Long Upon the Land (15 page)

They parked off the road near a break in the shrubbery that masked the railroad tracks. This was where Booker said he usually entered on his bike to get to the creek bank. Following along behind him, they cast their eyes right and left for any possible evidence that someone besides Wayne Booker had walked there. The ground was hard and baked dry by the last ten days of hot August sun. Even the wiregrass and sandspurs looked withered and half-dead.

“Yonder’s where he probably drove in,” said Booker, pointing to a rough dirt lane that led from Old 48 to the tracks.

Beyond that, around a bend in the service road that paralleled the tracks, was a stand of tall trashy shrubs: privet, wax myrtles, and sumac.

“And right here’s where I found it,” said Booker.

The bushes showed broken twigs with withered and dying leaves and several had been snapped off entirely. Tire tracks were still visible and there were faint tracks from Booker’s bicycle. If the killer had left shoe prints when he got out of the truck, they were now scuffed over by the kid’s sneakers.

Dalton paid particular attention to the twigs that might have snagged a shirt or hair when the driver got out of the cab, but came up empty.

“You see?” said Booker. “Somebody backed it in here as far as it would go and just left it, so it wasn’t really stealing. It’s like when somebody leaves stuff out with the garbage and you take it off the curb. I got a guitar like that once. Nobody wanted it.”

“And you really thought nobody wanted a two-year-old pickup in good running condition?” McLamb asked sarcastically.

Still trying to justify his actions, the boy was insistent. “Y’all saw that bullet hole in the windshield. Looked to me like somebody’d been trying to kill whoever’s truck it was and he just didn’t want to drive it anymore ’cause he was like a moving target, you know? That’s why I was going to get it painted black. It was here at least three days. Maybe even longer, so it wasn’t really stealing. Come on, you guys. I helped y’all. You know I did. You’d still be looking for it if I hadn’t driven it down to Makely.

Dwight shook his head, amused by the boy’s reasoning. “Next time you find a vehicle hidden away somewhere, call us first, okay?”

“I can go?” Booker asked hopefully.

They hadn’t officially charged him, so he wasn’t in the system yet and Dwight didn’t see much point in hauling him into court for the slap on the wrist that he’d probably get.

“Yeah, you can go this time.”

“Cool! Thanks, Major Bryant!” he said and loped back down the way they’d come, toward his home.

Turning to his deputies, Dwight said, “I’ll go talk to Mrs. Earp again and let her know that we’ve found the truck. Y’all spread out and canvass the houses along the tracks and on both sides of where the truck probably drove in. I know it’s been at least ten days, but maybe someone will remember seeing something. Unless the killer had an accomplice, he probably left on foot.”

“Or on a bicycle like Booker,” McLamb said, wiping the sweat from his face. “Too bad the South got so air-conditioned. Not many people sitting out on their porches these evenings. They’re all inside where it’s cool, with their eyes glued on some screen or other.”

As they walked back to their cars to begin the canvass, a freight train slowly rumbled past pulling dozens of flatcars, all loaded with pine logs harvested from tree farms down near the coast. McLamb turned to Dwight with a broad grin. “What d’you think, Major? Reckon our killer hitched a ride? Slow as it’s going, it wouldn’t be hard to grab on the side and step up on one of those bars.”

“I don’t know, Ray. At night?”

“Full moon that night,” McLamb argued.

Just then, Dalton turned to Dwight with his phone to his ear.

“It’s Crabtree, boss. Dr. Singh’s done a quick and dirty and says it looks like Vick Earp’s blood for both samples.” He laughed at something Janice Crabtree must have said. “Singh wants to know if it’s a tiger this time around.”

“
What?
He found more cat blood?”

“That’s what she says. From the bed
and
from the gas pedal.”

They paused by Dwight’s truck to discuss what this might mean.

“So maybe someone drove up in the yard while Vick Earp was picking up the broken glass,” Dwight mused.

“Someone Earp’d pissed off,” said Ray McLamb. “And the cat gets between ’em and one of them stomps it to death.”

“Or maybe Earp killed it,” Dalton suggested, “and the other person says, ‘Hey, good idea!’ and stomps Earp?”

“But where’s the cat?” asked Dwight. “Why put it in the back of the truck? And cat blood on the gas pedal? When did Earp drive the truck after the cat was killed?”

“Maybe he wasn’t the only one who stepped in the cat blood. It could’ve been whoever killed him and drove the truck out to the creek,” said Dalton. “I don’t know how we missed it unless some animal dragged it off, but we could go back out to where Earp was dumped and take another look for it.”

