“Highway Patrol found his car off 176, down by Sandy Road Creek. It was in the water. Looks like he swerved to avoid something on the road and ended up in the river. The body’s missing, but there’s blood in the car. A lot of blood. Blood type is B Positive, which matches Norton’s. We know he participates in the city’s blood drives, so we’re checking the samples from the car against a sample of his donated blood.”
I buried my head in my hands and took a deep breath. First Foster, then Truett and Mobley, and now Elliot. That left two names: Earl Larousse Jr. and Phil Poveda.
“Can I go now?” I wanted to return to my hotel room and get the material there out of harm’s way. I just hoped that Adams and Addams hadn’t gone looking for a search warrant while I was locked up.
Before either of the detectives could answer, the door to the interview room opened. The man who entered was two or three inches taller, and at least two decades older, than I was. He had buzz-cut gray hair, gray blue eyes and carried himself like he’d just stepped out of Parris Island to hunt down some AWOL marines. The military impression was enforced by his immaculate uniform and name badge. It read “S. Stilwell.” Stilwell was the lieutenant colonel in charge of the Charleston PD’s Operations Bureau, answerable only to the chief himself.
“Is this the man, Detective?” he asked.
“Yes sir.” It was Addams. He shot me a look that told me my troubles had only just begun and that he was going to enjoy what came next.
“Why is he here? Why is he not currently occupying a holding cell with the worst filth, the most disgusting reprobates that this fine city can furnish?”
“We were questioning him, sir.”
“And did he answer your questions in a satisfactory manner, Detective?”
“No sir, he did not.”
“Did he not indeed?”
Stilwell turned to Adams. “You, Detective, you are a good man, are you not?”
“I try to be, sir.”
“I do not doubt that, Detective. And do you not, to the best of your abilities, look favorably on your fellow man?”
“I do, sir.”
“I would expect no less of you, Detective. Do you read your Bible?”
“Not as much as I should, sir.”
“Damn right. Nobody reads his Bible as much as he should. A man should be out living the word of God, not studying on it. Am I right?”
“You are, sir.”
“And does the Bible not tell us to think well on our fellow man, to give him every chance that he deserves?”
“I couldn’t say for sure, sir.”
“Neither could I, but I feel certain that there is such an injunction. And, if there is not such an injunction in the Bible, then it was an oversight, and the man responsible, if he could go back and correct his mistake, would most certainly return and include said injunction, would he not?”
“He most certainly would, sir.”
“Amen. So we are agreed, Detective, that you have given Mr. Parker every chance to answer the questions put to him; that you, as a God-fearing man, have heeded the Bible’s probable injunction to take all that Mr. Parker has said as the word of an honest man; and yet you still doubt his basic sincerity?”
“I guess so, sir.”
“Well that certainly is a most unfortunate turn of events.”
He gave me his full attention for the first time.
“Statistics, Mr. Parker. Let’s talk about statistics. Do you know how many people were murdered in the fine city of Charleston in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and ninety-nine?”
I shook my head.
“I will tell you: three. It was the lowest murder rate in more than forty years. Now, what does that tell you about the police force in the fine city of Charleston?”
I didn’t reply. He cupped his left hand around his left ear and leaned toward me.
“I can’t hear you, son.”
I opened my mouth, which gave him his cue to continue before I could say anything.
“I will tell you what it says about this police force. It says that this fine body of men and women does not tolerate murder; that it actively discourages said form of antisocial activity; and that it will come down upon those who commit murder like two tons of shit from a trainload of elephants. But your arrival in our city appears to have coincided with a shocking increase in acts of homicide. That will affect our statistics. It will cause a blip on the screen, and Chief Greenberg, a fine, fine man, will have to go to the mayor and explain this unfortunate turn of events. And the mayor will ask him why this should be, and Chief Greenberg will then ask me, and I will say that it is because of you, Mr. Parker. And the chief will ask me where you are, and I will lead him to the deepest, darkest hole that the city of Charleston can provide for those of whom it most seriously disapproves. And under that hole will be another hole, and in that hole will be you, Mr. Parker, because I will have put you there. You will be so far below the ground that you will no longer officially be in the jurisdiction of the city of Charleston. You will not even officially be within the jurisdiction of the United States of America. You will be in the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China, and you would be advised to hire yourself a Chinese lawyer in order to cut down on traveling expenses incurred by your legal representative. Do you think I am shitting you, Mr. Parker? Because I am not shitting you. I do not shit people like you, Mr. Parker, I shit on people like you, and I have been saving some of my nastiest shit for just such an occasion as this. Now, do you have anything further that you wish to share with us?”
I shook my head. “I can’t tell you any more.”
He stood. “Then our business here is concluded. Detective, do we have a holding pen available for Mr. Parker?”
“I’m sure we do, sir.”
“And will he be sharing this holding pen with the dregs of this fine city, with drunks and whoremongers and men of low moral character?”
“That can be arranged, sir.”
“Then arrange it.”
I made a vain attempt to assert my rights.
“Don’t I get to call a lawyer?
“Mr. Parker, you do not need a lawyer. You need a travel agent to get you the hell out of this city. You need a priest to pray that you do not irritate me any more than you already have. And finally, you need to go back in time to get hold of your mother before your father impregnates her with his sorry seed and ask her not to let you be born because, if you continue to obstruct this investigation, you are going to regret the day she thrust you mewling and screaming into this world. Detectives, get this man out of my sight.”
They put me in the drunk tank until 6 A.M., then when they felt I had stewed for long enough and the decision to charge me with something or set me free became imminent, Addams came down and had me released. As we headed for the main door, his partner stood in the hallway and watched us pass.
“I find out anything on Norton, I’ll let you know,” he said. I thanked him, and he nodded.
“I found out what ‘plateye’ means too. Had to ask Mr. Alphonso Brown himself, man who guides folks round the old Gullah places. He said it was a kind of ghost: a changeling, one that could shift its form. Could be he was trying to say that your client turned on them.”
“Could be, except that Atys didn’t have a gun.”
He didn’t reply, and his partner hustled me on.
My possessions were handed back to me, minus my gun. I was given a slip and told that the gun was not being returned to me for the time being. Through the doors I could see prisoners in jail blues arriving to work on the lawns and clear garbage from the flower beds. I wondered how much trouble I’d have getting a cab.
“You planning on leaving Charleston in the near future?” asked Addams.
“No. Not after this.”
“Well, you make a move and you let us know, y’hear?”
I made for the door but found Addams’s hand resting against my chest. “You remember this, Mr. Parker: I got a bad feeling about you. I made some calls while you was in here and I didn’t like one thing that I heard. I don’t want you starting one of your crusades in Chief Greenberg’s city, you understand me? So just to guard against that, and to make sure that you call on us again when you’re leaving, we’ll be holding on to that Smith 10 of yours until your plane starts heading down the runway. Then maybe we’ll give you your cannon back.”