Redemption (30 page)

He waved a few rubberneckers on and laughed in spite of his confusion.
Ramsey, you’re too fat just to up and disappear. How’d you know that I was on to you?

“
Bet he’s on his way to Scruggs Flats,” he whispered.

He sat on the Bronco’s front bumper, his head resting on the grille, contemplating the spaces between the stars.

“
Stay safe, Romelo. You’re all I’ve got now.”

But who’d believe what a thug like him would have to say?

46

Jimmy Lee wrestled Ramsey’s plastic-wrapped body out of the Jaguar and laid him on the garage floor. He knelt, fingered the bullet hole in Ramsey’s forehead, and smiled. “Bet the bullet bounced around in there a bunch, huh, cuz? Probably echoed, too. Shit, maybe the bullet got bored, you brainless shit.”

He left his cousin and walked to the kitchen where he sipped a cold Corona, complete with fresh lime wedge, in front of the open refrigerator. He thought about taking Ramsey to the trailer and blowing it up.
Like fightin’ a firebug with fire.
But no one would believe that fat Ramsey Saunders walked five miles from his police car to his trailer without being seen.
Hell, he probably couldn’t walk more than a mile without fallin’ out.

He closed the refrigerator door and considered the garbage disposal.
That’d take too long. I got me an auction in the morning.

He opened the walk-in freezer door, refreshed by the blast of Arctic air.
A Ramsey Popsicle?
He shut the door.
Or should I cook him?
He looked sideways at the huge commercial stove.
Nah. I’d have to cut him up first, and Mama just loved that stove.

He wandered the house, considering the wine cellar as too convenient and the attic as too hot before settling on the walk-in safe in his father’s old study.

Perfect. Vacuum-packed for eternity.
Nothing left in there anyway. He laughed.
And now Ramsey will finally and truly be a member of the Sellers household. How touching.

Ramsey safely ensconced behind four feet of steel, Jimmy Lee sat in front of his laptop in his room and surfed the Internet, checking real estate listings in and around Pine, checking their asking prices, their costs per acre, and their amenities. He compared what he found to what he was auctioning off and smiled.

I’m gonna be rollin’ this time tomorrow.

Before he logged off, he checked his e-mail. All but one were junk e-mail (“Get Your College Degree At Cyberspace U!!!”) and were promptly deleted. The last one caught his interest:

Curious, he typed “www.www.org” and hit enter. The screen’s background quickly changed from red to white to blue, thirteen three-dimensional stars emerging in a circle. He clicked on a star marked “What WWW Stands For” and waited.

The screen turned black. White dots of light in the center of the screen swarmed around in a frenzy before forming three words:

WE WILL WIN

“
Catchy,” Jimmy Lee said, and he took a swig of beer. “We
will
win.”

He clicked back to the main screen and looked at the remaining twelve stars. “What WWW Is Doing” looked promising. A click later and a grainy, black and white photograph appeared, the resolution terrible. He squinted. He had no idea what he was looking at. “Y’all need better graphics or somethin’,” he said, and he read the paragraph under the picture:

“
What the
fuck?
”

The grainy picture became clearer until he was staring at the mutilated corpse of Jeremiah Poindexter, J’s eyes staring blankly into his.

“
Jee-sus!
” Jimmy Lee screamed, shoving himself back from the computer and spilling his beer. He began hyperventilating, but before he could hit the off button, the picture dissolved into a smiling picture of five people in a pickup truck.

“
That’s my truck! How the—” And then he read the caption:

“
No, no,
no!”

The screen blinked rapidly then faded to black, leaving a single message:

Jimmy Lee picked up and threw the laptop, shattering it against the marble fireplace. He howled and ran from the room and down two flights of stairs to the library where he poured and drank shot after shot of whatever his hands didn’t knock over. His nerves steadied somewhat, he stumbled out of the library to check the alarm system in the foyer. The lights glowed green. He sank to the floor and wiped sweat from his face.

“
They have no proof,” he said, his voice high and cracking. “They have no proof.
I
will win. They have no proof. I will win. I will win.”

He heard a creaking sound and looked to his left. The brass plate on the mail slot swung inward, a small square of paper floating down.

Where’s my gun? Shit!

He crawled on hands and knees across the foyer and peeked through the mail slot.
Nothin’.
He picked up the paper, brought it close to his eyes, and howled as he read:

4
7

He had followed the wrecker to Lester’s, had watched them back the Crown Vic into the bay, had paid them extra out of his own pocket to keep things quiet since “this is kind of embarrassing, you know?” He had called Poole to tell him it was all a prank, that Ramsey was accounted for and already home, that he could handle the traffic for the auction without him or his deputies.

