Answers

 Sundown In Zion

CHAPTER fifty-one

 

            They all took Sunday off. Sheriff Love explained that they each enjoyed enough excitement on Saturday to last a lifetime. “Besides,” he said, “I have to take my wife to church on Sunday. We haven’t missed a service in over 47 years and we’re not going to start now.”

            Charlie was at Angela’s house. Nelson tried all that morning to reach Tina, but she didn’t answer her phone at home. He also tried her office with no luck. He read for an hour after breakfast and then fired up his computer to make notes for his report.

            The first thing that appeared on his screen was notice of an email from Tina. He clicked to it. It read.

            Forgive me, but please don’t try to contact me again. It is all over, through no fault of yours, only mine. I do not love you and will never love you. For better or worse, love is a one-time thing with me. Sex is a relief from the pain of loss, but only a temporary one. I thought perhaps you were different, but no. I loved the sex, but each time we finished, and you lay beside me, I was filled with disgust. Not only with you, but with myself mostly and with the thought of dishonoring the memory of my husband. See, I didn’t love him when we married. He represented an end to a student’s poverty and a little physical fun, that’s all. Then something strange happened as we faced life together and overcame its petty struggles. I woke up one morning and realized that I worshipped the ground on which he walked. Every time I took a breath, that feeling grew stronger. May you share it someday. Being loved can generate love, that’s not from a sociologist, but from a life’s partner of a wonderful person. When we meet on campus, let’s meet as friends. You can even take my class if you wish. Friends, that’s all. I need all of them I can find. Take care.

Tina

Nelson closed the email. He spent the afternoon making notes of his remembrances, and the evening thinking, with a glass of Jack Daniels close by.

The next morning, he walked into the sheriff’s office to find him in an expansive mood. “Come in my nautical friend. Get some coffee and sit. When they both had settled comfortably, he said, “Know what our preacher preached on yesterday?”

Nelson shook his head.

“Handling life’s surprises with the help of God,” he said. “Now ain’t that a fucking hoot? What you want to know about first?”? He stopped and spoke loudly toward the door. “Mrs. M, you’ll know all about everything when you type my report. Right now, you’ll just have to wait.” There was a familiar scuffling sound from the other side of the door. He waited.

“Now,” he said. “You’ll first want to know about Brother Dale Underhill, as he is known, right?

Nelson nodded.

“When he figured the jig was up,” the sheriff said, “he started singing. Not hymns either but a sad and tragic story. Seems greed-envy overtook him the way inertia overtakes many of our county residents. He saw those TV evangelists with their private jets and mansions, and it gnawed on him like glory gnaws on people like us.” They both smiled. “Then he read a book about those fundamentalist Mormon men out west. He and Bully spent way too much time talking about it and they hatched a plan.”

“Let me guess,” Nelson said. “It involved the Ransom Center.”

“Bingo. He used some secret network that preachers have and found this huge market for brainwashed young starlets and the two of them sprang into action.”

“Brigette said they appraised her at fifty grand.”

“That’s a discounted price,” he said, “because she was so hardheaded and difficult to train. She’s also a little old. They like them no older than 14, as a rule. Anyway,” he said. “A few sales financed their entry into a more lucrative, although riskier, field. Greed overcame caution and here we are. He says they were quitting all of their businesses after Bridgette and that delivery we intercepted. You were making things too warm for them and they all had their nests made anyway. It was off to the Caribbean after that final load.”

“Speaking of that,” Nelson said, “how did Don Dillahunty fit in?

“Seems he came to Brother Dale complaining that his wives, both former and present, were bankrupting him and he didn’t know what to do.”

“And?”

“Just so happened that the meth-gang needed a way to smuggle hard-to-get ingredients in and Don imported a lot of furniture from the Vietnamese. They, the Vietnamese ain’t above stuffing such furniture creatively. Don ask why. They are still pissed off about the war, if you ask me. Anyway, as Brother Dale put it, in that charming way of his, ‘It was a marriage made in Heaven’ and the rest is history.”

Bridgette’s mother is happy?”

“Look up the word in the dictionary and you’ll see her picture there.”

“Will they keep Martin out of the news?”

“Now there is another shocking development. I trust you didn’t fail to see a little more than rescuer and rescuee attraction during our little get together?

“Who could have missed it? That explains the portion of the letter her mom found.”
“It explains a lot of things,” the sheriff said, “not the least of which is why they took her

from the Ransom Center when they didn’t really need kidnap money anymore. They stop short of murdering for miscegenation now, these assholes. Besides, they had a better treatment.”

            “What about the crime scene?”

“They went yesterday and looked as best they could. A total wipeout. All they’ve identified so far was a section of a forearm with the letters “SW” tattooed on it, and a partial set of dentures.”

            “Believe it or not, those both belonged to Bully.”

            “Stands to reason,” the sheriff said. “I mean as far as the dentures. Man-fighting, meth, and Mountain Dew don’t make for a full set of choppers.

            “So,” Nelson said, “that about wraps in up?”

            Before the sheriff could answer, three knocks came at his door. “Ah,” he said, “Mrs. M’s secret code. This is important. “Enter.”

            The door opened and a voice said, “Agent Benson is here.”

            “Send ‘Little Jedgar’ in.”

            The door opened fully, and Tom Benson entered. He surveyed the room. “Gentlemen,” he said. He shook hands with Nelson. “I think I owe you an apology for thinking of you as a pest,” he said.

            “Oh?” Nelson said.

            “Yes. I think you’re going to get me transferred to the Beverley Hills office yet.” He turned and shook hands with the sheriff. He nodded back toward Nelson and said. “Just who the hell is this man? He got me credit for solving two interstate crimes in one night.”

            “Just a former sailor,” the sheriff said. He motioned toward an empty chair. “Sit.”

            “I don’t know much more than what I reported to you yesterday,” he said to the sheriff. “We’re getting ready to assemble all we can about Chief of Police Banks over in Connorville and his possible role in all this.”

            Sheriff Love said, “If I know the Weasel, he has covered his tracks pretty well.”

            “Our trackers look hard and deep,” Benson said. “We’ll see what his financial dealings tell us. Right now, I only have one disappointment.”

            Both men sat forward. “Oh?” said the sheriff. “A loose end? I thought all your suspects were all singing “Just as I am without one plea.”

            “They are, pretty much,” Benson said. “Except for one thing.”
            “What’s that?” Nelson asked.

            “They admitted killing Bonnie Sue Anderson. Seems she went to see Dale Underwood because there was something about Bridgette Thompson she hadn’t told anyone, something that could have stirred the pot pretty badly.”

            “Which was?” The sheriff was leaning more toward Benson now.

            “Underwood won’t say,” Benson said, “and she can’t. We may never know. But that’s not the main thing they won’t admit?”

            “What’s that?” the sheriff asked.

            Benson took a deep breath. “None of them will tell us shit about Abbey Stubblefield.”

            “Why?” the sheriff was getting agitated. Nelson showed no emotion.

            “Who knows? Maybe they think they have enough trouble without getting the NAACP on their case as well.”

            The sheriff leaned back and looked at Nelson. “Well now,” he said. Ain’t that a pisser, after all you did for us?”

            “Maybe,” said Nelson. “Just maybe they don’t know.”

            This time it was Benson who leaned forward, toward Nelson. “What do you mean?”

            Nelson shook his head and sorrow showed across it. “You fellas want to take a ride?”