“We wouldn’t if it weren’t for these damn rumors, Miss Cates.”
“Where do the rumors come from?”
“I can’t talk about that, but they are persistent.”
“If there’s violence being planned, I think you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Where would you look?”
Immediately, Cullen Shoemaker and his manifesto came to mind. “You were there on Thursday when Cullen Shoemaker spoke. That was bad enough, but I just read this thing, this tract he wrote—the McNelly Manifesto, he calls it, and it’s scary. Very scary.”
“Have you still got it?”
“Yes.”
“Could I see it?”
“I think I’ve got it in the next room. I’ll be right back.” Molly went into the kitchen and without turning on the light picked up the box of cartridges and stuck it in a drawer, trying to close the drawer without making any noise. Then she rummaged through the pile of things she’d dumped from her bag until she found the paper. She took it back to the living room and handed it to him. “It’s Turner Diary–type stuff—just unspeakable.”
Heller folded it and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “We’ve already looked at Shoemaker. The McNelly Posse’s a militia in the making with one big difference—they’re not your usual bitter rednecks. They’re college kids with some rich daddies who back them, but they’re mostly about posturing, I think. Kids.”
“Maybe, but that manifesto is the most vicious kind of hate-mongering. He talks about violence being necessary to resist any sort of gun registration. Don’t let Cullen’s little-boy looks fool you. I think he’s dangerous.”
“Well”—he patted his pocket—“I’ll read it. Tell me what went on at the range on Tuesday.”
“My daughter and I shot at targets of bad guys and when the WIC members showed up they did some quick-draw-and-shoot practice. Some of them are pretty good.”
“Hmmm. That’s it?”
“Well, before we shot we had some classroom time—the world according to Wanda Lavoy.”
“And what is that world?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s full of bad guys and danger. Women need to be able to take care of themselves since the police can’t do it.”
His long face took on an even more dour look. “Well, I can’t argue with that. No talk about taking up arms against the government?”
“No. Just against individuals, bad guys.”
“And that was it?”
“Yes.” Molly looked at her watch.
He stood up. “Thanks for taking the time, Miss Cates. You coming for the vote on Monday?”
“Yeah. I’ve come this far with it. You?”
“Yeah. I’ll be relieved to have it over with. Let me give you a number you can call if you want to get in touch with me.”
Molly got a pencil and paper from the table and wrote down the number he gave her.
“Someone answers there, twenty-four hours. Just say it’s urgent for Agent Heller and I’ll call you back.” He stood up.
“What do you think about the bill, Agent?” she asked as they walked toward the front door. “You’ve been there every day.”
“Oh, I guess pretty much the same as other law enforcement folks. Officially I’m against it. Privately, I encourage my wife to carry protection in D.C. at night. That’s off the record, of course.”
“The issue is a lot more difficult than I thought,” Molly conceded.
He stood at the door and patted the pocket where he’d tucked the manifesto. “The worst part of it is that Shoemaker is right.”
“What?”
“That the lists of gun registrations and licenses will eventually be used to disarm people. He’s rabid, of course. There’s no conspiracy that I know of, but when tighter restrictions come, and they will, they’ll start with the lists.”
Molly opened the front door for him. “Tell Rain Malloy hello for me.”
“I will.” He paused in the open door. “Be careful with that .38 in your bag, Miss Cates. You’re a beginner and you wouldn’t believe how wrong things can go when a loaded gun gets in inexperienced hands.”
The nerve of these cops! Damn him. “I suppose at dinner parties you snoop through the host’s medicine cabinets.”
“Yes, if I’m worried he might be up to something.”
“You think I’m up to something, agent?” Molly demanded.
“No, ma’am, but it looks like you’ve got quite an evening planned.”
“I don’t believe carrying condoms breaks any law,” she said, trying to sound unperturbed, “but illegal searches do.”
He glanced up at the darkening sky. “Looks like we’re in for more rain. Have a good evening, ma’am.”
As soon as he’d left, she closed the door, then locked it. Well, shit. She walked back into the living room and pulled her bag out from under the chair. She took the gun out and opened the chamber. All six cartridges were still there. He was quick, but not that quick. She put the gun back and glanced at her watch.
Time to get going. Saturday night, hot date. Didn’t want to be late. After all, she’d been waiting twenty-five years for this one. Twice before this man had cheated her, but this time she would make it come out differently.
Agent Heller was right about one thing: she had quite an evening planned.
AND OFTENTIMES, TO WIN US TO OUR HARM,
THE INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS TELL US TRUTHS.
—MACBETH
There were people in the world, or so she’d heard, who could forgive and forget. Molly Cates was not one of them. She rarely took offense, but when she did, she embraced the injury forever. She knew this grudge-holding to be an unappealing trait but, to her credit, she had never taken active revenge in her life. And she certainly did not believe in violent retribution. She’d seen the futility of that during her years on the police beat.
Olin Crocker headed her list of those who had done her harm, but she had let two and a half decades pass without lifting a finger against him. Until now.
