by Ace Atkins
“Your friend Holly’s looking out for him.”
“Think you might’ve told me that from the git-go, Sheriff?” she asked. “Or is keeping me worried sick all part of trying to get me to trip up? Damn you people. You sure are cut from the same cloth as that bastard Hamp Beckett.”
“Can’t trip you up if you haven’t done anything,” Quinn said. “Who were those men who came for your mother?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I figured she might’ve been foolin’ around with one of them and things got out of hand. Either that or those boys promised her something to snort or smoke.”
“She describe them to you?”
TJ shook her head. She slid down deeper into the seat, camo ball cap down in her eyes, jaws clenched and seeming to be fixated on something deep inside her.
“I’ll get a deputy to take you home.”
“No, thanks,” TJ said. “I’d rather call a friend.”
TJ didn’t look sad or remorseful. The kid didn’t look much like she felt anything. Quinn waited, not sure what else to say. He didn’t want to worry her any more than he had to at this point. He needed to get an ID on that body before anything more could get done. And to get that moving, he’d have to work with that tub of shit Bruce Lovemaiden.
“Can I see whatever it was y’all found in Parsham?” TJ asked.
“I don’t think you want to do that.”
“Why?” TJ lifted her eyes to Quinn, her face softening and her mouth hanging open. “How bad was it?”
“Get some rest,” Quinn said, standing up and motioning with his head for her to follow him out. “I’ll swing by in the morning and give you an update. I’m real sorry, TJ. You’re too young to go through a mess like this.”
“My life’s been a mess since I was born,” TJ said. “Don’t shed a tear for me, Sheriff.”
* * *
* * *
Chester Pratt was out of the Mercedes and lighting up a new cigarette. “Y’all want to get the grits out of your mouth and speak a little English?”
Dusty didn’t say a word, getting a little worried about Daddy and all the blood on that white towel. Momma Lennie sure was gonna have their ass when they got home. Bleeding out on that towel and being late for supper. One was bad enough but two in the same night was gonna mean hell to pay. That old woman would clock Daddy straight in the head with an iron skillet.
“You said that woman was giving you trouble,” Dusty said.
“That’s right.”
“And you told us to get her mind right.”
Pratt nodded. “But that was it, right?” Pratt said. “Gave her a rough talking-to and then let her be? Y’all must’ve scared her so damn bad that she left town.”
Dusty could hear Daddy Flem’s raspy breathing and without asking permission, grabbed him by the back of the belt and helped him back into the truck. He left the old truck door hanging open while he walked back to where Pratt was standing, smoking and looking like a cocky rich man. The kind of fella who’d never done a hard day’s work in his life.
“What did y’all do?”
“Why’d you want us to give her a scare?”
“That’s none of your business,” Pratt said, sucking on a cigarette, burning it down to a nub and tossing it into the weeds. “Is it?”
“You see that blood coming out of my daddy?”
Pratt nodded. It had grown cold and the breathing and talking between them came out in clouds.
“That woman cut him bad,” Dusty said. “Cut his ass down to the bone.”
Pratt said he was real sorry about that. But Dusty could tell he didn’t care. He’s the kind of man who hires Mexican folks to do a job because they’ll never sue your ass when they fall off the ladder and break their damn necks.
“If she done that to my daddy,” Dusty said. “Just what do you think she’d do to you? I figure we done you a real favor, Mr. Pratt.”
Pratt got real still in the low beams of Dusty’s truck, squinting at Dusty’s face, finally getting around to asking the question that he knew the answer to all along. Pratt walked toward Dusty and punched a finger in the middle of his chest. “What did y’all do?”
Dusty didn’t answer. He grinned.
“What did y’all do?”
“Don’t you worry none, Mr. Pratt,” Dusty Nix said. “That bitch ain’t gonna give you no more trouble. Me and Daddy got us a special place way out and far away from Tibbehah County where we toss out things that ain’t no use to us anymore.”
Dusty watched as Pratt turned around and yelled through his teeth, hammering his fists over and over on the back of that fine black car. The man looked to be plenty upset.
* * *
* * *
Holly and Ladarius were at the trailer with John Wesley when TJ got home. Holly had waited on the porch, arms open wide, offering her a big hug. It wasn’t until then that the private idea of her mom being dead was really true for TJ. She leaned into Holly and cried, careful not to be too loud for John Wesley. Holly rubbed her shoulders and her neck, telling her how sorry she was and that she knew that her momma was in a better place, up in heaven looking at them and all their troubles.
“Troubles,” TJ said.
“What did the sheriff say?”
“Wasn’t just one sheriff,” TJ said, wiping her face with her coat sleeve. “It was two of them. Some ole fat boy from Parsham County who’d been listening to a truckload of crap from Chester Pratt.”
“Chester Pratt?” Holly said. “He says something about you, and then you’d tell the world about the money he stole.”
“And who’s gonna listen to that, Holly?” TJ said. “Shit. Not if they believe I’m the one who’s done this. He’s an adult in there with those sheriffs saying that Momma and me got rough and into it all the time and that she and Chester had the good and godly intention of sending me to the goddamn Wings of Faith up in Missouri.”
