Stillborn Armadillos (John Lee Quarrels Book 1) (20 page)

Chapter 39

A blue three wheeled bicycle with a wire basket attached to the handlebars and a larger wire basket mounted in back between the rear wheels was sitting beside the road, its paint faded and the fenders dented. An old black man wearing a wide brimmed straw hat was seated on a folding chair on the bridge. He turned when he heard John Lee's Charger pull up and smiled when he recognized his visitor.

"John Lee Quarrels! That you, boy?"

"Yes, sir, it is. How you doing, Mister Donald?"

"Not bad for an old nigga. How 'bout yourself?"

"I can't complain."

"Don't do no good anyway," Mister Donalds said, extending a gnarled hand to shake. Even at his age, his grip was firm. "Nobody really cares, they just listenin' to be polite, and all the while you're talkin' they's ignorin' you and wonderin' what they goin' to say next."

"I expect that's true. You catching anything?"

"Got me a couple sunfish and a bullhead."

John Lee looked in the white five gallon plastic bucket next to the man's chair.

A pickup approached and slowed down as it came to the bridge, rattling across on the wooden planks. The driver, one of the Davidson brothers, John Lee wasn't sure which one, raised two fingers from the steering wheel in salute and John Lee waved back.

"You come out here for a fishin' report or you got somethin' else on your mind?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

John Lee took the evidence bag from his pocket and removed the brass tag. "Have you ever seen one of these before, Mister Donald?"

The old man brought it close to his face and studied it for a moment, then handed it back. "Yep. Seen more than one of them in my time."

"They tell me it's from the old turpentine camps."

"That's a fact."

"Mister Donald, did you hear about those three skeletons we found out on Turpentine Highway a while back?"

"Heard somethin' 'bout it. Didn't pay much attention. Man gets to be my age, he don't much give a care about all that's goin' on in the world. If I can sit up and take nourishment in the mornin' and my bowels move sometime in the day, that's about all I kin ask for. Well, that and that those bowels let me know ahead of time what they're goin' to do."

John Lee chuckled. "I guess that is important, isn't it."

"Yes, suh, 'deed it is. Now why you askin' me about that there piece of metal, John Lee?"

"We found it with those three skeletons we dug up. Fellow over at the historical museum told me about the turpentine camps and said it was an ID tag for one of the workers there."

"He told you right."

"He also told me about how things were back then, Mister Donald. About how those workers weren't much more than slaves sometimes."

"That's true, son. Black or white, if you found yourself in one a those places you could kiss your ass goodbye, 'cause it belonged to the company from then on."

"I heard that sometimes people tried to escape. And I heard that when they did, sometimes they got beat. Or worse."

"Heard the same thing myself."

The old man's red and white plastic bobber dipped under the water and he pulled back sharply on the rod, setting the hook. He reeled in another palm sized sunfish and took it off the hook, dropping it into the bucket. Picking up an old tin can from the pavement next to his chair, he fished inside and brought out a night crawler, and re-baited his hook. Wiping his hand on his pants leg, he cast the line out again, never having gotten up from his chair during the whole process.

When he was done, he asked, "Why you messin' 'round in this stuff, John Lee? Whatever happened to those men whose bones you found, it was a long time ago."

"It's my job. I want to find out who killed them."

"Why? What good's it goin' do after all this time?"

John Lee shrugged. "It just don't seem right that whoever did it got away with it."

"Lots of things ain't right in the world, son. Never have been and never will be."

"I know that. But I just can't let this go and pretend nothing ever happened, can I?"

"I don't know. Can ya'?"

"No, sir, I can't."

"Probably whoever killed them has been dead forever."

"I expect so," John Lee said. "But I still want the world to know who did it."

"One thing a nigger learns pretty early in these parts is that sometimes it's best to mind your own business."

"I like to think those days are long gone," John Lee said.

The old man picked up his fishing pole and hooked a finger over the line and pulled backwards just a touch, feeling for any tug of resistance that might tell him something was near his bait on the other end. Satisfied, he leaned it back against the bridge's low railing.

"I'd like to think so, too. Don't get me wrong, it's a different world than what I grew up in. But even now they's people that liked it the way it was in the old days. Would like to see things go back that way."

"Yeah, that's true, Mister Donald. But they're wrong, and it's better now."

"Don't kid yourself," the old man said, turning his lined and leathery face his way. "There's people right now in this county who'd string a nigga up and not think a thing 'bout it, if they thought they could get away with it."

John Lee knew the man was right, and he nodded his acknowledgment.

