Home Grown: A Novel

by Ninie Hammon

  He reached down, picked up the biscuit and took a bite, chewing like he had a mouthful of Styrofoam packing worms.

  “You’re going home this afternoon, didn’t you say?” she asked.

  “I’ll come back to Louisville Wednesday morning and bring Becky a change of clothes, a toothbrush, that kind of thing. The doctors say Kelsey might wake up tomorrow. And then … ”

  “Cross that bridge when you get to it.”

  “Right.” He took another bite of the breakfast sandwich.

  Sarabeth glanced around the room. When she was sure she and Billy Joe were alone in the deserted cafeteria, she reached up, put her hands above her head, fingertips touching, elbows out, and said, “Ok, Bije, Umbrella of Mercy.”

  Umbrella of Mercy was their code for: “I’m about to say something totally off the wall, but you can’t laugh and you have to give serious consideration to whatever it is.” They’d used it all the time when they were kids.

  The ghost of a smile appeared on Billy Joe’s face. “Haven’t heard that phrase in a hundred years.”

  Sarabeth kept her hands in the air in the umbrella position. “Come on, I’m serious, B.J. Will you grant me an Umbrella of Mercy?”

  “Sure, Bess. Whatever you want.”

  Sarabeth lowered her arms and took a deep breath.

  “You know what happened to Ben Sunday.” It wasn’t even a question. She knew he knew.

  “Yeah, and I’m real sorry.”

  “He didn’t do it, Bije. He didn’t know there was dope in that barn, he couldn’t have. He was set up. Bubba Jamison got him busted to shut me up.”

  Billy Joe’s eyes widened.

  “Unless I do something, an innocent boy’s life is going to be ruined.” She reached out, grabbed his hand and squeezed tight. Her voice was low and intense. “You understand better than anybody else on the planet right now how it feels to watch somebody you love be destroyed. I need help, Billy Joe!”

  “I’m sorry Bessie, but I don’t know what I can do.”

  There was a beat of silence, then she just said it, flat out. “I want you to help me and the police bust Bubba Jamison.” Billy Joe’s head snapped back like she’d clocked him in the jaw. She concentrated hard, studying his face when she hit him with the second blow in the one-two punch: “I know you work for him.”

  In the little crack of time between one heartbeat and the next, shock rendered him totally transparent. Surprise froze his features. But there was no denial. No outrage!

  Billy Joe quickly rearranged his face, slammed the doors and locked the windows. She’d seen, though. She’d seen.

  “Sarabeth Bingham!” he sputtered. “Why on earth would you say a thing like that?”

  She spoke with quiet intensity. “Because Ben’s best friend is Jake Jamison. He practically lives at our house. And we talk!”

  All the air went out of Billy Joe and he sank back in his chair. It had been a bluff, of course; Jake had never said a word about his father or his father’s business dealings to Sarabeth.

  “You need to remember who you’re talking to, Bije,” she said gently. “I was always the one who delivered the cock-and-bull stories to our parents when we were kids.” She reached out, patted his hand and continued quietly. “You were a lousy liar then and you’re a lousy liar now.”

  Billy Joe made a motion that might have been an effort to stand up, but he couldn’t pull it off. Sarabeth kept at him. She couldn’t let him off the hook. Too much was at stake.

  “You work for Bubba Jamison and he’s out to get me, through Ben. Unless you help us, my little brother is going to spend at least a decade of his life in prison. He’ll come out the other side as wounded as that little girl of yours lying in a bed upstairs hooked up to machines. Both innocents. Both of them destroyed by dope!”

  “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about. I barely know Bubba Jamison.”

  “I talked to probably two dozen teenagers yesterday about Kelsey. None of those kids were her friends. They just used her to get drugs and … ” She dropped her voice to barely a whisper. “They used her, Billy Joe, the boys did. Abused that girl in every possible way.”

  He shook his head back and forth, his wide eyes full of anguished tears.

