Hunting Season (19 page)

9

 A 1940s vintage, candy-apple red pickup truck was parked in Anna's drive when she rolled into Rocky Springs just after seven o'clock. Tired, hungry, the residual humiliation of Spot the Pterodactyl's attack clinging to her like a bad smell, she was still not sorry to see she had a visitor. At least not this visitor.

Steve Stilwell, the district ranger from Ridgeland, just north of Jackson where the Trace resumed, stepped out from the shadows as she pulled in. Seeing Steve always cheered Anna. Though nearing fifty, he retained a boyish charm that had never soured. Grizzled hair, worn too long for the brass's taste in Tupelo, fell over an unwrinkled brow, and a devilish smile glowed from his neatly cropped beard.

"Hey, Steve. You're about the only company I wouldn't shoot on sight this evening."

"Rarified air," he said in mock ecstasy. "I am living in rarified air. Pity the poor mortals who arc not
me."

Before Anna was hired, Stilwell had the onerous duty of running not only his own district but serving as acting district ranger in the Port Gibson/Natchez District. When Anna had first arrived, she'd found a note from him and five gallons of bottled water waiting in her kitchen. Once she'd tasted the Rocky Springs water, she understood the thoughtfulness of the gift. Not only did the water emerge a brownish color but it tasted as if cottonmouths had been eating, sleeping and giving birth to their young in it shortly before it arrived at her sink.

Feeling better than she had in a while, Anna ushered him inside. While Taco made a fool of himself in a bid for the Ridgeland ranger's attentions, she made herself a grilled cheese sandwich.

Fortified by food and seduced by good company, she spilled her romantic woes. Nursing a single malt scotch liberated from the glove box of his truck, Steve listened with flattering attention. Anna stuck to tea. Fortunately whiskey had never tempted her. She'd consumed the stuff on occasion to be sociable but had never gotten past the point where it tasted like something used to remove varnish from ships' decking. And the high had never been giggly or warm like the giddiness wine brought, but merely a dullness and a lowering of the I.Q.

When she finished recapping her soap-opera role in the Davidson vs. Davidson vs. Pigeon affair, he took a pull on his scotch, savored the burn on his tongue, swallowed and said, "There's a quote attributed to Marlon Brando that comes to mind. 'With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end of it. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too close. Like catching snakes.'"

For a second Anna was stunned. She wanted to laugh it off, be strong and cynical and worldly. With nothing but a cheese sandwich shoring up her backbone she couldn't quite pull it off. "Oh, God, what a grisly image."

Unable to suppress a groan, she laid her head back against the cushion of her grandmother's morris chair. Concerned, Taco came over. A calculated swat from Piedmont stopped him from laying a
sympathetic chin on her thigh.

"You're really stuck on Paul, aren't you?" Steve asked. His voice was devoid of the underlying playfulness that was both his charm and, Anna suspected, his defense against the world. This being sufficiently rare, she was inspired to open her eyes.

"Maybe." Hearing the surprise in her own voice she repeated the word, "Maybe."

"I worked with Paul a couple times when I was ADR down here. I don't think he's the Brando type," Steve said kindly.

Anna said nothing. She was afraid if she spoke he would know how deeply the thought that Paul Davidson was toying with her affections frightened her.

"But one never knows, do one?" Steve added, the playfulness back.

This time Anna could laugh and it felt good.

Steve finished his drink. "Time to saddle up."

Having dislodged the limp and grumbling form of Piedmont from her lap to drape him over her shoulder, Anna walked Stilwell to his truck. The evening was dead still and cool. Temperatures would be in the forties by morning. Moon not yet risen, the forest surrounding her house was perfect black, ending in a star-studded lace where leafless branches etched the margins of the sky. Invisible in the night, a creature skritched through the thick blanket of leaves beneath the trees.

Steve opened the door of his antique truck, the candy-apple red blood-black without the light of the sun. He didn't get in.

