Totsie stood with her arms open in a circle. Her mother walked into the circle and enveloped her. Edison turned. His face was somber. “Well, Samantha. You can see that this was all a tragic accident.” He placed an arm around her shoulders and, this time, propelled her toward the front door.
“Terribly tragic,” he went on. “I hope we’ll talk about this tomorrow before you share this story with anyone.”
He managed to pat her, but at the same time he was still politely walking her out. “And now, if you’ll excuse us, it’s been a long night. I must put my pretty ladies to bed.”
The door clicked behind her suddenly, and before she knew what was happening, Sam was standing alone in the dark.
Sixteen
Sam shook her head as she wheeled her car down the long driveway. So Totsie had accidentally killed Ridley. And then what? Did she just leave his body there to be discovered and wait for the announcement of his death, which came, ironically enough, at her parents’ cocktail party?
Why would she do that? Because she was afraid she’d be charged with murder? Or because she didn’t want anyone to know about the circumstances?
Or was it simply fear? Had she just panicked? Sam thought about Chappaquiddick. She’d always wondered what she’d do in a situation like that, a fatal accident, but a terribly incriminating one. It was easy to condemn others until you were standing there, looking at a dead body, trying to make a rational and moral decision while you were in shock.
But something about Totsie’s story bothered her. It wasn’t that Sam didn’t believe her. She believed that Totsie thought that was the way it had happened. Sam couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it didn’t feel quite right.
Maybe it was Edison’s reaction to Totsie’s story. He didn’t really seem concerned about her, but rather, curious about what she was going to say. And his being in the vicinity of the accident, even ten miles away—somehow it was like being ten miles away from an atomic bomb.
Sam stopped at the end of the drive, turned left on Andrews, then left on West Paces Ferry Road. She’d take I-75 back home. Though she usually avoided the expressways, she was in a hurry. She wanted to talk to George about all this. And to Beau. In light of Totsie’s story, she wanted to talk with him again about that hole he thought he’d seen in Ridley’s chest—and to tell him to check the note for Kay Kay’s fingerprints.
So Kay Kay had sent those invitations. What else was she capable of doing? Was she capable of murder? And why had she pulled that stunt? It would be a long reach to think a woman her age would go to so much trouble for a practical joke. Why did she dislike the Ridleys so? Or one of the Ridleys? Was it Forrest or Queen?
What was it she’d said about Queen at Forrest’s wake? Something about Queen coming after other women’s husbands. Was Queen after her husband? It had sounded tonight as if the Kays’ match had hardly been made in heaven, as if the love had gone long ago. But who knew why people stayed together, why they held on, the dependencies and needs they fed for one another? Edison Kay might be a son-of-a-bitch, but he was Kay Kay’s son-of-a-bitch, and rich to boot.
On the other hand, why would Queen be interested in Edison Kay? Maybe she knew about Ridley’s affair with Totsie. Maybe this was her little joke—keeping it all in the family, so to speak. All that plastic surgery…and yet Forrest was seeing a young girl. Was that all a—
Sam’s heart dropped. There was a blue light, damn it, rotating in her rearview mirror.
She jerked her foot off the gas and looked down at the needle. Shit! She’d been doing fifty-five. The speed limit in this neighborhood was probably forty. Should she tell this guy some cock and bull story about being on assignment? Hell, it was worth a try.
She slowed and edged the car off the pavement. The patrol car pulled up right behind her.
She reached into her bag for her driver’s license, registration, and her press card. Though you could never tell with these guys—some of them hated the media. She’d decide when she saw him how to play it.
“Sorry, ma’am, but I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the car.”
“Just a minute.” Sam glanced to her left, but his flashlight was blinding. “If you’ll hold that still a second, I’ll have my license.”
“Please, just step out of the car.”
