Smoke & Mirrors

by John Ramsey Miller

  After the woman had gone into the house, Brad took the steps and stood before Sherry Adams’s father. Winter followed him silently.

  “John, my condolences,” Brad said, offering his hand, which John Adams took and shook firmly. “We’re going to find out who did this.”

  “Sheriff Barnett,” he said, smiling sadly. “Thank you so much for coming by to pay your respects. A little while ago your daddy brought us a beautiful baked ham. Dr. Barnett is a saint of a man.”

  “John Adams, this is Winter Massey. He’s from North Carolina and he’s offered to help.”

  John Adams turned his eyes on Winter and extended a strong hand.

  “May the Lord speed and guide you in your work, Mr. Massey,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Winter said.

  A familiar, road-film-streaked Lincoln pulled as far into the driveway as possible and stopped, its rear end blocking the sidewalk. The driver’s door flew open and Leigh Gardner stepped out, slammed the door behind her, and waited for Estelle to get out before they both walked purposefully to the porch. Estelle nodded at the sheriff and Winter, kissed John Adams’s cheek, and went inside. Through the open door Winter saw a large solemn group of people standing around in the living room.

  “John,” Leigh said, hugging John Adams. “I told Bob Hanson to make sure our Sherry has the best of everything. You and Mary just make the selections and Six Oaks will cover the expenses.”

  John Adams straightened. “You don’t have to do that, Ms. Leigh.”

  “Don’t be difficult, John. I loved Sherry, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  John nodded solemnly, his eyes filling with tears. “We thank you, Ms. Leigh. Sherry loved y’all too.”

  Leigh hugged him again and held the embrace for several long seconds. “Sherry was a member of my family too.”

  “Leigh,” Brad said in greeting.

  “Sheriff,” Leigh said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “How is your investigation coming?”

  “It’s going forward,” he said.

  Leigh studied the sheriff. “I’m going to offer a ten-thousand-dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of the party responsible.”

  “I think offering a reward is premature, Leigh,” Brad said.

  “And why is that?” she asked, bristling.

  “Because it’ll create worthless tips I’ll have to run down,” Brad said. “Hold off for a couple of days and let us work the case first.”

  “And do you share Brad’s opinion, Mr. Massey?”

  “Yes, I do,” Winter said.

  “John?” Leigh asked Sherry’s father. “What do you think?”

  Mr. Adams nodded. “The Lord works His will in mysterious ways. If the sheriff says he needs time more than money, I expect I agree with him. The Lord will punish the guilty, and He alone will decide if the man who killed Sherry is going to be delivered into the law’s hands, or into His own for judgment. Render unto God that which is God’s, and render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

  Leigh considered his words and nodded. “Then it’s your call,” Leigh told Brad. “I’m going to wait until Monday. If you don’t find the killer by then, I’m going to give God a hand with Caesar’s end.”

  She turned and went into the house, closing the door behind her.

  “John, if you hear anything that I should know, you call me.”

  “You know I will, Sheriff Barnett. When will Sherry’s body be coming home?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Brad said. “I’ll make sure she gets back so you can plan your service for Saturday.”

  Winter wondered if the Adams family already knew that the casket would have to be closed.

  John put a hand on Brad’s shoulder, smiled affectionately, and turned his attention to a cluster of women with plates of food coming up the sidewalk toward the house.

  14

  CYNTHIA GARDNER SPENT TEN MINUTES WITH DR. Barnett, had some blood drawn, and left the doctor’s office. She didn’t want to go straight back home and sit there with the gloom and doom, but most of her friends were either still at school or townie losers she’d rather not see. She was headed to her car when her cell phone beeped, indicating a new text message.

  U meet me big river barn now? J.

  Cynthia smiled as she typed a reply.

  sure n 20

  She climbed in behind the wheel of her Toyota, which her mother hadn’t allowed her to have at LSU her freshman year. As she started it, she wondered if this was a good idea. With everything so crazy over Sherry’s death, she wasn’t sure if meeting the older man was smart. But she wanted to find out what was up, and he was great in the sack. She hadn’t enjoyed his energetic charms since that summer, and she was eager to see if he was just as good as she remembered. Older men just knew more about pleasing a woman—it was a shame, but they really did.

