by Daniel Adams
The Sheriff un-cuffed Waldo. “I just commuted your sentence. You’re welcome to stay. Matter of fact, we’ll take you out to a still and get you a job.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Wait until I tell my buddies I had Waldo Walton in the back of my patrol car the Sheriff grinned.
“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled,” Waldo said,
True to his word, Sheriff Wilks drove Waldo to a still that was south of town in a grove of trees next to the river. After dropping Waldo off, Sheriff Wilks and Mattie drove back to town.
“Always busy, huh, Sheriff?”
“We get a lot of vagrants through town. Jail’s not big enough for all of them so I encourage them to move on down the road.”
“I have some more work for you. I was out at Paxton’s place and found a shed full of moonshine next to the barn.”
“I know you was out there cause Grace called me madder’n hell. Said you insulted her.”
“She’s letting her kids play with a dead puppy for crying out loud!”
“That don’t mean you have to be rude to her. She just lost her husband. Have a little compassion.”
“She wasn’t exactly broken up about it—course I can’t say as I blame her. From what I hear, Paxton was a real asshole.”
The Sheriff turned at an intersection before continuing.
“He had his faults.”
“Was womanizing one of them?”
She holds up the pair of panties she found in the truck. He didn’t seem that surprised to see them.
“I found them in Paxton’s truck.”
“Why are you stirring things up? Paxton’s dead. Ain’t no point in draggin’ him through the mud.”
She didn’t get it. She didn’t understand why the Sheriff wouldn’t consider the possibility that Noonan hadn’t killed Paxton. Sure, there was a huge amount of circumstantial evidence against Noonan but nothing that absolutely proved he killed Paxton. They hadn’t found the gun. They hadn’t found Noonan’s fingerprints any where on the baler. They hadn’t probed how Noonan would have traveled the three miles to Paxton’s place on foot. Mattie always tried to keep an open mind until all of the evidence was in. She wished that Sheriff Wilks would do the same.
“I have to admit that it looks like Noonan killed him but it’s too early in the investigation to quit looking at other possibilities,” she admitted. “What if an angry husband killed him after his wife came home without her panties?”
“Not likely. All of the evidence points to Noonan. He had motive--opportunity--and a good alibi. For all you know, these could’ a been in Paxton's truck when he bought it.”
“I don’t think so. They still smell like perfume.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“That’s my choice. What about the moonshine?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
They drove the rest of the way back to town in silence each lost in their own thoughts.
As soon as Sheriff Wilks dropped off Mattie at her car, he headed for Paxton’s place. Mattie finding the moonshine had saved him the trouble of hunting it down. After he had returned to the office after meeting with Rafe, he had counted the money in the envelope Rafe had given him. It contained a measly $800, a tiny, tiny fraction of the money Rafe made each week. Sheriff Wilks knew he had sold his services too cheaply. Hell, he hadn’t even intended to sell his services at all. What had started as him doing a few favors for Rafe had turned into a full time job without a big change in income. He knew Junior Barnes and Leroy were paid a lot more than he was. Problem was, if he confronted Rafe about a raise, he might have to kill him, which would end his employment opportunities. Rafe was a cheap bastard. Sheriff Wilks had heard that he didn’t pay for sex at his two brothels. He considered it part of the girls’ employment package. Yep, Rafe was a real gem.
As he stopped beside Paxton’s barn, Sheriff Wilks expected Grace to come out to talk to him but the house was silent. She was probably at the funeral home making funeral arrangements for Paxton. Before he rousted Waldo at the park, he had stopped at the gas station to get one of his tires checked. To his surprise, there were already Paxton jokes making the rounds. How much for a bale of Paxton? How did Paxton get out of jail? He was baled out. How many bales of Paxton to the acre. All kinds of funny little jokes. Some were funny, some weren’t.
