The Forsaken (7 page)

She stood and pointed to the charred relic of what had maybe been a big oak.

“All of a sudden, he told us to run,” she said. “He said run, get gone, he was through with the whores, and we ran to that old house, even though
the house might’ve been worse. I always wondered why we didn’t run to the road, away from this place, but the house was shelter and closer and I guess we were thinking he’d leave us and go back to his car.”

“How far did y’all get?”

“From here?”

Quinn nodded. Hondo had wandered over to Diane Tull and moved his head and shoulders up against her leg. She had her right hand draped at her side and was rubbing his ears. She did not seem to be sad or uncomfortable, simply stating a historical fact of that horrific night, laying it all out for the law as she’d promised Caddy Colson. Quinn stood and watched her as she looked across the pasture and thought, her finally saying, “Maybe thirty feet, and then he started shooting. I heard the shot and then Lori slumped and fell and there was blood on me because we were running so close. When I stopped to help her, I felt the tear in my back and the crack of the shot and then two more. He shot me twice in the back and then I fell. The moon was so bright then. I remember that. That bastard getting plenty of light to do his shit.”

S
tagg had gotten the key to the hunt lodge from one of Vardaman’s people, the senator providing the space, with Stagg bringing the booze and the women to the party. He employed a sixteen-year-old black kid named Willie James Jones, who carried in the crates of whiskey, while Ringold drove the Rebel Truck Stop van with eight girls from the Booby Trap. Before they’d come out, he made it absolutely clear this was in no way related to their duties, but if they wanted a shitload of tips, they were welcome to come along. Only problem with the offer was turning down a dozen girls. He decided to choose a couple young black girls, a Vietnamese, a Mexican, and four white girls. One of the white girls had the best goddamn tatas he’d seen in his life—natural, too—that she could wrap around a man’s head like a hat.

“Where you want this, sir?” asked Willie James.

“Back bar underneath them ducks,” Stagg said. “You see the ducks?”

Willie James nodded and kept walking through the open lodge over to the big fireplace and long bar. The walls were decorated with all manner of dead animals, stuffed ducks and deer and bobcat, Mississippi creatures. But the senator was also fond of going on over to Africa, and a game preserve in Texas, where he’d killed a rhino, a lion, and some wild animals
Stagg couldn’t name. All the animals looked as dumb and glass-eyed as the girls who wandered in with Ringold, mouths hanging open since this was a good bit nicer than any of the trailers they’d been raised in out in Ackerman or Pontotoc.

“Please refrain from drinking unless y’all are asked,” Stagg said. “These are fine men. They don’t care for sloppy women.”

The women nodded, the girl with the big tatas popping purple bubble gum as she listened. The two black girls wore identical pink kimonos, while the rest wore terry cloth robes over their bikinis and lingerie, already dressed for work.

“How about some music?” asked one of the black girls. Her name was Jaquita or Janiqua or some kind of crazy name. “Ain’t a party with no music. Shit . . .”

“Sure,” Stagg said. “As long as it’s either country or western.”

The girls sighed and Stagg walked out of the room back to the big kitchen where Willie James had laid out the cheese-and-sausage trays from Piggly Wiggly with some plates of cold fried chicken brought down special from Gus’s in Memphis. Like always, the men could come into the kitchen, grab a plate of chow, and wander on out to the big room by the big stone fireplace to mingle with the ladies. The ladies were being paid by the hour, but the men knew it was customary to leave a tip, although there was this flunky from Jackson who gave a girl only two bits after intercourse. Stagg would never forget the low class of that fella or his people.

“Mr. Stagg?”

Stagg turned to see a little white girl, whose name he couldn’t quite recall, come into the kitchen and ask if they might talk. She eyed the buffet of food and licked her lips and Stagg told her it was fine, go ahead and grab something to eat. “There might not be time later,” he said. “While you tend to the business.”

She didn’t hesitate, grabbing an Ole Miss paper plate, and started to
gather chicken legs, cheese, and sausage. “I ain’t eaten all day, Mr. Stagg. Thank you.”

Stagg smiled at her and waved a hand over the feast.

She inhaled the food so fast that Stagg worried she might choke, waiting for her to take a breath. “You had something you wanted to ask?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “But I don’t rightly know how to say it.”

Willie James peered up at Stagg from the long counter, where he was slicing up fruits and vegetables with as much skill as any Jap chef he’d seen on television.