  “I hate to have to tell you this stuff, Bije. I know it hurts you, but you said you didn’t have any idea why Kelsey would do what she did. Well, I know why!” Her voice grew louder. “Your little girl tried to kill herself because dope money destroyed her family! How many people does the marijuana industry have to kill—Maggie Mae Davis, Lester Burkett, Donnie Scruggs, Jennifer Jamison—before—?”

  She realized she was shouting and stopped in mid-sentence, watching tears pour down Billy Joe’s face. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and controlled.

  “Billy Joe, you’ve got another little girl at home. Do you want her to grow up in the same world Kelsey grew up in?”

  She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “I know you love your family and never intended to hurt them. But you did, Bije. Don’t you see … ?” She stopped, let out a long breath.

  “I can’t make you own up to what’s happened to your life. I can’t force you to help Ben. So I’m going to shut up and leave you alone. Just one question. Answer it for yourself, not for me.”

  She leaned close, spoke quietly for a few moments, then patted his hand and rose to her feet.

  “Bije, I love you.” Her voice was thick. Tears filled her eyes and overflowed down her cheeks and she made no effort to wipe them away. “No matter what you decide, you know I’ll always love you.” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, then turned and walked away without looking back, her shoes click-click-clicking on the tile floor in the empty cafeteria.

  • • • • •

  The world was wrapped in a layer of Saran Wrap so thick Sarabeth could barely see through it to drive the 70 miles of winding farm roads from Louisville back home to Brewster. The pinky and ring fingers on her left hand had gone completely numb while she was talking to Billy Joe. And the dull pain of twin ear aches thudded with every heartbeat. Stress. Rhymes with MS. Well, sort of.

  She left work early, after spending a few hours holed up in her office, went home and found Ben holed up, too. He was locked in his room and wouldn’t talk to her. Never before in their relationship had he completely shut her out, and she felt lost and powerless.

  The phone rang for the third time in half an hour as she sat in the porch swing trying to relax, and she almost didn’t answer it. The first two had been anonymous callers who’d gloated about Ben’s arrest and then hung up. If this was another heckler …

  It was Billy Joe.

  “Can you come over tonight?” His voice was hoarse, like he’d been crying. “You and … the police. Just to talk, that’s all. I need to know what you want me to do.”

  She said she’d be there.

  Sonny wasn’t in his office when she called him, so she left a message with his secretary.

  “Tell him Tecumseh just hit one out of the ballpark. Tell him to meet me at 7:30 tonight at Billy Joe Reynolds’ house, and to bring Darrell Hayes.”

  Billy Joe opened the door for Sarabeth before the chime of his doorbell completed its elaborate song.

  “Everybody else is already here,” he told her. She put her arms around him and pulled him close but it was like hugging a tent pole. Then he turned and ushered her into the huge living room that swept across the whole front side of his house. The room was lit by a crystal chandelier, had a grand piano by the door and a marble fireplace on the far wall.

  Detective Hayes sat in a big, overstuffed chair beside a leather couch.

  Sonny sat on the couch next to Seth McAllister! The sheriff must have caught the look of shock Sarabeth’s face registered when she saw Seth.

  “I asked him to come,” Sonny said.

  “What for?” Her voice croaked like a pond frog. Of course, she’d never asked Sonny. She’d wanted to so often, a
lmost got the words out a time or two. But she’d never managed to summon the proper casual tone to inquire, “Oh, by the way, Sonny, that list of known dopers—it wouldn’t happen to have Seth McAllister’s name on it, would it?”

  Truth was, she’d been afraid to ask, too, because she feared Seth’s name wasn’t on the list—and by asking, she’d tip Sonny off that it should be. The man was obviously subsidizing his distillery’s finances with money from somewhere.

  “Seth has information that bears on what we came here to talk about tonight,” Sonny told her. “Have a seat, Sarabeth, and hear him out.” She sank down into a chair opposite Hayes and stared unblinking at Seth.

  Sonny turned to him. “You’re on, pal.”

  “Your newspaper certainly gets around, Sarabeth” Seth said, and then he told all of them his story. Everyone in the room was riveted by his account. As he described marijuana operations in Mississippi, Minnesota, Kansas and Texas, the realization that she might have been mistaken about him was totally eclipsed by the enormity of what he had discovered.

