‘And who might those folks be?’ said Griffin.
Ward gave him a few names, but reluctantly. This was a small town, and just as nobody wanted the police knocking on the door asking about murders, so too did no one wish to point a finger at others. It was a surefire way to have one’s tires slashed, or worse. But none of the men identified by Ward struck Griffin as the murderous type, or at least not the kind to kill a young woman. He could see a couple of them falling back on a gun or their fists owing to an inherently hostile disposition and a paucity of patience and common sense, but not engaging in this level of sadism and defilement.
‘If I was you, Tilon,’ said Griffin, ‘I’d stay out of the woods for a while.’
Ward did not appear particularly enamored of this suggestion. Griffin figured the meth wasn’t going to make itself, and the meth addict customer base was not noted for its loyalty. Also, while Ward might have been involved in the cook, Griffin didn’t have him pegged as the guiding force behind the operation, although he had his theories about that as well.
‘What about my traps?’ said Ward.
‘You catch a coon in one of them, it’s not going anywhere.’
Griffin knew that Ward, like most of those in the county who hunted raccoons, used live traps rather than foot ones, if only to stop the animals gnawing off a limb to escape. The raccoons might lose some weight before Ward came to kill them, but that was about the worst he could anticipate, assuming any of this was about traps to begin with.
‘I’ll take it under advisement,’ said Ward.
‘Do you even know what that means?’
‘It means I don’t plan to stay out of the woods. It’s a free country.’
‘It hasn’t been a free country since the Mayflower landed, and this particular expanse of it is about to get a whole lot less free.’
Ward lit another cigarette from the butt of the first. He almost threw away the dead soldier before spotting the look on Griffin’s face, and instead stored it in one of his pockets once he’d snuffed out the last of the burning tobacco. Griffin was immediately reminded of Kevin Naylor, who had performed the same action the night before, and under similar pressure. It sometimes felt to Griffin that he was destined to spend much of his life attempting to inculcate better habits of behavior in the young.
‘Less free because of … her?’ said Ward.
Griffin picked up on the pause, but didn’t ascribe any significance to it.
‘Among other reasons.’
‘It won’t matter, not if Jurel Cade has his way.’
‘You see Jurel here?’ said Griffin.
‘Not yet, but I will if I stick around long enough.’
‘Then you’d best be about your business, unless you have an urge to discuss your activities with him.’
Ward didn’t. The only reason the forces of law and order in Burdon County hadn’t moved en masse into the Ouachita to investigate reports of meth production was because there were too many trees and not enough police, but that situation remained fluid, and change was coming.
Ward jangled the keys to his truck as a prelude to departing, and Griffin said, ‘Tilon.’
‘Yes?’
‘I appreciate your making the call to us first.’
Ward glanced over at the body.
‘You ought to have a woman officer out here,’ he said. ‘It’s wrong to leave her like that, surrounded only by men.’
‘You’re right, but we can’t do anything until the scene has been photographed. We’ll cover her up soon as we can, and Lorrie Colson will be back before long.’
Ward nodded.
‘I guess I’ll be hearing from Jurel about all this,’ he said, ‘whether I stay around or not.’
‘Most likely.’
‘Better be worth the vexation.’
He got in his truck and drove toward town, leaving Griffin to reflect on the strange forms that goodness and morality sometimes assumed. He’d do his best to remember this moment, and another from the past, when the time came to take down Tilon Ward.
A white 1981 Pontiac Phoenix SJ coupe rattled down the road toward Griffin, slowing as it came. Loyd Holt, the coroner, might not have been the only man in Arkansas still driving the ’81 Phoenix, but he was certainly the only one to give every impression of continuing to enjoy the experience. He had added blue racing stripes to his vehicle, and whitewall tires, which was like putting lipstick on a pig – a pig, that is, with an eighty-four horsepower engine. Griffin could almost have understood someone holding on to the ’82 Phoenix, which could outaccelerate a Trans Am in its day, but not the ’81. Even relative poverty didn’t excuse it, and it was even more unbecoming as a mode of transportation for a coroner.
Holt brought the Phoenix to a halt, which took some time. He’d probably learned many years before not to slam on the brakes, as this caused the rear wheels to lock. Even if he’d had the problem seen to, Griffin thought, the memory of the experience would undoubtedly have remained with him.
Holt was a small, rotund man in his forties, his avoirdupois being a product of his insomnia, which caused him to eat at odd times of the day and night, and made him unsuited to most forms of physical exercise. He was single, and had never been married, although it was not for want of asking. Griffin doubted that there existed a single, divorced, or widowed woman in Burdon County between the ages of twenty-five and fifty who had not, at some point, found herself the object of Loyd Holt’s attentions, but he was never unpleasant or untoward, and moved on once it became clear that his feelings were unlikely to be reciprocated. He was just lonely, with a hint of desperation to him. Someday he might find a fellow insomniac to keep him company, and his life would be happier as a consequence. He was an unlikely occupant of the highest-ranking law enforcement position in the county, even if only nominally, but thus had the Arkansas constitution been framed.
‘Where’s the body?’ Holt asked, once he’d emerged from the Phoenix.
‘Over by that dwarf sumac.’
Griffin led the way to the scene, Kel Knight watching. Holt knew only that a body had been discovered, but he had not been informed of the precise nature of that discovery. As he looked down at the dead girl, a weight appeared to descend on him.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Has Jurel been informed?’
‘He will be,’ Griffin replied, ‘just not right now. Tucker’s on his way. Once he’s documented everything, I’ll make the call. Are we clear, Loyd? I’ll make the call.’
The implication was beyond misunderstanding: if Holt went running behind Griffin’s back to Jurel Cade, Griffin would do his utmost to ensure that Holt’s already problematic existence descended into outright misery.
‘He’s not going to like it.’
‘Frankly, Loyd,’ said Griffin, ‘I couldn’t give a damn what Jurel likes or doesn’t like.’
But even as he spoke, he heard his own bluster, and Holt heard it too.
‘It’s on your head,’ he said.
‘If these girls keep dying, it’ll be on all our heads,’ said Griffin. ‘And Jurel’s will roll just as easy as yours or mine.’
12
The woman named Billie hadn’t introduced herself to Parker, but he’d heard the younger officer, Naylor, use her name before he left. She appeared at the bars with a cup of coffee shortly after 6.30 a.m., and placed it on the floor for him to take, being careful to instruct him to remain where he was until she’d stepped away. He wondered if someone had tried to throw hot coffee on her in the past. If so, it wouldn’t have ended well for the prisoner involved, given that Billie was built on substantial foundations and wore a holstered gun on her belt. It behooved a man to mind his manners in such company.