(II)
“It just seemed weird
to me, Mr. Chief,” the slim, curvy girl with tousled black hair was
relating into the driver’s-side window of the Agan’s Point police
patrol car.
The strange accent
was more of a giveaway than the pale skin and black hair, not to
mention the “Mr. Chief.” One of Stanherd’s
Squatters, Chief Sutter realized. They always called him Mr.
Chief. He didn’t recall seeing this one around, but then he didn’t
typically pay much attention to the Squatters—he didn’t have to.
They kept to themselves, stayed out of trouble, and worked hard,
most of them taking minimum-wage jobs at the crab company. Chief
Sutter was a reasonable man. Work your job,
pay your taxes, and obey the law, and you’ll have no problem with
me. Right now, however, Chief Sutter was having a problem of
his own, with this girl who’d flagged them down on Point Road. As
she leaned over the window, to convey some mishap at the Qwik-Mart,
her breasts stared him bold in the face. The homemade tomato-red
jumper top restrained a pair of breasts that might be getting close
to D-cup territory. The hand-set stitches of the top, in fact, were
stretching enough to show lines of flesh in their seams. She also
wore an equally tight threadbare skirt hemmed uncomfortably high on
the thigh. The Squatters made their own clothes from fabric scraps
they bought at Goodwill, and this little thing was obviously still
growing into her getup. A heat wave flashed in Sutter’s groin when,
as he listened, his eyes shot a quick glance down the front of her
abdomen and hips. Oh, lord, he
commiserated. Her right foot crossed over the back ankle of her
left, a dollar-store flip-flop hanging off the sleek, voluptuous
foot. Jiminy Christmas, even her
fucking feet are hot . . . Hence
Chief Sutter’s “problem.” The images distracted him, such that he
found himself nodding as if in attention but hearing almost nothing
of what she said.
“—and they was kinda
grinnin’ and lookin’ me over,” she went on, “the way fellas’ll do,
makin’ me really uncomfortable, and when I told ’em I didn’t wanna
buy none, they said somethin’ like, ‘Well, that’s all right, we’ll
give ya some fer free if ya come and party with us.’”
The Squatter girls
weren’t much above the neck, sort of wide faces and flat noses, not
the best teeth, and that ratty black hair. But below the
neck?
Jiminy Christmas, Sutter repeated the thought. They
all had bodies that would make a calendar girl feel
insecure.
“What’s that you were
sayin’ there, hon?” Trey asked. Sutter could tell by Trey’s squint
and the tone of his query that he too was experiencing a problem
with distraction. Any officer’s job was to get all the facts, and
that wasn’t working well here, not with this Squatter bombshell’s
pair of absolutely state-of-the-art breasts practically falling out
of that top in front of them.
“What was it you say
these fellas were tryin’ ta sell you?” Trey blinked hard enough to
get out.
Her hip cocked, which
caused her bosom to sway delectably in the hand-stitched top, and
she explained in that weird accent that all the Squatters seemed to
have, “Ice! Can ya believe that? They asked me if I wanted to buy
some ice! Sure, it’s hot ʹnʹ all, but
we got a bunch a’ ice trays in our freezer just like dang near
everyone, and even if we didn’t, I could walk right in the
Qwik-Mart and buy me a bag. Dumbest thing I ever heard anyone
tryin’ ta sell right out front of a convenience store. Who sells
ice out of a truck, Mr. Chief? So’s that’s why I flagged ya down,
just ‘cos that whole thing seemed really weird and so did them
fellas. Thought the police’d wanna know.”
Sutter and Trey
exchanged glances. At least now they had some police business,
which was good, because if Sutter had to spend another minute
looking at this girl’s outrageous body he might have a heart attack
right there in the cruiser.
“That was right of
you to flag us down, missy,” Sutter said, “because fellas like that
are definitely not the type we want in Agan’s Point. You see which
way they went?”
Now she stood on both
feet, legs parted, and leaned back with hands on hips. More
distraction: she was so short—all the
Squatters were—and as she leaned back like that, she nearly
appeared unreal, like something manufactured at a scaled-down size.
When she pointed across the windshield, Sutter’s eyes bugged as one
immaculate breast rose in the top, and in that little gap
underneath he could see the bare bottom of it in all of its
orbicular glory. “They ain’t went nowhere yet, Mr. Chief, ‘cos see?
They’re still there. That’s them in that orange boxy-looking truck
parked right out front of the Qwik-Mart, and that’s one of ‘em
standin’ right there talkin’ on the pay phone.”
Trey’s expression
revved up. “Well, ain’t that grand, yes, sir!”
“You got that right,”
Sutter agreed, then back to the girl: “You’ve done a fine civic
duty today, missy, and we appreciate it.”
She seemed delighted
by Sutter’s response, and then her not-so-comely face lit up with a
big smile—not that Sutter nor Trey, was focused on her face. “You
have a fine day, Mr. Chief, and . . . and . . . and Mr. Chief’s
partner.”
Sutter paused to
himself. Shit. I gotta know. “By the way, missy, if you don’t mind my
asking . . . how old are you?”
Her eyes beamed.
“Why, it’s funny you should ask, but I just turnt fifteen
yesterday!”
Trey spit out a
mouthful of coffee while Sutter thought in a long, low groan:
Oh, my great God in . heaven. . .
.
