“But the doors were still locked!” Lori exclaimed. “How did anybody—why did anybody—why didn’t they just steal them?”
Dennis turned slowly around, searching over the parking lot for the figure he knew was watching. Justin stood by the hood of his green Tacoma and waited for Dennis to turn in his direction. Their eyes locked. Justin grinned and waved.
* * *
Dennis stood by the bank of lockers lining the hallway, waiting for Lori. The flat tires and shattered, scratched CDs had been the first volley in ongoing guerilla warfare, followed by gym shoes without laces, graffiti painted on his locker, pages torn from his calculus book. Minor league stuff, calculated to annoy and irritate. He’d confronted Justin head-on.
“Yeah? Whatcha goin’ do about it, Dennis? Call the police? Be my guest.”
Yeah, right. “You see, Officer, I know about Justin because we’re former drug-dealin’ partners….” Not a viable option. He was so engrossed in his thoughts he didn’t notice Lori’s approach until she swirled the combination of her locker.
“I swear!” Lori fussed mildly. “That woman! I’ve got enough English homework tonight to—”
Lori’s face went greenish-yellow. Dennis almost gagged as the stench poured in waves from her open locker. He slammed the locker door shut before she started her high-pitched scream, but not before he saw the huge dead wharf-rat lying on top of her stack of books. Not before he saw the pile of disemboweled guts sitting in a steaming mass beside it.
He pulled Lori’s head against his shoulder while his mind screamed a name in reverberating roars. He raised his head and looked over Lori’s hair. Justin leaned against the wall, four lockers down, watching. He smiled.
Justin’s hand moved to his jeans pocket, running his fingers lovingly across the material, caressing the scrim-shaw pocketknife he carried in violation of school regulations. Dennis got the message, all right, one he couldn’t ignore. He needed help. And he knew where to go to get it.
Chapter Six
While Dennis stared at Justin’s hand caressing the hidden knife, Ria ambled through the well-kept grounds of Rose Arbor Cemetery, looking for the Devlin graves. Rose Arbor and neighboring Riverside Hills Cemetery were historic landmarks in the city, overlooking the banks of the Ocmulgee River. Tourists and locals visited frequently to walk the landscaped grounds dotted with groups of azalea bushes and tall, perfectly shaped cedars. Redbuds and dogwoods and marble benches rose among the diverse shapes of the tombstones. An occasional mausoleum mimicked a small Greek temple.
She found Chloe’s grave by accident, her eyes caught by the lovely carving of the small statuette of the angel. She couldn’t be reading the marker properly. Surely Paul and Chloe were buried side by side, under a double monument. She read the inscription again.
‘Chloe Duval Devlin’. The letters, though blurred, were still legible. ‘April 15, 1864—February 3, 1888.’ Beneath it in smaller letters was inscribed, “Paul Everett Devlin IV”. There was only one date. ‘February 3, 1888.’
It made no sense. This was a double plot with one side vacant. She knew Paul’s body had been shipped home. So why wasn’t he lying beside Chloe?
She moved away from Chloe’s grave and continued her ramble. Then she saw it. It was very large, as mausoleums go, probably the largest in the entire cemetery. It stood behind Chloe’s grave. Close, yes, but why not regular burial beside the woman he’d so loved?
‘Paul Everett Devin III.’ The letters were sharper than the letters on Chloe’s marker. The door was set under the roof’s overhang, protected from the elements. ‘July 21, 1858 – October 12, 1888.’ There was no other inscription.
Ria stood puzzled for a few moments. Another group of visitors moved through the markers, calling to each other to come look at this or that. Ria shook her head and went back to her car. The couple’s separation made no sense, and there was nothing she could do about it, but it bothered her. A lot.
* * *
Ria returned to the office. An unexpected visitor sat in the foyer, thumbing absently through the pages of a magazine.
“Dennis! What brings you here?”
