One Drop of Blood

by Thomas Holland

  “You got a fever or somethin’?” Kel asked in mock concern. “Do I really have to explain this to you? The Bureau’s been takin’ body shots right and left: Ruby Ridge, Waco. And now they go and flush a serial killer case down the crapper because someone has dyslexia. I have to explain this to a man who’s convinced the Bureau’s tryin’ to bury him down here?”

  “Not really,” Levine sighed. “Not really. So if it’s true, why’d you agree to come?”

  Kel was looking out the window, but his thoughts were drifting elsewhere. “Don’t know, really. To be honest, if an FBI agent had walked into the Lab two weeks ago on fire, I wouldn’t have taken the time to piss on him.”

  “So why?”

  “Why?” Kel repeated. He thought for a moment. “Because if I’m honest, I was about to melt down. I’m burned out, Mike. Burned flat out.”

  Levine took his eyes off the road and looked at his passenger. His defensive skin softened momentarily. “You’re too young for that,” he said.

  “Gettin’ older by the minute.”

  Levine understood. He stopped the car and killed the motor. As he did so, he nodded at the courthouse and shifted mental gears. “Look, Doc, if you don’t want to come in, I understand. This is my case, my fight. Understand? I’d like you there.” He opened the door and got out. Kel did the same. “If for no other reason, I’d like someone else there to make sure I don’t strangle that lying sonofabitch Elmore.”

  “I’ll come.”

  “Good. But if you come, there are rules. I just want you to sit and watch.”

  “Unless you start to strangle him.”

  Levine smiled. “I’m serious. Understand? You don’t talk. Don’t interfere. Just watch. This is a Bureau matter. Shit, this is beyond the Bureau; this is a Michael Levine matter now…it’s up close and goddamn personal. You’re to be a bump on a log. We square?”

  He was almost running up the sidewalk as he issued his directions and Kel again had trouble keeping up.

  “Understood; fortunately for you, I’m feelin’ quite bumpy this mornin’ anyhow.”

  Levine took the stairs to the second floor two and three at a time. At the top of the landing he pivoted left and headed for the second door, the one markedLocust County Sheriff’s Department . Levine was already through it by the time Kel made the landing, and he had to stop and look both directions to figure out where he’d gone. He saw the sheriff’s office to the left, diagonally across the hall from the records room he’d visited a few days earlier.

  Inside room 204, to the right of the door, was a large laminate desk similar to the one in the sheriff’s office. Deputy Sheriff Jimbo Bevins had planted his rear on the corner, his left leg dangling free. He was eating a banana moon pie and chasing it with coffee from a thirty-two-ounce red-and-white plastic mug that read Java Jokers. He muscled up when Levine walked in.

  “Mornin’ there, Agent Levine,” he said. A few stray, dry moon pie crumbs flew as he did so.

  “Good morning, Deputy Bevins,” Levine replied as he walked past him, headed for the sheriff’s office like a man about to put his head through a brick wall. He waved him down with his hand. “No need to get up. Sit.”

  Jimbo was caught completely flat-footed and full-mouthed, and Levine had opened W. R. Elmore’s office door before he could swallow his bite of moon pie and rise to follow.

  Sheriff Elmore was sitting behind his desk with his back to the door, his boots propped on the windowsill beside the air-conditioner. They were expensive boots but ill-kept of late, scuffed and badly in need of polish. “Come in, Special Agent Levine…I saw you drive up. Not alone, are you? Lose your shadow on the stairs?”

  “Good morning, Sheriff Elmore.”

  “I didn’t know you were back in Split Tree. Deputy Bevins informed me that you were last seen drivin’ in the direction of Memphis a couple-three days ago. Guess we both thought that maybe you’d finished your…your F-B-I investigation…and had gone on back where y’all are from.” He was chewing on his thumb, his eyes focused on something outside the window that no one else was likely to see. His hair mirrored his boots. Once black and shiny but now dull and scuffed and in need of a brush.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got a few loose ends to knot up before I can close this investigation,” Levine replied, taking a seat in front of the sheriff’s desk.

