Strawman's Hammock (29 page)

“I'm so proud of you,” Barrett whispered into her ear.

“Those bastards!”

“Yeah. But we ain't gonna show it, Laura Anne. We ain't gonna show those dicks anything but class.” He escorted her to the piano. “How are you?”

She fought the barest tremble in her mouth.

“I've played under pressure before. This ain't no big thang.”

From the time she launched dementi's Sonatina in F major, every eye in the place riveted on Laura Anne Raines. Her skin was gold. On fire. And from the moment her hands touched the keys there wasn't a fork in the place that didn't fall still by its plate. Barrett passed their table on his way to the bar. He leaned over, briefly, to the startled banker.

“Freddy?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, Mr. Raines.”

“When you get back to Atlanta? Gonna have to tell your investors that the price just went up.”

The barest pressure from Bear's rock-hard hand into the damp fabric of his three-piece suit, and then Barrett was on to the bar. To take a seat. To hear his wife bring a swell of music to standing applause.

To hold her later that night. When she cried.

“You can still teach, honey. You've got some good managers now can keep up the restaurant. I can help.”

“Not if you're running for sheriff.”

He held her close.

“Family comes before dreams, Laura Anne. You had to make that choice once. Now it's my turn.”

Fifteen

Barrett begged Friday off from work. There were already homicides stacked to take the place of Juanita Quiroga's and Hezikiah Jackson's. There were still migrants working for rigged wages. But Bear needed a break, so he took a long weekend off to be with Laura Anne and the boys.

They talked. They went to church. They put on a good face and began the business of getting over their recent disappointment. Barrett was puppy-hunting one Saturday when he rolled by the
Deacon Beach Herald.

He drove past the paper, intially. Reconsidered. No point in putting it off. He doubled back.

“Any thieves at home?” Barrett called as he entered Pauline's inner sanctum.

“Barrett!”

She was editing her paper online.

“Good timing. I got something for you.”

“Well, first I better tell you that I'm going to have to put off my ambitions for office.”

“Ohhhh. I'm sorry to hear that.”

He shrugged. “Opportunity for funding fell through. Can't know for sure if it was even real.”

“I can't tell you how many times Bernie and I haven't been bought out.” She saved her file, and then, briskly: “Now. The stories you asked me to review—”

“Oh, yes,” Barrett replied with diminished enthusiasm.

What difference did his sorry history make? It surely wasn't going to be used against him now.

“Hezikiah Jackson…”

Pauline left her high-tech computer for an antedeluvian machine mounted on a waist-high counter.

“'Sixty-nine to 'seventy-one…”

She paused to focus a frame of microfiche in the scanner.

“Actually, I found two stories. Well. One story and one rumor.”

Barrett rounded the counter.

“I did find your father's homicide covered in the paper. It was odd, reading it. I must have been in my twenties at the time. Nothing much to it. See for yourself.”

Barrett leaned into the microfiche's viewer. A smalltown paper came to life in garish black and white:

JULY 10, 1969.

A colored man, Randall Grant Raines, was lulled in his home this past Saturday. Sheriff Pridgeon would not confirm the cause of death, but did confirm that Mrs. Ellen Raines had taken her husband's life in what the sheriff described as “a clear case of self-defense.” No arrest was made.

Mr. Raines is survived by his wife and two sons.

An ache came unexpectedly to Barrett's chest.

“I'm sorry,” Pauline said.

“It's all right.”

“No, I mean the part about describing your father as a colored man. I don't mention race anymore, Bear.”

“It's all right, Pauline. But I don't see anything about Hezikiah.”

“Wasn't anything to see.”

“No mention of her?”

“Not around your dad's demise, no.”

So there was no one left to know. His mother was dead. Hezikiah. Even Barrett's brother never knew the truth.

“Thanks for checking.” Barrett had not realized he was holding his breath.

“Hold your gear. I did find
something.
Not sure how it could possibly relate, but—”

“Go ahead.” Barrett halted at the edge of the counter.

