“County politics in the South don’t have a great reputation.”
“And you live in Cook County, Illinois, where the dead vote?”
“Only in really close elections.”
She chuckled. “Most political power is in Clara’s hands, followed, in no particular order, by the tax commissioner and then the probate judge. Not things you hear about much.”
“And sheriff.”
“Well, that’s up there, too. Course, in the past thirty years we’ve had federal inspectors in here monitoring the elections more than half the time. African-Americans are a majority on the board of education, but it’s still pretty racist here. It’s just not brought out in the open. Everything is a secret.”
“I’m going to need to know these secrets if I’m going to get out of this.”
She glanced at the clock. “You ready to start tonight?”
“I’m pretty beat, but I slept on the floor in the jail for a while. I think we’d better get moving if we can. Where are we going to start?”
“With Cody.”
“You were awful friendly with him earlier.”
“I find flirting with particular men helpful. A divorced woman is a target for every male who thinks he’s the only one who can satisfy her. Once she sees how spectacular he can be, why, then she’ll be happy to cook, clean, and slave for him. Her reward is two minutes of pleasure twice a year when he’s drunk. If this town thinks Cody’s after me, then they leave me alone.”
“Maybe it works that way for him too,” I said.
She looked at me quizzically; then her face cleared. “I never thought of that. I wanted to start with him, because we’re sort of close. Since your lawyer told you about him dancing in Atlanta, he sounds like the best bet.”
“Think he killed him?”
“Let’s find out.”
We slipped through the heat to the car. She drove for a few minutes until we were out of town heading south.
“Aren’t you afraid of being seen with me?” I asked.
“It’ll be reported around town soon enough. We’ve got to move quickly and be reasonably discreet.”
About five miles out of town she turned onto a dirt road lined with trees whose branches met overhead. “We’re going to Rebel Hell, the local pool hall, gambling den, and pickup bar.”
“I thought you couldn’t get a drink served in the South.”
“Depends on where you are and the kind of place. This kind of place will do what the customers want. Cody will be here. All the deputies come out on Wednesday night.”
“Out mourning the sheriff’s passing?”
“It’s a place to be together. They’ll mourn him.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be with you.”
“We’ve got to talk to him. I’ll go in and you’ll wait in the car. He’ll come out with me. Maybe you better wait in the backseat.”
The car bucked and rocked over the ruts and potholes in the dirt road for more than a mile and a half. We stopped in front of a shack maybe fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. The parking lot was loose gravel and had three or four cars and at least thirty pickup trucks in it.
Unease lurked at the fine edge of my consciousness. Could Violet be leading me out here for a convenient lynching? It had been years since she was close to Scott. Maybe this was her chance for revenge. I decided if more than one person came out of the shack heading in my direction, I’d run out of the car and take my chances in the woods.
She seemed to sense my fear, because she leaned over and patted my arm. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll be out in a few minutes, but I’ll leave the keys in the ignition. If you feel uncomfortable, tear out of here fast.”
The windows of the bar were wide open. Through the screens I got a clear view inside. If I lived here, I’d have preferred an establishment that kept the windows closed and the air-conditioning on high. I turned the ignition to power, lowered the window on my side from the master control on the driver’s side, then flicked the key back off.
I listened to the calls of birds I didn’t recognize and crickets and frogs and the hum of insects. Blue-lit electric bug-zappers hung from the opposite corners of the bar’s roof overhang. The sound of death zaps punctuated the night air. The noise of the jukebox in the bar reached my ears easily, although Violet had parked as far away from the light as possible. A wall of bushes loomed on my left. Violet had put the car under a tree so it was in even deeper shadow. Through the branches and leaves I could see overhead a nearly full moon shining amid the millions of stars you can’t see from the city. Back to nature. How lovely. At the moment, for my money you could pave the entire state of Georgia and turn it into a parking lot.