The girl waved
giddily as the cruiser backed up and began to turn. “Jiminy
Christmas,” Sutter muttered like a man with a bad bellyache. “That
dizzy brick shit-house was almost the death of me just lookin at
her.”
“Damn near busted my
pants, Chief. And did‘ja see how little
she was? Bet she wasn’t five feet. And who cares about the
butt-ugly face? Them Squatter chicks got bods on ’em that make me
wanna howl at the fuckin‘ moon.” Trey may have momentarily rubbed
his crotch when Sutter wasn’t looking. “I got myself a leapin’
lizard down here.”
“Tell me about
it.”
His slapped his
thigh. “And she’s only fifteen!”
“Tell me about it,”
Sutter repeated, pulling around.
Trey was shaking his
head. “But just as they got bodies from hell they ain’t got but
shit fer brains.” He let out a hick laugh. “She thinks those guys
are selling ice cubes! How’s that for a dumb shit?”
“Aw, give her a
break. She’s had a shit life, no proper schooling, and works her
ass off at the crab plant.”
Trey belted out
another laugh. “Shit, Chief, with that bod, she can work
my ass off anytime she
likes!”
Sutter shot him a
reproving glare.
“Er, I mean, once she
turns eighteen,” Trey added in haste.
“That’s what I
thought you meant. Christ, ten minutes ago you were runnin’ your
mouth all about how God helps us out if we obey His laws.” Sutter
chuckled. “You sure lost your religion quick enough, lustin’ after
that Squatter.”
Trey roused to
object. “I was just speakin’ figurative, Chief,” he said,
pronouncing the word as figgur-tive,
“as men will do when they’re amongst themselves, but in my
heart—and I say this ’cos I know it’s in your heart too—men married
in the eyes of the Lord wouldn’t even think of havin’ any carnal knowledge with no gal
other than his lawful wife, no matter what age she is. I asked
Father Darren ’bout it once.”
“About
what?”
“About lust in the
heart, and he said that since all men was born in original sin,
we’re all guilty of lust—can’t help but be—‘cos it’s all in our
genes. So it’s okay to eyeball a hot gal now and again, ’cos it’s a
manner of appreciatin’ the beauty God gave to women.”
Sutter’s eyes
narrowed. “Father Darren said it’s okay
to eyeball other women?”
Trey raised a finger
to finish his point. “As long as you know in your heart that ya
wouldn’t really have sex with her once it got down to brass tacks.
I know you’d never cheat on yer fine wife, June, and I sure as
shit’d never cheat on Marcy. Don’t matter that they both gone to
fat and got tits hangin’ down to their thighs. That’s ’cos God
blesses us in our love.”
Sutter
sighed.
“Anyway, Chief,
that’s what Father Darren means in a nutshell. It’s okay by Him
that you look at other chicks every once in a while as long as ya’d
never really hobnob with ‘em.”
Well, that’s sure good to
hear, ‘cos I still got half a hard-on
in my pants from lookin’at that little thing, Sutter thought
sourly.
Trey grinned. “And
look at it this way, Chief. That little piece a’ eye candy got your
mind off your money problems, huh?”
The recollection of
those breasts, those curves, and those legs waylaid him. “It got my
mind off ‘em, but I still got ’em,
Trey.”
“Patience is a
virtue, Chief. Says so in the Bible. God smiles upon a patient man.
. . .”
Sutter shook off the
after-imagery as he pulled into the convenience store, where a
gleaming, brand-new Humvee occupied one of the parking spots,
tangerine orange and ten coats of lacquer. A shifty-looking black
guy in his mid-twenties, in baggy pants and gold chains, had just
hung up the pay phone and was coming back to the car, giving them
the eye.
“Fucker’s got more
gold chains than Mr. T.,” Trey observed with a smirk. “And look at
the watch on the son of a bitch. Looks like a Rolex.”
“We know where he
gets that kind of money,” Sutter remarked. His own watch cost $7.95
at the drugstore. “And look at those rings on him, too. Fucker’s
all decked out like a Harlem pimp.”
In the Hummer’s
driver’s seat sat a long-haired white kid with scruff on his chin,
and similar gold chains and watch.
“We know what these
scumbags are all about, so keep on your toes,” Sutter said. “I’ll
take the rapper and you take the white guy.”
“Gotcha, Chief. Thumb
snap’s off.” He grinned at his boss and released the snap on his
holster. “We ain’t had a tussle in a spell. I’m
ready.”
“You keep your dander
down unless ya need it.” Sutter hit his own thumb snap; then he
added, “And it can’t hurt for us to mitt up.”
“Roger that,” Trey
assented. They each slipped on their pair of Bianchi
elastic-stretch sand mitts with nude trigger fingers and heavy-duty
leather sand pouches reinforcing the knuckles and palms. Ideal for
punching through doors or busting a scumbag’s face without
consequently busting one’s own knuckles.
Sutter moved his own
considerable bulk out of the car. He blocked off the black guy
before he could get back to the Hummer, while Trey leaned against
the driver’s door, arms crossed.
“Is there a problem,
Officer?” the black guy asked a bit haughtily. His T-shirt read,
RAPPINʹ AND CAPPINʹ, and he had a tattoo of an AK-47 inked over one
apple-sized bicep.
“Oh, there’s a
problem,” Sutter confirmed. “Turn around, hands flat out on the
roof, and spread ’em. No sudden movements. Don’t fuck with
me.”