  “Who else knows about this?” Hayes asked Sonny as soon as Seth finished. “Have you talked to the U.S. Attorney’s office or the DEA?”

  “Thanks to three clogged-up crappers, I haven’t had a chance to talk to anybody, including the officers involved in these busts,” Sonny said. “Soon as I’ve got long distance service back, I’ll find out the specifics of these cases. I’m going to make sure this is what it looks like it is before I call in the feds.”

  “It is what it looks like it is,” Billy Joe said softly. It was the first time he had spoken and all the others turned and looked at him. He sat on the piano bench by the door, silently drumming his fingers on the shiny black wood.

  They couldn’t see it, of course, but Billy Joe could. It was blue, bright blue, the electric blue of Kelsey’s eyes, and it divided the room right smack down the middle. He was on one side of it; everyone else was on the other side.

  The line.

  He remembered the question Sarabeth had asked him in the hospital cafeteria that morning. He had thought about nothing else all day.

  “What if you’d said no?”

  There had to be a time, she’d told him, when someone—maybe it was Bubba Jamison—talked you into growing dope. And you said yes. How would your life be different now if you’d said no?

  Time to cross the line.

  His next words would put him permanently out of the marijuana business. Likely sign him up to be a guest of the state for a few years as well, maybe for longer than a few years. And Billy Joe had no illusions about what Bubba Jamison would do to him if he found out Billy Joe had gone belly-up.

  He glanced around the room. Looked at his stuff. And it meant nothing to him. It almost seemed transparent somehow, like dawn haze on the river before the sun cleared the top of the knob and burned it all away.

  Billy Joe stood and walked slowly across the room. He paused for a moment before he put his foot across what the others couldn’t see. Then he took a single step.

  “That national organization thing, it explains a lot,” he said. “I could give you the names of a lot of the people involved in it. I know, ’cause I trained ’em for Bubba.”

  He took another couple of steps and settled himself on the fat arm of the chair where Sarabeth sat. She reached out and patted his knee as he spoke. “It started for me one night after I found cardboard in Kelsey’s shoes.” He looked down at Sarabeth and his voice got thick. “That’s when I decided to say yes.”

  Into the silence that followed, Billy Joe turned his life wrong side out. He told it all, vomited the whole story out like a dog chucking up bad meat. He described how Bubba had stopped him in the parking lot of Squire Boone’s Tavern that night, and outlined his rise through the ranks of the big man’s organization since. It was a fascinating look into an amazingly complex world, and both the law enforcement officers were stunned by the wealth of information he was providing.

  “I never could figure out why Bubba needed so many farm hands,” Billy Joe said. “And it struck me odd at the time that several of those fellas kept asking questions ’bout raising dope by the acre. Shoot, we haven’t been able to do that in this county for years.” He smiled a rueful smile at the two officers. “Thanks to you guys.”

  When Billy Joe finished his story, there was absolute silence.

  Then Sonny turned to Seth. “I guess it’s time to connect some dots,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” Seth looked at Sarabeth but before he could speak she gasped.

  “Daddy’s national story!” Her eyes were huge. “Daddy said the story would bring the press here from all over the country!”

  She looked at Sonny. “He found out, didn’t he? Somehow, Daddy found out what Bubba Jamison was doing and—”

  “Bubba killed him to shut him up.” Sonny finished for her. Sarabeth looked like he’d slapped her.

  Billy Joe felt sick. Uncle Jim! He reached over and put his arm around his cousin’s shoulders.

  “He murdered my father to kill Daddy’s story,” she said slowly. “He’s trying to send my brother to prison to shut me up.” Then Billy Joe watched her anguish morph into a defiant rage he’d never seen in Sarabeth before. “Well, it won’t work. He won’t silence me. He’s not going to get away with it!”

