by Katy Munger
"Casey, baby. Dangerous lady," he yelled over the raucous laughter, dropping his thumb to his forefinger as if shooting a gun. He began vigorously shaking a frosted silver container while the females at the bar admired his biceps and tight black jeans. "Grape shot?"
"No thanks," I said. "I'm trying to quit." Grape shots at seven o'clock at night? Ye gods.
"Little early for you to be dropping by," he said. "Hard day?"
"Yeah. Real hard. And I'm still on the job." I nodded toward the parking lot. "Got a minute?"
The look of alarm on his face made me laugh.
"Don't worry," I said, "I didn't hear from the health department. It's something else. I need your help."
He looked relieved. Jack is pretty good about keeping Trojan in business, but he's also well aware that he tempts the law of averages with each new close encounter he instigates. "Let me check with Hank," he said, expertly pouring a vile-looking purple concoction into a row of small shot glasses. A trio of well-tanned secretaries whooped with anticipation as he placed the drinks before them. While Jack disappeared into the back office, the women tossed the drinks down their throats. I listened to their rebel yells with admiration. Believe me, secretaries after work make truck drivers look like wimps.
"I got a minute or two," Jack said, steering me out the door quickly. The secretaries watched in envy. Eat your hearts out, ladies. You may be younger, you may be thinner —but I got personality. Not to mention size thirty-eights and an attitude.
I used it all when I got Jack in the car. "I need you to do something for me," I told him and explained what I wanted. "I know you must be fooling around with half the day shift at Memorial," I said. "Do you think any of them might pull the files for some serious money?"
Jack didn't waste any time protesting his playboy status, which was what I liked about him. He was happy being a handsome cad and I was happy being an occasional cadet. I watched him think and thought how criminal it was that such a lovely face and magnificent body couldn't be replicated and packaged for women all around America. Jack was just about the cutest thing this side of the Rockies. He had thick glossy hair and delicate features in a triangular face. His skin was an impossibly healthy pink and his mouth was wide and talented. In a few years he would start to get fat, thanks to too many late nights and too many cocktails, but for now the man was ready, willing and able. Oh, how the ladies of the Triangle loved him.
"I've got it," he said after a moment of silence, having taken my request seriously. He had searched an entire mental catalog of women and settled on just the right one. "She's got a problem, know what I mean?" He tapped the side of his nose. "She's always on the prowl and getting worse. I bet she needs the money. She works in one of the offices there. I think the insurance section or something."
"Good, she'll know the computer system," I said, trusting his judgment. After all, he adored me.
"But listen, Casey," he warned me. "It could cause me some trouble. This girl's a regular and comes in every night. I had a hard time getting rid of her the time we tumbled, you know what I mean?"
I knew. Women fell in love with Jack instantly and followed him around like puppy dogs. It was tough to be a sex symbol.
"I'll tell her we're engaged," I assured him. "I'll threaten to kick her ass if she messes with my man."
Jack nodded thoughtfully. "I like it," he said. "It'll work."
"How much should do it?" I asked. Everyone had their price. And drug users usually came cheap.
"Leave it to me," he said. "A couple hundred is plenty." He opened the car door. "I gotta get back. The natives are restless."
"Thanks, Jack," I said. "You're the best." And I meant it. "I owe you."
He leaned back in and planted a wet one on me for good luck. "Naw. Just call me in the morning."
What a guy.
I could have used a drink, but I was dog tired. And being dog tired reminded me that I had promised to check on Ramsey Lee's hounds. It was a long drive back to the other side of Raleigh, but I was cheered by the prospect of the mountain man's gratitude one day. Besides, if Ramsey really had seen a fisherman there the night that Thornton Mitchell was killed, there was a good chance the guy might return to his regular fishing spot. Unless he'd been permanently scared away. My theory was this: if a witness existed, he had no idea that he'd seen or heard something important. Otherwise, if he'd witnessed the actual murder, surely he would have contacted the police. Unless he were an illegal immigrant, of course. And if that was the case, there was no way I'd get near him, much less be able to talk to him. Which left me with nowhere to turn but a shot in the dark. It was an unfortunate metaphor to consider.
