The Broken Places

by Ace Atkins

  “Didn’t want to call you out to the Rebel,” Lillie said. “But you said any business with Johnny Stagg was worth a call.”

  “And now it’s a homicide.”

  “Lovely.”

  “I’m supposed to meet with Ophelia Bundren in twenty minutes over at the funeral home,” Quinn said. “Want to join me?”

  “Wow. You really mean it?”

  “I’d feel better if you came along,” Quinn said.

  “Look less like a date?”

  “Being that funeral homes are such romantic places,” Quinn said.

  “Maybe they are to Ophelia Bundren,” Lillie said, reaching for the pot and pouring a cup. Lillie smiled and handed the cup to Quinn, who walked back to his office. “OK. OK. What’s she got now?”

  “Says she’s got a witness to her sister’s killing,” Quinn said, turning at the door. “May be worth it to get on record.”

  “How many ways can you explain it doesn’t matter anymore?”

  “Just in case we need it.”

  “You worried about Caddy?”

  “Are you coming or not?”

  Lillie stood there and stared.

  “Sometimes I think you’re confused who is in charge here,” Quinn said, with a slight grin.

  Lillie saluted and headed back to her office. “Roger that, Sergeant.”

  They sat together in a room reserved for grieving families, with plenty of Biblical verses in gold frames, fake flowers, and neat folded tracts on grief. Ophelia, her mother, and brother tight-knit in folding chairs with Quinn and Lillie. A young skinny man in one of those Ed Hardy shirts—this one with a skull with flaming eyes wearing a top hat—joined them. He had scruffy facial hair and wore his ball cap cocked at an angle. Quinn used restraint to not remove the hat from his head or at least straighten it in the proper direction.

  The man’s name was Dustin. He was twenty-eight, with three kids, and unemployed. Within two seconds, he blamed his problems on the president of the United States.

  Lillie took a deep breath.

  “So you saw Miss Adelaide that night?” Quinn said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  No yes, sir. No yes. Just kind of a grunt.

  Dustin scratched his chin. Ophelia and her brother and mother waited. Her mother was portly and dressed in black, lots of thick makeup and dyed black hair. Ophelia’s brother was just a kid, still in high school, wearing his Tibbehah Wildcats letterman’s jacket. Quinn had heard he was set to play quarterback in the fall. He must’ve been about nine or ten when his sister died.

  “What did you see?” Lillie said.

  “I saw Jamey Dixon,” Dustin said, eyes flicking to the face of Ophelia and her mother and then back down at his hands. “I saw him run out after her. They were cussing at each other. She was running from him. Screaming.”

  “And what else?”

  “That was it,” Dustin said. “I was trying to get to work. People had jobs back then.”

  “Where’d you work?” Quinn said.

  “Ammunition factory, before it moved to China.”

  Quinn nodded. “You tell anyone?”

  “I didn’t know who it was,” he said. “She had blood on her face. Screaming and shit.”

  “And you didn’t stop?” Quinn asked.

  “Ain’t none of my business.”

  “And you didn’t see it in the newspaper?” Lillie asked. “Later?”

  “I don’t read no paper.”

  “Or hear it in church?” Quinn said.

  He shook his head. “I saw this thing on Facebook about it,” he said. “Miss Bundren trying to collect names of people who want to see Jamey Dixon get what he deserves.”

  “You know Dixon?” Quinn said. “Is that it?”

  “Hell no,” he said. “I wouldn’t piss on the son of a bitch.”

  Mrs. Bundren dropped her eyes into her hands. Ophelia’s brother just nodded, agreeing with the sentiment.

  “So after seeing this thing on Facebook, you decided to be bold and come forward?” Lillie said.

  “I just wrote that I seen him chasing a woman,” Dustin said. “Hell, I didn’t know it was her. But I knew it was him. I knew she was scared. It’s the same man; don’t tell me it ain’t.”

  Quinn shook his head and held up his right hand.

  “He knew it was my sister after we showed him some pictures,” Ophelia said.

  “You two getting in touch through the Facebook page?”