"Did you ever hear of some of the things that happened out there at those camps, Mister Donald?"

"Heard a lot of things. Saw some things, too."

"What kind of things?"

"Didn't you hear what I was sayin' to you, boy? I didn't get to be this old by talkin' about things that weren't none a my concern."

"Mister Donald, I'm not looking to cause you any trouble, sir. I'm really not. But I don't know where else to go with this. I wasn't around back in the old days, when the freedom marchers were doing their thing and all that, but I learned all about it in history class. I learned about all those folks who come from up north to stage sit-ins and walk with the blacks to try to change things. That wasn't any of their concern, either. And some of them got beat up pretty bad. Some even died because they got involved. But they did it, because they wanted to make things right."

"When I was eight years old, me and my friend Joseph was playin' with matches and we wound up burnin' down his pappy's tool shed," Mister Donald told him. "When I was fifteen I was introduced to sex by my cousin Charlie's wife while he was workin' diggin' ditches up around Lake City somewhere. I think I was about that same age when I swiped a silver dollar from my grandmammy's purse. That was money she was saving up to buy a new dress and hat for Easter Sunday. I used that money to buy me a bottle of moonshine and I got so drunk I 'bout puked myself to death, yes I did. I done some other things I ain't proud of, too. Even cheated on my wife one time with a gal I met in a gin mill, back when I was a young buck, full of piss and vinegar. What I'm sayin' is, I've been carryin' around plenty of guilt for most a my life, just like most people. So you bringin' any more to me?  It's goin' to be pretty low down on the list for me to worry about."

John Lee was frustrated and couldn't think of a way to get through to the old man, to unlock the secrets he had hidden in his memory.

"I'm sorry, Mister Donald. I never meant to try to put you on a guilt trip. I'm just so damn frustrated that somebody killed those three men. Tied their
I do
hands behind them with barbed wire and made them get down on their knees and shot them in the back of the head like that when they were helpless. I was talking to a lady over there in Tallahassee at the crime lab, and she showed me the bones from one of them's wrist. She showed me gouges right into the bone from that barbed wire, where that poor man tried to get free. I just keep thinking about that, and I can't let it go. What could they have done so bad to deserve that?"

"Ain't nobody ever deserved that."

"No, sir, I don't think so either."

Another car went by, with a teenage couple inside. John Lee nodded at them but they ignored him. Three or four other vehicles passed by before Mister Donald reeled in his line to check his bait, then cast it out again.

"There was five of us families that lived close together in a group of little shacks. My friend Joseph that I told you about, my grandpappy and grandmammy, a family called the Wilsons, and my Uncle Wayne and his wife and kids. A few times a man on the run from the camps would come through our place. Sometimes they'd stop long enough to ask for a drink of water or directions or somethin' like that. They's always scared to death and desperate. Usually it weren't much longer before the woods riders with their dogs come through, right on their trail."

"What did your people do?"

"What could we do? We'd give those men a drink a water and point them in the right direction. That was about it. See, back in those days, if ya' tried to hide one of 'em, ya' was in for punishment. You might even find yourself carried off to one of the camps. Sheriff would say you was aid'in and abet'in whoever was tryin' to escape. So when the riders came to camp we jez' said 'yes sir' or 'no sir' and hope'd they go on about their business. Usually they did, but sometimes they'd decide to tear a little house apart, looking for whoever they was trailing. Don't think they really believed they was there, but they wanted to make their point about who was in charge. And if one of us tried to say anythin'? Best thing was going to happen to us was gettin' thumped upside the head with a club. I remember when Roland Wilson tried to keep 'em from paw'in through his wife's underwear drawer. They took him out in the front yard and tied him to a tree and whupped him with an old blacksnake whip. Whupped him half to death, a laughin' the whole time."

"Do you know of any men who disappeared from the camps during that time?"

"Lots a men disappeared, John Lee. Some escaped, a lot more just was gone. If a man died in one of the camps, all the camp boss had to say was he died from an accident or got sick or somethin' and they buried him out there. Weren't nobody gonna come around askin' questions."

John Lee pulled his cell phone from his pocket and found the picture he had taken of the photograph of the horse mounted man he had taken at the museum.

"Does this fellow look like anybody you would remember, Mister Donald?"

The old man looked at the picture and John Lee noticed his body stiffen. Not much, but there had been a reaction.

"No, suh," Mister Donald said, shaking his head.

"Are you sure?"

"Didn't I just say I didn't know who that was?"

"Yes, sir. I was just hoping..."

