Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘It’s a body. That’s all I know. Breakfast may take awhile, because it’s just you and me here for now.’

‘I’m in no hurry to eat, but thank you anyway.’

‘You didn’t kill her, did you?’

‘No.’

‘I guess you would say that, though, even if you had killed her.’

‘I guess so.’

‘But if you’ve done something bad, I’ll be disappointed in you.’

A flicker on the man’s face: a smile attempting to construct itself from underused muscles.

‘I wouldn’t want that,’ he said.

‘No, you wouldn’t. You need anything else?’

‘I have a book to read, but it’s kind of you to ask.’

‘I’ll be back to you later with that food.’

‘Thanks.’

Billie left him, increasing her pace as she heard the phone begin to ring. She picked up and listened as the caller identified himself. She wrote the name CHARLIE PARKER in block capitals across the top of a fresh page, and began taking notes.

Christ , she thought, as the lines began to fill with her handwriting, Kel and the chief need to get back here, and fast. They need to let this man out of his cage before he has a mind to break out of it himself .

Tucker McKenzie was everything that Loyd Holt was not: tall where Holt was short, slim where he was fat, confident where he was not. McKenzie also slept like a baby, and had given up asking women to marry him after the first one said yes. He was now carefully walking the scene, camera in hand, his equipment bag hanging from his shoulder. Griffin and the others left him to it, not wishing to obstruct or distract him while he was getting his bearings. Once he was done, he joined Griffin, Knight, and Holt.

‘What do you think?’ Griffin asked.

McKenzie gave him a look before proceeding, and Griffin gathered that two conversations would be required between them, the first public and the second more private.

‘It looks clean, at first glance. She was set down after the rain stopped, so we might luck out on boot or shoe prints, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. I saw some smears in the dirt beside the body, so whoever left her there may have been smart enough to obscure any tracks. When the light improves, I’ll take a closer look at those branches, see if anything might have snagged on them. What I can tell you now, you already know: she wasn’t killed where she lies, and there’s evidence of torture.’

‘Torture?’ said Griffin.

‘Some of those wounds are shallow. I reckon whoever did this tormented her for kicks before he got around to killing her. Also, those branches inside her didn’t originate here. They’re black hickory, and I don’t see any of that nearby. We’ll need to figure out where they might have come from and search those areas. Until the branches are removed, I won’t be able to tell for certain if they were scavenged or cut for purpose. As for the cause of death, I wouldn’t like to speculate, but if you forced me, I’d say that one or more of those stab wounds might have been sufficient to put an end to her.’

‘All right,’ said Griffin. ‘Soonest started.’

McKenzie began checking his camera. ‘You have a name for her yet?’

‘No. We got a couple of missing persons, including two colored women, but the ages don’t match. We’re going to consult Reverend Pettle, see if he can’t help us identify her.’

‘Uh-huh.’ McKenzie clicked off a shot and rolled the film on. ‘Loyd, can you give us a minute?’

Holt made an effort to object, if only for form’s sake. ‘I’m the coroner. Whatever you got to say, I should hear.’

‘Loyd,’ said Griffin, ‘how badly do you want to have to lie to Jurel Cade when he arrives?’

‘I don’t want to have to lie to Jurel at all.’

‘Then perhaps you ought to take a walk.’

Holt didn’t bother to protest. In fact, to Griffin’s eyes, he appeared pleased to be asked to absent himself from proceedings, which was worrying.

Burdon County, Griffin thought, was about ready for a new coroner.

13

Kel Knight kept an eye on Loyd Holt while Griffin and McKenzie conversed out of earshot. Like the rest of the department, Knight now owned one of those cursed cell phone gadgets, although he sorely wished it were not the case, Kel Knight being of the view that if he wanted to be contactable at all hours of the day and night, he’d pitch a tent outside Ferdy’s Dunk-N-Go, and leave a light on so folks could find him in the dark. Admittedly, one couldn’t travel far from the heart of town without losing coverage, but it was scant succor for someone who valued his privacy the way Knight did.

Even though Holt had moved some distance away, and believed himself to be unobserved, Knight could see him discreetly checking his phone, moving it here and there in an effort to pick up a signal. When he failed, he began painstakingly typing out a text message, presumably in the hope that it might be sent as soon as the bars on the phone appeared again. If the recipient were anyone other than Jurel Cade, Knight would have been shocked to learn it. In his view, Holt’s fear of the chief deputy almost certainly outweighed any obligation the former might have felt toward Evan Griffin, the Cargill PD, and the requirements of law and justice. He wondered how long it would take Holt to find an excuse to leave the scene. Not long, as it turned out.

‘I’m going to head home for a few minutes,’ Holt told Knight. ‘I didn’t dress warm enough, and there’s a dampness in the air.’

‘I keep an old coat in the trunk of my car,’ said Knight. ‘Never know when a man might require another layer.’

‘All due respect, Kel, you got six inches on me, and I got at least twelve on you around the waist. I don’t believe one of your coats is going to do me much good. I’ll pick up coffee and doughnuts from Ferdy’s on the way back, and some bagels too.’

‘If you’re sure,’ said Knight.

‘I am.’

Knight watched Holt get into his crappy Phoenix and start the engine. Just as he was about to pull away, Knight made a roll-down-the-window gesture.

‘What is it?’ said Holt.

‘You’re running on a flat, Loyd.’

‘What?’

‘Left rear. Doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere until you get it changed.’

Holt leaned out the window and glared at the deflated tire.

‘Aw, goddamn.’

‘Won’t take long to fix. I’ll give you a hand. You got a spare?’

‘In the trunk.’

‘You want to pop it open?’

Holt did, and a jab with Knight’s pocketknife took care of the spare tire just as assuredly as it had the left rear.

‘Right,’ said Knight, ‘let’s get started.’

McKenzie watched Kel Knight lift out the spare tire as Loyd Holt struggled with the jack. He’d noticed Knight kneeling by Holt’s car earlier. Now he understood why.

‘Seems like Loyd has a problem with a tire,’ said McKenzie.

‘That’s unfortunate, but Loyd doesn’t know from problems,’ said Griffin. ‘Talk to me.’

‘I could see a deep puncture at the base of the girl’s skull when I knelt beside her. Didn’t need to lift her head to spot it, but I thought you’d prefer to be made aware of it before Loyd was.’

A deep injury to the base of the skull, a killing wound. Griffin returned in his mind to the photographs in Parker’s file, and one in particular: a girl lying naked in a pool of water, the red hole of a penetrating skull fracture clearly visible, dried blood around her ears and eyes.

Patricia Hartley.

Evan Griffin had not been permitted to view Patricia Hartley’s remains, thanks to issues of jurisdiction and the efforts of Jurel Cade. The little he knew about the circumstances of its discovery came from Tucker McKenzie, who had heard on the grapevine about the body while he was over in Hot Springs working on another case, and had swung by the scene on the assumption that he would eventually be needed one way or another. When he arrived, Loyd Holt was parked within sight of the corpse, along with a couple of sheriff’s deputies, but Holt was reluctant to let McKenzie get to work, not without Jurel Cade’s permission – and Cade, said the coroner, had briefly left the scene to make a call. McKenzie had convinced Holt that it might be wise to have some pictures, if only to cover Holt’s own back in the event of any questions, because rain was coming. Holt, who was so committed to watching his own back that he might have been part owl, acquiesced.