The Broken Places (12 page)

“No, sir,” Quinn said. “If they stole a car in Tibbehah County, it hasn’t been reported.”

“Can’t think of another reason for them doubling back if they were headed east and out of state.”

“You see anything that ties them to this area?” Quinn said.

Locke shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “First thing I checked. Just got off the phone to the superintendent at Parchman. He was madder than hell. He’s shut down the whole prison. Everybody inside is on lockdown; all privileges are being withheld. I can tell you if those boys get turned back to prison, they won’t find no welcoming committee.”

The windows were broken out in the garage; an old Sinclair Oil sign hung crooked from a pole. A logging truck with an empty trailer rattled past.

“Anything else?” Lillie said.

“Superintendent said Davis and Magee were buds,” he said. “Doesn’t show up on the records anywhere, but it seemed to him they’d known each other before. He said some federal man had come to talk to both of them maybe two years back about a few bank jobs. But he didn’t get nowhere.”

“Did he know much about the jobs?” Lillie said.

“I got a call into a Fed in Oxford,” Locke said. “I hear something of interest and I’ll shout.”

“I bet they got some family in this area,” Quinn said. “Only reason I can think of them sticking around.”

“Or maybe they left something special?” Lillie said.

“Good to know about those bank jobs,” Quinn said.

Locke nodded. They all shook hands. The old man hobbled back to his car, hung on his door, and shouted to Lillie, “Can you really hit a half-dozen clay pigeons before they hit the ground?”

“Want to see?” Lillie said.

“Next time I’m in Jericho,” Locke said, tipping his hat. “It would be a pleasure.”

•   •   •

“Why don’t we just go
out to that bass pond now,” Dickie Green said. “Get it over with. I like this place, it’s sweet as hell, but I’d just as soon head on before someone finds us.”

“The hunting lodge belongs to Esau’s friend,” Becky said. “Hadn’t you been listening?”

“Sure,” Dickie said. “But sounds like you is coming into this conversation kind of late.”

Esau left them talking to each other like that by the swimming pool while he and Bones drove out into Jericho. It was nearing four o’clock. They got stuck behind a school bus heading into town from the high school and nearly tried to pass when Bones pointed out a state trooper hidden up in some brush. Esau kept it on forty all the way into town, hugging the Square, the Laundromat, and the offices to a newspaper. There was an old movie theater all boarded up and a check delay business. All shithole towns had a check delay run by the greedy bastards. Before he got sent back to prison, Esau lived off that shit, getting nearly twenty percent stolen for an advance on his pay. About the best days he’d known before robbing banks was when he had his truck running and didn’t have to walk up the road to buy beer and a Little Debbie snack cake for supper.

“Well, hell,” Bones said.

“What?”

“Ain’t that her?”

“Who?”

“Dixon’s woman?”

“Yes, sir,” Esau said. “Ain’t you the eagle eye.”

“I never forget a tight ass,” Bones said.

Esau slowed the Tundra as they took a third lap on the Town Square, watching the woman they’d seen at Dixon’s church. She was holding the hand of a little black boy and some shopping bags, and walking into a flower shop. Esau found a parking spot and killed the engine but left on the radio. The truck’s owner had kept some good old David Allan Coe in the CD player, “If That Ain’t Country.”

“Pass me a beer,” Esau said.

Bones stuck one in his palm from a foam cooler they’d bought at a bait shop. The gun they’d stolen sat in the folds of the seat between them. They both lay back in their seats, sipping beer until Dixon’s woman and the black boy came back out. The boy balanced a big display of flowers, and they walked clockwise on the Square to an old Honda and drove off. Esau kicked the truck into gear and followed, keeping the Busch between his legs. He punched up the lighter and set a cigarette in his lips, damn well feeling like a human being again.

The woman drove north of the town on Main Street, passing by a good amount of big old pretty houses with big old pretty porches, many of them with those historic markers out front saying they hadn’t been burned during the War. Esau figured there must have been a mess of rich folks in this old town before it all turned to shit.

