Judas Burning

by Carolyn Haines

  J.D. turned back toward the school board offices, where he found the Jaguar parked in back. For half an hour, he sat in the dark, watching. From his secluded parking place, he could hear the occasional shush of car tires on pavement, the bark of a dog, the sound of a stereo in a passing vehicle. Once he caught the strains of an old Eagles song, and he thought about the passage of time and how he’d come to be where he was.

  The big question for the town gossips was why he’d come back. The marines had given him a taste of the world. No one understood why he’d wanted to come back to a small town in a poor county. Had he been married with children, they’d have understood. Jexville offered a sense of safety to young families. Church was the extracurricular activity that ruled the town and county in every aspect from political to social. Now, a perversion of that religious fervor had shown up in his county, carved into the thigh of a fifteen-year-old girl.

  There was such a twisted logic in a religious fanatic—a man so obsessed with his mother’s sins and virginity and holiness that he defaced statues of Mary—that he might see two young girls with a wild streak as evil. Might. But what didn’t add up was how this religious vigilante had transported Trisha’s body across the river to a spit of land and how Camille had ended up with the bracelet Hayes had identified as the one Angie had worn to school that day. Camille said her mother gave it to her. J.D. didn’t believe in the tooth fairy, and he didn’t believe Vivian was running around handing out five grand in gold.

  If Camille were lying, she did it with the heart of a child, and there were several possible explanations for it. Eustace had killed the girls and given the bracelet to Camille. Chavez had killed them and given Camille the bracelet in repayment for … what? Use of a boat?

  But the most likely explanation had J.D. here, looking for Calvin. The bracelet was worth at least five thousand dollars. It wasn’t a gift a lot of men could afford. If it had come from Vivian, then only one man could have given it to Angie. Calvin.

  The humid night lay on J.D.’s skin like a damp cloth. He left his SUV, approached the building, and stepped onto the scaling porch. Dead paint crunched beneath his shoe. He paused and listened. He could hear the faint sound of words over the drone of the air conditioner. Holbert and Welford. It was possible that Big Jim was involved in this, too.

  He eased closer to the door.

  “I don’t want to go over this again. I told you the shit was going to hit the fan,” Welford said. “I’m not in this. I wash my hands of you and everything involved.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Holbert said angrily.

  “You should resign as school board president. That’s my final say.”

  “That would be mighty convenient. Maybe you’d want to put Vivian in my place.”

  The silence dragged on too long.

  Holbert said, “That was a joke. Surely you wouldn’t consider—”

  “Wait, it has merit. You could resign and say you’re too busy. Vivian would be perfect. She’d do exactly as you told her.”

  “What planet do you live on? Vivian would do everything in her power to spite me. And you. She has no love for you, either, Jim.”

  The voices dropped lower, and J.D. knocked. He could hear scrambling. Whatever they had or hadn’t done, they certainly acted guilty.

  “Who is it?” Welford called out.

  “It’s the sheriff.”

  Welford swung the door open and walked back to his desk. “I would have thought you’d be out hunting that missing girl,” he said testily.

  “Oh, I am,” J.D. said. “I was hoping maybe you two could give me some help.”

  “Us? How?” Holbert asked, his eyes wide.

  “I’ve been thinking about the talk. Angie had an older, wealthy lover.” Calvin’s cheek twitched. “I was wondering if you could ask the faculty and students if they had any ideas who she might have been seeing. Maybe she let it slip.”

  Holbert had recovered. “That’s nonsense. You can’t take the word of a bunch of high school kids.”

  “I’m a little short on leads here, Calvin. I’ll take what I can get.” He took a chair. “And I’m curious about something else, too. Tommy Hayes. I thought y’all voted to fire him, and yet he’s right up there at the high school big as life.”

  “The board changed its mind.” Welford squared some folders. “I’m ready to call it a night, Calvin. How about you?”

  “Sure am.” Holbert stood.

