The Killing Hills

by Chris Offutt

  “You know that rig?” she said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s that damn Murvil Knox.”

  “The big coal operator?” he said. “He thinks so much of his own hide, he’d gut himself to keep it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “He hates me.”

  “I hate his car. A Lexus is nothing but a Toyota whose shit don’t stink.”

  They were still laughing when they entered the office and found Knox sitting at Linda’s desk, pecking out a text on a cell phone. He wore the standard outfit of a politician attempting to present himself as a man of the people at a VFW fish fry. Beside him stood a young stranger in stiff new khakis with zippered pockets on the legs, tactical boots suitable for a city, and a dark sportscoat. Strapped to a skinny belt was a holstered Glock and two spare clips. Johnny Boy took a half step back, glad he wasn’t the sheriff.

  “My office, Mr. Knox,” Linda said. “My desk.”

  Without shifting focus from the tiny screen of his phone, Knox lifted a finger in the universal sign of “wait.” He pressed SEND, stood, and extended his hand to Linda, a wide smile spanning his face as if stapled to his head. He ignored Johnny Boy.

  “Good to see you again, Sheriff,” he said.

  She nodded, shaking his hand. Long accustomed to the ways of men, she maintained a daily regimen of exercises to strengthen her grip. Sure enough, Knox immediately began pressuring her hand to demonstrate his manliness. Linda squeezed back, feeling the strain in the corded muscles of her forearm. He relaxed his grip like a dog rolling over to expose his belly and she knew he’d resent it forever.

  “Mr. Knox,” she said. “Do you have a crime to report?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, emitting a short fake laugh. “I wanted to personally introduce your new man. Special Agent Wilson from the FBI will be assisting your homicide investigation.”

  “I don’t believe I asked for assistance.”

  “It’s a favor to the county,” he said.

  “I’m comfortable with my deputy.”

  “Accepting Wilson will be doing me a favor.”

  “I’m not a politician, Mr. Knox. I don’t engage in logrolling.”

  “I heard you were smart,” he said. “Still, you have an election coming up and a few friends can’t hurt.”

  “Friends like Wilson?”

  “Friends like me,” he said.

  Linda waited, knowing Knox would fill the silence. On average, men tended to interrupt a woman after eight seconds. If a woman didn’t talk, most men couldn’t last four seconds, according to social scientists with government funding and a stopwatch.

  “Being independent,” Knox said, “is good. It’s necessary in law enforcement. I understand that. You need to bear in mind we have the same goal. Making the county safe for law-abiding citizens.”

  “What are Mr. Wilson’s qualifications?”

  “Military service. Top of his class at the FBI academy. Six months’ experience at the Pentagon. And he’s from the area.”

  “I don’t have an available desk or vehicle.”

  “That kind of budgetary concern is one of those things a friend like me can help you with in the future. He doesn’t need a desk, right Wilson?”

  “No, sir,” Wilson said. “A table shoved in a corner is fine. I worked out of a broom closet in DC.”

  “He’s flexible,” Knox said.

  “We don’t have a broom closet,” Linda said. “But I see your point. Was there a lot of murder at the Pentagon?”

  “No, ma’am,” Wilson said.

  “This will be his first,” Knox said. “Every man has to start somewhere. And every woman, too. If she’s up to it.”

  He gave her a pointed stare and left the office with the air of a busy man, a mover and shaker, a man so high-collared he couldn’t see the sun except at noon. Linda listened to the front door opening and closing. His self-important steps continued across the parking lot.

  Wilson appeared to be age twenty, but had to be older if Knox was telling the truth. Men like him lied like a dog with no legs. She deployed the deep breathing techniques intended to calm her with little effect. She circled her desk, and stared at Wilson, hoping if she was silent long enough he’d leave.

  “Where you from?” Johnny Boy said.

  “Haldeman County,” Wilson said.

  “I played football against you all in high school. Leopards, right?”

  “No, I went to Breck.”

