by Ninie Hammon
When Bubba passed by the dogs on his way to his garage, they were sitting where he’d left them next to Jimmy Dan’s gutted corpse, hanging amid a buzz of green flies in a tree. He returned a short time later with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. He picked up the gun with the duct-taped handle and shoved it down in his belt and placed the bloody corpse in the wheelbarrow. Then he used the shovel to dig up dirt and toss it on the attack site. He gathered up limbs, leaves and sticks and scattered them around until there was no sign of a struggle or blood anywhere. Then he called his dogs and they padded along beside him as he hauled the gory corpse back past his house to the edge of the pond and tossed it into a rowboat. Loading three concrete blocks and three 4-foot lengths of bailing wire into the boat, he rowed out to the middle of the pond, tied Jimmy Dan to the blocks and tossed him overboard. The water turned red at the site and bubbles rose to the surface as the body sank slowly down in the murky water to the bottom of the pond. Bubba waited until the water was still, then rowed back to shore.
After he hosed down the rowboat, the wheelbarrow and the dogs, he stripped naked and dumped all his clothing, boots and all, into a metal trash drum, poured half a gallon of gasoline into the drum and tossed in a match. When he heard the whump sound of the fire taking hold, he went into the house for a long, cool shower. He was sitting on the back deck eating a sandwich a little after noon when he first heard the baying of the hounds. He sat very still and listened, tracked their advance by the sound that grew steadily louder. He could tell by the dogs’ sudden silence that they had gotten to the spot at the bottom of the hill where the trail had split and gone in opposite directions, could picture them sniffing frantically around in circles. But the trail leading up the hill was just that, a trail. The one leading east was more like a four-lane divided highway, an interstate, a freeway, the scent so powerful it was irresistible. After only a few moment’s hesitation, the bloodhounds began to bay again, the sound no longer getting louder as it approached, but fading away as the dogs dragged their handlers toward the river.
Bubba sat still and quiet until he could no longer hear the dogs, then he relaxed in the deck chair and looked out over the pond smiling.
• • • • •
Sonny leaned back in his creaky office chair and rubbed his neck, wondering idly as he did if Sarabeth Bingham knew how strikingly beautiful she was. She didn’t appear to. As she sat across the desk from him scribbling in her notebook, he looked at her hair, the curls falling around her shoulders, and couldn’t imagine that a woman could look like that and not have a line of men standing at her door. Part of it was that there was no flirt in her. But women had a way of telegraphing when they were available even if they didn’t flirt. Sarabeth’s telegraph wasn’t even plugged in.
She looked up from her notes and almost caught him staring at her.
“Daddy always said truth was stranger than fiction, but I never imagined I’d ever write a story as pathetic as this. Mice eat these guys’ dope money so they go out and kill a little girl.”
“I warned you this was going to get ugly.” Sonny let out a long sigh. “Donnie’s dead, and I even feel sorry for that stupid Doodlebug. He’s dumb as a box of doorknobs but he’d good-hearted. He ought to be up under somebody’s car changing their transmission fluid instead of on a slow walk toward death row.”
“You think he’ll get the death penalty?”
“There’s never been a death penalty handed down in this county, but he could be the first. If you kill somebody with a gun in the commission of a felony, that’s a ‘special circumstance’ that qualifies for the death penalty.” The sheriff leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “Lot depends on what happens when we catch Jimmy Dan. The two little boys told the same story Doodlebug did, said Jimmy Dan was the trigger man. So, can a defense attorney blame it all on J.D.? Say Doodlebug was an unwilling accomplice? Depends on who defends him. Right now, Doodlebug’s still refusing an attorney. He expects the death penalty, says he doesn’t want some lawyer to get him off when he deserves to die. He’ll change his mind eventually. And Jimmy Dan’s still out there.”
