by Ace Atkins
“I shot at him,” she said. “Twice. Damn, I was too far away.”
Quinn nodded. “What direction?”
“Toward the Square,” she said. “He got two streets down and got on a motorcycle. I saw him ride away, up over the hill, to the Square.”
“I know it was raining and dark, but did you see anything about the bike?”
“No,” she said. “I heard it more than saw it. It had those special mufflers folks have, really loud, you could’ve heard the damn thing ten miles away.”
“Any chance you got him with the shotgun?”
Diane’s face looked drawn, hands trembling around a glass of water, as she shook her head. “I wish.”
“I’m going to call dispatch with what we know,” Quinn said. “Then I’m going to look around your house some more. We have a deputy headed this way. He’ll sit on your house all night.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I don’t think that bastard’s coming back.”
“Maybe not,” Quinn said. “But I’d feel better with Kenny sitting on things.”
“Kenny?” she said. “Really?”
“He’s tougher than he seems.”
“God, I hope so.”
Diane put down the glass of water and wrapped her arms around herself. She shivered a bit and used a dishtowel to dry her face. She was more than twenty years older than Quinn but didn’t look her age, still attractive, with her high cheekbones and black hair with its long streak of silver. Diane Tull wore Levi’s and work shirts, and had been a good friend to his mother and Caddy, helping Caddy, even though Caddy wouldn’t admit it, after Jamey’s death and on through the mess of the storm. Quinn couldn’t even recall all the free stuff she’d donated to The River.
“Who else knows you and I spoke?” Quinn said. “Caddy and who else?”
“That’s it,” she said.
She looked away, thinking on something. Quinn tilted her head, watched her face, and stayed quiet.
“Well, there’s another. But he’d never say a word. He’s too sensitive about things.”
“Who?”
“I’d rather not say,” Diane said.
Quinn removed the spent shells from the shotgun. He asked if she had more and she nodded and said she had boxes and boxes in her bedroom.
“If he’s the only other person,” Quinn said, “stands to reason . . .”
Diane swallowed and nodded a bit. “Hank Stillwell.”
“He upset you’re bringing all this up?” Quinn said. “Has to be sensitive to him.”
“No,” Diane said, shaking her head, wiping the rain off her arms and across her chest and over her wet tank top, “not at all.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He’s the one who come to me and asked me to stoke it,” Diane Tull said. “He said you’re the only man who can find out who murdered his daughter.”
“This may not be the time,” Quinn said, “but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“The man who got burned up?”
Quinn nodded.
“It’s been a hell of a night, Sheriff,” she said. “I got to get those tires changed before I get to work in a few hours and then figure out how to get those cusswords off my truck. I’d rather not churn all that up right now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “Kenny and I can help you with those tires. I’ll call a friend.”
“Appreciate that, Sheriff,” she said. “You’re a good man.”
“Your vote in this spring’s election would be much appreciated,” Quinn said, tipping at his baseball cap.
My brother isn’t too fond of your friends,” Jean Beckett said, sitting on the back of Jason’s baby blue Shovelhead Harley, looking pretty as can be, running her mouth over a soft serve vanilla cone.
“They’re not my friends,” Jason said. “Big Doug is a friend. But the others are just some boys I met. They’re good fellas, a little hot-tempered, but good fellas.”
“My brother said y’all got into a rumble with another gang up in Olive Branch,” she said. “One man got hurt real bad at some barbecue pit. He’s still in the hospital in Memphis.”
“Your brother is the sheriff,” Jason said, licking a little bit off his chocolate cone. “I guess he hears things.”
The yellow-and-red glow from the Dairy Queen shone down on the parking lot and out into the rolling Big Black River, not far off Highway 45, out on Cotton Road.
“He’s just looking out for me,” Jean said. “I think he’s more concerned that you’ve left your roots and gone Hollywood.”
“That much is true.”
“You’re all Hollywood?” Jean said.
“Through and through,” Jason said. “How’d you like to come out west with me? I leave in a couple weeks and I’m driving through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. You’ve never seen any country like it. You ever been out of Jericho?”
“Hell yes,” she said. “I’ve been to New York City.”
“How many times?”
“Once,” Jean said, looking away, smiling. “With my senior class. I’ve been to New Orleans a bunch. I’ve gone to Mardi Gras three times.”
“How’d you like to ride on the back of my bike up the PCH?”
“Depends on what the hell’s the PCH.”
“Pacific Coast Highway,” Jason said. “We follow the ocean all the way up to San Francisco. We’ll camp out at Big Sur, eat crabs at Fisherman’s Wharf, make love on the beach at Santa Cruz.”
“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Jason Colson.”
Jason grinned. He wrapped his arm around Jean Beckett’s narrow waist, feeling the warm tautness of her belly, lifting her red hair off the nape of her neck, and kissing her at the hairline while she finished up the soft serve.
The Dairy Queen was an odd little building, looking queer and out of place right at the edge of that dirty old river. It was just a cinder-block box with big neon sign above the open-air counter, where teenage girls served burgers, dogs, and milk shakes. They wore tight white shirts and kept their hair in ponytails and most nights played a rock ’n’ roll station out of Memphis.
