A Dark Path

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Shit.” Sheriff Benson leaned farther back in his chair. “I could have told you that.”

  “Sure. But who knew he was dumb enough to come to us?”

  “He volunteered to be a CI?” I asked.

  “Rath did a dime upstate in Crossroads. Hard time with the AB opened his eyes. Money is the only religion they bow to. He saw them dealing with, and to, people of all kinds of colors. All the master race BS about purity and God’s destiny tarnished pretty quickly—at least as far as the brotherhood went. Rath still thinks he’s something special. That’s why he took their money and came to us. He believes he’s smart enough to work both sides and come out all polished, silver armor again.”

  Chapter 9

  I came to realize that Sheriff Benson liked and trusted Agent Devon Birch. The sheriff is not a complicated man. He’s honest, he’s often vulgar—but never misogynistic, and he understands nuance in social situations. When he kicked back a little more in his big leather chair and put his feet up on the desk, it was like he was with family.

  Personally, I have a history with the feds that isn’t so easily overlooked. I was reserving judgement. “So God’s gift to the white race thinks he can use Aryan Brotherhood money to fund his new Caucasian utopia on the banks of Bull Shoals—and betray them to you.”

  Birch nodded like he knew what was coming.

  “Why wouldn’t he murder Tyrell Turner if the kid got in his way?” I finished.

  The nod transitioned to a head shake. “I don’t think any kind of violence is out of reach for Johnson. My issue is with the timing.”

  “What timing?”

  “You don’t know when the boy was murdered. Given the condition of the body, we may never know. But we know for certain that the fire to eliminate evidence was set early Sunday morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “Johnson Rath was with me from midnight until three that morning. He was in Springfield, at the federal building, briefing me.”

  “Nothing is ever easy.”

  “Sure it is,” Sheriff Benson said. His hat was hanging off the toe of his boot. “We just never notice the easy things.”

  “You have a hat rack, you know.” I pointed over my shoulder at the pole in the corner. “There’s no telling what’s on your feet.”

  “Fertilizer is good for the hair. Keeps it from getting too thin.”

  Birch chuckled.

  I said, “I don’t know what you’re laughing about. You could use a little fertilizer up top.”

  “Maybe,” he smoothed back his tight crop. “But cowboy hats and cow flop aren’t my style.”

  “You have a style?”

  “Speaking of style. . .” Sheriff Benson didn’t finish the question, but I knew the target he was aiming at.

  “I’m just trying something different. Is that okay with you?”

  “It’s fine with me. He bobbed the hat on his toe. “It’s about time, I say.”

  I couldn’t let that pass, and the conversation kept going for a while. Birch turned out not to have as thick a chip on his shoulder as I had thought. He was smart, and friendly, and—I came to realize—forbearing. The two men were allowing me to avoid asking the questions they knew I had to. There was a kindness to the talk that carried me to a natural pause. With a deep, long breath I asked, “What about my mother and Cherry Dando?”

  Birch looked at the hat hanging off the sheriff’s boot. The sheriff looked at me. His gaze was something that asked more of me than the bald question I had put out there. I knew what he wanted. Reaction. Hope or hate. I didn’t have either to give. Calling Carmen my mother, especially in the same breath as the name Cherry Dando left me hollowed. She had abandoned me. The hole she left grew up with me until the barren space was impossible to fill with honesty. Every feeling that sneaked in seemed like a lie.

  It was my friend and boss who broke the silence that followed. “Which one of us are you asking?”

  It wasn’t a casual question. The sheriff understood that—pointed at him—the query was filled with history and family. Asked of Devon Birch, agent of the DEA, it was a question of law, suspicion, evidence, and motive.

  I hesitated. Then, just for the smallest slice of time, I felt the same roil of fear, confusion, and loss that I experienced watching my mother drive away from me in a car loaded with all the things of her life. All the things but me. I understood then that I was wrong about the hole she left in me. There was one thing that fit it perfectly and honestly. Anger.

  My gaze remained on the sheriff for a beat before I turned to Birch. “Are they on your radar?”

  “They have been.” His answer came quick and ready. “Cherry Dando has a long association with Johnson Rath. He was involved with the Ozark Nightriders in the eighties. He’s more of an opportunist than a racist. According to Johnson, it was Dando’s idea to buy that piece of land. They’ve been arguing about it since.”

  “Arguing?” The sheriff asked.

  “It’s not very good land for building churches, or compounds, or much of anything. It’s prone to flooding any time the lake rises.”

  “Did they know about the graves that are there?” I asked.

  Birch looked at me and paused a second before saying, “I think they all knew.”

  “Meaning that Dando knew. And that Carmen knew.”

  “Your mother seems to have known. Johnson says Cherry and Carmen are looking for something.”

  “Silver.”

  “Silver?” Birch sounded confused. “You mean like silver, silver? A mine?”

  I explained about my conversations with Earl Turner, and the story behind the land that Johnson Rath had purchased with AB money.

