One Drop of Blood

by Thomas Holland

  “It’s Kel…Drink…people call me Kel—most people, that is. Good to meet you too.”

  “We’re going to take Mr. McKelvey to the old Wallace-Elmore Cemetery,” the old woman said as she bent down to the base of her desk and retrieved her handbag. “Ready, Mr. McKelvey?”

  Gladys Hayden was her name. She had never introduced herself, but when Kel finally ran out of polite ways to address her without knowing her name—Ma’amwould only work so long—he’d simply come out and asked. She hadn’t taken offense. She didn’t seem to be the type to take offense easily.

  Quiet grace.

  She was distant kin to both the Wallaces and the Elmores, she’d told him as she was locking the door to the library. As it turned out, she also had known Kel’s father and grandparents, and she too had reckoned his father to be about the most handsome man she had ever known. Kel often heard that, and certainly it was true, his father had been incredibly good looking both as a young man and when mature. Kel also was aware that no one ever seemed compelled, even by politeness, to complete the statement with “and you look just like him.”

  As they left the library, Gladys tried to convince Kel to ride in the front seat next to young Drink while she sat in the rear. “So you can see better,” she said. He declined. Drink’s car was a semirestored 1968 green Pontiac Le Mans with a peeling cream-colored vinyl top, and the rear seat was a bit of a squeeze. He couldn’t imagine the old woman being accordioned into it without the use of a good lubricant, a sturdy shoehorn, and an appalling lack of manners on his part.

  The sun was almost straight up and had a mean late-summer glower to it. As they headed south out of town, they passed the light-blue, spider-legged water tower that proclaimed Split Tree to be the “Home of the Delta Devils.” Assorted colors of spray paint also documented various affairs of the heart amidst the signatures of a half-dozen recent senior classes. Kel leaned forward between the two bucket seats, as much to talk as to wring the most out of Drink’s weak air-conditioning system. He was just about to inquire about the Wallace-Elmore Cemetery when Drink abruptly hit the brakes to slow the car.

  “Shit,” Drink said, his eyes focused on something in his rearview mirror.

  “Bradford Wayne,” Gladys scolded. “Language.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Drink responded habitually. His eyes stayed on his mirror. “It’s just that son of a…that fat little Jimbo Bevins and his radar gun.”

  Kel swung around in his seat and looked out the back window. He could see a Locust County sheriff’s car swing in behind Drink’s Le Mans. “How fast were you goin’?”

  “Not too, but that don’t matter with that little bastard.”

  “Bradford Wayne,” Gladys reasserted patiently. “Tend to your driving and leave Deputy Bevins alone.” She touched her grandson’s thigh gently as punctuation.

  Drink looked at the old woman and then back at the reflection in his mirror. “Yes ma’am. Let’s just hope he’s not in one of his moods.”

  Kel watched the sheriff’s cruiser slow and turn off onto a side street. He swung back to the front and leaned forward between the seats. “He turned off. I suspect you’re okay.”

  “Hope so,” Drink replied.

  Kel thought about his encounter with Jimbo at the courthouse. “The deputy havemoods? What kind of moods?”

  “He can be a goddamn psycho,” Drink replied. “That’s what kind of moods.”

  “Bradford Wayne,” Gladys cautioned once more, then she took a breath and conceded the point. “Jimbo Bevins was always a bit…complicated. Even as a little boy.”

  Drink laughed. “Complicated, Grandma?” He looked into the rearview mirror and caught Kel’s eyes. “That boy can go from zero to asshole like that,” he said as he snapped his fingers.

  “Complicated,” Gladys repeated in a tone that suggested the topic should be changed.

  The three rode in silence for a few minutes. Kel thought about the almost goofy Jimbo that Levine had introduced him to and the menacing Deputy Bevins that had pinned him to the door frame in the courthouse and how his eyes flashed hot and cold. From zero to asshole.

