by Ace Atkins
“You bet,” Jason said. “I had a buddy who told me he got spit on not twenty-four hours after stepping off the plane.”
“I think your boy was respected,” Stagg said. “But he had a habit of blaming other folks for his troubles. Mad at the world. He was still in the service when he came after me, blamed me for your brother-in-law Hamp Beckett dying. You and I both know that wadn’t anyone’s fault but Hamp’s.”
Jason nodded. He’d heard a lot of theories, many that implicated Stagg. But you didn’t act like a hard-on coming hat in hand. A man gritted his teeth and tried his best to see that deal through. “Sure.”
“Just how much are you willing to pay?”
“Land is stripped,” he said. “And what’s left is a real mess.”
Stagg grinned with tombstone teeth big enough to pop the cap from a beer bottle. He folded his hands on the picnic table and nodded and nodded. “Cleared,” he said. “And ready for development.”
“You expect much development up there around Fate?” Jason said, smiling back. “Only business up there is a scratch-and-dent grocery and a deer processor.”
Stagg’s grin didn’t wave, only stared at Jason, waiting for him to get on with it, tell him a price, as that was the only thing that got a man like Stagg’s attention.
Jason said, “Fifteen hundred an acre.”
“Oh, hell.”
“That’s twice what it’s worth,” Jason said. “I appreciate your predicament. But as I told our friends, I’m not here to bargain. Only to make an offer. If that’s not acceptable, it’s your land and you can do with it what you want.”
Stagg scratched under his nose with the back of his forefinger. A prisoner on a riding lawn mower passed by the patio, kicking up a plume of dirt and grass as he passed, drowning out the business talk for several moments. Stagg wore a different expression now, less cocky and more thoughtful. “What’s Quinn doing?” he said. “Now that he’s not the sheriff.”
“Overseas work,” he said. “He trains Afghanis how to be cops.”
“Signs and wonders.”
“But he’s back now, working a little bit for Lillie Virgil.”
“That woman gets elected sheriff and every boy and man better check his cojones at the county line,” Stagg said. “You think Mississippi is ready for a woman running the show? One who knows how to use a big gun and shoot?”
“Lillie’s a fine woman,” Jason said. “I’ve known her since she was a little girl. Quinn says she’s twice the lawman, or lawperson, or whatever you’re supposed to say, than him. He said he didn’t know much about detective work, investigations, details, and all that when he came home. She was the one who trained him.”
“Don’t I know it,” Stagg said. “They did a lot of training out at the Rebel, trying to toss my pecker into that churning meat grinder.”
Jason looked around at the prison grounds. Lots of manicured bushes, small islands of roses, and neatly trimmed maples and magnolias. It looked more like a celebrity rehab center, as Jason had visited plenty of those, than a federal prison. “Doesn’t look so bad, Mr. Stagg,” Jason said. “Definitely isn’t Parchman.”
“I wouldn’t wish Parchman on anyone,” he said. “Except maybe a couple folks. But I’m reading the Bible every day, attending prayer meetings, trying to let go of all that kind of stuff. I read in Time magazine that anger can contribute to heart disease and the cancer.”
“I once dated a woman out in Los Angeles who could tell how much hate a person held on to by the color of their aura,” Jason said.
“Los Angeles,” he said. “Whew. I got to visit there someday. They still got the Brown Derby?”
“Burned down about twenty years ago.”
“Fifteen hundred?” Stagg said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want to be ugly here, but in the grand scheme that’s not a whole lot of money,” he said. “By my standards.”
“You might consider it had been in Quinn’s family for more than a century.”
“Are you buying that land?” Stagg said. “Or is Quinn?”
Jason took a breath, smiled, and waited. The lawn mower passed again, chipped bits of leaves and grass flying up onto the patio. Both men having to wait until the machine headed out toward the parking lot, trimming a narrow path along a sidewalk. Damn, it was hot as hell out here. Late August, but still pushing a hundred degrees. Stagg seemed to thrive in it.
