The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “I knew you’d like it, Lil.”

  Lillie Virgil—all nearly six feet, one hundred and fifty pounds of her—leaned against a file cabinet in the SO meeting room while Quinn assembled the interviews and queued up the bank video. She’d brought in a sack of hamburgers and two tall coffees from the Fillin’ Station and set them on the conference table. Lillie, curly brown hair tamed in a bun that poked from the back of her TIBBEHAH COUNTY ball cap, had showered and was in uniform in less than thirty minutes after getting the call from dispatch.

  “Of course I like it,” Lillie said. “I spent all goddamn night running down Robert Earl Hicks for violating his restraining order. Not only did he slap Autumn for taking a couple of his Luke Bryan CDs but he beat the dog shit out of her daddy for saying she had the right. So by the time I find him sipping on an Oreo Peanut Butter milk shake at the Sonic, he’s facing not only the violation but two new assault charges and a failure to appear in Tishomingo County for public urination.”

  “And how does that make things better?” Quinn said.

  “Because this is something I can own,” Lillie said. “I got into law enforcement to track down the bad guys, not take out the fucking garbage. I’m sick of being in the waste management business. Maybe I just appreciate a higher class of criminal. Running down bank robbers is something I can be proud of.”

  Lillie had on her jeans, lace-up work boots, and a shiny green SO coat with a black Sherpa collar. Her face was freshly scrubbed and her nails cut to the quick. Since Quinn was first elected, Lillie had been his guide and mentor in law enforcement, often reminding him the objective was to keep order, not blow shit up. Before coming home to take care of her dying mother, she’d spent nearly six years with Memphis PD, and, before that, she’d been a star shooter on the Ole Miss Rifle Team.

  Most folks in Tibbehah found her odd, a straight-talking tomboy with low tolerance for bullshit. For Quinn, he couldn’t have found a better partner in keeping order in a sometimes lawless county.

  She reached into the sack for a hamburger and took a seat at the conference table. Quinn punched up the bank video and turned around the laptop so they both could see it.

  “We can’t keep it,” Quinn said. “It’ll go federal.”

  “Feds got too much on their plate dealing with homeland security, terrorism, and all that,” Lillie said. “Didn’t you clue into that shit over in Afghanistan? Unless this thing is an epidemic, we’re stuck running down these fuckwads. Just how much did they get anyway?”

  “One hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars,” Quinn said. “Give or take a buck or two.”

  “That’s a lot for the First National.”

  “Walmart had just dropped off the morning receipts,” Quinn said. “Big Presidents’ Day sale.”

  “Anyone spotted that van yet?”

  “Nope,” Quinn said. “Highway patrol has 45 cut off in both directions. We have roadblocks set up on nearly every road leaving the county. We got Kenny, Art, and Reggie on patrol, and a few folks over from Choctaw County. I called up the boys at Jericho PD, too.”

  “Those fucking morons?” Lillie said. “God help us.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “There’s no way these turds are still in town,” Lillie said. “These guys are smart, like I said, have some style. They’d have dumped that van, gotten a couple getaway cars, and are miles away from here.”

  “Sounds like you admire them.”

  “We haven’t had a bank robbery in Jericho since Gowrie five years ago,” Lillie said. “We got too many damn crooks cornholing this town from the inside. Outsiders are an exotic animal.”

  “You didn’t have to come straight in,” Quinn said. “Plenty more to do tonight on the night shift.”

  “And let you have all the fun?” Lillie said. “Fuck that, Sheriff. I got my aunt to come on over and look after Rose. How about I go back and talk to Mr. Berryhill some more? I never liked that son of a bitch. I kind of want to ask him what it was like having his dick in jeopardy. Truth be known, that fat bastard probably would need a magnifying glass to find it.”

  “We got plenty of interviews,” Quinn said. “I talked to every person in that bank personal. Now I’m looking at any type of surveillance that might have seen them before. Gas stations. Maybe these guys fueled up before. Or after.”