“It’s OK,” Stagg said. “You want to whisper it?”

“Well,” said the girl. “Last time, one of those men, a fat man from Tupelo who owns all those car dealerships . . .”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stagg said, knowing his name and knowing the girl did, too. His big, florid face plastered on every billboard from Jericho to Batesville.
No Money Down. Bad Credit? No Problem.

“Well,” the girl said. “He had some unusual requests last time. I’d rather not be his date.”

“What kind of things?”

The girl, short and small-boned, with hair like a pixie doll, leaned in and whispered into Stagg’s ear. She was very direct and specific about the acts.

“Good Lord Almighty,” Stagg said. He shook his head. “Man must’ve been raised in a barn.”

“And then he wanted me to finish it with a . . .” the girl said, then whispering some more.

“I get the idea,” Stagg said, feeling his face burn. “Hot damn. Well, all I can say is, keep a wide berth around that fella. I wouldn’t let him near my dog.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stagg nodded, not listening anymore, standing back and appraising the
table’s bounty, the silver and finery that belonged to the absent senator. He watched as Willie James pulled gallon jugs of Southern Comfort and Smirnoff Vodka from boxes and laid them all out in a pretty-straight line. A nut tray with a silver cracker was offered next to the crystal glasses and cocktail napkins.

The girl took a breath, robe hanging open loose and easy, exposing a pink bra-and-panty set. She wore blue Crocs on her little feet.

“I guess we all got to pay them pipers,” the girl said. “My daddy said the only way we’d ever sit at a rich man’s table is to set it for him.”

Staggs’s face colored, with more blood rushing to his weathered old cheeks. He reached for a peppermint in his pocket. “How about you wait with the other ladies, doll?” Stagg said. “The gentlemen will be here right quick.”

•   •   •

“Sure do
appreciate
y’all coming here this afternoon,” said the DA investigator from Oxford, a man named Dale Childress. “I thought this would be a good spot, New Albany being a good midpoint.”

Quinn and Lillie sat across from him in conference room at a Hampton Inn off Highway 78. As it started to rain on the way over, Lillie had declared the entire journey a big fuck-you. She said Childress didn’t drive to Tibbehah because he knew about Quinn hiring Stevens. Here he could sit down and chew the fat, be pleasant, and make sure they all knew this was routine. Childress opened up a file and smiled across the table at Lillie. He’d offered them some bad coffee and stale muffins.

“So are you going to shit or get off the pot?” Lillie said.

“Excuse me?” Childress asked. He was younger than Quinn had first thought on the phone, maybe five years older than Quinn and Lillie, with thinning brown hair and a short-clipped mustache. He wore a wrinkled polo shirt that read
Investigator
over the breast pocket and khaki pants nearly two inches too short.

“We been through this already with another investigator,” Quinn said. “Twice.”

“Me and him rotate on the counties,” Childress said. “On account of there’s only two investigators for eight districts. Y’all sure you wouldn’t like some coffee or muffins?”

“What we’d like,” Lillie said, “is knowing how much longer this is going to last. We’re hearing that y’all plan to take this to the grand jury. If this inquiry is trying to put together a case, we need our lawyer here.”

Childress held up a hand and said, “Whoa. No, ma’am. This is just a fact-checking visit, like I said on the phone. I didn’t want to show up in Jericho to make it appear to your constituents that it was anything but. I respect all law enforcement. I consider myself part of that team, and anytime I conduct an inquiry into official affairs, I’m not trying to buck the system. What y’all went through with them convicts sounded like pure hell. But if the DA didn’t cross the t’s and dot the i’s on what happened to Leonard Chappell, people might wonder. He was the chief of police.”

“And so crooked, they had to screw him into the ground,” Lillie said.

Quinn reached under the table and grabbed her knee.

“I’ve met with Mr. Chappell’s family and friends,” Childress said. “They’re still in a state of shock over the allegations and his death.”

Lillie snorted. Quinn took a deep breath.

“That man came to kill me and another man named Jamey Dixon,” Quinn said. “If I hadn’t shot first, I’d be dead. He has a long history of ethics abuse and was out of his jurisdiction.”

“Yes, sir,” Childress said, tapping his pen at the edge of his legal pad. “That part sure is clear to me. What we are trying to figure out is who killed all those other men and why. Why did you, Sheriff, drive a former convict, Jamey Dixon, out to the scene? What benefit was he?”

