Snakes Among Sweet Flowers (4 page)

Jackson had made a trip out to Sanders’s garage after several comments in the last week about the type of work done to their car. Not one of the people had complained, but in explaining the type of work performed, they had clued Jackson in on the nature of the man’s game. He hadn’t known what to expect upon his visit, but Camden Sanders had not been it.

Covered in tattoos and… smarmy. Well, up until that outburst. All Jackson was sure of was that Camden Sanders was bad news…. That, and he seemed to push all of Jackson’s buttons.

And then Jackson had pulled his gun, although he hadn’t aimed it at Sanders, thank God. That was the first time his weapon had come out of his holster in the line of duty. He’d completely lost control of the situation. Jackson thumped his open palm against the steering wheel in utter frustration.

As he accelerated, Jackson reached over for the handset to the radio and keyed the mic. “Jennifer, this is Jackson. You there? Over.”

“Brian here. Jennifer took a break. She had to go to a conference at the school. Anything going on? Over.”

“Nah. Heading down Sullivan toward town, gonna stop over at Ruby Mae’s to make sure she’s okay. I hear tell Junior went on a bender last night. Is Jennifer’s son giving her trouble again? Over.”

“It’s a shame he’s off the wagon. Tell Ruby we can keep some kids if she needs them gone for a bit, you hear? And yes, it’s Jennifer’s son again. The school called this morning and asked her to come in. Over.”

“Will do, Brian. And I talked to Jim Barnes. He’s collecting old bicycles for the Arcadia House. I told him maybe the force could do something to help. Wanna pass the word? Over.” He wasn’t sure what to say about Jennifer’s son. The kid stayed in some kind of trouble all the time.

“Sure thing. I think we may have one that needs a new seat. I’ll put something up in the break room. Over.”

“Thanks, Brian. I’m pulling into Ruby’s driveway. Over and out.”

When Jackson stepped out of the police cruiser, a handful of half-dressed children were already running around the side of the house and heading right for him. He laughed at the dirty but happy faces on the children and knelt down in preparation of the collision sure to come.

Jackson took his time talking to each child, mussing the boys’ hair, smoothing down the girls’. Ruby had a gaggle of kids. Six crowded him for attention, and he was pretty sure she had one or two more that weren’t old enough to be running around yet. When he looked over the tallest of the kids’ head, sure enough, there was Ruby Mae on the front porch. She had a baby in her arms and a toddler hanging on to the hem of her ragged dress.

She gave a weary smile. “Howdy, Jackson.”

He nodded and rose, patting children as he waded through them to get to their momma. “Good mornin’, Ruby Mae. How’re you doin’ today?”

She gave a shrug and bounced the baby at her shoulder. “He’s sleepin’ it off. I appreciate you comin’, but it wasn’t too bad this time. Wanna glass of tea?”

“Yes, ma’am. That would be right fine. It’s the start of a hot one today.” It was hard for Jackson to treat Ruby as a contemporary, hard to believe anyone his age could have so many kids. She’d dropped out of school in the tenth grade and married Junior when she’d found herself pregnant with the first one. Jackson went on to be the star quarterback his senior year. By then, Ruby Mae had two kids and a husband who got mean when he drank too much. In the next ten years, she had given birth to six more and watched her husband go sober and fall off the wagon more times than he could even remember.

Ruby led the way into the kitchen with the entire brood following. As he sat at the old table, much too small for a family of their size, he took the opportunity to look around. The place was clean, even if everything looked as worn-out as Ruby Mae.

When one of the eldest opened the pantry, she hissed, “Galen, close that door.” But he wasn’t quick enough to keep Jackson from seeing how bare the shelves were within.

“Thank you kindly.” He smiled and took the mason jar of iced tea, then sipped it with appreciation.

“I’m out of lemon. Sorry,” Ruby said as she sat across from him.

“This is fine how it is,” Jackson assured and gazed past her to the six hungry stares watching him sip the tea. As much as he wanted to offer them a cup, he bit his lip and turned back to Ruby. “How old is the baby now?”

She patted the child on her shoulder as if just remembering it was there. “He’ll be seven months soon….” She frowned, her eyes cutting up to the ceiling. “No, eight. He’ll be eight months soon.”

