Buried Alive (26 page)

“Try,” I said.

“I always needed to be rich,” Prince said, almost like an apology. “It took time, but now I am. It feels good and makes me happy. But I think, what if God opened the clouds when I was poor and said, ‘Mickey, I hate to tell you this, but no matter what you do, you’re always gonna be poor as dirt.’” Prince raised his eyes to me. “That’s the feeling I got from Bobby. Does that make any sense?”

“Like Bobby Lee Crayline knew something was to be forever denied him?” I said.

“Yeah. Exactly. Just like that.”

Cherry aimed the big cruiser back toward Woslee County. We didn’t know the Whys of the murders, but we were steadily discovering the Who of Bobby Lee Crayline. I pulled my ballcap down over my eyes, leaned back, and tried to dope-out what had been denied Bobby Lee, getting nowhere. Around Lexington Cherry broke my haze with a question.

“The kidnapping - how did Crayline get found out?”

“Pure luck,” I yawned. “A surveying firm was determining the best route for a gas pipeline. One of the
workers needed permission to survey a corner of the farm Crayline was renting. The worker ignored about a dozen
No Trespassing
signs, and walked the long drive to the house and barn. He was about to walk into sight when he saw Bobby Lee, buck naked except for a jockstrap, step into the barn. He watched Crayline pull some boards off a hole in the dirt floor and start yelling into it. The surveyor scooted and told his tale to the law. Why?”

“I was just thinking … Crayline was going to kill the guy he kidnapped. Was it revenge for beating him up in front of an audience, you think?”

“I think Crayline always needed to win, no matter what Prince said. Bobby Lee’s driven to come out on top.”

“So why didn’t Crayline finish up where he left off? With the guy he left off on?”

I pulled my cellphone, rang the number for X-Ventures. Got through to Prince. He started with, “Please tell me you figured out I had nothing to do with Bobby Lee’s escape or anything else.”

I said, “You’re dealing straight, Mick. But we got to thinking, what if Crayline wanted to pick up where he left off. With the Stone guy.”

“Too late. Jessie Stone’s somewhere in Ireland. He booked after Bobby Lee busted out. Maybe now he can come home.”

I thanked Prince and rang off. Cherry shot me the questioning eye. I said, “It seems Jessie Stone retreated to the Emerald Isle to avoid seeing Bobby Lee again.”

“Probably the smartest thing the guy ever did,” Cherry said.

We crossed the Woslee County line at seven thirty p.m., putting at our backs a company that created fighting humans in much the way that Bobby Lee Crayline’s uncle bred fighting dogs, though Prince did it with his fighters’ consent and without deprivation and cruelty. There was a ready market for bloody combat, though the dog-and child-fights were hidden away in backcountry arenas while those who satisfied their bloodlust on national pay television made millions of dollars.

But at base, they seemed to me the same.

Cherry had been thinking along the same lines. “Prince reckoned people paid fifty bucks to watch two guys knock each other senseless in a cage,” she said. “Did I hear that right?”

I nodded.

“And Crayline was an even bigger draw after knocking a guy dead in the ring?”

“Sure enough.”

Cherry thought a long time. Shot me a glance. “You ever read any early human history, Ryder?”

“Some.”

“Ever come across the theory about two main proto-human tribes way back there? One was cruder and less evolved, the other smarter and more advanced? And how the advanced tribe conquered the lesser beings, then went on to become who we are today?”

“I recall the theory,” I said.

“You ever think maybe the other tribe won?”

We stopped by my place and I got the same answer on Mix-up.

“He’s probably dead,” I said. “Or taken by someone.”

“He’s a big dog, Carson,” Cherry said, patting my back. “On size alone he probably scares the coyotes. And, uh, he’s not the sort of adorably cute critter people want to snatch up. He’s out there and he’ll come back.”

I nodded, thankful for Cherry’s optimism, but not convinced. We returned to her place. “I’m going over the lives of Burton, Tanner and Powers with a fine-tooth comb,” she said. “Find out what they could possibly have had in common with Crayline, where paths crossed … It’s a nightmare.”

“It’s tough,” I sympathized, yawning. “But basic detective shoe leather. I usually start with interviewing neighbors, move on to—”

Cherry interrupted me by taking my hand. She led me outside, pointing to the west. “What do you see?”

I smiled, unsure of what was happening. “Uh, mountains, more mountains. Trees, valleys.”

