Carnal Innocence (41 page)

Still grinning, Vernon spread his arms. “Take your best shot. It’ll be your last.”

Cy’s fist snaked out. He would think later that it had been as if he’d had no control over it. His arm, his clenched hand, and the fire behind it had been something apart. And its aim was deadly keen.

Blood spurted from Vernon’s nose. There was a roar from the crowd that had gathered, that blood-lust roar that humans seem unable to prevent when one of their kind wars with another. Cy heard it as a tidal wave of satisfaction even as the power of the punch shot pain up his own arm.

“Well, well.” Tucker stepped out of the shadows misting Cy’s vision, and stepped between them. “Y’all putting on a side show? What’s the price of admission?”

Blood dripped down his face as Vernon bared his teeth. “Get the hell out of my way, Longstreet, or I’ll cut right through you.”

“You’ll have to, to get to him.” There was a trace of that lust in Tucker’s eyes as well. The midway lights glinted on them, turning them gold as a cat’s. “Taking a page out of your father’s book, Vernon? Slapping down what’s smaller than you?”

“He’s my kin.”

“That’ll always be a mystery to me.” Tucker threw out an arm when Cy started to move around him. “You just hold on, son. I’m not going to tell you twice.” He could feel the air tremble between him and Cy. Not with fear; fear had a different rhythm. This was energy. The boy would have gotten a few good shots in, Tucker mused. Before Vernon broke him to pieces. “You’re not laying another hand on him, Vernon.”

“And who’s going to stop me?”

The thought of having his face battered again made Tucker sigh. The last bruises had barely faded. “I reckon I am.”

“And me.” Sweaty and far from steady, Dwayne stepped beside his brother.

One by one, men moved out of the crowd and ranged themselves beside the Longstreets. Cy had been wrong—there were more than a few who would have
come forward, and they did now. Black and white, forming a silent wall that spoke eloquently of justice.

Vernon flexed frustrated fists. “He can’t hide all the time.”

“He isn’t hiding now,” Tucker said. “I think he’s proved that. He may be half your size, Vernon, but he’s twice the man you are. And he’s under my protection. Your mother signed a paper that makes it so. You’d best leave it alone.”

“Whatever you paid her to sign him away, he’s still my blood. You got too much of my blood on your hands.”

Tucker stepped forward, lowering his voice so only Vernon could hear. “He’s nothing to you. We both know it. Kinship’s just an excuse you use to hurt and call it family business. There’s nobody standing with you on this, Vernon. Nobody. Going after him’s only going to make it hard for you around here. Your family’s had enough grief.”

“And you brought it on us.” He leaned his face close to Tucker’s. “This ain’t over.”

“I don’t expect it is. But it’s done for the night.” Turning, Tucker walked through the line to where Caroline was dealing calmly with Cy’s bloody nose. “I sure do love a carnival,” he said. The squeeze he gave Cy’s shoulder transmitted both approval and reassurance.

“I was going to fight him, Mr. Tucker.”

“You did what you had to do.”

Furious, Caroline balled bloody tissues in her hand. “Men. You always think the way to handle any problem is with your fists.”

“And women like to talk them away.” He winked at Cy, then pulled Caroline close for a quick kiss. “Now, personally, I prefer loving my way out of a problem. But it takes all kinds.”

“Don’t it just?” Josie strolled up, snapping her purse shut. She carried her pretty little pearl-handled derringer inside among her other necessities. Right now she was almost disappointed that she hadn’t had cause to use it. She kept her back to Tucker, whom she’d yet to forgive. “Cy, honey, you’re going to be the talk of the annual
Innocence Fourth of July Carnival,” She kissed his cheek and made him blush. “You bleeding anywhere, Jim?”

“No, ma’am. I landed on my butt, is all.” He was busy brushing himself off with hands that shook from excitement. “Me and Cy, we coulda took him.”

“I’ll just bet you could.” Josie squeezed Jim’s bicep and rolled her eyes appreciatively. “We got us a couple of strapping young boys here, Caroline. I wonder if I could impose on you two to accompany me to the lemonade stand? It seems my gentleman escort has deserted me for another woman.” She nodded toward the Scrambler, where Teddy and Cousin Lulu where taking another round. “Men are such fickle creatures.”

