The Forsaken (12 page)

Q
uinn slipped out of bed with Ophelia at midnight, finding his creased Levi’s and stiff khaki shirt folded across a chair. She stirred from the bed, ran a hand through her dark hair, and rose up to look at the clock. She was still naked, the covers only concealing her from the waist down.

“Stay,” she said. “It’s raining.”

“I got to be up in five hours.”

“What happened to your toothbrush?”

“I already brushed my teeth.”

“Or razor?”

“You told me to hold off on the razor.”

“God damn you, Quinn Colson.”

Quinn pulled into his jeans and slipped on his shirt with the star stitched on the sleeve. He sat on the bed as he worked the buttons. The rain pinged the tin roof of Ophelia’s house and wind shook the shutters. In the dim light, he could see his badge and gun on the nightstand. The television still flickered in the living room, where they’d watched about five minutes of
Man of the West
before making their way back to her bedroom and getting down to business. The routine of it all had been quite pleasant.

“You really pay fifty dollars for a pair of panties?” he asked.

“You think they’re worth it?”

“Didn’t keep ’em on that long.”

Ophelia smiled at him, not trying to cover up her full breasts with their large dark nipples, and watched him. She lay sideways, elbow on mattress and head crooked in hand.

“Until a few months ago,” Quinn said, “I never knew about that ruby in your belly.”

“I’ve had that since high school,” she said. “You wouldn’t know because you were already gone.”

“Maybe I would’ve come home more often.”

“Maybe so.”

“You probably had lots of women at Fort Benning.”

“I knew a few girls in Columbus,” Quinn said. “One girl in Phenix City wasn’t too bad.”

“What happened?”

“She took little pride in her underwear.”

Ophelia rolled on her back and laughed, tucking a pillow up behind her head, stretching her arms high. “Come back.”

“Five hours.”

“I thought Rangers could work on little sleep, no food.”

“That’s true.”

“Why don’t you consider me a test?”

“Kind of like doing PT?” Quinn said.

“Exactly.”

The wind was pretty damn violent and the rain sounded like pennies hitting the metal roof. He started to unbutton his shirt again when he heard his phone buzz by his gun. The screen flashed on, lighting up the room. Ophelia just shook her head and said, “Shit.”

Quinn picked it up and got Kenny, who was on night patrol. “Sheriff, dispatch just got a call from Diane Tull. She’s got a creeper around her house. I’m headed that way now, but I’m clear up to Fate.”

“Roger that,” Quinn said. “Meet you there.”

Quinn stood and rebuttoned his shirt and scooped up his gun, badge, and pair of cowboy boots as he walked to the living room. Ophelia followed, slipping into the tight black T-shirt she’d had on earlier with those high-dollar lace panties. She kissed him at the door and he walked out into the rain.

He paused for a moment.

Six houses up, on top of a hill, was Anna Lee Stevens’s big Victorian, the low green light shining from her screened-in porch, half the house ripped away and now rebuilt with unpainted wood and brand-new windows. But that side porch was the same. And that damn green light that shined every night all night.

Quinn looked away and sped off in the opposite direction. Glad not to have to study on that too long.

•   •   •

She saw
the man
and he saw her. And then he was gone. In the darkness and by candlelight, she lifted the phone off the hook and called 911, saying she had a creeper, a fucking pervert, wanting to see her naked. But as soon as Diane put down the phone, she was filled with such a goddamn almighty rage that some son of a bitch had invaded her space, her home, her yard, that she went out into the wind and the rain with the J. C. Higgins to make sure the bastard damn well knew.

She followed the short steps off the door from the kitchen and out into her backyard, turning to the right and left, shotgun tucked up under her right armpit, raised and ready to scatter some buckshot.

The wind chimes were going wild on the front porch, rain coming down hard now, falling sideways, making things tough to see in the night, as she took a wide berth around the side of her old house, looking from the tree line to the crepe myrtles and azaleas. Even thought it was deep winter, some of her daffodils had started to barely poke from the front
lawn, now crushed under her bare feet as she moved onto the driveway, which seemed a lot longer than usual. She didn’t see a thing along the street, all the other houses in darkness, as she made her way to the mailbox. She dropped the shotgun down for just a moment to use her forearm to wipe the rain from her eyes.