“The fuck?” the white
guy complained.
“Pipe down, Kid
Rock,” Trey said, “or I’ll pipe ya
down.”
The black guy glared.
“I haven’t done anything wrong! You’re just shaking me down ‘cos
I’m black!”
“Don’t give me that
racist jive,” Sutter said back. “I don’t give a shit what color a
man’s face is. The only kind of black man I call a nigger is a
black man trying to sell crystal meth to kids.”
That was all the
black guy needed to hear—“crystal meth”—before he realized he could
either run his ass off or do three-to-five for possession and
distro of Class II narcotics with another five tacked on for
attempted distro to a minor. He chose to run his ass
off.
Shit!
He bolted off the
car. Sutter, since he was not exactly dextrous nor physically fit,
being obese and close to sixty, managed to get a handful of
T-shirt, which sufficed only to slow the guy down around the comer
of the car, whereupon the T-shirt tore away.
As for Trey, he
didn’t appear to even break a single bead of sweat when in some
impressive synchrony he—
Whap!
—landed a solid fist
right smack-dab into Kid Rock’s forehead, then—
“Holy Jesus, man,
that hurts like a motherfucking motherfucker!”
—emptied half a can
of GOEC-brand chemical spray into his eyes and bleeding, split-open
face.
“Got ya covered,
Chief,” Trey said next, sidestepping forward. He moved fast enough
to cut off the black guy before he could get clear.
Then—
Thud.
—palm-heeled him once
in the solar plexus.
Which sufficed to
circumvent the attempt to flee.
“Getcha a case of
beer for that one, Trey,” Sutter said approvingly, then lumbered
over. “You simmer down the long-hair while I read this suspect his
rights.” The black guy was sprawled out belly-down on the pavement,
bug-eyed, barely able to move. He was sucking wind. Sutter promptly
stepped on the back of his head, treating his face to a little
dermabrasion the hard way. The guy flip-flopped on the pavement,
shrieking like a little girl who’d just been scared out of a carny
house of horrors.
Kid Rock had managed
to stop screaming long enough to make the very unwise decision to
attempt to drive off. Hair hanging in blood-drenched strings, he
jerked his hand forward, touched the keys in the ignition, was
about to start the car, when—
“Holy Jesus, mother
of God, you gotta be fuckin’ shitting me!”
—Trey emptied the
rest of the GOEC into his eyes.
Sutter dragged a
dozenish bags of crystal methamphetamine, aka “ice,” out of the
black guy’s pockets, not to mention a pipe, and—of all things—a
1964 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card. Sutter pocketed the card,
then allowed the point of his steel-toed black oxford to come into
direct proximity with the area of space that was occupied by the
black guy’s scrotum. That took the rest of the zing out of
him.
Finally got me another Mantle card for my collection . .
.
The cowbell on the
door clanged. Pappy Halm, a well-known Agan’s Point local and the
store’s proprietor, hobbled out front, aghast. He clacked toward
the scene on his cane and objected in his typical loud rail, “What
the hell ya doin’ Chief? I seen ya in the winder! All that fella
done is make a blamed phone call! What right ya got to beat him
down like that?”
Sutter showed him a
handful of ice. “This walkin’ piece a’ shit here and his hippie
buddy are selling these hard drugs to kids. Just tried to sell some
to a fifteen-year-old not five minutes ago.”
“Oh, yeah?” Halm
replied, then cracked the end of his cane hard up into the black
guy’s crotch. Now the guy was gasping, screaming, and blubbering
all at the same time.
“Want me to cuff Kid
Rock, Chief?” Trey asked.
“Naw.” Sutter dragged
the black guy up. “If we write this one up and take ‘em to county
detent, I’ll miss dinner. And you know how fierce the wife bitches
at me when I miss dinner. Fuckers’d be out on bail in the time it
takes me to fart.”
“Roger
that.”
“But we better look
the vehicle over. Check that guy’s pockets and under the seat.”
Sutter opened the Humvee’s back door for a quick search.
Jesus . . . He found a tackle box full
of more ice. “Bet there’s a thousand bucks’ worth of dope in here,”
he said.
Trey peeked between
the front seats. “More’n that, by the looks of it. Just think of
all the kids they’d be selling it to. And look at what the hippie
was carryin’.” He held up a small pistol.
“Jesus. These
guys.”
Sutter shoved the
dizzy black guy back into the front seat, but before he closed the
door—
Crack!
—he raised his
fiberglass nightstick high over his head and whacked it down across
the guy’s thigh. The thighbone snapped like a stout
bough.
Trey whipped out his
own billy. “A limp to remember us by. The same for this
one?”
“Naw. He’s gotta
drive. But I think a Southern-style haircut might do him justice.
Fucker must think he’s in Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
Trey twirled a finger
around a lock of Kid Rock’s hair, pressed his other hand against
his head, and yanked as though starting a lawn mower. The kid
barked a righteous yelp when a clump of hair popped out of his head
along with a square inch of scalp.