Jason kissed Jean’s neck and she rubbed his beard.
“I’m not supposed to say this,” Jean said, “but Hamp thinks your running around with those boys is going to get you into trouble. He thinks maybe it’d be best if you left town for a while. He calls the man who runs things, what’s his name? Chains? He says he’s a stone-cold sociopath.”
“He’s not my biggest fan,” Jason said. “But I think he got his eggs a little scrambled in ’Nam. I just don’t think he can stand for people to tell him what to do, doesn’t care for the way most people live by laws and old-fashioned kind of phoniness.”
“I’d watch my step,” Jean said. “He sounds batshit crazy to me.”
Jason finished his ice cream and tossed the rest of the cone toward a trash barrel. The speakers at the stand were playing Elton John, recalling for Jason some sweet times down in San Diego with a young actress he’d dated a couple years ago. Dune buggies and wet bathing suits and burning driftwood on the beach. Jason had felt he was on another planet than Jericho. He hoped he could do the same for Jean. This wasn’t living.
“Before we go any further,” Jason said, “I need you to understand something about me.”
Jean leaned back into Jason, shoulders pressing into his chest, that red hair blowing in the hot wind off the river, driving him crazy.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” Jason said. “Since I was a kid, I hated when someone said I was too scared or I couldn’t do something. My brother Jerry got rich taking bets from kids in town about what his brother might try next. I could climb the tallest trees. Dove off that bridge over there when I was ten. Headfirst
.”
“That is crazy.”
“That’s just the way I am,” Jason said. “It’s the way I make my living. Every day I’m out there, someone in L.A. is playing chicken with my livelihood. The day I say no mas, my reputation is done. That’s one of the many things I’ve learned from Mr. Needham.”
“So you want me to know your profession is being crazy,” Jean asked. “And riding with some real cutthroats while you’re back home is just another way of proving yourself.”
“Every day, Miss Jean.”
She got off his slick Harley, Jason watching her walk over to toss the rest of her ice cream in the trash barrel. She had on cowboy boots, with cutoff jeans and a white peasant top that was next to nothing. Jason’s heart just kind of caught for a moment as she turned, smiled, and walked toward him. Jason moving up on the seat, kicking the bike to start, and Jean Beckett crawling on back with him, wrapping her long arms around his waist. “Just where are we going, Jason Colson?” she whispered.
“Don’t have any plans.”
“Just promise me one thing,” she said, her words hot and warm in his ear.
Jason revved the motor. The little girls working the Dairy Queen squealed.
“Don’t you ever lie to me,” she said. “When that happens, there’s no second chances.”
Quinn liked to get up before dawn, feeling like he had a jump on the morning, some alone time for himself when he pulled on his PT gear and ran a fire road up behind his house. He’d fashioned an old section of pipe between a couple four-by-fours, where he could do pull-ups, and had a concrete pad he’d poured for push-ups and sit-ups. He liked to train in the elements, appreciated the cold and wet, and was happy to burn off a good sweat before showering, shaving, and putting on his uniform. That uniform almost always ironed, with starched jeans, a khaki or Army-green button-up shirt with a patch on the shoulder. He’d pin on his tin star and collect his M9 Beretta, about the only thing he took from his time in the Regiment. His cowboy boots were always shined and ready to go on top of his footlocker, and by the first cup of coffee, and sometimes a cigar, he was watching the sun rise over the big rolls of hay he kept for his cattle.
Jean was up next. And then Jason got up, bleary-eyed in Superman pajamas and a little pissed at the early hour. Jean made them both fried eggs with bacon and biscuits. Then Jason hurried back to his bedroom to get dressed for kindergarten while Jean packed his lunch. Caddy was already up and gone, serving food to homeless families at The River. This had been the way since they’d all moved in after the storm.
“You had a late night,” Jean said.
“Diane Tull had some problems,” Quinn said, telling her about the peeper and the damage to her truck.
“Why in the hell would someone do that to such a nice woman?” Jean said. “She’s the only one around here who sells decent American-made clothes for kids. And boots. She helped Jason into a new pair of boots this fall. She’s good with kids. Raised two boys of her own.”
“Lillie has a theory,” Quinn said.
“And what’s that?”
“People can be mean as hell and dumber than shit.”
“Miss Tull have any idea who might have slashed her tires?”
“No, ma’am,” Quinn said, not wanting to get into opening back up the events of 1977 with Jean. Caddy may have told her, but Quinn wanted to keep much of it confidential. He crumbled the bacon on top of the eggs and dashed them with Crystal sauce.
When he finished off the last bit of biscuit, and washed out and filled up his Thermos with black coffee, Quinn walked out onto the front porch and out to the Big Green Machine to warm it up for Jason. On days he came in late, Lillie would cover for him. And when she needed to watch her daughter, a baby girl she rescued and adopted at six months old, Quinn covered for her.
