Walking Woman (Gratis Book 2)

by Jackson, Jay

  “It had to be the devil, Mr. D. There was smoke and knocking, and all kinds of devilry. I was about to listen at my Mr. Glen Campbell, but the devil wouldn’t have it. He scared me, that’s the truth, but God was with me and he couldn’t touch me. I left out to find Claudia, saying my verses and thinking on salvation, and he couldn’t touch me. If he tried I would’ve cut him, you can know that.”

  Delroy surmised that she dropped her cup when she heard the devil’s knocking. The smoke she saw must have caused the burned spot on the lawn.

  This was just pure show, nothing more. Trying to scare a woman who was easy to scare. Somebody went through a lot of trouble to get her out of her house.

  He shuddered at what could have happened if someone had touched Jewel while trying to scare her. She was carrying an awfully large butcher knife.

  Almost got hired on a murder case. Damn, it was close.

  Two things needed immediate attention for Jewel’s defense. The first was to get the fingerprint analyzed. There would be no waiting on Bibb County to finally send it through the system. He just happened to have a very close friend, newly with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, who could help. They may not be as close as they once were, but that didn’t matter. For his client, he would call Amy.

  The second was to go see Racey Bridges. Coincidences were for suckers. Delroy didn’t believe the devil would just happen to make a house call on Jewel as Racey was trying to purchase her property. He had to be behind it. Delroy was going to prove it.

  For better or for worse, all roads at the present led to Atlanta. He was about to head north.

  All right buddy, he thought to himself, just go to Atlanta, take care of business, and then get the hell out of Dodge. No problem.

  He could tell himself that all day long, and repeat it over and over. The problem was that he didn’t believe it. He wished he did, and knew he had to go, regardless.

  28.

  On his way to Atlanta, Delroy called Lee McIlhenny, an old friend from his GSU law days. Lee lived in Athens, but also kept a small cottage in Peachtree Hills that he let Delroy use on occasion. He always joked that he kept the place in case his wife threw him out of the house. Both he and Delroy knew there was some truth in that joke. Lee stayed there four weeks out of the year, on average, at the dis-invite of his wife. The hour of highway between the couple was a welcome buffer, a marriage counselor made of pavement.

  On this particular day, Lee and his wife were on civil terms, so the cottage was all Delroy’s. Lee told him where to find the clean towels and sheets and invited him to drink all the beer in the refrigerator. Delroy assured him that he would.

  When he finally turned north, leaving Macon, Delroy dialed the number he had wanted to dial so many times the previous weeks. He always stopped himself before now, telling himself to put the phone down. This time, though, he had to call. A very confused client needed him to dial the phone.

  The call picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  Of course she knew who it was. She would have to know. He called her from that same number a thousand times. Her “hello” was a question, but the question wasn’t “Who is it?” The question was “Why are you calling?” Although she answered with only two small syllables, Delroy detected the slightest quiver in her voice.

  “It’s me, Amy. It’s Delroy. I hope you’re okay with me calling. I hope you’re well.”

  There was a pause of at least ten seconds before Amy responded.

  “Hi, Delroy. Of course I’m okay with you calling. I’m glad you called.”

  This time they both fell silent, until finally Delroy responded.

  “Well good. I’m glad, too. I’ve been meaning to call, but, you know. I just didn’t, I guess. Anyway, I need your help on a case, Amy. I was hoping you could help me with something.” Another pause. Both parties were starting to feel like newly minted actors reading a script for the first time.

  “Well, of course I’ll help you, Delroy. What do you have?”

  Delroy then explained the events of the last few weeks to her. It helped that she already knew most of the players, so she didn’t waste her time asking why. Amy was familiar enough with most of them to understand their motives.

  “Poor Jewel. She has a fragile little heart. I can’t stand this for her.”

  “I can’t stand it, either, Amy. Like I said, Tommy gave me a fingerprint that he’s waiting to get through the AFIS. His department is too small to have access, and I was hoping you could get it run through your connections in the district attorney’s office. I want to know who was touching that window.”

