Dust in the Heart

by Ralph Dennis

  He’d parked on a ledge that overlooked the lake. It had been a long time since he’d been there and almost that long since he’d thought about the lake. That was over twenty years ago when it was a favorite high school petting place. He remembered, with a rush, a party he and his pals had there with their girls the night they graduated from high school.

  He switched off the headlights. He put both hands on the steering wheel. He shifted the muscles in his back. A long day, a very long day.

  “Where are we?”

  “Dead Woman’s Lake.” It hadn’t always been called that. It had been Harper’s Lake until the body of the woman from Durham floated to the surface one day. Her throat had been cut from ear-to-ear. From that time on it had been called Dead Woman’s Lake, until even the area maps listed it that way.

  “What a romantic place to bring a girl.”

  “You’re not a girl. You’re full grown.” He cracked the window an inch or two and reached for his Chesterfields, “I thought a visit here might get your attention.”

  “I’m not a girl and you want my attention?” Diane kicked out her legs like they’d gone to sleep. She sat forward and stared at the rain sheeting on the windshield. “Let me make a guess.”

  “Make two or three. They’re free.” He lit the Chesterfield and blew the smoke toward the window opening.

  “I think this is the moment when I melt into your arms ….”

  He laughed. “Sounds good so far.”

  “We kiss with passion …”

  He didn’t interrupt.

  “My breath grows uneven …”

  A strong wind blew leaves against the hood. They scuttled across with the sound of crabs.

  “You unzip your fly …”

  He whipped his head around and stared at her.

  “And I give you the blowjob of your life.”

  He pushed the cigarette through the narrow opening. He leaned forward and twisted the ignition. He backed down the wet road until he found an opening where he could make his turn.

  During the drive back to the Blue Lagoon, she huddled against the door, head down, and her eyes closed. He pulled into the parking lot and parked the cruiser as close to the entrance as he could. She didn’t move.

  He got out and walked around to the passenger door. He opened the door and waited. She opened her eyes and stared at him for a long time before she swung her legs around and stepped from the car.

  He walked beside her to the door. “What if I’d said, yes, it was time for you to melt into my arms …?”

  “You won’t know now, will you?”

  “But Rachel’s still available?”

  She didn’t answer. He stood and watched the club door close behind her.

  The cruiser was full of her perfume all the way back into town. Even lowering a window didn’t sweep it away.

  Five minutes after he reached his apartment and called in to the Station he was in bed. He was asleep a few seconds later.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The rain ended sometime during the early morning hours. There was a dull rattle on the bathroom window when Wilt’s bladder awoke him. By six, after he’d shaved and showered, he stood in the cramped kitchen and drank a cup of coffee and listened to the grim howl of the wind that followed the rain.

  The sky, gray and boiling with angry clouds, suggested snow but it didn’t snow often in Webster County. The cutoff line for snow was probably Greensboro. East of that city, it was more likely to be rain or ice rain.

  Joe Croft called while he was dressing. They arranged to meet at the Henshaw place. That would save a drive into town later in the day.

  “Bring your own coffee,” Joe said.

  “Bring your own Bromo.”

  “I didn’t have that kind of night.”

  “What other kind of night is there?” Wilt laughed and broke the connection.

  Joe’s cruiser was parked next to the barn. Wilt pulled in next to it. He carried a thermos he’d filled at a 7–11 back on the highway. He found Joe standing beside the tarp they’d left to cover the spot where the little girl’s body had been found. Water pooled on the surface of the tarp and the rain had been so steady that it had seeped under at the edges.

  Joe drank from a pint milk carton. He lowered it and wiped his mouth. “I sent Floyd home when he was relieved at one by Frank. He’s due back at nine. I relieved Frank about ten minutes ago. He’ll check back at two or three, according to how he feels.” Another swallow from the milk carton. “That arrangement suit you?”

  Wilt said it did. “But it means a lot of overtime.”

  “Maybe not. If this breaks open early, we can give time off and shave the bulge as much as we can.”

  Wilt walked around the tarp and faced Joe across it. “Let me know when it slows down. I’d like a long weekend off myself.” He leaned over. “Ready?”

  They worked the dry space under the covering first. A careful search produced nothing. Then, starting at the outer edges of the dry area, they moved in ever-widening circles, heads down, kicking at the ground debris. After a time, fifty yards or so had been searched. Wilt leaned against a pecan tree and shook his head. “I don’t know which is worse.”

  Joe lifted his head. “Huh?”

  “Believing all that Sherlock Holmes crap. That there are clues all over the place and all I have to do is find them. Or knowing better. Knowing that there aren’t any clues that matter. That this bastard’ll get caught when he runs a red light and gets stopped. This cop is writing the ticket and he looks at the car and he asks himself, now wasn’t there something about a red and white Thunderbird?”

  “But, since we’re already here …” Joe said.

  They spent over another hour in their search pattern. Wilt poked and kicked his way through wind drifts of leaves while Joe worked low scrub and bush. They found old wine and beer bottles with the labels rotted away, some rusted steel cans and even some cans that looked like they’d only been in the weather a few days. There were Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes and Whopper containers and the flat shapes of pizza boxes.

