Harvestman Lodge (72 page)

“You know it, ass-hat!”

Ledford shifted topics eagerly “Hey, Eli, how’s the magazine going?”

“Pretty good, though I had hoped we’d move a little faster than we have. Davy Carl – uh, David, I mean – is a bit of a foot-dragger, I’ve learned.”

“Yeah, yeah. I have a cousin who used to deliver papers for the
Clarion
, and David Brecht was frequently cussed by the carriers, behind his back, of course, because he was always making changes in the paper right up to press time, and running it late. Which of course ran the carriers even later. Not that big a deal most of the time, but if the weather was snowy or stormy, some of the carriers with routes up in the mountains needed every minute they could get, just to get the job done.”

“That’s a fair description from what I’ve seen and heard. David means well, and he wants to be accurate and precise … but I think he forgets the importance of timing sometimes.”

“Hey, listen,” Ledford said. “Has working on that magazine gotten you bored with county history? I hope not, because I have something in the car I was planning to drop off for you at the newspaper, if I didn’t run into you out here.”

“What is it?”

“Another press conference from a few years ago. This one with the U.S. Attorney doing the talking. He happens to say a few things that I think are relevant to something nobody likes to talk about in this county.”

“Harvestman Lodge,” said Melinda.

“Why … yes. How did you know?”

“It’s already a subject of great interest to Melinda and me,” Eli said. “We even explored the lodge building recently. Pretty much everything we’ve learned about the place, and the organization, is disturbing, though.”

“My great aunt has some interest in that place,” Ledford said. “She has a display devoted to it in her Hall of History.”

“Been there, seen it,” said Melinda. “A bit cryptic, but what she shows seems to match up, in general, with other things we’ve heard.”

“This press conference … is it a tape you’ve got?”

“Yeah. I’d recorded an old western movie one afternoon on VHS while I was out, and when the movie was over, the news came on. Right after that there was one of those public affairs special programs news departments do. There had been a big interstate drug bust the day before, and they interviewed the federal attorney about it. He referenced a press conference he’d given some years back, because it was relevant to the subject, and the station showed it as part of the program.”

“And you’ve got it on tape.”

“I do. In my car.”

Melinda made a fast decision and hoped Eli wouldn’t object. “Tell me, Ledfords: do you like meatloaf sandwiches?”

“Love ’em!”

“And do you know where my house is? Up in the block behind my family’s video services shop.”

“We know.”

“Be there at seven and you can join Eli and me for some meatloaf sandwiches and oven fries, and we can watch your video. And I’ve got one to show you, too.”

Eli looked at his fiance with perplexity. “What video?”

“You’ll see. If I have the courage to show it. It’s a little bit … unusual.”

Ledford elbowed his wife. “Sounds like Melinda’s been visiting the back room at the video store.”

“Oh my gosh, no! No! It’s nothing like that!” Melinda objected, then reminded herself that it was a little like that. Very little, though. Mild, almost quaint stuff.

“I know, Melinda. I know. I’m just poking a little fun, that’s all. Speaking of fun, how big would the resulting explosion be if I showed up at your house with a case of beer tonight?”

Melinda smiled. “No explosion at all. Dad’s not there … he and Mom went off on a little business trip, and they’ll not be back until sometime tomorrow night. They’re spending the night in Knoxville tonight, then visiting Gatlinburg tomorrow. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if they spent tomorrow night in Gatlinburg and drove in Thursday morning to get here for the July 4 parade. My little sister is dancing with her dance group in the parade, backup for the Crosswaites.”

“I’ll bring the beer, then. You can clean up the evidence before the prohibitionists get back home.”

“It’ll be nice to visit with you two,” Melinda said. “But first I’ve got video to edit and a story to put together. Off to Johnson City for a few hours!”

Eli walked her to the Bronco, parked on a nearby street.

“So much for an evening alone,” he said.

“I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have invited them, but it seemed the thing to do. They’ve hosted us before and we never did anything for them in return.”

“I don’t mind it. But what is this video you’re going to show?”

“Something I think might be relevant to our Harvestmen investigations … but I’m not sure. Something in it caught my attention, but just subconsciously. I want to see tonight if I can figure out what it is. Oh, and Eli … ”

“Yes?”

“It came from your grandfather’s cellar.”

“Oh my gosh. Now I know I’ve got to see it. Uh … hey, is that why you asked me if my granddad had a Super 8 camera?”

“It was.”

“Was it … is it … well, pornographic?”

“I wouldn’t be planning to openly show it if it was, would I?”

“I wouldn’t think you would.”

“It’s not pornographic … at the same time, it tends enough toward the risque that it’s not what I would have expected to find your grandfather having in his possession, based on what you’ve told me about him. Dancing girls, in front of a group of men. Clothed, but a little on the hoochie coochie side.”

“Sounds like Grandpa Will might have had some hidden history.”

“I have the impression there’s a good deal of that in this county.”

Chapter Forty-Six

RAWLS PARVIN HAD NEVER BEEN prone to be a deep thinker. He’d always been the kind to act rather than ponder. His time in prison had changed that, to a degree. Behind bars, sometimes time was all a man had, and his thoughts were his only worthwhile company. Pondering was done there in abundance.

