The Forsaken (10 page)

“Quinn’s never been much good at leaving things alone.”

“But if I ask him or you ask him, he’ll do it,” Diane said, “right? There’s no need to open things up if the survivors want it closed. That should mean something to him.”

“You want to sit down?”

“Not really.”

“You look a nervous mess, Diane,” Caddy said. “Sit.”

They found a center pew, four spaces back from the stage, Diane
wondering if indeed she did look like shit since she hadn’t looked in a mirror since getting to work that morning. She hadn’t dressed up or down and thought she was handling her conversation with Hank Stillwell pretty damn good, considering what he’d said. She now knew his obsession wasn’t just about Lori but about himself and about things haunting him as a man. Diane wanted out.

“What happened?”

Diane told her about meeting with Quinn and driving out to Jericho Road, riding out to a spot that she hadn’t visited in years, not ever wanting to see the place since coming up on it made her feel like she was coming up out of her skin. But she said she swallowed the fear, wanted to face things again, not let what happened control her and maybe put those events off her conscience and into the hands of the new sheriff, since the old one never seemed to listen.

“And what did he say?”

“He said he’d heard the stories and knew what happened to us,” Diane said. “But he needed to look at the old reports and talk to some people. I don’t want him talking to anybody. He starts talking to people and then things are going to come back on me. People are going to start to talk and point fingers, and, Caddy, I’m too old for that. This was too long ago. I can’t have that happen. And I can’t have anything else happen, either. People might get hurt.”

Caddy sat cool in the pew next to Diane, shit-kicker boot crossed at the knee, leaning up against the pew ahead, resting her chin on her forearm. A big cross made out of cedar logs hung from the rafters, swinging lightly in the breeze that cut in from outside.

“Don’t worry about Quinn,” Caddy said. “He takes care of himself and doesn’t scare easy. You’re the one sweating and it’s not even forty degrees outside.”

“This shit is making me think on things I hadn’t worried about for a
long time,” Diane said. “Things happened, some of it I recall, but other things feel like part of a dream. Things I heard whispered by my parents and some of the old people, who’d drop little comments on me, giving me a wink like I knew what they are talking about.”

There was a pleasantness to the old barn, the rough-hewn slats of wood, the still-present smell of feed and hay, even as support beams budded with speakers and the stage had been outfitted for a country gospel band. White Christmas lights wrapped most of the rafters and support beams, and there was a stillness about the place, even though people were hammering and talking outside. Lots of people, working to keep the ministry going.

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Caddy said. “But you need to let this all out to two men.”

“Jesus Christ and Quinn Colson?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caddy said. “Both can help you.”

“I might need the one carries a gun on his hip.”

“Tell Quinn,” Caddy said. “It doesn’t matter who out there wants you to keep things quiet. If it’s still important, still going on, he needs to know. He’ll look out for you. We’ll all look out for you. You’ve been a part of us since the beginning.”

Caddy reached out and squeezed Diane’s hand. Diane hadn’t noticed she was crying until she felt the wetness on her cheeks. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and snuffled a short laugh. “Something better not happen to me or you’ll have to rework Sunday’s service.”

“I got you down for ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and ‘There Will Be Peace in the Valley,’” Caddy said. “Momma is thrilled. Two of Elvis’s favorites. To Jean, something’s not really holy unless Elvis sung it.”

“I’ll do my best,” Diane said.

Caddy gripped Diane’s hand more and squeezed tighter. She looked her right in the eye and smiled, so much strength and confidence that
reminded Diane of Jamey Dixon, him being the one who’d first brought Diane to The River and got her to sing onstage, said she had a gift and he needed her to be a part of the rebirth of this county.

“He sure loved you, Caddy,” Diane said, regretting saying it before the words were even out of her mouth. Caddy withdrew her hand, stood abruptly but kept the smile going, and told her again to speak to Quinn.

“And after that?”

“Lay it all down for Jesus, sister,” Caddy said.

