The Dirty South - Charlie Parker Series 18 (2020)

by Connolly, John

‘And what might that be?’ he asked.

  He saw that she was drinking water. Usually, she treated herself to a small glass of wine with dinner. It was one of her few vices. He felt time stop. He wanted to ask, but was afraid. Then she said the words, and even as he stood to take her in his arms, and even as they kissed, and even as he cried and she cried, he knew that in return for this blessing he would forever know fear.

  He held his wife, the mother of his unborn child, and tried to force from his mind the images of Patricia Hartley, of Donna Lee Kernigan.

  Of Charlie Parker and his dead.

  47

  In a darkness suffused with decay, the man responsible for the murders of Patricia Hartley and Donna Lee Kernigan – and others besides – kept vigil with the dead. He held in his right hand a charm bracelet once owned by the Hartley girl, and in his left an earring taken from Donna Lee. He was not worried about keeping the items. The police would track him down eventually, he knew, but just in case anything should befall him unexpectedly, he wanted there to be no doubt about his culpability. He didn’t want to have gone to all this trouble for nothing.

  His only concern was that a small part of him had enjoyed killing Donna Lee. The Hartley girl had been more difficult, and he hadn’t been convinced of his ability to persevere with his plan in the days immediately after her death – because he smelled her on himself, and not pleasantly – but Donna Lee had been easier. It was in the way she’d struggled, wriggling under the weight of him. He’d liked that. He’d liked it a lot, and his excitement had made him want to hurt her more. He was now looking forward to the next girl, which briefly caused him to consider the possibility of a different outcome.

  Suppose he could somehow achieve his aims without being caught?

  Suppose he could keep on taking girls?

  Why, that would be just lovely.

  Difficult, but lovely.

  48

  Parker’s search for food had been delayed. He discovered that he had left his wallet in his room, and as he returned from retrieving it, he noticed Charles Shire and his goon conversing in the parking lot. Out of curiosity, Parker had tried to eavesdrop on them, but their voices were too low. Finally, Shire returned to his accommodation and the goon drove the rental car out of the parking lot, after which Parker decided to drop by the reception desk.

  The motel office was excessively warm and smelled of cheap coffee and old doughnuts. Parker asked the desk clerk, Cleon, about local bars and restaurants. Cleon was in his late twenties, prematurely balding, and worked most evenings, often while listening to light opera on the stereo system and sketching lavish costumes for stage shows. He was the cousin of one of the owners, and was taking a distance-learning course in design studies. If he wasn’t the gayest man in Arkansas, he was closing in fast on the front-runner.

  ‘Boyd’s is nearest,’ said Cleon, ‘and the food’s not bad.’

  ‘I’ve been.’

  ‘How did you like it?’

  ‘Not a whole lot. I got arrested.’

  This news didn’t faze Cleon.

  ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘Most people get arrested at the Rhine Heart. It doesn’t happen so much in Boyd’s.’

  ‘The Rhine Heart it is, then,’ said Parker. ‘What’s the food like?’

  ‘Fine, as long as you don’t swallow it.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘Happy to have helped. How’s the honeymoon suite?’

  ‘Homely.’

  ‘That’s what we’re aiming for. Lavish wedding accommodations on the first night set up unrealistic expectations for the years to come. I think I read that somewhere, or perhaps I made it up. Either way, it has the ring of truth.’

  ‘You should put it on the door.’

  ‘I’d get fired, so perhaps I will.’ He set aside his pencil. ‘Is it true that you’re helping the police investigate the Kernigan girl’s murder?’

  ‘Did someone tell you that?’

  ‘Sergeant Knight told the owners you were assisting the department when he came by to negotiate a rate for your room, and the Cargill PD doesn’t need assistance with anything else right now.’

  ‘Then it’s true.’

  ‘Patricia Hartley’s death also?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s the general attitude.’

  ‘Probably not, but who cares?’

  Parker glanced at the guest information form by Cleon’s right hand. He could see Charles Shire’s name.

  ‘Kovas might,’ he replied, ‘and a lot of people waiting for that ship to come in.’

  ‘I think Kovas, their ship, and this town can all go to hell,’ said Cleon.

  ‘You don’t like Cargill?’

  ‘No, and Cargill doesn’t like me, but the town started it.’

  Cargill didn’t strike Parker as a good place to be gay. He wondered why Cleon had stayed as long as he had. Money issues, possibly, or family ties. Escaping from small towns was never easy. They buried their hooks deep.

  ‘How discreet are you, Cleon?’

  ‘More than you might think.’

  ‘That’s just what I would have guessed. How often does Charles Shire stay here?’

  Cleon cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘Mr Shire? He’s been a frequent visitor in the last six months. This is already his fourth visit this year. He’s some kind of liaison between Kovas and the state. Everyone has to be nice to him.’

  ‘And the man who arrived with him this evening?’

  ‘He hasn’t stayed here before, although I’ve seen him around. I usually like men with mustaches, although I don’t think he’s on the market. Then again, that might be for the best. He doesn’t seem like the tender kind.’

  ‘Does he have a name?’

  Cleon lifted Shire’s reservation to display the one beneath.

