by Glenn Meade
“I think I’m going to have an early night. Take a pill and sleep. I feel all talked out. Do you mind?”
“Mind? No, hey, whatever helps, honey. Just call me if you feel you need me, no matter what the time, promise?”
“Sure.”
“Better get going.”
“What’s the case?”
Courtney hesitated. She looked me up and down. Finally, she said, “This one.”
34
* * *
I stared back at her, jolted by the words.
Courtney said, “I’ve been assigned, with another CID officer. The FBI out of Knoxville has the lead in the case. We’ve set up a task force, and we’re hooking up with the Park Services guys, too. I’m headed now to view the wreckage. We’re to liaise with the FBI guy, Tanner. Very cute black guy. He’d be even cuter if he lost fifty pounds.”
She had that kind of distant, sparkly look in her eyes, the kind that told me she liked a guy. I knew she liked big men, tall and beefy. Being around military types all her life probably colored her choice of men.
My voice sounded hoarse. “Why?”
“Why me, or why is the military involved?”
“Both.”
“I guess the fact that I knew Jack and you might have something to do with it, because I’ve got an inside track. But other than that, I can’t tell you, Kath. You know the rules. They tell me to keep my mouth shut, I clam it.”
“What’s going on?”
Courtney sighed and sat at the table again. “Look, Fort Campbell has an interest in this one.”
“They didn’t when Jack went missing.”
“Actually, they did.”
“CID was investigating Jack?”
Courtney clamped her lips, until a single sentence escaped, as if reluctantly. “And a bunch of other people.”
“Why didn’t I hear?”
“You wouldn’t have if the investigation was covert.”
“Why was it covert? What or who was being investigated?”
“I can’t say, honey. I’d love to put your mind at ease, but I can’t. And on that, please don’t ask me any more. That’s sorta why I wanted you to meet me here. I didn’t want to risk us being seen together in public or anyone thinking I might be giving an inside track.”
“The inside track on what?”
She shook her head, a firm no, but patted my hand. “There’s not an answer I can give right now. But I’m pretty sure you’ll learn in good time.”
“This is driving me insane.”
“I’m sorry, Kath. You know if there was any way, I’d tell you everything. But the feds have primacy in this case. They decide who’s told what.”
“But there’s more to it? A lot more?”
Courtney’s lips were firmly shut, but her eyebrows arched. Which really told me nothing.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “If CID and the feds are involved, that ought to tell you it’s something serious.”
“How serious?”
Courtney shut her mouth tight.
My head was aching, my curiosity powerful. I needed to know—anything, the tiniest morsel—but Courtney was saying nothing that offered me help or solace.
The doorbell rang, startling us both.
Courtney said, “That’s probably Sergeant Stone.”
“Who?”
“My partner on this case. He’s here to meet me. Let me deal with him.”
Courtney went out to the hall, and I heard her open the front door.
A muted conversation drifted back in, but I couldn’t understand much more than a word or two, and then the door closed. I peered through a doorway to the front room. Past the window I saw a young man in civilian clothes walk out to a white Chevy Impala and climb in. He looked baby-faced, barely out of his teens. He did a U-turn in the street and drove off.
Courtney came back in. “I told him to go grab a coffee at Chick-fil-A on Kingston Pike and I’d meet him in the parking lot.”
She sat down again, held my hands in hers. “Look, I don’t want you to worry, Kath. Easy to say, but the heartening news is that Sean and Amy may well be alive. That’s so terrific, so incredible. So . . .” She shrugged. “Hopeful, I guess. You have hope, where you’ve had none. Worries and fears, too, I know, but I’ll be doing my best for you, honey, you know that. My very best. I’m on your side.”
I was silent. I wanted to tell Courtney everything I knew, but a warning voice in the back of my head told me to keep my trap shut. I still felt a powerful need to share my fears and frustrations. I guess I even hoped that my doing so might make Courtney open up a little more about what it was that CID was investigating about Jack.
