Deep South

by Nevada Barr

  “What for?”

  “Just do it, please.” He did and Anna was satisfied it was closed and latched. She had no desire to be shot by the roadside because somebody got a weapon out of the trunk.

  They were complying. Anna’s adrenaline level was returning to normal. It was settling into a routine traffic stop, and she let herself relax a little. She joined the driver at the front of the Thunderbird, putting him between her and the two by the back bumper so she could see all three of them.

  “Could I see your driver’s license?” she asked, managing to sound almost pleasant. He fished it out of his hip pocket and opened his wallet to show it to her. “Take it out of the plastic.”

  Anna read the number into the radio and asked the dispatcher to run it. Jackson Doolittle. Anna slipped the license into her shirt pocket.

  “Look, I know I was speeding but please don’t give me a ticket.” Doolittle was whining around his wad of Juicy Fruit.

  “Have you got a lot of tickets?”

  “A couple.”

  “Five-eight-zero, seven hundred,” the radio interrupted.

  “Go ahead,” Anna said.

  “No wants, no warrants. Seven prior speeding tickets. One DUI arrest when he was sixteen and another when he was nineteen. No record of a conviction.”

  “How much have you had to drink tonight?” Anna asked.

  “Maybe a couple of beers a hour or two back.”

  “Smoking dope?”

  “No, ma’am. I never touch that stuff.”

  “Can I look in your car?”

  Horror flickered across his face, then he said: “Sure. You can look if you want to. You won’t find anything.”

  Of course she would find something. Beer for starters, she’d smelled it and seen a dark liquid stain growing on the floorboards on the passenger side where it spilled when he stashed it. She’d find whatever “Mike” ducked down to hide when they first pulled over. It never ceased to amaze her that these bozos almost always said “yes” to a search. Maybe the idea was if they said an officer could search, that officer would think the car was clean and wouldn’t bother. Not likely, given the givens. A firm “no” and she’d be stuck waiting for drug dogs—if there were any to be had around here—to sniff the car for a hit to give her probable cause. Chances are, before that she’d get tired of the game and let him off with a ticket. Now she could look to her heart’s content.

  “Who are your buddies?” she asked.

  Thinking she’d decided not to search his car, Mr. Doolittle was anxious to make friends. “The guy in the blue shirt’s my brother, Sean, and that’s Mike Posey. We all work out at the lumberyard.”

  Mike Posey, Danni Posey’s brother. No wonder he looked familiar. But for a five o’clock shadow and an ugly turn around the mouth, he had the same pretty face as his sister.

  “Mr. Doolittle, could you join your brother and Mr. Posey at the rear of the car?”

  “Why? What are you going to do?” He was alarmed that the search was back on.

  “I just want to take a quick look. It’ll just take a minute,” Anna lied soothingly.

  Apparently, unaware he could snatch back his permission and not even have to tell her the reason he’d changed his mind, he walked to where the others waited.

  Anna started on the driver’s side. A bottle of Bud had been shoved under the seat. That which hadn’t spilled onto the floor was still cold. Another bottle, open and cold, was shoved into a pocket on the passenger-side door. Anna set them on the roof of the car. “Mr. Doolittle,” she said cheerfully. “Do you mind if I look in the ashtray?” The ashtray was closed and could be a gray area in court if she opened it without permission.

  Mike Posey started drifting out from the rear of the Thunderbird and into the road.

  “Move back with the others,” Anna said. The adrenaline level in her blood shot back up.

  Posey kept drifting, hands at his sides, palms toward her in a non-menacing gesture. Half his face was stark in the headlamps from her patrol car, the other half in the shadow. He was smiling.

  Anna took the radio from her belt. “Five-seven-eight, five-seven-nine, this is five-eight-zero requesting backup.”

  Posey hesitated. The smile faltered but did not fail. Seconds crawled by and Anna began to be afraid. Finally her radio came to life. “Five-eight-zero, Barth and I are at Mount Locust. We’re headed your way.”

