The Front Porch Prophet (12 page)

“You’ve had a rough time,” A.J. said. “I think you were in shock. We should go on in and let the doctor check you out.” He had done his duty and was ready for the handoff. But she wasn’t moving. At least before, he could put her where he wanted her, and too much gab had not been an issue.

“Someone knocked those men off of me. My shirt was ripped. There was shooting. Then … then you and some other guy dressed me.” She was still looking his way, but he could not meet her gaze. She had been in need of clothing, and he had taken the chore as a matter of mercy. He had thought nothing of it then, but now it seemed a little personal. He was embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, but…”

“Sorry? Are you kidding? You saved my life. Thank you is not enough, but thank you.” She paused. “Those men are dead?” she asked. A.J. nodded.

“Yes, they have passed away,” he said, not prompting her.

“Good. I hope it hurt,” she said simply. A.J. suspected it probably had, especially the last one, but he did not enlighten her. “Where’s that other man, the one who helped you?” she asked. “And which one of you killed those men?” She hadn’t talked a great deal when they first met, but now she seemed committed to making up lost ground.

“We need to go on in,” A.J. said. “Your face is really bruised.” He got out of the truck and stepped around to open the door for her. She got out slowly and tested her legs. Then they walked up to Doc’s door and entered. His living room had been converted into a waiting room, and Doc was sitting in a Naugahide chair by the wall reading a medical journal disguised as
Field and Stream.
He looked up as they entered.

“A.J., how have you been?” he inquired.

“Been better, Doc. This lady needs some attention.”

Doc stepped up close and viewed the facial contusion.

“Yesss,” he said absentmindedly as his expert fingers gently felt for broken bones in the area of the bruise. “Mrs. Jackson,” he said loudly, calling the woman who had been his landlady, nurse, and companion for many years. When they were alone he called her Minnie, but this was business. “Let’s get this young woman ready for a complete medical exam.” Doc’s trained eye had also noted the deep scratches that began at her throat and disappeared under her shirt.

“What is your name, dear?” Mrs. Jackson asked as they left the lobby, but the door swung shut before A.J. could hear the reply. He supposed he should have inquired before now, but the opportunity had not presented itself, and she hadn’t volunteered. Doc and A.J. were left in the lobby.

“What’s the story, A.J.?” Doc asked.

“Eugene and I found her in the woods. She hasn’t been raped.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know. Eugene is on the way here with Slim. When he gets here, we’ll tell the story. Go check her out in the meantime. I think she was in shock when we found her.” Doc was looking at A.J. hard. He knew that an abundance wasn’t being said.

“I’ll be wanting some answers soon, A.J.,” he said.

“You’ll have them. Oh, and Doc? When you get through with her, get your coroner stuff ready. The woods are full of dead people.” Doc was on the way to the examining room. He stopped and slowly turned.

“I assume you are speaking euphemistically?”

“Nope.”

Doc just stared.

“A.J., what in hell have you and Eugene gotten into?”

“We have wandered into a metric ton of shit,” A.J. replied, and he meant every word. The old physician shook his head and left to tend his patient. A.J. stepped outside and waited for Slim and Eugene to arrive. His heels weren’t kept cooling for long. The pile of cigarette butts at his feet had only grown to three when he heard the siren on Slim Neal’s cruiser. Slim was usually as subtle as a B-52 raid and did not disappoint on the current occasion. He came sliding down Doc’s driveway with all four wheels locked and leaped out. Eugene, A.J. noted, was sitting in the back where the prisoners go.

“Where is the girl?” Slim asked, excited and out of breath.

“She’s in there with Doc,” A.J. replied. Slim made to brush past A.J., who did not move from the door. “They won’t be long,” he continued. “Let’s let them have their privacy.” He couldn’t precisely explain it, but he had become a little protective of her. The idea of Slim shining his flashlight at her private parts while looking for clues was unacceptable. Given Slim’s history, it was not inconceivable that whole sections of her body would end up roped off with yellow tape, and A.J. wasn’t going to have it. “Why don’t you take my statement?” he suggested to Slim.

“I don’t need your statement. Eugene has confessed. I know everything.” Knowing Slim as he did, A.J. found that hard to believe.

“What, exactly, has Eugene confessed to?” he asked, looking toward the backseat of the police car. Eugene shrugged.

