South of Shiloh (32 page)

“Who’s he?” Sheba asked as she slipped a pack of Newports from under her blouse, put one in her lips, and flicked a lighter.

“He’s okay,” Beeman said.

Sheba tossed her head, blew a stream of smoke. “State cop, in from Jackson?”

“It don’t matter, go ahead. You can talk,” Beeman said.

Sheba briefly bit her lower lip, thinking. “This is all looking like some crazy damn soap opera the white folks got going, huh, Peaches? You and Mitchell Lee…”

“People like a show that fits their…prejudices on a thing,” Beeman said slowly.

Rane watched the careful, almost decorous, way they held themselves in each other’s presence.

Sheba said, “You can just feel it in the air. I hear the dumb-ass yahoos are laying bets in the beer joints. Word’s out you and Mitchell Lee going shoot it out cowboy-fashion at Shiloh this weekend.”

“Who the odds favor?” Beeman started to smile.

Sheba screwed her lips around her cigarette. “Well, one thing people say about Mitchell Lee is that boy can shoot.”

“That what you wanted to tell me to cheer me up?” Beeman asked.

“No. There’s something else. You know LaSalle’s back?”

“So?”

“So, he’s staying out at Kirby Creek. Miss Kirby’s put him to work around the place. They won’t take him back on the ambu yet.”

Beeman shrugged. “Don’t surprise me. It’s the kind of gesture you’d expect after what happened with Miss Kirby’s brother…”

“I don’t think it’s like that. I get the feeling she
reached out
to him,” Sheba said. “Had him out to change the locks on the house first thing.”

Beeman paid more attention. “Got him out at the estate…huh?”

“Thing is,” Sheba said, “he comes around here and visits the old crew. And he goes down and hangs around the OR with the anesthetists. He was going to nursing school before he deployed with the guard, had a plan to work his way into nurse anesthetist. Well, Alma I work with, she’s not real sure but maybe he slipped the key to the room where they keep all the surgery carts.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Just what do they keep in those carts?” Beeman asked.

“Serious class IV narcotics.”

“You think ole LaSalle is self-medicating?”

“I worry his head’s all fucked up in ways we don’t fully understand from a medical viewpoint. TBI. Traumatic brain injury. Asymptomatic in-head wounds that don’t show, from concussion. It’s going be the Agent Orange of Iraq.”

Beeman pondered briefly, then nodded. “Okay, thanks.”

“There’s another thing,” Sheba said. “Alma said LaSalle’s going strapped.”

“Really? I never known LaSalle to carry since…” Beeman’s eyes were working now.

“…His bad days on the block in Combs Court,” Sheba said as she stubbed out her smoke in a planter next to the door. “I gotta get back in.” Her regal face softened as she extended her hand and squeezed Beeman’s forearm. “You watch your skinny white ass, hear?”

Back in the car, they sat staring at the rain drumming on the windshield. Rane had questions but clearly Beeman wasn’t in a mood to talk. Then, finally, the cop broke the silence.

“You catch the drift, John, how it’s shaping up with Mitchell Lee?”

“People expect you and him to have it out,” Rane said.

“More’n that. People made a decision.” Beeman exhaled, put the car in gear, and spoke straight ahead, to the rain. “We got a saying. The man needs killing.”

Then he drove home without saying another word.

45

PATTI HALVORSEN PARKED HER ACCORD ACROSS
from the historic Washington County courthouse on Stillwater’s south hill. Floodlights and slowly rippling flags circled the steel-ribbed steeple of a Veterans’ Memorial next to the parking lot. Across the street, the red brick building sported an arched balcony and an Italianate cupola, plus a Civil War statue on the lawn. Jenny sat on the courthouse steps wearing a sweat suit.

She stood up and greeted her pal. “Thanks for coming. I need a gut check.”

“You pick this place for a reason?” Patti asked. Five years older than Jenny, she was a solid, durable blonde.

“Connections,” Jenny said, pointing to the statue of the Union soldier. “Paul took his first step to Mississippi here. We were out for a walk and he started chatting with this guy about the statue. Then the guy mentioned there’s a house just up the street that was originally built by a veteran of the First Minnesota Regiment. Paul walked up the street, looked at the house, and discovered the Civil War. All the books started showing up. Next thing he went out to Fort Snelling.”

“Are these good memories?” Patti asked, inclining her head.

“Patti, the service is Sunday. I know this is bad timing,” Jenny said frankly. “But Molly isn’t Paul’s.”

She explained it all in succinct detail, including the incriminating irony of being in Rane’s living room when the call came. How Rane drove her home and wound up being the one to tell Molly. Taking Paul’s uniform. Where he was now. Beeman on the phone. Her call to locate Rane’s relatives.

“I always wondered what you were holding in,” Patti said simply.

