Carl brought me a bottle of Coke. I was sitting on the old car seat, the sun beating against my face. He settled in beside me. Out of habit, I’d taken the left-hand side, the driver’s side.
Carl sighed. “I told Claudia about it not long after he’d died. I figured she’d want to know.”
I took a sip of Coke. The liquid scorched my gut when it hit bottom. “All she ever told me is that he was living up in Bristol. She said he was working for a race team and had a wife and a kid. She even told me he’d quit drinking.”
“Well, that’s true,” Carl said. “He did all those things.”
“So, what happened? How’d he die?”
He scratched at his head again and looked out toward the road. I could tell by his body language that it was not a pleasant story.
“Old habits die hard,” he said.
“Listen, Carl, you can tell me what happened. It’s okay.”
He took a deep breath. “Well, the thing is, he’d started drinking again. I hear it was nothing terrible, nothing to make him lose his job or anything. But, you know, he liked to go out and have a pop after work. Anyway, he was at this bar one night drinking with a buddy of his. Both of them were about three sheets to the wind, full of shooters and Budweiser, but Lyndell figured this other fellow was in the better shape to drive them home. He was being responsible, you know, trying not to get a DUI. But this other fellow fell asleep and drove head-on into a culvert.”
“So, that’s how…”
Carl nodded. “It killed the both of them. From what I hear, it was quick.”
I could see Lyndell fiddling with the radio, maybe hammering out a little Chet Atkins on the dashboard. I wondered if he’d even had time to make a grab for the steering wheel. Probably not. He would have saved their asses if that had been the case.
“I wonder why she didn’t tell me? All this time, I’d been thinking he was…”
Actually, I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking.
“Well, try not to be mad at her,” Carl said. “She was pretty broken up about it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not mad. This explains a whole lot.”
Carl leaned forward and spat on the asphalt. Somehow, it appeared to be a thoughtful gesture.
“It’s hard to figure,” he said. “I just can’t see Lyndell dying in a car wreck.”
“Me either.”
“Now, I could see a jealous husband shooting his ass, but otherwise…”
We both got a laugh out of that one.
“I tell you something,” he said. “After I got the news, I must have thought of a hundred funny things that Lyndell had said or done. I got a lot of good stories to tell on account of him. And every one of them is the truth.”
God knows, I had my own stories, but there was at least one more I would have liked to add to the list. As I walked back to the hearse, I found myself wondering what Lyndell might have been thinking just before his head hit that windshield. My hope was that he never saw it coming. Maybe he just had his eyes closed, singing along with the radio.
32
I suppose anyone else might have driven over to Claudia’s place and asked what the hell she’d been thinking. But I didn’t have the heart for that. And besides, she didn’t deserve any more grief. Love had already been mean enough to her.
I ended up sparking a joint and taking a drive beside the lake. I tried, for at least a moment or two, to steer my thoughts away from Claudia and Lyndell. I still lacked a plan for dealing with Muskgrave, for saving Nick’s ass and keeping Rachel out of trouble. And now I knew for sure—it had all fallen on my shoulders.
I stamped out the fresh joint and flicked it into the wind, hoping the gesture alone might produce an idea or two. The options before me were sparse and none too appealing. I thought of going on the lam. Despite Muskgrave’s warning, I felt that I could probably outsmart the FBI for a little while. And with my ass out of Dodge, Muskgrave probably wouldn’t bother to hassle Rachel. His only benefit would have been spite, and whatever other flaws he might have possessed, I didn’t really see him as a vengeful person.
I’d just begun to consider a life on the run when the siren started to wail behind me. My already beleaguered spirits fell right through the floorboard. I drove along for a while, steadily, slowly, watching the rearview and hoping the Crown Vic might pass me and head off to a real emergency. But it never happened. And seeing how I was driving the hearse, fleeing was out of the question. So I pulled over to the side of the road and, once again, awaited the inevitable.
I was surprised to see Wade Briggs step out of the car. We met at our usual talking spot, between the two vehicles. Wade was smiling, and I took this to be a good sign.
“Muskgrave didn’t send you, did he?”
Wade shook his head. “No, but I heard about him hauling you in a few days ago.”
I leaned back against the hearse and rubbed my hands up and down my face.
“What’s he got on you, anyway?” Wade asked.
I laid it all out on the table for him, everything that had gone down, even how I’d gotten mixed up in the cocaine delivery. And then I told him about the choice that Muskgrave had given me.
“If I don’t lead him to Nick, he’s gonna charge me and Rachel with distribution.”
Wade frowned and stared out at the quiet lake. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled.
“I’m thinking about taking off, maybe heading out of state somewhere. If I’m gone, then maybe Muskgrave won’t bother with Rachel. He wouldn’t have anything to gain by it.”
Wade turned. “Well, what about Claudia?”
“What about her?” I asked. “She’s not one of the people who might go to jail if I stick around.”
“I know that. But she’s gonna be real upset if you disappear, especially when Muskgrave takes out a warrant on you.”
“Trust me, she’s got worse things to be upset about.”
Wade fixed me with a concerned gaze. “What do you mean?”
“Has she ever mentioned the name Lyndell?”
