by Stuart Woods
“I don’t know. I had a talk with him about it, but I didn’t ask for details. I just told him that since Foxy lived in Talbot County, he had to go to Bobby Patrick unless Foxy had done something in Delano. I’m sure he’d be reluctant to go to Patrick, maybe that’s why he went to the FBI, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what he’s up to.”
Billy resisted an inclination to bury his face in his hands. “Dear God in heaven, why now? Thanks to that newspaper story, half the people in the state and probably more than half of the legislature thinks that, for political purposes, I’ve talked Delano into hiring a black police Chief who goes around beating up nice old white gentlemen.”
“That certainly seems to be what Mitchell, from yesterday, thinks, and this fellow we talked to this morning, seems to be lining up with him. Mitchell could be the key in north Georgia, you know. He pulls a lot of weight.”
“I think we’d better get home. I’ve got to find out what the hell’s going on.”
“We’ve still got to stop in Madison and see Wilkinson. He’s fence-sitting, and we might swing him.”
Billy checked the time. “All right, but let’s make it fast. We have to land at Warm Springs before dark.” Billy left some money for the check. “Mr. Holmes, do you think Tucker’s all right? I mean, do you think he’s gone off his rocker? I took him at his word on the thing with Hoss Spence, Hoss is like that, but now—”
Holmes stood up. “I think what I’ve thought from the beginning, what you thought, too. I think Tucker knows what he’s doing. If we were there now, we might interfere with his work, but we’re not there, and we’re just going to have to trust him, at least for the time being.”
“You’re right,” Billy said, quickening his step, “but I hope he doesn’t cost me… this election.”
Tucker turned into Foxy Funderburke’s private road and stopped. The two FBI agents, Carr and Sutherland, pulled their car up next to his. Tucker had driven his own car from Atlanta, stopping at home to change into a uniform. John Howell had ridden with him.
“Okay, John, I’ll ride with them now. Why don’t you go back to the station and wait in my office. I’ll call you the minute we find something.”
“Oh, no, I’m not budging from here.” He pointed. “That’s a police radio, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“If you find something, call the station and ask them to radio me.”
“All right, if that’s the way you want it. We could be some time, you know.” Tucker got into the car with the two agents, and they began the drive up the mountain. Tucker looked at his watch. It was almost 3:30. “The road peaks just ahead,” Tucker said to Carr, who was driving, “and then it slopes downward slightly to the house. He doesn’t seem to use the front door much. Just pull around the end of the house to the back.” The agent followed Tucker’s instructions. They coasted quietly past the neat flower beds and lawn, now brown, and stopped at the back of the house. The autumn foliage was at its peak.
“Pretty place,” said Sutherland.
“Yeah, pretty.” Tucker replied.
“His truck’s in the garage,” Carr said. “So he must be home. Tucker, you stay in the car until he answers the door. If he doesn’t like you, I don’t want to upset him before I have a chance to show him the warrant.” Carr and Sutherland got out of the car, walked to the back door, and knocked. Tucker saw Foxy open the door and Carr hand him the paper. Then he got out and joined the two agents at the back door.
“Mr. Funderburke,” Carr was saying, “Chief Watts is accompanying us as an observer and to help us in the search.”
“What’s this all about?” asked Foxy, indignant. “What are you looking for? I don’t want that nigger in my house.”
Carr was firm. “Mr. Funderburke, I must warn you that if you resist this search, I will arrest you, and you are liable to be jailed for contempt of court.” He continued, more placatingly, “Please understand, sir, that we just want to do our jobs and then leave you in peace. Now please stand aside and let us come into the house.”
Foxy hesitated, then stepped back, allowing the two agents to enter, closely followed by Tucker. Tucker had never been inside the house. The first thing he noticed was the kitchen floor. He indicated it to Carr. “That’s what Howell was talking about, remember?” Carr nodded.
Foxy said, “Well, Gentlemen, you obviously don’t need me. I’ll just have a seat in the living room by the fire. I was reading a book when you intruded upon me.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Carr. “We’ll let you know if we have any questions.”
