Deep South (35 page)

"I wasn't just glad he was maybe going to be my friend, I was pathetically glad. It's so warm here, so moist, so scented. I think my backbone has begun to soften, grow fungi." Molly said nothing for a moment, and Anna noted with satisfaction that the telltale shush of air-Molly sucking in a lungful of smoke wasn't there. Maybe her near-death experience the previous summer would really keep her off cigarettes. "Not enough estrogen," the psychiatrist said at last.

"Without it bones get brittle, tissues shrivel, thinking processes grow sluggish." Anna let the diagnosis sink in. "Perimenopause?" she said, confused. "Surely I've got a few years left."

"Not estrogen in your body, estrogen in your life. Where are the women down there?

Barefoot and pregnant? No women rangers, maintenance, no secretaries, nurses, receptionists? The Trace sounds like a boys' club."

"There are women," Anna said. "But they're all in Tupelo. In administration."

"Where -are they in-what's it? Port Gimlet?"

"Gibson. Probably in church."

"You'd better find yourself a place in the pew," Molly laughed. "Without women to talk to, the mind begins to play tricks." Molly had to go. She was meeting Frederick at La Guardia. The FBI agent had established a regular commute between Chicago and New York to be with Anna's sister.

Though Anna was unreservedly in favor of the relationship, she hung up feeling worse than when she'd called.

Lonely. That was it. In the twelve-step meetings she'd long since abandoned, they preached HALT: Never let yourself become too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Anna was all of the above, and sure as hell, she wanted a drink.

Paul Davidson's message gave her the perfect excuse for calling him.

Lonely. She was vulnerable. It would be akin to grocery shopping when she was starving. She dialed the chief ranger's number instead. "Hi, it's Anna, what's up?" she said when be came on the line.

"I'm glad you called, Anna. I need to talk with you," Brown said in the measured tones of a man restating the obvious, not to buy time, but to lay the groundwork for some unpleasant revelation. Anna felt that clench in the pit of her stomach that is learned in childhood and never quite goes away. "Shoot," she said. "I got a complaint about you today. It was faxed to my office. One of your rangers is saying you are showing favoritism based on race and age."

"It's either Barth or Randy," Anna said. "I've only got two rangers."

"You know I can't divulge the name of the complainant in a whistleblowing situation," Brown said, and be sounded as tired as Anna felt.

"Race and age?"

"Race and age."

"I've only been here a week, I must have been busier than I thought." Anna was being flippant. She knew it was juvenile and counterproductive.

Humor had no place in bureaucracy, especially not when the terrifying specter of a lawsuit was raised. Brown breathed heavily into the phone, undoubtedly willing her not to make this any harder than it had to be.

Momentarily she was tempted to apologize and treat the matter with the sincere concern it damn well did not deserve. This was Randy making a preemptive strike. Or just being a pain in the ass because he had too much time on his hands, his wife had left him or his hemorrhoids had flared up. "How is this racism and ageism said to manifest?" she asked.

She made a modest effort to alter her tone so it wouldn't sound snippy or snotty, but the attempt failed.

Brown, bless his mature and experienced heart, ignored it. "There's a few, but the major complaint is preferential scheduling. This individual claims that you have scheduled him to work less desirable shifts and that you have done this in a prejudicial manner because of this individual's age and skin color." Anna had seen the destruction lawsuits caused, the loss of health and money and jobs and promotions, not because the accused was guilty, but because the legal process was punitive. Innocence, even if proved, didn't change the lawyers' fees and the stain that was left on the minds of those who heard only the accusations, who believed where there was smoke there was fire. But Randy had chosen to attack her on the basis of scheduling. Relief softened her voice and she responded to the chief ranger like "I've been remiss on the scheduling," she said. "The mura grown-up. der has taken up so much of my time, I never got around to redoing the schedule. Both of my rangers are still working the schedule that Steve Stilwell had them on when he was acting district ranger."

"Can you prove that?" Brown asked hopefully.

