by Ace Atkins
“You too tired to talk shop?” Quinn said.
“I thought this was a date?”
“If this was a date, I could do better,” Quinn said, pushing the file of the unknown man of ’77 toward her. “I might even take you to Vanelli’s in Tupelo for some Athenian lasagna. This is an autopsy report from before we were born. It was done by old Doc Stevens and contains a lot of medical information I need deciphered. Also there are a few photos in there that should help. I wouldn’t advise you look at them before lunch.”
“Seriously,” Ophelia said, “I see plenty of that before I even have breakfast. How bad can it be?”
Quinn didn’t say a word. He’d learned when a woman announced she had a certain thing on her mind, he was not one to get in her way.
“Jesus God,” Ophelia said, putting a hand to her mouth.
“Body was found out on Jericho Road not far from where a couple young girls were attacked,” Quinn said. “The body was never ID’d. But it looks like they have some dental records, and maybe some DNA left somewhere.”
“Damn,” Ophelia said, reading. “This wasn’t just murder, it was a punishment. What the hell happened?”
“I have some idea of what occurred but no idea of who he was,” Quinn said. “I’m hoping you might be able to tell me what could be done about it now. He had no ID on him, reports say he was homeless, a hitchhiker who’d come to Jericho. He was living like an animal off the Natchez Trace, had some kind of lean-to he’d fashioned out of old scrap wood and tin.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why would someone do this to another human?”
“I can tell you more later,” Quinn said. “Just take the file and let me know what I need to request from Jackson. I guess we start with the dental records.”
“Sure,” Ophelia said. “And you said there might be some DNA?”
Quinn shrugged. “There’s mention of bloody and burned clothes placed in evidence. Maybe a pair of boots. I can’t find any trace of them right now; my uncle had sort of a scattered filing system. But Lillie and I are looking. Also checking with the court archives in Oxford.”
“A black male, late twenties, measured at a little under six feet,” Ophelia said. “That’s it?”
Mary brought them two large sweet teas and blue plate specials. They’d forgotten to ask which sides, but the cook had just ladled on some green beans and fried eggplant. Not bad choices. They started to eat and didn’t talk. Quinn and Ophelia had been together long enough, and during some tough times after the tornado, that they felt solid around each other, no need to say much. They were the only ones in the restaurant, the time getting close to two, way past when normal folks ate lunch.
Ophelia had dark brown eyes and long brown hair with sideswept bangs she’d often push from her eyes as a nervous habit. When she was curious, skeptical, or worried, her mouth would turn into a thick red knot, holding what she had to say until she had chosen her words right. Most folks in Jericho considered her shy, or mousy, but she was more standoffish, slow to reveal herself in the typical Bundren way.
“This may not be the time,” Ophelia said, “but there’s nothing wrong if you were to stay with me in town a few days. I don’t give a good god damn what anyone says about me. And, hell, bring Hondo, too. You need some space of your own. And I’m closer to town.”
“People seem to be talking about me enough.”
“All bullshit.”
“Of course.”
“The ones that matter don’t talk that way.”
Quinn nodded. “I hope not,” he said. “It’s the ones who whisper that give you trouble.”
“How about a toothbrush at my place?” Ophelia said. “We start with a toothbrush . . .”
“Roger that,” Quinn said. “Always liked to travel light. Be prepared for whatever comes my way.”
• • •
Quinn rode with Lillie up into the hills around Carthage late that afternoon to find a man named E. J. Royce, who’d worked as a deputy with his late Uncle Hamp. Royce was an odd duck, as anybody in Jericho was guaranteed to echo if asked. How else would you describe a man who’d turned his back on all his people and came to town only for the most basic supplies? He preferred the company of dogs—coon dogs, to be exact—five or six of them meeting Quinn’s truck on the highway and following it on each side, baying and barking, until they got close to Royce’s shack.
The shack was fashioned together with plywood, Visqueen, and spit. Royce telling anyone who’d listen, from his children to his church, “I don’t ask for nothing I don’t need. I tend to my business. I take care of my own damn self.”
