Dead South (Mattie O'Malley FBI agent)

by Daniel Adams

  Mattie liked the way he said “we’ll.” It was like they were a team. She felt herself liking John even more. He was a great person.

  “I’ll get the x-ray machine.”

  A second after he left, Jenny opened her eyes.

  “Where am I?”

  “Doctor Flint’s.”

  “You’re the FBI lady?” she croaked.

  “That’s right. Don’t worry. You’ll be ok.”

  “Don’t let me die,” she gasped and then blacked out.

  Doctor Flint came back in, pushing a portable x-ray machine.

  “She came to—maybe five seconds.”

  “Say anything?”

  “Not much. She said not to let her die.”

  “We have to position her.”

  Doctor Flint and Mattie positioned Jenny over a big x-ray plate Doctor Flint slipped under her unconscious body. Next, he positioned the x-ray head over her.

  “You have to step out of the room when I fire this up,” he told her.

  Mattie stepped into the hallway. A moment later, Doctor Flint called to her.

  “It’s ok.”

  While Mattie watched Jenny, Doctor Flint wheeled the x-ray machine out of the room.

  “I didn’t feel any broken bones,” he said. “Course that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. After she gets better, I’ll have to x-ray her from top to bottom.”

  “Who owns the whore house?” Mattie queried.

  “Rafe Cummings.”

  “Who’s he?”

  Doctor Flint returned with an x-ray that he slapped into an x-ray reading box. He studied the x-ray.

  “No blood in her abdomen. That’s good. She has a good chance.”

  “Rafe Cummings?”

  “I don’t know that much about him but from what I hear, he runs the county.”

  “You mean like a crime boss?”

  “Something like that. There’s nothing I can do for the bruises.” Doctor Flint used a magnifying glass to study the “W” carved in her forehead.

  “If I sew this up right now with very fine thread, I think I can pretty much make it go away. She might have some scarring, but the “W” won’t show.”

  “That’s great. Could Rafe have done this?”

  “I’ve never talked to the man but from what I’ve been told, he’s a dangerous psychopath.”

  “Where would I find him?”

  “Let Sheriff Wilks handle it. This is a local thing.”

  “I don't think you understand. Rafe Cummings is not someone you want to fuck with--pardon the French. Let Sheriff Wilks handle it. That’s what he’s paid for.”

  “Humor me. Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know where he lives. All I know is he spends a lot of time at the dog food plant.”

  “What dog food plant?”

  “The one on the south end of town. You can’t miss it. Just follow your nose.”

  “Is she going to make it?”

  “Gonna be touch and go for a couple of hours. I think I’ll give her some time to regroup then we’ll x-ray her head. If she doesn’t have any intra-cranial bleeding, she’ll probably pull through. I’ll have to leave her on morphine for a couple of days. She is going to be one hurting puppy.”

  “This wasn’t a relationship thing. No husband or boyfriend would do this. Not even a John.”

  “I agree,” Doctor Flint said. “Whoever did this was out to kill her with as much pain to her as possible.”

  “It’s a good thing I drive with my brights on or I might have run over her. At first, I thought it was a dead animal in the road.”

  “It’s a good thing you came along because with these injuries, she wouldn’t have lasted an hour. Why did you decided to bring her instead of calling an ambulance?”

  “Time. It would have taken an ambulance crew at least a half hour to get her here. It only took me ten minutes.”

  “You’re pretty sharp for a cop,” he grinned. “You probably saved her life.”

  “You’re not half bad yourself,” she replied.

  “There’s a very comfortable bed in the back room,” he suggested.

  “Another time,” she smiled. “I have to talk to the Sheriff.”

  “About Rafe, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Has anyone ever said you are stubborn?”

  “Just once.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sometimes things sneak up on you—that’s what Mattie’s father had told her when he found out he had cancer. For him it was just another challenge in a life filled with challenges. He had set out to conquer it just like he had conquered the bullet-shattered leg from his second tour of duty in Viet Nam. Told he would never walk normally again, he had proved the doctors wrong through a regime of weight lifting and running that would make an Olympic athlete pale. She remembered how proudly he had walked into his doctor’s office without any trace of a limp. It had reinforced what he had often told her. If you want something bad enough, you can get it—if you pay the price. Still, cancer did sneak up on him and no matter how hard he fought, it won.

  Preoccupied with thoughts of her father, she climbed into her Bu car without checking the back seat. It was a small thing but then again it is the small things that end up getting you. Every since she was in Junior High she had always checked behind the seat before getting in a car. She could still hear her mother’s voice, scolding her for not checking before getting into the family car.

  She dropped her purse on the seat then started the motor. Shifting into DRIVE, she pulled out onto the dark, empty street. Not a single light shone from any of the nearby houses. As she looked in the mirror to check for cars, a head suddenly bobbed into view. Someone behind her. A white face in the mirror. She whirled, her fist balled, ready to strike.

  “Don’t be scared, I ain’t gonna hurt you,” a voice said.