“Courtney, I think I should tell you, something else weird happened right before I came here. A guy showed up at Serenity Ridge and asked me to meet with someone. Turns out he was a weirdo.”
“Who?”
I took Tarik’s business card from my purse and showed it to Courtney. “An undertaker named Fazil Tarik. He gave me the creeps. He’s got a funeral home off Kingston Pike. Ever heard of him?”
I saw a sudden reluctance in Courtney’s face as she examined the card. “Yes. Yes, I have. Why . . . why did he want to talk to you?”
“He said he wanted to offer me his funeral services. That he knew Jack was a veteran, and he offered special services for veterans. But I got the feeling there was more to it. He seemed to be probing me, trying to check me out in some way. How do you know Tarik?”
“It’s a long story.”
“He’s from Iraq.”
Courtney nodded, handed me back the card. “Yeah, I know that. For a time, he worked as a translator and a liaison guy between his Sunni tribe and U.S. forces. A fixer, really. That’s partly how he ended up in this country. He was awarded immigrant status for services rendered. But the guy’s a weasel. Don’t trust him an inch.”
“You going to tell me more?”
“I’m running late, Kath. Let’s talk another time, but make it soon.”
“You’re not exactly inspiring me with confidence here. Should I be worried about Tarik? Like I said, he seemed a little creepy.”
“I don’t want you to worry. Let me check him out some more.”
Courtney squeezed my hand, offered a tight smile, then checked the time. “I’d better go, or the sergeant may have an epileptic. Remind me when I get bored down in the Keys and need something to do that I can’t open a boutique, just an Internet business. Click-click and you’re done. No face-to-face hysterics with accused suspects or military brass. They just kill me.”
She drained her wineglass and stood, still holding my hand.
“You’ll be OK driving?”
“Honey, you know me. I could drive blindfolded after a bottle.” Courtney hugged me again and kissed my cheek. “You take care, you hear? Call me if you need anything. Bearing in mind I may be in the company of other uniforms and may have to call you back. But I can’t answer stuff about the case. I know you’re clear on that.”
I decided to prompt her a little more, to see what she knew. “A guy called DJ Spears, a vet. Did you ever hear of him?”
“Why are you asking?”
“He left an expensive new iPod for Kyle. Birthday present, I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He’s left other gifts over the years. The nurse said he was an Army buddy of Kyle’s.”
“What’s your drift?”
“If he knew Kyle, he probably knew Jack.”
Courtney shook her head. “I’d give DJ a miss, honey. I doubt you’re going to learn anything there. And leave finding Jack to Tanner and me.”
“You know DJ?”
“Yeah. He served at Campbell. The guy had a few brushes with military police. He’s trouble.”
Courtney half smiled. “The troublesome kind.”
Our dads both liked to watch old Pink Panther movies. The corny gags cracked us up, too. Like when Inspector Clouseau engages an old man with a cute dog. Clouseau goes to pat him, and the dog snarls. “Does your dog bite?”
The old guy says, “No, sir, my dog doesn’t bite.”
Clouseau pats the dog, and it turns savage. “I thought you said your dog didn’t bite!”
“It’s not my dog.”
Or the Clouseau bomb gag that used to crack our fathers up. “It was a bomb.” “What kind of bomb?” “The exploding kind.”
Now Courtney said, “DJ Spears lost a leg. Took a rocket-propelled grenade and a shrapnel hit. I reckon some of the shrapnel’s still lodged in his brain. He’s a crazed hillbilly.”
“Why’d he buy Kyle all that expensive stuff?”
Courtney shrugged, led me to the door, and kissed my cheek. We hugged. “Only DJ knows. He and Kyle were kinda buddies, so I’m guessing he means well, but you need to avoid a guy like that.”
“Like what?”
“Trust me, honey, DJ’s missing a few tracks off his CD.”
35
* * *
Knoxville, Tennessee
I took I-75 north toward Lexington, out into the sticks.