  “Now, my understanding is that you all had some evidence that Tommy Hayes had done something improper with Angie. It would sure help me out if I knew what he’d done and how you found out about it, since there were no charges filed.”

  “Strictly confidential.” Welford frowned. “Personnel matters are private.”

  “Not in a murder investigation,” J.D. said. He settled back in his chair and looked up at Holbert. “Have a seat, Calvin. I’m not finished here.”

  “My wife is waiting for me.” Holbert started toward the door.

  “Okay, I’ll send a deputy over to the bank tomorrow to drive you to the sheriff’s office to answer the questions. Six of one, half a dozen of the other to me.”

  “What are you implying?” Welford demanded.

  “Only that both of you had knowledge that may have contributed to two deaths. You can try to hide it, but it won’t do any good. I’m going to find Angie, and I’m going to find whoever killed Trisha. If either of you are involved in it, God help you.”

  He stood up and arched his back. The bracelet would wait until he had the opportunity to interview each man separately. “These twenty-four-hour days tend to make me a little fractious. I’d keep that in mind.”

  He walked out, his footsteps hard on the porch. Behind him was silence. As he reached the Explorer, the radio crackled to life.

  Waymon’s voice was brittle. “J.D., call the station. J.D. hurry up and call. They’ve found the Salter girl. J.D., it’s real bad.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Five dark-haired men sit rigidly as the van careens along the dirt road. Dixon is in the van, but she doesn’t recognize anyone. She can’t remember why they have taken her, what she may have done.

  The men stare straight ahead, their expressions blank as the sun flashes in and out of the tree branches throwing them into shadow and light.

  She looks at the fat man in the back of the van. Beside him is a three-foot tall person. Not a midget; a chimpanzee-man. His long, wiry arms are covered in thick blond hair. Ape arms. He is the only blond in the vehicle, and his eyes are a startling blue. He watches her and smiles, and she feels as if ice water has dripped down her back. He is dangerous and means to hurt her, but she doesn’t know why.

  The road is sandy, and the van slues back and forth, taking both lanes. She can smell water and remembers that it has rained. Rained hard. For many days. She turns to the driver, who doesn’t look to left or right but pilots the van at a dangerous clip. She knows where she is, a place from the safety of her childhood, but she isn’t safe now.

  “There’s a bridge up ahead, “she warns him.

  He ignores her and keeps up apace that has the van sliding left, then right. No one moves. The little man in the back laughs.

  “There’s a sharp curve and a narrow bridge, “she calls out. She remembers the name. White’s Creek. She swam there as a child, and the curve is treacherous, the bridge one-lane and wooden. Once a man and his three children drowned there.

  “There’s a narrow bridge!” she says again.

  The driver ignores her. They are upon the curve. He turns the wheel, and suddenly there is no road, only raging amber water. The creek has overrun the bridge. At the edge is a man and three children. They drip water into the sand as they watch the van with sad eyes.

  “Go right! Go right!” she screams at the driver. She knows where the bridge is beneath the flood.

  The right front wheel hits the bridge, but the left goes into the water. The van lumbers slowly onto its side, then the flood waters ca
tch it and begin to spin it downstream. Water gushes through the windows. Dixon realizes that she is chained to her seat.

  “Hey! There’s someone at the front door.” Robert, standing by the bed, held her shoulders. “Wake up, Dixon. There’s someone at the front door.”

  Dixon looked up, the shadow waters of her dream still in her eyes. The bedside lamp was on, and Robert’s dark eyebrows were drawn together.

  “Are you okay?”

  Her voice was still paralyzed by the dream; she nodded and rose. She tasted ashes, and someone was pounding on the front door. Her foot hit the ashtray on the floor, and she connected the taste and her sudden fall from the nonsmoking wagon. On top of that, her head was pounding from the bourbon. She took three steps and tripped over the empty bottle. Oh, it had been a night. She had a vague memory of straddling Robert as she drained the bottle.

  She found her robe and pulled it on as she walked down the hall to the front door.

