Dust in the Heart

by Ralph Dennis

  “I relieved Susie and sent Floyd home.”

  “When do you sleep?”

  “As soon as this is over.” Joe brought him up to date. He’d called in everybody who was up to it and he’d set new search patterns.

  “That it?”

  “That Turner guy was here early. I told him, if I was him, I’d leave before you got here and kicked his butt.”

  Even though he’d made his decision about Benny Turner and George Hall, another massive wave of anger against the two boys swept over him. He’d lost a day because of them. It was enough to make him want to kick ass.

  “That’s not very politic of you.”

  “I don’t have to be politic. I’m not the one running for office.” Joe grinned. “Not yet anyway.”

  “Sounds like I might have competition.”

  “If you do,” Joe said,” it’s because you taught me too well.”

  “Maybe I taught you wrong … on purpose.”

  “It’s not anything you said. It’s how you did it.”

  “Shows how sly I am.” Wilt carried his coffee into the office.

  The autopsy report on Cathy Dobbs still waited for him, unopened. He sighed and broke the seal and read Doc Simpson’s dry, spare, medical language. Bruises on her arms and wrists. Cuts and contusions on her face. Trauma in the vaginal and rectal area. The right leg dislocated at the hip. Death by suffocation.

  He shoved the report back in its envelope and put it in a desk drawer and locked the drawer.

  Damn all the crazies in the world.

  “Thought you’d want to see this.” Joe came in and dropped the News and Observer on the desk in front of Wilt. “You made page one.”

  He skipped through the short piece. It had all the earmarks of news that had come in late and had to be wedged onto the front page. The story was exactly what Wilt expected. The F.B.I., with Special Agent Harriman in charge, had foiled a phony extortion plot that had been concocted to take advantage of a missing child. Two young men, both juveniles, had been arrested. The F.B.I. had been assisted in the operation by Sheriff Wilton Drake. Harriman was quoted as saying that he could not have cracked the case without the dedicated help of the local law enforcement officers.

  Wilt grunted and dropped the newspaper into the trashcan. He was still stinging from the writeup when Joe buzzed him.

  “Charlie just called in from the city dump.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know Ernest Bishop?”

  “I know him.”

  “Ernest flagged Charlie down. From what Charlie says he thinks he’s found the Moore child. At least he thinks it’s her.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead,” Joe said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Rats got to her,” Doc Simpson said.

  Wilt stood some feet away with Ernest Bishop.

  Ernest was huge and black and had muscles on top of muscles. Some twenty years ago, he’d been a damned good defensive end. He’d been All-State in high school. There’d been hopes he would play his college ball at the University of North Carolina. His grades were a disaster. Some of the smaller black school came after him. Ernest said if he couldn’t play where he wanted to, he wouldn’t play at all. He took a job on a garbage truck and, in time, he worked his way up until he managed the dump.

  “I guess she was there this morning when I got to work.” Ernest said.

  “But not there yesterday?”

  “She wasn’t here. We worked this area yesterday and I’d have seen her. Today we’re working over there.” He pointed east, where a city truck unloaded a mountain of garbage bags and loose refuse. “I was here a time and had a coffee and then I walked over there to see if yesterday’s job had been done the way it was supposed to be. That was when I saw her. I was about to call you but I saw that cruiser.”

  Doc Simpson squatted beside the child’s body, blocking Wilt’s view of her. Doc looked over his shoulder. “It’s like the other one, almost a carbon copy.”

  The photo Mrs. Moore had given him was in his pocket, Wilt stepped closer and passed the photo to Doc. “This who it is?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  Bracing himself. Wilt stepped around Doc Simpson and looked down at the body.

  A broken doll. This time of real flesh. Not last year’s Christmas doll that ended up at the city dump when it got broken. This doll bled and its flesh had been torn away and eaten by rats and other night animals that lived in the dump.

  There was a pair of panties above her head.

