Black Light

27

He watched as the old man finally turned the light off and then, forty-five seconds later, emerged from the office, still in his wife’s bathrobe, climbed into the Cadillac and drove off with a shaky squeal of brakes and too much acceleration.

Duane checked his watch. It was 11:45. He decided to give it another fifteen minutes, but only lasted seven before he started to drift off. He knew he was dangerously exhausted. So he got out of the car, walked down the street with his flashlight, throwing beams into crannies just as if he were on patrol investigating a prowler or something, then boldly pushed the door. Naturally, the old man had left it open. He stepped in and followed the flashlight beam up the stairs to the office. Dammit, that door was locked.

He reached into his wallet and fumbled with a plastic credit card. Like many policemen, he was skilled at some small criminal crafts that he’d picked up over the years, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds’ manipulation of the card and the doorknob before he popped the lock and stepped into the outer office. He strode quickly through it and into the old man’s lair. The odor of pipe smoke still lingered sweetly in the air.

He went quickly to the safe behind the desk and pulled it gently; sometimes a man will snap his vault closed and not spin the dial and therefore not set the lock. But no, crazy old geezer that he was, old Sam had spun the dial and the lock was solid and beyond Duane’s abilities to penetrate. So instead he went to the windows and pulled the shades. Then he turned on the lights.

The place was a mess! The old bastard seemed to be on some mission of self-destruction: he was systematically trashing everything he owned or held dear. Papers were strewn about everywhere, one of the file cabinet drawers had been dumped on the old carpet.

Duane sat at the desk, littered with old files and reports. He paged through them. Hmmmm. Most seemed to have to do with 1955. There was a letter from some woman, which he slipped into his pocket. He shifted papers about and came across a report on a pretrial hearing, dating from July 29, 1955, for the case of Reggie Gerard Fuller on a count of first-degree murder. Hmmmm. What the hell was this all about? It probably had to do with the niggers the old man had been visiting. Why was he visiting niggers? What was he up to? Did it have anything to do with Swagger?

He noticed a legal pad. It wasn’t written on, but someone had just torn the top page off of it, and the heavy inscription of a pen had been embossed in the texture of the paper beneath. He held it up to the light, shifting it, trying to find angles on it. Words, in old gnarled writing, began to emerge: Moved body? Little Georgia? Strangled?

Hmmmmm again.

He felt a smug little blast of triumph. Wouldn’t Mr. Bama be pleased?

He heard a clatter of noise, the swift thump of feet and the door blew open.

“What the goddamn hell are you doing?” said Sam Vincent.

The old man drove home heavily agitated. His imagination foundered against one significant problem. Who on earth in 1955 in West Arkansas would have considered it worthwhile to engineer a great conspiracy to place the blame for the death of a young girl on an innocent black boy? What would be the point?

He could see no point. But he tried to break it down into parts and see how it fit together. And he kept coming back to one thing: someone didn’t want anybody to know that Shirelle was killed at Little Georgia. Little Georgia was the key.

The significance of moving the body had to be that there was evidence, somewhere, somehow, that linked the killer to Little Georgia.

If someone had found the body at Little Georgia, then by God, there was some obvious, physical link to Little Georgia which would have led inexorably to the killer. What could that have been? What would have placed someone at Little Georgia?

He tried to think what he could do to dig up the connection, what it could be. There had to be a document, or at least something prominent in the memory of someone easily accessible at the time.

Maybe a land-use permit.

Maybe a site examination, as from an engineer or an architectural firm.

Maybe a bill of sale.

He tried to consider all the documents that could relate to a piece of land or a section of the county.

Suddenly, he screeched to a halt.

Panic hit him.

Suppose he forgot this? Suppose it had vanished in the morning in that great black fog that rolled in across his mind so frequently? Home was still ten minutes ahead. The office was only five back.

He cranked into a U-turn, bumping up on a curb and crushing what had to be someone’s bushes, and with a blast of acceleration headed back.

“What the goddamn hell are you doing here?” demanded the old man. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Ah—Mr. Sam, it’s Duane Peck, the deputy. I, uh, seen your lights on. I came up. Hell, you left the door wide open and the lights blazing. I’se just checking to make sure nothing was missing or that there weren’t no prowlers.”

The old man didn’t blink or back down; he didn’t retreat into confusion.

“The hell you say! I did no such goddamned thing. I turned my goddamned lights off and locked my office. What are you doing here, sitting at my goddamned desk like you own the place?”

Pugnaciously, he advanced. His shrewd old eyes ate Duane up. He saw that Duane was holding the tablet in his hand.

“What the hell are you doing with that?”

“Nothing,” Duane said.

“You were snooping! You were spying! You damned spy, what the hell are you doing?”

Then his eyes knitted up into something tight and knowing.

“Who you working for? You working for them, ain’t you, you no-’count piece of white trash.”

“Sir, I ain’t working for nobody,” Duane said, rising awkwardly. Still the man advanced on him.

“You ain’t working for the sheriff. No sir, I know the sheriff, and you ain’t working for him. Who are you working for? You tell me, you trashy dog, or by God I will beat it out of your scrawny hide and hang you out to dry in the morning.”

“Sir, I ain’t working for nobody,” Duane said, alarmed at the old man’s fiery temper.

“Well, goddammit, you better believe we’ll find out about that. Yes sir, we will get to the bottom of that.”

He pivoted slightly to pick up the phone. He dialed 911.

Duane watched him, stupefied. It was happening so quick. He tried to think what to do. His mind was blank, a vapid, empty hole.

Would they make him tell about Mr. Bama? What about the money he owed, would he still owe it to Mr. Bama? What about his new job, and how well he was doing on it? What about working for Mr. Bama personally?

The flashlight rose in his hand, almost as if on its own will, and Duane brought it down with a thunderous thud on the back of the old man’s neck. He felt the shiver of blunt instrument striking meat and bone and in the impact thought he heard or felt the sensation of something brittle breaking.

“Sheriff’s Department,” came the voice over the phone.

The old man stiffened, reached back for his wound and turned, his face black and lost, his eyes pools of emptiness. Duane smashed him again, this time where the neck met the shoulder, a powerful downward diagonal blow that made the head twitch spastically. The phone fell free and banged on the floor and the old man took a stricken step backwards, face gray, old tongue working pitifully in an old mouth, then toppled to the earth as his eyes rolled upward.

“Sheriff’s Department? Anybody there?” Duane recognized the voice as Debbie Till’s, the night-duty dispatcher.

He hung it up.

He was breathing hard. His knees felt weak. The old man lay still, but was still breathing.

Duane tried to figure what to do next. He could just leave, and they’d find him here and ascribe it to a prowler. But then there’d be an investigation. Suppose someone had seen his car parked outside?

Then he had it.

He wiped the phone off with his handkerchief, in case he’d left prints. Then he quickly turned off the lights, pausing to rub the switches with the handkerchief. He stuffed the tablet with the engraved words into his shirt. Then he hoisted Sam under his arms, feeling the old man’s lightness and brittleness. The old man stirred weakly, then went limp. Duane hefted him, because he knew if he dragged him, he’d leave a trail in the dust, and got him to the head of the stairs. He paused for just a second.

This is what Mr. Bama wants, he told himself.

He took a deep breath, gathered his strength and then launched the old man into the air. Sam hit on the fourth step, shattering his teeth, and rolled, legs and arms flopping, down the stairwell, gathering speed and violence as he went, until he smashed to a halt on the downstairs door-jamb.

Duane breathed heavily.

He went back to the office, pulled the door shut and heard it click. He wiped his prints off the knob.

Then he went down the stairs, stepping over the body.