Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

“Daddy won’t go to the Rosewood Crime Lab,” he continued. “He’d go to Tennessee for help before he’d ask Rosewood or Atlanta for any. Daddy thinks Atlanta is Satan and Rosewood is one of its disciples.”

“I’m sorry we’ve made such a bad impression,” said Diane.

Deputy Conrad chuckled. “Don’t take it personally. It’s just the way people think here.” He sighed. “Daddy thinks he knows everybody in the county-knows what they’re like. He knows his generation, but he don’t know young people or people that’s moved into the county. None of them older folks do. Brother Sam-he’s the preacher over at Golgotha Baptist-he’s dead set against getting a cell phone tower in the county, and he keeps his congregation all riled up about it, so we got no cell service. Lots of them deacons from the churches got theirselves elected to the county board, and they do their earnest best to tell the rest of us what to do. Lucky for us, a lot of the Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and the Pentecostals don’t agree among themselves, so the county board don’t get much done but arguing.” He laughed again. “If the county’s ever going to get any businesses moving in, we’re gonna have to get ourselves a cell tower, for starters, and do something about these roads. Can’t nobody have a decent car around here.”

“They are hard to drive on in the rain,” said Diane, remembering her trip down the road earlier. She appreciated that when Deputy Conrad talked, he kept his eyes on the road.

“One of the cell phone companies offered Roy Barre a lot of money to put a tower up on one of his mountains.”

“Was he considering it?” asked Diane.

“I think he was. He talked like he was. Roy wasn’t as against some of the modern stuff like the rest of the older folks around here. I swear, if they weren’t addicted to WrestleMania and the cowboy channels, they’d be fighting over whether we should even have television. Not that they could stop people, but they could sure fuss about it.”

“Would any of them be angry enough at Roy Barre over the cell phone tower to kill him and his wife?” asked Diane.

“You mean, thinking they figured they were killing the devil’s disciple and doing a good deed? I don’t think so,” he said. “They aren’t crazy or anything-just trying to keep the sins of Atlanta out of our little mountains. Most people here like to fuss, but they don’t carry it beyond that. Our families have known each other forever around here-at least the old families. My great-granddaddy and Roy’s granddaddy were good friends. Same with a lot of families. We’ve all been friends and enemies and friends again a long time, but we’ve never killed nobody over anything.”

Diane looked out the window at the dark silhouettes of trees as the Jeep slid and swerved its way down the muddy mountain road. She felt as if she were riding in a stagecoach. She wondered about a place that had insulated itself the way this one had-families who knew one another for generations, with boundaries to the outside world maintained by mountains, family ties, and inhospitable dirt roads. Of course, there were changes over the years. People weren’t forced to stay. They did travel, join the military, work outside the area, have television, but Diane wondered how they would change if they merely paved their roads. They would certainly have more visitors in the mountains if the roads outside the towns could carry vehicles other than four-wheel-drives. And nothing brought change like visitors. She wondered to what degree some of the citizens hated cell phones. Hated the idea of their kids sending and receiving text messages all day long, having the phones ring in church, in school.

Diane had heard that some people wanted to make Renfrew, the county seat of Rendell County, into a tourist town, along the lines of Helen, Georgia, a picturesque alpine village in the North Georgia mountains. She had no doubt it could likely happen. But there were those who would fight it all the way. She wondered if those people would kill to protect their wilderness from encroaching outsiders. Was Roy Barre’s willingness to allow a phone company to erect a tower on his property seen as the first crack in the dam they had built to hold in their traditional values? But, like Deputy Conrad, Diane couldn’t imagine anyone would kill to stop the erection of a tower.

Diane wanted to ask who inherited the Barres’ land, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to sound as if she were sticking her nose into their business-something she fully intended to do, but more discreetly. She did wonder about the taxes on property the size of the Barres’, and she asked Conrad about them.

“Not as much as you might think,” he said. “Barre was on the county board, along with other big landowners, and they keep property taxes down. We use sales tax and government grants to fund the schools and the sheriff’s office, the road department, and such.”

“What did folks think about that?” asked Diane.

“Mixed. Them that own property like it. Others don’t,” he said. “I don’t think it would be a motive for murder, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I suppose not,” said Diane. She thought back to the image of the Barres at the dining room table. That was a very angry crime. Something was a motive. Something more serious than cell towers and property taxes.

“I’ve been thinking about running for sheriff when Daddy retires,” said Conrad. “I could get the votes of both the old-timers and the younger people around here. Of course, no telling when Daddy will retire. He likes his job. Considers himself the county’s gatekeeper. Just around this bend we’ll come to the Massey house.”

So soon , thought Diane. “What’s his story?” she asked. “Is his family one of the older families?”

“Sure is. But it looks like ol’ Slick is going to be the last Massey. The family usually had girls, so the Massey name kind of disappeared. Slick inherited the house when his daddy died about seven years ago. I don’t think he’s done much to keep it up. He raises hunting dogs and works at the sawmill in Riverdale. He’s been living with his girlfriend for about five years. I think she’s a stay-at-home girlfriend. I don’t know that she works anywhere.”

“Your county fathers don’t have anything to say about that arrangement?” asked Diane.

Deputy Conrad grinned. “They have a lot to say, but Slick don’t go to church none to hear it.”

“Does he own a lot of property?” asked Diane.

“Not much, about a hundred acres. It butts up against the Barre land. They’ve argued about where the property line is, but it’s nothing serious.”

That sounded to Diane like fuel for anger, and a possible motive. She took a deep breath as they pulled up in front of the house. It was dark and looked just as foreboding as the last time she saw it.

“You don’t have to worry none,” said Deputy Conrad. “He won’t try nothing with me here.”

“What about his dogs?” asked Diane.

“Them’s huntin’ dogs. They won’t hurt you,” he said.

Diane saw her SUV. It was where she’d left it. The door was still open, but the tree on top of the hood was gone. So was the skeleton.

Just as they were about to get out of the Jeep, the lights came on in the house.

“Looks like we woke them up,” said Diane.

She had managed to slip her backbone back into place, so she was not nearly as freaked as she thought she might be when the lights came on in the house.

“Looks like it,” said the deputy.

Diane and Deputy Conrad got out of his Jeep and walked to her SUV. The dome light wasn’t on. It automatically turned itself off after a period of time to save the battery. Diane climbed in. The seat was wet from the rain. The key was still in the ignition. She tried to start the engine. It sputtered a little and she looked at the fuel gauge. Empty. She’d had almost a full tank when she left.