Unspeakable (2 page)

"Couldn't sleep. Now that I'm officially out, I figured I'd just as well get all my things. Sheriff Foster will be wanting to move in tomorrow."

"I reckon. What do you think about him?"

"He's a good man. He'll make a good sheriff," Ezzy replied sincerely.

"Maybe so, but he's no Ezzy Hardge."

"Thanks for that."

"Sorry I didn't get to go to the banquet last evenin'. How was it?"

"You didn't miss a thing. Most boring time I've ever had." Ezzy entered his private office and switched on the light, probably for the last time. "Never heard so many speeches in all my life. What is it about turning a microphone over to somebody, they automatically become longwinded?"

"Folks got a lot to say about a living legend."

Ezzy harrumphed. "I'm no longer your boss, Frank, but I'll get physical with you if you keep talking like that. Got a spare cup of coffee? I'd sure appreciate it."

"Comin' right up."

Unable to sleep after such an emotionally strenuous evening, not to mention Cora's rebuff of his affection, he'd gotten up, dressed, and crept from the house. Cora had a radar system as good as a vampire bat's, picking up any sound and motion he made. He hadn't wanted a confrontation with her about the stupidity of going out in the wee hours to do a job that the county had granted him a week to get done.

But since they'd retired him, he reasoned they didn't want him lurking around, no matter how many times they assured him that he would always be welcome in the sheriff's office of Blewer County. Last thing he wanted to do was make a pest of himself, or become a pathetic old man who clung to the glory days and couldn't accept that he was no longer needed or wanted. He didn't want to start having regular self-pity parties, either, but that's what this was, wasn't it?

He thanked the deputy when he set a steaming mug of coffee on his desk. "Close the door behind you, please, Frank. I don't want to disturb you."

"Won't bother me any. It's been a quiet night."

All the same, Frank pulled the door closed. Ezzy wasn't worried about disturbing the dispatcher. Fact was, he didn't want any chitchat while he went about this chore. The official files were, of course, a matter of public record, shared with the city police, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Rangers, and any other law enforcement agency with which his office cooperated and coordinated investigations.

But the file cabinets in his office contained Ezzy's personal notes—lists of questions to pose to a suspect, times and dates and names of individuals connected to a case, information imparted by reliable informants or witnesses who wished to remain anonymous. For the most part, these notes had been handwritten by him in a shorthand he had developed and that only he could decipher, usually jotted down with a number-two pencil on any scrap of paper available to him at the time. Ezzy considered them as private as a diary. More than those damn flowery speeches he'd had to endure at the Community Center last night, these personal files documented his career. He took a sip of coffee, rolled his chair over to the metal filing cabinet, and pulled open the bottom drawer. The files were more or less categorized by year. He removed a few of the earliest ones, leafed through them, found them not worth saving, and tossed them into the ugly, dented, brown metal wastebasket that had been there as long as he had.

He went about the clean-out methodically and efficiently, but he was inexorably working his way toward 1976. By the time he got to that year's files, the coffee had gone sour in his stomach and he was belching it.

One file was different from the rest chiefly because it was larger and had seen the most use. It was comprised of several manila folders held together by a wide rubber band. The edges of each folder were soiled, frayed, and curled, testifying to the many times they'd been reopened, fingered as Ezzy reviewed the contents, spilled on, wedged into the cabinet between less significant folders, only to be removed again and put through the same cycle. He rolled the rubber band off the folders and onto his thick wrist. He wore a copper bracelet because Cora said copper was good for arthritis, but you couldn't tell it by him. Stacking the folders on his desk, he sipped the fresh coffee that the deputy had refilled without any acknowledgment from Ezzy, then opened the top one. First item in it was a page from the Blewer Bucks yearbook. Ezzy remembered the day he'd torn out this page of the high school annual to use for reference. Senior section, third row down, second picture from the left. Patricia Joyce McCorkle.

