He walked on the paver stones around back and saw his wife still had clothes out on the line. There was the small weathered wooden barn which was his workshop and housed the Cub-Cadet tractor with its belly mower, and a woodpile under the overhang for the old stove when the power went out. His picket fence ended against a cattle farm’s barbwire, with rolling green pasture and dogwood trees. There didn’t seem to be any cows about this evening.
He opened the screened door on the porch. The large double doors into the living room were open, making one large gathering place.
“Evelyn?” he called before grunting to himself at the smell of boiling collard greens.
“In the kitchen,” she called.
Little feet, carrying braided pigtails tied in pink ribbon, raced out from behind the pantry.
“Grandpa!” she called excitedly.
He knelt down so he could see her face.
“Which one are you?” he asked skeptically.
She giggled, “I’m Latoyia.”
He was taken aback, putting his hands on his hips while still kneeling.
“What kind of name is that?”
“My name, Silly!” she proudly proclaimed.
Evelyn called from the entry way to the kitchen, wearing a pale blue house dress and a faded navy and white checkered apron, “Chandler, you know better than to issue judgement on the little ones for the sins of their parents.”
He stood, and Latoyia began running around and talking to a small plastic doll she was holding.
“She’s Juliette’s daughter.”
Chandler’s eyes narrowed over a blank face.
“My third sister, Delia’s, stepchild from her second marriage, Catarina. Juliette’s her daughter. She’s visiting while Juliette takes her state cosmetology exam. Gives me company while you boys are out in the southern wild.”
Evelyn sighed as he shook his head to clear it.
“Did you go to the bank like I asked you?”
He nodded.
“Also, Deputy Garner left a message on the answering machine just as you came up the drive. He said that Dixie was back and there would be no concerns. Office romance drama?”
He nodded again. That had been a worrisome headache.
“Go change. Everyone will be here soon.”
Chandler climbed the stairs to their bedroom which was over the kitchen on the driveway side of the house. Its open screened windows looked over the road in front and the roof of the living room and porch outback. Furnishings were simple. Evelyn wouldn’t abide a television set in there. She barely put up with the gun cabinet, holding a lonely over-under shotgun, but with the small kids frequently in the house had relented to its residence in the bedroom. What she hadn’t relented on over the years was giving that shotgun some company, but she took good care of the one. Every week it moved positions in the cabinet and there was never any dust. She made him refresh her how to use it every few months.
He removed the bank envelope from his pocket and placed it on her vanity, as always confused at the endless bottles of lotions, oils, perfumes and such. An array of wigs hung to the left of the mirror. Small shelves on the right contained assorted acrylic nail kits and polishes. While he appreciated her effort over the years in looking the perfect part as the sheriff’s wife, he wondered if she’d ever gracefully accept her advancing years. She was sixty now. It was beginning to border on undignified.
Chandler sat down on the bed, took off his shoes, and wiggled his aching feet. He meant to get up and give them a polish as was his custom, but he just felt like sitting. A moment later he lay back, looking at the Jesus portrait above their bed and wondered where he stood in the eyes of the Lord. It had been a really hard couple of days.
He didn’t want to be seen as weak, but in retrospect he wondered if he should have called in more help from the state police than the contracted lab technicians. No one expected him to be equipped to handle a shooting with five dead. But it would have been another piece of ammunition that the opposition would use in the newspaper about it being time to fold and join a neighboring county. When that happened, he would never work again.
Something was afoot with Buck. He wanted to fire him, for no other reason than he didn’t trust him anymore, but that wouldn’t look good. Like he was losing control of his department. But lots of things weren’t adding up right. The Lowland Outlaw bikers had been a scourge upon the county for years. Mr. Jager’s pedigree was impeccable. Buck’s witness statements didn’t quite fit, and he must know that as well. The break-in upon his safe wasn’t a coincidence. There had to be someone else playing this game, that didn’t die under that bridge. Until that was figured out, Chandler felt it prudent not to commit to any course of action.
