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“I don’t buy that, either, Bubba. Redneck racists like Stubbs and Shiflett—they’re mean, hateful bullies and jerks. But they’re not bad-to-the-bone monsters. Satterfield is.”
“I don’t dispute that,” he said. “And I get why Satterfield would go after Shiflett, for stealing his plan. But Stubbs—why would Satterfield kill Stubbs, too?”
I said it before I even thought it. “To cover his tracks. Satterfield needed two accomplices on the outside to help him escape, right? Stubbs and Shiflett. They killed the prison doctor’s wife and the guard’s family. They were useful to him. But once they’d done that—once they’d helped him get out of prison—he didn’t need them anymore, and they became liabilities. By killing Stubbs and Shiflett, he made himself harder to trace, and—at least at Shiflett’s place—he was able to stock up on weapons.”
Bubba heaved a sigh. “At Stubbs’s, too,” he said glumly. “Stubbs was renting a storage unit a few miles down the road. Looks like it was cleaned out within the past week or so. ATF’s coming over to check it out, but my guess? They’ll find residues of explosives and ammunition in there, just like they did in Shiflett’s shed.”
The news was bad, but it wasn’t surprising. In fact, it seemed almost inevitable. “So Satterfield’s got himself one hell of an arsenal now,” I said. “Sure would be good to know where he’s keeping it.”
“And what he’s aiming to do with it,” said Meffert. “Race war?”
“Hell, no,” I said without hesitation. “Shiflett and Stubbs might believe that crap, but Satterfield doesn’t give a damn about a race war. He was just telling them what they wanted to hear. He played those guys like fish, reeling ’em in till they were flopping on the dock. And them he stomped ’em.”
After I hung up, and feeling like I did—like a walking, talking target—I wished Meffert had chosen a different word for Satterfield’s next move.
Aiming.
CHAPTER 34
“I’M SORRY, DR. BROCKTON.” ANGELA PRICE—Special Agent Price—sounded as if she was, in truth, sorry. But not as sorry as I was.
“Can’t you request additional agents from another field office? Just until he’s caught?”
“I told you, I’ve already asked. Twice. And been turned down twice. We don’t know how long it might be until he’s caught. Maybe days, but possibly years.”
“God spare us,” I said.
“I agree. But we can’t do an open-ended expansion of your family’s security detail. For one thing, we don’t have the budget. Even if we had the money, we don’t have the personnel—here or elsewhere. We’re dealing with multiple terrorism threats these days—credible threats of coordinated attacks—and we are stretched to the breaking point. My agents are averaging sixty hours a week, Dr. Brockton. Averaging.”
I mumbled my understanding and my thanks—they were, after all, still posting agents outside my house, and at Jeff’s house and office, and even the boys’ school. Then I hung up and repeated my request to higher-ups at the TBI and at KPD. They, too, turned me down; they, too, expressed genuine regret.
“If you’d be interested in hiring some off-duty officers, I can ask around,” Decker said, sounding slightly embarrassed at the prospect of bringing money into the equation. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, “but it might make sense. See what you find out, and give me a buzz back.”
But in the end, it wasn’t one of Decker’s guys, or anyone from KPD, who came to our aid. It was Waylon—big-hearted, big-bodied, big-trucked Waylon—who phoned back to say he’d help, after I’d talked to O’Conner. “Jim figgers he can spare me for a while,” Waylon said, “seein’s how we’re all done with that Shiflett mess.”
“Y’all aren’t worried about Satterfield killing off more of the fine citizens of Cooke County?”
“Fine citizens?” Waylon guffawed. “Well, that narrows it down to one—and I reckon Jim can look after his own self. Where do you live and when you want me to show up?”
“Actually, I want you looking after my son and his family,” I told him. “If Satterfield really wants to hurt me, it’s them he’ll go after, not me.” I told him about the pictures I’d found in my mailbox, and by the time I described the final, blood-smeared images, I could hear a low, rumbling growl coming from Waylon’s end of the line. I gave him Jeff’s address—in a neighborhood in the western suburb of Farragut—and arranged to meet him there, so I could introduce him to Jeff and the family, as well as to the FBI agent posted outside the house. I hung up feeling relieved and grateful to have the big man as backup.