  “It’s Dana Moore,” he said.

  Head on the steering wheel and eyes closed, Wilt sat in the Tall Pines parking lot. He’d left the minister with Arlene Moore. That was after the bad first moments. As soon as Jonas and Arlene saw Wilt and the minister, the hope ran out of them, what little hope there was after the bogus ransom attempt.

  Comfort wasn’t Wilt’s real business. He stepped back, out of the sightlines and let the minister do his best. Part of that comfort was hugging and holding and mumbling about Jesus’ overall plan. Arlene looked over the minister’s shoulder and looked eyes with Wilt. “I want to see my baby. When can I see my baby?”

  “Soon,” Wilt said, “as soon as the autopsy’s done.”

  “I want to see her now.”

  The minister drew her even closer. “The Lord will let you see her soon. He will and that is a promise.”

  Wilt touched Jonas Moore on the shoulder. “Let’s get some air.”

  At the door, Wilt looked back. The minister and Arlene seemed to cling together like lovers. Wilt closed the door and stopped on the landing. “Smoke?”

  Jonas hadn’t worn his topcoat. Now he turned up his jacket. “No, thanks.” He shivered.

  Wilt cupped his hands against the wind and got his smoke lit. “See if you can talk your wife into waiting to see your daughter after she’s been worked on at the undertaker.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Wilt stepped down into the courtyard. “Take my word for it.”

  Jonas shuddered and wiped a tear from his eyes. “The man who did this …?”

  “I’ll find him,” Wilt said.

  Jonas climbed the steps and stood on the landing. Behind him, the plastic chili peppers rustled in the crossing wind. “I guess I’d better go inside and help Arlene.”

  “That’s the best you can do.”

  Jonas entered the apartment.

  The hearing for the Turner and the Hall boys was set for that afternoon in Juvenile court. An hour before the hearing, Wilt put through a call to Judge Emily Walker and told her honor what had happened the night before. He surprised himself with how reasonable he was. It wasn’t, he said, as if either of these boys was a repeat offender or a hopeless possibility as a person. But it was a serious matter. It couldn’t go completely unpunished.

  Judge Walker agreed with Wilt’s suggestion that a stern lecture, a time of probation and a heavy load of community service was the least that the boys could expect.

  “You know,” Judge Walker said, “we’re not supposed to have this kind of conversation.”

  “I don’t see why not. Part of the punishment is the fear of God we’re putting in them. We can’t very well get that effect if we have this conversation in front of them.”

  “You’ll be at the hearing?”

  “I thought I’d send my deputy, Joe Croft. He was involved from the beginning and he knows as much about this as I do.”

  “You too busy, Sheriff?”

  “I’ve got two dead little girls, Judge.”

  There was a hesitation, an intake of breath. “Is it two now?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “I understand, Sheriff. Joe Croft will be a fine spokesman for the Department.”

  “And do me a favor. Watch for the magic words they’re going to try to run past you. Joke and prank.”

  “I believe I can say ahead of time I don’t believe much in that kind of defense.”

  “Give ’em hell
, Judge.”

  He heard her laughing when he broke the connection.

  At one-thirty he sent Joe to the jail ward. From there, he’d escort Benny Turner and George Hall to Juvenile court for the hearing. Next, Wilt called Doc Simpson, who sounded groggy.

  “I just got to bed, Wilt.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I guess you want the findings on the Moore child. It’s very close to the autopsy on the Dobbs girl.” Doc summarized it quickly. “The difference is the cause of death. This time the larynx was crushed. No way of knowing if that was the result of a blow or if the killer pressed down on it to silence the child.”

  “Rape?”

  “Same as before. Back and front.”

  “The underpants, Doc.”

  “That’s different too. They weren’t ever in her mouth. No evidence of saliva.”

  Susie brought Wilt a coffee. Wilt had a sip. At the other end of the line he heard a series of gulps. Doc was having a swallow or two but, Wilt guessed, it probably wasn’t coffee.

