Authors: Nevada Barr
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Suspense, #Mystery & Detective, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Pigeon; Anna (Fictitious character), #Women park rangers, #Mississippi, #Natchez Trace Parkway
Deep South (13 page)
Sheriffs prayed openly for the souls of the departed.
Children frolicked in cemeteries. Used-car salesmen captained armies of ghosts.
In the South, it seemed, the dead, like the poor, were always with you.
John Brown stayed through the time Anna had hoped for a belt of Stilwell's single malt. The verdict was clear: she was to dedicate all time and resources to the murder case. In and of itself, the murder would have taken some precedence, though not too much. In areas of shared urisdiction, the parks were happy to let local law enforcement or, because it was on federal lands, the FBI-with their greater expertise and connections in grisly matters-handle things. But this corpse was draped in a white sheet, a lynching rope tied around her neck, items unpleasantly reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan and the volatile racial history of the state of Mississippi.
Anna left the meeting, held knee-to-knee in Rocky Springs' tiny office, with a list of phone numbers and strict orders to report everything, every day, to Brown and to take no action whatsoever before he was consulted. This last was a codicil higher management dearly loved to a r r tack on the tail end of assignments. Trouble was, often action was required in such a manner that it was virtually impossible to say to the perpetrator "hold that thought. I've got to call my supervisor." Still and all, Anna was satisfied. Brown was a good man and, unless the politics of the bureaucracy made it absolutely necessary for his survival, probably wouldn't hang her out to dry.
Davidson called in the afternoon to let her know Fred Posey had identified the body. It was his daughter, Danielle. She and Davidson split the chores. Anna would try and track down who was with Danni the night she died. The sheriff would see to the autopsy and coroner's reports and take care of sending the rope, the sheet and the child's clothes to forensics for possible trace evidence.
As district ranger, Anna needed to find a way to include Barth and Randy, if only peripherally. They had the local contacts and seniority on the Trace. To exclude them would be an obvious slap in the face that boded ill for what already promised to be a rocky relationship. To Randy she gave the task of interviewing everyone in the campground who had been there the night before, when the girl was killed. He made it clear the job was beneath him without saying so right out. With an attitude like that, he'd slough through it. Anna would do it again when he'd finished to preserve what scraps of information there might be.
She asked Barth Dinkin to talk with Danni's parents. During the impromptu meeting after the body had been taken away, she found he'd known ML and Mrs. Posey for seven years. Nothing warm and personal, but he and not Randy had handled the annual renewal of their lease. The Poseys farmed forty-three acres of Trace land up near the city of Clinton on the northernmost end of Anna's district. Posey grew corn and soybeans-part of the natural and agricultural look the Trace was dedicated to preserving. Familiarity went a long way.
She hoped Barth would get more cooperation from the bereaved family than she might. Barth hadn't seemed excited at the prospect, but there'd been no undercurrent of rebellion or insurrection.
At the top of her own list was Heather Barnes. That worked well. Heather and her parents lived in Clinton, forty miles up the Trace.
Anna had it on good authority that there were real grocery stores there.
Her diet had consisted of granola bars and coffee with Cremora for the last day and a half. This morning a really serious issue had arisen; she was running low on cat food. The NPS frowned on rangers, in uniform, performing obviously personal chores on the taxpayers' time. Keenly aware the new girl would be watched like a hawk by all and sundry, Anna scrupulously cleared the planned foraging with Chief Ranger Brown.
The Trace between Rocky and 1-was as beautiful as it bad been the morning Anna arrived, but this morning she was better able to appreciate it. She played with the radar in her patrol car.
Guadalupe, Isle Royale, Mesa Verde-none of the other parks she'd worked were automobile oriented. There'd been no need for radar. Now she zapped oncoming motorists with a childlike glee. Sixty-six, sixty-two, seventy-one, fifty-eight: everybody was speeding. Because this was a park, fifty miles per hour was the posted limit. Judging by the fact that even the sight of her patrol car failed to slow the visitors, Anna surmised Randy and Barth weren't big on writing traffic citations.