  ‘Leonard Cresil,’ he said. ‘He carries a gun.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘You’re carrying one, too.’

  Cleon, it was emerging, had very sharp eyes.

  ‘But I’m one of the good guys,’ said Parker.

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping. If I hear anything I shouldn’t, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

  ‘I’d be grateful.’

  Parker buttoned his jacket and headed for the door. Cleon resumed his sketching.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, Mr Parker,’ he said, ‘why did they turn to you for help?’

  ‘I was a detective once. I have some experience.’

  ‘Of killings like these?’

  ‘No, not exactly like these, but close enough.’

  Cleon contemplated the reply.

  ‘How do you do it?’ he said.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Look upon the results of that kind of violence.’

  ‘You make it sound like there’s a choice.’

  ‘Well, you could look away.’

  Parker opened the door and was welcomed by the night.

  ‘I tried that,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work.’

  49

  Reverend Nathan Pettle washed his hands in the small bathroom at the rear of his church, with its cracked sink and toilet that dated back to the building’s previous incarnation as a VFW post, before the natural attrition of mortality, aided by a schism in the local organization, had resulted in its dissolution. Pettle had done his best to make the premises resemble something approaching a house of worship: he’d added a cross, for starters, and put cheap stained glass in a few of the windows, but the acoustics remained poor, and the floor still bore marks from the removal of the post’s bar. Yet it was his church, and he was proud of it. That didn’t mean he wanted to stay in it forever, but he’d done his best with what was available to him, and the Lord couldn’t ask for more.

  He dried his hands and stared at his face in the mirror. He had always been lousy at hiding his emotions. That was how his wife had confirmed the affair with Sallie Kernigan, transmuting base su
spicion into the shining gold of truth through the simple expedient of asking her husband directly. As soon as she confronted him, Pettle had confessed. There had been no point in doing otherwise. God had cursed him with the inability to perjure and obfuscate. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight – Proverbs 12:22. Pettle was not so hypocritical as to attempt to convince himself that any substantial difference existed between deceit and lying – he had deceived his wife by sleeping with another woman and hiding his unfaithfulness, which constituted a form of untruth – but he reminded himself that he had fessed up at the first opportunity, and by then the affair was already at an end. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices – Colossians 3:9. He had indeed put off the old self, and refused to lie. He had tried, in the end, to be a better man.

  Appallingly, he now wished that someone other than Donna Lee had been found dead that morning. No other fatality, barring that of Sallie Kernigan herself, could have caused such problems for him: not at home, not with Kovas, and not with the police, because Delores was pressuring him to step forward and inform them of the nature of his relationship with the girl’s mother. If Delores had guessed the truth of it, she informed him, others were capable of doing likewise. Sallie could have told some of her friends about it, or her workmates. Even Donna Lee herself might have seen or heard something, Delores advised.

  And as she spoke, Pettle had witnessed the disappointment and distrust in her face, and glimpsed a future of continued coldness and estrangement. He knew then that whatever damage he might have inflicted on their marriage by his infidelity paled beside what she had done to it by doubting his essential goodness. He had fallen temporarily from grace, like all good men inevitably did, but he had refused to let it define him. His wife, on the other hand, appeared intent on doing just that, and now he feared that deeper reservations about his character had begun to cloud her mind.

  Donna Lee might have seen or heard something.

  And what then? Suppose Donna Lee had taken it upon herself to confront the good reverend with her knowledge of his sexual relationship with her mother? What if Donna Lee, unlike Delores, had found herself unable to stomach his sanctimony, and threatened to reveal it to his congregation, to the whole town? In that case, what would become of his dreams of a new church, of his hopes of becoming a figurehead in the rejuvenated Cargill? What would happen to the money promised him by Kovas for mobilizing his flock, for encouraging them to write to their congressman, to state senators and local representatives, to the governor himself, in order to ensure that Kovas, this harbinger of wealth and change, should be facilitated in every way? What would happen to the promised career for his boy? And what would happen to Pettle himself? Men had killed to protect less.

  Then there was Sallie Kernigan herself, because she remained missing. Already the talk around town was that Sallie, like her daughter, could well be dead. Whoever killed Donna Lee might have been forced to deal with the mother first in order to get to the girl, or to take Sallie’s life in the aftermath so that she could not speak of what she knew. But who would have cause to commit such acts? Who might benefit from ensuring the silence of mother and daughter?

  This, Pettle feared, was the sum of his wife’s suspicions about him: the husband who had cheated on her was now a man who might have killed to escape the consequences of his licentiousness.

  God, he was weary. Earlier that afternoon, he had driven to Hot Springs with Lorrie Colson, the young policewoman, in order to visit with Miss Imogene, now grandmother to a dead child and mother to a missing one. The old woman could no longer breathe unassisted, a lifetime of smoking having rendered her lungs useless, and stage three emphysema would soon take her from this world. Already she was virtually without speech, but she’d understood what they were telling her. He’d wiped away her tears and held her hand, until eventually she’d lapsed into unconsciousness. Speaking to her, breaking her heart at the end of her life, was one of the hardest duties Pettle had ever performed, yet he had taken on the burden of it willingly, even as he wondered: Does Miss Imogene know? Does she, like my own wife, believe me to be capable of this crime?

