Strawman's Hammock (23 page)

“He's killed befo',” she offered. “Mo' than once.”

“It was a pretty elaborate homicide. He used a dog.”

“Dog?” She seemed interested. “I had dog dreams two, maybe three weeks back. Big damn dog. Yellow eyes. He was gonna chase me, in my dream. Gonna rip my gut. But I turn' it around on 'im. I say, ‘Git you ass offa me, you fuckin' dog. Fine somebody elsa eat.'”

The hair crawled at the base of Barrett's neck.

“You ever leave this place, Hezikiah?”

She chuckled. “What a conjurin' woman need to leave? Why she travel?”

“You came to my house,” Barrett pointed out.

She smiled.

“You saw me. Don' mean I's in yo' hise. Don' mean I lef' my poach.”

Barrett groaned. Was the truth of his new memory to rest on the word of a crazy woman? Or even of a killer?

“It wouldn't take you long to walk over to the lake,” Barrett said.

“Naw,” she admitted slyly. “I usta pick huckleberries on that lake. Usta drink right outen that pump.

“I need some hep with my pump,” she declared in sudden distraction.

“Why? Can't you conjure it?” Barrett responded sharply.

She regarded him in scorn.

“Don' throw my pearl befo' no swine.”

Barrett glanced around the house.

“I saw … the medicine you made for Roberto.”

“Don' know no Robert-O.”

“El Toro. The Bull.”

“His medicine? Yeah, I got me some.”

“May I see it?”

“Why, sho.” She seemed suddenly shy. “You need treatin'?”

“No.” Bear shook his head. “Just want to verify it's the same as we found in his trailer.”

Right out the back door there was a sink, a hand pump. Bear recognized a rattlesnake's skin. A rolling pin. He shivered, trying not to imagine what sort of treatment would require that instrument.

“They's my potions.” She raised a veined hand to indicate a rude motley of herbs and dessicated intestines drying on a shelf. A coke bottle and board served as mortar and pestle. Some remains of a pounded compound stained the shelf. A cast-iron pot sat to one side.

Barrett lifted the bowl's lid. The aroma came to him as surely as a signature. But the memory to which it attached was already jarred free. There was no revelation, this time. No sudden recovery of sight or breath.

Barrett placed the lid onto her pot of brew.

“That's all I need for now,” he said.

“Jarold,” he called from the porch and waited for the warden to nod before approaching the four-wheeler.

“Get anywhere with her?”

Barrett snapped his seat belt in place.

“Nothing new,” he said. “Can you drop me by the courthouse? Gary Loyd's s'posed to give Lou a statement. I'd like to be there to hear it.”

*   *   *

Sheriff Sessions was downright hospitable to Barrett on his arrival at the jail. “We're about to wrap this whole thing up,” Lou declared. “Grab some coffee. We'll see Gary in my office.”

Barrett entered a crowded office to find Gary Loyd and his father cozied up with Thurman Shaw next to the sheriff's desk. All smiles and coffee cups.

“'Lo, Bear,” Linton greeted him loudly. “Glad to see you got the right man.”

“It was the sheriff's investigation,” Barrett replied automatically, “and it's his call whether we got the right man.”

“I understand,” Linton winked. “I understand.”

Barrett had the distinct impression that he was about to witness a rush, if not a race, to justice. He took a folding chair and squeezed honey from a plastic jar into a steaming mug of scalding hot coffee.

“Well, now.” Lou settled behind his never-cleared desk. “Let's get this out of the way.”

Lou conducted virtually the entire interview. Barrett was almost completely sidelined. The Q & A that followed did not, to his mind, go much toward nailing down Roberto Quiroga as his niece's killer. Gary Loyd did not resemble the frightened, fetal creature who only the previous day had a gun held to his head. The younger Loyd was cracking jokes now, almost bragging about his experience. Barrett noted Gary's braggadocio. He also noted that the onetime victim's account of events was self-serving.

“The only reason I was out there,” Gary explained, his lawyer following closely, “was that Roberto said he wanted to see me about raising wages. But I get out there to the trailer, he starts right off telling me the police are interviewing migrant workers, asking questions. Telling me I should get the police off his back.”

