A Time of Torment (27 page)

Miss Queenie had initially expressed some surprise that Pastor Dave should have been so amenable to the change, and Henkel had seen no reason to enlighten her to the fact that he and Pastor Dave liked to share a quiet restorative whisky on weekends, and Henkel therefore had the ear of God. Pastor Dave was less fire and brimstone than steady-as-she-goes, which suited most of his congregation pretty well. A lot of people in Plassey County still recalled the unfortunate business of Pastor Ricky sucking off teenaged boys in Charleston restrooms, which had resulted in a certain suspicion of men of the cloth who appeared to protest too much. Pastor Dave might have been a little too forgiving of the faults of others – and maybe his own as well – for the county hard-core who felt Satan’s immanence, but he had a good-looking wife, five children, and no apparent fondness for men’s rooms beyond that commensurate to the call of nature.

Henkel saw Miss Queenie come to the door, as though concerned at his apparent reluctance to enter her premises, but he didn’t move from his car. He had the newspapers on the seat beside him, the
Gazette-Mail
on top. According to the paper, a county circuit court judge in the Panhandle had issued a dress code for his courtroom, having grown tired of the sartorial sins of the people of Ohio County. The code forbade the wearing of pajamas, slippers, flip-flops, sunglasses, exposed underclothing, and shirts with obscene language or graphics. Henkel, who was not unfamiliar with the kind of people who passed through the state’s courts, had to admire the judge’s stance, although anyone who turned up to a court hearing wearing house slippers and a T-shirt reading ‘DON’T LIKE ME? TAKE A SEAT WITH THE REST OF THE BITCHES WAITING FOR ME TO GIVE A FUCK’, as a woman in Plassey County did recently, shouldn’t have been surprised if the judge sent her ass to jail until she did decide to give a fuck.

The dress code story might have given Henkel more pleasure had it not stood alongside the first section of a longer feature, continued inside, detailing the discovery of the bodies of Robbie Killian and Dustin Huff. The headline read ‘KILLERS IN THE COUNTY: PLASSEY’S ROUGH “JUSTICE”’, and the story itself detailed Killian and Huff’s efforts to expand their narcotics operation, before they ran afoul of what the newspaper described as ‘rival forces’. Henkel knew the story was coming because he’d been asked to contribute a quote. He’d given the reporter the standard boilerplate – inquiries continuing, number of leads, no suspects as yet – and referred her to the state police, who were handling the main investigation, for further comment.

The rest of the piece was essentially a history of Plassey County, and included a litany of killings and disappearances over the best part of a century and a half. True, there hadn’t been quite as many over the past decade or so, but pulled all together in one place like that they certainly made an impression. The article didn’t mention the Cut by name, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Regardless, it wasn’t what Henkel wanted to read over his breakfast – like the Cut, he preferred not to make the papers – even if it did serve his purposes by putting pressure on the Cut and, more particularly, by perhaps making the state police look more closely at its activities.

He could smell frying bacon through the open window of the car. That was another thing: he’d received a call from the heart specialist on Friday afternoon. She was proposing a coronary angioplasty to relieve Henkel’s clogged artery, which would involve inserting and inflating a tiny balloon to widen the path. She also felt that it would be useful to insert a stent to help keep the artery open and prevent it from narrowing again. She suggested that this procedure should be carried out as soon as possible. In the meantime, she’d warned Henkel to avoid stress, and watch his diet. His diet he could do something about, but right now the only way he could avoid stress would be by retiring, and he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

Miss Queenie was now standing outside the diner, her hands on her hips and her head tilted like an old bird’s.

‘Morning, Miss Queenie,’ said Henkel.

Everyone called her Miss Queenie. Even her husband had called her Miss Queenie, and he was married to her for forty-five years.

‘You doing okay?’ she asked. ‘I got bacon, hash browns, and a sausage omelet that aren’t going to eat themselves.’

And Henkel wondered why he had clogged arteries.
Ah
, he thought,
to hell with it
.

‘Be right there, ma’am,’ he said.

