Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘There are similarities.’

‘The nature of what was done to her was widely known in this county, and a lot of time has elapsed since then. Similarities don’t mean it’s the same culprit.’

‘So nobody considered a link between her and Patricia Hartley, or saw fit to question the coroner’s decision?’

‘Nobody in a position of authority wants any of these killings investigated. They’d prefer whatever happened to Patricia Hartley – and, by now, Estella Jackson also – to be buried or burned along with the bodies. But you can change that. You have expertise that we don’t possess. I’m asking for your help, Mr Parker.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Parker, ‘but this isn’t my problem.’

Griffin considered all the objections he might offer, all the efforts he might make to convince this man otherwise, but uttered none of them. He thought he understood. Who was to say that, in a similar position, he would have behaved any differently? Parker had lost nearly everything. The least he could be left with was his hope of revenge.

‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ said Griffin.

‘So I can go?’

‘I don’t see any reason for you to stay.’

Parker’s eyes drifted away from Griffin, his gaze already elsewhere.

‘Before you leave,’ said Griffin, ‘I’d be interested to learn how you came by the material on Jackson and Hartley contained in that file of yours, especially the Hartley pictures.’

‘There are men and women in law enforcement who feel as though they owe me something,’ said Parker. ‘They don’t, but I’m not about to refuse their help.’

‘That may be true,’ said Griffin, ‘and the Jackson material could have come from anywhere, because there are copies of it up in Little Rock. But even I hadn’t seen some of those pictures of Patricia Hartley. I believe they might have been taken by Tucker McKenzie, our local forensic analyst.’

‘I don’t know the name, but not everyone in this state is prepared to turn a blind eye to murder on the say-so of a deadbeat coroner.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Griffin. ‘But some of us are now trying to do the right thing.’

‘It’s too late.’

‘I choose to differ. And I hope you find him, the one who did this to you and your family.’

‘I will, or he’ll find me. Either way, I’ll face him in the end.’

‘I’ll ask Kel to give you a ride back to the motel,’ said Griffin.

‘I’d prefer to walk.’

And he did.

From the office window, Griffin and Knight watched Parker cross the street and head west toward the motel.

‘You’re letting him go?’ said Knight.

‘You’re the one who didn’t want him to stay to begin with.’

‘I may have been mistaken. I don’t have to like him to work with him, and we need help.’

‘We’ll just have to do what we can without him.’

Griffin thought of the dead girls. They deserved better, but he would try his utmost, for their sakes.

‘What next?’ said Knight.

‘We talk.’

‘To who?’

‘To everyone.’

26

Tilon Ward always kept a heavy-duty canvas bag packed and ready, just in case everything ever went to hell and he needed to run. The bag contained clothing, toiletries, a Beretta 9mm, and just under $15,000 in cash, along with two 1908 $20 Double Eagle gold coins that had been given to him by his father as a wedding gift, and were now worth about $3,000, give or take. The bag was usually stored behind a panel in the bathroom but right now it was sitting on Tilon’s bed, because he was thinking that the time might have come to leave town for a while.

He should never have slept with Donna Lee Kernigan, not in a community like Cargill. He’d been careful, and it wasn’t as though her momma had objected – if nothing else, Sallie Kernigan was a practical person, and viewed her daughter’s dealings with Tilon Ward as an adjunct to a business relationship – but there were no secrets in a town this size, especially not when a teenage girl was involved. Tilon had always enjoyed a taste for younger women, although not so young as to be illegal, because he wasn’t a deviant, which was where he differed from his father, Hollis. The difficulty was that, while Tilon was growing older, the age of his women was staying more or less the same. He supposed that eventually he’d have to acquiesce to reality, and start sleeping with women in their late twenties or – God forbid – even older, but he wasn’t about to throw in the towel until he had to. Also, one of the advantages of being a meth dealer was that your product was always in demand, and often by those who didn’t mind paying for it in something other than hard cash.

He held the Double Eagles in the palm of his right hand. His old man hadn’t left him much, apart from the coins – well, the coins, and an unshakable belief that the system was designed to fuck men over, and therefore the smart ones found a way to fuck it in return. He had no idea how his father had come by the Double Eagles, except that he probably hadn’t acquired them legally, Hollis Ward living by the conviction that only a fool paid ticket for anything, and the mark of a clever man was to pay as close as possible to nothing at all.

But Hollis was gone now.

Tilon’s truck had a full tank of gas. He could put three hundred miles of daylight between him and Cargill before he had to stop for a refill. From his bedroom window, he saw a red Ford Tempo pull up in the yard. His mother got out and removed a bag of groceries from the trunk. Somewhere in there would be chicken thighs, because she always made fried chicken on Mondays, with beans and mashed potatoes. She moved more slowly now, he noticed. She’d taken a bad fall a year earlier, and it had shaken her confidence.

He restored the Double Eagles to the bag, and the bag to its hiding place behind the tub, just as he’d done countless times over the last few years. He couldn’t run, not yet, because if – or when – his relationship with Donna Lee was discovered, his absence would be construed as guilt, and Jurel Cade would as happily see him locked up for murder as for the manufacture of methamphetamine. Even to leave town so soon after coming across Donna Lee’s body would draw suspicion. But he also had certain unavoidable obligations here: to his customers, and more particularly to his employer.

At that moment, as though his thoughts had invited the scrutiny of that very consciousness, his phone rang. He checked the number and decided it would be unwise to ignore this call.

‘Randall,’ he said.

‘I hear they found another dead colored girl.’

Tilon decided not to clarify that ‘they’ hadn’t found her, but he had. He should have just come clean, because Randall Butcher would learn the truth soon enough. For the present, though, Tilon had decided on a policy of not admitting anything to anyone.

‘That’s right.’

‘Did you know her?’

Careful, careful.

‘I knew her mother. Professionally speaking.’

‘Which means you also knew the girl.’

‘In passing.’

The silence from Butcher was troubling. Tilon wouldn’t have dared attempt to lie like this to his face. Randall Butcher was a naturally distrustful individual. It was a depressing personal characteristic, one of Butcher’s many.

‘Do we need to worry?’ Butcher said, once he was certain that the lull in the conversation, and the possible reasons for it, had registered with Tilon.

Only about whatever Sallie Kernigan has left of her stash , thought Tilon, which I supplied, and maybe about the gun I gave her after she said someone tried to break into her house one night, and also about whatever she might have to say to the police once she discovers her daughter is dead, which means whatever she might have to say about me …