  “Doubt it,” Lillie said. “They’re not from around here.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because they’re smart.”

  “Do I detect some type of contempt for Tibbehah County?”

  “Tell me you don’t shower after a long day.”

  Quinn pulled up a chair to the conference table and pressed PLAY on the laptop. Everything he needed from the robbery, every single camera, each angle, already uploaded and downloaded. He’d watched it four times already. Good quality, not grainy at all, but not telling them much, either. Images were in black-and-white. One of the men, the one who’d knocked Chester on his ass, stood about six feet. He was white, judging from the skin tone on the back of his neck. He spoke fast and sure, not a bit of an accent. The other guy was white, too. He stood a few inches shorter than the first man. The way they worked as a team, it was clear that the taller man was in charge.

  The shorter man glanced back and forth at the big man for hand gestures and sometimes commands on what to do next. The quick entry, the checking of corners, the speed and precision, was familiar as hell.

  “Hmm,” Lillie said. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Did you add bacon and pickles on that burger?” Quinn said. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “Not that,” she said. “You think these shitbirds are pros. They move like Army folks. You see what they’re carrying. The way they work the room.”

  Quinn nodded. “I can reach out to the Feds,” Quinn said. “See if this all seems familiar to them, too.”

  “Just don’t let them spoil our fun.”

  “I’ll let you know when to assemble the posse,” Quinn said. “In the meantime, let’s find that white van.”

  Lillie reached into the sack and slid a hamburger wrapped in foil over to him. “Cheese, bacon, and pickles.”

  “How could I ever doubt you, Lillie Virgil?”

  Lillie smiled, took a bite of her burger, and swallowed. “By the way, you need to call your sister back,” she said. “She’s been making a lot of noise about those two girls again.”

  “Not much we can do,” Quinn said. “Looks like they’re runaways.”

  “Not the way Caddy sees it.”

  “My sister and I seldom see the world the same way.”

  “Truer words were never spoken,” Lillie said.

  • • •

  “It ain’t much,” Boom Kimbrough said. “But it might help out a few families. I grew too many plants this year.”

  “We’ll take ’em,” Caddy Colson said, reaching into the bed of Boom’s pickup truck for the big box of freshly picked collards. “We have a big dinner after the Sunday service. I’d like it if you’d stop by.”

  “You trying to save my broke-down ass?”

  “I’m trying to feed your broke-down ass.”

  “Good to add some brown sugar to those greens,” Boom said. “I always like that Creole seasoning with some cut-up country ham.”

  “Will do.”

  Boom smiled, reached in with his good hand and his prosthetic arm, and grabbed another box, following Caddy into the barn. The barn being the core of The River, a nonprofit she’d started with a man named Jamey Dixon a few years ago. It was more than just an informal place for folks to worship who’d given up on mainstream churches in Tibbehah. The River was an outreach program for the abused women, neglected kids, and families with nowhere else to go. They kept a food bank, a few small cabins for shelter, and offered a good sermon and even bett
er music on Wednesdays and Sundays. As usual, they were running about two thousand dollars over budget.

  Caddy was dressed in threadbare Levi’s and one of Jamey’s flannel cowboy shirts, which had gotten more worn and frayed since his death. She placed the box of greens on one of the hay bales where folks sat during the service and thanked Boom for his thoughtfulness.

  “I hate seeing shit going to waste.”

  “You’re a good man.”

  Boom ran his good hand over the splotchy beard on his dark face, scars from a long-ago IED marking his ears and neck, and smiled. “Took a while to get there.”

  “I tell folks I walked through hell to find heaven.”

  “I ain’t found heaven yet,” Boom said. “But I promise to go to church every Sunday when I get old. I’ll play the tambourine and take up the collection. Get that ole-time religion.”

  “Good place to meet women.”

  “Women who want to set me right?” Boom asked.

  “You still seeing that social worker down in Eupora?”