Dwight nodded. “Get the canvass started, Ray, while I go talk to Mrs. Earp and I’ll meet you and Dalton out there in an hour.”

At the Earp house, Marisa Young’s minivan was once again parked under the carport beside Mrs. Earp’s car. As he walked up the drive a man was loading cardboard boxes into the back of the van. Sweat dampened the back of his gray T-shirt. The trunk and backseat of the car were packed with clothes and cartons of small kitchen appliances. The tool shed’s double doors stood wide open and the shed was now crammed with tables, chairs, and some floor lamps. More boxes were stacked on the back porch.

The door was open, but before he could call or knock, Rosalee Earp came out with her arms full of men’s clothing still on hangers.

“Tyler, you can— Oh! Major Bryant!”

Startled by his unexpected appearance, she stepped back and a winter jacket slid off the hanger to fall on the floor between them.

“I thought you were Tyler,” she said.

“Sorry.” He picked up the jacket. “I should have called first, let you know I was coming.”

“That’s okay.” As the man came over to them, she said, “Do you know Vick’s brother?”

“Dwight Bryant,” he said. “Sheriff’s Department. You’re Tyler Earp?”

“Yeah. These for me, Rosy?”

When Mrs. Earp nodded, he took the clothes and carried them over to his truck.

Not only did the brothers have the same beefy build, thought Dwight, they both favored red Ford pickups. But whereas Vick’s had been uncluttered and clean except for the blood, the back of Tyler’s held an assortment of paint buckets, ladders, and some paint-smeared tarps. The cab had a gun rack over the rear window. Empty now.

“Tyler’s helping me move,” said Mrs. Earp, “and I’m giving him Vick’s things.”

She wore a sleeveless red tank top and knee-length beige shorts and her legs were surprisingly shapely. Her face was flushed from the heat, tendrils of graying brown hair had pulled loose from her ponytail and the humidity made them curl around her forehead, giving her a younger look.

“You’re moving?”

She nodded. “I don’t want to stay here any longer and Marisa’s invited me to come live with her for now. See if we can stand each other. We’re going to hold a yard sale this weekend.”

“Rosy?” Miss Young came to the door. “What do you want to do with— Oh, hello, Major Bryant. Any news about Vick?”

She was perspiring even more than her cousin and wiped her hot face on the wristband of her long-sleeved tan T-shirt, before holding out a box of saucepans and colanders. “Yard sale or keep? You know I’ve got a ton of pots and pans.”

“Yard sale, then,” Mrs. Earp said. “But I do want to keep that iron skillet.”

Miss Young handed her the skillet, then carried the box out to the tool shed.

“Come on in, Major,” said Mrs. Earp. She set the skillet on the kitchen counter. “Everything’s a mess, but we haven’t dismantled the living room yet. Sorry about the heat, but with all this in and out, I’ve turned off the air-conditioning. No point trying to cool off the yard.”

Despite the open doors and windows and some portable fans to stir the air, the house was hot and stuffy. She had spread white cotton sheets over the dark velour couch and chairs, which made them marginally cooler to sit on.

Dwight took a seat in front of a fan while Mrs. Earp perched on the end of the couch where her cousin soon joined her.

“Don’t need any living room furniture, do you?” Miss Young asked. “We could probably get Tyler to help you get it in your truck.”

Dwight smiled. “Sorry. So, you’re going to share a house?”

Miss Young smiled back. “I’m going to teach her how to be a slob.”

“Oh, Marisa,” Mrs. Earp protested. “You’re not a slob.”

“Not what Vick used to say.”

“Oh well, you know Vick.” She turned back to Dwight. “Is there any news? Have you found out who killed him?”

“Not yet, ma’am, but we did find his truck. Somebody tried to hide it down by the railroad tracks where it passes under Old Forty-eight.”

“It wasn’t wrecked, was it?” she asked.

“A little scratched up on the tailgate, but that’s all.”

“Good. The windshield Vick ordered has come in and they said I’d lose the deposit if I didn’t take it. When can I get it back?”

“We’ll bring it out to you when we’re finished with it. Probably by tomorrow. I have to tell you, though—we found your husband’s blood in the back.”

Mrs. Earp’s eyes widened.

“We think that’s how his body got out to the country. He was probably attacked out there in your yard and then carried away in the truck to where he was left for dead.”

When she didn’t speak, Dwight said, “Have you remembered anything more that might help us? Any enemies he had, people who might’ve had a grudge?”

