by Ace Atkins
Reaching for a file on his desk, Quinn set about looking through the incident reports since he’d been away. He’d left his second-in-command, Reggie Caruthers, in charge, and Reggie had kept him up to date on the big criminal activity since he left town. Two peckerheads had tried to kill each other outside the Walmart. The fight had started over a Ziploc baggie of assorted pills and a case of Busch Light. The argument got down to the split of the spoils and one of them decided to make his point with the sharp end of a Case pocketknife.
“Sheriff?” Cleotha asked.
Quinn looked up. As always, his door had been wide open.
“Woman here to see you,” she said. “Said her name is Sashy Coles. Or something like that.”
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“Said she come down from New York City to ask you some questions,” Cleotha said. “Real serious-looking, with some big-ass Urkel glasses and carrying some kind of tape recorder. I don’t know. Says she’s some kind of reporter.”
Quinn said to send her on in and kept on going through the narrative on the Walmart throwdown. Banks Ellard was apparently treated and released with fourteen stab wounds in his stomach. The man had been lucky the blade had been short and didn’t hit any vital organs. Ellard was quoted in the report from Deputy Cullison as saying, “All I tried to do was chill the damn beer and the boy went off on me.”
There was a knock on the door and Quinn looked up to see a young white woman, somewhere in her mid-twenties, with black hair up in a bun and heavy black-framed glasses on her delicate face. She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt and wide-leg jeans hitting her high on the calves.
“I’m Tashi Coleman,” she said, holding a small microphone, a recording device dangling from her shoulder on a strap.
Quinn stood and offered his hand. The office felt a little stuffy that morning, and Quinn walked over to raise the window. Outside, you could hear two of the inmates working on a new table for the break room, the saws making a high buzzing sound every few minutes. Some light hammering.
“I’m hoping you might help answer a few questions,” Tashi said. She looked pleasant and eager.
“Just a few?”
Tashi smiled. “Maybe more than that.”
“OK,” Quinn said, nodding. “Take a seat, Miss Coleman.”
“Wow,” she said. “I figured I might have to call several times. Bug you until you’d agree to talk with me.”
“Don’t you know Tibbehah County is the hospitality capital of the South?” Quinn asked.
“I thought the motto was ‘Native American name but All-American values’?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Quinn said. “But I kind of like my slogan better.”
The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a notebook and pen. She sat up straighter in the wooden chair and said, “I’m looking into an old case worked by your uncle. This was from more than twenty years ago. A boy named . . .”
“Brandon Taylor.”
“How’d you know?”
“Miss Mary at the Fillin’ Station,” Quinn said. “Didn’t she warn you news travels fast on the town square?”
Tashi smiled again. “Can you pull those files for me?”
“If I had them, I’d be glad to share them,” Quinn said. “But it seems like those files were lost long before I took over here. I tried to pull them for a friend of Brandon Taylor’s earlier this year.”
“Was there a fire or something?” Tashi said. “I always hear about these famous fires that just happen to hit sensitive files.”
“Ma’am, I’ve always found working with the press can be a two-way street,” Quinn said. “Y’all sometimes find out things we’d like to know. And to be clear, I was only two years older than Brandon when he went missing.”
“But your uncle was the sheriff.”
“Right.”
“And this is a small town,” she said. “Surely you heard things. Did your uncle ever talk about the case?”
“I know my uncle found a rifle close by and his death was ruled a suicide,” Quinn said. “And I also know Brandon’s family has never believed it.”
“Was the rifle sent off for testing?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said.
“Was the body examined by the state?” she said. “Or just the local funeral home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were there photos taken?” she said. “Evidence examined? Time lines established?”
Quinn held up his hands and shook his head. “I was pretty much just trying to get through my senior year and raising hell with my friends. I knew Brandon. But I didn’t know him well enough to tell you what he was going through personally.”
Tashi Coleman nodded, taking a long moment before saying, “So what you’re saying is you don’t know a whole hell of a lot, Sheriff.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “About all I can offer you right now is a hot cup of coffee.”
“No thank you,” she said, stuffing the notebook and pen back in the purse. “I’m fine.”
“It’s the only good coffee in town,” he said, smiling. “Much better than the Fillin’ Station. That stuff tastes like hot dishwater.”
“You have to understand how frustrating this is,” she said. “Files can’t just disappear.”
“I understand,” Quinn said. “I’d be glad to ask around when I can. But I’m a little busy right now. We had a stabbing at the Walmart last night and I have a U.S. Marshal delivering a prisoner to me real soon. I’ve been wanting to talk to this man for a long while.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Tashi said.
“You sure you don’t want coffee? Get whole bean from a company in Oxford,” Quinn said, smiling. “Dark roast they called Faulkner’s Fury.”
“OK,” Tashi said, and her face softened a bit. “And maybe you can help me with a few general details?”
“You bet,” Quinn said, reaching across the desk and offering his hand again. “You can call me Quinn. You might find my methods a bit different than some Mississippi sheriffs you’ve heard about. I like reporters. I keep an open jail log. Unless it’s an active investigation, I’m happy to share with you what I know.”