“To killing three men up on the mountain, of course. Said he beat two of them to death with your bat and shot a third one.” Slim oozed exhilaration. “He says it was self-defense. Sure sounds like it was to me, but I’ve got to talk to that girl and check it out.” Slim spoke proudly, unaware that the biggest case he had ever unraveled was solved incorrectly.

“Slim, that’s not what happened,” A.J. said. “I killed those men.”

“A.J., A.J., A.J. Everyone knows Eugene is your buddy, and everyone knows you’re going to stick up for him. Hell, even Eugene said you’d try to take the blame. Said you told him to just shut up and let you do the talking. I understand these things, but if you try to lie to the county sheriff when he gets here, you’re going to get into trouble.” Slim was patting A.J. on the shoulder and speaking in a tolerant tone.

“Can I talk to Eugene a minute?” A.J. asked tightly.

“Well, I don’t know.” Slim thought about the idea. “I guess it would be all right, but I’d have to put you in the backseat.” He led A.J. to the car and shut him in. Eugene was sitting there, wearing handcuffs.

“What are you doing?” A.J. asked, getting right to the issue.

“Hell, A.J., the man wore me down. Had some of those hot lights shining on me. Beat me with a hose. I confessed. He also made me admit that I was the second man on the grassy knoll and he may have me pegged on the Lindbergh baby.” Eugene had a faint smile on his lips.

“This is not funny. Tell him I did it, and quit playing around.” A.J. was angry. It wasn’t that he wanted to take the blame, or the credit, depending on the point of view. But right was right, and Eugene didn’t do it. “If Slim is eating out of the palm of your hand, why are you wearing the handcuffs? I’m telling you, you’re loading yourself up for trouble you can’t handle.”

“Sorry,” Eugene said. “It’s my word against yours. You are a piss-poor liar, and I’m taking the rap. We were knights in shining armor on this deal, but four guys are dead. The shit heads shot one of them, and the two you brained with the bat were clearly self-defense. That leaves the one you made into dog food. A.J., I know you, and I know for a fact you were going to fuck that one up. You were already starting to warm up to that cold-blooded-murder shit. Now me, I can lie all day. Slim already knows that the man was just about to cut down on me and the girl, but I got him first. You had gone on ahead to find us a good spot to fish. By the time you got back, it was all over. As for the cuffs, do you know how long Slim has been waiting to slap these on somebody? Hell, I couldn’t let him down. How often does he get to be in on a quadruple murder? Have a little compassion.”

“There’s a problem with your plan,” A.J. said. “The girl remembers.” It was a lie, but it might provide the necessary impetus for Eugene to recant.

“No problem at all,” was Eugene’s reply. “She was in shock. You prompted her because you’re a hell of a guy and didn’t want to see your buddy take the fall.” He paused a moment before offering the kicker. “Here’s the deal. You are a prince among men, and everybody knows you’d try to help me out of a jam. It’s just something you’d do. Me, I’m a piece of shit. I’ve never done a noble thing in my life. Why would I start now?”

A.J. mentally acknowledged that Eugene seemed to have thought it through.

“Anyway,” Eugene continued, “I’m a bootlegger. This will be great for my reputation. Might help get some of the larger bills cleared up. Maybe even discourage competition from some of the younger boys just taking up the trade.” A.J. didn’t know what to say. The abnormality of the conversation dovetailed with the absurdity of the day. They were a matched set, color-coordinated insanity.

“We’ll take polygraph tests,” A.J. offered, stubborn as a bulldog and losing ground. “I’ll prove I did it.”

“Those things won’t stand up in court, and mine will come out better than yours, anyway. I lie better than I tell the truth. It’s one of my strengths.” Eugene was set on his course.

“Eugene, why are you doing this?” A.J. wasn’t giving up, but he had to admit he had lost momentum.

“I’m doing it because I’m your friend. I can get away with this. You can’t.” Eugene was silent for a moment. “Besides, you would do it for me. Who knows? Someday I may need a favor.”

The aftermath of the day’s events was complicated. The girl’s name was Regina Deberry of the Atlanta Deberrys, and she was a senior at the University of Georgia. Her declared major was anthropology, but her long weekend in the mountains had dampened her fascination with primitive cultures, and as soon as she returned to Athens she adjusted her academic focus toward psychology.

