Holy city, p.6
Holy City, page 6
He started the car and drove back onto the road. For a while, it was just him thinking, chewing.
“What are your plans after all this?” he said eventually, having calmed down. “You going to stay in town?”
“I don’t know. This place. I got to get away from here. Ain’t never had a chance.”
“But this is your home.”
“My home wasn’t no place to be proud of.”
“Hmm,” he said, seeming to disapprove. “I thought you might stay. Go back to working.”
“I’m a mama now.”
There was a pause. “Don’t you remember?” he said.
“How could I forget the way you’d walk into the Lounge, look me up and down, like you wanted to eat me. But I ain’t looking for another man.”
“No, before that. Don’t you remember? Didn’t your mama tell you anything about me? I always been there, watching you.”
“I knew you were trouble.”
“No,” Mills said. “I was watching out for you, like I am now. I was watching over you.”
SHERIFF MILLS DROPPED Day off at Miss Claudette’s, returning afterward to the office in a fit, hollering at Tania about needing to see his deputy.
“He’s out at the reservoir. Someone disappeared last night coming back from fishing. Body hasn’t been found.”
“I don’t give a wet cigarette what he’s doing. That’s Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries’ responsibility. You tell him to get here ASAP.”
When Will came in, Mills had his back to the door and was fixing his hair in the mirror. “What you got?” he said.
“James Abernathy, thirty-eight years old, from North Carolina. He fell overboard last night and never resurfaced.”
“Well, it doesn’t surprise me. That lake’s like a goddamn foreign planet.” He looked at Will in the mirror. “I don’t need you to waste your energy on a crapshoot like that. Let those VGIF boys take care of it.”
“Alonzo called this morning. They were short-staffed and needed help.”
“You hear that?” Sheriff Mills said to an audience that was not there. “They’re understaffed!”
He handed Will the autopsy report and grabbed a notebook and a paper bag, the top of which had been rolled shut, and motioned for Will to walk with him.
“You still think he’s innocent?” the sheriff said.
It wasn’t really a question, and Mills didn’t wait for a response. He pushed open the door, and Will followed him into the blank room where they saw Zeke under that skull-white solitary bulb, sitting at an old schoolhouse desk. Sheriff Mills pulled up a folding chair leaning against the wall and sat it backward, his legs straddling the back of the chair where his arms rested.
“Zeke,” Mills said slowly, as if considering the way it tasted to say his name. “We got someone says you owed Tom some money.”
“I need a lawyer.” Zeke stared at Will, who glanced away.
“You got your arraignment tomorrow morning. I imagine you’ll be taking a court-appointed attorney, which they’ll assign then.”
“I’ll wait.”
“You’ll talk now. When are you gonna learn what’s common sense? The sooner you cooperate, the easier things will go in court. You understand that?”
Zeke nodded, but didn’t look too sure.
“Okay then,” Mills said. “Tell me about this business of owing Tom.”
“He helped my boy Sam go to a rehab up in Richmond. Ain’t no secret.”
“You know where Sam is now?”
Zeke shook his head.
“We know he ain’t at your place because we already searched it.” Mills got up out of the chair, began pacing back and forth in front of Zeke, whose wide eyes followed him up and down the room. “Heard you couldn’t pay the money even after Tom said he needed it.”
“That’s a lie. I paid back every cent.”
Mills stopped pacing, put his foot on the chair, and leaned toward Zeke. “What if you’re the one lying? You got a receipt?”
Zeke looked like he was trying to laugh but couldn’t move his face.
“You think it’s funny?” Mills said.
“You can ask anybody, any of the boys—Herb, T-Man, Arnie, Maurice—that . . .” He stopped.
“How would they know anything? What you been up to? You better finish your statement, or I’m going to arrest every blessed one of them.”
Zeke swallowed, looked at the ceiling as if something there would help him. “Anybody tell you, Tom had that money I paid him back. He played with it that night. Won a lot of money.”