Jim puffed out his chest. “We’ll go with you, Miss Josie. Won’t we, Cy?”

“Is it all right, Mr. Tucker?”

“It’s just fine.” He passed a hand over Cy’s hair, left it lie there a moment. “It is just fine, Cy.”

Cy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know it. I didn’t run. I’m not running from him or anybody anymore.”

Tucker let his hand slide off Cy’s shoulder. He thought it was a pity that youth and its simplicity were so soon and permanently lost. “Running away and walking are two different things. Keeping clear of Vernon won’t change what you did for yourself tonight. But it might keep your mama from any more grief. You think about that.”

“I guess I will.”

“Go on with Josie.” He watched them walk away with some regret, and something colder, that was suspicion.

“I guess I’m going home,” Dwayne said, narrowing his eyes against the spinning lights.

“You sober enough to find the house?” Tucker asked him.

“I haven’t had much—and tossed up what I did.” Dwayne offered a weak smile. “I never did have the head for those whirly rides.”

“Or the stomach,” Tucker agreed. “You get sick every blessed year.”

“I don’t like to mess with tradition. Della and Cousin Lulu came with me, but I don’t think they’re ready to leave just yet.”

“Caro and I’ll get them home.”

“That’s fine, then. ’Night, Caroline.” He sauntered off alone, moving beyond the lights and music and into the shadows. Tucker nearly called him back. It didn’t seem right that his brother should look so lonely. Then Dwayne was gone, and the moment passed.

“Well …” Caroline tossed the bloody tissues into a trash basket. “You certainly show a woman an interesting evening.”

“I do what I can.” Hearing the strain in her voice, he slipped an arm around her. “You’re upset?”

“Upset?” she countered. “You could say so. It upsets me to see that boy have to fight his own brother. He’s lost two members of his family and is estranged from the rest of them just because he’s different. It’s hard to see him have to face those kinds of demands and pressures, those choices, when he’s only half grown.”

Tucker drew her around to face him. “Who are we talking about, Caro? You or Cy?”

“It has nothing to do with me.”

“Maybe you’re shifting things around. Looking at him and seeing yourself at his age, facing something you couldn’t fight with your fists.”

“I didn’t fight at all.”

“You took your stand later, and in a different way. That doesn’t make it any harder when what you’re standing against is family.” He led her back a little, where they could stand and watch the lights and the colors and the knots of people. “You want to make it up with your mother.”

“There’s nothing—”

“You want to make it up,” he said again with a quiet assurance in his voice that stopped her from arguing. “I know what I’m saying. I never settled things with my father. I never let him know what I thought or felt or wanted. I don’t know if he’d have given a damn. And
that’s just it. I don’t know because I never worked up the gumption to say it all to his face.”

“She knows how I feel.”

“So you start from there. On your terms. I don’t like to see you sad, Caroline. And I know what kind of pull family brings.”

“I’11 think about it.” She tilted her head back to study him. He was looking beyond the midway, into the lights. There was something in his eyes that had her moving closer. “What are you thinking about?”

“Family,” he murmured. “And what runs through the blood.” Deliberately, he smiled, but that glint in his eye remained. “Let’s go check out that Ferris wheel.”

Tucker pulled her back into the crowd and the noise. But he was thinking. If Austin had been capable of murder, perhaps Austin’s son was equally capable.

The sins of the father, he mused. It was a quotation that would have suited Austin down to the ground. Perhaps Vernon carried that same violent and twisted gene.

As the Ferris wheel began its slow backward arch, Tucker draped an arm around Caroline’s shoulders.

He was sure of one thing. Among the laughter and lights of the carnival, a murderer hunted.

“T
here’s coffee on the stove, Tuck.” Burke yawned over his bowl of raisin bran. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you up and around this early in twenty years.”

“I wanted to catch you before you went into your office.”

“My office.” Burke’s lips twisted into a grimace as he held out his morning mug so that Tucker could top it up with hot coffee. “Don’t you mean Burns’s office? My butt hasn’t felt the seat of my own chair in three days.”

“Is he getting anywhere, or is he just blowing smoke?”