  Putting the car into gear, Cynthia snapped on her seat belt and flew out of the parking lot. As she drove, she picked up her phone and called her mother.

  “Hi, Cyn,” her mother said. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Everything’s totally cool. He said to just keep doing what I’m doing. Listen, I’m going to run to Memphis.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Leigh said. “With everything that’s happening. You come home.”

  “I need to get a dress for Sherry’s funeral. It’s not like I go to many funerals. I want to look—you know—right.”

  Her mother sighed. “Simple black dress. Nothing fancy.”

  “And nothing expensive. I know, Mother. I’ll hold it to a buck fifty.”

  “One hundred max. And straight home.”

  “I need to go see Grammy too,” Cynthia said. “It’s been months. I’ll stay over tonight.” Cyn doubted that her mother could very well deny her a visit with her grandmother, even though the two women hated each other. Truthfully, Cyn didn’t care much for the old bat either.

  “This is a bad time. Hamp and I will go along.”

  “God, Mother. Shop with him along! Please!”

  “You call me and tell me what you are doing. I mean it. My plate is piled to the clouds right now,” Leigh said with resignation.

  Cynthia hung up, and drove out of town. After a few miles, she turned on a gravel road passing through the opened gate, through a hundred yards of trees, and down a dirt road to the massive equipment barn she’d been to on one other occasion. The building and its graveled parking lot were surrounded by tall hurricane fencing. She recognized the white van parked near the personnel door, to the right of the massive retractable doors through which heavy equipment came and went. She parked, leaving her purse in the car, and patted her hair as she walked to the door.

  The interior of the building was half the size of a football field and the roof rose to a peak fifty feet above the packed-earth floor. Scores of bulldozers and other pieces of land-clearing equipment were parked shoulder to shoulder in the interior before her, like soldiers preparing for another assault on the land outside. The last time she’d been there, the recently constructed steel building had been empty and their loud lovemaking had echoed eerily.

  It was so cold she could see her breath in the still air that reeked of grease and diesel fuel.

  “Jaa-ckeee,” she called out, laughing. “I’m hee-ere!”

  Cynthia straightened at the sound of someone behind her and turned to the sight of a wholly unattractive stranger with his hands in the pockets of his coat.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, remembering that she was trespassing. She didn’t even know the name of the company that owned the structure.

  “You can call me Pablo,” he said, smiling. “Jack’s on his way.”

  “You don’t look Mexican to me. What are you, like a night watchman? So where is he?” she asked.

  “There’s no need to pay anybody to guard this building, is there? I mean, stealing a bulldozer takes real professionals and big trailers,” the man said, staring into her
eyes.

  Something about the man’s flat delivery and emotionless eyes filled her with dread.

  She froze when he took his hands from his pockets and moved at her with animal swiftness. Pinning her wrists behind her, he met her eyes and smiled. “Jack told me you are one delicious young lady.”

  Too frightened and shocked to move, she could only close her eyes as his broad and wet tongue ran from her chin up her face to her forehead.

  Paulus Styer put the bound and gagged Cynthia facedown on the mattress located in the van outside before he took a tarpaulin and draped it over her still form.

  “Cynthia, I have a lot of driving around to do. If you move a muscle without me telling you to do so, I will throw you into the Mississippi River. I want you to understand that, because I do not make idle threats. Just nod if you understand.”

  The trembling girl nodded, and Styer took her lover’s cloned cell phone and tossed it into a garbage bag.

  He moved out to Cynthia’s Toyota, drove it over to the far side of the barn near the mechanic station, and covered it completely with an old tarp.

  Climbing back into the van, Styer cranked it and drove out of the structure into the stark, flat landscape. Now he could get on with his employer’s primary operation, and take the next step in wrapping up his own.

