Deadliest of Sins (14 page)

Twenty

Mary worked in the
empty police cubicle for most of the day. At Galloway's suggestion, she requested Campbell County State Police records for the past three years. While those wheels turned, she ran the SBI database on the two new Highway 74 deaths. Tiffani Wallace had multiple arrests for silly stuff—shoplifting a CD, disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly. Despite her penchant for petty crime, she had a pretty face that belied her sketchy lifestyle. Given different circumstances, Mary could envision her graduating from college, working at a job, going home to a husband and family. The second girl, Maria Perez, was even sadder. She had nothing beyond an autopsy photo—eyes shut, her complexion dark with lividity. She'd been identified by an empty pay envelope from a sweet potato farm in South Carolina. The post-mortem found defensive wounds—scratches on her arms, a broken nail. She had skin fragments beneath the nails of her right hand, but they didn't match anybody in the system. The skin of her own fingers was stained orange from her work picking sweet potatoes, and a small religious medal hung around her neck. Mary sighed. Latinos worked hard, usually sent most of their paychecks back home. What had this girl's mother thought when her money had quit coming? Did she think Maria had forgotten about them to run away with some man? Or did she know, in her heart, grieve with the sense that Maria had made her last contribution—that this little chick would not be returning to their nest?

“And what do you do then?” Mary whispered. “How can you stand the not knowing?” She knew not knowing well; there wasn't a day that passed where she didn't turn her head at some red pickup truck or scroll through her email, looking for a message from jwalkingstick. Beyond a single birthday gift, silently left two Januarys ago, she'd heard nothing.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Tiffani Wallace. At least she had a last name, a next of kin—Eddie, a brother who lived in Campbell County. Mary punched in the number and got a voicemail message. She hung up, knowing she'd have to call back later. You didn't leave questions about a dead family member on a recording device.

Mary stood up, stretched, looked at the papers strewn across the desk. Ann Chandler's anti-gay conspiracy theory was getting muddied by the other suspicious deaths along Highway 74. Of the four people she'd found dead along that road, only two had been gay white males. The other two were females, their sexual orientation undetermined. Yet “getting 74'd” was well known in the local vernacular; the Latinos called the road “the highway of sorrows;” and even Pharisee, in Asheville, had concocted a drink in its dubious honor. It made no sense.

Fighting a mid-afternoon droop, she walked out into the hall and bought a cup of coffee from the vending machine. When she returned to the cubicle, she considered calling Eddie Wallace again, but instead decided to check her email, on the outside chance the state police had responded to her request in a timely manner. Usually requests for old records took hours, if not days. But she'd tried using her governor's staff email address, mcrowgubstaff. When she opened her account, the report was waiting.

“Wow,” she said. “Guess it pays to have friends in high places.”

She opened the attached file and started to laugh. Though they'd sent her both Sligo and Campbell County complaint data, they'd covered the past thirteen years, rather than just the past three. What a difference a digit can make.

“Oh well,” said Mary. “At least they got some of it right.” Taking a sip of coffee, she started looking through the data. Slowly, she pieced together the statistics. In the past three years, both counties had similar numbers: six homicides in Campbell County, seven in Sligo. Of the murders in Campbell County, three had a Highway 74 connection. In Sligo County, only one body, Alan Bratcher, had been found on 74.

“So half the homicides in Campbell County wind up on 74, but only one in Sligo,” she whispered. “But the highway bisects both counties, straight as a ruler.” She sat back and frowned at the computer screen. Was something cooking here, or was it just random?

“Since you've got thirteen years here, just expand the data pool,” she told herself. “See if there's a pattern.”

Thankful that she'd paid attention during her statistics course in Raleigh, she pulled up the two counties side by side. For the past thirteen years, Sligo's numbers had remained constant—roughly the same numbers of burglaries, assaults, D&Ds, homicides, soliciting, controlled substance violations. Campbell County, though, looked very different. In 2001 and 2002, the numbers were similar to Sligo. Then, in 2003, things began to change. Each year the crime statistics fell. By 2009, the crime rate was half of Sligo's; then in 2011, the numbers began to inch up. By the end of last year, they once again matched Sligo's.

