Husband and Wives (19 page)

‘I was just going maybe a mile or two over the limit,’ she said, looking behind her at nothing. ‘The limit changes right up there.’

‘Yeah, right up there,’ I said, pointing at the fifty-five-mile-an-hour sign a hundred or so yards up the highway. Here in front of the sheriff’s office, although out of the city limits, the speed was still forty.

‘Sheriff, pleeeeez don’t give me a ticket! Pleeeeeeez! I’m gonna lose my insurance.’

‘Seems like you don’t have much of a car to insure, honey,’ I said, looking at the Datsun.

Jessica turned around and looked at it and burst into tears.

Kyle was rubbing the toe of his Tony Lama in the dust of the highway shoulder. ‘Don’t cry, Jessica,’ he said, which just made her cry harder as she turned around and threw herself against Kyle’s scrawny chest. He patted her back and looked at me. ‘Maybe we can say it was my fault?’ he asked. ‘So my insurance can pay to fix her car?’

‘Kyle, that’s called insurance fraud,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘What am I gonna do?’ she wailed.

‘Both of y’all call your insurance companies,’ I said. ‘I’ll call a wrecker for your car, Jessica.’

‘How am I gonna get home?’ she wailed, while I was thinking ‘home’ might be a euphemism for the Dew-Drop Inn.

‘I’ll take you,’ Kyle offered.

‘That’s OK, Kyle,’ I said. ‘We’ll make sure she gets home OK. Since your truck’s fine to drive, why don’t you get on your way after you give me your insurance information.’

He did while Jessica lit up a menthol cigarette, getting pissed now, arms crossed under her already ample bosom, making them look even larger. ‘Kyle, call your agent,’ I said, ‘then go on about your business.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, looking longingly back at Jessica.

I walked Jessica back across the highway to the station, had her put out her cigarette in the ashtray in front of the building, then took her inside and sat her down on the bench. Holly was the only one in the big room and she was filing and pretending not to pay attention.

‘Jessica, you’ve been stopped three times for speeding. Nobody ever gave you a ticket but you’ve been warned. This time, I’m afraid, you’re getting two tickets, one for speeding and one for rear-ending Kyle.’

She welled up again. ‘Honey, I’m married to a psychiatrist,’ I said. ‘I’ve learned not to let female tears affect me. So here’s the deal. Since I personally did not see you speeding, I’m just gonna give you a ticket for causing a wreck. You got anything other than liability insurance?’

The tears began again as she shook her head. ‘Now I’m without a car, huh?’ she said, looking into my eyes. ‘What am I gonna do?’ and she began to wail righteously and loud.

‘What you’re gonna do is this,’ I said. ‘While you’re sitting here waiting for Holly to take you home, you’re gonna call your insurance agent. Got that?’

She sniffled but nodded.

‘Meanwhile, I’m calling a wrecker to come get your car.’

Again, she sniffled but nodded.

I walked back to the bullpen and spoke softly to Holly. ‘Get her address off her ID and take her to that address, not to the Dew-Drop Inn, which is where she’ll wanna direct you, got it?’

‘Yes, sir, Sheriff,’ Holly said.

I used Holly’s phone to call for a wrecker, watching while Jessica made a call, hopefully to her agent and not to her hunk-of-the-month to drive her to the Dew-Drop. But it was really none of my business. The girl was over twenty-one.

I told Holly, ‘You go on home. Go get your purse and take off.’

‘But, Sheriff, I’m not through—’

‘It’ll be here in the morning. I’ll switch the radio and the phone over to the duty officer.’ She looked at her computer longingly and I said, ‘Now, get, girl.’

‘See you in the morning,’ she said, as she picked up her purse that rested on a shelf under the counter, and headed out to the waiting room to get Jessica. I figured by morning I’d hear from Jessica’s mother, a city councilwoman who expected favors.

I called Emmett, tonight’s duty officer, to let him know I was switching over early, did the deed, then went back to my office to listen to the silence. That didn’t last long. My stomach rumbled and I remembered a new Mexican restaurant just opened the other side of downtown. I called my wife and suggested she and Johnny Mac stop by here and we’d drive there together. My wife thought that was a wonderful idea.

NINE

Milt Kovak – Saturday

T
he next morning I got Nita Skitteridge to ride with me back to Tejas County and the New Saints Tabernacle. I called Bill Williams to let him know I’d be going into his jurisdiction.

‘Well, hell, Milt. I got my own stuff to worry about right now,’ he said when I told him I was on my way.

