by Tom Lowe
I pried a small steel ball out of the tiny crater, holding the buckshot in the palm of my hand, the rain falling on it, washing off small specks of bark and tree sap like the erosion of dried blood dripping between my fingers. I had the shotgun shell. I had buckshot. But I didn’t have the man who pulled the trigger. I glanced around the landscape.
Are you buried out here somewhere, Andy? I found the buckshot, and I knew if I could find Andy’s body, an autopsy might find matching buckshot. But where was the man who pulled the trigger?
The beam of a flashlight interrupted my thoughts. I kept my back to the light, quickly dropping the buckshot into my shirt pocket. I turned around slowly, the light bobbing up and down with the walking pace of the person who held it. I didn’t move, keeping my hands visible. I knew who it was, and I knew he carried a gun. What I didn’t know was whether his gun was in the hand that didn’t carry the flashlight.
“What the hell you think you’re doin’ way out here?” Johnny Hine’s southern accent was clipped, laced in fiery anger. He said, “No sudden moves and keep your hands where I can see them. You got a problem with that, Sean O’Brien? I know who you are. And now I want to know what you’re doing standing out here in the rain? Don’t give me a reason to drop you under that tree.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Jesse Taylor drove slowly through downtown Marianna thinking about the justice system, thinking about a shot of Crown chased by a cold Bud. He pulled into the parking lot of the Heartland Motel, parking near his room, 29, the pulse of blue and yellow light from the neon sign falling against his face. The “l” in the sign was burned out, spelling Heart_and Motel
He lit a cigarette and thought about the human heart, whatever the hell that meant. What it really meant was greed—the gap in justice between the wealthy, their high-paid attorneys, and the rest of us. The injustice in true due process of laws written for ‘we the people.’ He could see the indifference and the bias in the eyes of the detective. He saw the look of anxiety in the eyes of the assistant prosecutor who’d have to open a case that her boss said wasn’t provable. Maybe the reporter would investigate who’s behind the sale of the property. Greed.
He blew smoke out the open window. He could go in his room, listen to the rattle of the box air-conditioner. Watch a cable news program. His blood pressure was high enough. He picked up his phone and dialed Caroline Harper’s number. “Hi, Jesse.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Because you wrote your number down. I programmed it into my phone.”
He nodded, exhaling cigarette smoke out the window. “Look, I’ve been trying to run down some of this stuff about Andy, trying to close loose ends. It’s gonna take a little longer than I thought.”
“I understand. Have you spoken with Sean O’Brien?”
“Left him a message. He left me a message. We’ll connect. In the meantime, I was seeing if I could find some stuff to help him…you know, maybe get some of the legwork outta the way so he could come in and drill down further.”
“Where have you been?”
“Met with the cops—a detective. He was nothing but excuses as to why he can’t open a case. I got so pissed I met with an assistant state attorney. She gave me about seven minutes. I even spoke with a reporter, the guy who covers cops and crime. Everybody wants me to do their jobs…to go out and bring evidence to them.”
“Jesse, please let Sean make those inquiries, okay?”
“I sort of stumbled onto something that could change everything.”
“What?”
“When I was talkin’ with a sheriff’s detective who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what I was tellin’ him, a black girl overheard my conversation. When the cop left, she approached, saying she’d always heard one of her uncles was killed in there, too. She had two uncles in the school about the same time. One left. One never did. The one who got outta there may be the only eyewitness to the killing of Andy.”
“Oh dear God…where is this man?”
“He lives in an old rundown school bus way the hell out in a remote part of the county. He’s still scared after all these years. I spoke with him. He told me he was hiding up in an oak tree when the men were chasing Andy and shot him near the base of the damn tree. They never saw him, but he saw the shooter.”
“Who did it?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Which does tell me the killer is still alive. Old, but alive. The man I’m talkin’ about is afraid if he testifies, somebody…maybe the old man’s family, maybe some crazy racist, will kill him. I told him about how the state’s in a hurry to turn the property over to developers. There was a spark of fire in his eye. He said he’d speak with his elderly mother. She wants to find and bring home the body of her other son…but you gotta know that old woman sure as hell doesn’t want to lose another one in the process.”