“Maybe
that's
why they hired Galloway,” she whispered. “Maybe it was less about speaking Spanish and more about getting their crime rate under control.” She was sitting there, frowning at the screen, when her cell phone rang. She picked up to find Galloway himself on the line.

“Hey, how are you doing?” he asked, his voice bright.

“I'm okay,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Are you still at the office?”

“I'm doing a little statistical comparison. Your county's crime rate sucks.”

“That's because I haven't worked there long enough to change it. Come back in a year. You'll see vast improvements.”

“I bet.” She laughed. “Did you find out anything about Honey-
cutt?”

“Nothing actionable. The old girlfriend said he was a bully, showed me the scars to prove it.”

“So he's not homophobic?”

“He's poly-phobic. Hates gays, hates blacks, hates Muslims, hates Jews. And don't even get him started on Congress.”

“Women, puppies, and Christmas, too?” asked Mary.

“Wouldn't surprise me,” said Galloway. “But he's not stupid and he learns fast. Hey—would you like to go out to dinner with me tonight?”

“Not if it involves a sermon or a baseball game.”

“No. Just you and me. Two old cops, swapping war stories.”

“I'm not a cop, Galloway. Nor am I old.”

“Okay, one old cop and a cute young lawyer, swapping war stories.”

“Then sure.” She smiled. Dinner with Galloway would be a nice break from her statistical straw grasping, plus she could get his take on Campbell County's growing crime rate. “When and where?”

“How close are you to finishing?” he asked.

“I've got another phone call to make, then I'm done.”

“There's a little Italian restaurant in town—Angelo's. Good food and the beer's cold. Should I come pick you up in an hour?”

“No, I'll meet you there. I'd kind of like to get out of here for a bit—put the top down and feel the wind in my hair.”

“Okay, then. Angelo's is on the corner of Main and Georgia. I'll be waiting for you and your wind-blown hair.”

She hung up, cheered by the thought of dinner with Galloway as opposed to another meal at the Gastonia Holiday Inn. Turning back to the computer, she highlighted the graphs she'd generated and punched the print button. As the printer began to crank out the pages, she tried Eddie Wallace's number again. This time the line was busy. Mary waited, then tried the number again. Still busy. After the third busy signal, she wrote his address down on a note pad and got up from her desk. She wanted to get out of the office for a bit anyway—might as well drive over to Wallace's house and ask him about his sister in person.

Mary put the top down on her car and keyed the address into her smart phone, wondering if the GPS would think “County Road 218” was a real street or some typographical error. Apparently, she hadn't been the first to key the location in—a little blue dot blinked 14.72 miles northwest of her current location.

“Okay, buddy,” she whispered as she backed the car out of the parking lot. “Let's see where you're taking me.”

The GPS took her first through town, then through a residential area, and then out into the country, following a meandering creek that traversed acres of green pastureland dotted with grazing cows. Small trailer parks hugged the road, each unit with a dish antenna pointed to the southwest quadrant of the sky. After ten miles, the road intersected with County Road 218. She turned right, as the GPS indicated; a half-mile later she turned into the long driveway of number 320. It led to a white doublewide trailer surrounded by American muscle cars in varying states of repair. She saw a little Chevy Impala with no wheels, a Chrysler with the stuffing coming out of its upholstery, and an old Dodge Charger that had, in a former life, apparently been a race car. A tall man wearing jeans and a dark scruff of a beard stood by the Dodge, arms folded, eyes hard.

“Hi,” Mary called as she got out of her car, suddenly wishing she'd told Galloway where she was going.

“I don't work on nothin' foreign,” the man said, spitting in the direction of Mary's Miata.