  Mattie hit the brakes hard, slamming the person into the back of the seat. With her free hand, she snapped on the dome light. She found herself looking at a skinny white woman with gray hair and dark eyes, wearing a simple dress and flat black shoes.

  The woman rubbed her head where it had hit the seat.

  “Turn out the light, I don’t want for anyone to see me talking to you.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Mattie growled.

  “Iris Duff—I’m Noonan’s wife. Now, turn out the damn light.”

  Her heart still pounding from the sudden fright, Mattie clicked the light off.

  “Wha—what do you want?”

  “Talk to you about Noonan but if the neighbors see me talkin’ to a nigger, things might get rough for Noonan.”

  “He’s Klan, right?”

  “Same as me. We both took the oath.”

  “You’re in the Klan?”

  “All the wives are. We ain’t on the same level as the men—we’re more like support people.”

  “You ever burned a cross?”

  “Four times. Three for niggers and once for a white man who was sniffing after a nigger woman.”

  Mattie was tired—tired physically and tired mentally of hearing people calling her a nigger. Her anger flared but she held it in check.

  “What do you want to tell me?”

  “Noonan didn’t kill Paxton.”

  “That’s it? You scared the shit out of me to tell me something that every wife tells me?”

  “Well he didn’t.”

  “It’s after two o’clock in the morning. Why don’t you meet me in the park tomorrow afternoon. Isn’t anything going to happen to Noonan before then.”

  “Why don’t you listen?”

  “Because every wife says the same thing. My husband’s innocent. I need proof.”

  “Do you know how far it is from Doc Flint’s place to our farm?”

  Mattie didn’t know and Mattie didn’t care. All she wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. She felt like a wreck.

  “A mile,” she guessed.

  “It’s two and a half miles,” Iris corre
cted her. “Ain’t no way Noonan walked that far in his condition.”

  “Who said he walked? You can drive that far in three minutes.”

  “Whose car did he drive? I had our only truck out at the place.”

  “Maybe he borrowed one. Maybe you drove him. Maybe the Klan took him home. I don’t know.”

  “You’ve seen him. He can barely walk. Even if he got a car and drove out there, how could he lift Paxton up high enough to get him in the baler? Paxton weighed at least three hundred pounds. And if you think I helped him, you got another think comin’. I’m a Christian woman. I don’t break none of the Ten Commandments. Never have, never will. I don’t care if Noonan was gonna get a million bucks, I wouldn’t help him commit no murder. You go to hell for that.”

  “Noonan's slippers had blood on the bottoms. When the lab report comes back, I'm pretty certain it's going to be Paxton's blood.”

  Why was she wasting her time, talking to Iris?

  “Anybody could’ a took Noonan's slippers and wore them to kill Paxton. Noonan was asleep and Doc Flint weren't around. Doc Flints never locks his doors.”

  “You’re saying someone framed Noonan?”

  “Course that’s what I’m sayin’. He’s a piss poor husband but he ain’t no killer.”

  “Ok, if it wasn’t Noonan, who else wanted to kill Paxton?”

  Iris looked all around the car before replying. She was a careful woman.

  “That ain’t the right question. The right question is who didn’t want to kill him. That’s a small list. The ones who did want to kill him—that’s a long list.”

  “Give me a name.”

  A car turned onto the street, its headlights shining in the windshield. Mattie shaded her eyes with one hand and drew her pistol with the other. She heard Iris suck in her breath. It took her a minute to connect the dots. The draw.

  “It’s like they say,” Iris said. “You can draw almighty quick.”

  The car passed them without slowing. Mattie put away her gun.

  “A name?”

  “Deacon Boggs.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A nigger. Makes shine out by Stiller’s Spring. Paxton stole two loads from him.”

  Mattie couldn’t help it. She snapped.

  “Lady, if you say nigger one more time, I’m gonna shoot you.”

  Iris shut up. Mattie could hear her breathing.

  “What do you want me to call ‘em?”

  “How about you use their names? Do you think I call every white person I meet a honky?”

  “No harm intended.”

  It was as close to an apology as Mattie was going to get.

  “None taken,” she answered. Maybe she was just too damn tired. “How do you know Paxton stole the two loads from Deacon Boggs?”

  “Ain’t gonna tell. You can find out. Just ask around.”

  “Do you know why Noonan and Paxton were fighting?”

  Dead silence. Iris didn’t say a word.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “It ain’t important.”

  For the first time, Mattie felt like she was actually going to make some progress. If Iris didn’t want to tell her, it had to be something bad.

  “If you want me to help Noonan, you damn sure better tell me,” she said.

  Iris thought about it a long time before she answered.

  “A girl. They was fightin’ over a girl. You happy?”

  “Who?”

  “Libby Kirkland.”

  “Your husband was cheating?”

  “He’s a man ain’t he?”

  This wasn’t the direction Mattie had thought the conversation would go.

  “Is Libby married, too?”

  Iris laughed. Actually, it sounded more like a wheeze than a laugh.

  “Lordy, no. She just started high school.”

