Vengeance is Mine (23 page)

Chapter Forty-nine

Taking a back route to Center Springs, Sheriff Griffin stopped his personal car at the intersection of two country roads when radio traffic told him about the massive backup from the wreck on Highway 271. With a sigh, he picked up the microphone. “Martha, this is Griffin. What happened out on two seventy-one?”

“This is Harriet, Donald.”

“It don't make any difference. What do you know?”

“That Cody and John Washington are working a bad wreck at Gate Five with a couple of other deputies. I hear it's a mess. They asked for a more units.” She gave him a brief report. “You going out there?”

“Washington's there?”

“Yep. Cody called him in for help since he was out that way.”

Griffin felt his face redden. Wouldn't anything go right?

Washington was supposed to be at Rachel's house when Griffin's bank-robbing couple out of Dallas, Myrna Wren and Ralph Hatchlett, came by. He rubbed the stubble on his cheek. With so much on his mind, he'd forgotten to shave for two days in a row. “No. Send White and have him check back with me after a while.”

Instead of answering, she clicked the talk button a couple of times in acknowledgement and called White. “Deputy White, please proceed…”

An idea occurred to Griffin as he sat at the intersection and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Why hadn't he thought of it before? He'd drive to Agrioli's house while the gangster was waiting out in the woods like an idiot, kill the woman, and when the gangster arrived at home, he'd simply shoot him when he came through the door.

Washington and the Parkers would be another matter, though, and so would another loose end he had to tie up. He had to do something about his bank robbers flailing around without finishing their job. Despite their performance on the day of the bank robbery, Myrna and Ralph needed to be eliminated.

His plan had worked perfectly up to that point. Avoiding the local constabulary's best efforts, the couple simply drove to Griffin's house and parked in his garage. They stayed inside until he took them to Dallas late one night when things cooled down. Then they were supposed to come back and shoot Washington and Agrioli.

He wiped nervous sweat from his forehead and thumped the steering wheel, counting off other issues.

The Mexicans screwed it all up from the beginning. He should have known better than to trust those greasers down there. The whole thing started when they paid him a butt-load of hush money to look the other way while they funneled dope into his county, except half the cash was counterfeit.

Changing the funny money in Vegas should have worked, in theory. Best's plan was sound, but Griffin couldn't resist the temptation to work the casinos at night. After giving the real cash to Best in a good-faith exchange, Griffin spent two days visiting casinos and converting his leftover paper.

He got the idea by watching the dealers at the tables. When someone handed them cash, they simply stuck it down a slot in the table and exchanged it for chips. How could that idea go wrong? He knew he was smarter than the dealers, and it was impossible to recognize the counterfeit bills with such a quick glance. But they somehow figured it out and sent Agrioli.

I could turn around right now, catch a plane at Love Field in two hours and be in Tahiti day after tomorrow.

He had enough money to live like a king in the South Pacific, despite the double cross from the Mexicans. He would have a million dollars squirreled away if it weren't for them and the Parkers, who had torn his playhouse down bit by bit.

He took a deep, satisfying breath. He'd leave for his trip to Tahiti first thing in the morning, after he was finished with the Parkers.

“By God, I'll kill them myself.”

The coming thunderstorm was almost overhead. A Chevrolet sedan approached at a high rate of speed and slowed as it neared the four-way stop. It waited, idling.

In the failing light, Griffin squinted through his bug-splattered windshield at the occupants in a car so dusty it almost blended with the overgrown fencerows. They were extremely animated, and he realized the arguing couple was Myrna and Ralph.

“What the hell?” Knowing they wouldn't recognize his personal car, Griffin shifted into park and opened the door. Sensing they were ready to bolt, he stepped out and waved. “Hey, you idiots.”

Recognizing him, Myrna pointed. Ralph pulled forward and stopped, headlights raking the pasture and trees. “Sheriff. How'd you know we'd be here? You following us somehow?”

“Not hardly.” He noticed a long scuff mark down the side of their car. “It was you two who caused that wreck on highway two-seventy-one?” Griffin stepped away from his car and moved to the driver's window. He glanced around at the empty asphalt road. “What are y'all doing out here? Did you do it? Agrioli and Washington are dead?”

Myrna jerked her thumb toward the driver. “Ralph the tough guy here got scared.”

“I'm confused.”

Ralph shrugged. “We're lost.”

She hit him on the shoulder with her fist. “We've been lost since we left that nigger's house. Yeah,
Stupid
here ran smack-dab into a truck full of field hands on our way out to kill Washington and Agrioli.”

