Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

He nodded to Cresil and walked away. Cresil stared at his back and envisioned putting a hole in it. At the very least, he wanted this man to suffer the planned beating, but he mastered this urge. He’d call Delphia Cade and advise her to call the dogs off Parker. If she decided to proceed, let it be on her own head, because he knew now that it wouldn’t go well. In a few months, or even a year – assuming the man who had killed the detective’s wife and child didn’t decide to reunite the family – Cresil would come looking for Charlie Parker, and he’d deal with him in his own way: quietly, from behind, with the minimum of fuss.

And then he would never think of him again.

79

Kel Knight didn’t have any luck finding Denny Rhinehart around town. He even swung by Rhinehart’s home, just in case he’d been forced to leave his vehicle at the bar for mechanical reasons, or due to some personal indisposition, but there didn’t appear to be anybody there. He called Ivy Muntz, Rhinehart’s cook, to find out if she’d heard from him. She hadn’t, because this was one of her evenings off, but she did have a spare set of keys for the Rhine Heart, and agreed to meet Knight at the bar so he could go inside and take a look around.

By the time Knight returned to the Rhine Heart, Leon Hornbeck had left the vicinity in an effort to slake his unquenchable thirst elsewhere, and had presumably taken any other prospective customers with him. As Knight waited for Muntz to arrive, he saw Parker’s rental pass, the man himself behind the wheel. Parker noticed the prowl car, spotted Knight, made a U-turn to pull into the lot.

‘Everything okay?’ Parker asked.

Knight bristled. He couldn’t help it. Here was this interloper, this suspected killer, acting as though he owned the damn town. The visceral nature of his own animosity struck Knight with such force that he tasted copper in his mouth.

Yet even as he stood before Parker, Knight was nagged by an ambivalence that might not have been unfamiliar to Leonard Cresil, albeit one with markedly different origins. Knight thought he might have some inkling of how Parker’s fellow officers felt about him up in New York City, and how one who should have been part of a brotherhood in blue – Knight still didn’t hold with female cops, Colson excepted, and then only because he knew her people – could have found himself so isolated. Yet Parker hadn’t come to Cargill in order to interfere with the workings of the community or personally offend the morals and sensibilities of Kel Knight, but because something in the staging of one killing, and the unofficial details of another, had reminded him, however mistakenly, of what had been inflicted on those he loved. Knight had to remind himself that Parker was doing them a favor by remaining in town. He had set his own inconvenience against the needs of others, and the scales had tipped in favor of the latter, but that didn’t mean Knight had to be ecstatic about it.

‘The place is still locked up, and Rhinehart’s usually pouring drinks by now,’ he said.

‘Do you have a reason to be worried?’ said Parker.

‘This is a town of routines. Any break in them is odd.’ Knight relented somewhat. ‘Did the chief tell you about Rhinehart and Donna Lee?’

‘Only that she was seen looking distressed, and Rhinehart might have been responsible.’

‘That’s still all we have, but it would be good to hear his side of the story. His cook is coming over with a set of keys so I can take a look around.’

‘If you need company—’

‘No, I can manage. What about you?’

‘I thought I might have a talk with Nathan Pettle.’

‘Why Pettle?’

‘He knew Hollis Ward, and is – or was – on good terms with Pappy Cade.’

‘Did Eddy Rauls tell you that?’

‘No, Nealus Cade.’

‘That family is a nest of vipers.’

‘You may be doing a disservice to vipers.’

Knight was about to smile, but caught himself just in time.

‘I hear Delphia Cade wants you off the case,’ he said.

‘Or off the face of the earth. I believe she’d settle for the first, but prefer the second.’ Parker glanced back toward the motel, which was visible from where they were standing. ‘I just had a conversation with Leonard Cresil.’

‘Sometimes things learn to walk that should only have crawled,’ said Knight. ‘Cresil was a dirty cop, and he’s even dirtier now. You ought to keep away from him.’

‘I’m not sure that’s my decision to make. According to Nealus Cade, his sister may have left it to Cresil to deal with me.’

Kel Knight thought that life seemed intent on testing him. Just as he was starting to get a handle on how he felt about Parker, a further embroilment was added to the mix.

‘The chief won’t stand for it,’ Knight said. ‘Neither will I. It’s no secret I have reservations about your involvement in our affairs, but that doesn’t mean Cresil and the Cades get to ride roughshod over the law.’

‘No reflection on the law in this county,’ said Parker, ‘but I think that’s exactly what Cresil and the Cades get to do. And if anything did happen to me, you’d have a better chance of connecting it to Mother Teresa than to them.’

‘I don’t want to see you end up in the hospital,’ said Knight. ‘We’d have to cover your expenses.’

‘And come visit,’ said Parker. ‘With grapes.’

Knight’s expression suggested that, in the event of such a mishap, Parker would be waiting a long time for the pleasure of his company.

‘You’d better head out to Pettle’s place before it gets too dark,’ Knight said. ‘Given recent events, people will start to become jumpy once night falls.’

‘On my way,’ said Parker.

He left the lot just as Ivy Muntz pulled in. Perhaps, Knight considered, Parker wasn’t the worst guy to have around while all this was going on, not with men like Leonard Cresil circling.

Then he recalled the scars on Parker’s hand, and his heart hardened once more.

80

Billie Brinton rarely heard Evan Griffin raise his voice. He wasn’t disposed to shouting. In fact, the softer he spoke, the more reason the object of his attention might have to feel concerned, and therefore take heed. But the chief’s voice was certainly raised right now, and Jurel Cade was hollering right back at him. Mostly they were shouting at each other about Hollis and Tilon Ward. The detail about Donna Lee Kernigan getting into a red truck that might have been Tilon’s had finally been shared with Cade, causing him near enough to explode with outrage at its being kept from him for so long. But it also sounded as though Chief Griffin had endured his fill of Cade’s obstructionism, and wasn’t going to stand for it any longer. Eventually Cade stormed out of the chief’s office, and as he departed he used a word to describe Griffin that Billie could later only bring herself to refer to as ‘C U Next Thursday.’

Griffin himself arrived at Billie’s desk a few moments later. His face was red.

‘Where’s Kel?’ said Griffin.

‘I assume he’s still down at the Rhine Heart.’

‘And Parker?’

‘I don’t know. He hasn’t been in touch.’

‘Colson? Naylor?’

‘I can find out.’

‘Am I running this goddamned department alone?’

Billie peered at him over the top of her spectacles.

‘You got me,’ she said.

For a moment she thought the top of Evan Griffin’s head might be about to pop off, until some of the tension and anger seemed to drain from him as though a valve had been turned at the base of his skull.

‘That’s something at least,’ he said. ‘Please find out where they are, and ask them to come back here as soon as possible.’