by Parrish, PJ
Louis leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes against the pounding in his head. He straightened and looked back out the window. Fuck this. Enough was enough.
He pulled on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and Nikes. He started for the door then paused. He went back to the dresser and picked up his gun holster. He unsnapped the holster, checked his revolver and stuck it in the waist of his jeans.
Out in the hall, it occurred to him that Max could already be in the house. He pressed himself against the wall, scanning the darkness for movement. Bessie’s door was closed, muting the sound of her snores. Louis crept down the stairs, peered at the shadows in the dark parlor for movement, then edged to the front door. He unlocked the door and slipped onto the porch.
Clouds drifted across the moon and a few stars dotted the black sky. It was quiet, except for the rustle of dead leaves skittering across the street. The silver car was parked in front of Tinker’s. A bedroom light was on above the store.
The barrel of the gun against his ribs was cold, and he eased it out, clutching it in his hand. He had brought the gun along only to scare Max, but his gut was tight now with apprehension. He scurried across the street coming up behind the Monte Carlo, sliding behind a tree. Slowly he advanced toward the rear of the car, taking in short, tense breaths.
He crouched by a tree. This was nuts…he should call the station right now.
But he kept moving, stopping against another tree. A car squealed around the corner, disgorging a blast of rap music, then disappeared. Louis let out a breath.
He squinted at the car’s tinted windows, thinking back to the scene outside the station, wondering if Dodie had let Max take his gun home. He could make out a shadow in the driver’s seat.
Louis moved slowly to the rear of the car, squatting against the wheel well on the passenger side. He strained to hear a sound, a body moving against the seat or the click of the ignition. Nothing.
Creeping up to the passenger’s door, he lifted himself high enough to peek inside. Max was alone, his head turned toward Bessie’s house. The moonlight glinted off the gold keychain that dangled from the ignition. The green lights on the dash gave Max’s hand, which lay by his thigh, a ghostly look. Inches from the fingers lay the .45 automatic.
Louis sank back down against the car, tensing. Okay, Kincaid, he told himself, if you sit here long enough, he’ll hear you and shoot you. Move.
Holding his gun next to his ear, he sprang to his feet and yanked the door open. The dome light came on.
In one quick move, Louis grabbed Max’s gun and tossed it to the grass. With his left hand, he shoved his gun inside the car, pressing the tip to Max’s temple hard enough to force his head against the window.
“Okay, you son of a bitch—” Louis hissed.
Max did not move. For a split second, everything was absolutely still. Then a moth fluttered suddenly against the windshield. Louis jumped, his eyes darting to it, then back to Max. Louis held the gun steady, the tip digging deeper into Max’s skull. A second passed.
Then the smell came to him. He knew immediately what it was. The thick, metallic smell of blood.
Max did not move. Louis did not breathe. It was so fucking quiet.
Louis backed up from the car and leaned against the rear door, gulping in the cool night air.
Chapter 23
Louis folded his arms and sat down on the top step of Tinker’s store. He had called the Sheriff’s Office and returned to the Monte Carlo to wait.
How could he have been so stupid? God knows what evidence he had blown by his actions. Why didn’t he just call it in before coming down? Why did he have to be a fucking hero?
His eyes drifted back to Max’s lifeless body sitting behind the steering wheel. He suddenly thought of Abby, then rubbed the chill from his arms, looking around the deserted street. Most of the houses were dark, including Bessie’s. He heard the faint wail of the siren. As it screamed closer, windows up and down the street burst with lights. The squad car rounded the corner and screeched to a stop behind Max’s car. Mike emerged, gun drawn. Coming off the step, Louis motioned for him to put it away.
“Jesus, Louis,” Mike said, looking into the car from the open passenger’s door. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
The small hole in Max’s head was nearly invisible under his hair. There was very little blood, except for a heavy swath sprayed across the driver’s-side window, flecked with bits of brain tissue. The window was shattered in a starburst pattern.
“You think he killed himself?” Mike asked.
Louis shook his head. “The gun was on the seat, nice and neat,” he said.