  Her robe hung off one shoulder and she shrugged it up as she cracked the door. Waymon stood frowning at her. The look on his face wiped away the night.

  Dixon opened the door all the way, looking outside for J.D.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, ignoring Waymon’s pointed look toward the rental car parked under the oaks. It looked furtive in the light of day.

  “They found the Salter girl.”

  For once, Waymon seemed more interested in gathering information than dispensing it. He looked past her into the living room. Behind her, Dixon heard Robert in the kitchen. “Is she alive?”

  “Hanged and burned, just like the other one.”

  Dixon closed her eyes and gripped the door frame. Trisha Webster and Angie Salter had not lived long enough to make many choices in their short lives. Their first big mistake had been their last. They’d let a killer into their lives, and now they were dead, before they’d ever lived. It was over now.

  “J.D. wants you to come down. He said if you could photograph the body, like the other one, it would help him.”

  “I’m not exactly eager to do those photographs,” she said. The idea repelled her. Her dreams were already infused with tragedy and horror. And Trisha Webster visited her now, a ghostly after-image of torment in photographic sequence.

  She heard Robert in the kitchen and thought of his body, so tender and so fierce. For a moment she wanted to stay there, with him, to hide against him from the past and the present.

  But she knew she’d go. She felt a growing loyalty to J.D. and, even more, to the job she’d chosen to do.

  “Let me get dressed.”

  “This one’s a real mess,” Waymon said. He craned to see over the top of her head. From the kitchen they heard glass breaking and “Fuck!”

  “Where is J.D.?”

  “He’s down at Eustace’s. That’s where the body is.”

  Dixon looked up. “At Eustace Mills’s?”

  “Yep. She was hanging in that big oak right in his yard. It’s a mystery how she got there without waking Eustace or Camille. Some folks are saying that J.D.’s hunting the wrong man.”

  “Some folks like Vivian and Calvin Holbert?”

  “Them two for sure, but there’s others.”

  “I’ll get dressed and drive out there.” She wanted her own vehicle.

  “J.D. told me to bring you,” Waymon said, his lips a thin line of determination.

  From the kitchen Robert called out, “Coffee’s made. You want a cup?”

  Dixon stepped out on the porch and closed the door behind her. “I’ll meet you at the river.”

  “You could bring me out a cup of coffee, and I’ll be glad to wait.”

  “I’ll meet you at the river in thirty minutes.” Dxion went inside, closed the door firmly, and padded through the living and dining rooms into the kitchen. Robert was heating milk on the stove, and the aroma of fresh coffee filled the room.

  “They found Angie Salter hanging in a tree,” she told him as she began pulling clean shirts out of the clothes dryer.

  “Was she burned?”

  “Apparently. It sounds like the same type of scene.”

  She dug deeper for clean socks. In her haste she left clothes on the floor and dangling from the dryer.

  “Are you going out to the scene?”

  “No.” He held a cup of coffee out to her.

  “Why? Aren’t you interested in covering this?”

  He gave a casual shrug and looked at the hot milk. “I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  Dixon considered for a moment, took her black coffee, and turned toward the bathroom and a shower. “Want to take a quick shower?”

  He shook his head. “You go on. I’ll clean up after you’re gone, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure.”

  Robert was a strange breed of journalist.

  J.D. stood back from the ruin of a body, waiting for Dixon to arrive. There was nothing in the grotesque lump that recalled the girl who had been Angie Salter.

  He’d had little faith from the beginning that the girls would be found alive, but the systematic debasement of their bodies was hard for him to take. He had seen debasement before, certainly. He’d seen too many things—half-dead soldiers dragged behind trucks and fellow prisoners forced to urinate on them, decapitated heads on wooden pikes at the outskirts of an encampment, scalps left dangling, necklaces of ears, pregnant women gutted and left alive.

  He’d seen worse than Angie Salter, but in all of those instances there had been an enemy. The ritual of debasement had served a specific purpose—to frighten and demoralize the enemy.

