Дэвид Балдаччи - The Guilty

“Yes sir. And that very same oil company shut down their platform and upped and left the area. Two hundred men lost their jobs, over half of them from Cantrell. And they were good-payin’ jobs, too. Nothin’ to replace ’em. Hell, over half those boys are still on the government handout. So you see, your daddy is none too popular in Cantrell, at least with certain folks.”

“And so the motivation for his killing Clancy was—”

She finished the sentence for him. “He thought his wife was sleepin’ with the man, o’course.”

“And was she?”

Taggert shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Sherm is a bigger a-hole than his son. Drunk, sloppy, fat, and crude. All the things your daddy ain’t. Why would Victoria want to sleep with hamburger when she’s got filet at home? But then again, no tellin’ what’s in a woman’s mind when it comes to men. We women all got that stupid gene from time to time ’round the boys. Maybe that night was hers.”

“How did my father react when she came forward?”

“Well, he wasn’t exactly happy ’bout it, was he?”

“Did he become violent towards her?”

Taggert studied him. “You mean like he did with you when you was livin’ here?”

Robie had never told anyone about the beatings. No one. He looked away.

Taggert said, “Small town, Robie. Folks see stuff. Even if a man hits where it don’t show.” She paused. “All I can say, and I’m not defendin’ or excusin’ him for what he did, but it seems to me that the man has changed.”

“Good for him. So he didn’t become violent? And she’s still living at the Willows. And she told me she’s been visiting him in jail.”

“No, he didn’t kick her out. And she has been visitin’ him. I don’t know how your daddy feels ’bout all this. He don’t show his emotions. Sort’a like you. But the fact is Clancy’s dead and your daddy has a damn good motive for doin’ it.”

“Where was he when Victoria was spending the night with Clancy?”

“At a judges’ seminar in Jackson.”

“What did she do with Tyler?”

“Priscilla lives with ’em. She takes good care’a that boy.”

“I understand that Clancy was found in his car with a slit throat? Maybe from a Ka-Bar knife?”

“You heard right. Found in his damn Bentley down near the Pearl River. Not that far from where they pulled Janet Chisum’s body out.”

“And my father presumably had no alibi?”

“Home alone. Victoria was in Biloxi with Priscilla and Tyler.”

“Why where they there?”

“Some medical treatment for the boy.”

“Any forensics tying my father to the crime?”

“I can’t get into that. Ongoin’ case. Shouldn’t ’a told you what I did, but I figured you needed to know how things stand. Only fair.”

“I appreciate that, but I still don’t know why you’re helping me. And it’s not just because I got out of Cantrell.”

“You busted up my eye and I close to broke your nose. I figure that makes us blood somethin’s.”

“Is that really why?”

“Works for me. So now you in the loop. What you gonna do?”

What am I going to do? thought Robie. “I’m going to hang around a few days, see what happens.”

“Well, the boys you beat up won’t let that lie. They might come back with more boys.”

“So do I call the police when they do?”

“You call me.” She handed him a card. “Got my personal cell on it. You call 911, I’m not sure you’ll get a speedy response.”

“Is that how it works here?”

“That’s how it works in a lot of places, Robie. Now look, I ain’t tellin’ you to go out and shoot nobody, but do you know how to use a gun?”

He looked out toward the Gulf. On the horizon all he could see were storm clouds, though the sky was clear.

“I know how to use a gun,” said Robie.

Robie turned back from the Gulf and said, “Can you show me where Clancy’s and Chisum’s bodies were found?”

Taggert looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“Just curious. Is that a problem?”

“Not if you don’t intend on insertin’ yourself into an ongoin’ criminal investigation.”

“Investigation? Or investigations?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might.”

“I’m not talkin’ ’bout a connection between the two. There might be. I’m talkin’ ’bout you insertin’ yourself.”

“I do not intend to do that.”

She looked at him skeptically. “That’s about the most half-ass statement I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got, Sheila.”

She studied him for one long moment, her gaze like his long-range optics scope, missing nothing. “C’mon then.”

She drove them to the end of a gravel road, where they got out of the car.

“Clancy’s place is over that way,” she said, pointing to her right. “Big-ass place. Behind gates.”

“Who lives there now?”

“Just Pete and whatever stupid, drunk gal he’s shacking up with for the night.”

“But you said the other kids might come calling over Sherm’s assets.”

“Yep. And I wouldn’t be surprised if his second wife didn’t show back up, too. They’ll be lookin’ to suck every last penny they can outta dead Clancy, like buzzards over roadkill.”

“So he was found in his Bentley?”

She nodded and led him down a dirt road that twisted and turned deeper into the trees that lined the river.

“Watch where you step,” she said. “Snakes out hot’n heavy this time of year.”

Robie saw one rattler skirt away through some underbrush and then spotted a puffy moccasin gliding on the smooth, brackish surface of the Pearl as they drew close to the water.

Taggert stopped in a clearing and pointed. “Right over there. Bentley was parked next to that tree. He was inside. Front seat, driver’s side. Dead.”

“Do you have pictures of the wounds on his neck?”

She put her hands on her hips. “What the hell part’a not insertin’ yourself did you not understand, son?”

“What, because I want to look at crime scene photos?” he said back.

She gazed at him shrewdly. “Your daddy was in the Marines.”

“I know he was.”

“Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Vietnam. War hero.”

“My father never talked about his time over there.”

“Sayin’ goes, those who did the most talk the least and vice versa. I find that holds true ’bout ninety-nine percent’a the time.” She paused. “Point is, Marines teach you how to kill. They teach you how to slit necks clean.”

“Is that what the police think?”

She looked away. “You want to see where they pulled out Janet Chisum? Not too far from here.”

They got back in her car and drove about a quarter mile farther down a road paralleling the Pearl.

A few minutes’ walk through some woods brought them to the spot. Taggert showed him where the body had snagged on the branch of a downed tree.

Robie gazed at the spot and then looked up and down the length of the river, which was fairly narrow at this point.

“The body was probably put in the water upriver, then came down here and hooked on the tree.”

“Way we see it, yeah. Forensics showed she’d been dead about twelve hours when her body was discovered. Gator had taken a nibble on her.”

“Have you run a river current analysis to see where she might have gone in the water?”

“How do you know about things like that?” she snapped.

“I watch a lot of crime shows on TV.”

“Uh-huh. Matter of fact, we have. With the currents, time she was in the water and so on appears she was put in close to where we found Clancy’s body.”