As he spoke the second time, the voice started to register. Low and rumbling, but pleasant. Beneath the rumble, just below the slow, sweet surface, was a chuckle. She’d heard that voice before. Yesterday? No, the day—
Just as she got it, Sheriff Buford Dodd, who’d been parked in the Kays’ driveway nursing a bottle all during Sam’s interview, grabbed her arm and jerked her out the door.
Seventeen
The handcuffs snapped. The doorlocks popped shut. The car began to move.
“Well now, Mrs. Sloan,” Dodd drawled. In the flash of his nickel-plated lighter she saw his smile. He lit a cigar. “I hope you don’t mind if I smoke.”
So that’s how he was going to play it—gentlemanly and cool. As if he’d just happened to be in the neighborhood. As if he’d invited her for a ride in his car and she’d smilingly accepted, swishing her skirts and showing a bit of ankle as he held the door and handed her inside.
“Not at all. But I do mind these.” She lifted her braceleted wrists.
“I’m sorry about that.” He chuckled. “Unfortunately, we have to do that kind of thing with uppity women. Now, had you minded your own business, had you stayed home…” He took a long drag on his cigar, and the car filled with smoke.
They passed the governor’s mansion on their right, an atrocious red-brick reproduction of a Southern plantation house whose first occupant had been Lester Maddox, that baseball bat-wielding racist champion. Just ahead was the green sign for I-75. Dodd turned onto the expressway, headed north.
What was it that sweet, loony Herman Blanding, had said? Something about the devil coming from the north? He’d been talking about Union soldiers, dead these many long years. But there were always men who were willing to wreak havoc on the bodies and happiness of others, whether they were fighting for a cause or were only in it for themselves. There always had been. Probably always would be. These devils favored no direction. They came from everywhere.
“Mrs. Sloan. Now, that was right insulting, you know, thinking you could fool us country boys with a phony name. It’s not like we just crawled out of the slime yesterday.”
Sam was trying to remember the psychological strategies she had once learned in a self-defense class in California. The class had been taught by a cop—just like her captor. Should she go along with him? Should she smile and be nice? Or should she be tough?
She tried nice first. “I didn’t mean to insult you. You know, reporters just use whatever they think will get them by.”
“Well, that’s all right.” He reached over and patted her knee. Then he rested his huge hand there and squeezed, kneading her flesh. He shifted his hand just a little higher, and turned and winked at her.
Uh-oh. Was this to be a real abduction—with a full complement of horrors?
“Naw,” he said as if he were talking to himself. He lifted his hand and twirled his cigar. Sam stared at him, trying to second-guess his next move. The rolling of the fat stogie in his wet mouth was an obscenity. He felt her looking and grinned.
“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then ask me.”
Sam was silent. What kind of game was he playing? And how should she respond? Should she join in and play along? Or should she stay outside, strong?
In the self-defense class, the officer had said that the best thing you could do was escape. Well, she didn’t see how she could do that. If you couldn’t, you had to play it by ear, moment by moment.
“I said, ‘Ask me,’” he insisted, his voice growing rougher.
“Where are we going?”
‘“Where are we going, please?’” His right hand gra
sped the back of her neck. His powerful fingers reached almost all the way around. Jesus. He could choke her to death with one hand while still driving.
“Where are we going, please?”
“Pretty please.”
“Pretty please.”
“I’m taking you home.” He shook her as if she were a kitten, and then released her. “Home to Monroeville.”
He didn’t talk for a long while after that. They turned east onto the perimeter highway, then north on Route 400. He drove swiftly and surely, the heavy car whooshing up the black road. Of course nobody was going to give him a ticket. He fiddled with the radio a moment; then a country and western station clicked in on a clear signal. Kenny Rogers was singing one of Sam’s old favorites about a philandering woman named Lucille.
Suddenly, on a dark stretch of road, Dodd wheeled over to the shoulder and flipped on his whirling blue light.
He was going to kill her right here. Sam froze. He was going to kill her right here on the side of the road in plain view of the cars rushing past, without her ever even knowing the whole story. She was never going to know what had really happened at Apalachee Falls—or why.
