Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

‘And you?’ said Cresil. ‘Are you somehow immune?’

‘No, I am corrupt, but the corruption is entirely my own. I believe I may have been born peccant.’

Cresil was minded to agree. He pitied Shire’s wife and children, and their ongoing exposure to this man – although the former at least had some choice in the matter.

They swept through the town and pulled into the parking lot of the motel.

‘Will we be leaving tomorrow?’ said Cresil.

‘I have to report back on what’s been happening here. I’d prefer if you’d remain a few more days, just to monitor developments. Your proximity will also serve to reassure the Cades.’

‘All of them, or just Delphia?’

‘Delphia is the only one that matters. She’s going to become a very wealthy woman in the near future, and she’ll be adrift once the divorce goes through. You’re a single man. Her issues with her father make her an unsuitable mate for someone her own age. She requires an older, steadier hand. Perhaps you should reconsider your attitude toward her. I believe you might find some of her appetites amenable to your own.’

Cresil was under no illusions about Shire’s knowledge of his appetites. They had worked together too long for that.

‘Wouldn’t that entail staying here?’ said Cresil.

‘Probably.’

‘Then I’ll pass. This is the worst place I’ve ever been. I told you: I’m going to retire to Florida and open a bar.’

‘You’re not going to retire, Mr Cresil.’

‘No?’

‘Men like us don’t retire. We just die.’

‘If you make it to Boca Raton, you can look me up and I’ll disprove your thesis. I may even pour you a free soda.’

Shire opened his door to get out. More cars were now parked in the lot than before. Shire didn’t look pleased to see them. More cars meant more people, and people were contaminants.

‘If you make it to Boca Raton,’ he said, ‘I’ll pay for your bar myself. Have a good evening.’

Cresil sat in the car and waited until Shire was safely in his room. He’d meant what he said. Burdon County was oppressing him. The sky was too low and the air tasted sour. Whatever was debased in his own nature found no echo here, but rather shied away from a deeper, darker aspect in the land. Kovas might build in Cargill, but Cresil was of the view that it wouldn’t thrive, and neither would its employees. Cresil was sure that if he were to check back in five or ten years, he would discover a litany of broken marriages, alcoholism, abuse, and general domestic unhappiness. Not that he had any intention of doing so, because he would be in Florida, listening to tourists complain about the humidity, and recalling his time in Cargill only when the smell from the drains got to be too much.

He turned off the engine, and checked that he had his wallet and room key.

When he got out of the car, Charlie Parker was standing before him.

77

Jurel Cade put the phone down. In front of him was a sheet of notepaper with only a few scribbled words on it, because he had stopped writing shortly after Dr Ruth Temple mentioned the name Hollis Ward.

‘Are you sure it’s Ward’s fingerprint on the body?’ he asked Temple.

‘There’s no doubt.’

‘Have you spoken to Evan Griffin about this?’

‘I talked to him before I called you.’

Cade noticed that she didn’t specify how long she had waited before contacting him, but her tone caused him to believe that she’d taken her sweet time about it. He had only met Temple on a couple of occasions and got the impression that she didn’t like him. Under ordinary circumstances, Cade tended to reciprocate dislike with dislike, but it paid to keep on the right side of the folks in the state crime lab, so he was forced to be polite to her.

‘I’m grateful for the courtesy.’

‘It’s my job,’ said Temple, and this time there was no mistaking the edge.

‘Have I done something to offend you?’

‘I think it would have helped the progress of this investigation had this lab been given the opportunity to examine Patricia Hartley’s body before it was consigned to the flames.’

‘That was the county coroner’s call to make.’

‘Was it? You enjoy the rest of your day.’

Then the bitch had the temerity to hang up on him. Cade filed away that final slight for future reference. Down the line, he’d give Temple cause to regret it. Kovas’s investment in the state would buy the Cades a lot of influence and goodwill. Jurel thought he might use some of it to ensure Temple’s career path became one of briars and tangles.

He considered contacting Griffin, but decided he’d learn more from a one-on-one conversation, or gain more personal satisfaction from shouting in Griffin’s face. He informed Sandi, the dispatcher, that he was heading for Cargill. He got in his car and began driving, only to pull over by the side of the road when he was barely outside town, because there were times when a man could think and drive, and times when he had to choose one or the other.

Hollis Ward. Jesus. As far as anyone knew, Hollis Ward was dead. Pappy wouldn’t be pleased to hear that this assumption now appeared to be erroneous, because a deceased Hollis Ward had been best for all concerned, Hollis himself excepted. But that fingerprint on Donna Lee Kernigan’s body explained a lot, because if Hollis had returned with a grudge against the Cades then potentially undermining the Kovas agreement was a good way to go about indulging it. Pappy had overextended himself in every way to make Kovas happen – financially, politically, even physically, because his efforts had taken a toll on his health. Not only the future prosperity of the county but also the Cades’ long-term wealth and influence were dependent upon the agreement going through. If it didn’t, they’d be left with a lot of worthless land in Burdon County, a long line of disappointed investors, both actual and potential, and a family name that wouldn’t be worth the breath required to say aloud.

But Jurel didn’t want to speak with his father about Hollis Ward, not before he’d had a chance to sit down with Griffin, and certainly not until he’d discussed everything with Delphia. His sister always said they should have killed Hollis themselves for what he’d done. When Hollis vanished, Jurel even suspected that Delphia might have been responsible: not directly, of course – Delphia was a Cade, and Pappy had instilled in his children the importance of subcontracting illegal acts and using layers of middlemen – but it wouldn’t have been beyond her abilities to sow the seed of Hollis’s destruction in the mind of another. She had denied this allegation when Jurel put it to her, but he hadn’t wholly believed her. Now, it seemed, she’d been telling the truth after all.

Maybe she was right, though, and they should have killed Hollis Ward when they had the chance. But if that was true, they should have killed someone else as well.

They should have killed Pappy.

The lights were out at the Rhine Heart when Kel Knight arrived, and the doors remained locked. Two cars were parked out front, and he recognized the drivers as a couple of Denny Rhinehart’s regulars, wondering why the bar wasn’t open.

‘Have you seen Denny around?’ Knight asked one of them, a guy named Leon Hornbeck who used to work as a metal fabricator but now stacked shelves part-time at the IGA. Leon’s brother, Milton, was a familiar face in local law enforcement circles, being always on his way to jail, from jail, or actually in jail. Without jail, Milton Hornbeck’s life would have been utterly without meaning or purpose.

‘His truck’s here,’ said Hornbeck. ‘I tried knocking, but I don’t think there’s anyone inside. I’m going to give him a few minutes more, then head over to Boyd’s. I got a thirst.’