“Mr. Colson, let’s lay it all out on this table,” Stagg said. “I don’t really give two shits about some logged-out crap hole in Fate. That land’s been worth holding on to just to piss off your son.”
“Pretty much what I figured,” Jason said, pushing himself up from the table. His bad knee giving him hell. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”
“But,” Stagg said, waiting, drawing it out. He held up the flat of his hand. “I do have an interest in a fifty-acre parcel not too far from what used to be my truck stop.”
“OK.”
“Got some high-minded owners who would never sell to me,” he said. “And if someone starts making phone calls from Jackson, they might get real ambitious. Nervous and all.”
“Sorry,” Jason said. “I’m not following you, Mr. Stagg.”
“I see that land you want to be worth about the same as this fifty acres,” Stagg said, cracking a mint with his back teeth. “I got no problems in swapping deeds with you.”
“You thinking about getting back in business soon?” Jason said.
Stagg swallowed, hot wind scattering his dry white hair. He pressed the hair down to his head and winked. “Sir, I always heard you got all the charisma in the family,” he said. “And now I know it.”
• • •
Lillie had done a week’s shopping at the Piggly Wiggly, cart loaded down, with her daughter Rose, now four, riding high in the kid’s seat. Lillie had come straight from her shift, wearing her uniform, gun on hip, making her rounds, aisle to aisle, making sure she got the Cheez-Its and Capri Suns for Rose’s lunch box, hell to pay if she didn’t. She was loading it all into the back of her Cherokee when she saw Wash Jones standing by the front door of the grocery. A group of women from the Baptist church were having a bake sale, the proceeds to help Milly Jones’s family in their time of need.
Wash saw Lillie and Lillie saw Wash. He walked across the lot in big strides, shaking a few hands and saluting people from across the way. Wash, who’d gone from Town Loser to Town Hero in two whole weeks, gaining a lot of purpose and confidence as the man who’d sired the murdered kid. A long way from apprentice to the county’s septic tank king.
“Howdy, Wash,” Lillie said.
“Been trying to call you, Lillie,” he said. “Internet’s heating up. Did you know our Facebook page now has more than ten thousand followers? Ten thousand! We got folks from up in Ohio trying to make sense of this. All over the dang twitterverse.”
“Good for them.”
“I’m just saying, folks are starting to wonder.”
“Wonder what?” Lillie said, lifting Rose from the cart and helping her climb up into the car. The dark-eyed, dark-skinned little girl smiling up at Momma as she scrambled into her car seat and tugged at the straps. Rose had gone from Guatemala to a foster hell and into a loving Mississippi home in her few short years.
“Hmm,” Wash Jones. “I recall Milly at that age. She sure was a hellcat.”
“We’re doing all we can,” Lillie said. “This is the first time I’ve spent time with my child since the night it happened. Babysitter said we’d run out of every bit of food.”
“I don’t fault you, Miss Virgil,” Wash said. “I just need something to tell folks. I don’t want people pointing fingers at you. Wondering just what’s happening. Two weeks. A murder like that? Folks start to wonder who is doing what.”
Lillie helped Rose strap in, then leaned insid
e and started the car to get the air-conditioning going. She turned to Wash and crossed her arms over her chest. Wash, dressed in brown overalls and a stained white T-shirt, smiled back at her, eager, wanting to know the latest facts for him to parcel out to his people, folks online who called him “courageous” and a man with “intestinal fortitude.”
“We still don’t have autopsy results yet,” Lillie said. “Given the circumstances. Well, it’s tougher than most.”
“What about the crime scene?” Wash said. “Did y’all find some clues? You know, like a cigarette butt with some DNA? Tire tracks? Some of that dang thermo-imaging?”
“No, sir.”
“But you did bag some evidence, find some fingerprints?”
“Your daughter’s vehicle was incinerated.”
“Lord God.”
“We’re doing our best,” Lillie said. “We have some leads.”
“Who?”