You are a trooper, Adams. And something else—a fool. Fighting for that story to the very last. Well, look where it got you this time, Ms. Smartypants, in a world of trouble that you know nothing about. It’s not as if they didn’t warn you: George, Hoke, Peaches and Horace, the DEA agent. And Beau. Beau. She was never going to know what that was all about, either. What it could have been. What the hell Beau really wanted.
Dodd reached over and unlocked her right cuff. Before she had time to massage her wrist, he grasped her arm and twisted it up sharply behind her back. She cried out. He drew her against his chest, forced his mouth down on hers. She struggled against him, tasting the cigar and stale whiskey. Then she heard a click.
She froze.
He’s pulled a switchblade.
He’s cocked a pistol.
I’m dead, she thought.
Then he released her.
He’d crossed her wrists and fastened them behind her back. He pulled the seat belt across her chest, brushing her breasts with his fingers, and fastened it. Click.
“I should have done that in the first place,” he said, grinning.
Then from the glove compartment he pulled a brown envelope, poured out some powder on a small mirror, drew two lines, and snorted.
“Whoo-ee!” he shouted, the sound bouncing around in the car. “White line fever! You want some?”
She shook her head.
“Might as well,” he said. “No need to worry now about getting addicted.”
“No, thank you.”
“Want to keep your wits about you, huh?”
Yes. That was it exactly.
“Might as well enjoy yourself, honey.” He switched on the ignition, and the powerful engine roared in response. The car jumped forward. “Won’t make a damn bit of difference.”
The cocaine made him talkative. The words rushed out in gobs like blood from a wound that couldn’t be stanched.
“Lots more where this comes from,” he bragged. “Straight from the La Guajira Peninsula.”
“Colombia?”
“Smart girl. You bet.”
“So you have your own personal supplier?”
He tipped his head back and laughed. “Supplier? Sweet thing, I’m part of the conduit. Those old boys, daredevils, fly that stuff straight in. That’s what you wanted to know when you were asking about airstrips in Millie’s, wuddn’t it?”
Sam blushed in the dark. Of course, he knew every word that was ever spoken in Monroeville. Especially the words of a stranger. How stupid she’d been. What the hell did she think she was doing? She’d never been so sloppy before. What had she been thinking about? Maybe it was time she quit this business. She was going to think about doing that very thing, if she got the chance.
“What made you think there was drugs?” he demanded.
“Everybody knows they’re coming in up here. And the more I looked, the more there seemed to be too much money.”
“What d’ya mean?”
“You and Edison Kay—and Saunders. Laundering too much money, I thought, for it just to be land deals.”
“That bastard!” he growled.
“Kay?”
“Nawh. Though he’s prob’ly one too. They all are. City sharps, think they putting it to us old boys. Always working a slicker angle. Nawh.” He shook his head. “Saunders. Greedy bastard. Always whining about his share. Hell, he didn’t do half the work I did. Grunt work, standing out there in the middle of the night with flashlights, those little suckers swooping in like kamikazes, miss and they take your head off. Two minutes on the ground. Hustling for those duffels they tossed. Sweating like a nigger, reeling ’em in before anybody comes, sacks weighing two hundred pounds. Two hundred pounds a bag,” he repeated, “of pure snow. And all Saunders did was make a few contacts. Didn’t ever see him hustling his butt.”
“But he was fifty-fifty on the land deals?”
“Oh, yeah, he did his share on that. But that was all the deal behind the deals, don’t you see? The land is one thing. And it ain’t chicken feed. But the blow’s where the real bucks are.” He sniffed, rubbing the back of his hand across his nose.
“You mean the land deals were just a cover-up for the drugs?”
“Not a cover-up, not exactly. But they’re a way for funneling the money, and they turn a healthy profit themselves.”
“This was Saunders’s idea?” Sam pressed.
“Hell, no. Saunders ain’t got those kind of brains. It was Kay. Kay’s the sharpy. Kay’s the one. Course”—and he puffed up—“he couldn’t do none of it without me. I’m the…facilitator.”
