“What do you mean, exactly?”
“They know about the dogs on the south hill. They’re getting their guns together, they’re going in.”
“Aw, Jesus, where are they?”
“At Tom Jones’s place.”
Virgil got the location and drove over in a hurry. At Jones’s house, he found Johnson arguing with four men in camo, including Winky Butterfield.
All of them turned to look when Virgil drove in, and when he got out of his truck, Butterfield said to Johnson, “Goddamnit, you weren’t supposed to tell him.”
“I got no choice. Virgil’s my guy and I can’t turn my back on him,” Johnson said. “He’s got his reasons for working the way he is.”
“What reasons?” one of the men asked. Virgil found out later he was Jones.
Instead of answering, Virgil asked Johnson, “Can you trust these guys? They got any relations up Orly’s Creek?”
The men all looked at each other, then Butterfield said, “No, none of us do,” and Johnson said, “Yeah, you could trust them. Are you going to tell them?”
Virgil said, “Listen, men. This is supposed to be top secret, but I’m telling you anyway. You tell anybody else, you could go to prison for a long time. Anybody not want to hear what I’m going to say, you better walk away. If you listen, and you tell anyone, including your wives, and the word gets out, we will track it down, and you will go to prison.”
The men all looked at each other again, then Butterfield said, “What the hell are you talking about, Virgil?”
“Anybody walking away?” Virgil asked.
They all shook their heads, and Virgil said, “Okay. Johnson and I went up there and scouted the valley.”
“Didn’t know that,” Jones said.
“’Cause we didn’t tell you. We didn’t find the dogs, but we did find a commercial-sized meth lab. The place is under surveillance by the federal government right now. As soon as we nail the people running the lab, we’ll go looking for the dogs.”
One of the men smiled and said, “My goodness. That is a reason.”
“But what about the dogs?” Butterfield asked. “Goddamn meth labs are all over the place — the goddamned dogs are like my goddamn children.”
“Look: that’s the reason we have you guys sitting out by the river, watching people coming and going — we don’t want to let the dogs out of there,” Virgil said. “We think they’re up on the south hill, which is hard to get at, but we can hear them barking at night. So as soon as the feds move, which has to be any day now — I’m kind of surprised that they haven’t gone already — we’ll be up there after the dogs. And if somebody tries to move them before then, we should see them.”
“They could be torturing them,” Butterfield said.
“Probably not, if they’re gathering them up to sell them,” Virgil said. “Look, guys, give me a couple more days, and we’ll be all over the dogs.”
Once again, they all looked around, then Jones said, “Two days, Virgil. Then we’re gonna have to do something.”
Johnson came and sat in Virgil’s truck while he made a call to Gomez: “Anything happening up there at all?”
“Yeah, we saw a guy go up there yesterday in one of those Gator utility vehicles,” Gomez said. “He was dropping stuff off, it looked like. I think they’re getting ready to roll some smoke. You getting antsy?”
Virgil explained about the dog owners, and Gomez said, “Oh boy. All we need is a bunch of rednecks running through there with rifles. If it looks like you can’t hold them off, call me — I’ll come down and preach a sermon to them.”
“I’ll do that,” Virgil said. “You heard about my murder?”
“Yeah — does that have anything to do with the Orly’s Creek boys?”
“Don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about that possibility. But the victim was a pill head, according to the sheriff. His boss thought that he might have another source of income. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Well, if you’ve got a local source, and you have a pill head who might be dealing… that’s a pretty interesting coincidence, if it is a coincidence.”
“I’ll stay in touch,” Virgil said.
He rang off, told Johnson about Gomez’s end of the conversation, then called up Alewort, who was still at Conley’s trailer. “I’d be interested in any trace of any street drug. Deeply interested,” Virgil said.
“We’ll look,” Alewort said.
When Virgil was done with Alewort, Johnson asked what he was most thinking about — the murder, or the dogs.
“I gotta juggle them,” Virgil said. “The murder’s the main thing, but I won’t forget the dogs.”
6
Virgil needed to talk to Bill Don Fuller, who owned the trailer where Conley had lived, and to the other people suggested by Purdy. He recited the list to Johnson, who said that Fuller ran a welding service down by the river port, and that he’d be driving right past Wendy McComb’s house on the way to Fuller’s place.
“Is she gonna be a problem?” Virgil asked.
“Not if she’s sober,” Johnson said. “She tends to drink a little.”
“By ‘a little,’ you mean ‘a lot,’” Virgil said.
“Well, yeah. She had a pretty hard life before she started screwing for money.”
“I suspect this isn’t news to you, Johnson, but screwing for money is a hard life,” Virgil said.
“Tell you what,” Johnson said, “she used to work as an aide down at the River View nursing home, changing old folks’ diapers and colostomy bags for the minimum wage, drinking every night, and screwing for free. Now she just drinks and screws, for ten times as much money, and that’s about a thousand percent improvement. So don’t get your feminist panties in a knot about what she does for a living.”
“You got a colorful town here, Johnson.”
“Could get more colorful in two days,” Johnson said. “Two days and there’ll be a bunch of boys going up to Orly’s Creek with guns.”
Virgil left Johnson at Jones’s place and drove back toward town. Just short of the city limits, Thunderbolt Road veered off toward the river. A dirt track with a scattering of gravel snaked through a swampy swale and across a short concrete-slab bridge to the levee, then along the land side of the levee toward town, eventually winding past a weathered white cottage with green shutters and a floodwater stain just below the first-floor windows.
Virgil pulled into a dirt parking area and walked around to the front porch. He could hear a TV inside as he knocked on the screen door.
A woman called, “Who is that?”
“Police, state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Virgil said.
McComb was a completely ordinary-looking woman, a bit heavy, wearing a white blouse buttoned to the neckline, and black Capri pants and flip-flops. She had dishwater-blond hair, pale green eyes, and a few freckles. She had a white plastic bowl of cornflakes in her hand, and a spoon in the other.
“What have I done?” she asked through the screen door.
“Nothing, as far as I know,” Virgil said. “But I understand you’re a friend of Clancy Conley.”
“Who? I’m not sure I know that name—”
“Conley was found dead today. He was shot to death.”
“Oh, Jesus!” she said, taking a step back. She sputtered a few soggy cornflakes onto the screen. “What happened? Where was this? Are you sure it’s Clancy?”
She asked all the questions that Laughton should have, Virgil noticed; and she’d popped the hook on the door, almost unconsciously, to let him in. She backed across the living room and dropped into a chair, pointing him at a couch. The house was furnished like any middle-class suburban home, except the television was smaller.