South of Shiloh (29 page)

40

AS THEY APPROACHED THE MAIN HIGHWAY,
Beeman stopped, unloaded the rifle, and secured it back in his trunk. Then they drove back to Corinth and entered the residential streets north of city hall. Beeman pulled to the curb in front of a white frame house with one of the
GENERAL SLEPT HERE
signs in front.

“The Kirby Cottage,” Beeman said. “This is where Mitchell Lee lives with Ellender Kirby; a whole world away from Drewry Holler and Guys.”

“So?” Rane asked.

“So he had a way of getting noticed and Hiram Kirby picked him up when he was sixteen and sponsored him and he meets the banker’s daughter, huh? Mitch figured out a good thing when he saw it and kept a discreet distance from his outlaw cousins. After school let out, instead of playing sports or raising hell, he’d worked as a janitor, sweeping up in the bank. When he graduated he started as a teller, driving to business classes at Northeast Mississippi Community College. He finished up over at the University of North Alabama in Florence.

“Miss Kirby went to Ole Miss, split town after college, spent some time as a flight attendant with Delta to look over the pilots, then tried advertising up in Nashville. When her mother became ill with cancer she came back to help her father and brother get through it.

“After her mother’s funeral she rediscovered Mitch, who had worked his way up to loan officer. They sent the gossip mill into orbit when they ran off and got married.”

Rane thought he detected a hint of envy creeping into Beeman’s tone and filed it away with the lonely wedding ring on his kitchen table. “What’s she like, the wife?”

“Well, she runs all the local charity efforts. Since her brother died in Iraq, the word is, she’s getting interested in doing something with wounded vets.”

“Where this headed?” Rane asked.

“C’mon, John,” Beeman said, “you were a cop for a while…”

Rane guffawed. “Two years after the academy.”

“That’s long enough to grasp Street Sociology 101. Most people who go bad have poor impulse control. After a few drinks on Saturday night they start wearing the shitty cards life dealt them on their sleeve. One of the things I remember about Mitchell Lee in high school—besides fighting with him in the parking lot—is he was in the chess club. That boy always plans two moves in advance. Anything he does is for a reason.”

“So he was wrapped too tight and flipped out?” Rane speculated.

“Yeah, right. People say he’s been fighting this outlaw gene all his life. But I don’t buy it. This is a guy so smooth he could hustle Bill Clinton out of his last dick rubber. That stunt at the cemetery was family politics. See, his brother-in-law, Robert, ran the bank after the old man retired and stuck it to him every chance he got. Mitchell Lee worked it so he stayed back when Robert deployed with the guard. Once Robert was out of the way, he resigned from the bank, started this radio talk show, and set up a battlefield preservation charity. And Old Man Kirby really liked that idea. You remember the statue out at the Kirby estate?”

Rane nodded.

“Mitch had that built; he raised all the money on his radio show. I didn’t help any,” Beeman sighed. “I figured he was up to something so I got an admin subpoena and went through the charity bank records. All that did was make me look bad and him look better.”

“So the feud goes both ways,” Rane said.

Beeman scratched his cheek and admitted: “Yeah, I guess it does get a little tense when we get in the same room.”

“So if he didn’t flip out, how’s he go from building statues to shooting at you at Kirby Creek?” Rane asked.

“Paul Edin,” Beeman said.

“What?”

“I mean, why are you having this conversation with a cop sitting in a car in Corinth, Mississippi?”

Rane stared back. Beeman’s quiet brown eyes were doing his slow, tricky roping routine. “It’s a story…”

“That’s right, John. About
Paul
,” Beeman said. “What if Paul wouldn’ta stepped out and caught that bullet? What if it had killed me deader’n shit, huh? What would have been the next step? Just me ain’t worth Mitchell Lee going off the deep end. Once I’m dead, then what? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Not sure I…” Rane said.

“Think, man—Paul
changed
things,” Beeman said, slowly scanning Rane’s face. “Maybe his dying had a way of changing people’s plans, and their lives…”

Rane shrugged, said nothing, and broke eye contact. The moment passed.

“Anyrate,” Beeman said briskly. “Mitchell Lee has this one reliable flaw and that’s our next stop.”