  Johnny Boy glanced at Linda, his face abruptly closed over like a holler clogged by grapevines. She tipped her head toward the door and Johnny Boy quickly left.

  “Just so you know,” Wilson said. “I didn’t ask for this assignment.”

  “What’s Knox got to do with it?”

  “A local contact, I was told.”

  “Are you reporting to him?”

  His tense silence meant yes, as did the slow flush that tinted his neck and rose along his face. She was reminded of dyed chicks sold by the dime store at Easter. They all died by the end of the month, poisoned by the dye.

  “You’re my first FBI agent,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Your incident report.”

  She opened a filing cabinet and removed a file. He took it as if handling a rare egg.

  “When you’re done,” she said, “bring it back to me.”

  “Where should I read it?”

  “Up to you, but don’t leave the station or make copies. I’d avoid my deputy’s desk. He seems to have taken a disliking to you. Why is that?”

  “My high school didn’t have a football team. Too small.”

  She nodded, thinking that men never got over their childish obsession with sports. The town of Rocksalt had gray-headed men who met at a liquor store to drink beer and trade on the glory of their high school exploits. Every time a customer entered they turned their heads in tandem, hoping it was someone who’d remember them.

  Chapter Nine

  The morning sun hauled itself up the hill and across the ridge, triggering the birds to begin their territorial calls. For the first time in a week, Mick had no headache, nausea, or fatigue in his limbs. He rolled over to sleep more, but once awake, he remained that way, his consciousness engaged. He thought of Peggy and tried to force her from his mind by stepping outside and cleaning mud from his boots with a knife. He thought of the sticks he’d used as a child to scrape dirt from his high top Converse shoes. In thirty years, all he’d gained was better footwear and a more efficient tool to clean them.

  He got dressed, and drove off the ridge. At the blacktop he headed west. Nonnie Johnson had lived with her sister-in-law up a holler that followed a creek and became narrower the farther he drove. An oak bridge crossed the water, the timbers gray from weather. Beyond it the road ended at a well-kept grassy yard. He parked beside two cars and a late-model Ford F-150 four-by-four. A barking dog ran from the house, notifying the occupants of an intruder and warning Mick to stay in the truck. He rolled his window down and waited.

  The screen door opened and a man came out carrying a .38 pistol with a long barrel, the gun pointed down at a slight angle. A quick snap of the wrist would bring it level with Mick.

  “Real sorry to hear what happened,” Mick said. “I’m Jimmy Hardin’s boy, Mick.”

  The man lowered the pistol a little more and walked to the truck, his fierce gaze never leaving Mick’s face.

  “Never seen you up this holler before,” the man said.

  “I been away. Army.”

  “Iraq?”

  Mick nodded.

  “Is the desert hot as they say it is?”

  “Yeah,” Mick said. “About like being in hell with your back broke.”

  “You out now?”

  “On leave. My sister asked me to come up here. She’s the sheriff.”

  “What does she want?”

  “Well,” Mick said. “In a case like this, somebody has to talk to the family.”

  “We done did.”

&nb
sp; “Damn Staties got my sister running around. If you’uns don’t talk to me, they’ll get a warrant for you to come to the station in town.”

  The man spat a dollop of chew in the dirt. A bottle fly swooped down as if waiting for a snack. Disheartened by the tobacco, it departed. Mick opened the truck door.

  “I’m not armed,” Mick said. “You don’t need that pistol.”

  “It ain’t for you,” the man said. “Whoever killed Nonnie might come back around.”

  “Shows good sense.”

  Now that he was out of the truck, gaining control of the pistol would take two seconds tops.

  “Was Nonnie your aunt?” Mick said gently.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Just a guess. Do you think I could talk to your mom a minute?”

  The man held the gun to his side casually as if carrying a duffel bag and gestured with his head toward the house. Mick climbed the steps. They were new, painted gray. The screen door was new, too. Someone was looking after the place.