The Honda turned left down a road called Ithaca and stopped in front of a smaller house, a brick ranch with flat boxwoods and holly. He kept driving, window open, hand with cigarette hanging out the window. The little boy ran out of the car with the flowers, the blond woman following slower, closing the car door and turning her head just in time to see Esau and catch his eye.

Esau just gave her a simple nod. She looked like she’d just swallowed some glass.

“Back to the hunt club?” Bones said.

“Yep,” Esau said. “I’m out of beer.”

“What if that truck’s not there?”

“I’ve been thinking on that,” Esau said. “Figure nobody likes to leave empty-handed.”

“Dixon doesn’t look like he’s got shit.”

“He owes us,” Esau said.

“I think Dixon always figured it was the other way around.”

Esau felt his face fill with blood. “That was five years ago,” he said. “He done what he thought was right.”

“Still figure he might think this is calling it square.”

“He does that,” Esau said, “and I’ll choke every inch of life out his ass.”

Bones was quiet. He sipped some beer as the hills raised up out of the flat farming land and curved up to where rich men could afford to drink whiskey and raise hell for the fun of it. He turned up the stereo, more David Allan Coe to fuel his thoughts.

Quinn drove back to the farm and lay down on the made-up iron bed. The front door was open, screen door letting in a cool breeze, the evening smelling of new flowers and damp earth. Hondo knew how to let himself out and use his nose to let himself in, the door thwacking upon his return. Quinn hadn’t even taken off his boots, lying back in the big, cool room and tipping the brim of his baseball hat over his eyes to shield the light. He had two hours before he’d be back on duty. In the Army, he’d learned to sleep whenever possible. He could stick a rucksack under his head and sleep at the edge of an airfield or nearly to the minute he’d rappel from a Black Hawk. He was nearly asleep when he heard a car pull into the drive.

Hondo was on his feet and back out the screen door. He didn’t bark. If it was someone he didn’t know, there’d be much barking. Hondo was good that way.

The door opened and feet in the hall and a knock on the door.

Quinn lifted up the brim of his ball cap to see Anna Lee standing in the light of the door. A bright light shined from behind her and through her long strawberry hair, blurring her face a bit.

“Don’t you have to be up in an hour?” she said.

“Yep.”

“At least you got to sleep all day.”

“Yep,” Quinn said. He did not move.

Anna Lee took a seat on the edge of the bed, springs creaking. She ran a hand over his chest and sighed. “I brought you some supper,” she said. “You can take it with you.”

“What’d you make?”

“Lasagna,” she said. “I made a little salad, too. And some garlic rolls.”

“Appreciate it.”

Anna Lee wore tight Levi’s and a long white T-shirt under a thin yellow cardigan. The cardigan had holes on one elbow. Quinn remembered it from back in high school. He couldn’t recall all the times he’d found it in the back of his truck. Why she didn’t give that thing away, he had no idea.

“Did you sleep in your clothes?” she said.

“We got some escaped convicts headed this way,” Quinn said. “Not to mention I was up late tracking down a dangerous turnip thief.”

She rubbed the flat of her hand on his chest some more. He caught her at her wrist and pulled her close, his arm slipping behind her back.

“Come here.”

She held firm and stayed quiet.

“I’m awake.”

“Luke’s coming back,” she said, sort of just blurting it out. “Tonight. He’ll be here until Monday.”

Quinn nodded and thought for a moment. “Well. You are his wife.”

“You don’t have to be nasty.”

“I’m just stating the truth.”

Quinn closed his eyes. A cool breeze shot through the center of the old house, the chain on Hondo’s neck jingling. He held on to her hand for several moments. She finally squeezed back, leaning down and kissing him on his chin.

“When can I see you?” he said.

“I think we need to slow things down.”

“I was waiting for that,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow we both can get a really good sermon and help us all figure it out.”

“It’s the way it is,” she said. “It’s what we got.”

“This isn’t usual,” he said.