I sniffled as I drove, popped a Zyrtec into my mouth, and swallowed half a bottle of water, then waited for the pill to take effect. Knoxville is allergy central—lots of trees, grass, flowers, weeds, and air pollutants that sweep down from the Ohio Valley. On windless days like today, they lingered in the atmosphere. My allergies were bothering me. A throbbing sinus headache, my eyes and nose running.
The sweater and hoodie still lay next to me. I touched them now and then, felt the comfort of their texture.
Deesha was right; Agnes knew of DJ Spears. Her cousin was a vet, too, and she called him. He said DJ lived out in the sticks, about forty minutes from Knoxville, by Norris Lake. I needed something to do, to keep my mind from going crazy fretting about my children, so I thought I’d see what he could tell me. Agnes’s cousin said Spears was a mountain man and used to be big into game hunting before he lost a leg in Iraq. He also said that Spears and his wife were a bit wacky-tacky.
As I drove, something weird distracted me. I noticed a dark SUV behind me, and behind that was a metallic-gray van. The van looked a touch old, but on its roof were a couple of aerials and a satellite dish. The windows were blacked out in both vehicles.
I got the feeling I was being followed.
Or was I getting paranoid?
The SUV and the van stayed behind me for about twenty minutes, until I finally turned off the interstate and lost sight of them in the rearview mirror.
I didn’t see them again after that.
Past Rocky Top, I turned off the highway and followed a forest road that went up into the hills and then dipped down again onto a track on the far side of Norris Lake. Rondo Avenue wasn’t on the GPS or any map, but once I saw it, I didn’t really expect it to be. It was a dirt road littered with single- or double-wide trailers and a few deserted-looking log cabins, most of them on overgrown lots. The lakeside homes looked mostly abandoned. I guessed some of them were seasonal properties, used more in spring and summer.
Parts of East Tennessee have the unpleasant habit of reminding me of those bleak black-and-white 1930s Depression-era photographs that accompanied journalist James Agee’s famous series of articles for the New York Times—bleak images of ragged, poverty-stricken sharecroppers, moonshine makers, and their families. A grim existence you occasionally saw echoed in their descendants, except that these days, the human spirit was sometimes sapped by a reliance on government welfare checks or cooking meth to make a living.
I turned down a lane and saw a sign scrawled in black paint on a piece of siding nailed to a board: “Rondo Avnue.”
Someone hadn’t bothered with the e, or else it was shorthand in these parts. The double-wide sat on a property that couldn’t have been much more than a few acres. A playful young hound with a mustard-colored coat was tethered to a metal stake in the ground and whimpering like crazy. Strewn about the lawn were a couple of rusted old cars, stuffed toys lying wet in the grass, and a pink Dora the Explorer tricycle covered in dirt and mildew.
A newish blue Dodge van with a disabled veteran sticker on the license plate was parked hard up against the side.
I noticed a rusted metal sign nailed to a piece of two-by-four, stuck right in the middle of the lawn: “Is There Life after Death? Trespass Here and Find Out.”
I decided to stay safe and pulled up on the edge of the main track. I took the keys with me and walked up a cracked stone path to the home. It was shabby, needed a paint job, and one of the windows was cracked. All the curtains were closed.
The hound tried to reach me, but the rope didn’t stretch that long; then it stood on its hind legs, begging for my attention. I rubbed its head. That was a mistake, because it tried to lick my hand to death.
I wiped the moistness on my sweater, went up to the front door, and rapped hard. A grubby, food-stained child seat was in the back, and the vehicle’s floor was covered in scrunched-up McDonald’s and Burger King cartons and discarded greaseproof bags for French fries. There were a few crushed chicken nuggets mashed into the carpet.
After a few seconds, the door opened and a weird-looking freckle-faced kid about ten or eleven peered out, his nose dripping yellow mucus. “Yeah?”
He wore a silver-toned earring, and his hair was cut Mohican-style. The back trailed off into a kind of weird mullet with a pigtail in the center. He wore camouflage shorts and a grimy beige T-shirt with a logo on the front that said “Born to Be Wild.” I could believe it.
