by Ace Atkins
“Yep.”
“But I don’t see him killing Milly,” Nikki said. “I think what happened has just made everyone crazy. And if you’re crazy to start, that ball can really start rolling.”
“I’ve heard a lot about Nito,” Quinn said. “But this is the first I’ve heard about him knowing Milly Jones.”
“What if he knows me and you talked?”
“I don’t think it’ll be me who’ll pull him in,” Quinn said. “The sheriff’s better with people skills.”
“Lillie Virgil?” Nikki said, sort of laughing. “Are you kidding me?”
24
Can a man get a fuckin’ Mountain Dew around here?” Nito Reece said. “I mean, shit.”
“We’re full-service, Ranito,” Lillie said. “We have some extra barbecue from the Fillin’ Station in the fridge. Would you like me to heat that up, too?”
“Fillin’ Station?” Nito said. “Yeah, well. All right. Got any sides?”
“Beans and slaw,” Lillie said. “Maybe some white bread.”
“White bread,” Nito said, laughing. “Shit. OK.”
Nito sat at a small table in a small, square cinder-block room at the sheriff’s office. The walls had been painted a light blue, Lillie being told it would soothe the suspect into talking. In her years of being a cop, she never found that to be true. Usually when you force a human being into a small, crowded space, they grow more defensive. She got Nito the Mountain Dew and asked Mary Alice to heat up the barbecue. God knows, they had enough food, piles being brought in by concerned folks around Tibbehah who wanted them to keep up their strength, go ahead and hurry up and make that arrest.
“I know what’s going on here,” Nito said. “Y’all trying to get me to roll over on Ordeen for that bullshit charge during that illegal stop. But that shit ain’t happenin’. All I can say is, that wasn’t his dope or his gun. Someone setting his ass up.”
“The thought never crossed my mind,” Lillie said. “Wasn’t he arrested driving your car? I guess he felt comfortable to take his stuff and hide it in your glove box.”
“Damn,” Nito said. “Shit.”
“You’re a convicted drug dealer,” Lillie said. “You’ve been in twice already. I hear you do business with the Bohannan Twins in Memphis. So how about we all talk straight? I need your help.”
“Y’all straight trippin’,” Nito said, rubbing his pink tongue over his gold teeth. Hands folded in front of him like a good church boy.
“How long did you and Milly Jones date?” Lillie asked.
“No,” Nito said, standing up. “Hell, no. I thought you ask me to come in here and talk about my boy, help y’all get straight in your mind he didn’t do nothin’. Now you asking me about that dead white girl. Shit. You set my ass up.”
“Folks up in Blackjack saw y’all riding around together,” Lillie said. “That electric-blue car of yours is pretty hard to miss.”
“I don’t have that car no more,” Nito said. “I sold it. If someone said they saw me and Milly riding around in that Nova I had, then they lying out their damn assholes.”
Mary Alice knocked, poked her head into the interview room, and asked if they still wanted a plate. Lillie nodded and Mary Alice came in smiling, steam coming off the barbecue, and sat it in front of Nito. Service with a smile.
“We gonna be here for a while?” Nito said. “’Cause I got shit to do.”
“Depends on you, Nito,” Lillie said. “Sit down. Are you going to help us out? I don’t want to have to look into who really owned the gun Ordeen had on him. You know it was stolen from a fella in Clarksdale? You go over to the Delta much?”
“OK, so I knew Milly Jones,” Nito said, sitting down. “Everybody know each other in Blackjack. We got a population of two hundred folks. Girl like to party. She like those bad boys.”
“Were you intimate?” Lillie asked.
“You mean, were we fucking?” Nito said, unlatching his hands, leaning back, stretching his arms up over his head.
“Yeah,” Lillie said. “Were you fucking?”
Nito leaned back into his seat, massaging his chest, feeling cool and comfortable to be back on familiar ground. He grinned, saying it, bragging about it, without opening his mouth. “Few times,” he said. “Didn’t mean nothing.”
