Judas Burning (29 page)

But something about the disappearance and murders didn’t ring true as two innocent girls’ simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Angie was not an innocent. At her instigation, serious charges had been brought against a teacher. Conveniently, on the day that official action was taken, Angie had disappeared. How could Francisco Chavez have shown up at exactly the right time to abduct Angie and Trisha? The timing troubled her.

That and Tommy Hayes. Angie had been blackmailing him. Dixon didn’t have evidence, but she knew it. The biology teacher had delivered a bribe in the form of a boom box, and he could have been on the river when the girls were taken. Angle’s web had caught not only herself and Trisha but a number of others too.

Why had the killer brought Angie’s body to Eustace Mills’s yard for the final ritual? She could see that it troubled J.D., too. She wanted to talk with him, but several things held her back, not the least of which was Robert Medino. The animosity between the sheriff and Medino was deeper than a professional or personality aversion. Looking at it too closely would require her to examine her own thoughts, and she wasn’t ready for that.

In fact, if she could have anything in the world right now, it would be a shady spot, a cold beer, and a cigarette. At least she had cigarettes in her truck.

The mob, held back by Waymon and two volunteer deputies, was growing in number and intensity. Another injustice would become fact if J.D. didn’t get them under control. If he could. As she drew closer, she felt revulsion. They’d breakfasted on blood lust and fear, and they wanted their pound of flesh. God help anyone who got in their way. Dixon spotted Vivian’s bright red suit at the front of the mob.

“Those girls cry out for justice,” Vivian was yelling into the crowd. “Their murderer will go free unless you do something about it. Sheriff Horton won’t do anything because Eustace Mills is his friend. Well, I’m going to do something.” She ducked under the tape, her high heels sinking in the sandy roadbed.

“Hey! Hey! Mrs. Holbert!” Waymon’s voice rose. He maneuvered in front of her. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you can’t go down there.”

“I want my daughter, and I’m going to get her.” She brushed past him and continued walking.

Waymon put a hand on her shoulder.

“Take your hands off me or you and your department will be sued.” Her threat was echoed by Beth Salter, who took a swing at Waymon.

J.D. stepped out from the shadow of an oak. “Escort Mrs. Holbert back behind the tape and turn her loose. Then escort Mrs. Salter home.” Ignoring Vivian, he pointed across the river, giving directions to a group of fifteen men, all armed with rifles. He ignored the media, who photographed him with telephoto lenses and a certain wariness.

The men climbed into pickup trucks. With a blast of white exhaust, they took off. They bucked over the potholes in the road and spun gravel as they headed for the bridge and the west side of the river. Dixon felt queasy. If they saw Chavez, they’d kill him on the spot. Trisha and Angie were dead. There was no reason not to kill Chavez. He was an outsider who’d come into their county and violated two young girls. He would pay a severe price.

She was almost at her truck when she saw Zander pumping his bicycle hard as he churned through the sand of the road.

“Zander!” she called out, but he didn’t slow.

She opened the door of her truck and saw the bundle of Willard’s letters, tied with a dirty white string. She looked up again at the man-child. He’d stopped and turned back to look over his shoulder.

She held the letters up and started to call out his name again. Before she could say anything, he turned and disappeared around a curve.

Dixon stood holding the letters. For someone who wanted her help, he certainly acted peculiar.

Vivian was raising holy hell, but it wasn’t anything less than J.D. expected. He wanted to slap her into next Sunday but had restrained himself. He needed to ask her something important.

He watched as she made another run at Waymon. The deputy caught her around the waist, picked her up, and carried her back outside the crime scene tape. Vivian was spluttering threats.

Sighing, J.D. stepped forward. When the mob saw him, they roared, swelling into the crime scene tape Waymon had hurriedly strung. J.D. held up a hand.

“There’s nothing else to be done here. Go on home.”

“Those girls are dead!” a woman shouted. “Are you gonna catch the killer?”

J.D. stared at her until she closed her mouth and stepped back. “Angie and Trisha are dead. There’s nothing we can do for them. The worst thing that can happen is for you people to rush to take justice into your own hands.”

“The killer is sitting up there!” Vivian screamed.

J.D. ignored her. “We’ll find the person who killed these girls. He, or she, will be punished according to the law. Now you people go home and tend to your own children.”

“Eustace Mills killed those girls!” Vivian lunged at J.D., but Waymon deflected her.

“If I believed Eustace killed those girls, I’d arrest him,” J.D. said, addressing the crowd. “No man is above the law.”

Vivian was beside herself. “Liar! You goddamn liar!”

J.D. turned to Waymon and spoke softly. “Put her in the back of the patrol car. Lock it up. Then get Beth Salter out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” Waymon said. Waymon lifted a thrashing and writhing Vivian up and walked her to the patrol car.

“Go home,” J.D. told the crowd, his patience wearing thin. “Go home or I swear I’ll have you all arrested and put in jail where you can wait for me to bring in the killer.”

“Let’s go,” one of the men said. “We’ll meet up at the Stop-N-Shop.”

J.D. didn’t care for the sound of that, but he couldn’t stop them. With any luck they’d gather at the store, drink a few beers, talk big, and go home to grumble away the afternoon. With any luck.

He went to the patrol car. If he thought it would do any good, he would lock Vivian up. But Calvin would post her bail. Arrest would only serve to further incense her.

He got in the back with her. Vivian looked like a cornered cat. Her
eyes
were large, her lips drawn back.

“I’ll have your fucking head,” she hissed.

“Maybe, maybe not. I need your help, Vivian.”

That stopped her cold.

“Why should I help you?”

“Why not? What do you have to lose?” He would counter question for question. Vivian never listened to answers anyway.

“I wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.”