“Hard to believe.”
“Did you think I’d wear mirrored sunglasses and chew Red Man?”
“To be honest,” Tashi said, “I wasn’t sure what I thought I’d find. I just spent the morning with the Tibbehah County supervisors. They talked about a dozen or so bridges being closed by the state for repairs. And plans to bring a sixty-foot cross to Highway 45.”
“Just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”
“You don’t support building it?”
“Ma’am,” Quinn said. “I support my country, my county, and my church. But I believe that money could be spent on more worthy projects for people in actual need. I also prefer to be a bit more quiet about my personal beliefs.”
“They say it’ll cut down on the glow from the neon of the strip club,” Tashi said, looking behind Quinn at his pictures of his family and from his time with the 3rd Batt of the 75th Regiment. A framed American flag once flying over Camp Spann in Afghanistan hung on a far wall.
“Might have to make it a hundred feet, then,” Quinn said. “That’s a lot of neon.”
* * *
* * *
“Don’t be sore, Wes,” Lillie Virgil said, driving with her right hand on the wheel of the Charger and cracking the window with her left. God, the son of a bitch smelled. “You gave it your best shot, shaving your head and all. Someone just needed to give you a road map to get off the Coast. Just think of me and Charlie here as giving you a nice nudge in the right direction.”
Marshal Charlie Hodge sat in the passenger seat as Lillie drove, Wes Taggart in back shackled to a D-ring. He hadn’t said two words since they got him rousted from the s
hower, out and dressed and processed through the local jail at dawn. She was supposed to take him on to Oxford, but due to some lost paperwork, he’d make his first appearance on the attempted murder of Boom back in Jericho.
“Air too cool for you?” Lillie asked.
Taggart said nothing.
“Charlie here has been a Marshal now for twenty-five years,” Lillie said. “Ain’t that right, Charlie?”
“Coming up on thirty,” Charlie said, staring straight ahead. He was a skinny dude of medium height, and kept a thin little mustache and goatee. His hair was snow white.
“Don’t you worry,” Lillie said. “We plan on stopping off for lunch in Starkville. They feed you a good breakfast at the lockup?”
“Sausage biscuit and some piss-poor coffee,” Taggart said, his eyes meeting Lillie’s in the rearview.
“Ain’t that a shame,” Lillie said. “We can do better in Tibbehah County. Sheriff makes a mean cup of coffee.”
Taggart’s eyes shot back up to the mirror. “Tibbehah County,” he said. “Shit. You’re really fucking me, lady. I was told I’d make my first appearance in Oxford. I’m supposed to meet my fucking attorney. He’s gotta drive all the way down from Memphis.”
“I’m sure your lawyer won’t mind the longer drive,” Lillie said. “It’s only an hour away. Hope your Syndicate folks set you up with someone good. Or did your buddies scatter like bottle flies on shit when you got on the phone?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, woman,” Taggart said, his pockmarked face working into a little snarl. “There’s no more a Syndicate or Dixie Mafia than there is a fucking Santa Claus.”
“And you didn’t even know your name was Wes Taggart, either,” Lillie said. “Can you believe that, Charlie? The man had amnesia when I found him at the Star Inn scrubbing his little ole peter.”
Charlie chuckled. He was a good guy. He’d been Lillie’s mentor since she came on with the Marshals last year, right out of Glencoe.
“I don’t want to go to Tibbehah,” Taggart said. “And y’all got no business to take me there. ’Cept the sheriff was friends with that big nigger y’all say I beat up. Which is a goddamn lie.”
“You’re a charmer, Wes,” Lillie said. “Sheriff Colson’s gonna love spending some time with you.”
“My lawyer is a big damn deal,” Taggart said, turning his head, watching the flat land along Highway 45 zip by, a sprawling cow pasture featuring a life-sized statue of Jesus with His arms wide. “A big damn deal. Y’all are wasting your time. This is all bullshit. I was on fucking vacation.”
“You always bring thirty grand with you on vacation?” Lillie said. “And two handguns and a fake ID?”
“I’ll be gone from that shithole town by morning.”
“We’ll see,” Lillie said.
“If the damn sheriff lays a hand on a single hair on my head . . .”
“Don’t worry, dipshit,” Lillie said. “You shaved it all off.”
* * *
* * *
“Your friends will say I’m too old,” Caddy said. “I’m robbing the cradle.”
“I’m twenty-nine damn years old,” Bentley said. He was a handsome young dude, with straight white teeth and lots of thick brown hair swept back from his tanned face. “Where I’m from, that’s not very young. Besides, how is it their business?”
“Momma likes you,” Caddy said, tossing a big bag of cow manure from the back of her truck to Bentley’s feet. “Momma can be hard on men I like.”
“So you like me?” Bentley said, looking up at the tailgate of the old brown GMC Caddy drove. “You’re going to go ahead and admit that right here and now? Because I’m getting tired of having to meet down in Jackson or in Memphis just to go to a movie and dinner.”