She was looking directly into the camera's lens, wearing an expression that said she knew a secret the photographer would love to know. Activities listed at the end of the row beneath her name were Chorus, Spanish Club, and Future Homemakers. Her advice to lowerclassmen:

"Party, party, party, and party hearty."

Cap-and-gown photos were rarely flattering, but Patsy's was downright unattractive, mainly because she wasn't pretty to begin with. Her eyes were small, her nose wide and flat, her lips thin, and she had hardly any chin at all.

Her lack of beauty hadn't kept Patsy from being popular, however. It hadn't taken long for Ezzy to learn that Patsy McCorkle had had more dates than just about any other senior girl that year, including the homecoming princess and the class beauty.

Because, as one of her classmates—who now owned and operated the Texaco station on Crockett Street—had told him, stammering with embarrassment, "Patsy put out for everybody, Sheriff Hardge. Know what I mean?"

Ezzy knew. Even when he was in high school there had been girls who put out for everybody, and every boy knew who they were.

Nevertheless, Patsy's soiled reputation hadn't made it any easier for him to go to her home that hot August morning and deliver the news that no parent ever wants to hear. McCorkle managed the public-service office downtown, Ezzy knew him to speak to, but they weren't close acquaintances. McCorkle intercepted him even before he reached the front porch. He pushed open the screened door and the first words out of his mouth were, "What's she done, Sheriff?"

Ezzy had asked if he could come in. As they made their way through the tidy, livable rooms of the house to the kitchen, where McCorkle already had coffee percolating, he told the sheriff that lately his girl had been wild as a March hare.

"We can't do anything with her. She's half-wrecked her car by driving it too fast and reckless. She stays out till all hours every night, drinking till she gets drunk, then puking it up every morning. She's smoking cigarettes and I'm afraid to know what else. She breaks all our rules and makes no secret of it. She won't ever tell me or her mother who she's with when she's out, but I hear she's been messing around with those Herbold brothers. When I confronted her about running with delinquents like that, she told me to mind my own goddamn business. Her words. She said she could date anybody she damn well pleased, and that included married men if she took a mind to. The way she's behaving, Sheriff Hardge, it wouldn't surprise me if she has." He handed the sheriff a cup of fresh coffee. "It was only a matter of time before she broke the law, I guess. Since she didn't come home last night, I've been more or less expecting you. What's she done?" he repeated.

"Is Mrs. McCorkle here?"

"Upstairs. Still asleep."

Ezzy nodded, looked down at the toes of his black uniform boots, up at the white ruffled curtain in the kitchen window, over at the red cat stretching itself against the leg of the table, onto which he set his coffee. "Your girl was found dead this morning, Mr. McCorkle." He hated this part of his job. Thank God this particular duty didn't come around too often or he might have opted for some other line of work. It was damned hard to meet a person eye-to-eye when you had just informed him that a family member wasn't coming home. But it was doubly hard when moments before he'd been talking trash about the deceased.

All the muscles in the man's face seemed to drop as though they'd been snipped off at the bone. After that day, McCorkle had never looked the same. Townsfolk commented on the change. Ezzy could pinpoint the instant that transformation in his face had taken place.

"Car wreck?" he wheezed.

Ezzy wished that were the case. He shook his head sadly. "No, sir. She, uh, she was found just after dawn, out in the woods, down by the river."

"Sheriff Hardge?"

He turned, and there in the kitchen doorway stood Mrs. McCorkle wearing a summer-weight housecoat spattered with daisies. Her hair was in curlers and her eyes were puffy from just waking up.

"Sheriff Hardge? Pardon me, Ezzy?"

Ezzy looked toward the office door and blinked the deputy into focus. He'd forgotten where he was. His recollection had carried him back twenty-two years. He was in the McCorkles' kitchen, hearing not Frank, but Mrs. McCorkle speaking his name with a question mark—and a suggestion of dread—behind it. Ezzy rubbed his gritty eyes. "Uh, yeah, Frank. What is it?"

