South of Shiloh (34 page)

48

WITH MORG SCOUTING THE CORRIDORS AHEAD,
they spirited Billie down in the elevator, out the back door, and stuffed him in the caged backseat of Beeman’s car. Rane last saw Morg in the rearview mirror, nervously locking the gate as they drove back up the wooded road. Beeman and Rane stared straight ahead, ignoring Billie’s increasingly anxious questions. Then Beeman spun the steering wheel at an opening in the trees. The Crown Vic crashed to a halt as the trail petered out in thick brush.

“Everybody out,” Beeman ordered.

The heat draped down like a wet gray slurry and Rane had the feeling a fast move could start the air to dripping.

“Ow, shit,” Billie cringed, stepping barefoot gingerly on rocks and deadfall as Beeman pushed him down the slope. Off to the right, through the trees, they could see the white seven-storied condominiums on the sluggish river.

Despite the dishrag heat, Billie was hugging the thin robe tight to his chest.

By the time they reached the shore, Billie had tripped and fallen twice; his hands, forearms, and feet were bleeding from minor cuts. Beeman continued to ignore him, looking up and down the river’s edge at the patches of sand, fallen trees, and thick, yellow clumps of grass.

“I ain’t going to lay a hand on you, Billie,” Beeman said absently.

“You’re flirting with kidnapping, you dumb redneck,” Billie fumed.

“Yep. And when’d you start tutoring high school girls on pharmaceuticals and the birds and the bees? And bringing her across state lines to do it? I know where she lives and I got a witness,” Beeman said reasonably, still scanning the shore. Then he turned and faced Billie. Rane hung back, all eyes and ears cranked wide open.

“I suspect you got an idea what this is about. I need some answers about Mitchell Lee; like did he rip on Marcy Leets last night?” Beeman asked patiently.

“Privileged relationship. He’s my client. You know that,” Billie said sullenly.

“Uh-huh. Walk with me,” Beeman said, taking Billie by the arm, slowly leading him through the deadfall and dense grass as Rane fell in behind. “Billie, let’s you and me get outside the legal game and deal some cards. For the sake of conversation let’s put aside the Mississippi Criminal Code. How about I trade you the conspiracy statute for that privileged relationship…”

“Fuck you, Beeman. You’re gonna do jail time on this,” Billie snarled.

They were ambling toward the marina; easy going for Beeman and Rane, agony for Billie and his tender bare feet. Through breaks in the budding foliage Rane could see the hazy sunlight tickle the white hulls of moored powerboats.

“Here’s my question for you, Billie. If I’d been accidentally shot dead last Saturday what would have happened next?” Beeman asked.

Billie Watts stared at Beeman with more contempt than fear. He was recovering from the shock of having his door kicked in. His comfortable world was only four hundred yards away along the riverbank. Billie Watts smirked.

Rane had studied fear on human faces his whole adult life. He was on less sure ground with the nuances of chemical addiction. He suspected the twitchy discomfort on Billie’s florid, tanned face had more to do with irritation at being separated from his drugs and his teenage playmate than fear for his safety.

Beeman clearly understood this and was casting around for a method of dropping the conversation down to a more primal level.

“Walk,” Beeman said, giving Billie’s shoulder a shove, and they continued along the shoreline. Billie hugged his robe around him and picked his steps, grimacing every time his feet sunk into the matted grass.

They had traveled perhaps fifty yards when Beeman stopped and reflexively raised his hand like a point man signaling a halt. Slowly, he smiled.

Rane detected a persistent rustle, close by in the grass. He checked the trees. No wind. Billie merely blinked, probably hearing more noise inside his head than outside.

“They don’t run,” Beeman said absently. “Sometimes they’ll actually chase after you.” He looked around and selected a sturdy dead branch and snapped it off. He turned it in his hands, evaluating it: curved at the end, about five feet long. He took a cautious step into the grass. “I’ve heard stories about them dropping from a tree into a boat to attack you.”

Instinctively, Billie shied back and bumped into Rane, who nudged him forward. Now Beeman was moving in a fluid crouch through the knee-deep grass, the stick extended in one hand. Rane thought of the stance and careful footwork of a saber fencer.

“Uh-huh,” Beeman said. “Caught him moving. Usually they hang out on limbs or rocks near the water. Come here Billie. Take a look.”

