Dumping Grounds (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

Slowly, Emma opened her eyes. She wondered if she were dead. The sweet aroma of flowers surrounded her.

What she smelled specifically were lilies, and what she thought were mimosas, the pink spidery blossoms were one of her favorite scents. She also smelled a scent she could not decipher; it was somewhat lemony.

It was supposed to be springtime. Emma knew the mimosas were not yet blooming, they did not usually bloom until May, but she could smell them as if she was lying beneath one of the trees.

Emma turned her head to her right and saw an odd window. Through the window, she saw the top of what appeared to be a mimosa tree. It was loaded with pink spidery blossoms.

As she lay there, memories began to return, but they were fuzzy and blurred; much like the lighting in the room, which glowed oddly. Emma did not know if it was real or if she was still dreaming.

She remembered that her sleep was filled with terrible dreams. Emma felt violated and dirty. She could smell other odors too and she could tell that she was lying in her own filth. She felt something dry and crusty on her face, as if she had drooled as she slept.

She also recalled feeling a long, snakelike creature crawling through her body, or maybe it was a dream, but it was sucking every drop of her blood out through her mouth of all places. Then, the snakelike creature would attach to a vein in her arm and return her blood to her.

Each time it did this, she would hear a loud wah-wah noise echoing through her head.

Emma felt as though she was wavering on the edge of a cliff about to fall, and then she would lose consciousness again… was it all just a dream?

Suddenly, Emma remembered the two men in her dream. She could hear them talking in her sleep, talking about her as if she were not even there. They were wondering how long they could keep her under before she would die of starvation.

Had they succeeded, was she dead? Emma blinked her eyes and looked back toward the window where she had seen the mimosa tree. Yes, it was still there, although it looked odd. Her vision was blurry, which made it look as if it were not quite real…

She wondered if she had been there since March. She could not be sure because she was having trouble remembering anything. She did not even know how she remembered it was March, much less, that mimosas bloomed in May.

I have to get up from here, thought Emma, but when she tried to turn over, she realized she was strapped down. Someone had her tied to whatever it was she was laying on.

Oh no, it is true. I am a prisoner! How will I ever get free from this? What will happen when they return?

Will they panic and kill me because I am awake, or will they put me under again? Emma was afraid, but she did not panic. She realized that she needed to make a plan and be ready for when they did return. She raised her head as far up as she could so she could look at her surroundings.

The room reminded her of a cellar at first, but as she looked closer, she was not so sure. Her eyes were still blurry and it was semi-dark. It was either late in the day or very early in the morning from what she could tell.

The faint odd lighting was coming from somewhere behind her. On the far wall, lying on a table next to the stairs, Emma thought she could make out the figure of a person in the dimly lit room.

This has to be a cellar, why else would there be stairs coming down into the room, thought Emma, as she turned her attention back to the figure on the table.

She tried to focus her eyes, but then she heard boot-steps cross the floor above her, and before she could prepare herself, she heard a door opening. Someone turned on an overhead light. Emma quickly closed her eyes and tried to breathe evenly.

Emma lay as still as she could, breathing as evenly as possible, which was hard to do, because she caught herself wanting to hold her breath.

Her pulse raced. She was afraid, but also curious. Emma wanted badly to peek through her eyelashes to get a look at her captors. She listened as they mumbled to each other, trying to hear what they were saying, but they were across the room and not talking very loudly.

She could hear their feet scuffling on the floor. The noise their feet made on the gritty floor, sent chills down her spine. She could hear something else. It sounded like a woman moaning, but not in a pleasurable way.

Emma could stand it no longer; she had to open her eyes and see if she could see them. Her lashes fluttered and she tried to steady them, but from where she was, she could not see anything except the ceiling.

Maybe if I turn my head just a little, I will be able to see better,
thought Emma, turning her head ever so slowly to her right.

“Hey, Earl, that one over there is waking up,” one of the men said to the other. When Emma heard him, she stilled herself for an attack of some sort, but it did not come immediately.

“No, she looks like she is still out,” the other man said. It was not the same person; Emma could tell the voices were different.

