One Drop of Blood

by Thomas Holland

  Kel shook his head, still not understanding. He looked at Levine and back to the glow.

  “Know what the hell that is? Do you?”

  “No. What’s goin’ on? I think…”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on.” He pointed to the glowing horizon. “That’s the Pacific goddamn Funeral Home—or what’s left of it. Burned to the friggin’ ground. That sonofabitch. There’s your friggin’ evidence, Doc. Up in friggin’ smoke.”

  “Burned? The funer…Holy Christ. You’re shittin’ me? The whole place?”

  “Whole thing.”

  “You sure? I mean, how…”

  “I’m sure. Went to the office to get some ice cubes about twenty minutes ago—saw the glow. Didn’t think much of it for a minute until I realized what it was and where it was. Just drove over there. Dozen or so county firefighters are standing around watching, grabbing their cocks, and telling cremation jokes. Mr. Donnie the Coroner is struck friggin’ dumb—standing there watching his business go up in flames.”

  “Christ, I knew I should have taken those DNA samples when I had the chance—I just didn’t want to cut anythin’ until the pathologist had seen everythin’. Now there’s no chance. That heat’ll destroy any DNA…” Kel said, more to himself than Levine.

  “I’m going to nail him, Doc. Right to a tree.”

  “Nail him?”

  “Yeah. With a big hammer.”

  “You’re not talkin’ about Mr. Hawk, are you?”

  “I’m talking about Elmore.”

  “The sheriff? You really think he’s responsible?”

  “Where were you raised? You raised by blind, crippled nuns or something? Of course he’s behind this. Who else would be? Who else has a reason to destroy that evidence? The whole funeral home happens to burn down the night after we exhume the body. C’mon, Doc, I spent twenty years working fraud cases, I may not know details about how medical examiners work and where bodies are stored, but I can smell when something stinks. This stinks, and it’s Elmore’s stink. He’s marked his territory all over it.”

  “I…I don’t know, it’s just that…”

  “Just nothing. I’m going to Little Rock. You sit tight. Understand?” He poked Kel in the chest with an emphatic finger. “Two hours there, two back—I’ll be here by daylight, and I’ll have a federal marshal and a couple of state troopers with me. And then we go find that bastard.”

  “What do you need from me?” Kel asked as he stared at the pulsing orange glow. Little snowflakes of drifting ash were visible under the streetlights.

  “Nothing. Just make sure your notes are in order. They’re all we got on the body now.”

  “Levine…Mike, about the body…I should have told you earlier…I’ve been thinkin’, there’s somethin’ that’s been botherin’ me and I think I finally…”

  “No time now, Doc. Tell me when I get back.” He was already at his car, unlocking the door. He had his cell phone to his ear as he got in and turned the ignition.

  “Mike…”

  “Daylight,” Levine shouted as he closed the door.

  Kel watched him back up and pull out of the parking lot headed west. He stood silently for a moment, watching the reflection of the fire bounced back by dust and heat waves, and then turned and walked back into his room.

  Unbelievable.

  Chapter 40

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  TUESDAY, AUGUST23, 2005

  After Levine left, Kel undressed and took a shower. He had just gotten out and was standing in the center of the room, dripping, toweling his hair, and his air-conditioner was blowing loudly, the unbalanced fan clicking with each revolution. The television was tuned to CNN and contributed its own share of noise. He almost didn’t hear the knock. He’d gotten so used to Levine’s pounding that the soft rap he now heard didn’t register immediately, and when it did, he recognized it as the polite knock of Sam—probably delivering the phone. No doubt Special Agent Dervish had thought of something as he went whirling up the highway on his way to Little Rock and was calling back to issue some new directive.

  Kel slipped on a pair of jeans and pulled a light-green shirt over his head. The top two buttons were undone, and the thin, cotton cloth stuck to his wet skin. He was snapping his pants when he opened the door.

  It was Sheriff W. R. Elmore.

  Kel stared at him, unsure what to do or say. Could Levine be right about this guy? Immediately, Kel was aware of being barefoot. It made him feel vulnerable somehow. Without shoes he was slightly shorter than the man at the door; he hadn’t really seen the sheriff standing before—not close up anyhow—and he looked to be about six feet tall, though at the moment he was projecting himself much taller.