“Where were you the night she got killed?”
“Damn, that was like three weeks ago,” Nito said. “I drank some beers, smoked a blunt, and went to the football game. If you hadn’t noticed, ain’t a lot more to do in Jericho, Mississippi. You want me to find some folks who saw me at that game?”
“Yep,” Lillie said. “We would. How about after the game?”
“Motherfucker,” Nito said. “Why’d y’all get on my ass? ’Cause I’m the closest black man? I want me a damn lawyer.”
“That’s cool,” Lillie said. “And we can hold you until they show up. Might be sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
“Y’all ain’t the good guys,” Nito said. “Never have been. The old sheriff was the one who killed my daddy. No one even asked shit about it. You think you doing right ’cause you got the gun and the badge? But you ain’t nothing but straight thug just like me. Only difference is, you got the law behind you.”
“Yeah?” Lillie said. “Pretty big difference.”
“OK,” Nito said. “So I smoked it up, went to the game, watched Tibbehah almost get their ass kicked, and then I went home, watched some shit on TV, and fell asleep.”
“Who was at your house?” Lillie asked.
“My momma,” Nito said. “You want to talk to her, too?”
“Yeah, I would,” Lillie said. “What were y’all watching?”
“Shit.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It was late. I like to watch them home improvement shows. You know, where they get a real shit show and then within a day they make it look like a palace down on the beach.”
“You’re into that?” Lillie said.
“Sure,” Nito said. “Also watch those infomercials for sex products. Those two ladies who talk about selling those big black things. You like that stuff?”
Lillie sat down across from him, leaning forward a bit, elbows resting on the old scuffed table. “Ever hear Milly talk about Fannie Hathcock?”
“That bitch owns the truck stop.”
“Yeah,” Lillie said. “That same bitch.”
“Maybe,” Nito said. “You think she might’ve killed her?”
“What’d you hear?”
“I don’t know,” Nito said, mouth lit up with all that gold. “Hmm. What’s that worth to me?”
“Will you go on record?”
“Girl might’ve taken some shit didn’t belong to her,” Nito said. “Damn, she was scared of that bitch. Said that woman wanted to kill her ass.”
• • •
I’m cooking T-bones,” Jason Colson said. “How about you stop by? Ain’t that far, just a short walk through the cornfield.”
“I know the way,” Quinn said. “Need to catch up on some sleep.”
“Man’s got to eat.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m watching Little Jason tonight,” his father said. “He saw your truck drive up.”
Quinn blew out his breath. “OK, Granddad.”
Quinn hung his uniform shirt in an old armoire, set his Beretta in the gun safe, and picked up a fresh bottle of whiskey he’d been saving for a long time. The whiskey was for him. Jason wasn’t drinking this week. Or so he said.
As he walked from the old farmhouse, he could see the colorful Christmas lights strung from two four-by-fours, crisscrossed back to Jason’s trailer. The cherry-red Firebird now off the blocks, sanded down and painted with a flat-gray primer. He’d put wheels and tires back on the car, too.
; “Is she running yet?” Quinn said.
“Close,” Jason said, standing under the lights, flipping steaks on a Weber grill. “Boom picked up the engine last week. He’s got it out at his place. He’s seeing what he can do. But we may have to go all in and get a new one. Transmission, too.”
“How’s the body?”
Jason grinned. “’Bout like mine,” he said. “Lots of miles and wear, but still road-ready. You want a baked potato? Got a few in the oven. Little Jason loves a baked potato. Doesn’t care for red meat. You know that boy told me he was a vegetarian? Just like that. When I was his age, I didn’t even know what that word meant.”
Quinn nodded. Jason covered up the grill, funneling the smoke, as Little Jason bounded out of the trailer, where he’d been watching cartoons. He wrapped Quinn’s waist in a big hug. Quinn had been gone a long time and when he’d gotten home he’d barely seen his nephew. They’d been through a lot. Jason was his fishing buddy. He’d just gotten him a bow-and-arrow set that he’d pass along whenever Caddy approved it.