"Boy, I'm an old man. How you 'spect me to remember every cracker I ever seen in my life?"

John Lee was sure there was something there, but he didn't want to push the issue and have Mister Donald close up on him completely. He'd wait and try to ask him again another time, if necessary.

"I talked to Troy Somerton at the lumber products company, asking if he knew of any way to trace that tag number back to one of the workers. But he said all of their records got destroyed in a tornado a long time ago."

"I don't 'pect he'd tell you anythin' even if he did know," Mister Donald said. "Who do you think was runnin' those camps? It was Somerton Lumber Company. Do you suppose any of that crowd is goin' to admit anything about those days?"

"Do you think they knew what was going on in those camps?"

"Course they knew! How could they not know! You think back in the slave days the master didn't know that the overseer was out back whuppin' the slaves and screwin' their women if he took a mind to? Mr. Lincoln might'a have put an end to slavery way back in the old days, but people like the Somerton's? They never got that message. I don't know who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed those men you found out there, John Lee. But I can tell you one thing. It was Somerton money that paid for the bullets."

Chapter 40

John Lee tried to shave, but quickly gave that idea up when the razor touched his lacerated cheek. He had never worn a beard before, but thought that maybe he would grow one for the duration, while his face healed. He brushed his teeth, washed his mouth out with Scope, and walked naked into the bedroom, where Beth Ann was waiting for him. He sat on the side of the bed.

"You okay, John Lee?"

"Yeah, it's just been crazy lately."

She sat up and rubbed his back and shoulders. "You're all knotted up and tight. Here, you lay down on your stomach and let me give you a massage."

Beth Ann had gone to the Volusia School of Massage in Port Orange and was actually quite good at it, though she had never practiced the skill when she returned home to Somerton County. He stretched out on the bed and she began working on his legs, expertly kneading the muscles.

"Does that feel good?"

"It sure does. Damn good."

She worked her way up to his buttocks.

"How about that?"

"Uh huh."

Moving up to his lower back and then his shoulders, he could feel the tension releasing as she seemed to work every muscle, one by one. "Ya know, John Lee, there's a thing called a happy endin'."

"I think by the time you're done I'm going to be sound asleep."

She was straddling him digging deep into the muscles of his neck and shoulders.

"Oh, I think if I massage certain things enough you'll wake up to do what I need done."

"I'm just a piece of meat to you, aren't I, Beth Ann."

"Is that what you think?"

"Sometimes."

"And what's wrong with that. Ain't I just a piece of ass to you?"

"No."

She stopped for a moment, then asked, "Then what am I?"

"I don't know. Does it have to have a label?"

She resumed the massage. "I don't know. I never thought of it that way. I mean, I can't be your girlfriend. You're still married to my sister. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to be your girlfriend. And I don't think you want me to be, either."

He didn't answer because he didn't know what to say. No, he didn't want a formal relationship with Beth Ann. So what was it they had? They both filled a need for the other person on a purely physical level, but he didn't feel the emotional connection with her that one would expect for a lover.

"So we're just friends with benefits?"

"I guess."

"I don't have any problem with that, John Lee."

"Okay."

"We both know this ain't forever, right? I mean, sooner or later you'll find somebody and this'll end. I just want you to know that I'm okay with that when the time comes."

"Or you might find somebody."

Beth Ann laughed. "Not me. Least not for a long time. I'm just sowin' my wild oats, as Mama calls it. I'm not ready to be tied down to anybody yet."

"Okay."

He was totally relaxed and didn't want to talk. He just wanted to sleep. When Beth Ann told him to roll over on his back he did not hear her. There would be no happy ending to the massage. John Lee Quarrels was dead to the world.

Sometime, hours later, his full bladder woke him up and he got up to go to the bathroom. Back in bed he was drifting back to sleep when he heard a vehicle slow down out front. He was instantly awake, wondering if it was Maddy. But then it continued down the road and he recognized the rumble of Phil Robinson's Dodge diesel pickup as his neighbor returned home.

***

"Hi. It's John Lee."

"John Lee? Do I know a John Lee? Oh yes, I seem to remember a cracker deputy sheriff from someplace named John Lee. But you can't be him, because he's one of those guys who takes a girl to dinner and gets what he wants out of her and then never calls again."

"I'm sorry, Shania. It's been really crazy over here. I wasn't ignoring you."

"Sure you were. But that's okay, I understand. You've got good reason to."

"If you think it's the racial thing..."

"Oh, stop it, I was just pulling your leg. What's up?"

