Authors: Frederick Ramsay
Daylight savings time means that the sun, while low on the horizon, still shines at six in the evening in southwestern Virginia. Ike had promised Ruth they would meet for dinner somewhere and plot and scheme their wedding into place. Rita's narrative about Ethyl Smut's sordid life made clear to him he needed to have a sit-down with Flora Blevins. He called Ruth and asked for an hour's delay.
“No problem. I have paperwork up the wazoo, Ike.” Ruth said, “So, okay fine, see you around seven-thirty.”
Ike clocked out of the office and walked the half block or so to the Cross Roads Diner. Whether she wanted to be quizzed or not, Ike needed to have his talk with Flora. He doubted she would be eager to have it, but it needed to be done. Irrespective of what people thought of Ethyl, she'd been murdered and whether she deserved it or not, the murderer had to be caught, tried, and put away.
The diner had regulars for each of its three mealtimes. Ike counted as a breakfast regular as did most of the patrons, although many ate breakfast at noon. Dinner regulars were sparser and even then, most preferred the breakfast menu. Only the brave or those suffering from a significant loss of gustatory acuity ordered off the dinner menu, but a few hardy souls were willing to risk gravy out of a can and yellow-brown mounds of flesh which Flora insisted were chicken fried steak. Ike pushed his way in through the glass doors and scanned the area. Diners sat in booths and at tables urging their mashed potatoes into pools of congealing gravy or sawed at the substance Flora insisted was meat with their dinner knives. Flora did not believe in steak knives.
“Too dangerous if a crazy man came in,” she'd said.
Ike refrained from asking her how often that happened.
Flora was not positioned behind the cash register or circulating between the tables giving advice on good eating and generally bullying the patrons. Ike asked Bob, the counterman, where she had gone. Bob might not have been his real name. All of Flora's countermen wore shirts supplied by Flora and they all were the same size and identified their wearer as
Bob
. This current Bob, his shirt a size too large, tilted his head toward the rear and door leading to the pantry and the cramped office Flora used to do her paperwork. Another rarity. Flora usually left the paperwork to her cousin, Arlene, who stood the night shift and filled the empty predawn hours sorting through orders, bills, and mail.
Ike eased around a fifty-pound bag of red potatoes. “Evening, Flora. Have your ears been burning?”
“Why would they?”
“I've been having conversations about you on and off most of the day. Can you guess what about?”
“Nope.”
“Just ânope'? Aren't you just a little bit curious?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Well, how about you tell me about Ethyl Smut and her daughter.”
“I already done that, Ike. We had that confab yesterday, or was it the day before? I don't know. Either way, I got nothing to say to you. So there. Are you going to get out of my office?”
“Nope.”
“Whataya mean?”
“Flora, your former neighbor and mother to your goddaughter has been murdered. It is my job to find her killer. It seems this is the place to start.”
“I got nothing to say. Nobody gives a hoot in hell about that evil woman's death. Neither should you.”
“Doesn't work that way. Whether she deserved to die or not, murder is still frowned on in my town. Talk to me.”
“If I don't?”
“We could go down to the office and chat there. You're my only lead, maybe a person of interest, as they say on the eleven o'clock news.”
“So, arrest me.”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I will have to. Listen, Flora, I can get as snarky as you and since I wear the badge, I have an advantage. So, talk to me now, here, or later down at the station and under arrest for obstruction of justice. Your choice.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am. That is why I am talking to you in the middle of sacks of potatoes and crates of canned vegetables and not through the bars of a cell. I need to know everything you can tell me about Ethyl Smut or Dellinger, her daughter, and where I might find the latter.”
“Why do you want Darla?”
“Several reasons. First, how about she has the strongest motive to kill her mother?”
“Not good enough. What's another?”
“George LeBrun is out of jail and headed this way.”
“No. How'd he do that?”
“Money and friends on the outside. He's drugs, Floraâdrugs, murder, and worse, if anything can be. Drug money can buy a lot of friends in high places. Ethyl was about drugs. Ethyl is dead, but Ethyl had a daughter when he was loose before. Does this daughter know anything that might get in the way of his continued freedom? Something her mother knew and took to her grave? Do you want her to take the chance?”
“That ain't fair, Ike.”
“What's not fair?”
“That little girl has suffered enough at the hand of them people. You gotta keep her safe, you hear?”
“How am I going to keep her safe when I don't know where she is, Flora?”
Flora sighed. She swiveled around in her chair and faced Ike. “I'll tell you a couple of things, but I ain't ready to tell you where the girl is at.”
