The Heathens

by Ace Atkins

  Quinn waved to the man, always forgetting his first name and just referring to him as Brother Stinson. The whole family hustled inside to load up on supplies.

  “Did Gina say she was having some trouble with Chester?” Quinn asked.

  “None I heard,” Diane said. “Hell, you know Chester is about my age. Too damn old for a woman like Gina. But he’s not bad looking, got a nice head of hair and good teeth. He seemed to land on his feet after screwing up every business he tried to open up. He was always taking Gina on trips over to Birmingham or down to Gulf Shores. He had a condo. Maybe a boat down there? She was always posting pictures about it.”

  “But no trouble?” Quinn asked. “Nothing she ever discussed with you?”

  “You mean was he ever violent?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Damn, Quinn,” Diane said. “How long have we been friends? You know I’d tell you if I knew anything at all. I never heard Chester Pratt being rough a day in his life. Have you? What kept me awake all night is how I might’ve messed this up. I should’ve kept checking up on her. Because that’s it, isn’t it? You think she got hooked in with some rough boys? Drugs and all that.”

  “Her daughter says Gina got into it with two men outside the bar,” he said. “This was three nights ago. Have you heard anything about that?”

  “Nope,” Diane said. “But you and I both know Gina, God love her, would jump into any car with anybody if she thought they were about to take her to party. Damn, Quinn. It’s hard to say all this stuff about her. Dragging Gina down doesn’t help anybody.”

  “Knowing what you know sure helps me.”

  Diane smoked the cigarette a little more and swallowed, looking to be gathering her composure before she said whatever she was about to say. The wind blew across plastic sheeting around the greenhouse and the rain started to fall a little harder.

  “That TJ Byrd sure is a piece of work,” Diane said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You call me ma’am again and I’ll kick you off my property,” she said. “I was still in high school when your stuntman daddy was jumping over cars to impress all the women in town.”

  “About TJ.”

  “Gina tried and tried with that one,” she said. “The little boy, John Wesley, ain’t easy himself. But TJ has been giving Gina a lot of trouble for so many years. You know who her daddy was?”

  “Jerry Jeff Valentine,” Quinn said. “He’s well remembered at the sheriff’s office.”

  “And everything Jerry Jeff Valentine was into?”

  “TJ believes my uncle found him passed out in that creek,” Quinn said. “And that he let him die.”

  “Maybe,” Diane said. “Can’t say I blame Sheriff Beckett. That man had a mean streak on him a mile wide. And I swear, that girl is exactly like him. You can listen to whoever you like about Gina and drugs and men and trouble. But no one gave that woman more of a heartache than her own daughter. I know for a fact that girl once gave her a black eye.”

  “What might’ve happened to Gina is a whole lot worse.”

  “You mean that she was chopped into little pieces and tossed in a trash barrel?” Diane asked. “Yeah. Half the town knows that already. You need to make a little more progress, Sheriff. This whole county is watching you on this one.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Johnny Stagg watched the morning news out of Tupelo in his back office at the Rebel while Midnight Man swept the floors and bundled up the trash. Stagg remembered a time when old Buddy and Kay Bain would knock out classic country hits on the Mornin’ show. Now it wasn’t nothing but mayhem and murder, maybe a little bit about the weather and prep sports. Stagg turned his chair around to the bank of little TV monitors where he could watch the comings and goings at the truck stop. With a flick of the controller, he could see every face at every pump, every customer eating grits and eggs at the diner, and even the faces and quick hands at the two main registers. Used to be a time when he had his eye on the honey pot out back of the Rebel, a place called the Booby Trap. But the new Johnny Stagg, the reformed Johnny Stagg who’d had a come-to-Jesus moment at the federal lockup in Montgomery, was way past that. His life was now about feeding, fueling, and family fun.

  “That man Bishop come looking for you,” Midnight Man said. The big black man’s voice somewhere between a whisper and a croak.

  “What’d he say?”

  “Said Chester Pratt was in trouble,” Midnight Man said. “His punch was that lady got kilt over in Parsham.”

  “You kidding me?”