  Kel said nothing.

  “You that little shit they call ‘Kel’?”

  “I’m Robert McKelvey. What can I do for you, Sheriff Elmore?” Ordinarily Kel would have unlimbered his tongue and fired away, but not this time.

  Sheriff Elmore pushed past Kel into the motel room. When Kel stepped back, Elmore grabbed the door handle and shut it.

  “Make yourself at home,” Kel said, attempting to keep his voice even-toned. It was an effort. He swallowed audibly and began rolling up his shirtsleeves, in part to mask the fact that his hands had begun to shake.

  “Don’t remember me, do you? Don’t expect you would.” The sheriff looked around the room as if he were attending a housewarming party and was trying to think up an appropriate compliment for the hostess.

  “Sure. I was in your office yesterday with Special Agent Levine. Didn’t get a chance for introductions, though; you and Levine seemed to have eyes only for each other. I was the bump on the log. Over in the corner.”

  Elmore continued to examine the furnishings. “That’s not what I mean.” He walked to the window and tugged the curtains, making sure that there was no gap. “Your daddy brought you around here when you were but a little shit—called youKel —I thought that was pretty funny. Still do. He took you fishin’ out at McKelvey Lake. I was fishin’ there that day myself. You don’t remember?”

  “I remember the day fishin’, can’t say I remember you. You were friends with my father?”

  Sheriff Elmore snorted a laugh. “Not friends. Knew him. He knew my father. Your father warmed the bench for him on the football team here in Split Tree. McKelveys was always second-stringers to the Elmores—you know that? I remember my daddy sayin’ that Robert McKelvey couldn’t run in a lazy circle without fumblin’ his own balls.” He was walking about the room, touching things: lampshade, ashtray, television. He walked over to Kel’s laptop computer and ran his fingers along the top of the screen. The screen saver was on, and a digital clock was rebounding about the screen. Seven-oh-eightP.M. —Hawaii time—twelve-oh-eight in the morning in Locust County.

  Kel was watching the digits change when he suddenly realized that his preliminary analysis of the John Doe was detailed on the screen. A small jolt would turn the screen saver off and reveal the report, and right now, his gut was telling him that that report probably was not the best topic of discussion to be having with the sheriff. He walked, as casually as he could manage, over to the desk and pushed the top of the computer closed. It clicked shut. “What can I do for you, Sheriff? Here to relive fishin’ stories or you got somethin’ else on your mind?”

  “Where’s your boyfriend, Special Agent Levine of the F-B-I?” He drew the sentence out slowly, emphasizing each word.

  “Probably in his room. We’re supposed to have a meetin’ in a little while. I was just getting ready to head over there. Want to accompany me?”

  “Hmmm.” Elmore stopped looking around the room and focused on Kel. “Meetin’? Now that’s funny. Thought for sure I saw him drive away about fifteen, twenty minutes ago—looked to be headed west. Deputy Bevins—you got a chance to meet Jimbo, didn’t you? Not much for brains but he does what he’s told—he tells me that Mr. Levine, of the F-B-I, is headed out in the direction of Highway 49…looks to be goin’ t
o Little Rock, I’d say.”

  “That so?”

  “That’s so.” He gave a short laugh. “He must have forgot all about your meetin’. Maybe he has somethin’ else on that little F-B-I mind of his, you reckon?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well,” Sheriff Elmore said with a puff of finality that sounded as if he were announcing a long-worked-at decision, “why don’t we take advantage of his forgetfulness and have our own little meetin’? Just you and me. How’s that sound? Why don’t you get some shoes on there, Mr. McKelvey? Hell, people see you barefoot, they’ll think y’all from Arkansas. And you…ain’t from around here, are you?”

  “I got a better idea, Sheriff, seein’ how it’s past midnight, why don’t we wait and have our meetin’ in the mornin’? I’ll be happy to drop by your office—with or without Levine—as you wish. Can you give me an idea of what the agenda will be?”

