
“You all right, Gray?”
“No, Doc. I’m not.” I shoved the ticket scrap into my pocket and headed out.
A bank of summer storm clouds had blown in while I was inside, dropping the temperature from unbearable to miserable. Several big drops of rain pelted me on the way to
my car and thunder rumbled through the charcoal underbelly of the clouds.
Doc stood looking at me from the doorway. I waved good-bye and headed back toward town.
Penny, LungFao, and I spent the rest of the day looking through the pawn room in search of something, anything unusual. We didn’t find it.
By the time I got home that evening, Abby had apparently finished the crying phase of her grief over Knight, and was ready to start talking with me to repair the damage. I wasn’t. All I wanted was for her to stay away from me and let me spend the evening with my kids. I took her into the kitchen and told her that in easily understood fashion, then went back to the family room and the girls. That touched off a new crying jag. I didn’t give a happy damn.
Chapter 38
TWO DAYS LATER
Vinny, I’m telling you this is not right!” I slapped my palm on his desk—hard—to accentuate each of the last three words. The bank got quiet, too quiet, as employees and other customers looked our way.
“Look, Mr. Bolton, you—”
“Mr. Bolton? Mr. Bolton? What the hell is wrong with you? I’ve been with this bank my whole life. Banked with you personally for ten years. Now I’m ‘Mr. Bolton’ instead of ‘Gray,’ is that right?”
Vincent Barnes, vice president of the downtown branch of Montello Guaranty Bank, stared at the paperclip in his hands, fidgeted with it, bent it into shapes. And said nothing. He looked up for a moment, saw me glaring at him, then looked back down. I reached behind me and closed the door to his office. The walls were glass, so the rubberneckers outside could still stare, but at least they couldn’t hear.
I took a few deep breaths, lowered my voice. “Sorry, Vinny. Now please, please tell me what’s going on here.”
He looked up, did a quick scan to see who around the bank was still looking in on us, then finally spoke quietly. “I’d help you if I could, Gray. I swear I would. But I can’t push a hundred-thousand-dollar loan through, not with the condition your finances are in. To be honest, based on this”—he pointed to a computer printout on his desk—“I couldn’t loan you a hundred bucks and keep my job.”
Pawnbroker: A Thriller Page 8