“So those two poor old men may have put themselves forward as soi-disant murderers,” my father mused, “in order to protect other men.”
“My theory exactly,” Edmund declared. “And what the men started, the women completed. Human justice has prevailed, even if state justice was gulled.” He stroked his chin. “I must ask my dear wife if she has any idea what herbs they employed.”
“I will be pleased to hear the answer myself,” my father said. “I propose to dine at this rectory of his before I return to Derbyshire. Young Tobias is such a scatterbrain he may well have engaged a cook who cannot distinguish culinary herbs from those with — let us say — a deeply soporific effect, and undoubtedly we need your expertise: yours and Mrs. Hansard’s, if you please.”
And to my joy we exchanged a second conspiratorial smile.
Copyright © 2011 by Judith Cutler
Half-Lives
by Tim L.Williams
After a stint working on screenplays, Tim Williams is back to writing fiction and has produced a fine new entry in a series that was nominated for the 2010 Shamus Award for Best Short Story. Charlie Raines is the protagonist; “Suicide Bonds” the story recognized by the Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus Award judges. Here is Raines again, in a story that is more ambitious and disturbing than any of the previous cases. His creator lives in western Kentucky and teaches at a local college.
When I tracked Terrell Cheatham’s grandmother from her last known ad-dress to the subsidized apartment she’d moved into after her husband’s death, she didn’t do any of the things I expected. Instead of slamming the door in my face or denying that her grandson lived with her, she invited me in for a cup of coffee and then added a shot of bourbon to my mug, “just to keep the cold out of my bones.” This was a long way from the reception a private investigator usually gets when running down bail jumps in southwest Memphis, where the average annual income is a few dollars higher than it is in Calcutta and even the most law-abiding residents see a white face as an intrusion from an alien and hostile world. I was so shocked I wanted to believe her when she insisted that her grandson was a “fine young man” who wouldn’t cause me “an ounce of trouble.”
Frances Cheatham seemed like a decent woman. She was in her late fifties or early sixties, still trim and attractive but with deep worry lines around her mouth and eyes, and I could tell she loved her grandson. From what I’d read in his jacket, Terrell Cheatham didn’t seem like the kind of kid who belonged in jail. At twenty, he had a single blemish on his record. It had been two years since his arrest for breaking into the video-game store, and he’d kept clean since then. He’d completed a semester of college, earning a spot on the honor role before he dropped out to take a full-time job in the kitchen at a Tops Barbecue on Elvis Presley Boulevard. If he’d shown up for his court appearance a week and a half ago — in Memphis a trial two years after the offense is considered swift justice — Terrell would have faced no more than six months’ probation.
“Terrell’s momma left him when he was just a baby,” she said now, blowing at the steam rising off a fresh cup of coffee and then shrugging. “Our son Marcus Junior gave Terrell to us to raise, but he came to visit Terrell every weekend up until the time he was killed in a car wreck outside of Jackson, Mississippi.”
Her husband, Marcus Senior, had passed away less than a year ago. He was a good man, she said, one who’d worked for twenty-seven years as a night watchman at the West Parrish Industrial Park to put bread on the table and keep a roof over their heads.
“Bone cancer. He went fast, but don’t let anyone tell you fast and easy are the same thing.” Her smile was tired, maybe a little bitter. “I bet you hear your share of sad stories, don’t you, Mr. Raines. Probably get sick of them.”
I told her to call me Charlie and said how sorry I was about her loss. And she thanked me for that even though we both knew words were little comfort.
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so we sat in silence for a few minutes before Frances Cheatham forced a smile and said it looked like both of us needed a refill. While she was in the kitchen, I went to look out the front window. The last of the light was seeping from a January sky. When you say Memphis, people think blistering August heat, but there are days in January and February when the skies are mold-gray, a slanting, almost-frozen drizzle falls from dawn to midnight, and a wind whips across the Mississippi that makes you wonder if you haven’t been transported unaware from Beale Street to Boston. I was still standing at the window, dreading going back out into that cold when a tall, scrawny kid dressed in a parka, sock cap, and sneakers crossed the street and headed into the parking lot.
“You see Terrell coming?” Frances Cheatham asked, handing me my coffee.
Before I could answer, a black Tahoe fishtailed into the lot, nearly slammed a row of parked cars, and then skidded to a stop. Peering over my shoulder, Frances Cheatham said, “Good Lord, they almost run right over Terrell.”
Outside, the SUV’s passenger door was slung open, and a man, fiftyish, white, not much bigger than an oak tree, got out. Terrell tried to run. Tried was the operative word. He didn’t even get started before the guy in the overcoat raised a sawed-off shotgun and squeezed the trigger.
“Oh sweet Jesus!” Frances Cheatham screamed in my ear.
I pulled my.45 from beneath my jacket and ran for the door. I’d just opened it when the shotgun roared again. I knew it was too late for Terrell Cheatham, but I ran anyway, taking the stairs two at time and nearly slipping and falling halfway down. His grandmother ran behind me, calling on the name of the Lord with each step she took.
Just as we reached the lot, the Tahoe screeched away. I caught a glimpse of the driver — white, older than the shooter, thick, curly gray hair and glasses — but then the Tahoe was gone, heading northeast towards the interstate. Cursing, I stuffed my.45 back into my holster without having fired a shot.
Frances Cheatham hunkered beside her grandson, screaming his name again and again. Now that the shooting was over, a few faces had emerged from the apartments, staring at the scene, some of them whispering their prayers.
“I’ve called an ambulance,” a pretty girl about Terrell’s age shouted.
An ambulance wasn’t going to help. The first blast from the shotgun had caught him just below the kidneys; the second, fired point-blank, had taken off most of the back of his head.
“A PlayStation 3,” Frances Cheatham said when I touched her shoulder. “That’s why he robbed that store. That’s all my baby wanted. And just look at what someone done gone and did.”
Four days later, the homicide detective who’d caught Terrell Cheatham’s case finally got tired of dodging my calls and ducking down the backstairs and agreed to meet me for a late lunch. Ray Pardue was a stoop-shouldered man with thinning, sand-colored hair and a nervous grin that never quite made it to a full-blown smile. Now he pushed aside a platter of Neely’s barbecue spaghetti and gave me a pained expression.
“I feel as bad as you do for the kid’s grandmother. But Jesus Christ, Raines, where have you been living the last ten years? Kids in south Memphis get murdered every day. The Chamber of Commerce don’t advertise it in their See the River City brochures, but we both know the way it is.”