WE WERE GATHERED—JEFF, JENNY, THEIR BOYS, Waylon, and I—in their living room, making small talk after introductions. Visually, Waylon stood out like a sore thumb in the suburban living room: the hulking, homespun man perched on a fancy sofa three sizes too small for him. Yet there was a gracious ease about Waylon—an openness and genuine warmth—that I hadn’t fully appreciated before, and it quickly put everyone else at ease, too. Waylon, talking to Tyler about soccer: “I never even seen a soccer ball till I was twenty-five, maybe thirty. But we started gettin’ some of them Hispanics in Cooke County, we got us a couple Mexican restaurants, and they got a channel that’s always showing soccer. So I got kindly interested. Still got a lot to learn, though—lost a couple hunnerd bucks on that last World Cup.” Waylon, talking to Walker about his learner’s permit: “I learnt to drive on my daddy’s tractor when I was twelve. He took me out to the south field one morning, showed me how to work the gas and the clutch and the gearshift, and said, ‘Don’t come home till you kin drive home.’ ’Bout sundown, I finally made it back to the barn. Trouble was, Daddy didn’t really show me about the brake, and I drove plumb through the back wall and into the pigsty.”
The chime of the doorbell made me jump. “It’s just the pizza delivery, Dad,” said Jeff.
“I’ll get it,” said Waylon, getting to his feet with surprising swiftness for a man of his bulk. As he passed, he shot me a glance, and I remembered telling him how Satterfield had escaped capture years before by trading places with a Domino’s driver. The deputy took a quick peek through the peephole before opening the door, where a scrawny, pimply-faced teenager strained beneath the weight of three huge pizzas. Waylon took the boxes and followed Jenny’s motion beckoning him into the kitchen, while Jeff smoothly rotated in to pay for the food and tip the driver.
“Waylon,” I heard Jenny say, “you’ll have some pizza with us, won’t you, before you disappear into the darkness?” Given the FBI agent’s prominent presence in front of the house, Waylon had suggested that he watch the back, and he’d brought night-vision gear and camouflage—including a leaf-laden ghillie suit—so he could stand guard unseen. It was as if Waylon had studied the FBI’s agent’s example and done exactly the opposite. I decided to join them in the kitchen. “We ordered way too much,” Jenny was saying when I walked in. “I hate to send you out there hungry. Say you’ll have some.”
“If you’re sure you’ve got plenty,” Waylon said, “I don’t care to have a slice.”
I could see Jenny’s puzzlement—was he accepting or declining?—so I chimed in with, “I could go for a couple pieces myself,” giving Jenny a nod that I hoped made it clear that Waylon and I were both on the meal plan.
“Great,” she said. “Do y’all mind paper plates? We like to give the dishwasher the night off when we order pizza.”
Waylon shook his big, shaggy head. “Paper plates is fancy china for me,” he said. “Unless my girlfriend’s cooking, I eat straight outta the can.”
Jenny laughed. “Tell me about your girlfriend.”
“Miss Jenny, you get me started on her and I won’t never shut up. She’s my favorite subject.” He grinned. “She’s a teacher. Junior high math. Name’s Gracie. She’s got two boys, seven and nine. Sweet little guys.” Waylon suddenly looked self-conscious, even shy. “You know what? I never thought I’d be a dad. And I’m not, exactly. Maybe more like a uncle. But them two boys get to me like nothin’
else in this world, you know what I mean?”
Jenny beamed. “I think I do, Waylon. They’re lucky to have you in their lives.”
I was surprised by this tender side of Waylon—surprised and ashamed, I realized: ashamed that I had assumed Waylon would be with a woman of low class or intelligence, and ashamed that in all my years of acquaintance with him, I had never delved into Waylon’s personal life as deeply as Jenny managed to do in sixty seconds.
“And how did you and Gracie meet?” asked Jenny.
“Ha. Now that’s a good story. I stopped her for speeding. She was doin’ about sixty on River Road, which is kinkier than a hunnerd-dollar—” Waylon stopped himself, blushing. “Kinkier than a worm on a hook. And there was something about her . . .” He paused, seemingly caught up in the memory, but then his gaze snapped toward the back door.
I followed his gaze. “Waylon?”
He held up a big hand, listening. Then, very softly, he said, “Would y’all ’scuse me just a minute? I think I’ll just step outside.” He walked—casually, it seemed—but not to the kitchen door. Instead, he returned to the living room, and I heard the front door open and then close quietly.
Jenny stared at me; I shrugged, as if Waylon’s sudden departure meant nothing, then said, “Maybe we should go back into the living room for now.” Her eyes widened, and she nodded wordlessly.
Jeff glanced from my face to Jenny’s, and what he saw there made him go pale. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “Waylon got a funny look on his face and said he needed to go outside for a minute.”
Walker smirked. “Did he need to have a chew?”
His brother groaned. “Walker, you are such a dumb-ass.”
“Tyler!” snapped Jenny.
“Sorry, Mom,” he said, and I saw something in the boys’ faces shift—saw alarm setting in—as they took the measure of Jenny’s agitation.