“Drinking,” Rane said. “The scene in the cemetery shooting at your car.”

“Other women. He always catted around. You see, the night before he started shooting at Yankee grave ornaments he roughed up his girlfriend. T’ween you and me, I think that was part of the scenario. When she showed up at Emergency—that’s what got us out looking for him.”

Beeman turned the car around, drove into the business district, and parked down Fillmore from the coffee shop. They got out, ambled along the storefronts, and stopped in front of a plate-glass window full of ferns. An arch of delicate cursive script over the door spelled out
MARCY’S SHOP
.

“You met Darl Leets this morning, right?” Beeman asked.

Rane nodded. “And, you know, I got the impression he’s a reluctant sort of bad guy.”

“Well, his wife did haul him out of the Memphis drug scene and away from Dwayne. Got him so he spends more time coaching Little League than he does in that beer joint. Darl was a bad boy once but now he’s what you call a house husband. When you get a look at his wife you’ll see why,” Beeman said as he leaned to the window and peered inside. “Yep, Marcy is in the building.”

“Wait a minute,” Rane said. “The girlfriend?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mitch and Darl are cousins? And…” Rane pointed at the salon.

Beeman said, “Yep. Her and Mitch been having a side thing going for a year at least. It’s a mystery why she stays with Darl. I asked her straight out once.” Beeman grinned. “And Marcy says, ‘Darl’s a married man. He comes home at night.’”

“Hot?” Rane wondered.

Beeman waffled his hand. “Depends. What I hear is you take your chances. Sometimes you get the fire. Sometimes you get the undertow. And fast. Three digits on the radar gun.” He opened the door and an overhead bell jingled.

Marcy Leets stood at the shop’s one chair snipping at a customer’s hair. When she heard the bell she looked up. Coming through the door, Rane detected an earthy under-scent of patchouli oil, an aroma that California cops refer to contemptuously as “hippie piss” but that he had always found boldly sensual.

In this case, the bold sensuality was on a tight leash, wearing a short, clingy blue nylon dress. If onomatopoeia is the formation of a word that imitates the sound of its referent, then Marcy Leets was the frank physical equivalent.

Marcy lowered her heavy-lidded blue eyes, tossed her tawny, shoulder-length blond hair, and continued chatting with her customer. The shop was small; mirrors, more plants, a hair dryer, a sink, and the one barber chair. Several chairs lined a waiting area to the left of the entrance and a counter past the chairs. The work area was separated by two bookshelves that contained magazines and plastic bottles of hair products. Beeman and Rane sat down in two of the chairs by the door and waited.

After a few more snips, Marcy set the scissors aside and picked up a blow dryer. The whir of the dryer combined with a musical twitter of their conversation.

Then Marcy put the dryer away, removed the sheet from around the customer’s shoulders, and shook it to the floor. She and the customer walked to the front of the shop. Beeman rose and nodded to the customer, who regarded him with a polite, slightly stiff smile, noting his gun and badge intruding on her haircut.

Marcy made change from the cash drawer, exchanged pleasant farewells, and the lady hurried from the shop. Beeman followed her to the door and, as soon as she exited, he twisted the lock and flipped the
OPEN
sign to
CLOSED
.

When he turned, Marcy leaned against the counter with one hand cocked on a hip.

“Why Kenny Beeman,” she batted her eyes, “the only man in north Mississippi to look a gift blow job in the mouth.” Her voice was bored, husky.

“What’d I tell you,” Beeman said to Rane, who was sitting upright, thinking that looking at Marcy was like having a bright light in your face.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“My personal picture-taker only he don’t take no pictures,” Beeman said. Then he craned his neck and looked around. “Don’t suppose you got Mitchell Lee hiding in your back storeroom? He’s gone missing.”

“You ain’t missing till you’re gone two weeks. It’s not even one week yet. He’s probably shacked up in Tunica with some little gal blackjack dealer with a big chest, tryin’ to forget that uptight titless mouse wife of his,” Marcy said.

“So you haven’t seen him?”

Marcy shook her head with feigned boredom. “Heard all the talk, though. Folks say you and him are gonna do a sequel to Buford Pusser and Towhead White.”