“And all around us? East, North, South?”

“More of the same.”

“Woslee County is almost three hundred square miles of area, Carson. With a population under six thousand people. The biggest town is Campton, four hundred people strong. The tallest building is three stories. There’s two small apartment complexes, a few trailer courts. Most everyone else is scattered over the remaining three hundred square miles. People come and go as they please, no eyes around to see. Except for a few nosy-parkers, no one keeps tabs on anyone else.”

“Ah,” I said, getting her drift. “Not a lot of neighbors to interview.”

“It’s hard for urban folks to have secret lives; they’re surrounded by casual onlookers, curious eyes, surveillance cameras. They might have a hundred neighbors in a single apartment wing. In country as sparse as this, secret lives are a lot easier. Bobby Lee Crayline could have dated Tandee Powers for all I know. Or played poker at Sonny Burton’s house three nights a week. The thing is, no one would ever know. I can’t get that through Krenkler’s head.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize.”

She kissed my cheek. “You’re forgiven. But only because you’re cute. I’ve got to take the sparse input on
the vics and squeeze it like a stone, see if I can get out that little extra juice that turns the case. All in between Krenkler’s running me ragged.”

I went to the porch swing and sat, doing my part to revisit the cases. In my head I listened to people we’d interviewed, re-walked the murder scenes. Ten minutes later I was replaying my tag-along to Berlea Coggins’s house and the input from the Tongue.

“I want to visit Mr Tongue again,” I said.

“Miz Coggins’s daddy? I thought he bounced off Powers a few times and that was that.”

“I remember him saying he gave her up because she got too nasty for him. I thought he meant her lesbian tendencies. In retrospect, I’m thinking it would take more than that to be nasty to Coggins.”

“You think you can get the old letch to open up?”

“Reply hazy, ask again later. I’ll need to be alone with him.”

Cherry checked her watch, “Berlea’s been trying to get me to lunch or supper for eons. I know she wants to give me a good proselytizing. Maybe there’s still time tonight. That’s all you need … me to get her gone for a while?”

“I need pornography,” I said, building my plan on the fly. “Lots of porn.”

She shook her head. “You mean like movies? Pardon me if I’m naïve, but it’s not exactly my field of interest.”

“Movies. Magazines. Anything and everything. Magazines for sure. I need to flash them.”

“You mean
Penthouse, Hustler,
that kind of thing?”

“I need the ugly stuff. The kind of thing you can smell from across the room.”

“Jeez, Ryder, you’re making my stomach turn.”

I clapped my hands. “That’s exactly what I need. Got access to any?”

She tapped her chin with a delicate digit. “No local place would carry it, the church types would reach critical mass. I’ve found plenty porn in busts. Seems preferred reading at meth labs and among dope dealers. I carry the crap to the garbage bin with tongs, pitch it out. There’s an X-rated bookstore on Interstate 75, about an hour away. Or you can get it in Lexington.”

“No time. Not if we want to try today.”

I saw a light dawn in Donna Cherry’s eyes. She dialed her cellphone. “Hang tight, Ryder. If there’s any sleazy, greasy porno around, I know where it’s at.”

Cherry had planned to re-stock her fridge tonight until waylaid by new plans, so she ran off to do that while I scratched through the notes for the hundredth time. A half-hour later I heard a vehicle outside, opened the door. It was Caudill, carrying a paper shopping bag.

“Special delivery,” he said, looking embarrassed.

“What do you have for me, Judd?” I asked, rubbing my hands together.

Caudill pulled a six-inch stack of magazines from the bag, followed by a dozen DVD cases. “Sheriff Beale keeps a big batch of the porno we turn up. He goes through,
selects out what he wants and hides it in an evidence box with a fake case number. Everyone knows it’s there, but the sheriff thinks it’s his big secret.”

“You have to get it back?”

“It’s a big evidence box. I don’t think he’ll miss a teensy bit like this.”

I looked at the material. On top was a DVD with a pair of leering women dressed as nurses, tight, low-cut uniforms overflowing with silicone breasts. The ladies appeared to be taking the air’s temperature with their tongues. The title was
Oral Medication.
The teaser proclaimed,
Take as needed and as often as necessary!
I shuffled through the rest, saw titles like
Boob Madness. Anal Holiday. Pink Dreams. Spurtfest IV…

I shifted my attention to the magazines.
Wet Candy. Bush Fever. Triple-X Panty Party …

“Pure hot raunch-a-roni,” I said, clapping Caudill on the shoulder. “Well done.”

