Southern Cross (3 page)

The
Durhams lived in a little white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Like,
literally. I left Einstein in the car until I could be sure he wouldn’t be
devoured by the family dogs, of which there seemed to be half a dozen. Diggs
and I went in without knocking, and were immediately besieged by well-meaning
relations. I stayed on the outskirts of the action, watching as Diggs was
welcomed back into the fold.

It
took awhile before we were able to wade through the first wave of greeters to
get to the inner sanctum, an overcrowded parlor filled with family photos:
Wyatt on a sunny summer day, swimming with his twin boys; studio portraits of
the kids from toddler-hood on up; a candid of those same twin boys, now teenagers,
at what I assumed had been their high school prom. In the prom picture, one of
the boys looked like he was straight out of a Mormon recruitment flyer: short
hair and a standard-issue tux, bright white smile, a bland blonde girl with
braces laughing beside him. The other brother was more my speed, in a suit
jacket over an anarchy t-shirt, the girl on his arm every good mother’s
nightmare: pierced eyebrow, dyed black hair, plaid miniskirt and combat boots.

 The
Mormon poster boy sat on the couch now beside his sister, a dark-haired girl of
six or seven missing her front teeth. I saw no sign of the shaggy-haired rebel.
There was a playpen in the corner of the room, from which a pudgy blond toddler
of indeterminate gender peered out at us. Wyatt’s wife, Mae, sat on an
overstuffed sofa at the center of it all.

She
got up as soon as she spotted Diggs, and he gathered her in his arms and held
on tight, swaying gently, while Mae cried. Wyatt’s son looked down, his
shoulders tense, while the girl watched with that fifty-yard stare you see on
kids sometimes when the world’s shifted in incomprehensible ways and they’re
still trying to regain their footing.

Diggs
whispered something in Mae’s ear and they finally parted, Mae laughing, wiping
at her tears. She was short and plump, country pretty, with healthy pink cheeks
and that rural efficiency that suggested she could handle anything from
pickling preserves to breach births. Since the only thing I know how to pickle
is my own liver, I always feel a little out of my element in the presence of
such competence.

All
the same, Mae beamed when she saw me. She pulled me close and held on tight.
“Thank you for finding him,” she said in my ear.

I
felt a wash of sadness of my own, and managed a mute nod. The kids descended
from there, but before hellos could be exchanged or regrets conveyed, a tall,
lean brunette appeared in the doorway. The toddler gurgled with what I assumed
was pleasure. Diggs looked up, forced a smile, and walked up to the woman.

Ashley
Durham—my least favorite of Diggs’ three ex-wives. And that’s saying something.

“I’m
so sorry, Ash,” he said quietly.

The
whole room looked on curiously. Ashley’s not high strung, necessarily, but
she’s not exactly sunshine and puppies, either. The last time I’d seen her in
the flesh, she was threatening Diggs’ manhood with a grilling fork for an
all-nighter he pulled with me while he was supposed to be vacationing with his
lovely wife. In other words: a beat-down wasn’t out of the question. After a
tense minute or two, she gave a sigh of concession and they hugged it out.

I
noticed she didn’t extend any such gesture my way, though.

<><><> 

That
night, after the rest of the family had retired to their respective corners,
Diggs snagged me and announced there was someone I had to meet. It was cool and
grey outside, a refreshing change of pace from the stuffy homestead. Einstein
ran on ahead, peeing on trees and digging up toadstools as he went. It was ten
o’clock. I’d promised Juarez I would call as soon as I could, but so far the
opportunity hadn’t presented itself. I was surprised how much I was looking
forward to hearing his voice again, though. No games, no pretenses, no torment;
just a stable, interesting guy I liked, who seemed to like me back. Nice.
Simple.

Diggs
and I walked about half a mile, until we reached a log cabin in a wooded glade
far from the road. There was a handmade wooden chair on the front porch beside
a pen with three floppy-eared rabbits inside. Stein nosed at them curiously
through the mesh as Diggs knocked on the door.