“What can you do?”
“Nothing. Maybe the cops can give him some kind of witness protection. It’d be hard to park a squad car out front of his house because he lives behind a pecan grove in the backcountry. A reporter I spoke with said unless there’s physical evidence to put the old man on the scene when Andy was murdered, it could boil down to the eyewitnesses’ word against the shooter, and that ain’t enough for lady justice to look at this with both eyes open.”
“Call Sean, okay.”
“Yeah, I’ll get to it. What are you doing tonight?”
“Fixing some dinner.”
“I guess it’s that time of night. Figure I’ll grab a burger somewhere, get an early start in the morning.”
“Jesse, would you like to come over and join me for a bite?”
He looked in his rearview mirror, watching the traffic beyond the parking lot. Something caught his eye—a yellow truck. Stopped at a traffic light. Not just any late-model truck, but rather a 1950’s model. It reminded him of his stepfather’s truck years ago. And he remembered something else, something Harold Reeves had said in the Waffle house, “One of those boys, his name’s Cooter Johnson, drives around town in a late fifties model Ford truck, painted canary yellow. He shoots pool a lot at a place called Shorty’s. But if I were you, I sure as hell wouldn’t go in there alone.”
Jesse crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. “Hey, Caroline, I think I’ll take a rain check on dinner tonight. I got somewhere I need to be. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Jesse. Be very careful.”
He disconnected, started his car and turned right out of the motel parking lot. Went back toward town, hoping he’d find the yellow truck. Looking for a place called Shorty’s.
TWENTY-FIVE
Johnny Hines, the lone security guard, came closer—a flashlight in his left hand. His right hand on the pistol grip, the pistol still in his holster. He stopped about ten feet from me and said, “Like I say, I know who you are. What I don’t know is why you’re here. Why’s that, Mr. O’Brien?”
“The people I represent are interested in this property, this facility. That’s all you need to know. I was invited here, and now I’m going.”
“Wait a damn second! I say when you leave. Why are you way the hell out in this field, and in the middle of a thunderstorm? What are you looking for?”
“There’s very little time to assess this property. The option for bids is rapidly closing. I’m trying to maximize the time I have. The storm blew in quickly, and it didn’t stay long. The others chose to leave. I wanted to wait it out. And now I’m going to take a hot shower and get into dry clothes.” I started to walk past him. He followed, the mud sucking at his black rubber boots, his raincoat making a swishing sound as he walked. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.
He said nothing until we got within thirty yards of the gate, his breathing labored, his right hand still on the pistol grip. He stopped under the lights from the gate and said, “What’s a sharpshooter doing out here looking at this place?”
“Pardon me?”
“I read about you. It was in one of my gun and ammo magazines. The stor
y was how a sniper—you—took out a plane trying to leave a small South Carolina airport to drop a dirty bomb over Atlanta. They said you took the shot from an old weather tower at the airport. Said you shot clean through the window of a moving plane on the runway, managing to miss a hostage and still take out the terrorist pilot. The article said it was the shot heard around the world because it set some kind of distance and accuracy record. I found your picture online. Must have been taken a while ago, but it’s you.”
“Do you have a problem with a radical terrorist, en route to bomb an American city, being killed?”
“I got no problem with that. The story didn’t have much about your background. Said you served tours in the Middle East. My problem is why would somebody like you be snooping around this old reform school in a thunderstorm?”
“What if the company I represent wanted to build a paramilitary training facility on this land? Something better than Blackwater in North Carolina. Imagine that.”
“An antiterrorism training camp in Jackson County?”
“That’s confidential.”
“I understand.”
“If word gets out, it could jeopardize millions of dollars, have a detrimental impact on the Jackson County economy, and be a blow to Homeland Security and our antiterrorism initiative. Do you follow me?”
