The Ranger - Ace Atkins [70]
The old creek bed where he’d found it was strong and slow, moving over the pebbled bottom in a place that remained cool even in the hottest month, deep patches of moss on rocks.
And now he and Lillie stood maybe a half mile from that place, and it seemed as if Quinn had entered a moonscape. Most of the thousand acres had been cleared down to the earth, gravel roads had been laid down and foundations poured for the Tibbehah Miracle that had never arrived. Johnny Stagg’s dream of a sprawling development to bring industry and commerce to backwoods Mississippi. All through the open gashes in the earth were scorched burn piles, logs as big as trucks that had refused to burn, charred and left to rot.
“They stopped work about this time last year,” Lillie said, the cold wind whipping her hair into her mouth. “Stagg keeps on saying this is going to happen, but no one has heard of one company coming here.”
“Now he’s hooked in with some bad folks in Memphis.”
“How bad?”
“I followed Gowrie’s daddy up to Memphis last night to a strip club. He was making some kind of deal.”
“Maybe Gowrie’s daddy just likes to check out naked girls.”
“And gets invited into a back room with a fat satchel?”
“Was it that obvious?”
“I don’t think Daddy Gowrie can spell subtle,” Quinn said.
“Did I mention Stagg’s personal preacher, Brother Davis, was with Daddy Gowrie?”
The wind shot like a bullet across the cleared land and stung his ears and face. Quinn placed his hands into his pockets and turned all around him, a stranger in a place that had once been so damn familiar.
“We had a run-in with Gowrie and his daddy back in April,” Lillie said. “Gowrie’d beaten a man at the Southern Star pretty bad. He bit a damn plug out of the man’s throat. He claimed self-defense.”
“Why didn’t my uncle run him out?”
“We’re not the DEA, Quinn,” she said. “Your uncle wanted us to do the best we could. But he was hoping to get some state people in here soon. He knew what was going on and knew Gowrie ran most of the labs.”
“And then came that fire.”
“Wesley brought back two graduation photos of Jill Bullard,” Lillie said. “Somebody used that girl all up.”
“She and Caddy were friends.”
“How?”
He told her about Memphis, and they didn’t speak for a long while, Quinn hearing his boots on the turned soil. Some battered earthmovers sat still up by a massive footprint of concrete.
Quinn headed back to the Jeep, Lillie in tow.
“Do you remember that time that you and Wesley threw that keg party out here? You must’ve had two hundred folks.”
“Charged five dollars per head.”
“That was a good party. We had a bonfire, and that old black man played the guitar. Who was he again? That was fun.”
“Till those deputies like you showed up and ruined it.”
“How long did they chase you?”
“A couple hours.”
“But you lost ’em?”
“Didn’t take much.”
“Your uncle knew.”
“Oh, hell yes. He knew it was me. But couldn’t prove shit.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Should it have?”
24
“He’s hunting, Quinn, I don’t know when he’s coming home,” Anna Lee said, standing on her porch with her arms folded across her chest. Her door was open, and a big-screen television hung on the wall playing Fox News, a woman making inane conversation about several more servicemen killed in Kandahar. The room was furnished with a big brown leather couch and heavy wood furniture and gold lamps. “I’ll have Luke call you when he gets in.”
She tried to close the door. Quinn wedged his boot in the jamb. She wore a thin T-shirt and jeans, no makeup. She smelled of soap and shampoo.
“He say why he dropped charges on those men?”
She shook her head, and looked down at his boot and then up at Quinn. She stared at him for a long time, chewing on her lip. “I don’t know.”
“I’d be a little pissed if someone hammered