I pondered the possibilities as I neared the Neuse River. The night had clouded over and the darkness was absolute. U.S. 1 was deserted, the desolation broken only by an occasional pair of headlights whizzing by. I had trouble finding the turn-off to Ramsey's house and had to double-back twice before I spotted it. I rolled down my car window and cruised slowly down the rutted lane that led to his cabin. A hint of rain in the air had stirred the crickets and frogs. Their chirping softened the night. Ramsey's dogs heard the car approaching and added their own distinctive howls to the mix. Their high-pitched baying split the darkness like the cries of banshees. A city girl would have fled in terror but I was used to their music. My grandpa once said that the singing of hounds in a pack was the sweetest sound on earth. I wouldn't go that far—I prefer the foamy pop that cold canned beer makes on a hot day—but I wasn't frightened by it either, not even when the howling escalated into a frenzy as I approached the pen. I counted at least four assorted coonhounds, a pair of Plott hounds, and two or three blue ticks in the glow of my flashlight. They crowded around me, tails wagging and bumping rear ends as they jockeyed for pats on the head. This was no crowd of angry curs and I suspected that tough old Ramsey Lee spent a lot of time curled up with his pack by the fire.
I soon discovered the source of their eagerness: the water pipe was fine but the automatic feeder had jammed and several days' worth of dog food was backed up in the hopper. I adjusted the chute and the dogs fell instantly silent, crowding around the crescent-shaped feeder bowl to chow down on their kibbles. I cleaned the water trough and spent a few minutes scratching at the base of their tails. Their scent reminded me of moonlit Florida nights and I kept expecting to hear the sound of my grandpa's familiar coughing in the silence. It was so real, I could almost hear it.
I had heard it.
I froze and separated the sounds of hounds slurping from the other night music. Ramsey had been right about the lay of the land. I could hear distant voices floating up from the banks of the Neuse. Gathering my courage, I crept through the trees and made my way down to the river.
The other side of the Neuse was hidden in blackness and I was afraid to use my flashlight. There was a chance that the SBI had posted a guard, though I doubted it. I was more concerned with scaring away a witness. My shoes made soft scrunching sounds in the bed of dead leaves covering the ground as I made my way further downstream. About fifty feet from the scene of the murder, I spotted an enclave of three small campfires. A hundred feet downstream, another small fire winked in the night, as if one of the fisherman had grown angry at his companions and was pouting by himself nearby. I heard laughter and the soft murmur of a foreign language. Great. The only foreign phrase I knew was "ein klein bier." It wasn't likely to help me much here.
I contemplated my options. I could swim for it, but the prospect of stroking copperheads out of the way as I swallowed the murky waters of the Neuse was decidedly unappealing. I could throw rocks across the muddy span until I got their attention, but sign language at fifty feet in the darkness was unlikely to prove useful. I finally hiked back to Ramsey's cabin and retrieved my car, returning to U.S. 1 until I could cut over a bridge to the other side of the Neuse. This time, the entrance was easy to spot: yellow crime scene tape blocked off a dirt road leading back into the shadows from a small gravel clearing that w
as otherwise distinguished only by a trio of large green dumpsters heaped high with trash. I left my car further down the road in a lane that went nowhere and walked back to the path, moving quickly alongside it, more concerned with speed than discretion. I slowed as I neared the river, taking care to remain outside the parameters of the road. I didn't want my footprints showing up as Exhibit B in court. The voices grew louder as I approached and I recognized the tongues: Spanish and another dialect that was harsher. Mayan, maybe. These night fishermen were clearly from the ranks of migrant workers who had settled permanently in the Raleigh area.
