I touched the side of my face and felt the raised welts where her nails had gotten me. It was just another bit of pain left by that day. “Yes.”
“Forgive me, Hurricane, but you’re not known for your restraint. Don’t you have a history of violence in performance of your duties?”
“I’ve never been officially reprimanded for excessive use of force. I’ve never been officially suspended or investigated by the Sheriff’s Department or in my previous capacity as a military police officer in the US Army.”
Riley held his gaze on me, waiting for more. When I said nothing he asked, “Weren’t you required by Charles Benson, when he was sheriff, to attend therapy as a condition of keeping your job?”
“You know I was.”
“Has the current sheriff, Bill Blevins, removed that requirement?”
“Bill?”
“Is something wrong?”
“You called him Bill. I’ve never heard anyone call him anything other than Billy.”
“Sheriff Blevins has asked local media to use ‘Bill’ when referring to him.”
“When?” The news made my head spin. It was a small thing, but there seemed to be a lot of them piling up. How much had I missed or ignored? Had I ever really known Billy at all? “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Katrina, you know I have to ask you about your relationship with Billy.”
“You know as much about it as anyone.”
“Can you describe it? Make a statement. Officially?”
“No.”
“There seems to be a lot of turmoil in the Taney County Sheriff’s Department since Bill Blevins took office. Do you have anything to say about that?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Billy’s doing a great job.”
“Do you think your romantic involvement with the sheriff has caused a problem for you or for the department?”
The question had a weight I didn’t expect. It hung on me like a new layer of concrete skin. “There isn’t a romantic relationship,” I admitted. “Not since before the election. I don’t think I realized that until now.”
Riley frowned and looked down at his recorder. He was a good man and a friend. I wasn’t afraid he would use that in his reporting. “What about the personal aspects of your investigation into the murder of Rose Sharon?”
“Personal aspects?”
“It’s being reported that you might be compromised by your relationship with the sheriff and his relationship with the victim.”
“Compromised?” I heard my question and realized that I was just repeating words—echoing—I felt vacant from my own life. “I don’t know anything about their relationship. If there is a relationship.”
“Sissy Fisher claims to have photos of them. She also claims, and it’s been confirmed by the music publisher, that Sheriff Blevins shares writing credit on the song ‘You Took What Wasn’t Yours.’” Riley took a breath. He leaned forward.
For a moment I thought he was going to reach for my hand.
Hesitation was written in his body language. He took another breath and said, “Sissy says the song is about her young daughter losing her virginity to Sheriff Blevins.”
It didn’t matter how much care Riley took in saying it. And it didn’t matter at all that I had thought the same thing. The statement was a physical blow that I felt in my stomach. “I don’t believe that,” I said. Then I wondered if I was lying or if Riley could tell.
Uncle Orson burst through the door holding tongs in one gloved hand and a plate of steaming rib eyes in the other. “I had some thin-cut steaks,” he announced. “They didn’t take long.”
“I should go.” Riley hit the button on his recorder.
“No,” I said. “Stay and have a hot meal.”
“Are you sure?”
I gave that question a lot of thought. I gave it a little more as I drained my strawberry soda. Suddenly the pain and fatigue of the day, the biting cold that sucked the energy out of my body, and the darkness all seemed like the dirt of my grave closing in. I needed life around me. “I’m sure,” I said. “But I want another soda. This time I get the orange.” I smiled and tried to feel the expression. My face seemed like something a million miles away controlled by remote, a drone mask.
Later, when Riley had gone, I was alone with Uncle Orson. I say alone, but the bait shop was also a liquor store. Fishermen like to drink. I felt the presence of each bottle on the shelves like judges who knew my crimes. Taking a drink would be confessing. Confession is always a temptation.
“Why are you still a cop?” Orson asked.
“What else would I be?”
“Why be anything?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He settled deeper into the bench behind the cleared table. Orson had a beer. “You have all the money a person could want.” He used the open bottle to point over at the calendar hanging on the far wall. It was years old and open to the wrong month. The image was signed by my dead husband, Nelson Solomon, who had painted the scene of golden light on a green river valley. “Your hands could be full just handling the estate and licensing of Nelson’s art.”
I could smell the beer. It was like the cologne of a lost lover you experience by accident. It hurt and drew me at the same time. “Why are you talking about this now?”
“Because I can see how you’re looking at my beer.”
I jerked my gaze from the bottle to his face. His eyes were as serious as pointed guns. “I’m not drinking.” Even I heard the weakness in my argument.
“Could you say that if I wasn’t here?”
“What do you want me to say?”
He tilted his head as if the gesture were both an answer and a question, then took a drink. After wiping his lips with the back of his hand Uncle Orson asked, “What are you going to do about Billy?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I’m not asking the plans of Detective Hurricane Williams.” He let that sit a moment. When I didn’t say anything, he pushed his half-full beer across the table at me. “I’m asking what Katrina, my brother’s daughter, the girl I helped raise, the woman who went to war, is going to do about the man she loves.”