The minutes passed. I could see Violet inside speaking to a small crowd of men. I thought I caught glimpses of Cody with a cue stick in his hand.
Most of the people I saw inside were white men in jeans and T-shirts, some with logos advertising particular beers, rock groups, or unpleasant things they’d like to do to their enemies. A few women, both black and white, sat at the bar. They wore the same outfits as the men.
Three guys appeared in the screen-door entryway and gazed out at the night. Were they looking toward me? Suddenly one of them burst from the door. He took several steps in my direction, abruptly turned to his right, and ran to the far side of the building. The sounds of him being sick added dissonance to the symphony of the velvet Georgia night. His buddies laughed uproariously, helped him to a dirty brown pickup, and tossed him in the back. They climbed into the cab and left.
The remnants of the air-conditioning had all seeped from the car and I’d begun to sweat. I pulled my back away from the seat and yanked at my already damp shirt. The screen swung open and two guys walked to the opposite side of the parking lot. They swung themselves into a red pickup, turned on the lights, revved the motor, and drove off in a swirl of gravel. What if they were going to block my escape? I became more uneasy.
Violet finally appeared in the doorway with her arm around Cody. The T-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and enwrapped his slender torso said “Go Tech.” His jeans clung to his narrow hips. He nuzzled at her neck but seemed reluctant to leave. Several raucous calls came from inside. These had to do with how lucky Cody was.
I switched the dome light off so it wouldn’t come on when the car door opened. I moved silently out of the front and crawled into the backseat. I inched my head up so I could see. I felt childish and stupid crouching around in the middle of the night. Then again, I didn’t want to be executed for murder.
Giggling and laughing, they stumbled into the car. Violet started the engine.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Cody said. “Thought we were just going to visit out here.”
She patted him and said, “We’ve got to talk.” When she pulled out of the parking lot onto the dirt road, she said, “Tom?”
I sat up.
If Cody was drunk, his reaction didn’t show it. In seconds I was looking down the barrel of a gun.
“Put that away, Cody,” Violet said. “We just want to talk to you. Where did you get that?”
“Under my shirt in back. I don’t go out to Rebel Hell without it. Crowd out here is tough.”
“Put it away,” she said. “He’s not going to hurt you and neither am I.”
He lowered the gun a few inches. “What is this bullshit?”
“I didn’t kill the sheriff,” I said.
“That’s what they all say—‘I didn’t do it.’ If your pal didn’t have connections, you’d be safely in jail.”
“My connections say you dance naked in Atlanta on the first and third Saturdays of every month.”
The gun barrel reached much farther up my nostril than I ever thought it would go. I squirmed backwards.
Violet yelled, “Stop that, Cody!”
Cody followed my movement back and was half over the seat. The car swerved violently. Cody lurched off balance for a moment. I grabbed the hand with the gun and smashed
it against the roof of the car. I’d had just about enough of fear. If the guy didn’t dance, I’d be dead. I smashed the hand again and the gun dropped to the floor of the backseat. I did not pick it up.
Cody was sore. “You mother-fucking son of a bitch, I’ll arrest you for resisting arrest, for attacking a police officer, and for kidnapping a cop! Don’t think I wouldn’t arrest you too, Violet. You won’t get away with this.”
I said, “I’ve got directions to the address in Atlanta, Violet. If they recognize him at the dance club, we’ll be fine.” If not, I thought, we might as well just keep driving until we get to the moon. I suspected kidnapping a Georgia police officer was a crime heavily frowned upon in this jurisdiction.
Violet drove through Brinard and took the road west toward the interstate. We were silent through two counties.
As Violet swung around another courthouse square, Cody said, “You don’t have to do this.”
In the light from the dash I could see his brown hair and brown eyes and firm jaw. The hand I’d smashed trembled a little. From the pain or from fear?
“Cody, I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want to bring trouble to you. I’d rather not get information or help from you by threats and coercion. I just need help.”
“I’m not gay,” he said.