Rane shoved Billie forward and they both lurched back, out of reflex, when they saw the snake that was ominously thick along its black middle, tapering at the tail and head. It was coiled in the grass next to a log. The triangular head cocked back, swaying, testing the air. It had intense, elliptical cat’s eyes and the wide-open mouth showing stark white against the sleek black coils.

“How’s the story go,” Beeman mused, figuring angles and distances with his stick. “Eve had questions and the snake give her the scoop on the knowledge of good and evil.”

With deceptive speed, Beeman caught the snake in mid-weave and mashed the stick down. The snake writhed in the grass, pinioned by the heavy stick just behind its head.

Billie had surged back against Rane, who gripped his arms from behind. Rane willed himself calm and hoped to hell Beeman knew what he was doing. That was a cottonmouth water moccasin he was getting into. A big one, almost four feet long, thick as Rane’s forearm around the middle.

“Trick is,” Beeman said slowly, stooping, keeping the pressure on his stick with his left hand, reaching with his right, “getting a hold on them…” His fingers probed right behind the fulcrum, where the stick held the snake’s head immobile. “…Just so.” The black body writhed under Beeman’s extended arm. Each time the thick coils lashed the grass, Billie Watts spasmed back against Rane’s chest. He rose on tiptoe as if to compress his bare feet and make them a smaller target.

Deftly, Beeman dropped the stick and raised his right hand, in which he now held the snake pinched below the base of the head between his thumb and index finger. He gripped the twitching black body firmly in his left.

He rose, turned, and held the squirming snake up with an appraising smile. “Whatcha think? Bet he goes close to fifteen pounds.”

Rane couldn’t see Billie’s face but he could feel the visceral revulsion pulse in Billie’s arms and smell it in the gumdrops of sweat that popped on the back of his neck.

“Jesus, Bee…” Billie groaned, pressing back against Rane.

Beeman took a step forward and turned the snake’s head slowly back and forth. A foot of air separated Billie Watts’s face from the straining white maw, the curved, glistening fangs. The venom. Beeman extended his arms. Six inches.

Rane, taller than Billie, could clearly see the snake’s moist, white-padded mouth. The fear he felt was controlled optical fascination, like switching to a more powerful lens setting. He tightened his grip on Billie Watts, whose breath was coming in deep, shuddering sobs.

Beeman had not shaved this morning, so the shadow of beard added an edge to his spare, tanned face. The easy humor had vacated his brown eyes. He seemed totally at ease with the poisonous snake in his hands.

Rane was getting a palpable sense there were a few open manholes in Kenny Beeman.

“Now, Billie, this is the way I see it,” Beeman said. “I was just doing my job, trying to figure out where the hell Mitchell Lee Nickels disappeared to. So I went out and talked to his wife, who is pissed off at him and so no help there. Marcy’s all beat up and not real talkative. So I decide to check with his lawyer. And I walk in and find you with a nose full of coke and this pink sixteen-year-old pussy that don’t have no skid marks on it at all. Well, you coming from a big powerful Corinth family—and me being just a hired-hand cop and all—naturally I remember my place and back off.

“Then it seems you became distraught and wandered away in your bathrobe, a little addled maybe, from shame about the girl, and maybe guilt about what you’re mixed up in with Dwayne Leets and Mitchell Lee. Or could be you just had too much cocaine for lunch. You got these cuts on your feet and hands and forearms from thrashing through the brush…”

Beeman paused and squeezed the snake harder, causing it to rage in its confinement.

“…and you musta tripped and fell down and that’s when you met Mr. No Shoulders here, who struck you three-four times in the face.”

Rane was hard put to decide who had more hostility in his eyes, Beeman or the snake.

“Oh God,” Billie gasped, going loosey-goosey against Rane. Beeman had moved the snake close enough for Billie to feel its probing reptile breath.

“Probably you make it back to the condos and they get you to medical help, but that could take half an hour,” Beeman continued. “On the other hand, the face is close to the heart and lungs and this hemotoxic venom is some ugly shit…”

The snake’s tongue flicked against Billie’s cheek.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Beeman said. “Just take me longer with you dead in the woods.”

“Okay,” Billie gasped. “Please…”

Beeman moved the snake back a few inches and waited.

Billie sagged, catching his breath. When he raised his eyes, the snake was right there, three-four inches away.

“You talk I’ll take a step back,” Beeman said.