After a long, piercing stare at Tucker, Foxy turned, walked into the living room, sat down in a rocker before the fire, and picked up a book. Tucker watched him, and then his gaze traveled to the wall, hung with weapons. “You better keep an eye on him,” he said to Carr.
Carr nodded. “Sure, but he seems peaceful enough, considering the unpleasant surprise. He certainly doesn’t look as though he has anything to hide. Tucker, why don’t you take the kitchen, and we’ll start in here.”
The three men split up and began a thorough search of each room. Almost immediately, Sutherland found a policeman’s uniform in Foxy’s bedroom closet. He called Carr, and the two men took it into the living room, while Tucker watched from the doorway.
“Excuse me, Mr. Funderburke,” Carr said. “Can you explain why you have a policeman’s uniform in your home?”
Foxy looked up from his book. “Gentlemen, some forty years ago I was to be appointed to the job which that nigger”—he pointed at Tucker—“now holds. I bought the uniform in anticipation of that appointment, but I was cheated out of it. I saw no reason to burn the uniform.”
“Thank you, sir, I understand,” replied Carr, then retreated to the hallway, where he huddled with Sutherland and Tucker.
“Remember the autopsy report on the first murder?” asked Tucker. “The doctor said the injuries looked as though they had been inflicted during a police interrogation.”
Carr nodded. “Well, that fits, but alone it means nothing. Let’s keep going.”
They spent more than an hour in the house, looking into every closet and drawer, in every kitchen cupboard, under, over, and behind every object and piece of furniture in the house. They found nothing. The search moved to the garage and the kennels. Still nothing. Carr called Sutherland and Tucker together.
“Look, this is turning into a dry hole. There’s nothing in the kennels or the garage except what you’d expect to find there—the usual tools. There’s a well-used pick and shovel in the garage, though. I think our best bet was always if the most recent disappearance was connected with Funderburke. If that’s the case, then either the boy would have to be here, or Funderburke would have had to dispose of his body, in which case we could hope for a pretty fresh grave. That’s what we have to look for now. It’s the only thing we have left.” He pointed to the large clearing that was the back yard. “We should check every square foot of bare ground. Even that kudzu couldn’t grow over a grave in a few days—not at this time of the year, anyway. Since we can’t dig, we may as well forget the area covered by the kudzu. Agreed?”
Tucker agreed, but reluctantly. They began a foot by foot search for fresh earth or a mound. They looked inside each kennel and found only dogs. They searched on every side of the house and found not the slightest indication of recent digging. The shadows grew long, the November light began to fade, and Tucker’s hopes with it. He came around a corner of the house to the back and met Carr near the back door. Sutherland was thirty or forty feet away up behind the house, tramping through the kudzu.
Carr shook his head. “Tucker, I know how good this must have looked to you. It looked good to me, what you had. But short of bringing a bunch of men with picks and shovels in here, I don’t know what else we can do.”
“You’re right,” Tucker said, “and I appreciate what you guys have done. You went out on a limb, and now it’s going to get sawed off.” He knew that within the hou
r the word would go out along Foxy’s network of friends, right to Mullins, and by morning the story of the latest assault on decency by the black Delano Chief of police would be on the front pages. He didn’t know what he would say to Billy. He felt sick inside.
Carr knocked on the back door, and Foxy opened it. “Mr. Funderburke,” he said, “we’ve completed our search. We’ve found nothing to implicate you in any crime. I want to apologize for this intrusion and thank you for your cooperation. You won’t be bothered again.”
“That’s just fine, mister,” Foxy said bitterly. “Now get that nigger off my place.”
Tucker and Carr turned away from the back door, and Carr called to Sutherland, “Come on, Mike, we’re finished here.” Sutherland waved back and began to walk down the hill through the kudzu. Carr turned to Tucker. “Let’s go, we’ll drop you back at your car. Howell must be wondering what’s happened to us.”