“I don’t want to point fingers until we have someone solid,” Lillie said. “Right now, it’s all hypothetical.”
“Huh?”
“We’re throwing darts and see where they land.”
“She was my baby,” Wash said, scratching his whiskered chin. “Baby love. My lovey.”
“I better get going.”
“You know we got Greta Van Susteren flying in from Atlanta tonight?” Wash said. “She’s that hatchet-faced broad from the OJ show on ole CNN. I figured we’d get her a Mex meal down at the El Dorado. Ain’t much, but they got tequila.”
“I promise to keep you posted.”
Wash walked close up to the Cherokee, peering into the glass at Rose, waving to the little girl. Rose, being a smart little tyke, looked embarrassed and glanced away like she didn’t see him. Wash did a little impromptu dance, shifting his sizable weight from side to side, foot to foot.
“Hard not having a daddy.”
“Should be any day for those autopsy results.”
“You got a boyfriend or something?” Wash said. “Some kind of man for the child to get to know?”
Lillie bit her damn tongue so hard that she thought it might just bleed. She tried to think about what the man had gone through, his daughter walking a back highway while completely on fire. A teenager walking while on fire. Her windpipe damn-near cauterized.
“Aren’t y’all glad you could wipe me from the books?” Wash Jones said. “I mean, damn. I guess it pays to be a Walmart customer, that video showing me and Charlotte buying that thirty-inch Sony at the exact moment. I think about that. What if our TV hadn’t gone out? Charlotte wanting to watch Dancing with the Stars. I mean, y’all might’ve still thought I could have done it. Leaving things like that with Milly. But, Miss Virgil, I want you to know I never had that kind of hate in my heart. Whoever did this wanted to send a message. It’s like what they call on those cop shows a real Message Killin’.”
“We have some leads,” Lillie said. “We have suspects. I wish I could tell you more.”
Wash swallowed, took a few steps forward, and scratched his hairy neck. “Y’all are looking at that redheaded bitch at the Rebel. Ain’t you?”
“We have some leads.”
“That’s a goddang den of iniquity down there,” he said. “But who am I? I didn’t do nothin’. Might have just gone ahead and sold my sweet girl to some white slavers. They used her ass up and then burned her. Why? Why would that woman burn my girl?”
“We’re making inquiries.”
“You ask me and I’d look at those damn Born Losers people,” Wash said. “Folks say that them and Fannie Hathcock are thick as thieves. I’d raid that damn place and put that bitch in jail till she done repent.”
“Good to see you, Mr. Jones,” Lillie said. “Sorry for your loss.”
“Get that bitch,” he said. “Y’all go get that fucking bitch.”
Lillie opened the Jeep door and Rose called out, wanting to know who that weird man was talking to Mommy. Wash Jones took two more steps forward, his heated breath hell on earth.
“You didn’t think I could do that to my Milly,” Wash Jones said. “Did you?”
• • •
Anna Lee had been painting when Quinn came over, getting the old Victorian ready to sell, since eight bedrooms and six baths was a little too much house for a single woman and a three-year-old girl. She’d been in love with the house since they were kids, Quinn always calling it the old spook house, the place reminding him a great deal of the mansion on the Addams Family.
“My mom has Shelby in Tupelo for the day,” Anna Lee said, wiping the flecked paint from her eyelashes. “They were going to the Buffalo Park to see the zebras and then have lunch at the mall. Any excuse for Momma to leave Jericho.”
“What’s your excuse?” Quinn said. “Three days in Memphis is a record.”
“Getting Shelby settled,” she said. “You know Luke got her a spot at Hutchison?”
“And who’s paying for that condo in Germantown?”
“It’s best for everybody,” Anna Lee said. “We’ve agreed to rotate custody every week. Shelby gets to live in the same place. When he’s there, I’ll be back in Jericho. It’ll really keep any ugliness away from her and away from us.”