  “No, sir,” Midnight Man said, lifting out the plastic bag from the trash can and cinching it closed. “That’s what he said.”

  “Well,” Stagg said. “Don’t that beat all.”

  Stagg turned from the security cameras back to the main TV and clicked around a little until he found the local news again. He had to sit through some fat Yankee boy telling him that more cold and rain were expected for the week and then some news about a teacher in Aberdeen whipping out his peter in gym class, a tractor trailer jackknifing over in New Albany, and the State basketball team barely beating those Gamecocks from South Carolina. After some local hijinks from Nolan Brothers auto, this one about an old Southern gentleman talking to a man in a gorilla suit, the station cut back over to a live shot of a woman reporter outside the Bundren Funeral Home in Jericho. The woman said the body hadn’t been IDed but the Parsham sheriff said foul play was suspected.

  “Where’d you hear this woman was friendly with Chester?”

  “Everybody,” Midnight Man said. “Heard she was a Byrd.”

  “Which one?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You hear Chester killed her?”

  “No, sir,” Midnight Man said. “Folks just say that was his woman.”

  “Damn,” Stagg said. “I guess he’s going to be looking for sympathies and forgiveness for a while?”

  Midnight Man grunted and left the office. Stagg turned off the television and stared up at the monitors. He kept his eyes on the new fella working the till at the diner, watching him make time with one of the waitresses, and then zoomed in on his hands while he made change. Stagg knew every way in the world that the help could cornhole you at a restaurant. He wasn’t sure how in the hell this place survived without him. He heard that Fannie Hathcock was a pretty slick customer, but her mind seemed to be more on the poontang and pharmaceuticals than the meat and potatoes at the old Rebel.

  Stagg reached over to a silver candy dish and reached for a fresh peppermint. He unwrapped it, plucked it into his mouth, and punched up a well-known number on his phone. After a few rings, a familiar voice answered.

  “What in the holy goddamn hell is going on over there?”

  “Dead girl,” the voice said. “Woman named Gina Byrd. You know her?”

  “No, sir,” Stagg said. “I most certainly do not. But I know her people. This some kind of domestic situation?”

  “I ain’t real sure,” the man said. “Never really seen nothing like it. That woman was cut up in so many pieces, she looked like chum falling out of that barrel.”

  “She was in a barrel?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” the man said. “Someone sliced and diced her ass and tossed her in there with some bleach. We took her over to Tibbehah to get looked at. Maybe get an ID, although we’re pretty sure we know what we got.”

  “Why the hell’d you bring that mess over here?” Stagg said. “Shit, son. This is your goddamn problem. Don’t be trackin’ dogshit to my doorstep.”

  “Our coroner’s on vacation,” the man said. “Took his wife up to Kentucky to take a look at that Noah’s Ark they built at the Museum of Creation.”

  “Christ Almighty.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Stagg crunched on the candy for a moment and then cleared his throat. “I guess
I was hoping to keep a hard, fast line between Tibbehah and Parsham.”

  “That won’t be no trouble,” the man said. “You got my word on it, Mr. Stagg.”

  “Y’all thinking this is the boyfriend?”

  “No, sir,” the man said. “Unless you want me to. I think it’s the woman’s daughter. Seems y’all’s sheriff ain’t buying into it.”

  “That Quinn Colson is known for his argumentative ways,” Stagg said, reaching for another candy. “Didn’t have to be like it was between me and him. He got rid of me and you saw what he got, that red-headed crazy-ass bitch who nearly killed him.”

  “Why’d you ask about the boyfriend?”

  Stagg sucked on the new candy and looked up at the ceiling, a dark water stain spreading around two of the ceiling tiles. It hadn’t taken long for that woman to turn the best truck stop in Mississippi into a redneck shithole.

  “I may have done some business with him,” Stagg said. “At one time or another. Hate to see that boy jammed up too bad.”

  “You want me to keep you posted, Mr. Stagg?”

  “You know I sure would appreciate that,” Stagg said. “Sheriff Lovemaiden.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “That smell gets you,” Ophelia Bundren said. “Doesn’t it?”

