Judas Burning (21 page)

“If that would be okay with you. We could talk without other people hearing us.”

Meeting the son of the man convicted of her father’s murder, alone, on a secluded lane, wouldn’t be the smartest thing she’d ever done. But in her bones, she knew that Willard Jones was innocent. She knew because she bore the guilt for her father’s death. She’d been late. She’d been in bed with a married man, Mark Barrett. Now Senator Mark Barrett. Her father had waited at the newspaper for her. If she’d been on time, her father would have been out of the building and safe when the bomb went off.

“Okay,” she said. “Seven o’clock. I have to be at work at eight.”

“I’ll be there.”

The line went dead, and Dixon turned the phone off. She sat down on the steps and thought about what she’d agreed to. Zander was a strong boy, almost a man. He spoke softly, but what did that guarantee? He’d already trespassed once on her property, and he’d been following her, stalking her.

She stood up and went into the courthouse. It might not be such a bad idea to tell J.D. a little about her plan, if he ever got back to his office.

The courthouse was closed, but the door to the sheriff’s office was always open. She went inside and walked down the short corridor to the metal-and-glass door. She tapped and entered.

Waymon sat at his desk, feet propped up and a magazine covering his face. He dropped his feet to the ground and quickly tucked the magazine into a drawer, but not before she saw the September bunny on the front cover. She liked the fact that Waymon’s face turned a bright red.

“Waymon, I like your taste in reading material.” Waymon sometimes liked to play it close to the vest, but she had ammunition now.

“The sheriff ain’t back,” he said. “Have you heard from him?”

“He’s in San Antonio. He says he’s got an eight o’clock flight back home. He told me to get the dog handler from up at Parchman back down here to start another hunt.”

Dixon felt a rush of anticipation. “Sounds like he found out something.” She frowned. “What’s in San Antonio?”

“The Alamo, for one thing.” Waymon nodded. “I had this thing for Davy Crockett when I was a kid. He died at the Alamo. I know just about every fact you ever would want to know about the Alamo.”

Dixon started to point out that the Alamo probably held few clues to the disappearance of two Mississippi girls, but she bit it back. Waymon was trying to be helpful, and there would come a time when she would need his help.

“Maybe we could talk about the Alamo later. If J.D. gets the eight o’clock flight home, he should be in around midnight, right?” She needed to talk to him about Tommy Hayes and Zander Jones.

“More like about two. He has a layover in Dallas. He left his Explorer at the airport, so he doesn’t need anyone to get him.”

“That’s good,” Dixon said. She wandered around the office, staring at the coffeepot that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in the last five years. “Mind if I help myself?”

“I should have offered,” Waymon said. He pulled open his desk drawer. “Ruth Ann made some sugar cookies. She brings something good up here all the time.” He frowned. “If I didn’t know better I’d think she was trying to court me or something.” He flushed slightly and busied himself bringing out the cookies and floral napkins. “I put ‘em in my drawer because the dispatcher is diabetic and shouldn’t eat them. If she
sees
‘em, she can’t resist.”

There was a certain charm to Waymon, Dixon conceded as she took her Styrofoam coffee cup and sat down. “No thanks on the cookies, but you could help me with a little background on Tommy Hayes.”

Waymon’s smile faded. “Why are you interested in Tommy?”

“I think ‘interested’ is too strong a word. I tried to talk to him several times, and he wouldn’t call me back. That intrigues me.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to be in the paper. Some folks don’t like it. I mean, J.D. hates the medi—” He grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like it sounds.”

Dixon nodded and smiled. “I understand. And you’re probably right about Tommy Hayes. All I wanted to ask him was what kind of student Angie Salter is. You know, if she had expressed any special interests to him.” She felt a little bad, pumping Waymon, but not bad enough to stop.

“When we talked to him, he said that Angie had problems. He said he worried something like this would happen to her.”

Dixon schooled her face not to show her reaction. “Isn’t that tragic. So he was worried that something like getting kidnapped would happen to her?”

“No,” Waymon said, rolling his eyes, “something like being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I see.” She sipped the coffee and thought she might have to spit it out. Not only was it old, it was burned, bitter, and strong. “Do you know Tommy?”

