The Killing King of Gratis (16 page)

“Please Delroy, don’t hang up on me, please.” It was Newt.

“Newt, what the hell are you doing. You sound drunk. Whose number is this?”

Again he heard the raspy sobbing that he now realized belonged to his client. He waited for an answer.

“That son of a bitch killed Merry. He killed my Merry.”

Delroy knew Merry and that she and Newt had an off and on relationship. He also knew, instantly, that this was bad.

“What are you talking about Newt? Slow down, buddy, and collect yourself, okay? Tell me what’s going on when you’re ready.”

Newt tried to catch his breath on the other end of the phone. Delroy heard labored breathing and small squeaks that sounded like a rat was stuck in the phone’s receiver.

“Merry is dead and I’m in jail in Savannah. They, they think I did it, Delroy. I truly loved her.” Newt sobbed a bit more, trying to stop and finding it impossible.

“Well, why do they think you did it? You weren’t even in Savannah.” Delroy heard nothing and before Newt could reply he said, “don’t say another word, Newt. Tell them I’m your attorney, and that’s it. I don’t care what the question might be, don’t answer another thing until I’m there. Are you in the Chatham County jail?”

Delroy still heard nothing but heavy breathing. “Damn, Newt, you can answer that question.”

“Yes,” was all Newt could manage to utter.

“Okay, just hold on buddy, I’ll be there in a few hours.” Newt started to sob again and Delroy hung up. He looked at the mantle. Fifteen minutes had elapsed. He creaked up off the couch and went into the bathroom. He didn’t have time to shower but did manage to wash his face, wet down his hair, and brush his teeth. He wanted to get to Savannah as soon as possible. Time was of the essence when a client was in jail surrounded by multiple detectives.

Delroy stumbled to his truck and called Kero. In ten minutes he was in front of Daddy Jack’s and there met Kero carrying two travel cups of coffee.
Good man
, he thought. They got on the road and didn’t say a word until they had a chance to down some coffee. Delroy had the radio on a local am channel, listening for any news of the arrest. He didn’t expect to hear any, but was curious whether they had picked up the story yet.

They were gliding down I-16 when Kero broke the silence.

“What the hell? Did you get any details out of Newt?”

“He was shook up and I didn’t want to know any details. It sounds like they had him in a holding cell with others. I didn’t want them to hear a thing Newt had to say. I just want us to get to him as soon as possible, and tell him to shut the hell up in person.”

Kero leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The local am station was starting to break up and he turned the radio off. It wasn’t his radio to turn off, but he was too tired and pissed off to ask. He wanted answers now and wished Delroy would sometimes stop acting like an attorney. This new sober Delroy was a bit too careful at times, or so it seemed at five in the morning.

“So is Merry dead? Damn that’s a shame. She was truly fine, and she was nice, too. Newt would have done well to stay with her, although I doubt he would’ve had the sense to. Damn, she was gorgeous.”

Delroy just nodded his head. He met her only once but that one time was memorable. A few years back, just after his divorce, he went to Savannah to meet an old friend from college. The friend lived on Wilmington Island, and they spent five days drinking on the beach at Tybee, playing bocce ball, and generally being idiots. After coming off the beach the second day they went to the Tiki Bar. It was set on the intercoastal waterway and had no roof save the thatched one immediately over the bar. Just before sundown the bar band started playing Jimmy Buffet covers to all the sunburned islanders coming off the beach.

He was working on his third margarita when Newt walked up with a long, beautiful redhead. They came to his table and she practically sat in Newt’s lap. Delroy was usually pretty civilized when it came to staring too obviously at a woman in a bikini, but not this time. Tequila and Buffett had a way of corroding his manners.

After five minutes they moved on to another table of friends. Thereafter, Delroy’s head swiveled every few minutes looking for the couple. He was powerless to stop himself and didn’t care that he looked like a woozy bobblehead.
Damn that Newt. What the plu-perfect hell does he have
? All he could do was drink more, listen to the band, and ogle Merry.

The two kept moving on I-16, past Statesboro, motoring down the emptiest piece of highway the state of Georgia has to offer. Finally the sky started to glow with the first hint of sunrise, the pink and yellow streaks pointing the way to Savannah.

