Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘It just might,’ said Butcher.

‘If it does, I’ll expect a dividend. I’ll leave the amount to your discretion. I know you wouldn’t cozen a friend.’

Randall Butcher would have cheated his own mother, given the chance, but not Leonard Cresil. Friendship didn’t enter into it, only prudence.

‘In addition, Pettle told me that Donna Lee Kernigan had been seeing a white man. I think you, Randall, may have an inkling of his identity.’

‘Tilon Ward,’ said Butcher.

‘How long have you known?’

‘We thought it might have been the mother, not the girl, until Tilon yesterday admitted otherwise.’

‘Even though Ward’s daddy had some previous in that regard?’

‘Tilon’s daddy liked children,’ said Butcher. ‘Donna Lee was legal.’

‘Not by much.’

‘Enough in the eyes of the law.’

‘Where’s Tilon now?’

‘Pruitt moved him out of town.’

‘Away from the police?’

‘And to cook,’ said Butcher.

‘You’re taking a chance, cooking meth with all this police attention in the county.’

‘You pass Bradley’s House of Centerfolds on the way over here?’

‘That the BYOB titty place?’ said Cresil.

‘Yep. That’s what we’re competing with here. I need cash reserves, especially if I’m to start building once Kovas climbs off the fence.’

‘And once Pettle starts to see sense about that disused church,’ said Bowers, who was one of Butcher’s co-investors in the proposed Cargill titty bar venture.

‘If he starts to see sense. That fucking preacher …’

Cresil sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach.

‘If I were the killing kind,’ he said, ‘and someone made himself available as a culprit for my crimes, I might take the opportunity to rest easy and wait for the heat to die down before I started again, assuming I even elected to recommence my activities. It might be that I’d already gotten such urges out of my system. A passing vice, if you will.’

Bowers looked like he wanted to put his hands over his ears and begin keening to cover the sound of their voices. Instead, he contented himself with looking miserable.

‘Are you talking about feeding Tilon to the police?’ said Butcher. ‘What if he has an alibi?’

‘Does he?’

‘He told me he was home the night Donna Lee probably died.’

‘He would tell you that, wouldn’t he?’

‘His momma will attest likewise.’

‘Then it’ll be for the police to establish the truth of it. In the meantime, Tilon will be behind bars, some of the impetus will seep from the investigation, and we can go ahead with confirming deals and making ourselves wealthy.’

Butcher tugged at his lip. Cresil’s plan didn’t quite resemble his own, which was to keep Tilon cooking for as long as was feasible before having Pruitt Dix take him for a walk in the woods. Butcher didn’t want Tilon to end up spilling his guts to detectives about the meth operation in order to prove he could be believed on other subjects too, such as the death of Donna Lee Kernigan.

‘Or suppose we feed them Tilon, but make sure he’s dead when they find him?’ said Butcher.

‘You know,’ said Cresil, ‘that would work too.’

63

Griffin and Knight stood in the parking lot of the Dunk-N-Go, watching Harmony Ward return to work.

‘Souped-up green Chevy,’ said Griffin. ‘Small, bald driver.’

‘With dead eyes.’

‘Sounds a lot like Pruitt Dix.’

‘An awful lot,’ said Knight.

‘Is he still licking Randall Butcher’s boots?’

‘Last I heard.’

‘You think Randall will talk to us?’

‘Not without a lawyer, and even if he does, whatever he has to say won’t be worth hearing.’

Griffin took off his hat and scratched his head. His eczema had begun acting up again. Soon he’d have blood and skin under his fingernails.

‘Just when I think this county can’t get any more screwed up,’ he said, ‘it finds a way to disappoint me.’

A similar conversation was taking place among Dr Ruth Temple, Spiro Nixon, and Lewis Pickett, the executive director of the state crime laboratory. Pickett wasn’t a scientist, but had progressed through the ranks of the state police and the US Marshals Service before accepting the post of director. The crime lab had previously operated under the auspices of the state police, but it was felt that having an arm of the law processing evidence in a crime might leave a bad taste when it came time to prosecute, so it was now an independent entity. Nevertheless, it helped that Pickett came from a law enforcement background, because it meant he could understand the needs of both the police and the scientists, and manage them accordingly. Alternatively, in times of crisis, it enabled two entirely different groups of people to complain about him simultaneously, thus giving them a target for their ire while the lab went about its business.

Now Pickett listened while Temple and Nixon told him about the fingerprint and the hit from the system.

‘Hollis Ward?’ said Pickett. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

‘Do you know him?’ said Temple.

‘I’ve had the pleasure down the years, but it wasn’t much of one. If you’d asked me about him five minutes ago, I’d have told you he was dead. No chance of an error?’

‘None,’ said Nixon. ‘It was a very good print.’

Pickett caught the implication.

‘You’re saying it’s too good?’

‘No, just that if Hollis Ward was seeking to damn himself, he couldn’t have gone about it any better.’

‘And there are no other prints on the body?’

‘None from Hollis Ward,’ said Temple. ‘We found some bruising to the upper left arm, and got some partials from that. It looks like someone else might have grabbed the girl hard in the twenty-four hours before she died, because the partials don’t match Ward’s prints.’

‘Well done on getting even partials.’

‘We had residue, which helped,’ said Nixon.

‘What kind of residue?’

‘I’m guessing grease or motor oil, but I won’t be able to say for sure until it’s been analyzed. I tried running the prints, but they’re not in the system.’

Pickett looked again at the hit on Hollis Ward.

‘Hollis, Hollis,’ said Pickett, ‘where have you been all these years?’ He waved the paperwork at Temple. ‘You been in touch with Evan Griffin about this?’

‘No, I thought I’d run it by you first.’

‘Any reason other than to hamper my digestion?’

‘We have a request from the Burdon County Sheriff’s Office to copy it immediately on the autopsy results, since the chief deputy is, as you’re aware, also the chief investigator for the county, and his office is cooperating with the Cargill PD on the investigation.

‘But Griffin asked that we send all relevant information only to him, and he’d then share it with the sheriff’s office. I feel as though I’m tied to a pair of horses pulling in opposite directions.’

Pickett didn’t have to try hard to look unimpressed. ‘If Jurel Cade had done his job first time around, we might not be cutting a dead girl from his jurisdiction. How far into the autopsy are you?’

‘Kiesel was about to clean the body when she found the print. We stopped everything.’

‘Then technically you don’t have the full results to share, do you?’

‘I guess not,’ said Temple.

‘So call Evan Griffin, tell him what you’ve found, and then pick up where you left off. When you’re done, and you have the report ready, you can deal with the sheriff’s office. If Jurel gives you any trouble, just refer him to me.’

‘Thank you, Lewis.’

‘Don’t mention it, and I mean that in every sense,’ said Pickett. ‘I swear, Burdon has got to be the most dysfunctional county in the Union.’