The day was bright and bleak, sun not supposed to take them much above forty degrees. The trees were leafless and brittle in the wind. Quinn poured some coffee, steaming from the mug, and tuned his radio to the Drake & Zeke morning show out of Memphis. As he listened to the latest jokes about Memphis politicians and the decline of modern culture, Jean brought out Jason and helped get him in his safety seat. They were off, riding up the long dirty road from Quinn’s house, through some logging land, and then turning toward Jericho and the elementary school.
“Uncle Quinn?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You never said what to do about them bullies,” he said.
“Your momma would want me to say to tell a teacher.”
“What’d you say?”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No,” Jason said. “They just said I stunk.”
“How’s that?”
“They said black people smell funny.”
“You know their names?”
“No, sir,” Jason said. “But they said the creamies smelled worse than the blacks. I guess I’m a creamy.”
Quinn took a long breath, turning the wheel of the truck. “I’ll tell your momma to talk to the teacher.”
“But what do I do when no one’s looking?”
Quinn nodded and drove, catching up with Highway 9 and heading due south. He’d turned down the radio as they spoke, Drake & Zeke taking a station break, playing one of Chris Knight’s latest tracks about loneliness and heartache in the backwoods.
“When I was a little older than you, I had this kid always wanted to fight me,” Quinn said. “Never knew why. But he rode the bus with me and would get up in my face. I figure he just didn’t like my looks.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No, sir,” Quinn said. “I guess I was more scared of getting in trouble with the principal than the fighting. I used to get in a lot of trouble and there was talk of getting me suspended.”
“What’d you do?”
Quinn looked in the rearview to where Jason was strapped tight in the safety seat. They rode over the busted back highways into town, passing Mr. Varner’s Quick Mart, work crews crawling out of trucks and buying chicken biscuits and bottles of Mountain Dew to start their day. A refueling truck had parked at the Dixie gas station, filling the pumps.
“I told your grandmomma about it,” Quinn said.
“Why didn’t you tell your daddy?”
“Wasn’t around,” Quinn said. “Your grandmomma had to sort of be both to me. I figured when I told her, she’d say for me not to fight or else I’d rip my clothes. She was always getting onto me about tearing up my jeans when I climbed trees or went out to shoot squirrels with Mr. Boom. But she didn’t. She just told me I’d know the right thing.”
“What? What was it?”
“Well, one day that kid got off at my stop and that boy followed me down Ithaca Street to our house,” Quinn said. “He kept on coming and knocked on my door, telling me it was ass-whippin’ time.”
“An ass-whippin’?”
“Yep,” Quinn said. “Don’t repeat that. Your grandmomma just handed me my hat and coat and said to go take care of that son of a bitch. She said don’t ever let someone come into your territory.”
“Some other kids laughed when they said I stunk.”
“Don’t let ’em say that,” Quinn said. “You stand toe-to-toe and smile in their faces. When they’re not looking, punch them in the gut.”
“What if they hit me back?”
“Hit ’em harder,” Quinn said. “You got a Colson head. It’ll hurt even less if you give ’em back twice what they gave you. They count on you being scared, not on you coming full out.”
Quinn lifted his eyes up at the rearview and winked at Jason. Jason grinned. He seemed very pleased with that answer.
“Uncle Quinn?” Jason said. “Momma says you got a mean streak.”
“Your momma might be right,” he said. “About some things.”
Quinn turned onto Cotton Road and headed towa
rd the Square and due east for the school, much of it still covered up in blue tarps and most of the classrooms out in emergency trailers. The playground had taken a beating but remained the same as when Quinn had played there. Teachers waited outside the front of the school, administrative still inside, to walk the drop-off kids to the classrooms or trailers.
After a woman helped Jason from his seat and sent him down the path to his class, Quinn noted a little bounce in the kid’s step.
• • •
“You might try some brake cleaner on that,” Lillie Virgil said, getting out of her Jeep, hand over eyes in the harsh morning sun.
Diane Tull had parked at the side of the Farm & Ranch, using a hose and soapy brush to work on that spray paint from last night. She had on an old barn coat over a flannel shirt and jeans and wore a pair of high rubber boots. She hoped she could get this shit off her truck before customers started coming in.
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t set,” Diane said.
“Can you scratch it off with a fingernail?”
Diane picked at some of the lettering. “Some of it. Some has set.”
“Nail polish remover,” Lillie said. “Some kids defaced some county vehicles a few years ago and Mary Alice just reached in her purse and showed how easy it works. That woman sure is proud of her fingernails. Like eagle claws. That was on tractors, but I don’t think you’ll mind damaging that coat a little bit.”
“It’s an old truck.”
“Nice one,” Lillie said. “’Sixty-five?”
“’Sixty-six,” Diane said, putting the brush in the bucket. “The two-tone paint is original and the AM radio still works. My daddy bought it brand-new at a dealership in Columbus.”
“Sorry about what happened,” Lillie said. “Don’t wash too much of it yet. I need to take some pictures.”
“Sheriff Colson took some last night,” Diane said.
“Need a few more, in the daylight,” Lillie said. “I know he already pulled some prints off the door handle.”
“It was locked,” Diane said, warming her hands in her blue barn coat. “And Quinn thought the prints looked to be mine, thumbprint the size of a woman’s.”
