The Sinners Read online

  ALSO BY ACE ATKINS

  QUINN COLSON NOVELS

  The Ranger

  The Lost Ones

  The Broken Places

  The Forsaken

  The Redeemers

  The Innocents

  The Fallen

  ROBERT B. PARKER’S SPENSER NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby

  Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland

  Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

  Robert B. Parker’s Kickback

  Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn

  Robert B. Parker’s Little White Lies

  Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic

  NICK TRAVERS NOVELS

  Crossroad Blues

  Leavin’ Trunk Blues

  Dark End of the Street

  Dirty South

  TRUE CRIME NOVELS

  White Shadow

  Wicked City

  Devil’s Garden

  Infamous

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

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  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Ace Atkins

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Atkins, Ace, author.

  Title: The sinners / Ace Atkins.

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2018] | Series: A Quinn Colson novel ; 8

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018022151 | ISBN 9780399576744 (Hardcover) | ISBN 9780399576768 (ePub)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Crime. | FICTION / Thrillers. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3551. T49 S56 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018022151

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Burt Reynolds

  CONTENTS

  Also by Ace Atkins

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  About the Author

  To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.

  —William Faulkner

  Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds powder and ball, and be ready to march at a minute’s warning.

  —Rogers’ Rangers Standing Order No. 2

  1

  “You sure you want to do this?” E. J. Royce said.

  “Yes, sir,” Sheriff Hamp Beckett said, reaching for the cigarette lighter in the patrol car dash and setting fire to the end of a Marlboro Red. “Damn straight.”

  “Good and goddamn sure?”

  “No, Royce,” Beckett said. “I’d rather sit here and play with my goddamn pecker while Heath Pritchard keeps making those Memphis runs with enough pot in that Ford Bronco to keep half of Tennessee stoned. You know that son of a bitch waves at me every time he sneaks back across the county line? Like me and him are big buddies. He might as well be saluting me with his middle finger, that big shit-eating grin on his face.”

  It was late June of 1993, growing warm and muggy at first light, while he and Royce parked the cruiser right beside the Jericho Farm & Ranch, waiting for Pritchard to speed on past, scooting back from a midnight run, hightailing it to the big farm he shared with his two spinster sisters. Pritchard sure was a bastard, wasn’t a doubt in Beckett’s mind. He’d been busting that boy since he’d been elected sheriff back in ’74, on everything from aggravated assault to public drunk. He once shot a neighbor’s dog with a crossbow and several times had been caught in intimate acts with girls too young to know better.

  Pritchard sure loved those teenagers, cruising the Jericho town square in his growling truck, window down, hairy ape arm out the open window with a lit cigarette. He was a real hillbilly hero to those kids. All Levi’s, sideburns, and a big thick roll of cash.

  “You know,” Royce said. “The other night, I was watching this movie on the HBO. Had Robert Duvall and that fella who was married to Madonna. They was cops out there in Los Angeles fighting a bunch a gangbangers. Anyway, him and Duvall are sitting in their squad car and Duvall tells the other fella a story about an old bull and a young bull sitting on a hill.”

  “I heard it.”

  “I don’t think you have, Sheriff.”

  “How the hell do you know what I heard and not heard?” Beckett said, spewing smoke from the side of his mouth, weathered old hand tapping the wheel, nervous and expectant.

  “’Cause you ain’t got the HBO out there in the country and probably never will,” Royce said. “So, the old bull and the young bull are looking down at a herd of heifers and the young bull says, ‘Why don’t we go down and screw one of them big fat cows?’”

  “That ain’t how it goes,” Beckett said. “Christ, Royce, you’d fuck up your own funeral. Way it goes is, the young bull says, ‘How about me and you run down there and fuck a heifer?’ and the old bull turns to him and says, ‘How about we just walk on down there and fuck ’em all.’”

  “I don’t see no difference,” Royce said. “Story’s the same. Just a couple damn animals shooting the breeze.”

  Royce was a rail-thin, leathery old bastard in his tan deputy uniform. What remained of his gray hair had been Brylcreemed down to his head in a sad attempt to cover up a freckled bald spot. Beckett was a large man, barrel-chested and big-bellied, what his wife Halley called sad-faced but handsome. He was tall and lumbering, smelling of cigarettes and whiskey breath from the night before.

  “Are you trying to make a point to me about patience?” Beckett said. “And me dealing with Heath Pritchard? ’Cause if you are, you’re doing a horseshit job.”

  “Hold up there, Sheriff,” Royce said, holding out the flat of his hand. “Just hear me out. We got the whole damn department and them boys from the DEA descending on Pritchard land this morning like a wave of locusts. But what if we got fed some bad intel an
d we don’t find nothing? One of those shit-in-one-hand, wish-in-the-other situations. Me and you been lawmen too damn long to rush in without being damn sure what we’re gonna find. Someone like Pritchard will take some serious offense if we’re wrong. I don’t want truck with him or any of his crazy people.”