  It caught Mattie by surprise. She had heard about it but never thought she’d run into it.

  “Let me get this straight. Are you saying that Noonan and Paxton were fighting because they were both trying to have sex with a fourteen year old girl?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You think that’s ok?”

  “Don’t matter what I think. Ain’t gonna change.”

  If true, Iris’s revelation added a considerable number of suspects to Mattie’s list.

  “Does everybody know about this?”

  Of course they do, she thought. She was the only one in the whole town who hadn’t known what the men were fighting about. It made her feel silly.

  “Course.” Well, there it was. She was the only one who hadn’t known.

  “The Sheriff?”

  “Course. He knows everything that goes on around here.”

  “That son of a bitch—“ She shut up. No sense in letting Iris know that he had played her for a fool.

  “Where does Libby live?”

  “Over on Oak street. Green house. You can’t miss it.”

  She knew who the prime suspect in her mind was.

  “Does she have a father?”

  “Gus. Why?”

  “Because he has a motive to kill Paxton and your husband.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If two grown men were screwing my teenage daughter, you can be damn sure I'd fill them full of holes.”

  Iris seemed confused.

  “That ain't the way it is around here. All of the men folk have young girlfriends.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  “All of the men?”

  “’Ceptin’ a few. Doc Flint’s one of them. Pastor’s another. Think the pharmacist’s one. The Coach offered ‘em each a couple of his girls but they all turned him down. Cause of that, they think Doc Flint’s queer.”

  “Unbelievable. Tell me something. Why would the Coach offer the men some of his girls?”

  “Cause he’s got too many. All of them young ones want to have relations with the Coach cause he’s the most powerful man in town. Coach says something, people jump. Even the Sheriff don’t bother him. He’s a god to those young girls. They got one room down at the hotel just for the Coach.”

  Iris opened the back door. She had switched the dome light to off so the light didn’t come on.

  “I gotta go.”

  “You hear anything—anything at all—you tell me.”

  “I will.”

  Before she could close the door, Mattie remembered something.

  “Where does the Sheriff live?”

  “Behind the jail.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mattie didn’t drive away. She sat in the darkness, trying to get her arms around the information Iris had given her. It was a lot to digest in one sitting. Her respect for Doctor Flint grew with each thing she heard about him. She couldn’t imagine the pressure he was under to conform to the town’s thinking. If he took an under-aged girlfriend, he was accepted, if he didn’t, they called him gay. Having morals in Kingswood certainly put you at a disadvantage. After thinking about it a while, she realized something. Even though he was white, he was lower down the pecking order than she was. And she was black. Go figure.

  She drove to the jail with all kinds of thoughts peppering her brain. The more she thought about it, the lower Noonan sank on her suspect list. How indeed had he lifted a three hundred pound man into the baler? Right at the top was Gus Kirkland. She couldn’t imagine a father being ok with having the men—coach or not—fighting over which one of them got to screw his daughter. Just thinking about it made her mad. What were the town women thinking? Were they that powerless that they had to accept anything their husbands did? Having an affair was bad enough but chasing around high school girls—well, it just wasn’t acceptable.

  She found the Sheriff’s patrol car parked next to a small house behind the jail building. When she knocked on the door, it took the Sheriff a good two minutes to answer. He peered out at her then switched on the light. He wore a bathrobe and a pistol.

  “Oh, it’
s you,” he mumbled.

  Leaving the door open, he retreated into the house. A light blinked on. He put the pistol down on a table.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Somebody beat Jenny Calvert nearly to death then dumped her out of a moving car.”

  She didn’t get any reaction from him. Maybe he had heard it all and nothing could surprise him.

  “Where is she?”

  “I took her to Doctor Flint’s clinic. He’s working on her now.”

  She looked around, noting various things she saw. Apparently, it was a two-room building with the bedroom and bathroom in back and the “general” living quarters in front. She saw a small kitchen in the corner of the room.

  The Sheriff disappeared into the back room.

  “Have a seat. I have to get dressed.”

  Just like his office, there were very few signs of anything to personalize the room. There were no pictures, knick-knacks or mementoes anywhere. The walls were bare. The tabletops were bare. Even the bookshelves were bare—well, almost bare. Three books leaned against a sidewall. She moved closer to read the titles. All of them were police procedure books.

  “How long have you lived here, Sheriff?”

  “Eight years. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Is Jenny going to live?”

  “Doctor Flint thinks so. She didn’t have any internal bleeding. Whoever beat her cut a “W” in her forehead. Brutal thing to do. My money, it’s a he and he’s a psychopath.”

  “Shit!”

  Sheriff Wilks knew Rafe had done it. Mattie was right on the money calling him a psychopath. Just wasn’t any other word that fit as well. Rafe was getting careless or very overconfident. Dumping Jenny on a public road was just asking for trouble. If he didn’t want attention, he should have killed her and buried her in the swamp. Either Rafe was trying to send a message to the community not to mess with him, or he was getting too big for his britches.

  “Did she tell you who done it?”