Sutter frowned through an uncomfortable tremor in his belly. “Don’t listen to every rumor you hear, ‘specially in a hick burg like this. Stuff gets all blown out of proportion.”
“I don’t know, Chief. I went down to the county morgue to take a look myself and they wouldn’t even let me in. Why’s that? I’m a police officer in the jurisdiction of the murder. It was our crime scene. Ain’t our fault we weren’t the first responders.”
“Trey, it ain’t even positive yet that it was a murder. Could’ve been an accident. See? Folks start talkin’ without knowin’ all the facts and they jump to conclusions. County didn’t let you in ‘cos I’d already been there to ID the body.”
Trey stalled at the information. “Shit, Chief, you didn’t tell me that.”
“Right, I didn’t tell no one except Judy, because she’s the official next of kin. She wasn’t up to seein’ the body, so I went in there on her behalf.”
Halm and Trey both looked at him.
“So?” Halm asked.
“Was his head really gone?” Trey finished.
Sutter sighed. “Yeah, Trey.”
“And they never found the head,” Halm added. “Somebody cut off his head and run off with it. That ain’t murder?”
“We still get gators,” Sutter hedged. “It coulda been a gator. He could’ve fallen down the bluff and lost his head on the rocks. Fuckin’ truck could’ve been barrelin’ around the bend and knocked his head off with the rearview. It could’ve been anything. So relax ‘n’ stop talkin’ shit, ’cos that just makes the rumors worse. We don’t want all this weird talk getting back to Judy. She’s bent out of shape enough as it is.”
Trey and Halm quieted but only for a moment.
Trey began, “Was there anything screwed-up about the neck wound?”
“No, Trey,” Sutter replied, aggravated. “His head got cut off. Simple. It happens. It was a decapitation. Said so in the autopsy report.”
This was Chief Sutter’s first lie.
Pappy popped some chaw in his mouth: Red Man. “They’re also sayin’ it was Squatters who killed him. Everd Stanherd’s people. Makes sense.”
Jesus, Sutter griped. These boys won’t get off it. He couldn’t tell the truth about it, could he? He didn’t even understand the truth himself. “It makes no sense, Pappy. Ain’t no reason for Squatters to kill Dwayne Parker. You don’t kill the husband of the woman who keeps your ass out of the welfare line. And you seen these people. I’ll bet the biggest of the men don’t even stand five-six. Dwayne was six-three and was still packin’ all them muscles from working out in the joint all those years. Shit, there ain’t ten Squatters who could take down Dwayne Parker.”
“There are if one of ‘em had a machete in his paw,” Trey pointed out.
I just can’t win here, Sutter thought.
Pappy spit brown juice into a Yoo-Hoo bottle. “And ain’t it funny ‘bout how Dwayne gets his ticket punched right in the middle of all this talk about some Squatters disappearin’. Like maybe he had somethin’ to do with it.”
“Or done it himself,” Trey said.
Now Sutter was grinding his teeth. “Done what himself, Trey?”
“Offed some Squatters. Dwayne hated the Squatters; everyone knows that.”
“Listen to me, both of you.” Sutter’s voice hardened. “There ain’t no Squatters who disappeared. It’s bullshit.”
“Nearly a dozen’s what I heard,” Pappy offered.
“Here one day, gone the next,” Trey said.
This was getting hairy. “You two boneheads listen up. Ain’t nobody’s disappeared ‘round here. It’s a free country. Some of these people think they can do better some-wheres else than here . . . and that’s their right. There ain’t nothing wrong with Squatters just’cos they’re a little funny-lookin’ in the face. They’re just as smart as anyone else and just as able to work. Some of ‘em get tired of crabbing, so they move on. Like anywhere.”
Sutter’s sensible explanation didn’t seem to convince the others. It was true that an unusual number of Stanherd’s Squatters had left their abode on the Point, some quite suddenly. Stanherd himself had reported it several times, but even he admitted that they probably did just leave town of their own accord. Sutter did know of the anomaly regarding Dwayne Parker’s death, but of missing Squatters? He knew nothing, nor did he believe any foul play was involved. I swear to God. Gossip mouthpieces like Trey and Pappy Halm just make my job harder. . . .
“So I don’t want to hear no more crap about Squatters disappearing into the night and Dwayne’s fuckin’ head never being found,” he finished.
All three heads turned when the cowbell clanged, and in walked a lean, fortyish man with short blond hair, blue eyes, and an expression that could be deemed somber. He wore a beige windbreaker in spite of the heat, work pants and boots without a speck of dirt on them.
“Howdy, Mr. Felps,” Pappy said.
“Mr. Halm, Chief Sutter, Sergeant Trey,” the man said in return. His voice was light yet somehow edged, sibilant. “Things are going well for you all, I trust?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Felps,” Sutter replied. Felps’s presence always affected Sutter and most townspeople as something close to regal, for some disjointed reason. He wasn’t necessarily the town’s savior, because Agan’s Point had always been self-sufficient—but just barely. Instead, Felps was the bearer of some energetic new blood that was sorely needed. His Riverside Estates luxury condo complexes would siphon upper-income families out of the state’s overpopulated big cities. There were already several hundred preconstruction sales, along with pricey television ads throughout Virginia. This transplantation would divest Agan’s Point of some of its natural beauty but deliver a much-needed economic shot in the arm. Sutter saw it as the progress he’d waited for all his life, and he saw Felps as its herald. “Things are just dandy ‘round here.”
“And theyʹll be getting even better soon,” Felps said, picking up a coffee and Danish. “You’ve probably noticed that the foundations have already been laid. Things will change around here fast. You’ll all be very pleased.” The man’s enthusiasm, however, seemed dulled, lost in his businessman’s veneer. Sutter supposed any successful construction magnate carried the same air. And what did it matter, anyway? All our lives will improve because of this fella, Sutter realized.
Felps’s stay was brief, to the point. He paid up, bade them a good day, and left.
“Not the friendliest fella in the land,” Pappy said, “but do you think I give a flying fuck? My business’ll triple the first year those condos start opening.”
“He’s a big-city builder, Pappy,” Sutter reminded him. “Guys like that are no-nonsense and all business. That’s why they’re millionaires.”
Trey shrugged, leaning on the counter. “He ain’t such a poker face once ya get to know him. Matter of fact, I had a few beers with him at the bar the other night.”
Sutter felt secretly jealous. “You’re kidding me?”
“Naw. He and a few of his managers walked in. They asked me to join ‘em and we all sat there for an hour shootin’ the shit and pounding a few. When Felps is off the clock, he’s a regular guy just like you and me.”
Sutter’s jealousy remained. If there was one man he wanted to be pals with, it was Felps. I’ll have to work on that. . . .