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“Who’s there? Sheriff, is that you? I think I blacked out for a minute. Did I just hear a gunshot? What happened? Are you all right?”
There was a pause while the sheriff took in what I’d said, turned it over in his mind, evaluated it, decided what to do. “He came at me,” Judson said. “Delozier. He went crazy, said some crazy stuff, and came at me with an ax. I shot him in self-defense.” The sheriff walked slowly toward me. His gun was still in his hand.
“Sheriff, could you untie me?”
He didn’t answer. He was standing two feet away, looking down at me, his gun still in his hand.
Suddenly I saw his head turn slightly, listening. I heard it, too: a car careening down the dirt road, then the sound of locked-up wheels sliding to a stop; a door being flung open. Stu Vickery raced into the barn, his weapon drawn. “Agent Vickery,” said the sheriff slowly. “Glad you could make it.” During the tense silence that followed, I heard my heart thumping. “I was just about to untie your man Brockton here, but I’ll let you do it instead.”
Should I warn Vickery about the sheriff? Could I warn him, without causing the sheriff to start shooting?
Vickery lowered his gun and stepped toward me, stepped between the sheriff and me, and then — just as I was about to shout a warning — spun and aimed his gun at Judson’s chest. “Put down the weapon, Sheriff.”
“Vickery, have you lost your goddamn mind, or are you just bound and determined to ruin your career?”
“Put down the weapon, Sheriff. You’re under arrest.”
“The hell you say.” The sheriff’s gun began coming up.
“Put it down. Now.”
“Under arrest for what? For shooting a murderer in self-defense?”
“No. For being a murderer. You’re under arrest for the murder of Winston Pettis. We’ve got evidence that puts you at the scene of his death.”
“You’ve got shit, Vickery.”
“We’ve got genetic evidence that puts you at the scene. You really shouldn’t chew tobacco, Sheriff. Filthy habit. All that juice. All that spit. All that DNA. One of our crime-scene techs found a nice wad of your spit in Pettis’s yard. Perfect match with the wad of spit you left in the ferns the day we found the graves.” Vickery paused. “That’s not all. We found the tracking collar you took off the dog. One of our divers pulled it out of the Miccosukee River. It’s got your thumbprint on it, Sheriff. And there was a .45 in the mud beside it.”
Judson’s eyes flickered as he took in Vickery’s revelations and evaluated his options.
In the darkness outside, I heard a siren racing toward us and, underneath it, another one. Judson heard it, too, and lowered his gun. Suddenly he was an old, weary man.
Chapter 29
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” Angie said. She was holding my left elbow and carrying my briefcase as I hobbled toward my truck. Vickery, at my right elbow, had my duffel bag slung over his shoulder. We were crossing the parking deck of Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where I’d been treated for the lacerations Cochran had inflicted with the strap. “If not for you,” Angie went on, “I’d have always had some lingering doubts about Kate. Some fear that maybe she really had shot herself.”
“I was glad to help. I know it doesn’t bring your sister back, but I’m glad you feel that some kind of justice has been done.” She nodded. I chose my next words carefully, hedgingly. “I hope the sheriff up in Mocksville doesn’t give you too hard a time.”
“Actually, he called me this morning. Apparently he’s decided I’m telling the truth. They found out Don was at his new girlfriend’s house drinking until six in the morning”—she rolled her eyes in disgust—“when they had a big fight and she threw him out. So he would’ve gotten home, drunk and upset, just before he sent me that text message. And my nosy next-door neighbor, who is always spying on us, bless her heart, told the sheriff’s investigator that my car and Ned’s were both in the driveway from five-thirty, when she got up, until eight, when we left for work. So it looks like I’m no longer a suspect, and they’re calling it a suicide.”
“That’s good news.” I was relieved not just for Angie’s sake, but for the sake of my own peace of mind, the settling of my own questions about whether she’d taken justice into her own hands. “You think he killed himself because he really did feel guilty about Kate?”
She shrugged. “You know, this might sound crazy, but really? I think he killed himself because he owed the universe a suicide.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, but her face looked open and peaceful; poignant, but not grief-stricken.