  “You’re saying they believe those old stories about Yocum silver dollars and are willing to grave rob to get it?” The sheriff didn’t even try to keep the disgust out of his voice.

  “Wait,” Birch held up a hand. “What’s a Yocum silver dollar?”

  “That’s an Ozarks story. Most of it’s legend.” The sheriff held up two fingers an inch apart. “About this much is true.” He spread his hands as if he was showing off a trophy fish. “About this much is wishful thinking.”

  Birch looked lost.

  “There was a family up in Stone County. Some of the first white settlers. They made their own coins for trading.” Sheriff Benson explained. “No one knows exactly where the silver came from, but there are still people who believe it came from a lost silver mine started by the Spanish Conquistadors. If it’s out there, it’s covered by Table Rock Lake now. That doesn’t keep people from looking.”

  “There really were Yocum dollars?” Birch asked.

  “I’ve never seen one,” the sheriff answered. “But I’ve known many people who claimed they have.”

  “What’s it got to do with Tyrell’s murder?” I asked. “And how do we stop them from building a racist, militia compound on that graveyard?”

  Sheriff Benson reached for his hat and plucked it from his toe before putting his feet on the floor. “It’s not going to be as easy as I thought. I called the county historical society and the state Historic Preservation Office.”

  “And?” I prodded.

  He fiddled with his hat. “These things take time.”

  I thought about that and nodded. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?”

  “People keep telling me I’m a woman with options. I just realized that there’s another way of looking at it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m a woman with resources.”

  I excused myself and went right to the phone on my desk.

  As soon as I lifted the handset, I heard a footstep behind me. The sound set me on edge. Every nerve in my body tingled. When the next sound came, the liquid slosh of ice and soda in a thermal soda cup, the anxiety collapsed. When I turned, it was with a smi
le I couldn’t control. Not that I tried.

  “Detective Blevins,” I said. “You don’t have anything better to do than sneak up on me?”

  Billy grinned. The straw remained locked in even white teeth until he said, “Nope.” He looked with a brown-eyed gaze. “Nothing better to do. Nothing I’d rather do.”

  “Careful.” I inched closer. “People will talk.”

  “People talk.” He shrugged and set the big cup on my desk. “People always talk. And they are already talking.”

  “You’re not bothered by what they say?”

  “What do they say?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m asking.”

  “What makes you think I would know?” He came a little more toward me.

  Everything between us was in diminishing measurements. I liked the physical proximity. I was still a little fearful of the other kind. “Because you’re everyone’s friend.”

  Billy started to shake his head.

  “No.” I stopped him. “You know it’s true. Everyone loves you. No one calls a grown man Billy unless they like him. Especially a sheriff’s detective.”

  “I’ve always been Billy.”

  “That’s because you’re the favorite brother for the whole county. I’m the Hurricane, who blew in and shook things up. Riley Yates told me, more than once, that I was a loose cannon.”

  “And he told you that the sheriff’s department needed one of those to keep people on their toes.”

  I had a lot to say about that. And I was opening my mouth to do it when Billy stepped even closer. My breath caught. The words disappeared from my throat. His chest pressed against mine. He knew what he was doing. The smile on his face made no secret of the meaning behind his encroachment.

  “I need to make a call.” It was a foolish and feeble excuse. I wondered for an instant why I’d said it. Then I wondered why I thought I needed an excuse.

  “I asked your uncle to call Whilomina,” Billy said. “He did it this morning.”

  Congresswoman Whilomina Tindall was the resource I had been thinking of. She and my father had a relationship. They were going to be married before he was killed. “What did she say?”

  Billy smiled again.

  His expression made me painfully aware of his body pressed to mine. I wished I wasn’t so tall. It’s a silly thing—a small thing—sometimes I read the kind of novels about women who find romance where—and when—it is least expected. In those books, the main character is always shorter than her lover. She tilts up her head, or even gets up on her toes, to kiss her man.

  I was only a shade less than six feet tall. I wasn’t wearing boots, so I was shorter than Billy—not by much, but enough that my gaze was turned upward at that moment.

  “She said she would help. The graves would get federal protection—at least for a while.”

  “How?” That was a mind question, not a heart question. My heart was thinking of other things entirely.

  “She didn’t say. Only that it would be taken care of.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  That was a surprise. I eased back to ask, “Where?”

  Billy followed me keeping his chest against mine. “Some place special.”

  “I have a lot to do.”

  “There’s always a lot to do.”

  “But. . .”

  Billy interrupted me—but not with words. He put his face against mine, cheek to cheek. His nose touched my ear. Warm breath crawled down, under my collar. “You look wonderful,” he whispered. “But I think you look pretty amazing in the worst jeans. Or bare skin.”

  I swear to God, I blushed. I didn’t pull away because I didn’t want him to see my eyes turned to the floor in shame. It was wonderful that he would say that, but I had so many scars.

  “Stop it,” he said quiet but firm.

  “What?”

  “Stop thinking. Stop worrying.” He took me by the hand and pulled me along. For the first time in my life, I let a man simply take me along without questioning or fighting.

