The Broken Places (4 page)

“You got a car?” Esau asked.

The woman kept on staring.

Bones slapped her on the back of the head. “Listen up.”

She shook her head. Her mouth was still filled with Toaster Strudel.

“Who does?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Where’s he at?” Esau said.

“Gas station,” she said. “Went to get us some breakfast.”

“What the fuck you eatin’?”

“Just a snack.”

“Well, sweet Jesus.” Bones grinned. “You done look like you had too much breakfast.”

He ripped the plate of Toaster Strudel from her lap and grabbed a couple. He broke his in two and tossed half to Esau. Esau didn’t think he’d tasted anything so good in a long while. He asked Bones for another, and they both found a spot on the woman’s sagging flowered couch, listening to the news like they were all part of the same family. The woman didn’t say anything, just held the Chihuahua tight to her fat bosom, eyes shifting from the men to the shabby door hanging half open. The dog started yipping again, and Bones growled back, as the woman held the little dog’s mouth closed and tugged him closer.

“Bad storm last night,” Esau said.

The woman didn’t answer, only held the dog so close that it disappeared under her heavy breasts.

“Another bad front tomorrow,” Esau said.

“Shh,” Bones said. “Trying to hear this shit.”

The anchor was blond and had a nice thick body and talked with a big grin about the storms that had passed through the mid-South and a double homicide in West Memphis. They waited until she started talking with the goofy weather guy, who seemed to be getting a hard-on about another front moving in from Texas. Bones looked up from the television, just hearing a car drive up and the motor quit.

He turned off the television and nodded in the silence to Esau, who stood up and found a place on the wall beside the door. He picked up a ceramic cat statue on a little bookshelf and waited for the door to open wider. A little redneck strutted into the room with a big white sack, grinning like he’d done something special until he spotted the black man on the couch with the woman.

“Who the hell are you?” he said.

“Guy who’s gonna take your car out for a ride.”

“Shit,” said the little man. He reached for something in his red Windbreaker.

Esau came down hard and quick on the back of the man’s head with the statue, the cat’s head breaking off and the skinny little redneck dropping to the floor. The big woman screamed and the dog jumped from her lap, trying to attack Esau this time, yipping and tearing at the leg of his coveralls, and finally getting distracted by the smell of whatever was in the paper bag. Esau opened it, snatched out a big greasy sausage biscuit, and handed it to Bones. Three more inside.

“You got some coffee?” Bones asked the woman.

She shook her head.

“Well, damn, get off your thick ass and make some.”

The woman was nervous, and she had trouble standing, her hefty legs a little woozy and weak, but she made her way back to the kitchen and started to fill the pot with water.

Esau reached into the man’s heavy work coat and found a .357 fully loaded in a side pocket. “Well, hello there.”

Bones had already stuffed the whole sausage biscuit into his mouth and was chewing as he pulled aside a sad yellowed curtain and looked outside the trailer. “Sweet Jesus.”

The man on the floor was coming to and rolling onto his hands as Esau walked past and kicked him hard in the head, sending him flying against the wall. He joined Bones at the window and looked out in the trailer court to see a Chevy Chevelle with dual chrome pipes and a slick blue paint job with a narrow white stripe down the hood.

“Bad taste in women,” Bones said, swallowing, looking to the big woman measuring out coffee into the machine. “But great taste in an automobile.”

•   •   •

Quinn got five hours’ sleep,
waking up at 1200, and spent the next couple hours on his tractor, delivering hay to his cows, with Hondo riding shotgun. After his chores were done, he showered and shaved, dressing in a crisp khaki shirt with patches for Tibbehah County Sheriff, a pair of laundered blue jeans with a sharp crease, and a pair of cowboy boots. By the time he finished his second cup of coffee and first La Gloria Cubana of the day, he had pulled his truck into the sheriff’s office lot. He walked through the front door, saying hello to Mary Alice, who was the office administrator and answered the phone, did the filing, and also ran dispatch for the seven-man and one-woman office.

