Southern Cross
Page 17
Jake wore John Lennon glasses, a baseball hat with a peace sign on it, and an Elvis t-shirt. He’d gained maybe twenty-five pounds since I’d seen him last. If that put him over a buck fifty on the scales, you could slap my ass and call me Lady Gaga. He got up and gave me a hug, shook Juarez’s hand vigorously, and sat back down—the whole circuit completed in the space of maybe fifteen seconds. Good to know the end of the world hadn’t slowed him down any.
“Seriously, Jake—The White Album? You think you could be a little more obvious?” I started out.
“Oh, I know it ain’t edgy enough for the likes of you,” he said. “I guess you’d rather I stick with records nobody never heard of. Sorry, boy, there’s a reason somethin’ gets to be a classic.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Because unimaginative DJs the world over are too timid to spin anything new.” Jake grinned at that, rolling his eyes. “How much you wanna bet I can guess the rest of that list in two tries or under?” I asked.
“We don’t actually have time for that,” Juarez said. Jake looked disappointed. I was a little disappointed myself.
“All right, fine. Business it is,” I said. “Listen, I know Barnel does a show here.”
“Never misses a Sunday, the old bastard,” Jake agreed. “One of the drawbacks of this kind of thing—can’t turn ‘em away so long as they come with a check.”
“Have you noticed anything… off, about his message the past few weeks?” Juarez asked.
“You mean more than usual?” Jake asked. “Now that you mention it, I did. He’s been real weird the last couple months—paranoid, you know? And actin’ like the Lord’s put this heavy burden on him. He’s been talking more than usual about being called home, too—that’s what he always calls it. I thought maybe he was sick, but when I asked he said the Lord showed him the future. Said the world was in for a wake-up call.”
“Did he say anything specific about that wake-up call?” Juarez asked.
Jake thought about it for only a few seconds before he shook his head. “Nah—and it’s not like I listened too close. He seemed to think his days were numbered, but it was pretty clear that he didn’t think he was goin’ down alone.” He shook his head, uncharacteristically serious. “I wish to hell I’d paid closer attention—to tell the truth, it never even occurred to me he might talk the sheriff into somethin’ like what he pulled last night, blowin’ that place up.”
“So the whole thing was a surprise to you,” Juarez said.
“A surprise only because you just don’t think that kind of thing really happens,” Jake said. “Not because I never thought he was capable. Everybody else might’ve loved him, but I always said Jesup Barnel was a creepy son of a bitch.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” I agreed. On the radio, George Harrison was just kicking into his mournful back-up vocals while Paul and the boys sang of gently weeping guitars. I looked around, trying to find some sign of the rest of Jake’s list. “What about top five? You’ll have Robert Johnson in there—you may be mainstream, but you’ve got taste. And I know Astral Weeks will be in one of those top slots.”
Juarez shot me a look meant to shut me up. I took the cue. “Do you have any idea where Barnel and his followers might have gone?” I asked, getting back to the point.
“I know him and the sheriff were either out at Barnel’s camp or they were out playin’ with themselves over to the town hall. They got that ping pong table in the cellar, you know? They was always down there doing something or other. You checked the camp, I’m guessing?”
“Deserted,” Juarez said. “We’re trying to contact some of the more prominent members of his congregation now.”
“The Reese boys?” Jake asked. I nodded.
“My guess is most everyone’s gone underground,” I said. “We’re trying to figure out their next move, but it would be a lot easier if we could smoke out at least a few.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of places to hide in these hills—you know that,” he said to me. He hesitated.
“What?” I prompted.
“A couple years back, Barnel started gettin’ real antsy about the government nosin’ around in his business. I didn’t pay much attention—he was always paranoid, and it got old real fast listening to him. But I happened to walk in while he was talkin’ to Ronnie Reese—you know those boys owned the woods out around Barnel’s compound? I got the sense he was lookin’ to extend his property lines.”
“The woods are thick out there,” I said. “It would be a good place to get lost.”
“Barnel’s a lazy S-O-B,” Jake said. “Way I see it, he wouldn’t go too far out of his way if he needed some privacy.”
“That could be a good lead,” I said. “Thanks. Anywhere else that comes to mind?”
“Not that I recall. Sorry. Hope I was at least a little help to you, though.”
“You were, thank you,” Juarez said. He paused. “Listen, we’ve got generators and we’ve set up a shelter at the local elementary school if you change your mind about staying here. You can stop by anytime. There’s food and blankets… it’s somewhere to keep warm until this passes, anyway.”
“And leave all this?” Jake asked. “Thanks but no thanks. I’ll stay right here ‘til the final bell’s rung, if it’s all the same to you.”
Not a surprise. Juarez looked torn before he finally conceded. “Suit yourself. But you’re always welcome.”
“I’ll remember that,” Jake said. He shook my hand again, more solemnly this time. “Good to see you, Diggs. Nice to know you haven’t changed too much since you been gone.”
“Not in the ways that count,” I said. “Number one’s Pet Sounds, isn’t it? I mean—it’s the obvious choice. And then you’ll have a little Zeppelin in there, some Dylan: Blood on the Tracks… maybe Blonde on Blonde?”