How Jimmy Dan had escaped was a mystery. The dogs had tracked him from the van in the woods. He’d left a jacket behind so the dogs got a strong, clear scent and they’d followed it to a walking bridge across the Rolling Fork. The hounds had never wavered, never seemed uncertain, but the trail ended in the middle of the bridge. The only possible explanation was that Jimmy Dan had jumped into the river to throw off the dogs, though one of the troopers who knew Jimmy Dan swore he couldn’t swim. The canine units had split up then, scouring both sides of the riverbank for three miles downstream and three upstream, but could find no trace of the fugitive leaving the water.
“He’s not smart enough to stay undetected for long, though. Eventually, he’ll poke his head out of whatever hole he’s hiding in and we’ll catch him.”
Sarabeth shook her head. “Two people dead, one on the way to death row. And for what?”
Sonny told her that the three men had hidden the money in the shed because the dope they’d sold wasn’t theirs.
“They stole it from Bubba Jamison,” he said.
Sarabeth felt sick. “Jake’s father.” How could such a good kid be the son of a monster?
“He and Ben are pretty good friends, aren’t they.”
“Blood brothers. Twins separated at birth.”
“This is going to go down hard, I’m afraid. I’ve been after Bubba for years. He is a Very. Big. Dog. The biggest dog in the whole junkyard and certainly the meanest. Doodlebug did a chapter and verse for us on Bubba’s operation. And he’s willing to testify. Simon’s going to take it before a special session of the grand jury in the morning.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“Bubba has managed to stay a couple of steps ahead of the law for years. He doesn’t know what’s coming down and I don’t want to give him time to figure a way out of it.”
• • • • •
Sarabeth waited outside the grand jury room on the second floor of the courthouse across the hall from the circuit courtroom with Sonny and Detective Hayes. Both had already testified and Commonwealth’s Attorney Simon Henry was still presenting evidence. Since a grand jury didn’t decide guilt or innocence, merely determined if there was enough evidence to warrant a trial, they didn’t typically take very long to come to a decision.
It was a busy day at the courthouse. District and circuit court were both in session, the offices for driver’s license renewals and land transfers had long lines and the hall was crowded with people. All at once, Sonny nudged Sarabeth and cocked his head toward the stairs.
“Would you look at that,” he said. “There he is in the flesh. Bubba Jamison. I think it’s right thoughtful of him to show up here today, so I don’t have to go find him to slap the cuffs on him.”
Sarabeth looked at the big man, and the movie Princess Bride popped into her mind. The guy looked like Fezzik, the walking mountain who had caught Buttercup when Wesley tossed her out the window of the castle. But Bubba Jamison’s face didn’t have the soft, gentle lines of Andre the Giant. His face was dark, with thick, black eyebrows that hung over arresting eyes, like the eyes of a cobra, quick and alert. And absolutely soul-less.
And those eyes were looking at her, sizing her up, taking her measure and taunting her, all at the same time. She stared straight back at him, back into the black pit of his eyes and stood her ground defiantly. It was something she’d never have been able to do a year ago when she’d taken over her father’s newspaper. She’d come a long way, Baby.
A man stepped up to talk to Bubba and he dropped his gaze. The connection broke and Sarabeth realized she’d balled her hands into fists at her sides and was holding her breath. She let it out in a sigh that was as much sadness as relief. Thing Two’s father. The family resemblance was uncanny, though Jake’s face had a sweetness that existed nowhere in his father’s countenance.
“You gonna tell me your
secret or not?” the farmer asked Bubba with a nervous little laugh.
“Secret for what?” Bubba growled.
“Them catfish,” the farmer said. “Your boy tole my boy all ’bout them giant catfish you got in that pond of yours, how they ate ducklings they was so big. You got some secret feedin’ formula?”
A slow smile spread across Bubba’s face.
“Matter of fact I do. Now, don’t tell nobody, but ever so often, I feed ’em something special—a great big hunk of red meat.”
“Naw, really? And they eat that?”