Beeman withdrew a card and a pen from his chest pocket, leaned on the counter, and wrote on the back of the card. “Here’s my cell, Marcy. I appreciate your situation and all, but if anything starts to worry you, you give me a call…”

Marcy ignored the card. “Bee, honey, what genuinely worries me about Mitchell Lee is that babyless bitch makes him screw her standing on her head, you know, to try and get the thingies to run down to the proper place. Now that worries me.”

Not a bright light, Rane decided. More like a fire-breathing Circe.

Beeman flipped a farewell finger to his brow and nodded. “You take care, Marcy.” He turned and Rane followed him out onto the sidewalk.

“Phew,” Rane breathed as he glanced back into the shop.

Beeman grinned. “Tomorrow, first thing, we’ll go out to Kirby Creek and meet the titless mouse, Miss Kirby herself.”

41

MITCH, UNSHACKLED, STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF
the potting shed, holding a cigarette in his cuffed hands, and watched sunset streak Cross State Lake. He shifted his feet, making room in the clutter of orange terra-cotta pots strewn on the floor. The back end of the shed had a table, two chairs, bunk beds, a small icebox, and a microwave for the summer help. LaSalle had pried a rear partition loose to gain access to the cave.

Meals had improved. The coffee kept coming.

Mitch could tell by the way LaSalle avoided his eyes: pretty soon they’d be letting him go. He relished the inevitable talk with Ellie, to nail down the terms of that particular arrangement.

LaSalle’s dusty blue Chevy pickup was parked near the shed. Mitch eyed the big medic—sleeves rolled up, showing off his Shaka Zulu biceps—who knelt over his medical bag next to the steps.

As the shadows lengthened, Mitch cocked his head as a night bird called from the woods. The whip-poor-will, it was said, could snatch your soul in flight, the way it picked off bugs in the dark.

Then a sharp report shattered the twilight.

“There it is again.” Mitch jerked his head and darted his eyes.

“Car backfire,” LaSalle said, unconcerned.

“Bullshit. That’s a muzzleloader, I can tell from the blast. Sounds like it’s just down the lake, hear the echo?”

“Out in the woods maybe?” LaSalle said. “Poachers.” He took out a pair of white rubber gloves, laid them aside, and held up a slim syringe with a little cap on the end.

“Miss Kirby says I got to give you this tetanus shot before you come down with lockjaw,” he said.

“How do I know it’s not poison?” Mitch asked, half-serious.

LaSalle removed the cap from the needle. “C’mon. This goes in your butt. Turn around.”

Mitch tossed the smoke away, unfastened the top two buttons on his pants to loosen them, then turned, and LaSalle peeled down the waistband in the back. Mitch smelled a pinch of alcohol in the evening air. Then he felt the cool, damp cotton swab over the skin high on his right buttock; a marvelous, clean sensation.

Then the nip of the needlepoint. Before half the shot was in, Mitch’s eyelids fluttered and he collapsed forward, his face smashing into a pile of terra-cotta pots. But he didn’t feel it, because he was lifted by a feathery euphoria. Maybe he heard the whip-poor-will again as he entered a vast marble silence…

LaSalle was loading Mitch into the foot well on the passenger side of his truck when Ellie jogged up. She wore a sweatshirt, shorts, and running shoes. A sooty smear dabbed her lips and chin on the right side of her mouth.

“What’d you give him?” she asked.

“Versed. Three mils. I’ll give him another shot when I get there.”

“I should go with you,” she said.

“You’d be noticed. I won’t,” LaSalle said matter-of-factly, covering Mitch’s sedated body with a blanket. Then he tossed his bag in the truck.

“Okay,” Ellie said, wiping the back of her hand across the smear on her chin, “let’s do it.”

LaSalle nodded, got in his truck, and drove away.

TRICKY GETTING INTO TOWN, LOTS OF PEOPLE ON THE STREETS
walking to the concert at the courthouse. The sound of the pickers tuning up guttered on the wind. LaSalle eased the Chevy up the darkened alley, turned off the engine, and slipped on the vinyl gloves with an elastic snap. He leaned over and monitored Mitch’s breathing, which was deep and regular. He measured out another injection and put it in Mitch’s arm. Then removed some gauze pads and a roll of tape from his bag and stuck them in his hip pocket. After checking the breathing again, he waited a few moments to make sure no foot traffic came this way.

