by Nene Adams
Copyright © 2009 by Nene Adams
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Originally published 2009 by P.D. Publishing, Inc.
First Bella Books Edition 2013
eBook released 2013
Editor: Medora MacDougall
Cover Designer: Sandy Knowles
ISBN: 978-1-59493-391-2
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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About the Author
Nene Adams is a Florida native and part-time historian living and working with her inamorata in the Netherlands. She and her partner share an epic love affair, three cats, and a mutual book collection that is slowly taking over the premises.
Another Bella Book by Nene Adams
The Midnight Sun
Dedication
To the moon of my delight.
Chapter One
Sheriff Annalee Crow walked toward the knot of flannel-clad men huddled together on the sagging porch attached to the front of Gunn’s Pro Shop near Lingerville. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said, pausing at the foot of the warped wooden stairs. She used the word in the loosest sense. There was absolutely nothing “gentle” about these men.
The oldest man in the group spat a wad of tobacco juice in her direction, just missing her shoes. The others remained watchful and silent. Every face was eerily similar—dark, suspicious eyes gazing at her from beneath lowered brows, acne-pitted skin stretched tight over prominent bones, a smattering of freckles and irregular moles, greasy black hair worn too long in the back. Like many of the other families in and around the Deep who had scratched out a living here for the last two hundred-plus years, the Gunns’ genealogy was as tangled and knotted as a discarded fishing net, she thought.
“Morning, Titus,” Annalee said to the tobacco spitter, being sure to turn slightly so a beam of sunlight lanced dazzlingly bright off the silver-colored sheriff’s badge pinned to the front of her brown uniform shirt.
The display was a little reminder of her authority, not that she really expected them to respect her. The Gunns respected nothing and no one except their own insular clan. She rested a hand on the thick leather belt slung on her hips. Her fingertips edged close to the grip of her service weapon, a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson that had belonged to her late father, Jefferson Crow, the former sheriff of Daredevil County.
“I heard tell some of your boys got into a scuffle over to Hallelujah Ridge last night,” Annalee went on, keeping her tone pleasant against the stony silence. “Something I ought to know about that? Your boys want to tell me their side of the story?”
Titus regarded her a long moment before answering in his high, reedy voice, “Ain’t nothing we can’t handle.” He paused and added grudgingly, “Sheriff.”
Annalee didn’t allow him to intimidate her. She hardened her expression, letting the façade of friendliness slip away. “No matter what you believe to the contrary, old man, this county isn’t your private domain. Goddamn it, the law is the same for everybody, including you. I’m not going to tolerate any more violence between your family and the Skinners. Am I making myself rightly understood? Make no mistake, Titus—the next time your boys go looking for trouble, I’ll give them all they can handle and then some.”
A teenager with a wandering eye sneered at her, baring teeth already nicotine-stained. “You? Give us trouble? That’s pretty damned funny. Ain’t no bitch alive gonna collar us big dogs. Ain’t no way, no how.”
Murmurs of assent from the other men made her stiffen. The Gunns were like a pack of wild animals, feral and primed to attack any perceived weakness. In her experience, she knew only one way to deal with their antagonism: show no fear.
She walked up the steps and onto the porch to face them. Chips of “haint blue” paint from the flaking underside of the roof crunched underfoot. Her back ached from her belt’s weight, but she wouldn’t have traded her weapon, her back-up .22, speed-loaders and radio for anything short of the Remington 870 shotgun in the trunk of every patrol car.
“You want to try some shit with me, boy?” she asked, pitching her voice low and threatening. First rule of dealing with testosterone-poisoned idiots: never be shrill. Men tuned out a female who sounded like a dentist’s drill. “You got the balls, or ain’t they dropped yet?”
He flushed and threw her an ugly look. Annalee tensed, anticipating a move, but one of his brothers—she thought it was Dewey Gunn—let out a bray of laughter and hit the teenager on the shoulder, almost knocking him sprawling. The other men chuckled while Titus cackled with unrestrained glee.
“Sweet Jesus weepin’ on the Cross! Never mind my grandson. You got some balls on you, Miz Crow. Big, shiny brass ones, if I ain’t mistaken,” Titus finally croaked, settling the feed store cap more firmly on his balding head.
Annalee made no reply. She kept her attention split, half on Titus, the other half on his boys. If anybody wanted to take the situation to the next level, she was ready.
The smile suddenly vanished from Titus’ face. He looked like an Old Testament prophet, filled with a wrathful, dead- certain righteousness no power on earth could shake. “Now I’ll tell you something for free, missy: stay out of our business. Them Skinners ain’t nothing but heathen peckerwoods and white trash, not worthy of your time.”
He started to stump around her on his bowed legs but stopped and peered into her face. His breath smelled foul. A thin line of tobacco juice glistened on the side of his bristly chin. “They do say it was curiosity killed the cat,” he said in a voice filled with a malevolence that crawled electric on her skin. He continued with a smirk, “Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m pretty sure it was curiosity that killed the crow.”
