The Broken Places (17 page)

“I guess you got the whole rundown on who they are and how they escaped?” Sisk said. He seemed to kind of fancy himself as a slow-talking gunslinger, with slow-eyed careful movements and the mustache. He looked to Quinn like a thousand shitkickers he’d known over the years. Couple of them had turned out to be decent people.

“They rode out of Parchman on horses and out of the Delta in a Chevelle,” Quinn said.

Sisk spit in the cup and nodded.

“But Dickie Green drove straight out the front gates,” Wilson said, shifting in his chair. “Still figuring out how that whole deal worked. Somebody got paid.”

“Doesn’t matter much to Mr. Green now,” Quinn said.

“He got used,” Sisk said. “He wasn’t buddies with either of these two, but they needed his horse trailer. Dumb shit should have seen that coming. Did you say he got shot down in his underwear?”

“All he took out of this world was a pair of dirty white Hanes.”

Wilson glanced around the little office at Quinn’s photos and the framed flag that had hung in AFG. “You military?” he said.

Wilson didn’t seem much of an investigator. Quinn just nodded.

“So, has anyone seen these shitbirds around your county?” Sisk said.

Quinn shook his head.

“We know they got a woman probably traveling with them,” Sisk said. “Woman named Becky, who used to come visit Davis at Parchman.”

“I think they’re long gone,” Quinn said. “They raised that armored car and got what they’d come for. I’m still trying to find out how that truck stayed down there for so long.”

“Either it didn’t have a GPS or whatever they used to call it,” Wilson said. “Or the pond shorted it out. Hell, these days we could have tracked both those guards with their cell phones. You said you saw two bodies in the truck?”

“I saw one,” Quinn said. “My deputy was pretty sure both men are inside.”

“Body count may be old, but sure as hell is adding up,” Sisk said.

“We’ve been tracking Davis and Magee since the breakout,” Wilson said.

Sisk spit into the cup. He smoothed his mustache. Wilson crossed his legs and took a deep breath.

“We’re pretty sure they got some more friends here,” Wilson said. “We tried to figure out why they’d come to Jericho. I don’t mean anything by that. But it’s not exactly the kind of place people light out for.”

“Now we know it was all for the money.”

“Maybe,” Sisk said. He had carried a leather satchel into Quinn’s office and reached into it for a file. He pulled out a couple printed sheets with mug shot scans attached.

Quinn took the file and flipped through the pages. He set the file down and leaned back in his chair. He shook his head and cleared his throat.

“We got it on good word from the warden in Unit 33 that this fella and Magee and Davis were great pals,” Sisk said. “And now we got them escaped and coming for some hidden loot to this man’s hometown. Did I tell you this man was just pardoned by the governor?”

“I know him,” Quinn said.

“We figured you’d been notified of the release,” Wilson said. “Has he been causing any trouble?”

“Nope.”

“I voted on the governor, but pardoning all these shitbags doesn’t make a lick of sense to me,” Sisk said. He rubbed his mustache. He spit. “You know where we can find Jamey Dixon?”

“Well,” Quinn said. “Let me call my sister; she’s been dating him.”

The two U.S. Marshals laughed like it had been a joke. Quinn told them about The River and the ministry Jamey had set up outside city limits.

“A church in a barn,” Sisk said. “Hallelujah.”

Both men stood up and headed for the door.

“What makes you think Dixon has anything to do with these turds?” Quinn said.

“Dixon did these men personal favors at Parchman,” Wilson said. “He apparently got them some plum assignments, made sure they got the right detail. Dixon was a regular prison rock star. He was real close with the former superintendent, too. People really believe he’s the real thing.”

Sisk nodded. He spit one more time and dropped the cup in Quinn’s wastebasket. Standing tall still had him staring at Quinn’s chest. “Even if it’s not connected,” the Marshal said. “Seems like they’d go to their old buddy for some help.”

Quinn nodded.

Wilson patted Quinn’s back as they left. “Dating your sister,” he said. “That’s the funniest thing I heard in a long time.”