Cynicism pinched her thoughts as she noted her lack of surprise.
Today the speeders were safe from the rigors of the new regime. She was otherwise engaged. Still, she did look forward to catching some: the pleasures of the hunt.
Clinton was a pretty little town, with the main street paved in brick and a college that looked like a miniature version of Ivy League done in red brick instead of gray stone. The trees impressed Anna the most, great old oaks, feathery mimosa, stands of pine, elm, locust, crabapple in wild pink blossoms, Bradford pears in modest white.
Their age and dignity reminded her that Mississippi had been settled long before most of the rest of the country.
The high school was a relatively new building set on the edge of town, essentially in the country by the standards of more populated states.
What struck Anna most forcefully as she drove in the long entry road were the cars. The place had a parking lot to rival that of a small shopping mall, and it was full. Didn't anybody ride the bus down here?
Anna parked the Crown Vic next to a shiny red Honda Acura with plates reading SVV716. A good percentage of the students' cars were new models.
There were a couple of Jags and one Corvette. Clinton had money.
The school-light, airy, modern, with white pillars lining a two story foyer, high ceilings and wide clean halls-gave Anna the willies. On the rare occasions she had to enter high schools, there was always that tolls adolescent sense that boys in groups were snickering at her.
She found herself walking more quickly, hoping to reach the principal's office before the bell rang and the halls were flooded with teenagers.
The principal was in Atlanta on business. The vice principal, Adele MacK, showed Anna into her office. Vice Principal MacK was in her midthirties, neatly dressed in hose and heels. The only thing that marred what would have been a fine face was a heavy mask of expertly applied makeup. From ten feet away, Ms. MacK displayed a mannequin's beauty. Up close and personal, it was a little creepy.
"Can I help you?" Ms. MacK asked when Anna'd been politely seated.
Actually, she said: "Kin aye help yew?" but Anna was already getting accustomed to the accent. It grew on a person. There was a gentleness to it that was reassuring.
Anna told her why she'd come and waited. In cases involving juveniles, she had learned to tread with utmost care. Though Heather was neither suspected nor accused of any crime, and Anna merely wanted to get what information she might have about Danielle, the night and the prom, she would go with the vice principal's recommendation on how this interview was to take place.
To Adele MacK's credit, Anna was thoroughly grilled. No student was going to be unnecessarily bothered on Ms. MacK's watch.
Anna sat up straight as Sister Mary Corine had taught her and answered clearly and quietly, to appear as untbreatening as possible.
In the end, the vice principal agreed to call Heather out of class.
Anna could talk with her in the teachers' conference room, Guessing that was where bad news, reprimands and other unpleasant exchanges between faculty and students took place, Anna asked if the gym was free. Kids tended to be more forthcoming with hardwood under their feet.
Heather was duly fetched, and she and Anna walked together to the gymnasium. The girl looked much improved from the last time Anna had seen her but infinitely less accessible. Her flawless little face was hidden behind a coat of paint nearly as thick as that worn by Adele MacK, and there was a sullenness about her that Anna hadn't noticed before.
The gymnasium was sunk partway into the ground, with high windows for light and two banks of bleacher seats like those one would expect on a professional basketball court. The shining wood floor was emblazoned with a white arrow inside a big red C. An odd school mascot, but Anna didn't dare ask about it for fear of appearing hopelessly out of it.
Heather plunked down on the highest bench of the bleachers, and Anna slid in beside her, uncomfortably aware of the nine-millimeter dragging at her hip. "I can't tell you anything," Heather said, staring at manicured nails painted in pale blue glitter. "I was drunk, remember?
The whole night's one big blank." The remark wasn't a mere disclaimer.
It was uttered with the finality of a closing door. And something else: fear. Anna'd been around enough frightened people in her life that she'd learned to sense the vibrations: a quivering of the breath, a skittering of the eyes, tension in the muscles of the face and neck. Not just a childish fear of authority. Heather was guarding something specific, hiding something from Anna.