“But that’s a lie.”
“I know it’s a lie,” TJ said. “But a lie told so damn big and nasty that it seems like the truth to those two sheriffs. I saw it in their faces.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell them about Chester?”
“How am I gonna prove it?” she said. “Momma controlled that money until I turn eighteen. I’d have to show what was hers and what was mine and how she handed that over to her boyfriend. And even if they knew she did what she did, what does that mean? It means she was in love with Chester Pratt and bought into his goddamn liquor store. The things he said about me are much, much meaner. Me and her getting into it on account of Ladarius being a criminal? Or that I got mad as hell about being sent over to that Wings of Faith. I mention the money, it’d just give ’em more goddamn fuel. Those are stories those old boys could believe. I don’t know. I don’t know nothing right now. Only that Chester Pratt has turned on me and I’m about to go to jail.”
“No way,” Holly said. “No. That can’t happen. We can’t let them do that.”
“Yep,” TJ said. “I’ve seen those TV shows. Soon as they confirm that body they found is Momma they’ll be coming for me. Goddamn it, Holly. What the hell can I do?”
“Get a lawyer,” she said. “A real smart one like in one of those John Grisham movies. Maybe a good-lookin’ one, too. Like Matthew McConaughey or Matt Damon.”
“With what money?” TJ said. “Real lawyers like to get paid.”
“Or you can just tell the truth,” Holly said. “That Sheriff Colson is a stand-up man. Most of the women in town got their panties in a twist when he married that crazy hippie woman.”
“Bullshit,” TJ said. “His uncle was a crook. He’s a crook. Easiest thing to do is make it look like I done it.”
TJ closed her eyes and glanced through the window and into the trailer. Ladarius was sitting up with John Wesley, his arm around her little brother while they watched
television, trying to keep the kid’s mind occupied. Everything felt so normal and nice that she wanted to tear her guts out. Her mother was dead. Momma was dead. And people were still walking around, laughing, and watching television.
“What in the world do I tell John Wesley?”
“Maybe don’t tell him a thing,” Holly said.
“What?” TJ said. “What are you talking about?”
“We could run,” Holly said. “We could run far the hell away from here. And never come back.”
“What about your family and all your friends?”
“You’re the only family that matters,” Holly said. “Rest of ’em can go straight to hell.”
“I don’t know,” TJ said. “My head’s so damn fucked up right now.”
“Grab what what’s important and let’s get out of Tibbehah County before first light.”
EIGHT
Lillie had been up half the night, burning up the phone lines with Quinn back in Tibbehah County. Gina was dead, there was little to suggest otherwise, and Quinn needed a primer on Gina Byrd 101. Lillie did her best to help, although it had been years since they’d been close. She laid out all the past boyfriends, acquaintances, the druggies and the crooks, the lowlifes and respectable citizens of Tibbehah County that Gina would have, or might have, known. Happy Hour crew at the Southern Star. Miss Donna Grace at the flower store where Gina worked part time. Maybe some friends from that new church that put on the big revival in the football stadium. Wasn’t that preacher Ben Quick back in town?
But from everything Lillie was hearing, she’d be looking right at her daughter, TJ. Quinn seemed to have doubts, but given Lillie’s experience with the kid, she knew that girl had been a rough customer since she spit the pacifier out of her crib. What Quinn was telling her about the girl seeing goddamn Ladarius McCade and her mother wanting to stick her into a holy roller private school sounded like plenty motive to her.
“Sorry to hear about your friend,” Florencia, Lillie’s housekeeper, said.
Lillie thanked her as the stout Guatemalan woman cooked breakfast, humming to herself as she worked. Florencia had been working for her ever since she and Rose moved to Memphis and into a century-old bungalow in Cooper-Young. The bungalow was big and roomy, needing some work but still holding a lot of that classic Craftsman style with ornate windows and tapered columns. A soft rain fell out on the street and the kitchen smelled like bacon and pancakes.
“Very sad.”
“That’s okay, Florencia.”
“How she die?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was she sick?”
“In a way,” Lillie said. “She led a certain kind of life.”
“She like to drink?”
“She liked to do a whole lot of everything.”
“My sister in Guatemala like that,” Florencia said. “She what we call a mujer perdedora.”
“That Spanish for tramp?”
“Loose woman,” Florencia said. “Very, very loose.”
“I liked Gina Byrd a lot,” Lillie said. “She was a whole lot of fun. But I swear you put a quarter in her slot and her ass would play Tammy Wynette.”
“Que?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lillie said. “If you can’t laugh, you’ll end up crying.”
If it hadn’t been for Florencia, there was no way Lillie could keep up her work with the marshals. She might have found a desk job somewhere, away from being a POD, a plain old deputy. And Lillie knew what it was like to ride the desk. She’d been sidelined for three months after she’d shot Fannie Hathcock in the back at the Golden Cherry Motel. And although that evil bitch, the queenpin of north Mississippi, appeared to have been going for a pistol and most surely deserved it, there had been a lengthy investigation and a whole lot of questions. The Mid-South media had even dubbed Lillie the U.S. Marshals Service’s Calamity Jane, a name she liked and hated at the same time.