Sheriff Wilks went into the shed where he found the moonshine Mattie had told him was there. Soon as he saw the number of crates he knew it was two loads, not just one. As he started to load the crates into Paxton’s truck, and idea crept into his mind. As far as Rafe knew, Paxton had already sold the first load so he wasn’t expecting any of it back. If he left the good load in the shed, he could come back later and sell it in another county—one where Rafe didn’t have any juice. He would give the bad load, the first load Paxton hadn’t paid for, back to Rafe who would sell it to some sucker who wouldn’t know it was bad booze. The Sheriff figured he could get at least $4 a case which meant he could snag a clean $600 for the hooch. It wasn’t much, not when he considered that Rafe made in the neighborhood of $25,000 a day from his various operations. Rafe’s accountant had told the Sheriff the $25,000 a day figure a day before he disappeared. Around Kingswood, loose lips didn’t sink ships, they sucked swamp mud. No doubt the accountant was dead the question that remained was which piece of swamp his body now called home.
It took Sheriff Wilks the better part of an hour to load the hooch into the truck. He stacked the cases he was going to keep in the corner of the shed. He wasn’t worried Grace or some of her relatives would find it. There just wasn’t any reason for them to be snooping around in the shed. As soon as the hooch was loaded, he swung open the shed doors. They screeched like a wounded coon. With the load in back covered by a tarp, Sheriff Wilks drove away, very glad that Grace had not come out to talk to him.
On the way to town he passed at least a dozen cars filled with adults and kids. He knew all of them. They were going out to Paxton’s place to comfort Grace. It was a good thing he had hurried. That many people prowling around—somebody would have stumbled on him in the shed which would have led to a lot of questions—questions he didn’t want to answer. The last car belonged to the Presbyterian pastor, a good man who was the heart and soul of the town. When someone died, he organized visitations for the surviving family members and arranged food deliveries for them. He was another local man who didn’t have any teen girlfriends. The difference between his situation and Doctor Flint’s situation was that no one thought the pastor was gay because he didn’t have any teen girlfriends. It was an amazing double standard, one that caused Doctor Flint a lot of grief. When the gossip first started, Sheriff Wilks had tried to defend Doctor Flint but he soon realized it was hopeless. Juicy gossip carried a lot more weight than the facts.
Doctor Flint could dispel the ugly rumors about him if he started dating a local woman who would leak the details of their intimate moments to her friends who would spread it all over town. That’s how it worked. It didn’t really matter how Doctor Flint performed with the local hottie, because she would embellish his abilities far beyond that of mortal man. What concerned Sheriff Wilks was Doctor Flint’s burgeoning relationship with Mattie. Not taking a teen girlfriend was one thing but dating a Black woman was quite another. In Kingswood, interracial dating was guaranteed to earn the couple a surprise visit from the Klan—a visit that could end with two fresh graves in the swamp. Sheriff Wilks knew how lucky the town was to have Doctor Flint. It wasn’t like there were doctors lined up to practice in Kingswood. Quite the opposite. When Doctor Brown had retired, the town had gone without a doctor for two years, which meant that anyone who needed to see a doctor had had to drive 35 miles to Charming, Alabama, a town with two doctors and a veterinarian. Kingswood had a veterinarian too—Doctor Evans—a man given to bouts of heavy drinking and depression. Had Doctor Evans been an MD who treated people, he would have lost his license many years ago but since dead animals tell no tales,
he was still licensed and still drinking heavily.
With Doctor Brown retired and no new doctor to replace him, some of the townsfolk had gone to Doctor Evans for treatment but that had ended when Ulysses Chalk had died from complications related to a penicillin shot given to him by the vet. Whereas 16 milliliters of penicillin was fine for a 1,600 pound horse, 16 milliliters injected into Ulysses’ butt cheek was enough to send him, bright purple and swollen up like a tick, to the Happy Hunting Grounds. There had been some grumbling around town that maybe it was time for the vet to take his place in the swamp with several other careless (alcoholic) medical men but wiser heads had prevailed, noting that without a vet, the only thing available for sick pets and animals was a prayer or two from the pastor.
