The Lost Ones Page 15

  24

  IT GOT PRETTY HEATED ON THE COUCH BEFORE DINAH BRAND USED THE flat of her hand to push Quinn away and pull down her sweater. They’d been on the couch a good long while, and the nice, slow kisses had turned into something a lot more rushed, with some heavy breathing and wandering hands. He’d put a Tammy Wynette record on his uncle’s old stereo, and he figured that “I Don’t Wanna Play House” had been the one that had pushed her over the edge, lying long and prone on the couch, taking Quinn’s face in her hands and letting out a long sigh as she reclined. Quinn had tried to hold her hand and pull her back to his bedroom, but that’s when Dinah Brand, Special Agent, returned, and she shook her head with that palm on his heart as she said, “Easy. Easy. This is way too fast, Sheriff.”

  Tammy Wynette sounded so sweet, singing from the salon with the lights off and a nice fire going in the old stone fireplace. Hondo didn’t even lift his head as the drama had been going on. The fire kicked up sparks, popping and hissing.

  “I got a spare room,” Quinn said. “You could stay over. It’s too late to drive back.”

  “I’m a big girl.”

  “I get that,” Quinn said.

  “How about a drink?” Quinn asked.

  “I said I need to drive home.”

  “Coffee?”

  “OK. Coffee would be nice.”

  Quinn used an old speckled percolator on his gas stove, spooning in some of the grounds his buddy at Fort Lewis had sent. Good dark-roast stuff from Seattle. Quinn took good whiskey, bacon, and coffee as required items.

  “I meant to tell you we connected a few folks in Memphis to a cell in Houston.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They work the carnival circuit,” Dinah said. “How about that? We think that’s probably how they’re running drugs and guns.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Same group set up a Ferris wheel for your harvest festival.”

  “I was there,” Quinn said. “I brought my nephew.”

  “That’s probably where they did some business with Ramón.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “We know they’d put the word out to some gun dealers,” Dinah said. “We got them making some straw purchases in Grenada and some more in Southaven. But I don’t think they got all they were after. I showed you a picture of a couple of them. You remember a woman named Laura? Zuniga?”

  Quinn shook his head. He leaned against the edge of his kitchen counter.

  When the kissing and hands had started, they’d both laid their guns on the kitchen table, and Dinah Brand reached for hers before taking a seat. Quinn moved his gun to the kitchen counter with a smile, the water starting to boil. Hondo padded into the kitchen and looked up at him before Quinn let him out the back door and he rushed out barking at some deer. The screen door closed behind him with a thwack.

  “You don’t keep much but the basics here,” Dinah said.

  “I got what I need.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Coffee, whiskey, and books.”

  “And guns?”

  “I got that safe after I got this farm,” Quinn said. “My uncle had a lot of collectibles. He had them lying all around the house. I found some under his bed and in boxes. This place was a real mess when he died.”

  “And the town, too.”

  “Some people turned him,” Quinn said. “They preyed on his weakness. He wasn’t right in the head.”

  “Johnny Stagg?”

  “You’ve read up.”

  “He seems as slippery as they get.”

  “I’m working on it,” Quinn said. “Milk and sugar?”

  Dinah nodded, and he poured her coffee into a thick ceramic mug. He placed a sugar bowl and glass bottle of Brown Family Dairy milk, along with a spoon, before her. Hondo was scratching at the back door, and Quinn let him back inside. It had grown chilly outside, and a gust of wind kicked into the kitchen. There was no moon tonight, and the farmland was still and quiet.

  “I really do have a spare room.”

  “You could get me in a lot of trouble,” Dinah said. “You do know that?”

  “You can sleep in my room,” Quinn said. “Bed is better. I’ll take the couch. I got a nice fire going. It’s no trouble.”

  “What time is it?”

  “One.”

  Dinah nodded. She poured a little milk into the coffee and stirred in some sugar. Hondo rested at her feet and looked up with his mismatched eyes at Quinn. Her face had been chafed from all the kissing. He hadn’t meant to, but her sensitive skin was marked up pretty good.

