Soil (5 page)

6

The deputy barreled into Madrid on the old Silage Town Road at twice the speed limit, slowing only when he hit the curves by the college apartments. He craned his neck and waved to the sunbathers and power walkers. The prettiest young women in the entire South flocked here to attend the university and to gain popularity, maybe even find their first husbands. He'd known several of them intimately and was always a little love struck.

The sheriff had told his nephew, when he deputized him and turned him loose on the populace, “Keep one thing in mind. We're not policing citizens. We're policing friends, neighbors, and voters.”

Headquarters was in town, but their jurisdiction was the county, and these two were distinct entities. Madrid—pronounced with a short “a,” like the famous New Madrid fault line to the west—had filled up in recent years with spoiled college kids, liberal professors, weirdo strangers, and carpetbaggers trying to make a quick dime off local quaintness.

Change came slow beyond the city limits. The folks were sparse and scattered, still living by the old ways, still a bit wild and tribal. They didn't think much of strangers and were quick to scuffle, the women as much as the men. As neighbors, they'd either give you the shirt off their back or burn your house down. They were a great big dysfunctional family, and with family you gave special consideration:

Don't screw their wives.

Drive them home instead of giving them a DUI.

If they're underage, dump their booze and call their parents.

If they're high, confiscate their drugs, but make sure they're not trafficking. If they're selling drugs, then they'll need to sit awhile in Parchman.

If they're speeding, let them off with a warning, unless they're wasted, then see above.

If the plates are out of town, write your tickets and make your arrests.

Otherwise, unless they're making real trouble, let it slide. But always keep your eyes open.

As the eyes and ears of the Bayard County Sheriff's Department, Shoals found that the job came easy to him. He wore the badge like a backstage pass, using it for access and leverage and always knowing just how to play it. He had good ole boy charm and society skills, having done a couple of years at the university cultivating his fraternity airs. He mixed well with the country club set and the boys at the feed store. He wasn't policing so much as scouting opportunities, obtaining information, accepting gratuities—things like free rodeo tickets and comped dinners, use of a time-share in Orange Beach, the occasional canned ham or Cohiba cigar.

Cruising the back roads and currying innocent favors was all well and good, but lately Shoals was looking for more. His talent for extraction and manipulation, he believed, would serve him well as a detective. Driving back from Tockawah Bottom that day in early September, Shoals figured that Jay Mize had mistaken their brief exchange in his driveway for a ridiculous imposition. He probably thought the deputy was just out and about, scratching his ass, looking for a brush with mild local fame. He'd laid a fine cover, but he'd meant to confirm certain lingering suspicions and had indeed left with a better understanding of this man and this type of man in general. In the event their paths crossed again, Shoals might regard Mize as a humiliated grandson and a failed farmer and thus walk tall past his fussy intellect.

He detoured through campus on his way back to the office and tooted the horn at a crowd of young ladies bending into yoga poses on the front lawn of their sorority house. He never minded stopping at the lights and four-ways because he loved to hear the rumbling engine, to smile and shoot the citizens
a grin or a thumbs-up, and every now and then he'd impress them with a little smoke and screech coming out of the intersection. He made a loop downtown, turned in to the city baseball field parking lot, and then coursed the side streets toward the municipal district, where the courthouse, fire station, and various police outfits made their headquarters.

He whipped into the department lot, claimed his reserved space up front, and cut the ignition. He liked to sit for a minute and listen to the Boss pant. The fire station across the street reared up in his hind view with the crude statue of his dad, Big Jack Shoals, looking over his shoulder. The Jackhammer, they called him, a true legacy. Few folks intimidated Danny, but that statue did it every time. A concrete god immortalized in helmet and suspenders, ax slung over his shoulder, boot propped up on a hydrant. No county servant was more revered than his pop, at least by old Madrid. Most any native over the age of forty-five could tell his own version of the day Big Jack and two of his men were killed by a collapsed mountain of burning cotton modules during the Cabbage Hill Gin fire of 1979. The whole town must have turned out to witness. If only those modules hadn't been aflame, Big Jack would have punched his way clear out of there, the old-timers told it. But there was no way to escape them lit ablaze, like a river of gasoline tumbling over him.

Shoals sighed and climbed out, strode into the station like a hero in the making. The dispatcher at the front desk—a wild, curt-tongued, and busty black gal by the name of Desdimona—buzzed him in, hollering, “Come on, wit'cha.”