"Hate to interrupt, but Cora's on the phone, wanting to know if you're here." He winked. "Are you?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Frank."

The moment he said hello, Cora lit into him. "I don't appreciate you sneaking out while I'm asleep and not telling me where you're going."

"I left you a note."

"You said you were going to work. And since you officially retired last night, I couldn't guess where you are presently employed."

He smiled, thinking about how she looked right now. He could see her, all sixty-one inches of her drawn up ramrod straight, hands on hips, eyes flashing. It was a cliché, but it fit: Cora was prettier when she was angry. "I was thinking 'bout taking you out to breakfast at the IHOP, but since you're in such a pissy mood, I might ask me some other girl."

"As if any other girl would put up with you." After a huffy pause, she added, "I'll be ready in ten minutes. Don't keep me waiting."

He tidied up before leaving the office and gathered what he'd salvaged into some boxes the county had thoughtfully provided. Frank helped him carry the boxes to his car. After they were loaded into the trunk, they shook hands. "See you 'round, Ezzy."

"Take care, Frank."

Only after the dispatcher had returned inside did Ezzy lay the McCorkle file on top of the others. He wouldn't unload the trunk while Cora was around. If she saw that file, she would know that was what had got him up in the middle of the night and had kept him occupied these last few hours. Then she really would be pissed.

CHAPTER THREE

C
arl whispered to Myron, "It's tomorrow now, remember?"

"Sure, Carl. I remember."

"So don't do anything that might keep you from getting into that road-crew van."

"I won't, Carl."

Dumber than dirt, Carl was thinking as he gazed into the cerebral desert behind Myron's clear eyes.

Although it wasn't quite fair to question Myron's behavior when he himself had come close to screwing up their plan. All he'd done was try to protect himself from a sound beating. But if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't fight back.

After that nigger attacked him, he'd gone plumb berserk with rage. It had taken four men to get him into the infirmary and strapped onto the bed. Even then he'd managed to bite a chunk of flesh from the forearm of a male nurse. They couldn't give him a sedative because they hadn't yet examined his head to determine the extent of his injury.

Uncaring about the blasted headache, he had ranted and raved the rest of that day and the livelong night. He had screamed like a banshee, railing against God, and the devil and the niggers, who might have cost him his one chance for escape.

In hindsight he realized he should have lain there in the dirt and let that weight lifter keep on kicking him till the bulls got there and pulled him off. How much damage could have been done in a matter of a few more seconds?

He'd been diagnosed with a mild concussion. He had vomited a few times. His vision was slightly blurry, but it had completely cleared by late the following day. He'd had a headache that no amount of medication had alleviated; it had finally just worn off. His kidney was bruised and sore, but the doc said no permanent damage had been done.

He'd suffered a few days of discomfort, but he had been grateful for the injuries. They demonstrated to the warden that he was the injured party and that he had only been trying to protect himself when he kicked the other prisoner in his privates.

Carl had derived tremendous satisfaction from leaving the infirmary intact, able to walk out under his own power, while the nigger's balls were still swollen. Their grotesque size was a source of amusement for everyone in the infirmary. He had a tube stuck in his dick, peeing for him, which also generated all sorts of ridicule. He cried like a baby every time he moved. So in the long run, it had worked out all right. The doc had declared him fit to go back to work on the grounds maintenance crew, making him eligible to pull road-crew duty as well. Squeaking by once, he was taking no more chances on getting disqualified for that special detail. Since leaving the infirmary, he had kept his distance from the rest of the prison population, except for Myron. He hadn't engaged anyone in conversation. He hadn't looked askance at anybody, especially the blacks. He hated like hell to leave without killing one of them in retaliation for all the grief they'd given him over the years, but in the grand scheme of things, it just wasn't worth it. He might have a few fleeting moments of enjoyment from seeing their blood run, but then his ass would be hash. He would never see the light of day again. And he had a real hankering to see just how bright the sunshine was in Mexico and to taste all the exotic pleasures that country had to afford.