  Mount Locust was one of the historical sites on the Trace, a stand—the historical term for an inn—where for twenty-five cents travelers could get a bowl of commeal and sleep in relative safety from bandits. Mount Locust was thirty minutes south of where Anna’d pulled over the Thunderbird. She knew it. The boys knew it. Mike Posey’s smile hardened into place.

  “Fan out,” he said to the other two.

  “Mike—” Jackson Doolittle tried.

  “Fan out,” Posey ordered. Clearly he was the backbone of the group.

  “Stay where you are,” Anna said. The brothers stopped but Posey waved at them, and they began to move away from the car, spreading out on the grassy knoll to the west where they could flank Anna.

  She unsnapped the keeper on her gun. In all her years as a park ranger, she had never so much as drawn her weapon in a routine interaction with a park visitor. The belief that it was overkill clacked through her mind, and as she pulled the semi-automatic from the leather holster, she felt somehow melodramatic. She didn’t aim it but held it down by her thigh, muzzle toward the ground.

  “I’m asking you to move back to the rear of your vehicle,” she said quietly. “Sean, Jackson, do it now.”

  Posey countermanded her orders. “Keep moving. What’s she going to do? Shoot us all?”

  The Doolittle brothers didn’t continue to circle, but they didn’t go back to the Thunderbird either. Jackals, Anna thought. They would feed on the carcasses Posey left behind.

  Anna raised the nine-millimeter, aligning the iridescent green dots on the night sight to either side of Mike Posey’s nose. “I don’t want to shoot you all,” she said. “I only want to shoot you, Mike.” At the moment she really did want to blow the man’s brains out, and he heard it in the ice beneath the words. He stopped, took half a step back.

  Anna’s radio bleated to life. “Five-eighty, five-seventy, I’m on my way.” Steve Stilwell. He was even farther away than her own rangers but had sense enough not to give his location over the radio.

  “Get down on the ground,” Anna said to Posey.

  Posey weighed the impending arrival of backup, the abandonment of his fellows, and Anna’s willingness to shoot him. Abruptly his manner changed. “Hey, lady, we were just having fun. No harm, no foul.” He smiled charmingly. “You didn’t have to pull a gun. Lord, what’d you think we were going to do?”

  “On the ground.”

  “Fuck.” Posey got on his hands and knees. “I’m not laying on the goddamn road. I could get run over.”

  Anna could live with that. “Down. Now.”

  A rushing in the bushes to her left let her know the Doolittle boys had rabbited. They’d be picked up easily enough. She had the car, the driver’s license, their home address and where they worked.

  “Your pals have deserted you,” she said. “Put your hands in the small of your back.”

  While Anna cuffed and searched him, Mike Posey outlined his defense. They’d been confused. Anna’d gotten scared and drew down on them for no reason. The Doolittles had narrowly escaped. She’d endangered Posey’s life a second time forcing him to lie in the road. She invaded his person when searching him, fondled his private parts. He would bring a lawsuit against her. He would get her fired.

  Anna didn’t respond. Engaging was always a mistake. When she could get a word in edgewise, she read him his rights.

  During confrontations over the years, she’d heard Posey’s line of reasoning more than once. This time it just might work, she realized uneasily. She’d have to write a report justifying unholstering her weapon, justifying pointing
it at an unarmed man. Neither Posey nor the two brothers had made verbal threats. “All” they had done was refuse to stay in the one place. If anybody wanted to hang her out to dry, buy into the scared-woman-overreacts story, Anna was going to spend a lot of time defending herself to the brass.

  Lest the vile Posey have additional fuel for his fires, she was careful to cuff him just right, ease him into the patrol car and buckle his safety belt. There at least would be no bruises, should he move on to a police brutality charge.

  “What are you charging me with?” he demanded as she slid behind the wheel. “I got a right to know. I don’t know what you Yankees do, but it’s still America around these parts.”

  Anna radioed dispatch, gave her beginning mileage, and told them she was en route to the Port Gibson Sheriff’s Department with a prisoner. That done, she radioed Stilwell. He was almost to Rocky Springs. He must have broken half a dozen land speed records on his way down from Ridgeland. Anna appreciated it. Stilwell would stay by the Doolittles’ car till she returned. Then she called Randy Thigpen. “Did you copy? I’m en route to Port Gibson.”

