The Innocents Page 30

  33

  I’m such a lucky girl,” Ophelia Bundren said. “First cool morning of the fall and I get to spend it working the crematorium.”

  “At least you kept warm,” Quinn said.

  “Two bodies,” she said. “Miss Ashland and Bobby Hartwick.”

  “Bobby Hartwick died?”

  “Saturday,” she said. “Heart attack. He was about to turn fifty-five. He was out changing the oil in his truck and just keeled over. What they call the widow-maker. Although Bobby had been divorced for a while. He sure loved the ladies. His brother said he did a lot of Internet dating with women in Russia.”

  Quinn sat in the quiet coolness of the sanctuary at Bundren Funeral Home. The wood-paneled walls, green shag carpet, and little raised stage with lectern hadn’t changed in decades. Artificial light shone warm and yellow from the back of a fake stained-glass window.

  “I heard Hartwick was thinking of running for mayor.”

  “Not anymore,” Ophelia said. “Shitty job. Might be better off this way.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Would you want to be sheriff again?”

  Quinn didn’t answer. He leaned forward in his folding chair, elbows on his thighs, thinking about it. He and Ophelia seeing a lot of each other over the last month and a half. And since Anna Lee had left, she’d called only twice. There was a lot of talk about separation, deep thinking on their relationship, and, in the end, what would be best for Shelby. Both of them knew the answer to that, Anna Lee more guilt-ridden than ever.

  “Lillie’s screwed,” Ophelia said.

  “Looks that way,” Quinn said. “But she has to see this through. Especially after Cash stepped forward. What your brother did was stand-up. I respect the hell out of him. Couldn’t have been easy talking about seeing Coach in that shower with Brandon Jones when Brandon wasn’t even ten. What he said made the case.”

  “But you can’t get him on Milly?”

  “Doubt we ever will,” Quinn said. “Best we can do is make a tight case on all the molestations. I think once people understand he’s not shaking loose of this thing, more victims will step forward. He’s been preying on kids a long time.”

  “But you believe he—or he and Nito Reece both—killed Milly Jones?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Whoever cracked her skull used something hard and nasty,” Ophelia said. “Did y’all ever find anything like a tire iron or a hammer at Mills’s house to test?”

  “We did, but nothing with blood or DNA,” he said. “Whatever he used was probably flung far and wide into Choctaw Lake.”

  “Y’all call out the town monster and folks go after the messenger.”

  “Lillie’s got thick skin.”

  “It’s going to cost her the election,” Ophelia said. “Have you seen all the crazy stuff online supporting Coach and calling Lillie all sorts of horrible names? They can’t imagine a legend like Bud Mills could be such a sick son of a bitch.”

  “We didn’t find a murder weapon,” Quinn said. “But we found a shit ton of kiddie porn on his computer. He also kept stacks and stacks of photo albums of his victims. He kept a collection of nude photos of kids. Stuff that would turn a normal person’s stomach inside out.”

  “Don’t men like Mills always get raped in prison?” Ophelia said, smiling.

  “I’m sure ole Coach will have his dance card punched a few times.”

  “Good-hearted Bobby Hartwick gets burned up into ash and scattered down at the beach somewhere while we still have to stick around and make room for Bud Mills.”

  “Can I buy you dinner?”

  Ophelia grinned. “Fine by me,” she said. “But I’d skip the steakhouse.”

  “Those knives too tempting to toss at me?”

  “Just don’t give me a reason.”

  Quinn nodded and they walked out into the cool October evening, dead leaves scattering about in little dust devils in the empty parking lot.

  • • •

  It was mid-October when Lillie had arranged a handoff with the Feds for Bud Mills, where he’d now be facing charges for not only child molestation but taking children across state lines for those purposes. Lillie had gotten her hands on some surveillance video from a casino hotel elevator in New Orleans. Fannie Hathcock, god damn her black heart, good to her word.