They made their way to the Chatham County jail and parked in the public lot. Delroy didn’t see any Gratis cruisers, but knew they would probably be in the back if Chatham County was ready to release him. Delroy seriously doubted, however, that Chatham County was ready to do that. A murder of a beautiful woman occurred in their city. Anything Gratis authorities desired with Newt would have to wait for Chatham.

Delroy and Kero walked into visitation at the jail and strode up to the desk.

“What can I do you for?” The jailer, still sporting wisps of peach fuzz missed during his morning shave, spoke to them without looking up from his computer screen.

“I’m Newt MacElroy’s attorney. I need to see him now.”

“Well let me look here.”

The young jailer spit into a paper cup and started tapping keys on his computer. He took his time, hovering over each key for a couple of seconds. His grasp of the alphabet seemed as tenuous as the hold the baby whiskers had on his chin. He finally got to Newt’s name and looked at the screen for a good thirty seconds.

“Well, you can see him, but we’ll have to get him up from the infirmary. Looks like he took a pretty bad fall while he was getting arrested and all.” The jailer smiled up at the two.

“That’s fine, just tell us where to go.” Ten minutes later, after convincing the jailer that Kero an invaluable paralegal, they were waiting in a visitation booth.

Newt stepped into the booth across from them, separated by glass, and sat down in the chair. Both his eyes were black and his lower lip was almost three times its normal size. An orange prison jump suit hung from his shoulders, drops of blood speckling it from his shredded lip.

The room shook when Kero shouted “What the hell did they do to you? Sons of bitches!”

Delroy grabbed his shoulder, “Stop Kero, Newt doesn’t need that.” Kero shook, looking at his friend and employee sagging in front of him, wanting nothing more than to hurt Newt’s assailants.

“Newt,” Delroy asked, “I just need one question answered before we go any further. You’re going to hate me for this question, but I have to hear this from you.”

Before he could ask the question, Newt answered it.

“I didn’t kill Merry. I truly cared for her, but she died because of me, I can tell you that.” Newt hung his head and started to cry.

They sat there waiting on Newt, neither ashamed of their friend’s tears. Kero, now calm, spoke.

“Newt, this is awful, but you have to tell us what happened. We have to know everything. The only way we get you out of this mess is to know the full story. Take your time, we’ll wait.”

After a few seconds, Newt began to talk. He told them how Merry called him and about the note he believed came from either Delroy or Kero. He told them how he borrowed his second cousin’s truck, which just happens to be a bluish green Ford, and drove down to Savannah. They saw him almost smile as he recounted how he aced some college student out of a parking space. He turned dark as he told how Merry’s door was open when he got there. The smell of bleach when he entered the apartment was overpowering.

“Then I saw her. I didn’t think it was her at first. She used to have a dress dummy, and I thought she left it in the middle of the floor. I called and she didn’t answer, and then, I don’t know, it just hit me. There she was, in the middle of living room, and I noticed the red hair. That dummy didn’t even have a head, much less long red hair. Goddamn, she looked all wrong.”

“I stood over her just looking. I knew it then, the son of a bitch who killed Millie killed her. Hell, she was killed because she knew me. I should have called you Kero, or somebody. I just wanted things to be normal again. I just wanted to have a Merry weekend.” Newt hung his head. He stopped crying and now peered at the floor as if looking for something. Delroy thought he looked shot out at that moment, finally spent from a lifetime of no limits.

Newt continued, “I just got down with her and lay down on the floor right beside her and looked. It was like I was there, but not quite. I was operating from some place way behind my eyes, like I was being told by someone else what they were looking at.”

“Her front teeth were knocked out and her nose was broken. There was a huge hole in her chest, not like a knife wound but like she was stabbed with a stake. I mean the hole in her chest was huge. She just stared back, not angry or anything. Seemed like she was about to say hello, I swear. I looked at her hands. Her knuckles were raw. I tell you, she hit that son of a bitch at least a couple of times. I was proud of her when I saw that, that’s the truth.”

Kero spoke up, “I bet you were, buddy. She was a hell of a girl. I thought the world of her.”

“Thanks,” Newt almost smiled.