  Kel had finally made it to the room, wheezing and out of breath from the run up the stairs. He walked past Jimbo Bevins without making eye contact. He found Levine conversing with the back of another man’s head. He assumed it to be the sheriff’s. He quietly took a seat in the remaining chair and assumed his designated status as a bump. He exchanged a quick look with Levine. For the first time since they’d met, Kel sensed that the FBI agent was securely within his comfort zone.

  “Sorry to hear that, Mr. Levine. I’d hoped you were back in your big, fancy F-B-I office, writin’ up some big, final report on some big, fancy letterhead.” The sheriff still hadn’t turned around. Had Levine been able to see his eyes, he would have recognized the look. It was not far different from what Levine had seen in the eyes of some of his buddies in Vietnam. Kind of a purposeful vacancy. A detachment from the unpleasantness of sunlit reality.

  “Soon, I think. Very soon. Like I said, couple of loose ends before I get the fancy letterhead out. That’s why I’m here, Sheriff. I thought you might be interested in a couple of recent developments.” He paused but W.R. showed no inclination to move or respond. He quietly kept staring out the window. “Probably the most interesting of the developments is that we’ve finally managed to locate the remains of that John Doe—remember him? The white boy found with Mr. Jackson’s body…we couldn’t find his body for a while, remember? Oh, that’s right, Sheriff Elmore, you don’t remember much about this case…”

  That got a response.

  W.R. dropped his boots to the floor and swiveled his chair around so that he was facing Levine. He looked likely to spit clotted blood any moment, but he said nothing.

  “Yeah, damnedest thing,” Levine continued. His voice was honed. “The body was buried. Can you imagine that? A body being buried in a cemetery. Course I’m sure you can imagine how foolish I felt when I found that fact out. Goddamn big-city rube, and all. Kinda ironic, though. I mean, when you think about it, where else would a body be? It’s not like the Boy Scouts would borrow it or anything.” He smiled slowly.

  The sheriff continued to look at Levine but still said nothing.

  “Want to know where he’s buried?” Levine’s voice took on a slight twang, as if he were trying to imitate Elmore’s accent. “Here’s the real can-kicker; he’s buried right here in little ole lonesome Locust County—right under our very noses…can you imagine that? Just a couple of miles from this very office, in fact. Yeah, Sheriff, he’s buried in the Wallace Cemetery. Don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of that either?”

  No answer.

  “No? I’m not surprised.” Levine’s voice resumed its Brooklyn tone. “Maybe that’s because they tell me only old-timers call it that—old-timers and of course people with a reason to confuse the record of where he’s buried. Now, everyone else calls it…oh, damn…what do they call it again?” He made a show of snapping his fingers as if trying to recall. “Oh yeah, the Elmore Cemetery. That’s what everyone calls it. Elmore, as in Sheriff W. R. Elmore, as in Chief of Police Big Ray Elmore, as in…Hey, that would be your name, wouldn’t it?”

  “Mr. Levine,” there it was again, pronounced slow like LEE-Vine, “I’m a busy man, I’m sheriff of Locust County, Arkansas, and the good folks of this county pay me to doreal work. I’m sure you can understand how that is. Or maybe not. Now, what is it that I can hep you with? Or is this another social call?”

  “No, no…I’m afraid this is quite official. I’m a busy man too, Sheriff Elmore, and as much as I’d like to hump your leg all morning, I’ve got some other things to attend to myself.” He pulled a trifolded piece of paper from the pocket of his blue sport coat and o
pened it before placing it on Elmore’s desk. “One of which is exhuming a body.”

  The sheriff took his eyes off Levine’s only long enough to flick a quick look at Kel. Kel thought it was odd that the sheriff hadn’t questioned who he was, or what he was doing in his office. It was clear that he already knew.

  “That’s a permit to exhume, Sheriff,” Levine said. He pointed to the paper with a nod of his head. “About halfway down the page is a place for you to sign—I checked with the county clerk this morning, seems you’re the official owner of that property—but I suspect you may have already known that, don’t you? Your permission would make things a lot easier…Take as long as you need to read it.”

  Sheriff Elmore slowly and deliberately pushed the exhumation form back toward Levine, never looking at it, his fingertips barely touching it. “I told you the first day we met, Mr. Levine, let dead men sleep.”