He passed through reception and stopped at her desk, leaned over to admire her cleavage. He reached in his back pocket and dropped the horseshoe on her paperwork. “Today's your lucky day,” he said. “If you aint doing nothing after work, I can take you over to the Skyline Motel and tie your legs back, tap that in for you.”

Desdimona cut her eyes up and waved her scimitar lashes. “I don't rope easy, Sugar, you know that,” she said. “You wanna tie me up, you gonna have to wrestle my ass.”

“What about can I lure you with an apple?” he said, stroking his belt buckle.

She smiled devilish and shook her head. “I can take that in one swallow. Then what you got?”

“Woman, I gotta whole mess of tricks for you,” he said, locking eyes and pursing lips. “Whenever you decide to give me half a chance.” He gave her a wink and an air kiss. He liked to play with that one, but she was all talk, strictly devoted to her man, Rocket, who had a car stereo place across town.

Shoals strolled the hallway, past closed doors and holding cells, around the bend to an office with a large plate-glass window. The sheriff was visible within, hunched over the keyboard of his ancient computer, pecking out some report or memorandum. He seemed out of place in an office and he was too gentle to be out running the field. He and Aunt Gil had been like second parents, helping raise young Danny after the Jackhammer's tragic end, always taking their turns on weekends, giving little Danny's poor grieving widow mother a break. He might have been a better preacher than a sheriff, but they were a family of public servants anyhow and aspired to answer their call with decency and fairness.

Shoals rapped on the jamb. “What say, Sheriff?”

The sheriff turned, defeated from his concentration. “Hey, Danny,” he sighed.

“I went out to check on that horse wreck for you,” he said, walking in and dropping into a chair. “Those Tennessee walkers made quite a splash on Highway Seven.”

The sheriff frowned. “Well, it's a miracle no one got hurt.”

“Yessir,” said Danny. “I got another interview on our Ohio boy while I was out that way. This fella Mize near Silage Town. Mitchell Mize's grandson. Know him?”

The sheriff frowned. “Grandson of Mitchell Mize? No, I guess I don't.”

“Real strange dude. Said he was from Memphis originally. Went to school here, lived in Madrid for a while, and just moved out to the bottoms.”

“Did he know anything?”

“Naw.”

“Hmm. Did Robbie put you onto that?”

“No sir. I found him myself.”

The sheriff rubbed his eyes and tapped his fingers. “Well, you better give him what you have. I think he received some updates this morning on that missing person.”

Shoals grimaced. It was Chief Deputy Robbie Bynum's investigation. Bynum was older, in his fifties, had come from the St. Louis city force several years back and talked himself right into the sheriff's good graces.

“So what's next?” Danny asked, hopeful. “You got anything for me?”

The sheriff looked away, half back at the screen, considering it a moment. He reached for an envelope on his desk. “Larry Reynolds wants you to come give your drug assembly in two weeks. The twenty-fifth.”

School kids loved to hear Shoals tell stories of deadbeat drug pushers and the dangers of crossing the law. If it stopped one kid from going to jail, then it was a success, and it laid the way for favors later. “My calendar's wide open,” he said. “Anything else?”

“I don't reckon, Danny. Just keep your eyes open.”

It was his simple chief assignment, always the same. No more, no less, and he executed it well. That was fine. He'd have some lunch downtown and then head out to the state park, see if that pretty lifeguard was still closing down the swimming pool for winter, maybe finish up at the gym with some dips and lunges. Sometimes you had to make your own work.

Shoals got up and thanked his uncle, told him to just holler if he needed anything. On the way out, he stopped at his desk in the station room, where the deputies sat and filled out reports and took phone calls. Bynum was already there, king of the station. He'd pulled two desks together in the middle of the room and sat amid stacks of papers and files. His red hair had retreated to the sides, leaving a glowing dome on top, and he leaned to portly a little more every day.

“Got anything new on our Ohio BOLO?” Shoals asked, rolling in beside Bynum.

“Yes,” said the chief deputy, putting up both hands. He seemed put out today and always a touch on the fruity side. “He is no more our problem. Our man's truck turned up in Rayburn County over the weekend, burned out in a field somewhere.”

“He in it?”

Bynum cut his eyes up. “Who cares? He's out of our hair.”

“Well, what if somebody stole his truck? You think he might still be hanging around?”

Bynum sighed. “Danny, I have no idea. But if Rayburn County wants to suck that teat for a while, they can be my guest. I've had my fill of it.”

“I reckon the state takes it from here.”

“Whatever,” Bynum said, dismissive, focused on his computer screen.

Danny felt no need to reward him with the info on Mize. He'd keep that in his back pocket.