  “Naw,” he said. “I guess me and Quinn are a lot alike. We got some bad luck.”

  “Quinn makes his own luck.”

  “You got to admit Ophelia Bundren was a piece of work.”

  Caddy smiled, “Can’t disagree with you there. The girl threw a damn steak knife at my brother and he still got her back in bed. What’s that say about Quinn?”

  Boom laughed, both of them heading back out to his battered GMC truck. He reached into the passenger’s side and opened the glove compartment. He handed Caddy a white envelope and told her that he admired all she did and that he was sorry he hadn’t been able to make a contribution earlier.

  “The greens are enough.”

  “Like I said,” Boom said. “Ain’t much.”

  Caddy didn’t take the envelope. Boom pushed it toward her. “Take it now before my ass is unemployed.”

  “You quitting?”

  “Old Man Skinner wants to fire my ass,” he said. “He wants his own people running the County Barn.”

  “That’s dumb,” she said. “You’re the best mechanic in town.”

  “Hell,” he said, “I know.”

  “And you’ve done a hell of a job.”

  “I know that, too,” he said. “Sometimes makes me wonder why we all stay on in this goddamn place. What those Catholics call purgatory.”

  Caddy shook her head, giving him a big hug. He smelled of a hard day’s work and cigarettes like her late Uncle Hamp. She felt the cool steel of Boom’s hand on her back. “Didn’t someone say ‘home is the place where they have to take you in’?”

  “Figure lots of folks said that.”

  “This place took me back in,” Caddy said. “And now I got a chance to even things up.”

  Boom nodded, moving toward the driver’s side of the truck. Caddy wrapped her arms around herself, watching him get in and crank the engine.

  “You seen Quinn?” she asked through the open window.

  “Sure,” he said. “Had breakfast with him this morning.”

  “He won’t call me back.”

  “Been busy,” Boom said. “Or hadn’t you heard?”

  Caddy shook her head.

  “First National got robbed,” he said. “Doubt he and Lillie will get much sleep tonight.”

  “Crap.”

  “Something I can help you with?”

  Caddy shook her head. “Worried about a couple girls who came to The River last month,” Caddy said. “One of them doesn’t have a family. Other one’s momma is a hot mess. Girls are only fifteen. Can’t get a damn straight answer.”

  “Maybe the girls ran away.”

  “That’s what her momma said,” Caddy said. “And Quinn. But I think something bad’s happened.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been on the same road,” Caddy said. “We were into a lot of the same bad shit. The girls wanted to get straight, but there was a lot against them. They wouldn’t have left without seeing me first.”

  “Fifteen, huh?”

  Caddy nodded.

  “They black or white?”

  “Black and Mexican.”

  Boom nodded. “Who are their people?”

  “One of the girls is an Odom,” Caddy said. “The other wasn’t from from around here. Her family was migrants coming through at sweet potato time.”

  “Jericho ain’t their home.”

  “And no one wanted to take them in.”

  “Except you.”

  “Maybe that’s why I can’t let this thing go.”

  “I’ll ask around,” Boom said. “Shit, you know all us black folks know each other?”

  “I heard that.”

  “’Cept for the Colsons,” Boom said. “Y’all are OK, for some white folks.”

  • • •

  They rode the Kawasakis for an hour or so through the National Forest until they came to a path marked with NO TRESPASSING signs tacked on a few scraggly pines. Cord lifted a hand and pointed down the path, Wilcox and Opie following him down the deer trail, which descended into a small valley to a clearing dotted with a couple of Quonset huts and a big metal warehouse. As they rode closer, Wilcox could see the busted old tarmac Cord had told him about, saying the place had been an airfield during World War II and then been a place to smuggle in grass back in the seventies and eighties. When he’d asked what it was used for now, Cord just shook his head and said, “I don’t want to know, brother.”