“Who says I love him?” I looked at the bottle, not my uncle.
“Lies come in a lot of shapes.”
“You sound like my therapist.”
“She’s done you some good.”
“I know.” We sat in silence for a long while. He looked at me. I stared at the open beer. Finally, I pushed the bottle away and looked up. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know if I have any business doing anything. I just don’t…know.”
“Stop,” he said.
“Stop what?”
“Everything. Stop.”
“I don’t—”
“Stop talking. Stop thinking. Stop fighting and drinking and running.”
“Who’s running?”
“Ask yourself why you jumped on that.” He took the bottle back and drained it. When he set it down he did it hard, making the glass thump on the wood table. “Just like that. Everything in your life changed in Iraq. The army didn’t treat you right because it had its own problems, so you fought. Then—” He thumped the bottle down again. “Your life changed again.” Another thump. “And again.” Thump. “And again.” He pointed his bearded chin at me. “At some point you gotta ask yourself if you’re running from the fights or to them.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Nothing’s fair. It just is.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Katrina. There have been two serious men in your life. Nelson Solomon and Billy Blevins. Nelson was a tough man by any measure. But you married him when you both knew there was no future.”
“In spite of his illness.”
&nbs
p; “If you believe that—have a beer. Or a whiskey. Or any other lie you want to drink.”
“Stop.”
“It was easy to marry a dying man. It was a fight and a chance to run all wrapped up in one, wasn’t it?”
“What’s this all about? Why are you butting in? And what makes you think you know anything about me and Billy?”
“Because it’s all about you and nothing about him. He made it clear how he feels. It’s obvious to everyone but you how you feel. But Billy just isn’t the level of turmoil you need, is he?”
“Look around. There were reporters outside. Riley wasn’t here for your overcooked steaks. I’m dealing with nothing but turmoil. And all because of Billy. And there’s no reason for any of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Know what?”
“That there is no reason. Seems to me that’s more your signature.”
You can search a graveyard at night, going from marker to marker by flashlight. When the sun comes out you realize you never even knew the name you were looking for. Uncle Orson’s comment was sunlight on my confusion. Billy was never as much a mess as everything seemed the last couple of days. I was busy being hurt and worried about how it affected me rather than looking for his reason.
“I’m going home,” I said.
“You can sleep here.” Uncle Orson could always be counted on to put the hard truth aside and make an easy place to land after he said his piece. His rough edges were burnished by life’s grind, leaving the core of heartwood and kindness behind.
I, on the other hand…
He lifted the empty beer bottle and reached beyond the end of the bench to drop it in the recycle bin. The clatter was jarring to me but he smiled at the sound. “I have all the soda a girl could want.”
He sounded the same as he had when I was a little girl sitting in the same spot. Soda is no longer the all-purpose answer it was back then. I smiled anyway. “Thanks.” I stood, then stepped away. “For everything.”
“You’re not staying?”
“I need a hot shower and my own bed. I’m going to be up early.”
“You want to be alone.” He didn’t frame it as a question.
“No.” As soon as I said it, the small word seemed like a big confession. “I think I need to be right now.”
He nodded without saying anything.
I appreciated the lack of argument. Still, I didn’t go for the door right away. “I’ll take an orange soda for the road.”
He pulled the frosted bottle from the cooler. “You want it opened?”
I shook my head. “Thank you, Uncle Orson.” I thought both of us knew the thanks were not for the bottle of soda. I hoped.
Chapter 9
I arrived home to a cold and dark house. I woke in the morning to the same. The sun was rising to little effect. A thick grime of clouds diffused the light into a depressing gray shadow. It was a day born in sorrow.
The night before, my thoughts were muddled. They got squeezed and twisted by passing through the bottleneck of my own concerns. Sleep helped. Things seem to sort themselves out when I stop pulling on the ends.
My assumptions about what was going on had been jumping on the obvious. Rose was dead and Billy went directly to arrest Donny without evidence or investigation. It had to be because Billy knew the boy was the killer. Unless it wasn’t.
The thought I had woken up with was: Billy was protecting Donny. Billy either wanted Donny in jail to keep him safe, or Billy simply wanted to make the kid the conspicuous suspect. It didn’t matter which. The real question was, who was Billy trying to fool?
Levi Sharon.
I had the feeling that, for whatever reason, Billy knew Levi would target Donny.
Why?
I believed that Levi didn’t want to kill Billy. Or me, for that matter. He wanted to stop anyone who was in his way.
So where was Billy now—chasing Levi, or Rose’s killer? The last thing he had said to me was to find Levi and to start with E. Lawson. So that’s what I was going to do.
I didn’t walk so much as shamble out to my truck. The morning half-light made the pain in my body feel deeper in my muscle and bone. There was one bright spot in my thinking. The supposition that Levi didn’t want to kill Billy meant that Rose’s brother didn’t believe Billy had been the man who took what wasn’t his.
