Shifty's Boys Read online

  “Oh,” she said. “Some local news I need to tell you.”

  He nodded, chewing.

  “A body was found two days ago.”

  “Just the one?”

  “That’s right, smart guy. Thing is, you know him.”

  She waited for him to display curiosity about the world beyond his concerns. Instead he looked at her, waiting.

  “It was Fuckin’ Barney,” she said.

  “He still moving heroin in?”

  “Well,” she said, “not as of two days ago.”

  His quick grin was like a sudden burst of sunlight emerging from behind a rain cloud then vanishing. She felt triumphant.

  “Who do you like for it?” he said.

  “Nobody. It’s city cop jurisdiction. He was behind Western Auto. Shot three times.”

  “Thought it was closed.”

  “It is,” she said. “This ain’t about the store.”

  “What’s it about, then?”

  “Dope,” she said. “What else? Now wash them dishes for me, will you? And take a damn shower. I’ve got court.”

  She stood up from the Formica table, adjusted her equipment belt, and left. Mick wondered what she was riled up about. A good soldier, he followed her orders, then took a Percocet and lay on the couch. He had one more pill left. He could save it or take it now. He took it. He’d regret it tomorrow when he wanted one, but the regrets were piled up like cordwood everywhere he looked. His medical leave ended soon. Better if he was off the meds then anyhow. Still, the days would pass even more slowly without pills.

  The opiates hit him—not nearly as hard as he’d like but enough to flatten his sense of time. The light through the window was pretty to look at.

  Chapter Four

  Four days later Mick felt ninety percent healed. The daily fog of fatigue had faded with the absence of Percocet. He’d squelched the wanton cravings, not so much for opiates or whiskey but for escape itself. Mick supposed he was lucky—he liked to drink, and now he knew he enjoyed narcotics, but he lacked the addiction gene. He could turn it off like throwing a switch. The first couple of days were tough. Much tougher was the knowledge that the switch was always within reach, ready to be flicked back on.

  Inactivity was his nemesis, and he walked twice a day for a longer distance, getting in three miles, then five and six. His leg hurt only at night. He tidied the house and showered daily, which improved relations with his sister. Everyone else in their family was dead. Neither of them had kids. It was just them, and he may as well get along with her. He decided to try television, but it was all sex and zombies, serial killers and sad cops. The comedies weren’t funny. He found a documentary on Atlantis, a place that might have existed but nobody knew where. It consisted of a great many shots of the ocean, and he wondered how it qualified as a documentary.

  Someone knocked at the front door, an anomaly since most people used the side entrance off the kitchen. Mick paused the TV show and opened the door to Mason Kissick. They appraised each other in the way of country men in town, neither quite comfortable with the circumstances, both waiting for the other to react. Mason lowered his chin in greeting.

  “Mick,” he said.

  “Mason.”

  With the initial phase over, another minute passed while Mick tried to figure out why Fuckin’ Barney’s brother was here. Mason stood as if he were a tree with not a care in the world.

  “Heard you got shot over there,” Mason said.

  “Naw, I got blowed up. An IED.”

  “Damn. I had a girlfriend with one of them in her. Didn’t know they could blow up. Hurt your peter any?”

  “It’s a kind of bomb, Mason. What do you want?”

  “Ain’t me, it’s Mommy. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Well, bring her in, then.”

  “She won’t come to town. Sent me to fetch you out to the house.”

  “The last time me and her talked, it wasn’t on good terms.”

  “She said to tell you that’s done with now.”

  “What’s on her mind, Mason?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head. “She said she’ll tell you her own self.”

  Mick considered the expedition. The only times he’d gone anywhere was the drugstore or the hospital. He’d made one trip for clothes to his old house, empty after his wife moved out. He became so morose he swore never to return. Driving to the far side of the county might do him some good.

