Freddy and Bruce had never seen Jake or James during one of their business transactions, but they knew something had to be going on or else Jake wouldn’t insist they take a trip somewhere every few weeks. Jake really thought that they weren’t smart enough to figure it out and as long as he gave them enough money and told them to get lost they’d never ask any questions or even give it a second thought. But they weren’t completely ignorant. They were smart enough to know that you couldn’t rake in the kind of money their daddy and James did just running off a few hundred gallons of moonshine a year and doing a little farming. It was just a guess, of course, but the only thing they could think of that could bring in that kind of money was drugs. They couldn’t picture their daddy getting caught up in the hard stuff. He had enough of a conscience that he wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone getting addicted or overdosing on heroine or some other narcotic. But pot he could live with. Pot didn’t kill people and there was a lot of money in distribution.
So, by reason of simple deduction they surmised that their daddy and older brother were selling marijuana. And now Freddy had let the cat out of the bag. And the person who had heard it was a girl who he’d treated like dirt and now was about to seek revenge. She was with Freddy and Bruce the night they set fire to the William’s house, though she had no idea anybody was home. She begged and pleaded with them not to do it, and would have run away and called the police or the sheriff if she had even suspected that Frank was inside. Freddy and Bruce told her that the Williams boys were responsible for the terrible murders and that nobody would ever be safe if they weren’t run off.
So after Freddy had dumped her like she was one of his toys that could be sold or traded, or just simply thrown away, that’s when she decided to get her revenge by calling the sheriff. When the sheriff had met with Bo Jones that day and offered him the deal of probation as opposed to hard time in prison, Bo couldn’t pass the deal up. He told the sheriff about Gloria being pregnant with Freddy’s baby and the way he had treated her. He’d heard her tell some of her friends that he was going to pay dearly for it and that he was pretty sure she knew about the fire. The sheriff passed this information along to Jake Bullard and like they had always had to do, they cleaned up Freddy and Bruce’s mess. Jake hated to have to do it, especially to an innocent girl who through no fault of her own had gotten mixed up with his worthless son. But he had no choice. It was either that or the very good chance of his whole business falling apart and him and his boys either winding up in prison or dead. To him, one was about as bad as the other.
*****
Jake Bullard dialed the number to the sheriff’s office as soon as he could get to his office in the horse barn. Kate answered and Jake asked if Andrew was in.
“No, he’s not in right now. Is this an emergency or a personal call?” Kate always sounded professional.
“No, Kate, honey. It’s Jake Bullard. It ain’t no emergency, but could you radio him and have him to call me at my office? He’s got the number.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Bullard. I’ll do it right now.”
“Thank you so much, darlin’. How’s Charlie doin’? He still catchin’ lots of crappie?” Charlie was Kate’s husband and Jake sometimes crappie fished with him on the Tennessee River.
“He hasn’t had much time lately. He’s havin’ to work a lot of overtime.”
“Well, tell him a little work never killed anybody and that me and him will have to git together and go when he gits time.”
“I’ll tell him Mr. Bullard. And I’ll radio the sheriff now.”
“Thank you, hon. Bye, now”
Jake hung up the phone and turned to James. “Go git them two worthless brothers of yours.” James opened the door and walked outside. In a minute he returned with Freddy and Bruce, who looked like they were going in front of a judge to receive the death penalty. They were scared to death of their daddy when he was mad and he was as mad as they had ever seen him. He looked at them with a gaze that looked as if it would burn right through them. He rubbed his chin whiskers, which was always a bad sign.
“I don’t know where in the hell to start. Most of what is wrong with you two is my own fault for lettin’ you git by with thangs when you were younger that most daddy’s would have tore your asses up for. I stopped whippin’ you when you was just young’uns. Then I bought you anything you wanted and never made you work for any of it. I’ll take the blame for you bein’ spoiled rotten. But I didn’t raise you to mistreat women,” he said turning to Freddy. “I may have a lot of faults, but I’ve always loved your momma and treated her like a lady. Have you ever heard us raise our voices to one another?”
“No, Daddy, I don’t reckon I have,” Freddy answered, looking down at his shoes.
“Look at me boy!” Jake shouted. Freddy jerked his head up quickly. “No, you ain’t never heard me raise my voice to her or no other woman. Women are ‘spost to be respected. So you didn’t learn that from me. So why in the hell did you treat that Reeves girl that way?”
“I just didn’t care nothin’ about her no more, Daddy. That was better than leadin’ her on, wasn’t it?”
“Not after you took advantage of her and got her pregnant, you irresponsible fool. If you didn’t love her you could still have let me know she was pregnant and I’d a made sure that baby was took care of. Hell, I’d a raised it if that was what it took.”
Jake got up out of his chair and started pacing. “Then you go and set fire to them poor Williams boy’s house that are simple minded and ain’t got a pot to piss in. Besides that, them boys ain’t never hurt a fly. Hell, Snake’s so tender hearted he’d prob’ly cry if he ran over a rabbit in the road. Now, for once I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to swear it on your momma’s life, since I believe that’s the only person on earth you care anything about. Did you know Frank was in that house asleep when you set that fire?”
