“I didn’t want to do it. I swear to baby Jesus I ducked away from Boss’s offer for as long as I could…”
“Boss’s offer?” Step asked.
“He told me it was the way to go. He said everything would be wiped out. I wouldn’t have to worry about nothing.”
Kenny snapped Billy’s head around to meet him eye to eye. “You traded out your daughter to clear your debt?”
Trembling violently, Billy nodded.
“And you’re saying Boss come to you with the offer?”
“He called it an offer, but it wasn’t really. I didn’t have no choice.”
Step stood in a huff. “You had a choice, you were just too big a coward to take it!”
Billy nervously laughed. “You think I wouldn’t have given my life for my girl’s? I would’ve! Without even thinking twice, I would’ve. You gotta believe me.”
Step pulled his knife out. “I’m gonna cut your eyes out, Billy Campbell.”
“Hold on now,” Kenny said. “Let him explain himself. What’re you saying, Billy?”
“I got other kids. Four boys, two over in Nashville and another two in Lexington somewheres.” Billy wiped his tears with a trembling hand. “Boss made it clear he knew of them. He counted them off by name, knew their mommas. Shit, he even knew their birthdays.”
Step grabbed Billy off the bed by his collar. “Get to it, goddamn it!”
“They’re good boys!”
“I don’t give a shit about your boys—”
“Boss was gonna kill them! He was gonna kill me and then go after them!”
Step gritted his teeth and tightened his hold on Billy’s collar.
The butcher let out a lunatic-laced laugh. “You were gonna kill my boys. That’s where he was gonna send you two after you got done with me. To kill my boys. Ain’t you ever asked Boss why the folks you kill deserve to die?”
Step threw Billy back on the bed.
“You thought you was just killing lowlife druggies and thugs, didn’t you? You know what I used the money for that I got from Boss? I used it to buy a new walk-in freezer because my old one quit on me. I needed that freezer for my business. I needed that business to feed my kids, all my kids. I send money up to Nashville and Lexington on the first of every month. Every fucking month. I ain’t never missed one payment. They’re my kids, and I pay for them! That’s what daddies do!”
Step roared and jumped on Billy, placing his hands around his throat. “Daddies don’t sell their daughters!”
Billy flailed his arms, trying to break free from Step’s crushing grip. Kenny grabbed his partner and pulled him off the butcher. “C’mon now, Step. Let’s try to get our heads around this thing before we deal with Billy.”
Step pushed Kenny away and walked to the other end of the room. “He sold his daughter!”
“He took the best of two bad deals,” Kenny said.
Billy crawled backward on the bed, rubbing the stinging out of his neck, regretting every second of his shit-filled life. “Step’s right. I sold my daughter, I can’t cut it no other way. I ain’t got no right to take up God’s good air for what I done!” He reached under his pillow and pulled out a Glock 19 handgun and jammed the barrel against the side of his head.
“Hold on!” Kenny said, stepping forward. “We’re gonna take care of this! We’ll find a way to turn this bad situation good…”
“It don’t matter,” Billy said. “I’ll always be the man who sold his daughter.”
The sound of the gun going off filled the room. Step stumbled forward and watched Billy jerk to the left. The flash from the barrel stretched out like fingers around his damaged head. The butcher’s eyes bulged and he slumped, lying half off the bed. The ringing from the gunshot lingered, even seeming to intensify. Step lost himself in the spectacle of it all. He didn’t know if he was standing. He didn’t know if he could wade through the confusion to form a clear thought. He didn’t know if he was really even there, staring at the lifeless body of the man who sold his daughter.
Chapter 23
Dani hadn’t forgotten about the double homicide. She knew the kind of stuff Daryl was into, and as a result, she had more than a good idea that he deserved what he got. She had never liked him before she left for the Anointed Daughters, and the stories she heard about him when she got back to Baptist Flats were especially disturbing.
Still, she felt like she’d stumbled onto a good lead, and she wanted to pursue it. She almost smiled at the thought of having so much actual police work to do. She didn’t exactly like herself for it, but the thought of feeling useful was hard not to enjoy.
She sat at her desk and started to jot down her list of leads when Randle approached. “Afternoon, Deputy Savage.”
Dani turned to him with a suspicious glare. She couldn’t recall a time when he’d actually addressed her as Deputy Savage.
“You still working on the business we discussed yesterday?”
Dani scanned the station for prying eyes and ears. “I already agreed to take your Sundays. What else do you want?”
He waved her off. “It ain’t about that. My curiosity has just been sparked, that’s all.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Your curiosity?”
“I’m bored, Deputy. I ain’t got shit to do, and I’ve seen just about every bit of porn there is on the Internet. I need something interesting to do.”
She placed her hand over her list. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“C’mon, you must’ve come across something. Give me just a taste.”
“It ain’t been but a day. What makes you think I’ve come across something?”
“ ’Cause I know you. Once you get set on something, you usually turn something up.”
She nearly laughed at his phony compliment.
“Look, tell me or I walk into Otis’s office and tell him straightaway that you lifted evidence from the scene of a double homicide.”
She shook her head. “Then I’ll back out of your Sundays.”
