The Killing King of Gratis (3 page)

The thing about giving counsel was that Delroy could erect a wall between himself and his clients. He watched from the outside looking in, an invisible screen shielding him from caring too much. This was different. This was family. He knew them too well and loved them too much.

When Anna or the children went on long trips he worried about them until they arrived. He had to fight off daydream terrors about the pain they would experience before they died in some violent car wreck. The first time Peck went to a sleepover was even worse. Delroy imagined he was being invited over so some of the crueler boys could hurt him in some way. His mania was such that he drove over to the boy’s house that night.

He walked around the house, making sure there were no strange noises or cries coming from inside. As he was leaving the porch light came on and he jumped into bushes at the back of the house. Looking up he saw the mother come out and look around. She was in curlers and had a frumpy look Delroy approved of.
This woman doesn’t look like a child hurter.
Comforted, Delroy crept out of the bushes and went home after she went inside.
I might be a ridiculous but at least everything’s okay.

Still, he feared the mundane turning horrific. He imagined holes opening up everywhere and the children falling into them. His hole opened up that day he went home and found his wife cheating. That hole came from nowhere. It almost killed him when he wasn’t looking.

He walked up to the rag Meg showed him. It looked newly greased, like someone used it to change their oil.
But that’s not oil.
It was heavy and soaked reddish black. He opened it, slowly pulling the ends back until he saw what Meg was crying about.

There, sitting ragged and bruised, was an ear. It looked as if it had been torn from the head of its former owner, not sliced. Long, thick pieces of skin were still attached to it. In the lobe was a single earring set with three green stones.

Emeralds
. That was all he could think until he realized it must have been a woman’s ear, an earring this nice. His next thought almost made him sick.
Someone is tearing off women’s ears in Gratis.
Quickly he closed the rag and again said to Meg, this time louder, “where is Peck, tell me now.”

“After we got home he ran down the river bank, past the boat,” she managed to whisper.

Delroy took her by the arm and dragged her back to Anna.

“You and Meg go into the house and lock the doors.”

Anna’s voice was raw by now, and her face blotched red by tears. “Where’s Peck?”

“I’m getting him now, Anna. Just lock the doors.”

With that Delroy ran around the back of the house to the river bank and started calling for Peck. He made his way through the mud and rocks for a half mile before he saw him. The boy was sitting at the base of a large oak staring out at the Bird. Delroy ran up to him but slowed once he came to within a few feet. Panic exploded inside of him. His mind raced with a thousand scenarios of what he would find once he looked Peck over.

Maybe Peck killed some poor woman and tore her ear off. She would have to be very small, but Delroy’s imagination could get around that. What would he do if Peck wasn’t benignly odd like they believed him to be? What if he was a shy killer who went around tearing small women’s ears off with his teeth?

What if the ear was Peck’s? What if he bled to death from his torn ear while waiting for his uncle to save him? Never mind that Peck couldn’t afford, much less wear, the emerald earring. In the seconds before approaching Peck, anything was possible.

He walked up to the child. Peck was tear-streaked and staring at the Bird with eyes older than Delroy remembered. The first thing Delroy did was look him over to make sure he was whole and had two ears. Satisfied, he hugged him, holding him so close that he felt one with the child.

Delroy looked down at Peck. “Where did it come from?”

He said nothing. Delroy asked again, and louder. Peck only stared at his uncle, looking at him with his newly aged eyes.

“Peck, you have to tell me where it came from.” He couldn’t make himself say ear. “It” was less gruesome.

“Where did you find it, buddy?” Delroy used his calming voice. With this same tone he made cautious people say things in court they usually wouldn’t admit in private. “Just tell me where you found it.”

Peck closed his eyes and finally answered, “The turtle palace.”

Delroy had no idea what the turtle palace was but at least got an answer. It was time to stop questioning his nephew and make sure the rest of his family was safe. They walked back to the house. While Anna was hugging Peck, Delroy took Meg outside and asked her about the turtle palace.