Y
ou take me to the nicest places, Quinn,” Ophelia Bundren said, looking cute and warm in a snug blue V-neck sweater dress and gray tights. “Are you trying to spoil me?”

“Blue plate special is chicken spaghetti and two sides,” Quinn said. “Depends on what you want for the sides.”

“To be honest, it’s just nice being away from work,” she said. “We had two funerals this morning and another one on Saturday. All of them people I know. All of them old. Do you know how hard it is to make old people look good when they die?”

“I imagine it’s tough to make any dead person look good,” Quinn said.

“You’d be surprised,” Ophelia said. “Some people look better in the box than on the street.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Take Miss Nelson, for instance,” Ophelia said. “In life, she wore that crazy red wig and enough paint on her face for a circus clown. I chose a different wig and toned down her cheeks and eyes. Gave her a softer look. Her husband whispered to me after the service it was the best she’d looked since her wedding day.”

“You are an artist, Miss Bundren.”

“I’d like to think so,” she said. “I just have a different canvas than most.”

“You want the special?” Quinn said, looking up at the waitress, an older frizz-haired woman named Mary. Quinn was pretty sure Mary had been at the Fillin’ Station diner since the day they opened. She’d been bringing food to Quinn since he was in a high chair.

Ophelia sighed and put down the menu that hadn’t changed much, either, over the years. “Only live once,” she said.

Quinn showed two fingers to the waitress and Mary walked off to the kitchen, Quinn and Ophelia framed in the front plate-glass window of what had been a Texaco service station. The owner had even found a couple of those glass-topped pumps from the thirties to place under the portico and hang some old-time gas signs in and around the restaurant. The room smelled like grease and cigarettes.

“You too tired to talk shop?” Quinn said.

“I thought this was a date?”

“If this was a date, I could do better,” Quinn said, pushing the file of the unknown man of ’77 toward her. “I might even take you to Vanelli’s in Tupelo for some Athenian lasagna. This is an autopsy report from before we were born. It was done by old Doc Stevens and contains a lot of medical information I need deciphered. Also there are a few photos in there that should help. I wouldn’t advise you look at them before lunch.”

“Seriously,” Ophelia said, “I see plenty of that before I even have breakfast. How bad can it be?”

Quinn didn’t say a word. He’d learned when a woman announced she had a certain thing on her mind, he was not one to get in her way.

“Jesus God,” Ophelia said, putting a hand to her mouth.

“Body was found out on Jericho Road not far from where a couple young girls were attacked,” Quinn said. “The body was never ID’d. But it looks like they have some dental records, and maybe some DNA left somewhere.”

“Damn,” Ophelia said, reading. “This wasn’t just murder, it was a punishment. What the hell happened?”

“I have some idea of what occurred but no idea of who he was,” Quinn said. “I’m hoping you might be able to tell me what could be done about it now. He had no ID on him, reports say he was homeless, a hitchhiker who’d come to Jericho. He was living like an animal off the Natchez Trace, had some kind of lean-to he’d fashioned out of old scrap wood and tin.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why would someone do this to another human?”

“I can tell you more later,” Quinn said. “Just take the file and let me know what I need to request from Jackson. I guess we start with the dental records.”

“Sure,” Ophelia said. “And you said there might be some DNA?”

Quinn shrugged. “There’s mention of bloody and burned clothes placed in evidence. Maybe a pair of boots. I can’t find any trace of them right now; my uncle had sort of a scattered filing system. But Lillie and I are looking. Also checking with the court archives in Oxford.”

“A black male, late twenties, measured at a little under six feet,” Ophelia said. “That’s it?”

Mary brought them two large sweet teas and blue plate specials. They’d forgotten to ask which sides, but the cook had just ladled on some green beans and fried eggplant. Not bad choices. They started to eat and didn’t talk. Quinn and Ophelia had been together long enough, and during some tough times after the tornado, that they felt solid around each other, no need to say much. They were the only ones in the restaurant, the time getting close to two, way past when normal folks ate lunch.