  Gladys Hayden was the first to break the silence. She half-turned in her seat and caught Kel’s attention, and then began, as if there had been no interruption, to explain that the cemetery they were headed toward was on land that once belonged to the Wallace family—one of the first to settle Locust County in the early nineteenth century. Hard-bent Scotch-Irish who’d moved west from the Duck Hills of Tennessee to the flatlands of eastern Arkansas. Early on, however, the Wallaces had bent to the habit of having an unusually high number of girl children, many of whom married into another old Locust family, the Elmores, who sired more than the usual quota of sons. The result was mathematically predictable, and over the years the number of Wallace surnames showing up on tombstones declined in favor of Elmore markers, and the cemetery, which had first been known as Wallace, became Wallace-Elmore, and finally, by the early 1900s, was known simply as the Elmore Cemetery.

  It wasn’t a long drive. Maybe ten miles due south of town along a shimmering dark-gray ribbon of asphalt. The road—like most in the county—didn’t have much call to deviate from straight, and clumps of hot-weather wildflowers like yarrow and black-eyed Susans were crowding the shoulder like children waiting for a parade. Kel spotted it through the windshield while they were still several miles out; a small, raised spit of tall grass and a couple of mature trees surrounded by a glass-flat sea of green and gray-brown cotton plants; a few early bolls starting to crack open. It was exactly like the little, half-forgotten cemeteries he’d passed on the drive down from Memphis.

  Drink braked to a stop alongside the road. They all waited while the trailing brown dust cloud drove on past them and started to settle before opening the car doors. The cemetery was about seventy-five yards into the field, and Kel squinted into the southern sun in hopes of spotting a road or path leading out to it. There was none, but as he turned to speak to Gladys, he saw that Drink was threading his way down the furrows with his grandmother locked in close tow. Kel shrugged and followed.

  From the road, the cemetery looked overgrown and unkempt, covered with ragweed and Johnson grass and poke, but as he got closer he saw that the tall grass and weeds ringed the island like the rough around a putting green, but on the interior, on the slight mound, the grass was recently mown and the weeds were well-controlled. Kel eyed the tall weeds warily, trying to gauge the magnitude of the dose of chiggers that he was about to inoculate himself with. Drink and Gladys seemed unconcerned as they charged through, parting the tall grass with their forearms as if they were wading into the surf. Kel did likewise.

  There were at least three dozen gravestones visible and no discernible organization. Headstones were clumped into little pockets of three or four. None were standing up straight; all were canted to one side or another, resembling teenagers hanging out at the mall. Kel, lacking a better plan, started with the clump nearest to him. The markers were old and weathered almost slick—Matilda Wallace and Captain Wallace and two smaller unreadable markers, all four seeming to date to the 1840s and 1850s. He walked to the next cluster, and the next, and the next. Elmores, a scatter of Wallaces, a Davidson, a couple of Rumseys. Some were surnames he’d heard his grandparents and father mention as a child. He noticed that Gladys was on her hands and knees weeding around a large limestone marker for Peter Elmore. Drink was leaning against a shagbark hickory tree, patiently watching his grandmother work but careful not to disclose any inclination to assist her.

  Kel continued looking. Two more Elmores, another Wallace next to the lone McKelvey whose entry he’d seen in the book, the one that Gladys had told him on the drive down was no discernible relation to him but represented another sprig of the McKelvey tree out of North Carolina. He remembered hearing of them as well. The Bogus McKelveys, his grandfather had always called them, as if their claim on the name was somehow invalid.

  He took out a handkerchief and was blotting the
sweat off his nose and eyes when he noticed an area to the side that seemed to have received less attention recently. As he walked over to it, he saw that the weeds were thicker and wickered and laced with briars and step-lightlies. There were at least three stones amid the overgrowth, at least three that were still semiupright and visible; two were older—from the late 1800s—and he could make out the name Wallace on both of them from where he stood. The third marker was younger in appearance and cleaner and cut more like a military stone. A large shaft of poke was growing at the base of the marker, its stem the thickness of Kel’s wrist, and its glossy leaves partially obscured the chiseled face. Kel high-stepped into the growth and pulled the leaves back.

  Luke 15:31.

