Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘Eddy was always willful. He’d dealt with enough killings in his time, and solved most of them without outside help. He felt he had this one in hand.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘No, but he did have a suspect.’

‘The father.’ Parker picked out the relevant statement. ‘It doesn’t seem to have amounted to more than a hunch, in the absence of anything better.’

‘Aaron Jackson was a violent man. He had that reputation.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Dead: poisoned himself with alcohol. He’s one of the three.’

‘Who are the others?’

Cade gave him two more names, adding, ‘But they’re of no consequence.’

Parker flicked to those statements and was inclined to agree. One was from a woman named Edith Akin, who was ninety-two years old at the time, lived near the Jacksons, and could only swear to having heard loud arguments and crying from her neighbors’ home over the years; and the other came from an interview with a man named James Darby, who had seen Estella Jackson buying candy at the local IGA the night before she went missing.

‘I do have another question,’ said Parker.

‘Shoot.’

‘I count twenty-two statements in the Estella Jackson case, but the covering page lists twenty-three. One is missing. It’s a statement from Hollis Ward. Would you know anything about that?’

‘No.’

‘Do you maintain a log of those who access records or evidence from your storage rooms?’

‘In theory.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that people are supposed to sign for anything they examine, but our evidence storage includes the space next to the janitor’s closet, and a former restroom. We keep them locked, but everyone knows where to find the key.’

Parker examined the label on the top of the Estella Jackson box. The last person to sign it out was Eddy Rauls, five months after Jackson’s death. Even Jurel Cade hadn’t bothered to add his name to the list when he chose to browse the contents after the Hartley killing.

‘Was he the same Hollis Ward who was father to Tilon Ward?’ said Parker.

‘Look at you,’ said Cade, ‘keeping up with the local color. Yeah, that’s him, but he hasn’t been seen around here in years. The general opinion is that he’s not coming back anytime soon, either, or not before Judgment Day.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘Most likely.’

‘Natural causes?’

‘Most unlikely. He wasn’t a popular man. He got charged with possession of child pornography, and did a few months for it, but the story was that he might also have been more hands-on with his vices. When he turned to smoke, nobody was too shocked. They’d be more surprised if he showed up again.’

All this Parker already knew, but he was content to let Jurel Cade talk. He’d learn nothing from silence.

‘Assuming he’s dead, any suspects?’

‘The bulk of the county, but I’d be prepared to narrow it down to his wife and son.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows what went on behind the doors of that home?’

‘Abuse?’

‘Like I said, hands-on.’

Parker took a few moments to think.

‘Hollis Ward went missing the same year Estella Jackson died,’ he said.

‘One month after.’

‘Could there be a connection?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What I mean is this: Was Hollis Ward suspected of involvement in Jackson’s murder?’

‘I don’t have that information.’

‘But you were a deputy at the time.’

‘I was, but Eddy Rauls wasn’t in the habit of sharing his every thought with mere deputies.’

‘Or just not with deputies from the Cade family?’

‘There you go again, listening to idle gossip.’

‘The question stands: Was Hollis Ward a suspect?’

‘No more than anyone else.’

‘And his arrest for possession of child pornography didn’t cause Rauls to look at him again for the Jackson killing?’

‘Getting off on naked children is one thing, and maybe abusing your own son, but raping and killing a seventeen-year-old girl is another. Still, you’d have to ask Eddy Rauls yourself. I couldn’t claim to understand his reasoning when I worked under him, and I’m no wiser about it with the benefit of years. Now I have a question.’

‘Go on.’

Cade leaned forward.

‘How’d you come by those scars on your hand?’

65

Evan Griffin took the call from the crime lab as he and Knight were discussing how best to handle Randall Butcher.

‘Hollis Ward?’ said Knight, after Griffin had hung up the phone and shared the substance of the conversation with him. ‘ Our Hollis Ward?’

‘Unless there’s two of him, which would be unfortunate for all concerned.’

‘That can’t be right.’

‘Fingerprints don’t lie.’

Knight searched for his pipe, and began filling it with tobacco in order to give his hands something to do while he tried to think.

‘You never did believe that Hollis left the county,’ he said.

‘Because,’ said Griffin, ‘like most everyone else, I took the view that he was buried somewhere in it. I didn’t buy the idea that he’d left of his own volition, because Hollis didn’t even like visiting Little Rock, and he only tolerated Hot Springs when the horses were running at Oaklawn. His roots were here, and if a man like that pulls up his roots, he dies.’

‘Or so you thought.’

Griffin watched Knight go through the motion of tamping the tobacco and plucking the loose leaves from the bowl. He knew that his sergeant was aching to light up. Griffin was momentarily tempted to allow it within the confines of the station house, if just this once, but knew that if he gave in he’d never be able to prevent it in the future, and he’d arrive home every night stinking of tobacco, which wouldn’t please his wife one bit, especially now that she was pregnant. He’d considered telling Kel about the pregnancy, but decided against it. He and Ava had agreed to wait a while, just until they were sure everything was okay.

‘Yeah, so I thought.’

‘Hollis could have gone to ground somewhere else in the state,’ said Knight, ‘and replanted those roots in soil that wasn’t unfamiliar to him.’

‘We’d have heard.’

‘Would we? Hollis could lie low when he chose. All we ever got him for was the child pornography, and even his own lawyer didn’t believe that was an isolated incident. Hollis knew the Ouachita, and the Ozarks. He made good money as a guide. It wouldn’t have been beyond him to find a place to hole up, even under the nose of the Forest service.’

‘But why? He’d served his time.’

‘Everyone knew what he’d done. Like his lawyer, a lot of them were of the opinion he’d probably done worse, and there was every chance he was going to do it again. Even his wife wouldn’t let him back in the house after he was released. Mind if I light my pipe?’

‘Yes, I do mind,’ said Griffin.

Knight looked disconsolate, but didn’t argue.

‘I’d buy Hollis going to ground for a few months,’ said Griffin, ‘but not for years. It wasn’t in his nature.’

‘What if he had no choice about where he went?’

‘You’re thinking prison?’

‘It would make sense.’

‘No, he had a record. We’d have been informed.’

‘Mistakes happen, and Hollis wouldn’t have been rushing to share details of his previous convictions. Sex criminals do hard time.’

AFIS, the federal Automated Fingerprint Identification System, wasn’t perfect – no system requiring human input ever was – and it was possible that Hollis Ward might have slipped through one of the gaps.

‘Get Billie to put out some terminal requests,’ he said. ‘I don’t recall Hollis ever using an alias, but tell her to check our records, just in case. Then go smoke your damn pipe outside. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’