“But you want me to catch the killer, right?”

“And what do you think I can do to help?” she asked.

“You and Calvin have been very generous with Camille, haven’t you?”

The switch in conversation seemed to confuse her. She didn’t answer right away.

“We’ve been more than generous. She’s had every opportunity. The best doctors, the best medical care. Therapists!” She threw up her hands. “To what end? So she can waste her youth with that swamp creature you insist on defending.”

“Camille is a lovely young woman with a lot of artistic talent. You’ve encouraged that, haven’t you?”

Vivian was wary. “Why are you so interested in Camille?”

“You’ve given her expensive things. The car, her clothes, jewelry.”

Vivian bit her bottom lip. “What of it?”

“Could you put a monetary figure on the luxuries you’ve given her?”

“Don’t be an ass. A mother doesn’t put monetary amounts on the things she gives her daughter.”

“Really, Vivian.” J.D. looked at her. “Of course they do. Look, the car had to be an easy forty grand.”

“So what?”

“And her medical care, what? Sixty thousand?” He paused. “And another twenty for those clothes she wears around the swamps like she bought them off a Goodwill rack.” He had her attention. “And the jewelry?”

“What are you getting at?”

J.D. pulled the bracelet from his pocket. It came out curling and slinking around his hand and fingers. Vivian drew back, as if it might bite her.

“Did you give this to Camille?” he asked.

Vivian stared at the bracelet. “I’ve never seen that piece of jewelry before in my life.”

J.D. stepped out of the patrol car and walked into the principal’s office at Chickasaw County High School. He had a warrant in his hand for the arrest of Tommy Hayes. If Hayes got a good lawyer, the charges wouldn’t stick, but J.D. didn’t intend for them to. He wanted to make a point with the school teacher, who’d lied to him.

With the principal huffing behind him, J.D. went to Hayes’s classroom and called the teacher out to the hall.

“What’s up, J.D.?” Hayes asked. He glanced back into the classroom, where his students were unnaturally well behaved.

“You’re under arrest, Tommy,” J.D. said.

“For what?”

“We should talk outside.”

“Well, I want to know,” the principal said.

J.D. ignored him and led Hayes outside. There was no need to cuff him. There wasn’t any fight in him. He put Hayes in the back of the patrol car and drove toward the courthouse.

“What’s going on?” Hayes asked from the back seat. He sounded as if he were about to cry.

“You’ve lied to me,” J.D. said. “More than once.”

There was a miserable silence for two blocks. They were headed up Providence Street when Hayes spoke again.

“I did lie. I bought Angie a boom box, and I took it to her at the river. I saw both girls that morning.”

J.D. slowed the car. “Why did you lie?”

“Because it makes me look guilty of murder. I was there. She was blackmailing me. I had a motive to kill her, and I was at the place where she disappeared. But I didn’t kill her, J.D. I didn’t. I gave her the boom box, and I left.”

“What time was this?” J.D. pulled over and turned to look at Hayes through the grill.

“It was close to ten. I’d bought the boom box the day before, and I had it for her. She was supposed to come by the house and get it. That’s why I wasn’t at school. Then Angie called me on her cell phone and told me I’d better deliver the boom box to the river right away or she was going to call the superintendent and tell him about my relationship with Craig. I did what she said, and then I drove to Biloxi to hire a lawyer.”

“Your relationship with Craig Baggett is homosexual.”

“That’s right. I wanted to protect Craig. His father will—” Hayes’s voice was little more than a whisper. “We’ll both probably be stoned to death. You know how it is here. Everything is a sin. Being gay—Jesus, people will think I’m in league with Satan.”

J.D. looked past Hayes to a pickup truck driving by. Hayes was in danger of losing his job and a whole lot more. Jexville wasn’t a community that tolerated those outside traditional relationship and family patterns. He had a right to be afraid. Getting fired might be the least that happened.

“What time did you leave the river?”

“I didn’t stay more than five minutes.”

“Did you talk to Angie?”

Hayes wiped his right eye. “I begged her not to tell anyone.” His voice was strained. “Trisha promised she wouldn’t say anything, and she tried to get Angie to promise. But Angie wouldn’t. She said she never gave up a weapon.”

He hesitated, and J.D. pushed. “You were angry with Angie.”

“She was a stupid bitch who didn’t care who she ruined. Poor Trisha. She didn’t want to go to the river with Angie. She only went because no one else would. Angie didn’t have a single friend in the world, so Trisha went along to disguise the fact that Angie was all alone.”

“Tommy, did you see anyone else on the river when you were there?”

“Just the two girls.”

J.D. drove to the courthouse. He exited the car and opened the back door. “Tommy, I’m not going to kid you; you’re in a lot of trouble.”

“I know.”

“I want you to go to the sheriff’s office and wait for me at my desk. I’m not going to charge you or put anything on the books unless you leave. Once this goes down in the docket, it’s on your record for good. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Hayes gave a feeble smile. “I’ll be right there when you come back.”

J.D. watched as the teacher disappeared into the courthouse. Hayes had lied to protect his secret, but J.D. didn’t believe he’d killed anyone, least of all the two girls.

He pulled the bracelet out. He’d dusted it for prints and found only Camille’s. Camille had said her mother gave it to her, but Vivian had denied it.

He put the car in gear and headed toward Main Street. If the bracelet had been purchased at Easterling’s Jewelry, it would simplify things. And if it hadn’t, Clive Easterling could probably tell J.D. where to begin looking for the store that had sold it—and to whom.

He passed the Magnolia B&B and saw Robert Medino reclined on the porch swing, his bare feet extended toward Main Street. J.D. didn’t like him, but he knew that soon enough the writer would pack up and move on. He didn’t have what it took to put down roots and stay in a place.