“Maybe we should let her wake up a little bit like we done before. It’s a lot more fun that away,” the one who called to Earl suggested.

“Not now. Make sure she’s out.”

Suddenly, Emma felt a hand and a rag clamp down over her mouth and nose and smelt a strange odor. Then the wah-wah sound began to echo through her head again. Everything around Emma slowly dimmed…

“Mornin’, Sheriff, how’s the world treatin’ you?” Joe Stringer asked as Joshua Stokes walked into the café in Fairview and took a seat at the counter. Joe Stringer was Willie and Hannah’s uncle, and Joshua had known him most of his life.

Joe was a might older than he was, but they had drowned a few worms together over the years.

“Fair to midland, Joe, and you,” Joshua answered.

“Doin’ al’ite. Haven’t seen you in here in a while,” Joe said as he turned over the cup and saucer in front of Joshua and poured him a cup of coffee.

He was eyeballing Joshua closely. Joe could tell the sheriff had something troubling him. He seemed to have a lot on his mind by the looks of him.

“How’s business been?” Joshua asked.

“Aw, it don’t do any good ta complain, now does it?”

“No, reckon it don’t, Joe.”

“You jest missed Hannah and Leonard. They brung their younguns down to eat breakfast this mornin’.

Them boys of theirs shore are a growing too; nearly grown by the looks of em,” Joe informed him as he wiped up some coffee that had spilt on the counter.

Joe slid an ashtray down the counter toward the sheriff when he saw him light a cigarette.

“Yeah… Well, I hate I missed them. How is Hannah doing?” Stokes asked, figuring Joe wanted to tell him or he would not have brought it up.

“Aw, she’s doing well I reckon. She don’t complain, don’t talk about what happened with Willie and Lacey either. If I bring it up, she changes the subject, says she don’t want to dredge the past. You know how hardheaded that woman can be, especially when she sets her mind ta somethin’.”

“I can’t say as I blame her, Joe. She went through an awful experience when Willie and Lacey was murdered. The years don’t ease it none.”

“Naw, reckon they don’t.”

“Just give her time.”

“Give who time?” Mazy 'Gypsy' Jones asked, as she and Kathy Powell walked through the door.

Mazy sauntered up to the counter and leaned into Joshua Stokes, pressing her breast against his arm.

“Mornin’, you handsome thang you,” Mazy said, placing her manicured hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “I was hoping it was you here when I saw the patrol car in the parking lot,” Gypsy said huskily.

“Morning Ladies,” Joshua replied, giving Kathy a wink. He always did like Kathy, but she was painfully shy for a pretty woman.

Her dark hair, sky blue eyes, and alabaster skin made her seem pale and fragile in the early morning light.

Gypsy wore her usual sunglasses and costume jewelry. She had her dyed black tresses, teased and piled high on her head. Gypsy never left the house unless she was dressed to the nines and all made up like some movie star. Some folks called her Miss Hollywood behind her back.

Joshua remembered when she had run off to Hollywood after her first divorce. She told folks she was going to go out there and become a famous movie star like Marilyn Monroe or Jane Mansfield. She was out there for a couple of years, but he reckoned she did not make the cut.

Joshua remembered someone saying that Mazy had always had a wandering bone; that was how she ended up with the nickname of 'Gypsy.' Moreover, he remembered JoAnne Vice responding with, 'Mazy Jones ain’t no gypsy, y’all. The only wandering that thang does is from husband to husband.'

JoAnne’s assessment was probably about right. As he recollected, Mazy had even married one of her husbands twice and she had had several.

She is a good-looking woman though. It’s a damn shame she tries too hard, Joshua thought, trying to remember the true color of Mazy’s eyes. Since her return to Mobile, he had never seen her when she was not wearing what had become her signature sunshades, and that had been many years now.

“What are you too hens a doing up here so early?” Joe hollered from the kitchen. “Don’t usually see y’all till later in the day,” he said, as he came out of the kitchen carrying a platter loaded down with bacon, eggs, grits, and a couple of buttered biscuits. He sat the platter of food in front of the sheriff.

