Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

Tilon Ward crawled from under the RV and broke for the trees.

Leonard Cresil had two men on his shoot-to-kill list. The first, and most important, was Randall Butcher. The impending grand jury indictment had served as Butcher’s death warrant. He would have every reason to cooperate with the federal authorities as part of a plea bargain, and would be in a position to throw any number of individuals under the bus, including Cresil and his employer, Charles Shire. It was therefore a matter of some urgency that Butcher should not live long enough to be served with the indictment. Cresil had solved that particular problem with one shot.

The second person on Cresil’s list was Pruitt Dix. Dix was an integral part of Butcher’s enterprise, which meant that it wouldn’t be long before he, too, was being questioned. In fact, according to Shire’s sources, local law enforcement had raided Dix’s apartment in Little Rock the previous day and a warrant had already been issued for his arrest on narcotics charges. If Butcher couldn’t be relied upon to keep his mouth shut, it was unlikely that Dix would be any different.

Of course, Butcher’s demise now gave Cresil another good reason to ensure that Pruitt Dix didn’t leave the Ouachita alive. Were Dix to survive, and escape the police cordon, he might regard it as his duty to seek a measure of revenge for Butcher’s death. Cresil didn’t want a lunatic like Dix potentially spoiling his retirement and was certain that Shire wouldn’t care to have him haunting the shadows either.

Cresil was maneuvering himself into position when he was saved the cost of another bullet. Out in the woods, at least one of Cade’s people had decided that they were tired of being pinned down by Dix’s fusillade. In a brief gap between bursts from the AR90, Cresil heard a single shot with a lot of powder behind it. By the time he had identified the noise, and the direction from which it had come, a .300 Winchester Magnum round, popular with deer hunters because of its accuracy over long distances, had removed part of Pruitt Dix’s skull.

Dix emptied his magazine into the air in a final dying spasm, and Cresil immediately heard shouts of surrender from inside and outside the farmhouse. It was over. He wondered how many of Cade’s deputies and posse might be injured or deceased. He hoped they’d all had the sense to stay low, and that casualties had been kept to a minimum; Shire might have wished to see Butcher and Dix dead, but not at the cost of endangering the arrival of Kovas Industries. Then again, Shire was skilled at media manipulation, and the image of good, honest men and women risking – or laying down – their lives in order to rid their county of the meth menace, and create a safe and secure environment for families and business, could play well. If Kovas were to let God-fearing people put themselves in danger only to be betrayed at the last by the very company whose investment they were fighting to secure, well, the optics would be poor.

Cresil’s attention was drawn to a man scuttling into the forest from behind one of the RVs. Cresil thought it looked like Tilon Ward. Cade had shown the posse a picture of Ward from a DUI bust a few years earlier, along with photos of Ward’s father, Hollis. The old man was someone else’s problem, but it might be useful to Cresil if he could present Cade with the son, particularly if Cade was of a mind to kick up a fuss over the killing of Randall Butcher.

Of course, Tilon Ward would have to be dead when Cresil gave him to Cade. If he was involved in the murder of black girls, it was no more than he deserved – and even if he wasn’t, he’d been an intimate of Butcher and Dix, and represented a loose thread that should be tied off. Cresil’s only regret was that Cade had talked him into leaving his hunting bow back in Hamill, because he had been of a mind to use it. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he’d dispatched other men with it, although the thrill of a bow hunt never faded.

Cresil brushed dark earth from his hands, hitched his pants, and went after Tilon Ward.

92

Parker met Angel and Louis at Denton’s, a little diner at the edge of Cargill that opened only from 5–10 a.m. Parker had not previously given Denton’s his business, big breakfasts being anathema to him, but Angel and Louis were cut from a different cloth. He found them at a center table, their plates a cholesterol nightmare. Even glancing at the contents threatened Parker’s circulation.

Parker sat beside Angel and across from Louis. He ordered coffee and toast, which made him feel virtuous.

‘Did you have to hurt anyone?’ he said.

‘Only some feelings,’ said Angel. ‘We did destroy a truck, though.’

‘Molly Hatchet?’

‘Is that what the shit paint job was?’

‘I thought it was sort of impressive.’

‘Impressively fucking dumb.’

‘The man we spoke with,’ said Louis, ‘the one who used to own a truck, said someone called Pruitt Dix hired him to take care of you, and that Dix works for a titty bar owner named Randall Butcher.’

‘I’ve never met either of them,’ said Parker, ‘but I know who they are.’

‘If you’ve never met them, why do they want your bones broken?’

‘Probably because Leonard Cresil, the Kovas goon, told Butcher and Dix to get it done.’

‘Where’s Cresil now?’

‘The desk clerk told me that he checked out of the motel before sunrise. Cresil’s boss is a guy named Charles Shire, who’s the fixer for Kovas. Shire’s room is also currently vacant. To be honest, I was surprised at Cresil. I thought he’d be smart enough to back off once I’d made it clear that I knew he was holding the leashes. But if he left the details up to Butcher and Dix, then it makes some sense.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, as of yesterday, Butcher and Dix are wanted men. Maybe Cresil couldn’t get in touch with them in time to stop them from proceeding with their half-assed plan.’

‘You almost sound like you’re looking for an excuse to forgive him.’

‘No, just to forget. Going after Cresil makes no sense unless it’s absolutely necessary. He’s a moral void, and the world will find a way to deal with him in its own time.’

‘So you’re just going to wait and see whether he comes at you again?’

‘I have you to watch over me, but my gut feeling is that he won’t, or not until the Kovas agreement has been nailed down. It’s not worth the trouble to him or to Shire.’

Parker checked his phone. The volume on it was screwy, and he sometimes missed calls coming through.

‘Expecting to hear from someone?’ said Angel.

‘Yes, about a dead possum.’

Louis took a moment to reflect on this.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you’ve already been down here too long.’

Kevin Naylor was driving to Cargill when the first of the ambulances from the Hamill Medical Center passed him on the road, followed by two state police cruisers and a second ambulance. He didn’t have a police radio in his off-duty vehicle, so he used his cell phone to call Billie at the Cargill PD, inform her of what he’d seen, and advise her to find out what was going on. In the meantime, he was going to tag along behind the last ambulance, just in case Chief Griffin wanted a more personal perspective on whatever was happening.

Within minutes, Billie knew as much as the state police dispatcher with whom she’d spoken, which was a report of gunshot fatalities in the Ouachita resulting from a Burdon County Sheriff’s Office operation of which, until only a short time before, the staties had been completely unaware. At this point, a less self-possessed individual might have rushed to share this information with her superiors, but Billie knew that Griffin would want to know more, so she took the time to call Sandi Hardgrave, the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. Sandi was in a hell of a state, but she was also a pro and told Billie what she knew as clearly and succinctly as possible before asking her to pray for all concerned. Billie, who was an atheist, lied and said she would, because it wasn’t as though she was going to hell for it. Seconds later she was at Griffin’s door.