“So it
was
y'all that caused that wreck?” Griffin wanted to laugh. “What are y'all doing
here
?”

Griffin noticed Ralph kept plucking at a dirty towel on the seat between them with nervous fingers. He asked again, more forcefully. “You didn't kill Washington and Agrioli like I told you to?”

“No, Myrna and I tried. We really did.” Ralph wouldn't meet his eyes. “We were pretty rattled after we hit that truck, and things fell apart when we got to that nigger gal's house. I was getting ready to tie her up when people started coming at us from all directions with guns. The only thing we could do was leave.”

Griffin sighed and checked the highway again. “Who came with guns?”

“We don't know who they were. I think Washington set up an ambush, but we got the hell out of there.”

“Did they recognize you?”

The couple exchanged glances. “They saw our faces, but they won't know who we are.”

Thunder rumbled. Griffin straightened to squint toward the towering thunderheads. There was barely enough to light to inside the car. “I still don't get why y'all are here?”

“We don't have a map, and then when we
did
find the highway again, it was the same place where we caused the wreck. Every law in the county was there in the middle of the biggest traffic jam I've ever seen.”

Ralph waved a hand. “It's a wonder they didn't see us, but they were all busy. We backed up, turned around like everybody else, and went looking for a way around Chisum, but that hasn't worked, 'cause these chicken-scratch trails wind around so much we keep getting lost.” He squinted upward at the sheriff, sweating as if he'd run a mile. “I'm thinking we might need to let this one alone. They've already seen us.”

Myrna leaned toward Ralph to better see the sheriff standing beside them. “Look, how about we give you back some of the money you gave us. That way we'll be even and you can get someone else to do the job, probably better than we could.”

Resting one hand on the roof, Griffin hooked his free thumb in his gun belt. It was a familiar pose that kept his hand close to his pistol. “What are you so nervous about, Ralph?”

“I just…I'm ready to get this all over with and go home.”

“Here.” Myrna opened the glove box and handed Griffin a packet of money. “Just take this and let's call it even.”

He took it and recognized a mark on the band holding the bills together. “We'll call the whole thing off? You give me this and drive away and that's all, huh? We call it even?”

His face a blank mask, Griffin shifted away from the car and glanced around at the dark, empty pastures and roads. When he looked back into the car, Ralph's expression in the glow of the dash told him that despite being a bumbling fool, the man had sensed what was about to happen.

Ralph reached under the towel on the seat between them.

Myrna's face was one of shock. She grabbed his hand. “Wait!”

Her interference was enough to give Griffin time to draw his .45 and shoot Ralph twice in the chest. The interior of the car flashed, freezing Myrna's terrified expression. He shifted his aim and pulled the trigger again, then again. Red bloomed on her shirt. She fell against Ralph's corpse, her head on his shoulder.

Griffin pitched the counterfeit money into Ralph's lap. “This is the funny money I paid
you
with, stupid.” He checked his surroundings and smiled. Gunshots in rural Lamar County were as common as mockingbirds.

He reached in across Ralph's bloody body and picked up the towel revealing a worn revolver. Griffin used it to wipe his fingerprints from the car door and the roof, then he pitched it back through the open window.

“Now I gotta do it myself.”

He drove away toward the coming storm. Their blood leaked through the seats and drenched the packets of real cash wrapped in butcher paper marked “Steak.”

Chapter Fifty

A lightning bolt slashed through the thick clouds overhead. I felt the thunder rumble deep in my chest each time a rolling boom followed the lightning bolts. Pepper and me were sitting out there with Mr. Thurman and Ralston, Miss Sweet's nephew.

Miss Sweet didn't drive, and Ralston took her anywhere she wanted to go. The old healer served the poor folks in Lamar County with the folk medicine she'd learned from her grandmother. She was one of the colored folks Pepper told Miss Rachel about, who'd been in Grandpa's house.

Every light was on when Mr. John and Uncle Cody finally pulled their cars into the gravel driveway. Uncle Cody stopped behind Mr. Thurman's beat-up old Willys pickup.

Someone inside either saw their headlights or heard the car doors slam, and switched on the porch light. It spilled into the yard, making us squint.

Mr. John waited for a second before he shut off his headlights. I imagine he was studying on why Mr. Thurman's truck and Ralston's sprung car were there. Any time the old woman showed up always meant that someone was sick or hurt. Mr. John came around to the porch. “What happened? Are y'all all right?”

The kitchen door slammed open and Miss Rachel's kids rushed to meet him as soon as they saw who he was. The oldest ones led the way and they swarmed Mr. John like ants, all chattering at the same time.