I was so pleased with my sleuthing that I grew careless and tripped over a tree root. I fell to the ground with a thud, skinning my knee and landing in a pile of dead branches that made more crackling noises than a vat of Rice Krispy’s in milk. There went my element of surprise.
And there went my witnesses. By the time I reached the clearing, they had disappeared. Three small campfires burned cheerfully along a deserted bank, sending golden-tongued reflections across the muddy surface of the Neuse. A lone fishing pole remained behind, leaning against a tree. Its red and white plastic bobber still swayed from when someone had brushed by. Curses. Foiled again.
I heard another cough and froze. It was phlegmy and full. The fourth campfire, the one further down the banks, wasn't part of this encampment after all. And whoever had built it didn't care if he was overheard. I made my way down the sandy shore, using the flames as a beacon. As I neared it, I heard a second cough followed by the splat of tobacco on sand.
At first, I thought I'd encountered another deserted campsite. The fisherman was so black that the night engulfed him. His face was shrouded in the darkness and his deep blue overalls invisible until I was no more than three feet from the old man.
"This your land now?" the fisherman asked calmly, his voice deep and gravelly, made rougher by the cough bubbling beneath the surface.
"No," I said. "Fish on. I'm just passing through." My eyes adjusted to the camp light: my companion was just about the oldest man I'd ever seen. Deep wrinkles creased his face, making it as puckered as an apple drying in the sun. His hair was white and buzzed close against a small, round skull. His eyes were large and calm.
"Funny time to be hiking," he said, waving me to one side so he could check his fishing lines. Two tall bamboo poles were firmly wedged into the sand, arcing gracefully toward the river.
"Catfish?"' I asked.
"Whatever I can get," he answered.
"Mind if I sit down?"
"You want something," the man said. It was a statement, not a question.
"Just to talk," I promised.
"Talk about what?" he asked, not even looking my way.
I had the feeling this old man had dealt with thousands of white people in his day and had very little use for the lot of us.
"You live around here?" I asked.
"Close enough," he answered. "Got me a couple acres nearby."
He was probably the last of a dying breed in the South: a former tenant farmer left over from the old days, made obsolete by age and the disappearance of farmland, a lonely survivor in a sea of encroaching development. He was a man who would watch the demise of the green fields with the calm resignation that impending death provides.
"You come here to fish a lot?" I asked.
"Every night," he said, his eyes locked onto the bamboo fishing poles. "Why you asking? I got permission from the lady who used to own this land. Been fishing here for sixty years. Didn't think the new owner would care."
"She gave it to the city," I told him. "Raleigh's the new owner."
"Well, then Raleigh can come and make me leave."
He made Raleigh sound like the neighborhood bully out to cause him pain. And maybe to him, it was. "I'm not here to get you to move," I promised. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions."
"Why don't you ask them your questions instead," he said, nodding upstream toward the trio of deserted campfires. He spit out a wad of tobacco and it splatted onto the sand, gleaming in the campfire for a second before it sank beneath the silt. His cough that followed rumbled in the silence.
"They're gone," I told him. "They heard me coming. I guess they're illegal immigrants or something."
"We've all got to come from somewhere," he said. His age and gravity made it sound like the wise pronouncement of a sage. "They're just trying to get themselves something to eat."
"Were you here three nights ago?" I asked.
"I done told you, I'm here every night." He looked at me briefly, as if wondering at my stupidity. Probably he was.
"Did you hear or see anything unusual?" I asked. "Do you know what happened further up the banks?"
He shook his head and shrugged. "I mind my own business. I expect others to do the same."
"Do you have a television?" I asked. Was it possible he didn't even know about the murder?
"Wouldn't do me no good," he confided. "I don't have electricity. Don't want it, neither. Those power folks can just go and charge somewhere else for their electricity. I can do without it."