"Since you've been sufficiently unwise as to choose someone other than yours truly who, I might add, has no wife to speak of, upon whom to bestow your affections, I'll see what I can do. I worked down here for seven months. Got to know a lot of the locals."

He didn't sound like he was joking. At least not completely. "What're you planning?" Anna asked warily. "Bribe a divorce lawyer? Hire Bubba to smash her knee caps?"

"Anna, you sting me to the heart. I'll be infinitely subtle. Toodle-oo."

Anna watched him drive off, wondering what new imbroglio she'd just tumbled herself into.

Monday and Tuesday were Anna's lieu days, and she was determined to take them. Despite the public's view, murder was one of the lesser evils. An officer could afford to take days off during a murder investigation. With the exception of serial killers who, fortunately, were rare as hens' teeth, unlike raging wildfires or rising flood waters, most murderers weren't an immediate danger to citizens. The garden-variety murderer killed whomever he or she thought needed to be dead and the matter was settled. Those willing to kill to solve their problems were sometimes of such a mindset that, should a second problem arise, they might turn to the same solution, but more often than not, it was a onetime thing.

Anna went into Clinton: she did her shopping, got her hair cut, and went to the movies—an activity viewed by most as social. She'd grown so accustomed to doing it alone over the years she'd come to prefer it that way. Despite his recent invitation to call anytime, she didn't call Paul Davidson and he didn't call her. In saner moments they agreed that, until the divorce issue was settled, less contact would be best. Constraint rankled and Anna cursed Steve Stilwell for putting the image of Brando's snake-catching into her mind.

By Tuesday she'd run out of things to do and sat in the sun on the cold cement of her kitchen step drinking coffee and wondering what people with real lives did when they weren't on the job. Insistent ringing rescued her before she'd had time to convert restlessness into self-pity.

"Rocky Springs," she answered. Anna's being on the phone was, for some critter-born reason, a signal for Taco and Piedmont to vie for her attention. Both arrived on schedule to butt, paw and vocalize their demands.

"What the heck is going on?" came an equally demanding voice snaking through the ether of the telephone lines.

Caught off guard, Anna shoved Taco away without the customary pat of apology. "May I ask who's calling?" she asked politely.

Fighting fire with fire was a technique almost guaranteed to fail in verbal confrontations. A lot of years of trial and error had trained Anna to grow calmer in direct inverse proportion to her adversary's excitement.

"This is Raymond Barnette, Doyce's brother," the voice came back a degree or two less hostile.

"What's the problem?"

"You read the papers this morning?"

Anna hadn't. Nobody wanted to deliver a daily to Rocky Springs. Not only was it too isolated to make it cost-effective, but commercial vehicles weren't allowed on the parkway: no semi-trucks or trailers, no
Papa John's
Pizza
delivery, no newspaper boys.

"It's in all of them," Raymond went on, the hostility back full bore. "The Natchez paper,
The Clarion-Ledger
in Jackson. It's all over the front pages. Do you know what this could do to me in the election? I've got a mind to sue."

A lawsuit; one of the few things in life that could strike terror into Anna's heart while not actually threatening her person with sharp objects. "What's on the front pages?"

"Listen to this," he said and began to read. "The investigation of Doyce Barnette, found dead last Saturday morning in the old stand at Mt. Locust on the Natchez Trace Parkway nine miles north of the city of Natchez, has turned up new evidence. A source closely involved with the murder investigation, who asked not to be named, informed
The Clarion-Ledger
reporter Fowlard Yost that the body of the deceased was found in a condition indicating he was killed in the commission of a ritual sexual act. Though unable to release details of the finding due to the ongoing investigation, the Ledger's source went on to say Doyce Barnette appeared to have been involved in acts of bondage or possibly sado-masochism. A religious message, the contents of which were held back, again to protect the investigation, was left near the body. Our source declined to say what the official consensus was regarding the text and said only that it was Christian. Clintus Jones, the county sheriff heading up the investigation, declined comment, saying only that the investigation was continuing. District Ranger Anna Pigeon of the Natchez Trace could not be reached for comment.'"