“Shore do. I been doin’ it for years. Started back in May of ’78.” Bubba’s smile widened. “I remember exactly ’cause the first time I done it was the day Darlene left me.”
The grand jury room door opened and out strode Simon Henry. Sarabeth didn’t like the look on his face. Or the two words he spat out when he stopped in front of Sonny.
“No indictment.”
Sonny looked stunned.
Henry’s booming orator’s voice was quiet, as taut and controlled as a bow string. “The grand jury foreman said they returned a no-bill based on the ‘lack of credibility of the only witness.’ Supposedly, Doodlebug was not reliable because he was charged with capital murder and would be willing to say anything that might induce the commonwealth to go easy on him.”
“But you didn’t offer him a deal,” the sheriff sputtered.
“That’s the reason they gave, Sonny. Now, you want the truth?” He cut his eyes toward Bubba and they followed his gaze. “You think it’s an accident he’s here today? He’s here to gloat.”
“But how did he know … ?” Sarabeth didn’t finish the question; she was literally struck speechless by the big, toothy smile Bubba flashed her. He looked just like a barracuda.
The other three followed Sonny down the steps to his office in silence, then sat together choking down his infamous road-tar coffee. The men raged, but Sarabeth was quiet.
Finally, she turned to Henry. “And this doesn’t happen in the other three counties in this circuit?”
“Nope.” His voice was tired. “Oh, I’m not saying nobody’s raising dope anywhere but here. But you can get an untainted jury pool in the other counties. You can get a fair trial in the other counties. You can get convictions in the other counties. Not here.”
He sighed, then pointed out that another jury pool would be selected in January, just seven months away. Maybe it would be better.
Sarabeth spoke softly, her words velvet-covered hand grenades. “You could go to the U.S. Attorney’s office and get federal indictments.”
The three men turned with the perfect unison of a chorus line and stared at Sarabeth.
“Twenty-five years ago when black people in the south couldn’t get a fair trial, when juries wouldn’t convict a white man, federal marshals came in and charged people with violating federal laws and tried them before U.S. District Court juries. We could do that here.”
Nobody said a word.
Sonny was the first to reload. “You do realize you’re suggesting the judicial equivalent of bringing in the National Guard and declaring martial law.”
“You want to turn this county over to the feds?” The pale blond state police detective was incredulous.
Calling in federal marshals was admitting to the world that local law enforcement had failed. Leap-frogging local juries and trying cases in U.S. District Court was announcing that the county was so corrupt, so morally bankrupt that its judicial system could not function.
Sarabeth looked at Sonny with compassion. One reason she’d been reluctant to suggest the idea was that she knew what would happen to Sonny if he supported it. He’d never be re-elected; his career would be over. The commonwealth’s attorney and the circuit judge were elected officials, too, but the circuit contained four counties. Henry and Compton would survive. Hayes didn’t have a dog in the fight; he worked for the Kentucky State Police. Other than hurt pride, he had less to lose than anybody, yet his was the most vocal opposition.
“You do that, and there’s no mercy,” the pale detective said. “With the feds’ zero tolerance for drugs policy, a conviction means a mandatory 20-year sentence with no possibility of parole. That’s a dandy idea for the Bubba Jamisons of this world, but what about those kids who get caught working in dope barns? You want to send some 17-year-old off to federal prison for 20 years?”
“So we just sit back and let the dopers take over the county?” Sarabeth fired back. “The body count’s two in the last 24 hours! One of them’s an 8-year-old child, lying in a box at Beddingfield’s Funeral Home. And some dumb mechanic’s facing the death penalty. Just how bad does it have to get?”
Henry waded in then before Hayes could respond. “U.S. District Court is the nuclear option and I’m not willing to push that red button until we’ve tried everything else.”
“What else is there to try?” she asked.