  Reggie brought out Mills from the jail, checked the cuffs behind him, and settled him into the back of Lillie’s Jeep. Reggie took the shotgun seat and Lillie got behind the wheel, wearing her sheriff’s ball cap and aviator glasses. She was chewing gum, trying to get out a little nervous energy, glad to get this turd out of Tibbehah but not looking forward to the shit show she’d be passing on the way out of town. According to Kenny, hundreds of die-hard football fans had lined the commercial road out to Highway 45, holding banners and homemade signs in support of a hometown hero.

  Kenny seemed embarrassed to say, “A lot of them weren’t very complimentary of you, Lillie. Real stupid shit out there. Just keep your eyes on the road.”

  Lillie started the Jeep and headed north, turning right at the Square, the circus already beginning with dozens of people in their black-and-gold clothes, trucks honking their horns, old fat men in moth-eaten lettermen jackets with their fists raised high. Lillie glanced into the rearview to see a little smile on Mills’s thin, purplish lips.

  Passing the old Hollywood Video, the Dollar Store, and the new Walmart, a crowd had gathered on both sides of the street. Signs reading WE LOVE YOU COACH, WILDCAT PRIDE, GOD KNOWS THE TRUTH, and TIBBEHAH NEEDS A REAL SHERIFF. There were also a few with the words bull dyke, but spelling it dike with an i, Reggie commenting that he had no idea how incredibly stupid folks can be.

  “Stay with the the sheriff’s office and you’ll find it out pretty quick.”

  “I’m sorry, Lillie,” Reggie said. “Son of a bitch. This whole damn town’s gone bat-shit crazy.”

  “’Cause they know what’s right,” Coach Mills said from the backseat.

  Lillie lifted her eyes again to the rearview, not saying a word.

  “You better start looking for work back in Memphis ’cause you’re about to be run out of town on a rail.”

  “You ever think about her?” Lillie said.

  “Who?” Coach asked.

  “Milly Jones,” Lillie said. “I think about her every time I’m at the Big Black Bridge, seeing that path of road she had to walk while completely on fire.”

  “You can’t blame me for every damn crime.”

  “She called you out,” Lillie said. “Had you meet her at that bridge. And even with the flames burning off her flesh and gasoline burning her throat, she kept on moving ahead. That’s what I call tough. Your whole life is the definition of a coward.”

  “I can’t hear you,” Coach said. “What are you trying to say, Miss Virgil?”

  Lillie hit the accelerator away from the crowds, passing the Rebel Truck Stop, Vienna’s Place, and turning, thank God, onto Highway 45 up to Tupelo and then to Oxford. “I’m saying it’s an hour to Oxford and we’d both appreciate it if you’d just shut your fucking mouth.”

  “You can’t win,” Mills said, laughing.

  “As soon as I hand you over to the Feds and fumigate my truck, I already have.”

  • • •

  Two weeks after Mills was sent to Oxford, Lillie asked Quinn to run for sheriff. The last thing Tibbehah County needed was a situation like they had with Rusty Wise, only with dumber and more corrupt candidates. One of the men who’d put his name on the ballot was running on an anti-Mexican platform. Tibbehah had a population of about fifty Hispanics. Another man wanted to put Christ back into politics, saying that, as sheriff, he’d damn well enforce the Ten Commandments.

  Quinn agreed to run since it seemed the only person who held him responsible for Mills being arrested was Bo
om. Boom hadn’t spoken to Quinn or Lillie since the arrest. Mad or embarrassed, Quinn didn’t know.

  Two weeks before the election, after attending a fish fry at the Kiwanis Club and campaign fundraiser at the VFW hall, Quinn headed back to the farm. Ophelia had promised to stop by after some unexpected work came into the funeral home. He promised he’d keep the porch light on and the bourbon uncorked.

  He parked up on the Indian Mound near the farmhouse and walked around to the side porch by the kitchen to let in Hondo and pour out his supper. As he’d grown so accustomed to the red, blue, and green Christmas lights shining bright from his dad’s trailer, the dark cornfield surprised him. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet and Jason Colson hadn’t turned in early a day in his life.