Since drinking beer and eating barbecue with Lukey at Rollie Flatt’s place, Rawls had been doing plenty of pondering again. Lukey had gotten plenty drunk that night at Rollie’s, and his tongue had gotten way too loose. For a man who’d so fervently warned of the dangers of betraying the criminal ring of which he was a part, Lukey had given Rollie, an outsider, plenty of information. Too much of it. If Rollie had been listening closely and his own mind wasn’t too beer-numbed, he now knew pretty much what Lukey had been up to for the past few years. And not just the cameraman work for pond-scum dirty movie producers; the other things, too. The so-called Flower Garden about which Rawls had learned uncomfortably much in his research at the library. Rollie knew far more than he should, all because Lukey couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he was drunk.

Rawls had fluttered back and forth on the proposition that Lukey had made to him, the chance to become involved in the so-called Flower Garden and maybe become rich. That last part held a lot of appeal; Rawls realized every morning, when he put his feet on the floor and winced at that little stab of crippling pain in his leg, just how much he’d lost when Ben Buckingham shot him. What Lukey had said earlier was true: he could have become a rich and happy man, had he been able to take his football promise and prowess into the NFL. A lot more than a high school football career had been killed by that bullet.

Football was in his past, but what about his future? Lukey’s offer of a lucrative career as part of a worldwide trafficking ring might be able to more than replace what football might have brought him, if everything had gone right. It made perfect sense, on one level, to simply say yes to Lukey and see if the best happened.

What had Rawls surprised at the moment, however, was just how strong a sense of morality he possessed. He’d done plenty of wrong things in his still-young life, and knew it. He’d even persuaded himself that he was willing to go through with the “work” required of him if he did enter in with Lukey into the Flower Garden network. He was wavering, though. Money would be great, kicking life in the teeth because it had kicked him first … all this held its appeal.

But to involve himself in supplying little girls to be vended to a global community of sickly depraved individuals … was that where he wanted to find his life success? Rawls was no saint, no “born again” religionist, no one likely ever to throw up his hands and shout hallelujah to any divinity of any name. But he had his standards.

He walked over to a mirror hanging on the wall of the rough, rusted old camping trailer he’d been using for a home since he was freed from the penitentiary. It was tucked away into a Parvin-owned stand of woods west of the old Winona Court Motor Lodge. He looked his reflection in the face.

“Hell, no,” he said. “I told you I would, Lukey, but hell, no, not me. Because when I think it through to the end I find out that I do have my standards, even if you don’t. By God, I
do
!”

The cheap phone he’d bought at a drug store gave a squeal, startling him. With his unlisted number, prison record, notorious reputation, and unflattering family connection, calls were few, and mostly from his own kin.

This was one of the latter, but the family member calling was one who had not done so before, not since Rawls had been back in Kincheloe County.

“It’s your daddy, Rawls,” Cale Parvin’s weak voice said into his ear.

“Daddy? Is that really you?”

“Don’t you even know your own old man’s voice no more, son?”

“It is you. I can tell now. It’s just been a long time since I’ve heard you through a phone.”

“You got to come see me, boy.”

“I know I should have been by there, Daddy, but you know how it is.”

“You gotta come tomorrow, Rawls. If you don’t there won’t be another chance.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Just come by, hear? Don’t you forget it, neither. Need you here by noon.”

Rawls was getting quite an unpleasant, worrisome feeling from this phone call. His father’s voice sounded strained, tense. And why this push for a visit?

“You coming, then?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’ll come.”

“Don’t you forget, and don’t you be late.”

“What’s going on with you, Daddy?”

“Just be here.”

The phone clicked and Cale Parvin was gone.

LEDFORD’S VIDEO PLAYED FIRST. IT was visually bland, just men in suits and a couple of equally official-looking women in conservative business attire, standing on the steps of a federal building behind microphones. They were faced by members of the press and various others. With minimal introductions and no fanfare, the U.S. Attorney, standing dead center, told his listeners that a significant number of arrests and indictments were soon to come in Northeast Tennessee, and that this circumstance stemmed in large measure from geographical and cultural aspects of the region.

“This corner of Tennessee is physically situated along or near routes making it conducive to the trafficking and movement of illegal drugs and alcohol, of stolen goods, even of human beings. Culturally we possess a populace that is perceived as lacking in sophistication, literacy, and education relative to some other portions of the country. These perceptions are not fully justified, but there is more validity to them than we might wish to acknowledge. The crucial aspect is that these perceptions are widely held and believed elsewhere in our nation, and that perception attracts certain criminal elements involved in the sorts of crimes I just referenced. Their idea is that this is a region where they can engage in criminal enterprises with less likelihood of being caught.”

The further comments went on in a similar vein, and in response to a press question, the federal prosecutor made a veiled reference to a possible regional link to “a ring involved in the most horrific kind of human trafficking,” victimizing young women who were turned into an “international human commodity that strips them of all freedom, dignity, and, ultimately, hope.”

Despite pleas from the reporters for more explanation, he had little more to say on specifics, but as Melinda listened, she realized how the content of the press conference video and the one she was about to show might possess a connection.

“WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE you showing to us?” Micah Ledford asked Melinda a few minutes later as the skirt-tossing high kicking began on the television screen. The television was large and of good quality; Ben Buckingham believed that, as a family working in video services, it was fitting they should have good home technology.

The image quality of the videotape itself was, however, poor. A transfer from old Super 8 film, it had a sporadically murky quality made all the more so by the constant motion of the billowing dresses worn by the dancers.

“This is crazy!” Eli said. “Why would my grandfa – ” He cut off.

“Why do you have this, Melinda?” Ledford asked. “And where did you get it?”

Melinda cut her eyes toward Eli for a second, stricken with guilt over how she’d come by the film and not sure how much she should say. “I … found it. Someone had hidden it somewhere.”