“Take a seat, Mr. Wooten.”
The anger left Wooten with unexpected suddenness, leaving him vaguely dizzy in the dusty air and harsh light. His stomach felt queasy, his mouth parched. He walked over to the fountain on the far side of the busted candy machine and took a long drink. The water was warm and bitter with minerals. He closed his eyes as the liquid settled into his stomach. When he opened them he noticed the sergeant staring at him through the wired glass. He looked distastefully from Wooten to the fountain, then returned his attention to whatever puzzle he was trying to solve.
Wooten lowered his big frame onto the bench’s unadorned wood. This was all happening too quickly. He had to regroup. Get out ahead of this thing. Make sense of what was going on here. What the hell did Chones want with Joel that couldn’t wait until morning? And why was his son dressed and wide awake so late, almost as if he expected that late-night knock on the door?
They found out, didn’t they.
And then he understood. Of course. It was so obvious he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it the moment he saw that hat on his porch. Joel had tried to see Susan. They’d attempted some sort of rendezvous and that insane Irma had sicced the police on him. Wooten relaxed. That was all it was. He wished the cops had explained back at the house. Saved everybody a lot of worry. Wooten was glad he hadn’t got through to Austin. It would have been highly embarrassing to have hauled his friend all the way down here for some teenage foolishness, especially after last week’s wake-up call. He stood and fished a dime from his pocket to phone Ardelia and set her mind at ease. But before he could start dialing Chones pushed through the front door, accompanied by a heavily muscled deputy. The sheriff looked weary and preoccupied as he approached the locked door leading to the inner station. Wooten hung up the unused phone and walked toward him, flashing a boys-will-be-boys smile, ready to authorize whatever fright the sheriff had in mind to make sure Joel stayed away from Susan Truax.
“Ralph …”
Chones turned. The moment Wooten saw his eyes he realized that he was dead wrong about what was going on. Whatever had happened was much worse than mere teenaged foolishness. There was no question of Chones offering his hand. The deputy moved forward, his neck muscles bunching and shimmering beneath pockmarked skin as he positioned himself between Wooten and the sheriff.
Chones pointed past the wired glass.
“Joel in there?”
“Yes. And I’d like to know why.”
“So you don’t know what your son got up to tonight?”
“Sleeping, until a couple hours ago.”
“And you’re sure about that?”
Wooten recalled Joel’s moonlit bed, its covers as smooth as a parking lot covered by freshly fallen snow. He decided to take the initiative.
“Look, Ralph, if this is about Susan Truax, then I can assure you it won’t happen again.”
Chones snorted. The big cop’s neck continued to ripple.
“Damn right you can assure me that. Susan Truax was found dead in Lake Newton two hours ago.”
“Jesus Christ, Ralph. Susan drowned?”
Chones stared at him evenly.
“Maybe.”
“Hold on,” Wooten said. “You think … was she killed?”
“Looks that way. The docs will have a look at her, but the story we’re getting is it was no accident.”
“And you think Joel was there?”
“That’s the way it’s looking.”
“Let me see him,” Wooten said in his most businesslike voice. “I’m sure we can straighten this out.”
“No-can-do, Earl. I got a call in to the SBI and the county attorney. Until they get here, we just all gotta hold back.”
Chones turned toward the door.
“Ralph.”
The sheriff stopped.
“You’re not saying Joel hurt that girl.”
“I’m not saying anything, Mr. Wooten. Not yet.”
“Because he wouldn’t do something like that. Not in a million years.”
“Well, you’re the first person I talked to tonight’s said so.”
The sheriff and his deputy were buzzed through. Chones spoke to the duty sergeant for a moment, then walked to the closest of the two holding rooms, working a chin-level bolt to get in. Wooten tried to see inside but the door shut too quickly. The muscular deputy sat at one of the dozen desks and began to scroll paper into an ancient typewriter. The fluorescent light above him flickered for a few seconds before settling back into its monotonous brilliance. The desk sergeant returned to his puzzle.
Wooten stood in the middle of the scuffed tile floor, staring numbly at the holding room door. He could not comprehend what he’d just been told. Susan Truax was dead. That sweet, pretty girl. They found her in the lake. And they were saying Joel had something to do with it.
His son’s words back at the house played through his mind. They found out, didn’t they.
And then he heard a sharp cry coming from the holding room. Joel. His voice like Wooten had never heard it, and yet it was still his voice. The deputy and the sergeant both looked at the door, then turned to Wooten.
“What are they doing to my boy?” he asked loudly.
Neither answered. Wooten strode up to the buzzer door and grabbed the handle. It was locked.
“Sit down, Mr. Wooten,” the sergeant said.
“I want to know what they’re doing to Joel in there. Tell me now or I’ll take this door apart.”
The sergeant tossed his pencil on the desk and stood. He stared at Wooten for a moment, then turned and walked slowly back to the holding room. He knocked softly. Chones answered after a few seconds. Wooten could see Joel this time. He sat at a table not much bigger than a school desk. His face was buried in his arms and his body shivered. Chones listened to the sergeant, then stepped wearily out of the room, making sure to work that bolt behind him. He looked at his shoes as he crossed the office. The deputy watched him pass, his crooked index fingers poised above the typewriter. Chones stopped a few feet from the glass.