“What were you really doing at Tom’s house the other day? You can tell us. We already know.”
“I told you. I saw the fire and went to see what was going on. I didn’t do anything to Tom. I swear.”
“Then explain this.” From inside the paper bag, Mills brought out the knife in a plastic evidence bag. Zeke’s head slumped forward as if it had snapped. “And these prints—yours—also appeared on Tom’s belt. What the hell’s that about? Well?”
Zeke looked directly at Will, as if Will had been interrogating him. “His pants was down. I tried to get ’em back on to cover him up.”
“Then you just left him there to burn,” Mills said. He looked at his deputy. “Don’t make much sense to me. Does it to you?”
Before Will could say anything, Zeke said, “I won’t say anything else until I get a lawyer. I shouldn’t be talking.”
“It’s understandable why you’d kill him,” Mills said. “Shoot, you don’t have to pay money to a dead man. Times are tough. Where’s the money? Where’d you hide it?”
Zeke sat straight and looked at nothing, said nothing.
“Well you’re right about one thing,” Mills said, placing a notebook in front of Zeke. “You sure as hell do need an attorney. Now, you should think about confessing. You do it soon enough, your attorney might even be able to get you a plea deal. A confession from you now is better than proof of guilt in court.”
Zeke said, “I swear before God, Mr. Sheriff.”
“You gonna have a tough time in court,” Mills said. “Judge don’t take kindly to perjury.”
Mills nodded to Will. “That’s motive.”
As Will walked out, leaving the sheriff to escort the prisoner back to his cell, he could hear Zeke crying for God, a scratching, miserable sound.
Shortly after, Sheriff Mills came back to his office, where Will waited for him.
“I want that confession before the arraignment,” Mills said. “Yes, I do. And I do believe he’ll write it.”
“Sir, I tracked down Maurice Newman at the landing today,” Will said. “He confirmed Tom won a pile of money. We searched Zeke when we arrested him and his house and didn’t find anything. Doesn’t it stand to reason that Zeke might be telling the truth, that the person who killed Tom has the money? His wallet and phone? His ID?”
“How much are we talking?”
“Maurice said it was upwards of five thousand dollars.”
“Bullshit. I’ve been in that shithole, and I don’t believe those fellas would ever get up that much to play with. That’s why I don’t bust ’em. See, that’s the kind of information you get from those lowlifes at the landings, drinking a forty by noon and smoking blunts all day, shooting craps and playing poker at night. Tobacco was good for people. You got your media and all talking about equality and equity and whatever the hell, and yet the best thing for everybody was being able to work. The same people who cry about how things are are the ones made it that way. Anyway, you should know better than to take information from friends of the accused.”
“Even Herbie Toones said it was true.”
“That bag of shit.”
“He didn’t get along with Tom, and he confirmed Maurice’s story.”
“Have you forgotten we caught Zeke Hathom running from a crime scene? He could have buried the money, thrown it in the woods. Pretty hard to trace loose cash. Either goddamn way, his prints are on the murder weapon. You know what that means? GUILTY.”
“If he did kill Tom, how could he be careless enough to let us find the murder weapon yet careful enough to hide the money? This has all been too easy. Zeke was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Mills tapped a pen against the palm of his hand. “You call that motel?”
“Yessir, I did.”
“Well, what they say?”
“They confirmed Miss Pace checked in that night.”
“What did you find out at the Lounge today? Any possible suspects?”
“Everybody who was playing cards with Tom. And they all are saying something about a couple guys from Charlotte County. Something about them talking trash after the game.”
“They threaten Tom?”
“Something like that. We should follow up on them.”
“All right,” Mills said, with a wave of his hand. “Track ’em down, talk to ’em, and report back.”
“Sir,” Will said. He knew he might be on the verge of saying something rash, but he couldn’t hold back any longer. “Why are you railroading him?”
“Beg pardon?” Mills said, squinting up into Will’s face.
