by Wiley Cash
Bellamy stood from the desk and put his hands in his pockets. He walked toward Winston’s door, and then he turned and faced him.
“That’s what it feels like to be a Black man in America, Winston. I’ve been on my belly for years, looking up from the ground, getting stepped on while I keep on crawling forward. The only difference between then and now is that I don’t have that one shot to look forward to.”
Winston was uncertain of what to say, of what he could say. He stepped back behind his desk and set his hands on the back of his chair, thoughts careening through his head. “Ed,” he finally said. “I need to tell you that I’m not going to win this reelection. I know that.”
“I know that too,” Bellamy said. “And I need to tell you there’s still time for you to do the right thing.”
“And what’s that, Ed? I’m working to get to the bottom of what happened to Rodney. Aside from that, what can I do? Go after Bradley Frye? That’s not going to make anything easier on anybody, especially you.”
“You can get on your belly,” Bellamy said. “Crawl through the jungle with me. I can do the firing, but I might need a spotter, and I might need some cover.”
“I’m the sheriff, Ed, at least for now. I’ve got to follow the law.”
The two men stood looking at one another for a moment, and then Bellamy put his hand on the knob and opened the office door. He paused before stepping through it.
“And I’ve got to protect myself, and that means I might have to go hunting, because I sure as hell am not going to allow myself to be hunted. Not anymore.”
For the first time in the nearly twenty years they’d spent working together, Vickie left at 5:00 p.m. sharp without saying goodbye. Winston expected it, so he wasn’t surprised, but it still troubled him. The whole afternoon—even the news of the bust down in South Carolina—had troubled him. Not long after she left, Winston locked up the office and climbed into the cruiser and headed back out to the airport. The light would be gone soon, and he was curious to know what Groom had been able to get done.
Once he’d arrived at the airport and trudged across the expanse of grassy field, he saw that the aircraft’s tail had been jacked up and the broken landing gear removed. Agent Rountree stood by the plane, talking with one of Winston’s deputies and a couple of mechanics that Winston didn’t know. Glenn stood back, watching the scene. Groom was nowhere to be found. Glenn looked back at Winston and nodded at him as he approached.
“Looks like things are moving along,” Winston said.
“I’d say so,” Glenn said.
“I thought you weren’t on airplane duty until after midnight,” Winston said.
“I’m not,” Glenn said. “I just wanted to watch them jack this thing up. I’ll be back out here at two a.m.”
Winston sighed. “Deputy Englehart isn’t going to be working with us anymore,” he said.
Glenn’s eyes fell from the plane to the ground in front of him. He shook his head. “Does this have anything to do with what happened out at the Grove last night?”
“It does,” Winston said. He sighed again. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Glenn.”
Glenn looked at him, and then he looked back at the ground. “I wish I could tell you I got a good feeling,” he said. “But I don’t.”
“Well, I’m on call tonight if you need anything,” Winston said. “And tomorrow I’m going to take Englehart’s spot out here on the runway. Hopefully we can get this plane out of here soon.”
While Winston and Glenn stood talking, Agent Rountree wandered over.
“Your pilot seems to know what he’s doing,” Rountree said.
“He’s not my pilot,” Winston said, but Rountree ignored him.
“Said the aircraft is okay to fly. He plans on taking off day after tomorrow and setting her down in Wilmington. There’s a hangar waiting for it. We’ll take it from there.”
“It looks like you’ve already taken it,” Winston said.
“Yep,” Rountree said. “I reckon so.”
“Did you manage to find any prints?” Winston asked.
“We’re on top of things, Sheriff,” Rountree said. “Don’t you worry.”
“Did you hear about that bust outside Myrtle Beach?” Winston asked. “Rollins and I were thinking it might be related. Sheriff down there thinks it might be too.”
“We’re on top of things,” Rountree said again.
Rountree walked past them and climbed into his car. Winston heard the engine start. He turned and watched Rountree back up and drive toward the parking lot.
Glenn broke the silence. “It’ll be nice to have that airplane out of here, Sheriff,” he said. “Regardless of where it goes next or what happens to it.”
“We’ve still got a murder on our hands,” Winston said. “I wish they cared half as much about that as they do about this damned plane or whatever was in it.”
“I know,” Glenn said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Winston didn’t respond. “Where’s Groom at?” he finally said.
Glenn looked over at Winston. “Marie came by here looking for you an hour or so ago. She’d been out picking up more campaign posters.”
“Really?” Winston asked.
“I told her you were at the office. Groom asked her if he could catch a ride back to y’all’s house.” Glenn looked at Winston a moment longer as if trying to predict how he’d respond, and Winston didn’t know quite what to make of it: neither Glenn’s look nor the news he’d just shared.
“How’s she doing?” Glenn asked.
“Pretty good, apparently.”
“That’s great,” Glenn said. “Me and Elsie have been praying for her.”
“I appreciate it,” Winston said, looking away from Glenn’s face and doing his best to conceal the warmth that crept up his neck and onto his cheeks. “Marie appreciates it too.”