  Levine reached out and took the form, refolding it as he did. “Sorry you won’t sign, Sheriff. But it doesn’t really matter. We’re exhuming that grave at two o’clock. You’re welcome to attend if you like…or not. I know how busy you are. Your choice.”

  Sheriff Elmore drew himself up several inches, his back bowed-up into a tight spring, and his voice took on a tone that would make most men flinch. Not Levine. Kel was glad he was nothing but a bump on this log. “This is still Locust County, and this is still the sovereign state of Arkansas, Mr. Levine. FBI got no right to exhume nothin’ at that cemetery if I don’t sign. And I believe I didn’t sign that paper.”

  Now Levine drew himself up, canting in toward the sheriff as he removed a second piece of paper from his coat. He didn’t open it, just held it up beside his face. “Your turn for a civics lesson, Sheriff. This is still the United States of America, and I’m still representing theFederal Bureau of Investigation, and this,” he looked at the paper and then back to the sheriff, “is an exhumation permit, signed by Mr. Hawk, duly elected coroner of this county.” Levine now stood and leaned forward with his knuckles on the sheriff’s desk. “As I said, you can be there or not, Sheriff, no skin off any part of my body…but that casket, and whatever’s in it, is coming out of the ground at two o’clock.”

  Sheriff Elmore and Levine stared at each other for several moments, neither man blinking or talking.

  Finally, the sheriff looked past Levine to the door and called out, “Deputy Bevins.”

  Jimbo appeared in the doorway. He did so quickly, and it was obvious that he had been hovering right outside. “Yes sir.”

  “Deputy Bevins.” Sheriff Elmore shifted his look back to Levine’s eyes. There was fire where earlier there had been glaze. “There’s a dark-blue Caprice illegally parked outside. Outta-state plates, I think. Illegally parked right in front of the courthouse too. You know how I feel about folk disrespectin’ the local law around here. If it isn’t gone in five minutes, call Tubb’s and have the sumbitch towed off.”

  Jimbo looked at the sheriff, then at Levine, and finally at Kel. His indecision was palpable but fleeting. He looked back at the sheriff, and his eyes began to flash hot.

  “Yes sir,” he said.

  As they walked back down the stairs to their car, Kel asked Levine if he could see the exhumation permit. Levine smiled as he produced it, and Kel held it up to the light. It certainly looked legit, and appeared to be properly filled out and signed. For a minute he thought maybe Levine was running a bluff and had managed to get himself called on it.

  “How’d you get the coroner to sign it?” he asked. “From what you told me about your first visit, he wasn’t much more cooperative than your best bubba up there.”

  Levine smiled again and took the paper from Kel, slipping it back into his pocket as he replied, “Let’s just say there’s one pissed-off circuit judge in Little Rock that didn’t appreciate having to get out of bed at one in the morning to instruct a toothpick-chewing local coroner in how to properly do his job.”

  “You know, Levine,” Kel smiled, “if you weren’t such a prick, I could learn to like you.”

  Chapter 35

  Lady of Mercy Hospital, Helena, Arkansas

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER12, 1987

  “Ray…home…finally,” Big Ray Elmore repeated.

  “No, Dad. It’s…” W.R. paused. Big Ray had always seemed to blame him for what Ray Junior had done. Seemed to place the pent-up family shame on his shoulders; the good and faithful son who stayed home. His only crime was covering for his brother. Shading the truth and concealing where he’d gone; cleaning up the mess. His father had never asked him about it directly; had never even raised the topic in discussion; had just apportioned blame. Had erected a wall between them. W.R. had grown to resent his brother; to resent his father’s love that seemed so disproportionate, to resent the silence. In the end, it was W.R. who had proven his loyalty, who had lived in the shadow, who had worked his whole adult life to gain his father’s respect. And in the end, it was Ray Junior that his father saw in his last minutes—not W.R. In the end, it was Ray Junior—it was always Ray Junior.

  And in the end, W.R. loved his father so much that he accepted the reality of it all.