  * * * *

  Billy stopped his truck and killed the engine. I’d had no expectations when we started driving. It was a good thing—where we ended up would have been impossible to anticipate.

  I climbed down and stepped from the gravel road into manicured grass. Ahead of me were ordered rows of marble headstones. In the distance—it was impossible not to look—was the grave of my husband, Nelson Solomon.

  “Why are we here?”

  “For a picnic,” Billy answered. He grabbed a paper bag and a cooler from the bed of his truck.

  “A picnic?”

  “And talk. And…”

  “And?”

  “And I’m going to kiss you.” Billy walked past me and canted his head in the direction of a huge spreading oak—no more than thirty feet from Nelson’s grave. “Come on.”

  I followed. Slowly.

  Talking over his shoulder to me as he walked for the shade of the tree, Billy told me, “And I’m going to do it like I mean it. Like I don’t care what people see or think.”

  “Here?”

  He stopped and turned to face me. “I won’t have any secrets from your dead husband.” Billy turned and walked again. “Apparently, he won’t have any from me either.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked. Billy was already at the tree and setting his bag down. I hurried to catch up and asked again, “What do you mean, he won’t have secrets from you?”

  “Sit.” Billy emptied the bags, set out a blanket, and laid a box of fried chicken on top. He added a tub of potato salad and a tin of rolls. Opening up the cooler, he held out a carafe. “Iced tea. No soda.” He sat.

  I turned to look at Nelson’s grave. It was facing me as if the carved name and dates were eyes with questions.

  “I don’t understand this.”

  “Sit down and I’ll share it all.”

  I kept looking at the headstone.

  “He won’t mind. I promise.”

  That made me laugh—and laughing broke some kind of lock that I didn’t even know was holding my heart. “I know he won’t.” When I turned away from the grave to look at Billy I was smiling. I felt good. Better than I thought was right—but I wasn’t fighting it anymore. “How do you know?”

  Again, Billy gestured to the ground for me to sit. As I did, he pulled a card from his back pocket. “That lawyer friend of yours, Daggett. He brought this to me.” What he held up was a postcard of one of Nelson’s paintings. It was one of the many licensing issues that was left to me when my husband died.

  “Why?” It was impossible to keep the suspicious edge out of the question.

  “This.” He turned the back side of the card to me and handed it over.

  The card was dated less than two weeks before Nelson’s death, written in his handwriting. Under the date was a note:

  Billy Blevins,

  When the time comes—

  Care for her, with my blessing.

  I think she needs us both.

  Nelson Solomon.

  When I looked up from the card, my eyes were swimming with tears. Billy was chewing a chicken leg. “How can you eat?” I asked him.

  He winked, then swallowed his bite before smiling at me. It was pretty much a perfect smile. And I had the feeling he thought so too.

  “What?” I couldn’t help it. With my eyes still wet with tears, I smiled back.

  “The way I see it, there was only one thing keeping you from falling for me.”

  “Falling?”

  He leaned across the blanket. “Head. Over. Heels.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself for a man named Billy.”

  He shook his head letting the smile die. “No. But I’m sure of you.”

  We didn’t eat mu
ch of that picnic. We did talk a little more and we flirted a lot more. It was a wonderful and weirdly normal time. He kissed me. I kissed him. And everything seemed good in that little corner of the world. In the end Billy cleaned up while I went to Nelson’s grave.

  “Thank you,” I said, refusing to feel foolish about it.

  When I reached the truck it was repacked and Billy was leaning on the bed with his back to me. “There’s something else,” he said without turning to look at me.

  “About Nelson?”

  Billy shook his head slowly. He still kept his elbows on the truck and his face directed away from me. “About me.” He spread his hands open. “Us. Maybe. I guess. If you want it to be.”

  “Billy,” I spoke as carefully as if my teeth were broken glass my tongue needed to tip-toe over. “You’re not asking me to. . .”

  He laughed again, sounding like a man having a lot of fun. “Nope. Not that. Not here.”

  I was relieved that it wasn’t a proposal. I was also a little put off that he seemed to think it was so funny. “Just say it then.”

  “A bit ago you talked about how people call me Billy and how I’m everyone’s friend.” He turned to face me then, but kept leaning on the truck. It made me wonder if he needed something to prop him up.

  “I remember.”

  “You’re not really the ‘friends’ kind of woman.” It was a simple statement, without judgement. We’d had the conversation before. “I’m not saying you’re not friendly—only that you don’t put yourself out there or invite anyone in.”

  “That’s a way to say it.” I leaned on the truck too. “I’ve heard selfish, standoffish, closed off, and my favorite, ice bitch.”

  “I don’t want to make anything harder on you.”

  “How?”

  “The sheriff talked to me again about retiring. About me running for the job.”

  “Oh.” I pushed off the hot metal of the truck bed and stepped back into the grass looking at the green under my feet. The cemetery was one of the few places not burning up in the drought. “That’s your choice.” I kept looking at the green, moving the thick grass with my toe. “And I’ll be your biggest supporter.”

  “Don’t do that.”