Swift Justice: The Southern Way (29 page)

As soon as the impromptu barbershop meeting ended, the Sheriff started his drive to Junior’s house. It was now dark at about 7:30 p.m. He was thinking of calling Junior first but thought otherwise. He wanted to surprise him. Or, if he wasn’t home, he would inspect his house without Junior being there. The Sheriff hated to admit it, but his son was looking more and more like the likely suspect. He was the only one that didn’t have an alibi, though some of the other suspects’ alibis were questionable, at least they had some kind of alibi.

Junior knew about each of the crimes. However, he didn’t know the exact site of the first crime, so maybe Junior couldn’t have done it, the Sheriff hoped.

As he was thinking this, he finally arrived at Junior’s house. Junior’s house was actually the Sheriff’s old farmhouse that he let Junior live in. It was located on the west side of town and just east of the lake. The house was very secluded with the nearest neighbor located about a mile away.

The Sheriff instinctively drove slowly on the dirt road so no one would notice him. He couldn’t believe he was sneaking up on his son. He even shut off his lights and used the light from the moon to guide him. Maybe he wasn’t home, the Sheriff wondered.

He would soon find out.

The front of the two-story beige house faced the dirt road. Directly behind the house, was a large garage and work area, large enough to fit two cars and have enough room for woodworking and other equipment including a big workbench. The garage door faced sideways to the main road. A long driveway ran along the left side of the house that curved right to the garage’s entrance. The garage was not visible when directly facing the house.

The Sheriff got out of the car and was still dressed in his usual police uniform, cowboy hat, and his revolver clutched in his gun holster. He immediately noticed that the pickup truck was parked facing towards the street about halfway down the driveway. Junior must have pulled into the driveway and then swung the pickup truck around the driveway so it was facing towards the street. No lights were on in the house, but he couldn’t see if any lights were on in the garage.

The Sheriff figured that Junior had to be home; otherwise, he wouldn’t have parked his truck in the driveway. He was either sleeping, which was probably likely considering that Junior hadn’t gotten that much sleep over the last few days as well, or he was in the garage working on something.

This was a perfect setup for the Sheriff. He could check the tire marks on Junior’s truck to see if it matched his sketch. He could probably do this without Junior noticing him, he hoped. He prayed that it didn’t match.

The Sheriff approached the front of the truck and knelt down on both knees. He peeked around to see if he could see the garage, and he couldn’t, which was good. The truck was parked far enough down the driveway, so the Sheriff was not within eyesight of the garage. He shined his flashlight on the paper and compared it to the tires. The width of the tire and the treads matched—exactly. It fit like a glove.

The Sheriff stood still in shock, staring straight ahead into the distance. Although this was not perfect evidence, he knew, in his heart, that Junior, his son, probably was the killer. But why? Why would he do such a thing? It didn’t make any sense. Hey, there was probably a ton of pickup trucks with the same threads.

The Sheriff breathed heavily and shook his head in disbelief. He was overreacting. There was no way Junior did this crime. He hated niggers just as much as the Sheriff did. Why would he help niggers? There had to be a good explanation. He would confront him and find out.

~~~~

The Sheriff’s legs were shaking as he walked up the driveway to the garage door. He considered taking out his revolver, but he thought otherwise. There was no way he was going to approach his son with a gun pointed at his son. That would have been weird and awkward.

He quickly noticed that the light in the garage was illuminated—Junior was most likely in there as the house lights were off. Both the garage door and the side entrance door were closed. He quietly tip-toed to the side entrance door, which was located to the right of the garage doors and closest to the back of the house. He slowly turned the doorknob, but it was locked. That was odd. Junior nor the Sheriff ever locked that door. But the Sheriff had the keys. After all, it was his house. As quietly as he could, he fiddled through his keys until he found the right key.

He had a very bad feeling about what he was about to see on the other side of the door. He quickly inserted the key, turned the key, turned the doorknob, and swung the door open.

What he saw shocked him and would change his and Junior’s life forever.