  ‘But what about Estella Jackson?’ He heard himself speaking aloud, addressing his reflection. ‘She died the same way as Donna Lee, and I had no cause to kill her. Same with Patricia Hartley.’

  But everyone was aware of how the Jackson girl died, with branches rammed deep into her – Patricia Hartley too, no matter what lies Jurel Cade and Loyd Holt had elected to tell, the same lies they had persuaded Pettle to accept, because to do otherwise would have brought devastation down on the county, impoverishing them all. It wouldn’t be hard to replicate killings like that, wouldn’t be hard at all. A man would only need a couple of sticks …

  He should not have colluded with Cade and Holt. That had been one of his mistakes. He should have demonstrated that he was a man of principle. Yet there was so much at stake here for everyone. Pettle wanted to see his people enriched. He wanted them to be able to afford better homes, better food for their table, a better education for their children. Only Kovas offered that hope. So he had chosen to swallow the Hartley lie, and ignore the enforced exile of her family. He had embraced complicity in one sin to avoid visiting harm on generations of families. He had prioritized the needs of the many over the few.

  But that would no longer suffice. The membership of his flock hadn’t just been in mourning tonight: they’d been angry. They wanted justice. None of them had departed immediately after the service ended, not one. They’d called on him to stand up for what was right, and not let the death of another black girl go unremarked and uninvestigated. He’d tried to assure them that Chief Griffin was on their side, and felt as they did. Griffin had called Pettle at home a few hours before the service, suggesting it might be a good idea if he addressed the congregation, but Pettle had demurred, and still believed it to have been the correct decision. Griffin meant well, but he was a white police officer in a county and state in which the old divisions remained visible: geographical, social, economic, racial. The town’s black population had no reason to accept that Griffin would be any more effective than Jurel Cade in investigating the butchering of their young women, just as Eddy Rauls, Cade’s predecessor, had failed to solve the murder of Estella Jackson. It was up to Pettle to convince his congregants otherwise. He had agreed to let Naylor, the town’s sole black officer, attend the service, and from the pulpit had advised anyone with information to speak with the police, but no one came forward. They wanted Reverend Nathan Pettle to be their voice. They were putting their faith in him, and he wished so badly to be worthy of it, but he could not, for so many reasons, one of which was currently waiting for him on the other side of the restroom door.

  The reprobate named Leonard Cresil.

  50

  A familiar car was idling in the lot when Parker emerged from the office of the motel. The engine died as he appeared, and the driver’s door opened. Delphia Cade emerged from the dimness of the interior, trailing perfume and the promise of misfortune.

  ‘Mr Parker,’ she said, and waited for him to acknowledge her.

  ‘Ms Cade.’

  ‘May I trouble you for a moment of your time?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Perhaps we could speak somewhere less open?’

  ‘There’s always the office,’ said Parker.

  ‘But you have a room here, don’t you?’

  ‘I have more than a room, I have the honeymoon suite.’

  ‘How quaint. I wasn’t aware that there was such an amenity in this town.’

  ‘The name flatters to deceive.’

  ‘Even so, we might talk there.’

  Her lips were very, very red, and her teeth very, very white. The canines were sharp enough to leave holes in a man’s throat.

  ‘I was on my way to get something to eat,’ said Parker. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  ‘I could always
join you.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s been a long day.’

  Delphia Cade made a curious gesture with her right hand. In a distant, less enlightened time, it might have been taken for a conjuration or hex. Whatever one chose to call it, Parker would not have been entirely surprised had he suddenly begun bleeding from the eyes and ears.

  ‘Have I caused you some offense?’ said Delphia.

  ‘No, Ms Cade, but you’re the sister of the county’s chief deputy, and the daughter of its most powerful citizen. I’m not sure it would be proper for us to be alone without a chaperone.’

  ‘My father was right: you are a character.’

  And like her father, she didn’t sound as though she considered this to be a boon.

  ‘If you have anything to share that might be of benefit to the investigation,’ said Parker, ‘I’d be happy to listen to it at the station house. We can go there right now.’

  ‘I did have something to offer, but not information.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m in the market for what you’re offering.’

  ‘Don’t be uncouth,’ said Delphia. ‘I’m talking about a job.’

  But her eyes said different: they shone with sun-darts of silver, like fish rising to feed.

  ‘What kind of job?’

  ‘A great many people are intent upon entering into my good graces, although you don’t seem to be one of them. They look at me and smell money. Some of them think they can smell more than that. I find the approaches tiresome, even intimidating at times. I’ve now reached the stage where I’d be happier with personal security, someone to stand by my side. I thought of you.’

  ‘I’m gratified, but I’ll have to decline.’

  ‘Because I’m a woman, or because I’m a Cade?’

  ‘Because I’m here only to investigate a series of killings. If I were to accept a position from you, I would be unable to continue in my current role.’

  ‘The investigation would continue without you.’

  ‘Probably, but my absence might be a hindrance to a successful outcome.’