“Some. We both go to the Methodist Church, only I go more regular than he does. He sure seems young to be a teacher, but he was top of his class, from what I heard. He’s up at the church a good bit. I think he takes a lot of comfort from Reverend Smart.”

Dixon rose and stretched, putting her coffee on the edge of Waymon’s desk. “Would you leave J.D. a note and ask him to call me? Doesn’t matter what time it is.”

“You sure? Could be three or four in the morning before he gets up here.”

“That’s fine,” Dixon said. “I’m often awake then.”

Dixon sat on her front steps with a glass of iced tea and listened to the thrum of the crickets, interspersed with a low bullfrog cadence. It was a sound from childhood. This was the time, on hot summer nights, when her family had gathered for a late supper. She’d loved those evenings, when her mother lit citronella candles on the back porch and they shared a meal as night crept over them. Her father had been there, and she’d felt safe.

The blue hour was passing, and full night was falling in the east. Dixon caught the scent of grape Kool-aid on the breeze. The kudzu, with its blossoms so intensely purple scented with grape, had bloomed early.

Her heart twisted as she remembered childhood evenings when she’d sat in the swing with her father and made wishes on the evening’s first star, wishes he’d promised would come true.

“… wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” She paused. “To find the truth about my father’s murder.” She spoke the words and stared up at the sky until two other stars blinked into life.

The hoot of an owl drew her focus to the woods. A man stood there, a black silhouette against the darkening sky. She let out her breath when he drew on a cigarette and she realized it was Robert.

“It’s a good thing I don’t have a gun, or you’d be dead,” she said, meaning it. “I don’t know how folks act in the big city, but around here they don’t creep up on another person’s property.”

“I parked on the road,” he said. “I wasn’t going to interrupt if you had company. I thought the sheriff might be here.” He walked closer, his cigarette smoke sharp on the soft summer air, and stopped ten feet away. “I heard you wishing.”

Dixon rattled the ice in her glass. She wasn’t certain what to make of him. He’d hung around town and didn’t seem to be pressed by deadlines. Twice he’d stopped by the newspaper, but both times she’d been gone and Linda had not made him feel welcome. Now, here he was in her front yard, eavesdropping on her private wishes. It was annoying.

“The larder isn’t any better stocked now than it was the other day.”

“I didn’t come over to eat. Obviously, you haven’t checked your messages. There should be four calls from me. Mrs. Moore at the paper wouldn’t tell me where you were, and the blond guy didn’t have time to talk with me.”

Her employees were protecting her. Linda didn’t like the man, and Tucker didn’t trust him. Since she hadn’t checked her messages, she couldn’t blame all of it on Medino.

“I had to go to Mobile and check some things out.”

“Would it be a breach of southern manners to ask for a drink?” he asked, putting a foot on the first porch step.

Dixon thought of the Jack. She’d put it under the sink. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Sure,” she said. She was going to have to learn to deny herself alcohol while others drank. The whole world wouldn’t stop drinking just because she couldn’t handle it. “Come on
in.”

She led the way down the hall and into the kitchen. He took a seat at the old wooden table. The cabinets, with their leaded glass panes, were painted white. The original butcher-block counters had been covered with dark red Corian, and the beaded lumber walls were painted to match. Dixon had added white curtains.

“My great-great-grandmother painted this table,” Dixon said as she handed him a drink. She’d replenished her iced tea. “She was a troublemaker, according to the town of Jexville.”

“You’re pensive tonight,” he commented. “What’s on your mind?”

She waved a hand around her. “My mother’s family has owned this house for better than eighty years. My mother used to come here when she was a little girl and swim in the creek out back.” She looked at the amber drink he held in his hand. “My mother always said that I took after JoHanna McVay, the troublemaker. JoHanna wouldn’t dance to a man’s tune. Mama said that JoHanna liked to wear the pants. That’s how she put it.”

“And your mother wasn’t like that?”