“How’d you wind up dancing?” Violet asked.
He was silent a minute and then said, “A buddy from the police academy came down to go hunting with me. He told me about this bar, said the guys who danced made a lot of money from fat old desperate fags. Said at least half the guys who danced there were straight, but did it just for the money and laughs. I guess I asked more questions than most. He wrote the address on a card and said they were very discreet. Deputy sheriff in this county don’t pay much. I went up there once and they hired me.”
“You didn’t have to put out for the owner?” I asked.
“He’s straight. It’s strictly money to him.”
“You let guys paw you. You hug and kiss them in public. They grab your dick, and my source says you charge huge amounts of money for after-hours personal parties. Sounds kind of gay to me.”
“I’m straight.”
Violet said, “I’m not sure I care who either of you choose to prong on a Saturday night. Question is, did the sheriff know?”
“Or anyone else in town?” I added.
“No.”
“Nobody ever mentioned or noticed your frequent and regular trips to Atlanta? Some high-ranking county official like the sheriff didn’t stumble into the bar one night, catch you, and threaten to expose you?”
I tried watching his eyes as he answered.
“Nobody I knew ever showed up. I made money, that’s all.”
“Sheriff didn’t get suspicious that you were living beyond your means?” I asked.
“I put the money into an account in a bank in Savannah. I haven’t spent any of it yet. I’ll use it to buy a decent house when I get married.”
“People will wonder how you could afford it,” Violet said.
“Maybe I don’t plan to live in this town forever.”
Violet drove onto the interstate toward Atlanta. Cody stared out the window at the scenery for several minutes.
“Tell me about the sheriff,” I said.
“I know you want to try and save your ass,” Cody said, “but I think you killed him.”
I sighed. “I’m working from the accurate premise that I didn’t and I need information. Aren’t you at least concerned with justice in this? You dance in a gay nightclub, you can’t be as prejudiced as a lot of these people.”
“Faggots are pathetic. Pawing at me. Hoping for a little hug back. It’s disgusting.”
“How nice they tip you,” I said.
“Yeah, well.”
“We’ll keep your pretty face and your prejudices out of the paper if you talk. If not, we may or may not believe you about being straight, but Burr County is going to think you’ve gone over to the minions of Satan, no matter what the truth is.”
He placed his fists against the dashboard and stretched his arms straight. Then he twined his fingers together and cracked his knuckles one by one.
Finally he said, “Sheriff didn’t tell his deputies a lot of secrets. Burr County Sheriff’s Department runs pretty much like any other small county. We give out traffic tickets, keep teenage rowdiness to a minimum, hassle with domestic disturbances, deal with break-ins and burglaries. County fair is kind of work for a week each year. We’ve got ten guys full-time, with two black guys to handle crime in the black community. Sheriff goes around with them around election time asking for votes.”
“That still happens?” I asked.
They both glanced back at me. “You got a better solution?” Cody asked. “You want white cops going into the black community to make an arrest?”
“Good to know white cops are afraid of something.”
“It isn’t fear. It’s just sensible.”
I decided not to debate police-department procedures in the South.
“Tell me about the sheriff.”
“Okay to work for. Like any boss, he had his good days and bad.”
“What about the bad days?”
“He might chew your ass out for doing something stupid, but if you did your job, he was okay.”
“Anybody in the department that he particularly didn’t like?”
“Nope. Everybody sort of got along.”
“How about in town?”
“Town’s pretty peaceful.”
“Come on,” I said. “Man like that has to have enemies. Who were the tough cases in town? People who had grievances against him.”
“Well, we got Jasper Williams. He’s sort of the town nut.”
“God, yes,” Violet said. “He is one crazy bastard.”
“How so?”
Cody said, “He’s sort of one of them skinhead Nazi types. He’s never been to Germany but wants to go real bad. He hates Jews, blacks, and faggots.”
“He’s not in the Klan?” I asked.