Ophelia had dark brown eyes and long brown hair with sideswept bangs she’d often push from her eyes as a nervous habit. When she was curious, skeptical, or worried, her mouth would turn into a thick red knot, holding what she had to say until she had chosen her words right. Most folks in Jericho considered her shy, or mousy, but she was more standoffish, slow to reveal herself in the typical Bundren way.

“This may not be the time,” Ophelia said, “but there’s nothing wrong if you were to stay with me in town a few days. I don’t give a good god damn what anyone says about me. And, hell, bring Hondo, too. You need some space of your own. And I’m closer to town.”

“People seem to be talking about me enough.”

“All bullshit.”

“Of course.”

“The ones that matter don’t talk that way.”

Quinn nodded. “I hope not,” he said. “It’s the ones who whisper that give you trouble.”

“How about a toothbrush at my place?” Ophelia said. “We start with a toothbrush . . .”

“Roger that,” Quinn said. “Always liked to travel light. Be prepared for whatever comes my way.”

•   •   •

Quinn rode
with Lillie
up into the hills around Carthage late that afternoon to find a man named E. J. Royce, who’d worked as a deputy with his late Uncle Hamp. Royce was an odd duck, as anybody in Jericho was guaranteed to echo if asked. How else would you describe a man who’d turned his back on all his people and came to town only for the most basic supplies? He preferred the company of dogs—coon dogs, to be exact—five or six of them meeting Quinn’s truck on the highway and following it on each side, baying and barking, until they got close to Royce’s shack.

The shack was fashioned together with plywood, Visqueen, and spit. Royce telling anyone who’d listen, from his children to his church, “I don’t ask for nothing I don’t need. I tend to my business. I take care of my own damn self.”

The dogs barked and bayed some more. Quinn and Lillie got out of the big F-250, walked to the front porch, and knocked on a little door that sat oddly low even for a short man like E. J. Royce.

The old man opened the little door with a broad grin, wearing Liberty overalls and a trucker cap from Tibbehah County Co-op, the main competition for Diane Tull’s Jericho Farm & Ranch. “Well, shit,” he said.

Royce always greeted Quinn that way.

“And you, too.”

Royce smiled. He almost never could remember Lillie’s name, always referring to her as that big-boned girl with grit.

“Good to see you, Mr. Royce,” Quinn said. “You got some time?”

“Y’all ain’t come to arrest me?”

“You do something wrong?” Lillie asked.

“Stick around a bit, darlin’,” Royce said, grinning, scratching the white whiskers on his chin. “I just might. Damn, you’re a tall drink of water.”

He invited them into his shack, waving to an old sofa covered in stacked clothes and fixed in places with duct tape. A couple of the dogs followed them inside and Royce shooed them away, telling them they knew better and needed an ass-whippin’, they didn’t watch out. But the old man patted them on the heads as he led them out and closed the door. Boxes lined the walls, bundles of clothes that Quinn knew had been dropped off by the Baptist church that he never used. A television set on top of two older television sets played an episode of
Gunsmoke
.

Quinn nodded to the television. “Always liked Matt Dillon.”

“Didn’t know it was back on the air till the other day,” Royce said. “Good to see something worth a shit on.”

Lillie took a seat on the couch, nodding at Quinn to do the same. Lillie was always getting onto Quinn about his abrupt military manner interfering with real investigations. She often told him to act nice, be friendly, make the other person comfortable. But, then again, a couple weeks ago Lillie promised an abuser that she would kick in his goddamn teeth if she ever again saw a mark on his girlfriend.

“How y’all been?” Royce said. “Your sister brought me a plate of supper
the other night. I told her she didn’t need to be gone and doing that. You know, I don’t ask for nothin’ I don’t need. I tend to my business. And I take care of own damn self.”

“I think I may have heard that, sir,” Quinn said.