“You got anything for me?” Danny asked.

“Nope.”

“Well, all right, I'm outta here,” he said, clapping Bynum on the shoulder. “I've got some stakeout work to do. Maybe get a steak while I'm out.”

“Why don't you go to the shooting range and brush up?” Bynum gibed as Danny was leaving. They never let him forget that he was the only deputy on the force not certified. Technically it was required within two years of joining the department, and he'd been on about six. No one checked up on it, and the sheriff must have believed he met all the major criteria—driving, self-­defense, shooting—even though he'd never fired a shot on duty, just at some beer cans in the river. Hell, maybe he'd just look into taking the test, give the bastards one less reason to feel superior.

He ignored Bynum and leapt over the Dutch door into the hallway, blew Desdimona a kiss good-bye. “Don't be talking dirty to me over the radio this afternoon, Des,” he called, pointing her out. “I'm liable to have something in custody that might get jealous.”

7

Jay awoke to sirens in the driveway. He reached under the bed for the loaded twelve-gauge and lay there paralyzed for a time, flicking the safety off and on, waiting for them to burst in on him. But the house remained undisturbed. The benevolent white of day burned through the windows and a breeze fluttered the curtain. Birds conversed cheerily beside the window. It was only the Wednesday noon tornado drill howling over the county.

He exhaled and his pulse slowed to a cruise. For a moment he felt the relief of waking up from a bad dream, the subsiding fear and urgency like cold water over him. Then he looked down at his mud-streaked arms and legs, all the filth that had wiped off on the bedsheets, and everything came back. Surreal though it was, last night was no simple nightmare.

He had to will himself out of bed. Surges of adrenaline had scorched his muscles. He peered through the curtains to confirm that he was alone and flinched when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Who was this madman, hair in shock and dipped in shit? Wild bloodshot eyes confessed a guilt more telling than words. Also there was an unconscionable stink emanating from him and his nest. Wet clothes moldered by the bed. In the reasoned light of day, he felt like a drunkard waking up in shame to the consequences of an impossible bender.

He fumbled through the house for a trash bag and filled it with clothes, boots, bedsheets, towels—everything that had come into contact with the body and the pond, everything he'd touched subsequently. It was all tainted. He filled the bathtub with tepid water from a rain cistern he'd rigged in the
backyard, lathered up, and rinsed several times. From a jug of preboiled water he brushed his teeth repeatedly and then gargled and spat with the dregs of stale mouthwash.

With a soapy rag, he wiped down every surface he might have touched or left a streak of invisible evidence on—doorknobs, countertops, bedposts, chairs. He swept and mopped every floor in the house, working around waist-high piles of books and papers lined along the walls of the cramped hallway and spilling off the shelves in every room, all hallmarks of an obsessive hoarder. The titles—on conspiracies, prophecies, speculative science, arcane and forbidden wisdom—suggested a dangerous, paranoid mind. He would burn them later, anything to return the house to a state of normalcy. Since Sandy had left and the rains had numbed him into inertia, the house had fallen to chaos, filthy and uncollected, every webby angle a catch for dust and death. That would have to change. This was the inner sanctum and must reflect the clear, tranquil mind of its owner.

He brought the trash bag outside and scanned the property, trying to see it through a detective's eyes. It looked like a weed-choked landfill, strewn with garbage, decaying furniture, tire piles, rusted farm implements, mounds of rotting compost, the blue plastic chemical drums that had raised even the deputy's witless suspicion. It only needed loose goats and chickens, maybe a few mangy, gimped-up dogs. He was living in a junkyard, like any common inbred bumpkin for whom death was an acceptable punishment for trespassing.

And thus the more pressing matter, rancid on the breeze, called his attention. If anyone came within fifty yards of the toolshed, they would smell it. Hell, if the right wind came up, keen old Hatcher across the way might even get nosy and come to check things out. Tracks from the stolen four-wheeler, etched over the yard like fingerprints, drove right to the shed, and the buzzards were bound to roost by afternoon.

In need of an upwind perch to consider his options, Jay scrambled up the hill and into the waist-high pasture behind the house. He sat on a clay outcrop and contemplated his predicament. He was unable to escape the
notion that he'd conspired in a heinous crime. By the letter of the law, yes, it probably could be construed as criminal—tampering with an investigation and that whole bit. But there was nothing to be done about that fellow being dead. It was not as if he, Jay Mize, had killed the guy. Of that he felt quite certain. But it didn't matter that he'd done nothing morally wrong by moving the body from the field. No one would understand why he had done it, and that would be as good as wrong.