  “Oh, you don’t?” Beckett said. He lifted his tired blue eyes and weathered sunburned face to the rearview mirror, rubbing his chin. He needed a shave and maybe another shot of Jack Daniel’s in his morning coffee to steady things. “That’s mighty interesting. Ain’t it about time for you to put in your retirement?”

  “Shit,” Royce said. “I’m just watching your back, Hamp. I’ve been doin’ it half my life. Don’t go on and get a sore ass about it now. There’s just been a lot of talk in town.”

  “I know too damn well,” Beckett said. “I heard all that shit.”

  “Pritchard ain’t like other folks,” Royce said. “Something is broken in that fella’s head.”

  The dash radio squawked, the deputy watching the county line letting them know that Heath Pritchard was inbound, rolling fast and steady back to his family’s land. Beckett gave a big 10-4, sitting there, sweating and waiting, his heart pumping fast in his tired old ribs. This was it. They finally were going to put that crazy bastard in the cage where he belonged. Beckett flicked the Marlboro out the open window, dusted the ash off his wrinkled uniform, and cranked the ignition. Royce leaned into his shotgun like a cane, waiting for Pritchard to zip past the Jericho Farm & Ranch, racing to his two hundred and fifty acres. Every inch was fenced off with barbed wire or half-buried truck tires painted white, a Confederate flag flying high above the front gate, letting everyone know that Pritchard land was as free and sovereign as any country down in South America or Walt Disney World in Orlando.

  “I once seen this monkey at the Memphis Zoo,” Royce said. “Wadn’t a hell of a lot of difference between him and the way Pritchard acts when we get him in the cage. That damn ape stared at me like he wanted to rip my arms from their sockets and my eyes from my head. All I know is, Pritchard won’t go quiet.”

  “Then my Sunday prayer will be answered.”

  “You gonna try and kill him?”

  “Deputy Royce?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t you ever ask me a question like that again.”

  The Ford Bronco flew on past, buggy antennae whipping about, and Sheriff Beckett pulled out fast and hard behind. Beckett didn’t hit the lights, just keeping a good even pace behind Pritchard to let him know they were all over his ass. They’d run him back to his foxhole, where the DEA boys were already waiting out down that county road. The plan was for everyone to hit the farm at the same time, Beckett getting to Pritchard first as he walked from his truck to that old house of his. If he wanted to make a play, Beckett was the man to finish the business. Four miles down, Pritchard slowed his Bronco and pulled quick into his land, closing the gate behind him, and trailed off in a billow of reddish road dirt.

  “What now?” Royce said.

  “We got cutters, don’t we?” Beckett said.

  Royce hopped out, cut the chain, and then climbed back into the sheriff’s car, barely getting the door shut before Beckett was off again, this time joined by a half-dozen black cars and three more deputies following. He was reminded of that old Waylon song: “Jack of Diamonds. Jack of Diamonds. I still got my Ace.”

  “‘But you cannot take my soul,’” Beckett sang, holding the wheel tight, back end bucking up on the dirt road.

  “What’d you say?” Royce said.

  “There he goes, sprinting like a jackrabbit,” Beckett said. “Hit the goddamn lights, Deputy.”

  E. J. Royce flicked on the blue lights and the siren, lighting up the summer dawn. Dust flew into the open windows, tires hitting a few potholes, until he skidded to a stop and tossed open the door. Beckett was an old man but not a slow man, and he was within ten paces of Heath Pritchard quick, with his .44 out and drawn.

  “Hold up, Pritchard.”

  Pritchard stopped at the steps of his rambling one-story farmhouse, one foot on the first step, as the screen door was flung open by one of his crazy sisters, standing tall and proud with a shotgun up in her skinny arms. With his back turned, Pritchard raised his hands and faced Beckett slow and easy. He gave a look only a Pritchard could with a dozen lawmen with guns trained on him, a big old cocky smile and a silly-ass laugh. “You boys lost?” he said. “’Cause my other sister got my Jew lawyer up in Memphis on speed dial.”

  “Get your ass down here, Pritchard,” Beckett said. “And I’d appreciate it if your dear sweet sister drops that twelve-gauge at her feet or she’s going to be shellin’ peas at the state pen until the Second Coming.”

  The woman was as short and wiry as the other Pritchards, with a sallow face and sunk-in black eyes but with the big belly of an expectant mother. Her jaw set as she looked down at all the lawmen out on the gravel road, blue lights flashing and a dozen guns trained on her and her brother. The door flew open and the other sister, with the same look only fifty pounds heavier, rushed out carrying a black skillet in her hand, seeking to do some battle or fry up some eggs for breakfast.