  15

  PIERCE MULVANE EYED THE ACTION AT THE HIGH-STAKES blackjack tables the way a farmer surveys a field for signs of sun damage or pest infestation. A dark-haired, clean-cut young man was winning steadily. He was up over forty-five thousand dollars and, despite the fact that the pit boss had changed dealers on him twice every hour, he showed no signs of a reversing fortune. The kid was cocky, and his success had drawn a crowd. It was both good and bad that people were watching him. It was good because it would encourage them to gamble. It was bad because asking him to leave would attract attention and put a damper on the audience. He’d let the boy win and have Albert White deal with it later.

  Pierce thought back to the first cheater he’d caught in Atlantic City, a young man with tattoos covering his arms. The backs of his fingers spelled LOVE on the left hand, and HATE on the right. Using a pair of pruning shears, Pierce had edited the tattoo to read, LOVE HAT. The memory always made him chuckle. He hated cheaters.

  After five minutes of watching the young man, Pierce turned and walked slowly through the playing floor, shadowed by Tug Murphy. He paused at one of the craps tables to watch a pig farmer from Arkansas named Jason Parr, whose one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar line of credit Pierce had personally approved. The year before, he had lost sixty thousand and paid it back within a week. Today Parr was dressed in a T-shirt under a tailored leather jacket, faded blue jeans, and shiny black wing-tips. Pierce watched with an inner glow as the farmer placed stacks of twenty-dollar chips on several numbers. He was chasing his losses, which, according to the floor boss, totaled twelve thousand dollars.

  The pig farmer spotted Pierce, waved, and yelled, “Hey there, Mr. Mulvane!”

  When the dice stopped rolling on seven and the farmer’s chips had been collected, Pierce walked over and rested a hand on Parr’s shoulder. “Nice to see you, Mr. Parr,” Pierce said, turning on his warmest smile. “So nice to have you with us again. How is everything going?”

  “Financially speaking, it’s looking grim at the moment, Mr. Mulvane.”

  “I hope at least your accommodations are satisfactory.” “Room’s fit for a king. And I thank you for the bottles of bourbon you sent up.”

  “Our pleasure. If you need anything, you’ll let us know?”

  “I sure will. My only question is, what are y’all gonna do with my hog farm?”

  The farmer guffawed, and Pierce laughed right along with him.

  Pierce stayed long enough to watch the farmer toss back a glass filled with brown liquor and lose another two thousand dollars. He didn’t want a pig farm, but if Parr lost enough money, the casino’s attorneys would figure out how to liquidate one pretty quickly.

  The bottom line was Pierce’s responsibility. When all was said and done, gambling was just a business like any other. Pierce Mulvane was just another CEO working long hours to generate profits for a corporation.

  The main gaming tables ran the length of the casino center like a narrow island bordered by an ocean of slot machines, row after row like the cash crop they were. Though they were the main source of casino income, they were just machines, and got only a cursory glance from Pierce. Twenty-eight poker tables were surrounded by a low wall, so people could watch games in progress without interrupting them.

  As Pierce and Tug rode the private elevator back upstairs, he couldn’t shake his curiosity about how the young blackjack player was beating the house. He opened his phone and poked in a number.

  “Albert, no-limit blackjack, table four. The man in the yellow V-neck. He’s counting, with quite an audience. Let him run his streak. Check the black book and see if he’s in it. Handle it with your customary discretion.”

  Pierce closed the phone. He couldn’t allow cheaters to profit and tell their pals that the Roundtable was an easy mark. He knew that White would handle this matter properly. As security director, Albert White received a substantial salary, but the additional enrichment incentives Pierce made available to him here and there ensured results, not to mention the above-and-beyond effort Mulvane expected. And Pierce’s above-and-beyond requests often called for tasks he couldn’t give to people he didn’t trust one hundred and ten percent.