“Nobody’s hurting your son, Mr. Wooten. I’ve just informed him that we’d like to question him about the death of Susan Truax. Only I can’t get him to tell me if he wants a lawyer or not like the Supreme Court says I’ve got to.”
“You told him she was dead? Just like that?”
“Well, I’m not all that sure it was news to him.”
Wooten stared at Chones. The bastard had told Joel about Susan. Just like that.
“So?”
“What?” Wooten asked.
“Is your son going to want an attorney?”
“Damn straight he is, you acting like this.”
“Then I suggest you go ahead and arrange that. Unless you want me to call somebody on the state’s dime.”
“I’ll do it,” Wooten said coldly.
Chones walked away, heading not to the holding room this time but down the hallway leading to his office. Wooten realized that it was time to get Austin involved. He’d be able to sort this mess out. Find the fundamental mistake that was causing all this to happen. He went to the pay phone, fishing his dime from the change chute. A very awake Austin answered on the first ring.
“Austin, it’s Earl.”
“Yes,” Swope said somberly.
“Look, you won’t believe this, but they’ve got Joel—”
“Earl, I’m going to stop you right here.”
“Stop me?”
“Given the situation I think it’s prudent that you and I have no further contact. Please don’t call me again.”
And then he hung up. Without another word. Wooten held the phone to his ear until the line went dead, then replaced it on its hook. This was making no sense. Austin had just hung up on him. He’d asked the man for help and he’d put down the phone. First Chones comes out with this nonsense about Joel hurting Susan. And now his closest friend won’t even talk to him.
Something shifted inside Wooten. An image of Joel standing
in the corner of his darkened room flashed in his mind. With it came a faint echo of the fears he’d been having ever since he first laid eyes on Susan.
Maybe his son had done something.
No. That was impossible. Wooten took a deep breath. He had to calm down and start helping Joel. He needed a lawyer. Somebody entitled to get through that locked door. Somebody who could find out what Chones and Austin weren’t telling him, so he could put an end to this nonsense once and for all.
Raymond McNutt. Of course. He knew these people. He’d know what to do. If Swope had some reason for not helping him then it would have to be McNutt. Trying to find anybody else would mean waiting until morning and then probably the better part of the next day. McNutt would know every inch of this building. There was a soggy-looking directory beneath the phone. Wooten dialed the number greedily, his big fingers clumsy in the small rotary holes. The lawyer answered on the seventh ring.
“Listen up,” he said when Wooten finished explaining the situation. “Sit tight. I’ll be there within the hour. Nobody says anything until then. I’ll call Chones right now and explain that I’m en route.”
He pronounced it “in route.” Seconds after hanging up Wooten heard the duty sergeant’s phone ring. The man put the call through with a sour twist of his lips.
Wooten phoned Ardelia, explaining what he knew. The words he spoke sounded like somebody else’s sad story, the sort of thing you’d talk about with a wistful shake of your head, glad it wasn’t you.
“Poor girl,” Ardelia said after he’d finished.
“I know.”
“But it’s ridiculous. Joel was in his room all night.”
“I don’t think he was, Ardelia.”
Another pause.
“What do you mean?”
“He was wide awake and fully dressed when I went up there. His bed hadn’t been slept in at all. He said something, too. He asked me if they found out.”
“Who? What?”
“I don’t know.”
“But wouldn’t we have known if he left?”
Wooten remembered those faint noises he’d heard when he was in the guest room.
“Not if he didn’t want us to.”
There was a long silence. Wooten had hoped his wife would say the words that would make sense of this thing and his growing suspicion go away. But now she seemed just as overwhelmed as him.
“Did our son do something, Ardelia?”
She didn’t hesitate now.
“Don’t even think that, Earl Wooten. If you think that even for a single moment I want you to come back here and let me handle this. They see doubt in you, and our boy is in big trouble.”
Wooten said nothing.
“Well?” she asked.
“No,” he said, though his voice sounded unconvincing to him. “I don’t believe it.”
“Protect him.”
“I will.”
After that, Wooten paced. He drank so much fountain water that it felt like his stomach was lined with lead. People began to arrive. First came a familiar woman in a lime-green outfit. Jill Van Riper. She worked for the county attorney. Wooten knew her a little, having helped her on that Florida case. She had a bland, pale face, slim shoulders and legs as stout as rain barrels. She glanced at Wooten and then turned quickly away. The sergeant let her through the locked door and she disappeared down the hallway. Next came two men he could see were detectives straight away. Both were white. The first was about fifty, with a puffy, dough-colored face. He held a nicked briefcase. His younger colleague looked like he wanted to be a TV cop but wasn’t quite there. He had a Fu Manchu mustache and a shiny leather coat. They didn’t look at Wooten as they made their way back to the sheriff’s office.