Mike was staring at the bloody window. He spun away suddenly. Louis heard him vomit.
“Mike, you all right?” he called out after a few seconds.
Mike nodded, edging back to the car, his hand on his stomach.
“The neighborhood is going to get curious,” Louis said, motioning toward the people who were gathering on their porches. “You got tape in your car?”
Mike nodded again and went to his trunk. Louis heard a second siren and seconds later, Dodie pulled up in the Blazer. He was alone and in street clothes, the red cap on his head and the badge clipped to a plaid shirt pocket.
Without a word, Dodie walked to the Monte Carlo and looked at the shattered driver’s window, then went around and stopped at the open passenger’s door. He took out his flashlight and swept it over the inside. He stared at Max for a minute, hung his head, then withdrew.
Louis waited on the curb, watching the sheriff as he went to Mike and instructed him on roping off the scene. Then Dodie came back across Tinker’s grass and stopped by Louis, inhaling deeply.
“Jesus Christ, Louis,” he muttered.
People were standing in knots on the sidewalks, most dressed in bathrobes and pajamas, covered with jackets. Louis spotted Tinker standing on the porch of the store. Tinker held his eyes for a moment then went back inside.
“I’ll help Mike,” Louis said.
Dodie caught his arm. “No.”
“Why not?” Louis asked.
“I can’t let you touch this one.”
“But who’s going to do it? Who else do you have?”
“I reckon I can remember how to do a crime scene,” Dodie said testily.
Louis stared at Dodie. “But this is a homicide. I’m the investigator. It’s my job.”
Dodie’s eyes met his and his expression silenced Louis immediately. It wasn’t anger; it was disappointment, a deep disappointment that left Louis hollow.
“No, not this one,” Dodie said firmly.
“Sheriff, for chrissake—”
“Kincaid, that’s enough,” Dodie said loudly.
Mike looked over from where he was working. Louis took another deep breath, glancing around. A second squad car pulled up. Larry jumped out and skidded to a stop next to the Monte Carlo. He looked at Dodie and started over, but Dodie raised a hand. “Leave us be. Cutter. You help Mike.”
Larry stalked away. Louis turned back to Dodie. “Sheriff, I want to be a part of this,” he said. “It’s important to me.”
“You are a part of this,” Dodie said, walking back to the car.
“What?” Louis said. When Dodie didn’t answer, he followed him. “Sheriff, what are you talking about?” he demanded.
Dodie turned to face him. “Look, Kincaid, first the guy thinks you’re poppin’ his only daughter. Then I have to tell you to stop stalkin’ around his house. And not twenty-four hours ago, you threatened this man in front of me and half this town. Max Lillihouse made no damn secret about how he felt about you. Or you about him.”
“Sheriff, there was nothing between Abby and me—”
“Don’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t!” Louis caught himself, taking a deep breath. “I can’t believe you’re buying into their bullshit. I thought you were different. I thought—”
Dodie clicked on his flashl
ight, shining it on the .45 on the grass. “How that get there?”
“I threw it there.”
“Why?”
“So the bastard wouldn’t shoot me with it.”
Dodie faced him. “Did you come out here intending to shoot Max?”
Louis was so shocked he had to take a step back to balance himself. “What?”
“You heard me. When you left that house, carrying your weapon, did you intend to shoot him?”
Louis stared at Dodie, dumbfounded. “Is that what this was about? You think I killed him?”
Dodie looked away. He just stood there for a moment, surveying the scene, hands on his hips.
Louis shivered. “Jesus, Sheriff, I just wanted him to leave me alone. I didn’t shoot him.”
Dodie’s hand moved to Louis’s shoulder and for a second, Louis could only stare. Dodie’s face was slack, his eyes forlorn. “Louis, let’s take a walk here,” he began.
Louis jerked away. “I didn’t kill the son of a bitch!”
Larry and Mike looked over. Dodie glanced around at the crowd and again reached for Louis. “Nothin’ has been assumed yet. But you know as well as me suspects are just that—suspects. Don’t mean nothin’.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“Kincaid, calm down.”
