John Miller - Side by Side

The land, about 940 acres of woods, clover fields, and water holes, was for hunting. The place was thick with game, and Peanut and the boys spent a fortune on keeping it that way. And Lord help you if you was to get caught poaching on it. People who knew the family would leave a wounded deer they’d tracked there for the buzzards before they’d risk being caught by the Smoots while dragging it off their land.

Dixie worked out at Gold’s Gym. She could bench-press 270 pounds. She spent part of her day in there going from one machine to the other until she was sweating to beat the band. She couldn’t outwrestle her three older brothers, because they were a lot bigger, and stronger than bulls. Buck loved staying bulked up and was proud to say that nobody had ever kicked his ass. Not even when he was a Marine, which he was before he got dishonorably discharged for something he would never tell anybody about. Part of Buck’s trouble was the steroids that kept his face broke out, but he’d always just been mean as hell for no good reason. You couldn’t like Buck if you tried, and that was how he liked it.

Dixie had heard from Burt, who was mad at Buck, that his older brother had been feeling the skinny woman up, saying she asked him to screw her, and that he was going to do just that before it was all over. If you were a woman, you wouldn’t want to spread your legs for Buck, because he couldn’t get aroused unless he was hurting the girl. That was just how he was, and everybody in the family knew it.

Dixie was just as tough as her three older brothers were and smarter than all three of them put together. She didn’t get as much money as the boys, but that was supposedly because they got their hands dirtier. Peanut had always said that planned killings were man’s work. Dixie did whatever her daddy said to, and if he told her to cut somebody up and throw the pieces in the river, she could do it as well as her brothers could. What did testicles have to do with getting bloody?

Dixie’s instructions had been straight. Peanut said she was to watch the pair until he said kill them. She was to make sure that none of her brothers messed around with the woman because it wasn’t right to do it to her under such pitiful circumstances. But Peanut didn’t tell Dixie she couldn’t teach her a lesson or two.

Dixie looked down at the sleeping child and, despite telling them to get it done, she’d bet the damn twins were out looking for deer signs, and hadn’t yet put a shovel blade into the ground.

Clayton Able, who had taken a break to go to his own room, returned. He opened another file. “You’ll want to take a look at Smoot family members and known associates and which rocks you might have to turn over to find them.”

Clayton placed the pictures down faceup, one at a time, like a salesman showing his product to prospective customers. The first picture was a mug shot of an unpleasant young man in his twenties.

“Here’s what you’d get if you crossed Jay Leno and a silverback,” Clayton said. “Stanley Smoot, Jr., who goes by the very original tag of Buck. Peanut’s firstborn. Twenty-nine and trouble with a capital ‘T.’ Graduated high school at twenty due to a few teachers he couldn’t scare the crap out of. Tried team sports, but Buck was prone to collecting personal fouls and generally considered a negative influence on his teammates. He could have been a poster boy for the Young Sociopath Club if there’d been one in his high school.”

Buck bore a striking resemblance to his father, Peanut, but the son’s scalp was accented by mogul-like waves-as if the skin on his skull was doing an impression of wavy hair. Buck’s face was filled with small skin eruptions. He wore three heavy steel hoops in his left ear. His head was supported by a neck so thick that it would have looked at home on a rutting elk. He reminded Winter of a maniacal version of a long-jawed simpleton cartoon character from Mad magazine.

“This picture was a police-sponsored portrait to commemorate the occasion of an arrest for aggravated assault, charges dropped.”

“Who’d he assault?” Winter asked.

“Exotic dancer by the name of Kitty Breeze. Kitty initially told the cops that Buck bit her nipple off, flattened her nose, broke her jaw, and shattered her eye socket. After he was arrested and placed in a lineup, she couldn’t identify him and said the man who actually did it was a Mexican.”

In a surveillance shot, Buck was standing beside a truck in his boxer shorts. Buck’s shoulders rippled with muscles; his arms and hands were massive. Below the muscles, Buck had a swollen belly, his legs were amazingly thin, and his feet appeared to be too small and narrow to support him. It was as if he’d been put together out of the parts of two people and one of them had been a middle-aged accountant with a penchant for beer.

“Four months in the Marine Corps before they kicked his ass out. Seems the Corps didn’t pay proper attention to his psychological profile. Except for thumping heads and scaring people, Buck would be jobless. He’s a product of blending suspect genetic material, the brain of a Neanderthal, physical exercise, and chemical abuse. Suspect in at least a dozen killings for hire, and more than that many young ladies over the years-all of whom his family was associated with on some level. Dancers, prostitutes, employees of shady businesses.”

The next set of pictures was of a very large pair of men in football regalia. Feature-wise they resembled Buck and Peanut, but each was half again Buck’s size.

“These young men are the Smoot twins, Burt and Curt. This is a newer picture.”

In the next photo, the twins had obviously turned their backs on the weight training that had given them their impressive high school figures, and hadn’t stayed ahead of the results of consuming copious amounts of carbohydrates and beer. Winter couldn’t help but wonder if the twins smiled like idiots all the time, or just when they were in the presence of a camera. They certainly got their share of the Smoot genes.

Clayton sucked on his pipe loudly. “They were linemen. Big college programs courted them, but they had problems with a lack of motivation, and their SAT scores sucked.

“These two aren’t explosive, like Buck, but they aren’t any less dangerous. To the best of their abilities, they do what Daddy says.”

Next Clayton tossed out a picture of a woman, who looked enough like Buck in a wig to be comical.

“This breathtaking vision of southern womanhood is Dora Jeanne Smoot, known affectionately as Dixie. She is Papa’s little angel. Dixie’s into body sculpting.”

“She’s a lot like her brothers,” Alexa said.

Clayton said, “She collects money, keeps Papa’s painted women in line, and furnishes steroids to gyms, coaches, and her brother Buck. Dixie can do pretty much whatever the boys can. She was born with brittle teeth, so she had them all pulled and wears porcelain choppers.”

“The woman with dentures on phone taps,” Winter said.

“Almost certainly,” Clayton agreed. “No voice pattern for Dixie on file. Our dentally challenged mystery woman always uses pay phones, and Dixie does the same. She is suspected of committing at least seven prostitution-related murders on her father’s behalf. Problem pimps, a few whores. Dixie’s one very nasty piece of psychotica.” He turned over another picture. “And this is Ferny Ernest Smoot, called Click by his family and friends.

“Inherited the family brain trust. No arrests. Had some minor behavioral problems in school, but otherwise Click’s probably as harmless as you can be, given his blood and nurturing.”

“He doesn’t look like a member of the same circus,” Alexa said. “He’s normal looking, sort of in a Civil War tintype way.”