“Did he tell you he was getting kickbacks from the migrants?” Lou suprised Barrett with that question.

“You don't have to answer that, Gary,” Thurman Shaw imposed quietly.

“It's all right,” Gary replied. And then to Lou, “Yes, he did tell me. Said he got a piece of the action from everybody on my crew. Got bribes from crews all over the county!”

“So you didn't know anything about it.”

“No, nothing.” Gary was adamant. “I never told him to do anything but get workers and keep 'em happy. I didn't care how he did it.”

“Maybe you should have,” Barrett offered coolly, to which point the younger Loyd remained mute.

“Go on, Gary.” The sheriff smiled.

“Well, like I say, I was in the middle of finding out about this side-business of bribes and twisting arms and God knows what-all. Quiroga's tellin' me I've got to protect him, that he did all this for my company and he wants me to get the police off his back. ‘How'm I s'posed to do that?' I ask. ‘Pay 'em off,' he says. I was telling him that I couldn't do that, that this wasn't Mexico, when about that time Jarold pulls up in his Jolly Green. I think I even remarked ‘Looks like we've got company,' or something like that. Next thing I know I've got a gun at my head and the Bull's telling me that if I even twitch he's going to blow my brains out.”

Gary turned to Barrett. “I was hoping to hell when he didn't answer Jarold's horn that y'all would just go. But then you came out from behind the Tahoe and Quiroga said, ‘Okay, señor, you're my ticket out of here.' That's when—well. You know the rest.”

Gary's statement did not confirm Quiroga as his niece's murderer. But other evidence mounted that strongly implicated Juanita's uncle. Midge Holloway's report confirmed that El Toro's DNA matched one of the semen samples found in his niece. Samples of hair from the shack and on the victim matched her uncle's. Perhaps most important, Midge was able to confirm that the Bull was infected with gonorrhea.

“He undoubtedly would blame the girl for that,” the sheriff declared.

“If he knew,” Barrett qualified.

“He paid for her Woodwork,” Thurman pointed out. “The same series that found her positive for gonorrhea found her HIV postive as well.”

“First the clap. Then AIDS.” The sheriff spat. “I'd say El Toro had plenty of reasons to be pissed off with his relations.”

“He didn't have AIDS,” Cricket amended. “He wasn't even HIV positive.”

Thurman allowed that point.

“But even though Quiroga had not contracted the virus, he would fear it. The clap was bad enough, judging from the way he chose to have
that
problem treated. But to be put at risk for AIDS! The Bull would have seen that as a deadly betrayal.”

“Taken together I'd say you've got some pretty strong motive for murder,” Linton summed up confidently.

Barrett remained silent. He knew how complicated motives could be.

Lou Sessions weighed in with some legwork of his own, having produced witnesses in Perry who confirmed that Quiroga on at least three occasions took his niece to the Highway 27 Motel for what were described as orgies. With that information, Midge's report, and Gary's statement, Barrett wasn't surprised to hear Sheriff Sessions announce that he was satisfied to conclude that El Toro was the pimp and killer of Juanita Quiroga, and that Gary Loyd was no longer a suspect in the case.

The sheriff seemed positively brimming with goodwill. He herded the Loyds and the FDLE investigators onto the street outside the jail to a waiting pool of reporters and cameras and lights. Stacy Kline led the pack, his arm a stick with a microphone bobbing on the end. Linton Loyd steadied Stacy's bony hand to announce that justice had been found, and to publicly bury his hatchet with local law enforcement. Almost as an afterthought, Linton praised Barrett and the “truly outstanding members” of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and expressed the relief of the Loyd family that their son was exonerated from any trace of wrongdoing.

Everyone in the county seemed relieved that a sadistic killer was in a pauper's grave. No one said openly that he was equally relieved to find an outsider responsible for the crime. And it was especially comforting for many county locals to have the killer identified as Mexican. No one, after all, wanted to be burdened with the thought that some little whore had been tortured and slaughtered by a white man, let alone a neighbor.

About the only people not ready to forget the whole mess were the gentleman and lady of the FDLE.

