Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller (16 page)

  The sheriff sat there for a few seconds, waiting for the disguised voice to continue. Nothing but silence.

  “Well, where is this still that you think I know so much about?” Sheriff White was wondering who could possibly have this information. Could it be the person responsible for setting the fire? Maybe they wanted to play a twisted game of cat and mouse. It was most likely a prank. They got prank calls all the time, usually on a daily basis.

  The mystery woman spoke again, “It’s the still near Horton’s Spring, Sheriff, and don’t pretend you don’t know. I’m no fool. You also know about the large amount of marijuana they handle every month. Your voters might not care that you let an occasional still continue to operate. But pot, now that’s a different animal. They won’t tolerate dope in their county. They’re too ignorant to know that alcohol has killed a lot more people than pot has. Most of them don’t know anything about marijuana, and people fear what they don’t know about.”

  “How do you know it’s them?” the sheriff asked, digging deep into his subconscious to try and recognize the voice.

  “Don’t matter. I just know. Go to the scene of the fire and you’ll find one of the half gallon bottles they had to leave behind when the fire spread faster than they expected it to. Nobody else uses that kind of bottle and they’re hard to find. It’s sort of their trade mark, but of course you already know that.”

  The sheriff heard a sudden click and knew the woman had hung up.

 
Who was that and how do they know?
The sheriff closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and thought hard about something he may have done to piss somebody off. Of course when you’re the sheriff, you will inevitably make a few people mad. You just have to make sure it’s not the wrong ones.                                          

  Anybody who knew anything about moonshine in a hundred mile radius knew about the Bullard’s special half gallon bottles. Jake Bullard had been buying them from some company in Illinois for years. He had even bought a large shipment of them and had them stored just in case they ever discontinued them or went out of business. So the bottles were fairly common knowledge that anyone could find out. The marijuana was a different story. It wasn’t like the Bullards sold a bag here and there to local people. They were  big-time distributors for some heavy hitters that didn’t play games. Jake Bullard didn’t even let his big mouthed sons know anything about that enterprise. They were too stupid and he didn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut. His oldest son James was the only exception. He was just like his old man and was all business. Freddy, Bruce and Boyd had been spoiled rotten from the money their daddy had always given them to keep them out of his hair. They hadn’t inherited any of their fathers business acumen. They were consumers, not producers, and had turned out to be a thorn in their daddy’s side. Jake had always tried to be very low key but the way his sons had been spending money lately was starting to look suspicious. He knew he was going to have to rein them in or suffer the consequences.

  The sheriff got up and quickly walked to his car. He had to hurry before the arson investigator brought in the so-called expert that was due in that afternoon. He couldn’t let them find the bottle, if there really was one.

*****

  There was no one at the charred remains of the William’s house when he pulled up into the rutty, chert driveway. He ducked under the crime scene tape and walked up to the house, looking around to make sure nobody was watching, which when he thought about it was foolish. He was the sheriff, and this was a crime scene. But he was paranoid. He couldn’t let the investigators find anything that might lead them to the Bullards, if they were in fact the ones who started the fire. If the Bullards ever went down, so would he.

  As he started looking through the blackened hull of what had once been the home of two generations of families, he grew angrier by the minute. Why couldn’t Jake Bullard control those ignorant, redneck sons of his. They were going to ruin everything, and if he didn’t do something about it soon,
the boys in Chicago would. After he’d had a chance to think more clearly, he wondered why he was so concerned with finding the moonshine bottle. Given Hugh William’s former status of being an alcoholic and sometimes buying from the Bullards, he didn’t think finding one of their signature bottles would raise any eyebrows anyway. Hell, they may find two or three for that matter. What had him really concerned was the mystery woman who had called him and knew about Jake and James Bullard’s marijuana operation. She sounded like she might have been young, although it was difficult to tell with her voice being muffled the way it was. There was supposedly only one woman that knew about the Bullard’s illicit enterprise, and he knew for a fact it wasn’t her.

  He began going through the house and after a few minutes of picking things up and moving things around, he looked like he had been working all day sweeping chimneys. He was covered in black soot from head to toe. He didn’t see any kind of bottles, jars, or anything like that, other than a few plates and drinking glasses that were all broken. He assumed that if glass bottles got hot enough they would probably explode anyway and that fire was about as hot as any fire could be. The old house was all pine and oak that had been seasoned for over seventy years, and once it started burning it would be the hottest thing this side of hell. He decided he was just being paranoid and making a fool of himself pilfering through this pile of burnt rubble.

  The woman who had called him was a different matter, however. If she was telling the truth, how would she have known there was a bottle left behind, anyway? There were only two ways he could think of. Either one of those idiot boys had gotten drunk and shot off their mouth, which would have been not only possible but damned likely, or the woman had to have been with them. He would have to do some investigating and try and find out what girls Freddy and Bruce had been seeing lately. They changed women about as often as he changed underwear, so it would probably be a challenge. But even if it was a girl that one of them had been messing around with, how would she know about the marijuana? Jake made damn sure he kept those two imbeciles as far away from his dope transactions as possible. On the two days a month the transactions took place he made sure they were gone, even if he had to buy them a new toy of some kind and send them out of town. That was the reason they were spoiled rotten and not worth killing. They were both grown men still acting like teenagers with money to burn and Sheriff White doubted if they’d ever grow up. Why would they as long as Daddy kept footing the bill for them to do whatever they wanted?

  The sheriff decided to go get himself cleaned up and go see Jake Bullard. He probably didn’t know much, if anything, about who his boys were spending time with, and didn’t care as long as they weren’t bothering him. But he had to start somewhere and Jake had to know about the phone call he had gotten. He was going to be one mad son-of-a-bitch when he found out, too.  