There was genuine pleasure in the greeting. Ria’s father practiced medicine with Dennis’s father. Together the two men formed the professional medical group of Macon Neurology, P.C. Dennis had been Ria’s favorite babysitting job back in her teens when Dennis had still needed a babysitter and she’d been his favorite and pretty much only babysitter. She loved him like a little brother, but he didn’t fool her a bit. She knew damn well he was considerably smarter than his grades indicated and way too easygoing for his own good.
“I’m sorry I came down without calling, Ria.”
“That’s okay. You don’t need to call to see me.”
“Can I?”
“Can you what?”
“See you for a while. Ria, I need to talk.”
“Sure,” She headed to her office and hoped like hell this wasn’t a professional call. Dennis radiated the nervous air of a kid in trouble.
She closed the door behind her.
“So. What kind of trouble are you in?”
“You never did beat around the bush.”
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
“No. I’m eighteen now, Ria, you don’t have to tell ‘em, do you?”
“Dennis, they’re going to find out sooner or later, whether I tell ‘em or not. Which I won’t. Besides, you’re over eighteen and you’re consulting me in a professional capacity. So I couldn’t tell ‘em even if wanted to. Speeding ticket? DUI? Or possession, maybe?
“Jesus, Ria!”
“They’re the most common ones. Which is it?”
“I haven’t been arrested at all. But if I had been, I don’t think it’d have been just for possession.”
“Then what would it have been for?”
Dennis hesitated. He’d had a wild crush on Ria when he was a kid. Even at six and seven, he’d known she was major hot. But it wasn’t just that. She was strong. Her self-confidence radiated out two feet in front of her. He’d never seen her in a situation where she didn’t know what to do, even the night he’d run that high fever while his parents were at a Country Club party. She’d taken his temperature and frowned. Then she’d dosed him with Tylenol and ordered him into a bathtub of warm water. By the time she’d run down his folks and gotten them back home, the thermometer read a mere 100 instead of 103. And she’d only been sixteen herself.
Shit. She was going to be so disappointed in him.
“Well?”
“I guess the charge’d be dealing. I guess.”
“Dennis! You idiot!”
“I didn’t think lawyers were supposed to give lectures.”
“I’ve put you in the bathtub, boy! If all you want’s a lawyer, you’ll have to go somewhere else! If you want me, I’ll lecture any time I feel like it! How in the hell—why in the hell did you get involved in something like—oh, wait! Let me guess! Justin Dinardo.”
“You never did like Justin.”
“Damn straight I’ve never liked that kid! There’s something wrong there, Dennis, he’s missing something! Did he ever pull the wings off flies and laugh when they tried to fly?”
Never could fool Ria. And he’d tried plenty. Now, looking at Justin with newly opened eyes, Dennis admitted he’d always known Justin was dangerous. Not because of size or athletic ability. Because Justin just wasn’t right. And he’d been scared enough of him to allow Justin to control him. Dennis shuddered, envisioning Lori running down the halls from the school parking lot screaming, knife slashes pouring blood down her face. Not happening.
“Well, I’m waiting.” Ria brought him out of the imaginary scene.
Dennis told her. Everything. Almost everything. He didn’t tell her about the skeleton buried in the cave hill. She’d think he’d been using himself if he told her that.
“Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
“What now? I know I was stupid, but Justin�
��I know you’re right, Ria. He’s got something missing somewhere. And I’m scared. But not for me, that rat in Lori’s locker, and the look on his face when his hand moved to that knife in his pocket. And he’s right next door to us. Suppose—”
“Suppose the house catches fire one night and your folks can’t get out?”
Dennis nodded miserably.
“Wouldn’t surprise me a lot.”
“So what do we do?”
“Is he still selling?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You think he’s still storing his stuff in the same spots?
“Probably.”
“You know when he goes?”
“That varies.”
“Could you figure out when he’s going?”
“Why?”