“I'm not here for a car repair.” Mary pulled her ID from her purse. “I work for the governor—we're looking into some cold homicide cases here in Campbell County. Are you Eddie Wallace? Tiffani Wallace's brother?”

He hesitated a moment, then nodded as he spat another bullet of tobacco juice.

“I'm just trying to connect some dots here,” she explained, wanting to assure Eddie that she had no law enforcement interest in him. “Were you close to your sister?”

“Close enough.”

“Did you know who her friends were? Who she hung out with?”

“Scumbags, mostly.”

“Was she seeing anyone? Have any special boyfriend?”

“I didn't keep up with her like that.”

Mary nodded. “Do you know what your sister's sexual orientation was?”

He frowned. “Her sexual what?”

“Orientation. Did she like to have sex with men or women?”

“You mean was she queer?”

“Yes. Was she queer?”

“Good God, no.” Wallace spat again. “Queers made her want to puke. Me too, as far as that goes.”

“I see,” said Mary.

Wallace picked up a tire iron that rested against the Dodge's front fender. “Are you saying some queer killed her?”

“No, I'm just trying to see if there's any connection between her death and another man's murder.”

“Tiffani may have run with some real losers,” he said, “but never with faggots or homos.” Wallace slapped one end of the wrench against his palm. “You wouldn't be putting it out that she was a dyke, would you?”

“No, Mr. Wallace. That's not the way the law works.”

“Good,” he said, slapping the wrench against his hand again. “Me and mine would take a dim view of that.”

Though Wallace's threat was implicit, Mary did not back up an inch. “Is there anything else you'd like to add to this investigation? Anything you don't feel the local cops looked into closely enough?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “The local cops are probably missing Tiffani pretty bad, right now.”

“How so?” asked Mary.

“Any little piece-of-shit charge they could come up with, they'd hang on Tiff. Off she'd go to jail, then to court. What with all the fines she had to fork over, she probably made Campbell County more money than a damn speed trap.”

“I see. Well, every little piece of information helps. Thanks for your time.” Mary pulled a business card from her pocket and laid it on the fender of the Chevy. “If you remember anything else, call me. I'm sorry about your sister. She was a pretty girl.”

She turned and got back in her car, knowing that Eddie Wallace would probably throw her card away the minute she pulled out of the drive. Though his attitude toward gays was harsh, it fit in with the rest of Campbell County's. What was interesting was his take that the police department had turned Tiffani into their own little cash cow. It was ridiculous, of course, but Eddie Wallace was one of millions who believed that the judicial deck had been stacked against them since birth. Never was any arrest their fault; always it was the cops who were acting on some personal, undeserved vendetta against them.

Twenty-One

Chase stood by the
window terrified, the taste of fear sour in the back of his throat. He'd left his television show when he heard the car coming up the driveway. He knew something odd was going on—in all the months he'd lived here, only two people had ever come to call—the UPS man, delivering Gudger some new tool for his workshop, and Mary Crow. When he first peeked out the window, Chase thought one of Gudger's cop friends had come to visit, but he realized the car was all wrong. All the ex-cops he'd met drove big-ass pickup trucks or gas-guzzling monsters like Suzie Q. This car had the sleek lines of a limo. Even stranger was the guy who'd gotten out of it—he was as big as a gorilla, with massive shoulders straining against a light-blue dress shirt. The gorilla kept watch as Gudger leaned over to talk to someone in the backseat. Then, in one slick move, he came up behind Gudger and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. Gudger's pale belly jiggled as he tried to squirm away, but the gorilla was too fast. He found a gun Gudger had apparently hidden in his pants and plastered Gudger between the legs with it. Chase unconsciously grabbed his own crotch as Gudger crumpled to the ground, his legs twitching uncontrollably. He thought for a moment that Gudger was dead, but then the gorilla lifted him up, and tossed him into the backseat. After that, the gorilla returned to the passenger seat and the car oozed back down the driveway. Not hurrying, not spraying the gravel—just driving off, as if throwing people in the backseat was something they did every day.