  “How long have you been in Mississippi?” Quinn asked.

  “This is my first year.”

  “And before that, you were in Alabama?”

  “I’ve pretty much been in the Southeast from the start.”

  “You always like this line of work?”

  “Sure,” she said. “My father was in the FBI. I admired what he did. Hey, is that your family?”

  Quinn looked up at the wall at a shot of the Beckett family. Quinn’s grandfather was one of five barefoot kids standing with his great-grandfather and great-grandmother in front of the farmhouse. The photo was sort of a Southern Gothic without the pitchfork, more a family milling about for a traveling WPA photographer in the 1930s.

  “This is the same house?”

  “Our family built this place in 1895.”

  “And you must love that history.”

  “We’ve been in this county since right before the Civil War.”

  Dinah nodded and drank her coffee. She dropped one hand and rubbed the scruff of Hondo’s neck. He liked it so much, his back leg twitched and scratched involuntarily.

  “I do the same thing if you scratch me,” Quinn said.

  Dinah smiled. She took another sip of coffee.

  “You have an extra toothbrush?”

  “Yep.”

  “And some pajamas?”

  “I can round something up.”

  Quinn walked ahead and showed her the simple room where he kept the iron bed, a footlocker, dresser, and nightstand. The only thing hanging on the walls was a flag flown at Camp Spann in Afghanistan. Colonel George Reynolds had presented him with it on what would be his last tour with the 3rd Batt. All of his other mementos—beret, weapons, medals—were locked up tight in the trunk. He hadn’t opened it since he’d been home.

  Quinn cut on a small lamp on the nightstand and pulled back the cover.

  Dinah was there as he turned, and she grabbed his hand, and kissed him on the cheek. She used the flat of her hand, this time to push him down on the edge of the bed, and she walked to the door and closed it with a light click.

  “Don’t talk about this.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “To anyone.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Especially to the deputy who doesn’t like me.”

  “Lillie.”

  “Especially Lillie.”

  “You bet.”

  Dinah laid her weapon on the nightstand, stripped out of her clothes, and clicked off the table lamp.

  25

  ANNA LEE STOPPED BY THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING TO TELL Quinn that his sister had gone batshit crazy.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “She’s at Jason’s daycare right now and won’t leave.”

  “Least she’s spending time with her son.”

  “She called the woman who runs the place a Nazi Bitch.”

  “Mrs. Shelton?”

  “What it all boils down to is that Caddy thinks Jason is being treated differently.”

  Quinn nodded, put down the morning reports, and stood up. Anna Lee looked as if she wanted to say more, Quinn knowing what she wanted to say, thinking: What the hell is the big deal?

  “Treated differently because he’s a Methodist?”

  “Son of a bitch, Quinn,” Anna Lee said. “You know what I’m saying. ’Cause he’s half black.”

  “Holy shit,” Quin
n said. “Which half?”

  Anna Lee shook her head and frowned. “You can make fun of this all you want, but your sister is making quite a scene down there. She’s blocked the other parents from leaving the parking lot till she gets an apology.”

  “Just what did Mrs. Shelton do again?”

  “Quinn?” Anna Lee said.

  “Yep.”

  “It’s Caddy.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Quinn had brought Hondo to work with him that morning, and the cattle dog rode shotgun high up in the old truck, the doors creaking and shocks squeaking. The passenger window had stopped working, and a tractor had thrown up a rock last week, spiderwebbing part of his windshield.

  Quinn put in a call to Boom, checking on that new truck. Boom didn’t answer. He tried his mother and got voice mail. He really didn’t want to handle this but figured putting a deputy on it would be cowardly.

  True to what Anna Lee had said, Caddy’s Honda had blocked the entrance to the ABC Learning Center. Caddy was standing toe-to-toe with Mrs. Shelton, finger waving in her face, a lot of yelling. A dozen cars were backed up behind her. Mrs. Shelton nodded with Caddy, looking nervous and apologetic.

  Quinn thought about hitting the flashers and trying out the siren.

