Dark River Road (84 page)

“You know why I’m here.”

“Do I?”

“Stop playing games with people’s lives. Don’t you ever get tired of it? Don’t you ever stop to think of consequences?”

“I seem to recall saying something very similar to you a long time ago. It all has to do with consequences. But you never did listen. You just run around sticking your finger in leaks and never stop to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to let some things crumble.”

“We’re not talking about the little Dutch boy’s dike. We’re talking about Herky. About Cinda. About Chris and Tansy.” He took a couple of steps closer to the desk that sat between him and Quinton like a wall. “And maybe we’re talking about Ted.”

Quinton’s smug smile vanished. He put his hands together, fingertips to fingertips just like Chantry remembered him always doing. Something flickered in his eyes.

“I knew you’d bring that lie up.”

“Glad I didn’t disappoint. So? Where did you dump the body? There’s a lot of river out there. Seems to me the Corps of Engineers shoulda found him by now. Where’d you put him so that no one would find him?”

“With your talent for creative fiction, you should write for Hollywood. If this is the best you can do as a logical argument, however, I find it boring and non-productive.”

“You know,” Chantry said calmly, and stood with his hands resting on the desk top so that Quinton had to look up at him, “I think I’ve got it pretty well figured out. It’s been on my mind a while. There you were, just about to come into your own, engaged to a rich girl out of Jackson from a good family, and the world waiting for you. So when you hooked up with Jenilee Stark and got her pregnant, you thought your old man would get you out of it. But he didn’t. And Jimmy Joe made you marry her. Maybe Stark had something on you that you didn’t want your daddy to know. Something to do with white sheets, maybe? Burning crosses? Maybe old Jimmy Joe was smarter than you after all. He knew how it’d look if it got out you’d been playing with matches in people’s front yards, and that some of the black folks who’d disappeared didn’t just walk off willingly. That was back right around the time the Civil Rights movement started, wasn’t it? When your world started to change and you didn’t like it?

“Jimmy Joe, now, he’d probably stood right beside you when you set those fires, and knew a lot more than he should. So you married Jenilee. Then you got shipped off to Korea, and your old man wouldn’t let you shirk your military duty. Good enough for him, good enough for you, right? But your luck held. Jenilee died when the baby was born and you got out of Korea. And you came back and talked Lucinda into marrying you anyway, and everything should have been just fine after that. Maybe it would have been if you’d treated Ted halfway right.”

Quinton looked carved from marble. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, his cold eyes just boring into Chantry like lasers. Oh yeah. He was on the right track, all right.

“How’d it look to all your Klan buddies when your oldest boy got Julia pregnant with Tansy? I mean, here you were, the shining example of the master race, of white purity, and your own blood hooks up with a colored girl. Musta been a shock for you. How would you ever keep their respect now?”

“Shut up.”

Chantry smiled. Quinton hadn’t raised his voice, kept it low and soft, but there was a steely bite to it that betrayed him.

“So you had to do something, didn’t you? Had to keep those good ole boys in line and let them know you were in charge. You’d never liked Ted much anyway. His mama wasn’t anything but poor white trash, like Jimmy Joe and the rest, and you—hell, you’re a Quinton. Your family founded this county, owned most of it, and even if your daddy had no sense of
noblesse oblige
, you sure did. Isn’t that what it’s called? The sense of duty to watch out for what’s yours? To keep what you own? So you killed Ted. That worked for a while. Got you even more respect. Saved your family pride.

“Only now history’s repeating itself. Your grandson bailed on you, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Grates on you that Chris doesn’t need your money, doesn’t it? He’s got Tansy’s money now. And he’s got Tansy. That’s gotta piss you off royally.”

“I’m dealing with Chris. And that bitch he’s taken up with, too.”

Chantry slammed his hands down on the desk and Quinton flinched. “I swear, if you do one thing to hurt Tansy, I’ll kill you.”

Quinton pushed his chair back and stood up. Even at his age he had a commanding presence, tall and straight. He raised his voice for the first time. “Get out.”

“I’ll go. Just remember what I said. You harm Tansy or Herky and I’ll make you pay for it. Maybe you’ll end up feeding the turtles with Ted.”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” Quinton roared. “You come back here again and I’ll shoot you, I swear to God I will . . .”

He had something small and shiny in his hand then, a .22 pistol that looked far too small for a man his size. Chantry laughed, and Quinton’s face went a deep red.

Chantry turned away deliberately and walked to the door, half-expecting at any minute to hear the gun go off and feel a bullet in his back. He opened it, and stood for a moment looking at Bert Quinton.

“If Herky isn’t released by tomorrow morning, I’ll see to it that the media gets all the information I’ve got. And if you think I’m bluffing, just try me. You might take me down, but I’ll take you with me.”

Quinton fired, and the bullet zinged past Chantry and lodged in the staircase wall outside the door. Chantry looked at the hole in the wallpaper, then back at Quinton.

“If that’s the best you can do, you’re slipping.”