“Well, Doc, we really appreciate all you did for FDLE,” Vickery mumbled through his cigar after a moment. “You’re sure your feelings won’t be hurt if we take it from here?”
“My backside’s too painful for me to notice anything else hurting,” I said. “Besides, my globe-trotting colleague in Tampa is back from Africa, and the lab in Gainesville is staffed up again, so you’ve got plenty of anthropology brainpower in Florida now.” My gait was an odd, stiff-legged waddle, partly because of the painful bruises and lacerations left by the strap, partly because of the layer of gauze the emergency-room doc had applied to my thighs and buttocks.
“You sure it’s a good idea to drive back to Knoxville this soon?” asked Angie. “Why don’t you stick around and heal up a few more days? We’ll be glad to put you up at the Duval. You’ve earned it.”
“Naw,” I joked, “the Twilight’s spoiled me for anyplace else. If I can’t stay there, I’ll just crawl home to my own bed.”
“We’ll ship a snake up your way every week or two, if you want,” said Vickery. “Just to make sure you don’t forget us.”
“Hey, thanks.” I laughed. “So, do y’all think it was Cochran or Judson who put that cottonmouth in my room?”
“My money’s on Judson,” Angie said. “And considering how Pettis and the dog ended up, you’re mighty lucky to have gotten off with only a scare. Judson’s a bad guy.”
“You think the tobacco juice from Pettis’s yard and the prints on the tracking collar are enough to convict him of Pettis’s murder?”
“It’s a pretty strong case,” Vickery asserted. “Your testimony will help a lot. We’ve also got tire impressions from the Pettis place that match the tires from the sheriff’s truck.”
“But I thought the tire tracks at Pettis’s were from old, worn-out tires. Didn’t Judson’s truck have newer tires?”
“Brand-new tires,” Stu stressed. “We found the old ones at the county garage this morning. The mechanic will testify that he took ’em off the day Pettis was killed. I think we’ve got enough to get a conviction. Judson must think so, too — he’s looking for a deal, and he’s willing to talk. He says Cochran killed Hatfield, because Cochran was afraid Hatfield would tell us he wasn’t really dead.”
“How convenient,” said Angie — not for the first time in this case—“since Cochran’s no longer around to deny it.”
“He also says Hatfield and Cochran had half a dozen pals who regularly came and molested boys,” Vickery continued. “They called it ‘the chicken-hawk club.’ One of the members was a high-ranking
aide to the governor; one was deputy commissioner of corrections. Conveniently, as you say, both those guys are dead now. But Judson says he’s got photos that implicate them.”
“I still find it hard to fathom,” I said. “The systematic abuse — the torture, no other word for it — heaped on those boys by the very people who were supposed to put them back on the right path.”
“I’m telling you,” Vickery repeated. “This world’s one big crime scene. I hate it that we dragged you into such a messy corner of it.”
“Me, too,” Angie agreed. “I really thought all you’d be doing was taking a quick look at a skull. Instead, you got backbreaking work, deadly snakes, and a beating that could have killed you—would have killed you — if Delozier, aka Skeeter, hadn’t shown up. I’m so sorry.”
I thought back over everything that had happened since I’d first stepped off the plane in Tallahassee. I was stunned to realize that only thirteen days had passed.
Despite the pain I felt, and knew I’d continue to feel for days, I found myself smiling. “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’m not. Most interesting two weeks I ever had.”
Vickery studied the end of his cigar, looking hesitant — almost shy, even. “So here’s another possibility, if you’d be interested in extending your Florida vacation by a few more days,” he said. “Mind you, I understand if you want to get the hell out of Dodge as fast as possible. But I’ve got a little place down on the Ochlockonee River, right on the bay. It’s about the only thing I’ve been able to hang on to through my divorces, except for my bad habits. Nothing fancy — just a fishing shack, really, which I guess is why I’ve been able to hang on to it. But the view’s pretty, and there’s a dock with a ladder, and the salt water’d be good for those welts you’ve got. There’s good mojo at that little place. I don’t get down there very often these days, but every time I do, I wonder why the hell I waited so long, you know?”