  16

  THE HOUSE THAT ALPHONSE JEFFERSON HAD LISTED as his address when he’d been arrested three months earlier had long since surrendered to the elements. Several of the paint-starved clapboards were missing and shocks of faded-pink fiberglass shot out from several open spaces like clown hair.

  The yard was bare dirt except for scattered clumps of stiff rust-colored weeds, a dead washing machine, a child’s bicycle without wheels, a flattened shoe, and an emaciated and shivering pit bull whose head was much wider than his shoulders. The animal, standing in front of a wood-crate shelter with a floral plastic shower liner weighted down by brickbats on top of it, was anchored to a stake by a short section of swing-set chain. The dog growled as though he was saving his barks for more worthy customers than the two strangers he watched approach his master’s front door.

  Brad stood and loudly rapped on the jamb. The interior door opened a few inches. The unmistakable sounds of a fist-flying talk show boomed from the living room.

  “Yeah, what?” a scrappy voice rumbled from inside.

  “Mrs. Jefferson, it’s Sheriff Barnett. I’m looking for Alphonse,” Brad said through an aluminum door whose fabric screening hung like a mainsail from a corner of it. A mangy cat shot out and flew around the corner of the house. The watchdog eyed the fleeing feline without comment.

  “What you wants wif my grandbaby?” the old woman asked, her rheumy brown eyes floating in a cocoa lake of skin, her gaze moving between Brad and Winter like a drunk counting fish in an aquarium. “He ain’t been here for two, three days. You the sheriff, you say?” she asked, warily.

  Brad opened his jacket to show her the badge on his shirt. “Yes, ma’am. Does Alphonse live here?” Brad asked her. “He used this address the last time he was arrested.”

  “When he want to, he stay here. When he don’t, he don’t. What you wants him for?”

  The old woman reached up to her outraged hair as if to check whether it was still there.

  “Does your grandson have a rifle?” Brad asked.

  “He a vetrin, so in the Army he might a’ did,” she said. “He didn’t brang one back from thur. It ain’t unlegal to have guns when you in the Army, is it?”

  “No, ma’am, it isn’t. I was just wondering if he has a rifle now.”

  “Not that I ever seen around here, he don’t.” She laughed. “If he had one, he sure would of pawnded it.”

  “Can I come in and look at his room?” Brad asked.

  “Not without no w
arrants you ain’t coming in my house. I knows my sivah rights.”

  “I can get a warrant, Mrs. Jefferson.”

  “Then why you standing there? Go on and get it.” And she slammed the outside door closed, causing the jamb to vibrate.

  Winter waited until they were almost back to the cruiser to laugh. Once inside, Brad laughed as well.

  “Mrs. Jefferson was downright inhospitable,” Brad said.

  “Less than cooperative,” Winter said. “How soon can you get a warrant?”

  “I didn’t figure she’d cooperate, so one of my deputies is at the courthouse getting it right now. Watch the front, and I’ll cover the back.”

  Ten minutes later, a beefy young deputy climbed from his still-running cruiser and when Brad came around the house, he handed the sheriff a folded search warrant. Brad and Winter moved swiftly to the porch as the deputy went around to the back.

  After Mrs. Jefferson opened the door, Brad handed her the warrant and led Winter inside while she stared down at the folded paper in her hand with no expression on her face.

  “You people better not make no mess you don’t put straight. And you don’t take nothing neither. I know everything what all’s in here.”

  How anyone had managed to pack so much into a small house without it collapsing was an engineering feat worthy of the ancient Romans. The TV set and two mismatched recliners filled a small nest to the right of the front door. A path of sorts existed between shoulder-high walls of newspapers, old books and magazines, which allowed limited access into the rest of the home-based storage facility.

  “Reminds me of a prairie dog town,” Brad said in a whisper, referring to several house cats lounging like skeletal panthers on the canyon walls. The first room, which contained a bed, held enough items of clothing and accessories to start a Salvation Army dry-goods distribution center. There were also stacks of electronic appliances, most of which looked like they had been salvaged from the side of the road. A man in his sixties sat up from the bed and blinked at the two men staring into his space.