Sundown In Zion
CHAPTER fifty-one
They
all took Sunday off. Sheriff Love explained that they each enjoyed enough excitement
on Saturday to last a lifetime. “Besides,” he said, “I have to take my wife to
church on Sunday. We haven’t missed a service in over 47 years and we’re not
going to start now.”
Charlie
was at Angela’s house. Nelson tried all that morning to reach Tina, but she
didn’t answer her phone at home. He also tried her office with no luck. He read
for an hour after breakfast and then fired up his computer to make notes for
his report.
The
first thing that appeared on his screen was notice of an email from Tina. He
clicked to it. It read.
Forgive
me, but please don’t try to contact me again. It is all over, through no fault
of yours, only mine. I do not love you and will never love you. For better or
worse, love is a one-time thing with me. Sex is a relief from the pain of loss,
but only a temporary one. I thought perhaps you were different, but no. I loved
the sex, but each time we finished, and you lay beside me, I was filled with
disgust. Not only with you, but with myself mostly and with the thought of
dishonoring the memory of my husband. See, I didn’t love him when we married.
He represented an end to a student’s poverty and a little physical fun, that’s
all. Then something strange happened as we faced life together and overcame its
petty struggles. I woke up one morning and realized that I worshipped the
ground on which he walked. Every time I took a breath, that feeling grew
stronger. May you share it someday. Being loved can generate love, that’s not
from a sociologist, but from a life’s partner of a wonderful person. When we
meet on campus, let’s meet as friends. You can even take my class if you wish.
Friends, that’s all. I need all of them I can find. Take care.
Tina
Nelson closed the
email. He spent the afternoon making notes of his remembrances, and the evening
thinking, with a glass of Jack Daniels close by.
The next morning, he walked into the sheriff’s
office to find him in an expansive mood. “Come in my nautical friend. Get some
coffee and sit. When they both had settled comfortably, he said, “Know what our
preacher preached on yesterday?”
Nelson shook his head.
“Handling life’s
surprises with the help of God,” he said. “Now ain’t that a fucking hoot? What
you want to know about first?”? He stopped and spoke loudly toward the door.
“Mrs. M, you’ll know all about everything when you type my report. Right now,
you’ll just have to wait.” There was a familiar scuffling sound from the other
side of the door. He waited.
“Now,” he said.
“You’ll first want to know about Brother Dale Underhill, as he is known, right?
Nelson nodded.
“When he figured the
jig was up,” the sheriff said, “he started singing. Not hymns either but a sad
and tragic story. Seems greed-envy overtook him the way inertia overtakes many
of our county residents. He saw those TV evangelists with their private jets
and mansions, and it gnawed on him like glory gnaws on people like us.” They
both smiled. “Then he read a book about those fundamentalist Mormon men out
west. He and Bully spent way too much time talking about it and they hatched a
plan.”
“Let me guess,” Nelson
said. “It involved the Ransom Center.”
“Bingo. He used some
secret network that preachers have and found this huge market for brainwashed
young starlets and the two of them sprang into action.”
“Brigette said they appraised
her at fifty grand.”
“That’s a discounted
price,” he said, “because she was so hardheaded and difficult to train. She’s
also a little old. They like them no older than 14, as a rule. Anyway,” he
said. “A few sales financed their entry into a more lucrative, although
riskier, field. Greed overcame caution and here we are. He says they were
quitting all of their businesses after Bridgette and that delivery we
intercepted. You were making things too warm for them and they all had their
nests made anyway. It was off to the Caribbean after that final load.”
“Speaking of that,”
Nelson said, “how did Don Dillahunty fit in?
“Seems he came to
Brother Dale complaining that his wives, both former and present, were
bankrupting him and he didn’t know what to do.”
“And?”
“Just so happened that
the meth-gang needed a way to smuggle hard-to-get ingredients in and Don
imported a lot of furniture from the Vietnamese. They, the Vietnamese ain’t
above stuffing such furniture creatively. Don ask why. They are still pissed
off about the war, if you ask me. Anyway, as Brother Dale put it, in that
charming way of his, ‘It was a marriage made in Heaven’ and the rest is
history.”
Bridgette’s mother is happy?”
“Look up the word in
the dictionary and you’ll see her picture there.”
“Will they keep Martin
out of the news?”
“Now there is another
shocking development. I trust you didn’t fail to see a little more than rescuer
and rescuee attraction during our little get together?
“Who
could have missed it? That explains the portion of the letter her mom found.”
“It explains a lot of things,” the sheriff said, “not the least of which is why
they took her
from the Ransom Center when they didn’t really
need kidnap money anymore. They stop short of murdering for miscegenation now,
these assholes. Besides, they had a better treatment.”
“What
about the crime scene?”
“They went yesterday and looked as best they
could. A total wipeout. All they’ve identified so far was a section of a
forearm with the letters “SW” tattooed on it, and a partial set of dentures.”
“Believe
it or not, those both belonged to Bully.”
“Stands
to reason,” the sheriff said. “I mean as far as the dentures. Man-fighting,
meth, and Mountain Dew don’t make for a full set of choppers.
“So,”
Nelson said, “that about wraps in up?”
Before
the sheriff could answer, three knocks came at his door. “Ah,” he said, “Mrs.
M’s secret code. This is important. “Enter.”
The
door opened and a voice said, “Agent Benson is here.”
“Send
‘Little Jedgar’ in.”
The
door opened fully, and Tom Benson entered. He surveyed the room. “Gentlemen,”
he said. He shook hands with Nelson. “I think I owe you an apology for thinking
of you as a pest,” he said.
“Oh?”
Nelson said.
“Yes.
I think you’re going to get me transferred to the Beverley Hills office yet.”
He turned and shook hands with the sheriff. He nodded back toward Nelson and
said. “Just who the hell is this man? He got me credit for solving two
interstate crimes in one night.”
“Just
a former sailor,” the sheriff said. He motioned toward an empty chair. “Sit.”
“I
don’t know much more than what I reported to you yesterday,” he said to the
sheriff. “We’re getting ready to assemble all we can about Chief of Police
Banks over in Connorville and his possible role in all this.”
Sheriff
Love said, “If I know the Weasel, he has covered his tracks pretty well.”
“Our
trackers look hard and deep,” Benson said. “We’ll see what his financial
dealings tell us. Right now, I only have one disappointment.”
Both
men sat forward. “Oh?” said the sheriff. “A loose end? I thought all your
suspects were all singing “Just as I am without one plea.”
“They
are, pretty much,” Benson said. “Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Nelson asked.
“They
admitted killing Bonnie Sue Anderson. Seems she went to see Dale Underwood
because there was something about Bridgette Thompson she hadn’t told anyone,
something that could have stirred the pot pretty badly.”
“Which
was?” The sheriff was leaning more toward Benson now.
“Underwood
won’t say,” Benson said, “and she can’t. We may never know. But that’s not the
main thing they won’t admit?”
“What’s
that?” the sheriff asked.
Benson
took a deep breath. “None of them will tell us shit about Abbey Stubblefield.”
“Why?”
the sheriff was getting agitated. Nelson showed no emotion.
“Who
knows? Maybe they think they have enough trouble without getting the NAACP on
their case as well.”
The
sheriff leaned back and looked at Nelson. “Well now,” he said. Ain’t that a
pisser, after all you did for us?”
“Maybe,”
said Nelson. “Just maybe they don’t know.”
This
time it was Benson who leaned forward, toward Nelson. “What do you mean?”
Nelson
shook his head and sorrow showed across it. “You fellas want to take a ride?”