“He’s generated more paperwork than the Bank of England. Faxes, Federal Express packages, conference calls to Washington, D.C. We got us a bulletin board with pictures of all the victims tacked to it. Vital statistics, time and place of death. He’s got stuff referenced and cross-referenced till your head spins.”

Tucker sat down. “You’re not telling me anything, Burke.”

Burke met Tucker’s gaze. “There’s not much I’m free to tell you. We’ve got a list of suspects.”

Nodding, Tucker took a sip of coffee. “Am I still on it?”

“You’ve got an alibi for Edda Lou.” Burke took a spoonful of cereal, hesitated, then set it down again. “I guess you know Burns has taken a real dislike to you. He doesn’t think much of your sister saying you were up playing cards with her half the night.”

“I’m not too worried about that.”

“You should be.” Burke broke off when he heard someone moving around in the living room. A moment later the Looney Tunes theme warbled from the television. “Eight o’clock,” he said with a smile. “That kid’s got it down to a science.” He picked up his coffee. “I’ll tell you this, Tuck. Burns would like nothing better than to hang this whole thing around your neck. He won’t do anything that’s not straight and legal, but if he can find a way to reel you in, it would give him a lot of pleasure.”

“What we got here’s a personality clash,” Tucker said with a thin smile. “They got a time of death on Darleen yet?”

“Teddy’s putting it at between nine
P.M
. and midnight.”

“Since I was with Caroline from about nine on, the night Darleen was killed, that ought to ease me out of the running.”

“With a series of murders like this, it’s not just a matter of motive and opportunity. He’s got a head doctor who worked up a psychiatric profile. We’re looking for someone with a grudge against women—especially women who might be a bit free with their favors. Someone who knew each victim well enough to get them alone.”

Burke’s flakes were getting soggy. He scooped them up more for fuel than enjoyment. “Darleen’s a puzzle,” he went on. “Maybe it was just chance that he came across her on the road that way. Could have been impulse. But chance and impulse don’t follow the pattern.”

Tucker let that settle for a minute. There was a pattern, he mused, but he didn’t think anybody had put all the lines and checks together just yet. “I want to get
back to that psychiatric stuff. You’ve got somebody with a grudge against women—maybe because they hated their mama, or some woman let them down along the way.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Before Darleen, you’d pretty well settled on Austin.”

“He fit the profile,” Burke agreed. “And after he went after Caroline with a buck knife, it looked rock solid.”

“But unless Austin came back from the dead, he couldn’t have killed Darleen.” Tucker shifted in his chair. “What do you think about heredity, Burke? About blood and genes and bad seeds?”

“Anybody with kids thinks about it some. Anybody with parents, I should say,” he added, and shoved his bowl aside. “I spent a lot of years wondering if I’d make ail the wrong moves the way my father did, push myself into corners or let myself get pushed there, like him.”

“I’m sorry. I should have thought before I asked.”

“No, it was a long time ago. Almost twenty years now. It’s better to look to your own kids. That one out there.” He pointed a spoon toward the living room, where his youngest watched Bugs outwit Elmer Fudd. “He looks like me. I got pictures of myself at his age, and it’s almost spooky how much he looks like me.”

“Vernon favors his daddy,” Tucker said. He waited while Burke set his spoon aside. “It can go deeper than coloring and the shape of a nose, Burke. It can go to personality and tendencies, gestures, habits. I’ve had reason to think on this because of my own family.” It was something he didn’t like to talk about, not even with Burke. “Dwayne’s got the same sickness that killed our father. Maybe he’s got a better disposition, but it’s there, rooted inside. All I have to do is look in the mirror, or at Dwayne and Josie, and I see our mother. She’s stamped right on our faces. And she had a love of books, poetry especially. I got that, too. I didn’t ask for it, it’s just there.”

“I won’t argue that. Marvella’s got a way of tilting her head the same way, the same angle as Susie does.
And she’s got Susie’s stubborn streak—‘I want it and I’ll find a way to get it.’ We pass things on, good and bad, whether we aim to or not.”

“Vernon’s not gentle with his wife, any more than Austin was gentle with his.”

“What brought this on, Tucker?”

“You heard about the ruckus at the carnival last night?”

