Kind of Kin (28 page)

After a minute Terry got quiet. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “The folks from the funeral home already picked him up from the hospital. I got to get to Wilburton and make the arrangements.” Sweet nodded without looking up. She ought to go with him. He'd never made funeral arrangements by himself. Sweet had been the one to help his father pick out the casket and flowers and dress for Tee's mom, and then she'd done it all for Mr. Kirkendall himself when he passed. Terry had been too distraught; he'd gone to the funeral home with her, but on every decision he'd just said, “I don't know, hon, whatever you think.”

“I'll be back in an hour,” Terry said. “Then, I'm telling you something, Sweet. We are going to set a few things straight.”

She nodded again. In a bit she heard him leave. She went on rubbing her son's back, humming “The Old Rugged Cross” like she used to do when he was a tiny boy. He had finished bawling, was in the shuddery, raggedy-breaths stage. She knew it would take Terry longer than an hour to drive to Wilburton and look at all the coffin samples and make up his mind and go by the florist's and the
Latimer County News
to give them the information for the obituary, if he even remembered to do that, which he might not, but at the very least it was going to take closer to two hours—definitely longer than he expected, she knew that. But still, it wouldn't be near time enough.

Wednesday | February 27, 2008 | 8:00
A.M.

Latimer County Jail | Wilburton

A
fter breakfast, while the two men sat on their bunks waiting for the trustee to come collect the trays, Arvin Holloway suddenly appeared on the other side of the bars. Bob Brown's heart lurched. He looked over at Garcia. The pastor gave an uncertain shrug. Shakily Brown got to his feet, crossed the small space to talk. Fear and grief pulsed through him. How had Holloway managed to get through the clanging outer door into the echoey concrete hall without them hearing? The sheriff unclipped the jumble of keys from his belt and opened the cell door; he motioned Brown to come out, waving Garcia back when he started to stand, too. Without a word Holloway relocked the cell, nodded Brown ahead of him toward the solid steel door at the end of the hall. Brown stood swaying on his feet as he waited for the sheriff to find the next key and turn it in the fat lock. He was afraid he might faint; he'd had too little to eat for too many days. Every one of those days he had asked to speak to Holloway. The trustees kept saying, “Sheriff ain't here, he ain't here.” Now, this early in the morning, and in terrible silence, Arvin Holloway
was
here. It could only mean something very bad.

The sheriff ushered him along past the unmanned front desk and empty break room into his own office. There he shut the door, motioned Brown to sit, hoisted himself down into his roller chair. “All right now,” he said. “Talk.”

The pause that followed was not, as Holloway thought, because of Bob Brown's stubbornness but his surprise. He'd been expecting the sheriff to tell
him
something, maybe something unbearable, maybe the worst possible news there is. That the sheriff wanted Brown himself to do the talking simply threw him. He shook his head—more to try to clear it than to say
I don't know what you want,
but Holloway took the gesture for refusal. “Goddamnit. Talk!” The sheriff was furious. He'd gotten the first call a little after seven this morning, the last one not ten minutes ago. “You sorry old coot, you'd better start explaining. I mean
now
!”

“Explain what?”

“How your goddamn pickup ended up in Tonkawa!”

“What?”

“State Patrol found that piece-of-crap Chevy of yours in a ditch six miles south of Tonkawa. I want to know what it was doing there.”

“I don't know.”

“Where's the boy?”

“My God, man. Don't you think I would've said something if I knew?”

“I don't know
what
you'd do. I never expected the Bob Brown I grew up with to be a goddamn Mexican smuggler, either.”

“Arvin, you know it's not like that.” Brown's voice was quiet, but his heart was racing, his hands trembling. “There must be a mistake.”

“They checked the VIN number.”

“I don't know. Maybe somebody borrowed it.”

“Somebody like that goddamn spic your boy's hanging around with? Oh, yeah, we know all about that! Sure do.” As of seven o'clock this morning the sheriff had known, anyway—that was the first call that came in: Tulsa police phoning him at home to tell him the kid had been sighted in Tulsa with “an unidentified Spanish-speaking man.” Holloway had exploded in fury, flung his coffee mug in the kitchen sink, where it bounced and broke in half. He leaned in now toward Bob Brown. “Who is it? That wetback your granddaughter married, right? He's the one drove your truck to Tonkawa!”