“Are
you sure I should be here?” I asked. “I mean… maybe you should have this
reunion in private. I could hang with Stein and the bunnies out here.”

“Relax,”
he said. “I want you to meet this guy.” He pushed the door open without waiting
for someone to answer. “George? You in here?”

Somehow,
I’d been expecting a withered old man with a ZZ Top beard and no teeth.
Instead, a tall, very bald, very broad-shouldered man in his sixties with a
cigar between his teeth emerged from a door in back. Think Mr. Clean meets Hannibal from the A-Team. He paused, taking us both in as we stepped into the cabin. I
thought we were in for a good old fashioned southern lynching for a second
there, but the hostility vanished once he realized who it was.

“Daniel?”
he asked.

“In
the flesh,” Diggs said.

The
man broke into a wide grin, though a vestige of sadness remained as he limped
across the cabin and enveloped Diggs in a bear hug.

“You
cost me ten big ‘uns, boy,” he said, patting Diggs heartily on the back. “Mae
said you’d be here. I told her between Ashley, Harvey Jennings, and Jesup
Barnel, there wasn’t enough tail in Hef’s mansion to bring you back to this
part of the world once you was out.”

“If
anyone could do it, it’d be Wyatt,” Diggs said quietly. “I’m sorry for your
loss, George.”

The
man’s eyes misted over. He brushed at his tears roughly. “World’s a twisted
place, son. Sometimes I don’t know which side’s up anymore, there’s so much
wrong with it.”

“Wyatt
was one of the good ones, though,” Diggs said.

George
looked at him thoughtfully. “That he was,” he agreed. It looked like he meant
to say more on the subject, but he turned his attention to me instead. “And
who’s your pretty friend here?”

“This
is Erin Solomon,” Diggs said. “An old friend from Maine. Sol, this is George
Durham. Wyatt’s old man.”

George
took a step closer, looking me up and down and up again. He had an undeniable
magnetism about him, beyond the shining blue eyes and the square jaw—a man who
had wielded a lot of power in his day, and still wore that power like a badge.
He smiled.

“So,
you’re the reason Daniel here married my Ashley, huh? You been quite the
mystery to me all these years.”

“Excuse
me?” I asked.

Diggs
glared at him. “Don’t listen to him,” he said to me. “He’s obviously gone
senile since I saw him last.”

“Senile
my behind, boy,” George said. He returned his attention to me. “He come ‘round
here back in… what, ’05? Nursing a broken heart—‘course being Diggs he wasn’t
much for sharing ‘til you got a few sips in him. But as I recall, he did
mention you that first night. Next thing I know, he’s up and asked Ashley to
marry him. Lord only knows why she said yes—those two never could stand each
other. I love my little girl, but she’s got about as much personality as an old
toothpick. But here’s Diggs, sayin’ he’s ready to settle down. Be part of the
family.”

Diggs
eyed me with just a hint of desperation. “Seriously—it was a long time ago.
Memories get twisted with time. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

I
couldn’t even imagine an appropriate response—particularly since I remembered
2005 pretty damned well, and none of what George said fit into those memories
in any way, shape, or form. The old man finally took pity on both of us and
recanted.

“He’s
right,” he said. “Don’t listen to me. It’s just the ramblings of an old man’s
just lost his only son. Come on in here. Have a drink with me.”

“We’ll
visit awhile, but I’m gonna take a pass on the drink,” Diggs said. “I’m trying
to keep my nose clean these days.”

George
actually pouted. “Well, that’s a damn shame. How ‘bout you, darlin’?” he asked
me. “I got some rotgut back there with your name on it.”

“That
sounds great,” I said, “but—”

“No
buts!” He hot-footed it to the back of the cabin. I looked at Diggs. His cheeks
were still burning.

“Sorry
about that. I don’t know what he’s talking about—I don’t even remember
mentioning your name around him.”

I
nodded, still trying to figure out how to react. Thankfully, there was a knock
on the front door before we had any more time to dwell on it, and Mae let
herself in. A man I hadn’t seen at the house before followed her.

“You
find him all right?” Mae asked Diggs.