“Is your daddy home?”
“Which daddy?”
That kind of freaked me out. “I’m looking for Mr. DJ Spears.”
“What fer?” The kid slid the palm of his hand up his nose.
A woman came around from behind the door. At least fifty pounds overweight, she was squeezed into a crumpled pink fleece lounge suit and bulged like an overinflated tire. Food spots blotched her top. Her greasy hair was cut straight in a fringe. She was missing a couple of teeth, the rest of them darkly stained. Dentists don’t get a ton of work in parts of rural East Tennessee, although they probably would if a dental visit didn’t require a bank loan.
The woman rested the knuckles of one hand on her hip, flicking a look at the boy, before she stared at me hard. “What’s up here, Elvis?”
“Lady wants Paw.”
The woman ran her eyes over my clothes, then out at my car, trying to make up her mind, her jaws munching on gum or candy. “You from Social?”
“No, ma’am, I’m not.”
“That’s all right, then. What you want, lady?”
“Does DJ Spears live here?”
“Who’s asking?”
“My name’s Kath Kelly.”
“DJ know you?” She gave me a look that suggested she’d be kind of amazed if he did.
“He served in the military with my husband.”
“In I-raq?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was hoping to talk with DJ about my husband.”
“He come through I-raq OK?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your husband. My DJ, he lost a leg. He still gets night sweats with the PTSD. Never can sleep right. Lots of his buddies are the same.”
“I’m sorry. Yes, my husband came through.”
“He had his problems afterward, I bet?”
“Yes, yes, he did.”
“They all do, the ones who were there. Saw some mean stuff that wrecked a lot of minds.” She offered me the kind of bug-eyed smile I usually associated with religious fervor, as if she’d met a kindred sister.
Then she thrust out a sweaty palm, wiping it first on her grimy top. “I’m Vera, DJ’s wife. Come on in, honey.”
36
* * *
The double-wide was a mess.
Toys were scattered everywhere, along with a few scrunched-up fast-food bags. A pretty dark-haired girl of about seven, who I guessed was Marilyn, didn’t speak but glanced at me once, looked bored, then turned back to stare at a wide-screen TV in a corner, a sixty-inch that seemed to take up an entire wall end of the home.
The room stank of human sweat and dog dirt, and the curtains were stained tobacco-yellow and smelled of cigarette smoke. On one wall was a big framed color photo of Dolly Parton, with her mountain of big hair and that amazing smile that could warm the dead. There was a garland around the photo frame, as if it were decorating a religious shrine. I noticed a couple of uncashed welfare checks on a table, next to a half-finished red-velvet cake on a split-open cake carton. Paper plates were scattered next to it, chunks of icing and crumbs spilling over onto the table.
Elvis dipped a finger into the icing, then grabbed a big chunk of cake in his soiled hands. Vera patted his head a little too hard. “Hey, manners, Elvis. Leave some red-velvet cake for everyone, you hear? DJ’s not had none yet.”
A hunting rifle hung on the wall—an expensive Steyr like one my father had, with a polished walnut stock—held in place by a deer’s antlers. Surprisingly, most of the furniture, like the van outside, was good-quality and expensive. The double-wide near the lake seemed to be doing OK on welfare.
At the far end of the room, a thin, unshaven man with red hair was lying stretched out on a leather La-Z-Boy recliner in front of an electric coal fire, one that made those wispy fake flames. He had a tartan blanket half over his hips. He was in his mid-thirties, I guessed, and his right leg was missing. His prosthetic leg was off and stood upright by the end of the La-Z-Boy.
He looked as if he’d been dozing, his hair askew. He scratched his stubble and dragged himself up in the chair and immediately started chewing. I saw a tin of tobacco on the side table. Next to it was an empty Coke bottle with about half an inch of brackish liquid at the bottom, which I figured from experience of seeing tobacco chewers was probably spit. My stomach churned.