Jackson was no expert on babies, but this one didn’t look near big enough for eight months yet. He tried to look clueless, although he did have friends and coworkers with kids. “So that means he should be eatin’ table food soon, huh?”

“Naw. I mean, I ain’t even given him baby food yet. I ain’t got none to give him so I’m still breastfeedin’, you know?”

Jackson nodded. What he wanted to do was go into the bedroom and beat the livin’ hell out of Junior, tell the useless fuck to get his ass to work so his family could eat. Instead, he said, “Brian told me to tell you that some of the kids can come stay a few days if you need a break.”

She smiled at that. “Tony and Galen been wantin’ to go back fishin’ with Brian. That would be nice.”

“Can I go too?” came a chorus of voices.

“Luanne, you can go play with Alisa, but now, Mr. Brian don’t need all of you over there.”

There were moans from the other three, and Jackson felt right sorry for them. “I’ll step outside and call Brian to let him know,” Jackson said. “Get your things together.” He pointed to the three who were going so they knew he was talking to them, then walked back out the screen door before dialing Brian.

“I got three of them coming with me when I leave,” Jackson said as soon as Brian answered.

“I already told Linda. Can you just drop them to her on your way out?”

“No problem. They’re hungry, Brian.”

“Yeah, usually are. We’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.” Jackson hung up and took a moment to stare off in space before dialing another number.

“Gordon’s Market,” greeted a perky female voice.

“Paula, is Gordon around?” Matthew Gordon was the owner of the local grocery and one of the elders at the Hog Mountain First Baptist Church where Jackson and most of the locals attended. The majority of the people in town called him Gordon, although Jackson couldn’t have said when that started.

“He’s right here.”

There was some muffled talking and then a male voice came on the line. “Gordon here.”

“Gordon, it’s Jackson. Listen, I’m out at Ruby Mae and Junior’s this morning.”

“I hear Junior’s back to drinkin’.”

“And from what I can see, back to not workin’ too. None of these kids are eatin’ and Ruby is trying to keep breastfeeding a baby with no food in her belly.”

“How many of them are there now?”

“There’s eight kids. The youngest needs baby food. Do I need to pay? You know I will if I need to.”

“Nah, the church fund’ll cover it. I’ll set ’em up with a bunch. Has she got a workin’ refrigerator?”

“She had the tea in it, but let me go see if the freezer is coolin’.” Jackson headed back through the screen door and into the kitchen, opening the freezer and sticking his hand inside the empty space. “Yep, and lots of room inside too.”

“What are you doin’?” Ruby asked, still at the table.

Jackson ignored her for the moment and continued talking to Gordon. “Want me to come get it?”

“Give me an hour to get it together.”

“You got it.” Jackson hung up and tucked the phone back in his pocket. Then he went to the cabinet and pulled down three plastic cups and a sippy for the toddler. Since the house had no air-conditioning, there was little reprieve from the heat of the summer. He pulled out the one ice tray that was still frozen and dropped a few cubes in each cup.

“Jackson Rhodes, what are you doin’?” Ruby asked again, louder this time.

Next Jackson pulled the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and poured each cup full.

“That’s for Junior’s dinner! He don’t like it when we don’t have cold tea.” Jackson heard the scrape of Ruby’s chair as she got up, but it didn’t stop him from giving each of the kids their cup.

Then he turned his full attention on Ruby Mae. “You more worried about that drunk in there than your own kids? Has he pushed you that far, Ruby, that you don’t even care your kids are starvin’?”

She sobbed and fell back into her chair. The baby she held began a weak cry too, and Jackson felt a bit guilty for bringing more sorrow into the woman’s life.

“I’ll be back with food. Enough for the month. But, Ruby, if Junior touches any of these kids while he’s drunk, I’ll get the county to come get ’em. You hear?”

She nodded and continued to sob. When Galen, Tony, and Luanne came back down the stairs, Jackson waved to the other three, still in the kitchen but looking much better for having at least the little cup of tea in them—even the toddler seemed to have more life in his eyes—then took the older ones out to his car and buckled them in the backseat.