For a long time Chase stood staring out the window, stunned, waiting for the car to come back and let Gudger out. But that did not happen. The dust slowly resettled in the driveway, birds flitted back to the bird feeder, and the humming quietness of a June afternoon returned. It occurred to Chase that he ought to be happy, dancing with joy. Gudger was gone! He'd watched a big goon kick his ass! He'd gotten to watch somebody else do what he'd longed to do for months.

But for some reason, he didn't feel like dancing. For some reason, he felt more like he wanted to vomit.

His first instinct was to call the police, just as he once did with the crackheads at their old duplex. But then he remembered how Gudger had leaned over and whispered to him the day they'd all moved in here:
You ever call the police to this house and I'll kill you, boy.

Though Chase had taken his threat seriously, this was different. This wasn't one of his crackpot theories about Sam or even his suspicions about the drug dealers who used to live next door. A black car had rolled up in his driveway; a thug had beaten up and then kidnapped his stepfather. And he'd seen it all—he could give descriptions, of both the goon and the car.

“It's okay,” he told himself. “Gudger would probably want me to call the cops now.”

He hurried to the den and Gudger's precious landline. But the old black phone was missing from the table beside the Barcalounger. He searched the kitchen, Gudger's bedroom, then he ran out to the garage. He found Gudger's whiskey, Gudger's
Playboy
collection, even Gudger's stash of ammo, but not Gudger's phone. He'd either hidden the thing or thrown it away. Chase had no way to call anyone.

Not knowing where else to look, he went back in the house. The History Channel had become a din of noise, now showing some documentary about the D-Day invasion. He turned it off. The house settled into an expectant silence, as if it too were holding its breath, waiting to see if Gudger would return. Chase went back to the living room. Perching on the edge of the sofa, he tried to keep watch on the driveway, but all his poison ivy itchiness seemed to have gone deep inside him. He couldn't keep his legs still and he felt as if worms were crawling beneath his skin. Finally, he stood up and walked over to the window.

“It was probably nothing,” he said, scanning the driveway for an approaching car. “Probably some dumb joke Gudger dreamed up with his old cop friends.
Hey, let's have some fun. I'll hide the phone, then you guys drive up and pretend to kidnap me. Shithead will piss his pants he'll be so scared!”

That notion calmed him for a moment—he could just hear Gudger saying something like that. But then he remembered the look in Gudger's eyes when that car had rolled back down the driveway.

“It was real,” Chase whispered, his itchiness returning. “You couldn't fake looking that scared.”

Chase went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. As he drank it, he glanced at the clock above the stove. He couldn't believe it was nearly four o'clock! Though he'd planned to make himself a peanut butter sandwich back when the D-Day show was on, Gudger and the gorilla had made him forget all about his empty stomach. Now it was late afternoon—Gudger had easily been gone three hours. Was the gorilla going to bring him back? Or would that sick expression on Gudger's face be the last he'd see of him? As much as hated Gudger, he hoped not. Nobody deserved to die that scared.

He went back to the living room. As he looked at the window for the hundredth time, two black shapes swooped down from the oak tree. He jumped at the sudden movement, then he realized they were crows, coming to scavenge beneath his mother's bird feeder. While he watched the sleek black birds peck in the grass, he thought of Mary Crow and how she'd stood right on the porch and talked with Gudger without once letting on how much she knew about him.

“Wish she were here now,” he whispered. Mary Crow would know what to do about all this. She was really smart, and she was friends with the governor. Then a thought occurred to him. Gudger had started acting strange right after Mary Crow left. He'd been furious at her visit, but then he'd started pacing around the house, muttering to himself under his breath. He'd stomped out to the garage and stayed there for a long time. When he finally came back, he'd seemed calmer, but he smelled of whiskey. All at once Chase felt a tightness in his chest. Was there some kind of connection between the men in the black car and Mary Crow? Would the gorilla now be out to get her, just like he'd gotten Gudger?