  Quinn had walked out the side portico of the Bundren Funeral Home and back to the tailgate of the truck. He’d set fire to a cigar just as soon as he hit the door, more than glad to inhale the smoke and fresh air. The rain had stopped but the skies were still dark and gray. An ice-cold wind blew across the slick parking lot.

  “Pretty rough.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said, drawing on the cigar and leaning against his truck. Ophelia watched him, quiet and reassuring, looking a lot different than she had when they’d been together. She seemed happy and calm, healthy and fit, with smiling brown eyes and short brown hair, a gold wedding band now on her finger. Ophelia was beautiful, and one of the smartest and most resourceful women he’d ever known, but he’d made a real mess of things by not being able to stay away from Anna Lee Amsden. The end of it had come months before he’d met Maggie, Ophelia throwing a steak knife at him, sticking in the kitchen wall a foot from Quinn’s head.

  When Quinn complimented her aim, she said that, actually, she’d missed.

  “Not sure a fingerprint will be possible,” Ophelia said. “State folks will be here within the hour.”

  “What do you say?”

  “It’s a woman,” she said. “Seems to be the age of Gina Byrd. But legally, I can’t say unless I can perform a full autopsy. Dental records. I figure the person who did this knew how that all works. In a case like this, no one wants to see that locally.”

  “You do a damn fine job, Ophelia,” Quinn said. “We’re lucky to have you.”

  “I’m glad y’all didn’t ask her kid to see this,” Ophelia said. “That would mess up that girl’s mind for life.”

  “You did your best to make sense of what you had.”

  “Wasn’t easy,” Ophelia said. “Hardest jigsaw puzzle I ever worked. And I wasn’t authorized to stitch her back together.”

  “What did Lillie say?”

  Ophelia watched him, wandering up to the other side of the tailgate and leaning in. Under a long black coat, she had on the familiar black pantsuit and cream silk top that was the uniform of her business. Even a little name tag on her right lapel. “Lillie didn’t say much of anything,” Ophelia said. “After you left, she and I stood there for a moment. She looked at everything I showed her. I asked her if she’d seen what she needed, and she just nodded and asked where to find the bathroom. I’m pretty sure she threw up.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Lillie.”

  Ophelia offered a weak smile from across the tailgate. She shrugged and looked back over her shoulder at the funeral home.

  “You doing okay?” Quinn asked.

  “I am,” she said. “Congrats on Halley. With you and Maggie as parents, she’s bound to be a pistol.”

  “She is,” Quinn said. “Quick and observant as hell. Already taking in this whole crazy world.”

  “Funny how that goes,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Life,” Ophelia said. “People are here and then they’re not. And then new people move in. Things change. Time comes and goes. But this town, this county, never seems to go anywhere.”

  Quinn smiled at her and they locked eyes for a long moment.

  “I don’t have any regrets,” she said.

  “Me, either,” Quinn said.

  Ophelia turned as Lillie walked fast across the parking lot, her black blazer billowing around her to show the silver Sig on her hip, a lit cigarette in hand. Quinn thought Lillie had quit smoking years ago.

  “Jesus Fucking God,” Lillie said.

  “Sorry to get you down here, Lil,” Quinn said.

  “Wish I hadn’t had breakfast,” Lillie said. “Goddamn. Who the hell could do something like that?”

  Quinn looked across the truck bed to Ophelia. Lillie hung on his tailgate like someone who’d gotten seasick and was trying to find their legs. She sucked on the cigarette and blew out a big plume of smoke. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face had gone pale.

  “You sure it’s her?” Quinn asked.

  “Goddamn right that’s Gina Byrd,” Lillie said. “I know.”

  “Then you recognized it?” Ophelia said.

  “Recognized what?” Quinn asked.

  “Tattoo,” Lillie said. “Right hipbone. Gina got it when we were in eleventh grade. A goddamn bluebird. Ain’t that something?”