“Nice night,” Jason said. “No moon at all. That’s when I think I love coming back here best. I can turn off all the lights, sit back, and just look at all those damn stars. You could never do that in Los Angeles. In L.A., you had to head on out to Joshua Tree to make sense of the world.”
Quinn nodded. He slit open the top of the bourbon bottle and poured out a little in a coffee mug. The coffee mug was emblazed with the symbol for the 75th Regiment, a lightning bolt through a shield of a sun and star.
Little Jason found an old metal porch chair and pulled it closer to the grill to watch all the action. He admitted the steaks smelled good but still didn’t want one.
“Doesn’t even eat hamburgers.”
“Except when Grandmomma’s meat loaf gets forced on him.”
Jason shook his head. “You really think that qualifies as a meat product?”
Quinn straightened his legs out in front of him, crossing his boots at the ankle. He thought about lighting up the rest of his cigar but figured it could wait until after dinner. Something was on Jason’s mind and there was no use rushing things until he was ready to talk.
“Can you at least take the night off?” Jason said.
“Lillie interviewed a subject this afternoon,” Quinn said. “We had a meeting and agreed to come back to the SO at 0600 unless something comes up.”
“Y’all got something?”
“Lillie thinks so.”
“And you?”
“Not really sure what we got,” Quinn said. “Folks around here are pretty good at pointing fingers at each other.”
Jason nodded, stroking the gray goatee. “Don’t I know it.” He had on a Gram Parsons T-shirt, once telling Quinn it had been personally given to him by an original member of the Flying Burrito Brothers who was from Meridian. He lifted up the top of the Weber, poked at the steaks, and asked Quinn to go inside and get him a plate.
“They got the WWE on tonight,” Jason said. “Who’s that guy again?”
“The Beast,” Little Jason said. “They said it was the first time he’s wrestled in twelve years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive.”
“What’s he look like?” Quinn said.
“I can promise he ain’t pretty,” Jason said, grinning.
“It’s Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose in a Triple Threat match,” Little Jason said. “Someone’s gonna have their dang ass handed to them.”
“Jason?” Quinn said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Watch your mouth and go grab us a plate,” Quinn said. “Looks like your granddaddy is about ready.”
Jason lifted his eyes from the fire, forking the meat off the center of the grill to let it cool and rest before they ate.
“OK,” Jason said, soon as they heard the screen door thwack closed after Little Jason. “I got us a deal. But I need some help.”
“Hold up,” Quinn said, raising the flat of his hand. “Did you talk to Stagg?”
“Drove all the way over to Montgomery, Alabama,” Jason said. “Stopped off at the Hank Williams museum before I drove back. Got you a bumper sticker in my truck.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Stagg looks like a damn accountant,” Jason said. “They cut off most of his hair. He said he’s been mainly doing yard work, pruning bushes and things like that.”
“Has he found the Lord yet?”
“Says he’s working on it,” Jason said. “Goes to Bible study regular.”
Little Jason brought out the plate and bounded back into the trailer for some tofu hot dogs.
“Well,” Quinn said. “What’s he want?”
“That part’s a little tricky,” Jason said. “How about we talk after we eat?”
Quinn just stared at his father as he stabbed the bloody meat and placed the steaks on the plate. Jason swallowed, nodded, and handed Quinn what he’d just cooked up.
“Even with the investors, we’ll need you to put up the farm for collateral.”
“No way.”
“Now, hold on.”
“You think Jean will go for that?” Quinn said. “She’d disown me.”
“I know leaving here was wrong,” Jason said. “But what in the world does that woman still have against me? You turned out all right.”
25
Ordeen met Nito down at Shooter’s on the Square later that night. Shooter’s pool hall was in the basement of the old Jericho Five & Dime that had been defunct for about a thousand years. Nito was in the back corner of the pool hall, practicing by himself on the only one of the ten tables being used and smoking a long-as-hell cigarette. Nito didn’t move when he saw Ordeen, just took it slow and easy and knocked in two solids, back-to-back, into a corner pocket. “Whew,” Nito said. “You see that shit?”