“He was the goddamn trade,” Lillie said. “Didn’t you read the reports before you had us drive all the way over here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Childress said. “I read the reports several times. But
some things aren’t making sense to me. For me to get this gone and for all of us to go back to our lives, we got to make those weird pieces fit. It’s all like a puzzle.”

Lillie laced her fingers, clenched her jaw and leaned into the table. “I’m aware how it works, Mr. Childress.”

“OK,” he said. “OK. Let’s just start off with some basic info. Sheriff Colson, you are former military, serving in the Army for ten years?”

Lillie sighed. Quinn nodded.

“Might I ask what made you retire and return back to Jericho?”

“Oh, hell,” Lillie said. “Here it comes. Quinn, you have Sonny’s ass on speed dial?”

Quinn stared across at Childress. He did not blink and set his jaw.

“There were several men shot out at a place called Hell’s Creek,” Childress said. “That was before you became sheriff. Can you tell me what that was all about?”

Quinn stared across at Childress, the man grinning like the sun was shining and all was right in the state of Mississippi. Quinn took out his cell phone and scrolled through to find Stevens’s number. “I’ll be right back,” Quinn said.

•   •   •

The men
came
to the hunt lodge, exhausted from a day touring the tornado sites. They’d shaken a lot of hands and given a lot of hugs. There were prayers said, words of appreciation given, and many tears shed. Stagg had heard them all. There was the woman who’d been sucked out of a bathtub and landed five miles away. There was the old man who’d lost his wife of thirty years, his home, and his old black Lab. There was a cute set of orphans who rode it out under a table and an ugly woman who claimed Jesus held her hand while she sat on the shitter. Stagg liked hearing the stories, it gave the town some character and helped sell the forward
momentum that Tibbehah County needed. Like the sign on Highway 45 read
Gateway to Mississippi’s Future
.

“Mr. Stagg?” said the black stripper named Jaquita or Janiqua. “I think I sprained my wrist.”

“Well, darling, I don’t think there’s any workmen’s comp for tossing a man’s pecker.”

“That ain’t what did it,” she said. “I ain’t done that tonight. One of those fools wanted to arm-wrestle and I thought he was joking but he took it real seriously. He was drinking Scotch from the bottle and kept on calling me his Little Hot Chocolate.”

“Go see Willie James in the kitchen,” Stagg said. “Let him get you a bag of ice. How about an extra fifty for the trouble?”

She left where Stagg sat alone at a big poker table facing the open room of the hunt lodge, thick pine beams steepled overhead, six bedroom doors opening out on the second-floor balcony. Every few minutes you could hear a woman’s cry or a man’s loud grunts as he finished his business. The whole party had grown sparse as the men and girls had paired off and left the silver trays of half-eaten chicken and picked-over, hardened cheese. Stagg made himself a ham sandwich to go with a tall glass of Alka-Seltzer and waited for the boys he’d called to show up. He’d deal with that mess and then drive on back to the Rebel, wait for Ringold to drive the van full of girls back to the Booby Trap and pick up eight fresh ones. This shit was going to go on all night or until the Viagra ran out.

At eight o’clock exactly, his cell phone rang. The ID reading
BLOCKED
meant the man was waiting outside for him. He got up and followed the stairs to the second bedroom door, knocking softly and hearing shuffling inside. The old gray-headed Trooper answered the door, looking pretty mad until he saw it was Stagg, and then grunted, “Let me get my pants and my gun. Is he here?”

“Yes, sir,” Stagg said. “Waiting outside.”

Stagg glanced through the cracked door and saw his little pixie lying on the bed, buck-naked and passed-out asleep. The old Trooper jerked a thumb at the girl and said, “Shit, Johnny. You git ’em young, don’t you? When I got her clothes off, I felt like you’d laid out some jailbait.”

“Were you disappointed?”

The man slid into his pants, smiled, and shook his buzz-cut head. He reached for his badge and gun on a chest of drawers. Two ducks petrified in midflight hung over the bed. He let himself out and followed Stagg through the big room and through the kitchen and outside. It had started to rain sometime in the last few hours they’d been at the lodge. A light mist fell across the headlights of a black Crown Vic with the windshield wipers going.

Stagg and the old Trooper stood side by side, waiting for the man to get out. The engine was still running as he met them in the headlights and asked how the party was going.