Annalee froze. She knew Titus referred to her father. Jefferson Crow had been murdered six months ago, his body dumped on a deer trail in the four-thousand square miles of old growth forest called Malingering Deep. The case remained open, the killer unknown. The investigation had gone cold due to a lack of evidence and an absence of leads. The only thing Annalee knew for certain was that her father had been investigating something in the Deep, some secret he had kept from her and now Titus seemed to hint that the Gunns were involved in the murder. A white hot explosion of fury drew her lips back from her teeth in a snarl, but she retained enough presence of mind not to draw her weapon.
“If I find out you or any of yours killed my kin,” Annalee said, forcing the words to come out controlled through her rage, “they’ll pay, by God. They’ll pay in full.” At that moment, she was less a representative of law enforcement than a hillwoman with blood feuds bred in her bones, taken in with her mother’s milk, learned on her daddy’s knee.
“Would that payment be by God’s law or man’s?” Not waiting for her reply, Titus touched a gnarled finger to the brim of his cap. “Good day, Sheriff. When you’re next in town, do drop by the house and make your polites.”
He swaggered his bowlegged way off the porch, followed by the rest of his boys. They piled into a pair of Superman-blue pickup trucks and tore off down the gravel road, the tires kicking up a thick veil of orange, iron-tinged dust that hung in the air, scarcely stirred by the breeze whispering through the cottonwoods.
/> Annalee watched them go and blew out a breath, shaking her head. The swell of anger she felt was tinged with grief and a sadness that never wholly subsided. She missed her father every day and often found herself turning to ask him a question or make an observation, only to remember he lay buried in the Holy Mount of Jesus Cemetery next to her mother.
As the engine noises lessened in the distance, the loudest sounds she heard were the hum of the Coca-Cola vending machine behind her and a mockingbird perched on top of an electricity pole beside the shop, warbling a shifting pattern of stolen songs. She closed her eyes against a stab of loss, thinking about her father, the strongest and best man she had ever known. She’d always been close to him, especially after Mama died.
The unexpected male voice booming suddenly behind her made her nearly jump out of her skin. “You get anywhere with them assholes?” the man asked.
Annalee turned around to find her chief deputy smiling down at her from his superior height. Noah Whitlock was related to the Skinners on his mother’s side. He had his maternal family’s almond-shaped brown eyes, wheat-blond hair and wide, toothy smile.
She uncurled her fingers from the gun butt, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal. “Do I need to put a bell on you?” she asked. “Jesus, son, learn to make some noise when you walk and quit that pussyfooting around. You scared the ever-lovin’ crap out of me.”
“Sorry.” Noah didn’t sound the least repentant. “So how’d it go with Titus?”
“Well, not quite as bad as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it was a near thing,” Annalee said. “Thanks for waiting in the car. How’d your phone call go?”
“I had a talk with Uncle Ezra about the tussle. He’s a lot more reasonable once he’s had a few cups of coffee and some of Aunt Rachael’s sawmill gravy.”
“What’d he have to say?” Annalee asked.
Ezra Skinner’s three oldest sons had gotten into a fight with some of the Gunns at Hallelujah Ridge near Ogee. She’d heard about the altercation from Junior Tishamingo, who lived near the site. Last night, he had called the office to complain about the noise and a late-shift deputy was dispatched to deal with the nuisance. No serious injuries so no arrests had been made, but an official report was filed. She’d come out to the Pro Shop to issue a caution to the Gunns, while Noah had done the same for the Skinners over his cell phone.
“Luke, Matthew and Mark are fine, just some bruises and a fat lip,” Noah said. “It was the Gunns who started it, you know, but Uncle Ezra don’t want to press no charges.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Annalee said in disgust. No question in her mind that the Gunns had started the fight. The whole family loved nothing better than stirring up trouble and strife, but it was damned difficult to do anything about it if nobody was willing to testify against them in court. “How the hell am I supposed to keep the peace around here when them stubborn sons of bitches won’t let me?”
“No idea. Don’t ask me, Sheriff. I’m just the hired help around here.”
She slapped his arm lightly in reproof. “You’re more than that and you know it. What was the fight about, anyway?”
A corner of Noah’s mouth quirked in a not-quite smile. “The usual crap teenage boys fight about when they’re plumb full up with puberty and contrariness—somebody talks trash, somebody else takes offense, somebody stirs the pot, tempers run high and blam! Next thing you know, there’s fists flying, bloody noses and bruises. Was I Junior Tishamingo last night, I’d’ve turned the hose on every one of them idjits.” He hitched at his duty belt and changed the subject. “You want to help me eat some breakfast at Old Lady Magee’s diner?”
“You didn’t have sawmill gravy with Ezra?”
“He was feeling none too sociable,” Noah replied mournfully.
“Yeah, sure, why not?” Annalee shrugged. “Old Lady Magee makes the best buttermilk biscuits in the county, bar none and her nephew just made a fresh batch of sausages. Maybe she’s got some of her special hashbrown casserole too.” Her mouth began to water in anticipation of the kind of meal that would have made her doctor purse his lips and deliver a lecture on cholesterol and saturated fat.
Noah grinned. “I live in hope, my hand to God.”