“Then you do know.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Not good enough. If the girl knows anythingânot
if
, I'm thinkingâshe can identify men who were involved in her abuse, Flora. She is in deep trouble. If those people get even a hint she might talk about what she knows, she's in the same place only deeper. And, as much as I am sure you don't want to hear it, she has to be considered a suspect in her mother's murder. Talk to me, Flora.”
***
Essie sat slumped low in the seat of the cruiser as if she were afraid she might be seen and recognized and perhaps attacked as she and Billy drove northeast from Bristol. She jumped when Billy's cell phone went off.
Billy tapped his earpiece. “Sutherlin,” he said. “Whatâ¦who? You're kidding, right?” Billy's grin almost reached each ear. He tapped off and turned briefly to Essie. “Guess who's coming for a visit?”
“Who?”
“Sam and Karl. Old Karl has some kind of FBI business in town and them two is coming down. Ma says they'll be staying with us. What do you think about that?”
“Sam and Karl?” Essie sat up straight. “They're going to be at the house?”
“That's what she said.”
“It'll be like old times.”
“Well, not exactly. I mean Sam, she works up in Washington for the NSA and Karl is still FBI. But for a little while, yeah, it'll be the good old days.”
“But maybe they can stay permanent.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, for one thing, there's that position that is empty now that Grace White has went back to Maine. Sam could just fall right back in and take over all that computer stuff, andâ¦umm.”
“Umm is right. We only got one slot and what are the chances the town council with the mayor on Ike's case, giving us another? And if they don't, then where you going to put Karl?”
“I was thinking that maybe Charley Picket was getting ready to retire and Karl could have his spot.”
“Retire? Who said Charley was fixing to retire?”
“Well, nobody, I guess. But he could. He should, you know. He's been on the force for, like, forever and it's time for him to think about letting someone else have a chance. He'd still get his pension and all.”
“Don't you go there, Essie. Charley ain't about to step down, if I know him, and neither is anybody else on the staff.”
“Maybe someone will get hurt or, God forbid, there'd be a fatality orâ”
“Hold it right there, Missy. We ain't about to wish for anything like that. You know what they say about wishing for a thing too much. You just get them crazy ideas out of your head, you hear? Wishing for something like thatâ¦You do understand that a wish like that one, if you were to make it, could end up it being me that's the fatality? You want me dead?”
“Not you, no, not anybody, and it's not a wish. I'm just saying.”
“Well, you can stop it right now.”
Ike entered Frank's restaurant, acknowledged Ruth's presence in a booth in the back with a wave, and went directly into the men's room. Ruth signaled for Frank to bring her another martini and Ike's old-fashioned. The drinks arrived with Ike.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“I feel like hell. I feel like I've been dragged backwards through a pile of garbageâ¦wait, make that something worse, a pile of shâ”
“I got it. So, who or what prompted that journey?”
“You know the woman we found dead in the woods last week?”
“Know her? No, I don't. I know that you found a body, yes, Ethyl Somebody. What about her?”
“Ethyl Smut. I just spent an hour discussing the lady's lifestyle with Rita, the night dispatcher, and another hour with a longtime friend of hers, if friend is the right word, and I feel like I need a showerâtwo showers and a long soak in bleach or something.”
“Care to share?”
“Not before we eat, no. It would spoil your appetite.”
“Afterwards, then, and we can take the shower together.”
“You are incorrigible, but I like your style.”
“And hungry. Drink up, Schwartz. I already ordered us the roast beef and a side salad. The shower can be dessert. By the way, did you know that if you want to order a martini nowadays you have to say what kind?”
“You mean vodka or gin, on the rocks or straight up?”
“No. Today, anything served in what is generally regarded as a martini glass is some kind of a martini. So, there are apple-tinisâdon't ask, I have no ideaâsomeone sent me a recipe for a s'mores martini last week. She said saw it on Facebook. And then there are chocolate martinis, seafood martinisâ”
“What?”
“You heard me. A seafood martini would be a bed of shredded lettuce with shrimp or tuna or, I don't know, maybe whale, in it.”
“Lord love a duck. I was just getting used to âcomfort dogs' and nowâ”
“Comfort dogs?”
“Pooch in a purse. Psychologists prescribe them to anxious patients to relieve their stress, aid in grieving, and so on.”
“Like a hook-up bag only it barks.”
“Hook-up bag? What theâ¦? Wait, let me guess. Young women, who should know better, carry around a change of clothes, toothbrush, and other necessaries, in case they hook up, spend the night with a man, and don't make it home by morning?”
“You are being judgmental but, yes, that's the idea.”