“Once or twice,” he said. “It sounds like she and him had a real complicated relationship.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” Of course, it went beyond complicated. They were each the center pole in the other’s circus tent.
“So, what about him?” Wade asked. “Is he back in town?”
“He’s dead. He was killed in a car wreck.”
Wade peeled off his sunglasses and swallowed hard. “That’s awful. Does she know yet?”
“Yeah, she’s known about it for months. The thing is, she hasn’t told anybody, not even me.”
“So, how did you find out?”
“Carl Bettis, over at the Amoco.”
“I’m really sorry, Luke. That’s just terrible.”
Wade stared out at the lake for a long time. I suppose he was trying to decide if he should run me in or not. No offense to Lyndell, but I was hoping the sad story might convince him to let me go.
When he turned back around, he appeared resolute about something. He pulled his sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and slid them over his eyes. Then, he turned and started walking back to the Crown Vic.
“Get in the cruiser,” he told me.
I couldn’t believe it. “Ah, come on, Wade. Don’t run me in. That’s not gonna help anybody out.”
Wade never even looked back. “I’m not taking you in. I wanna show you something.”
“Show me what?”
“Just trust me,” he said. “You won’t be disappointed.”
We grabbed some coffee at the Waffle House, swung by Wade’s place to pick up his truck, and then headed over to the Holiday Inn. Wade parked behind a trash Dumpster like we were on some sort of stakeout, never even offering a clue as to why we were there. We sat in the truck, drinking coffee and listening to the radio. George Jones was singing “Your Heart Turned Left.”
Wade kept staring up at the balcony on the back side of the hotel.
&nbs
p; “I hope this is important,” I told him. “You know, I could already be in Tennessee by now.”
He touched a finger to his lips and shushed me. Then he pointed across the lot to another truck, a silver Dodge W200. I immediately recognized it to be the off-duty ride of Loyd Muskgrave.
I slid low in the seat, mostly out of instinct. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
Wade took a sip of his coffee. “Just wait. You’ll see.”
Muskgrave stopped the truck, and a girl climbed out of the passenger door and scampered up the steps to one of the hotel rooms. I say girl because she looked to be about sixteen years old. She had curly brown hair and skinny hips. She was wearing tight jeans and a red gingham shirt.
I pushed myself back up in the seat. “Who’s that?”
“Her name’s Molly Tillman,” Wade said. “She’s a junior. I’m surprised you don’t know her.”
“I haven’t been to school in a while.”
“Anyhow, she’s in charge of SOBA.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s Students Outraged by Alcohol. Muskgrave just started it this year. It’s his antidrug, antialcohol program for the school system.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
Wade shrugged. “Loyd thinks these sorts of things are gonna be big one day.”
Muskgrave circled the hotel in his truck, allowing Miss Tillman time to open up the hotel room and slip inside. Finally, the sheriff parked the Dodge and stepped out into the sunshine. He was dressed in his golf-course attire, minus the spikes. His polo shirt was baby blue, same as his eyes.
“Isn’t he afraid of getting caught?”
“That’s just Loyd,” Wade said. “The boy likes taking chances. I don’t think he’d even know what to do if he didn’t have some sort of mess to get himself out of.”
Muskgrave bounded up the stairs. The girl must have left the chain lock wedged into the door so that he could let himself inside.
Wade filled me in on the particulars, how Muskgrave had a deal with one of the Holiday Inn’s desk clerks, a woman whose husband had a towing contract with the county. She reserved a room for Muskgrave every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the days that Molly Tillman had early work release from the high school. They always met during Muskgrave’s lunch hour, when he was supposedly at the driving range working on his six handicap.
I asked Wade how long he’d known about all of this.
“Couple of months. I got called over here because some money was missing from a room. Anyway, I saw Loyd and Molly leaving in his truck.”
“Did he see you?”
“Oh, yeah. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but then he reached over and pushed the girl’s head down like he was trying to hide her.”
“So, I’m guessing he brought you into his office for a little powwow.”
“Yeah, we talked about it. He apologized, got all teary, said he’d been going through some pretty bad stuff with his wife. He said he was in counseling with a minister, and he just didn’t want to let one weak moment ruin everything he’d worked for.”
“And you believed him?”
“Hell, no. That’s why I started staking the place out, checking to see if he was still seeing this girl.”
“So, why haven’t you turned his ass in?”
Wade let out a deep sigh, then reached over and turned off the radio.
“Selfishness, mostly. I mean, whatever flaws he might have, Loyd is a talented guy. He’s a smart cop and a damn good politician. I just felt pretty certain that he’d be moving on after his next term. Going to the state capital. And I suppose I thought that if he owed me something like this, then maybe he’d throw his support behind me if I decided to run for sheriff. I guess I sort of rationalized it by thinking that I’d do a better job than him once I got into office. You know, clean things up, get rid of the scandals.”
He looked away from me, plucked his sunglasses off the dash and put them on. I could tell that he felt some measure of shame, though I couldn’t understand why, seeing how his goal all along had been to make things better in the end.
“So why did you bring me over here?” I asked.
