Carved in Bone - Jefferson Bass [63]
Bewildered, I scanned the other faces in the room. The other agents seemed to be studying their notepads intently, but I thought I detected some twitching mouths and twinkling eyes. Suddenly Cole Billings choked back a snort, and it hit me: these guys—these straightlaced, straight-arrow, suit-and-tie agents—were teasing me. At first I felt a wave of indignation, but it was quickly replaced by a profound sense of relief. Rankin must have been working the cockfight undercover; hell, he’d probably even been wearing a wire, making it conceivable—likely, even—that all these agents had heard the audio of my retching into the barrel. As I pictured that, I couldn’t help but yield to the absurdity of it myself. Sliding the can of tobacco back to Rankin, I drawled, “Hell-far, Rooster, I done give up on dip, but if you’uns got any shine, I wouldn’t care to take me a swig or two.”
The League of Justice erupted in laughter. As soon as I could make myself heard, I added, “Okay, you’ve got me dead to rights—I broke the law. I’ll talk. Just promise you’ll go easy on me.” Several of the agents were wiping their eyes. I decided maybe it was time to switch gears. “Seriously, tell me how I can help you,” I said to Price. “Then maybe we can figure out if you all can help me, too.”
“With the recent rise in cultivation, Cooke County now leads the state in marijuana production,” she began, as briskly as if she were launching a PowerPoint talk. “In addition, there’s an alarming rise in methamphetamine labs in basements and trailers up there. We have it from a well-placed source that the sheriff’s office is shielding drug traffickers, possibly even extorting protection money from them. If that’s true, we can prosecute that as racketeering.” I nodded, remembering a case in which the Justice Department had once categorized the Chicago Police Department as “a criminal enterprise.” My ears pricked up when Price added, “We’ve also heard—not just from your phone call to Agent Morgan—that in the homicide case you’re working, the sheriff might be guilty of obstruction of justice, conspiracy, possibly even murder. What are your thoughts on that?”
“Well, let me back up a ways.” I briefed the group on my involvement in the case, starting with the recovery of the body from the cave. When I described being shanghaied by Jim O’Conner, I was interrupted by a flurry of questions about the man; I gathered that O’Conner had managed to fly beneath their radar up to now. His secret road and kudzu tunnel seemed to excite them most. Did I see other vehicles? Any tracks from heavy trucks? Signs of marijuana cultivation, processing, or distribution? Containers or odors that might suggest methamphetamine production?
I answered “no” to all of those questions. “This guy is interesting, and unusual,” I said, “and he admits he’s had some illegal business ventures in the past. But he was a war hero, and I don’t think he’s a killer.” The war hero status seemed to carry some weight. “The sheriff wants to charge him with the murder,” I conceded, “but then again, the sheriff has an old ax—a family feud sort of ax—to grind with O’Conner, so it’s possible that’s clouding his judgment.”
I finally circled back to Price’s question about the sheriff. “Sheriff Kitchings certainly seems to know more about this case than he’s letting on,” I said. “He hedged and stalled and even lied outright when I asked what he knew about missing females. When I finally confronted him about the victim’s identity and his family’s connection, he pointed a rifle at me. If wishes were bullets, I might not be here today.” Several questions about the armed confrontation ensued, which I answered as matter-of-factly as I could. “I don’t know whether he