Strawman's Hammock (27 page)

“Barrett. I've got an estimate for those cards you were asking about. Want to see the type?”

“Sure.”

Pauline picked up what looked like a business card from her cluttered desk.

“Pretty nice.” Barrett nodded.

“Think you're going to run?”

“I'll know more in a couple of days.”

“Will I have to get the news off Stacy Kline?”

“Pauline, you know better than that. Fact I came here with an exclusive.”

“Gary Loyd?”

“Yeah. He looks good for three killings. Counting his own.”

She reached for a pad of paper. “Just the facts, if you please.”

Barrett made a habit of keeping Pauline informed. She was the last of a dying breed, the kind of journalist who did not construe an op-ed of two opposed opinions as a substitute for reporting the truth.

“Sessions thinks we got our man. Evidence points to it. We're closing the case.”

Bear went on to summarize the factors leading to that decision.

“You think the sheriff's made a good decision, Bear?”

“I have to be off the record on that one, Pauline.”

“All right.”

“Based on what evidence we have, taken with Gary's apparent suicide, yes, I think the investigation's gone about as far as it can. But I gotta tell you, Pauline, it's hard for me to believe Gary was capable of something like this.”

She nodded. “Hard for lots of people.”

“'Course, in fairness, that's one of the dangers comes of being
too
close to the folks you investigate. I've wanted to believe people were innocent before—when they weren't.”

“I know, Barrett. We all do.” She reached out a hand. “But I'd rather have a man err on that side than the other. Still, it must be hard, seeing so much violent behavior, to keep wanting to see the best in people.”

“Couldn't do it on my own,” Bear declared.

“But you need to be sure before you run for this office, Bear. Lots of folks around here still hate anything isn't white. They'll be looking at your wife, your children…”

Barrett sighed. “It was like that when I worked the Beach, Pauline.”

“We're a town. Now you're taking on a county, a
big
county. Everything you ever did or didn't do will come up. Including this mess with the Loyds.”

“Least they can't accuse me of playing favorites.”

She smiled. “No, indeed. But if there is any secret you think you have, believe me—someone will unearth it.”

Barrett looked out the small, square window of her newspaper. A boy, a black boy, was running a tire barefooted down the blacktop. Just a skinny boy with a rag of a coat, in December, barefooted.

“You remember when Daddy died?” Barrett asked quietly.

“I remember when your mother killed him,” Pauline answered. “Why?”

“Like you to run through your paper, see what you wrote. Would have been 'sixty-nine, 'seventy. Somewhere in there.”

“Somewhere, indeed.” She kept her voice empty of surprise. “Am I looking for anything in particular?”

Barrett shrugged. “I just never had the facts is all. Nothing except from family, you know. I couldn't remember anything on my own.”

“You were locked in a closet,” Pauline said kindly. “According to reports.”

“Was Hezikiah Jackson mentioned?”

Pauline regarded him a long moment. “I asked Sue about that, Sue Pridgeon? His father knew the sheriff at the time. There was
someone
there. She was described as a neighbor, which I did not print partly because I couldn't get a name and partly because you-all were too isolated to have anything like neighbors. You must know there've always been rumors about Hezikiah. She's practicing voodoo. Aborting babies. Prophecy. That kind of foolishness. But nothing connected with your father.”

“You mind checking anyway?”

“Why, Barrett? Do you recall something yourself? Has something—come back?”

Barrett sorted the freshly printed cards in his hands.

“Let's just say I don't want something hitting me from behind. Will that do?”

“For now, certainly.” Pauline nodded. “I'll look over a couple of years, see what we have. If Hezikiah's mentioned anywhere I'll pull it for you. How's that?”

“Owe you one.”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “No favors, here. I look up things for people all the time.”

*   *   *

He headed next for Ramona's. Laura Anne got them a table on the patio. The fresh breeze off the bay was more invigorating than a shower. Barrett breathed deeply. He was tired, but at least he wasn't weary.

“You better put a mark on your calendar for Wednesday.” Laura Anne leaned over his ribeye. “Six
P.M.
And I want you looking nice.”

“Because?”

“Because that's when the investors from Atlanta are coming down to meet us. That's why. That and a little over four hundred
thousand
dollars.”

Barrett's fork parked in midair.

“Didn't realize it was this soon.”

“Knew you wouldn't.” Laura Anne dimpled. “Once you get involved in a case, the house could catch on fire and you wouldn't notice.”

“But the case is over,” Barrett assured her. “Lou made it official this morning. He's got Gary. He's satisfied with the evidence. There's nothing more I can do.”

“You don't look too happy about it.”

“I'm a perfectionist. Makes me a pain in the ass.”

“Oooo. Grumpy. Try some of that sweet tea.”

Barrett gulped the iced tea from a quart-sized glass.

“Four hundred thousand?”

“Little over. With points.”

“‘Points'? You're sounding like a movie star.”

“Yo' mama.” She tossed her head. “Thurman's got a contract ready to sign. And Barrett—I got a job.”

“The high school? Teaching?”

“Yes!” she squealed. “Full-time. Music and math! I start this spring.”

“Good for you, L.A.!”

Barrett leaned across the table to kiss her. She stopped him with a finger to his lips.

“One other thing.”

“There's more?”

“I want you to run for sheriff.”

Barrett sagged back into his seat.

“I just took a look at the cards.”

“And?”

“That's cheap enough. But then I'd have to take leave to campaign. It'd cost. Not four hundred thousand…”

“No.”

“Prob'ly more like fifteen, twenty thousand.”