  W. R. Elmore looked at Kel. Neither man said anything. Finally, the sheriff straightened his back, and the leather of his gun belt creaked loudly in the quiet of the room. He took a deep breath and released. “Get your shoes, Mr. McKelvey.”

  Chapter 41

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  TUESDAY, AUGUST23, 2005

  Levine turned right out of the Sleep-Mor’s parking lot and then left on Tupelo heading west. The roads were empty, and he accelerated rapidly. The road continued, narrowing and losing its shoulder, and its name devolved into some obscure rural route number, until it hit Highway 49. He intended to follow that northwest until he hit Interstate 40, which would take him all the way into Little Rock. A total of about 120 miles, give or take a few. There were probably shorter routes, if you knew the back roads, but Levine didn’t, and this way offered the least chance of getting lost. Besides, once the road straightened out a little bit, he could safely goose it up to eighty, maybe ninety, miles an hour. If a state trooper stopped him, so much the better—he could use an escort into the city.

  He’d seen the Sheriff’s Department cruiser parked in the Albert Pike’s lot as he pulled out of the motel. He wasn’t surprised. The lights were off, but he still could make out a figure behind the wheel. Watching like the good keeper he was.

  “C’mon, Deputy Bevins—see if you can keep up with me,” he said to himself as he watched the parked car shrink in his rearview mirror. He punched the accelerator, and his car’s engine surged. Jimbo wasn’t following. “You and your boss are too late anyway. It’s out of your control now.”

  There was a bright, orange late-summer quarter moon hanging low in the western sky. The floodplain receded behind him as he drove. He could see small hills and rises and more and more trees presented dark silhouettes as he headed west away from the river. Large bugs popped the windshield in bright, greasy smears. He had to use the wipers frequently, but that only homogenized the mess.

  He kept running the events and facts over and over and over in his head. Levine knew that the chances of making anything stick against Elmore were razor slim. Conspiracy possibly. Maybe, if the DNA worked, he could get him on some after-the-fact charge, but the Doc seemed to think that the DNA evidence had gone up in smoke—literally. There were plenty of other holes—he knew that—but so much was starting to fall into place; the dominoes were lining up. Just a few nagging holes to caulk up. But they admittedly were big holes. Doc McKelvey had seen it clearly. Old man Elmore leaving his pride and joy out on that levee didn’t add up like it should. Even if Big Ray was buying time, covering tracks, he was the damn chief of police—he could have staged any number of scenarios that would have worked, would have explained his son’s death. Could have worked out some better solution.

  Why bury him in a shallow grave out there in an empty field?

  Doc McKelvey was right. That was the biggest hole of all. The big, square, fire-engine-red peg that wouldn’t fit in the round hole.But what if Daddy Elmore wasn’t the one cleaning up the mess? What if he didn’t know —until later?

  What if it was someone trying to protect him?

  What’d Doc say about King Henry?

  There was a car following him now. There hadn’t been one at first, but it was there now. It had angled in from a county road off to the south. It was closing fast. Occasionally, when it crested a low hill behind him, the moonlight allowed him to make out the shiny rack of gumballs on its roof. Somehow, Jimbo Bevins had caught up to him. Goes to show that knowing the back roads makes a difference.

  Up ahead he could begin to make out the sign welcoming him to Lee County.Decision time, Deputy, Levine thought as he glanced into the mirror.You got what it takes? Gonna cross the county line?

  Chapter 42

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST24, 2005

  Kel didn’t really have much of a choice.

  On the one hand, Elmore was an officer of the law—by everyone’s account a good one who knew his job and did it conscientiously. On the other hand, there was a teetering element of unbalance about him. He clearly seemed to be a man about to pull apart at his seams, and to cap it off, Kel thought he smelled sour mash.

  But what was he to do? If the sheriff meant Kel harm, who was going to stop him? Sam? Unlikely. Levine? He was gone. Kel himself? Maybe in his younger days, but certainly not at his present level of physical conditioning. And if the sheriff intended no harm, if this was a legitimate visit, which it probably was despite the sheriff’s current lack of a cordial bedside manner, what was he to do? Refuse to go? Drop to the floor and start yelling and acting like a fool? Maybe. That would be the safest course of action, even if his pride precluded it.