‘Truthfully, Bill, it’s closer if I just go to the church than come all the way to your shop. And I don’t see that we need more than you saying it’s OK.’

‘You gonna arrest the preacher for anything?’ Bill asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Just need to ask some more questions.’

‘You gonna arrest his wives or his children?’

‘I have no plans to arrest anybody,’ I said. ‘Except maybe you for running up my cell phone minutes.’

‘OK then, go ahead. But call me when you’re through.’

‘You got AT&T stock, dontcha, Bill?’

‘I wish,’ he said and hung up.

There were several cars in the parking lot of the church when we got there. Earl Mayhew himself opened the door to the double-wide.

‘Well, hey, Sheriff Kovak,’ he said, still chewing from, I suppose, the sandwich he held in his hand. ‘What can I do you for?’

‘Wondered if we could have a word, Brother Earl,’ I said.

‘Well, now, I’d invite you in, but . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘But what, Brother Earl?’

‘Well, now, I know it ain’t politically correct,’ he said, ‘but it’s in the scriptures that we, and by we I mean God’s chosen, don’t consort with mud people.’

‘Here we go again with this mud people shit!’ Nita said, hands on hips, a couple of fingers I noticed caressing the butt of her .45.

‘Now, I don’t mean to offend, Deputy, you got ever’ right in the world to do just about anything you want . . . Except come inside my home.’ He looked at me. ‘You understand that, Sheriff?’

‘Not a bit,’ I said. ‘But I don’t figure I have time to get a warrant, so get your ass out of the trailer on your own, or I’ll slap cuffs on you and take you in. ’Course, Deputy Skitteridge’ll have to sit in the back with you.’

Nita smiled. ‘And I like to rub legs with my felons,’ she said.

He handed his sandwich to someone behind him and walked down the steps. He was wearing pleated front trousers with cuffs and one of those sleeveless T-shirts I’ve heard called wife-beater, his graying hair too long and not yet blown-dry and sprayed stiff. It bounced around his face as he came down the steps.

‘I think I done answered all the questions you had, Sheriff. And I tried to help you with the whole problem with the McKinseys.’

‘If I were you I wouldn’t speak of the McKinseys,’ Nita said. ‘The sheriff is not happy about that whole thing and how you could have prevented most of it by saying something months ago. So, shush,’ she said, holding her finger up to her lips. ‘Be very careful what you say,’ she whispered.

‘This woman is harassing me, Sheriff,’ Brother Earl said. ‘I am formally asking you to make her stop.’

I slapped my arm over Brother Earl’s shoulders, and told him in a right friendly manner, ‘Naw, Brother Earl, she’s just giving you facts. What you do with ’em is your business.’

‘I wanna call Sheriff Williams . . .’

‘He told me to tell you how sorry he was that he couldn’t make it today,’ I said, arm still around his thin shoulders, ‘but to tell you hidy.’

We’d made our way inside the metal building that served as the sanctuary. I pointed to a metal chair sitting by the front door, and Deputy Nita influenced Brother Earl to sit in it.

‘I got questions, Earl, and you
will
have answers, understand?’ I said.

‘How can I have answers if I don’t know any, Sheriff? That’s just plain dumb—’

Nita kicked the bar on the chair between his legs, shoving the chair back a foot or two and getting a nice shade of pale on Brother Earl’s face. ‘Are you calling the duly elected sheriff of Prophesy County dumb?’ she shouted at him.

‘No, of cour—’

‘Then answer his fucking questions!’ she shouted.

‘Of course, yes, no problem . . .’ Earl stammered.

‘Who killed Mary Hudson?’ I asked him.

‘I don’t know!’ he said.

‘Who killed Mary Hudson?’ I asked again.

‘I don’t know! Really . . .’

‘Why would they do it?’ I asked, getting up close in his face.

‘Who? What?’ he said, cringing back in the chair.

‘Why would someone kill Mary? What did she know?’

Brother Earl pulled up his shoulders, like a turtle trying to hide in his shell. ‘I don’t know, Sheriff, honest I don’t. I never talked to the woman. But maybe one of my wives . . .’ he said, his face showing how eager he was to throw his wives to the wolves – namely me and Nita.

‘Keep him here,’ I said to Nita, and headed for the trailer.

‘Now wait, Sheriff! This is a house of God and this heathen mud woman is cussing and just being here—’

‘It’s OK, Sheriff,’ Nita said as I headed for the door. ‘Me and Earl here are gonna be just fine.’

And I didn’t doubt it one bit.