“No, my mother gave up her career to be a wife and mother, but I’m beginning to wonder if she doesn’t regret that choice.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be a woman back then.” Robert’s smile was disarming. “In fact, no matter how men disclaim the rights of being a man, it’s true. I wouldn’t want to be a woman now. The white male has it made.”

“I’ve never heard another man admit that.”

“If they admitted it, they’d have to change the system, wouldn’t they? All of this ballyhoo about equality and democracy and no glass ceiling.”

“You’re willing to say it.”

“I’m not part of the system, and I have no economic interest at stake. I’m a fringe dweller. I live in New York, but I’m certainly not a New Yorker. I know more about Spanish culture than American. I like music that no one plays any more, and I can eat any cuisine except McDonald’s. I speak four languages, two fluently. I can take the heat or endure the cold. I’ve perfected the art of cultural chameleon. Since I don’t fit anywhere, I understand the status of ‘less than.’ “

“There’s something I want to know about you. Why is this story about the statues and the girls so important to you? You’ve been in Jexville a while and don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.”

“Maybe you should have a drink on this one,” he suggested.

She swallowed. “No, I’ll take my answer straight.”

“This town is in a time warp. Folks here are naïve about evil. They expect to be safe, and it’s that trust that makes them a target.”

“And you think that’s worthy of a story?”

“The Salter/Webster story has broader implications about the way religion has gone askew. I’m looking at how religion has made bombers out of antiabortionists and terrorists out of others. Here we have a guy so obsessed with religion that he’s killed two girls in a small town where religion is like a car—everybody has one. That makes it very personal. It’ll be a powerful story.”

“I can see that.” She could also see that with a certain slant, Jexville could look primitive and backwards. “How bad are you going to make us look?”

“I’m a journalist, and a damn good one. I spent six months in Guatemala talking to government officials, shooting the breeze, drinking with them. Ultimately, my goal was to implicate them in the genocide of the native Indian tribes. I did it. Did I feel badly that I had to act friendly to get the story? Hell no. Those guys weren’t even human. They deserved everything they got. Were my tactics unfair? I didn’t put a gun to their heads to make them brag about the mass executions they’d instituted. Do I feel sorry for them? Not one damn bit. And I refuse to feel sorry for the folks around here who’d close down a day care to exert power.”

He finished his drink and got up to make himself another. She watched as he found a second glass and made a drink for her. He handed it to her and then took a breath. “The other reason I’m hanging around town is you.”

“Me?” Dixon stared at him over the rim of the glass. Her mouth was watering. She could taste the smoky bite of the Jack, and she wanted it.

“You intrigue me. You gave up a big-time career to come run a weekly. Your dad ran a weekly. He’s well known in journalism circles. Some of his stories are taught at universities.”

Dixon felt the familiar tug of loss. “He had fire in the belly for a good story.”

“And so you’ve come to prove that you do too.”

The glass was sweating in her hand. The ice cubes floated and tinkled against it, a party sound. She took a sip. It was as wonderful as she remembered.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’ve come to do.”

“Because of what happened to your father?”

“You know about that?”

He nodded. His gaze held hers. “It was tragic.”

She thought how meaningless those words were. Tragic. Terrible. The word
loss
didn’t need a modifier. “Then you probably know that I spent the last year or so pretty drunk.”

He didn’t say anything.

“This is the first drink I’ve had in almost six weeks.” She sipped it again. “So tell me again why you’re here in Jexville.”

“I believe in what I do.” Though his voice was quiet, there was passion in it.

“For just a moment there, you reminded me of my father.” She sipped the bourbon and fought back emotion.

“I take it that’s a compliment.”

“Your story on Trisha and Angie won’t be popular around here. This town takes its religion very seriously.”

“If we wrote only what the folks wanted us to write, there’d be no reason for newspapers or magazines.”

“My father used to say that, too.”

“I couldn’t help but hear the wish you made, about your father’s murder. I’m sorry, Dixon. That’s a terrible thing to live through. My older brother was struck by a hit-and-run driver. My mother never got over it.” He reached across the table and touched her hand. “I guess I didn’t either. I think about the things he taught me. Gary wanted to be a professional baseball player.”