“Killers can feel bad about what they done… What do you think this oil business is about?”
Sunset shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s odd. And that baby was coated in oil. I don’t get it. And why in the hell are they burying them here on Zendo’s patch of land?”
“You’re too innocent, Sunset.”
“I don’t think I’m near that innocent anymore,” she said.
“Watch out for Zendo. I don’t trust him.”
“I think he’s all right,” Sunset said. “We take the body in, don’t mention anything about Zendo or where we found it. Just say it’s law business for now. Okay?”
“All right.”
They waited about fifteen minutes before Zendo showed up with a ratty-looking patchwork quilt. “We had this for the dog to lie down on. I didn’t want to use a new one. Will this be all right?”
“Sure,” Sunset said. “She won’t mind.”
They managed the corpse onto the blanket, loaded it into the back of Clyde’s pickup, drove it into Camp Rapture. They found Reverend Willie Fixx at his house eating a meal.
“Well, now,” Willie said, holding the door open, his mouth shining with grease from his meal, his eyes roaming Sunset’s body from head to toe and back again. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss Jones? You coming to be baptized? I don’t believe you ever was, not even when you was a little girl. I got a robe you can wear, we can go down to the creek where it’s deep and do it.”
“I’m here on law business,” Sunset said. “This is Deputy Constable Hillbilly.”
“Hillbilly,” Willie said. “I was trying to remember what I’d heard you called. I thought it was Bum.”
“No,” Hillbilly said. “That’s my usual occupation.”
“Law business, you say,” Willie said.
“That’s right,” Sunset said. “You’re the only one I knew to come to, since you fix dead bodies up for burying. Maybe I should have gone to the doctor. I wasn’t sure.”
“Body in the truck?”
Sunset nodded.
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know,” Sunset said. “Thought you might be able to help me there. Find out how she died, who she is.”
“Body is pretty worn out,” Hillbilly said. “Can’t even tell if it’s a man or woman or what color it is.”
“Where did you find it?”
“I’d rather not say yet,” Sunset said. “Law business again.”
“I’m finishing up my dinner.”
“We’ll wait,” Sunset said.
“Drive the body around back. You know where I mean?”
“I think so,” Sunset said.
While Willie finished eating, Sunset and Hillbilly got in the truck and Hillbilly drove them around back. There was a low overhang porch there and a big pecan tree and lots of shade. They got out and stood between the car and the tree, and Sunset leaned against the tree. Hillbilly stood very close to her, and then, slowly, he eased his face toward her, and they kissed.
“I been wanting to do that,” he said.
“And I been wanting you to,” Sunset said. “But not here. Not now.”
But she kissed him back.
“That’ll have to hold us,” she said.
“I suppose,” Hillbilly said. “You’re trembling.”
“I believe I am.”
About five minutes later Willie came out of the back, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He looked in the truck bed at the blanket-covered corpse.
“Ripe-smelling,” he said, as he pulled back the blanket. “Oh, yeah. That’s a dead one. Don’t know if it’s white or a nigger?”
“No,” Hillbilly said. “The body’s coated in oil, which gives it a dark color. That and, well, the meat is so rotten.”
“Let’s see here. Well, it’s a woman. You can tell by that pelvis flare.”
Sunset looked at Hillbilly. Hillbilly shrugged.
“Let me see,” said Willie as he climbed into the bed of the truck. “Eyes are gone, but looks to have a bit of hair still in place.”
Willie took hold of the hair between thumb and forefinger. “Awful fine for a nigger. I’d say it’s a white woman. Maybe I ought to say a little prayer over her, case it is a white woman.”
“What if she’s colored?” Sunset said.
“It won’t hurt her none. Hell, say a prayer over a dog it don’t hurt nothing, it’s just when they’re dead, they got no place to go. Haul her inside for me.”
Hillbilly and Sunset took hold of opposite ends of the blanket and hauled the body out of the back of the truck, followed Willie inside. It was a small room and there were three wooden coffins against the wall, and there was a table and some instruments for embalming.
“Any way to figure who it is?” Sunset asked.
“No way I know. Thing to do is find if someone is missing. See if they fit the general description. I’ll get a height measurement and such. But she needs to go in the ground pronto. She come out of the ground, didn’t she? There’s dirt mixed in with that oil, and it’s spread all over.”
“Yeah,” Sunset said, “she came out of the ground.”
“Might could figure better who it was I knew where you found her,” Willie said. “Could even be someone I know.”
“The country,” Sunset said. “West of here, near the woods.”
“The dirt mixed in this oil, the oil makes it dark, but it looks dark to begin with to me. Not all of it, just some. Her left side is dark dirt, the right side is a lighter kind of dirt. Ain’t but one person got dirt like that around here. That nigger Zendo. I figure you found it at the edge of his plowed land, that would be the dark dirt on her left side, and the other dirt, that would be land unplowed. Hell, I figure he plowed her up-you figure Zendo did it?”
“I didn’t agree with you,” Sunset said. “I didn’t say Zendo had a thing to do with it.”
“Dirt like that, that’s Zendo’s signature. Everyone knows that nigger could drop an egg in the ground and grow a bush of chickens. It was found on his land, all right.”
“Okay,” Sunset said. “The body was found on Zendo’s land, but you have to take my word for this. He had nothing to do with it.”
“You know that for a fact?” Willie said.
“I’m going to say I do. I better not hear a word about this body being found on Zendo’s land from anyone, because I’ll know where the word came from.”
Willie grinned. “You wouldn’t threaten me, would you, little lady?”
“I will,” Hillbilly said.
Willie studied Hillbilly for a long moment. “Never said I would tell. You’re both being rude.”
“I’m just a little frayed,” Sunset said. “I’ve had a rough month.”
“Suppose you have,” Willie said. He extended his hand to Hillbilly. “No hard feelings.”
He took Willie’s hand and shook it. “None. But, still, don’t say anything.”
“Think that might have been a little excessive?” Sunset said.
They were riding along in the truck, heading back to Sunset’s tent.
“I suppose,” Hillbilly said. “Just didn’t like the way he was talking.”
“I can handle myself. You start handling things for me when I don’t need for you to, don’t ask you to, people will think I can’t do what needs to be done.”
“I just don’t like that guy.”
“I think the feeling was mutual. I don’t think he liked me either.”
“He liked you all right. I could tell the way he looked at you, especially when you didn’t know he was looking.”
“Was that the reason you were so hot under the collar?”
“I’m going to be damn honest, Sunset. I ain’t the jealous kind.”
“Oh,” Sunset said.
When they arrived at Sunset’s tent, they found Ben lying under a tree on his back with his paws in the air. He turned his head to look at them, but unlike before he didn’t act frightened and he didn’t dart away.
“You done spoiled him,” Hillbilly said.
“I certainly hope so. He’s had enough of the bad life. For that matter, so have I.”
Inside the tent, Karen, fresh from a bath, well-dressed and groomed, sweet-smelling, greeted them.