The Broken Places (20 page)

“How’d y’all buy that land out there?” Quinn asked.

“He didn’t buy it,” she said. “Mr. Bishop is letting him use it till we can build a place.”

“Mr. Bishop’s never been that generous.”

“Give me back my fucking keys.”

“You can sit out here or do what you like,” Quinn said. “You try and walk off and I’ll arrest you.”

“For what?”

“I can make up a lot of shit, Caddy.”

“You don’t know anything about him.”

“I learned a lot from the Bundrens.”

“Ophelia Bundren is batshit crazy,” Caddy said. “She gets off on telling people how to embalm the dead, how she’ll see everybody naked one time or another. She’s a sadist. Sick and disgusting. Her sister was a fucking whore.”

“Easy.”

Caddy’s face flushed, gripping the wheel. “Give me back my keys.”

“Where’s Dixon?”

“His name is Jamey,” Caddy said.

“I’ll call him what I like.”

“Well, you do that,” Caddy said. “And then you can explain to Jason why you won’t call his new father by his first name or treat him with respect.”

Quinn stayed silent. He watched a pair of old bamboo wind chimes flail in the wind from under the old tree fort. Sometimes at night, he would awake thinking he could hear them from a million miles away.

“It means we’re getting married, Quinn,” Caddy said. “Jamey is going to be your brother-in-law.”

Quinn nodded. He took a very deep breath.

“Sure must be nice being that high up,” Caddy said. “Have you forgotten who we all used to be?”

•   •   •

Esau rushed Dixon
and punched him hard in the mouth. He stumbled, keeping his feet while Bones reached up on the wall for an ax handle without a blade and took to Jamey Dixon like he was a Tijuana piñata. He whipped him hard across the back and then took out his knees, really going to work on his ass as he was on the ground, tearing into him like chopping logs. Esau decided to circle about and took turns kicking him in the stomach and head whenever he saw a clear shot. After a few minutes, Bones was breathing hard, worn out from using the ax handle, and stepped back and slung the wood down onto the dirt floor. Dixon looked like shit. His face and arms were bruised and bloody.

“Who got our fucking money?” Esau said.

Dixon leaned over and spit out some blood. He got to his knees, and then fell over on his side in pain. He probably had several cracked ribs, maybe one of the bones poking him in the lungs. Man should have had more common sense.

Bones picked up the ax handle again, and Esau repeated, “Who?”

Dixon did not answer.

Esau nodded to Bones, and the man went back to work for a while. Esau kicked him hard in the stomach, stomping his ass good with his truck stop cowboy boots. They took him to the edge of passing out and backed off as he seemed to lose consciousness. Esau could care less about hurting the son of a bitch, only getting to the point of the matter.

“Mr. Stagg,” Dixon said.

“Who the fuck is Mr. Stagg?” Esau said.

“Man who paid for my freedom,” Dixon said.

“Where’s he at?” Bones said.

Esau reached for Dixon’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Dixon shuffled and nearly fell into some stacked hay, barely holding himself upright while he took a breath, bloody bubbles coming out of his mouth and nose. He turned to Esau and said, “Satan comes in many guises.”

Esau laughed. “So who the hell is Johnny Stagg?”

Dixon nodded. “Y’all need to get gone. I prayed long and hard about what I’ve done. But that money was wicked from the get-go and something that never belonged to any of this. I am asking you to go as a friend.”

Bones looked to Esau. Esau nodded in thought.

“Appreciate that,” Esau said. “But you’re coming with us to see this Mr. Stagg.”

“He controls this county and most of Memphis,” Dixon said. “He’ll have us all killed if y’all go knock on his door.”

“Ain’t no y’all,” Bones said. “More like we. You’re full-tilt in this, preacher.”

Esau snatched up Dixon by the arm, Dixon yelling in pain as they dragged him to the Dodge Charger. “So, just where does Satan set up shop in Jericho, Mississippi?” Esau asked.

•   •   •

“He’s a good man, Quinn,”
Caddy said. “I think that’s what bothers you the most.”

