by Jason Miller
“It’s a curse.”
“What is? Having friends?”
“Depends on the friends,” I said. “Let’s take this J.T. Black, for example. Now, way I hear it, he’s got a pretty rough history.”
She nodded.
“J.T.’s been into a little bit of everything. I agree, some of it was on the rough side.”
“I hear tell he ran a little meth with Dennis Reach, one time or another. Back during their days with the White Dragons.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” she said, but I could tell that she did.
“I suppose it’s stupid to ask whether J.T. was one of your three husbands.”
“Pretty stupid,” she said, and smiled and blushed some. “Another of my youthful mistakes.”
“I’m not here to judge you.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, maybe a little.”
“We’re in a fight now.”
“R.L. Lindley told me that Black had fallen out with the Dragons. Any idea what happened between them?”
“Not specifically, no. Except someone high up in the organization was trying to horn in on one of their rackets a little more than comfort allowed. Dennis never wanted to rock the boat, but J.T. pitched a fit and brought down hellfire and damnation on himself. It got pretty ugly for a while there, too, I can tell you.”
“Wasn’t anything to do with their dogging, was it?”
She actually looked ashamed.
“Know about that, do you?”
“I’m figuring a thing or two out. Kinda unusual, ain’t it? You being married to Reach and Black both? Guy might get the idea you were the brains of the operation.”
“If I was the brains, I wouldn’t have been married to Dumb and Dumber. But I can see how a body might be led in that direction, yes.”
“What’d J.T. do before deciding to take a stab at law enforcement?”
“He worked in one of his daddy’s tool-and-die outfits. Ran a punch press, as I recall. I think that’s how he lost part of his right pinkie finger.”
“Lost his concentration?”
“Lost his ass,” she said. “Funny thing is, the old man has a missing finger, too. Left ring, I think.”
“He run the press, too?” I asked.
Carol Ray shook her head. “Dog bit it off. And swallowed. If memory serves, it was a full-grown bitch Rottweiler. Name of Truman.”
“Truman?”
“No one ever accused Leonard Black of being too snuggly with his feminine side.” She chuckled, but the sound was full of rue. I don’t guess a gal gets married three times in southern Illinois without letting all kinds of things into her life, some of them a lot more lowdown than a bunch of scruffy in-by dudes, roof bolters, and fire bosses.
“Think you can get me an audience?”
“With J.T.? I don’t . . .”
“With his daddy. Leonard.”
“You’re sure that’s something you want to do?”
“No,” I said. “But it might be useful. Besides, I’ve always wanted to get a look at him up close.”
“Well, hell, I can try. Honestly, though, I don’t know if I have that kind of pull anymore,” she said. “Once upon a time, the old goat liked to watch me dance at the barbecues he’d throw at his place out in Cape Girardeau. Juice Newton records and cheap semiautomatic pistols ruled the day, if you can believe it. Anyway, the dancing about drove J.T. fucking nuts, but it kept me in smokes, and at least he never tried to touch me.”
“I don’t suppose anyone named Cleaves was ever at one of those shindigs.”
“Who?”
“Just somebody I’d like to run into again one day.”
“Another someone from the mines?” she said.
“I guess you could say that,” I said. “Though maybe not the way you’re thinking.”
I SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY HUNTING SHELDON AND A. Evan Cleaves: Bridgetown, Elizabeth, Colton, New Delta, Madrid. I talked to anyone I thought might know something about the connection between them and J.T. Black. In the afternoon, I rushed home to relieve Peggy from watching Anci and to let in the contractors. I’d already got them going on the cleanup. When they were done, we’d see about the roof, the kitchen, whatever else. The insurance would ultimately pay, but in the meantime it was going to amount to real dollars.
“And you’ll have to pay for most of it out of pocket, too,” said my agent. “Hope the homeowner’s policy eventually covers everything.”
“Well, that’s a kick in the privates.”
“I knew it wouldn’t make you happy, Slim, but you’ve got yourself a documented arson here. The insurance company won’t pay out until the investigation comes back with a determination that you didn’t set it yourself.”
“Me? But I’m not even a suspect. Not in the arson, anyway.”
“You and I know that. The company knows it, too. It just don’t care. You’ll have to wait until the police make a final determination.”
“What if they never do?”
“Well . . .”
LATER, I TALKED TO ANCI AND PEGGY ABOUT IT ALL.
“I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Anci said. “Right now, we can barely afford the stuffing in our pillows.”
“I can help some,” said Peggy. “Not as much as I’d like. I got to help my sister move, and my savings account is already thin as a promise.”
“You should keep your savings,” I said. “But thank you.”
“Then how?” Anci said.
“I think I know.”
I PAID THE ROOFERS AND CLEANERS IN CASH. A. EVAN’S CASH. The roofers came in and strung together some giant blue tarps and were ready to tear out the burned sections and install the new rafters and braces. But first the cleaning people arrived to fight the smoke monster.