“Hezikiah was cited in regard to another murder. Very similar to yours—”

“Mine?”

“Your father's. Sorry. This other case involved the Pearsons. You know Jarold?”

“Yes. Helped us on the Loyd case. Big help, actually.”

“Hmm. Well. His mother was murdered, you might recall.”

“Yes. Father went to Raiford and hanged himself.”

“That's right.”

“What's it got to do with Hezikiah?”

“She was there.”

Barrett's heart picked up a beat.

“'Scuse me?”

“Hezikiah was on the scene, according to the story I got.”

“What do you mean ‘you got'? It's your paper, isn't it?”

“No. The killing actually occurred in Dixie County. Cross City paper carried the story. I remember because I could not get a thing out of Sheriff Sue myself. Just as in your situation he wouldn't talk specifics, only that the mother was killed, her husband was drunk on the scene and was arrested.

“The Cross City paper went quite a bit further in their column. 'Course, they'd print anything. They'd print a phone number off a shithouse wall if—”

“Pauline.”

“Sorry. Anyway the Cross City paper went on about Hezikiah being a witch, and all that hokum. Talked about her second sight. She walked right in on the homicide apparently. Why on earth she was there at that place or time was a little spooky. Jarold Pearson's daddy said he didn't do it…”

Barrett's heart was now hammering on anvils.

“… but he was a mean, abusive son of a bitch, like your father. Any excuse would have been enough to set him off; it was his wife's bad luck to have given him a good one.”

“An excuse for homicide?”

“By the lights of the time, yes.” Pauline nodded primly. “Seems Jarold's mother was having an affair.”

“Another rumor?”

“No. They were pretty blatant about it.”

“And who were ‘they,' Pauline?”

“Jarold's mother, of course. And Linton Loyd.”

“Linton?”

“Oh, yes. Just about every time Jarold's father stepped out, Linton was stepping in. It was disgraceful the way he took advantage of that woman. Then Jarold's father would come home and beat her, of course. You know the cycle.”

“Yes,” Barrett managed to affirm.

“So I s'pose the sheriff wouldn't have had any trouble believing Hezikiah when she told him the father killed Jarold's mother.”

“No. Not in that circumstance.”

“Bear.” Pauline eyed him closely. “Why are you interested in these stories? Do they relate to these latest homicides?”

Barrett eased himself up onto the counter.

“Let's just say I'm double-checking a source. The important thing is—it was Hezikiah's word that got Jarold's father sent to jail?”

Pauline affirmed with a shrug. “She was an eyewitness, after all. And knowing the father's history of violence and abuse, the sheriff probably figured justice was served.”

“Justice.” Barrett swallowed. “Right.”

Something itched deep in the back of Barrett's broad skull. A dry papyrus wrapped about his tongue.

“Pauline, were there any details at all related to cause of death for Jarold's mother?”

“What was reported.”

“I'll have to take it.”

“All right, then. The local paper reported she was trussed to her bed. Her hair cut off. And disemboweled.”

“Disem—?”

“‘Gutted like a deer' was the actual description, yes.”

The hairs on the back of Barrett's neck bristled.

“Barrett. What
is
this all about?”

He swallowed. “Just one more question.”

“Fine, then.” She folded her arms.

“How did Jarold's wife die?”

“Accident, what he told me. She fell. Crushed her skull.”

“‘Crushed'?”

“Fractured, anyway.”

“Don't suppose you could give me some details?”

“No.” Pauline shook her head. “Not unless I was willing to learn Spanish and go to Tegucigalpa.”

“Teguci—?”

“Honduras, yes. Where she fell. Where he said she fell.”

Pauline paused.

“They were building a church.”

A church. A cross.

Barrett ripped a stitch out of his blazer as he slid off her counter.

“I gotta run.”

“The hell is this about, Barrett?” she demanded.

“If it's rumor, I can't tell you. But if it's fact—”

Barrett loped toward her door.

“—you'll be the first to know.”