From up the hill there came a sharp cry, and the two men turned in time to see Sutherland pitch forward on his face and slide a few feet down the hill on the slippery vine. Tucker and Carr walked the few feet across the bare back yard into the kudzu. “You all right, Mike?” Carr called out. “Hang on, we’ll give you a hand.” By the time they reached him, Sutherland was on his feet. “That was a hard fall,” said Carr. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sutherland replied, brushing himself off. He walked a few steps back up the hill. “I caught my foot on something here.” He poked among the vines. “Here it is.” Tucker and Carr joined him as he pulled back the big leaves. A bent length of rusty pipe protruded from the ground, capped by a torn black sleeve. A short, curved length of corroded brass was attached to it by a hinge. “Looks like some old plumbing,” said Sutherland, “a pipe to or from something.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Carr said, turning away. “And I’m too tired to care much. Let’s get out of here.” Sutherland turned to follow him.
Tucker stood frozen to the spot, staring. “I know what it is,” he said. The two agents stopped and looked back. “It’s the handlebar of a motorcycle.”
There was a hollow, metallic click from behind them. They turned and found Foxy Funderburke standing at the edge of the kudzu, not ten feet away. He was holding a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun. Tucker’s last thought before the weapon fired was that, from that distance, it would cut all three of them in half.
John Howell was growing restive. He had waited in the car, as patiently as possible, for nearly two hours, kept company only by the crackle of the police radio. Now it was getting really cold, and his patience was gone. Then it occurred to him that the radio had only crackled, had never spoken. He wondered if there was so little police traffic that two hours could pass with nothing broadcast. He got out of the car and looked at his surroundings. The turnoff to Funderburke’s place was several hundred yards down the mountain from the pass, down the opposite side of the mountain from Delano. Police radio was VHF, wasn’t it? The range depended on the power and on line of sight. Could the police radio broadcast a signal that would reach the opposite side of the mountain?
He got back into the car, picked up the microphone, and pressed the broadcast switch. “Hello, Delano police headquarters, Delano police headquarters, do you read me? Does anybody read me?” He released the switch. Nothing but the crackle came back to him. He tried again, with the same result. “Shit,” he said aloud to himself. “I’m damned if I’ll wait any longer.” He started the car and began to drive slowly up the road. Hell, they might have tried to call him a long time ago. They wouldn’t have been this long if they hadn’t found something.
He reached the crest of the road and saw the house, a living room light on, looking cozy and snug. He allowed the car to coast down the little hill, then pulled up in front of the house. He got out and looked through the living-room window. There was a fire in the hearth; a reading lamp was on, but the house seemed empty. He noticed that the FBI car was not parked in front and reasoned that everybody must be out back. He started to walk around the building.
He came around the rear corner of the house and stopped. Tucker and the two FBI agents were standing some thirty or forty feet up the hill behind the house, ankle deep in kudzu, staring at something at their feet. Foxy Funderburke was walking quickly, silently, toward them, loading a sawed-off shotgun. Howell heard the click as Foxy snapped the weapon shut. The three men up the hill, hearing the sound, turned. Howell realized what was about to happen. He formed a megaphone with his hands, took a deep breath, and shouted, at the very top of his lungs, “Hey!” Then, without waiting to see what happened, he stepped behind the corner of the house and flattened himself against the logs.
There was an enormous roar, and simultaneously large splinters exploded from the corner of the house. Then came two or three other explosions, so close together he could not be sure of the number. He got quickly down on his hands and knees and stuck his head, close to the ground, around the corner of the house. Tucker, Carr, and Sutherland were all standing in a half crouch, pistols held at arms’ length, pointed at Foxy, having all just fired. Foxy was sprawled on his back, twitching, trying to pick up the shotgun. The three men came quickly down the hill, and Tucker kicked the weapon away from him.
Howell got up and ran toward the group. As he reached them, he saw that Foxy was pumping a great deal of blood from his chest into the ground. Foxy seemed to see him for a moment, looked wildly around him, tried to speak, failed, then stopped moving. Carr held fingers at the old man’s neck and shook his head. Sutherland took out a penlight and flashed it into the open eyes. “Nothing,” he said.