Anna was relieved that he seemed to be on her side. "I can ask Steve," she said. "Do that. Document everything. This individual-and you've got a good idea who I'm talking about-has been a-" Anna thought he was going to say "pain" or "headache" or "thorn," but Brown was too well trained. "A problem in several areas. He wants an early retirement. He's tried to get a medical retirement, and this isn't the first complaint he's made. He's threatened suit seven times and sued twice over one thing and another." Anna felt as if she'd just been given an adder for a bed mate.

"Nightmare," she said. "Velvet gloves," Brown warned. "Velvet gloves and document everything." After hanging up, Anna went through the schedule.

The only bit of time Randy bad put in that wasn't Steve's doing was a wildlife disturbance call that dispatch had sent him out on. He'd gone on duty two hours before he was scheduled. The assisting agency listed was Fisheries and Wildlife. Anna was on solid ground. Much good that would do her in a lawsuit.

Fifteen minutes till quitting time. She decided to sit it out doing nothing, staring at the clock. It was all she felt up to. At five of five the phone rang. For three rings she watched it suspiciously. On the fourth, she answered.

"Hey, it's Stilwell," came a light and breezy voice. The district ranger in Ridgeland: a nontoxic soul with good hair and kind eyes.

"Just the man I needed to talk to," she said. "Want to do it over dinner? I can meet you in Clinton. I hear there's a four-star Taco Bell on the corner of 1-20 and Springridge Road." An errant thought, one that had been nagging at the edges of her mind, surfaced. "How about meeting me at the Clinton pullout," she countered. "Business before gorditas."

"In uniform or out?"

"Out,"

"With Scotch or without?"

"With." Anna hung up. The sexy sheriff would have to wait till her hormone level returned to that befitting a professional woman in her middling years.

At Rocky Springs Anna changed into Levi's and, in honor of her first dinner date in Mississippi, a teal blue silk shirt that was not only clean but ironed. She cared for Taco and Piedmont then, guilt as heavy upon her heart as the crippled dog's brown eyes were on the back of her neck, abandoned them once again.

Day had slipped into evening. A clogging beat mellowed to liquid breezes that didn't so much blow as saunter through the tops of the cornfields, running loving fingers through leaves too green-to be of this world. Red clover on the banks of the road turned from carmine to blood in the angled light, and the wisteria glowed as if lit from within. Only in nature could the red and yellow and lavender coexist in such harmony. On a scarf or a dress, the colors would have clashed.

Alive, they enhanced one another's beauty.

To either side of the road, tucked between acres of forest land, were cleared fields. Cattle and horses, hides iridescent with sunlight and high living, were scattered about as if placed by a talented photographer creating a postcard of pastoral peace.

Beauty soothed Anna as always. After years of being a law enforcement ranger, anonymity soothed her as well. She was just a middleaged lady in a Rambler. Speeders were none of her concern. Lost tourists wouldn't flag her down. Bored visitors wouldn't buttonhole her with tedious stories. Malcontents wouldn't pour complaints into her ears.

By the time she rolled into the Clinton pullout, she had lost her taste for park business, but such was the force of habit, it never crossed her mind to simply laugh, drink Stilwell's Scotch and let unanswered questions lie.

Two vehicles were already there, a white 1997 Honda Accord with Hinds County tags and a mint-condition cherry-red 1949 Dodge pickup truck with chrome bumpers. In each of them sat a lone man stalwartly not looking at anything but the blank wall of trees beyond the picnic table. As Anna was parking next to the pickup, the Honda backed out and left. Through the Rambler's open window, Anna could see Steve lounging behind the wheel of the truck. He didn't look at her till she was standing on the passenger side of his vehicle, her hands on the door.

"Hey. It's you," he said. "I was afraid to look. If you'd been much later, Yd've been in grave danger of losing my manly virtue. Hop in." Anna did, and he passed her the Scotch bottle. She took a swig. The stuff was foul-tasting, but the activity was comradely. "How so your manly virtue?" she asked, admiring the exquisite detail in which the interior of the vintage truck had been restored. No street rod for Stilwell. Anna was willing to bet the engine in the old truck was, if not the original, at least manufactured in 1949.