Maybe Quinton would have fired again. He wanted to, Chantry could see that, but the housekeeper had come running at the sound of the shot, and behind her came Colin and Laura. They all stopped just outside the door, staring.

“Get him the fuck out of here,” Quinton shouted, “and don’t ever let him back in this house.”

“I know my way out,” Chantry said, “but next time I come here, you’ll be sorry.”

He was halfway home when his cell phone rang. Cinda sounded like he’d never heard her sound before: “What the hell did you say to my grandfather?”

“A lot.”

“So I hear.”

He didn’t doubt that.

“They’ve called his doctor, Chantry. He’s on the verge of a stroke. Just what did you do? Why’d you go out there?”

“He had Herky put in a mental institution.”

Silence. After a minute he thought maybe he’d driven into a dead spot where the cell towers didn’t reach; then she said, “I didn’t know that.”

“He’s in Holly Springs. They won’t let him see anyone.”

“How—?”

“Miss Abby called me. She couldn’t find him and didn’t know what to do. Mindy asked around and found out what happened.”

There was a shorter silence this time before she said softly, “I can’t ignore this any longer. There’s something terribly wrong. I’ve had enough.” He’d been half-expecting it, so wasn’t too surprised when she said she had to go and hung up. She was gone.

Cold sunshine filtered through bare tree branches and onto the road. He turned the car around and kept going, left on Highway 1, headed over to 61 and up to Tunica. He’d had enough, too. Enough hitting that brick wall. Coming back to Cane Creek had been the worst thing he could do. He hadn’t found out anything he’d thought he would.

Except that he still felt the same about Cinda.

He ended up at the Grand Isle. He wasn’t sure why, except maybe that he’d been there so much to see Tansy and he was familiar with the layout. Slot machines held little interest for him, and he played a hand or two of blackjack before he wandered over to the bar and buffet.

Restless, angry, disappointed, he sucked down a few branch and bourbons. It helped take the edge off and eased his throat. He wasn’t used to so much talking.

“Hey, Chantry.”

He turned around. Donny Ray Caldwell leaned against a column gilded with stuff made to look like a palm tree, and grinned real big.

“Hey, Donny Ray. What’s up?”

“Boys night out. Patty’s gone off with the girls, and we got together and come up here to unwind a little after work. Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that so he just shrugged. Donny Ray kept talking.

“Helluva lot of trouble a few months ago. You sure do have a way of stirring up things. Always did.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, Donny Ray, it’s not working.”

“Yeah. Guess not. Wanna come join us? Just a couple of guys I work with.”

Donny Ray’s friends called him
dude
, made crude jokes about tits and ass, and hit on the waitresses. Chantry got bored pretty quick. He drank more bourbon and branch. He’d get rip roaring drunk and get a room in the hotel. Forget everything for a while.

Lights flashed, people laughed, and the room noise got deafening. He drank until he didn’t give a damn, couldn’t think about anything. Not even Cinda.

It was the steady pounding
of a hammer that woke him first. His head hurt, his eyes wouldn’t focus, and all he could hear was that damn pounding. What the hell—?

Somebody leaned over him, somebody big and blue. Chantry’s eyes crossed. He tried to make sense of it, but nothing came to him. The last thing he remembered clearly was standing in the lobby of the Grand Isle and wondering how they got a ship inside the hotel. He blinked, and his vision cleared enough that he knew he was in his own bed.

A fist grabbed the front of his shirt, and before he had time to wonder why he was wearing a shirt in bed and how he’d got back to his bedroom, he got dragged out of bed and thrown on the floor. A wave of nausea washed over him and it was all he could do to keep from throwing up on the black shoes about an inch from his face.

Then someone slapped cuffs on his wrists and hauled him to his feet. Damn. Had he tried to drive drunk? Everything was a blank. Just vague images came to mind. It was hard to think when he had to fight the urge to throw up.

Voices assaulted him, harsh, demanding. It took a moment to translate what they wanted. Then he understood.

“What? Arresting me for
what?
”

“Murder.”

Chantry’s stomach heaved. He had to breathe deep before he asked, “Who am I supposed to have killed?”

One of the officers shoved him forward. “Like you don’t know.”

“Humor me.”

He was in his sock-feet, and they walked him outside to the patrol car, shoving his head down to push him inside. He landed on the hard plastic seat, struggled to sit upright. A deputy put one hand atop the car, leaned in a little bit.

“You fucked up bad this time, Callahan. Killing Bert Quinton is gonna get you the chair.”

Chantry sagged weakly. He tried to wrap his brain around that but it didn’t make sense. He hadn’t gone back out there. Hell, he’d been too drunk to see past the end of his arm, and he wasn’t stupid enough to drive. But how had he gotten home? And that was his car sitting there in the alley behind the carriage house, no dings or dents that he could see. Oh damn.

It felt all too familiar to be back in a cell.
Nothing like being arrested for murder to sober a man up pretty quick. Now if he could just get rid of his hangover.