The dogs barked and bayed some more. Quinn and Lillie got out of the big F-250, walked to the front porch, and knocked on a little door that sat oddly low even for a short man like E. J. Royce.
The old man opened the little door with a broad grin, wearing Liberty overalls and a trucker cap from Tibbehah County Co-op, the main competition for Diane Tull’s Jericho Farm & Ranch. “Well, shit,” he said.
Royce always greeted Quinn that way.
“And you, too.”
Royce smiled. He almost never could remember Lillie’s name, always referring to her as that big-boned girl with grit.
“Good to see you, Mr. Royce,” Quinn said. “You got some time?”
“Y’all ain’t come to arrest me?”
“You do something wrong?” Lillie asked.
“Stick around a bit, darlin’,” Royce said, grinning, scratching the white whiskers on his chin. “I just might. Damn, you’re a tall drink of water.”
He invited them into his shack, waving to an old sofa covered in stacked clothes and fixed in places with duct tape. A couple of the dogs followed them inside and Royce shooed them away, telling them they knew better and needed an ass-whippin’, they didn’t watch out. But the old man patted them on the heads as he led them out and closed the door. Boxes lined the walls, bundles of clothes that Quinn knew had been dropped off by the Baptist church that he never used. A television set on top of two older television sets played an episode of Gunsmoke.
Quinn nodded to the television. “Always liked Matt Dillon.”
“Didn’t know it was back on the air till the other day,” Royce said. “Good to see something worth a shit on.”
Lillie took a seat on the couch, nodding at Quinn to do the same. Lillie was always getting onto Quinn about his abrupt military manner interfering with real investigations. She often told him to act nice, be friendly, make the other person comfortable. But, then again, a couple weeks ago Lillie promised an abuser that she would kick in his goddamn teeth if she ever again saw a mark on his girlfriend.
“How y’all been?” Royce said. “Your sister brought me a plate of supper the other night. I told her she didn’t need to be gone and doing that. You know, I don’t ask for nothin’ I don’t need. I tend to my business. And I take care of own damn self.”
“I think I may have heard that, sir,” Quinn said.
Royce found an old kitchen chair toppled over under some clothes and brought it near the sofa. He smiled at Lillie and she smiled back. On television, Matt Dillon just killed three men and was walking down the center of the street in Dodge City. No one said jack shit.
“We need to talk to you about a murder that happened some time ago,” Lillie said. “I think you’re the last deputy around from the seventies.”
“Hal Strange is still kicking,” Royce said, “but he moved to Gulfport a few years ago.”
“I heard he died,” Lillie said.
“Nope,” Royce said. “Just got a Christmas card from his wife said they’d taken in some culture travels up in Gatlinburg, seeing some shows and all. Dinner theater and dancing.”
Lillie had brought in the file but didn’t open it. She just took her time, Quinn always letting her take the lead in an investigation. “Do you recall w
hen those two girls were attacked on the Fourth of July? This was in 1977.”
Royce, who’d been smiling, now quit. He rubbed his hands over his old white whiskers, his flannel shirt as threadbare as possible without becoming translucent. “Sure,” he said. “That’s the stuff what’ll stick hard. I don’t know how y’all still work in law enforcement. Seems like them things happen more and more. But back then, that was something not regular. Things like that didn’t happen in Jericho.”
Quinn knew the local history but did not correct the old man.
“You ever catch the man who did it?” Lillie asked, the file placed between her knee and forearm that answered that very question.
“No, ma’am,” he said, “we sure didn’t. Sheriff Beckett took that shame to his grave. I don’t think he ever gave up trying to find that man. The father of the dead girl. What’s his name?”
“Stillwell?”
“Yes, Stillwell,” Royce said. “Sure made a mess of that fella . . . sloppy, crazy-ass drunk.”