The last thing she’d wanted was any notoriety for a justified shooting, especially since there was a legion of truckers out there who looked at Fannie Hathcock as the benevolent mother of lap dances and cold beer on Highway 45. There was even some kind of redneck ballad written about the woman, “The Tears of Fannie.” What complete horseshit.
“You like breakfast?” Florencia asked.
“No, ma’am,” Lillie said, “I’ll get a biscuit on the way in.”
“Sit,” Florencia said. “Eat. Two minutes.”
Lillie shook her head but knew it was no use. Florencia didn’t accept no as an answer.
Soon Rose bounded down the steps and into the kitchen, Lillie giving her a big hug before she took a seat at the counter. The little girl had come into Lillie’s life almost ten years ago, during an investigation into a baby-trafficking operation right in Tibbehah County. Like Florencia, she’d been born in Guatemala and now appreciated both sausage and biscuits and pupusas.
“You carrying the Sig today?” Rose asked. The kid knew her guns.
She was brown-skinned with long black hair and bangs, dressed today in the blue polo shirt and khakis that were her school uniform.
“Yep,” Lillie said. “Feels better on my hip. I don’t care for the Glock they gave me.”
“Y’all find that shitbird who set all those fires?”
Florencia turned around and whacked the spatula against the bar. “No, no, no.”
Lillie winked at her daughter and said, “I don’t know where she gets this stuff.”
Rose giggled as Florencia offered a short prayer for both of them before flipping the pancakes and sliding them onto two blue plates.
“Is everything okay?” Rose asked. “I heard you crying last night.”
“Must’ve been the TV,” Lillie said.
“You sounded very upset,” Rose said.
Lillie shook her head and cut into the pancakes. “Nope,” Lillie said. “Florencia. Can I trouble you for a little more butter and syrup?”
She turned back to Rose and smiled. If she did anything as a mother, it was to keep the world she knew out of her damn home. That little girl had known a lifetime of evil before she’d even turned two. No reason for her to be associated with that shit anymore. The house was still and quiet, pleasant with the soft rain falling outside. Their new dog, a pit bull rescue, snored from across the room on a big, fat pillow.
“Pick me up from school today?” Rose said.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Maybe we can go to the zoo?” she said. “Or the Pink Palace?”
“Maybe.”
Florencia widened her eyes again, the stout old woman doubtful Lillie would make it. Just as Lillie was set to argue, her phone buzzed with a north Mississippi area code. Even before Lillie answered, she knew what it was about and what they were going to ask her to do.
She’d been steeling herself for it. But damn, she never wanted to see Gina Byrd in that horrible condition.
* * *
* * *
Down in Tibbehah County, the rain had just rolled in as Quinn stood on the loading dock of the Jericho Farm & Ranch with a woman named Diane Tull. Quinn had known Diane for years, helping her get some closure on a violent crime that had happened back in 1977 involving his dad and a crew of miscreants called the Born Losers. She’d been friends with his sister Caddy, too, volunteering out at The River and always good to donate supplies to the mission, and even played and sang with the house band at the simple Sunday service in an old barn. Some folks said Diane Tull looked and sounded just like Jessi Colter and Quinn couldn’t disagree.
“This sucks,” Diane said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You know I was Gina’s AA sponsor?”
“That’s why I’m here so early.”
“Caddy tell you?” she said. “Damn. I sure miss your sister. I thought someone would step up a
nd take over The River when she left. But that’s not gonna happen. Breaks my heart to see that old barn and the land around it turn to shit. No one can do what your sister did for all these people.”
“Maybe you could,” Quinn said.
“With all my extra time running this old seed and feed?” Diane said. “Hell. Glad to help out some. But what Caddy did wasn’t a job. It was a calling.”
The Jericho Farm & Ranch sold about everything you needed to survive—fishing gear, shotgun shells, work boots, squirrel traps, vegetable seeds, and fence posts. It was still a few months away from planting season, but Diane was ready to go with stacks of topsoil, manure, and fertilizer. Diane was a good twenty years older than Quinn, with dark skin and black hair streaked with white. Watching the rain from the loading dock, Diane lit a cigarette.
“I wish Gina had called me,” Diane said. “I might could’ve helped. If she needed money, I would’ve given her some. Damn. This is horrible. Just horrible. Have you talked with Chester Pratt? You know they’ve gotten real close?”
“I spoke with Chester last night.”
“And what did he say?” Diane said.
“A lot,” Quinn said. “Man likes to talk.”
“Did he say anything about Gina backsliding?” Diane said. “I saw her two, three weeks ago and she wasn’t doing so great. She’d been clean and sober for six months but looked headed for a fall.”
“I got over to the Southern Star last night,” Quinn said. “Spoke to some folks who knew her. Said she’d been a real regular since New Year’s.”
“Lord God.”
A white van pulled up and they both watched as the Stinson family, all nine of them, climbed out and headed into Farm & Ranch. The wife and three girls all had long hair down their backs. The four boys all looked pasty and pimply, like they hadn’t seen the sun for a long time. The family was part of some kind of Christian sect that only allowed homeschooling and apparently was against birth control. They weren’t Amish, but they weren’t far from it.