“You ever think maybe we’re just telling ourselves that?”

Quinn held her hand. “Nope.”

•   •   •

In Caddy’s living room,
Jamey sang and played his Martin, with her Uncle Van on second guitar and J.T., the local master of auto body repair, on a fat acoustic bass. All three men wore baseball caps and T-shirts and jeans, kitchen chairs huddled together, cords strung from two of the guitars into amplifiers. Even Jean had come along and was harmonizing on “The Model Church,” tapping her white tennis shoes and sipping that rancid white wine.

Jason lay on his little belly by the amplifiers, head in hand, legs kicking back and forth to the music, as he worked on a coloring book.

Music filled the wood-paneled room that hadn’t changed much since it had belonged to her grandmother. Same two couches Caddy had gotten out of storage, a leather recliner, and an antique standup piano. There were old-lady doilies on headrests, a glass case in the corner with figurines of cats and ladies with parasols, and lots of old frames of family members she’d never even met. The entire house made her feel like she lived in a museum.

“Again,” Jamey said.

“Hadn’t y’all practiced enough?” Caddy said, smiling.

Jamey grinned. “Again.”

And he sang on, foot thumping, about walking through that crowded old church, finding that pew to hear the trumpet voice of the preacher and that angel choir. She knew he’d worked up a whole sermon around the song, and would say how a model church was made up of real people, not just a physical space of grandeur or stiff traditions put upon us. He’d talk about Jesus walking and preaching in sandals and robes, bringing his good news to whoever would listen, not caring where you lived, who your people were, or where you’d been. Jamey talked about giving away all you owned and following the real path.

As Jamey strummed and harmonized with Uncle Van, he winked at her. Van Colson, fat and compact, with a mustache and goatee, had his eyes closed all corny as he played and hummed. To Caddy, he looked just like a redneck Buddha wrapped in an XL Mossy Oak tee.

“Jamey?” Caddy said. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

Jamey lifted his eyes from where he played with a capo on the guitar’s neck and nodded. Caddy went on into the kitchen to unload the Piggly Wiggly sacks, stocking their shelves. She thought about frying up some thin pork chops tonight, wishing it didn’t take so damn long to make mashed potatoes. Hell, the peas she could microwave.

Jamey walked into the little kitchen, kissed her on the cheek, and helped himself to a cold beer, reaching his arm around her and hugging her tight. “You never told me your Uncle Van could sing.”

“Maybe ’cause I never heard him.”

“Never?”

“Does doing karaoke to the Marshall Tucker Band count?”

“Sure,” Jamey said. “I caught him humming while we were doing some painting. When I complimented him, he said he could play some guitar, too.”

“Go figure,” Caddy said. “I never thought Uncle Van did much but watch wrestling and smoke grass.”

“We all have our talents.”

“His karaoke wasn’t too bad,” she said. “He really tore up ‘Can’t You See’ at the Southern Star.”

The wind had started to lift a little outside, the small trees in her backyard twisting left and right. A sudden darkness covered the sun, and rain stared to hit the roof and fall in sheets off her back porch.

“Jamey, I saw those men again.”

Jamey looked at her as if he was saying “What men?” without giving the words. He just waited for Caddy to speak again.

“They followed me and Jason back home to my momma’s house.”

“You sure it was them?”

Caddy nodded. “That one with red hair looks like he should be swinging from a vine.”

“They were looking for me.”

“You were at the church,” Caddy said. “Your truck was there. Those sonsabitches wanted to know where I lived.”

“They follow you back here?”

“I drove around to make sure they didn’t. But they know where Momma’s house is. I think we should warn her or something. Jamey, who are they? Quit tryin’ to bullshit me.”

“No bullshit,” he said. “They’re just men wanting a handout.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just what I said.”

“Son of a bitch,” Caddy said. It looked like night outside now, although it wasn’t more than five o’clock. She turned back, hearing the good-time laughter of J.T., Uncle Van, and Momma out in the salon. Real knee-slappin’ stuff.