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One Drop of Blood

Page 17

by Thomas Holland


  “You got that right,” Jimbo confirmed.

  “You do me a favor. You make sure you report back to him that we are very, very sorry and that no offense was meant. You’ll do that, won’t you?” Levine lifted his eyebrows to make sure that Jimbo understood a response was in order.

  Jimbo nodded.

  “I certainly don’t want the sheriff coming after me all pissed off,” Levine continued.

  “No sir, you don’t. That’s for damn sure, you don’t.”

  Chapter 20

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  THURSDAY, AUGUST18, 2005

  The rest of the day went quietly.

  Levine and Kel retired to the Sleep-Mor early, after convincing Deputy Bevins that they would involve themselves in no further mischief for the remainder of the evening. Levine had announced his intention of driving back to Memphis in the morning to get a leg up on some administrative matters and, no doubt, to get out of Split Tree for the weekend. For his part, Kel wasn’t happy with flying a quarter of the way around the world to support the FBI only to have the FBI abandon him for the weekend. He’d decided to ride along with Levine as far as the Memphis airport, where he could rent a car—the prospect of being a pedestrian in Split Tree for an entire weekend was more than even Bre’r Rabbit wanted to bear.

  The motel was busy again. Not as chaotic as the first night when the fishing tournament had been in mid-angle, but busy nonetheless. The temperature had moderated some from the heat blister of the afternoon. A front had moved in from the southwest and teased of rain. None fell, but the temperature cooled noticeably, or at least everyone convinced themselves that it had.

  Kel was flagged out but knew that if he took a nap early he’d be awake all night. Every day at about this time the cost of jet travel caught up with him. The problem, he reasoned, was that he hadn’t been back in Hawaii long enough to adjust his clock from North Korean time before flying another quarter of the way around the world.What time was it in North Korea anyway? Hell, I think they’re on about June 4, 1000A.D ., or something. No wonder I’m tired .

  He booted up his laptop computer and took out some files that he’d brought with him. The one on top of the stack was a thick brown folder labeledTRIMBLE, Jimmie C., HM. He sat at the desk and began reading it. There was a copy of the wartime Tan Son Nhut mortuary file with a body diagram shaded to show what parts had been present and what was missing. The paper was marked and stained with time and mortality. There also was a report from one of CILHI’s teams that documented the recent recovery efforts, but what caught Kel’s attention was a copy of a Marine Corps After Action Report dated 14 October 1966. It appeared innocuous, but to someone inoculated against the boilerplate of military memoranda, this AAR was a smoker. Its author, a Marine lieutenant named Dwayne Crockett, had either an excess of balls or a paucity of brains, but in either case it was clear to Kel that the young officer’s military career had effectively ended with this report. Phrases such as “inept intelligence gathering,” “incompetent leadership,” and “a tragic waste of brave men’s lives” were guaranteed to rattle the wrong cages. Kel smiled as he reread the report. It mostly addressed the shortcomings of what clearly had been a botched military action and didn’t offer any great insight into whose remains were on a shelf at the CILHI, but it did get Kel’s mind headed in a different direction. An idea began to percolate, and he closed his eyes to help it gel. Jet lag took over from there, and he found himself doing less thinking and more nodding off. Eventually he gave in, kicked off his shoes, and lay down on the bed.

  He’d simply intended to rest a few minutes. He’d lain there staring at the acoustic panels overhead. Above each of the two beds were a series of concentric depressions. Kel puzzled over them for several minutes until he realized that they were the imprints of heads. Kids, he assumed, jumping on the beds, seeing who could put their heads through the ceiling panels.How funny, he thought,how funny, and then he was out.

  When Kel awoke the room was dark, only a faint yellow glow from the bug light outside his room providing a sense of depth to the shadows. He looked at the window and saw a black sky. He fumbled for the little button that would light up his watch: eleven-eighteen; six-eighteen in Hawaii.Crap . Something had been nagging at him like a little itch for the last couple of hours, and as much as he hated it, he needed to make a call to the Lab in Hawaii. And now he’d missed his opportunity. It was probably too late to get hold of anyone there who could answer his questions.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  He sat up and shook the silt and mud out of his head. Maybe it was worth a shot. With him gone, D.S. might be working later, and then, of course, Les Neep often put in long days. He slipped his shoes on and ventured outside.

