Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘Maybe I just like dogs,’ said Parker.

‘Son, you seem hell-bent on riling me.’

‘With respect, I’m not your son.’

‘And with respect, I’m grateful. I have trouble enough with my own curs.’

Pappy reached for his coffee. The cup rattled against the saucer, spilling some of the liquid, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He slurped noisily, but only Nealus reacted with discomfiture.

‘Chief,’ said Pappy, once he had restored the cup to its resting place, ‘let me explain where we’re at. Three Kovas executives, including the CEO, Rod Elvin, are due here next week for a final survey of sites in Cargill and Hamill, followed by a meeting with all interested parties in Little Rock to nail down the tax agreement. If everything goes well, we’ll have signatures on the first contracts before the end of the month. This is a delicate point in the negotiations, and we need to avoid negative publicity, or anything that might cause Kovas to turn tail and run for Texas.’

‘We have girls dying, Mr Cade,’ said Griffin. ‘That can’t be ignored.’

‘I’m not asking you to ignore it, Evan.’ Parker noticed that Pappy moderated his tone whenever he addressed Griffin directly. Here was a clever man, one used to getting his way, and as happy to use blandishments as threats. ‘I’m asking if any investigation can be …’

‘Postponed?’ Nealus suggested.

Pappy brightened and grinned at his youngest offspring with delight, possibly even a degree of surprise.

‘Yes, postponed,’ he said. ‘But only until we have the deal locked down.’

Griffin looked to Parker.

‘You’re the expert,’ he said. ‘You got an opinion on anything other than dogs?’ There was a glint in his eye.

‘Hold on,’ said Jurel Cade. ‘What kind of expertise are we talking about here?’

‘Seven years with the NYPD,’ said Parker, ‘four as detective.’

‘Seven years?’ said Jurel. ‘Hell, I got ten under my belt.’

‘In Burdon County,’ said Parker.

‘Yeah, in Burdon County,’ said Jurel. ‘Killings don’t just happen in New York.’

‘Which is why we’re here,’ said Parker. He addressed Pappy. ‘Look, Mr Cade, police prioritize the first forty-eight hours in any criminal investigation for a reason. If we don’t have a lead in that time, the chances of solving the crime halve. Unless we proceed quickly, Donna Lee Kernigan will join Patricia Hartley and Estella Jackson on the cold case list.’

Parker decided to throw Jurel Cade a bone. He might not have liked the chief deputy much on initial acquaintance, but they were going to have to work together nonetheless, and Parker would have to ensure that any obstruction was kept to a minimum. If Griffin was correct, this was someone capable of interfering with a crime scene by pushing the naked body of a dead girl down a hill.

‘The chief investigator here may be right to remain cautious about connecting the two latest killings with that of Estella Jackson,’ Parker continued, ‘but the fact remains that you’ve had two linked murders in the space of a few months, unless you’re intent on persisting with the farce that Patricia Hartley’s death might have been accidental.’

Jurel seemed ready to do exactly that, but Parker saw Pappy Cade shake his head slightly, which was enough to settle the matter.

‘That raises a number of possibilities,’ Parker continued. ‘Either the person responsible for the murder of Estella Jackson has returned to the area and picked up where he – and it is a male, in all probability – left off; or an individual familiar with his activities has decided to imitate them: a copycat, as has been suggested.

‘Two killings in that space of time represent fast work. These aren’t the actions of someone who is cooling down for long between victims, which means either he’s compulsive or he’s enjoying it. Whichever it is, he’s not going to stop, and the likelihood is that the gap between the murder of Donna Lee Kernigan and his next victim will be shorter still. He wants attention, but he’s not getting it.’

What Parker had to say next depressed him. It was necessary, if only to shock Jurel Cade and his father out of whatever remained of their torpor, but it went against all that he believed as a detective and a human being.

‘Or he’s not getting it,’ Parker concluded, ‘from killing young black women.’

That changed the mood in the room, but only temporarily. The first words came, again unexpectedly, from Nealus Cade.

‘My brother is of the opinion that these killings represent black-on-black violence,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that right, Jurel?’

Once again, Jurel Cade was looking at his father, waiting for some cue, a signal to proceed, but it didn’t come. Pappy was too busy recalculating the odds in the light of Parker’s pronouncement.

‘Jurel?’ Nealus repeated.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ said Jurel, but he sounded distracted.

‘On what basis?’ said Parker.

‘On the basis that it would be hard for a black man to abduct and kill two – three, whatever it might be – white girls in a small county like this, but easier for him to take women from his own community.’

‘What about a white man taking black girls?’

Jurel was like a boxer, unused to taking hits, suddenly finding a soft fight turning into an ordeal.

‘Yeah, well, that might also be easy,’ he conceded, ‘if he knew his way around.’

‘It requires a lot of rage to inflict that kind of damage on young women, Mr Cade,’ said Griffin.

But before Pappy had a chance to respond, Delphia intervened.

‘Mr Parker, why are you so certain that a man is responsible?’ she asked.

‘I’m not,’ said Parker. ‘It’s just more likely to be a male, for a whole bunch of reasons: the sexual component, for one, and the extreme violence, for another. Mostly, though, it’s because that’s just what some men do.’

‘You have a dim view of your own sex.’

Parker didn’t bother replying. He was already tired of her. Her every utterance came with a slight upturn of the lip, as though she found the world just amusing enough for a sneer and considered any effort to improve this existence, or moderate its injustices, to be a fool’s errand.

‘Delphia,’ said Pappy, ‘why don’t you and Nealus go take a walk in the garden?’

‘It’s cold and damp outside,’ said Nealus.

‘Then wear a coat.’

‘What about Jurel?’ said Delphia.

‘Last time I checked, he had a badge. You don’t.’

‘You asked us to be here, and I have a right to stay. I’m the one who’s up in Little Rock protecting our interests.’

‘And I’m the one that got us there!’ said Pappy, slapping his right hand hard on the desk. ‘I asked you to leave us alone. Don’t embarrass yourself by inviting a forcible removal.’

Nealus stood first.

‘Come on, Phi,’ he said softly. ‘You’re smarter than them all put together, so it’s their loss.’

Delphia didn’t argue further. She took her cigarettes and a cell phone from her bag, and left without undue haste, only the faintest of redness to her cheeks betraying her sense of humiliation. Her father waited until she and her younger brother were gone before resuming the conversation.

‘You really think he’ll switch tracks?’ he said to Parker. ‘That he’ll start on white girls?’

Parker reminded himself that this might be the New South, but the old one lingered in the shadows, and whispered in the ears of men as long-lived as Delane Cade.

‘He’s not burying the remains, which means that part of the pleasure for him lies in their discovery. There are men who kill for decades and get away with it because they hide the evidence well. Every victim is an assemblage of clues, because the victim is the point of contact with the transgressor. If you don’t want to be caught, the first step is not to leave a body.’