This was the call that had come in a few minutes ago: the truck located not just a measly hundred miles away in Tulsa but all the way practically to the goddamn Kansas border! Holloway's rage knew no bounds. He jumped up and went to the high small window, stood seething, his right hand fondling his pistol grip. Goddamn Tulsa PD, State Highway Patrol, Kay County Sheriff's Office, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation—everybody getting in on the act! The case was set to be ripped right out of his jurisdiction! Press conferences would all move north. He'd be relegated to second fiddle, the county sheriff who broke the news and then botched finding the missing kid. Holloway turned and narrowed his eyes at Brown. “You got that snivelly little grandson out doing your dirty work while you loll around in my jail, is that it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Holloway stalked back to his chair and eased himself down. “We are fixing to have us a little heart-to-heart, my friend.”

“Arvin, we have never been friends. Not growing up. Not now.”

“You are one arrogant son of a bitch, did you know it? You always have had a ton of gall.” He pulled a small spiral notebook over, located a pen. “All right then. We'll start at the beginning. Who's this spic your boy's running around with?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. Who told you they saw Dustin?”

“Tulsa chief of police, for your information. Some store owner seen them there together, your grandson and this Mexican fella he's hanging around with. So. You ready to volunteer me some help here, or do I have to come around there and smack it out of you?”

Brown's mind scrambled, trying to fit the pieces together. Dustin in Tulsa? Yes, he might have tried to go to his sister's, but how would a little boy travel a hundred miles to Tulsa? Had they checked at Misty Dawn's? “You need to go—” He'd almost said “talk to my granddaughter
,
” but stopped himself in time . . .
this Mexican fella he's hanging around with.
Who could that be? Holloway seemed to think it was Juanito, but Juanito was in Mexico. Only, what if he wasn't? “—talk to Sweet,” Brown finished. “She might know something.”

“Oh hell yeah, that misbegotten, misnamed daughter of yours, she's real forthcoming. No, I ain't talking to Sweet!
You're
talking to
me.
” He noticed Brown cut a sideways glance at the murky TV monitor, where, in one of the gray rotating screens, the Mexican pastor's tennis shoes and pants cuffs showed at the foot of the cell bars. “Tell you what,” Holloway said slowly, “I been thinking I just might have to transfer that amigo of yours to, say, oh, I don't know, Tulsa County. Or back to the main run. Someplace I wouldn't have any way to protect him.” He tried to gauge how the threat was playing. “Folks hate beaner smugglers, they really do. Not quite so bad as child molesters, but pretty bad. Especially Mexican ones.”

Brown gazed steadily back. There passed a few clicking moments of silence. Beneath the sheriff's bloated features Brown could still make out the face of the small-town bully he'd known as a kid: the chuffy little coward, intimidator, bellowing schoolyard tyrant. Arvin Holloway had translated these lifelong traits into a fine law enforcement career. He wasn't about to quit as long as he thought he could bully somebody into telling him what he wanted—but what could Brown tell him that he didn't already know? Only to check at Misty Dawn's house for Dustin. But what if Juanito had snuck back across the border? Misty Dawn could get arrested for harboring her husband. “How long ago was that?” he said.

“How long ago was what?”

“When somebody saw Dustin.”

“Hell, I don't know! Who's asking the questions here? Me.
I
am. And you're answering. I want to know what your truck's doing in Tonkawa!”

“I told you. I don't know.”

Holloway jumped up and swooped down on Brown, leaning over him, forcing his head back, his fist twitching on his pistol grip. Breathing hard, he said between tight-gritted teeth, “You sorry self-righteous so-and-so, you
tell
me where that kid is and what y'all got going with this goddamn smuggling operation or I'll—”

“You'll what.”

“Arrest the rest of your goddamn family,” he snarled. “Starting with that snooty tight-britches daughter of yours.”

“Sweet hadn't done anything illegal,” Brown said, his voice steady.

“I'll find something.” Holloway backed off a little. “Believe me. Then I just might have to bring in that hefty granddaughter you're so proud of.”

Bob Brown's eyes flicked away. Well now, Holloway thought.
That
got his attention.

“You can't do that.”