Winston’s friend David Worley’s white Ford truck sat behind Marie’s Buick in the driveway so Winston parked on the road in front of the house. worley’s self-storage and equipment rental and the business’s phone number were lettered on the truck’s tailgate and both doors.
Inside, Winston found Marie, Groom, and David’s wife, Dianne, standing around in the kitchen. Dianne’s glasses were pushed up on her head and her purse was still slung over her shoulder as if she’d just arrived or was just about to leave.
“Dianne, I thought you’d be David,” Winston said.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Dianne said. “I’ve got the truck for a few days. David took the car up to Asheville to see about his mother. She’s not doing well.”
“I hope everything’s okay,” Winston said.
“She’s just getting older,” Dianne said. She sighed. “We all are, I guess.”
When Dianne said that, Winston happened to notice the campaign posters that were lying on the counter beside her: the face of his younger self stared back at him with a stoic smile that was designed to evince calm and protection. Winston wondered whether or not he could feign that smile now.
“I had to go get more from the printer,” Marie said. “Colleen and I ran out today. I called the office, but I couldn’t get ahold of you, so I just went ahead and had them printed.”
“Where’s Colleen at?” Winston asked.
“Off somewhere with Danny Price,” Marie said.
“I was hoping we could all go out,” Winston said. “Take Agent Groom here for some shrimp and flounder. I wish she would’ve stayed home.”
“Well, it’s Halloween and she’s out having fun,” Marie said. “She needs to have a little fun.”
Groom had stood listening as everyone spoke, and now he reached out and picked up one of Winston’s campaign posters.
“You going another term, Sheriff?” Groom asked.
“I reckon so,” Winston said. “We’ll see what the voters decide.”
“His opponent’s just a nasty man,” Marie said.
“Marie,” Winston said. He raised his eyebrows to show her
he didn’t want her speaking that way in front of someone they didn’t know.
“I’m sorry, Winston,” she said. “I just can’t help it.”
“He is,” Dianne said. “I have to agree with Marie.”
Winston laughed. “That’s enough now,” he said. He looked at Groom. “You get settled in?”
“Yes, sir,” Groom said.
Winston wanted to mention the drug bust and the arrests and evidence down in Myrtle Beach, but he didn’t want to say a word of it in front of Marie, both because he was afraid she’d embarrass him in front of Groom with her own ideas of what it would mean, and because he wanted to appear professional, to make clear that he knew how to handle and protect sensitive information.
That night, over a dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, Groom told Winston and Marie about flying missions in the C-47 in Vietnam, cruising so low over rice paddies and villages that he could see people’s faces as they raised their hands to shade their eyes to look up at him.
“Were you scared?” Marie asked. She dipped a wedge of sandwich into her soup and took a bite, the melted cheese stretching out so that she caught it with her finger before it snapped free.
“Marie,” Winston said, not quite scolding her for asking a question like that, but letting it be known that Groom didn’t have to answer if he didn’t feel comfortable.
“I wouldn’t say I was scared,” Groom said. “You’re aware, sure, aware of what all could happen to you.” He put a spoonful of soup into his mouth and looked across the table into the darkened living room as if he were looking into his past and studying it carefully. He swallowed. “In the C-47, the pilot was doing the flying and the aiming. They fit the window with a target, and the mini guns in back were aimed to hit on what you sighted. You know you’re going to take fire. You just hope the guys in the back are giving it better than you’re getting.” He shook himself from his trance, turned back to his plate. “Every flight you take is an exercise in faith,” he said, smiling. “Especially out there in the jungle. But that’s what made it fun sometimes.”
“Doesn’t sound fun to me,” Marie said.
Groom laughed. It was the first bit of good humor Winston had seen him express since he’d arrived. “It wasn’t fun for the Viet Cong either,” he said. “That particular aircraft scared them to death. They called them Ghost Planes.”
“That sounds like what we’ve got on our hands out at the airport right now,” Winston said. He took a sip of tea, and then he pushed himself back from the table and looked at Groom. “I couldn’t find a single fingerprint in that damn plane.”
“That would prove an unusual level of sophistication,” Groom said. He picked up his napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth. He folded it and placed it back on his lap. “But guys like those will slip up. They always do.”
After dinner, while Marie cleaned up in the kitchen, Winston found Groom smoking on the front porch.
“Thanks for dinner,” Groom said.
“You bet,” Winston said. “It wasn’t much.”
“It was plenty,” Groom said. “And thanks for letting me stay.”
“Don’t mention it.” Winston put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, his mind turning over the best way to say what he was about to say. “We might have a little news on our airplane,” he finally said.
Groom took a drag on his cigarette and then tapped it on the porch railing, knocking the ash into the damp pine needles below. He reached into his breast pocket and removed a pack of cigarettes. He held it out to Winston. “Marie said you quit years ago, but now might be a good time to start again.”
Winston hesitated for a moment. He turned and looked back at the house, and then he reached out and took a cigarette that Groom had shaken loose from the pack. Groom struck his lighter, and Winston leaned toward the flame. After its long absence, the feel of the smoke in his lungs shocked him at first, but the pleasant sweetness of the cigarette and the familiarity of it in his hand relaxed him. It all felt effortless and natural.
“What’s the news?” Groom asked.