“I am not being judgmental, I am showing my age.”
“I like your age.”
“I'm beginning to think I don't.”
Frank placed their dinners in front of them and bid them “bone appa-tit.”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “It's
bon appétit
, Frank. It's French.”
“That's what I said, bone appatit.”
“Right.”
He wandered back to the entrance and positioned himself in the doorway as if to will another customer or two off the sidewalk and into the building.
Ike twirled his napkin into his lap. “There's a new one. Who knew there was an app for that?”
“What?”
“App a tit.”
“Shut up. Do you ever think we'll have a restaurant that serves decent food in this berg?”
“Someday. Maybe we should quit our jobs and start one. Anything would be better than being law-and-order in Picketsville. We could serve the state's only comfort martiniâa pooch-tini.”
“Hook-up burgers.”
Ike shoved back from the table, eyes closed. “Thanks for the attempts at hilarity but⦔
“Your conversations with whomeverâ¦your sources, must have been really bad.”
“You have no idea.”
“Tell me.”
“Finish your dinner first.”
They ate in silence. Ruth pushed her plate away and shook her head at the dessert cart Frank wheeled to their table.
“Just coffee, Frank,” she said.
“You finished eating?”
“As much as I care or dare to, yes. So, what did you hear?”
“Do you know anything about meth babies?”
“Only what I read. Is that what this is all about? Babies or a baby addicted to methamphetamine?”
“That is only page one of a very thick book. The womanâthe one we found dead in the woods, was a heavy user. She supported her habit by dealing, stealing, and selling herself. Then, not surprisingly, she got pregnant and had a baby, a meth baby with all the potential deficits and problems that go with that status.”
“So, what happened to the child?”
“Patienceâ¦When the baby was eight or nine, maybe younger, we can't be sure, her mother pimped her out as well.”
“She turned her daughter, her child, into a prostitute?”
“Yep. The kid, according to the woman I spoke to, had been serially raped so many times that by the time she turned fifteen her reproductive organs were effectively destroyed. Her mind was so scattered by doses of meth, heroin, and booze forced on her that she is, or was, borderline schizoid. If there was ever a prime suspect in the mother's murder, she's it.”
“Did she do it?”
“I'm guessing not. I can't say why, but no, I don't think so. Furthermore she ran away a couple of years back and, if she gotâand then stayedâclean, she should be more or less stable by now. That is good news and bad.”
“Explain. I mean clean is good, right?”
“That part, yes, but if she's rational, she can point her finger at more than one abuser, and that could spell big trouble for some. They will attempt to stop her.”
“My God, Ike that is terrible. I can't imagine what that must be like. To have endured the abuse would be bad enough, but now to be in danger for her life because of it? She's the victim all over again. And you say the mother reallyâ¦men reallyâ¦?”
“Really. It must have been a whole lot worse than anything you or I could possibly imagine. Think of what that child must have been forced to do. I have seen a lot of really bad crap in my day, Ruth. Suicide bombings that blew up people at random, kids, moms, grandparents, body parts scattered all over and mixed up so that you couldn't tell where one body began and another ended. I've witnessed assassinations, mass murders, and God only knows what other horrors here and abroad, but the thought of a girl spending her childhood and early adolescenceâthe time when she should be playing with Barbie dolls, or talking for hours on the telephone, or having a small life crisis at the appearance of her first zit, or menstrual cycle, and pursuing boys when the hormones kicked inâ¦Instead of that, she is subjected to a string of pushers, perverts, and men who should have known better forcing themselves on her and all with her mother's connivance.Hell, I could have killed the lady myself.⦔
Ike's voice trailed off. He stared at the gravy congealing on his plate and drained the rest of his old-fashioned.
Ruth did the same with her martini. “For what it's worth, if I had known about it, Ike, I would have happily killed the woman too.”
“And that goes for most of the people I've talked to who knew even a few of the details. We'd have to get in line, like the gang on
The Orient Express,
and take turns. And that's the problem. I have too many suspects and, therefore, none at all.”
“Whoever killed her did the community a service, Ike. Let it go. Concentrate on rehabbing the kid. What about her father, or is that asking too much?”
“Her father isâ¦damn, I can't remember the name. That's annoying. I never forgot stuff like that before. It'll come to me. I said I was having problems with my age. Anyway, he is also missing, possibly dead, maybe even the other body we found, although that's a stretch, so, no place to go there. And I can't do anything about rehabilitationâthat's for the child services people and assumes we can find the girl. As for doing the community a service, I understand, but, as I said to my source, âIt doesn't work that way.' Murder is murder and the people who kill bad guys go to jail just like the ones who kill good guys.”