“I can do any goddamn thing I please, and you know it. In this county I can.”

“Misty Dawn ain't in your jurisdiction.”

“I can fix that.”

“Arvin, listen. I want my boy home safe, I want that worse than anybody. If I knew one thing in this world, I'd tell you.”

“Like hell.”

“I would. You know I would.”

“I don't know nothing except you're an arrogant s.o.b. and always have been. And I know I'm going to be the one finds that goddamn kid if I have to slap half the goddamn county in jail!” Holloway went to the door and bellowed out into the hall: “BEECHAM! GODDAMNIT, GIT IN HERE!”

Brown tried to think faster. He needed to talk to Sweet. He needed to tell her to check at Misty Dawn's house—but surely she'd thought of that already? None of this made any sense. What
was
his truck doing in Tonkawa? Or was that even true? Maybe Holloway was just playing him. The deputy appeared in the doorway. Brown burst out, “I can't tell you what I don't know!”

“Get him the hell out of my sight.”

The deputy motioned Brown to stand up, guided him in front of him away down the hall.

Holloway reached for the phone, sat a good while with his hand on the receiver, trying to think of who to call to stop all the air being sucked out of the case, sucked up north, to Tulsa and Oklahoma City, where every goddamn thing got sucked in this state. But who would it be? The governor? Tulsa PD? The head of OSBI? Hell no. State Bureau had probably brought in the feds already. Anybody he could think of to call would just make matters worse. Well, maybe the Kay County Sheriff's Department, he thought, lifting the receiver. At least they'd be coequals.

“Sheriff?” It was Beecham again. He looked beat, dark circles under his eyes, his skin splotchy. Hell, they were all beat, the sheriff thought. This business had been going on too damn long. He'd had every man jack working every minute he could get them, and the shake-and-bake meth cookers hadn't just thoughtfully all packed up and moved to Texas simply because Arvin Holloway had a few other things on his mind—that was a good line, he thought. He'd have to remember that one for the reporters. Then that blamed ice storm last night, now wouldn't that gripe you. He'd had to call in his men to help the town officers. The county was going to go bust on overtime this month. The deputy hulked in silence in the doorway.

“What!” Holloway said.

“I thought maybe I better mention . . . well, Phil Hunter, he was out there with me, and he thought—I don't know. Probably it's nothing.”

“What, goddamnit! Don't start and stop like a dadgum choked engine.”

“Well, we were out at the site last night. At Mr. Brown's place? That's the duty I drew yesterday evening, till y'all called us all in, and, well, his daughter, you know, the one that came to see him last week? Well, she was out there, too. I didn't think much about it, the place being kind of her family's place, but Phil Hunter, he thought it was curious. She got her car stuck trying to cross the creek. Said they were out looking for the boy, she had some cousins or somebody with her, but, well, that freezing rain and all. Just seemed kind of a odd time to go looking. Anyhow, Phil Hunter, he said I better mention it.”

Cousins, Holloway thought. What cousins?

“So. Well,” Beecham said. “I don't reckon there's any fresh word, is there?

“Word.”

“About the little boy?”

“I'll let you know. Go on back to the office, Darrel. Get yourself some coffee.”

Hot damn, Holloway thought. That little high-nosed bitch is up to something. Well, well, well, looked like he'd better pay a call on Sweet Georgia Brown this morning after all. Arvin Holloway got up from his chair gracefully, reached to the wall hook beside the desk for his tan Stetson.

A
s Holloway wheeled his cruiser past the courthouse, he happened to glance to the left and spied Terry Kirkendall climbing out of his Silverado in front of Jones-Hawkins Funeral Home. That was strange. They wouldn't be having a viewing this time of day. He watched Kirkendall walk up the long sidewalk to the white double front doors and thought about stopping to find out who died. But Terry Kirkendall was a pain in the ass who'd been in the office a dozen times already, complaining about them hauling in his father-in-law along with all the wetbacks—well, what the hell did he expect? Holloway was in no mood to listen to that fool's blather. He drove on. When he hit the highway, he flipped on his roof light-bar, picked up speed. The ice was gone everywhere except the shady places. The center of the blacktop was dry as sand. Holloway didn't turn on his siren, but he drove at high speed, east on Highway 270, toward his little old familiar hometown.