Back in town, Sheriff Wilks drove to the dog food factory where Rafe had his office. The dog food factory was the largest employer in Kingswood, employing seventy-five men but all of them worked part-time because the dog food factory didn’t have enough meat to operate full-time. There just wasn’t enough horses, cows and pigs to keep it going even with Doctor Evans’ help. Generally, the plant processed dog food three days a week. You didn’t have to drive by the plant to see if it was churning out dog food because your nose would tell you a long time before you arrived in the parking lot. There wasn’t anything quite like the stench of cooking animals to clear your sinuses.
Sheriff Wilks parked behind the plant, noting there were only three other cars in the lot. Carrying one case of hooch under his arm, he hurried into the plant by way of the ten feet wide back door. It was quiet inside. None of the big grinders were operating. Making dog food was easy. All you did was take whole animals, run them through a chopper, then mix the chopped meat with spoiled grain or other filler. From there the “meal” went through a compressor that formed it into little chunks, then on to the ovens for baking. The mixing bowls were huge. Sheriff Wilks guessed they held 3000 pounds of meat. Since the tops of the bowls were at floor level, Sheriff Wilks gave them wide berth. He didn’t want to accidentally fall into one of them. As he walked by the last one, he saw a horse’s head sticking above the edge of the bowl. Its eyes seemed to follow him across the work floor.
He found Rafe, Junior Barnes and Leroy in the office. Junior Barnes and Leroy lounged on an old couch across the room from Rafe who was reading what appeared to be some type of accounting ledgers. Junior Barnes gave Sheriff Wilks an insolent grin—equal to equal. Sheriff Wilks wanted to smack the grin off his face—maybe another time. Rafe glanced at him then back at the ledgers.
“What’s that?” He had seen the case of hooch under Sheriff Wilks’ arm.
“I picked up that shine that the FBI lady found out at Paxton’s. Load’s out in his truck.”
Rafe snapped his fingers. “You two get out there and unload the truck.”
Junior Barnes and Leroy headed for the door.
“It’s too bad about Paxton,” Junior Barnes smugly grinned. “We was lookin’ forward to feedin’ him to the gators.”
“Would have had to find some big gators to swallow him” Leroy commented.
“Go!” Rafe commanded.
Leroy and Junior Barnes left.
“How many cases?” Rafe asked.
“One hundred eighty one.”
“Sounds about right.”
“You mind if I keep this case?”
“Knock yourself out,” Rafe said.
“You find anything more about Big Blue?”
Rafe stopped working. “No. What about Dusty?”
“We had a discussion. I'm pretty sure he didn't have nothin' to do with poisonin' Big Blue.”
“Pretty sure ain’t good enough,” Rafe snapped. “I want to know.”
“There ain't no guarantees on anything. He could have been lyin' but I don't think so. He told me that he's heard rumors around the track that one of the stable boys done it. If Dusty done it, we need to hire him, cause he’s the best liar I ever run across.”
Sheriff Wilks knew what Rafe was thinking. He wanted his $100,000 back but if he killed Dusty, it wouldn’t happen. On the other hand, if someone was to torture Dusty, they could get the truth out of him.
“He give you a name. There ain’t that many stable boys.”
Again Sheriff Wilks knew what Rafe was thinking. “Ain’t that many stable boys” translated into “torture them all” which Sheriff Wilks had no intention of doing.
“He didn’t know a name. I’m gonna snoop around, see what I can find.”
“Get right on it. I don’t want him to spend any of my money.” He glanced out the window. From his vantage point he could see Leroy and Junior Barnes unloading the hooch onto a forklift. Neither one was working hard. They knew more about loafing than they did anything else.
“Good help is hard to find,” Rafe commented.
Sheriff Wilks wasn’t sure where the conversation was headed so he kept silent.
“I got Leroy and Junior Barnes in Atlanta. They both came highly recommended. I don’t think I’ve got an honest day’s work out of them in the two years they’ve been here.”
“Like you said.”