  Ophelia nodded, not wearing work clothes today but a black-and-white flowered dress with black leggings and high-heeled dress boots. Her hair was pulled back into a dark ponytail.

  “You said this was the day she died?” Quinn said.

  “Ah-huh. Yeah.”

  “How do you know?” Quinn said.

  “I recalled I was late for work that day ’cause I’d been over to Tupelo for the Elvis Fest,” Dustin said. “I got real tore up drinking and dancing.”

  “Can’t figure out why you wouldn’t be a model witness,” Lillie said.

  “’Cause they didn’t know about me,” Dustin said. “Shit. Ain’t you listenin’?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lillie said. “I am.”

  “So what can you do, Sheriff?” Mrs. Bundren asked. She was wide-eyed and attentive, a pair of reading glasses hung around her powdered neck.

  Quinn looked to Lillie. He leaned in, back bent, hands clasped in front of him. “Dixon has been pardoned.”

  “We want everyone to know what he’s done,” Mrs. Bundren said. “Our Facebook page has nearly two thousand members. It’s an education.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He’ll do it again.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “And we wanted you to know most of all,” Ophelia said. “You said you wanted to keep up with Dixon’s moves since he got out. Every time I hear him explain he’s innocent, I want to throw up.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Lillie said.

  “But wouldn’t what Dustin here says make a difference if Dixon starts to be a nuisance?” Mrs. Bundren said. “Wouldn’t it mean something to the parole board? He still has to report to them.”

  “More of a technicality,” Lillie said. “He is legally pardoned.”

  The Bundrens were not pleased. Dustin looked fidgety and confused.

  “Something will happen,” Ophelia’s brother said. “He’s gonna get pushed, and when that happens he’s gonna go batshit crazy.”

  Quinn stayed silent.

  “Only way he’ll get caught,” the brother said.

  Dustin looked at Lillie with narrow-set eyes and said, “Can I go? I got to meet some folks at the bar.”

  Quinn nodded. The group didn’t speak until he walked away.

  “That stupid church of his is opening tomorrow,” Ophelia said. “Can you believe that? He’ll be talking innocence the whole time there, too.”

  “Probably.”

  “You have to do something,” Ophelia said. “I don’t want y’all to be sitting in this room until it’s y’all’s time.”

  “And when’s our time?” Lillie said.

  Hell, the woman just couldn’t help herself.

  “I only know it’s not for Dixon to decide,” Ophelia said.

  “Sure as shit,” said the brother.

  • • •

  Becky should’ve at least put on a decent pair of pants. But hell no. She stood there in Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots, a man’s white dress shirt knotted up over her red bikini top. The idea was to do this thing at night and not to get noticed. Esau just hoped it would keep on raining. More rain and less moon.

  “Can’t you dress right?” Esau said.

  “I thought we were going to a swimming hole,” she said.

  “We ain’t swimming,” Esau said. “Dickie’s swimming.”

  “But it’s raining; ain’t no reason in changing out of my suit.”

  “Whatever you say, darling,” Esau said. “Hook up them chains, Bones.”

  Bones nodded at Esau and
dragged a hundred-foot section of thick chains up to the trailer and the bulldozer. Dickie was already monkeying on the back of the trailer, stoop-backed and telling him to wait a good goddamn second for him to get the machine off. “And then you hook it up,” Dickie said. “Shit, you don’t do it while it’s still parked.”

  “I wish everybody was as smart as you, Dickie,” Bones said. “The world would be a better place.”

  Dickie pulled off his shirt and pants, standing there in the rain in a white pair of Fruit of the Looms, and said, “You bet your black ass.”

  He hopped into the CAT, scruffy, wiry, and tattooed, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and turned the engine over. Dickie drove it off, let down the stabilizers, left the dozer idling, and said, “Now you hook them up, geniuses.”

  Bones dragged the chain to the edge of the pond, the two chains having a decent-sized hook on the end. Becky walked up to Esau and handed him a diving mask. “All they had at the Walmart,” she said. “Got a dolphin and starfish painted on the glass. Real cute.”