Molly was usually pretty good at rationalizing what she wanted to do, but this one was a real challenge. After all, what made her any different from Cullen Shoemaker and his vigilance committee, whose philosophy she loathed? According to the McNelly Manifesto, white male citizens had the right and the responsibility to administer summary justice when the regular legal system failed to punish the guilty. Wasn’t that what she was setting out to do tonight? Since the law had not gotten Olin Crocker, she was going to try to nail the bastard herself.
She had the right, she told herself. When for decades you’d lived life as a responsible adult, doing all the law-abiding things—going to work, paying your taxes, renewing your car registration and dog licenses, stopping at traffic lights, recycling your trash—surely you’d earned the right to step outside the bounds of civilized behavior just once, if the cause was honorable. Every dog was allowed one bite, after all, and sometimes those dogs were sorely provoked into biting. Why shouldn’t each person be allowed one vigilante act? For hers, her once-in-a-lifetime bite, she was choosing to call in Olin Crocker’s debt by force.
Before heading out toward Taylor, she drove around Northwest Hills a little to see if Agent Heller might possibly be following her. After ten minutes of zigging and zagging, making U-turns and watching in the rearview mirror for white Camrys, she felt totally ridiculous. Planning illegal activities had a tendency to make you paranoid.
By the time she got headed east on Highway 290, it was nine o’clock and dark. She thought about calling Crocker to say she was running late, but decided not to. He might tell her it was too late to come. And, now that she was moving in that direction, she was hell-bent on going through with this. No chickening out now.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to County Road 973 and another fifteen minutes through flat farmland to FM 4563. After turning right on Carlson Road, she started counting driveways. Without his instructions she would have had a hard time finding it because the numbers we
re impossible to see in the dark. She turned in at the stone mailbox, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs it made her arms shake. She gripped the wheel tighter to steady them.
The long gravel driveway ended at a low, sprawling stone house, very substantial and totally charmless. Behind the house, she could make out in the darkness the shape of a barn and some other outbuildings. The porch light wasn’t on, but several windows showed light around the edges. The one closest to the door showed the flickering light of a television.
A large yellow dog came bounding around the side of the house, making enough noise for a whole pack of hounds. Molly parked the truck near the house and rolled down her window.
A light came on over the front door and the door opened. A dark shape filled the doorway. “Lady, you yappy old bitch, get up here.” The dog stopped barking, trotted meekly up on the porch, and sat at the man’s feet, whining.
Olin Crocker took one step out onto the porch and stopped there, staring at the truck. He was barefoot, wearing saggy blue jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Molly’s entire body clenched up with disgust at the sight of him. She was wrong: she would never be able to carry this off. She hadn’t reckoned on having such a powerful visceral reaction. He’d take one look at her and see her loathing. Her acting skills weren’t even close to good enough to carry on a sexual flirtation with this weasel. The idea of touching him made her flesh crawl.
She sat watching him up on his porch, trying to psych herself back into the frame of mind in which she had convinced herself this fool plan might work. Think of it, she told herself, as a trip to the dentist when you’ve had a toothache that’s tormented you for years. The cure might be painful, but it is short-term pain. Think how much better you’ll feel when you’ve done something about it.
She sat up straighter. This was the best shot—perhaps the only shot—she was ever going to have at curing this old and persistent toothache of hers. The worst that could happen was she’d get humiliated … or beaten up … or raped …or killed … or sent to prison.
“You gonna sit there all night or you gonna get out?” he called to her. “Don’t wet your pants over this little ol’ dog. She’s not gonna hurt you, are you, Lady, girl?” He leaned down to scratch the dog on the chest. “No, ma’am, she won’t bite and I won’t neither.” His voice contained both a sexual suggestiveness and the kind of condescending reassurance you’d offer to a neurotic child.
Molly had to unclench her teeth to speak. “Good watchdog,” she said, opening the door.
“When she’s awake, which is about one hour a day,” he said. “On a good day.”
Molly pulled the six-pack out of the cooler in back, slung her bag over her shoulder, and slammed the door. No turning back now; she was in for the duration.
“Well, howdy.” He managed to twist his lips into the replica of a smile.
“Evening, Olin. Nice spread you’ve got here.”
“Well, it’s too dark for you to see now, but it’s right pretty—fifteen hundred acres,” he said with pride in his voice, “one of the biggest spreads in the county.”
Good. He loves this place, she thought. I’ll use that to put the fear of the Lord into him.
He watched her approach, his eyes wary.
“You’ve done right well for yourself,” Molly said, affecting a hearty twang. If this had a prayer of working, she needed to put him at ease.
“Well.” He grinned and shrugged. “They tell me you’ve become a famous writer. There’s just no predictin’ these things, is there?” He put his hands on his hips and laughed. “Hell, I remember you as one mixed-up lil old gal. Wild, whoo-eee! And you dropped out of high school, didn’t you?”
Molly reached the porch steps and looked up at him. “You’re right, Sheriff. There’s no predicting anything.” You had to be careful who you screwed, Molly thought, because not all of them end up dying of a drug overdose. One of them might turn out to be a vigilante.
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “So what was this errand you had to do in Taylor?”