  They zipped down into the valley, the money stash fat on Wilcox’s back, taking a final turn onto the cracked tarmac filled with dead weeds. Cord headed fast down the path, bucking up and down on his seat, heading toward the big shed and the huts, where he’d said they’d have supplies and switch cars waiting.

  They were soaked and covered in mud after the ride. Wilcox could taste the dirt in his mouth and spit on the ground before lighting up a Marlboro.

  “How the fuck did you find this place?”

  “Never been here before in my life,” Cord said.

  “I like it,” Opie said. “Reminds me of that Scooby-Doo episode where they run into the space pilot. You know, the one with the glowing skull head? It was laughing like hell the whole time.”

  Wilcox took off the backpack and tossed it at his feet. He reached for his rifle, pulled the charging handle, and took in a good three-sixty of the place. He couldn’t see any cars or any sign of life. The only sound came from soft rain hitting the gravel and tin roofs. With the cigarette bobbing between his lips, he told Opie and Cord to go on and clear the buildings.

  “Shit, man,” Cord said. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  “I don’t know these people,” Wilcox said. “And I ain’t hungry.”

  He nodded at Opie, who moved toward the metal building, which looked like a cotton gin or warehouse, no windows, a loading platform out front, with a couple of nasty-ass sofas and whiskey barrels cut in half with dead plants inside. Wilcox followed Opie up onto the platform and into the warehouse, knowing if there was trouble, Cord would have their six.

  Inside, the warehouse was completely empty except for a few crates and broken chairs. There was an office and two bathrooms, which were both empty, too.

  Wilcox and Opie moved back onto the loading platform, ARs sweeping the area, almost like they expected fucking hadji to start firing from some goddamn murder hole in the hills. Vacant buildings and quiet open spots always worried the crap out of him. When you could hear the fucking wind, that’s usually when the shit was about to rain on your ass.

  “Cord say we were sleeping here?” Opie said.

  “That he did.”

  “Cool,” Opie said. “We’ve slept in a lot worse.”

  “No goats,” Wilcox said. “I’m so fucking tired of goats. All that piss and shit in tho
se compounds. That fucking smell.”

  “I knew some guys who got so horny, they talked about screwing one.”

  “I ate a few,” Wilcox said. “Better for eating than fucking.”

  “But would you?”

  “Screw a goat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn, Ope,” Wilcox said. “You are a gentleman and a philosopher.”

  Somewhere between the big metal building and the smaller huts, Wilcox heard Cord talking and maybe even Cord laughing. Cord never laughed, so it sounded strange as hell to him, until he heard the woman, too. Cord was a different guy around women. He smiled. He laughed. He softened up a hell of a lot. Wilcox didn’t lower his weapon but kept his eyes on the doors and open spaces, up into the young pines planted up on the hills, turning back once and twice to watch for a flicker of movement in the big valley around them. But when he got to Cord and the woman, he stopped cold.

  The woman, a curvy redhead in a khaki trench coat and carrying a black umbrella, turned to look at him. She had pale skin, a very red full mouth, and some of the biggest tits he’d ever seen in his life. She had a sweet smell to her, like some really fine flowers left too long in the heat.

  “Be careful with that thing,” the woman said. “It just might go off.”

  Wilcox smiled, lowered the rifle. “How about you take off that raincoat and we’ll see what happens?”

  The woman didn’t smile at Wilcox. Women always smiled at him.

  “Keys are in three cars,” the woman said. “They’re nothing to look at. Some real junkers. But everything works. They’ll get you to where you need to go.”

  “How’s it look in town?” Cord asked.

  “Like shit,” she said. “I definitely wouldn’t leave until tomorrow. The highway has a roadblock and the sheriff’s office has extra folks in from three counties.”

  “Where do we sleep?”

  “That hut to the left has cots,” she said. “I brought in some barbecue plates for you and a cooler of beer. I don’t run a fucking B and B, but it’ll get you fed and not too drunk.”

  Wilcox nodded. “You look even better than Cord said.”

  “Does it matter how I look?” she asked.