  “Ten-four,” Thigpen returned. “I’m about fifteen miles south at mile marker twenty-four. Barth’s right behind me.”

  “I got a right to know what you’re charging me with,” Posey demanded belligerently.

  That question had been nagging at Anna. In her search of his person she hadn’t turned up much: a pocketknife, a pack of Dorals, a receipt from the Burlington Coat Factory for a pair of pants. Tucked in the cigarette pack was a joint of marijuana, half smoked. Barely a misdemeanor. Mentally she’d been sorting through some catchall charges that could be used when a citizen was being non-specifically alarming and wretched: drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, drunk in public, obstructing justice, failure to obey a lawful order. The one she thought she could make stick was the weakest.

  “Refusing to obey a lawful order, interfering with Agency Functions and possession of a controlled substance.”

  In the fractured slide show manufactured by her high beams, the country looked suddenly unfamiliar. It was virtually impossible to get lost on the Trace, either one was headed north or one was headed south. Anna was sure she was headed south. She was looking for the turnoff at mile marker forty-three, the shortcut to the Port Gibson Sheriff’s Department, and not finding it. A mile marker flashed into view and she realized what had happened. During the high-speed chase they had traveled considerably farther than she thought. The Thunderbird had pulled over less than three miles from the ranger station.

  Just as she got her bearings, she was thrown for another loop. The ranger station came into view. Parked in front were two NPS patrol cars: Randy Thigpen and Barth Dinkin. Less than two minutes had elapsed since she’d radioed canceling her call for backup. There was no way short of teleportation that the two rangers could have gotten from mile marker twenty-four to mile marker thirty-nine and the ranger station in that amount of time.

  They’d been there all along. Sitting it out, refusing to come to her assistance. Anger so sudden and hot that Anna was surprised her hair didn’t catch on fire swept over her. When it had burned down, she was left with a lost feeling that threatened to dissolve into tears. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

  ★ 11 ★

  So, Mike, you think the insurance company is going to pay up on that situation with your sister?” Anna asked to spread the rottenness around a bit.

  “We paid for it. That money’s ours.”

  If there was a deep and abiding grief over the loss of Danielle, it didn’t show in his voice. Anna took note of that and of the use of “we.”

  “Danielle was a model?” Anna asked.

  “Danni was going nowhere fast. I told Ma that when she took out the policy. Looks like I was right.”

  So Mike knew his sister’s face was insured, and from the sound of it, there was no love lost between the siblings.

  “You don’t seem too broken up about it,” Anna said to see what would happen.

  “Maybe Danni had it coming,” Mike snapped back.

  Anna thought of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven: We’ve all got it coming, kid. “How so ‘had it coming’?” she asked.

  “I never said that,” he recanted. “You’re the one found her, aren’t you? You have it in for us Poseys. Don’t think I ain’t tellin’ that to my lawyer. You’re all blundering around with your heads up your butts. I know who killed Danni. Ma’s not half so crazy as people think.”

  Anna sorted through the apparently unconnected statements. Was Mrs. Posey not crazy because she’d insured her daughter, then killed her for the money? Or was she not crazy because she knew who’d committed the murder? If she knew, why not tell? Because her own son did it? Because she hired it done? Because she—or he—wanted to wreak her own brand of vigilante justice?

  “All right,” Anna said equitably. “I’ll bite. Who killed your sister?”

  “You’d better ask me nice. You sure as hell ain’t finding out by yourself, and if I find him first, I’m settin’ the dogs on that boy. All you’ll find are tiny pieces.”

  The rearview mirror was angled so Anna could keep an eye on her prisoner. She watched him now. Alcohol, fatigue or indifference had cloaked his features since he’d abandoned the angry bravado that had gotten him arrested. Talk of who’d killed his sister brought a spark of that anger back to his eyes. Anna could be wrong, but it seemed an anger born of ego, not grief.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, sensing that playing nice would get her nowhere with young Mr. Posey.