Quinn had the usual conversation with her, talking about it being too wet to till the garden yet and what Mary Alice planned to plant this year: some kind of German heirloom tomatoes. He finally made his way back to his office, where he hung up his coat and ball cap. The same Beretta 9mm he’d worn in numerous tours of Iraq and Afghanistan with the 3rd Batt of the 75th Regiment perched on his leather belt.

After a few new reports, he made his way back to the reception area and refilled his coffee, walking back to his office to find his chief deputy Lillie Virgil sitting in his lone visitor’s chair, tilted back, boots on his desk, and taking a puff of his cigar.

“How the hell do you smoke these things every day?” Lillie said, letting out a long stream of smoke and passing it back to Quinn. “Tastes like a dog turd to me.”

“You ever smoke a dog turd, Lillie?” Quinn said.

“How’d your meeting with Ophelia Bundren go this morning?”

Quinn sat down behind his desk and propped up his boots as well on the desk that had been his late Uncle Hamp’s when Hamp had been sheriff for nearly thirty years. The desk was beaten to hell and badly in need of repair, but Quinn liked the common history of it.

“Who told you?” Quinn said.

“I saw your truck and I saw her car.”

“Meeting went the same as it always does.”

“I feel for her,” Lillie said. “I really do, but she’s driving herself batshit insane with this. She needs to see a shrink or it’s going to drive her to a room in Whitfield.”

“I don’t know if I’d be much different,” Quinn said.

“How long had you been gone when Adelaide was killed?”

“I was just at Fort Benning for Ranger school,” Quinn said. “My mom sent me the newspaper clips. I liked Adelaide.”

“I would have never imagined them as twins,” Lillie said. “Adelaide had fair skin and blond hair; Ophelia still looks like that girl from
The Addams Family
to me.”

“Wednesday,” Quinn said. “Yeah, I’ve heard that a few times.”

“That’s her,” Lillie said. “When I first saw you two together, I was thinking that maybe you were getting a piece. But I never could see Wednesday Addams out at the Colson farm, picking tomatoes and eating deer meat you shot. Relieved to know it was all professional.”

“I happen to find her very attractive.”

Lillie leaned forward and picked up Quinn’s cigar from the ashtray, took another puff, and set it back. “Yep,” she said. “You would.”

“I read back through the original files,” Quinn said. “And it looks like there wasn’t enough of Adelaide to make more than manslaughter. How’d they prosecute for murder?”

“The Bundrens said Dixon had been beating the shit out of her for more than a year,” Lillie said. “Adelaide and Dixon had shared an old house over in Dogtown. The family said he ran her over in a rage and then sat on the bed of his truck while what was left of her got run over by passing cars. Family said they had witnesses who said Dixon sat there drinking Busch from the case and smiling while their daughter got hit again and again.”

Quinn shook his head.

“Most evidence was circumstantial,” Lillie said. “Your uncle found where Dixon had blocked in Adelaide’s car with his truck. Her car had been rammed into their carport, knocking the crap out of a support beam. There wasn’t much left of her, but they found her in her pajamas without any shoes. Your uncle worked with the prosecutors in Oxford to say she was running for her life, presenting two witnesses to show prior abuse. After a few weeks, Hamp found this fella who drove a logging truck who saw Dixon standing on the road, unfazed by the mess that had been his girlfriend. The truck driver thought someone had hit a deer.”

“Ophelia believes there is more to the pardon than our outgoing governor believing in the power of redemption.”

“You think?” Lillie said, dropping her boots to the floor. “But shit, what the hell could a shitbag like Jamey Dixon have to offer the governor? He’s got no money, no sense, and has reentered society as a two-bit preacher.”

“You know Caddy is one of his flock?”

“And she’s fucking him, too,” Lillie said. “Damn, Quinn. You need to plug in a little bit more to what’s going on in the county.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware of Caddy’s love of Jamey Dixon and Jesus Christ.”

“Was Ophelia trying to warn you?”

“Yep.”

“She’s an authentic weirdo, but smart.”