Finally, McNutt arrived. He was dressed in a three-piece wool suit, Florsheim shoes and a silk tie held in place by a gold pin. His ironed hair glistened with fresh pomade. That keloid scar on his neck seemed darker, as if it had been dusted with a masking cosmetic. Wooten felt a moment’s confused anger—why had the man taken the time to gussy himself up when he knew Joel was in trouble? It was three o’clock in the damned morning. McNutt nodded soberly, taking Wooten’s proffered hand between both of his. A strong odor of lavender cologne emanated from his humid flesh. Something triumphant lurked behind his sympathetic expression.
“Earl,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
Wooten shook off the question.
“They got Joel in there and they won’t let me see him.”
“Well, that’s not unusual. All right—tell me what you know.”
Wooten recited the litany of baffling facts. McNutt listened without comment, his thick brow slowly furrowing as the tale went on.
“How old is your Joel again?” he asked finally.
Wooten hesitated. It wasn’t the question he’d expected.
“He was eighteen in May.”
“Ah.”
“Why?”
“Well, that means they’ll be treating him like an adult.”
“Joel’s no adult,” Wooten said. “He’s a good boy, but he’s no man.”
“I understand. One more question. The deceased—she’s white?”
The question scared Wooten as much as anything he’d heard all night. For a brief, crazy moment, he almost denied it.
“Well, yes.”
“I figured as much.”
“Why?”
“Chones wouldn’t be out of bed at this hour if she was colored. All right. Let me have a word with the sheriff and then I’ll talk to Joel. Get his side of things. You just sit tight. I’ll be back soon as I can.”
Wooten watched as McNutt approached the desk sergeant. In the amount of time it took him to cross the small lobby his demeanor changed utterly. The sober complicity he’d shown Wooten gave way to a hale, almost jovial attitude. His voice grew louder; his right hand gesticulated as he explained that he represented Joel Wooten. The cop listened wearily before buzzing him through. As McNutt pushed through the door the sergeant watched him for a moment, then turned back to Wooten. His neck and shoulders contracted in a scoff. He returned to his puzzle.
McNutt disappeared down the hall, emerging a few moments later with the sheriff. The lawyer was talking, that shit-eating smile still frozen on his lips. Chones listened distractedly, his eyes on the floor. When the lawyer was done Chones shrugged with surpassing indifference, said a few words and opened the door. McNutt entered the holding room. The door closed before Wooten could catch another glimpse of his son.
He called Ardelia to tell her that a lawyer was with their boy. Things were happening now. The confusion was about to clear. She said that she wanted to come down but hadn’t been able to find anyone to look after the twins. Wooten told her not to bother. He’d get this sorted out before long. If they weren’t home for breakfast, they’d certainly be back for lunch. It was just a matter of time.
McNutt emerged a half hour later. He held up a finger to Wooten, then strolled back down to Chones’s office. After a few minutes he came back through the locked door.
“Well, I’ve spoken to your son. As far as I can tell he’s maintaining his innocence.”
“Innocence of what?”
“The charges.”
“What charges, exactly?”
“I thought they … Earl, they say Joel murdered that girl.”
Murdered. Everything left his head except that word. His vision tunneled into a long corridor with bloodred walls. At the end of that corridor was a swatch of dirty tile and nothing else.
“No.”
McNutt said nothing. Wooten cast about for something to grab on to to stop his mind from this free fall. But all he had were the words the lawyer had just spoken. He replayed them, searching for something that would make this thing end.
“What do you mean, as far as you can tell?” he asked after a moment.
“Joel’s in an extremely agitated state just now. It was hard to get any sense out of him.”
“What did he s
ay?” Wooten asked.
McNutt sighed.
“From what I can gather he’d arranged to meet the young lady at the lake. According to Joel, when he got there she was nowhere to be seen. He waited a bit, then returned home.”
“Well, there you go. He didn’t do it.”
“I don’t know, Earl. I think they have something they’re not telling us.”
“What?”
McNutt spread his hands.
“Let me ask you this—is it correct that you had forbidden Joel from seeing Miss Truax?”
Wooten hesitated, once again tempted to deny the undeniable.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Why?”
“It was getting too serious.”
“So this was just a general feeling you had?”
“What are you asking?”
“Joel mentioned words to the effect of ‘ever since we got caught.’”
Wooten hesitated.
“Look, Earl, if I’m to defend your son …”
Wooten took a deep breath.
“Her folks found them together. In the girl’s room.”
“Together?”
Wooten nodded.
“Conjugating.”
“Yes.”
The two men stared at each other, joined by a knowledge that went far beyond the petty social divisions that had kept them apart these past five years.
“This looks bad, don’t it,” Wooten said quietly.
“Prima facey, it don’t look good.”
“Jesus. Give me something here, Raymond.”
McNutt shrugged.
“Like I said, I had a hard time getting your son to elaborate his account.”
“Which tells me it’s the truth.”
McNutt grimaced and tilted his head.
“Others might not see it that way.”
“Let me see him,” Wooten commanded.
“Can’t do that yet. Not until the state police have their turn.”
“When is that?”
“They want to do it now. Though I think it might be a good idea to wait.”
“No. Let them do it now. I want to get this whole mess over with. I want them to see he’s innocent and let him go.”
The New City Page 38