  They’d spoke earlier that day, Jason saying he nearly had everything all lined up for the bank meeting in the morning. Tomorrow, they’d be partners in the farm expansion and, by spring, they could get busy cleaning up the mess Johnny Stagg’s greed had left behind.

  After Hondo ate, Quinn poured out a little Blanton’s in a coffee mug and snatched a Liga Privada from his humidor. He slipped into his uncle’s old suede ranch coat, finding his familiar Zippo in the pocket, and headed down his dad’s place, a little worried something had happened. His father hadn’t been sick, besides some old stunt injuries, and figured he was maybe having some issue with the electric company as Jason was often late on the bill.

  He knocked several times without an answer. The door was unlocked and Quinn walked inside the trailer to find some of the furniture missing and all of his dad’s clothes, picture frames, movie posters, and other Hollywood mementos gone. Quinn went back outside to the little grouping by a small fire pit, where he’d spent many nights with his dad catching up, trading stories about Afghanistan and his days in Hollywood.

  Quinn lit up the cigar, a brisk cold wind crossing the empty field from the west. Four concrete blocks sat empty, the grass underneath yellowed and slick with oil.

  The cherry-red Firebird had finally hit the road. “Son of a bitch,” Quinn said to himself.

  Quinn sat down in an old metal chair by the fire pit and smoked half the cigar. Hondo lay at his feet until it was time to walk back home.

  • • •

  Ordeen knew the Twins had come down from Memphis to work out an arrangement with Miss Fannie. Ever since Nito got killed, the good-looking redheaded lady had showed him a lot of respect, comping him for drinks at the club, lap dances, and picking his brain about the Bohannans. But he’d told her straight off that he didn’t want to get involved in any drug shit. Ordeen said he was going straight, out of the life, but he appreciated all the hospitality.

  It wasn’t until she said she needed a little help since those nasty motorcycle creeps had gone to Florida for the winter that he finally agreed and met her at some kind of old airport deep in the county, hidden by thousands of acres of scraggy pine trees. Damn near had to drive four miles down a nothing road till it came up on you, big and cleared and all lit up. Five old military-style buildings lined up beside a couple of eighteen-wheelers chugging diesel fumes out in the cold. Ordeen had on his black parka with the fur hood over his braids, breath clouding from his mouth.

  Miss Hathcock was talking to one of the Twins, Ordeen pretty sure it was Short Box, when he came up on them. Short Box gave him a big hug and told him how much he appreciated the hookup and all that. He told Ordeen that they were gonna be doing lots of business next year.

  And Ordeen said, “Oh, yeah? OK.”

  He glanced over at Miss Hathcock, who looked damn fine in a long black coat over a sparkly black dress with a V-neck so deep, you could see the woman wasn’t wearing no bra, and tall stiletto black boots. This woman had some class. Standing there, hand on her hip, giving some mean Memphis thugs direction with the burning tip of a little brown cigar. But, damn, if he got back into the life, he’d break his momma’s heart. He had to walk up to her and tell her again, “I ain’t messing with no drugs. I been down that road and ain’t going back.”

  Without a word, wind whipping around all that red hair, Ordeen getting a good whiff of her sweet gardenia perfume, she walked straight over to the truck and jacked open the cargo door. Ordeen stepped up and swung it open, expecting to see a mess of boxes but instead seeing a bunch of eyes staring back.

  The light coming from the truck behind them, shining into half the space, showing up twenty or so young brown girls, sitting on the truck floor, squinting into the light. Some rested their heads on backpacks, others held paper plates of food and bottles of water.

  Damn, Ordeen had a thousand questions but couldn’t make the words to speak.

  Fannie walked up close on him, tall as hell in those stiletto boots, handing him a key. “You can drive a stick,” she said, grinning. “Can’t you?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ace Atkins is the author of eighteen previous novels, most recently The Redeemers and Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn. He has been nominated for every major award in crime fiction, including the Edgar three times, two of those nominations coming for the Quinn Colson novels. A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Atkins also writes essays and investigative pieces for Outside and Garden & Gun. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his family, where he’s friend to many dogs and several bartenders.

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