Tucker walked to the house and through the back door. Howell, too dazed to ask questions, followed him. Inside, Tucker found a phone in the living room and dialed a number. “Bartlett? … This is the Chief. I want you to do some things. First, call Dr. Tom Mudter, and ask him if he can come out to Foxy Funderburke’s place right away…. No, don’t call an ambulance, just ask the doctor to come. Now, how many prisoners have you got in jail?… Good, I want you to call the city manager—at home, if he’s left the office, and tell him you need all the picks and shovels he’s got at the city garage. Call one of the patrol cars in and have the man relieve you, then break out your prisoners, and take them over to the garage, pick up the tools and a truck, and get out to Funderburke’s place on the double. Have you got that? … Good, and bring all the flashlights you can find—if there’s any emergency lighting at the city garage, bring that and some power cable…. Never mind, I’ll fill you in when you get here. Now move it!” He hung up the phone and looked at Howell. “John,” he said, “did I tell you how glad I am to see you?”
22
BILLY LANDED at Roosevelt field with ten minutes to spare before dusk. He resolved, if he were ever elected governor, to find a way to get a beacon and landing lights installed at the little strip.
“Let’s go to my house first,” he said to Holmes. “We could both use a drink, and we can try and locate Tucker from there. I’ve got to get a handle on this thing. Your source says he’s getting federal search warrants for Foxy’s place, and the police station says he’s in New York. This whole thing is screwy.”
Patricia made them both comfortable and brought them a bourbon. Billy called the police station. Tub Murray answered.
“Tub, this is Billy Lee. Is the Chief in New York, or where?”
“Governor, he’s out at Foxy Funderburke’s, as far as I know,” the patrolman answered, sounding confused. “He called here about forty-five minutes ago and told Bartlett to send Dr. Mudter out to Foxy’s, and to let all the prisoners out of the jail and bring them out there with a lot of picks and shovels. That’s all I know, sir. Maybe you could get hold of him by calling out at Foxy’s.”
Billy thanked the man and hung up. “This gets crazier by the minute. Tucker’s apparently out at Foxy’s, and he’s asked for Tom Mudter and some picks and shovels.” He grabbed the Delano phone book, looked up Foxy’s number, and dialed it.
Billy looked at him worriedly. The banker had been talking that way all afternoon. He hung up the phone. “Busy.” He tried again, with the same result. They sat and quietly sipped their drinks for a few minutes, and Billy tried again. “Still busy. I think we’d better go out there.” They stood up. “Mr. Holmes, it’s not really necessary for you to go. I can drop you off at home.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it,” Holmes replied. The drink seemed to have revived him. “Let’s go.”
At the turnoff for Foxy’s house, they were stopped by Sgt. Buddy Bartlett. “Oh, I’m sorry, Governor, I didn’t recognize you.” He slapped his forehead. “Gosh, sir, I forgot to tell the Chief you were trying to reach him. I thought he had already left for New York when you called this afternoon.”
“Buddy, what’s going on up there?” Billy asked.
“I don’t really know enough of it to explain it to you, sir. You’d better let the Chief do that.”
Billy put the car in gear and started up the mountain. As they came to the top of the hill and began their descent, they could see the log house silhouetted against bright lights from behind. They parked in front of the house and walked around to the back. Billy saw Tucker immediately and called to him.
“Good evening, Governor, Mr. Holmes,” the Chief said.
Billy was baffled by the lights and the digging men. “Tucker, tell me what’s going on here, will you?”
“Come over here for a minute, Governor.” Tucker led the way up the hill through the kudzu, which was being chopped and raked by a number of men. He stopped before a heap of dirt and metal.
Billy stared at it. “Is that a motorcycle?”
“Yessir, it is,” Tucker replied. “We found Sonny Butts.”
Billy and Holmes looked at the motorcycle, then at each other.