Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ Colson asked.

‘She has lots of boyfriends,’ said Mrs Howard.

‘Uh-huh,’ said her husband.

‘Anyone you might know?’

‘According to Miss Imogene, they’s mostly over in Malvern, or that’s where she sees them,’ said Mrs Howard. ‘And they ain’t those kind of boyfriends.’

‘Uh-uh,’ said her husband, shaking his head.

Naylor appeared confused.

‘Then what kind of boyfriends are they?’ he asked.

‘The temporary kind,’ said Mrs Howard.

‘Temporary,’ said her husband.

‘How temporary?’

‘They pays by the hour.’

‘By the hour,’ agreed her husband. ‘They’s whoremongers.’

Colson and Naylor made a cursory search of the Kernigan home, but saw nothing to indicate signs of a struggle or abduction, and certainly no indication that Donna Lee might have been killed there. The cottage was tidy, with the exception of the smaller of the two bedrooms, which had clearly been Donna Lee’s. This was messy in the way that only a teenager’s room could be, so much so that Naylor, who had been a scrupulous child, thought it might have been burgled, until Colson – who had three sisters, two brothers, and a comfort with disarray – assured him it was normal for a teenage girl. They decided to wait for McKenzie to arrive before embarking on a more thorough search.

The refrigerator was stocked with the kind of foodstuffs that offered satiation for minimum outlay, albeit by sacrificing a certain amount of nutritional value. In a closet by the sink they found four bottles of Everclear grain alcohol, along with a couple of bottles of cheap wine and some malt liquor. One of the bottles of Everclear was half-empty, and the refrigerator contained two unmarked bottles of liquid, one clear and one that smelled like Hawaiian Punch. Colson guessed that Sallie Kernigan was mixing the Everclear with water to make a form of cheap vodka, and adding the Everclear to the Hawaiian Punch for special occasions.

Sallie Kernigan’s nightstand contained headache and indigestion tablets, birth control pills, an open pack of Trojans, a six-inch knife, and an Astra Terminator pistol: a .44 Magnum with the barrel chopped down from six inches to just under three, the rear sight melted and the frame recontoured. Colson picked it up in her gloved hand, feeling the weight of the gun. It wasn’t a typical woman’s weapon, and she wondered how Kernigan might have come by it. She unloaded the Astra and bagged the ammunition. Finally, at the back of the nightstand, and hidden in a copy of the Bible that appeared to have been partially hollowed out for this particular purpose, she found four small plastic baggies: two containing white powder, one containing pills, and the fourth containing clear, chunky crystals. She waved them at Naylor. They both knew meth when they saw it. One couldn’t serve in law enforcement in Burdon County and not be able to identify the drug, whatever its form.

‘Nothing like variety,’ said Naylor. ‘She can smoke it, snort it, inject it, or add it to the hooch in the refrigerator. Happy times.’

Colson ran her fingers over the bag of rocks. This was pure crystal meth, created without contaminants. Its manufacturer knew his trade.

They went back outside and tossed a coin to determine who would stay and wait for McKenzie. Naylor lost, so Colson headed back to the station. Along the way, she passed Reverend Pettle and signaled for him to stop, pulling up alongside his car.

‘What kept you?’ she asked.

‘I needed a moment to compose my thoughts. It’s not every day you have to tell a mother that her child has been butchered and violated.’

Colson replied only to let Pettle know that Sallie Kernigan wasn’t at home, or at work, so he could save himself a trip. Later in the day someone would have to visit Donna Lee Kernigan’s grandmother, Miss Imogene, and inform her of the girl’s death, but it didn’t seem wise to do that before Sallie Kernigan had been told. Nevertheless, if Sallie didn’t show up before too long, they’d have to speak with Miss Imogene in the hope of locating her daughter through her. Pettle confirmed his willingness to help at any time, and Colson thanked him before driving off. Pettle didn’t immediately follow, but instead remained in his car by the side of the road, contemplating the morning’s events.

Reverend Nathan Pettle knew that a lot of people in Cargill regarded him as substandard material, even certain members of his own congregation. He wasn’t the best preacher, nor the most sagacious or patient of pastors, and he found his faith was tested regularly by the realities of human existence. It was also the case that a black man learned to show one face toward whites and another to his own people. If he did that often and long enough, even he might become confused about his own identity, and risk becoming that which he pretended to be.

But Pettle cared about his faithful and tried his best to do right by them. There were those among his flock who said that he should have gone to the newspapers when the investigation into Patricia Hartley’s death came to an end before her body was even consigned to the flames. Pettle knew Jurel Cade wouldn’t have stood for that; and besides, if any reporters had cared enough about Patricia Hartley, they’d have come calling without his prodding. Nobody wanted to rock the boat in Burdon County, not with so much money riding on its future. But now there were two dead black girls – three, if you counted Estella Jackson from way back – and even Jurel wouldn’t be able to put a pattern like that down to a series of accidents. If he tried, Pettle would have to defy him – for the sake of the victim, and his own position in the community. If Pettle rolled over again, any authority remaining to him would vanish.

Yet he, like many others, had been promised so much. If he made an excess of noise he would lose it all, and everyone – including his own churchgoers – would suffer for it.

So Reverend Nathan Pettle closed his eyes and asked God to give him the wisdom to determine the value of a single life – and, most particularly, this life, because he had known the girl, and knew her mother.

Oh yes he did.

20

Colson returned to the station house, where she arrived just as Griffin was pulling into the lot. The priority now was to trace Sallie Kernigan – not only to inform her of her daughter’s death, but also to establish her movements over the course of the weekend. While no one at the Cargill PD wanted to believe she might have killed her own daughter, it was possible that Sallie had crossed paths with whoever was responsible. Kel Knight came to join them, so Colson went through the details once again for his benefit, describing the discovery of the pistol and meth in Kernigan’s nightstand, and sharing the music teacher’s account of a truck picking up Donna Lee Kernigan after band practice on Friday.

‘If she was using meth, she might have been getting it from Tilon Ward, or one of his people,’ said Knight.

‘Ward’s people don’t have a monopoly on meth,’ said Griffin.

‘They do around here.’

‘Maybe, but my understanding is that while Tilon may be involved in its manufacture, he leaves the problem of supply to others, especially when it comes down to teener bags.’

‘But Ward also drives a truck,’ said Knight, ‘and Donna Lee was last seen getting into one.’

‘Half the county drives a truck,’ said Griffin, ‘and Tilon was the one who called us to say he’d found Donna Lee’s body. He looked to me to be in shock, and that’s hard to fake, especially when your skin turns gray.’

‘I’m not saying he killed her,’ said Knight, ‘only that he may know more than he’s sharing.’