  Mason operated his Taurus with great care, clearly new to the complexities of driving in town. His way of dealing with stop signs was to sneak up on them gradually with a few tentative halts, then a long wait at the sign itself. Fully satisfied that he was safe, he entered the intersection with sudden acceleration, then a quick application of the brakes as if to avoid any last-minute vehicle that had escaped his vigilance. Mick stared out the window. He’d driven with worse drivers in the army. The absolute worst were civilian contractors in Iraq.

  The pale green of spring lay over the land, each recent bud straining toward the sun. There was a palpable energy in the hills from the trees still in flower, the opening leaves of softwoods, and the infant animals—fawns and kits and naive young snakes. The light had a gentle quality, the sky pastel. Mick felt good to be out of the house and in motion, to have a destination, even if it was Mason’s mother. The last time he’d seen Mrs. Kissick, they’d both been armed. She was a hard woman.

  Mason left the blacktop for the dirt lane that led to his mother’s house.

  “Hey,” Mick said. “Should’ve told you before. I’m sorry about your brother.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said. “Just so you know, Mommy don’t want us calling him Fuckin’ Barney no more. He’s Barney now. Just Barney.”

  Mick nodded. Death was a force of social leveling in the hills, a provider of intricate respect. He recalled a woman who’d married a man her parents despised in life. When he died young, they’d buried him in their family cemetery.

  Mason drove into the yard and parked near the three board steps to a porch that spanned the front of the house. The holler received less light than town, and the yard oak held a few blossoms. Grass was scanty. They climbed the steps and entered the house.

  Shifty Kissick sat in a reclining chair with a lever repaired by duct tape, antimacassars draped over each arm. On a low table beside her were an ashtray, a cup of coffee, and a small pistol that lacked a front sight to avoid snagging on clothes. Mick had seen her friendly and threatening but never the way she was now—dour with pain, her eyes blazing like a blast furnace. He waited for her to speak. Instead she gestured to a chair.

  “Mason,” she said, “get the man some coffee.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Kissick,” Mick said.

  She nodded, so accustomed to hearing the platitude that it slid past her like grease. She’d lost two of her five kids, both boys, one to a car wreck many years back, and now Barney murdered. Mason brought a cup of coffee, black and steaming, in a mug emblazoned with a cheerful cow. Out of respect, Mick held it in a way to conceal the bovine smile. The front room was tidy, containing a couch, two chairs, a wide-screen TV with a gaming setup, and a paint-by-numbers depiction of The Last Supper in a filigree frame. Another wall held a faded color photograph of Shifty and her late husband. They looked happy. Mick sipped the harsh coffee and nodded, waiting.

  “You still in the service?” Shifty said.

  “Yes, ma’am. On leave till my leg’s good.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Depends on the doc. But not too long, a week or so.”

  She nodded, and he understood that she knew all this already. She probably knew about his wife and the baby, too. He wondered if she knew about the Percocet. He sat quietly, waiting. Hill culture didn’t traffic in the surface tedium of chatting nicely with people. She’d sent for him. He was here. It was on her now, and he’d wait until she got to the reason behind the summons.

  “I need some help,” she said.

  H
e nodded, surprised. She was down a boy, but Mick wasn’t about to step into the drug-dealing gap left by the death of Fuckin’ Barney. He glanced at Mason, her youngest son, a man who required precise instructions. Perhaps she needed some work done on the land. It would be good exercise, and Mason could drive him around.

  “What kind of help, Mrs. Kissick?”

  “Find out who killed Barney.”

  “You need to talk to the city police.”

  “I done did,” she said. “Till I was blue in the face. They’ve got their mind made up.”

  The pupils of her eyes had constricted with anger. Her right eye focused on his right eye, a sign of aggression. Mick nodded and studied the coffee cup.

  “What did the police tell you?” he said.

  “To stop aggravating them.”

  “What about going through a lawyer? They’ll know the right way to talk to the cops.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Both but mostly can’t.”

  “Sounds kind of tricky.”