“You’ll want to be out of the house,” an old woman in a white lab coat explained. You always know you’re about to be taken for a ride when they’re wearing that white lab coat. Her boys weren’t wearing coats, at least, but probably only because they couldn’t find any to fit. These were some big boys. Basically bank vaults with legs. When they lugged in a metal contraption just slightly smaller than a VW Bus, it looked like a jewelry box between them. “It’s an ionizer. It’ll take away the smoke smell, but it’ll give you one hell of a headache.”
“How long?”
“Twelve hours is best.” Her head tilted back so her nose could sample the air. “Maybe longer. Every job is different. I ain’t saying you have to go. You could stay. You’ll just have the headache of your life is all.”
I said, “I’ve been running around like the proverbial one-legged man lately anyway. Another few hours on the road don’t seem like too much to ask.”
“Hectic life.”
“Can be.”
“Listen,” she said. “Smoke odor can hide just about anywhere in a house. Especially an old place like yours. Cracks in the wall, the insulation. Hell, even under the switch plates. You got pets?”
“I’ve got pets.”
“I’ve known pets to hold onto smoke for longer than you’d think. Dogs, especially. You got dogs?”
“Cats.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“I never could figure them out. They’re like a four-legged puzzle. They don’t like you and they let you know it, too, so that reduces my willingness to scoop their shit.”
“That’s not my favorite part, either.”
“I knew a guy once had ducks. Pets, too, not farm-type ducks. Smoke hid in their feathers.”
“What’d he do?”
“Butchered them. He loved those ducks, but that smell will turn you into a killer. You need to, you give us a call. We’ll come out and run that machine again.”
“Sure those boys of yours won’t eat me for dinner for squawking?”
“Freddy and Teddy?” she asked. “Hell, those two only look like trouble. You should have seen their daddy.”
“He must have been something.”
“He was,” she said. “Something and then some. Fought brain cancer for almost a year before it took him down. Doctor said he shouldn’t have lasted three weeks. Freddy and Teddy barely made it through the funeral.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hell, don’t be.”
But I could tell she didn’t mean it. You drilled down to it, loss was one of the few things we could ever really share with one another.
MEANTIME, THE ROOFERS GOT TO WORK.
“I can’t sleep with that racket going on day and night,” Anci said the next morning over breakfast. “They started in at five this morning, and it’s like the hammers were inside my head.”
“Well, it’s only a couple of weeks, and then it’ll be gone.”
“And then we’ll have a new roof to burn.”
“Not this time,” I said. “Night of the fire, I had a vision, and the vision gave me an idea. How would you feel about us hiring a protector monkey to watch over the new roof?”
“A protector monkey?”
“Like an orangutan.”
“Okay, one, that’s not a monkey. That’s an ape. Two, give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to call your doctor, see about having you committed.”
“Uh-huh. Couple weeks under the watchful eye of our new protector monkey, you’ll secretly be wishing you’d jumped on board in the first place.” I showed her a catalog. “I like these kitchen countertops. What do you think?”
“Bamboo?”
“It’s renewable.”
“Renewable’s good,” she said. “I like it fine, but it’s A. Evan’s money. Maybe we should get something in honor of him.”
“Dirty concrete?” I asked.
She spooned cereal into her mouth.
“Or petrified cow shit. With a sluice grate for the floor. Damn it all.”
“What?”
“Bran-Wichelle. It keeps jumping into my head—ever since you mentioned it—but for the life of me I can’t remember why.”
“Well, keep pondering. It might be a clue.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?”
I WAS CLEANING UP THE BREAKFAST DISHES WHEN BEN WINCE called. That’s something you love to see on your cell phone caller ID: RANDOLPH COUNTY SHERIFFS.
“I think we’ve got a problem here, son,” he said.
“You, too? Maybe I should start a 1–900 line, take credit card numbers.”
“I’ll be frank. I don’t recommend that. You typically have enough misfortune of your own without getting tangled up with everyone else’s. Listen, I’m sheriff of a county known for its high murder rate and general lawlessness, and even I ain’t never seen anyone up to so much troublemaking.”
“I’m a lovable rascal,” I said. “But at least I mean well.”
“I guess intentions matter some. During sentencing, at least.”
“I’ve heard tell. So what’s the problem?”
“Rather show you in person,” he said. “You think you can make it down here?”
“Sounds urgent.”
“Well, it is. Maybe more than. And speaking of urgent . . .”
“Or more than.”
“Or that. You don’t happen to know an old cat named Soapy Howard?”
“Soapy? I don’t think so.”
“He runs the package liquor up around Bald Knob.”
The image of a hillside hole-in-the-wall flickered to mind. I’d been there the day before, looking for snacks and information.
“I might have seen him.”
“Might have,” Wince said. “You don’t know him, but he knows you, Slim. You and his brother used to work together at a Sommes shaft mine in Kentucky.”
“So?”
“So he says you dropped in on him last week, asked a lot of questions about someone named Cleaves. Said you looked pretty rough, too,” he said. “You scared hell out of the kid he’s got working the counter for him. He said you looked like you’d been beat up pretty good. Your face.”
“I cut myself shaving.”
“You ought to get yourself some electric clippers, then.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Damn it, I’d hoped Soapy was wrong. Now I really need you to come in, and the sooner the quicker, too.”
“Double urgent?”