And Dixie didn’t sit right with him either. She was a cool one. It was hard for him to believe that she’d been so riled up that she’d abandoned her post without a word. Buck hadn’t acted like he was particularly worried, like he knew that Dixie and the break-in weren’t connected at all. Maybe Buck had been embarrassed by something and was trying to cover it up. He’d pull them both into his office Monday morning for a counseling. Maybe dock them some pay. He wasn’t going to have this type of crap going on in his department.
It was probably best that the stranger was in the jail for safekeeping. Hopefully animal control would find that dog and euthanize it before anyone was hurt and it blew back on him. Still, the question of why Buck had taken a dislike to the man vexed him. Did Buck feel inadequate? He was too big-headed for that. But making that arrogant upstart Jim Redigan do his job and be the one to stick his neck out was probably the right call.
The low throaty grumbling of an aged pickup truck turning into the drive came through the front windows and he hurriedly changed into jeans and donned a long sleeved work shirt with lots of pockets. Evelyn had packed the small bag for him already, and he slung the strap over his shoulder without a glimpse inside. Evelyn knew what he needed.
He slipped his service revolver from his duty belt into a side zipper pocket. The big six-shooter barely fit, but he’d never trade down for convenience. More times than not it wasn’t about shooting, it was about intimidation. Chandler never even considered leaving it behind. He’d carried a weapon his entire adult life, even at church, and couldn’t stomach being without one.
Chandler then sighed, as he realized he left the charger for his cell phone at the office. With the radio he didn’t take a lot of calls, but he never wanted it to go dead on duty either. He never used it at home, and usually the battery got him through the night to his next shift where he could plug it in again. With the charge down to twenty percent he turned it off to save what was left in case he needed it. He wasn’t going to bring a police radio on his day off.
He began to make his way downstairs, but then hesitated and slipped into the attached bathroom to make water as voices rose from below. Holding things wasn’t as easy as it once was. By the time he trotted back down the stairs he could hear the truck rumbling away and found four boys, ranging from ten to twelve, around his kitchen table.
“Hey Grandpa!”
“Hello, my boys. As soon as we eat, we’ll get going.”
Evelyn had made fried chicken to go with the collard greens, and the boys ate like growing boys who never quite get enough. There was small talk about school, how Easter Break was going and tangled tales of family gossip which his wife tried to make sense for him. His wife let them know their son had called from Colorado on his latest run driving cross-country trains for the Union Pacific. Thirty minutes later, the boys piled into the Buick while Chandler put bags and fishing poles into the trunk. Evelyn watched while holding Latoyia’s hand. It was beginning to get dark.
“While you were still upstairs, Jerome asked if you could call the sheriff in Halifax. Seems his son got himself into a little trouble last Saturday night,” informed his wife.
Chandler froze, “And what did you tell him?”
Her head moved backward as she answered,
“Not to bring us crap like that. You do the crime; you do the time.” Theirs was a big family and such requests were common and always offended him.
He nodded approval, and began to turn toward the car.
“When you going to retire and buy that sailboat? You been talking about it for years.”
“I know, Evelyn. It’s just that,” he struggled for words “down there on the river I’m nothing but another negro with a cane pole and straw hat. Here,”
“I’m the sheriff,” she finished for him nodding.
Chandler flew to the driver’s door before she could lay a lecture on him about aging gracefully. The boys sat quiet as he got in and started the engine, cowed by the heavy-handed discipline of impatient and often reluctant parents. He watched as Evelyn and Latoyia waived in the rearview mirror as he creeped down the driveway and on to the road.
“What’s the biggest fish you boys ever caught?”
He looked in the rearview as the youngest raised a pair of hands separated by about six inches.
“We’ll get catfish bigger than that. We will catch catfish bigger than you!”
They looked at each other skeptically, not used to being in the conversation while riding in a car. They began to warm up to the idea.
The second oldest raised his hand.
