Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

She placed the sponge in its bowl.

‘Dr Temple?’ she said. ‘I think you should come see this.’

57

When Parker arrived at the Cargill Police Department, an unfamiliar face was among those gathered around the table in the meeting room that doubled as a canteen and storage closet. The forty-something visitor was wearing a smaller man’s suit, along with the kind of untrustworthy mustache that caused sensible folk to lay a protective hand on their wallets, while his skin bore the floridity of stress, bad diet, and poor health. If he lived to see fifty, Parker would send him a greeting card, but he believed his money was safe. Meanwhile, the expression on Chief Griffin’s face suggested that if the visitor lived that long, it would be a poor reflection on God’s plan for humanity.

‘This is Terry Ridout,’ said Griffin. ‘He’s the prosecuting attorney for this county.’

Arkansas operated a system of prosecuting attorneys, each of whom was assigned a region that might encompass a number of counties, depending upon their size or population, and Burdon County was all Ridout’s. The position was an elected one, like so many other judicial positions that Parker had come to believe probably shouldn’t have been, which meant that Ridout was answerable to the people, and the people liked results. This, in Parker’s experience, was usually the point where the requirements of justice parted ways with those of politics.

Since Ridout didn’t rise to greet him, Parker likewise didn’t bother offering to shake hands, but took a seat next to Colson.

‘Terry here,’ Griffin continued, ‘obviously has a professional interest in the progress of our investigation, seeing as how he’ll be responsible for prosecuting the case in the event of an arrest.’

Griffin waited for Ridout to make a contribution to the conversation, which he duly did.

‘It’s a fucking mess is what it is,’ he said.

Nobody made an effort to deny that this was indeed the situation. Parker knew that Ridout had, in all likelihood, signed off on the decision of Jurel Cade and Loyd Holt to ignore the evidence of foul play in the case of Patricia Hartley. But now, following Donna Lee Kernigan’s death, he had been placed in a difficult position – an impossible one, even – which was not helped by Griffin’s persistence. Unsolved murders wouldn’t bolster Ridout’s reelection bid or aid his ascent through the ranks. On the other hand, anything he did that might have the effect of harming the Kovas deal would see him prosecuting minor drug busts and cases of sexual activity with farm animals until the end of his career. He was probably already receiving anguished phone calls from Little Rock.

‘And from what I hear,’ Ridout added, ‘so far you’ve kicked up nothing more than dust.’

‘The girl was only found yesterday morning, Terry,’ said Kel Knight. ‘And it’s not like we’re oversupplied with manpower.’

‘We’ve done more than kick up dust,’ said Griffin. ‘We’ve interviewed in excess of fifty people living or working in the vicinity of the school, and agreed on a way forward with the sheriff’s office. Mr Parker here will meet with Jurel Cade later this morning to examine his files on Patricia Hartley and Estella Jackson in the hope of establishing some point of connection between their deaths and the murder of Donna Lee Kernigan. We’re going to continue talking to people in Cargill today, plus we expect the autopsy results from Little Rock by noon. This is a small town, Terry. Someone saw something. They just don’t know they saw it, not yet.’

‘Huh,’ said Ridout. He didn’t sound convinced, and now addressed Parker for the first time.

‘I won’t lie to you,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the fact that you’re here.’

‘If it’s any comfort,’ said Parker, ‘that makes two of us.’

‘Huh,’ said Ridout again. ‘Chief, would you ask your officers to absent themselves for a moment so I can speak in private to you and Mr Parker?’

Griffin nodded at Colson and Naylor, and the two part-timers present, Giddons and Petrie. ‘Kel stays, though,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you have to say that he doesn’t already know.’

Ridout didn’t argue, but waited until the door had closed behind the junior officers before resuming.

‘There’s a shadow hanging over you,’ he said to Parker, ‘and I don’t mean what happened to your family, for which you have my condolences. You’re a violent man, and your involvement in this affair strikes me as not far off from giving a wolf the run of the pasture.’

So Ridout had made some calls, thought Parker, or calls had been made to him.

‘He’s police,’ said Griffin. ‘Was, and is.’

‘And we need him.’ Parker was surprised to hear Kel Knight intervene on his behalf. ‘Unless you’re planning on letting us bring in state investigators.’

Confronted with the worse of two bad options, Ridout backed down.

‘You know that’s not going to happen, not without cause.’

‘You mean if we find another body, it might?’ said Griffin.

‘You find another body, and this county will still be poor in a hundred years’ time. If you’re going to do this thing, Evan, make it count, but my reservations about Mr Parker stand.’ Ridout got to his feet. ‘I think I can file this meeting under “inconclusive”,’ he said, ‘maybe even “unsatisfactory”.’

‘It’s symptomatic of the human condition,’ said Kel Knight.

Ridout tried to button his jacket, before thinking better of it.

‘Save that shit for church.’

When Ridout was gone, Griffin went to round up his officers, leaving Parker alone with Knight.

‘Thanks for the support back there,’ said Parker.

‘I prayed on the matter last night,’ said Knight.

Parker considered whether he might be joking, and decided he wasn’t.

‘It led me to decide,’ Knight continued, ‘that in the face of moral collapse, we find our footholds where we can.’

‘When you put it that way,’ said Parker, ‘your support doesn’t exactly sound unconditional.’

‘Plus, Terry Ridout’s a jerk,’ Knight added.

He pronounced it ‘Rid-out’, to rhyme with ‘shout’, while Griffin had pronounced it ‘Rid-oo’. Parker raised this point.

‘It’s “Rid-out”,’ said Knight, ‘or was, until Terry’s old man got pretensions on account of marrying a woman from Richmond, Virginia.’

‘I’ve been to Richmond,’ said Parker.

‘That,’ said Knight witheringly, ‘does not surprise me.’

58

Faced with what was clearly an exemplary fingerprint, Dr Ruth Temple temporarily suspended any further examination of Donna Lee Kernigan’s remains and summoned one of the lab’s latent print experts.

‘Pristine,’ said the technician, whose name – thanks to parents for whom Watergate might never have happened – was Spiro Nixon, ‘particularly for a victim recovered under those conditions.’

Changes in body temperature, the actions of weather, and the handling of remains during their removal from a crime scene often militated against getting good prints from human skin.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Temple.

Nixon and Temple exchanged a look that verged on the skeptical.

‘What do you think that residue is?’ asked Temple.

Nixon regarded it under a magnifying glass.

‘Charcoal, I’d say. Anything in the forensic examiner’s report about a fire nearby?’

Temple checked Tucker McKenzie’s notes. ‘No.’

‘You find any other prints?’

‘Not yet.’

Nixon finished photographing the print before carefully lifting it from the remains.

‘Let’s check her out.’