  NINE

  I know one damn thing,” said Ladarius’s cousin Domino, hand on her big hip, frown on her face, loaded with plenty of that Memphis attitude. “Y’all can’t stay here. I got enough legal problems of my own without y’all tracking bloody footprints into this house.”

  “I didn’t kill my mother,” TJ said, trying to remain friendly and calm since the woman let them crash at her apartment last night. “Someone’s trying to pin this shit on me and I didn’t care to stick around and let them do it.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Domino said. “Is that right? What I heard on TV was some real fucked-up shit. Folks saying your momma got dismembered. Y’all know what in the hell dismembered means? Means cut up like a motherfucking Tyson chicken. I mean. Goddamn.”

  Domino lived in a run-down apartment complex near the airport on Winchester, sharing the space with a boyfriend named D’Shawn who sold weed when he wasn’t loading and unloading planes over at FedEx. The boyfriend was on the late shift and Ladarius promised they’d all be gone by the time he got back. TJ and Ladarius had slept on the couch while Holly slept on the floor before turning on the television and watching the morning news. John Wesley, used to chaos and crazy, was asleep in a big overstuffed green chair by the kitchen, tucked in a fleece blanket decorated with faces of WWE superstars. The poor kid still didn’t know his momma was dead.

  “Sorry I can’t help y’all,” Domino said. “But you know. Things are tight.”

  “We appreciate you taking us in,” Holly said, looking up from the television. Live at 9 with Alex and Marybeth. “I sure didn’t want to sleep in my momma’s van. Not in Memphis.”

  “And what’s wrong with Memphis?” Domino asked. She had on a black midriff shirt with the word diva written in gold glitter, beaded strands doing their best to cover up her big belly.

  Ladarius said his cousin worked days at Dixie Belles, a titty bar just down the road. TJ surprised as hell when she’d first opened the door, the woman short and fat with a long weave with red highlights. She looked like the kind of gal that could break a man’s pelvis during a lap dance. The apartment was cluttered and dirty, with old yellow carpet and mismatched furniture that seemed to TJ like it had been picked out of the tras
h. Busted-ass fake leather couch and a cracked glass coffee table with two empty Papa John’s boxes left from last night.

  “Time to get up,” TJ said, touching her little brother’s shoulder. “We got to go.”

  The little boy opened his eyes and then shut them again. “Go where?”

  TJ didn’t have an answer as she didn’t have any plan at all. The only thought she’d had last night was just drive, get the hell out of Tibbehah County, get the hell out of Mississippi, and then maybe some kind of light or roadside inspiration would show them the way. A billboard. A message in the clouds. A song on the radio. Ladarius kept on promising that Domino was going to be a big help, that she was tied in with some real powerful people. Something about a man she knew named Marquis Sledge who ran South Memphis. But when they rolled up on her place at two a.m., TJ knew it was another one of Ladarius’s lies, or what he called harmless bullshit.

  As soon as Domino left the room, TJ turned to Ladarius and asked if he’d gotten any money.

  “Hundred bucks,” Ladarius said. “All Domino’s got.”

  “And what about you?” TJ said.

  “Ten bucks,” he said.

  TJ shook her head, feeling for the first time in this whole fucked-up week that she just might cry. Thinking about what her momma looked like right now, chopped into a million pieces, and the hell that TJ might have to pay even though she hadn’t done a damn thing. That hadn’t made her sad, only angry that her momma had put her in such a tight spot, running with men who wanted to use her up till there was nothing left. Leaving TJ with no one to help them but their worthless aunt and fucking stealing and lying Chester Pratt. John Wesley tugging at her coat, looking up at her and asking which way they were headed.

  “I got people in Chicago,” Ladarius said.

  “I’m not going to fucking Chicago,” Holly Harkins said, quickly turning away from the TV. “We’d freeze our asses off. Not to mention, those folks are plain mean and crazy up there.”

  “Where you want to go then, Holly Harkins?” Ladarius said. “Disney World? Want to ride that Pirates of the Caribbean? Run around Fantasyland? Maybe hop on Dumbo’s back for flight up into the clouds? Yeah, we’ll just roll on down and see the big mouse and party with all the money we got.”