~~~~

As soon as the door swung open, Junior, who was sitting on a tall work stool, turned right to face his dad and screamed, “Aaah!” He had a look of complete surprise and horror. He instinctively grabbed a revolver laying on the workbench with his right hand. With his left hand, he held sticks of tapped dynamite. He was wearing gloves. He stood up.

“Whoa, dad, what are you doing here,” as he was pointing the gun at his dad.

The Sheriff did not know how to answer because he became fixated with the sticks of dynamite that appeared to have some kind of clock in the middle of it. It was a surreal scene for the Sheriff. He didn’t understand why his son would have sticks of dynamite.

“Tyler … what’s up with the dynamite?”

Junior froze and did not speak immediately. He kept the gun pointed at the Sheriff. “Um … the Judge wanted me to blow up a church.”

“Bullshit, I was just with the Judge. He didn’t mention anything about it.”

“He didn’t want you to know.”

The Sheriff was shocked that his son still had the gun pointed at him. “Tyler … put down the gun,” the Sheriff said calmly.

Junior did not put down the gun. “What’s that piece of paper in your hand?” asked Junior.

The Sheriff sighed. “Well, it’s a sketch of tire thread marks from the first crime scene.”

“So?”

“They match your tires.”

Junior paused for a long time gazing at his father. “So, what are you saying? Are you accusing me of killing our friends?”

“Put down the gun, son. I’m not going to tell you again. What’s the matter with you?”

Junior still held the gun pointed at the Sheriff.

The Sheriff studied Junior. He had gloves on with slits on the end. He wondered what the dynamite was for. Then it hit him. He felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. He felt sick like he was going to vomit. The tire marks, no alibi, the slit in the gloves, and now the gun pointed at him.

It was Junior! He did it!

The father and son stared at each other. The Sheriff felt that Junior could read his thoughts. They stood in silence, both breathing heavily. The Sheriff slowly reached for his gun.

“No, no, Daddy,” Junior said calmly but firmly. “Don’t do that.”

The Sheriff felt like he was having an out of body experience. He was in shock. Was his son going to shoot him? No, he surely wouldn’t shoot his father. He would try to reason with his son.

“Son, what’re you doing? Put the gun away,” the Sheriff said sternly.

Junior kept the gun pointed at his dad.

“Did you kill them?” asked the Sheriff.

“No.”

“Then, put the gun down. I don’t understand why you pointing the gun at me?”

Junior squinted his eyes and exhaled loudly.

The Sheriff now realized that he needed to go for his gun, but he wanted to distract Junior. “Look, Tyler, you haven’t done anything wrong. I would never turn you in.”

“Turn me in for what? I didn’t do anything.”

The Sheriff grabbed his revolver with his right hand and started to pull the gun out of holster.

“Bang!”

Junior shot him a little above the elbow.

“Aaaaahh! What the fuck are you doing!” The Sheriff felled to his knees pressing his left hand against his right arm to stop the bleeding. The bullet lodged into his arm, and it felt like someone was pinching him with a large vice grip. It was extremely painful.

“Daddy, look what you made me do,” Junior said sarcastically and without remorse. “Damn, why did you do that? Why did you reach for your gun?”

“What are you doing?” the Sheriff yelled. “What are you doing? You’re fuckin’ nuts. I’m hurt here; call an ambulance.”

“I’m not calling a fuckin’ ambulance,
Dad
.”

“You shot Lucky and Cueball, didn’t you?” asked the Sheriff.

“Fuck yeah, I killed them all. You dumb shit.”

“How did you know where Lucky was going to hang Leon?”

“It’s not that hard. I had a general idea where it was going to happen, and I just waited until their car passed me on Route 12. They didn’t see me on the side of the road because they’re stupid like you.”

“What’s with the dynamite?” asked the Sheriff.

“Well, I was going to blow up the stage tonight at the KOT meeting.”

“What is your deal? I don’t understand. … Aaah, my arm is killing me. Come on, man.” The Sheriff started whimpering a little bit when he spoke, and he started to get back on his feet. He was thinking of going for his gun again.