  “Morning, Missy,” Beckett said.

  The big girl looked dazed. She nodded slow. “Sheriff.”

  “Anybody else in the house?”

  She shook her head. Royce and two more deputies walked up and grabbed the woman as Beckett kept his eyes and his gun on Pritchard. Hell of thing to be run so ragged by some shitbird like Heath Pritchard. Black-eyed and black-haired, he had on a dirty V-neck T-shirt, jeans, and rattlesnake cowboy boots that must’ve cost five hundred dollars. He saw Beckett eyeing his feet and grinned even more.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “And, yes. They do look damn sharp on me.”

  Beckett reached around the man and pulled a Browning 9mm from the back of his Wranglers.

  “You ain’t gonna find nothing here,” Pritchard said. “Look all you want. I’ll wait here all day. And when you’re done, I’ll make sure this is your last term as sheriff. You’re a goddamn dinosaur, Hamp. A damn ole toothless T. rex that don’t know he’s already extinct.”

  The DEA boys already had the Bronco’s doors and tailgate open. Men searched under the seats and pulled back the bloodred carpet trying to find Pritchard’s hidey-holes. The two sisters had found a secure spot on a metal glider on the porch, gliding away, looking worried as hell, while their brother seemed amused by the whole situation. The deputies had gone on into the old house to rifle through closets and peek under beds, while Hamp turned his attention on a big rickety barn on the edge of the property. Barely red, sun-faded and busted, leaning a lot to the right.

  “I know how much you like that Gunsmoke, Sheriff,” Pritchard said. “But don’t you know the ladies love outlaws?”

  “Why don’t you shut your hick mouth.”

  “Missy?” Pritchard said. The woman coming to attention and stopping the motion on the glider. “How about you get on in the kitchen and fry up some bacon. It’s gonna be a long morning.”

  “Stay where you’re at,” Beckett said. “Where you been, Heath?”

  He shrugged. “Shooting pool.”

  “Up in Memphis?”

  “Good a place as any.”

  “After you made that delivery.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”

  Beckett spit on the ground as E. J. Royce walked out from the old barn with another deputy, shaking his head. A moment later, he heard heavy shoes on the stairs and the screen door squeaking open as two DEA men in khakis and black windbreakers walked out and showed their empty palms. Beckett nodded to the men, in both directions, letting them know to keep on looking. He had to keep that goddamn stash somewhere.

  “Johnny Stagg tugging your leash, Sheriff?” Pritchard said. “He sure
would like to put me in my place.”

  Beckett gave him a hard look and shook loose a Marlboro from the pack. Everything soft and quiet in the early-summer morning. He could feel the heat coming on, smell the manure in the pasture, see the red pops of color from the sisters’ canna lilies planted along the steps.

  They ransacked the house, the barn, and two machine shops where Pritchard claimed to repair appliances for a living. About the best the men could find was four gallons of moonshine, a stack of nudie magazines, and a Thompson machine gun. Pritchard had pulled out an old wooden chair and sat in the middle of the gravel path, smoking a cigarette, smiling at all the confused and frustrated lawmen as they turned his own private world inside out. Beckett walked up to him and looked down on the grizzled little man.

  “Where is it?”

  “You been after my ass a long while,” he said. “Blaming me for things I’d never do.”

  Beckett wanted to snatch up the cocky son of a bitch by the front of his filthy T-shirt and kick the everliving shit out of him. But he just smiled and walked back to his patrol car, calling dispatch to send in some dogs from Lee County to assist. That’s when Beckett felt the morning coffee kicking in and he wandered away from the cars, Pritchard laughing and grinning, telling stories to the DEA boys about how he’d been three-time dirt track champion of the Mid-South. “The King,” Pritchard said, “Jerry Lawler himself, sponsored my team before the wreck.”

  Beckett wasn’t listening to any more horseshit, heading toward the big cornfield, the cicadas coming alive as the soil started to get warm, growing crazy and wild, humming and clicking way out into the trees. He stepped up to a row of Silver Queen higher than his head and started to piss into Pritchard’s crop. Those DEA boys had flown over the land twice since spring, not being able to find where he’d gotten that weed. But standing there that morning, he saw something through the corn that caught his eye, deep in the fourth row, a darker shade of green that made him rush his business and zip up, and drew him, kicking and stumbling through the corn, pushing the leaves away from his face, busting stalks, and tromping through the rows until he found what everyone had told him wasn’t there. Either those DEA boys were goddamn blind or Pritchard was smarter than he thought. Four rows of corn in the middle of the big field with marijuana planted between them, big, healthy plants with those wild razory leaves. Out of breath, Beckett pulled a blue bandanna out of his pocket and wiped his sweating brow. He walked for twenty minutes straight through the cornfields to find the whole maze and precise coverage of the crop. Goddamn, he had the bastard.