  Instead, he told Hondo to stay and approached the women, Quinn just catching the end of Caddy’s speech about Mrs. Shelton never wanting Jason in her school and the way she was always looking at him like he had some kind of disease.

  “Morning,” Quinn said. “You think we might move this inside and let these people head on?’

  “Do you know what this woman did?” Caddy asked.

  “Hello, Mrs. Shelton,” Quinn said.

  Mrs. Shelton took a long breath and closed her eyes. Caddy launched into a story about how Mrs. Shelton had divided the kids into different groups yesterday and made a big deal about how Jason was an African. She even had him point out parts of Africa on the map. “Can you believe that shit?” Caddy asked.

  Mrs. Shelton shook her head and closed her eyes. She kept shaking her head.

  “This is a traffic issue right now,” Quinn said. “Let’s work on that family issue somewhere else.”

  “I’m not moving my car,” Caddy said. She crossed her arms across her chest and clenched her jaw. Old Mrs. Shelton had walked away, talking to the parents who were waiting in line, trying to get out.

  “This ain’t the best way to handle it.”

  “What the hell do you know?” Caddy asked.

  The keys to the Honda flashed in Caddy’s hand, and Quinn plucked them from her fingers, crawled inside, and moved the car off the road, parking along the shoulder of Main Street. Hondo watched him from the driver’s side of the truck, panting up a nice fog on the window.

  “Don’t you care?” Caddy asked. “Don’t you give a shit what she called your nephew?”

  Quinn kept walking. The cars moved on out of the way. Most of the parents knew him, and they knew Caddy, and passed with an apologetic wave. Caddy followed him inside the school, where Mrs. Shelton waited. The hall was cinder block and lined with finger paintings with a Halloween theme. Pumpkins, skeletons, a few bats.

  “Your son offered the information,” Mrs. Shelton said. “He pointed out on the map that his family was from Africa.”

  Quinn rubbed the back of his neck. His cell phone rang. Quinn saw it was his mother and turned it off.

  “I can settle this,” Quinn said.

  “I want an apology,” Caddy said. “He’s three years old, and if the children start seeing him as something scary and different it will change his whole life. He’ll be an outcast in this shitty little town.”

  Quinn held up his hand.

  “I told him his people were from Africa, Caddy,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  “Hell, he asked. I have that big National Geographic map at the farm and I was showing him all the places I’d been. I showed him different spots in Iraq and Afghanistan, and over in Scotland where our people come from. He asked about his daddy’s people, and I showed him Africa. I didn’t see any harm in that.”

  “You didn’t?” Caddy said. Her face had turned red. “What the hell were you doing?”

  “I think they call it geography.”

  “I don’t like this,” Caddy said. “I think he was made an example. It’s sick to do that with a child.”

  Caddy turned, ripped the keys back out of Quinn’s hand, and hustled back to her Honda. She left the parking lot with a big screeching noise.

  Quinn turned away. He smiled at the older woman.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Shelton,” Quinn said. “My family is sorry. Did Jason see any of this?”

  Mrs. Shelton shook her head, walking Quinn into the daycare and letting him watch Jason sitting cross-legged in front of a teacher reading a story.

  Jason looked very content with the tale, his eyes flashing up at the illustrations with a big grin.

  “God love her,” Quinn said and left.

  QUINN AND CADDY MADE CAMP by the hidden pond at twilight. He’d fished for the last thirty minutes, not needing long to catch a mess of sunfish. He strung them through their gills and carried them back to the small lean-to where Caddy worked. She’d pulled branches off pine and oak to fashion walls.

  “You don’t need to sweep a dirt floor.”

  Caddy didn’t listen and continued to sweep using the end of a pine branch. She hummed along as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “You’ve gone crazy,” Quinn said.

  “So?”

  “I’m gonna build a fire.”

  “What about the warden?”

  “He’s too fat and lazy to track at night,” Quinn said. “By morning we’ll be gone.”

  “What about the camp?”

  “We’ll build another.”

  “But I like this one,” Caddy said. “It’s pretty, and by the lake.”