Anna was at a loss for words. Knowing Barnette not only expected but deserved a response, she scrambled around and came up with one. "This information wasn't released by the National Park Service or the sheriff's department. A number of people saw Doyce's body. One of them could have called in the information, or it might even be someone they told."

"Who saw the body?" Raymond asked.

"I'll look into it," Anna promised.

"Who saw? I got a right to their names."

Barnette, faced with his brother's death, a shotgun-toting mother and, when found interrogating Herm Thorton, two annoyed officers of the law, had remained civil, moderately urbane and, in an indefinable way, cold. Faced with a situation that directly threatened his plans, Anna was seeing a new side of him. He was still cold, but rather than the chill of empty tombs Anna'd sensed before, he'd taken on an edge, a determination. Not for the first time she wondered if he'd killed his brother. Cain and Abel. It fit in with the quasi-religious theme suggested by the circling of the verses on Grandma Polly's writing desk.

Maybe he'd left Doyce in a public place to spread suspicion around and took his clothes to destroy trace evidence, never realizing it would look like a sex crime.

"I'll look into it and get back to you," Anna said.

"You're liable to find yourself in the middle of a lawsuit if you don't get this mess straightened out and quick," Barnette said.

"I'll call you when I know anything." The lawsuit threat was empty. The information leaked to the papers was information she and Clintus had decided to keep confidential, but all of it was true.

Anna decided to conduct her inquiries in civilian clothes partly because they were more comfortable and partly so she could pretend to herself she was giving up a chunk of her "Sunday" under duress. To corroborate her unofficial standing, she took Taco with her when she drove south.

The task carried with it absolutely no urgency and, on Anna's part at least, very little irritation. She and Clintus had kept the secret of how Doyce's body was found not so much to aid in the investigation but to protect the feelings of Doyce's family. Now that Anna had met Raymond and Mama Barnette she didn't much care whether their feelings were hurt or not.

Seeking the source of the leak was merely something to do. If it should turn out to be a malicious or self-serving act on the part of an employee in her district or local law enforcement, it would give her a heads-up on who to avoid. Proving who did it would be difficult and a waste of energy.

Even if the action was proven, the illegality of it would remain in question. Heads wouldn't roll. Hell wouldn't be paid. The juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze.

The coroner, Gil Franklin, was a possibility. He'd seen the body, then taken it upon himself to call Ray Barnette. Shelly Rabine, the little interpreter at Mt. Locust, had discovered the body. That lent her a cachet the newspapers would love. There was Clintus Jones of course. He was the only one Anna could think of off the top of her head that would get anything other than attention out of the disclosure. As Barnette said, linking his family to a sex crime wasn't going to bring in the Christian voters come election day. But since it was Clintus who suggested keeping the details under wraps in the first place, Anna crossed him off her list. Andre Gates, Clintus's pretty, haughty under-sheriff, might have done it. Anna doubted he'd remain in his position long if Barnette was elected. If Raymond didn't oust him, he'd probably quit. Andre didn't strike her as the type to have patience with an arrogant and inept white boss-man. Randy Thigpen and Barth Dinkins knew the details. There was nothing in the telling for them but momentary attention and a sense of self-importance. Unfortunately that was enough to tempt some people over the line. But her field rangers were the only two who would suffer consequences if caught. The United States might fiercely protect the right of free speech, but her government agencies had all manner of rules against its exercise by their employees.

Anna doubted Barth would do it. He was honorable and preoccupied, his energies taken up by the desecration of the slave cemetery. She hoped Randy hadn't done it. He'd already proved an embarrassment. On the bright side, if he had, maybe she could get his fat ass fired. Anna smiled at the thought.