Nita Skitteridge – Saturday

Now I needed to rein myself in. I’d been letting loose a bit with the sheriff being there, playing up to this old geezer like I was some kind of mad woman – as opposed to mud woman. But underneath, deep down, yeah, I wanted to hurt this guy, and I knew it. And I knew I had it in me. That’s why I went to the academy instead of dental hygienist school. It’d be mean to take out my frustrations on somebody strapped down with my hands in their mouth. No, being a deputy, I got to vent my frustrations a little bit. But I had to watch it. Couldn’t let it get out of hand. Not like I knew it could. Not like it did back home that time.

‘Be still!’ I told the preacher, who was squirming around like he was gonna make a break for it. ‘You want me to tie you up?’

‘I’m gonna have your badge!’ he shouted.

I took it off my breast pocket and handed it to him. ‘Whatcha gonna do with it?’ I asked him.

He threw my badge on the floor. That kind of disrespect – not for me in particular, but for what the badge represents – well, that just got all over me.

‘What do you call yourself, preacher?’ I asked him. ‘Are you the Right Reverend Earl Mayhew, or are you Father Earl Mayhew, or are you Pastor Earl Mayhew, or are you just that Jackass Earl Mayhew? Now which do you want me to call you?’ I asked, my voice all sweetness and light like I can do.

‘I want to go to my house,’ he said.

‘No can do, Jackass Earl Mayhew. I hope you don’t mind, I picked for you,’ I said.

‘You evil mud woman! You’re dark as the night! You’re evil like the hounds of hell!’

I looked at my skin. ‘No, sir, now I see myself more of a mocha-chocolate than a dark-as-night. My husband, now he’s paper-bag brown, used to get you in all sorts of nice places back in the day, being paper-bag brown. But now we people of color, we’re proud. I like my mocha-chocolate shade.’ I stuck my bare arm in front of his face. ‘Kinda pretty, don’t you think?’

He drew back from me. ‘Get away! Don’t you touch me!’

I couldn’t help it. I put my fingers in his hair and went, ‘Bogga-bogga!’

He screamed and tried to stand up. After that I had to cuff him and the fun just went out of it for me. I left him cuffed to the metal folding chair and went outside to find someplace to wash my hands. His hair was on the greasy side.

Milt Kovak – Saturday

A young woman, maybe in her mid- to late-teens, opened the door of the double-wide. ‘Yes?’ she said timidly.

‘Are you a daughter or a wife?’ I asked.

‘I’m Brother Earl’s wife, Nadia,’ she said, and I noticed a slight accent. Russian? I wondered. Brother Earl getting so desperate for wives he was now shopping for ’em online? I would think the state department would frown on this kind of marriage.

‘I need to come in and talk to you and the other wives,’ I said.

She let me in without a word. Russian or some other Eastern Bloc nation, I thought. Otherwise she wouldn’t have obeyed so readily.

The door opened directly into one very large room, a quarter of which was kitchen, another quarter taken up with two large picnic-style tables, and the rest was couches and chairs around a large-screen TV. Two women were standing in the kitchen; one woman was nursing a baby in one of the chairs, the baby’s face and her breast covered with a kitchen towel; another woman sat at one of the picnic tables, a Bible spread out in front of her and a legal pad and pen beside her. Counting the one who opened the door, that made five wives. Four kids, from crawling age to about four, were playing with toys on the rug in front of the TV, which was on and blasting
Thomas the Train
as loud as could be.

One of the women in the kitchen was the older woman I’d seen the last time I’d come to interview Brother Earl. I directed my first comment to her. ‘Could you turn the TV down a little?’ I asked. ‘We need to talk.’

The older woman looked at the woman at the picnic table and nodded. The woman at the picnic table got up and went to the TV, turning down the volume. None of the children seemed to notice.

I walked toward the kitchen and held out my hand to the older woman. She just looked at it. Finally she said, ‘I don’t touch men who are not my husband. Usually I don’t talk to men who aren’t my husband. Unfortunately you took my husband away, so I have no choice.’

‘You’re the first wife?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Would you tell me your name and introduce the others?’ I asked.

‘Lucy Mayhew,’ she said, pointing at her chest. This was the same very short woman I’d met before, her graying hair falling long down her back, her disposition unpleasant. Pointing at the woman at the picnic table, she said, ‘Margery Mayhew.’ Margery nodded her head. She was a great deal younger, at least ten years, and had very dark hair hanging to her waist. She had dark eyes and olive skin and was several inches taller than Lucy.