“Don’t make me come get you, boy. If I come get you, or send someone to, we’ll have to put you in cuffs. I’d rather Anci not have to see that.”
“You’ve given me rope before.”
“Maybe. But this is different.”
“Do tell.”
“Okay, here it is. I think you got sprung a while back from Jackson County and had your knickers in a twist about being locked up on the Reach murder. I think you’re a rabble-rouser who doesn’t like to get the runaround for something you didn’t do. Plus, you were on the hook for it. Reach’s murder. Maybe you even had good intentions. Just between you, me, and the riot guns, I think you mean well, usually, even if you do go about your business like a Ward Nine New Year’s Eve party. I think you went looking for the Cleaveses and couldn’t find them, but you kept looking until you somehow ran afoul of bad men and got yourself worked over but good. How’s that?”
“That’s a lot of telling.”
“It is,” Wince said. “There’s also the little matter of J.T. Black going missing.”
“What was that now?”
“You heard me. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. After your phone chat the other day, Sheriff Lindley went looking for him. Wanted to ask him a question or two, but his house is cleared out. Truck’s gone, too, and his still is broken down.”
“Where’s he gone?”
“If we knew that,” Wince said, “he wouldn’t be missing.”
“Okay, I’ll come in. When?”
“I’m thinking right now.”
“Give me a day,” I said.
“A day? Why not a year? A guy like you can do more damage in a day than most folks do in three lifetimes, one of them as a reincarnated Genghis Khan.”
“Genghis Khan?”
Wince shrugged with his voice.
“On my mind probably account of a documentary I watched the other night. History channel. Interesting fella, if you ignore the mass murder.”
“What if I promise not to cause trouble?”
“That’s like a dog promising not to drag his nuts on the carpet. Make you a deal, you got till five o’clock.”
“Thank you.”
“At 5:01, I come looking.”
I said thanks again, but he’d already broken the line. I found Anci in the kitchen.
“Saddle up,” I said.
“For real?”
“You heard me. Let’s do it.”
It took her a moment to believe she wasn’t being conned, but the prospect of troublemaking lit up her face.
“I get to come with?”
“Peggy and Opal are working. I’ve got to meet Jeep, but he’s out on business of his own and can’t make it over here.”
“Hot damn.”
And off she went to put on her motorcycle gear and scrounge up her private detective kit: notebook, pen, flashlight. I did the same, except I put on more than leather gloves and boots. I strapped a 9000S under my jacket and an S&W 442 to my ankle. I also put my knife on my belt and a mean look on my face. Had time, I would have gotten a scary tattoo, too. As it was, I felt like a walking arsenal, the flawless expression of American manhood.
While I waited for Anci, I fretted some more about the night to come and what it was certain to bring. The evil of it, and the cruelty. Man’s inhumanity to . . . well, everything, all of it. My mother had raised me to believe that a person was only as strong as his willingness to be merciful to the weak, but as far as I could tell this was a view not widely held, and there were times I wondered whether even she believed it, given who she’d married and raised a family with. Maybe none of us really believed it. I don’t know. When it comes to philosophizing, a newborn kit
ten understands things better than I do.
I was still pondering it all when Anci came down again and took one look at me and said, “You’re worried about something.”
“Oh, I am, am I?”
“Don’t lie. And don’t play dumb, neither. I know you better than anyone, and I know that look. You’re chewing on something, and I want to know what it is.”
“And here I thought I was supposed to be the grownup in this relationship.”
For once, she didn’t have a smart remark. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all. She just sat down beside me and put her hand on top of my hand.
“Sometimes the world is a pretty rough place,” I said, and I wanted to say more but nothing else would come out.
Anci waited a moment and then nodded and said, “It really is. Sometimes, anyway. Maybe even most of the time. But that’s where we come in. To put things right.”
I looked at her and she looked back up at me. She smiled. I leaned down and kissed the crown of her head.
“I’m damn proud of you, kid.”
“Hell, I know it.”
12.
“YOU TWO COME IN. I’LL SCARE UP A SNACK.”
We came in. Carol Ray Reach’s house. She and Anci shook hands. I got a quick peck on the cheek and Anci’s raised eyebrows. We went into the kitchen and the aforementioned snack was scared up: coffee for me and Carol Ray, milk and cookies for Anci. I thought she’d protest this treatment—she would’ve at home—but instead she tucked in gratefully. We’d managed to skip lunch somehow, and the cookies were her favorite, oatmeal raisin.
“I never saw you as the milk-and-cookies type,” I said to Carol Ray.
“You’ve had me all wrong then, Slim. Sweet innocent old me with my pantry full of oatmeal treats.”
“There’s a rather large gun in the pantry,” I said. “I couldn’t help noticing.”
She nodded.
“That’s my Ruger Redhawk double-action, sugar. And rather large is right. You could use it to turn an Egyptian pyramid back into sand. I might be sweet and innocent, but I’m nobody’s baby. Truth is, I’ve got them stashed throughout the house, case of a rainy day.”
“I bet I can guess why, too,” I said.
“I bet you can.” She glanced quickly at Anci, then back at me. “You don’t mind if she listens in on this nasty business?”