“A real sad thing. I took a casserole to Mattie Jenks. Her husband died Wednesday, old friend of my daddy—Stuart Jenks. Farmed up by Thrall before they retired and bought that big old house in Taylor. You know him?”
“Jenks?” He gave her a long look. “Don’t believe so.”
“Well, I guess Taylor’s getting to be a big place.”
“Too damn big. Yuppies all over the damn place.”
He squinted down at her with an intensity that fueled her growing anxiety. The light above his head illuminated his face, accentuating the deep furrows in his forehead and the suspicious narrowing of his eyes. She could see his doubts etched into his skin. Was she prey or predator? he was wondering. Was she crazy like she used to be? What did she really want? And was she really worth taking a chance on?
Now was the moment. He was making up his mind.
She held up the six-pack and announced, “I brought the liquid refreshment, as promised. How do you like that for a cheap date?”
There was a faint rumble of thunder in the distance. He looked up into the dark sky. Then he said, “It’s fixing to rain. You might as well come in.” She could see in the relaxing of his face that he’d decided—famous writer or not, she was the same gullible pushover she’d been as a girl. Molly heaved a sigh of relief; this might be possible after all. His contempt for women was working in her favor.
“Such hospitality,” she said, starting up the steps.
He held the screen door open and let the dog precede her inside.
They entered a large, dreary living room lighted only by the glow from a huge Sony TV, which was on with no sound. A dingy couch against the wall was covered with newspapers and the brown shag carpet looked and smelled badly in need of vacuuming.
“Colored gal who does for me didn’t show up this week,” he said. “House usually looks better.”
The dog settled down with a clunk in the middle of the floor.
“Let’s put your beer on ice.” Crocker headed toward the lighted kitchen.
She followed him. He took the six-pack of Coors Light from her and made a face. “You drink this cat piss?” He opened the refrigerator and leaned over to take two bottles of Shiner Bock from the bottom of the door. “No offense, but we’ll drink mine.” Molly took a good look as he bent down, to see if he had a gun tucked into his waistband in back. Dressed as he was, it was the only place on his body he could be concealing one. She didn’t think he was.
He straightened, twisted the top off a bottle, and handed it to her. “You ‘famous writers’ need a glass? Or you drink out of the bottle?”
“We drink it any way we can get it.” She took a sip from the bottle.
“Well,” he said, opening his and lifting it toward her, “here’s to reunions, Molly. No hard feelings, I hope.”
She touched her bottle to his. “Hard feelings? After all these years? Shit, Sheriff, who’d stay mad that long?” She put the bottle to her lips and watched him as she drank. He was moving his eyes along her body openly now, assessing her. Grunting his grudging approval, he took a long swig of his beer.
“We did have our differences at one time,” he said. “Sure was a bad break your husband showing up like that.” A small knowing smile played on his thin lips.
“Sure was,” Molly said, barely able, even after all the intervening time, to think about the scene—Grady arriving home to find them in the bedroom, his shocked and icy departure, Crocker running off and weaseling on the bargain.
“I suppose he was real mad, your hubby?”
“Ancient history,” she said with a shrug.
“So.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “You got some questions for me, huh?”
“Well, I got to admit something to you, Olin.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I came here under false pretenses.”
“Did you now?” He leaned back against the refrigerator
and his unbuttoned shirt fell open. The skin on his chest wrinkled and sagged like it was two sizes too big for him now, but he displayed it with all the arrogance of a young stud. He pressed the beer bottle against his chest and rolled it slowly between his nipples. “So you don’t have any questions for me, Molly? Here I thought I’d be in your article, you’d make me famous.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve got questions, but not about the bill. I’m not much interested in the bill. Never was.”
“That right? I thought you were writing about it.”
“I am.”
“But you’re not interested?”
“You know what we women are like.” She reached out and rested a finger on his cheek. The skin felt dampish and thick, as though you’d have to go through many layers to hit bone or blood. Slowly she ran her finger along his weak jaw-line to his chin, his neck, and then very slowly down his chest, alongside the beer bottle which he still held pressed to the center. He stood stock-still.
She smiled up at him. “We’re always more interested in the personal than the public.” She circled her finger through the hair on his chest. It was gray now, but in 1970 it had been jet black and dense. He’d rubbed it against her face and then pushed her head down. Weak with fear and repugnance, she’d done everything he’d told her to do. He hadn’t forced her. He’d just held out the promise of the information she craved, and she had gone along with it.
She moved her finger downward to where his big belly swelled. Then she undulated the finger over it down to his belt buckle, which was not the star tonight, but a plain brass buckle. She stopped there and ran her fingernail horizontally above the belt.
“My questions are of a more personal nature,” she cooed.
His breathing had quickened. “Like what?”
“Oh, like where’s that handsome silver star buckle? It’s what drew my attention in the gallery. I wouldn’t have noticed you otherwise.” She fingered the brass buckle. “I like it much better than this one.” Then she pressed her hand slowly down his crotch. With a crude man like this, any subtlety would be wasted. She knew him to be a lecher eager to get to his main event without wasting time on preliminaries.
All the Dead Lie Down Page 24