“No, Daddy. I swear we didn’t. We didn’t aim to kill nobody,” Bruce said, taking some of the heat off Freddy.
“Well, you might not have aimed to, but you did. You killed a nineteen year old boy that never hurt a soul and had just lost his momma and daddy both. And then, to top all that off, you tell that girl that me and your brother are dope dealers and then treat her like she was a whore. Did you think she was just gonna forget everything you told her? And didn’t you think that maybe she’d try to git back at you for treatin’ her that way?”
“I guess I just didn’t think it through,” Freddy said, almost in a whisper.
“Well, no shit, genius. You two don’t ever think anything through. That’s your damned problem. Bein’ spoiled rotten to the core is one thing, but bein’ as dumb as a sack of rocks is another. I ain’t the cause of you bein’ ignorant. I’ll take the blame for everything else. Another thing I gotta know, and I need you to swear again, because if you did it, it could cause us a lot of trouble. We can still fix it, but I gotta know the truth. Did you tell anybody besides that girl that we were dope dealers?”
“No, Daddy. She was the only one. I was drunk as Cooter Brown and just tryin’ to impress her. It was just me and her and Bruce.”
Jake gave him a hard look. “How many people do you think she’s told?”
“Prob’ly nobody. She knew I was just drunk and I doubt that she was even payin’ attention,” Freddy answered, hoping he was right.
Just as he was about to say something else, Jake’s office phone rang. He looked at James and said, “Take these two outta here. We’ll talk more later. This is an important phone call I’m expectin’.”
James took Freddy and Bruce out of the office and Jake answered the phone, dreading what he was expecting to here.
“Hey, Jake. This is Andrew. Kate said you called.”
“Andrew, there ain’t nobody listenin’ or in the room with you is there?”
“No, you can talk.”
“Have you got a call from anybody sayin’ they found a body?”
“Nope. But with all the one’s
that’s been found lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.”
“Well, you’re prob’ly gonna git one. They’re prob’ly gonna tell you they found a body in one of them caves in the ridges at the Portersville Gap. I’ll go ahead and tell you there ain’t one there, but I don’t want it to look suspicious. So go ahead and investigate it if they call you. And as soon as they do call, I gotta know who it is. It may come from George Patrick or Roscoe Burt. Them boys of theirs spend a lot of time in them ridges and I think I heard they explore them caves a lot. That’s all I can tell you now.”
“That’s all I wanna know,” the sheriff said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Me and Glenn didn’t tell a soul about finding Gloria Reeve’s body when we got home at dusk. We made Snake promise he wouldn’t either. We needed time to think and there was nothing we could do to help Gloria now, anyway. If we told our parents about it there would be no way to keep them from calling the sheriff or police. From what I heard Jake Bullard say, the sheriff may already know something about it anyway, although that was very hard to believe. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe Sheriff Andrew White would ever be a part of anything like that. I had known him all my life and thought he was a good and honest sheriff. But what had Jake Bullard meant when he said he hadn’t told the sheriff what James had done? Why would he ever consider telling him unless he knew the sheriff would try and protect him or that he was involved in some way?
What really had me worried more than anything was the possibility of Jake Bullard finding out we were the ones who found the body. If they had killed this girl and showed no more remorse than they would have if they had swatted a fly, why would they think twice about doing away with us? By noon the next day we still hadn’t decided what to do. We knew it was wrong, terribly wrong, not to disclose to anyone what we’d seen. Cold blooded murderers deserve to be brought to justice. But I had already pissed off one Bullard by kicking him in the nuts, and if I told the authorities that I knew James and Jake had killed someone, I was pretty sure I was going to be the next person on their hit list.
After agonizing over what to do the whole night before and most of the next day, we decided we would wait a little while and see how things played out. What was really gnawing at my insides was Gloria’s family. They would be worried sick about her and wondering if something terrible had happened to her. Or maybe thinking she had just decided to run away. They would be reporting her missing soon. What would the sheriff do? I was making myself physically ill worrying about all of this, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Then, Snake had an idea. He said the smartest woman he knew was Madge and that he trusted her more than anyone, except me and my family. And right now, there was no way we could tell them. I had no idea how Madge could help, and didn’t know that she wouldn’t call the sheriff herself, or maybe tell my parents. But I had to talk to somebody besides Glenn and Snake about it, and Madge was the nicest lady I knew, besides my momma. Of course the one day I’d spent with her was really all I had to go on. She was reclusive and I had never even seen her at my Aunt Lena’s store. I always wondered who did her shopping or if maybe she just always went to Fort Kane or Collinwood for everything. Still, the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. I was gonna lose my mind if I didn’t tell somebody about it.
Glenn was all for it, of course. He didn’t care to risk his life if it meant he would have a chance to spend some time with Madge. His fifteenth birthday had been over a month before and his plan to let Madge put an end to his virginity had not panned out. We decided to wait until noon the next day and see if we could hear any news about Gloria’s folks reporting her missing. If not, we were going to see Madge.