“I gotcha. There’s a manual button by this breaker box. I’ll open the gate for you.” He stepped over to a gray box on a steel post, pressed a button at the base of the box. The small motor whined and the gate began retreating across the drive.
I walked through, nodded to him in passing—wondering how long before most of Marianna, Florida, heard that a paramilitary operation was considering establishing a presence here. I unlocked my Jeep, checked for the Glock under my seat. Everything in order. Then I checked my phone. Two voice messages. “Sean, it’s Caroline Harper. I spoke with Jesse Taylor tonight. He’s supposed to get in touch with you. I’m worried. His intentions are honorable, but he’s sort of a loose cannon. He said there’s a witness. Someone who saw Andy shot…a boy, at the time, who was in the reform school the same time Andy and Jesse were there. Jesse will only say the man is black, afraid to testify. Maybe you can find him. Thank you.”
I looked in my side mirror and saw Johnny Hines in the guard shack, pacing like a hungry rat in a cage, phone to his ear. Maybe he was speaking with real estate agent Ben Douglas, or maybe PR rep Lisa Kurz. I didn’t really care. I’d found what I wanted. I lifted the piece of buckshot from my front pocket. I knew if I could find Andy Cope’s body, there’d be a good chance forensics would discover a steel ball just like this in his remains.
After fifty years, I wasn’t worried about breaking a chain of evidence. That chain had long since rusted due to time and disregard, or indifference. I was concerned with connecting the dots to create enough heat to spark a confession or a grand jury investigation.
I had a piece of buckshot.
I had the shell casing.
If lucky, I’d get a print off the brass. And if I could find the man who fired the shotgun shell, it would be a match. Not one made in Heaven, but more like what Dante referred to in Purgatorio—Italian for purgatory. After climbing from the depths of Hell in Inferno, Dante wrote about scaling Mount Purgatory in the Southern Hemisphere—a mountain built in strata’s from the seven deadly sins. I thought about the Southern Cross I’d seen ascending in the night sky from the Southern Hemisphere and wondered, for what possible human virtue, could the man dubbed by the boys as Preacher, have chose for himself when tattooing the cross on his arm. The four attributes—justice, temperance, prudence and fortitude—didn’t fit a monster.
Maybe the small steel ball in the palm of my hand somehow represented a physical linking to justice. But would I have to climb an elusive mountain to find it? Florida has no mountains. It has lots of swamps and people who know how to survive in them. I knew what Dave would say. When I was up to my ass in alligators, it might be hard to remember my original goal was to drain the swamps.
I dropped the buckshot in a plastic bag, started my Jeep and headed toward Marianna.
TWENTY-SIX
It was another place. Another time. But Shorty’s was the kind of joint that Jesse Taylor used to score rent money. Half a lifetime ago, he had a custom-made cue stick and a reputation that got him banned in more than a dozen pool halls from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach. Those days, the hustling, the cons, the fights—were history. But history had taught him lessons about human nature, especially when it came to sports betting—putting folded money on the line and watching a man’s eyes change when the gambling hook was set by a challenge.
He thought about that as he slowed in front of a one-story cinderblock building washed in red and white neon. The sign read: Shorty’s Billiards. It hung from chains fastened to a rusted pole that was bolted to a concrete block near the roof. But it was the parking lot that Jesse scanned as he pulled off the street. And there, to the far left, was the custom yellow pickup truck. Jesse counted eleven cars in the lot and two more pickups. Three motorcycles were in a handicapped space near the front entrance.
Jesse parked, lighting a cigarette and blowing smoke out his open window. He glanced over to the yellow truck, where a diffusion of red neon gave the truck a slight rosy-pink look. Moths circled the sign, the raucous beat of a driving bass guitar coming from inside the building. Jesse reached in his console and lifted out a .25 caliber pistol. He pulled his right pant leg up to his calf muscle, shoving the pistol into an ankle-strap holster, pulling his pant leg down.