“You’re sending me out to interview murder suspects, like you could give a shit. This stuff about these Charlotte guys might actually be a lead. If you wanted to get to the bottom of this, you’d already have looked into them.”
“Watch your goddamn tone. ’Scuse me, Tania.”
“It’s not disrespect; it’s just, I can’t see why you’re so set on Zeke. If you polled everybody white and Black in this county, you’d come back with one hundred percent or close to it saying Zeke’s innocent.”
Mills narrowed his eyes and cleared his voice. “Listen here, son, and listen good. A trial ain’t a popularity contest. It’s not a vote. I don’t give a mound of coon scat that people like Zeke Hathom. I like Zeke Hathom. But you got to admit, there’s evidence that Zeke did it and a motive that would satisfy many a jury.”
“Since you’ve given up, I’ll just keep looking then.”
“Seems!” Mills called out, standing, and Will turned at the door. “The next time you raise your voice at me, I’ll have your badge so goddamn fast you’ll think a ghost took it off you.”
“You want to take it, take it,” Will said. “But until then, I’m going to keep doing my job.”
With that, he pushed out into a gust of summer heat.
SHERIFF MILLS STEWED all day over what to do about his smart-ass, back-talking deputy. He had reasons he didn’t want to actually take his badge, but something needed doing. Never in all his years as sheriff had someone on his payroll talked to him like that, not even that shiftless Seth Grady. Probably had to do with him living in Richmond all those years, getting his education in a city going liberal in a red state going the same way.
So he went to Mama Jay’s the next morning, getting out of his truck with “In God We Trust” across the tailgate and nodding toward a cluster of three men in do-rags and oversize T-shirts, saying, “Howdy, boys,” pulling the glass door open, triggering the bell. His presence was met with an uproar from the boys sitting at the tables over by the wood-paneled dining area.
“Ain’t seen you in some time,” Taylor Hart said. “What’s been keeping you?”
He told the boys he’d taught Will a lesson yesterday afternoon, and they bet him he hadn’t. Someone even said, “Like you taught Grady?” which made him turn around with that hard scowl. It was Nick Squire, smart aleck. So Mills told them:
“Will gets in that old pickup his daddy used to drive around here, and he’s leaving work. And I followed him. Sure did. Flipped them lights.”
Mills told them the story, but here’s how it really happened:
Will Seems saw the lights, heard the brief notice of the siren, and pulled over into the grass off the broken single lane, which bisected the fields of corn on one side and tobacco on the other.
The sheriff grabbed the roof of his patrol car and hauled himself out, straightened his belt and corrected his holster, and put on his hat.
“Sheriff,” Will said as he got close, looking around at the sheriff’s car.
“Turn your ignition off,” he said. “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”
The quiet was filled with cicadas like bagpipes at a funeral, searing and suffering, living and dying. A slight wind blew against the thin gauze of sweat that covered both men. The dust caught up pale and transient and ghostlike. Will opened the door and started to get out.
“Get back in the truck,” the sheriff said. “License and registration.”
“What’s wrong here?”
“Nothing, you got your license and registration.”
Will got out the papers.
“You know how fast you were going?” Mills said.
“Are you serious?”
Sheriff Mills shifted his weight and looked off, as if he was thinking real hard about something or had seen something distracting on the horizon.
“You were going fifty-six in a thirty-five,” Mills said with a wave of his hand, as if the numbers were arbitrary. “That’s reckless.”
“This is fifty-five.”
“Back there.”
“Bullshit.”
“You got some little attitude, and I’m not sure I much like it. You think you know more than me about the law? You think you can tell me how to keep a county safe I been protecting since you were born?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You been suggesting it mighty hard for a greenhorn. That poor young woman tells me you been watching her. That true?”
“I’m doing my job.”
“Son, you got some secrets you been keeping. I don’t care that you go out there and sleep in your truck. I don’t care what you got going on behind closed doors in that house. Long as you come to work, and when you do, you take orders from me with a smile. You leave that poor woman alone.”