She knew all the cars and trucks on her little street. She worried for a half second about what she looked like, in pajama bottoms, a man’s tank top, barefoot, and cradling a gun.

She was turning back to the house when she saw the man dart from the hedges on the other side of her house, running for the road, as she picked up the gun, leveled it at him, and yelled for him to “Stop, you stupid son of a bitch!”

Of course he didn’t listen.

“I said, fucking stop, you fucking bastard.”

She squeezed the trigger, the man running off from the blast from forty, fifty feet away. Diane felt like she was in a trance, moving past her black mailbox hand-painted with curving colorful flowers. She jacked another shell into the breech and leveled the shotgun again and fired again. And then again. The shotgun ramming hard into the crook of her shoulder.

The man was gone. Diane just stood there in the rain, on the road, trying to catch her breath. Lights flicked on in all the houses down the little street. Dogs barked.

From down the road, two little streets down, she heard a motorcycle kick to life, making a great noisy racket, kicking into gear, the engine growling as it turned into her street. Diane just saw that single taillight as the rider rushed past, too far away for another shot, and made it up and over the hill.

She walked back toward her house, waiting on the police, when she noticed what he’d done. The son of a bitch had slashed her tires, the rims lying flat and hard on the ground.

And the fella had also decided to spray-paint a few words on the driver’s door and the truck bed.

In sloppy, loose letters, the message read
SHUT YORE GD MOUTH
.

God damn it, Diane thought, shotgun resting up on her shoulder. If she could’ve just gotten a little closer, she might have taken a nice hunk out of his ass.

Shut your GD mouth.

Now, that was fucking original.

•   •   •

“You’re soaked,”
Quinn said.

“So I am,” Diane Tull said.

Quinn kept his eyes front and center on her forehead; her man’s tank top was wet to the point of being translucent.

“Let’s head inside, ma’am.”

“I thought we covered the ma’am thing,” Diane said, giving a nervous laugh. Hair in a ponytail, black, with that one silver streak hanging down loose. “I can’t take that shit tonight, Sheriff. You say that again and I’ll punch you.”

Diane was still holding a shotgun and she seemed agitated and quite nervous. The wind and rain had grown worse, blowing across the headlights of Quinn’s still-running truck. His dispatch radio squawked inside the cab.

“Do you mind, Miss Tull?” Quinn said. He opened his right hand and Diane handed over her shotgun. An old J. C. Higgins, the house brand of Sears & Roebuck. His uncle and his dad had similar guns. He studied the gun, mostly in an effort to keep his eyes averted from her chest.

They walked back into her driveway and she showed him what he had done to her truck. Quinn shined a flashlight across the driver’s door.

“Well,” Quinn said, “he can’t spell worth shit. Who spells
your
like that?”

“Some dumb shit.”

“And your tires?” Quinn said, shaking his head. “That’s just plain mean.”

“Seeing that bastard’s face in my kitchen window was enough to give me a start.”

“I bet,” Quinn said, following Diane out of the rain, around her old white bungalow, and up some steps and into her kitchen. She had a candle going, on account of the power being out, and she lit two more and found a little battery-powered lantern to set on the kitchen counter.

“You get a decent look?” he asked.

“Hell no,” Diane said. “He was a white man with a scraggly beard and long hair. He had on jeans and a red flannel shirt. That could be half the fucking rednecks in north Mississippi. Fifty people on a Saturday at Walmart in Tupelo.”

“How tall?”

“A little shorter than you.”

“Less than six feet?”

“Just under.”

“Build?”

“Skinny.”

“Age?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Diane said. “Not old. Not young.”

“Thirties?”

She nodded. “Sure,” she said, “I figure.”

“Eye color?”

She shook her head.

“Hair color?”

“Could’ve been lighter, but it seemed brown,” she said. “He was wearing a ponytail and his hair was wet. Oh, hell.”