“Nope,” Quinn said. “I think your brain is clouded. And I believe Dixon’s ties to his jailhouse buds are tighter than anything he has with you.”

“He told them to leave.”

“You want to risk you and Jason getting hurt on what you suppose?” Quinn said. “A sensible person always plans for what could happen. The worst of it.”

“You’re the one who seeks out violence and killing,” Caddy said. “Jamey has come home to make Jericho a better place and help people.”

“I don’t seek out killing,” Quinn said.

“But you always find it,” she said. “You ever think about that?”

Quinn looked up the hill, water coming down a narrow ravine from the playhouse up in the scraggly old pines. He used his hand to  clear off the fogged windows, trying to think out what he wanted to say and help Caddy not speed off half-cocked.

“Evil people live among us,” Quinn said. “You and I’ve known that our whole lives. Uncle Hamp knew it, too. He looked out for all the children.”

“And look what it did to him.”

Quinn nodded. He leaned back in the seat, windows fogging again.

“I love Jamey,” Caddy said.

“If those men are gone, then they’re gone. But I want to have a real heart-to-heart with Dixon and see exactly where he stands.”

“His name is Jamey,” Caddy said. “He wants to marry me.”

“I love you, Caddy,” Quinn said. “It’s just the four of us. But you need to trust me. Dixon is bad news.”

Caddy placed her fingers to her mouth, thinking and trying to quiet herself. She turned to Quinn and nodded.

“Call me about the when and where,” Quinn said, and gripped the door handle and opened the door out into the rain.

“OK. But I’ll need my goddamn keys first.”

“Caddy, if you’re gonna be a preacher’s wife, you might want to think of better ways to communicate.”

“You think she’ll call you?” Boom said.

“Yep,” Quinn said. “And I think Dixon will come and see me.”

“But you don’t think he’ll have much to say?”

Quinn shook his head. Boom had closed the big bay doors to the County Barn once Quinn had driven his F-250 inside and killed the engine. The electricity had been knocked out in the last hour or so, and a diesel generator chugged in a far corner. Three orange extension cords pulled from the generator across the concrete floor to the benches where Boom worked.

“I remember something about that armored car being stolen,” Boom said. “Some Feds were down here interviewing people if they saw anything. The truck serviced the Jericho bank but never made it. You think Dixon was in on the job?”

“Robbery was a year after he was sentenced,” Quinn said. “Newspaper stories I found said that truck was carrying almost a million dollars.”

Boom gave a low whistle and told Quinn to get back into his truck and try that winch again. Quinn hit the button, and he heard the motor whiz and engage. Boom gave him a thumbs-up and Quinn got back out. That winch had been sticking since Christmas.

The metal barn was as dark as a cave, wind and rain shaking the structure. Opposite his truck, a single bulb hung over an engine of one of their Crown Vics. Since he’d been elected, Quinn had asked the county supervisors to buy new vehicles. Every meeting, they came up with more road projects and more ways to deny Quinn’s request. One supervisor said he couldn’t rightly spend taxpayers’ dollars all willy-nilly. In the same meeting, he agreed to a five-thousand-dollar pay raise and the construction of a barn on his own property.

“A crew just left out of here with sandbags for Sugar Ditch,” Boom said. “Mount Zion Church taking on some water.”

“I got Kenny and Dave Cullison down there,” Quinn said. “Highway by the three-way is submerged. You need a johnboat to cross it.”

“When you think this shitstorm is gonna let up?”

“Never.” Quinn shrugged. “You mind if I catch some sleep?”

“Here?”

“Faster to roll from here than back at the farm.”

“How you gonna sleep?” Boom said. “All I got is that old truck’s bench seat in the office.”

“That works fine,” Quinn said. “I got a radio and a cell. If this thing rolling in looks as bad as they say, I won’t be sleeping for a few days. They got tornado watches for every county north of I-20.”

Boom nodded. He had a screwdriver fitted into his hand, a long cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Got a horse blanket back there somewhere. A pillow, too.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Caddy will come around,” Boom said. “Anybody who’s been bad fucked up and then gets some perspective will do what it takes to not get back to that place.”