“That young Cy bloodied his brother’s nose? Marvella and Bobby Lee were there. Nobody thought it was a shame.”

“Vernon’s not a popular man. His daddy wasn’t either. They’ve got the same look about them, in the eyes, Burke.” Tucker kicked back in the chair to stretch his legs. “My mama bought me this picture book once. A Bible stories book. I remember this one picture. It was of Isaiah or Ezekiel or somebody. One of those prophets who strolled off into the wasteland for forty days to fast and meet the Lord? This was supposed to be a picture of him after he came back spouting prophesies and speaking in tongues. Whatever the hell they did when they’d cooked their brains in the desert. He had this look in his eyes, this wild, rolling look like a weasel gets when he smells chicken feathers. I always wondered why the Lord chose to speak through crazy people. I expect it was because they wouldn’t question whatever voice they heard inside their head. Seems to me they might hear something else inside there, too. Something not so full of light and good will.”

Saying nothing, Burke rose to pour more coffee. Burns had said something about voices. About how some serial killers claim to have been told what to do and how to do it. The Son of Sam had claimed his neighbor’s dog had ordered him to kill.

For himself, Burke didn’t go in for the mystical. He figured David Berkowitz had juggled psychiatry against the law to cop an insanity plea. But Tucker’s theory made him uneasy.

“Are you trying to tell me you think Vernon hears voices?”

“I don’t know what’s inside his head, but I know
what I saw in his eyes last night. The same thing I saw in Austin’s when he was choking me and calling me by my father’s name. That prophet look. If he could have broken Cy in two, he would’ve done it. And I’d stake Sweetwater against the fact that he’d have considered it holy work.”

“I don’t know that he had more than a passing acquaintance with any of the victims other than Edda Lou.”

“This is Innocence. Nobody gets through their life without knowing what there is to know about everybody else. What’s that saying about the apple not falling far from the tree? If Austin had it in him to kill, his son might have the same.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

Satisfied, Tucker nodded. When the phone rang, they both ignored it. From upstairs, Susie answered it on the second ring. “You’re going to be at Sweetwater tonight, for the fireworks?”

“Unless I want my wife and kids to leave me.”

“Carl, too?”

“No reason for him to stay in town when everybody’ll be out at your place. Why?”

Tucker moved his shoulders restlessly. “A lot of people, a lot of noise and confusion. I’m worried, especially about Josie and Caroline. I’d feel better knowing you and Carl are close.”

“Burke.” Susie came in. She was still in her robe, smelling of her shower with carnation-scented soap. Studying her, Burke thought she looked no more than twenty.

“Was that the office?” he asked her.

“No, it was Della.” She laid her hand over Tucker’s. “Matthew Burns had Dwayne brought in for questioning.”

If he hadn’t been so infuriated, Tucker would have been amused. The idea of Dwayne, soft-hearted, bleary-eyed Dwayne, as a murder suspect was certainly laughable. The fact that his brother had been yanked out of
bed and driven into town to be questioned by some smug-faced FBI agent was not.

Struggling with his temper, Tucker walked into the sheriff’s office with Burke. He wouldn’t lose it, he promised himself. It would suit Burns too well to kick him out. Instead, he flipped his brother a cigarette, then lighted one for himself.

“You getting an early start today, Burns,” Tucker said mildly. “Guess you forgot today’s a national holiday.”

“I’m aware of the date.” Burns stretched his legs behind Burke’s desk and kept his hands folded on top. “I’m also aware that you have a parade scheduled for noon. My business won’t interfere with your town’s celebrations. Sheriff, I’m told you’ll be blocking off the main drag by ten.”

“That’s right.”

“I’d like my car moved where I’ll be able to get in and out of town as necessary.” Taking out his keys, he set them on the edge of the desk.

Carl saw the flare in Burke’s eyes and stepped forward. “I’ll move it on down to Magnolia.” Jingling the keys in his hand, he stopped by Tucker. “I’m sorry, Tuck. I had orders to bring him in.”

“It’s all right, Carl. It shouldn’t take long to straighten this out. Heard your girl’s going to be twirling today.”

“She’s been practicing day and night. Her grand-pappy bought one of those video recorders so he can shoot her whole routine as she marches.”