“The circuit judge has the authority to ask that a new jury pool be selected right now, throw out the old one and start over. I’ve never seen a judge do that, but the law allows it, and I believe I can talk Earl into it. He’s as fed up as we are with the lawlessness in this county. We get a new jury pool, a new grand jury, and we take Bubba’s case before them. If we can’t get an indictment then, I think we’re out of options.”
“Why do you think 300 other people will be any better than the 300 we’ve already got?” Sonny obviously didn’t like saying it. “If these people won’t indict him, what makes you think the next batch will?”
“Maybe because the next batch will be better informed.”
They all turned to look at Sarabeth again.
“You’ve seen Daddy’s sign, haven’t you, the one that hangs over the typewriter?” They nodded. “I read it every time I went to his office when I was a kid, but it was years before I really understood what it meant.”
The plaque was a simple phrase, hand-lettered in her father’s bold cursive: Don’t mess with a man who buys ink by the barrel.
“The next batch of 300 people—and their neighbors, the people who sit beside them in church on Sunday morning and the folks they bump grocery carts with at Brewster Market—are going to understand what’s at stake here. I will make it very clear that unless this county is willing to police itself, the federal government will come in here and do it for them.”
It had been a long time coming, but at that moment, Sarabeth Bingham finally understood what it meant to be a journalist. She knew her father would have been proud of her.
The room was quiet.
“You’ve already had your name scratched off the Christmas card lists of every doper in the county,” Hayes said. “Now you’re about to get the law-abiding citizens all indignant, too.”
Sonny was more blunt.
“That’s a dangerous thing to do, Sarabeth.”
“And it’s your job,” she looked pointedly at Sonny and Hayes “to see to it that nothing happens to me. If I get killed, I’ll never speak to either one of you ever again.” It was weak, but it was the best she could do.
Henry stood up and headed for the door. “I’m going to go have a talk with the judge.”
Sarabeth stood then, too. “And I’ve got a story and an editorial to write.” She’d have liked to have strode out all macho like Patton off to kick Rommel’s butt. It was hard to pull that off, though, with her knees shaking.
Chapter 17
There wasn’t a single copy of The Callison County Tribune left in any news rack anywhere in the county by noon on Friday, even though Sarabeth had upped the press run by 2,000 copies. The racks in the newspaper office ran out, too, and Jonas had to grab 25 issues and hide them in his desk so he’d have tear sheets—the page a specific advertiser’s ad ran on—to send to his customers.
It wasn’t surprising that the whole county gobbled up the newspapers. The story about the little girl’s murder took up the whole front page above the fold, with sidebars about the men accused in her abduction, a
long with a story and picture of Jimmy Dan, who was still at large.
There was also a re-fer line—“referring the reader” to the editorial page for an accompanying editorial and column. They were a perfect one-two punch.
In her column, Sarabeth was vulnerable. She actually wrote about losing Moriah, the agony of feeling the wind rip the baby out of her arms. She owned her secret fantasy that the child had somehow survived, admitted searching the faces of children the age her daughter would have been in school yards and shopping malls. She described her shock at seeing Maggie Mae on the stretcher in the ambulance, the image of Moriah she’d been carrying around in her head, and raged at the reality that Maggie Mae Davis had been killed by marijuana.
Her editorial was as blunt as her column had been vulnerable.
Here’s the truth still in the husk, Callison County. Marijuana just got a little girl killed. She wasn’t my little girl but she could have been yours. And when Commonwealth’s Attorney Simon Henry went before a grand jury to indict the dope-grower her killer worked for, twelve of your friends and neighbors let him walk.
If you ask them why, they’ll tell you they didn’t believe his accuser. That, folks, is a pile of the warm, sticky substance you find on the south side of a horse going north. The truth is the grand jury wouldn’t indict him because he and all the other dopers don’t just run this county, they own it.
But not for long.
Local law enforcement has finally had enough. They’re fed up with making arrests on revolving-door dope growers who barely stay in jail long enough to get the bench in their cells warm.