“You’re a hard worker,” Sheriff.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime you want to make more money, I have more work for you.”
“More work for you” translated into “more people to kill,” something that didn’t interest Sheriff Wilks in the slightest. He knew Rafe wanted him dirty so he could leverage him into other crimes but Sheriff Wilks intended to stay clean—at least as far as murder went.
“I make enough,” he said blandly.
“That nigger FBI lady snoopin’ around?”
“She thinks someone else killed Paxton. She’s gonna keep on diggin’ until she proves it one-way or the other. You don’t need to worry. She doesn’t know nothin’ about you. She’s working the angry father angle. She found a pair of panties in Paxton’s truck.”
“You know whose they are?”
“Naaa. My guess, probably one of Coach’s girls.”
“We can’t afford to have that nigger snoopin’ around. Period. She might stumble onto something that would put my ass in prison. I want you to control her.”
“She pretty much talks to me before she does anything. Like I said, she ain’t a worry.”
“Maybe not to you but she is to me. I’m thinking a more direct response is in order. A visit from Junior Barnes and Leroy might do the trick.”
“Don’t let them kill her,” Sheriff Wilks pleaded. “That would bring down the feds on all of us. They’d be swarmin’ around here like maggots on a dead cow.”
“Not gonna kill her, just let her know she should go back to Jackson.”
“You’ve got a lot more faith in those two than I do. Between them, they could fuck up a wet dream.”
“She might have an accident. Get run over by a speeding car. Like that Jew car salesman from Lexington.”
Sheriff Wilks hadn’t known for sure that Rafe had ordered the salesman killed. Now he knew.
“What’s this I hear about Doc Flint being gay?” Rafe queried.
“It’s a crock of shit. Coach offered him a couple of his girls and Doc Flint turned him down.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Said it ain’t for him. He likes older women.”
“He seeing anyone?”
Sheriff Wilks wisely kept silent about Doctor Flint and Mattie. While Rafe hadn’t joined the Klan, he was a Klansman at heart.
“Not that I know of,” Sheriff Wilks lied.
“You let me know as soon as you find out anything about Big Blue. Got it?”
“Sure thing.”
Sheriff Wilks had been dismissed. He was glad to leave Rafe’s office. Being around Rafe made him nervous. It was like being in the same room with a bomb that could go off at any second. He had seen Rafe blow up—over nothing—and beat someone who owed him money nearly to death.
Getting up, Sheriff Wilks left.
Once in his
car, he headed for the diner. He was hungry, having skipped breakfast and lunch to take care of Rafe’s business. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that someday he was going to have to kill Rafe. It wasn’t if, it was when.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jenny’s Place had been an old chicken house until Rafe bought it for a few cents on the dollar from the owner’s widow. Rafe had wanted the chicken house because it was close to town but in an unpopulated area near the river. Rafe had tried many times to buy the chicken house and land but the owner hadn’t ever wanted to sell. True to his nature, Rafe’s patience had worn out and one night the owner had disappeared into the swamp. A day later Rafe had approached the new widow with an offer she couldn’t refuse. Although it wasn’t stated, the underlying theme of their meeting had been sell me the land or join your husband in the swamp. Wisely, the widow sold him the land and buildings for a song then left town with what little money Rafe had given her. After selling the chickens for a nice profit, Rafe had paid a contractor a couple of thousand dollars to turn the chicken house into a club although during a rain, the club still smelled like wet chickens.
Just after 11:00 P.M., Jenny and a pudgy, short man named Ben Reid staggered out of the whorehouse. Jenny wore a short cowboy skirt, boots and a top that showed a lot of cleavage. Ben, a city councilman, pressed a one hundred dollar bill into her hand.
“Here, Baby,” he cooed, “Something for you.”
“I don’t want your money, Ben. Being with you is payment enough.”
She tried to hand back the money but he wouldn’t take it.
“Buy yourself something pretty,” he slurred. “But real short,” he added. “You can show me next week.”