“I’m sure that’s fascinating, Deputy,” Burns put in, “but we have business to conduct here,” His gaze shifted to Tucker. “Official business.”

“I’ll be sure to watch for her myself, Carl,” Tucker said. He waited until the deputy went out before taking another drag. “Dwayne, did they read you your rights?”

“Mr. Longstreet isn’t under arrest. Yet,” Burns interrupted. “He’s merely being questioned.”

“He’s got a right to a lawyer, doesn’t he?”

“Naturally.” Burns spread his hands. “If you’re concerned that your rights might be abused, Mr. Longstreet,
or that you may incriminate yourself, please feel free to call your attorney. We’ll be happy to wait.”

“I’d just as soon get it done.” Dwayne looked miserably at Tucker. “Sure could use some coffee, though, and a bottle of aspirin.”

“We’ll fix you up.” Burke patted his shoulder as he walked into the bathroom.

“This is official business, Longstreet.” Burns inclined his head in dismissal. “You have no place here.”

“Burke deputized me.” Tucker’s lips spread in a slow smile. Though Burke paused, lifting his brows as he came back in with the aspirin, he said nothing to contradict the statement. “He can always use some extra help on the Fourth.”

“That’s the truth,” Burke commented as he shook tablets from the plastic bottle. “And seeing as my youngest has a birthday today on top of it, I’d be obliged if we could get things moving.”

“Very well.” Burns punched in his recorder. “Mr. Longstreet, you reside at the property known as Sweetwater, in the county of Bolivar, Mississippi?”

“That’s right.” Dwayne accepted the mug of coffee and the aspirin. “The Longstreets have been at Sweetwater nearly two hundred years.”

“Yes.” History and family legacies didn’t interest Burns. “You live there with your brother and your sister.”

“And Della. She’s been housekeeper at Sweetwater for more than thirty years. And right now Cousin Lulu’s visiting.” Dwayne singed his tongue with the hot coffee, but the aspirin went down. “She’s a cousin on my mama’s side. No telling how long she’ll stay. Cousin Lulu’s been coming and going as she pleases as long as anyone can remember. I recollect once—”

“If you’ll save the home-boy routine,” Burns said, “I’d like to finish before the brass bands and batons.”

Dwayne caught Tucker’s grin and shrugged. “Just answering your question. Oh, and we’ve got Cy and Caroline with us now, too. That what you want to know?”

“Your marital status?”

“I’m divorced. Two years come October. That’s when the papers came through, wasn’t it, Tucker?” “That’s right.”

“And your ex-wife now lives where?”

“Up in Nashville. Rosebank Avenue. She’s got a nice little house there, close enough to school that the boys can walk.”

“And she is the former Adalaide Koons?”

“Sissy,” Dwayne corrected him. “Her little brother never could say Adalaide, so she was Sissy.”

“And Mrs. Longstreet was pregnant with your first son when you married?”

Dwayne frowned into his coffee. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business, but it’s no secret, I guess.”

“You married her to give the child a name.”

“We got married ’cause we figured it was best.”

With a murmur of agreement, Burns steepled his hands. “And shortly after the birth of your second child, you wife left you.”

Dwayne drained his coffee. Over the rim, his bloodshot eyes hardened. “That’s no secret either.”

“You’ll agree it was an unpleasant scene?” Burns shifted forward to read some notes. “Your wife locked you out of the house after a violent argument—I believe you’d been drinking heavily—and threw your belongings out of an upstairs window. She then took your children to Nashville, where she took up residence with a shoe salesman who moonlighted as a musician.”

Dwayne examined the cigarette Tucker had tossed him. “I guess that’s about right.”

“How did it make you feel, Mr. Longstreet, when the woman you had married under duress left you, taking your children, and turned to a second-rate guitar player?”

Dwayne took his time lighting the cigarette. “I guess she had to do what suited her best.”

“So you were amenable to the situation?”

“I didn’t try to stop her, if that’s what you mean. Didn’t seem like I was much good at being married anyway.”

“The divorce suit she filed against you accused you
of emotional cruelty, violence, erratic and unstable behavior, and stated you were a physical risk to both her and your children. Did that seem harsh?”