Chapter Ten: Killing Time
Shadows were lengthening through the tangle of undergrowth along the creek. Dragonflies skimmed across the water's surface, birds called to each other. Peaceful. Ronnie had been fidgeting ever since they had taken up position. He glanced at Boyd, shifted again.
'Don't know how you can be so calm,' he said.
'Something I learned a long time ago, Ronnie: always be cool.'
Ronnie smiled, scratched the back of his neck. 'I don't think I've ever been cool. Always wanted to be.' His head tilted, considering. 'I always had a notion I'd like to be like that actor, Steve McQueen. You know him?'
'I do.'
'Great actor. And he was real cool, weren't he?'
Boyd nodded, eyes watchful.
'Yeah, I'd have liked to have been cool like that, but I guess now it's too late.'
'Well, Ronnie, if the sentiment brings you any consolation, I think you're pretty cool.'
Ronnie grinned, pleased.
They settled again and Boyd concentrated on the sounds, waiting for the noise of an engine. It came, a whine pitched high over the birdsong, slowly deepening as it came closer. Headlights pushed through the encroaching gloom. A dark truck with insignia. Boyd felt Ronnie move beside him, the breathing a little laboured.
'Ronnie,' he said soft.
'I'm good. I'm cool.'
Boyd smiled. 'Well, you stay that way.'
In the clearing above the creek, Lowell had parked up, stood looking around, eyes dark and suspicious. There was a tension running along his body. He wasn't alone for long - another car came along the path, stopping a little way off and Cody eased out slow. The two men regarded each other.
'Where's Garrett?'
Cody held his arms folded, feet planted. 'I sent him to take care of some other business.'
ooOoo
Garrett Jenkins had spent most of his life following his brother's lead and very little of it thinking about much of anything. None of that had ever really mattered. When he pulled up in front of the Lefferts' farm he still didn't think much beyond what Cody had told him to do: he approached the house, not trying to hide, but he stopped when he saw that the windows were all dark, not even the porch-light lit. It was getting on for evening. Wait until it's quiet, Cody had told him, but is was quiet already. He stood for a long moment, took a few hesitant steps and then noticed a light. Not from the house, this was from the little building where Bobby Deakins used to put up.
He walked towards that, slow. The door was standing open. Garrett pushed it wider, slid in and looked around. The room was empty, so was the bedroom and the bathroom. He pushed back the shower-curtain to make sure.
He didn't think much but he thought enough to feel uncertain. He thought, more long moments, about leaving but he imagined Cody's face when he told him and Lowell Buscombe's.
Garrett walked back to the main house, mounted the steps to the kitchen door and tried it. Locked. Easy to force it, though. He let himself into the kitchen, took a moment to look around. His breathing sounded loud in that quiet space. Trucks were still outside and the house next door was lit up but it was so silent in here. He pulled out his gun, found the weight of it a comfort, held it high, pointing up, started down the hallway and something hit him, hard, from behind.
He sprawled on the ground, white pain exploding across the base of his skull and something pushed into the small of his back.
'Get his gun.' A woman's voice, not Arlene Lefferts', he was sure of that. A foot pressed down on his wrist and his fingers jerked reflexively, the gun pulled away.
'Better check he don't have another.' He was patted down, hands that moved roughly.
'I don't feel one.'
The thing at his back jabbed down. 'You got another piece? And don't you lie to me.'
He grunted, mouth feeling thick and his head pounding.
'Okay. You get up, real slow and keep your hands out.'
He stood, staggered, righted himself; he turned and found the blonde that Cody had taken a shine to in the bar standing with a sawed-off pointed at his chest and her hands were steady. Arlene Lefferts stood by her, also with a shotgun and her face just as determined and set.
'What the hell you going to do with that?'
The blonde smiled, a strange flicker across her face as though thinking of something; whatever she had been about to say she pushed down and said, 'I could shoot you. You busting in here, armed, with just two women and a kid? We could put a bullet in you and there ain't no jury would say we'd done anything wrong.'
Bravado, he lifted his chin. 'You ain't gonna shoot me. Crazy bitch.'
She racked the gun and he cowered, flinching against the sound.
'That's mighty big talk for someone with a shotgun pointed at his chest. Either you're more stupid than you look or you think I ain't serious. I know how easy it is to kill a man and I ain't got no qualms when it comes to you, make no mistake.' She gestured with the barrel of the gun and her eyes, blazing fierce, stayed on his face. 'Get down the hall. And if you try even the littlest thing you'll be shaking hands with your maker. Or the devil. Guess you know which I've got my money on.'
He moved slowly into the kitchen, sat in the chair that they pointed him to, then Arlene taped his hands. They stood over him and he saw the boy, Lee, somewhere in the background.
Pitiable, and pitiful - had he known those words - but he sat in the hard-backed chair and watched the two women.
'So,' the blonde said,'what was the play?'
He was silent and she raised her eyebrows and the gun in her hands moved a fraction and he swallowed hard, kept his eyes on it.
'I was supposed to get you, while your boyfriend's up at the creek. Where's he at, anyhow?'
She shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching. 'You guys are all the same and you all think your dumbass ideas are so smart.' Her fingers tightened. 'Boyd's up at the creek, just as planned. We're waiting on a call. So. We can all wait together.'
ooOoo
They followed Cody and Lowell a little down the track, down to where it opened up just before the branches of the trees lining the bank swung low again and the stench of decay rose up.