  He looked at the corpse turning slowly in the breeze. The day had dawned cool, with the first promise of autumn on the fluttering leaves. Angie Salter and Trisha Webster should be sitting in class, anticipating the next football game. Twelve days ago they had been laughing on the sandbar. Eustace had seen them. He looked to be the last person to have seen them alive.

  J.D. glanced up at the camp. He saw a flurry of movement at the window and Camille’s bright hair as she stepped back. Eustace was sitting at the fish vats, staring into the water as the fish whirled from one corner of the vat to another.

  He heard a commotion from the end of the drive and knew that Vivian Holbert was lighting into Waymon again. Vivian wanted to see her daughter, but J.D. had no intention of allowing her anywhere near the crime scene. Waymon was suffering the brunt of her attack and, for all his shortcomings, was holding his own.

  The deputy hadn’t brought Dixon back with him, but J.D. did not fault him. She was not a woman who could easily be pressed easily. She had said she would come, and she would. But the coroner, watching him and the corpse with the sharp eyes of a rattler, wanted to collect the body, deliver it to the morgue, and get on with his job as a used car salesman.

  J.D. looked down the road again, hoping to see Dixon. Instead, Beatrice Smart rounded the curve. He felt a profound sense of relief. He had not thought to call her, but she might be able to reach Camille. He mentally gave Waymon a gold star for having the sense to let her through.

  He stepped away from the body, hoping to avert Beatrice’s attention, but he was too late. She halted and then staggered. Through Beatrice’s eyes he saw anew the horror, the decaying body, the burned flesh, the fluttering of the once white sheet. Camille had told him that she’d seen the body on fire, had awakened Eustace, who had rushed out of the house and doused the flames with water. In places the sheet still clung to the body.

  He strode across the distance and caught the minister’s arm, holding her steady as he blocked her view.

  “Reverend,” he said, supporting her. “Bea?”

  “I thought I was prepared.”

  “Nothing can prepare you for this. Nothing.” Man’s brutality against his own kind was beyond comprehension.

  “Calvin asked me to speak to Camille,” she said, her gaze directed at J.D.’s shirt.

  “I’m glad you came. Camille is in the house.” He led her past the body.

&nbs
p; “How is she?”

  In her voice, he could hear Beatrice reaching for control.

  “Not good. She’s withdrawn. She’s been sitting in a chair in the den, but a moment ago I saw her at the window, so at least she’s moving around.” J.D. was concerned that Camille could slip into a catatonic state, a mental limbo land from which she might never emerge. Her voice, when she’d called him at six A.M., had been dead.

  “And Eustace?” Beatrice asked.

  “He’s pretty shaken up.”

  “Will he talk with me?”

  “I don’t know,” J.D. answered softly. “I hope so.”

  J.D. heard Vivian’s voice again. He heard Beth Salter, too, breathing fire and threatening lawsuits against everyone in sight.

  J.D. glanced up at the camp’s large window. “You want me to go in with you?” he asked.

  “No, I think it would be better if I went alone. Besides, it sounds like you’re about to have a riot on your hands with Vivian stirring everyone up.”

  He let her arm go. She took a breath, nodded, and walked toward the camp.

  The commotion at the head of the drive increased. Waymon was holding back angry men and women who were worried that a violent killer was free. Everyone felt vulnerable, even those who normally buffered themselves with money and power. J.D. knew he should get up there before things got out of hand, but he couldn’t leave the body until Dixon had photographed it.

  He saw her headed down the drive and crossed the clearing, moving upwind of the body. Her gaze met his and slid away. He wondered why. Dixon had never failed to bore directly into him. It was one of the things he liked about her.

  “I made it as fast as I could.” She spoke to her cameras and there was a challenge in her voice. Her hands shook, and she dropped a lens. Cursing, she picked it up and bent to snap it onto the camera body.

  J.D. noted her red eyes and thought she’d been drinking.