Do it now. Quick out of the truck, around to the passenger side, he hoisted Mitch’s limp body on his shoulder and carried him to a doorway in the shadows.

The door opened and Marcy Leets said, “Hurry, get in.” She looked up and down the alley as LaSalle shouldered past.

“Where?” he asked.

“Right here, inside the door,” she said.

He lowered Mitch to the floor, then stood up and looked around. Cardboard boxes on shelves lined the walls. Light eked into the storeroom from the ajar door to the front of the shop. Marcy bent and studied Mitch’s somnolent face. “His eyes are open?”

“Just a flutter, he’s stoned; ain’t seein’ or hearing nothing.”

“Will he feel…?”

“Not that either,” LaSalle said.

Marcy straightened up, squared her shoulders, exhaled. “Okay, we gotta make this look real.”

LaSalle nodded, preparing himself. “You ready?”

She nodded. He reached out and seized her bare arms.

“Harder.” Marcy bared her teeth, broke his grip, and swung her open hand at his face. At the goading slap, LaSalle grabbed her shoulder, spun her, and wrapped his powerful fingers around her neck. She fought back and they struggled, their breath coming in sobs between clenched teeth. He lashed his other hand around and clawed her shoulder, then wrenched down, shredding bra straps and dress to the elastic of her panties. He released her and she staggered, turning.

They faced each other, panting. Hair askew, the blue dress hanging in tatters, she glanced down at her heaving bare breasts and torso where the striped bruises started to pimple with blood.

“What’re you waiting for?” she said.

LaSalle took a measured breath, towering over her; he could smell the fear and anger mingled in her sweat, some perfume she wore. “I’m gonna try not to…”

“Hit me, goddamn it!”

LaSalle swung his left fist in a short arc that caught her jaw and knocked her sideways into the shelves. Marcy stumbled, kept her feet, flailed at the shelf, and pulled it over. As the shelf clattered down on her, she kicked the boxes aside, pushed away the tangle of metal, and faced him again, her eyes astonished with pain.

“You gonna have to do better than that, sport,” she hissed through bloody lips.

“Shit,” LaSalle muttered. Then he set his feet and threw a serious straight right hand that mashed into her eye and cheek. She grunted, folded up, and went down flat on her back. Slowly, shaking her head, she rolled over, pushed up on all fours, and crawled to where Mitch lay against the doorway.

She reached out her trembling left hand and took a grip on his dark, curly hair to steady his head, heaved up on her knees, and cocked her right hand back, tendons raised under the skin like rods, the fingers spread and arched. With a sob, she clawed her nails into his left cheek, put her weight into it, and ripped down.

“There.” She swooned, falling back on the floor.

Immediately, LaSalle lifted Mitch with an arm under his shoulders. With his other hand he manipulated one of Mitch’s cuffed hands, brought it up, and pressed it to the bleeding cheek. Then he turned Mitch and mashed the bloody hand on the doorjamb, taking care to leave a distinct thumbprint.

“Marcy…?” LaSalle said.

“I’m good,” she groaned, attempting a game smile through her split, puffed lip. “Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

“Christ,” muttered LaSalle. Then he quickly bandaged the torn cheek to stanch the bleeding, opened the door, and checked outside. A grumble of thunder overlaid the concert music. Without looking back, he hauled Mitch to the truck.

MITCH WOKE UP IN THE DIRT UNDER THE UTILITY LAMP, WEARING
the shackle. He floated his hand to his cheek. All numb with pain there. Saw LaSalle hovering, concern on his face. “Just take it easy, Mitch.”

Huh? He started to explore his throbbing cheek.

LaSalle trapped the hand and eased it down. “Don’t be doing that. I just put a bandage on.”

“Bandage? Wha?”

“You had a reaction to the shot. My fault. You collapsed and lacerated your face on those damn flower pots.” LaSalle nodded his head. “Here, take this for the pain.”

Mitch squinted at a pill in LaSalle’s palm.

“C’mon, it’s Demerol, some good shit. Make you feel better.”

Mitch let LaSalle funnel the pill into his mouth and accepted a bottle of water to wash it down. Still gliding from the first shot, he had to remind himself to swallow.