Anna Lee had opened all the windows and the back door of the house, the smell of paint fumes still pretty strong from the old master bedroom she’d shared with Luke. It was hot without the AC and she wore a pair of small cutoff jeans and an old Dukes of Hazzard T-shirt. She’d cut off the sleeves and hemline, showing off her coppery skin and tiny blonde hairs along her arms and stomach.
“I haven’t slept in a while,” Quinn said. “Hard to think straight.”
“Y’all got anything new?” she said, walking up to him, placing her long arms around his neck. Her skin smelled of sunshine and sweat.
“You know, the bikers bonded out.”
“But you still think they did it?” she said. “Or were at least involved?”
“With their history in this town?” Quinn said. “You bet.”
“But they’re younger,” she said. “Not the ones your dad used to run with.”
“Couple old-timers left,” Quinn said. “I think they drink more than make trouble. And, to be exact, Jason never rode with the Losers as much as he was coerced.”
“His Peter Fonda phase?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”
Quinn kissed Anna Lee hard and long on the mouth. She was a strong kisser and dug her long nails into the back on his neck. She let go after a long moment, paintbrush dripping mineral spirits on the floor, and walked off to shut the back door. Without a word, she passed Quinn as she stripped off her T-shirt and tossed it on the landing, walking upstairs to one of the many bedrooms.
Quinn followed.
It was rough and sweaty for a long while until they both lay on top of the pressed white sheets, cooling off, a fan spinning overhead while they caught their breath. She lay her head on Quinn’s chest, the strawberry blonde hair now loose from the bun and splayed across him.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “After I finish up the master and hand over the keys to the realtor, it will be my week in Memphis. OK?”
Quinn didn’t answer. He took a long deep breath, watching the ceiling fan spin, rocking and squeaking off balance.
“I knew what you’d say,” Anna Lee said. “You’d offer us the farm, maybe even moving in with your momma for a while, if it didn’t look right to people. But that’s too hard. Doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. And Hutchison is a great school for Shelby. Tibbehah County isn’t the best place to get an education.”
Anna Lee’s arm crossed over his stomach, Quinn listening while he smoothed down the golden hairs and felt her breathing against him. She had lots of tiny freckles across her back and shoulders.
“It’s not forever.”
“But L
uke’s paying?” Quinn said.
“He offered,” she said. “And I wasn’t in a spot to turn him down.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You do what you can for your kids,” Anna Lee said. “Someday that’ll make sense to you.”
Quinn carefully pulled away her arm, stretched his legs, and got up from the bed. He found his pants, belt still through the loops, and his pair of cowboy boots. Anna Lee was silent, reaching for the covers, pulling them over her naked body.
Quinn slipped into his jeans, and boots, walked to the dresser for his gun and his badge. He left without saying another word.
23
Pull off right over there,” Coach Mills said.
“Where?” Nito asked.
Coach Mills, not feeling comfortable in the passenger seat, pointed to a dirt road off the main highway that led up to a muddy pond and an old barn falling in on itself. Nito turned, dust kicking up behind them, hard sunlight crisscrossing through tree branches growing wild and untouched. Nito pulled into the little space by the barn and parked, the hot engine making ticking sounds. It was nearly one, cicadas making so much damn noise it was hard for a man to think. Coach Mills wiped his sweaty face and wondered why the hell did he have to look out for every damn soul in Tibbehah County.
He’d already taken off fourth and fifth period to get all this shit straight. He’d have to be back by three, get to a meeting with the assistants, and then on the field for warm-up and stretch by three-thirty. He had three days to prep for Holly Springs. He didn’t come home with a goddamn V and the season just might be shot. You had to get your mind right, focus on what was important.
“OK,” Nito said. “Ain’t no one gonna see us now. We straight? What’s up?”
“Ordeen’s worried someone may have seen you riding around with that Jones girl.”
“So what?”
“The police are gonna try and fry your ass for that,” he said. “They’re looking for someone—anyone—and Nito boy, you ain’t exactly chamber of commerce president these days.”
