Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

Pettle’s inner debate played out on his face.

‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘but slowly.’

Gingerly, Parker extracted the phone and flipped it open. It was, as he’d anticipated, Griffin on the line.

‘Where are you?’ said Griffin.

‘I spoke to Knight.’

This was met with a confused silence.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Just what I said. This isn’t a good time.’

‘It isn’t a good time for anyone, least of all Denny Rhinehart. Somebody shot him to death.’

This put a different complexion on affairs. Parker was watching Pettle, and wondering if some alteration in the reverend’s features might reveal his intentions just before he pulled the trigger. It could be the difference between living and dying.

‘I may have an answer to that,’ said Parker.

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Very much so, but I’m hoping for a positive conclusion.’

‘We’re on our way.’

Griffin hung up.

‘They’re coming, aren’t they?’ said Pettle.

‘They’ll give us the time we need, and they won’t enter your home unless they have to.’

‘Did they find Rhinehart?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t confront him with that intention.’

‘I believe you.’

He didn’t, or no more than he believed Pettle had just wanted to talk to his wife with a gun in his hand.

‘What happens now?’ said Pettle.

‘What would you like to see happen?’

‘I’d like to rewind time. I’d like to undo all of my mistakes.’

‘In the absence of that.’

Pettle stared at a place beyond Parker, beyond this world.

‘I believe Pappy Cade fed children to Hollis Ward before betraying him,’ said Pettle. ‘In return, Hollis Ward has come back from hell to destroy the Cades. Now I think I’d like to die.’

Reverend Nathan Pettle put the barrel of the gun beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

83

Technically, Jurel Cade ‘escorted’ Horrace Sneed into the Burdon County Sheriff’s Office, although it would be more accurate to say that he virtually carried him inside. Sneed’s face had suffered severe bruising, and he walked as though some of his ribs might be busted. The sheriff, Harold Swanigan, roused himself sufficiently to peer out through the blinds of his office window. Cade looked back at him, daring him to intervene, but Swanigan merely adjusted the blinds so that he could see nothing at all and went back to whatever it was he’d been doing, which was likely to have involved pondering his future once the Cades decided he was surplus to requirements. The Cades had masterminded his election and ensured that his two terms were free of strife and excessive labor, just so long as Swanigan minded his own business and permitted Jurel to operate without impediment. But with Kovas about to move into the county, and Pappy of the opinion that his son was now ready to become sheriff, Swanigan was more of a lame duck than ever. He wouldn’t be sorry to step down. Even for a man with so little pride, he had suffered an abundance of humiliation.

Lyall Mathis, the office’s longest-serving deputy, arrived to help Cade with Sneed.

‘Put him in a cell,’ said Cade, allowing Mathis to take the full weight of the prisoner, ‘and summon Doc Gould to tend to him. No other visitors, and no phone calls. We’ll let him leave come morning.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He obstructed an investigation, but I’m not going to hold it against him.’

‘What if he asks for a lawyer?’

Cade turned to the injured man.

‘You’re not going to be asking for a lawyer, are you, Horrace?’

Sneed shook his head.

‘See?’ said Cade. ‘When you’re finished with him, get back up here. We have a lot to do.’

Mathis led Sneed to a holding cell and laid him flat on the bunk. It was rare for Jurel Cade to leave marks. Usually he didn’t even have to raise a hand to encourage cooperation. Either Horrace Sneed had seriously irritated him, or Cade had been seeking an excuse to vent some rage and Sneed had provided it. Once he had Sneed settled, Mathis called Doc Gould, who knew better than to ask too many questions, and informed him that a prisoner required medical attention. Mathis then rejoined Cade, whose office was bigger than the sheriff’s and saw more frequent use. Cade had a map of the Ouachita spread out on his desk.

‘There,’ he said, pointing a finger at an unmarked section.

‘What am I looking at?’ said Mathis.

‘The old Buttrell property.’

‘Where Estella Jackson’s body was found?’

‘That’s right, and now owned by a company based up in Little Rock. According to our friend Horrace, it’s one of a number of shell corporations set up by Randall Butcher, although his name doesn’t figure on any of the paperwork. That farm is also where Tilon Ward is currently holed up, cooking meth for Butcher.’

Cade told Mathis about the discovery of Hollis Ward’s fingerprint on Donna Lee Kernigan’s body, and Tilon Ward’s connection to her.

‘Does Griffin think Tilon was fucking the Kernigan girl?’ said Mathis.

‘Evan Griffin wouldn’t lower himself to using such language, but that’s about the size of it. And when Tilon was done with her, he either gave her to his father or they killed her together, just as they did with Patricia Hartley. If Hollis Ward is still alive, his son has got to be protecting him. Whatever the truth might be, we’ll discover it at that farm, and destroying Butcher’s operation will solve a lot of this county’s problems along the way.’

‘Are we working with the Cargill PD or the state police?’

‘I think we’ll handle this one ourselves,’ said Cade.

Mathis looked doubtful. The Burdon County Sheriff’s Office didn’t have the manpower to mount an operation such as this unassisted.

Cade scribbled some names on a sheet of paper and handed it to Mathis.

‘Way ahead of you,’ he said. ‘You call each of these people – just you, nobody else – and tell them I want them here at five o’clock tomorrow morning, locked and loaded. They’ll be deputized before we head out. You don’t share with them anything of what I’ve told you. You don’t speak of it to anyone, not even your wife.’

Cade then rattled off the names of three more deputies, who weren’t rostered for the next day, and instructed Mathis to let them know that they were to report for duty by 4.30 a.m.

Mathis departed, leaving Jurel Cade to make some calls. Between them, Evan Griffin and Horrace Sneed had handed him Tilon Ward and Randall Butcher on a plate. If he could take down Tilon and his crew, Butcher would fall, because one of them would inevitably rat him out, assuming Butcher wasn’t dumb enough to be supervising the Ouachita cook himself. If Cade could apprehend Hollis Ward as well, thus solving the mystery of the killings, the Kovas deal would go through without a hitch and the rule of the Cade family would be confirmed in Burdon County, providing a stepping stone to greater influence in the state of Arkansas and beyond.

Within minutes, Cade had apprised both his father and sister of developments, but Pappy barely reacted to the mention of Hollis Ward’s name.

‘It makes sense,’ was all he said. ‘Hollis did know how to bear a grudge.’

Finally, Jurel Cade made one more call, this time to Charles Shire.

‘If we handle this right,’ he told Shire, ‘it’ll show Kovas that we’re serious about dealing with our share of the meth problem, but it will also mean no more Randall Butcher and no more dead girls.’

‘I’d like Leonard to go out there with you,’ said Shire.

Cade didn’t want Cresil anywhere near this. Being in the enforcer’s presence for too long always made him feel as though his skin might erupt in boils.