Royce found an old kitchen chair toppled over under some clothes and brought it near the sofa. He smiled at Lillie and she smiled back. On television, Matt Dillon just killed three men and was walking down the center of the street in Dodge City. No one said jack shit.

“We need to talk to you about a murder that happened some time ago,” Lillie said. “I think you’re the last deputy around from the seventies.”

“Hal Strange is still kicking,” Royce said, “but he moved to Gulfport a few years ago.”

“I heard he died,” Lillie said.

“Nope,” Royce said. “Just got a Christmas card from his wife said they’d taken in some culture travels up in Gatlinburg, seeing some shows and all. Dinner theater and dancing.”

Lillie had brought in the file but didn’t open it. She just took her time, Quinn always letting her take the lead in an investigation. “Do you recall when those two girls were attacked on the Fourth of July? This was in 1977.”

Royce, who’d been smiling, now quit. He rubbed his hands over his old white whiskers, his flannel shirt as threadbare as possible without becoming translucent. “Sure,” he said. “That’s the stuff what’ll stick hard. I don’t know how y’all still work in law enforcement. Seems like them things happen more and more. But back then, that was something not regular. Things like that didn’t happen in Jericho.”

Quinn knew the local history but did not correct the old man.

“You ever catch the man who did it?” Lillie asked, the file placed between her knee and forearm that answered that very question.

“No, ma’am,” he said, “we sure didn’t. Sheriff Beckett took that shame
to his grave. I don’t think he ever gave up trying to find that man. The father of the dead girl. What’s his name?”

“Stillwell?”

“Yes, Stillwell,” Royce said. “Sure made a mess of that fella . . . sloppy, crazy-ass drunk.”

Royce nodded with certainty, the mountains of clothes, garbage, and boxes of useless shit reminding Quinn of the state he’d once found his uncle’s farm in. There were a lot of empty bottles of Old Grand-Dad lying about the shack, too, and coffee cans filled with cigarette butts.

Royce lit up a cigarette. Lillie joined him.

“So y’all had nothing?” Lillie said. “Not even some rumors or something to go on?”

“Sheriff Beckett must’ve paid out nearly a thousand dollars to informants,” he said. “Doc Stevens offered a big reward. Judge Blanton got some highway patrol folks to come over and look into things, taking the man’s description across the state. This shit looks bad for a town. Looks worse for law enforcement. It made the papers and the TV station in Tupelo. I remember for a few years they used to have a candlelight vigil on the Square. That lasted for a while and then I guess people just forgot about that Stillwell girl.”

Lillie tilted her head and bit her lower lip, cigarette still in hand. She flicked her eyes at Quinn and sat back in the duct-taped sofa.

“There was a second murder about that time?” Quinn said.

“Don’t recall that.”

Quinn nodded. He did not smile at the old man.

“You wrote the report,” Quinn said. “It was from July 6th of ’77. Man had been shot several times, his skull fractured, neck broken, and then his body was dragged out into the county and burned, his attackers probably trying to get rid of any evidence.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed at Quinn. He smoked a bit more and
then stubbed out the cigarette under his old boots right there in his living room. “Something like that comes to mind. Sure. What of it?”

“Didn’t y’all think maybe these two events were connected?” Lillie asked.

“What do you mean?”

Lillie swallowed and took in a very long breath. Lillie Virgil had trouble with patience but could wrangle her emotions when needed. “Victim was a black male in his late twenties,” Lillie said. “Perp in the rape was a black male in his late twenties.”

Royce had a wide look of confusion on his face, sort of like a man you’d see lost in a big city, wandering around, trying to find something familiar.

“I just don’t know, doll,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

“It’s Deputy Virgil,” she said. “My name is Deputy Virgil.”

“And this was a long time back,” Royce said. “Wish I could be more help. Y’all want some pie? I got two old women who bring me more pie than a dozen men could eat. I think I got some chocolate and maybe some pecan? Y’all stick around. I think
Gunsmoke
’s gonna start again in a second.”