  “Don’t worry, Delroy. I’ll do it.” Technically, Amy wasn’t supposed to run anything through AFIS unless it was for an official law enforcement purpose. Not being one to pander to mere technicalities, Amy didn’t care. She figured that one of her investigators in the Crimes Against Women and Children division (known as CWAC) would get it done for her. All they had to do was run it through the database. With the sheer volume of prints run through that database daily, one more would go unnoticed.

  Anyway, she reasoned, Sheriff Adcock would appreciate the help. That’s close enough to official for me.

  At Delroy’s suggestion, they agreed to meet the next night at the Treehouse restaurant. It was a short walk from where he was staying, and had a casual, “no big deal” vibe Delroy wanted when he next saw Amy. He didn’t want her to know he was pining for her and trying to win her back. True or not, he desired to keep the little pride he had left. Delroy suggested meeting the next night because he needed to meet with a couple of private investigators before then. He wasn’t sure where to find Racey Bridges, but knew the two he was meeting would know. They would also find him, for a price.

  After freshening up at the little house on Hurst Drive and drinking a couple of Lee’s SweetWaters, Delroy went to the Jock’s and Jill’s at Tenth and Peachtree in Midtown. He loved that place. It was a true drinker’s bar, and he breathed in the fresh smoke when he opened the creaky front door. The smell of bourbon and sloshed Miller High Life assaulted him.

  Looking to his right, he saw his two dining companions waiting for him at a hi-top. Delroy recognized them because they wore the most wrung-out blue-and-white suits he’d ever seen. Like the seersuckers, their bow ties drooped in the smoke-filled air. He walked up, sat down beside them, and spoke.

  “Well hell, I guess y’all are the Bloodsaw brothers. My name is Delroy Jones.” Delroy put out his hand.

  The older one, Todd, grabbed Delroy’s hand and gave it a firm shake. The other one, Scott, just looked on. He didn’t like this attorney from Gratis, and was satisfied to let his big brother do the talking.

  The brothers had spent a few weeks the prior summer in Gratis. They were hired by the richest man in town, Franklin Knox, to find the person who murdered his daughter. They were paid well, but never did find the murderer. That was left for Delroy and his nephew. All the brothers got from their Gratis trip was a fairly thorough ass-whipping from Newt and Kero. Said whipping caused Scott to go deaf in one ear. A well-aimed shotgun butt will do that to a man. On top of everything else, the duo also stumbled upon poor Althea Lacey, the roughest-looking dead woman either had ever seen. After meeting her corpse, the two left Gratis as fast as they could.

  Delroy got to the point.

  “Look, I know we were on the opposite side of things in Gratis, but in the end it all worked out okay.”

  Todd slowly nodded. Scott didn’t, because he couldn’t hear a damn thing. He just kept his eyes down, still angry that Momma had told them to do a job for Delroy. Their mother, Ludell, ran a private investigation firm comprised of her and the boys. They pretty much did as she told them. She liked Delroy.

  It took real guts to call me with his problem, considering, she thought. Ludell believed a man like that could end up being good for business, even if he cost her boys one sense or another. Hell, I just hope they grow some common sense. Forget se
eing and hearing.

  “I need you to find out something for me,” Delroy continued. “A guy named Racey Bridges is trying to buy some land my clients own in Gratis. Y’all ever heard of him?”

  Todd nodded. He knew Racey well enough. The brothers did a few jobs for him, but Ludell didn’t like his condescending attitude. Worse than that, he always shorted them at least a hundred dollars on every job they handled for him. There were enough good-paying clients in Atlanta without having to work for Racey.

  “Well, Mr. Jones, we do know Racey well enough. I bet you knew that, though. Everybody knows Racey. The question is what can we do for you, and how much money you gonna shuck out of your pocket to motivate us? Remember, if we’re out of step with Racey, it’s gonna cost us jobs in the future. You better be ready to do some serious shucking.”