*****
Madge was out in her yard watering some of her multitude of flowers when we found her. She quickly laid the water hose down and ran over and hugged all three of us. I thought Glenn was going to faint like a swooning debutant.
“Hello, boys. I haven’t seen you two in a while. I saw Snake just the other day when he mowed my lawn, but you two have been strangers.”
Me and Glenn both nodded shyly, overcome by the way she looked in her cut off jeans and halter top. Her skin was tan and she was perspiring just enough for her top to cling to her in a very nice way.
“Are you boys looking for work or is this a social call?” I wondered if that was what she asked the older boys that came to see her.
We let Snake break the ice. “Miss Madge, we’ve got a mighty big problem and we need to talk to you about it. I told Glenn and George that we could trust you and that you was a smart lady and might could tell us what to do.”
“Well, I’ll certainly do my best to help you any way I can. Is this something you don’t want your parents to know about?”
I finally got the nerve to speak. “Miss Madge, I…”
“Please, George. Just call me Madge. All this Miss stuff makes me feel old. You don’t want me to feel old, do you?”
“Oh, no ma’am. I wouldn’t want that at all.”
“You don’t need to say ma’am either,” she said, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was flirting.
“Can we go somewhere in the shade and sit down?” I asked her.
“Where are my manners? Let’s just go in the house. I’ll get you boys something cold to drink. Carl is gone and I’m home alone, anyway.”
I was hoping she didn’t think we were there for her special favors, although I have to admit I was kind of wishing we were. She took us in the house and brought us all a big glass of iced tea with a big wedge of lemon stuck on the rim of the glass.
She sat across from us in a big, overstuffed chair, her legs dangling over the arm. She looked so good sitting there, I was hoping I would be able to concentrate on what I had to say.
“Alright,” she said. “What do you need help with?”
Once I started, I quickly found she was as easy to talk to as she had been the day me and Glenn had come to help Snake work in her yard. She listened intently, smiling that pretty smile. The smile faded, however, when I got to the part about finding the body. She pulled her legs from the arm of the chair and sat up straight. I told her the whole story, not leaving out a single detail. I felt as comfortable as I would have talking to Glenn about going fishing. She seemed very concerned and hung on my every word and every time I alluded to the reason we hadn’t told our parents or any other adult, she nodded her head in agreement. According to her, we had done exactly what she would have done.
“Boys,” she said after listening to my whole story without interruption, “I believe you’ve done all you can, given the circumstances. It sounds to me like your lives might be in danger if you let anyone else know about this.”
“But what about the girls family?” I asked her. I hadn’t used any names other than the sheriffs, which was obvious. “They will be worried sick not knowing where their daughter is. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t worry so much about everything else.”
“I understand your concern, sweetie. And I know it is an awful thing to have to think about. But do you think her family would feel any better knowing she was dead?” She put her hands over her face and looked like she was about to cry. “That poor child. I can’t imagine what she must have gone through. And I feel so sorry for her parents, not knowing where she is, thinking something terrible might have happened to her. But I don’t see that you have any choice right now. I think you made a very wise and mature decision. Her folks will report her missing in a day or two if they haven’t already, and then there will have to be an investigation. If you believe the sheriff may be involved in some way, we will find out soon enough by the way he handles that investigation. If he just passes it off as just some overly concerned parents worrying too much, we might get suspicious. On the other hand, if he seems really concerned and puts forth a lot of effort and manpower to try and find the girl, then you must have heard the man wrong. If you were in a cave that is a very good possibility.”<
br />
“I guess I could have heard Jake wrong about the sheriff. That waterfall makes a lot of noise. I just don’t know and I find it hard to believe the sheriff would ever be involved in something like that.”
I felt much better after telling Madge the whole story. She had a way about her that was comforting and she seemed extremely intelligent. And she did say she would have done the same thing if it had been her.
*****
Three days after our meeting with Madge, the sheriff started an all out search for Gloria Reeves. He had one of the printing companies in Fort Kane make a bunch of posters with her picture on them and he had his deputies and volunteers hanging them in every business in the county. On power and telephone poles and even trees along the highways. He called a press conference and invited all the newspapers in Putnam and surrounding counties, as well as the radio stations and the nearest television stations in Birmingham, Huntsville and Chattanooga. Chattanooga was in Tennessee, but was still less than sixty miles away and was actually closer to Putnam County than Birmingham.
The sheriff seemed to be obsessed with finding Gloria and had gotten local businesses to donate money. He was offering a five-thousand dollar reward for knowledge of her whereabouts. At the time, that was a half years salary for a lot of people in the county. If Madge had been right, and what she said did make perfect sense, then the sheriff had nothing to do with it or knew nothing of her whereabouts. After all the manpower that was being used and all the money being spent, I felt like I had to tell the sheriff the truth. Besides that, the family deserved to know the truth so they could stop worrying themselves sick. I believed them not knowing was worse than them finding out she was dead. At least they would have closure and could grieve for their daughter and it would put an end to their false hope of finding her alive.
I walked into the living room where Momma and Daddy were both reading and sat down on the sofa. I was as nervous as I had ever been in my life, and I suddenly just blurted it out.
Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller Page 15