“It’s called turning state’s evidence. You turn him over and you get immunity. Though we don’t want him busted on a minor charge. He’ll be home in six months, if he gets any jail time at all, right next door to you and your folks, if he goes up on a small possession charge. Even on a small selling charge. I want him for a big possession with intent to distribute. I’d like to catch him in a big sale, and the more drugs he’s busted with, the bigger the charge, the longer the jail time. Especially since he’s never been in trouble before and comes from a good family. We don’t want to tap his hand with a ruler. He is already eighteen, isn’t he?” she asked in sudden alarm, struck by the thought that Justin might still be a juvenile offender.
“Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
“Well, thank God for small mercies.”
“What do you think he’d get?”
“Well, that depends on what we can catch him with. And I’m not just going to tell you, I’m going to show you.” Ria turned to her computer and tapped rapidly on the keyboard. “I assume y’all have some cocaine and crack stashed?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Of course, why did I ask? Schedule II. Here it is. Come look.” Ria motioned him around to the screen. “Prison term of not less than five or more than twenty,” she read aloud.“If we pin distribution on him. Same thing you’d be lookin’ at if you were still fartin’ around with him. You got that? Does that compute?”
“That much?”
“Dennis, that’s for the first offense. A second conviction carries a life term. The law doesn’t take drug traffic real lightly. But I doubt seriously he’d serve anywhere near that, no. So. You got it in your head now—real clear—I want it real clear, Dennis. That’s what you’ve been flirtin’ with. How’s that make you feel, now that you’re relatively sane again?”
“I guess I thought—”
“You thought it wouldn’t be much worse than getting caught smoking a roach, right?
“Well, yeah. I guess.”
“Welcome to the real world. How much did y’all keep stashed?”
“Ten, fifteen thousand dollars worth at the time, I guess. Sometimes more. We’d built up.”
“In weight, Dennis, not dollars.”
“Justin did all that, I never was any good with it.”
Ria sighed. “Some dealer you are. Okay, was that your price or street value?”
“Our price.”
“I guess to hell you had built up. That’s a good chunk of street change.”
“Do my folks have to know?”
“Dennis, you’re not going to be able to put Justin out of action unless you’re willing to testify, and trial testimony’s public record. He’s small time, and I don’t know how much publicity it’ll get, if any, or how well your folks read the newspapers or if the paper would carry anything about it at all. But you want to take the chance they’ll find out about it that way, instead of from you? Don’t kid yourself. In lots of ways, in our folks’ social circle, Macon’s still a real small town, and they’ll find out. Eventually.”
“But suppose I keep my mouth shut and he just gets busted? I mean, he could always just get busted, couldn’t he?”
“Sure he could. He could screw up anytime. He could carve Lori’s face before then, too, couldn’t he?”
Dennis stood up and moved restlessly.
“Hey, probably I’m overreacting. I mean, he wouldn’t really—”
“Dennis. He would. Really. Listen to me. I don’t like Justin, I never have. Do you know why?”
“I never knew why but I knew you didn’t.”
“Then let me tell you a secret. Sometimes—” Ria broke off and searched for the right words. “Sometimes, I don’t operate just on intellect, know what I mean? I don’t mean I’ve got ESP or any shit like that, I just mean that sometimes, I get—I think people call ‘em gut feelings. Everybody has ‘em, but some folks seem to develop ‘em a little more than others. I trust mine. If I get a real strong gut feeling, I go with it. I’m usually right. Like this house. It was a wreck, and everybody thought we’d lost our minds, but look at it now. Believe it or not, Dennis, when I walked in the first time, I could hear it whispering ‘buy me’.”
“But I don’t understand what that’s got to do with Justin.”
“Once or twice, your folks went out with Justin’s folks and I sat with both of you, remember? Over at your house?”
“Yeah.”