She shook her head. “I told you, Major Bryant. Vick wasn’t very social. He kept to himself, and didn’t have any real friends. Didn’t seem to need them. We never had anyone over except family. Marisa and Tyler and once in a long while his uncle. Joby and Earla. He said he got enough of people during the week and just wanted to work around the house or in the yard on the weekends.”

“What about you, Mr. Earp?” Dwight said as Tyler Earp slowed in his walk down the hall.

The man scowled. “What about me?”

“Have any suggestions as to who might have killed your brother?”

He shrugged. “We didn’t hang out together much. He thought he was better than me.”

“That’s not true, Tyler,” Mrs. Earp said in a placating tone. “He just wanted you to make more of yourself.”

“Whatever. Say, aren’t you the deputy they talked about in the paper? Married to Kezzie Knott’s daughter?”

“You know her?”

“Naw. Know who she is, though. We used to live out there when she was just a baby.”

“I guess you feel he stole your land, too,” Dwight said.

Tyler Earp shook his head with a sour laugh. “Me? No. That was Vick and Joby. They were the farmers in the family. Not me. I hated working in tobacco. Best day of my life up to then was when we moved off and I didn’t have to do it no more.” He grinned at the two women. “Remember that time we went back out there for a picnic? How he almost cried talking about how great it was to work your own land?”

Miss Young nodded. “He sang that song every time anybody mentioned it. Got mad when you said that the only good thing about the place was swimming in the creek.”

“He always wanted to farm,” Mrs. Earp said softly.

“Won’t much of a farmer,” said Earp. “Him or Joby neither. Didn’t break even some years.”

“Yet to hear him tell it, they could have paid off the mortgage if Kezzie Knott had just given them another year,” said Miss Young.

“And if you believe that, I got some oceanfront property in Arizona I’ll sell you,” he said scornfully. “Both of ’em sure hated Kezzie Knott, though. Blamed him for everything that went wrong out there. Blamed him for Joby going to jail this last time. Reckon you’d know better’n me how he felt about them, Major. Way I remember it, Kezzie Knott used to be real handy with his fists. With his gun, too. And that reminds me. When do I get my shotgun back?”

“Soon as we see if it fired the slug we recovered from your brother’s truck. If it matches, you might owe Mrs. Earp for that windshield.”

“Excuse me, Major,” Mrs. Earp said timidly, “but can Tyler be charged with anything if nobody ever called the police? Vick never did and it was his truck.”

“If you want your insurance to cover it, you’ll need to file a police report,” Dwight told her.

“I’ll pay for it, Rosy,” said Tyler. “It’s not that much.”

“We’ll work something out ourselves, Major. Tyler’s helping me move and he’s going to help spruce up this house so it’ll sell quickly.”

“Yeah?”

Earp put his hand over his heart. “God’s honest truth.”

Dwight threw up his own hands in surrender. “All right. We’ll let it drop if you’re sure that’s what you want?”

“It is,” said Mrs. Earp.

“So when can I get it back?” asked Earp.

“I’ll have someone drop it off,” Dwight said.

As he reached the porch, the bloodstain on the step reminded him. “About your cat, ma’am…”

“Diesel?” Hope blossomed in her thin face. “You found him? Where is he? Is he hurt? Rusty said you told her he was dead.”

“I’m afraid he is, ma’am.” He pointed to the bloodstain. “He lost a lot of blood there, and we found more traces of it in the truck bed.”

Mrs. Earp stared at the step, appalled. “In the
truck
? I don’t understand. Someone killed Diesel and then carried him off in the truck, too? Why?” Her eyes filled with tears. “That poor sweetie. Everybody loved him.”

“Not everybody, Rosy,” said her cousin, handing her a tissue.

“Vick got impatient with him, yes, but he’d never do something like that.
Never!
”

She looked at them beseechingly. “Besides, even if he didn’t like Diesel, he wouldn’t let someone else hurt him. You know how he was.”

Surprisingly, Tyler Earp agreed with her. “What was his, was his and he’d never let anybody else mess with his things without a fight. Even things he didn’t want. I remember out at the farm once, playing baseball. We were using a bat he’d whittled out of a tree limb and it split when he hit the ball. He threw it off in the bushes, but next day, one of the Knott twins—I think it was Haywood—had taped it up so it could still be used and I thought they were going to beat each other to death because Vick said it was his and Haywood kept saying ‘Finders, keepers.’ Robert had to pull ’em apart and make him give it back to Vick. Soon as we got home, though, Vick put it in the woodstove. He just didn’t want somebody else to have what was his.”