I
nside, Henkel did his rounds of the tables, greeting those already seated, and waving to Teona Watson in the kitchen. He asked after her boy, Odell, because he sometimes saw him on the road near his home, and received a smile in return.

‘He’s doing fine, Sheriff,’ said Teona. ‘Real good.’

The lie tasted like sour milk in her mouth. Teona liked the sheriff, but she preferred to keep her distance. She knew that he had his informants in the county, including any number who lived within sight of the Cut, but she wasn’t among them. She and her family were too close to it, and therefore too vulnerable. They all knew it, even Odell.

Henkel picked a table by a window, ordered breakfast, and drank coffee while he waited for his food to come. He was immersed in the
Post
when someone entered the diner and he sensed a change in the mood of those around him. Conversation briefly ceased, then resumed at a lower volume. He looked up to see Oberon standing before him. Outside in the parking lot sat Oberon’s truck. One of the younger Cut boys, Benedict, was at the wheel. Benedict had been away for at least a week, or so those who knew of such matters had told Henkel. It was a shame, in Henkel’s view, that Benedict had come back at all. The boy was wrong. Anyone who kept company with Lucius Hobb had to be.

Henkel made little effort to disguise his dislike of the Cut. He was no Russ Dugar. Henkel kept an eye on the Cut folk when they came into town, and his network kept him apprised of their movements, at least outside their own territory. But his dealings with Oberon were infrequent, each man circling the other warily. Henkel’s last encounter with Oberon had come two months earlier, when Lucius Hobb had been involved in an altercation with some tourists at a gas station, during which the father of the family had been assaulted, and the woman threatened with having her breasts cut off. Cassander had apologized for any misunderstanding that might have occurred while simultaneously refusing to surrender his son to Henkel for questioning, and Oberon had been civility and reason itself, even while making it clear that Henkel would not be allowed to proceed into the Cut without a warrant, just as Cassander’s son would not be produced without a warrant for his arrest. Henkel had stomped off in a fury, determined to get the authority he needed, but by the time he’d filled in the necessary paperwork, and was on his way to Judge Cryer to have the warrant issued, the complaint against Lucius had been withdrawn. The Cut had worked fast on that occasion, even by its own efficient standards.

When Henkel went to find the family at Dryden’s Inn, on the outskirts of Turley, they had already checked out. Dryden’s was just a motel, but it was the only such place in the county where anyone in his right mind would want to stay, if not for very long. The desk clerk, a cousin of Morton Dryden, the motel’s owner, told Henkel that the family had headed west, and he caught up with them about three miles down the road. The father simply refused to talk to him, and two of his three kids started crying when Henkel appeared. The mother, meanwhile, just stared ahead, her face ashen. Henkel let them go. After all, what else could he do? He did return to the motel, though, and the clerk confirmed that the family had been visited by two men, but he claimed not to have seen them or their vehicle clearly, despite the fact that their room had been directly across from the motel office, and it was a bright, sunny day. Later, Henkel paid a visit to Morton Dryden, and suggested that he ought to look again at the caliber of his employees, and maybe consider having their eyesight checked, too.

The business with Lucius had been only the most recent of a series of confrontations with the Cut over the course of Henkel’s career, but he knew that his were token gestures, and nothing more. Had he been serious about taking on the Cut, he’d have sat down with the FBI, or maybe the ATF, and told them—

But that was it: told them what? That a community of families, living in isolation on privately owned land, and leading an existence that appeared to be in no way luxurious or excessive, might, just might, be engaged in some form of criminal behavior, and could perhaps have been responsible for killings stretching back generations, although there was nothing to link them to such crimes other than local gossip and Henkel’s own suspicions? Both the feds and the ATF had plenty to be getting along with, what with drug cartels, terrorists – domestic and otherwise – criminal gangs, and whatever other threats to society might be competing for their attention at any given time, without listening to the woes of some pissant sheriff in the smallest pissant county of a state that, last time Henkel bothered to check, was bottom of the national well-being list for the sixth year running, which meant that when it came to basic needs, healthy behavior, work environment, health, and optimism, people in West Virginia were just shit out of luck.