“Zeke didn’t do it.” Then, looking up into the sheriff’s face, shaded by his hat, Will said, “You know that, and I can’t pretend he did.”
“Well then, you being out there in Turkey Creek to call it in could make you a suspect. Should we go that route?”
“Sure, but you’re always saying you don’t want publicity that ‘don’t reflect the department’s true potential.’”
The sheriff looked hard at him, a relaxed blank hatred undisguised in his face. A copperhead writhed its way out of one field and into the road, and they both saw it. The snake lay still, licking at the dust in the air with his forked tongue. The sheriff went over to it, and it tucked its head under a leaf; like any good copperhead, it was loath to move if it believed itself hidden.
Just as Will was about to say something Sheriff Mills put his heel down fast on the snake’s head, and something—blood and venom—leaked out of it, and its body worked like a whip, wrapping around the sheriff’s leg, quivering and working as he put all his weight down. With his pistol he removed the snake’s earnest grip, but the tail kept working, and he just stood there like the goddess on the Virginia state seal, Will thought, with her foot on the fallen tyrant. Sic semper tyrannis. Thus always to tyrants. Only this seemed the reverse.
“Son, you’re gonna learn a thing or two. This is my jurisdiction, and you work for me, and I see something I don’t like, I’m gonna do something about it, and you’ve done got a speeding ticket, and you’re gonna pay a fine or give up your goddamn badge for a while. Either way, I don’t care.”
Mills began walking back to his truck but wheeled back around: “And don’t you ever again use my words against me!”
The boys laughed so hard Mama Jay come out from the back and said, “Now, what could be that funny?”
Jimbo Rawles said, “That Seems boy.”
“Well,” Nick Squire said, his coffee in Styrofoam before him on the table, both hands resting around it. “He pay the fine?”
“Goddamnit,” Sheriff Mills said, and Mama Jay laughed, no one else.
“That’s funny,” she said, disappearing back into the kitchen.
BENNICO WATCHED as the countryside shed itself of years, decades, and only the pure defunct heart of whatever it was—Virginia, America—emerged like a meat beneath a skin, a map of everything that fed it, made it. The trees and vines hung over the road, untamed and untamable, and she drove through the quiet of their fecund mottled shade.
The radio went static, and she found only one station dark and clear, the desperate word of God howling through a preacher’s furious tenor. She turned it off after a moment and felt what she saw: a solitary double-wide silhouetting a naked rise, an unbrushed horse searching the dirt patch of yard for grass; some hamlet’s or town’s main street that appeared to have been permanently vacated, where a storefront advertised Coca-Cola and Red Wing boots and CB radio work; a Confederate flag whipping against the nothingness of dark sky; a Gulf gas station absolutely broken by saplings, faded as if whitewashed except for the rust, like a trail of bullets, across the medallion of its sign; a tilted wooden church open mid-sanctuary where the roof, beams and all, had caved under some invisible weight. She had the sensation of sinking deeper and deeper underwater, compressed within the depth.
“Okay,” she said aloud.
She had long held the belief that understanding a crime—or any action—had almost as much to do with the setting as the act itself. It was a part of the process, a kind of preparatory meditation, seeing it unfold, approaching something, whatever it was, the act of casting a net that would eventually draw closed and hold what was important enough to keep.
She got off the main road and found herself on broken blacktop turned to a faded rebellious gray, a country lane winding past fields of tobacco plants like soldiers in file, each as tall as a grown man, and houses and trailers alike, defeated alike. As she crossed from one tobacco field to the next, divided by a dirt track, she saw the burnt rubble of a house that looked familiar. She also saw a cruiser parked down the lane. The online Southside Telegraph had included a photograph, though she’d seen nothing at all—not even an article—in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She shook her head. You know how you can tell you’re on to something real? Because it isn’t news in the big papers. If it was, it would be too late.