When Jackson lifted the handset for the radio, it gave a squawk, and in the rearview mirror, he saw three pair of wide eyes appear as they strained to look over the seat. There was a chuckle in his voice as he called in to say he was on the road. While most kids were excited to be anywhere around a police car, these three stared out the window as if the world away from their front door was something they rarely saw. Jackson knew the kids went to Brian’s house once in a while, but wondered how often they went anywhere else. These were all old enough to be in school. Maybe they were just happy to be away from the heaviness that pervaded their home.

Once on the main strip of the town, he pulled into the McDonald’s and queued the car in the line for the drive-thru. His three passengers didn’t say a word but glanced back and forth as if wondering if they would get anything.

When it was Jackson’s turn to order, he called out, “I need seven cheeseburger Happy Meals. Can you give me fries and apples with them? And um… Cokes.”

“Girls’ or boys’ toys with those?”

Jackson huffed as he tried to remember, but then Luanne’s quiet voice came from behind him. “Four boys and three girls.”

Jackson repeated that into the speaker, then smiled back at Luanne. He was pretty sure she played second mama to her brothers and sisters much of the time. At the window, he paid and collected the large amount of food, then pulled into an open parking space long enough to give the three their meals.

He almost encouraged them to eat up, but it wasn’t necessary. Before he pulled out of the parking spot, the boys had already inhaled their sandwich and were stuffing handfuls of fries in their mouth. While Luanne wasn’t being quite so voracious, he could see her hands quaking with hunger as she ate.

After dropping the three oldest of the Watson clan off with Brian’s wife, Jackson picked up enough groceries to fill both the trunk and backseat of his patrol vehicle. As he pulled back into the dirt driveway of Ruby Mae and Junior’s house, three kids ran to meet the car. Jackson handed them their meals, and they dropped to the grass to eat and examine their toys.

Grabbing up the remaining meal and as many bags of groceries as he could carry, Jackson headed into the house, calling over his shoulder to the kids, “Bring in some bags when you finish eating.”

He sat the toddler down with his meal, then sat Ruby down with a bowl of rice cereal to feed the baby before unpacking frozen food to put in the freezer.

The kitchen grew quiet as everyone focused on their task, except for the smack of the screen door as the children began to bring in the rest of the groceries, making little squeals when they noticed goodies in some of the bags.

When a gravelly voice bellowed from upstairs, his three helpers scattered. “Ruby. Where’s Galen? Tell the boy to get his ass to the store and get me some cigarettes.”

Jackson turned from his focus on the freezer to look at Ruby, who kept her head down and continued to feed the baby. He wiped the frown from his face and softly said, “Just don’t answer him.”

Ruby nodded but never looked up, and soon the sounds of heavy footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs.

“Goddammit, Ruby. Where the fuck are you? I need my tea and—”

Jackson knew, without turning from the refrigerator, when Junior discovered they had company. “Afternoon, Junior” was all he said as he spun to face the big man.

Junior took less time to recover from the surprise than Jackson had expected, not even seeming shocked at the bags of food scattered across the kitchen floor. “Mmm, bomb pops. My favorite,” Junior said as he leaned over and grabbed the box off the counter, then ripped it open and took out two.

“Those are for the kids,” Jackson said with a frown.

Junior shrugged as he stuck one in his mouth, then spoke around it. “In my house, makes ’em mine.”

Instead of arguing the matter, Jackson countered with “So, Junior, you sending a minor to buy cigarettes now?”

Junior glared at him. “So, Jackson, you gonna cook me dinner too, or you just helping my lazy wife with the housework?”

Jackson took a step toward Junior, causing him to take a step back. “You are pushing your luck right this minute, Junior Watson, and I’d advise you to take my words to heart. If you touch one hair on these kids’ heads while you’re trying so hard to prove whatever it is you have to prove, I’ll take them all out of this house so fast your head’ll spin. And you touch Ruby, and I’ll lock your ass up and make sure that the state files charges so Ruby can’t drop ’em. Hear me, tough guy?”

Junior gave another shrug but was no longer looking Jackson in the eye. Jackson felt sure he had gotten through to the man, at least for the moment.

Turning his attention to Ruby, he nodded to the groceries still to be put up and said, “All the cold food is put up. The rest you can put up when you have time. There are two pans of frozen lasagna in the oven so they’ll be ready by dinner. Salad in the fridge and french bread to go with it. You and the kids need anything, you know my cell number, right?”