“At first I encouraged him to go. I wanted to know what happened to Paul. It’s, like, his job,” Jenny said in a rush. “Now I’m worried this is more than compensating for being an absent father.” She hugged herself. “When I met him I thought he was exciting.”

Patti gave a wry smile. “And now?”

“With hindsight I think I confused exciting with scary.” Jenny hugged herself tighter and pursed her lips. “What if the same thing that drove him away in the first place is still driving him down in Mississippi?”

“We can discuss your personal drama later when you have made some decisions, like whether to tell Molly who he is, how much access he gets to her.” Patti was blunt. “You got a bigger problem, girl. You worked with street kids. You know the rules. Could Rane harm himself or others?”

Jenny unclamped her arms, opened her hands. “Patti, I talked to a
cop
.”

“That’s right. And cops don’t care about your love life coming back on you. They deal in motive and probable cause. If you’ve led this Mississippi cop to believe Rane could be a public danger then you better follow through and talk to the aunt and uncle.”

Jenny bit her lip. Patti said it first: “Even staring a funeral in the face.”

Jenny turned and looked at the shadowy Union soldier advancing with a fixed bayonet on the courthouse lawn.

“Right,” she said.

46

BREAKFAST WAS FAST, WITH LITTLE TALK; TOAST
and ink-black coffee. A few minutes later, Rane was sitting in the passenger seat of the Crown Vic as Beeman drove north on new 45, and he figured enough time had passed, so he said it.

“Peaches?”

“What’s she like? Jenny Edin?” Beeman asked right back in a slightly surly drawl.

“Little defensive this morning?” Rane asked.

“C’mon, what’s she like?” Beeman persisted.

“I think going out with me was the only impulsive move she ever made.”

“Different from you, huh?” Beeman gave Rane a sidelong glance. “Charging into stuff…infiltrating that police cordon to get close to a barricaded shooter. That was some picture, him pointing a twelve-gauge at you just before he stuck it in his mouth.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“On the fuckin’ Internet. You got your picture…”

Rane smiled faintly, looked out the side window into the evaporating ground fog.

“You always get your picture, huh?” Beeman said with slow amusement. “Gives a guy the shakes, like having a ghoul perched on my shoulder.”

“Peaches,” Rane repeated.

“Aw
Gawd damn
…”

Rane shrugged. “Maybe I get it. Slow night. Two a.m. Cops, nurses, EMTs. Only place to get a cup of coffee is the emergency room…”

“Wasn’t like that. She was in the guard, went over together to Saudi. There was this ruckus outside the base. We had these sand berms set up and a water point, where we’d wash down our vehicles. And Spec Four Nola Johnson was out there washing a Humvee when this Mercedes full of religious police roared up and these guys get out and start swinging camel whips.” Beeman turned and smiled. “She was stripped down to Skivvies and a halter, see, and they didn’t like that.

“Well I was on patrol and there was a report of shots fired so I drove out there and found her backing off these raghead assholes with her M16.
That’s
how we actually met.”

Beeman smiled. “Then I was manning a checkpoint and one of them shamal winds blew up and socked me in. Nola took cover with me in the bunker for the night. So there we were down to one pack of Kools, two liters of bottled water, and my last can of peaches.”

“Where’d the nickname Sheba come from?” Rane asked.

Beeman sighed. “Seemed to fit, being stuck out there in the neighborhood of the Rivers of Babylon…”

“And when you came back?”

“Well, things have changed. We had us a black mayor for a while and all. But they ain’t changed
that
much. What happens in Saudi stays in Saudi. She married black and I married white. Gotta face facts…” Beeman said.

“…If you want to run for sheriff?” Rane probed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Beeman mused, leaning forward, punching on the radio, pressing the tuning key through several country stations until he hit on Jim Morrison singing “Riders on the Storm.” “Sheriff can get away with having some black pussy on the side. Ole Buford did. That ain’t what doomed me,” Beeman grinned.

“Really?”

“Yep. I was out one night in a two-man squad and made the mistake of saying a lot of country music sounded like a cow pissin’ in an empty bucket.” Beeman winked. “Was a preference for classic rock that done in my career…”

“Isn’t my business but you seem to be on pretty good terms with all the women we’ve been meeting,” Rane said with a sidelong grin.

Beeman grumbled, turned off the radio, and started singing an impromptu version of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” keeping time with his toe on the gas pedal and bouncing Rane around on the front seat.

Rane gazed out the window after they turned off 45. “You’re taking a different road than yesterday.”

“Good memory. Yep, this is the front-door road to Kirby Creek.”

The trees thinned and the house appeared in a white flicker of columns through breaks in the foliage. As they drew closer, Rane spied a silver Lexus and a blue Chevy truck parked in front of the house. A minute later, Rane could make out the chiseled detail on the monument that rose in front of the house. There was enough fog clinging to the hill to give the statue a sentinel aspect.