  The front room held an old couch with broad flat arms, the brocade worn to a nub, three chairs, and a TV set. A picture of a blue-eyed, blond-haired Jesus hung on the wall by itself. On another wall was a display of family—school pictures of kids and a few black-and-white photographs of serious people in their finest clothes. A narrow set of steps went upstairs. The man walked down the hall toward a back room where Mick could hear low voices.

  A woman emerged from the kitchen. She was in her forties, heavy-set, wearing a loose dress and slippers, her long hair pulled back in a clasp.

  “Are you hungry?” she said. “Them boys ate me out of eggs but there’s a biscuit if you’ve a mind.”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Johnson,” Mick said.

  “Just call me Lee Ann,” she said. “You say you’re a Hardin?”

  Mick nodded.

  “I know your people.” She nodded in confirmation of the quality of Mick’s family. “Set down a minute.”

  Each chair was worn in a specific fashion with dents on the headrests at varying heights. He sat on the couch, figuring it was for guests. Lee Ann brought him a cup of coffee.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

  “She’s with Jesus now.”

  Mick blew on the steaming coffee, knowing he’d scald his tongue if he drank. The voices in the back rose again, strident as salesmen.

  “I’m wondering if you could tell me anything,” Mick said. “Maybe something you’d not want a stranger to know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like who might be mad at Nonnie. Trouble her boy had with somebody, or maybe your own boys.”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “What about at work?” Mick said.

  “She was a cashier at the Dollar General. They ain’t much to get into there.”

  “Maybe a problem with the boss or somebody she worked with.”

  “No, everybody liked her. She talked to all and sundry.”

  “Was Nonnie mixed up with somebody? I mean, did she have a gentleman caller or anything like that?”

  The woman tugged at her sleeve, tapped on her chair arm, and stared at the floor.

  “No,” she said in a firm voice. “Nobody.”

  The voices in the back rose again, overlapping as if in argument or to make a point. Mick sipped the coffee, breathing through his mouth to cool it. The woman shifted her vision from him to the picture of Jesus, and Mick figured she’d had years of practice at silence.

  The door opened at the end of the hall, releasing the end of a conversation.

  “Ain’t got no choice,” a man said.

  “Nobody else but you for it,” said another.

  The door closed and three men in their late twenties came into the room, two of them identical twins. Mick stood and nodded.

  “I’m Mick,” he said.

  “I’m Wade,” the older one said. “These are my brothers, Noel and Joel.”

  “I done met one,” Mick said, grinning. “Ain’t for sure which.”

  “I couldn’t tell them apart till they were five years old,” Wade said.

  “I could,” Lee Ann said. “Joel’s cowlick is about a half inch over from where Noel’s is at.”

  “You always say that, Mommy,” one of the twins said.

  Mick nodded and drank from the coffee cup.

  “If it’s all right with you,” he said, “can I talk to Nonnie’s boy?”

  “Frankie’s pretty tore up,” Wade said. “Won’t hardly leave the bed.”

  “Don’t blame him,” Mick said. “Seems normal enough.”

  “Naw,” one of the twins said, “he was already low. Been down for a couple of years.”

  “That why he was living here?” Mick said.

  The brothers glanced at each other, frowning. Wade took a step forward, his voice hardening.

  “Someone say something on Frankie?” he said.

  “No,” Mick said. “It’s in my family. My uncle called it the ‘can’t-help-its.’ Sometimes he didn’t do nothing for months. Wouldn’t leave the house. Wouldn’t wash or eat.”

  “Losing his mom chopped Frankie down like a weed,” Wade said.

  “I’d still like to talk to him.”

  Mick looked at each man briefly, then settled on the woman. The final word would come from her.

  “Might do him good,” Mick said.

  “Well,” she said, “it sure can’t hurt.”

  Wade stepped aside and Mick walked down the hall, hearing the brothers follow. He tapped on the door and went in. The room was small with an old-time standing wardrobe instead of a closet. On the bed lay a young man curled like a child, hiding his face. He wore longjohn drawers and a T-shirt. A quilt covered his feet.