“Kneel down, motherfucker. Kneel down right now. Take off your belt with your left hand.”

“Why?”

“Take off your fuckin’ belt! And don’t try to go for your gun again, or else I shoot you again.”

“I can’t let go of my arm, it will start bleeding.”

“I don’t give a fuck; take it off.”

The Sheriff took his left hand off the wound. “Aaah … come on it hurts.”

Junior kept the gun pointed at his dad.

The Sheriff slowly undid his belt and shoved it toward his son. Junior picked it up, took the holster off, and grabbed the belt on the opposite of the buckle, so the buckle was dangling on the floor.

“What the fuck. Explain to me. Why … why did you kill everyone?” The Sheriff was having problems breathing. He couldn’t believe that his son had just shot him.

“Why did I kill everyone? … You want to know why I killed everyone.”

“Yes! Why?”

Junior paused for a long moment and sighed heavily. “You know what … I hate you, I hate the Judge, I hate Archie, I hate Acton, I hate Lucky, and I hate Cueball—”

“Why? … Why do you hate us?”

“You want to know why? I’ve hated you and them ever since you fuckin’ tortured and killed Jerome.”

“What? Are you a fuckin’ nigger lover?”

Junior swung the belt towards the Sheriff’s head. The Sheriff moved his head to the side, so the huge belt buckle wrapped around left shoulder and dug into the Sheriff’s back.

“Aaah! What the fuck!”

“No, I’m not a fuckin’ nigger lover,” Junior screamed. “But I did like Jerome.”

“What? He stole money from us.”

“No, you stupid, fuck. He didn’t steal money from you—
I
stole the money from you. I didn’t have enough balls to tell you, and you went ahead and killed a guy for doing nothing.”

“Why the fuck did you like
Jerome
of all people?”

“You know what … he … he taught me how to play baseball. He spent more time with me than you did. He taught me how to bat lefty. He taught me how to pitch. He used to be in the Negro League. You didn’t teach me shit.”

“Wait … wait, I don’t understand. You’re nuts, Son. That happened like … what … ten, fifteen years ago. You got to get over it, Son. I don’t understand why you would kill Lucky.”

“He tortured Jerome!” Junior started crying. “I loved Jerome! Jerome was nice to me. He was like a father to me. You were never a father to me.” Junior paused. He was breathing heavily and still sobbing. “That night … I started crying, and you took me into this garage of all places … what a coincidence. You took me in here and whipped me with a belt because I cried in front of your friends. Yeah, you fuckin’ whipped me with the belt. You were drunk. You were always fuckin’ drunk and pissed off.”

“Come on, Son, stop this,” pleaded the Sheriff.

“Ah, here we go. The shoes on the other foot, motherfucker.”

The Sheriff could see the rage in Junior’s eyes. “Wait a second … wait a second—”

“I’m not going to wait a second.” Junior swung belt repeatedly at his father. He swung it like a mad man. The buckle had hit Sheriff square on the top of his head with one of the blows.

“Aaah, come on, Tyler. It hurts. Come on, stop.”

Junior continued his onslaught. “Here’s for whipping me all those years.”

“Come on, Son.” The Sheriff started whimpering. He wrapped both of his hands over his head to prevent the buckle from hitting his head again.

“Oh, Daddy’s crying,” Junior said sarcastically.

“What is your deal, man?” the Sheriff asked whimpering. “What is your deal? Why are you doing this to me?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Junior continued his barrage and stopped for a break. He stood over his father with the belt in his right hand, and the gun in his left hand pointed at this father.

“Come on, Son, please stop. We can fix this.”

“You are so stupid. I’m going to have to kill you, now. You know too much.”

“No, I would never turn you in. You’re my son.”

“You’re so stupid. All you guys are stupid. I got you guys to believe my story about burning down the Social Club. Y’all fell for it, so now you don’t have your stupid club to hang out at.”

“Son, I’m so confused. You’re not making any sense.”

~~~~