He locked his car and walked across the lot, stepping on flattened beer cans, the smell of burning marijuana in the night air, an electrical buzzing sound coming from the neon sign. He looked up at two bikers leaning against a wrought iron railing on what would pass as a porch entrance. Both bikers wore shabby, thick beards. Lot’s of black leather. Fur on arms and chests. Ink tats covering most of their arms. One wore an American flag as a pirate’s bandana.
Jesse walked straight toward the front entrance. As he passed the bikers, the man in the bandana said, “Wanna meet Miss Chrystal? She’s cooked up all nice and fine. Guaranteed to take you places you’ll never go in that old car of yours.”
Jesse stop walking for a second, inhaling a last drag, blowing smoke from his nostrils, looking the biker in the eye. “When you bury a military veteran and you salute the American flag draped across his coffin, you won’t wear our flag on your head.” Jesse flicked his spent cigarette into the lot, sparks popping. He turned back and walked toward the door.
“Pops, you’re fuckin’ crazy. It ain’t my flag.” The biker drained the beer from a Miller can, dropping it to the lot, crushing the can under the heel of his black boot.
When Jesse opened the door to Shorty’s, he was met with the smells of sour beer, sweat-laced testosterone and weed. A woman shrieked and laughed at the bar. From the vintage Wurlitzer jukebox, Charlie Daniels belted out The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Jesse stepped inside, eyes adjusting to the semi-darkness. He counted seven pool tables. Single lampshades hanging from the ceiling bathed each table in soft cones of light, shadows and silhouettes of players moving in and out of the light.
Jesse approached the bar. Every stool except one was taken. A huge sign on the wall behind the bar read: Jack Daniels Spoken Here. Jesse sat on the stool, resting his arms against the timeworn wooden bar, the old knotty pine long since stained from spilled whiskey and branded by smoldering cigarettes. A twenty-something blonde bartender in short cut-off blue jeans, tank top exposing ample cleavage, pulled a draft beer, looked at Jesse and said, “Be with you in a sec.”
“No hurry.” Jesse pushed back in the stool, his eyes fully adjusted to the low light. The man sitting next to him had the look of a gym rat. Black T-shirt stretched over chest and arms thick with sculpted and steroid-enhanced muscle. He wore his hair in a military cut. Face ruddy. He stared ahead at a large-screen TV, sound muted, a NASCAR race on the screen.
“Wh
at can I get for you, hon?” The bartender blew a strand of dirty blonde hair from her shiny face and smiled. She wiped her hands on a white towel, the song on the jukebox Bad to the Bone.
Jesse said, “I’d like a shot of Crown and Bud in the can.”
“You got it.” She dug for the can in a metal tub partially covered in cracked ice, popped the top on the beer, poured a shot of Crown Royal and placed both in front of Jesse. Taking the twenty-dollar bill he held between his fingers, she said, “Be back in a minute with change.”
“Sure, I ain’t going nowhere.”
She moved down the bar, filling another drink order, working her way to the cash register. Jesse took a deep breath, feeling the beat of his heart pulsating under the holster strap near his ankle. He reached for the shot of Crown, downing it, then taking a long pull from the beer. The man looked at Jesse’s hand and then slowly raised his eyes back to the TV screen.
Jesse glanced around the room. The crowd appeared to be mostly working-class folks—people who earned a living with their hands and skills handed down from fathers and grandfathers. Bricklayers. Plumbers. Construction workers. Somewhere in the bunch of leather and denim was a fella who may have learned an awful vocation from his grandfather—the call of the devil. Handed down in the bloodline. Taught by example. Somewhere in here was Cooter Johnson.
The man sitting next to Jesse reached for a sweating bottle of beer. When he did, Jesse could see a tattoo on the man’s upper arm. It was the insignia of the Army Rangers. Jesse sipped his beer for a second. He looked at the man and asked, “Were you in the Army?”
The man slowly turned his head toward Jesse, his face impassive. Jesse said, “Spotted your tat. You may have trained the same place I did.”
“Where’s that?”
“Fort Benning.”