“Well Newt, did you say anything to the officers?” Delroy dreaded the answer. A quiet client is always the best client, and Newt had been quiet for about as long as he could.

“Didn’t have a chance. They came in while I was on the ground looking at her. They snatched me up and just tagged my ass good. Didn’t fight’em, say nothing. It was like I couldn’t even feel anything. I started crying, that’s the truth. Crying like when momma died. I can’t believe Merry’s not here. I just want to cry some more, then I want to kill somebody, maybe me. It’s my fault.” Newt grew silent.

“Look, you didn’t hurt her, stab her, nothing like that. You made her life fun by the simple act of knowing her. We’re going to find who did this. You just have to stay quiet. You can’t talk to anyone. You know how the police will twist anything you say.” Delroy saw police officers do that to people every day.

“You know Gratis is coming for you and you’re going to be around their detectives while you’re being transported. They’re going to try to get you talking. They’re going to bait you to say something and then use that something to hang you with. Stay quiet Newt. Shut up. That includes anyone, jailer, inmate, nurse, anybody you come across in here. Be quiet.”

The three of them sat there for a while, in silence. Delroy was starting to run out of comforting things to say. Between calming the kids, placating the sheriff, making sure that Anna was okay, and lying to Johnnie Lee, his bullshit tank was running extremely low. He and Kero said their goodbyes and left.

They had been up for hours and were feeling empty. Delroy pulled off I-16 halfway to Gratis to eat at the Beaver House restaurant in Statesboro. Fried chicken, biscuits, home grown vegetables, and fatty casseroles were on the menu. It would be a good break from the Daddy Jack’s shrimp and barbeque they lived on the last few weeks.

After piling their plates they sat in silence and ate. Kero got up for seconds not five minutes after he sat down, and Delroy wasn’t far behind. They were well into their third plate, and at least their fourth glass of sweet tea, before either of them spoke.

“I have just never not known what to do, Delroy. I don’t have a clue what we need to do. Everything seems to run downhill and hit us like a train when it reaches us. Man, I don’t know.”

“It’s tough.” Delroy fairly mumbled his reply.

“Tell me you got more than that. You are the man’s attorney.”

Delroy thought for a moment, looking at all the activity as servers moved in and out of the kitchen, thinking about how calming making biscuits and frying chicken must be. He wondered if it was too late to change professions.

“Well, we know it’s someone who’s close to us. Nobody could take Newt’s new number from us unless they had access to us. Of course, it could be one of us, couldn’t it?”

“What a damn minute.” Kero looked as if he would explode out of his chair. He might have done so, if he wasn’t on his third plate of mac and cheese and green bean casserole.

“Kero, I know it’s not you and you know it’s not me. But everybody else is fair game. Anyone in the sheriff’s department, the sheriff, customers at Daddy Jack’s, whoever. There’s no telling, except that somebody had to have some access to us, if only for a moment, to get that number off of our phones.”

“So I know that it’s somebody with a green truck, somebody who knows Gratis well enough to know the tunnels, and somebody who knew Millie so she would smile when he approached her. They even knew the best time of day to go after Althea. Of course, they knew that Newt had a thing with Merry, too.”

“Shit Delroy, why couldn’t it just be some drifter that got Millie. He could’ve just gotten on a train and rode off. It would’ve been easier.”

“I know. Right now we have to keep looking for records on that green truck. The good thing is that the truck Newt was in had different headlights than the one described by Terrence. Newt’s cousin’s truck isn’t five years old.”

“But it sure is a damn green Ford. And he was sure on the damn ground beside Merry when the cops came in. God almighty, Delroy, he looks guilty to me and I know he’s not.”

“Yep, me too.”

Delroy excused himself and went to the dessert table. He brought a big plate over, dumped two pieces of pecan pie on it, and slathered the rest of the plate with ladles of banana pudding. He wasn’t sure what he would do next, but he was sure as hell not going to do it on an empty stomach.

M
eg and Peck lazed on the dock looking over the swamp and the channel that meandered by. Peck was wearing new overalls Cozette brought from her store. They were an irregular brand of Tuffskins, they were dark blue, and they itched because Peck refused to wear a shirt. It was just too hot.