We had a little luck for a change. Berlea Coggins was delighted to be asked to a restaurant by Cherry. We figured I had two clear hours with her daddy. I gave Cherry a bit of lead-time and showed up at the Cogginses’ house carrying a briefcase borrowed from Cherry. It bulged.

The old man opened the door and looked up, the oxygen hose dangling from his nose.

“Whatcha need?”

“I need to ask a couple more questions about Tandee Powers, Mr Coggins.”

He rolled backwards, invited me inside with a flap of his hand. “I told you ’bout Tandee. She loved this.” He drooped out the tongue again, let it flap against his collar.

“What woman wouldn’t,” I said. “Tell me more.”

“Ain’t nothing to tell. We got hot and we hooked up when we got the chance. In a car down a lonesome road,
or a room in one of them gambling places on the river. We didn’t talk a whole lot, you get my drift.”

“Did you know any of her other friends? Zeke Tanner, maybe? Sonny Burton?”

His eyes flicked away. “I seen Burton a time or two. He was a big ol’ boy, mean in spite of all that toothy grinnin’. That’s all I knew. Tanner was a bigmouth preacher full of big talk. I know what ever’one else does cuz Tanner and Burton live around here. Or did. Listen, mister, I got my programs about to come on the TV. I gotta go watch.”

“Sure. Just one fast question before I go. Tandee was hot, right?”

Coggins did the open-close hand thing again. “That pussy loved to exercise.”

I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms and affected perplexed. “Did Tandee finally become too much for you to handle, Mr Coggins? You couldn’t satisfy the woman’s needs so you beat a retreat? I can understand how that might happen, you being older and—”

“Weren’t never no woman I couldn’t handle,” he snapped.

“I’m confused,” I said. “The other day you said Tandee had become too much for you. Those were your words. ”

“You need to get your ears cleaned out, mister. You missed half of what I said. I said she got too
nasty
for me. It ain’t the same as too
much
for me.”

“Too nasty for a man of the world like you?”

He frowned. “Some stuff ain’t right.”

“Gay stuff?”

He waved it away. “Tandee went both ways. I didn’t. But sometimes it put another woman in bed with us, y’know. Some mornings I’d get up and my tongue’d be too tired to talk. I’d have to point at things.”

“Tell me what Tandee Powers did. The stuff that wasn’t right.”

“I’m gonna go watch my TV,” he said, rolling away. “You gotta git.”

I stayed at his side. The TV remote, universal style, was lying on an overstuffed chair. I swept it into my pocket, followed Coggins.

“Mr Coggins, I think there were a lot of things going on back then. A closed little world with a few people who got deep into sex. Drugs maybe. Gambling. Were children involved in any way?”

“I’m a sick ol’ man. Go away an’ let me see my shows.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, surrender in my voice. “Thanks for your time. Before I go, let me turn on the television for you.”

“Do that, wouldya? I can’t find the fucking remote. It was right here …”

While he patted beneath chair cushions I walked over to the equipment - monitor, DVD player, an old cassette player - stacked together on a shelf. Simple-looking gear, somewhat outdated, few buttons to figure out. Good.

I turned on the television while standing between Coggins and the equipment. I slipped a DVD from my jacket pocket, slid it into the player. I advanced the disk
to an opening scene I found particularly artful. Hoping everything was set correctly, I pressed Play.

Wet sounds, moans, the hiss of flesh over sheets, low throbbing bass line marking time in heartbeat tempo
…

Coggins’s head jolted toward the sounds pouring from his television.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

On the screen a man with a tongue nearly as prominent as Coggins’s was using it in the service of a twentyish woman with a truly amazing body and an unruly mane of blonde hair that shivered with every overblown moan. As if harmonizing, Coggins loosed a groan.

I hit Pause.

“Hey, keep that thing playing!”

I moved between the old man and the frozen image. “Been a while since you’ve seen anything like this, I take it?”

“I tried to get some hot stuff from mail-order,” he panted, eyes unwavering from the stilled action. “Goddamn Berlea was right there when the mailman come. My name on the package and she’s openin’ it like it’s hers. Now she gits the mail sent to a post office box and checks through it. My own flesh-and-blood daughter an’ she’s got the sex drive of a tube of toothpaste. She cain’t understand what I’m goin’ through, stuck in this chair and this house.”