Sutter’s temples
pounded in sudden disgust as he looked at the shining vehicle and
the gold chains on the wheezing black man. “It ain’t fuckin’ fair,
ya know? I ain’t an ungrateful man, and I ain’t greedy either. But
I got my problems just like any hardworkin’ man. Them two mortgages
I was telling you about are bleedin’ me dry, car insurance just
gone up again and so did county property taxes, not to mention the
damned Ay-rabs keep jacking the price a’ gas. Got a wife that eats
more than the Redskins defensive line, God love her, and who runs
my credit cards up like she’s Bill fuckin’ Gates’s wife insteada
the wife of a small-town police chief, and now the blasted AC up
’n’ broke, so that’s gonna cost me out
the ass . . . so I am pinched to the max. I’m so broke I can barely
pay fuckin’ attention, and then look what we got here.” He glared
intensely at the shuddering black guy and his accomplice. “We got
two piles of walkin,’ talkin’ garbage wearing gold jewelry and
drivin’ a brand-new Hummer, and how’d they get the kind of bread
for all that?” He looked at the bags of crystal meth. “By sellin’
this shit. Yes, sir, these pieces a’ shit live large and got enough
cash to choke a fuckin’ horse, and what do I got? Enough
debt to choke a fuckin’ horse.” He
slammed the Humvee door, made a fist of his right sand mitt, and
said directly to the black guy, “We don’t take kindly to people
sellin’ drugs in our town, so listen up.”
He pinched the guy’s
cheeks together. “You ‘n’ your buddy are gonna turn this jalopy
around and drive outta here, and you ain’t gonna stop till you’re
plumb out of this county, and you’re never, and I mean never, gonna come back here again, and if we ever,
and I mean ever, see you anywhere near
Agan’s Point in the future—”
Whap!
He rammed his sand
mitt right into the guy’s mouth.
“—we might have to
rough ya up a little.”
The black guy was
spitting out teeth. Kid Rock convulsed behind the wheel, backing
the Hummer up and spinning wheels out of the lot.
Trey rubbed his hands
together. “All in a day’s work, huh, Chief?”
“Damn straight. And I
snagged myself one hell of a Mantle card. Pisses me off,
though.”
“What’s that,
Chief?”
Sutter dropped the
tackle box and rest of the drugs into the garbage. “A small fortune
worth of dope, and those punks probably sell that much shit to kids
every damn day.”
“Sure they
do.”
“Driving around in a
brand-new fifty-grand Hummer—”
“That tricked-up
model? Sixty, sixty-five at least.”
“Yeah, and we drive
clunkers. Gold chains, too. Shit. Only thing I can afford to wear
around my neck is a line of sweat. Ain’t right.”
“No, it ain’t,
Chief.” Trey crossed his arms with a look of concern. “But I’d say
we done a lotta good today. Ain’t no drugs gonna be sold by them
fellas fer a while. And . . .” Trey paused to reflect on something.
“Let me ask you somethin’, Chief.”
Sutter scratched his
belly, trying to shake off the irritation. “Go ahead.”
“Is stealin’ from a
thief really stealin’?”
“Huh?”
“If a fella breaks
the letter of the law but the only person he victimizes is a
lawbreaker himself, is that really a crime?”
Sutter didn’t get
where this was coming from. “Well, you told me Father Darren said
lusting after another woman ain’t really lust so long as you
wouldn’t really get it on with her. So I guess . . . no, it
ain’t.”
“I didn’t think so
neither, ‘cos, see . . .” Trey reached in his pockets. “While you
were checkin’ the backseat, I took the liberty of lightening up
those boys’ wrists—”
“The Rolexes?” Sutter
queried with some excitement.
“Yeah, Chief, the
Rolexes.” Off of two fingers, Trey dangled two genuine Rolex
Submariners. He passed one to Sutter. “No doubt it was drug money
those guys used to buy these.”
Sutter inspected the
watch with a gleam in his eye. “No doubt.”
“So we could sell
these fine watches and give the money to the charity of our choice,
or we could even—”
“We could even wear
the fuckin’ things ourselves,” Sutter finished, and put the watch
on. Perfect fit. “It’s legitimate for
officers of the law to own accurate timepieces.”
“Roger that.” Trey
put his on too, admiring it. “And one more thing. Since we agree
that lustin’ after a chick you wouldn’t bone ain’t lust, and
stealin’ from a criminal ain’t stealin’ . . .”
Sutter’s eyes
widened.
“Look what my fingers
found in Kid Rock’s pocket.” Now Trey held a wad of bills. Mostly
hundreds showed when he fanned the stack. “A little more than two
grand here, Chief, and tell me if I’m wrong, but this here pile of
cash is pure drug profits. It ain’t money those fellas earned
mowin’ lawns.”
“It’s ill-gotten
gains procured during a critical police procedure, Trey,” Sutter
embellished. “We’ll split it.”
Trey handed over the
whole wad. “Nope. You take it, Chief. You buy you ‘n’ your wife the
brand-new air conditioner you need. You asked God fer help, and He
just answered your prayer. Me? I’m fine. When I need some help,
I’ll ask the Lord myself.”
This shitty day just turned really fine, really
fast. Sutter pocketed the money with some haste. “I’ll
remember this, Trey. Thanks.”
Trey grinned. “Don’t
thank me. Thank the Lord.”
I damn straight will. . .
. “We’ll drop the gun off next time we go up to
county. And right now?” Sutter looked at the Qwik-Mart. “Coffee and
doughnuts on me.”
“Make way fer the
law!” Pappy Halm celebrated behind the counter. “Our fine boys in
blue! Agan’s Point is damn proud to have such brave officers
protectin’ us!”