Quinn held the door for them both.

Caddy called Jean and told her and Jason to go on and eat Mexican without her. She hadn’t had a bite of the food at The River, making sure everyone else got what they needed, and now she’d spent the last hour trying to find Jamey. After the chairs and PA equipment had been broken down, Uncle Van said Jamey had run back into Jericho for supplies. On Sunday most everything closed up, and that pretty much meant he’d gone to the Dollar Store or the Piggly Wiggly. Ten minutes later, she spotted his truck parked in the nearly empty lot of the Pig and wheeled in, finding him in the frozen food section, reaching for a couple pizzas. His cart was already loaded down with Mountain Dew and Pepsi, Jamey saying how much he’d missed that stuff when he was inside. Pepsi, cigarettes, bacon, and sex pretty much topped his list.

“We still cooking out?” Jamey said. “I hear it might storm.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You said you’re having lunch at the El Dorado,” he said. “Aren’t you full yet?”

“I didn’t get to eat all day.”

Jamey placed the pizzas in the cart and rolled toward the back of the store and the meat section, marked by that antique scrawl across fake red brick that hadn’t changed her whole life. Buckled linoleum and weak fluorescent light. Jamey spoke to a few folks, a couple asking how the service went. Jamey smiled and made a comment about how they should see for themselves. When they got to the breakfast meats, she leaned in and said, “That man Esau is looking for you.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Jamey said. “I got it.”

“Hell, you do,” Caddy said. “The son of a bitch popped out of my closet. He wrestled me down to the bed.”

Jamey’s face blanched. He shook his head and said, “When?”

“He didn’t do nothin’,” Caddy said. “He said he didn’t give a shit about anything but the money. What the hell is he talking about? I could have had Jason with me. He just breaks into my house and steals my shotgun. He looked mad enough to explode.”

“When was this?”

“Just an hour ago,” Caddy said. “Aren’t you listening? I’m worried he’s going to try and kill you.”

“He won’t do that.”

“How’s that?”

“’Cause he needs me to tell him about what happened to all his dirty money.”

A very fat woman on a Rascal motor scooter parked herself right in front of the country ham. She had black bouffant hair and oversized glasses with rose lenses. “Would one of y’all reach up for the Jimmy Dean?”

Caddy reached up and tossed the sausage hard enough into her cart that the woman’s neck snapped. She shook her head and motored off.

“Fuck Jimmy Dean,” Caddy said.

“I got it.” Jamey leaned into the grocery cart and pushed it forward, moving the back way from the way a person is supposed to shop. He’d started in the damn middle of the grocery, and now he was headed back to the produce and milk. Any sane person knew that you started with the damn produce and hit the bread aisle last. Just common sense.

“Jason could have been with me.”

Jamey nodded. They were alone by the cereal, rows and rows of Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs and assorted shit that could rot your teeth. She’d always told Jason that kind of stuff would leave you toothless and crazy.

“He won’t come back.”

“What are you gonna do?” Caddy said. “Shoot him? Did you forget the part about he took my daddy’s shotgun?”

“Those men shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You hear about the breakout at Parchman?”

Caddy nodded.

“That’s them.”

“I want to know what they’re looking for,” Caddy said. “If some redheaded ape popped out of your closet while you were changing your panties, I think you’d like to know, too.”

Jamey shook his head.

“What did you steal?”

“Nothing,” he said. “They stole it. Esau just told me where to find it.”

“How much?”

“A ton.”

“Where’d you put it?”

Jamey shook his head.

“Damn you,” Caddy said, grabbing onto his arm and looking up into his face. He was smiling at her getting so mad, rubbing his hand on her back.

“Calm down. I called the Marshals. They’ll find them. We don’t have to worry about that mess. We got bigger things. They’re not in the plan.”

“Talk to Quinn.”

“No way.”

“You won’t talk to him,” she said, “then I will. Where is that money they stole?”

“I gave it away.”