Interesting. Anna's brain came into sharper focus. "I figured that," she said easily. "The higher-ups just want some background, I guess." Heather's hunched shoulders relaxed fractionally. "Did you know Danielle Posey?" Anna asked.
Up went the shoulders. "I guess." Heather tried for casual and missed.
"I mean she goes to school here and all if that's what you mean."
"Were you friends?"
"I guess. I mean, you know, we weren't like enemies or anything." Poor kid, Anna thought without a crumb of compassion. She was too young to know that evasion to a law enforcement officer is like scuttling to a cat. It made their metaphorical tails twitch, brought out the instinct to pounce. "Were you with Danielle the night of the prom?"
"There were a bunch of us kind of hanging out." Anna took that as a yes.
"Were you drinking?"
"Not the ones driving," she said with well-rehearsed promptness. Anna did not allow herself to smile. "Who was your date to the dance?" She tried another tack. Heather didn't answer immediately. Even through the layers of makeup, Anna could see a struggle taking place. Heather wanted to lie but was rapidly coming to the conclusion Anna'd already reached.
Clinton was a small town, maybe twenty or thirty thousand people. Who one's date for the prom was would have been well advertised and easy to check.
Heather was sullen and seared and young but she wasn't a complete idiot.
"Matt Dryer," she said. I saw two boys leaving the graveyard just before I found you. Was one of them Matt?"
"I don't remember. I don't remember anything. I was drunk, okay? Drunk?"
"Did you go out to Rocky Springs with Matt?"
"Why do you keep asking me stuff? I don't remember anything after leaving the dance.
You asking's not going to make me remember so quit asking... please." Even under duress, the manners were holding. Anna was impressed.
"Okay. You were drunk. A blackout. It happens. Who was Danielle's date?" Heather stood up abruptly. "How would I know that? Look, I gotta go back to class. We've got a test." Anna let her go. She would get nothing more out of her today, Staying in the bleachers, she watched until the door closed behind Heather. Of course she knew who Danni's date for the prom had been.
She knew Anna could find out easily enough from a number of sources. Yet Heather hadn't wanted to be the one to tell her. It had been Anna's experience that people almost invariably wanted to be the one to tell.
So much so it was common for them to make things up just so they could feel important, be part of the action. When they didn't want to, it could mean any number of things, usually that they had something to hide or something to fear. Heather showed symptoms of having both.
Anna sat a while longer. As a girl, she'd been strong and fast but never much of an athlete. Girls weren't athletes when she was growing up. The little ones were tombovs, the older ones misfits.
Still, of all the places in a high school, the gym was the most comfortable for her. Perhaps it was because of Willy, Mrs. Williams, Anna's high school PE teacher. A woman Anna could have talked to about growing up when she couldn't talk to her own mother. She didn't talk to Willy-she bit those early bullets in silence-but she could have, and that made her memories good ones. Maybe it was simply because the genders were segregated in the gymnasium. There was a freedom in that, particularly at an age and in an age when sexuality confused, excited, shamed and glorified and all within a single heartbeat. As that thought coalesced, she realized that was why she'd brought Heather here, instinctively feeling she might have the same reaction.
As she was making her way back through the twists and turns of the halls toward the vice principal's office, the bell rang. Anna suffered momentary panic as the doors flew open and students poured out.
Quelling the urge to flee, she calmed her mind and watched the colorful clacking mass, the hope of the future. Despite the noise and posturing that was part of the pack mentality, they looked to be good kids. On the whole a lot taller and prettier than when Anna'd been in high school.
Acne treatments and early orthodonture accounted for part of it, but there was a worldliness to them that kids lacked once upon a time.
Anna didn't think it was a bad thing. Just scary to parents who carried with them an anachronistic Model-T and milkman dream their own folks had worked so hard to leave behind.