“Because it’s time,” he said. “Enough’s enough. And I don’t want to see you have to go running off. You don’t deserve that. Claudia doesn’t deserve it, either.”
We sat there a while longer, staring up at those long, neat rows of doors, numbered and painted a dark blue. It was a fairly quiet morning. A dog barked in the distance. Birds squeaked in the bushes beside the swimming pool.
My stomach ached in a hollow sort of way. I felt empty and light-headed, but it was not an unpleasant feeling. The lack of food and sleep only added to the dreaminess of what was happening. After all of the bad news, I finally saw a way out. I could feel myself nearing the surface of something.
“I’m guessing you’ll be able to handle things,” Wade said.
“What makes you think that?”
Wade smiled a little. “Well, you have been known to bust into hotel rooms unannounced.”
Neither of us had to say another word. Wade started the truck and dropped it into gear. Just as we had taken our place among the other motorists, the people out running errands and taking their lunch breaks, I remembered something that I’d meant to tell him.
“He wasn’t driving, you know.”
Wade glanced in my direction. “Who wasn’t driving?”
“Lyndell. He wasn’t driving the car.”
33
I headed out that night to pick up the two items that I would need come Wednesday morning. One of them was Nick’s camera. I grabbed the Nikon out of his closet and then swung by the Holiday Inn to talk to Stan.
“So, you’re saying the sheriff has got my picture on the wall of his office?”
Stan was sitting in the front of the hearse with me, working on a Pabst Blue Ribbon and looking scared.
“Not just yours,” I told him. “Muskgrave’s got a lot of pictures on his wall. He’s gonna haul in a bunch of people if somebody doesn’t stop him.”
Stan rolled down his window and sucked in some of the fresh air. It was past midnight, and the hotel’s parking lot was almost empty.
“So what are you planning to do?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
Stan blinked and swallowed hard. “Oh, shit. You’re not gonna kill him, are you?”
“Of course I’m not gonna kill him. Do you think I’m an idiot? Let’s just say that he’s doing something he shouldn’t be doing. And if I can dig up some hard evidence, so to speak, then we all might be in the clear.”
Stan considered me for a moment. Despite the beer and the weed that we’d just polished off, he looked as sober as an astronaut.
“So what do you say?” I asked. “Will you loan it to me?”
He finally reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out the key ring. “This is the master,” he said as he slid one of the little gray passports off its hitching post. “You can get into any room with it.”
He dropped the key into my palm, and I wrapped it up with my hand. I squeezed it tight for a few seconds, a gesture meant to assure him that I’d guard it accordingly.
My final act of preparation was to sabotage that goddamn hearse. I performed the act just down the street from Hillin’s place, puncturing the radiator hose with an ice pick. This allowed me to cruise up to his garage with steam pouring out from under the hood. Seeing how Wednesday was stocking-up-on-
liquor day, he was more than obliged to toss me the keys to his Chevelle.
“Keep it under eighty,” he said. “Fucking thing gets squirrelly in the curves if you’re not careful.”
“Don’t worry, I used to drive one just like it.”
The Chevelle was fast and loud, just like Lyndell’s. It was also blessedly stealthy, at least when compared with the hearse. I parked behind the Holiday Inn Dumpster and waited. Muskgrave and Molly Tillman showed up just past noon. They went through the s
ame routine as before, with Muskgrave circling the hotel before parking and heading up to the room.
I waited a few minutes, then started the Chevelle and pulled around to the side staircase. I parked at the curb and left the keys in the ignition. Then I popped off the camera’s lens cap and headed upstairs.
Standing in front of Muskgrave’s room, I could hear Donna Summer making out with a wah-wah guitar. I could also hear Molly Tillman giggling. Assuming the show was in full swing, I carefully slid Stan’s key into the lock, turned, and pushed.
The music on the clock radio was so loud they didn’t notice me standing there. Molly Tillman lay atop the sheets, naked and with her eyes closed. Muskgrave was situated somewhat lower, his head between the girl’s thighs, following her musical lead. From the looks of things, she enjoyed a steady disco beat.
Despite the dire circumstances that had brought me into that room, I can’t say that I didn’t suffer a fair amount of shame over what I was doing. In fact, I felt like a pervert. And so I tried to get things over with as soon as possible, raising the camera and calling out to my subject in the hearty voice of a school photographer.
“All right, Sheriff! Say, ‘Pussy!’”
It’s hard to imagine Muskgrave having not suffered some degree of whiplash. That’s how fast his head popped up from the sheets. He turned and looked right into the camera, mouth agape and eyes wide open.
I fired off four shots, catching him and the girl in each frame. She was screaming and trying to cover herself with a pillow.
Muskgrave tumbled onto the floor, cussing me the whole time.
“Goddamn you, Fulmer. Give me that fucking camera.”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff, but I can’t do it. I already promised the negatives to Morley Safer.”
I was backpedaling, Muskgrave stumbling toward me, trying to get into his pants. He finally gave up on clothing himself, chasing me out onto the balcony in nothing but his bare ass. A family who was packing their car noticed the commotion and stared up at us. When Muskgrave saw them, he dashed back into the room, allowing me plenty of time for a getaway.
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