  Bones had gotten the flares, twisting the cap and igniting one. He handed one to Dickie at the edge of the pond. The pond was only maybe a couple acres, too deep for catfish; probably just some bluegills and bass. Esau watched Dickie wade on into the muddy water, placing the kids’ mask over his face, holding a flare and taking a breath. “I’ll come back for the chains once I find what we’re looking for.”

  “You sure you don’t want to put on a pair of pants?” Bones said.

  Dickie turned back to him. Rain falling harder now.

  “Why’s that?”

  “In case you got some piranhas or some shit down there,” Bones said, grinning a crooked smile. “One of them might think your pecker is a worm.”

  Dickie grabbed himself between the legs and told Bones that ain’t no one complained yet.

  He took a deep breath and disappeared under the water.

  Bones popped a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, leaning against the truck. “Knew that boy never been with a woman.”

  Becky had untied the man’s shirt and was using it to cover her head, hands holding it out like a canopy. There was wind and it was as warm and salty as the Gulf. “Y’all sure this is the place?”

  Bones nodded. Esau was quiet. Damn if Dickie hadn’t come up yet. Be a shame if he’d gone and drowned himself.

  “How do you know?” she said.

  Esau pointed to the spot where the old county highway, named Horse Barn Road on the map, intersected Highway 9. “Right at that T is where Bones sat waiting in that Dodge diesel with a cattle guard. How far back did you make a run?”

  “Hundred yards.”

  Esau nodded.

  “I was running the John Deere with a Bush Hog, making the car slow down, keep him running about twenty, thirty miles per hour. We had timed the sonsabitches down when they took a piss.”

  “Why didn’t they just pass you?” Becky said.

  “’Cause I had a Bush Hog on the back, making sure I was taking up the whole road. I mean, hell, we didn’t pick this spot by accident.”

  “And y’all kept him slow and easy till Bones comes at him full tilt and knocks that armored car on its ass?” Becky said.

  Esau nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Y’all didn’t think it would skid all the way into that pond?”

  “Didn’t really skid,” Bones said. “It more kind of tumbled over and over and then finally rolled twice before it settled at the bottom of the pond. I hit that car right in the sweet spot. T-boned it just right.”

  “OK,” Becky said, chewing gum and talking under her man’s-shirt canopy, arms stretched wide. “Then how come they didn’t find it? That’s what I don’t understand. You know they got one of them satellite things on it.”

  “Not ten years ago,” Esau said.

  They’d nearly forgotten about Dickie Green as his dumb bald head popped up from the far edge of the pond, the reddish glow of the glare ringing where he was treading water. He gave a thumbs-up. “Found it,” he said, yelling. “Found it.”

  Esau winked at Becky, walked to the muddy edge of the pond, and started pulling the chains into the water, walking onto the slick, silty bottom, nearly up to his neck, Bones feeding him the chains, till he met Dickie out there, still treading water.

  “You get that bumper?” Esau said.

  “Naw,” Dickie said. “I figure I’d just pull it out myself. What the fuck you think?”

  Esau handed over a length of chain so heavy that it nearly took Dickie full to the bottom. Esau turned and marched back out of the water, trudging out onto the shore with his boots heavy and thick with mud.

  “Watch your pecker,” Bones said. He chomped his big teeth together.

  “Shut your black ass and toss me another flare,” Dickie said.

  Bones knocked the cap off another and fired it up. He laughed as he walked back to the Tundra and leaned against it. Esau reached into the Tundra for a half-pint of Jack Daniel’s and took a good swallow. He passed the bottle to Bones and then from Bones to Becky. He trudged over to the backhoe and used its stabilizer to scrape his boots, and then checked the chains. A length of chain rattled and stretched down deep into the water. That son of a bitch must of have been underwater for nearly a goddamn minute.

  “Must really be part fish,” Bones said.

  “We know most of him ain’t human.”

  “He told me today that it was lucky he came around because black people always sink,” Bones said. “Kind of wanted to shoot him.”