  At eight-thirty, Wilt called it off.

  Joe followed Wilt to Car #1 and waited while the Sheriff worked his leg into the right position. If Wilt’s difficulty bothered him, his face didn’t show it. He watched while Wilt poured coffee into the cup-top and gulped a swallow or two.

  “I’ve got a list of the gas stations that were checked last night,” Joe said. “I thought I’d go on with the rounds, if that’s alright with you.”

  “Might as well. I’ll have breakfast and see if Chief Amos is in his office yet.”

  “After that, you’ll be at the Station?”

  “And I’ve got to see Doc about the autopsy.”

  Joe shook his head slowly, “I’d rather wrestle a sick bear in a grease pit.”

  “Good country image,” Wilt said.

  They split at the secondary highway. Wilt headed toward town, Joe pointed his cruiser deeper into the county.

  Wilt ordered his usual at the Egg ‘n’ Biscuit Cafe and he was so tired he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember what the usual was until the counter woman, Edna, placed a plate with scrambled eggs, salt cured ham, grits and two toasted corn muffins before him.

  He loafed over a third cup of coffee.

  Once, looking up suddenly, he found Edna watching him with a curious smile. He paid his check and left and he was a block from the Cafe before he realized what the smile was about.

  They’d been eight that summer, both of them, and he and Edna went into the woods and played “doctor.” Now, from the distance of time, he couldn’t remember what there had been about her that interested him. Probably nothing. Probably just a body.

  A body. He almost stopped dead in his tracks. A surprising flush burned his face. Diane’s body. On that beautiful body, her tattoo was as awful a scar as the one that puckered his left hip. Her scar and his, neither of them, he thought, with any real honor involved. Hers for some reason that he didn’t care
to speculate about. His in that peace action in Lebanon. He’d been standing beside a jeep having a smoke when a sniper, probably using a scope, put a round through his hip. It hadn’t been a war, there wasn’t the glory the Marines believed in. Only dirt in his mouth on a road and the terrible, terrible pain that never ended. A steady gnawing pain.

  Screw it. After last night, he wasn’t sure there would be any pleasure visits to the Blue Lagoon. The next time he went there, it would be to bust heads for drug sales or gambling or the girls. Or to check the rumors there were after-hours beer and booze sales. It would be easy enough to spot. And if the rumor checked out, he would alert the ABC and have them try a bust. If the bust held up, there went the license and the club closed and all those assholes in leather jackets could move on. Laughing out of the other side of their mouths. Not the way they’d probably laughed last night when Diane told her funny story about what happened last night at Dead Woman’s Lake.

  The flush returned.

  Let them laugh while they could.

  Amos Wilson arrived at the Police Station ten minutes after Wilt got there. He was puffing hard, as if he’d run from his parking space out front. Wilt settled into a chair in the Chief’s office while Amos stopped off at the bathroom to catch his breath and run a wet paper towel over his face.

  They spent the first few minutes comparing notes on the investigation so far. The checks of the gas station within the town had uncovered nothing and the door-to-door in the west oak Street and 12th area had drawn a blank as well.

  Wilt drew an ashtray toward him and lit his first smoke of the day. “Garages too,” he said.

  “What about them?”

  “Let’s throw in garages too, the legitimate ones and the shade tree ones. We do the same split as before. You in town, us with the county.”

  “I don’t see …”

  “We can slice the list to garages that do car inspections. And hand out stickers. Every car’s got to have one. Could be we’ll be lucky.”

  “It can’t hurt.” But Amos didn’t sound convinced.

  “In a case like this, it’s always better to do too much rather than too little. Say we skip a step that might have solved this. Instead of being behind bars, he’s out there killing another child. I won’t live with that.”

  “Garages. Alright.” Amos made a note on a pad.

  Wilt mashed his cigarette and headed for the door. “One more thought. If you’ve got a free patrol car, you might have them cruise the grammar school when it lets out. Have them watch for a red and white Thunderbird.”

  “You think that’ll do any good?”

  “Maybe not, but it’ll make me feel better. And I need something to make me feel better. I keep thinking about the woman’s underpants at the crime scene. It might be a fetish, some kind of sickness. If this man’s out of control, it might happen again.”

  “You know what?” Amos’ face brightened. “We could hold a press conference and go on TV tonight.”

  “And what do we say?”

  “I’ll warn the parents that we’ve got a sex pervert here in town.”

  Wilt gave him his hard look. “There’s no reason to start a panic. These parents are scared enough already. If I were you, I’d stroke them, calm them. Just say that it might be better if mothers walked their children to the bus stops and waited with them until they boarded the bus. And that they ought to meet their children at the bus stops when they return in the afternoon.”

  “Calls I’ve been getting, there’s already panic here in town.”

  “That’s the best reason to be calm. In a panic everybody starts acting crazy. First thing you know, some worried father shoots some innocent man who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. An insurance man who’s trying to sell a policy or a door-to-door salesman.”

  Amos agreed reluctantly. “If I do the conference, I’ll calm them.”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  “But what happens if another child is killed?”