'I guess you boys have gone about far enough.' Boyd stepped out onto the path, hands in his pockets and he faced them down. They were close to where the body lay but apart from each other, space between that spoke of confederates who long held one another's trust but no longer. They both turned, bodies crouching low and he saw Lowell's hand going for his gun but Boyd's was already drawn and raised. 'I wouldn't do that, Lowell. I've been shot by a man who can draw down faster than you can blink and I'd be willing to bet my life on you not being even half as fast as he is, but even so you will have to admit that in this case I have the draw on you. If you go for me, I will shoot you. The same goes for your boy here.'
'I ain't his boy!' Cody stood, chin pointing up. Lowell glared at him.
'I had assumed that, following our conversation.'
'You spoke to him?' Lowell's glare had turned black.
'Oh, I spoke to him,' Boyd said, smooth. 'We had quite a conversation and he told me all about Bobby Deakins and the chemical company and how much they were paying you.'
Cody started. 'Shit, they were paying you?'
'You Goddamn moron!' Lowell turned from Cody, peered over Boyd's shoulder. 'Ronnie? You going along with this?'
'Whatever goes down here is on you. You killed my boy, Lowell. Maybe you didn't shoot him like you did poor Bobby down there, but you still killed him. I watched him die and it was slow and no-one should have to watch their child die that way. Not any way. This is on you, and Cody over there, and you're both going to take what's coming.'
'You listen-'
'That weren't nothing to-'
Both men spoke at once, both taking a step forward, and both stopping when Boyd raised his voice.
'Now, I should give you two fair warning - this here stretch of land has been laid with charges. I'm guessing that there ain't too many people in Hunter's Creek who don't know that I have been employed by the Lefferts to do some blasting for them and this is part of their land. It's up to them where they attempt to cultivate and the fertile soil beside a creek should be as good as any. Only thing is, the detonator is not at this present time in my possession. If you gentlemen would care to notice that little box that's lying on the rock over yonder, well that would be it. And from the way that you have arranged yourselves, well, one of you is standing right on top of those charges. I have seen the remains of a man after such a blast and I can testify that it is not a death that any man would want but sometimes a desperate man may resort to such means.'
'You threatening a Sheriff's Deputy, Crowder? Should be good for a stretch,' Lowell called out.
'I have made no threats,' Boyd said, still calm. 'I have merely informed you of the work that has been done on this land - the land that you had accepted payment for to poison and ruin and that you killed at least one man for. Did he pay you, Cody? Or did he tell you that Bobby Deakins was a threat to all of the pettiness that I have no doubt that you and your brother have charge of down these parts?'
'He didn't pay us shit,' Cody said, teeth baring.
'Hide the body,' Lowell said, voice rough, 'that's all you had to do, hide the Goddamn body!'
'And I did, Lowell, but I figured you was going to screw us over one way or another and I was right! 'Cos you're doing it right now!'
'You fucking- Cody! Shit, boy, you stay where you are!'
He went for his gun, a shot ringing out, fire against the dark, and there was the dull sickening thud as the bullet struck. Cody yelled and flung himself forward, still moving faster than Lowell and his hand closed over the detonator and there was a second of silence and then flame tore through the sky.
ooOoo
They heard the blast, muted, even in the house. Ava turned her head to the window, imagined fire on the skyline.
'Fire in the hole,' she murmured.
The sawed-off in the crook of one arm, she pulled her cellphone out with her free hand, stared at the screen, willing it. 'Come on,' below her breath, 'come on...'
The tone rang, sharp, and she pressed the button before the first of it had died away. 'Boyd?' Her body sagged, eyes closing for a second and then she righted herself. 'Yes, he's here, we got him taped up ... We're fine ... Of course I'm sure ... Uh-huh ... Uh-huh ... Okay ... I'll see you when you get back, then. And we'll talk.'
Ava put the phone back in her pocket. 'Your brother just killed the Deputy Sheriff,' she told Garrett, 'and he's got himself shot up pretty bad, they ain't sure if he'll make it before the ambulance gets there. See, we got police on the way - the real police, not your corrupt as shit sheriff. And what with him dead and your brother on his way out and them up there with a dead body and the sheriff having his wallet and all... Well, it don't look too good. And then there's you, breaking in here, and you're pretty much all that's left.' She leaned her hip against the kitchen counter, shook the hair away from her shoulders and kept her eyes and her gun trained on Garrett. 'We know you killed Bobby Deakins.'
'That wasn't us. That was Lowell, he shot him! He's the one killed that boy, we just hid the body.'
'And you did a real good job.' Ava observed him, remote, dispassionate. 'I ain't up on all that with the law, but there's this thing called felony murder. If you knew about a crime and someone dies during it, it don't matter if you didn't kill them yourself but you still go to jail just the same. And if dumping all that shit in the creeks was legal, I don't think you'd be killing people to cover it up.'
'I don't know nothing about that. And I didn't kill no-one!' His slack face was sweaty, white, his lips coated with saliva and dripping. He strained against the tape binding his wrists and ankles to the chair. 'I never killed no-one... It wasn't supposed to be this way!'
He started to cry, his face a mess of tears and mucus and flaccid muscle.
Ava lowered the gun. 'Well. I don't know if they've got the death penalty here but maybe if you tell the D.A. what he wants to hear about the dumping and the murder and the sheriff, then maybe you won't die in prison - one way or the other.'
His head lowered, and he sobbed.