“They shouldn't have to.”
“To do otherwise creates much too great a risk for the rest of us, believe me.”
“Yeah, yeah, vigilantes can get out of control and all that, but just this once I'd be in favor of looking the other way.”
“I hear you.”
“I think I'm ready for that bath now. Jesus, her own daughter. Nine you said? Jesus.”
“Eight or nine, maybe seven, yeah. I will put a call into the welfare wonks and see if they happened to have run across her. Flora Blevins knows where she is but she refuses to tell me. I could arrest her for obstruction of a criminal investigation, but she can be stubborn as hell and wouldn't talk anyway. I think the fact that George LeBrun is on the loose shook her cage a little, though. Anyway, until I find the kid, sit her down, and get names, dates, and places, I'm stuck. You know what really frosts me?”
“There's more?”
“Nobody was able to stop it, Ruth. Presumably, the cops were called, but except for a disturbing the peace or a drunk-and-disorderly citation, nobody would come forward with the proof of any wrongdoing. The mother was never arraigned on the abuse charges. When push got to shove, either the authorities were too inept or the people who could say something were too scared to step up.”
“You don't know that. I read that the number of sex abuse cases that ever go to trial is, like, twenty-five percent, that prosecutors say they never have a tight enough case to pursue it and get a conviction.”
“And they let them walk. You would think they would at least try. Even if they can't nail the bastards, they could put them on notice and in the public eye.”
“Prosecutors are public officials with an eye to reelection. They don't like to lose cases, especially ones that carry the emotional baggage child sex abuse crimes do.”
“I guess. Then there is the drug culture that spawns it, and the people involved in the traffic who have power and reputations. Celebrities shove that crap up their noses while they thumb them at society. Glamour is cocaine. You remember the t-shirt we saw in Vegasâ¦it had âCaviar and Cocaine' emblazoned across the front and the moron who wore it seemed convinced that trendy justifies stupidity. Then there is the idolization of gangsters on TV
.
It might have been great acting, but to make a hero of a man who murders, sells drugs in his own son's school, and keeps a prostitute as a mistress? We have a culture that glorifies crime and refuses to understand that by so doing we are aiding and abetting.”
“Wait. What about murder mysteries, booksâAgatha Christie, Ian Rankin, Donis Casey?”
“Donis who?”
“Never mind. What about books with crime as the theme?”
“If the bad guys get caught, I'm on it. If the protagonist is the murderer, no way.”
“You don't read a lot, do you?”
“I live this stuff twenty-four seven. If I read anything, it will be nonfiction or classics. There are stacks of them I haven't gotten to yet. When I'm done with them, there are plays and poetry.”
“Okay, okay, I take your point, but I will say methinks the sheriff doth protest too much. I think you have a secret cache of pulp fiction under your bed and late at night you sneak-read it under the covers with a flashlight.”
“You peeked under my bed?”
“You were asleep and I was restlessâhad a look around. Self-preservation, you could say. If I have to be married to you, I want to know what dark secrets you are hiding.”
“And you thought you'd find them under the bed?”
“Where else?”
“In the freezer is where I'd look.”
“Right. Getting back to your rantâ¦aiding and abetting what?”
“Murder, for one. The murders committed by gangbangers who shoot up rival dealers in the streets every day. If you are paying some low level dealer for cocaine and shoving it up your nose because it isâor you think you areâcool, you must assume some responsibility for the acts your money bought along with the drugs.”
“Wow, a cop speaks his mind. A society that trivializes evil will eventually succumb to it.”
“I guess. Who said that?”
“No idea. Must have read it somewhere.”
“The point is, we have a badly used child and if that weren't enough, the worst of this whole rotten mess, inherent evil notwithstanding, is that she and abused children everywhere don't make very compelling witnesses. Half the time they're too young and cannot articulate what's happened to them or even know what is wrong. They don't know what has happened to them isn't normal. If they're older and able to, they are afraid to say anything and dummy up.”
“What do you do?”
“What we can, I suppose. And you know what really frosts my buns? For some reason, this girl's mother avoided any real jail time, or she pleads out to lesser charges, and nothing changes for the kid. How can that be?”
“Life sucks, Ike.”
“For some folks, it does indeed.”
“Okay, on your feet. Time for a long hot bath which may include some therapeutic options.”
“Works for me.”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“My system can't take this in. I can't help but think of the women, the students, who are nominally in my charge and I am scared for them. How many, do you suppose, had to endure something like this in their growing up?”
“More than you or I might imagine.”