Juarez grabbed my elbow and hauled me out the door.
From WKRO, our next stop was the police station. The lobby was empty—no secretary, no lights, no phones. We found Buddy in his office, stretched out on a too-small sofa with his hat over his eyes. He sat up and wiped the drool from the corners of his mouth at our entrance.
“Sorry you caught me like this,” he said. “All-nighters ain’t quite so easy as they once was, huh, Diggs?”
“You got that right,” I said. “Listen, I know someone’s already going through the sheriff’s files, but we thought you might be able to answer a couple questions.”
“Shoot,” Buddy said.
Juarez pulled up a chair and sat, his elbows resting loosely on his knees as he leaned forward. “We’ve got two priorities right now: Finding Barnel’s people, and figuring out what their ultimate target will be at midnight. If Jennings ever mentioned any place where he may have met with Barnel…”
“I’ve been thinkin’ about that,” Buddy said. “The only place I can think of where they’d be out of the way would be the reverend’s camp—but we already sent folks out there to check it out. No luck.”
“The man at the radio station mentioned something about Barnel extending the property lines at his compound. Do you know anything about that?”
The deputy shook his head. “Can’t say I ever heard anything about it, but I’ll look into it.”
“What about targets?” I asked. “This isn’t making a lot of sense to me: I would think the point of whatever they have planned at midnight is mass casualties… but with the warning they’ve given and the amount of damage they’re doing leading up to it, everything’s shut down. The Feds are keeping a close eye on the few gathering spots left—mostly churches.”
“Don’t seem like Barnel would want to take out the churches, though,” Buddy said. “I expect the sheriff picked the Dairy Queen because that’s where all the local kids in rougher crowds hung out—used to drive him crazy.”
“And this is a dry county, so I’m assuming there are no bars,” Juarez said.
“We used to have the Wilson Club,” Buddy said. “You remember that place, Diggs…”
“That sounds like a good bet,” Juarez said.
“Except the reverend and Sheriff Jennings shut ‘em down last year,” Buddy said. “Now some rich fella from away owns the place. He keeps to himself, mostly.” He shook his head. “No… thanks to Reverend Barnel, there’s not too many places left to cause trouble ‘round here.”
The deputy took off his hat and scratched his head. “You know, for a while there it seemed like Wyatt was gettin’ along all right with the reverend. George was never much of a fan, but I think Wyatt made more of an effort ‘cause Mae was so partial to Reverend Barnel. Whatever happened between ‘em back this fall, though…”
Juarez looked at him expectantly.
“They cut all ties,” I finished for him.
“More than that,” Buddy said. “Seems to me around that time is when the sheriff went just a little more off-kilter than he’d been before.”
“But you don’t know what their falling out was about?” Juarez asked.
Buddy shook his head. “Wish I did. I’m not sure that anybody did, really, short of Wyatt, Reverend Barnel, and the sheriff. And…”
He looked at me guiltily. I knew exactly what was coming next.
“And…?” Juarez prompted.
“I could be wrong,” Buddy said. “But it seems to me that the only other person Wyatt would tell that stuff—short of you, Diggs—would be his sister.” He winced sympathetically. “Sorry. I don’t know if she’ll talk to you or not, but it seems to me Ashley’s the surest one to know why all of a sudden the reverend just up and cut Wyatt out of his flock.”
As soon as we were in the truck, Juarez looked at me. “You know where we need to go next, don’t you?”
“Disneyland?”
He rolled his eyes. Juarez is funny, in that you think you have him pegged as this Latin creampuff until he gets tired of playing that role. Not a lot gets by the guy—something I’d learned while he was staying with me the year before. “Have you talked to your ex-wife at all since you got here?”
“In passing.”
“So you think the deputy’s wrong: You don’t think she might have some idea what’s going on?”
Actually, I thought Buddy was completely right: Ashley would have a better idea what was going on than anyone in Justice. Ashley isn’t just some hillbilly I picked up after Sunday service when I was sixteen—between scholarships and summer jobs, she paid for a private high school back east out of her own pocket, graduated summa cum laude from Wharton, and knows money better than the Pope knows Rome.
“She’s not real fond of me these days,” I said. “Truth is, I’m a little afraid of her.”
“Get over it,” he said simply. “I’m not sitting by while this town implodes because you’re too much of a pussy to talk to your ex.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Pussy? Damn. You’ve been spending too much time with Solomon. All this time I thought you were a nice Catholic boy.”
He started the truck, shaking his head. “Between the two of you, you’ve knocked a lot of the nice out of me.” He continued before I could reply. “You knew about the falling out between Wyatt and Reverend Barnel.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yet you never mentioned anything. Why?” He put the truck in gear.
“I don’t know,” I said. “George and Wyatt and I disagreed on just about everything… except Jesup Barnel. It doesn’t seem like George’s feelings have changed any. According to Mae, though, Barnel and Wyatt developed some kind of friendship. I’m not clear on why that changed.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to George Durham about any of that the other night? Before the rattlesnake attack, of course.”