“
You sure?” Poole had asked. “I hear there’s plenty of interest from folks in Calhoun, and with this storm comin’, there’s gonna be even more traffic coming through you from the lake. Think we ought to evacuate?”

“
I think we’ll be fine,” Overton said. “Anthony’s almost a tropical storm now, so all we’ll get is a bit of wind and a lot of rain.”

“
You sure you and Ramsey can handle all that?”

“
Ramsey and I will be fine.”

And thus, another cover-up begins.

He called Autumn, though he doubted she’d be in, and was surprised that she answered on the first ring. “Autumn, I’m going to need your car. Tonight. Meet me at Ramsey’s trailer.”

“
Jesus, Miles, it’s after midnight.”

“
I have a picture I want to show you.”

“
Can’t this wait until—”

“
In the picture,” Overton interrupted, “you’re on Doc Willis’s porch just a few feet from your cousin, Callie.” He listened to the silence he had expected. “Meet me there within the hour.”

He drove to Ramsey’s trailer, located on a wooded two-acre plot, and, hoping the place wasn’t booby-trapped, opened its only door slowly after using Ramsey’s key. He turned on all the lights and marveled at Ramsey’s collection of home electronics: a fifty-inch wide-screen TV, a concert hall quality set of speakers, a stack of ten stereo components in a glass cabinet, surround-sound speakers mounted on the walls.

Jimmy Lee was good to you, too.

He knew Ramsey’s apparent “wealth” wasn’t proof of a pay-off, but it might convince a poor country jury that a simple deputy sheriff couldn’t afford all this on his measly salary. He even had a queen-size, heated waterbed and a Jacuzzi bathtub. He left several lights on, including the outside light, and waited for Autumn on Ramsey’s makeshift porch.

She arrived just after one, the Escort skidding to a stop inches from his feet. She got out and slammed the door, striding toward him with both fists balled. “You’re ruining one of the few dates I’ve had—”

Overton smiled. “Who with? No, no. Let me guess. Is his name ...”

“
Miles! You’ve got some explaining to do!”

This has to be right. There’s a certain symmetry to it.
“His name is ... Isaiah Poindexter.”

Autumn stood still, blinking. “Oh shit.”

“
I’m right?” Overton stood. “What is he to you, your second cousin?”

Autumn fumbled with her hands. “We’re not blood-related.”

“
Sure you are. Thick with blood.” He circled behind her. “Other people’s blood. ‘Oh shit’ is right. How’s Isaiah doing? I haven’t seen him in, oh, fourteen years, ever since he left for New Jersey to keep tabs on his nephew, Daniel.”

Autumn didn’t respond.

“
And how is Daniel? What is he, fifteen? Bet he’s been doing a little driving, huh?”

Autumn sighed. “What do you want, Sheriff?”

“
Your car. I have to leave Ramsey’s here to make folks think he’s still around.”

Autumn looked past Overton at the trailer. “He’s not here?”

“
Nope. The fat ass wrecked my car and disappeared, and with me about to ask him about Romelo Dudley and Cassandra Willis Poindexter. But you already know all that, right? You know an awful lot, Autumn Harper of the Calhoun Harpers.”

She pulled at her fingers. “What are you ... what are you going to do?”

“
Right now, I’m going to drive you home and drop you off. You’ll have to catch a ride to the auction tomorrow. Shouldn’t be too hard,
Sis.
Maybe you could get a ride in Isaiah’s pink Cadillac, the one he got from that junkyard—”

“
You don’t understand,” Autumn interrupted.

“
Oh, but I do. Your job was to get me looking in Jimmy Lee’s direction, and I did, and you almost had me convinced, but now—”

“
But he’s guilty!”

Overton nodded. “I know he is, and I’ll need the diary that Daniel took from Darcy’s nightstand to prove that.” He stared directly into Autumn’s eyes. “He’s got it, doesn’t he?”

“
It’s ... somewhere.”

“
I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Whole bunch of guilt goin’ around, huh? You and Daniel and Isaiah and ... Callie.”
God, that hurt to say.

Her shoulders drooped. “I left you alone for what, two days?”

“
Shouldn’t have left me alone.” He got in the passenger side.

“
But you don’t know everything,” she said as she started the car and backed out.

“
I think I do. I haven’t arranged it all right just yet, but I will.”

Autumn turned out of the driveway. “Will I need a lawyer?”

Overton closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t you already have Curtis Daniels on retainer?”

“
Actually, no,” Autumn said. “And neither does Isaiah. Will we need one?”

“
What do you think?”

They drove the final miles in silence until she pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine. “Sheriff Overton, Miles, do me a favor before you do anything else.”

He got out and walked to the driver’s door, opening it for her. “You want
me
to do
you
a favor?”