Louis took several quick steps away, walking a tight circle. “I don’t believe this…”
Larry’s voice came through the air like a knife. “Start believin’ it, Kincaid.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Louis shouted.
Dodie put a hand on Louis’s chest. “That’s enough. You’re outta line here.”
“You believe I did this!” Louis said.
“I don’t know what I believe yet. Least not till we gather the evidence.”
Louis’s eyes hardened. “Well, you damn well better do a paraffin on me,” he said angrily.
“You know we ain’t got a kit.”
Louis stared at Dodie for a moment then laughed. He laughed, raising his head and arms helplessly to the dark sky. “I…don’t…fucking…believe this.”
The sheriff’s face was frozen with anger. “Listen, Kincaid, I could send you to a goddamn lab if I really wanted to.”
“Good idea! Brilliant! Send me to Jackson! I need to get away for a while anyway!”
“This ain’t no fuckin’ joke here, Kincaid,” Dodie said, his voice low. “Now you calm down quick, or I’m gonna have to haul your ass off to the station.”
Louis turned his back to Dodie. In a rush, everything came surging back. Max’s taunting, bloodshot eyes…Abby’s beaten face…Earl’s lifeless body…Eugene’s sad, lonely eyes…All of it flooded back, and as it faded, all Louis could see was Max’s gun, lying there in the grass, covered with his own prints.
He fell softly against a tree. “I didn’t do this,” he whispered.
Dodie held his gaze steady. “Go home, Louis.”
Louis shook his head, biting back his response. It wasn’t worth it. He pushed off the tree and walked across the grass, dipping under the tape. Dodie’s voice cut through the darkness.
“Kincaid!”
Louis turned, pausing.
“Leave your weapon,”
Louis jerked it from his belt and, taking a step back, slapped it into Dodie’s open palm. Without another word, he turned abruptly and stalked across the street to Bessie’s house. He jerked open the screen and shoved open the door. It hit the wall behind it with a bang.
Bessie was standing in a robe by the stairs. “Louis! Louis!” she called to him as he hurried by her. “Louis, is you in trouble? Who is that out there?”
He stopped at the top of the stairs. “Max Lillihouse. He’s dead.”
“What? He’s dead? Abigail’s daddy? Oh Lordy, Louis, why’d you go and do a thing like that?”
“I didn’t kill him!” Louis said loudly. He paused, seeing Bessie’s shocked face. “I’m sorry, Bessie.”
She stared up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “I believe you, Louis, I surely do.”
Louis looked back at the lights outside. “You might be the only one.
Back in his room, he turned on the lamp and sat down on the edge of the bed, head in hands. God, what had he gotten himself into? He was in deep trouble and there was no one out there to help him. He would have to save himself.
To do that, he would have to incriminate someone else in Max’s death, and the first person who came to mind was Abby. In his mind, he placed a gun in her hand and tried to imagine her blowing her father’s brains out. He knew what sometimes happened to women who were beaten, how the weak could be pushed to do the unthinkable against a tormentor. He shook his head. No, it just didn’t feel right. Emotional, high-strung, immature— whatever she was, Abby wasn’t capable of killing someone.
He rose and paced the room, walking to the window. He watched Dodie directing Mike and Larry. Suddenly a white Cadillac swung onto the street and squealed to a stop at an angle against the curb. Kelly got out and walked rigidly to Dodie.
Louis bristled. That son of a bitch was involved in this somehow. He just knew it. Hell, even Maisey knew it.
Maisey…
Louis went out to the phone in the hall, grabbed the little phone book and looked up her number. He dialed it and waited.
watching the red-and-blue lights swirl against the lace curtain on the door downstairs.
“Hello, goddamn you, whoever you are,” she said hoarsely.
“Mrs. Kelly, it’s Detective Kincaid.”
“What…Who? Shit, it’s three in the morning.”
“I am so sorry to call you so late.”
There was a short pause. “Is Walter dead?”
“No.” He heard something fall and crash and Maisey’s muttered obscenity. “Mrs. Kelly, was Walter home tonight?”