  The cool breeze that had come wafting ahead of the front earlier had passed with nothing more than a lingering promise, and although it was now nearing midnight, the temperature had begun to rise again, and the air had a thick, fecund, muddy smell tinged with…tinged with what? Curry. Of course. Everything smelled of curry. Kel briefly closed his eyes and stood on the sidewalk. He heard a lone whippoorwill and wondered where on the floodplain it had managed to find anything to nest in. As he looked off into the darkness he saw the dim silhouette of a car parked on the fringe of the lot. A man in a cowboy hat was leaning against the hood, and Kel could see the small red starlight of a cigarette. Another fisherman probably. Or not.

  The Albert Pike had once been an all-night diner, but then traffic patterns changed and the cotton gin had scaled back its operations and people all acquired home air-conditioners—that was the main thing. Air-conditioning meant people stayed home. In the end, the owner had bowed to fiscal reality, and the diner was now open from 5:00A.M. to midnight. In a small place like Split Tree that was still something unusual.

  It was cool and brightly lit, and empty. Almost. Two overweight, middle-aged men sat in a corner booth drinking coffee, no doubt on their way home from a night shift of some sort—maybe the Wal-Mart Supercenter over near Helena. They both wore Dickie slacks held up by clip-on suspenders. Kel walked over to a booth near them and took a seat. Joletta was still nowhere in sight, probably home in bed. In fact the only staff who appeared to be around was the same skinny, weathered stick of wood whom Kel had seen working the grill that morning. The same one that Levine had thought might be Albert Pike, at least until Kel had told him that Pike was a local Confederate Civil War figure. Kel looked at his watch, eleven-twenty-five—this guy had been cooking for at least sixteen hours, probably more.

  It took a few moments, but the old man—his name was Lee Boy Spencer, though he hadn’t been a boy in a good many years—finally noticed his new customer and made his way out to the dining floor. He walked as if he were Nordic skiing, with a shuffle that did not require his feet to leave the linoleum and an exaggerated swing of his arms. Kel smiled. Neither he nor his waiter was in any particular hurry, though Kel did have a call to make before it got any later. The waiter paused as he passed the two overweight men, bobbing his head as he checked on the status of their coffee cups, and finding them satisfactory. Something was mumbled back and forth. When he finally arrived, Kel waved off his offer of a menu and ordered scrambled eggs, hash browns, and toast. The old man nodded, committing the order to memory, and began to retrace his steps, stopping again to mumble to the two overweight men before steering a more direct downhill course to the grill.

  The pay phone was near the street side wall, next to the display that held tourist brochures for Silver Dollar City, Branson, Blanchard Springs, and some floating casinos outside Tupelo.

  He listened as the phone rang. After the second ring he knew there’d be no answer. The CILHI voice-mail system finally kicked in and Kel left D.S. a message saying that he’d try to catch him tomorrow; that it was nothing crucial. Then he dialed again, trying Les Neep’s number. Again he waited. The CILHI had recently installed a new phone system that ensured that no one could get through to anyone without thrashing through a half-dozen menu
s and listening to morealohas andmahalos than a Hawaiian wedding reception. He suspected the same convicts that designed his office furniture were behind the phone software. Neep’s voice mail finally rang on, and Kel left a similar message, saying that he’d check in tomorrow. He hung up.

  He glanced at his booth, saw that there was no food waiting for him yet, and took another look at his watch: eleven-forty-five—six-forty-five in Hawaii. He pulled out his credit card again and dialed home.

  “Hello.” It was the soft accent of his wife. She was from the hills of northwest Arkansas and had more of a lilt to her speech than the slow, thick-tongued syrup that he was encountering here on the lowland floodplain.

  “Hey, hon, interruptin’ anythin’?”

  “Hey, yourself. No, I was just cleanin’ up after dinner, and thinkin’ about you, of course.”