  “That happens, we’re in trouble.” Wilt felt a sickness in his stomach. “And it could happen.”

  On his way from the Police Station he stopped at the drugstore and bought a copy of the Edgefield Herald. He carried the paper outside and stood in the windbreak formed by the entrance and the jutting display windows.

  The death of Cathy Dobbs and the investigation were the headline stories of the day. There were no details of the rape and really no mention that there had been a rape. That was the Herald’s editorial policy: nothing terrible or dishonest ever happened in the little village of Edgefield.

  And there, at the end of the article, what Wilt couldn’t control: the interview with Chief Amos Wilson. The lies: our investigation is underway and we are pursuing leads that should result in an arrest in the next few days. And the boasting; most people don’t know what a modern, efficient police department we have here in Edgefield. Criminals ought to think twice before they commit a crime in my town.

  Wilt tossed the paper in a trash container on the street and drove to the Sheriff’s Station. On his way through the lobby, Susie shook her head at him: there had been no calls.

  “See if you can reach Doc Simpson for me.”

  He’d hardly settled into the chair behind his desk when she buzzed him. Wilt picked up the phone. Doc started talking as if they had already been in middle of a conversation.

  “I’m not completely done,” Doc Simpson said, “but I can tell you the major part of it.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Suffocation.”

  “He choked her?”

  “That’s what I thought at first. You remember those women’s panties? On a hunch, I ran a test on the cloth. I found dried traces of saliva that matches samples taken from the child’s mouth.”

  “I didn’t know you could do those crime lab tests.”

  “It’s easy if you’ve got a Dick Tracy crime kit.” Doc said.

  “So you think he stuffed the panties in her mouth to quiet her?”

  “From the pattern of bruises, he stuffed them down as far as her tonsils.”

  “Tell me the rest.”

  “I’ve got a few more points to cover. Maybe half an hour. I’d rather write up the report and send it over to you.”

  “Fine by me,” Wilt said. “I know how you feel.”

  “Hell, I’ve got a grandchild her age.”

  Wilt said he understood. He broke the connection and sat with his eyes closed for a time.

  The morning dragged along. A few minutes before noon, Joe Croft called in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gus Triffon was short and wide-shouldered. He was in his late forties. His face was round and lumpy and there was a child-like expression he wore most of the time that deceived people into thinking he was simple. He wasn’t simple at all, just contented.

  Today that look was gone. He looked puzzled as he sat in the gas station office with Wilt and Joe.

  There was a smear of grease on Gus’s chin. He worried the cuts from two barked knuckles on his right hand.

  The gas station had been in the Triffon family since Gus’s immigrant grandfather saved enough from his years in the food business and bought the garage and filling station. Once, years ago, the old man told Wilt that he’d grown tired of smelling like cooking grease. He’d decided that gas and oil and grease had a more honest smell. The station, after the death of his grandfather and the disabling stroke that his father had, passed into Gus Triffon’s hands four or five years ago.

  Joe passed Wilt a covered cup of coffee, “I got these down the road while I waited for you.”

  Wilt perched on the edge of the desk in the station, the left hip carefully positioned to take the weight and strain off it. “Tell me about the red and white Thunderbird, Gus.”

  “It was a week … maybe ten days ago. This 1981 Thunderbird pulls in. The driver wants five dollars gas and the oil checked.”

  “You notice the tag numbers?”

  “No reas
on for me to,” Gus said. “He paid cash.”

  “North Carolina tags?”

  Gus closed his eyes. The strain of concentrating contorted his face. “I can’t say for sure, Sheriff.”

  “Tell me what you remember about the driver.”

  “He was maybe thirty, a year either way.”

  “What else?”

  “He was dressed … well, fancy. Black boots, those kind of shoes, and trousers with a knife crease to them. A black turtleneck sweater. He wore a coat that looked like a raincoat but he was shorter and didn’t go past his hips. And the lady in the car with him …”

  “What lady?” Joe Croft looked surprised.

  Wilt moved from the desk top so quickly he spilled some of the coffee. “You didn’t say anything about a woman.”

  “I guess I forgot to tell about her. Anyway, she was maybe fifty. Gray hair but it was fixed fancy.”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “Those expensive jeans …”

  “Designer jeans.”

  Gus nodded. “And a full-length leather coat that probably cost four or five hundred dollars.”

  “Anything else about her?”

  “Too much makeup. A lot of rouge and lipstick. Real dark eye makeup.”

  “Shape of her face, Gus?”

  “Well … swollen.”

  “Huh?”

  “Puffy, the way a woman’s face gets when she’s older.”

  Needs a facelift. “You saw the man and woman together. You think they might have been related? Mother and son?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s this way,” Gus said. “He buys the five dollars gas. I check the oil but he don’t need any. He give me a twenty. I go to the office to make change. I come back to give him his change and I see something.”

  “What?”

  “The woman’s rubbing her hand on the inside of his leg. Up near where his business is.”

  Older woman, young man. That new social tapdance. Wilt gulped his coffee. Well, why not? Wasn’t turnabout fair play?