“No,” he said, trying to put the brakes on his rising panic. “She's the governor's cop. They wouldn't mess with anybody like her.” But what if they weren't afraid of the governor? They sure hadn't been afraid of Gudger.

He turned away from the window and hurried to his bedroom. He had to get to a phone and warn Mary Crow. If he ran through the back yard and along the creek, maybe he could persuade Mrs. Carver to let him use her telephone. Gudger was the one she hated, not him. He pulled on jeans, his sneakers, a long-sleeved shirt. Stuffing Sam's little change purse in his back pocket, he was heading for a final pit stop in the bathroom when he heard footsteps on the front porch. He froze. Was Gudger back? Or had the gorilla in that black car now returned for him?

His knees quivering, he stood in silence. He heard the squeak of the screen door, the door knob jiggling. He held his breath as the front door opened, praying to hear his mother call his name or even Gudger bellowing out
Shithead
. But he heard only silence, as if someone were just standing inside the door. His stomach clenched. Maybe it was the gorilla; maybe he was out there sniffing the air, trying to smell where he was. For an instant he considered diving under his bed and hiding, but that was crazy. The gorilla would find him in a heartbeat and probably be mad at having to look for him. Better just sneak out the back door, he decided. And run like hell to Mrs. Carver's house.

Trembling, he held on to the doorjamb and peeked around the corner. Down the hall he could see a man in a gray sweatshirt and khaki pants, leaning against the front door, head down, holding one hand under his armpit. A wave of relief washed over him. It was Gudger. Still alive, still in one piece.

Yet something wasn't right. Gudger usually roared into the house, slamming doors, calling names, hurling curses. That he was standing in silence with his head bowed could not be good. Walking on tiptoes, Chase inched down the hall to get a closer look.

Gudger looked like a department store dummy. His bald spot was the color of pale wax and the three long locks that comprised his combover hung limply behind his ears. As Chase watched, Gudger pulled the door shut and locked it. As he withdrew his right hand from under his arm, Chase fought back a gasp. Gudger's hand looked as if it had been cooked in a microwave. The skin was red to the point of blistering, his fingers were swollen like sausages. Gudger gazed at his disfigured self for a long moment, then he started to cry.

Chase gulped, his terror now a living thing. Gudger in good health was bad enough—he couldn't imagine what Gudger might do wounded and in pain. He eased back into the shadows of the hall. If he could get back to his room and push his dresser in front of the door, he could barricade himself in there until his mother got home. That way, he would at least be safe for a little while. Turning, he started to tiptoe back down the hall. He hadn't taken three steps when he felt something grab the back of his neck. Gudger whipped him around with his good hand, slamming him against the wall. Wasps started buzzing inside Chase's head.

“You little smart-assed bastard,” Gudger whispered, his face dark with rage. “Did you actually think you could mess with me?”

Chase tried to shake his head, but Gudger was gripping him too tightly.

Gudger held up his ruined hand. “You know what this is? This is what happens when little boys go poking their noses into business that doesn't concern them.”

“Wh-what happened?” Chase asked, unable to take his eyes off Gudger's raw-looking flesh.

“Two Russian bastards thought it would be fun to hold my hand down in a tub of battery acid,” said Gudger. “They had a great time, too. Me, not so much.”

Chase kept staring at the scalded fingers, his heart racing. He was too scared to think, to speak.

“But don't you worry, Olive Oyl,” Gudger growled. “I've still got one hand that works just fine. And that's more than enough to take care of you.”

He shoved Chase into his bedroom. “Here are two things you can think about for a while,” he said, as he pulled a door key from his pocket. “The first is that your pal Mary Crow won't be stopping by here ever again. The second is that real bad things happen to little boys who fuck with me.”