“You gave it away?” Caddy said, confused as hell. “You mean to start the church?”

“Not exactly.”

“Damn you, Jamey.” Caddy gripped his arm tighter.

He swallowed and started rolling that old cart again in the exact opposite direction he should be traveling. “Don’t you know how to shop?” she said.

He placed a hand over hers. He smiled, and she steadied her breath. “Don’t tell Quinn,” he said. “Let me handle it.”

“Where’d you put those men’s money?” she said. “’Cause if it comes down to me and Jason being safe, I promise you I’ll tell.”

“Tell ’em,” he said. “I’m free of it. You can tell them the same thing I will. All their money is with Johnny Stagg.”

Caddy took a breath. She started to speak. She looked at Jamey and gripped him tighter, turning the cart in the proper way toward the bread.

“Stagg has their money,” Jamey said.

She let go of his arm. “Now, that’s a twist.”

“Isn’t that how the world goes round in Jericho?” he asked. “Or have you forgotten?”

“How about we start at the beginning of this story?”

•   •   •

They got
fucked up in the rain.

Bones had got into the beer and Becky got into the tequila. And Esau hadn’t been back fifteen minutes before he said what the hell and joined them at the hunting lodge pool. He was lying flat on his back on a float, Becky resting her head and arms by his side. He was sipping a cold one, watching with interest an endless stretch of flat-ass black clouds rolling in from the west. He sipped some Coors, trying to rest until the show started, thinking on how things had not at all gone the way they had intended.

“I still don’t know why you had to go and shoot Dickie,” Becky said, kind of dreamily, studying more on it than cussing him.

“Did you like Dickie?” Esau said.

“Not especially.”

“Then why the hell do you care if I shot him?” he said. “I never intended for him to come here with us. You’re the one who brought him here.”

“You didn’t have to kill him,” she said, kicking a little bit with her feet in the water.

There was thunder. Esau didn’t see no lightning. He sipped his beer and thought some more about Florida.

“You think he would have gone nice?” Esau said. “Without making so much noise that we got caught?”

“People know we’re here,” she said. “You left a waterlogged Wells Fargo truck out by a pond with some dead men inside.”

Esau took a sip of beer. Hell, she had him on that.

Bones was blowing through the beer, taking all the hunt lodge’s owner’s guns from the rack and playing with them a bit on an umbrella-topped table. Bones was always thinking about making money. Didn’t matter they’d need to get gone within a few hours, Bones was thinking on what he could take with him.

“Nice house,” Becky said. She kicked her feet a little bit.

Sometime in the morning she’d traded out the red bikini for a camo one.

“We can’t stay,” Esau said.

“Maybe we could come back?”

“I’m never coming back to Mississippi for the rest of my life,” Esau said.

“Don’t say things like that.”

“You want to stay in Coldwater?” Esau said, crushing the beer can and launching it into the deep end. “You go right ahead. I’ll call you from the beach sometime.”

“I still say Mexico or Jamaica.”

“Jamaica ain’t nothin’ but blacks,” Esau said.

“Bones is black.”

“Bones ain’t just some black,” he said. “Bones and me got a history.”

“So, where is this place?” she said. “What’s it called again?”

“Indian Rocks Beach,” Esau said. “I got a buddy of mine runs a trailer park down there. He said he can get us some jobs tending bar or renting out boats. We live down there making some money, not drawing too much interest but the whole time having money for whatever we need. I want some sand. Florida is sand. Mississippi ain’t nothing but mud.”

“What about Bones?”

“He’s coming, too.”

“What if we can’t get the money?”

“That’s not an option.”

“Shit,” Becky said, sliding up onto the raft, nearly toppling them both. Esau grabbed her and pulled her up by his side. “Didn’t you just say we got a place to live and jobs? Why don’t we just take that? Longer we stay here, the easier it’s going to be to find you boys.”

Now there was lightning. That forever black cloud blocking out the sun, pine trees shaking in that warning wind. There was electricity in the warm air.