“I don’t know,” she answered, looking down. He knew she was lying but couldn’t get too mad at her. She was covering for her brother more than herself. He appreciated that she would lie for her brother, even to him.

“Look Meg, Peck isn’t in trouble, neither are you, but I know he found it at the turtle palace. I have to know where that is. I’m going to have to talk to the sheriff. I need to know as much as I can before I do.”

“We didn’t do anything bad,” Meg replied. “We went down the river past the old town dock and tied up near the shipwreck.” Delroy knew where that was.

“The shipwreck” was the grand term for the shrimper that ran aground years ago after coming upriver to escape a hurricane. It escaped the storm but her captain had no idea a cotton barge was sunk in that part of the river years earlier. He tore the hull of the shrimper on the barge and it sank up to the deck. Because it was so near the bank and didn’t impede normal traffic, it was never moved. It just sat there, leering at Gratis like an alligator floating just under the surface.

It bothered Delroy that the children had been so close to that boat. It was a spooky place where black water sucked in the sunlight like the old barge sucked in the shrimper. Mentally he put “the shipwreck” on his list of places to tell the children to stay away from.

“On the bank there’s a bunch of big rocks and a cave you can get to there. It’s always nice and cool, even when it’s hot outside. Peck calls it the turtle palace because there are always turtles in there. They rest there after sunning on the rocks.”

Delroy knew the cave she was talking about. He explored the river as a child, too, although not as much as Meg and Peck. It was where an old tunnel from under Gratis came out to meet the Bird.

“We went in because it was so hot outside, Uncle Delroy. There were a bunch of turtles in the corner and Peck went over to see what they were doing, all together like that. That’s where he found the ear. The turtles were fighting over it. I snatched it away from them and brought it back here.”

Delroy winced when he heard that Peck found the turtles fighting over a woman’s ear. No child needed to see that but he would worry about it later. First he had to get the sheriff and they had to go to the turtle palace together.

This was not at all what Delroy had envisioned for his day. An upset sister in law, two shaken children, a disembodied ear, and one hell of a hangover made for a real mess. He didn’t need any of it. He needed a drink but didn’t get a chance to look for the Stoli at the office. For now he would have to settle for some of Anna’s sweet tea. He loved her tea, but it was a poor, poor substitute.

S
heriff Tommy Adcock just turned forty-five but felt older. He was a slender man, kept thin by the stress of being the elected high sheriff for the last twenty years. In a place like Gratis that was forever. A sheriff had to arrest too many people related to too many others. It was a tricky thing, not having too many voters mad at you come election time.

Tommy, however, came from a large family of twelve siblings and had exponentially more cousins besides that. At election time his name was on the hundreds of signs set out by his brothers, cousins, and others. The signs reminded everyone that Tommy was a hero. His brother had previously been the sheriff, shot in the line of duty by a drunk with a pistol. Tommy found the drunk while his brother was still on the operating table. He marched him through town in leg chains, dragging him when he fell down. The man was a bloody pulp by the time they reached the jail.

Tommy was named acting sheriff the next day. He was only twenty-five at the time and really had no way to turn the job down. It was a coronation. His brother recovered, but Tommy kept the job.

On this morning he was sitting in his office, drinking coffee and reading the Proclaimer, when his secretary buzzed that Delroy was asking to see him. Tommy had his own opinion about Delroy. He was a local, which went a long way with Tommy, and also seemed to care about his clients. He was also, however, a self-righteous prick.

Tommy still burned about a case where Delroy defended Bo Thompson a year earlier. Bo owned a car detailing business in town and used it to distribute meth all over the county. Tommy’s deputies found pounds of the drug at Bo’s house, arrested him, and for months it was a lot harder to buy meth in Gratis.

Bo’s mother Mayline hired Delroy to defend her son. Somehow he got the deputies who arrested Bo to admit they had no reason to search his house. The case got thrown out and soon Bo was back in business. It angered Tommy that Delroy, being local, didn’t think twice about setting a big drug dealer free. Children got hooked on meth but all Delroy cared about was freeing the supplier. It never sat well with Tommy.