  “No, he isn’t.” Billy Joe said. He squeezed Sarabeth’s shoulders. “The answer’s yes, I’ll help. No more bodies. It stops here, now. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Testify against Bubba in federal court,” Sonny said. “I can’t speak for the U.S. Attorney’s office, of course, but I’m sure they’d be willing to work out some kind of immunity for you in exchange for your cooperation.”

  “What good does it do Ben to take Bubba down for running some massive national dope ring?” Sarabeth leaned toward Sonny. “And what evidence is there to link Bubba to my father’s murder? There’s got to be more to it than just B.J.’s testimony.”

  Detective Hayes spoke for the first time. The pale detective used one finger to push his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose, and asked Billy Joe matter-of-factly, “Would you be willing to wear a wire?”

  “You mean a recording thing, to …?” Billy Joe hesitated, then looked into Sarabeth’s upturned face. “If that’s what you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll have to set it up with the state police lab in Frankfort, maybe work with the DEA. I’ll need a little while to plan out the logistics. But what I’m thinking is we rig Billy Joe with a wire, then he gets Bubba to talk about Ben and Jim Bingham.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” Billy Joe looked from Hayes to Sonny and back to Hayes. “Sounds to me like neither one of you ever met Bubba Jamison. ’Cause if you had, you’d know he’s not exactly … chatty.”

  Sonny looked dubious, but Hayes was determined.

  “I’ll coach you. There are ways to initiate the kinds of conversations we need …” He stopped. “Look, we can talk about the how later on. Right now we just need to stack hands on the what.”

  He looked at Billy Joe. “You in?”

  “Yeah, I’m in.” Billy Joe tried to sound more confident than he felt. “I’ll wear the wire and do my best to get Bubba to say something we can hang him with.”

  Hayes sat back with a satisfied smile and addressed the others. “One more thing—it’s going to take me a few days to set all this up, so what was said in this room tonight has to stay in this room, agreed?” He looked pointedly at Sarabeth, Seth and Billy Joe. They each nodded.

  Then he turned to Sonny. “Can you hold off until the first of next week calling those officers to verify what Seth found out?”

  “I can.”

  “Good,” Hayes said. “’Cause the last thing we need is for Bubba Jamison to get wind we’re on to him.”

  Chapter 23

  Sarabeth had just left for work the morning after the meeting at Billy Joe’s house when Ben heard a knock at the front door. He hadn’t been up v
ery long, had hardly slept at all. He was definitely not in the mood to make nice with some starched-shirt Jehovah’s Witness.

  When he swung the door open, there stood Jake Jamison. He was dirty, unshaven and smelled of campfire smoke.

  “Can I come in?”

  Ben reached out and unhooked the screen. When Jake stepped past him into the house, Ben grimaced. “I was going to ask if you wanted a bowl of cereal, but maybe you’d like to take a shower first. You smell worse than the sock hamper in the gym locker room.”

  “Ben, don’t.” Jake halted just inside the door. “Stop pretending everything’s fine and dandy between us. It’s not. I know it’s my fault and I came here to make it right.”

  “Came here from … ?”

  “The mountains, the Smokies. I bailed that night after what happened at the barn. I went out into the woods, had to be by myself to think. It wasn’t just about you, either. Jennifer said something, told me something.”

  He doesn’t know!

  “You haven’t been home, have you?”

  “Do I look like I’ve been home? Do I smell like it? I came straight here because I wanted you to know you’re not in trouble anymore. Neither one of us is.”

  “Let’s sit down and talk,” Ben said.

  Jake plopped on the couch and Ben sat next to him.

  “Jake, you need to know—the police asked who hired me to work in the barn and I wouldn’t tell them. I never mentioned your name; you’re in the clear.”

  Jake actually smiled, a sad, tired smile. “Well, you don’t have to keep your mouth shut anymore. You don’t have anybody to protect. I’m going to the police and tell them exactly what happened.”

  “And that was?”

  “My father wanted you busted in a dope barn.” Jake’s voice was deep and rumbling. Ben could hear the rage in it. “He tricked me into getting you there. When I dared to question what he wanted, he cold-cocked me.”