The dry breeze freshened and caught a long strand of Annalee’s mouse brown hair, whipping it against her eyes and making them sting. Cursing under her breath, she re-pinned the wayward lock and wondered, not for the first time, if she ought to get the whole mess cut off, but her father had said the long hair made her resemble her mother. She hadn’t had the length more than trimmed since she was seventeen, sitting in the kitchen before Mama’s funeral, a towel tied around her neck and Great-Aunt Myrtle snipping at her hair while she tried not to cry. Another gust of wind drew her mind back to the present.
Sniffing the air, Annalee detected the faintest hint of ozone she reckoned came from distant lightning. “Smells like rain’s headed our way from over the hill,” she commented.
“Also smells a lot like blood,” Noah added under his breath. When Annalee glared at him, he shrugged in his turn. “The Skinners protect their own, boss. You know that. They’re not goin’ to let you do it for them. You’re not family.”
“I know it all too well,” Annalee said, “but the last thing we need is an all-out war.”
There had been a Skinner in her class at the J.D. Knowles High School in Brightbrook, she recalled, a shy girl whose thick mop of blonde hair hid most of her face except her eyes, almond-shaped and brown as dying leaves in autumn. What was her name? she asked herself while sliding behind the steering wheel of the patrol car. The Skinner girl had been teased by some of the meaner-natured kids until a mysterious incident in the showers after gym class. She couldn’t recall the details—she’d been taken ill that day and stayed at home—but whatever happened, no one bothered the Skinner girl again.
Come to think of it, she thought as Noah settled into the passenger side seat, that girl was always hovering around the fringes. Never speaking, just watching, staying close. Always had her eyes on me. Well, at least she was quiet. Lou Ella. That’s her name! No, no, not quite right. Close, but no cigar. Damn it, I can’t remember shit no more.
She was about to ask Noah for the girl’s name when she was interrupted by a squawk from the radio. “Sheriff, we have a report of a DB at Yellow Jacket Pond.”
The call was slightly fuzzed by static, but Annalee recognized the husky, cigarette-laced voice of Minnie Lee Hawkins, the day shift dispatcher. A mental image of its owner supplied the voice with cat’s-eye glasses, inappropriate attire and hennaed hair teased as high as gravity and industrial-strength hairspray allowed.
“Acknowledged, Dispatch,” Noah replied into the handset. “This is Charlie One-Oh-One, we are underway. Has the ME’s office been notified?”
“Copy, Charlie One-Oh-One. ME and CSU are en route to scene.”
“Copy, Dispatch. Out.”
“So much for breakfast and probably lunch too,” Annalee sighed.
Ignoring her stomach’s growl, she started the engine and gave the car some gas, fighting the steering wheel’s tendency to pull to the left. She’d tried to requisition more four-wheel drives from the county, which would have been far more practical on the dirt trails that masqueraded as roads, but Daredevil County was barely a blip on the budgetary radar. The morons who monitored the bottom line had decided that one SUV was enough for her office—one SUV to be shared between herself and all her deputies in a backwoods county where paved roads were the exception rather than the rule.
She snorted. It seemed far more important for the governor to have a fully tricked-out helicopter so he could ferry his hunting and fishing friends around in the season. That asshole won’t be getting my vote again, she decided.
She viciously wrenched at the wheel, her wrists feeling the strain as the patrol car bumped through a pothole that left her wincing in sympathy for the chassis. The Motor Pool boys were going to skin her alive since they had recently reali
gned the damned thing.
Yellow Jacket Pond was about a half-mile from Hallelujah Ridge, which was in turn ten miles from Lingerville and Gunn’s Pro Shop. The last three miles she turned off the switchback gravel road onto the smooth blacktop of Route 82. She could have sworn the car sighed in relief. Beside her, Noah let go of the “oh, shit” strap and relaxed.
She and her deputy were the first people at the scene apart from a red-faced teenager, Buddy Nowland, whose expression screamed guilt. Not long afterward, she found a half-stick of short fuse dynamite in a Ziploc bag under the thwart of an old rowboat that was a fixture at the pond, abandoned years ago and available for anyone’s use. The explosive, as well as the fish floating belly-up on the water’s surface, told her what the idiot child had been doing.
In her opinion, it wasn’t necessary to call in the Bomb Squad. The dynamite seemed stable and the date stamped on the side indicated it had been recently manufactured. She would make sure the explosive was disposed of properly after she finished her business here.
“Don’t you know what kind of trouble you can get into with that stuff?” she asked Buddy, noting the cell phone sticking out of his shirt pocket. She supposed he was the source of the 911 call.
Buddy shuffled his feet and said nothing.
Turning her head briefly, she watched Noah wade out into the pond to get a look at the naked body floating facedown among the dead fish and water weeds. The corpse’s pallid skin had a definite greenish tinge to it. She hoped Noah had the sense not to disturb the floater if it was too ripe. She didn’t want to have to drag the pond for internal organs if the body burst, and besides, a dismembered corpse would tick off the county medical examiner no end.
“Damn it, Buddy, you could get classified as a terrorist suspect!” she went on, returning her attention to the teenager.
“It was just a little fun, Sheriff,” Buddy said, cringing.
