Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

Suppose he could somehow achieve his aims without being caught?

Suppose he could keep on taking girls?

Why, that would be just lovely.

Difficult, but lovely.

48

Parker’s search for food had been delayed. He discovered that he had left his wallet in his room, and as he returned from retrieving it, he noticed Charles Shire and his goon conversing in the parking lot. Out of curiosity, Parker had tried to eavesdrop on them, but their voices were too low. Finally, Shire returned to his accommodation and the goon drove the rental car out of the parking lot, after which Parker decided to drop by the reception desk.

The motel office was excessively warm and smelled of cheap coffee and old doughnuts. Parker asked the desk clerk, Cleon, about local bars and restaurants. Cleon was in his late twenties, prematurely balding, and worked most evenings, often while listening to light opera on the stereo system and sketching lavish costumes for stage shows. He was the cousin of one of the owners, and was taking a distance-learning course in design studies. If he wasn’t the gayest man in Arkansas, he was closing in fast on the front-runner.

‘Boyd’s is nearest,’ said Cleon, ‘and the food’s not bad.’

‘I’ve been.’

‘How did you like it?’

‘Not a whole lot. I got arrested.’

This news didn’t faze Cleon.

‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘Most people get arrested at the Rhine Heart. It doesn’t happen so much in Boyd’s.’

‘The Rhine Heart it is, then,’ said Parker. ‘What’s the food like?’

‘Fine, as long as you don’t swallow it.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘Happy to have helped. How’s the honeymoon suite?’

‘Homely.’

‘That’s what we’re aiming for. Lavish wedding accommodations on the first night set up unrealistic expectations for the years to come. I think I read that somewhere, or perhaps I made it up. Either way, it has the ring of truth.’

‘You should put it on the door.’

‘I’d get fired, so perhaps I will.’ He set aside his pencil. ‘Is it true that you’re helping the police investigate the Kernigan girl’s murder?’

‘Did someone tell you that?’

‘Sergeant Knight told the owners you were assisting the department when he came by to negotiate a rate for your room, and the Cargill PD doesn’t need assistance with anything else right now.’

‘Then it’s true.’

‘Patricia Hartley’s death also?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m not sure that’s the general attitude.’

‘Probably not, but who cares?’

Parker glanced at the guest information form by Cleon’s right hand. He could see Charles Shire’s name.

‘Kovas might,’ he replied, ‘and a lot of people waiting for that ship to come in.’

‘I think Kovas, their ship, and this town can all go to hell,’ said Cleon.

‘You don’t like Cargill?’

‘No, and Cargill doesn’t like me, but the town started it.’

Cargill didn’t strike Parker as a good place to be gay. He wondered why Cleon had stayed as long as he had. Money issues, possibly, or family ties. Escaping from small towns was never easy. They buried their hooks deep.

‘How discreet are you, Cleon?’

‘More than you might think.’

‘That’s just what I would have guessed. How often does Charles Shire stay here?’

Cleon cocked an eyebrow.

‘Mr Shire? He’s been a frequent visitor in the last six months. This is already his fourth visit this year. He’s some kind of liaison between Kovas and the state. Everyone has to be nice to him.’

‘And the man who arrived with him this evening?’

‘He hasn’t stayed here before, although I’ve seen him around. I usually like men with mustaches, although I don’t think he’s on the market. Then again, that might be for the best. He doesn’t seem like the tender kind.’

‘Does he have a name?’

Cleon lifted Shire’s reservation to display the one beneath.

‘Leonard Cresil,’ he said. ‘He carries a gun.’

‘I noticed.’

‘You’re carrying one, too.’

Cleon, it was emerging, had very sharp eyes.

‘But I’m one of the good guys,’ said Parker.

‘That’s what I’m hoping. If I hear anything I shouldn’t, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

‘I’d be grateful.’

Parker buttoned his jacket and headed for the door. Cleon resumed his sketching.

‘If you don’t mind me asking, Mr Parker,’ he said, ‘why did they turn to you for help?’

‘I was a detective once. I have some experience.’

‘Of killings like these?’

‘No, not exactly like these, but close enough.’

Cleon contemplated the reply.

‘How do you do it?’ he said.

‘Do what?’

‘Look upon the results of that kind of violence.’

‘You make it sound like there’s a choice.’

‘Well, you could look away.’

Parker opened the door and was welcomed by the night.

‘I tried that,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work.’

49

Reverend Nathan Pettle washed his hands in the small bathroom at the rear of his church, with its cracked sink and toilet that dated back to the building’s previous incarnation as a VFW post, before the natural attrition of mortality, aided by a schism in the local organization, had resulted in its dissolution. Pettle had done his best to make the premises resemble something approaching a house of worship: he’d added a cross, for starters, and put cheap stained glass in a few of the windows, but the acoustics remained poor, and the floor still bore marks from the removal of the post’s bar. Yet it was his church, and he was proud of it. That didn’t mean he wanted to stay in it forever, but he’d done his best with what was available to him, and the Lord couldn’t ask for more.

He dried his hands and stared at his face in the mirror. He had always been lousy at hiding his emotions. That was how his wife had confirmed the affair with Sallie Kernigan, transmuting base suspicion into the shining gold of truth through the simple expedient of asking her husband directly. As soon as she confronted him, Pettle had confessed. There had been no point in doing otherwise. God had cursed him with the inability to perjure and obfuscate. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight – Proverbs 12:22. Pettle was not so hypocritical as to attempt to convince himself that any substantial difference existed between deceit and lying – he had deceived his wife by sleeping with another woman and hiding his unfaithfulness, which constituted a form of untruth – but he reminded himself that he had fessed up at the first opportunity, and by then the affair was already at an end. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices – Colossians 3:9. He had indeed put off the old self, and refused to lie. He had tried, in the end, to be a better man.

Appallingly, he now wished that someone other than Donna Lee had been found dead that morning. No other fatality, barring that of Sallie Kernigan herself, could have caused such problems for him: not at home, not with Kovas, and not with the police, because Delores was pressuring him to step forward and inform them of the nature of his relationship with the girl’s mother. If Delores had guessed the truth of it, she informed him, others were capable of doing likewise. Sallie could have told some of her friends about it, or her workmates. Even Donna Lee herself might have seen or heard something, Delores advised.

And as she spoke, Pettle had witnessed the disappointment and distrust in her face, and glimpsed a future of continued coldness and estrangement. He knew then that whatever damage he might have inflicted on their marriage by his infidelity paled beside what she had done to it by doubting his essential goodness. He had fallen temporarily from grace, like all good men inevitably did, but he had refused to let it define him. His wife, on the other hand, appeared intent on doing just that, and now he feared that deeper reservations about his character had begun to cloud her mind.