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I glowered. “Scenario A: Williams contacted the feds because he knows the sheriff is protecting the cockfights and the gambling and the drug trafficking, like Price said.” Art chewed his pulled pork thoughtfully. “B: Williams contacted them because he thinks the sheriff’s hiding something or protecting someone in the murder case.” Art ruminated some more. “C: The feds hauled Williams in because they think he’s involved in something illegal, and they’re leaning on him to cooperate.” Art stroked his chin slowly. I tried to wait him out, but couldn’t. “So which is it?”
“Could you run those scenarios past me one more time?” He took another bite.
“Come on, Art, this is worrying me.”
“Well, I’m not sure I buy A or B,” he said, his mouth still full. “The fact that Williams may have helped Waylon shanghai you that day makes me wonder who the deputy is really working for. C is possible, I suppose, though I’m not sure the feds would risk hauling a cooperating witness all the way to Knoxville — how’s he gonna explain being gone half a day? There’s also D and E to consider, too.”
“D and E? What are those?” I asked.
“D: Williams thinks you’re obstructing justice, and he’s there to squeal on you.”
“Me? How could I possibly be obstructing justice?”
“By protecting Jim O’Conner.”
“What? I’m not protecting Jim O’Conner. I’m just pointing out some things that suggest his innocence. Things they don’t want to see, maybe because they’ve got a grudge against him, or because he’s just a handy scapegoat. Protecting O’Conner? I can’t believe you’d say that.”
“Hey, don’t get your drawers in a wad,” Art said. “I’m not the one ratting you out.”
“You really think that’s what Williams is telling them?”
“No, not really. Just trying not to overlook any possibilities.”
“Great. Thanks a heap. And E? I can’t wait to hear E.”
“E is ‘none of the above.’ Maybe Williams is working some angle of his own that we haven’t even thought of yet. Maybe he wants to be sheriff himself, figures he’d have a lot easier time getting elected with Kitchings behind bars. All I’m really saying is, we have absolutely no way to know what he’s telling them, or why. So you need to keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing: learn all you can, tell the truth, watch your back. And trust no one.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me.” He dropped his chin toward his chest, pulled out his shirt front, and spoke loudly, as if to make sure his words were picked up by a cheap microphone strapped to his sternum. “That’s right, Dr. Bill Brockton, especially me.”
CHAPTER 22
It had taken hours of thrashing, but I’d finally gotten to sleep, and deeply, too. I could tell because it felt like I was swimming up from the bottom of an ocean of molasses toward a distant sound that turned out to be my bedside telephone.
“Huh-llo,” I mumbled.
“Doc?” The voice on the other end of the line was thick and slurred. “ ’S me.”
“Me,” as best I could tell, was a drunken Tom Kitchings. “Sheriff? What time is it?”
“Dunno. Pretty late. Probly real late. Sorry ’bout that.”
“You got some emergency, Sheriff?” I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. The blue-green numbers read 3:17.
“Not ezactly.”
“Have you been drinking, Sheriff?”
“Have been. Still am. Went looking for some peace of mind. Found me some Southern Comfort instead. Get it, Doc?”
I did. I wasn’t a drinker myself — intoxication was too much like vertigo to appeal to me — but I’d spent enough time around students to know that Southern Comfort was a sweet, cheap liqueur, notorious for brutal hangovers. “What’s keeping you u
p and driving you to drink, Sheriff?”
“I just can’t hardly figger out this case, Doc. ’S a damn mystery, you know?”
“Well, that’s how most cases start out,” I said. “That’s why we need sheriffs and detectives and forensic scientists.”
“Aw, hell, that ain’t what I mean. I’m talkin’ ’bout the misery of hisery. I mean, mystery of history. Family history. I b’lieved for thirty years that Leena run off. Been told that for thirty years. Somewheres; nobody knew where. We didn’t talk about it — it was one of them things you just knew you wasn’t s’posed to talk about.” He paused, and I heard a swish and a swallow. “You got family, Doc?”
I said that I had a son — a die-hard UT fan, and a big admirer of Kitchings’s college career — and that my wife had died two years ago.
“Goddamn, Doc, I’m sorry to hear that. Real sorry.”
“Thanks. I still miss her. A lot. Not much to do but carry on.” A pause. “You ever been married, Sheriff?”
“Naw. Engaged once, back when I was a big football star. She was a cheerleader and a sorority girl. Memphis debutante, too. Heady stuff for a redneck from Cooke County. She busted up with me right after I busted up my knee. Thing is, she kinda spoilt me for these Cooke County girls, you know what I mean?” That was a shame, I said; life gets mighty lonely without a wife. He seemed to mull that over for a while. When he spoke again, I wasn’t sure whether he was still thinking about love or was broaching a new subject. “People in Cooke County don’t have a lot, Doc,” he said. “A few of us got halfway decent jobs, but most folks up here live hand to mouth most of the time. Hell, the Kitchings clan been living hand to mouth near as long as I can remember. Maybe that’s why family’s so important to us. Even when your back’s to the wall—’specially when your back’s to the wall — your family’ll stick by you. Thick or thin.”
“Right or wrong?”
“Right or wrong. That’s the code. They’s your blood.”