“Looks brand-new,” he said.

“Put up last week. Mitchell Lee’s butterfly kiss to the old man. ’Course now old Hiram’s expected to pass any minute. Story of Mitchell Lee’s life.”

Beeman parked next to the Lexus. They got out and hadn’t taken two steps when a pneumatic clatter started around the side of the house. Beeman motioned to Rane to follow him toward the source of the racket. They turned the corner and discovered the noise came from a seventy-five-pound Bosch electric demolition hammer cradled in the powerful arms of a black man wearing a respirator. He was coated in brick dust, his body shuddering with the banging hammer, busting out concrete steps at the base of a side door. Seeing them approach, he switched off the jackhammer, set it down, and pulled the mask down around his neck.

“Hey LaSalle, what you doin’, man?” Beeman said. “I thought you’re on the sick list.”

As they shook hands, Rane noted the casual homeboy thumb clench and dap; a more than passing familiarity. Despite the dust coating the black man’s face and arms, he saw fresh scarring. Another thing, his grimy T-shirt bulged behind his right hip in a way to suggest a handgun.

“This here’s John Rane. He’s a photographer from up North. My latest Yankee pilgrim I’m trying to keep out of trouble,” Beeman said.

“LaSalle Ector, pleased to meet you, John,” said the black guy, shaking Rane’s hand. “Bee givin’ you the tour, huh? He tell you how Corinth’s big on Yankee tourists?” LaSalle’s grin was careful, smoky-cool. “How the first couple thousand liked it so much they stayed.”

Beeman grumbled. “Fuckin’ with me, as usual. He means the National Cemetery on the south side where the Union dead are buried.”

“Yeah,” LaSalle said, “the good citizens of Corinth went out of their way to honor them Yankee boys by building our black slum around the cemetery. Ain’t that right, Bee?”

Beeman smiled. “LaSalle has this forlorn hope I got a social conscience.”

“Redneck with a heart and a brain is a man in constant turmoil,” LaSalle said.

Beeman looked away. “Yeah, well…” Turning back to LaSalle, “What’s with you riding a buster? What’re you doin’ here?”

LaSalle heaved his shoulders. “Miss Kirby wants to replace these old steps and redo them like they were on the original. She found this old photo.”

Beeman said, “LaSalle was our ace EMT drive-like-a-raped-ape ambulance driver. Then he deployed to Iraq with the guard last year and got banged up.” He nodded to Rane. “John was over there the first time. Army picture-taker.”

“Oh yeah, whereabouts?” LaSalle asked.

“I tagged along with the 101st when they leapfrogged into Kuwait. You?” Rane asked.

“Shit, man, third month I was there the airport road—fuckin’ Route Irish—blew up in my face. Got to see a lot of Walter Reed, though.”

“What do the docs say?” Beeman asked in a more serious tone.

“Residual issues from concussion. More tests. They won’t take me back at Magnolia till it clears up. So Miss Kirby’s put me to work for the duration,” LaSalle said.

“LaSalle,” Beeman lowered his voice slightly and took a step closer. “You hear her say anything about Mitchell Lee?”

The big man cocked his head. “Like he went goofy and took a shot at you Saturday and killed that boy? And maybe he beat up Marcy Leets last night? Phone’s been ringing all morning. There’s lots of gossip goin’ round.”

Beeman hitched up his belt. “Well, if it
was
him, no telling what he might do next.”

LaSalle frowned. “Maybe why I’m here, huh? She’s not staying in Corinth till this blows over. I drive her back and forth to the hospital to see the old man.” He jerked his head at the house. “He don’t have a key to this place ’cause I changed the locks. And she quit running on the roads. He shows his face here he’ll have to get past me. Fuck him. Hope he does show. Hope he’s drunk and drowning in a ditch. He runs off and leaves her with her daddy dying. After all Hiram Kirby did for him.”

“Well, I gotta go talk to her about it,” Beeman said, screwing up his lips.

“Is it like they say, Bee?” LaSalle asked. “You and Mitchell Lee?”

“People love to talk,” Beeman grunted, then he cuffed LaSalle on a dusty shoulder and motioned Rane toward the front of the house.

“Nice meeting you,” Rane said.

“Likewise. And don’t let Bee distort your thinking,” LaSalle said amiably.

As they walked away, Rane said, “Strapped.”

“Definitely.” Beeman didn’t act overly concerned.

“No love lost between LaSalle and Mitchell Lee,” Rane said.

Beeman shrugged. “Mitchell Lee was in the guard with LaSalle and Miss Kirby’s brother, Robert.” Beeman stopped, turned back toward the sound of the jackhammer, and said, “Miss Kirby’s brother died pulling LaSalle out of that ambush where he got messed up. You was LaSalle how’d you feel about Mitchell Lee?”

“So what are we doing here?” Rane asked.

