Parker indicated Griffin’s car.
‘You think it might be suicide, or a dropped cigarette?’
‘We haven’t made any official announcement yet. Maybe if you watch the news later, you’ll learn something.’
‘Like that he was strapped to his seat before he was killed?’
Macy hadn’t stopped smiling, but the smile seemed to be struggling to climb as far as her eyes, and was currently marooned somewhere around her cheekbones.
‘You’re well informed.’
‘Even without the TV news. I think we need to arrange a sit-down.’
‘You know who’s in that car?’
‘Harpur Griffin. If it’s not him, I’ll pay you a dollar.’
‘Friend?’
‘Hardly.’
‘Client?’
‘I’m not that desperate – yet. I’ve been doing some work for Moxie Castin, and Griffin wandered into range.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, that’s why I thought we should meet: you, me, Moxie, and whoever. Look, this isn’t about pulling privilege: I just thought it would be better if I made the first approach. I’ve got nothing to hide, but Moxie’s client already has enough troubles, and this is Moxie’s case, not mine.’
‘This client wouldn’t be Jerome Burnel, would it?’ asked Macy.
Damn, but the woman was smart.
‘Impressive,’ said Parker.
‘I read the bulletins. You tell Moxie to be at Middle Street in one hour. If he’s not there on time, I’ll personally come around to his office and see how many cans of that soda of his I can shove up his ass. And before you make the call’ – she raised an index finger; the smile was entirely gone now. – ‘do I need to start thinking about an arrest warrant for Burnel?’
Parker looked past her. From this angle, he could see the car in a gap through the screens. What was left of Harpur Griffin was covered by white plastic, but the blackness of him was visible beneath it. Macy’s question was the reason why Parker had wanted to hold off on saying anything about Burnel until Moxie Castin was present. He couldn’t see Burnel tying someone to a car seat and setting him on fire, but then Burnel probably hadn’t seemed like someone capable of shooting two men at a gas station until he’d pulled a gun and killed them, and if anyone had a reason for murdering Harpur Griffin, it was Jerome Burnel. Now that Griffin had been immolated, the possibility existed that Burnel hadn’t been abducted at all, and had instead dropped out of sight in order to target his tormentor.
Except Parker couldn’t really see it happening that way. Had Griffin been found stabbed or beaten in an act of panic or rage, then Parker might have been inclined to add Burnel’s name to the list of suspects, but equally he would have expected Burnel to have been found beside the body. He wouldn’t have run, but would instead have waited for the cops to come and get him. No, Griffin’s murder suggested a degree of sadism and premeditation, and Parker believed it would probably have taken more than one man to carry it out. He couldn’t picture Burnel with an accomplice. He didn’t have many friends left.
Macy was waiting for his answer.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Burnel didn’t do this.’
‘You sound very sure of that.’
‘I’ve met him.’
‘And you don’t think he’s the type.’
‘Not to set a man alight, but that’s only part of it.’
‘What’s the rest?’
‘I believe Burnel is dead. And if he’s not, he may be wishing that he was.’
Macy thought about what he’d said, then turned slightly so that she too could see the ruin of the car, and the shape of the body inside.
‘So you think that whoever did Griffin—’
‘Did Burnel too?’ he finished for her. ‘Possibly. No, probably.’
‘Call Moxie,’ she said. ‘Now.’
43
Shortly after eight that same morning, Sheriff Edward Henkel turned his cruiser into the parking lot of Shelby’s Diner and killed the ignition. Since his divorce, and the decision not to haul the kids over to stay with him more than once every month, it had been his habit to take the early shift on weekends, if only because it gave him something to do. He had never been one for letting his deputies do all the hard work. Anyway, Plassey’s size and population meant that its sheriff’s department was small by the standards of the state, so everyone helped to carry the burden, Henkel included, which he was more than happy to do.
There wasn’t much to Plassey County, but it was his. He knew every corner of its speed-trap towns, every trailer park, every creaking shack. He saw the beauty of it, even in its decline. The small mine at Berber Hill was long closed, but Plassey still bore the marks of a coal county in the disused railway lines, the locked-up storage yards by the Colney River, and the roadside advertisements for lawyers specializing in cancers and other ailments caused by years spent amid darkness and dust.
Even when he wasn’t rostered, Henkel would sometimes put on his uniform and take a run along the county roads. Occasionally he’d pull someone over for speeding, or roust some kids who were indulging in a little illicit drinking, but mostly he’d just stop by homes and businesses, making sure that folks were happy, and if they weren’t, finding a way to do something about it. He had an election coming up next year, and was conscious of Channer breathing down his neck. Rob was probably still too young and unseasoned to be considering a run for sheriff, but it remained good politics to make sure people understood that new blood wasn’t always better than old.
Sheriffs in West Virginia were limited to two consecutive four-year terms, but Henkel was already grooming Ned Ralston, his chief deputy, to succeed him, assuming Henkel won the next election, which he fully intended to do. Ralston wasn’t even very keen on being sheriff, but Henkel had assured Ralston that he’d back him all the way, and stay on as his chief deputy in turn. Then, four years later, if Ned decided that he’d had enough, well, Henkel would be happy to run again. Henkel liked to think of himself as a modest student of politics, which is why he made sure to read something more than the comics in the papers every day. You could say what you liked about that Putin fella in Russia, Henkel believed, but he certainly knew how to hold on to power, even if it meant becoming prime minister instead of president for a while in order to get around those term limits in Russia. He probably hadn’t even moved out of his old office, but just found someone to switch the nameplates on the doors.
Part of Henkel’s weekend routine was to pick up the thick Sunday copies of the Washington Post and the Charleston Gazette-Mail in order to continue his education on world affairs, and head to Shelby’s not too long after Miss Queenie, Shelby’s widow – Shelby having departed for the great diner in the sky some years earlier – opened the doors. Sundays tended to be pretty quiet, which was why Queenie opened at the later hour of seven a.m., and stayed behind the register until nine thirty, when it was time for her to go to church. Usually, if Henkel got in early enough, he would find himself alone in the diner for a while, during which time Miss Queenie made sure that he was adequately fed and watered, but otherwise left him to his reading. He was running a little late this morning, but the diner remained almost empty as far as he could see. Business would pick up after the church services finished, and the various congregations came to Shelby’s for brunch and conversation.
There was a time when the background music in Shelby’s on Sundays was WVGV – 89.7 FM, West Virginia’s Gospel Station – in honor of the Sabbath, but it meant that the accompaniment to Henkel’s reading was Preaching Time with Dr Larry Brown and Word of Life with Michael Bailey, neither of which, for all their undoubted merits, Henkel found conducive to his enjoyment of the papers. After some consultation with her pastor, Miss Queenie agreed to replace WVGV with classical music, at least while Henkel was on the premises.
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 enlig
hten 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.
44
Inside, 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 o
f 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.