“I’m not embarrassed of you,” Caddy said, tossing another bag of cow shit toward Bentley, this time seeing the seam of the bag split open and spill on Bentley’s nice shoes. He hadn’t dressed for work, although over the last few weeks he’d been a big help at The River, sorting clothes, picking okra, and doing some basic repairs on the shacks. He was doing everything he could to show he wasn’t just some spoiled little shit from Jackson who grew up in a house with a stable bigger than an airplane hangar.
“Then why won’t you be seen with me?”
“I don’t like folks knowing my business,” Caddy said, wiping her brow with her forearm, her boots caked in mud, sweating in a tank top and cutoff jeans. “And we don’t really have a lot of culinary options here besides Mexican, Chinese, catfish, and barbecue.”
“What’s wrong with barbecue?” Bentley tossed the hair out of his eyes, an Ole Miss frat boy move Caddy usually would’ve hated. The bag of cow shit he carried made it OK.
“Barbecue here is OK,” Caddy said. “But it doesn’t get much better than Memphis. How’d you like those Cornish hens we had last time?”
“At the Cozy Corner?” Bentley said. “It was pretty awesome. And the taco place over in Germantown. The one with that old guy who yelled at me for ordering cheese dip.”
Caddy smiled, kicking the final bag off the tailgate and hopping down in the dirt of a barn that doubled as a church on Sundays. Everything at The River was about getting back to the basics of religion. No big-screen TVs. No light shows. No gossip or grandstanding. The church was founded by her love Jamey Dixon with the prime purpose of serving the Lord and the common man. It didn’t matter if you were an immigrant who didn’t speak English or a woman who’d made money selling her body. This place was about acceptance, love, and finding a purpose. The River had saved her life. And now it had expanded, with a big new building funded with money from Bentley’s family foundation.
“There’s this event in Jackson,” Bentley said.
“Stop you right there, kid,” Caddy said, walking up on Bentley, running a hand over her close-cropped towhead and smiling. “I don’t do fund-raisers, mixers, glad-handing, or cocktail events.”
“You should make this one,” he said. “Don’t you want to grow this place? These are the very people who contributed to the food pantry here.”
“Do you remember when we first met?” Caddy said, placing the flat of her dirty hand on Bentley’s white Polo shirt, smiling when she saw it left a mark. “And not when you claimed you saw me riding with my daddy. You didn’t know Daddy until he’d left our family and I’d have had no more to do with him than the man in the moon.”
“You’re talking about on the Square.”
“Yes.”
“I walked up to you and told you you had a nice figure.”
“And what did I say?”
“You told me to go to hell.”
“After that.”
“You said I had a nice figure, too,” he said. “And a cute ass.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t slap it when you walked away,” she said.
“You handed me a bill for The River,” he said. “Old-time gospel show. You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”
Caddy nodded, slamming shut her tailgate. The inside of the old barn pleasant, cool and dark. The dirt floor worn as smooth and soft as talcum powder. The pews and folding chairs neatly stacked up by the pulpit, a simple handmade cross hanging from the rafters.
“Glad I showed up.”
“I know who you are and what you do, Bentley Vandeven,” Caddy said. “And I sincerely appreciate all the donations your foundation has given. We need every penny. But we stand on our two feet here at The River, and as long as you keep me and your high-dollar friends in Jackson separate, I think we’ll continue to have a fine time.”
Bentley had his hands on his hips, his face breaking a little as he looked down at the stack of fertilizer and manure she’d loaded up in the tractor to take down to the garden. He seemed to think on things for a moment before lifting his eyes and smiling. “You don’t have to d
ress up,” Bentley said. “You don’t even have to be nice.”
Caddy didn’t answer.
“My mother is the one throwing the party,” he said. “She wants to meet you. She thinks the world of your father. She said he’s the best horseman she’s ever seen in her life.”
“My father is a charmer,” Caddy said.
“Your father looked out for me when I needed him,” Bentley said. “He taught me to ride, care for horses, and be a man. We used to watch those old movies he was in at his trailer in Pocahontas. If you stopped those VHS tapes at the right moment, you could see it was Jason Colson and not Burt Reynolds. He helped raise me.”
“Funny how that works,” Caddy said, the sunlight bright and glowing at the barn door. Everything else around them in darkness, smelling of hot old wood and leather tack. “I never really thought Jason Colson had it in him.”
“Will you think about it?”
“Will you help me transport this cow shit?”
Bentley bent down and rolled up his khakis to his knees. “You got some work boots around here to fit me?”
“Can’t have a man laboring in loafers,” Caddy said. “Let me see what I can find.”
* * *
* * *
“I brought you a little present,” Lillie Virgil said. “An endangered shitbird from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.”
“What about your people in Oxford?” Quinn asked, picking up the cigar he’d neglected during Tashi Coleman’s visit. He tipped the ash and relit the end. Lillie never really seemed to give a damn whether he smoked or not, understanding a little caffeine and nicotine was needed on the job.
“Fuck ’em,” Lillie said. “His paperwork got lost. The original charges were filed in Tibbehah. And that’s where he’ll make his first appearance. They want this turd to answer to federal charges, you can FedEx his sorry ass up their way.”
“As long as it doesn’t get you in trouble.”