  “Glad to hear that. Thinkin’ about you too. Thought I’d call before it got any later.”

  “The boys are going to be so sorry, they just went for a walk up to the park. Your office called here, by the way. Said they hadn’t heard from you, and wanted you to check in.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm yourself. Which reminds me, how’d you go and manage to leave your cell phone in my car, you suppose?”

  “All the rush to get to the airport, I guess.”

  “Funny thing is,” his wife said, “it got wedged way down behind the seat. I’d like to never have found it.”

  “That is funny.”

  “I’ll laugh later. Anyhow, how’s it goin’ there? Accomplishin’ what you need to? Enjoyin’ the countryside, I bet.”

  Kel debated briefly whether to start unraveling the whole sweater of the last twenty-four hours and decided against it. “Well, that depends on how you define accomplish. I’ve eaten lots of Karo nut pie, if that counts; butted heads with one of Mr. Hoover’s G-men; insulted an old woman who worships her dead son; and caught the eye of a very attractive young waitress—I think she’s kinda sweet on me.”

  “Well bless her heart—the old woman, that is. How’d you insult her?” Mary Louise was another honor graduate of the bless-your-heart school of southern manners.

  “Oh, the usual, you know, suggested she wasn’t his real mother, that sort of thing.”

  “Why Robert McKelvey—do you have nothin’ better to do with your time? You’d be better off flirtin’ with that waitress.”

  “I tell you what, that’s the problem. I don’t have anythin’ better to do. This has been three miles of goat rope, and I haven’t even seen the goat yet.”

  “Then come on home. I miss you. Plus, I could use your help drownin’ the boys in the bathtub—they’re gettin’ so big it’s hard to hold them both under water at the same time.”

  Kel smiled and closed his eyes. “What this time?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s an engineering problem, hon. God gave teenage boys brains and penises but only enough blood to operate one at a time.”

  “I’d settle for their brains operatin’ at all.”

  “Bad?”

  “You want the whole list or just the highlights?”

  “Highlights.”

  “Another call from school. It’s so much fun to switch identities and confuse the teachers, you know. For the life of me I will never understand why twins find that so amusin’.”

  “We’re not twins; I don’t reckon we can understand.”

  “Suspect you’re right. But that’s not why you called.”

  “Hmmm. Wanted to check in; hear your voice, mainly. Goin’ to get somethin’ to eat and then go to bed; it’s almost midnight. I’m catchin’ a ride up to Memphis tomorrow to get a rental car. I may try and do some sightseein’ this weekend.”

  “That’ll be fun.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It will. Just be careful. Get some sleep now. Come home soon. We miss you.”

  “Miss y’all. Be home in a couple of days. Love you.”

  “Love you…’night.”

  “Goodnight, hon.”

  Kel returned to his booth to find his food ready. As he sat down and began eating, the old man began a slow shuffle out to the dining floor. The overweight men were still there, still drinking coffee.

  “Getcha anythin’ else? Gonna be shuttin’ down the kitchen in a few minutes,” he asked when he finally reached the booth. He had skied right past the coffee drinkers without a mumble this time. His tone suggested that the correct answer to his question was “No.”

  “No sir. This here’s fine,” Kel replied correctly.

  The old man lingered. His expression looked like cement getting ready to set up. Kel took a couple of bites and looked at his plate, thinking that the old man was trying to coordinate his limbs for the trek back to the kitchen. But he wasn’t.

  “You mind I ask y’all a question?”

  “No sir, what’s on your mind?” Kel answered. He put his fork down.

  “Why you here? Where y’all from?”

  “Hmmm,” Kel considered. “Well, that’s a good question. This is kind of a vacation for me. I’m from the other side of the state originally, live in Hawaii now, but I used to have kin hereabouts—thought I might do some genealogy.”

  The old man leaned forward and placed his knuckles on the end of the table like an ape. He looked directly at Kel. “You always have FBI men help you shake your family tree?”