Sam wondered where he’d gotten that word—from watching detectives on TV? Or did Chuck Norris use fancy words in the movies these days before he blasted people’s faces off with tommy guns?
“I’ve got to have a little talk with Saunders,” Dodd continued as if he were alone. “Got to set him straight on a few things, like snitching to the GBI.”
Sam held her breath.
“Wasn’t no need to call anyone about Ridley. Didn’t need the fucking M.E. up here messing around in our bidness.” He was talking about Beau.
“Well, he didn’t see much, did he?” Sam said.
They had turned off on Route 19 some time ago. Only here and there showed a light in a mobile home, the blue glow of a television screen, people inside clustered around a little picture of people being abducted, tortured, raped, killed—just like in real life.
In real life it didn’t happen as often, Sam thought. But it only had to happen to you once.
“He only saw Ridley’s body in my office,” Dodd said. “That didn’t tell him nothing, ’cept the man was dead. And we already knew that.” He relighted his cigar, which had gone out. “That’s okay. Hell, I like to watch those monkeys work. All that tromping around the crime scene, looking for little bits of blood and hair, teeth and spit. They’re like catfish. Bottom feeders. Sucking up the shit everybody else has left behind. Hell, we don’t ever need to bother with those bastards. What else do we pay a vet good money for?” He laughed.
Sam doubted that Beau would appreciate that description of his profession. Nor would Boggs. She smiled a little at the thought of that kind-faced man. There was steel behind that sweet exterior. Was Boggs a Clark Kent? Would he quick-change into Superman, like the father who wanted to save his daughter B.J. from marriage in the shaggy dog story? If Boggs knew what was going on right now, would he swoop right down and save her?
She didn’t think of Beau as her rescuer, even though he had the Superman looks. But then, she couldn’t trust Beau. When it came to the clutch, he might excuse himself with some more important responsibility, some more pressing engagement, just might remember he wanted to go off and marry someone else.
No, when she thought about him, she thought other things, private things, w
arm things, lustful things. Jesus. She was still a sucker for his pretty face. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts loose. The two of them were naked, their bodies intertwined, his mouth slowly working its way lower and lower down her back. He was planting soft little kisses down her spine. The tingling raced up and down, but mostly down. He had wrapped a leg around her. Then his knee slid up between her legs. She ran her hands over him, touching whatever came within reach. She was playing his ribs, musical ribs. They sang to her. He slipped a hand between her legs now, and she started to sing, too.
“You know Doc Talbot?”
Sam jumped. “Yes.”
“Handsome fellow, ain’t he?”
She nodded.
“Say what?”
“Yes!”
“Yes, what?”
Uh-oh, here we go again. “Yes, he’s handsome.”
“Better-looking than me?”
“No. He’s not better-looking than you.”
“Then,” he drawled, “if you think he’s handsome, you must think I’m Robert Redford, right?”
She paused. Any idiot could see where this was leading.
“I think you’re a very handsome man, Sheriff Dodd.” And actually, that was the truth. He was also mean as a rattlesnake. And just as sidewinding. You could never tell exactly where he was going to strike.
“Then I guess that means you want to fuck me.” He reached over and grasped her face with one hand, twisting it toward him. “Right?”
“Wrong.”
“Well.” He laughed and released her. “You’ll be begging for it before it’s over.”
And then he dropped that topic as if it were a toy he’d grown bored with.
“Thought he was slick, asking me all those questions about Ridley,” Dodd grumbled. “Asking me about that hole in his chest. Any jackass could see that it was a gunshot. But I told him Ridley’s body must have hit a rock. And he had to buy it, no matter what he knew, ’cause I wasn’t letting nobody autopsy the body. It was an accidental death. Because I said so. That’s what counts in Watkin County.”
They were banking around Long Pond Bend. In a minute or two, they’d be in town.
First Kill All the Lawyers Page 15
