Resolution

Sundown in zion

Chapter Fifty-two

The men sat in the car without speaking. Agent Benson broke the silence. “He said he would be here?”

“He did,” Nelson said. “For us, he said he would take his morning off and get right down here.”

“His vehicle didn’t make it,” Sheriff Love said. “And he doesn’t live too far away.”

They sat for another minute. “Shit,” Nelson said. “I forgot. He might not have driven. Come on.”

The three exited and walked to the door of the building. “Are you sure about doing this?” Benson asked.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Benson thought. “We could get sued. “Worse, we could get shot.”

 Nelson didn’t appear to hear. He tried the door and it opened. They walked into an entryway. Farther down, near an open office door, an elaborate touring bike leaned against the wall. The office was lit and the men walked to it and entered. Sam Coulson looked up from his desk, signed a page in front of him, and stood. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Sam Coulson,” he said to Benson.”

“Tom Benson,” the other said, “special agent with the Little Rock Field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The two shook hands.

“Have seat.” Coulson said to the three men. When they were seated, he said. “What’s the problem?” he said. “Am I in trouble for faking a Navy SEAL’s firearm permit?”

No one laughed. “We wanted to ask you a few more questions about the young girl that was murdered.” Nelson said.

“I think I told you everything I know before,” Coulson said. “She called me once about firearms training and we discussed it. End of conversation.” He looked at Benson. “How does that local tragedy warrant FBI investigation?”

“It may involve a civil rights violation. Or it may connect with an interstate drug operation we broke up last week.” Benson said. “You may have heard about it?”

“News travels,” Coulson said. “If true, it is a real shocker about Brother Dale. Not for the others so much.” He pivoted toward Sheriff Love. “But how can I help?”

“You’re a cyclist?” the sheriff said, ignoring his question.

“Only on my days off,” Coulson said. “The rest of the time I’m a bona fide redneck.” He looked at Nelson. “Did you let my secret out?”

Nelson, too, ignored the question. “Are you sure Abbey never came here to your office?”

“Why would a young black girl come to a place loaded with wild-eyed racists carrying guns?” Coulson said.

“Because she was frightened of wild-eyed rednecks carrying guns?” Benson said.

“Know what, Sam?” Sheriff Love said, “when I was a young Marine, recently discharged as a sergeant, there was a bit of a fluff about a state senator that went hunting a lot with my father. I was working with Dad at the time. Seems like the senator was trying to get the old man to help him profit from some invoices on a state job we were working on.”

Coulson frowned and waited.

“The FBI wanted to interview me about what I might know.”

Coulson waited.

“I asked a friend who was a few years older than me and a lawyer, how to conduct myself in the interview.”

“Is this going somewhere, Sheriff Love?”

“Give me second, Sam. My friend gave me some advice I’ve never forgotten.”

“What was that?”

“Don’t lie,” he said. “Don’t lie to the FBI. Even if it doesn’t matter for jack-diddly-shit, don’t lie to the FBI. That’s an automatic five years in the pen. I didn’t, and the senator took the five years instead.”

“Are you sure,” Nelson said, “that Abbey Stubblefield has never been in this office?”

Coulson wiped his face. “Okay, okay,” he said. She did meet me here one day after closing time. I wasn’t about to bring her in while the ‘gun-nuts-for-Jesus’ crowd was here. All she wanted was to know what I knew about those so-called guards at that Ransom Center in Benton. I told her I knew nothing except that they liked to come here and shoot. That’s all I told her.”

“That sounds like it fits with the other facts,” Sheriff Love said.

“You told me,” Nelson said, “that some officer told you that she was wearing little but a necklace that read ‘poison’ when they found her body, right?”

“Right. That’s why they thought she was connected with gangs.”

“Thank you Sam,” the sheriff said. “We just wanted to clear up a few things.” He had started to rise when Nelson spoke.

“Sheriff,” he said, “Did you read over carefully the report from the medical examiner who autopsied Abbey’s body?”

“Yes, yes I did. What does that have to do with Sam here?”

“Are you as confused as I am, now?”

The sheriff thought. “Come to think of it, I am.”

“See, Sam,” Nelson said. “There was no necklace found on Abbey’s body. Maybe someone stole it. But maybe it was damaged and washed away in the rainstorm that night. What would you think if we were to take a metal detector out to the site and find that necklace buried in the mud? And what would we find if we examined that spot of freshly painted wall behind me that I noticed on my first trip here.”

The color slowly drained from Coulson’s face and he slumped in his chair. “You know, don’t you?”

“We suspect,” Nelson said. “Want to help us?”

“How? How did you figure it out?”

“The necklace could have been explained away,” Nelson said. “But what really bugged me about the whole deal with Abbey was how her car got to Little Rock if she had been killed in Armistead County.”

Coulson closed his eyes. “And I had to show up twice riding a goddam bicycle.”

“Twice,” Nelson said. “Just a stretch of the legs from Little Rock to Connorville after abandoning a car.”

“I didn’t murder her,” Coulson said, his shoulders sinking. “It was an accident.”

Sheriff Love said, “An accident?”

“She came here while I was cleaning guns after a class. I wouldn’t even let her sit. Made her stand back against that wall for propriety’s sake. I told her it was for safety’s sake. Yes, Gideon, in front of that freshly painted portion.”

His voice caught and he stopped to compose himself. He spoke again.

“Some ditzy woman from the class had left a small-caliber semi-automatic pistol charged. When I stood up to show Abbey the door, I dropped it and you can guess the rest. The shot hit right between her eyes, went through her, and into the wall. She fell not ever knowing what hit her.”

“What then?” Benson asked.

“I panicked from fear, embarrassment, and pride. I faked the execution scene, with her on the plywood and covered it all in the bed of my pickup, I waited until dark and dropped her in what I thought was the city limits of Connorville. Later, I drove her car, with my bike in it, to Little Rock, abandoned it out of sight, and spent the rest of the night in some woods with my bike. At daylight, I was just a lonely cyclist enjoying a Sunday morning ride.”

“You thought you dropped her inside Connorville?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Can you imagine how much effort that crew over there would have spent on investigating the death of a colored woman?”

After Deputy Cassidy had arrived and taken Coulson away, the three started back in somber silence. They covered several miles before Agent Benson broke the silence.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I love my job. But sometimes I hate it.”