“Yeah, I saw it,” Ordeen said. “What’s up, man? I got to work tomorrow.”
“Work?” Nito asked. “Since when?”
“County work,” Ordeen said. “Cutting trees and shit. Coach set it up.”
“Go, Coach, go.”
“Why you down on Coach?”
Nito chalked the cue, circled the table for the next shot. “Hmm,” Nito said. “Maybe ’cause that fat white motherfucker trying to cornhole us both.”
“How you figure?” Ordeen said, hands in the pockets of his shorts, Tibbehah Wildcats T-shirt crisp and laundered, with his braids pulled back into a ponytail. “I said the man just got me a job. He got me out of some real trouble. What else you want from him?”
“Oh, yeah?” Nito said. “You think he’s doin’ for you ’cause he’s the coach? Mr. Fellowship of Christian Athletes and all that.”
“I do,” Ordeen said. “I think he just might be.”
Nito leaned into the table, set that shot, running the cue between his two knuckles, and popped it hard and fast, damn reverb shot off the wall and into the side pocket. Ordeen recognized when his buddy was jacked-up and Nito was jacked-up as hell, running the table, talking shit. He was on something and Ordeen didn’t want no part. Back toward the door, old man Shooter was cleaning beer bottles off a few tables even though serving beer was illegal at a pool hall. It was the law, but no one really made a big deal of it. They used to have a town cop, a marshal, or something that did that sort of thing, but he was dirty and got shot.
“How long you known Coach Mills?” Nito asked.
“Junior high,” Ordeen said. “He used to come watch the young boys play. Said he was keeping his eye on me and that made me feel real good.”
Nito held the cue in his hand like a staff, reaching down below the table for a pint of flavored vodka in a paper bag. Ordeen smelled his breath from across the table.
“Keep an eye on you,” Nito said. “That sound like ole Bud.”
“Man, what are you talking about?”
“I
know’d Bud since I was eight years old,” Nito said. “He knew my momma. Found out she had some kids and he started trying to preach to us, teach us football and shit. One Christmas, he bought me a whole damn Ole Miss uniform. I’m talking shoulder pads, helmets, and cleats. Wasn’t no Walmart special. I’m talking just like the team play in.”
“So what’s your problem?”
“Coach running me down to you,” Nito said. “And running you down to me. He thinks we both mixed up in this Milly Jones business.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“You tellin’ me?” Nito said. “He told me that folks are already talking about seeing you and me riding around with Milly Jones. How’s that look, sweet little white girl riding around in my damn pussymobile with two black thugs. They gonna hang our ass high.”
“Coach would never do that,” Ordeen said, feeling his heart race, hands gone cold. “He look out for us. He’s just telling us to watch our backs.”
“Let me ask you something, Ordeen,” Nito said. “Are you sure those charges been dropped?”
“Yeah.”
“How you know?”
“’Cause Coach told me.”
Nito shook his head, took another swallow of that flavored vodka, under that low light. Ole black-ass Shooter playing some Chitlin’ Circuit soul from an old stereo. Music Ordeen’s grandmomma liked but his pastor momma hated. Denise La Salle. “Trapped by a Thing Called Love.”
“Coach told me a lot of things when I was little boy,” Nito said. “He used to make me feel real special riding in his truck, going to the games. I got to stand on the sidelines, help him pick up the jerseys and shit, do the wash. I wasn’t ten years old and I felt like I was already a Wildcat, on the team.”
“Coach is a good man.”
Nito swallowed, looking like he was in some pain, red-eyed and swaying a bit. He shook his head, crooking his finger at Ordeen.
“What?”
Nito leaned into the table and whispered something up to Ordeen, dead-faced and serious as hell. But when he was done with it all, he doubled over and started laughing so hard, he squirted that vodka from his nose.