One of the bamboo poles bent slowly toward the river, its arc bowing until the tip nearly touched the water. The old man ambled up and pulled it from the sand, tugging toward the sky with a sharp motion to set the hook. Catfish don't fight like other fish. They just sort of lay there on your hook, letting their weight pull the line toward the bottom.
The old man ignored me while he went about his business. He pulled the line in and examined a dangling gray catfish that gleamed wetly in the campfire light, checking it for size. Satisfied, he grabbed it carefully around the middle with a work-worn hand, taking care to avoid the spiny horn at the top of its head. He laid it against a plank by the fire and bopped it smartly on the head with a thick branch. The fish lay still, its pewter body reflecting gold firelight. The old man pulled a long nail from his overall pocket and placed it just above one of the flat fish eyes, driving the nail through the head and into the board with his branch club. Once the fish was secured, he pulled a knife from a pocket and made several long incisions down the leathery skin. His seemingly bottomless pockets yielded a pair of pliers, which he used to strip the skin from the body, revealing a fat carcass of milky catfish meat. He quickly filleted it, then placed the strips of flesh tenderly on the top of some ice he had packed into a medium-size cooler. Grunting, he wiped his hands on his overalls and threw the catfish skin and guts deep into the woods for the raccoons. He then unscrewed a small jar and scooped out a dab of foul-smelling goo which he made into a small plug to wrap around the empty hook. He cast the line back into the water, jamming the pole deep into the sand to secure it. The whole operation took no more than three minutes. The man was old, but he was still mighty limber.
"Now what was you asking me?" he said when he rejoined me at the fire. The air had grown cold, reminding me that it was October. I huddled close to the flames, grateful for the warmth.
"I asked you if you had been fishing here three nights ago."
"Yep," he said. "I'm here every night. I got a lot of mouths to feed. My daughter ran away to Atlanta. Left us with three grandkids."
Personal details? Hey, he was warming up. Maybe as a reward for my not retching at the catfish display.
"Did you see anything unusual that night?" I asked. "Further upstream, maybe? Beyond those campfires there?" I nodded toward the trio of fires and saw that the fishermen had returned. They were being cautious and stood quietly by the bank, poles in hand. Every now and then, they would turn my way for a quick look.
"I didn't notice nothing along the banks," the old man said, punctuating this statement with a quick spit of tobacco and a juicy cough. "Just a pair of fools up on the road who got stuck. I had to help push one of them out."
"A pair of fools?" I asked, feeling a prickle of adrenaline.
"Yep. Some tall fellow who talked funny was driving a white car and some woman was trying to drive a big black car. She wasn't hardly big enough to s
ee over the steering wheel. She was the one who was stuck. I had to push the car with the help of the young fellow until she could get it straightened out and down the road. It was pretty muddy. Darn stupid of her to be driving there in the middle of the night in the first place. I usually avoid that road. I walk in the other way."
"What did the man and woman look like?" I asked, wondering how any person could be so devoid of curiosity. He didn't care why they had been there or where they had gone.
"They were white," he answered, as if that said everything. And for him, it probably did. "White and she was real snippy about it. Didn't bother with the pleases or thank yous, oh no, not that one. I walked me a ways to help them out. I had just gotten here and hardly got my fire set up when I heard the engine spinning and I was afraid they'd start scaring off the fish if they got any louder. When I got to the road, the tall fellow was pushing at the rear of the car and the lady was behind the wheel. I didn't say nothing, just started pushing alongside of the boy. The car was too heavy for that road. I had to use all of my strength to get it out of the mud. When the lady driving got a ways down the road, she stopped and came back to talk to the young fellow. Didn't say thank you, even. Just stood at the front of the car where I could hardly see her and looked at the boy and said 'Let's go' or something like that. The fellow thanked me, though. He shook my hand and got in the black car with the lady and I saw the two of them arguing, at least that's what it looked like to me. Then the fellow got out and went to his own car and the two of them drove away, one after the other, the lady leading the way. I was surprised the boy could drive, he was jerking around so much."