I didn’t know where to find Lawson but I knew where to start. My first stop was the Taneycomo Café.
Because of the kind of man E. Lawson was, an Ozarks loner, I had a lot of sources to call on. Few of them would be up and around this early in the morning. But our jailer started his shift at 6:30 and he liked a good breakfast.
Duck was right where I expected him to be. “Hurricane!” He greeted me with a raised cup of coffee when I walked in the café door. A few of the other regulars raised their hands or nodded. Most of them wouldn’t use my nickname to my face.
“I need to hit you with a couple of questions, Duck.” I settled into the seat opposite him without being asked.
“Can’t you ever just come say good morning?”
The waitress came and laid down a plate of pancakes, another of eggs and bacon, and a bowl of grits.
“No, I get a heart attack just watching you eat.” To the waitress I said, “Toast and coffee, please.”
“See?” Duck pointed at me, this time with a fork. “That’s why you’re so skinny.”
“Only you think I’m skinny.”
“A woman should have a little meat on her.”
“Do you mind not discussing my—anything?”
“You brought it up.” He slathered syrup onto his pancakes.
“No. I didn’t. But I wanted to bring something else up. Do you know a man, goes by E. Lawson?”
Duck put down the syrup and raised a fat finger to his lips. “Don’t.” The waitress arrived and placed my coffee and toast in front of me. Duck shoved a huge wedge of carbs and dripping sugar into his mouth.
I buttered my toast and waited for him.
“See that guy over there?” Duck indicated which man with his eyes. “He works for Lawson. They’re a rough bunch.”
The man seated at the far end of the counter looked like anyone else in the café, a workman or a farmer.
“How come I never heard of Lawson until recently?” I kept my voice low then took a bite.
“There is still a lot of the old Ozarks out there in the hills and behind the trees,” Duck said. “They hold grudges and they don’t call the cops. If you’re not in you’re out. Know what I mean?”
I did know. It was a lesson that I kept learning. “What can you tell me?”
“There are at least three unmarked graves in this county that he dug and filled.”
“He wasn’t convicted?”
“He wasn’t investigated. The dead men were never reported by anyone.”
“But everyone knows.”
“Everyone who matters.” He gulped down some eggs and then some coffee.
I chewed a bit of toast then asked, “So he’s the king of some kind of redneck mafia. Why? Is there enough money in poaching trees and rustling cattle to make it worthwhile?”
“Ask your bartender.”
“Clare? He told me about the man. Clare introduced me to Lawson.”
“Yep. I’d bet he didn’t tell you everything.”
“Like what?”
“Whether you know it or not, a piece of the action at Moonshines is going to E. Lawson.”
“Extortion?”
“Old-school, pay-us-so-nothing-bad-happens kind of stuff.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“Ask him.”
“Clare wouldn’t betray me like that.”
“Betray? He’s protecting you.”
“I’m a cop. I don’t
pay extortion.”
“That’s why he would. You never know. You’re never involved. But no mysterious fires.”
“Who else pays?”
“Not the big corporations. You can’t muscle teams of lawyers and the cash for private security. Everyone else…” Duck wiped his mouth with a wadded napkin and shrugged. His plates were clean. He started digging into the bowl of grits.
“Where can I find him?”
“He likes wives.”
“Wives?”
“Other men’s wives.”
That reminded me of something Lawson had said about being with a pretty nurse the night before Rose Sharon was killed. He had all but dared me to check his alibi. I hadn’t because he had pointed me at Levi and Billy.
“When he’s not with someone else’s wife, where would I find Lawson?”
* * * *
When I bought the big GMC 2500 I felt a little silly. It was a work vehicle with a luxury interior. That morning, as I put it into four-wheel drive and powered through muddy snow on a barely visible path, I was grateful for my truck.
The trail wound through a break in barbed wire fencing and up a long, wooded hill. It ended in a clearing that was bare only of trees. The ground was strewn with piles of wood and even deeper hillocks of sawdust. Everywhere there were rusting hulks of heavy equipment. In places the snow was stained red with the oxidation of machines that looked like beasts slaughtered and left to rot.
In the center of it all was a long, low shack bellowing noise and smoke.
The sounds of the sawmill dropped away to a hollow silence as I approached. The high-hang roller door at the end of the shack was wide open. Even though the sun was up, the lights inside were on. Four dim bulbs looked like trapped stars in the gloom.
“E. Lawson!” I shouted.
“What do you want?” was the instant response.
“I want to talk.”
Lawson stepped from the shadows into the day’s frail light. He was not wearing a shirt. His sweating body was shedding smoky wisps of vapor. He had a club of crooked wood that looked to have seen some use slung over his shoulder. “No one’s stopping you.”
“Tell me about the woman.”
His one good eye narrowed. The milky one seemed to get brighter. “What woman?”
A Killing Secret Page 9