“Ain’t that like a really big fish?”
Chandler bit his tongue about proper words and nodded his head instead, “We will catch some really big fish.”
But his mind was drifting to catching another type of fish. He stayed in the conversation long enough to get them talking and then he eased more into his own thoughts as they engaged with each other. By the time he was driving south on I-85 and passing the lights of the St. Albans’ exit, he’d decided not to take it all the way to River Road.
He weighed the risk with the boys in the car, but ultimately it came down to this being his only chance to do a drive by in a civilian vehicle. Chandler changed lanes, interjected a “huh” into a spirited super-hero powers discussion, and looked ahead for the exit sign. Azalea Estates Lane was the only off-ramp between St. Albans and River Road, and some seven miles south of Ed’s Truck Stop.
It was originally zoned to be a middleclass housing development for those that lacked the means for a place directly on the river. But the river parcels proved too out-of-the-way from any large cities to truly blossom into wealthy estates. The demand just hadn’t been there. Which meant the overflow development of Azalea Estates hadn’t developed at all. Or at least not in the way the cutesy road name implied county planners and real estate investors had hoped for once upon a time.
What it had become was the hub of the Lowland Outlaws. There was an old dairy barn, owned by a guy named Shep Primrose, adjacent to a service station specializing in two-wheelers. Shep hadn’t been terribly abused in the transaction according to county tax records, but old farmer Casey had been concerned about construction noises throwing off the milking of his cows and had sold out. The structure had been well maintained and sound. Slowly it was converted into a clubhouse. Now, it had become more of an underground biker bar and grill known as the “Outlaw Saloon”. It had direct interstate access, was remote from the homes of gentlefolk, and connected to a good many country roads. With no complaints from locals and only him and Buck to patrol the county, they were left alone.
Whether they were a motorcycle club, gang or lose affiliation was really just a matter of semantics. What wasn’t a matter of word games was analyzing the real trouble within the county. Not the “your dog relieved himself in my yard keep the peace” type of trouble which dominated the calls they received, but the “real crime” type of trouble. It was either transient, like the truckers looking for young prostitutes, or it was local trouble. And when it was local trouble, it usually traced itself somehow back here. He started down the ramp and could see the barn’s security light glowing on a utility pole.
“Grandpa, I think you got off at the wrong exit.”
“I think you are right, young man. Grandpa’s just excited to go fishing with his boys and turned too early. We can get there going this way, too.”
“A shortcut?” asked the smallest.
“It won’t be any shorter but we’ll be there soon.”
On the south side of the road, the service station of grimy white cinderblocks was dark with its two garage doors shut tight. To its east side and snaking around the back, was a mound of tires. Mainly motorcycle tires, with a few truck mudders showing in the Buick’s high beams as he turned right at the stop sign partially obscured by scraggly bushes. However, the gas pumps glowed on a lonely island ready to accept plastic money. There wasn’t any overhead cover for filling up in the rain. He dimmed his lights.
A little further down on the right, the north side of the road, the saloon was having a good night. A protruding beam, that once helped alfalfa bales into the hayloft, now supported a faded sign in red letters “The Outlaw Saloon”. His grandsons strained their necks, eyes wide, taking in the chrome and black leather of choppers and trikes in the gravel parking lot. An engine revved, and then idled. Music blared from speakers hanging under the rusty tin roof of the covered porch built around the barn doors. Cigarettes glowed orange in the small groups of shadowy figures. He guessed there may have been some three dozen people present, inside and out. A lit marque sign trailer by the road, leaning with a flat tire, promoted local guitarist Braxton Greene.
Chandler’s mouth opened slightly as he read the name to himself again, continuing west down the road. No on-coming headlights shown in the darkness so he hit his high beams again and sped for a few minutes to gain some distance. His worst fear was to see a cloud of single headlamps, like fireflies in his rearview mirror, giving chase while he had the boys in the car. But it was all darkness and he gradually slowed until finally reaching Thigpen Road. He turned left at the four way stop and soon hit River Road along the Roanoke River.