  “Doc, you know a psychologist or a psychiatrist who’ll talk to me? Maybe some kind of profile of our killer would help.”

  “I know one. He’s a shrink at North Carolina Memorial.”

  “You know him well enough to ask for an hour of his time?”

  “His name’s Rhyson. I think he’ll do it if there’s time in his schedule.”

  “You call him?”

  “Right now,” Doc said. “Call you back.”

  Doc was back on the line in fifteen minutes. “Ten tomorrow work for you?”

  Wilt said it was. He took down all the information he’d need to find Dr. Rhyson at North Carolina Memorial. Full name, South Wing, the office number. Wilt folded the memo carefully and stuffed it in his wallet.

  Joe walked into the office at two-thirty-five.

  “That was short and sweet.”

  “It might have been short,” Joe said,” but it was not sweet. That lady judge tore the hide from them all the way from their eyebrows to their toenails. There was blood all over the chambers. That’s where it was, in chambers. Just the boys, their fathers and the lawyer for the rich one, Turner.”

  “It satisfy you, Joe?”

  “Next to a drawing and quartering, whatever that is, or fifty lashes with a cat-o-nine-tails, I guess so. What they got was a year and a half of supervised probation and a hundred and fifty hours of community work. All with the understanding that if there’s a fuckup, just one, off they go to a youth offender center.”

  “How’d the boys take it?”

  “Shaking and trembling and about to cry. And about to wet their pants.”

  “What you up to now?”

  “Getting rich,” Joe said. He reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a sheaf of divorce notices. “Lots of bitching from the lawyers because these notices weren’t served. I handled four this morning and I’ll do three or four this afternoon.”

  The notification was for the one being sued for divorce, giving the date and the time for the hearing. The lawyer paid twenty-five dollars to the Sheriff’s department for delivery and then billed his client for that amount. A divorce couldn’t be granted without proof of service.

  “One day I’m going to get lucky,” Joe said. “I’ll have four notices all on the same floor in the same apartment complex.” He flipped through the notices, checking the addresses. “No such luck this time.” He flipped past one notice and then stopped and went back to it. “What’s the name of the girl at the Blue Lagoon?”

  Wilt held out a hand. Joe passed the notice to him.

  Diane Hadley Mills.

  “That the lady?”

  “Could be.”

  “You want to serve that one yourself?”

  “I could use the fresh air.” Wilt stood and put on his heavy coat. He adjusted his cap. “Every leader ought to do some field work now and then.”

  “Sure,” Joe said. “It makes the grunts proud to serve under him.”

  The address was apartment 28, The Towers. It was, he thought, a ritzy address for a topless dancer and manager of a biker club.

  Wilt left Joe in charge. “I’ll be gone half an hour.”

  Joe settled into Wilt’s chair. “Hell, take an hour if you need it.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Towers was a huge column, mainly glass and stone, that looked like it belonged more in Atlanta than in the grassy farmland of Edgefield. Parking spaces, like spokes of a wheel, encircled the building. There was enough parking, Wilt thought, for a major league baseball stadium. He parked in one of the spaces.

  Before Wilt got out, he sat in his cruiser and read the divorce notice. The one suing for the divorce was James Rodney Mills. The action was being taken in the Raleigh courts. The grounds given were the usual ones. Separation, six months living apart. It was the preferred grounds for people who didn’t want to wash their linen in public.

  The doorman at the Towers was a tall, wide-shouldered black in his early thirties. His gaudy uniform looked like it belonged in a comic opera. It was deep blue with gold braid on the cap, on the shoulders and on the stripe that ran down the outside seam of the trousers. His shoes were polished to a high gloss and his cap was exactly centered and squared.