But there was one small blemish to clear up before she returned to scholastic life. Found among the ruins of the camp—in Regina’s sleeping bag, to be exact—was five pounds of high-quality black Jamaican marijuana. The cache was discovered by Slim, and Regina’s partial amnesia conveniently extended to cover the origin of the substance. So although she had been almost raped and nearly killed, Slim held her pending investigation of the drug charge.

“Any one of four dead guys he could nail, and Slim tries to hang it on the girl,” Eugene said when he heard the news. He was disgusted. “Hell, I wish
I
had found it. It damn sure wouldn’t be a problem now.”

A.J. had no doubts on that score, and he found it unusual that Eugene had missed the stash when he had dashed back to retrieve his gun, because he hadn’t overlooked anything else. He had reclaimed his pistol and its spent shell casings as well as retrieving A.J.’s fingerprints from both the bat and the M-16. He had replaced them with his own.

Regina’s father, Mr. Deberry, Esquire, was a man of repute in the legal community, and he roared into town with the full intention of “straightening some country ass out.” He spent exactly seventeen minutes with Slim, and when he emerged from the town hall, he had his daughter. Slim remained inside. Mr. Deberry—
Deeb
to his friends—then sought out Eugene, who had succeeded in taking full responsibility for the killings despite A.J.’s best efforts to shift the blame to its rightful owner. Deeb found Eugene down at the beer joint, and they quaffed a couple while he thanked Eugene for saving his daughter. Eugene was free on a property bond pending the outcome of the inquest, a guarantee posted by John Robert Longstreet because Johnny Mack wouldn’t sign. Deeb told Eugene his legal woes would be handled as soon as he got back to Atlanta, and he proved to be a man of his word.

As for the departed in the woods, they were dead first and foremost, and not a great deal more could be added. The three A.J. had dispatched were the intended buyers of the marijuana. Kenneth was Regina’s muscle on the deal, and Regina was the purveyor. The problem had been one of league. She was accustomed to dealing a little doobie down at the hallowed halls, and in that venue dissatisfied customers did not as a general habit rape and then kill their suppliers.

Playing with the big boys proved to have its own set of rules, but Regina was an intelligent woman who did not have to be told twice. She contracted with Eugene—whom she mistakenly believed would kill for her—to distribute all the black Jamaican she could provide, and since he warranted she would make a fair profit and not be ravaged or terminated, a partnership was born that lasted for several years.

This left the loose end of A.J. and Maggie. One of his main concerns—aside from Lukey in the Reidsville shower stall—was how Maggie would react when informed her beloved had killed more people than Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, and Sirhan Sirhan, if that was his real name. But he told her anyway and was surprised to discover her thoughts on the affair were similar to Eugene’s.

“Eugene was right. He could get away with it.
You
they would have hung.” She spoke in a sardonic tone. “Anyway, he really wanted the credit. Can’t you tell? He gets to be a hero without being a hero.” And that was that, except for her comment on the act itself. After describing to her the scene at the campground, Maggie’s response was cool and measured.

“Good. I hope it hurt.”

A.J.’S WALK WITH MAYHEM WAS ANCIENT HISTORY
, but it had taken center stage in his consciousness when Eugene had chosen to refer to the incident, and A.J. had been in a foul frame of mind ever since. His mood remained sour until the following Wednesday, when he was summoned to the mill for an early meeting. At that point, his disposition really decayed. He normally reported at 4:00 p.m. and turned logs into boards until 2:00 a.m. the following morning. He called it the Bermuda Shift, because many hapless souls had wandered onto it over the years, never to be seen again. He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with John Robert when the phone call came.

“A.J., there’s a meeting at two o’clock,” said Marie Prater. She had been an institution at the sawmill for many years. “You have to be here.” Marie was John McCord’s secretary, and John McCord was president and general manager of McCord Lumber. She was a formidable woman, seldom wrong and rarely challenged. Her husband, Randall, was disabled, having suffered from a bad back since about the time he was old enough to perform any work. This affliction was hereditary and had stricken his father and grandfather, and others before that. Marie’s children—four teenaged boys with bad backs—amazed A.J., because he could not envision Randall expending the energy necessary to father them. In truth, none of the boys favored Randall much, and one of them was the spitting image of John McCord, so perhaps Marie had been forced to make other arrangements.