“Yep.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You know Caddy,” Quinn said. “There isn’t shit I can do. I think she’s planning on bringing him to dinner tonight at Momma’s house.”

Lillie laughed.

“I’d pay to see that, Quinn,” Lillie said. “Can I please come? I want to hear you say, ‘Pass the peas, dickhead.’”

“I’ll be civil.”

“Yeah, that was the motto of all the Rangers I’ve read about,” she said. “Jump out of airplanes, pull your gun, and be civil.”

“I’ll be polite.” Quinn tapped the ash of his cigar.

“Can I come?” Lillie asked. “What’s Jean making tonight?”

“Fried chicken. And no.”

“What a shame,” Lillie said. “I do love me some of Miss Jean’s fried chicken.”

Esau and Bones made it all the way to Olive Branch and a Pilot truck stop off Highway 78. They could blend in with the truckers and travelers, who did not give the two scruffy, stinky men a sideways glance. But just to make sure, Bones had parked the slick Chevelle on the far side of the truck stop, by the diesel pumps. Besides the loaded .357, the muscle car, and four sausage biscuits, Esau had taken the little redneck’s wallet, two hundred dollars and some change, and a Visa card. The truck stop was one of those places they call a travel plaza, with a restaurant, a convenience store, a Western-wear shop, and a dozen showers by a trucker rest area. They bought some fresh T-shirts, stiff flannel shirts, a couple pairs of Wranglers and work boots. They paid cash, saving the card for where nobody would be watching.

They bought soap and shaving cream and razors, too. Esau decided to leave the red beard growth, knowing his prison mug showed him with a clean face. Bones shaved off everything but a thin, smart-ass mustache. And thirty minutes later they met back at the trucker room, where a bunch of fat guys drank coffee and farted, watching a flickering television playing the Maury Povich
show.

“Leave the car,” Esau said.

“I love that car.”

“But they got to know.”

Bones looked up at the wall clock, which showed it was two hours since they’d hightailed it from the trailer. He shrugged and thought on it. “Couple more hours.”

“Couple more hours get us kilt.”

“This ain’t the place.”

Esau looked through the glass window into the truck stop store and bustling restaurant. If they were going to steal another car, they sure as hell needed a spot with fewer witnesses. Of course, he could do it all cool and easy, pointing a .357 in someone’s ribs, have him ride down the road with them, and then keep him in the trunk until they were done with the car.

“Two more hours,” Bones said. “I want to see what that bitch can do.”

“Until we find something else.”

Bones nodded. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “How long till Jericho?”

“About a hundred miles, I figure.”

Bones nodded. “Damn, been a long time. Think we can still find it?”

“Only thing I think about lying on my back at night is Becky’s nekkid body and that little bass pond. I think I’ll find both.”

“You call her?”

“When we slow things,” Esau said. “When we ready to get our shit together.”

“Nice shirt,” Bones said.

Esau looked down at his chest, not even sure what was on the T-shirt besides it being yellow. It was a cartoon of a hunter chasing a woman in a bikini and something about
WHITE TAIL FEVER
.

“Should have given that to me.”

“That would get you noticed.”

“And I got stuck with a fucking shirt that says
WELCOME TO THE MAGNOLIA STATE
,” Bones said. “Now, how’s that any fun?”

“You get to drive that car.”

“I’ll fill her up and then let’s roll to Jericho,” Bones said. “You thinking on what we gonna do when we get that money?”

Esau nodded. “I think we divvy it up and then we split up. I think us traveling separate is the way to go. Me and Becky get you settled and straight before we do.”

“She must be some woman,” Bones said. “Stay with you while you in Parchman for seven years. ’Least you got some conjugation visits.”

“Sure,” Esau said, smirking. “We did a lot of that conjugating.”

“Hell, you know what I meant.”

Esau nodded, the trucker sitting next to him snoring so loud it sounded like a freight train. A teenage girl on the television was talking about how she had been impregnated by one of her eight cousins. Esau shook his head at how the world was just as sorry as he’d left it.