  The doorman, watching stepped into the wind when he saw Wilt start his walk across the parking lot. His eyes tracked Wilt and took in the uniform and the pistol on his hip. When Wilt was four paces away, the doorman lifted his hand slowly and touched the bill of his cap in what might have passed for a salute.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’m Sheriff Drake.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve heard of you. Is there some trouble?”

  “A minor matter,” Wilt said. “Apartment 28.”

  “That’s Miss Mills.”

  “Yes.”

  “But no trouble?”

  “A minor legal matter.” Wilt brushed past him and entered the lobby. He stopped and turned and inspected the electronic setup. On the wall, beside the doorman’s station, there were two banks of television monitors. The top row covered the hallways. The two monitors below were larger and they showed the inside of the elevators.

  Not the state of the art, he thought, but downtown for little Edgefield, North Carolina.

  On the short ride, Wilt located the camera eye on the elevator and stepped in close and smiled and winked. He wondered how that went over with Soldier Boy.

  “You found me.” Diane stood in the open doorway. “Imagine that.”

  “It wasn’t hard. I have my ways.”

  “Is this a pleasure visit?”

  “Business,” Wilt said.

  His answer puzzled her. She stepped back and he followed her into the living room. He saw that she wore cutoff jeans and a blue pullover sweater. Her legs, as he remembered, were very, very nice.

  The apartment was more than he expected. It was large and airy. The living room furniture was new and modern and looked expensive. The painting over the sofa was in style that made him think of Jackson Pollock and, here and there, were framed and glassed Dufy hunting prints. The drapes were thick and luxurious and the carpet, from the look, was real wool.

  “What kind of business, Wilton?” She moved to a sectional sofa.

  He followed her and extended the divorce notice. While she read it, he booked the receipt and noted the date and time. He passed the book to her. “You have to sign for it.”

  She signed. Then another look at the divorce notice. “Damn him.”

  “You’re surprised?”

  “Not really. One of us had to. I guess I outwaited him.”

  “Was he a biker?”

  She stared at him in amazement for a long moment. That changed to a smile and then a cascade of laughter. When she could speak, she said, “Hardly. He’d be thrilled to know that you thought he might be. The truth is that he’s a stockbroker and very, very good at it.”

  “The tattoo fooled me,” he said.

  “That came later, after I left
him.”

  “I see.” It was just something to say. The truth was that he didn’t see at all.

  “Poor baby,” she said mockingly. “It’s so difficult for you. You’ve been trying to put the pieces together and they don’t fit. I’m this or I’m that and what I am at any one moment doesn’t satisfy you at all.”

  “You do stir around in my head with a big spoon.”

  “Well,” she said, “now you know that I’m married. How does that make you feel?”

  “Do you mean does it make me feel guilty because you’re married and I’ve been pursuing you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I feel fine about it.”

  She tossed the divorce notice on the sofa. “You want a drink?”

  “It’s early.”

  “Without a drink in your hand, you don’t get to hear the story of my life. The unexpurgated version.”

  “If I mix it myself. Just some color in the water.” He trailed her through a dining room into the kitchen.

  She pointed a hand at a cabinet. He opened the doors and saw, stocked with a dozen or so bottles as it was, not many of the bottles had been opened.

  “Fix the same for me,” she said.

  He was heavier on the pour for her. He passed the drink to her and moved around the table, headed for the living room. She stopped him.

  “You seem comfortable in kitchens. I noticed that about you.” She pulled back a chair and sat.

  He circled the table and eased himself into a chair across the way from her.

  “Where do I start, Wilton?”

  “At the beginning.”

  “That’s an easy answer. But which beginning?”

  “The one you’re comfortable with,” he said.

  She’d been born Diane Susan Hadley in Charleston, South Carolina. Her father was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy who was stationed there the first five years of her life. Near her fifth birthday, he was passed over for promotion for the second time and discharged. “Why does the service do that? Let a man spend all those years in the military and then pass him over and toss him out? It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “It unclogs the line. It cuts the deadwood.”

  “I guess he was deadwood,” she said.