Royce nodded with certainty, the mountains of clothes, garbage, and boxes of useless shit reminding Quinn of the state he’d once found his uncle’s farm in. There were a lot of empty bottles of Old Grand-Dad lying about the shack, too, and coffee cans filled with cigarette butts.
Royce lit up a cigarette. Lillie joined him.
“So y’all had nothing?” Lillie said. “Not even some rumors or something to go on?”
“Sheriff Beckett must’ve paid out nearly a thousand dollars to informants,” he said. “Doc Stevens offered a big reward. Judge Blanton got some highway patrol folks to come over and look into things, taking the man’s description across the state. This shit looks bad for a town. Looks worse for law enforcement. It made the papers and the TV station in Tupelo. I remember for a few years they used to have a candlelight vigil on the Square. That lasted for a while and then I guess people just forgot about that Stillwell girl.”
Lillie tilted her head and bit her lower lip, cigarette still in hand. She flicked her eyes at Quinn and sat back in the duct-taped sofa.
“There was a second murder about that time?” Quinn said.
“Don’t recall that.”
Quinn nodded. He did not smile at the old man.
“You wrote the report,” Quinn said. “It was from July 6th of ’77. Man had been shot several times, his skull fractured, neck broken, and then his body was dragged out into the county and burned, his attackers probably trying to get rid of any evidence.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed at Quinn. He smoked a bit more and then stubbed out the cigarette under his old boots right there in his living room. “Something like that comes to mind. Sure. What of it?”
“Didn’t y’all think maybe these two events were connected?” Lillie asked.
“What do you mean?”
Lillie swallowed and took in a very long breath. Lillie Virgil had trouble with patience but could wrangle her emotions when needed. “Victim was a black male in his late twenties,” Lillie said. “Perp in the rape was a black male in his late twenties.”
Royce had a wide look of confusion on his face, sort of like a man you’d see lost in a big city, wandering around, trying to find something familiar.
“I just don’t know, doll,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
“It’s Deputy Virgil,” she said. “My name is Deputy Virgil.”
“And this was a long time back,” Royce said. “Wish I could be more help. Y’all want some pie? I got two old women who bring me more pie than a dozen men could eat. I think I got some chocolate and maybe some pecan? Y’all stick around. I think Gunsmoke’s gonna start again in a second.”
Quinn looked to Lillie. She frowned but stayed put. Royce had already stood, stranding between the couch and a cleared path through the junk to the kitchen.
“The report on the second crime was incomplete,” Lillie said. “And we can’t seem to put our hands on the evidence you logged.”
“Forty years ago?” Royce said. “Hell. Come on, let’s eat some pie.”
“Thirty-seven,” Quinn said.
“Long time.”
“Yep,” Quinn said.
“What’s it matter now?” Royce said.
“One of the victims has made an inquiry,” Quinn said. “A cold case always matters to those who’ve inherited it.”
“Kind of like shit rolling downhill?” Royce said.
Lillie nodded. She finished her cigarette, dropped it in a nearby Maxwell House can, and stood.
“Wish I could help y’all,” Royce said, “but I been retired for twenty years. Sure wish your uncle was still with us. He’d know. Lots of things he didn’t put in a report like they do now. He was a lawman, carried thoughts and ideas with him until he could follow through.”
“Until he ran out of time,” Quinn said.
“He was a fine Christian man,” Royce said. “What people said about him being on the take was pure and complete bullshit.”
“Appreciate your time, Mr. Royce.”
“Did y’all try and ever talk to Stagg?” Royce said. “I know y’all’s history, but he might know something that could help.”
“The thought had occurred to me.”
“I don’t think a man can fart in this county without ole Johnny T. Stagg knowing about it.”
Lillie walked out of the shack without a word, tugging on her sunglasses as they walked back to the Big Green Machine. “Hmm” was all Lillie said before Quinn cranked the engine.
“That wasn’t much help,” he said.
“Sometimes I forget how much I hate this fucking county,” she said.
“You don’t mean that.”