  In the end, Kel complied against his better thinking and got into the passenger seat of the sheriff’s cruiser. He buckled in for the ride—whatever that ride was about to entail. Elmore took his place behind the wheel but didn’t buckle. He turned the key and the engine fired on the first crank. A blast of cold exploded out of the air-conditioner vent. Kel looked at the twelve-gauge mounted on the drive-train hump.

  Sheriff Elmore jerked the transmission into reverse and backed up with a jolt; he hit the handle on the steering column again, and the car shot forward with a slight squeal of rubber on asphalt. Not even slowing to look, he turned left on Magnolia and headed south.

  They weren’t headed back into town. Kel knew where they were headed.

  The levee.

  From time to time, the radio squawked, interrupting the silence until Sheriff Elmore had finally reached down under the dash and turned it off. That only made the silence louder.

  They rolled to a stop and sat in the car. The headlights illuminated the small rise that formed the levee visited by Levine and Kel a few days earlier. Sheriff Elmore looked out the windshield, not saying a word as he reached into his left shirt pocket—under the six-pointed star of his office—and pulled out a cassette tape. He looked at the handwritten label on it briefly in the light that reflected back into the car and then slipped it into the tape deck in the dashboard. Abruptly the cracked, tinny yodel of Jimmie Rogers singing “Pal of My Heart” began in midsong. It scratched and popped.

  The sheriff adjusted the volume upward twice until the dashboard vibrated and the gauges rattled.

  “Get out,” he said above the noise. He waited a moment and then added, “Now.”

  Kel thought once about pretending he couldn’t hear, but realized that would only delay the situation and further abrade Elmore’s thin patience. He undid his lap belt.

  Sheriff Elmore hesitated long enough to make sure that Kel was complying before he opened his door and stood up, a bottle of George Dickel in his hand. He’d been tugging at it for most of the ride, and from the sound of the slosh, it was near empty. Now he looked over the top of the car at Kel and motioned with a jerk of his head for him to move to the front, then he rolled down his window so that the music flowed easily across the floodplain.

  It was a hot night that stuck to the skin. Sweat formed thickly and coated like heavy corn syrup. There was an earthy smell, dust wit
h a hint of river—miles and miles of river; smells from long-off Iowa and Missouri working their way slowly down to New Orleans and beyond.

  And a new smell. Sweat and fear. Kel recognized it. It was his own. He hated himself for it. He’d let Levine’s paranoia, however unreasonable, smudge off on him.

  The waxing moon lit up a sky of humid, yellowish haze, and the car’s headlights shut down Kel’s night vision, making it impossible to see anywhere but the twenty yards directly in front of the car.

  Sheriff Elmore took a seat on the hood, his left leg partially blocking one of the headlamps. He seemed not to notice, or not to care.

  “My father’s favorite song…‘Pal of My Heart’—this and ‘Mississippi Moon.’” He took another drink and let out a short spit of air. “Harder to find that one though. Not many folks listen to Jimmie Rogers nowadays. Shame.”

  Kel looked all about him. There were no lights for miles—just the yellow cone made by the car’s headlights—and no sounds except for the broken yodel coming from the tape, sweeping across the cracked floodplain mud.

  “Know where this is?” Elmore asked. The bourbon sloshed loudly as he took another drink.

  “Yeah, it’s where the bodies were found forty years ago.”

  “That all? Your daddy never bring you here, or you just forgot?”

  Kel shook his head with small, tentative moves. His right leg had started to jackhammer with adrenaline and fear, and he couldn’t stop it. He could feel a fresh rivulet of sweat working a crooked line down the center of his back.

  The sheriff pointed off to his left, his hand gripping the neck of the bourbon bottle. “This here’s the original Split Tree. Right over there. See that dip? That shadow above the levee wall?” He waited for a response, but when none came, he continued. “When I was a boy…when I was young, there was still an old stump there. When your daddy was growin’ up, mine too, there was still a tree there, so they used to say. It was dead, but it was still there. A mean, old, twisted black locust—split right down the center, straight to the ground by a bolt of God’s own righteous lightnin’.”