So if the people of the Cut took it upon themselves to give Plassey County an edge by warning off anyone who viewed it as an easy conquest for drugs, prostitution, racketeering, or excessive corruption – because a little corruption always needed to be factored into things, as it was the oil that kept the machinery of commerce rolling – then good for them, or so common, unspoken wisdom might have put it. And if certain nefarious individuals, who meant no good for beast or man, chose to ignore those warnings, and maybe the beatings that followed, or the torching of their homes, business premises, or meeting spaces, and ended up inspecting tree roots from below, then so be it. They had been given the opportunity to repent of their sins, or seek alternative locations in which to indulge them, and were no loss to society anyhow.

This had been Russ Dugar’s view, and that of most of his predecessors, until Henkel arrived and began, if not to rock the boat, then to make its passage less smooth than before. Perhaps he was fortunate that the Cut had become less active – or as Henkel suspected, less obvious and open in its activities, in part as a reaction to his presence – and that he himself maintained a certain level of popularity in the county. The result was an uneasy status quo between Henkel and the Cut.

But with the election on the horizon, Henkel had begun to worry that the Cut might be considering an intervention to tilt the balance back in its favor. It wouldn’t take much – a quiet word with some influential figures, a veiled threat or two where necessary – to sow doubts in the minds of voters about the wisdom of re-electing Henkel as sheriff, with Ned Ralston hovering behind, ready to become a puppet sheriff another term down the line.

Now here was Oberon, his hair hanging down his back in a carefully worked ponytail, his red checked shirt neatly pressed, his jeans worn but clean, his work boots old but freshly treated with dubbin in anticipation of the coming winter. His beard was thick but not unruly, the ends of his mustache hanging almost to his chin, giving him the aspect of a Viking, as though by his very presence he offered proof to those who believed that Norsemen had done more than establish short-term settlements in these lands.

‘Mind if I join you?’ asked Oberon.

Henkel saw that Miss Queenie was watching them from her post by the register. Some of the younger men and women of the Cut occasionally came into her place of business, always maintaining a low-key presence and paying in cash, but she could not recall ever seeing Oberon darken her door. Her hand hovered over the push-button phone on the wall, Miss Queenie having no truck with cell phones, but Henkel caught her eye and gave the slightest shake of his head.

Oberon didn’t turn his back, but he must have guessed what was happening.

‘I just want to talk,’ he said.

Henkel indicated the seat opposite, and Oberon sat. Connie, the waitress, came over and asked if he’d like to order anything. She regarded Oberon curiously, and not without a certain interest, for he was an imposing man, and Connie and he were of a similar age.

‘Some mint tea, if you have it,’ said Oberon, and Connie told him she’d be right back with it. He and Henkel didn’t speak until the tea arrived, and Connie gave them some space. The booths and tables nearest to them were all empty, so there was no chance that they might be overheard.

‘I saw the Charleston paper on the front seat of your car,’ said Oberon. ‘You had a chance to read it yet?’

‘I skimmed through it,’ said Henkel.

‘You see the story about those two young men, the ones that the Lutter boy stumbled on over by Mortonsville?’

‘I did.’

‘I hear you were there when they were found.’

‘I came later, but not by much.’

Oberon nodded. ‘After Clyde Bentley, right?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘The newspaper story claimed those boys – Killian and Huff, if I have their names right – might have been engaged in the distribution of narcotics.’

‘That’s what I read.’

‘It’s a dangerous business to be in.’

‘It was for them.’

Oberon nodded again and tugged gently at his beard, as though contemplating the profundity of Henkel’s observation.

‘Do you have any information you’d like to share about the circumstances of their deaths?’ asked Henkel.

Oberon’s expression didn’t change, but his body seemed to relax into position, like a fencer’s after an opponent’s first thrust has confirmed that the match is on.

‘No, I don’t think that I do,’ said Oberon.

‘Well, if that situation changes, you ought to contact the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. They have the lead, on account of their resources.’

Oberon looked out the window to where Benedict was seated in the truck with the windows down, his left hand tapping a cadence on the door.