“Fine.”
She stared at him, determined not to tell him anything, but when he motioned toward her uncle’s office she relented. “All right, I’ll tell you what I got. It ain’t much, but I’ll tell you.”
He sat down on her desk. “Shoot.”
She sighed and decided it didn’t really matter whether Randle knew what she had found because she really didn’t know if she’d found anything significant. “I went out to the cigarette place you told me about.”
“Yeah.”
“I ran into these two fellas. They were slopers, mountain boys. No doubt about it.”
Randle pretended this was new information to him.
“One of them was carrying a box of Porter 100s. Boy’s name was Stephen Walden Crawford. Goes by Step.”
Randle furrowed his brow. “How the hell’d you get his name? You talk to them?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t say much. I ran his plates.”
“And you think these two boys have something to do with the Son Crow killings?”
Dani shrugged. “Can’t say. Crawford’s never been too deep in with the law before. Couple of assaults is all I could find.”
“What about the other one?”
“Kenny Fable: in and out of prison a few times.” She leaned toward him. “You really want to help me on this?”
He smiled. “Like you wouldn’t believe, Deputy. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Otis has got me working on something else, so he’s gonna have a sharp eye out on me.”
“What’s he got you working on?”
“Nothing important,” she lied, “but what matters is it’ll free you up to run down these fellas.”
Randle nodded. “Okay, but how?”
She smiled. “I got video.”
“Video?” Randle asked, sounding shocked.
“Pulled it from the store surveillance system. Got a clear shot of both fellas. If I print off a still, you could run it over to Son’s and see if a
nyone recognizes them.”
Randle hesitated before nodding. “Yeah, of course.” He stood. “You get me that picture, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Dani smiled halfheartedly. She wanted to believe that he was truly interested in helping her, but she knew him too well. Something else was going on, but she didn’t have the time to find out what. It’s not that she didn’t trust him exactly; the worst thing about him was that he was a lazy and self-entitled small-town cop. That he was suddenly interested in doing actual police work was strange, to say the least. By the time she handed him the printout, she was curious to see what he’d do with it. Part of her was even hopeful that he’d prove her wrong and actually come back with some useful information.
Randle took the image and grinned from ear to ear. He had a feeling ol’ Cousin Step would pay a pretty penny for the information Dani had given him.
Chapter 24
“I ain’t never seen anything like that before,” Kenny said. He sat on a box outside of Billy Campbell’s walk-in freezer and stared at the floor. His mind was full of images of Billy’s brains exiting his head. The chubby closeout king couldn’t even muster up the slightest desire to mold the bill of his cap into a perfect arch. “I can’t shake the sight of it. I don’t know why it bothers me so. I mean…with what we do for a living and all.”
Step paced in front of the freezer door. They had hidden the body under a tarp and then surrounded it with boxes of ground meat. “He just saved us the trouble.”
Kenny shook his head. “I can’t look on it that way, Step. I just can’t. Billy was up against it and, brother, you and me put him there.”
“He got himself into this mess, fatass. We didn’t force him to borrow money from Boss.”
“But you heard him, he borrowed that money for his business. He wasn’t doing nothing bad with it.”
“So he says,” Step said. “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take the word of a man who would trade out his little girl to wipe a debt away.”
“But he said—”
“He said! He said! He said! He was a piece of shit, Kenny!” The veins in Step’s head started to pound against his skull. “You heard what he said about his boys, that Boss would’ve sent us off to kill them if he didn’t make the deal with his daughter! Would you ever kill a kid?”
Kenny thought it over. “No.”
“Of course you wouldn’t! Neither would I!”
“But we also ain’t the only ones that do closeouts for Boss. He’s got a dozen other guys that do what we do for him in four different states. Maybe these other fellas ain’t as discriminating as me and you.”
Step continued to pace without addressing Kenny’s last point. “We gotta find out what’s going on, whatever the deal was. The only thing that appears to be clear is that Boss took Billy’s daughter. The question is for what.”
“That ain’t the only question,” Kenny said.
“What’re you talking about?”
“The question is how many times has Boss done this sort of thing, and how many folks have we closed out who wouldn’t take his deal?”
Step stopped pacing and stared at Kenny.
“I ain’t never thought we were doing the Lord’s work, Step, but I sure as hell never thought we were doing the devil’s, either. I got it in my head that we were closing out nefarious types, bad guys and gals who was into bad things. Now I got a feeling we may have blood on our hands, good blood, from decent people.”
Step sighed and nodded. “I got that feeling, too.” He stooped down next to Kenny. “Me and you are gonna figure this out. We’re gonna find out what’s going on, I can promise you that. No one can know about Billy. As far as we know, he just took off to clear his mind, went to see his boys in Nashville and Lexington. You understand? We might be able to use him to squeeze out some information from Boss, but only if Boss thinks he’s alive.”
Kenny nodded. “Ima tell you one thing for sure. Boss can kick me and knock me in the nose all he wants, but if he’s into something having to do with kids”—his eyes narrowed and his cheeks went flush—“Ima break his fucking neck.”