Barrett met Cricket at Ramona's that night. Midge Holloway was there, had driven up from Gainesville with Dr. Tran to sample Laura Anne's menu and music. Laura Anne was warmly included in the investigators' circle. The party was seated close to her baby grand piano. A sophomore from Florida State was performing an arrangement from
Miss Saigon.
Hush puppies and flounder were mixing well with bourbon and iced tea as a discussion ranged across her table.

“There are too damn many loose ends to even think about stopping this investigation.” Midge Holloway was outraged at the sheriff's announcement.

“Nothing we can do about it,” Cricket declared. “It's still his case. We investigate. He concludes. And in fairness, we don't have a suspect other than El Toro.”

“He had the psyche of a killer.” Dr. Tran loosened up considerably over bourbon. “His sexual relationship with the girl was taboo. His disease—a very powerful motivation for retribution. He tried to purge himself, we know that. Midge found signs of a recent whipping.”

“Something like a scourge of switches,” Midge confirmed. “A real doozy. Over his back and buttocks.”

“Like a flagellation?” Laura Anne proposed.

“Good for you, Ms. Raines.” Dr. Tran nodded and Cricket joined in.

“See? It all fits. He's Catholic, right? So he's repenting the fact that he had a dog maul his niece to death. Kind of like confession.”

“If that's so…” Midge sipped her tea. “… I'd like to meet his confessor.”

Barrett shifted uncomfortably.

“You all right, Bear?” Laura Anne asked.

“I just wish I could be sure we got the right guy.”

Cricket drained his Jack Black.

“Pointless to worry. Roland Reed's already folding the tent. His position is if we get any more hot leads, follow 'em. Otherwise, we're just pissing up a rope.”

Bear worried his own drink.

“Dead girl. Dead foreman. Dead file.”

“Nothing wrong with a slam dunk, Bear. El Toro wasn't holding a gun to Gary's head because he was worried about a green card.”

“True enough,” Barrett allowed. “But I can't help worrying there's one dangerous predator still among us. Someone who is not Mexican, not anonymous. Someone who is smart. Vicious. He could be next door.”

Laura Anne settled beside her husband.

“Well, then, if you can't keep an open file, do the next best thing—keep an open mind.”

*   *   *

By the lights of a homicide investigator it had been a stimulating and pleasant evening. Great food, wonderful music and friends. A case to ponder. But Barrett said not a word on the short drive home. Hezikiah's face hung before him like a wraith. So did his father's. Laura Anne placed her hand into her husband's.

“Something bothering you, Bear?”

“Yes,” he said finally. He did not want to lie to his wife.

“Does it relate to the murder?”

“God, I hope not.”

“Bear?”

He squeezed her hand. “Gonna have to cut me some slack on this one, baby.”

“Okay.” She withdrew her hand. “Sure.”

Barrett was cursing himself for spoiling a perfect evening and pulling into the carport behind his Jim Walter home when two mismatched boys burst through the screen door.

“Ben? Tyndall?”

Laura Anne was out before Bear could kill the headlights.

“Why aren't you two in bed?”

“It's Penelope!” Tyndall's face was streaked with tears.

Thelma came shuffling out the door.

“The dog,” she said simply. “We put her out. She's gone.”

At first Bear was filled with relief.

“Boys, settle down.” Barrett scooped up the twins in his arms. “Penelope's just rambling, is all. Soon as she's hungry, she'll come back.”

Thelma shook her head.

“I had her on the leash, Bear. On the dog run. It's been cut.”

*   *   *

Jerry Slade had a bright blue nylon leash draped like a whip over his lap. The puppy whimpered in a milk crate and Jerry felt a tickle in his scrotum. Revenge was always sweet. With one stroke he would hurt the bitch
and
her little pickaninnies. Jerry reached for his silver camera, imagining the possibilities. He typed in the address on his computer for his favored site of recreation.

www.bondsandbrutemaster.freeplay.com

That half-breed bitch might have got his equipment banned from school, but she couldn't keep him off the Web. There were always opportunities. Matinee this evening was a garden-variety torch & see. Cat burning in a cage. A freebie. The mongrel puppy whined again inside the cage beside his desk. Jerry regarded the animal a moment. He'd love to do this in moving pictures, in video, though most of the stuff off the Net was herky-jerky, like the silent cinema.