“Sheriff down in Horry County called today,” Winston said. “That’s Myrtle Beach. They made a huge bust.”
“What was it?”
“Cocaine,” Winston said. “About twenty kilos. Some weapons too.”
“How far away is that?”
“Sixty-five miles or so.”
Groom was quiet for a moment, as if he was thinking over what little bit of information Winston had given him. “That can’t be all of it if it’s tied to your aircraft,” he said. “That aircraft is too large for that. If it is tied to it, more drugs will turn up.”
“We’re hoping they’ll match something with what we’ve got, ballistics or something,” Winston said.
Groom looked over at him. “I’d be hoping the same thing,” he said. He took a long drag on his cigarette, and Winston did the same.
Chapter 10
Three garage-style doors opened out to the beach, and the breeze that ran through the bar was cool and humid. Colleen pulled her jacket tighter around her and took another sip of her beer. Although the voices of other people and the noise of the music weren’t loud inside—not loud enough to drown out the sound of the distant waves at low tide—the buzz surrounding her met her ears like voices speaking in a dream. Everything seemed strange, even the weather, especially the weather. It was still summer in Dallas, at least it felt like summer, and thinking about this made Colleen feel that a fog had been lifted, and for the first time since returning home she felt the mystery of seasonal change in the air.
She and Danny had spent most of the evening at a restaurant/bar down by the Oak Island pier called Whale of a Time. They’d knocked back round after round of Budweisers, picked through a shared basket of fried flounder, coleslaw, and french fries, and even danced to the jukebox when one song or another spoke to them enough to leave their bar stools and wander out to the dance floor.
As usual, Danny was outspoken and funny, indifferent to the people who watched them dance or listened to the things they talked about. Unlike Colleen, Danny had dressed up for Halloween night, in black jeans and a black Izod shirt with the collar popped up around his face, a trail of blood on either side of his lips, and large, plastic vampire teeth that popped out of his mouth and landed on the bar or dance floor whenever he laughed. Colleen eventually wrapped the teeth in a napkin and slipped them into her purse without him noticing.
While he danced, Danny kept his eyes closed as if watching a movie of himself in his head, as if everything in the room were drawn toward him and his movement. Colleen, on the other hand, kept her eyes open; she watched Danny move, looked around at the costumed people in the bar, watched her own reflection in a narrow strip of mirror that hung behind the liquor bottles. Her hair was still pulled back in a ponytail that had spent the day working itself loose, and she wore a black tank top beneath her jean jacket and tight jeans with her Keds. Danny’s dark brown hair brushed his collar where he wore it long in the back and spiked with gel in the front. A tiny gold hoop in his right ear caught the light. While they danced, Danny would open his eyes for a moment and wink at Colleen as if they were the only two people in the world. He made her feel that way, and she had never envied someone so much in her entire life.
Danny was a licensed realtor, and he worked in his father’s real estate office, but Colleen knew he spent most of his time in Wilmington or Raleigh, places that could sometimes seem as far away as Mars. She couldn’t imagine why Danny had remained in Oak Island after high school, but perhaps someone would ask the same question about why she had returned. Regardless, here they both were now on Halloween night, dancing to the Eurythmics, the Go-Go’s, the Cure, and screaming over the music as if the bar were packed with people just like them.
Colleen lost count of how many beers she’d had, and the basket of fried fish sat in front of her, cold and congealed. She turned over a piece of flounder, found a french fry hiding beneath
, and popped it into her mouth.
“Cheer up,” Danny said. He leaned his body against hers, and she grabbed the bar to keep from toppling off her stool.
“I am cheery,” she said. “I’m full of cheer.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “You look worn-out and angry.”
“This is my ‘I just lost my baby and my marriage is unraveling’ Halloween costume,” she said.
“Oh, honey,” he said. He took a drag from his cigarette and put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. She felt him turn his head to blow smoke away from her.
“I just can’t believe Myra Page told you about what happened at the grocery store,” she said. “How embarrassing.”
Danny took his arm from around her and sat up straight. He tapped his cigarette into the ashtray. “Myra didn’t tell me,” he said. He took a drag and blew more smoke. “Rebecca Henderson did. She’s one of my daddy’s agents, and Myra’s the one who told her.”
“Jesus,” Colleen said. She dropped her forehead into her hands, the heaviness of her own head almost rocking her off the stool again. “That’s even worse.”
“Oh, come on,” Danny said. “Who cares about those little tramps? Did you get a look at Myra’s baby? If Pete thinks it’s his then he’s dumber than she is. If that girl had as many poking out as she’s had poking in she’d be a damn porcupine.”
Colleen raised her head to the ceiling and laughed. Danny smiled and took another drag.
“That’s right,” he said. “Keep your head up. You don’t need to worry about what anyone on this damned island thinks. You’re a Dallas girl now. Don’t mess with Texas, bitches.” He turned toward her so that his knees touched hers. He lifted his cigarette and pointed toward the beach outside. “And later, when you vomit on the beach out there, I’m going to be right beside you, holding your hair.”
She leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder. He dropped his cigarette in the ashtray on the bar and put his arms around her.