  “It is,” she said. “Barney always was, even dead. I’ll pay you good money.”

  He leaned back and opened his posture, focusing his left eye on her right to ease her off a little. His voice was modulated low and slow.

  “Mrs. Kissick,” he said, “I can’t agree to anything until I know more.”

  “Like what?”

  “What the cops said. Why you don’t believe them. Who you think killed your son.”

  Her silence manufactured a rigidity that hung in the air. She looked about the room like a wild animal trapped in a corner. Shifty was in her late fifties with long dark hair. Two streaks of gray ran along her temples and converged in the back. She leaned forward, and Mick prepared for a sudden attack. Instead she sprang to her feet, agile as a child.

  “Outside,” she said. “Mason, you stay in here.”

  Mick followed her to the porch. They sat on wooden chairs facing the road and Mason’s red Taurus. She lit a cigarette and cuffed her jeans for an ashtray.

  “Smoke?” she said.

  “Naw, I quit. I do miss them, though.”

  “They’re no good,” she said, “but a comfort at times. About like Barney.”

  “What did the cops say?”

  “Drug deal gone bad.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  “Nope, not in town. He was smart that way. Did all his business out in the county.”

  “Girlfriend. Girlfriend’s husband. Somebody’s ex?”

  “He didn’t have nobody regular. Didn’t want anything complicated. He had a few lady friends he’d visit. Regular ones. He wasn’t a hound dog like some.”

  A slow blush rose from her neck and suffused her face. The subject of physical intimacy was uncomfortable.

  “He talked to you about that?” Mick said.

  “Once. He was drunk and smoking on the weed. He apologized for not giving me no grandbabies. I told him it didn’t matter, his sister’s got four kids. But he felt bad about it. My oldest boy’s got a Mexican woman in California. No kids. Mason, he had one girlfriend five or six years ago, didn’t last a month. Barney thought it was on him to carry the Kissick name. He wanted me to know why he was single.”

  “What was it he said?”

  “My husband died young, and it was hard on the family. Barney didn’t want to do his wife and kids that way. He was going to make his money and get out. He liked wrestling, that WWE stuff. He talked about organizing some fights. He could have done that. Had the mind for it.”

  Her voice trailed off. She stubbed the cigarette against the gray slats of the porch and lit another. A robin with a piece of bright moss clenched in its beak flew to an old woodpile in the yard. It landed on the thick bark of a hickory, jerked its head as if checking for surveillance, then stepped into a space between two logs.

  “They build a new nest every year,” Mick said.

  “I know it. I seen them feed other birds’ young. They’re a generous bird.”

  “What I like, they sing all year long.”

  They watched the woodpile for a couple of minutes. A cloud passed in front of the sun, dimming the light like gauze. Mick felt comfortable sitting with her. She blew smoke that caught a breeze.

  “Well,” she said. “Will you do it?”

  “I know it’s hard, Mrs. Kissick, and you’re upset about it. What I don’t understand is why you don’t just leave it to the police.”

  “Far as they’re concerned, Barney was a drug dealer who got what’s coming to him.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yep. A boy in the Rocksalt Police Department used to date my daughter ten years back. He told me the case is open, but they ain’t looking for nobody.”

  “What’s the cop’s name?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “I ain’t a snitch.”

  “Was Barney?”

  She jerked her head to him, her gaze a flat wind leveling everything in its path. Sunlight reflected from her eyes like sparks off flint. Her voice was harsh.

  “Snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches shitting their britches.”

  Mick nodded. He sat quietly to let her anger pass. She put the cigarette out and lit another.

  “If you want my help,” Mick said, “I have to ask questions like that.”

  She gathered a long breath, exhaled, then sucked on the cigarette.

  “That mean you’ll do it?”

  “Why me?”

  “I don’t trust the law.”

  “I’m an army cop, ma’am. Special agent in the CID.”

  “I don’t see no army around here.”