"That guy in the Honda made two trips to the woods," Steve said, as if that explained things. "It was all I could do to stay behind the wheel." Anna was mystified but not sufficiently intrigued to play along with Stilwell's riddles. "Come on," she said. "I want to show you something." Steve got out of the truck, the Scotch bottle held by the neck, swinging loose in his right hand. "When you do it, you look raffish and collegiate," Anna remarked. "If I did it, I'd look like a skid row drunk."

"It's a talent," he admitted modestly. "Openly enjoying wickedness is sufficiently rare these days as to pass for a brand of innocence." At that moment, Anna liked Stilwell so much she nearly told him.

"This way," she said and followed one of the social trails into the tangled woods. "If you're planning a picnic, let's go to the city dump," Stilwell said from behind her. "This place is AIDS Central." Anna had stopped in the midst of the tissue and condom bushes.

"This is it. What the hell is it? There was a pornographic picture stuck up on that tree with a note: "Follow Me."

"

"Yuck. What a mess," Stilwell looked around, both arms held high, keeping his hands-or more likely his Scotch-above the level of the contamination. "This has gotten bad. Tell George, and he'll send his guys in to clean it out. They'll bitch and moan but...  yuck!

"You knew this was here?" Anna asked. "Can we talk about it somewhere else? Microbes are crawling up my pantleg. I just felt one go over the top of my sock." Back in the pristine cab of Steve's truck, fortified by another swallow of the communal Scotch that Anna could tell wouldn't taste half bad in another shot or two, she realized what Steve had meant with his cryptic comments about his manly virtue and the threatened compromise thereof. It made sense when taken with the local cars, parked here after work, each empty or containing a ]one male occupant. "This is a homosexual trysting place," she said. "Yes and no." Steve sipped his booze, said "single malt" and went on.

"There's several hot spots on the Trace. Here, some north. I've busted a few. You know, the usual charge: disturbing the peace.

Though, the way I look at it, I'm the one doing the disturbing of the piece. There's strong feeling against it in these parts. Had a guy up in Tennessee at one of the pullouts come on to two good old boys. They beat the poor bastard to death. The verdict was accidental death. Seems they accidentally hit him about twenty-eight times. Strong feeling against it. We've run some sting operations. Tupelo wanted to run one down here with me as the bait." Anna raised an eyebrow. "What? You don't think I'm cute enough?" He cocked his head. Salt and pepper locks fell over his forehead. Stilwell was definitely cute enough. "I declined. Not my bag.

Out of sight, consenting adults. Let the chiggers get 'em is my motto."

"A benevolent soul," Anna said. "I like to think so. But back to homosexuals. These guys don't think of themselves as gay or homosexual.

They're upstanding pillars of the community with wives and families who stop off-and every man of 'em claims it's the first time they've ever done it, naturally-for stress relief. That's how they see themselves."

"I wish they wouldn't litter," Anna said, and Stilwell laughed. "Tell George.

That's his area." Warmed by the Scotch and the good humor, Anna trotted out the day's slings and arrows.

"I'll back you on the schedule issue," he promised. "But Randy's trouble. The proverbial bad apple. He's on a lot of people's bad sides.

He never gave me any problem."

"Why? Because you're white and male?"

"Careful," Stilwell cautioned. "Paranoia is the single most contagious of all the mental illnesses. Did you know that?

Nope, he didn't give me any trouble because I was just acting district ranger, just passing through. There was nothing to get out of me, so he opted for ass kissing. Never know whose ass is suddenly going to appear right above your lips on the ladder to success." The Scotch was beginning to kick in.

Anna didn't mind. She took another swallow to catch up. "I'll be careful," she promised. She told him about the suicide of Leo Fullerton, and he voiced the niggling suspicions that had been dancing in her head like poisonous sugar plums. "Fullerton. He was one of the guys in the campground the night of your murder, wasn't he?" k Anna mildly resented Danni Posey being labeled her murder, but she said yes. "Fishy?" Stilwell thought aloud. "A man's there. A girl's killed.