Quinn nodded. The kitchen was very small and intimate, Diane Tull standing on one side of the counter in front of the stove, Quinn sitting on
the other side, writing into his notebook. He noted the time of her call, her address, her Social Security number, and the basics of what had happened before she had discovered the man had vandalized her truck.

“And he just ran?”

“I shot at him,” she said. “Twice. Damn, I was too far away.”

Quinn nodded. “What direction?”

“Toward the Square,” she said. “He got two streets down and got on a motorcycle. I saw him ride away, up over the hill, to the Square.”

“I know it was raining and dark, but did you see anything about the bike?”

“No,” she said. “I heard it more than saw it. It had those special mufflers folks have, really loud, you could’ve heard the damn thing ten miles away.”

“Any chance you got him with the shotgun?”

Diane’s face looked drawn, hands trembling around a glass of water, as she shook her head. “I wish.”

“I’m going to call dispatch with what we know,” Quinn said. “Then I’m going to look around your house some more. We have a deputy headed this way. He’ll sit on your house all night.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I don’t think that bastard’s coming back.”

“Maybe not,” Quinn said. “But I’d feel better with Kenny sitting on things.”

“Kenny?” she said. “Really?”

“He’s tougher than he seems.”

“God, I hope so.”

Diane put down the glass of water and wrapped her arms around herself. She shivered a bit and used a dishtowel to dry her face. She was more than twenty years older than Quinn but didn’t look her age, still attractive, with her high cheekbones and black hair with its long streak of silver.
Diane Tull wore Levi’s and work shirts, and had been a good friend to his mother and Caddy, helping Caddy, even though Caddy wouldn’t admit it, after Jamey’s death and on through the mess of the storm. Quinn couldn’t even recall all the free stuff she’d donated to The River.

“Who else knows you and I spoke?” Quinn said. “Caddy and who else?”

“That’s it,” she said.

She looked away, thinking on something. Quinn tilted her head, watched her face, and stayed quiet.

“Well, there’s another. But he’d never say a word. He’s too sensitive about things.”

“Who?”

“I’d rather not say,” Diane said.

Quinn removed the spent shells from the shotgun. He asked if she had more and she nodded and said she had boxes and boxes in her bedroom.

“If he’s the only other person,” Quinn said, “stands to reason . . .”

Diane swallowed and nodded a bit. “Hank Stillwell.”

“He upset you’re bringing all this up?” Quinn said. “Has to be sensitive to him.”

“No,” Diane said, shaking her head, wiping the rain off her arms and across her chest and over her wet tank top, “not at all.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He’s the one who come to me and asked me to stoke it,” Diane Tull said. “He said you’re the only man who can find out who murdered his daughter.”

“This may not be the time,” Quinn said, “but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“The man who got burned up?”

Quinn nodded.

“It’s been a hell of a night, Sheriff,” she said. “I got to get those tires
changed before I get to work in a few hours and then figure out how to get those cusswords off my truck. I’d rather not churn all that up right now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “Kenny and I can help you with those tires. I’ll call a friend.”

“Appreciate that, Sheriff,” she said. “You’re a good man.”

“Your vote in this spring’s election would be much appreciated,” Quinn said, tipping at his baseball cap.

M
y brother isn’t too fond of your friends,” Jean Beckett said, sitting on the back of Jason’s baby blue Shovelhead Harley, looking pretty as can be, running her mouth over a soft serve vanilla cone.

“They’re not my friends,” Jason said. “Big Doug is a friend. But the others are just some boys I met. They’re good fellas, a little hot-tempered, but good fellas.”

“My brother said y’all got into a rumble with another gang up in Olive Branch,” she said. “One man got hurt real bad at some barbecue pit. He’s still in the hospital in Memphis.”

“Your brother is the sheriff,” Jason said, licking a little bit off his chocolate cone. “I guess he hears things.”

The yellow-and-red glow from the Dairy Queen shone down on the parking lot and out into the rolling Big Black River, not far off Highway 45, out on Cotton Road.