“Hell, I’ve been asleep since ten or eleven. Why do you ask? What’s happened?”
“Max Lillihouse is dead.”
“Oh God,” she said softly. He heard her cough and adjust the phone. “Officer, I don’t know if Walter was here tonight or not.”
Louis leaned against the wall. “Thank you, Mrs. Kelly. Go back to sleep.”
“Officer…”
“Yes?”
“Max was a good friend, too.”
“I know, I’m sorry I was so abrupt.”
“Not to me, you idiot. To Walter.”
“You mean as kids.”
“Yes.”
“I heard that already, from Ethel Mulcahey.”
“Ethel’s a nice lady.” Maisey said. She paused. “How many do you think are left?”
Louis found the remark odd. “Left?”
“Witnesses to your lynching. How many do you think are left?”
“I don’t know. I know there were two for sure.” Louis looked back at the curtain. “Three, maybe.”
“Officer, do you think Walter is killing them off?”
Louis hesitated. It was an odd question coming from a wife. Maybe he had read Maisey wrong and her disdain for Walter was just a ruse to feel him out on his intentions. No, that was paranoid. His instincts were telling him that Maisey Kelly hated her husband and that what she had told him was the truth. But if Walter was the killer, steadily eliminating anyone who could bring him down, then who was next?
“Officer, are you there?”
How many more lynching witnesses were there? And why weren’t they all getting as nervous as George had been? Unless there were no others.
“Officer?”
Earl’s death had been made to look like an accident. George’s murder was a faked burglary. And now Max was dead, his murder carefully constructed to also make it look like something it wasn’t.
Louis’s stomach began to knot up. Shit. He had walked right into it. He had been set up.
Louis felt a trickle of sweat make its way down his back. The person who had done this knew how Louis felt about Max. The person also knew Max would come here again. Louis hung his head. And stupid
ly, I tied it all up in a neat package by going out there tonight. Dodie was right, oh man, was he right.
He suddenly realized Maisey had hung up on him. He replaced the phone and went back to his room. He saw the FBI evidence envelope, picked it up and went back to sit on the bed. He dumped the necklace, book, report, and photocopy out on the quilt and stared at them.
It was here, somewhere in these things. He just had to start over and look at everything again. He had to go over it all again, a million times if necessary, until he found it.
He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and picked up the report. Back at the office, once he had read the news about the medallions not matching, his frustration had led him to ignore the rest of the report. Now he read it carefully, going over each word.
The original medallion was estimated to be about 122 years old. The embossing showed a sword, a Confederate flag, and the small cross. The one in the photocopy was blurry but showed the scales of justice. They definitely did not match.
Louis kept reading. The book’s title was 100 Years of American Poetry, Volume II. It was originally published in 1934. Damn, here was something new: The FBI lab also had been able to lift two prints from inside the old book. Talk about miracles!
Louis flipped through the pages, looking for a list of possible suspects based on the print, praying the lab had gone to those lengths. They had. Louis knew that print comparisons were based on a complex point system and that any names were merely possibles. But this was more than he would expect for such a poor-quality print. He scanned the list. Jesus, there were more than twenty possible matches.
Then he smiled. There was Earl Mulcahey’s name.
The rest were strangers to him. But it was Earl’s print that was important, positive proof that he had been present at the lynching of Eugene Graham—or at the very least, that he had touched the poetry book found with the bones.
The thought brought a sigh and Louis lowered the paper, taking a second to enjoy the moment. In the long run, it meant little to the Eugene Graham case. But at least it would help Leverette. This would show that Earl could have had an enemy, someone who thought he was enough of a threat to kill him.
Louis turned his attention to the second print. It was of better quality but not good enough to make an exact match. Who did that one belong to—George Harvey, Walter Kelly? Louis flipped back to the first page of the report. The list of possibles for this print contained only seven names, none of whom he recognized. Damn. He had wanted to see Walt Kelly’s name there. Kelly must have been printed at some point for his civil-service record, so if the second print was his, he would have shown up on this list. Louis still had nothing concrete to connect Kelly with Eugene Graham.