  “You’re not answering the question,” he said. “Why me?”

  “I half trust you,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t care.”

  Mick thought about that. She was right—he didn’t care about her son or the law. Murder in the hills led to more killing, and he only cared that people had the chance to live, not die.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll dig around a little. If I think there’s something off, I’ll look more. But if I don’t, I’m done. And I don’t want you getting mad about it. You understand what I mean?”

  “Yes, I understand. I’m a damn grieving mother, not some kind of stupid idiot.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, voice suddenly forlorn. “That’s all I set here thinking about. But I can’t think who.”

  Mick stood and nodded to her.

  “Thank you for the coffee. Will you get Mason to run me home?”

  She called her son’s name and gestured to his car. Mason slowly negotiated the dirt lane and reached the main road to town. The lush spring buds of softwood trees rose beyond the ditch, the oaks and hickories still in blossom.

  “Who do you think killed Barney?” Mick said.

  “What’d Mommy say?”

  “She didn’t know.”

  “I don’t either.”

  Mick nodded, recognizing the stubborn loyalty of the hills. An hour later they’d completed the sixteen-mile journey to Rocksalt, during which Mason said nothing more. He was a good son. He’d never betray his family or get a ticket for speeding.

  Chapter Five

  Johnny Boy Tolliver sat in his deputy’s office admiring the contours of the room. Battered filing cabinets lined the walls. They contained case files that ran back seven decades, neatly filed by year, then alphabetized by last name of victim. He’d organized them into three groups—active cases, repeat offenders, and unsolved murders. The last file was very slim, but he read it once a month due to a personal interest. His cousin was in there, Billy Rodale, murdered twenty-five years back, and nobody arrested. Johnny Boy regarded the files as a history of the county. He was an archival librarian who got to carry a sidearm.

  As deputy, he was spared the necessity of hanging a fake oil portrait of the governor
on the wall. Instead he’d hung a reproduction of the earliest map of “Kentucke,” from 1784, the eastern edge of which included present-day Eldridge County. One shelf held a slew of books about the state. One gave details to every formally designated emblem, motto, and symbol. He’d been astounded by a few choices, such as milk being the official state beverage. It should have been Ale-8, Kentucky’s only native soft drink.

  His computer was bulky and slow, fifteen years old. A short wire ran to a printer that confounded him on a regular basis. It was like a recalcitrant mule that refused to budge for reasons of its own—fatigue, boredom, or perhaps a childlike rebellion. Beside it a push-button phone connected the line to the sheriff and the new dispatcher. A single personal item sat on the edge of his desk, a framed photograph he’d taken with his cell phone two years ago. It depicted Linda arresting her brother. It had been in the county newspaper and the Lexington Herald-Leader. He was proud of the photo, though secretly disappointed that it hadn’t gone viral.

  Linda was in court, and the new dispatcher was at lunch, which left Johnny Boy in charge, a situation he enjoyed. One call had come in earlier, an older woman with dementia spotted in a fallow field. He knew Mrs. Hayes, her adult kids and grandchildren, even a few great-grands. Periodically she walked to the house where she’d first lived with her husband sixty years before. Johnny Boy picked her up and drove her home. A teenage girl answered the door and said, “Granny gets out sometimes. She’s like a cat.”

  Now Johnny Boy sat in his office considering lunch. Options were few in a town of six thousand. Chinese, Mexican, pizza, or hamburgers. Everybody raved about the new Cracker Barrel on the interstate, but he thought it was too cluttered with junk nailed to the walls. Worse, the last woman he’d dated worked there. It had been seven years, but he still felt a jolt of loss when he saw her. No sense getting sad at lunch.

  He’d settled on a meal at Coffee Tree, a bookstore that sold sandwiches and yarn. Out of habit he checked his trash can, vacant because he’d emptied it twice already. Some days were so slow he wadded up paper and threw it away so he’d need to dump the garbage.