“Proud enough to
slide us free coffee and doughnuts?” Trey asked.
“Hell, no! What do I
look like? Fuckin’ Santa Claus?” Halm winked. “But refills are
half-price.”
“You’re all class,
Pappy.”
Sutter wended to the
doughnut display and began to tong out a box of cream-filled and
glazed. “Guess that poor black fella’ll have to sell some of his
gold to cover his dental bill.”
Trey guffawed. “Yeah,
and Kid Rock’ll have to comb his hair funny to cover up the
permanent bald spot.”
Pappy Halm slapped
his thighs. “They picked the wrong guys to fuck with
today!”
“Never seen a worse
pair of scumbags in my life,” Trey added, eyes cruising over the
mag rack full of Hustler, Penthouse, and
Playboy.
“Speaking of scumbags
. . .” Sutter noticed a copy of the town’s weekly paper, the
Agan’s Point Messenger, and the blaring
headlines: LOCAL MAN MURDERED. He picked it up and scanned over the
short article about the mysterious death of Dwayne Parker. “Damn
near forgot about this. Feel so bad for Judy—the poor dumb girl
don’t even realize that Dwayne wasn’t no good for
her.”
“Wasn’t no good for
anyone or anything,” Trey pitched in. “There’s a bad seed in every
crowd.”
Sutter read more of
the article. “This came out the day after they found the body; it
don’t say when the funeral is. Hey, Pappy? You know when they’re
holdin’ services for Dwayne Parker?”
The name seemed to
slap Halm’s age-lined faced. His eyes lit up in a furor. “Dwayne
Parker! That no-good, low-down rat bastard! Ya ask me, they can’t
bury that fucker deep enough. He ain’t worth the lumber it takes to
build the coffin! Ain’t worth the elbow grease it takes to dig the
hole, nor the fuckin’ air ya gotta breathe whiles yer gettin’ the
job done.”
“They ain’t buryin’
him,” Trey said, skirting the point. “Crematin’ him is what I
heard.”
“Then fuck it! That
cracker ain’t worth the gas it takes to burn him. Ain’t worth the
effort it takes me to grunt out a whiskey-piss into his urn. Cryin’
shame the . way that prick treated Judy, broke her damn heart,
slappin’ her around like that. You ask me, any man who beats his
wife should have his own ass beat twice as hard.”
Sutter nodded,
chewing a cream-filled. “We’re not in disagreement there, Pappy.
But I wanna show my face and offer my condolences to Judy. When’s
the funeral?”
“You ask me, they
shouldn’t even have a funeral for that
worthless piece a’ shit. He pulled up here one night all pissy
drunk, and I could see in the car he had a woman with him, and that
woman sure as shit wasn’t Judy, and he walks in all stinkin’ a’
beer and talkin’ loud, grabs himself a twelve-pack and just looks
at me ‘n’ says ‘Put it on my wife’s tab, ya old fuck,’ and then
walks back out. Hocks a big looger on my front winder ta boot. That
son of a fuckin’ dirty mutt. I ever tell you about the time
he—”
Trey slapped a hand
down on the counter. “Pappy! Chief wants to know when the services
are!”
Halm blinked. “Oh,
yeah. Saturday noon, at the Schoenfeld Funeral Parlor. I’ll be
there, fer Judy a’ course—but not fer that rat
bastard.”
Sutter rolled his
eyes. Gee, I guess he didn’t think much
of Dwayne.
“Hearin’ some damn
funny stuff, since we’re on the topic,” Trey said in an
aside.
Sutter put the paper
down, listening.
“Funny ain’t the
word,” Halm said. “Nonstop fucked-up is more like it, since the day
they found that fucker dead.”
Shit . . . Sutter asked with some hesitation,
“What’s fucked-up, Pappy?”
“The talk about
Dwayne is what. You fellas are the cops, fer Christ’s sake. Ya musta seen the
body.”
“We didn’t get the
call; Luntville EMTs did,” Sutter said quickly.
“Well, ya musta heard
that somebody cut his head off.”
“Aw, we all heard
that, Pappy.,” Trey stepped in. “That ain’t the half of it. I
know some of Luntville’s EMTs—they’re
buddies of mine—and they said there was something really fucked-up
about the way he lost his head . . .
but they didn’t say exactly what. Something really screwy,
though.”
Sutter frowned
through an uncomfortable tremor in his belly. “Don’t listen to
every rumor you hear, ‘specially in a hick burg like this. Stuff
gets all blown out of proportion.”
“I don’t know, Chief.
I went down to the county morgue to take a look myself and they
wouldn’t even let me in. Why’s that? I’m a police officer in the
jurisdiction of the murder. It was our
crime scene. Ain’t our fault we weren’t the first
responders.”
“Trey, it ain’t even
positive yet that it was a murder.
Could’ve been an accident. See? Folks start talkin’ without knowin’
all the facts and they jump to conclusions. County didn’t let you
in ‘cos I’d already been there to ID the body.”
Trey stalled at the
information. “Shit, Chief, you didn’t tell me that.”
“Right, I didn’t tell
no one except Judy, because she’s the official next of kin. She
wasn’t up to seein’ the body, so I went in there on her
behalf.”
Halm and Trey both
looked at him.
“So?” Halm
asked.