  “Frankie,” Wade said. “Man here wants to see you. Mommy said it was all right.”

  Frankie didn’t move or speak. Curtains covered one window except for a vertical slit that let in a slice of light. A cardinal called outside, cheerful as ever.

  “Frankie,” Mick said. “I’m trying to find out what happened with your mom.”

  “Go away,” Frankie said.

  “I want to help.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Frankie yanked the quilt over his head. Mick left the room, thanked Lee Ann, nodded to each man, and left. Outside, Wade stood beside the truck.

  “He ever take medicine?” Mick said.

  “That stuff costs an arm and a leg.”

  “What about talking to somebody? Some kind of counselor maybe.”

  “He won’t leave the bed to eat, let alone go to town. And them people, they don’t make house calls.”

  “Does anybody anymore?”

  “You do,” Wade said.

  Mick settled his gaze on Wade, opening himself to full interrogation mode, his vigilance like a net to capture any nuance.

  “Do you know who might have hurt your aunt?”

  Wade glanced around the yard nervously, then at the house.

  “Well,” he said, “it wasn’t one of us.”

  “Somebody else then?”

  “I don’t know why you’d think I’d know that.”

  Mick nodded. Wade hadn’t answered the question. That and his avoidance of eye contact communicated plenty. Lee Ann had done the same when he asked about a man in Nonnie’s life.

  “All right,” Mick said. “I know it’s tough on you’uns. See ya.”

  He drove out of the holler and toward town. The family’s lies meant one thing—they knew who the killer was and wanted their own retribution. At the outskirts he stopped and took his phone from the glove box. There were three missed calls from his Commanding Officer in Germany, the last one included a voice mail. He ignored it, preferring not to hear Colonel Whitaker’s flat reminder that Mick had overstayed his emergency family leave. He called his sister.

  “It’s me,” he said. “I need to brief you. I ain’t coming to your office.”

  “How about the jail?�
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  “Not my favorite place.”

  “You might want to this time,” Linda said. “We got a man locked up for killing Nonnie.”

  “Did you charge him?”

  “Yes and no. He’s charged, but it wasn’t us. The FBI brought him in. Something ain’t right with this whole deal.”

  “All right. Give me a few minutes to eat.”

  “Half hour,” Linda said and hung up.

  He drove to a gas station with a sign that said CORN DOGS ON WEDNESDAY. Mick ate a can of Vienna sausages with saltines, the snack he’d missed the most overseas, and drank a bottle of Ale-8. It was Kentucky’s only native soft-drink, entering the market after Coke, Pepsi, and Dr Pepper. The company’s tardiness begat the name, A Late One, abbreviated to Ale-8-One. He bought a second bottle and a Twinkie, then drove to the jail.

  Chapter Ten

  The jail was closed, the stone walls bleaker than usual in the empty lot. Mick called Linda who informed him of the new jail’s location where a tobacco warehouse had been. He arrived before she did. A Mercury entered the lot, a discontinued model, cheap in the hills because parts were scarce. It lacked a bumper. An older couple left the car, the woman carrying a sack, the man on a handmade cane. They walked past Mick with their heads down, ashamed of being seen visiting family.

  Linda’s SUV parked and she joined him. She looked sharp in her uniform and he wondered if she had several, or if she ironed the same one every night.

  “What’d they need a new jail for?” he said.

  “Drugs, mostly. Meth and Oxy. Heroin lately.”

  “Heroin?”

  “Yeah. It’s coming in from Detroit.”

  “When did this place open?” he said.

  “Couple months ago. We had all the Frankfort politicians here for the ribbon cutting. They said it was the nicest jail ever built.”

  “Old one overcrowded?”

  “Oh, yeah. Cells were doubled up most of the time. Weekends there’d be four men to a pod. Not enough room to swing a cat.”

  “Then why shut it down? Looks like they’d use it for drunks.”

  “Money,” Linda said.

  “Cost too much to run it?”

  “No, they sold it for three million dollars. The college is going to open a branch here.”