On this morning, however, Delroy didn’t look like the arrogant trial attorney when he walked in. He was pale and Tommy thought he looked hung over. Delroy handed him the ear, uncovered but still nestled in the blood soaked rag. Tommy just stared.

This is exactly what I don’t need today
. A boozy lawyer, a disembodied ear, and a whole lot of questions were a poor way to start a weekend. He knew the condition wasn’t contagious but felt he was catching Delroy’s hangover.
Just like a damn lawyer
, he thought,
to share in all the pain and none of the pleasure
.

Tommy got a couple of his deputies and they all rode down to the tunnel entrance, the turtle palace. He made Delroy wait outside with one of the deputies while he and the other one went inside. There he found a slick spot with blood smears the turtles missed during their supping. They marked the spot for forensics to investigate. Tommy left the deputy there with strict orders to keep everyone and everything, including the turtles, out.

Tommy got out his flashlight and went further back in the tunnels. He walked for half an hour and was about to turn around when he hesitated, noticing a reflection on the ground ahead. He walked a few more feet and came to a stop.

Tommy had been to a lot of crime scenes and seen more than he wanted to remember. He had seen bodies missing heads blown off by shotguns, babies left to rot in trashcans, and drunk drivers fused into tree trunks. He once stood in a tomato patch looking down at the soupy remains of a man buried there for weeks, broiling in the hot Georgia sun like a foul tomato bisque. Still, he had never seen anything like the body before him now.

It was unnaturally contorted, like a Barbie doll after a little brother took revenge on a big sister. Arms and legs were pointing in directions which could only be described as wrong, and part of the head had been bashed in. Despite the bashing there was no doubt as to whom the head belonged to.

This is gonna be a problem, a huge damn problem
, he thought as he inspected the body.

Tommy turned around and went to get the investigation started. He needed deputies, a forensic team, and prep time for the reporters he knew would flock. A killing was still a rare thing in Gratis, and killings sold papers. A killing like this might even attract news crews from Atlanta.

When he got to the mouth of the cave he saw Delroy still waiting in the boat.
Reporters and lawyers
, he thought. He stepped on the boat in full body grimace, if such a thing were possible, and gave new thought to retirement. Right now that seemed a day far, far away.

M
illicent Knox grew up in a family that cared for her a great deal. Her daddy, Franklin Knox IV, owned the yarn and chemical plant on the west side and employed half the town. Early on she became aware of this fact and used it to her advantage throughout her life.

When she wanted to be the captain of a third grade kickball team, she was. When she wanted the best doll while playing at a friend’s house, it was hers. In high school she lost ninth grade homecoming princess to the daughter of one of her daddy’s supervisors. He was moved to the night shift the next week.

Millie went on to be elected the 10th and 11th grade homecoming princess, and her selection as queen her senior year was a forgone conclusion. At Gratis High the queen gave an oath in front of the student body during the pep session before the big game. “Truth above all else” she recited, and smiled as the girls she beat politely applauded.

Her father’s position wasn’t the only reason Millie got what she wanted. She was cunning and read people like an old car salesman. She knew how to push people without them knowing it. It was in the Knox genes. Her grandfather bought the family mansion when a cotton broker lost everything during the boll weevil disaster. He got it from the bank he controlled for pennies on the dollar. Her family likewise profited from anyone they could over the years, especially if they were down. You could always find a Knox sniffing around every crisis, a feral dog looking for an injured deer.

Of course they were prominent in politics, backing most of those holding office. The candidate who won a local race without Knox family backing was rare or non-existent. Even Tommy Adcock knew that their backing was necessary to ensure he never faced a viable candidate.

Millie graduated Gratis High and went to Georgia Tech like everyone else in her family. Most of them majored in textiles or chemistry. Millie wasn’t one for numbers, however, and got her degree in management. Telling others what to do was her science.