“Ask a few questions. Then you’re going to chat with Miss Kirby while I nose around. I want to get a look at the gun rack, see what’s missing. Mitchell Lee didn’t have any muzzleloaders of his own; always used the old man’s.”

They rounded the house and met a lean, freckled redhead who would have been pretty except you looked twice at her jaw. She waited on the veranda by the front door. Ellender Kirby wore a white halter, short green shorts, and flip-flops. She had a marathoner’s legs.

“Bee,” she said with a weary smile. “I wondered when I’d be seeing you?”

“Miss Kirby, I’m real sorry about your daddy.”

“Thank you, Bee. It’s getting down to the hard part. DNR orders. No special measures,” she said.

“That’s a tough one,” Beeman said.

She dropped her eyes. When she raised them, she said, “But I don’t think you drove out here to inquire about my father?”

“No ma’am. Fact is, I’m trying to get a line on Mitchell Lee.”

“I figured.” Then she brightened. “First things first. Who’s this you have with you?”

Beeman nodded. “This is John Rane. He’s a photographer down from Minnesota. I’m showing him around.”

They shook hands and Rane felt the steely undercurrent in her slim fingers. “Welcome to Kirby Creek, John. I take it your visit to Corinth is not a pleasure trip.”

“No ma’am. I’m following up on the Minnesota reenactor who was killed…”

“Right down there, last Saturday.” Ellie Kirby pointed down the slope toward the edge of the woods. She smiled tightly. “They still have the yellow tape. Never thought we’d have a crime scene on the place.” She turned to Beeman. “Nobody really believes that shooting was an accident, do they Bee? I heard what people are saying…”

Beeman lowered his eyes, looked up. “Ain’t no easy way to put it.”

Ellender pursed her lips. “Well, before the killing starts why don’t y’all come on in. All I have is soda in a cooler. I’m sorry but we have the kitchen and the back rooms sealed off because of the dust.”

“How’s he doing, LaSalle? Should he be doing bull work?”

Ellie smiled tightly. “So many of the boys are coming back with these concussion problems because the roadside bombs are so powerful. He has dizzy spells but he can feel them coming on. With his medical training, I trust his judgment. As for the work, you know LaSalle…” She fluttered her eyes. “Once he gets started I just stay out of the way.”

“Miss Kirby, he’s carrying a gun,” Beeman said.

“Knows how to use it, too. Which Mitchell Lee will become very aware of if he shows his face,” she said emphatically.

They walked into the house, with Ellie throwing comments over her shoulder to Rane in gaps from the banging hammer. “The scars on the columns and walls are left over from the battle in 1862. House was built in 1857 and is an example of the Greek Revival style popular at the time. Really the design is quite simple: a central passage. That’s the drawing room on the left, then the dining room. Library and bedroom are on the right.” As she talked, Rane caught glimpses of floor-to-ceiling mirrors and intricate molding beyond the tall doorways.

The back end of the central hall was masked with plastic sheeting fastened to the doorways with duct tape. Blankets covered what appeared to be a piano along the left side of the hall. Beeman stepped away into the library as Ellie opened a cooler next to the piano and took out three cans of Classic Coke.

She handed one to Rane and said, “One-story layout, John; no grand
Gone With the Wind
staircase. To find those you must travel south and east; northern Mississippi wasn’t plantation country. In fact, before The War, when this was all Tishomingo County, the people voted to stay in the Union. Of course, after Fort Sumter, the politicians in Jackson stampeded them into the fight.” She smiled tightly. “Farther south you go in Mississippi the more gray they bleed.”

Beeman returned; Ellie gave him a Coke, led them back down the hall and out the front door, saying, “I can’t talk over that racket.” They followed her across the lawn to the base of the monument. She stepped to the crest of the hill and stood between two of the cannons, one hand on a tidy hip, the other raising her soda. A gust of breeze ruffled her short copper hair, and when she turned, she looked to Rane like an angry Liberty leading the mob.

Her eyes blazed at Beeman. “I ain’t seen him, Bee. I ain’t heard a peep. And you don’t have to slink around. Daddy’s match Enfield is missing from the gun cabinet. Not saying he took it. But it’s definitely wandered off.”

She held up her left hand, solemn as an oath-taker; the narrow white ring of untanned skin showed naked on the third finger. “I threw it away, Bee. I can’t stand any more of his bullshit on top of what Daddy’s going through,” she said as she swung her head and glared at the new monument. “And now I’ll have to look at this thing every day for the rest of my life and think of him, which was not the original intention.”

Beeman toed the grass with his boot. “Hadda check in. It’s my job, Miss Kirby.”

A ripple of disgust crossed her face. “The last night I saw him, the night before he left for Memphis, he came in after midnight and I could smell her on him clear down the stairs, that summer barnyard stink men love.” She wrinkled her nose. “I swear, someone should shovel Marcy Leets
out
.”