In any native culture, he reasoned, moving human remains from a flooded field to a swift burial site would surely be considered respectful. Of course, there were rites and rituals to enact. Here was the thin line between burying a man and hiding his body, and it was where the law would start their case against him.

But then again, he wondered, did the public really care about a stranger from Ohio, dead in a toolshed? Perhaps not. A brief shame, but then on to other concerns.

But if it was murder—and that would be the default assumption, right?—then the culprit must be caught before he struck again. This sort of violence was too much for the society to bear. But worse, an anonymous northern black man found dead in the county, harkening back to the old days. The old embers of shame rekindled. Better to close this case quietly without the old recriminations, best that someone should be imprisoned immediately and that no one should be required to second-guess the truth of his guilt.

Who fit the bill? Perhaps someone living on the fringes, someone who did not contribute to the system—a self-sustaining man, a loner living for his own benefit, who had rejected all the ways of society, including his wife and child. If they convinced themselves that Jay had committed this crime—and honestly, who made a better scapegoat?—and if they came for him with the strength of their combined convictions, then he did not stand a chance. Without friends to rally behind him, who would speak for his peaceful nature?

And once they realized the notorious Mize lineage, the story would be too perfect to deny. Hatred come full circle. Probably the news trucks would
be here to give the whole world an opportunity to throw stones. Like some redneck Christ, he would pay for all the sins of Mississippi.

He didn't deserve to take the fall for this. He had too much good work still to perform. He suffered from personal shortcomings, certainly, but they were correctable, and his family—

A rustling nearby rousted Jay from his nervous rationale. He sensed something half-obscured and straining in the tall grass. The buzzard had returned. It was crouched in the grass before him, taking a shit right there as would any other flightless creature, vulnerable, slightly abashed. He took another step toward the bird. It gave a demented squawk, raised its gangly arms in defense, and scampered away. Jay walked over and studied the pile. The bird's grievous digestion had made an unseemly paste out of the dead man. This was someone once loved, now splattered in the dust like old gravy. If only Jay could find a method so efficient to dispose of the rest of him.

The possibilities intrigued him. He paced the field, trying to determine the necessary tack here. What would he do with any other dead animal? Bury it under lime? No, takes too long and leaves too much evidence. With today's high-tech crime-solving techniques, every molecule of it must be swept clear of the property. Every instrument at the county's disposal would be employed to catch him in a lie.

He sidestepped a hill of fire ants and considered them momentarily. He was certain they could strip a corpse bare, but he couldn't wait even two weeks for it to happen. Twenty-four hours was too long for comfort. Burning seemed obvious, but burning made smoke and smoke made stench. Boiling seemed unwieldy, improbable. He'd need a cauldron or tank of some sort, and what to do with the stew afterward? There was hydrochloric acid. That was how it was done in the movies. But where might one procure so much without raising suspicions? He was sure the stuff didn't come cheap.

Burning made the most sense. If anyone showed up, he could say he was burning all the fallen trees and limbs and washed-up river brush. But what about the smell? Fire would broadcast this damnable stink for scattershot miles. He could burn cedar or pine with it. It still wouldn't be enough to
cover such a heinous aroma. He could build a filter to cull both smoke and scent. Maybe sand or gravel or charcoal briquettes.

And that's when it hit him—charcoal.

The ancient rain forest tribes of Amazonia had dug trenches and filled them with tree limbs, bones, and crop wastes. They set the whole thing on fire and buried it, letting the fire smolder underground. The resulting charcoal acted as a potent fertilizer, retaining the carbon in the soil for the life of the field, so long that modern archaeologists had uncovered strata of ancient crops still rich with fertile black soil.

It would require way too much effort to do it the native way, but with modern science, the process could be simplified. He'd read extensively about making charcoal, had seen the process performed at a bioengineering conference, and had even collected some materials with the idea of creating his own char as a natural fertilizer. There sat the fifty-gallon oil drum he'd bought at a junkyard for that precise intent, spilling over with trash out by the shed. It would require some outfitting, but he felt certain he had all the raw materials needed to build a backyard crematorium.

Jay scurried around the junk-strewn yard, a clearheaded eagerness about him now as he switched on his scientific mind. If he could render the body to charcoal, he reasoned, it could be pulverized easily, dust unto dust and so forth. It was more than achievable. It was brilliant. He might have failed at farming, along with so many other things, but he was still Compost Man. Perhaps now he'd found a way, however terrible, to earn back his true potential.