  The waitress came by, bringing the vodka tonics ordered by both brothers, and the Crown, neat, ordered by Delroy. Taking a gulp of the whiskey, Delroy told them what he needed done. Todd nodded and even asked a few questions. Scott just sat there, thinking about whether he should go home after the meeting. He decided instead to go to the Cheetah. He didn’t need to hear in there. He just needed to see, and his eyes worked perfectly.

  Scott did notice, however, the smile on his brother’s face as Delroy peeled off hundred-dollar bills to pay them. That smile got bigger the more Delroy peeled. Todd’s back gold tooth twinkled at the other patrons.

  “All right Todd, just do what we agreed on. There will be more hundreds waiting when you’re done.”

  Kero gave Delroy thirty-five hundred-dollar bills for the investigators. Delroy had just peeled off twenty of them.

  “Give us a couple of days, Mr. Jones, and we’ll have what you need. Just remember to bring the rest of the money.” At that, Todd punched his little brother in the shoulder, and they left down the back staircase. Scott would soon use a couple of those hundreds on the ladies at the Cheetah. He couldn’t think of a better investment.

  Delroy drank another Crown and then went outside. He hailed a cab and returned to the little house on Hurst. Tomorrow would be a long day, and being too hungover wouldn’t do. Anyway, he was going to see Amy. For the first time in too long, he would look into her eyes. When he did so, he wanted his eyes to be clear.

  29.

  The next morning, Delroy got up early and sent a scanned copy of the fingerprint to Amy’s personal e-mail. She replied that she got the print and would immediately run it. They would know in hours whether it matched anyone else on the AFIS database.

  After going for a jog through the hilly neighborhood, he got a call from Todd Bloodsaw. Todd told Delroy about the small office Racey kept on Virginia Avenue, in the Highlands. It took hiring a detective to find out where the office was. Racey didn’t advertise, and sure as hell didn’t hang any kind of shingle out front. In his line of work, it helped to look small, even when you were doing big things. His clients didn’t claim him, publicly at least, so Racey didn’t need more than a small office with a window. Of course he kept a small bar in there, too, for those times he couldn’t motivate himself to walk across the street.

  Delroy drove over and parked a few blocks away, on Drewry. He nestled the old Suburban in front of a house with two hybrids parked in the driveway. The small cars cowered, fearing the old SUV would eat them as soon as Delroy turned his back.

  Man, I love this neighborhood, he thought as he headed up to North Highland.

  There had been many wasted weekends there in law school. A schoolmate owned a home on Drewry, bought before the prices went crazy. Delroy slept on his couch more than a few nights. This was the only part of Atlanta he missed. The city’s traffic was awful, and he truly hoped he’d never see his ex-wife again, tucked away in her new Brookhaven McMansion.

  But the Highlands!

  With its bungalows and good bars, he still loved it. He stumbled over the always-cracked sidewalk as he made his way toward Racey’s office. An older lady waved at him, warily, as she watered her purple hydrangeas. He waved back, smiling as sweetly as he could. For all the neighborhood’s charms, he was still in Atlanta. You never knew when a harmless pedestrian could turn into an armed robber, even at lunchtime.

  Despite the urgency he felt as he drove up to Atlanta the day before, Delroy allowed himself to meander toward his destination. He stopped and looked at some of the old homes, straining to peek over some of the fences. Even though the weeds in his patch of yard in Gratis were crowded in like tent-revival believers, he admired those who carefully tended their own gardens.

  I oughta be ashamed at the shape my place is in, but I’ll get it together.

  Finally, he ambled to the corner of North Highland and Virginia, his favorite intersection in the city. It was bounded on all sides by restaurants and the bars he’d come to know intimately as a law student.

  I’d have made more As if this intersection never existed.

  Looking around he smiled, at peace with the Bs and Cs he’d earned.

  Some tradeoffs are worth it.

  Delroy turned left onto Virginia, and walked two blocks until he was standing in front of the converted house where Racey kept an office. The rest of the tenants, unlike Racey, kept a shingle out front.

  All right, Mr. Bridges, you know my turf and where my ladies stay, and now I know where you plan all your bullshit. You brought the fight to my backyard, now I’m bringing it back here to you.