  “That’s right, Dad,” W.R. said quietly. He sought out his father’s hand and gripped it. “Ray Junior’s home. I’m home, Big Ray, I’m home. Your son, Ray Junior, is home, and I’m goin’ to make everythin’ right. I’m sorry for everythin’ that I did. I’m sorry for runnin’ scared. I’m sorry for the years—for all the time that I wasn’t there for Momma and you. I’m sorry. I’m not like you, Big Ray, I got scared. I had to run, Dad. But I’m home now. I’m home now. Dad, I…” Waymond Elmore realized that his father couldn’t hear; that he’d passed beyond all hearing.

  He hadn’t said it in time. Hadn’t gotten the words out. Hadn’t been able to say “I love you” in time. As the doctor and Murleen moved him aside, he realized that he’d never said it. Had never told his father that he cared.

  Neither had Ray Junior.

  And now it was too late.

  Chapter 36

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  MONDAY, AUGUST22, 2005

  Levine spent the rest of the morning talking on his new cell phone, always very animatedly, arms swinging like a marionette with an excited puppeteer; Kel went from store to store buying a few materials he needed for the exhumation—and scratching—and Deputy Bevins kept watch, from a distance this time, the facade of down-home familiarity of the previous week now gone.

  They headed back to the Albert Pike for lunch. It was packed full, and they had to wait and then settle for a table in the middle, surrounded by hard-baked men with reddened necks and flaking ears and work-faded overalls. Levine and Kel kept their conversation in low tones, though they knew that soon the whole town would be up to gossip speed on the morning’s events. Still, there was no point in advertising their intentions any more than they had to.

  Jimbo Bevins sat at the counter drinking a glass of Coke through a red plastic straw and watching them with hard eyes bent on currying his boss’s favor.

  Kel decided on sweet iced tea and another wedge of pecan pie; Levine ordered another Shiloh Burger from Jo, who was back on the job with a fresh smile and thick, colorful eye makeup. Levine was the sort who didn’t vary his habits much when on the road. Find something—stick to it. Kel recognized the pattern of repeating the comfortable. He did the same. He thought of his mother and how she used to comment on her in-laws. “Those damn McKelveys,” she’d say, “if they thought one can of beans was good, then fifty must be better.”

  “Okay. All right…tell me again how this exhumation works,” Levine said after ordering. It was the third time he’d asked Kel this question, and now he was about to hear the same description for the third time in less than an hour.

  “I don’t usually chew my tobacco twice, Mike, but here goes. A funeral home representative—that would be your newly found friend, Donnie Hawk—will be there, so will the coroner—that would be the same Donnie Hawk. Convenient, isn’t it? I
suspect there’ll be a crypt company to do most of the actual diggin’, dunno, I’m not sure in a small town like this what they have. May be one-stop shoppin’ with your Mr. Hawk. Anyway, they’ll probably be a backhoe and a couple of big-muscled bubbas with shovels—there’s always need for shovel work, even with a backhoe.”

  Jo was back with the food and after sugaring Kel and blessing his heart a couple of times, she drifted off to tend to other customers.

  Kel unconsciously scratched an ankle and continued. “I’ll take some pictures as soon as we get there. General shots to record the settin’, one of the grave and tombstone before diggin’, and so on. Got this expensive piece of Swiss optics here,” he said, holding up the cheap cardboard point-and-shoot camera that he’d purchased earlier. “Then they’ll remove the top couple of feet of overburden, down to the top of the crypt. More photos. Pop the top on the crypt—assumin’ there is one. I’ll take some more pictures. The rest will be dug out by hand until they can slip some chains under the actual casket, then the backhoe will lift it out. We inspect it, hopefully it won’t be in too bad a shape, not caved in, take some more pictures, and then Mr. Hawk can take it back to his funeral home where the analysis will take place.”

  “Yeah…yeah…okay.” He had been nodding throughout Kel’s explanation. It was tracking with the first two versions he’d heard. “Right. What else do we need?”

  “I tell you what, if I were you, I’d still look to get a forensic pathologist in here. For the analysis part, anyhow. Don’t know if there’ll be any soft tissue. I haven’t seen the original autopsy so I can’t comment on it, but you really should consider havin’ a pathologist take a look…a second autopsy. Always good in these old cases—especially if it has to go to court.”

  “Taken care of. I called Washington after you mentioned that this morning, and they’re sending some big-shot out of New York that they consult with. Supposed to be the best. Be here midday tomorrow.”