Chapter 25
Dani stood outside room 318 for a good two minutes before she mustered up the courage to knock. She’d wrestled with what to wear for the visit right up until the time she left her room. She was bound and determined to call on the state police in as official a capacity as possible. The only way she could do that was in her uniform.
But her uncle was in her head. There was a gaggle of missing kids and heartbroken mothers who’d been abandoned by the law in their communities. She owed it to them to put on the full-court press. She dug through her clothes, found a pair of jeans that had earned her many a free drink in her barhopping days, and a hickbilly tank top that Yankees referred to as a wife-beater. She looked at herself in the mirror and didn’t see a cop; she saw a pair of tits in painted-on jeans that had no business claiming to be a cop. Just before leaving the room, she put on her Baptist Flats SD jacket.
When a woman answered the door to 318, she was glad she had the jacket. Corporal Maggie Armstrong invited the slight girl with well-displayed cleavage into her room. Armstrong was sturdy and pear shaped. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and crow’s-feet stretched out of the corners of her eyes. She scanned Dani from head to toe.
Dani gave her name and occupation and stood beside the small round table next to the window.
“You’re a cop?” Armstrong asked.
Dani nodded, feeling like a complete idiot. She pulled her jacket closed.
The corporal directed her visitor to sit. “What brings you out this way, Deputy Savage?”
“I live here…That is to say, I live in the motel. I just thought I’d stop by and see if y’all needed anything.”
“I can’t think of anything,” Armstrong said, sitting in the only other chair in the room. “My partner left for Knoxville this afternoon, chasing a lead. I’ve got a few more interviews to run down in town.”
“Got anything solid to go on?”
The corporal shook her head. “Not a thing.” She shifted her gaze to the sink and then back to Dani. “You drink?”
The deputy was caught off guard by the question.
“I’m off duty, and I’ve had a long day of interviewing the biggest bunch of pricks I’ve ever come across…No offense.”
Dani laughed. “None taken. If there’s one thing this town isn’t short on, it’s pricks that’ll drive a good woman to drink.”
Armstrong quickly made her way to the sink and back. She set two plastic cups on the table and filled both with scotch. “It’s like the men around here didn’t get the memo that women aren’t just for breeding and housework anymore.” She savored a mouthful of her drink before swallowing.
Dani sipped from her cup and struggled to swallow the harsh liquid. “Hell, if livestock could give the menfolk babies, they wouldn’t even allow women in Baptist Flats.”
Armstrong laughed. “So, how’d you get a badge in this ass-backwards town?”
Dani hesitated before answering. Admitting that she was on the force because of nepotism made her feel even less like a cop, but it was a fact she couldn’t run from. “The old-fashioned way. My uncle’s the sheriff.”
Armstrong raised her cup in a toast. “Here’s to family and booze.”
The deputy acknowledged the toast and took another sip.
The two women sat in silence for a beat before the corporal finally spoke. “Married?”
“No. You?”
“Separated.”
“Oh…”
“Don’t say you’re sorry to hear it or some shit like that. Best thing that ever happened to me. John—my soon-to-be ex—he’s a fucking moron.”
“Kids?”
“No. Thank God! Once the divorce is final, I can rid myself of the bastard for good. You want to hear something weird?”
Dani nodded.
“He used to masturbate to my feet.”
There was a long pause before they both laughed.
“I’m not fucking kidding! He’d have me stand in the bathroom barefoot while he tossed one off in the shower!”
“Seriously?”
“Swear to the good Lord above. The first time he asked I thought he was kidding. I just about pissed myself when he started tugging away. What the hell? That’s not normal, right?”
Dani shook her head.
“I mean, I guess I’m supposed to be a supportive wife and not judge my husband for his sexual shit, but c’mon, he was milking his pecker while staring at my feet. I didn’t mind at first because I decided very early on that I didn’t have a whole lot of interest fucking some guy with a foot fixation. I just don’t. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. The more he pleasured himself to my size nines, the less interest he had in good old-fashioned marital relations, and that was just fine by me.” She topped off her scotch. “But you know, one day I realized I might not want to have sex with the guy I married, but I did want to have sex with somebody. Nice, normal, non-fetish lovemaking. I’m entitled to that, right?”
Dani raised her scotch. “Absolutely.”
They touched their plastic cups and drank.
“Eventually I fucked our lawn guy and filed for divorce. I probably should have done it the other way around, but I can’t uncrack that egg.” Armstrong laughed and held up her cup of scotch. “Listen to me. I’ve had too much to drink. I’m unloading my shit on a perfect stranger.”
Dani gave her a half smile. “Unload away.”
As if the deputy rang a bell, the corporal downed her drink and let the words soar out of her mouth. “I just don’t get…No, I do. I get it. It’s that fucking Internet and that goddamn mommy porn or whatever the shit they’re calling it these days. It’s got men thinking that the three percent of women who are into that perverted shit speak for all womankind. I like normal sex. I do. That’s it. I don’t want to be tied up or pissed on or dressed in some fucking animal costume. I just want to have sex, normal sex, sex that won’t lead to therapy. Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all.”
Savage Reckoning Page 10