“Make a budget. Stick with it.”

“I won't have Linton Loyd's money.”

“No.” Laura Anne winked. “You'll have mine.”

“You sure, Laura Anne? Last time we talked you didn't want me running for anything.”

“You don't try, you'll regret it, Bear. And I've about decided I don't want any ‘what-ifs' hangin' 'round our heads.”

“Well, young lady.” Barrett could feel a smile stretching across his face. “With news like this? Seems to me like we need to go home and celebrate.”

They drove home along the beach. Laura Anne called to make sure that Thelma kept the boys in her trailer for the evening.

“Coast is clear,” she remarked.

“Yes, it is,” he replied.

“Bear!”

They didn't make it to the bedroom. Laura Anne jerked a sheet from the wash and tossed it down on the living-room floor. Barrett's hand snagged in her bra. She laughed.

“Here.”

She came out of her blouse and bra in one languid extension of arms and breasts and belly.

“Homecoming weekend,” she said.

He kicked out of his slacks, his shorts. He did not need any encouragement. He had been aching hard since they banged through the back door.

“Oh, God, Barrett!”

They made love on the living-room floor. Made love again. Then they showered. He lifted her into bed, that mile of golden skin.

“Gonna sleep good tonight,” she murmured.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But not just yet.”

*   *   *

When the phone rang at nine the next morning they were still in bed.

“Ignore it,” Laura Anne said.

“Betcha,” he mumbled. But then Midge Holloway's voice scratched chalk over the machine.

“Bear? You there? I have the final DNA analysis.”

Barrett stumbled out of bed.

“I'm here.”

“You sound like a drunk.”

“Just woke up.”

“Get your coffee. Call me back in a half hour.”

“You're an angel, Midge.”

“Recovering alcoholic actually. But close enough.”

By the time Barrett had showered and spooned his honey into a fresh cup of coffee, Laura Anne was already at the domestic tasks of the day. She threw the sheet from the night before into the clothes hamper.

“We oughta save that thing for a trophy,” Barrett said as he dialed Midge.

Laura Anne's laugh rippled through the house.

“Midge here.”

“Barrett.”

“You sound chipper.”

“Don't ruin my day, Midge. It's started too nice.”

“No, no. Nothing new here, really. But you were so damned interested in the DNA.”

“At this moment I could give a shit.” Barrett ran his hand down the back of Laura Anne's long leg.

“Too bad. You're gonna get it anyway. The bottom line is: Gary Loyd's DNA does not match anything we found in or around Juanita Quiroga. The hair found in Hezikiah's shack is matched by DNA to the samples we took from his house.”

“That's it?” Barrett sipped his coffee.

“'Bout what we expected, wasn't it?”

“Yeah. It just bothers me that we can't find a match for the semen,” Barrett groused. “At the very least, there's the possibility Gary had an accomplice.”

“Well, we're back to her uncle. The Bull's DNA
did
match semen found in the girl and on bedsheets in Hezikiah's shack.”

“I know, I know.” Barrett's reply was sharp.

“Well, Barrett, if you've got a suspect sitting around somewhere who we can match—”

“I don't.”

“Then we are stuck, sweet pea.”

“Bear—” Laura Anne interrrupted.

“'Scuse me, Midge. What is it, hon?”

Laura Anne pulled a shirt from the laundry.

“I found this buried in your closet.”

A stain of chewing tobacco spread like blood from a gunshot wound on Barrett's white shirt.

“We need to throw it away. Or burn it.”

Barrett went pale.

“Barrett? Bear?”

“One second, Midge. One second.”

Barrett cupped the phone.

“Do not wash that shirt!”

“It's ruined!”

“
Do
not. And
do not
burn it, either. Midge—”

He was back on the phone.

“Yes, Bear.”

“Can't saliva carry a DNA signature?”

“Depends. For secreters it can. Probably eighty percent of the population.”

“Keep your fingers crossed. I've got another sample.”

“Make sure you've got a warrant to go with it.”

“Nope.” Barrett shook his head. “I don't need one.”

*   *   *

The days crawled until Midge came back with the report that confirmed Barrett's hunch.

“Son of a bitch, Bear, we got a match. And there's more.”

Barrett called Lou Sessions to explain the finding. A call from the sheriff to Judge Blackmond followed. The Judge agreed that Barrett's new evidence was admissible and directed that Barrett conduct the required interview and arrest. Sheriff Sessions handed Bear a warrant with no comment.

*   *   *

“Come on, partner.” Barrett rendezvoused with Cricket at Shirley's cafe.

Close to an hour later they pulled up to the twin construction trailers that were the pride of Linton Loyd's deer camp. Linton was alone before his homemade gallows. There were no hangers-on this time to attend the compact man's outdoor dissertations. No sycophants or weekend warriors. Linton was seated on a canvas chair, polishing his rifle's walnut stock before the carcass of another deer. A pickle bucket brimmed with blood and guts. A pouch of the same chewing tobacco that weeks earlier had stained Barrett's shirt worked now in Linton's mouth as if he were a shortstop.

Barrett approached the armed hunter with Cricket flanking. Loyd did not alter the rhythm of his labor. Did not even acknowledge the presence of the uninvited guests who had invaded his camp.

“Need to put the rifle aside, Linton,” Barrett directed.

“Why? You the new game warden?” Linton smiled through his wad.

Cricket freed the safely of his Clock.

“Right about now would be a good time.”

“Shit.” Linton laid his thirty-ought carefully aside. “You boys don't have nothin' on me.”