He breathed a sigh again, as the rearview stayed clear. His young companions, with very full bellies and the country darkness far from the lights of the interstate, had drifted to sleep. Chandler slowed down, not wanting to arrive at the cabin too early and have his thoughts interrupted getting his charges settled in. No lawman believed in coincidences, and he’d been a lawman for nearly fifty years. Braxton Greene was who Buck claimed owned the truck seen by Lutheran Butler across from his barbershop. The shootout, the break-in to his office, and the strange kid in is jail had his mind working overtime. For the first time in years, he had a real case. Nothing like sitting with a fishing pole to consider his next moves.
CHAPTER—14
Dixie sat in the small rocking chair by her bed and exhaled again, hung her head and rubbed her eyes. The white painted wood creaked softly in-time to the thudding of the runners. Buck hadn’t stayed real long. Caught up in the steamy moment, he’d finished within a half dozen thrusts. As he’d gathered his wet clothes and discarded equipment, she’d wanted him to stay. She’d felt safe with him. He’d rescued her, instead of letting her wind up like the other two women.
But as he’d tried to pull himself back together enough to make the dash from her front door to his patrol car, she’d lingered in the shower. The pit had been nasty. Buck taking her when she was mentally off-balanced, just rescued and reeling from tales of her mom’s malfeasance, felt nasty. The way he’d taken her, and then started to dress so he could immediately leave felt nasty. His sticky seed running down her thighs instead of captured in a condom felt nasty. There had just not seemed enough shampoo or water to wash it all away.
She’d again considered calling to him, searching for something more, but instinctively knew there was nothing more to be had. Dixie hadn’t wanted him to be seen leaving her place in such a disheveled state, but it was better disheveled in the evening than immaculate first thing in the morning. Even after the hot water gave out, she had stayed silently under the showerhead, nipples erect in the chill. She heard him hanging up the phone in the kitchen and his footst
eps toward the front entryway. The fogged bathroom mirror was angled right to give her a brief glimpse of him reaching for the doorknob.
“Go see your mom,” he had said over his shoulder. “She’s worried about you.”
And then he had gone, leaving her cold and dripping wet, with a mess on her hands.
All her towels, bath and hand, had been soaked. Even the fuzzy commode cover had needed to be wrung out, the cheap dark green dye staining her hands. Dixie had cracked the tiny window, spinning the handle until it would go no further and fretted about things drying out properly. The heat and humidity of the south already punished her with blackened tile grout and rusty fixtures. She’d hung the shower rod, the mildewed curtain still dripping. It took her half an hour on her hands and knees, soaking up the water with a bath towel and ringing it out in the tub, before there was nothing left to do but let evaporation take its course.
Dixie had used the few dish towels in the kitchen to dry herself off and started a load of laundry before sitting. It was a girl’s chair, sanded down and repainted by her grandfather as a birthday gift long ago. Although a little low, she’d stayed small and it was a good place to put on her shoes in the morning or drape clothes she’d wear again. And its finish resisted the water better than the living room upholstery. Patsy sulked somewhere under the bed, refusing to come out, rather than jumping into Dixie’s lap as usual.
“Okay. Mom. I must go see Mom,” she told herself out loud.
She opted for a favorite pair of capris jeans, so tight that commando was a necessity. With black heels, it made her feel like a rock star. The walk to the truck stop be damned, after a couple of ibuprofen her ankle was feeling much better. Pushup-bra and black V-neck T-shirt with a heart of silver rhinestones on the front fit her mood. The jeans were too tight to tuck the shirt in. No belt. Dixie dried her hair and put up her blond locks with a dark red ribbon, leaving things edgy and frilly. Metallic red lipstick and thick eye makeup to cover her duct tape wounds. Nights could be cool. She donned a thin black leather jacket, with accent zippers on the pockets.
K-9 Outlaw: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 1 Page 12