  Delroy walked quickly up the old house’s drive, wanting to see if the black Audi was parked in the back. Once there, he could see it was gone, and then decided he should be gone as well. No reason for Racey to know he was there—not yet. He walked to the intersection and crossed the street. It was almost twelve thirty. Moe’s and Joe’s, near the corner, had some of the better bar food in town. Delroy was hungry.

  Settling in a booth, Delroy ordered some wings and a draft of PBR. He pondered his situation.

  All right, we know where he works. Now we gotta figure out who he’s working with. The Bloodsaws are pretty damn sketchy, so they oughta be able to find out all of that. We find them, we see if they’ll talk. At the very least I’ll be able to show that somebody scared Jewel.

  The waiter, a courtly white-haired gentleman, brought his wings and beer. Delroy got lost in his meal. For a few moments he was a 2L again, about to waste another Saturday hanging out with friends instead of studying. Memories flooded over him. He imagined his old crew walking in at any moment, ready to give him grief for not waiting on them. The thought made him smile.

  His phone rang, snapping him back to the present. He looked at the number, hoping to see Amy’s number on caller ID. Instead, Kero’s name flashed on the screen.

  Delroy answered, sure that his friend was calling to remind him to watch expenses and to see if there were any developments. Wrong on both counts, Delroy listened for two minutes without saying a word.

  His reply was short.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You’re gonna have to pay my speeding tickets, Kero, because I’m not gonna use brakes on the way back.”

  With that, he hung up and placed a twenty on the table. Looking around one last time, he left, jogging down the sidewalk until he came to the Suburban. Delroy had to get his things from the Hurst Drive cottage and then get back to Gratis.

  Finally heading south on I-75, he called Amy and got her voicemail. He explained why he had to miss dinner, and asked her to call him as soon as she knew something about the print. Hoping she would call soon, he hung up. Delroy was now flying down the road, going at least twenty-five miles per hour over the posted limit.

  Like I told Kero, speeding fines are a business expense.

  Cancelling his plans with Amy was hard. It was literally the last thing he wanted to do. Some things, though, couldn’t wait. Kero had called about one of those things, and Delroy had to go. One of the Peters sisters was in new trouble, and it was bad. Potentially, it was about the worst trouble a person could be in.

  My, God, C
laudia, what have you done?

  30.

  Tim “Pinky” Winters, nicknamed due to the unnatural hue of his crimson face combined with his blood-orange hair, cut himself shaving that morning. The tissue attached to his skin, still clinging to where it was placed to stanch the torrent unleashed by his single blade, was engulfed with blood. It added another shade of red to his face, already so strained by the color that it seemed a scarlet kaleidoscope.

  He was new to the road, having graduated from jailer to road deputy only three months before. The first day he drove the cruiser was a proud day. Pinky grew up wanting to be a Gratis County deputy sheriff, wanting to wear the brown shirt and badge.

  The unfortunate thing about Gratis, though, is that there were stretches of very little action. The county had its share of problems, from drug trafficking to violent crime, but Pinky seemed to always arrive late. More than once, he responded to crime scenes that were already secure, the more fortunate deputies already writing their reports. Pinky was ready to write his first report, more than ready. He needed to catch a bad guy. On this Saturday morning, he was patrolling the north section of the county and drove by a few homes where he suspected drug activity. One small farm, only accessible by a gravel road on one side and the river on the other, was a hot spot for cooking meth. Pinky grew up in Gratis. He knew more than one classmate who shriveled into that particular addiction. Seeing them at the jail, their features a thin memory of the person he knew in school, Pinky acted as normal as he could. His old friends always told him that “this” was the wakeup call. After “this,” things would change.

  Things never changed. Those old friends would get out of jail, and Pinky would see them come back a few months later. Their skin was, by then, drawn even thinner, covered in every manner of depredation. Pinky would ask what happened. Every time they told him that the “ice” was too hard to fight, too strong. Usually they spoke to him through blackened and rotting teeth. Their faces contorted without them knowing it. Finally, he stopped asking them what happened. The “Tale of Meth” was the same every time. Pinky hated the stuff.