“Was his head really
gone?” Trey finished.
Sutter sighed. “Yeah,
Trey.”
“And they never found
the head,” Halm added. “Somebody cut off his head and run off with
it. That ain’t murder?”
“We still get
gators,” Sutter hedged. “It coulda been a gator. He could’ve fallen
down the bluff and lost his head on the rocks. Fuckin’ truck
could’ve been barrelin’ around the bend and knocked his head off
with the rearview. It could’ve been anything. So relax ‘n’ stop
talkin’ shit, ’cos that just makes the rumors worse. We don’t want
all this weird talk getting back to Judy. She’s bent out of shape
enough as it is.”
Trey and Halm quieted
but only for a moment.
Trey began, “Was
there anything screwed-up about the neck wound?”
“No, Trey,” Sutter
replied, aggravated. “His head got cut off. Simple. It happens. It
was a decapitation. Said so in the autopsy report.”
This was Chief
Sutter’s first lie.
Pappy popped some
chaw in his mouth: Red Man. “They’re also sayin’ it was Squatters
who killed him. Everd Stanherd’s people. Makes sense.”
Jesus, Sutter griped. These
boys won’t get off it. He couldn’t tell the truth about it,
could he? He didn’t even understand the truth himself. “It makes
no sense, Pappy. Ain’t no reason for
Squatters to kill Dwayne Parker. You don’t kill the husband of the
woman who keeps your ass out of the welfare line. And you seen
these people. I’ll bet the biggest of the men don’t even stand
five-six. Dwayne was six-three and was still packin’ all them
muscles from working out in the joint all those years. Shit, there
ain’t ten Squatters who could take down
Dwayne Parker.”
“There are if one of
‘em had a machete in his paw,” Trey pointed out.
I just can’t win here, Sutter thought.
Pappy spit brown
juice into a Yoo-Hoo bottle. “And ain’t it funny ‘bout how Dwayne
gets his ticket punched right in the middle of all this talk about
some Squatters disappearin’. Like maybe he had somethin’ to do with
it.”
“Or done it himself,”
Trey said.
Now Sutter was
grinding his teeth. “Done what himself,
Trey?”
“Offed some
Squatters. Dwayne hated the Squatters; everyone knows
that.”
“Listen to me, both
of you.” Sutter’s voice hardened. “There ain’t no Squatters who
disappeared. It’s bullshit.”
“Nearly a dozen’s
what I heard,” Pappy offered.
“Here one day, gone
the next,” Trey said.
This was getting
hairy. “You two boneheads listen up. Ain’t nobody’s disappeared ‘round here. It’s a free country. Some
of these people think they can do better some-wheres else than here
. . . and that’s their right. There ain’t nothing wrong with
Squatters just’cos they’re a little funny-lookin’ in the face.
They’re just as smart as anyone else and just as able to work. Some
of ‘em get tired of crabbing, so they move on. Like
anywhere.”
Sutter’s sensible
explanation didn’t seem to convince the others. It was true that an
unusual number of Stanherd’s Squatters had left their abode on the
Point, some quite suddenly. Stanherd himself had reported it
several times, but even he admitted that they probably did just
leave town of their own accord. Sutter did know of the anomaly
regarding Dwayne Parker’s death, but of missing Squatters? He knew
nothing, nor did he believe any foul play was involved.
I swear to God. Gossip mouthpieces like Trey
and Pappy Halm just make my job harder. . . .
“So I don’t want to
hear no more crap about Squatters disappearing into the night and
Dwayne’s fuckin’ head never being found,” he finished.
All three heads
turned when the cowbell clanged, and in walked a lean, fortyish man
with short blond hair, blue eyes, and an expression that could be
deemed somber. He wore a beige windbreaker in spite of the heat,
work pants and boots without a speck of dirt on them.
“Howdy, Mr. Felps,”
Pappy said.
“Mr. Halm, Chief
Sutter, Sergeant Trey,” the man said in return. His voice was light
yet somehow edged, sibilant. “Things are going well for you all, I
trust?”
“Yes, sir, Mr.
Felps,” Sutter replied. Felps’s presence always affected Sutter and
most townspeople as something close to regal, for some disjointed
reason. He wasn’t necessarily the town’s savior, because Agan’s
Point had always been self-sufficient—but just barely. Instead,
Felps was the bearer of some energetic new blood that was sorely
needed. His Riverside Estates luxury condo complexes would siphon
upper-income families out of the state’s overpopulated big cities.
There were already several hundred preconstruction sales, along
with pricey television ads throughout Virginia. This
transplantation would divest Agan’s Point of some of its natural
beauty but deliver a much-needed economic shot in the arm. Sutter
saw it as the progress he’d waited for all his life, and he saw
Felps as its herald. “Things are just dandy ‘round
here.”
“And theyʹll be
getting even better soon,” Felps said, picking up a coffee and
Danish. “You’ve probably noticed that the foundations have already
been laid. Things will change around here fast. You’ll all be very
pleased.” The man’s enthusiasm, however, seemed dulled, lost in his
businessman’s veneer. Sutter supposed any successful construction
magnate carried the same air. And what did it matter, anyway?
All our lives will improve because of
this fella, Sutter
realized.
Felps’s stay was
brief, to the point. He paid up, bade them a good day, and
left.