  “We walk at a good pace and we can get out of the forest tomorrow, maybe make our way toward the interstate. We can hitch down to New Orleans. I can get a job there.”

  “Can we call Daddy?”

  “Hell no,” Quinn said. “You think he gives a shit about us?”

  “That sounds like Momma talking.”

  “He’s the big shot in Hollywood who thinks all that shit he sends at Christmas means something,” Quinn said. “I ain’t calling him for nothing. He can go ahead and live it up with that big-titty whore he’s seeing.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I keep sweeping?”

  “Sure.”

  Quinn found some rocks and fashioned a little ring by the edge of the pine. He had a matchbook he’d taken from the Rebel Truck Stop and set fire to some pine bark and shavings from a birch tree. After the fire grew nice and hot, he collected some branches and cedar logs. The cedar would give the fish a nice taste.

  He used a folding knife with a serrated edge to cut off the fish heads, gut and scale them. He washed the fish at the edge of the pond and threw the heads and guts way out into the water. The sun was almost done now, lights fading through the thick pine trees and oaks with yellow and red leaves.

  Caddy sat next to him as the little skillet he’d packed heated in the fire. She leaned into his coat, and he stretched his arm around her. They watched the final light crossing the land, bleeding out until they were all in shadow.

  A wind whipped fast and cold up across them, knocking down part of the lean-to. Caddy ran and picked up the branches and again made her wall. The wind was cold and brisk and made the woods seem even larger and more hollow than they were.

  Everything was so quiet way up here, almost like some kind of holyplace.

  Quinn loved it. But Caddy was scared.

  He opened up the dried peaches and let her eat first while he turned the fish in the hot oil. The fire brought a nice comfort to them, smelling of sweet cedar and spiced cornmeal and fish.

  The pines swayed in the n
ight breeze as the fire popped and hissed.

  The fish was crisp and delicious, and after he scrubbed the skillet clean in the pond, Quinn reached into his coat for some tobacco and he chewed a bit, spitting into the fire.

  Caddy stayed and leaned against him.

  “Can I read to you?”

  “What did you bring?” Quinn asked.

  “What was on your shelf. Last of the Mohicans and The Tales of King Arthur.”

  “You’ll like King Arthur.”

  “I would have brought my own books but had to hurry.”

  “Caddy, if there is trouble, I want you to run,” Quinn said. “Can you find your way home?”

  “I think so.”

  Quinn reached into his mackinaw and handed her a compass. She clutched it in her little hand and smiled, pulling her knees up to her nose and kicking her feet with excitement.

  “There won’t be trouble,” Caddy said.

  “Walk west and you’ll hit the interstate,” Quinn said. “Call Uncle Hamp, and he’ll get you. But if something happens, you run. Don’t stay on account of me. I got to settle this myself.”

  “Why won’t you call Daddy?”

  “He quit on us,” Quinn said. “Somebody quits on me, and I don’t have no use for him.”

  “He still loves us.”

  “Can you read to me?” Quinn said, spitting into the fire. “I like that story about Gawain and the Green Knight.”

  Caddy thumbed through the pages, reading to the sounds of owls and wandering deer, night birds and bats. She smiled as she read, and kept smiling in her sleep.

  Quinn pulled his mackinaw over her and watched the fire. He filled his rifle with .22 longs and waited.

  26

  THE BEAUTY OF OWNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS WAS ROLLING YOUR ASS out of bed and walking straight down the hill to work. Donnie had three trailers he kept on his old family hunting land: the old Airstream, a single-wide he rented out to Tiny, and a double-wide he used as the gun store. In the gun store, he kept six old candy cases he’d taken from the movie theater downtown—before it had become that crazy church—where he displayed his pistols and automatics, handcuffs and mace. Behind the counter, he kept the rifles and assault weapons in a locked gun rack. Most folks just came by the range to buy some ammo and rent those assault weapons. Businessmen from Tupelo would bring a cooler of beer and shoot AK-47s into targets of Osama bin Laden or President Obama. Not that Donnie was political, that’s just what seemed to be selling that year.