I wondered what Solomon had told him about that night. I was assuming she hadn’t mentioned the ride to the hospital… or the fact that I was in her arms during the bulk of it. At least, I was hoping she hadn’t. Juarez was the calm and steady type, but I didn’t think he was that calm and steady. I pushed aside any residual guilt I might have felt for kissing Solomon when I knew she was Jack’s girl, and considered his question.
“I didn’t really know anything was happening at that point,” I said. “I mean... all we had then was Wyatt’s murder. We weren’t thinking about the end of the world yet. I know George was a little off that night, but I just assumed that was about losing Wyatt. And everyone was so busy reminiscing and chugging moonshine, we didn’t really get into the nitty gritty of the investigation.”
“You didn’t mention anything about George Durham to Erin, then?” he asked. “You don’t think she may have noticed something that you didn’t?”
“I didn’t talk to her about it, really. She’d had a little to drink that night… between that and the incident with the pit viper, we didn’t have much time to debrief.”
He didn’t say anything to that. Too late, I remembered that Solomon had told me at some point that she was supposed to call Juarez that night, but never got the chance. And now here I was, telling him she hadn’t called because she was off getting wasted with me and my old cronies. I looked out the window, watching smoke rise from a distant fire on the horizon. I took a deep breath and let it out, nice and slow.
“I know you probably weren’t crazy about her coming down here with me,” I said. Juarez glanced at me. Shook his head.
“You’re important to her. She needed to be here for you—it was as much for her as anything.”
“Jesus, Jack. Are you applying for sainthood now?”
He laughed dryly, a trace of sadness in there. “I just want what’s best for her.” He paused. The silence stretched on. I’d almost given up on the conversation by the time he spoke again. “How are you, anyway? Since the summer?”
The million-dollar question. I shrugged. “You mean apart from quitting my job, dumping my girl, and running off to the beach for two months? Apparently Black Falls didn’t slide off me quite as well as some people.”
His jaw hardened as soon as the words were out. He glanced at me, then back at the road. His hands were tight on the wheel.
“If you think anything just slid off Erin after last summer, you don’t know her as well as I thought.”
“She’s pulled herself together pretty well from where I’m standing. She looks better than I’ve seen her in a long time. She’s working out; taking classes. She quit smoking. Dumped the whole quest for her father.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. I watched the world go by, and didn’t speak.
“She still has nightmares, you know,” he said, after awhile. I went still, waiting for him to tell me things I knew Solomon never would. “She wakes up in the night, calling your name. She barely left the house for two months after she was released from the hospital—though I don’t know that firsthand, of course. I only know what her mother has told me. Erin wouldn’t take my calls after we got back. The only way I eventually saw her was by showing up on her doorstep one day in December.”
He paused, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t have a clue what that might be, though. He continued.
“Did you know she lost the use of her hand after the second surgery?” he asked.
I shook my head silently. Something dark and heavy settled itself at the pit of my stomach.
“The doctors weren’t sure she’d ever get it back; I thought Kat was going to murder someone until we knew that the third surgery had gone well. Erin refuses to talk about what happened in the woods that night—who killed Rainier and Max. What they did to her. What they did to you. She added a security system to the house. Asked me to teach her self-defense. And up until you left town, she called Maya nearly every day to get an update on how you were, and to make sure you were safe.”
“She told you all that?”
&
nbsp; He laughed humorlessly. “Of course not. I learned all that from paying attention… she doesn’t talk to me. She talks to you.” He didn’t sound bitter—merely resigned. “As far as I can tell, you’re the only one she’s ever talked to.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, but she’s never talked all that much to me, either.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were a lie. Solomon might not spend all day everyday telling me every little thought that crossed her mind, but I knew she confided in me more than anyone else. And I had a feeling that whatever she’d held back over the years was as much my fault as hers: no one wants to lay all their cards on the table when the other guy holds his hand as close to the chest as I tend to. Juarez shot me a look that suggested he was well aware that I was full of shit.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked. “Nothing’s going on between us, Jack. Solomon’s not the cheating kind, trust me.”
“I know that,” he said. “But you act as though she was unaffected by what happened in Black Falls. That’s not fair to her. Trust me: whatever went on over those forty-eight hours changed things for her.”
I hesitated a long while before I spoke again. Finally, I blew out a long exhale and stared out the window, carefully avoiding Juarez’s gaze when I spoke again.
“I know she wasn’t unaffected—I’m just pissed off that she’s doing all right without me. That you two are together, and she’s focused and sane and moving on with her life, when I feel like I’ve been walking a flaming tightrope over a sea of great whites for the past six months. I know what happened out there; there’s no way anyone comes out of that unchanged.”
I waited for him to ask me just what, exactly, had happened. I wasn’t sure what I’d tell him. I thought of the warmth of Solomon’s skin against mine in the shower; the sight of her on her knees with a belt looped around her neck, gasping for air; the words Rainier had said to me just before I lost it and nearly killed him with my bare hands. Juarez never asked, though. We drove the rest of the way in silence.