“Not the friendliest
fella in the land,” Pappy said, “but do you think I give a flying
fuck? My business’ll triple the first year those condos start
opening.”
“He’s a big-city
builder, Pappy,” Sutter reminded him. “Guys like that are
no-nonsense and all business. That’s why they’re
millionaires.”
Trey shrugged,
leaning on the counter. “He ain’t such a poker face once ya get to
know him. Matter of fact, I had a few beers with him at the bar the
other night.”
Sutter felt secretly
jealous. “You’re kidding me?”
“Naw. He and a few of
his managers walked in. They asked me to join ‘em and we all sat
there for an hour shootin’ the shit and pounding a few. When Felps
is off the clock, he’s a regular guy just like you and
me.”
Sutter’s jealousy
remained. If there was one man he wanted to be pals with, it was
Felps. I’ll have to work on that. . .
.
“Later, Pappy,” he
said. “We’re out of here.”
“You boys take it
easy the rest of the day.” Pappy cackled. “Don’t wanna wear
yourselves out kickin’ scumbag ass.”
“Just another day in
the lives of two hardworkin’ cops,” Trey said, casting a final
glance at the men’s mags.
Back outside, Sutter
didn’t even have time to grab his keys before a shadow moved behind
him. He hadn’t heard a sound. Had those drug dealers come back for
revenge? Impossible, he thought.
They’re lucky if they made it to the nearest
hospital on their own. . . . Sutter spun, instinct charging
his gun hand, but then found himself looking into the face of a
gaunt old man.
“Hey, there, Everd,”
Trey greeted.
Everd Stanherd stood
like a meticulously dressed scarecrow, neat as a pin in his typical
faded black suit and tie. Short jet-black hair didn’t look right
atop the old, waxen, and deeply lined face, yet the deep-socketed
eyes appeared vibrant, the eyes of a twenty-year-old set in an old
man’s skull. The only detail that might tell him apart from any
elderly man was the pendant around his neck: a black silk cord
connected to a small black silk sack.
Everd lived with his
wife, Marthe, in the only house at the end of the point, a decrepit
slat-wood mansion built a hundred years ago. Judy Parker let him
live there, and he shared the house with other elders of his
Squatter clan. The rest of the Squatters lived all about the
property surrounding the house, in surprisingly well built tin huts
erected in the midst of the heavy woods—Squatterville, most people
called the area. Judy let them all live there rent-free as a
benefit of their employment with the crab company. In all, the
Squatters were respectful, law-abiding, and industrious in their
own simple way, and this frail yet vibrant man standing before them
was their leader.
“It’s good to see
you, Everd,” Sutter said. “Any word on those couple of folks in
your clan who can’t be accounted for?”
“No, sir,” Everd
replied. They all spoke so strangely, yet Everd’s tone and diction
were the strangest of all. His thin lips barely moved around the
words, almost as though they were being projected from elsewhere.
And that indefinable dialect. “As a matter of fact, two left for
Roanoke last week, quite verifiably. I suspect the same can be said
of the others, as you suggested. It’s just uncharacteristic for
members of our clan to leave without notice.”
“Everd, when I was a
kid, I ran away a bunch of times, and never told my parents where I
was headed,” Sutter pointed out. “There’s over a hundred Squatters
you got livin’ on the Point. You can’t keep tabs on them
all.”
“You’re correct,
sir,” Everd returned. He stood absolutely motionless as he spoke,
save for one crabbed hand fingering the black pouch about his neck.
“However, a third member seems to have disappeared—a young girl
named Cynabelle—Cindy, to you. But I must confess that she may have
fallen with a bad crowd and vacated, too, for more adventurous
exploits in the city.” Everd paused, as if about to say something
difficult. “She lacked the standard of morality that my clan lives
by, and I’m afraid several of the girls have fallen by the same
wayside in the past. Not many, but a few. I feel it’s my failing
ultimately.”
“Trickin’ herself
out, you mean.” Trey got the gist. “Everd, your Squatters have a
lower crime rate than the general population. From a police
officer’s point a’ view, they’re about as low-maintenance as you
can get.”
“Don’t kick yourself
in the tail,” Sutter added some consolation. He was actually
relieved by the extent to which Everd was reasonable about things.
“You run a tight ship with your people, and we’re grateful. But you
can’t go blamin’ yourself because a few girls go bad. They’re ain’t
nothing you can do about it. In any community, there’s always gonna
be a few girls who decide they can make more money with their
bodies than workin’ a proper job. Been that way for thousands of
years. And there’s always gonna be a few fellas who go bad too.
Don’t worry about it.”
“Nevertheless, I
apologize for such mishaps,” the man intoned. “I will try to keep a
closer rein on it. But I’ve also come to thank you.”
“For
what?”
“Just earlier,” Everd
said. He kept touching the pouch. “Some ruffians from the city
attempted to corrupt one of our young girls. She came immediately
and told me. She said that you and your deputy repelled these two
criminals convincingly.”
“Oh, yeah,” Trey
said. “Couple drug dealers tryin’ to sell their crap in our town.
We sent ’em packin’, didn’t we, Chief?”
“You won’t have to
worry about them boys anymore, Everd,” Sutter guaranteed. Every so
often, he’d cast a glance to the pendant, at first paying it no
mind, but gradually growing more curious.