"I was wondering, is it possible to get any DNA from those bones we found after all these years?"

"How much do you know about DNA?"

He shrugged his shoulders, even though she couldn't see him, and said, "I don't know, I guess about as much as anybody else. Or at least as much as any average cop."

"Okay, DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. Every organism has DNA. It's made up of four chemicals, which are called nucleotides. They are guanine, adenine, cytosine, and thymine."

"You lost me already. Remember, I'm just a boy from the piney woods."

"I'm sorry. Sometimes you sound almost civilized and I tend to forget that. Let me try to dumb it down for you."

He smiled at her sassy attitude as he poured milk into his morning coffee and spooned in sugar.

"From the moment somebody or something dies, DNA starts to degrade. But not nearly as quickly as soft tissue. A lot of it depends on the conditions where the body or bodies are located, just like I told you, with the condition of the bones themselves. Scientists have been able to extract DNA from mammoths and things like that that died 50,000 years ago."

"That's a long time."

"Did you ever see the movie
Jurassic Park
?"

"No. I'm not much for sci-fi and fantasy."

"Really? That surprises me, I pictured you as a man with a very active fantasy life."

"So are you still busting my balls because I haven't called before this?"

"Yes, I am."

"How long is this going to continue?"

"I don't know, John Lee. How long is it going to be before you call me again? Preferably a social call, not just to talk about bones."

He laughed and said, "I have a comeback for that, but I'm going to keep it to myself."

"Yeah, there you go, lying to me again. I don't think you keep a certain bone to yourself at all."

"If you were a real scientist, you'd know that's not a bone."

"If you were
real
good ol' boy, you'd be driving this way right now to prove it."

They both laughed, and she said, "Anyway, back to the movie. In
Jurassic Park
they found DNA from mosquitoes that had been preserved in amber. And while that was fiction, there's some basis in scientific fact. Amber is an excellent preservative. Some scientists have claimed they were able to extract DNA from organisms that died over fifteen million years ago."

"Okay, then that means you should be able to get DNA from the skeletons, right?'

"Possibly. But again, it depends on conditions. Just like it does with meat in a refrigerator, freezing can slow the rate of DNA decomposition. That's why when they find ancient people or prehistoric animals who were frozen in places like Alaska or Northern Russia they can extract DNA sometimes. Dry places help, too. They have recovered DNA from 20,000 year old dung found in caves in arid places like Nevada and Arizona. On the other hand, heat and wet conditions like we have here are just the opposite. They hasten the decomposition of DNA."

"So is it worth a try?"

"Anything is worth a try. I did an internship at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. when I was in college. Before they closed down they were able to use DNA to identify the remains of over 150 casualties dating all the way back to World War II."

"Why did they close?"

"Why does anything close with the government? Budget cuts."

"That sucks."

"There are other facilities that still work to identify MIA remains. The big one's in Hawaii and they focus on Vietnam War casualties. Anyway, yes, I can try to extract DNA and we can see if we can get a profile for you. But then what?"

"I don't know," John Lee admitted. "Is there any kind of a national database it can be entered into?"

"The FBI has the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS for short. They obtain DNA profiles from federal, state, and local DNA collection programs and make it available to law enforcement agencies across the country for identification purposes."

"Wouldn't this fall into that category?"

"Yes, it would. But you have to understand, John Lee, this isn't something that happens overnight. First of all, we've got to be able to extract the DNA and create a profile, and there's no guarantee we'll be able to do that. If we can, then we enter it into the system. And then, if there is anything that matches, which is probably going to be somebody with a criminal conviction, or else a John or Jane Doe, you may have something to start with. But if you expect results this evening, you're going to be disappointed."

"I understand that," he said. "But I'd really appreciate it if you could try."

"I'm on it," she replied. "I'll let you know if I find out anything. But don't forget, you owe me. I'm thinking dinner the next time you're in town."

"Please tell me it's not gonna be sushi."

"I guess I could make you a mess of chitlins and black-eyed peas."

"You like screwing with me, don't you?"

"I don't know. At least not yet."

John Lee was taking a drink of coffee as she said that and spewed it all over the counter in his kitchen. He coughed and choked, then wiped tears from his eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just choked."

"I don't know, John Lee, maybe I should take a rain check on dinner. Better yet, maybe you should just send me a gift card for Red Lobster or someplace like that. I'm not sure you could handle anything else."

"I'm gonna say goodbye now. I'll be in touch."

"Promises, promises. You have yourself a good day, John Lee."