  It was midafternoon when Drink and Gladys dropped him off back at the library where he retrieved his rental car. He thanked them profusely, Gladys in particular, and she responded by sending her regards to his mother. She’d also smiled strangely and wished him luck in his research for his friend. The whole ride back into town he’d been aching to ask her what Luke 15:31 referred to, but successfully bit back the urge. He figured she might interpret his lack of Bible learning as a deficiency in his parental upbringing and decided for the sake of his father’s lingering reputation to defer his curiosity.

  As he entered his room at the Sleep-Mor he paused only long enough to verify that his air-conditioner was set on high and to close the blinds against the throbbing sun before diving for the bedside stand. He was counting on the frugality of his congenial host, Sam—the man who was too cheap to put telephones in his rooms—to recognize a good deal when he saw it.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  Sam had accepted the Gideon’s free Bibles.

  The pages were tissue thin and had stuck together in the humid air; nevertheless, he found the chapter and verse easily. Luke 15:31, page 1392:

  “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me,

  and everything I have is yours.

  But we had to celebrate and be glad,

  because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again;

  he was lost and is found.”

  Chapter 33

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  SUNDAY, AUGUST21, 2005

  Kel had been exhausted, and it wasn’t just the residual effects of jet lag. He wasn’t seventeen years old and running wind sprints during two-a-days or earning spare money by detasseling an acre of corn. He’d loved the hot summers then, but the afternoon spent under the sun at the cemetery had siphoned away his energy like an opened vein. He’d taken an early dinner at the Albert Pike, drinking almost two pitchers of iced tea in the process, and once again retired to watch television and drift off to an early sleep.

  He awoke about two o’clock having clawed his ankles bloody raw in his sleep. The Arkansas State Insect—the chigger—had welcomed him back to the Natural State. His ankles, waist, armpits, and of course, his testicles were swollen and inflamed and beyond help until morning when he could get to a drugstore. It had taken the next hour or so to fall back asleep—and that had been fitful.

  Sunday proved uneventful. Kel had nothing planned other than to meet Levine for dinner that evening when he returned from Memphis. In the meantime, he’d napped, scratched, worked on the computer, scratched some more, tried calling his wife, and took several short drives around the county. The driving provided another opportunity to think and sort through the last few days. He was still working on young Ray Elmore’s Vietnam status and now, in an unrelated but equally confusing case, he had the cryptic Prodigal Son tombstone that he firmly believed was the murdered John Doe. Fortunately, it was all just a brain twister, a crossword puzzle; neither matter was within his governmental jurisdiction and at the end of the day he could shrug and forget it all. Levine, on the other hand, now had what he’d been wanting—the location of the John Doe and an even bigger puzzle.

  What was it the Greeks used to say? When the gods want to punish you they grant your wishes.

  The knock on the door came at 6:20P.M. Kel opened it to find a smiling Levine.

  “I’m starved, let’s go across to the…what do you people call it…the Zebulon Pike or whatever and get something to eat.” He had the largest smile that Kel had seen him manage over the course of their short, stressed working relationship. “Have I got shit to tell you.”

  Kel left him standing in the door frame while he turned and stepped into his shoes, lifting each foot in turn to the dressertop for tying. He paused to scratch both ankles. “It’s Albert Pike—not Zebulon Pike—different guys. One has a mountain named after him, the other…well…the other has a diner named after him.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t give a shit if it’s Prince Albert in a can, let’s go.”

  Kel grabbed his wallet from the dresser, slipped it into the hip pocket of his jeans, and pulled the room door shut behind him as he hurriedly joined Levine, who was already headed off across the parking lot.

  “I’ve got some interestin’ news, myself,” Kel teased, the tension from their encounter the other night seemingly forgotten. “Been doing some research…”

  Levine set a pace that kept him about two steps ahead of Kel, and he kept looking back over his left shoulder to talk. “I’m sure you have, Doc…but it’s not like mine, not like mine. Guaranteed.”

  Kel took a couple of jog steps to catch up. “Don’t be so sure there—Fed.”