Looking scared, Uncle Cody came around the front of his El Camino and we met him there. Pepper opened her mouth, but for once, nothing came out. Tears welled in her eyes. He put his hand on my shoulder. “What happened?”

“The meanest folks I've ever seen came to Miss Rachel's house and beat her, asking about Mr. John. The man hit the baby, too, when she wouldn't tell them…”

Mr. John raised his hand to the crowd around him. “Hush kids, so's I can hear. Belle, is the baby hurt?”

“I don't reckon.” Belle waved a slender hand toward the house. “He's inside with the women. We wanted to stay on the porch with Mr. Thurman and Ralston, but we's told to go inside…”

Uncle Cody glanced up to see the ancient farmer sitting with his back against the asbestos shingles. He gripped my shoulder and hugged Pepper to his side. “Mr. Thurman.”

“Hidy, boy.” The old man's watery eyes flicked over Uncle Cody's shoulder. “Mr. Cody. Mr. John. They beat that little gal bad. Sweet say she'll be all right, and the baby too.”

Mr. John took the news deep down inside. He reached out and grabbed a porch post, and I was afraid it'd snap off in his hand. “Did you see what happened?”

“Nawsir, Mr. John. I didn't know a thing about it until Bubba come a-runnin' to get me. They's all in the house bein' real quiet. I'm just settin' out here a-waitin'.”

“Why didn't somebody call this in?” Uncle Cody wondered aloud.

Mr. John shook his head. “Probably 'cause Rachel told them not to. They're waitin' on
us
. This is colored business, for the most part.”

Uncle Cody studied the porch and Mr. Thurman with a paper-thin towel covering an old pistol in his lap. The .22 Uncle Wilbert loaned me was leaning against the door frame beside Ralston.

Uncle Cody glanced down at me, and then back to Mr. John. “Is everybody inside? No one's off anywhere?”

“Yessir, uh, nossir. They're all in there.”

Mr. John's voice rumbled deep. “All you kids get in the house, right now.”

Mr. Thurman waved his left hand, but kept his right under the rag in his lap. “I'll set out here and keep an eye out, Mr. John. But would you shut off this porch light? I don't like bein' all lit up like this.”

Without another word, they followed us inside. The porch light flicked off, leaving Mr. Thurman in the dark. Ralston sat down at the table, facing the door as we all trooped past into the living room.

Miss Becky's quiet command of the room held everyone in a calm. I saw her face crack for a second like she wanted to cry when she saw Uncle Cody, and then she straightened her shoulders and told what had happened to Miss Rachel. Mr. John lifted the ice bag she held to her eye. His face hardened. “We'd-a been here sooner if you'd called us.”

Miss Becky shook her head. “Heavens to Betsy, it don't matter none. We weren't going anywhere anyway. Sweet doctored Rachel while we waited.”

Miss Sweet rummaged through the bag of medicines at her feet. “This child ain't hurt bad, but she been beat good enough.”

John took Rachel's hand. “Can you see out t'at eye?”

“Not now, but Miss Sweet said it'll be all right, jus' swole shut.”

“It looks bad.” John swallowed, torn between rage and the need to choke down the tears threatening to crawl down his cheeks. He ran his fingers gently along her cheek.

“She got a beefsteak on it right off when she got here.” Miss Sweet shook some leaves out in her hand and dropped them into a cracked mug. “Then Becky found us an ice bag. That'll help with the swelling. Miss Becky, is that water a-boilin' yet?”

“I 'magine.” Miss Becky went into the kitchen and came back with a kettle. She carefully poured some into the mug. “Here, baby. I swear, them kids is still eatin' in there.”

“I'm sorry,” Rachel began and struggled to rise.

“Hush and lay back down, honey child. I didn't mean it that way. I meant I like to see kids eat. John, I didn't think it'd be a good idea to use the phone.” She nodded toward the telephone table. “Miss Whitney would have been listening in and everybody in the county would have known. I figured we needed to keep this quiet, at least for the time being, so I just called O.C. and told him to send y'all when you could make it, then we got aholt of Sweet. Anybody listenin' in would have thought she'd come back out for Top and his asthma again.”

“She's right.” Miss Rachel's voice was quiet. She tentatively sipped the steaming liquid. “John, this trouble's ours.”

He shook his head. “Naw, it ain't. Now I'm thinkin' this belongs to us all, but I know how to end it.”

Pepper turned away, talking to herself. “God, I hate this shittin' town.”