  Posey turned out to be the kind who can’t shut up. She drove and he berated her for not really wanting to know who killed his sister because they weren’t rich, because she was a Yankee, because she was a Fed, because the Poseys were white and she was a bleeding heart. Before he got around to accusing her of dereliction of duty because she was Scotch-Irish and a Pisces, he wound down.

  “I don’t have a name yet,” he finally admitted when he couldn’t get a rise out of her. “But I’ll get it.”

  Posey seemed oblivious to the fact that he could be considered a suspect in his own sister’s murder. Whether it was innocence, arrogance or stupidity, Anna had no idea.

  Three patrol cars, with lights aglitter, made a show on the roadside when Anna got back to Jackson Doolittle’s automobile.

  The doors of the Thunderbird were open and one exceedingly large rump protruded from the driver’s side. Barth Dinkin was studying a number of items lined up like trophies on the trunk lid. Stilwell leaned on the hood of his car, arms across his chest, watching the proceedings with a slightly amused air.

  Anna parked on the opposite side of the road and crossed over to join Steve where he loitered. At her arrival, Randy extricated his bulk from the other vehicle and walked importantly over. Like many heavy men, he leaned back to compensate for the weight of his gut, digging the heels of his shoes into the soft grassy earth.

  “Glad to see you made it,” Anna said dryly.

  “It’s a problem on the Trace. Understaffed. Turns out you’re always fifty miles from wherever you gotta be,” Thigpen lied without a tremor.

  Practiced, Anna thought and, in his own mind, for his own ends, justified. So mad she was spitting tacks, Anna’d never known precisely what that meant, but she did now. She could feel their pointy ends poking her tongue, a metallic taste in her mouth. She felt she could spit words like a pneumatic nail gun and nail Thigpen to the nearest tree. Instead she said: “Find anything?”

  “A little of everything. Not enough of anything for a good case. These boys around here are a little wild, but most of them are harmless.”

  Anna let the dig pass unremarked and walked over to the rear of the Thunderbird. Barth was mumbly and fidgety and wouldn’t meet her eye. He, at least, had the decency to be ashamed of himself.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, and sounded more or less sincere.

  “Why, thank you, Barth.” Anna clapped him on the s
houlder just to watch him flinch. “I feel a whole lot safer knowing you’re looking out for me.” A creepy cold edge that was making even her twitchy had come into Anna’s smile. She changed the subject. “What’ve you got?”

  “A couple six-packs. Half a dozen empties, three unopened, three opened, partially consumed. There were a couple roaches in the ashtray. No stash. They weren’t selling.”

  “Too bad,” Anna said unsympathetically.

  “This little bitty vial,” Barth pointed to a clear glass screw-top container about the size of his thumb and half filled with white powder.

  “Probably coke,” Anna offered. “Did you field-test it?”

  They hadn’t. Barth was on the verge of admitting something—probably that it had been so long since they’d field-tested suspicious substances they’d forgotten how—when Randy jumped in with: “We figured you’d want to do that. You being the boss and all.”

  Anna stared at him long enough he began to shuffle his feet then said, “Nah. You go ahead. I’m off duty. I’ll watch.”

  For a couple beats, Thigpen was nonplussed, then said: “Well, our kits are pretty out of date...”

  “Ah. I didn’t know those chemicals had expiration dates.”

  Some people might have hopped in with an offer to do the honors just to pour oil on the waters. Not Steve Stilwell. He appeared to be enjoying himself.

  “Leave it on my desk,” Anna said. Anger fading, the game lost its appeal. “What else?”

  “Two guns,” Barth said. “A thirty-eight under the driver’s seat, a twenty-two squirrel gun in the trunk. That’s about it.”

  It wasn’t much. Not enough to hold anybody on. Anna’d probably use it as leverage to see if she could scare one of the Doolittle boys into telling her something interesting about Mike Posey. Whether she could prove it or not, he’d meant to hurt her and, with the exception of Stilwell, every single man mixed up with the traffic stop—Randy, Barth and the Doolittles—had been prepared to let him. Sometimes it was best if a girl went well-armed.