“And I never did it again. Told your mother I wasn’t goin’ to sit with Justin. Because Dennis, full-blown sociopaths don’t just happen. They develop. Bit by bit. I could feel it. Coming out of him in waves. And he’s been developing. From what you’ve told me, he’s speeded up considerable in the last couple of months. Yeah, he’d carve Lori’s face. Because he’d enjoy it. Now you tell me you don’t know that, too.”
Dennis bit his lip.
“Will you go with me?”
“To the District Attorney’s Office? Hell, baby, I’m your lawyer. I’m going first. But to your parents? Un-huh. Time to put on your big boy panties and deal with it.”
Chapter Seven
His parents were a lot worse than the District Attorney’s Office. Ria relented somewhat and drove over to the Billings household immediately after Dennis’ SOS.
Joyce Billings paced the family den, drink glass stained with lipstick in her hand. Don Billings, successful neurosurgeon who sliced and spliced without hesitation into the gray matter of living brain cells sat in his recliner and stared out the window.
Joyce Billings spewed her litany of insulted motherhood the moment Ria cleared the den door.
“Ria, do you know what Dennis has been telling us!”
“Of course I do. I’m his attorney.”
“He’s a child! You had no right not to tell us—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Billings. This is Georgia, and he’s over eighteen. I had an ethical obligation not to tell you. Besides, he told you himself.” The south followed the charming custom of addressing older people by their first name, preceeded by ‘Miss’ or ‘Mr.’ But Ria never, ever considered calling Joyce Billings ‘Miss Joyce’.
“Oh, my God!” Joyce Billings moaned, and sank down on the couch. “How could you, Dennis? You have everything, you’ve always had everything. To do this to us! How could you? After all we’ve done for you, Dennis!”
Ria cut across the reproaches. “Mrs. Billings, you’re not doing any good with all this. Dennis screwed up. He knows it. He’s willing to do something about it, and I think you ought to be proud of him for taking responsibility like a man.”
“What my bridge club is going to say—”
“Fuck your bridge club,” said Don Billings suddenly.
“What did you say?”
“I said fuck your bridge club. If you’d ever paid any attention to him instead of playing bridge and shopping and doing lunch—”
“While you played golf and racketball and—”
“I fucked up, too. I admit it. Okay? Let’s see what happens now. Ria?”
“Well, I talked to the DA’s office and this is what they want to do. Dennis, did y’all just retrieve the stuff and make small sells? Or did you ever sell big? Maybe to another independent?”
“Yeah, we had some regulars. A couple of ‘em.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, to some guys who sell to the kids at the public high schools.”
“I didn’t realize you’d progressed to being middlemen.”
“Just those few. There’s one dude supplies the whole senior class at Bradley Central. That’s his territory. We used to meet him out in the woods where we stash the stuff. Usually the first week of the month.”
“Any particular night?”
“No. But I can watch. If I see Justin’s truck leave, I can tell. He’ll have the dirt bike in it.”
“So cars and trucks don’t take those trails?”
“Hell, no, not even a four-wheel drive. They’re not wide enough.”
“So when you call in, we need to have the stakeout ready to set up. Should be feasible, he has to drive a lot further than the drug squad does.”
“Yeah.”
“He’ll see Dennis,” Don Billings interjected.
“Dennis won’t be there, all this is preliminary work. He’ll need to go out with me and the drug squad and show them where to set up. Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Then Justin won’t know Dennis—”
“Sure he will. Justin’s lots of things but stupid ain’t one of ‘em. And Dennis’ll have to testify if he doesn’t cop a plea.”
“And he’ll know it was me, anyway, I know that,” Dennis interjected. “Ria, won’t he get out on bail? Before trial?”
“Absolutely. But he’ll be in enough trouble without adding any else like an harassment charge.” She hoped.
* * *
Dennis and Ria took the drug squad of the Bibb County Sheriff’s Department out the next afternoon. Dennis showed them the trial into the woods and pointed out the clearing. He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder at the hillock holding the small cave. It was covered, thank God.
He pointed around the clearing.
Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) Page 3