Lillie was quiet, mirrored glasses reflecting the road ahead.
Quinn removed his Beretta M9 at the door, locked it away in his Army footlocker, and took a seat at a long kitchen table with his mother and Jason. Jean had made fried chicken that night, along with collard greens and cornbread. She brought Quinn a cold Bud, knowing he wanted one before he even asked, Jean Colson never being the kind of mother to turn her nose up at her children drinking beer. She was a woman who bought wine by the box.
As they ate, they listened to Elvis’s Moody Blue album, a personal favorite of Jean’s. She especially liked “If You Love Me, Let Me Know,” a song she used to sing to Quinn and Caddy as babies and later to Jason.
“What happened to Boom?” Jean asked.
“He’s at The River,” Quinn said. “Caddy said he’d met a girl there.”
“If it’s the one I’m thinking about,” Jean said, “he better watch out. She’s a fast operator.”
“He doesn’t tell me much,” Quinn said. “Not about that stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“His personal life.”
“Y’all have known each other your whole life,” Jean said. “I find it hard to believe there are some subjects off-limits.”
Quinn shrugged. Jason refused to eat any collard greens, but seemed good with the chicken and cornbread. He sat right next to Quinn, pushing his small shoulder up under Quinn’s arm as he told him about some kids who’d been mean to him on the playground.
“How old are they?” Quinn asked.
“Old,” Jason said. “I think they’re in first grade.”
“That old?” Quinn said, chewing off a bit of fried chicken breast, still hot as hell inside and good and spicy. His momma did something with the meat before she cooked with milk and Tabasco. “What’d they say?”
Jason shrugged. “They said I smelled.”
“Why’d they say that?”
Jason shrugged. He looked embarrassed.
“What’d you do about it?”
“I said I’d kick them in the privates.”
Quinn started to agree with his nephew, but Jean held up her hand and gave him the eye.
“You know what today is?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Wednesday?”
“It’s Elvis’s birthday,” she said. “You know he would have been seventy-nine?”
“You don’t say,” Quinn said. Jean going on again and again about Elvis Presley. Just part of the deal with having dinner with his mother.
“I bet next year they’ll have a big thing at Graceland,” she said. “But, for the life of me, I can’t imagine Elvis at eighty. I think maybe it’s best he died when he did and never had to get old. I saw him a year before he died. And, yes, he’d gained some weight. But that voice. That voice never left us.”
“No kidding, Momma,” Quinn said, having heard these stories since he’d been Jason’s age.
Jean pretended she was about to throw a drumstick at Quinn’s head. But she instead put it down and picked up her wineglass. Elvis had moved on into “Let Me Be There,” with the Stamps providing background vocals, J. D. Sumner giving a lot of bottom of soul. His voice something almost supernatural.
“He did this song,” Jean said. “I saw it. I heard it.”
“You knew Elvis?” Jason said, eyes brightening.
“I saw Elvis Presley seventeen times in concert,” Jean said. “He once touched my hand.”
Quinn looked up from his chicken, wiped his mouth with a napkin. “And I’m betting he gave you a yellow scarf, too.”
“You want a spanking, Quinn?” she said. “You’re not too damn old.”
Jason found the idea of Uncle Quinn getting a spanking to be the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He laughed and laughed.
“Well, I bet you didn’t know this,” Jean said. “I once went up to Graceland to meet him. This was only a few months before he died. When we got up there, he was upstairs in his bedroom and wouldn’t come down. I heard his voice at the top of the steps, but when I turned to look, Elvis was gone. All of it very strange. Hard to remember.”
“With Dad?” Quinn said.
“Your dad was friends with some of Elvis’s bodyguards,” Jean said. “When he found out I how much I loved Elvis, he took me to Memphis on his motorcycle. We stayed down in the Jungle Room and listened to music. We played pool downstairs until dawn. He had the kindest old black woman who cooked for him. She made your father and me some eggs and bacon. At Graceland. Can you imagine?”