  “People been wanting to shoot Dickie his whole life,” Esau said. “Reason he’s the way he is.”

  “Maybe there’s a time for that,” Bones said.

  Esau nodded.

  “Y’all are just rotten,” Becky said. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Dickie’s head popped up, no flare but treading water and coming back to shore. “Burnt my fucking hand,” he said. “Son of a bitch.”

  His hand was bleeding and bright red. Dickie clutched it to his body.

  “You get it?” Esau said. “We ready or not?”

  Dickie shook his head. “Hell no. I was right there. Nearly got the axle.”

  “Go back,” Esau said.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Ain’t you listenin’?”

  Esau pulled out the .357 and told Dickie if he didn’t, he’d shoot him where he stood.

  “I appreciate you coming,” Ophelia said. “Even though it won’t make a bit of difference to Dixon.”

  Quinn nodded. Lillie had left. And it was just him and Ophelia in the funeral home parking lot. The big Bundren sign—SERVING JERICHO SINCE 1958—burned bright on the wet asphalt. There was a long black hearse parked inside a big portico to the left of the entrance. The air kind of swelled with rain and warm heat.

  “I guess you think our family is going crazy,” she said. “Wanting you to meet all these people.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” Quinn said. “And I appreciate it.”

  “You going to his church service tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Are you going to talk more with Caddy?” she said. “Tell her what you heard?”

  “I stopped a long time ago trying to tell my sister what to do.”

  “You know Caddy and I used to be real close,” Ophelia said. “After you went in the Army. We had a lot of good times. Trips to Memphis and over to Ole Miss. We partied hard, Quinn. Stupid shit. Boys. A lot of stupid boys.”

  Quinn didn’t say anything. Ophelia was doing that tight, nervous thing with her mouth, catching Quinn’s eye really hard and then looking away.

  “I want you to know I tried to help her,” Ophelia said. “Your momma knows. I think what happened to Caddy should have happened to me.”

  “Caddy is a grown woman,” Quinn said. “She made some bad choices.”

  “Your momma and I went up to Memphis about three years ago and found her living in an apartment off Mount Mor
iah. Nasty place. Must have been six girls living in one room. Knee-deep in trash and beer bottles. There were drugs just out in the open. Men coming in and out.”

  “I know you tried to bring her back.”

  Ophelia nodded.

  “And she fought it,” Quinn said.

  Ophelia turned over her wrist and showed him a pair of diagonal scars. “Looks a lot better now. It was a hell of a fight. Your sister has some real claws.”

  “But you tried,” Quinn said. “That’s more than me.”

  “You were on the other side of the world,” she said. “What do they say about fighting that war? We could play it at home or on the road.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “I don’t want her back in that messed-up place in her head,” Ophelia said. “When Dixon turns on her, I want her to know what he does to women. You think anything will help?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I ask you a very personal family question?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Did she ever tell you about Jason?”

  Quinn waited.

  “About how she got pregnant?”

  Quinn looked down and smiled. “I’m pretty sure I know how that stuff works.”

  “I mean, did she ever tell you about Jason’s father?”

  Quinn felt his blood run a little cold. He watched the long, broken highway stretching out from the funeral home and east over the Big Black River bridge. A semi rambled past them and disappeared over the river. The old bridge had always looked like a rusted erector set to him. It should have been replaced twenty years ago.

  “I asked her once,” Ophelia said. “When she came back the first time. After Jason was born. And she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I got the feeling that she didn’t know.”

  “I think that’s pretty much the case,” Quinn said. “What does it matter? Jason is part of us.”

  “But with Dixon,” Ophelia said. “And that crazy church? Money and power? Caddy breaks too damn easy, Quinn.”

  He took a deep breath. Cars coming and going off the old bridge, bright lights shining up on the slick blacktop. Ophelia walked up close to him. She placed her palm flat over his chest, leaned in, and pressed her head close to him. Quinn stood still for a moment, hand coming up behind her and pulling her in, cupping her shoulder. The soft cotton dress felt comfortable and familiar.