“Yeah,”
he said. “He’s getting the whiskey.”

“Good,”
she said. “God forgive me, but I could use a belt myself about now.”

Einstein
had been relegated to the front porch with the bunnies, but he let himself in
with the others and settled at my feet. George came out, saw everyone, swore,
and went back to haul out another jug. Introductions were made.

“This
is Deputy Holloway,” Mae told me of the man beside her. He was about Diggs’
age, smaller and leaner, with dark hair and the kind of wide, genuine smile
that makes the bearer about three times more attractive than they might seem
otherwise. 

“Everybody
calls me Buddy, ma’am,” he said.

We
shook hands. George returned and set us up with glasses all around while Diggs
grabbed a soda from the fridge.

As
soon as we were seated around the table in George’s kitchen, Mae slammed back a
mug of what, as far as I could tell, was pure lighter fluid. She gasped,
coughed, and then looked Diggs in the eye.

“I
need to ask a favor,” she said to him. I got the feeling she’d been waiting for
this moment to present itself.

“Mae,”
he began.

She
held up her hand. “Don’t you ‘Mae’ me—you owe Wyatt this much, and you know it.
I just want you to ask around—”

“We’re
working with KSP, Mae,” Buddy said.

I
looked at Diggs. “Kentucky State Police,” he whispered. I nodded.

“None
of them are gonna want some Yankee reporter poking around in this,” the deputy
continued. “Never mind what Sheriff Jennings has to say about it once he knows
Diggs is back in town.”

“There’s
no reason Harvey Jennings needs to know anything about this,” Mae said. “And no
offense to you or him or the Kentucky Police, but I want somebody I trust
askin’ questions. Somebody I know won’t stop ‘til he figures out the whole
story.”

George
frowned. “She’s right, you know,” he said. “Nothin’ about this makes a lick of
sense. And you know it.”

“What
the hell happened?” Diggs asked—the question I knew had been plaguing him since
he first got the news.

Buddy
looked at Mae unhappily. “You shouldn’t be goin’ over this right now.”

Mae
shook her head with stark determination. “I’m all right, sugar. If I owe Wyatt
anything, it’s at least this. I mean to find out who did this, and see that
they answer for it.” She sat down, her eyes never leaving Diggs’. “That last
night, Wyatt went out to Roger Burkett’s farm—Roger used to live ‘round here,
but he packed up and left for San Francisco back about ten years ago.

“Then
he shows up a couple years back with some skinny city girl plucked right out of
a fashion magazine. Roger took over the farm after his daddy passed. Bought a
herd of Alpines—milking goats,” she explained to me. “Half Wyatt’s calls this
past year’ve been over there, taking care of one damn fool problem after the
other. Wy says all Jenny Burkett does is fuss over them goats and lounge around
in her skivvies watching reality TV. She teaches a couple classes over to Smithfield—political science. Thinks she’s better than anybody here in Justice.”

 “You
think they did this? The Burketts?” I asked, trying to get her back on track.

“I
don’t know. Roger’s nothin’ to write home about, I’ll tell you that much—a
snake oil salesman’s got more scruples. And I never much cared for the way his
wife looked at Wyatt. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had something to do with
it.” She looked at Buddy. “You think maybe you can take Diggs through some of
the pictures and some of your notes tomorrow, while the sheriff’s outta the
office?”

“If
he catches me, it’s my job,” Buddy said. “And probably my hide to boot.”

Mae
didn’t say anything to that, her gaze fixed on her mug. “You know, I don’t
remember a time I wasn’t in love with Wy,” she said quietly. She brushed tears
away delicately. “I remember the first day I set eyes on him; I remember our
first kiss, our first… everything. All the space before that, though, just
seems like one long, colorless blur.”

Diggs
draped his arm over her shoulders and kissed her temple gently. She closed her
eyes, but she held it together. “I’ll stop by the office tomorrow morning,” he
said, directing the statement at Buddy. “I’ve got plenty of experience dodging
Sheriff Jennings. No reason I can’t do it one more time.”