  My, it is a small town,Kel thought. He smiled. “No sir. That there FBI man is here all on his own. I was just asked along in case he needed any help—which it doesn’t look like he does. So I’ll be leavin’ shortly. I do want to study up on my family tree while I’m here, though. No point wastin’ a trip. Like I said, sort of a vacation.”

  Now it was the old man’s turn to smile. “Never been to your side of the state. Been to Jackson, though.” He paused and Kel was reasonably sure that the old man knew that Jackson was in Mississippi and not in western Arkansas. His little sortie into regional geography was merely to establish his bona fides as a man of the world and thus add some import to his words. “Saw you talkin’ to Jimbo Bevins. You’d be smart to steer clear of that boy.”

  “Deputy Bevins? He seems like a good old boy. Good kid,” Kel responded. He thought about the way Jimbo’s eyes flashed hot and cold.

  “Maybe, but I’d keep my distance.”

  “Well, I’ll, ahh, I’ll try and do that. Anythin’ else I should know?”

  “Yup. He’d be the least of your problems.”

  Kel smiled, unsure where the conversation was headed. “Huh. I wasn’t aware I had any problems. I’m not here to bother anybody, so I don’t see anybody botherin’ me.”

  “Don’t know about where y’all come from, but ’round here we don’t step on a cottonmouth lest we ’tend to be killin’ it. And if we do, we make for damn sure that our boots is big enough.”

  Kel made a note to remember that one. “I’m not sure what I’m ’sposed to say. I don’t—”

  “You don’t needs to say nothin’. Fact of the matter is, you needs to be askin’ not sayin’; askin’ yourself if your boots is big enough. W. R. Elmore’s your problem. No sir, don’t do no good for nobody to be botherin’ Grace Trimble…and you sure don’t want to get crosstways with Sheriff Elmore, no sir, you don’t. He’s one big, ugly cottonmouth, that boy is. That’s guaranteed.”

  Kel finished his meal as quickly as he could. The old man had gone about his business of shutting down the diner. He spent a good ten minutes stacking chairs onto the tables—a remarkable expenditure of energy given that he would be back in less than five hours to unstack them and start up again. The two overweight men were still at their booth when Kel left, seemingly oblivious to the dimmed lights and stacked chairs.

  Heat lightning popped and shot erratically across the western sky as Kel made his way back to his room at the Sleep-Mor. There would be no rain. The whippoorwill was still awake, but most of the motel’s windows were dark.

  He unlocked the door
to room 12A and entered, shutting and locking the door behind him. He pushed the power button on the television and steadied himself against it, reaching down to untie his shoes as CNN flickered on. They were covering a train wreck in Bangladesh that had killed hundreds. “I wonder if Sam’s watching this,” he said to the room. “Might be kin.”

  He had decided during his short walk back from the Albert Pike that he could shower in the morning before they left for Memphis. His full stomach had brought on a fresh wave of fatigue, and all he really desired at the moment was to crawl into bed and die a quick, painless death. As he lowered himself into the well of his bed, he looked at his watch: twelve-thirty-five. He had to be up in seven hours.

  Normally he brought a travel alarm on trips but that had been another victim of the hurried departure. Kel sighed deeply as he summoned up the energy necessary to crawl out of his bed and walk to the window to open the drapery. The morning light, he figured, would be sufficient to wake him.

  Shit.

  The curtains.

  The curtains were closed.

  They hadn’t been.

  Had they?

  No. He remembered now. When he woke up earlier, before going to make his telephone calls, he’d noticed the sky was black and he remembered thinking it had only minutes ago been blue. No, the curtains had been open when he left for dinner, he’d seen the glow of the yellow bug lights, and now they were closed.

  Shit.

  He snapped on the light, all fatigue gone. Was anything missing? Suitcase was there, clothes, laptop computer was still there—still on, the green sleep-mode light blinking rhythmically, the CILHI case files he had brought along to work on were still there next to the computer, and yet…

  The file folders were neatly stacked.

  They hadn’t been, Kel was sure of it. If he had any good qualities, neatness and organization were not to be counted among them. He examined the folders. Everything appeared to be there, but they clearly were more neatly stacked than he had left them.

 

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