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jake Bullard was down in his barn, which was nicer than most folks who lived around Long Hollow’s houses. Besides raising cattle and doing some row cropping, which were only fronts and tax write-offs anyway, he raised Tennessee Walking Horses, which was something he truly loved. His barn proved it. Those horses had more luxuries than a lot of
people
had.

  The sheriff walked in and could hear voices through the closed door of the office Jake had in the barn. The office was larger and nicer than any lawyer or bank president’s office in Putnam County. The sheriff didn’t want to arouse any suspicion with any of Jake’s visitors, so he acted like it was just a social call and opened the door without knocking, like he was there all the time, which he was. He knew Zeke Fowler and Mack Simpson, and of course Jake’s son James was there, and there was another man he didn’t know. They were all sitting around a big table playing stud poker. From the looks of them they had probably been playing almost non-stop since the night before. Jake was famous for his poker games that would sometimes go on for two or three days at a time.

  “Hey, Andrew,” Jake shouted, laughing, “you here to bust up our game and run us all in.” Gambling of any kind was illegal in Alabama.

  “Well, I ought to,” the sheriff replied, “but I guess I could let you off with a warnin’ this time. Who’s winnin’?”

  “Who in the hell do you think?” Jake answered. “I’m about to git the deed to old Mack’s farm.”

  “You’re gonna play hell,” Mack said in his nasally twang. “He’s been cheatin’ like a son-of-a-bitch, Sheriff. You ought to arrest
him
, sure ‘nuff.”

  “Well, I know Mack and I know he likes to play cards. But I also know he’s nearly as tight as Old Ray Turner. If he’d lost more than a hundred dollars he’d already be cashed in and gone,” the sheriff chuckled.

  “Pull up a chair, Andrew. We’ll deal you in or you can just watch,” Jake said.

  “I ain’t got time right now or I would. I need to talk to you in private for a minute, Jake.”

  Jake’s countenance changed from one of amusement to concern in an instant. He got up and told the other men to deal him out for a few hands and keep playing. The men were more than happy to oblige because Jake was winning.

  Jake and the sheriff walked out to the squad car and got in, rolled up the windows, cranked it up and turned the air conditioner on. Then, just to make sure they were safe from prying eyes, the sheriff drove down the driveway and onto the road that led to one of Jake’s pastures. They parked under a big red oak tree and both men lit a cigarette.

  “Jake, I got a call this morning from a woman. She told me if I wanted to know who set the William’s house afire, I didn’t need to look no further than them two boys of yours.”

  Jake sat there a minute, looking off into space, then started rubbing his eyes with both hands. “Well, I don’t guess you have any idea who it might have been?”

  “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. Do you know any of the girls Freddy and Bruce have been hangin’ out with lately?”

  “I don’t ever know what them two are doin’. Hell, here lately the only time they come home is when they need money. They can run through a thousand dollars like a dose of salts through a widow woman. Neither one of ’em has ever done a day’s work in their lives and I ain’t got nobody to blame but myself. I tried to teach ’em while they was still young un’s how to do things, but their momma didn’t want them gittin’ their hands dirty like James did. I guess I wanted something better for ’em too, but I went about it the wrong way. Neither one of ‘em was near as smart as James was, anyway.”

  “Well, what’s done is done and we can’t change that,” the sheriff replied. “But we’ve got to try to talk some sense into them thick skull’s of theirs before it’s too late, ’cause the woman who called knew more than what she told me about the fire.”

  Jake’s head turned quickly toward the sheriff. “Like what?”

  The sheriff hesitated and let out a long sigh, knowing Jake was about to explode. “She knows about the pot, Jake.”

  “There ain’t no way in hell! Them boys ain’t got a clue about that. I make sure they’re always gone plum out of the county when there’s a drop off or a pick up. As long as I give ‘em money and tell ‘em to git lost, they could care less what me and James are doin’, anyway.”

  “Well, maybe the girl is smarter than them two boys. Maybe she got suspicious of how they was able to spend so much money and did a little pryin’ on her own. She might’ve started poking around and seen somethin’. I don’t know how else she could know.”

  “You know we have men surroundin’ this place when we’re doin’ business, Andrew. Hell fire, there ain’t no way her or anybody else could git within’ a mile of this place without bein’ seen.”

  The sheriff shook his head and leaned back against the seat, “Then how do you reckon she would know, Jake? I sure as hell can’t figure it out.”

  “I don’t know, but we better find out quick and hope she ain’t run her mouth too much. I’ll ask the boys what girls they’ve been spending time with lately. They’ll be home this evening ‘cause Carolyn’s cookin’ a big supper and some of their cousins are comin’ to eat.”

  “Maybe she wants to use the information to blackmails us.” The sheriff said, lighting another cigarette. He rarely smoked except when he was nervous or worried. Now he was chain smoking because he was both.

  “It don’t matter what her motive is,” Jake replied, “we just have to find out who she is. Once we do, I’ll handle the rest.”

  The sheriff knew what that meant and he didn’t want to think about it. But he knew it would have to be done and was glad he didn’t have to take part.

  “I wish I could tell them worthless brothers of yours how they’re puttin’ their lives in danger by actin’ the way they are and blowin’ money like a bunch of idiots. But I don’t know how, without letting ‘em in on what we’re doin’ and how dangerous the men are we’re dealin’ with. And I wouldn’t trust ’em no further than I could throw ’em to keep their mouth’s shut. They think they’re ten feet tall and bullet proof, the damn fools. Hell, George Patrick’s boy put one of ‘em on his knees the other day. He kicked him square in the nuts. Then Miss Lena run ‘em out of her store with a shotgun and told ‘em not to ever come back. I’m glad she done it, too.”