“He’s just looking out for me,” Jean said. “I think he’s more concerned that you’ve left your roots and gone Hollywood.”

“That much is true.”

“You’re all Hollywood?” Jean said.

“Through and through,” Jason said. “How’d you like to come out west with
me? I leave in a couple weeks and I’m driving through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. You’ve never seen any country like it. You ever been out of Jericho?”

“Hell yes,” she said. “I’ve been to New York City.”

“How many times?”

“Once,” Jean said, looking away, smiling. “With my senior class. I’ve been to New Orleans a bunch. I’ve gone to Mardi Gras three times.”

“How’d you like to ride on the back of my bike up the PCH?”

“Depends on what the hell’s the PCH.”

“Pacific Coast Highway,” Jason said. “We follow the ocean all the way up to San Francisco. We’ll camp out at Big Sur, eat crabs at Fisherman’s Wharf, make love on the beach at Santa Cruz.”

“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Jason Colson.”

Jason grinned. He wrapped his arm around Jean Beckett’s narrow waist, feeling the warm tautness of her belly, lifting her red hair off the nape of her neck, and kissing her at the hairline while she finished up the soft serve.

The Dairy Queen was an odd little building, looking queer and out of place right at the edge of that dirty old river. It was just a cinder-block box with big neon sign above the open-air counter, where teenage girls served burgers, dogs, and milk shakes. They wore tight white shirts and kept their hair in ponytails and most nights played a rock ’n’ roll station out of Memphis.

Jason kissed Jean’s neck and she rubbed his beard.

“I’m not supposed to say this,” Jean said, “but Hamp thinks your running around with those boys is going to get you into trouble. He thinks maybe it’d be best if you left town for a while. He calls the man who runs things, what’s his name? Chains? He says he’s a stone-cold sociopath.”

“He’s not my biggest fan,” Jason said. “But I think he got his eggs a little scrambled in ’Nam. I just don’t think he can stand for people to tell him what to do, doesn’t care for the way most people live by laws and old-fashioned kind of phoniness.”

“I’d watch my step,” Jean said. “He sounds batshit crazy to me.”

Jason finished his ice cream and tossed the rest of the cone toward a trash barrel. The speakers at the stand were playing Elton John, recalling for Jason some sweet times down in San Diego with a young actress he’d dated a couple years ago. Dune buggies and wet bathing suits and burning driftwood on the beach. Jason had felt he was on another planet than Jericho. He hoped he could do the same for Jean. This wasn’t living.

“Before we go any further,” Jason said, “I need you to understand something about me.”

Jean leaned back into Jason, shoulders pressing into his chest, that red hair blowing in the hot wind off the river, driving him crazy.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” Jason said. “Since I was a kid, I hated when someone said I was too scared or I couldn’t do something. My brother Jerry got rich taking bets from kids in town about what his brother might try next. I could climb the tallest trees. Dove off that bridge over there when I was ten. Headfirst.”

“That is crazy.”

“That’s just the way I am,” Jason said. “It’s the way I make my living. Every day I’m out there, someone in L.A. is playing chicken with my livelihood. The day I say
no mas
, my reputation is done. That’s one of the many things I’ve learned from Mr. Needham.”

“So you want me to know your profession is being crazy,” Jean asked. “And riding with some real cutthroats while you’re back home is just another way of proving yourself.”

“Every day, Miss Jean.”

She got off his slick Harley, Jason watching her walk over to toss the rest of her ice cream in the trash barrel. She had on cowboy boots, with cutoff jeans and a white peasant top that was next to nothing. Jason’s heart just kind of caught for a moment as she turned, smiled, and walked toward him. Jason
moving up on the seat, kicking the bike to start, and Jean Beckett crawling on back with him, wrapping her long arms around his waist. “Just where are we going, Jason Colson?” she whispered.

“Don’t have any plans.”

“Just promise me one thing,” she said, her words hot and warm in his ear.

Jason revved the motor. The little girls working the Dairy Queen squealed.

“Don’t you ever lie to me,” she said. “When that happens, there’s no second chances.”