*   *   *

Barrett Raines burst out of the
Deacon Beach Herald
stabbing the pad of his cell phone.

“Cricket. Bear here. We may have a situation.”

“Let's hear it.”

Barrett summarized his conversation with Pauline.

“Are you headed where I think you're headed, partner?”

“It fits.”

“Barrett. Dammit. You better be right.”

“Well, if I'm wrong I'll just be an asshole. But if I'm right he'll kill again. And no telling who.”

*   *   *

Laura Anne was glad to have the day off. She had wondered if her respite from work would be marred with rainfall, the latest front pushing down from Canada having met the Gulf's warm, moist atmosphere to trigger a deluge. But today there seemed no threat of precipitation. In fact, it was a beautiful day in northwestern Florida, one of those days when the sun comes out bright and gentle above a vault of clear blue sky. Seventy degrees. The middle of December and there were still redbirds singing.

Laura Anne could see one now on the grapevine behind her garage. It gave her comfort. She had decided it was pointless to brood over the failed sale of her restaurant. Barrett was off work. So was she. It was a good time for the family to pack up in Bear's restored muscle machine and hide for a long weekend in Fort Walton. Maybe do some Christmas shopping on the sly. She had already snugged down the Malibu's convertible top in anticipation of the trip when Bear called to say he would be home soon. There was an edge to his voice that gave her some pause. Barrett had canceled vacations before when the Work called.

She hoped that was not the case this morning.

Laura Anne slipped a sweatshirt over her golden skin. It was big as a tent—covered her arms and fell past her waist. She tucked her feet into sneakers. No need for socks. She would finish the laundry, go to the Scout Lodge to pick up Ben and Tyndall. Then the Raines family would hit the road in their Malibu for a badly needed retreat.

The screen door opened.

“Bear?” She turned.

A familiar man stood in her back door.

Jarold Pearson took off his spotless Stetson hat.

“Mornin', Laura Anne. May I come in?”

*   *   *

Barrett called dispatch for Fish & Wildlife, hoping to get a fix on Jarold's location. Jarold's office, after all, covered several hundred square miles. But maybe Bear would get lucky. Maybe the warden had the day off. Maybe he'd be at home. Jarold might even be manning the dispatch himself.

No, the lady on the end of the line was terse. Lieutenant Pearson had not called in. Would not be in for several days. Would the agent like to leave a message?

Barrett was composing a neutral pretext for suggesting a meeting in Mayo as he called home. He couldn't remember if it was his job to pick up the boys from Scouts.

The phone rang, rang. The message machine kicked in. Barrett waited. Laura Anne was home, he knew she was, getting ready for their pre-Christmas holiday. But he wasn't surprised that she didn't immediately answer the phone. They both used the answering machine to screen calls.

“Laura Anne, it's me, pick up.”

A beep on the line. Then silence.

“Dammit.”

But maybe she was outside. Maybe
she
was getting the boys. Barrett was about to try again when an incoming call buzzed over his phone.

“Barrett Raines?”

The voice was strained and familiar.

“Speaking, who's this?”

“Rolly Slade.”

“Rolly?”

“You gave me yer number, Bear.”

That's right. He had.

“What's up, Rolly? What can I do for you?”

“First off, I want to thank you for clearing my boy of them killins.”

“The evidence cleared your son, Rolly. Doesn't mean he's out of the woods on those other charges.”

“I know that, I know.”

“Anything else?” Barrett tried not hide his impatience.

“Well, there is one other thing. Prob'ly not important. But because of that
first
time—”

“Rolly, just tell me what it is.”

“Well, Bear, you won't believe this, but—somebody's done gone and took my other dog.”

“Your—your dog.”

“My rottweiler,” came the whining confirmation. “Somebody took him. Right after lunch.”

Barrett cut the connection and slammed the accelerator to the floor. A litany of horrifying possibilities raced through his mind. He called home again.

“Answer me, hon. Goddammit, pick up!”

*   *   *

Laura Anne regained consciousness in Jarold Pearson's Willys Jeep.