“He’s too nuts even for them,” Cody said. “He lives about a third of the way into Thomas Jefferson Swamp. Burns crosses in strange rituals on his own property, tortures critters, and tried to dam up the water in the swamp. Built this huge dike that didn’t do no good. Water just oozed around it. FBI came down and investigated him a few times. Thought he might be printing hate literature. Found boxes of swastikas. That’s how he came to the attention of the sheriff.”
“I remember that,” Violet said. “He put them down the median strip of the roads around the courthouse square for the Fourth of July last year.”
“He was mad when the sheriff locked him up. Threatened to exterminate the whole police force.”
“Great,” I said. “He killed the sheriff. Lock him up and throw away the key.”
“Doubt it. He’s got guns out there, and he’s threatened just about everybody in town one time or another, but he’s never done anything to anybody. He got a piece of mail all messed up in his post-office box one time and claimed he was gonna shoot everybody who worked there.”
I leaned forward in the car and Cody turned half-sideways so that we could look at each other while we conversed. He seemed almost like a decent guy giving information.
“You let that kind of nut run around?”
“Never committed a major crime. I do know that some people stumbled on his place accidentally once. Hikers who got lost. Don’t know what he did to them, but they hightailed it out of town right quick, claiming they had to escape. They said he had snakes and torture stuff and wouldn’t hang around to press charges. I know I wouldn’t want him to catch me in the swamp at night.”
“I still don’t believe you let him run loose.”
Cody said, “Doesn’t hurt that his daddy is very rich. Lives up north somewheres but still owns a big chunk of the county.”
Violet said, “That plus there’s a lot of toleration for eccentricity in the South.”
>
“This doesn’t sound eccentric to me. I think it’s sick.”
“He didn’t kill the sheriff,” Cody said. “Last I knew, Harvey and one of the guys went out to warn him not to light any fires. It’s been so dry, even the swamp could go up in flames. They didn’t find him, but they left a note.”
The young cop might not have Jasper Williams on his suspect list, but ol’ Jasper was sure on mine.
“How about Al Holcomb, the one in charge of the Klan?”
“Him and Peter golfed together nearly every Saturday. They’ve been friends for years.”
“Maybe Peter was a Klan member,” I said.
“I doubt it,” Cody said. “Everybody pretty much knows who’s in the Klan. Never heard the sheriff was. Only about fifty people in the whole county are in the Klan. It’s not that big a deal.”
“How about Clara Thorton?” I asked. “Peter and she had that big blowup in the Waffle House yesterday morning. Everybody saw it. Or maybe somebody used that fight as an excuse, a chance to kill the sheriff and blame it on Clara or us.”
“That was just politics between them,” Cody said. “I grew up in town, and I know Clara’s husband didn’t like the sheriff. Never did know why.”
“Is that the basis of their disagreement, or is it more recent?” I asked. “There’s got to be some reason.”
“I know Clara has opposed getting more police officers for years,” Cody said. “Me and Harvey only got hired a couple years back because two guys retired. Every time the sheriff tried to get more money for police or anything for the department, she said no. Hasn’t been an improvement in years. Cars are getting so bad we couldn’t catch a snail in a high-speed chase.”
“Yeah,” Violet said, “I remember the quote in the newspaper Clara gave. Something about cops don’t prevent crime, they just come around after and write reports.”
“I’m going to talk to her,” I said. “Who else?”
“Before I came into the department, I heard the sheriff almost got into a fistfight with Hiram Carpenter, your buddy’s brother.”
“I never heard that,” Violet said.
“Hiram has a temper,” Cody said. “He can be pretty mean. Him and Peter was in Rebel Hell and Hiram was pretty drunk. Guy accidentally bumped into Hiram. Poor guy apologized but Hiram belted him, knocked him out with one punch. Hiram’s damn strong. Sheriff told him to go home and Hiram got pissed.”
Rust on the Razor Page 8