“We got appointments over at Eva’s to get our hair done. Thought we’d just stop by here and visit with Joshua a minute,” Gypsy replied, giving Joe one of her 'none of your damn business looks,' for asking.

“Well excuse the hell outta me then,” Joe said snidely, turning his attention to Kathy and asking “Kathy, how is yer maw a doin’ these days?”

Kathy’s mother, Fay, was Joe’s first cousin.

Kathy, who had said nothing since they had been there, mustered up enough voice to finally answer him, saying that her mama was doing well.

Joshua knew it had been nearly three years since Kathy’s father passed away and that was why Joe did not inquire of him. Everybody knew pretty much everything there was to know about each other in small towns; although, some, still had secrets…

Kathy climbed onto a stool at the counter. She was a short woman, maybe four foot ten if that.

“I’ll take a cup of that coffee, if you don’t mind Uncle Joe,” she said timidly.

“Naw, Honey, don’t mind a tall. Got plenty,” he replied, turning over another coffee cup that sat on the counter ready for whoever took a seat there.

“So, y’all is a going over to Eva’s an gettin’ your hair done, huh?” Joe said in his best imitation of Henry Long who cackled when he talked.

“How is Miss Eva and her mama a doing these days? I don’t see much of em, even though they’re running a beauty parlor right there in the heart of Semmes. Reckon they don’t have much time fer eatin’ at café’s two miles away,” Joe grumbled, sounding disheartened as he poured Kathy a cup of coffee. He set the cream and sugar nearby, and then finished wiping the counter.

When no one responded to his reckoning, Joe turned and walked through the swinging doors into the kitchen, shaking his head and muttering “galldern idjuts” under his breath. Joe could not stand it when folks acted as if they did not hear a word he said; it seemed there were several of them in his café today.

“When are you going to come see me?” Gypsy asked Joshua, still hanging onto his shoulder with her left hand while reaching into his plate and picking up a slice of bacon with her right.

“You’re a married woman, Mazy,” Joshua replied, choosing to use her Christian name. “You know your old man wouldn’t appreciate it very much if I come a calling on his wife,” he said, pushing the plate away from him as if it had become contaminated by her touch.

Joshua regretted the one time he had given in to Mazy’s womanly wiles a few years before. She had chased him relentlessly since then.

Delbert and Sadie Moffett walked through the door, rescuing him from Gypsy’s advances, at least he hoped, as she turned and walked over to their table, sat down, and began talking to Sadie.

Joshua looked over at Kathy, who was over-stirring her coffee. He knew how shy she was and he knew she had a crush on him. She had ever since she was a teenager and he a young deputy in his mid twenties, but she was a married woman too and Joshua had decided married women were off limits, especially after what had happened between Willie Stringer and Autry Reston.

Kathy kept her eyes on her cup of coffee as if she were afraid to look anywhere else in the room.

“How’s those younguns of yours, Kathy?” he asked, finishing up his coffee, throwing two dollars on the counter and then standing up to leave.

“They're doing good Joshua, it's good of you to ask,” she replied shyly.

“I saw that youngest boy of yours; Dougie, I believe he’s called. He was out there in Wheelerville. He said he was racing horses for Boney Maples and Jesse Pierce now.”

“Yes, he is. They take him to the track in N’ Orleans and he jockeys for them.”

“He is about the right size for a jockey, probably made a good one.”

“He has won several races. I have an 8x10 picture of him holding a trophy and sitting on one of those big long-legged horses of theirs. He says he enjoys it.”

“I bet he does. What about those cousins of yours, Jessie, Hannah, and Tom, are they doing all right,” he asked, getting to what he wanted to ask in the first place, although Joe had already told him he had just missed Hannah, he wanted to ask Kathy about them. Her being a woman and all, women’s opinions were different from men’s opinions, women paid more attention to things than men did.

“I know it’s been a long time since the murders, but the last time I talked with them, I could tell they were still hurting over losing Willie and Lacey. None of them says anything about what happened, even within the family. Tom still will not talk to Jessie. He just cannot get over her spitting on Willie’s grave like she did.”

“Well, I can understand Jessie’s anger,” Stokes replied. “Jessie loved Lacey like a sister, and she blamed her brother Willie for both their deaths, as well as nearly getting their sister Hannah killed.”