Everd looked him
right in the eye, his own eyes green as emeralds, flecked with
blue—another trademark of Squatter heredity. “You men have the
utmost gratitude of my clan. This I cannot emphasize enough. I’d
like to invite you both to my home tonight for a meal prepared in
the tradition of our ancestors. Marthe will be serving an
andouille-style sausage made with slow-smoked muskrat,
crab-and-chickpea bisque, cattail cakes, and the seasonal delicacy
this year, something we call custa.”
“Custa? What’s that?”
Trey inquired.
“Cicadas roasted in
wild mint and cracked white peppercorns.”
Yow! Sutter’s doughnut-filled stomach lurched as if
kicked. “That’s, uh, mighty generous of ya, Everd, and we
definitely will take you up on that kind offer down the road. But,
see, Trey and I have some important police work to do for the next
few weeks.”
Everd nodded. “In the
future, then, when it’s more convenient to your busy schedule.
You’re always welcome at my home. And remember the clan cookout
next week.”
“We’ll be there for
sure,” Trey said.
“So until we meet
again, gentlemen, I bid you a pleasant day.” But before Everd
turned to leave, Sutter couldn’t resist: “Everd, tell me somethin’,
will ya? What is that thing around your neck?”
The old man seemed
unfazed by the question, untying the sack. “It’s called a tok.” He
removed something stiff and twisted.
What in shit’s name!
It was a chicken
head.
“It’s the severed
head of a black cock—not an ordinary chicken, mind you,” Everd
explained. “Upside down in the pouch. It preserves wisdom.” He
started to take it off. “Here, I’d like you to have it, as my
gift.”
Yow! Sutter held up his hand. “Aw, no, Everd, I
couldn’t. But thanks just the same.”
“Very well. But it’s
been a pleasure to be in your company these few minutes. I look
forward to our next meeting.” And then Everd slipped away, silent
as a shadow.
“How do you like that
funky shit?” Trey chuckled. “With all the shit he said he was
servin’ for dinner, I’m surprised there ain’t no chicken on the menu. Ain’t that some weird
superstitious jive they got goin’ on?”
“You got that right,”
Sutter said. “And I’ll definitely pass on the muskrat and
cicadas.”
“Roger
that.”
“Hey, Chief, why
don’t ya hang a chicken head from the cruiser rearview? Maybe it’ll
give us wisdom!”
Sutter looked after
the old man, who’d already made it halfway up the road. “The
Squatters are tough to figure. They’re kind of like Indians, but
they don’t look it. All those charms they’re into.”
“Or like Gypsies,”
Trey compared. “But they don’t look like Gypsies, either. They
don’t even look European.”
“The accent’s weird
too. One time I asked Everd where he and his people were from, and
you know what he said? He said ‘the Old World.’ Then I asked him
what the hell that mean, and he told me Agan’s Point is where
they’re from. That his ancestors’ve always been here.” Sutter
pinched his chin. “I wonder where they’re really from. . .
.”
“Yeah, then there’s
always the one question that’s more important than that,” Trey
posed.
“What’s
that?”
“Who gives a flying
rat’s ass?”
Sutter was inclined
to agree. He looked down the road again and saw no sign of Everd
Stanherd. Trey had his back to him, looking off in the opposite
direction. “Ooo-eee, Chief! Would you look at that
Caddy!”
“Yeah. Nice set of
wheels.”
A snappy, late-model
Cadillac coup was cruising along past them, a ragtop, with a deep,
rich paint job the color of red wine. The driver obviously spotted
the two police watching her, and slowed down a bit.
Trey squinted. “Looks
like some dandy tail drivin’ it, too. Looks
hiiiiiigh-class.”
“Yeah, too high-class
for this town, now that ya mention it,” Sutter considered. “Bet
that car runs eighty grand outta the showroom, Trey. What the
hell’s a rich gal like that doin’ in Agan’s Point?”
“Red-hairt, too,”
Trey could see. “Ah-oooooo-gah! Bet she’s got red carpet to match
those red drapes.” He elbowed Sutter. “Looks like she’s doin’ about
five over the limit, Chief. What say we pull her over, see what
she’s got to gander?”
Sutter frowned. “Git
your mind outta the sewer, Trey.” But it wasn’t that bad an idea.
Cops worked hard. They needed a perk now and again.
Then, as the car
flashed by, the driver waved and honked.
Both men looked
behind them. Trey scratched his head. “She wavin’ at
us?”
That was when the red
hair and upscale look clicked. “Ah, I know who that is, and so do
you.”
“Huh?”
“Patricia, Judy
Parker’s sister.”
Trey stared off after
the vanishing car. “Ya don’t say? Ain’t seen her around here
in—”
“About five years.
Looks different ‘cos she cut her hair. Came back for Judy’s
marriage to that scumbag Dwayne, and now it looks like she’s here
again—”
“—for the scumbag’s
funeral.”
A silence passed
between them. The Cadillac disappeared around the road’s
bend.
“Too bad about her,
ya know?” Trey said.
Sutter nodded at the
words. “I remember Patricia since she was tiny—shit, I wasn’t but
twelve or thirteen myself when she was born. Fiery, chatty little
kid, she was. Full a’ life, always happy.”
“Yeah. Then she just
turned cold. Bet I didn’t hear her say two words before she ran off
to college and law school.”
Sutter jingled his
keys. He remembered. “Poor girl never was the same,” he said,
“after the rape. . . .”