“She’s not backsliding,” Quinn said. “She just has some misplaced faith.”

“You mind me asking you something?” Boom said. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and ashed it.

“Have I ever?”

Quinn pulled the handheld from his truck and his jacket. He walked back into the dim patch of light where Boom worked from his spotless rows of tool benches. There was the comfortable smell there of tobacco and grease, reminding him of his grandfather’s work shed. Tools gleamed brightly and clean fitted into their proper slots.

“You ever think that maybe Dixon is the real deal?” Boom said, tossing the cigarette into an empty coffee can, leaning back under the hood of the Crown Vic. “I known a few people who come out of prison straightened out and clean. Just ’cause those men broke out doesn’t mean he’s a part of it.”

“You do know exactly what happened to Adelaide Bundren?”

“Everyone knows,” Boom said. He turned back around, walked to the tool bench, and fit a ratchet into his hand and added a socket. “But let’s say he did that when he was under the influence. Maybe he really don’t remember what happened. Ain’t nobody ever said that he pushed her.”

“He was convicted of killing her.”

“They said he chased her out into the street,” Boom said. “But is it possible he didn’t? That she just ran? Both of them were a real mess back then. They were part of that crew that hung out at Mr. Horace’s place. That juke joint in that old single-wide.”

“Doesn’t much matter. Our esteemed governor left this flaming pile of dog shit on our doorstep as he left office.”

“But if he did chase her,” Boom said. He popped a cigarette into his fresh mouth and picked up a lighter. “And he was all fucked up back then. Do you believe we should forgive him?”

“As sheriff?”

“As a Christian,” Boom said.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Quinn said. “I got to get some sleep, Boom.” The police scanner squawked in Quinn’s hand, water rising down in Sugar Ditch. Two tornadoes touching down in Cohoama County. “We can debate this shit later.”

“But what if something had happened to someone who’d been with me when I was drunk and high?” Boom said. “You know how many times I was driving drunk before I got myself clean?”

“Don’t want to know.”

“You would have forgiven me.”

“That’s different,” Quinn said. “You’re my friend. And you never killed anyone.”

“Me and you both killed a lot of folks,” Boom said. “But me and you both figured what we were doing was right.”

“Line of duty isn’t in the line of being fucked up.”

Boom nodded. He blew smoke from his nose. “Hell of a point.”

“Dixon beat up a lot of women before he got to Adelaide Bundren,” Quinn said. “Even if he hadn’t killed her, would you want him to marry your sister?”

“They’re getting married?”

“That’s what Caddy says.”

“Oh, shit,” Boom said, laughing. “What’s Miss Jean say about that?”

“I don’t think Jean knows.”

“How about Jason?”

“I want Caddy to think on this before she talks to him.”

“So maybe in that time, you can connect Dixon with those two shitbirds out of Parchman.”

“If that’s the case, I’d like to make things clearer for her.”

“Be real clear if the preacher goes back to prison.”

“I thought you were the devil’s advocate,” Quinn said.

“Caddy sees something in him.”

“But would you trust Caddy?”

“Your sister has made so many bad decisions I just figure she’s due for a good one,” Boom said. He thought on that as he ashed his cigarette again and set back to work on the old Crown Vic.

Quinn found the pillow and the horse blanket in Boom’s office and was asleep in two minutes.

•   •   •

Jamey Dixon was beat to shit.
But it was an amazing thing to witness the power of a .357 against his spine. He limped like a hurt dog as they walked toward the Booby Trap lounge, its big neon sign facing Highway 45 coloring oil-slick puddles. He’d said that’s where Johnny Stagg kept his real office, the other one in the truck stop just for show. Dixon said this was the place where they could talk out the entire situation. With the gun pressed hard into his ear, Esau made Dixon call Stagg and make sure he was waiting for him.

If anyone gave them any shit, he and Bones would shoot them down. They didn’t have a lot of time to converse.