“I know, and I understand that too, but you know how Tom is. Willie was his brother and a brother’s blood is the thickest blood there is other than a mother’s blood. Those two were real tight growing up. You never saw one without the other when they was boys. Right or wrong Tom stood behind Willie and Willie stood behind Tom… Tom has grown more and more distant and hardhearted the older he gets. He has never cared as much for his sisters, as he did Willie, though. I don’t know why he is like that, just contrary as all get out. I know Uncle Bill didn’t raise him that way,” Kathy replied solemnly.

“Yeah, I know very well how he is,” Stokes replied, deciding to change the subject a little. “Are you still staying up there with your mama and brothers?” he asked, holding his hat in his hand as he paused beside her.

“Yes, I am. My husband, John, is in the institution in Mount Vernon again, so I really don’t have any other choice. I was offered a job the other day, taking care of a paralyzed woman. I am seriously thinking about taking it. It would be a live in job and that would tie me down more than I already am by living with my mama.”

“You talking about Bernie Johnson’s wife, out there in Wheelerville?” he asked, knowing it could be none other. She was the only paraplegic he knew that lived in that area.

“Yes, she is the one. Do you know very much about them?” Kathy asked, figuring if anyone would know about them, it would be Joshua Stokes.

“If you take the job, keep the doors locked when you go to bed and if at all possible, avoid her brother, especially if Bernie is offshore,” Joshua told her, adding, “You know he is the one who shot her. She was beating the tar out of his wife over something. I heard her maw put her up to it. It all got way out of hand.”

“I had heard that, but did not know for sure if it was true,” Kathy responded.

“Well, it is true. You call me if he does get a wild hair and shows up over there. I am sure he has enough sense not to come around when Bernie is home. He does not want to end up in jail or dead. Stay out of Young’s Neck too, her mama lives out there. Some of those folks down in there are as crazy as June bugs,” Joshua warned.

“You don’t have to warn me about them, Joshua. I grew up on stories of those folks and their feuds. Mama was born and raised in Wheelerville you know,” Kathy responded, giving him a shy smile.

“You’re leaving already, Sheriff. Why, you ain’t even touched your breakfast. A man needs food in his belly to get through the day,” Joe admonished as he came through the swinging doors from the kitchen with two breakfast platters, which he sat on the table in front of Delbert and Sadie.

“Yeah, I know Joe,” Joshua replied, nodding to Delbert and Sadie as he headed for the door. “But I’m not hungry yet and I got a lot to do. Dragging my feet and hanging around here with you good folks ain’t getting it done.”

“Honey, you call me now, if’n you take the notion to,” Gypsy called to his back as he went through the door and out to his patrol car.

“It will be a cold day in hell, Gypsy,” he muttered, as he opened the door to his patrol car and got behind the wheel. “All I need is a jealous husband after me.”

Joshua pulled the Polaroid out and looked at it again, deciding he needed to drive down to the tattoo parlor on Dauphin Street to see if they recognized the rose tattoo. Before he could leave the parking lot, the radio was buzzing. An eighteen-wheeler had done overturned on Highway 98 at the intersection of Interstate 65. He knew there was going to be a mess down there and he dreaded having to go, but he grabbed the microphone and responded, letting them know that he was on his way.

He stuck a tape in his 8-track player, turned it up loud, put his sunshades on and when the music started he sung, 'Born to be Wild' as he looked both ways down Highway 98 to see if any cars were coming, and of course, there was.

Well traveled, Moffett Road, also known as Highway 98, was nicknamed “Bloody 98,” because of all the serious wrecks that occurred along its snaked path across Alabama and Mississippi. It was a direct route from Mobile, Alabama to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and beyond, in both directions. Someone once told him it ran coast to coast…

After the traffic thinned, Joshua pulled out onto the highway, and as luck would have it ended up stuck behind a cattle truck. The stench turned his stomach.

Maybe I should have eaten the breakfast Joe sat in front of me. At least it would have kept me from getting sick, he thought, as he flipped his siren and lights on so he could get ahead of the offensive odors coming from the truck.