  Levine reached the door to the diner first and pulled it back, holding it for his trailing companion. “Tell me yours first,” he said as he swept in behind Kel. They paused inside the door, and Levine pointed to a booth near the back, away from other customers. “Best save mine for dessert.”

  There were a half-dozen customers in residence, some of whom they now recognized as regulars—mostly thick-waisted guys in slacks and shirts that had started the day pressed and had ended the day looking like a bag of rocks. The Wellington boots and straw cowboy hats and scabbed knuckles from the afternoon were gone. Kel had noticed, over the few days he’d been in Split Tree, that the restaurant guard changed at about four o’clock in the afternoon. The early morning hours into the early afternoon were the farm shift, mostly, and the talk was of rain—or its lack—and crop futures and who was going bust; afterward, shift workers and assistant managers filtered in and the conversation followed a different tack. Noon was everyone’s turf and they intermingled easily and talked SEC football and minor league baseball—and the Delta Devils, of course. Tonight was church night and the crowd would be light for another hour or so as the faithful got themselves square with the Lord for the rest of the week.

  They each took a seat and Levine motioned to the waiter, a skinny, long-boned boy whom they hadn’t seen before. Maybe eighteen years old; maybe not. The boy took notice of their arrival but seemed almost painfully incapable of purposeful movement. Instead of actually moving, he slouched slowly toward their booth and winced as if he were dragging a two-ton anchor chain by his testicles. Levine watched him with great amusement. The special agent’s newly found good mood was not lost on Kel.

  “So…” Levine finally turned his attention back to their interrupted conversation. He had decided that he had a good forty-five minutes before the boy waiter arrived and would occupy the vacuum by listening to whatever the doc had been anxious to tell. “You’ve been doing some interesting research, you say. Discover the elusive six-finger gene? Hate to tell you this, Dr. Livingston, but it ain’t too elusive here in Baked-Brain, Arkansas.” He checked on the status of the waiter and saw that he had demonstrably picked up his pace and was actually making good time. In fact, he was about to reach their table.

  Kel also noted the proximity of the waiter and decided to hold on to his news a moment longer. He wiggled in his seat to better scratch some chigger bites that required public discretion. Levine ordered another Shiloh Burger with onion rings; Kel opted for chicken-fried steak and breaded okra. Their waiter began a slow, looping turnaround back to the kitchen.

>   “Okay, we’re alone now, Sugar; you all going to tell me you all missed me?” Levine’s whole face was lit up like he’d been drinking. Kel decided that he was about to like Special Agent Crusty better.

  “No. But remind me later to tell you about your buddy Deputy Bevins.”

  “Jimbo?”

  “Yup, Jimbo. That bubba’s got a side to him that I don’t think you’ve seen.”

  Levine laughed. “Jimbo Bevins?”

  Kel nodded. “That boy’s got a streak to him.”

  “Well then he may have just gone up a notch in my book. What kind of streak?”

  “Mean. But I’ll fill you in later,” Kel said. “It can wait. That’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

  “Can hardly wait. So what d’you have?”

  “Two things,” Kel said as he held up two fingers. “First, there’s somethin’ screwy with Ray Elmore.”

  “No shit. He had a prick for a brother.”

  “Hmm. Not quite what I meant. What’s screwy is that this town has a statue to him for gettin’ killed in Vietnam, but I can’t find any record that he was ever in Vietnam—let alone died there.”

  Levine squinted. “What are you saying?”

  Kel shrugged. “Don’t know, but I keep tryin’ to think of what could be worse than gettin’ killed. What’s so much worse that you can’t come home and your family can’t talk about you? You tell me. What’s so much worse that it’s better for a whole town to think you’re dead?”

  Levine didn’t respond.

  “I don’t know,” Kel continued. “But I’ve been thinkin’.”

  “And?”

  “And what if young Elmore, Ray Junior, what if he was a deserter?”

  Levine’s eyes painted every corner of Kel’s face, then he applied a second coat. “Holy shit. You sure?”

  “No. Not at all. I can check on it tomorrow, but until then…”

  “That sanctimonious bastard sheriff. What a piece of…” Levine erupted.