“You got to promise to immunize me,” Billie started.

“Shit, boy, you ain’t hearing me,” Beeman said as he released the snake with his left hand so its body thrashed free. Then he stooped, seized Billie’s bare foot with his left hand, and thrust the snake against it.

Billie screamed and twisted in Rane’s grip.

“You don’t need to be immunized. What you need is to get inoculated. And pretty damn quick,” Beeman said, coming back up and collecting the writhing snake in his left hand.

“Oh Christ, oh Christ,” Billie panted.

“Calm down, Billie, more excited you get the faster that shit pumps through your blood. Now, that’s just your little toe. Want to try for your pecker?” Beeman said in an even voice.

“I don’t know…” Rane ground his teeth, blinking sweat.

“
I
know,” Beeman said hotly. “I know Paul Edin’s dead and all these fuckers are walking around laughing about it. He better start talking…”

“All I know is Dwayne wanted you gone for laming Donnie and Mitch wanted a favor in return,” Billie whined as his eyes darted in a flood of sweat. “If something was to happen to Ellie Kirby…”

Beeman smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Go on.”

Billie panted, “My dad’s law firm represents the family, so I hear things. After Robert Kirby died the old man got religion or something and decided it was a sin to die rich. He planned to draft a new will. Gift all of Kirby Creek and the battlefield to a public charity like the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a proviso they leave it untouched; all but a parcel by the lake where the estate would bankroll a research clinic.”

“Research clinic,” Beeman repeated.

“Yeah, for Iraq veterans, name it after Robert. I don’t know, Christ, Bee,” Billie pleaded, “get me out of here.”

The snake was trying to wrap its coils around Beeman’s left hand. Beeman stretched it out and eyed Billie. “C’mon.”

“Okay, okay,” Billie muttered. “What happened was Hiram tore up his old will and…” Billie paused, straining against Rane’s hands, staring down at the red spot on his little toe.

“Clock’s running,” Beeman said, holding the snake almost absently now.

“Except the old man had a stroke before he drafted the new will. Get it? Now he’s incapacitated and isn’t expected to live. He’ll die intestate. In the absence of a will specifying a different requirement it all goes to Ellie as the sole surviving heir…”

“And you told that to your buddy, Mitchell Lee?” Beeman asked.

Billie nodded his head vigorously up and down, his breath coming in hyperventilating gasps. “I was just showing off some inside information. Mitch didn’t know…about the will being torn up. At that point probably…Ellie didn’t either. My dad is hoping the old man will rally. At least enough to bob his head so Ellie could have power of attorney. That way they could follow through on Hiram’s desire to gift the land and reduce the estate prior to death to ease the tax burden.”

Beeman narrowed his eyes. “Absent that outcome, if the old man dies, then if Ellie dies sudden-like?”

Billie licked his lips. His whole body was drenched in slippery sweat and Rane could barely hold on to him. Billie swallowed, panted, then said, “The inheritance flows through Ellie’s estate to her surviving heir…”

“And Mitchell Lee gets it all,” Beeman said as he rolled his eyes contemptuously. “See, John. This isn’t about me or what my daddy did back when. This is New South Money bullshit.” He glared at Billie. “And you heard them talk this out? Mitchell and Dwayne Leets?”

“Bee, for the love of God, man. Take me to the hospital,” Billie pleaded.

“Answer the fuckin’ question. Or get bit again,” Beeman warned.

“Okay, okay. No, I never heard them actually say it; they don’t talk specifics around me about stuff like that. Just connect the dots. Don’t matter now,” Billie panted.

“Why’s that?” Beeman asked.

Billie’s eyes bulged. “Because part of Ellie’s decision to take her dad off life support was drafting a new will of her own basically giving it all away like he wanted; the battlefield, the clinic, the works. Mitch wouldn’t get shit now if she died.” Billie gritted his teeth. “When he missed you it all came apart and he musta flipped out. Don’t you see, what if Mitch thinks I tipped her? And now he’s out there, nuts, going after folks, like why’d he beat up Marcy last night? Dwayne called and told me. He’s shook, Bee. He don’t know what’s going on either. That’s why I’m out here where Mitchell Lee can’t get to me,” Billie blubbered.

“Let him go,” Beeman said. Rane released his death grip on Billie’s arms, stepped back, and stared at his bloodless, cramped hands.