Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(32)
“Spoken like a yellow-bellied, chicken-shit politician if there ever was one,” Larry said, placing his hands on his hips and continuing to gnaw on the toothpick.
“That’s enough, Larry,” George said. “Ennis has a point.”
“Ennis can suck my dick,” Larry said, pausing with his mouth open, toothpick dangling.
“No, thanks,” Ennis said. He was still wearing his badge and uniform and lowered his thumb to his gun holster. “Don’t f*ck with me, Larry.”
Larry smiled at the sheriff, but there was no humor in his eyes. “Your backbone has gotten almost as soft as your belly, Ennis.” Then he turned his head and looked around the room. “Goddamnit, fellas, come on! Andy Walton would roll over in his grave if he thought his family and friends were just gonna lie down and let a damn lady prosecutor avenge his death. Tape up those vaginas and remember who you are and where you came from. Tennessee chapter for life, remember?”
Ennis stared back at him, making no attempt to hide his disgust. “The rest of us got out of the Klan a long time ago, Larry. Andy got out too, remember? You’re the only one still carrying the banner.”
“Oh, come off it, Ennis. Everyone in here knows the only thing you care about is that precious badge on your chest. What? Don’t you think we can take the nigger out without you being implicated?” His mouth curved into a wide grin. “I know a guy, Ennis. A guy used to come in my club last year. A fixer of things, you might say. He actually approached me earlier tonight. Called me from a pay phone and offered to take Haynes out. Said he had a score to settle with the nigger.” Larry paused and licked his lips, his eyes dancing around the room before they returned to Ennis. “My guy could take Bo out, and everyone in here would be as clean as the brass on that badge of yours. Come on, man. Don’t you see Ms. Maggie out there? How can you stand there and tell us to back off?”
Ennis took a step forward and stuck his index finger into Larry’s chest. “The fact of the matter, you ignorant redneck piece of shit, is that some of us here have more at stake than others.” The sheriff nodded at the other remaining guest in the room, and they both stepped toward the door. When Ennis grabbed the knob, he turned and looked only at their host. “Doc, I’m sorry about Andy, and I’m damn sure sorry that Ms. Maggie saw him hanging from that tree. But my advice is to stay the hell out of Helen’s way and let her do her job. Pride and family honor don’t change the situation. Bo is guilty and is going to be put to death for it. There is nothing for us or anyone else to do.”
When they were gone, George looked out the window again and watched the sheriff’s cruiser move steadily down the long and winding gravel driveway to Highway 64 below.
“Well . . .” Larry said. “What’s it gonna be, Doc? Are we gonna hold our dicks and do nothing? Or are we gonna do something?”
When George didn’t answer, Larry continued. “George, if we’re gonna leave things to Helen, we at least need to address McMurtrie. He’s the reason Jack Willistone is sitting in a prison cell instead of filling my club up with truckers wanting lap dances. If we can take McMurtrie out, we’ll make Helen’s job a lot easier.”
Still looking out the window, George lowered his eyes to his sister, who continued to rock slowly back and forth in the chair. Finally, he turned back to Larry. “You said you knew a guy.”
20
On the outskirts of Lawrence County, Tennessee, about thirty miles north of Pulaski, is a small village called Ethridge. Within this village is the largest per capita Amish settlement in the southern United States. Everyone in Ethridge wore the community’s traditional gear. Black pants, black jackets, and black hats on bearded men. Long black and white dresses with white bonnets for the women. Transportation was limited to horse-drawn buggies, and the only food eaten was grown in the fields nearby.
If a person was aiming to disappear from society, it was a pretty good place to be. It was also a good place to stow away valuables taken from another life, as the police were unlikely to stop a man pulling a horse-drawn carriage.
Inside the dark log cabin, JimBone Wheeler, a.k.a. the Bone, lit a lantern with a match and smiled, enjoying the genius of his setup. People left the Amish alone, and for the most part the Amish left their own alone. When he had come to visit Martha Booher, his “aunt,” back in June, Martha told the village folks who had asked that he was her nephew from the Franklin village whose wife and unborn infant had died in childbirth in the spring. He would be helping her with the chores around her house from time to time on weekends when he could spare a trip.
No one had asked a single further question. Everyone was too busy tending to their fields and tackling the daily grind of living.
As the police had never been able to snap a photograph of him and all the descriptions from Tuscaloosa and Henshaw had been vague, the drawing the police had put out among the neighboring counties, including Lawrence County, looked nothing like Bone. The picture showed a large man with a strand of stubble on his face and short dirty-blond hair, wearing a golf shirt and khaki pants. Now Bone had a full beard dyed a dark brown, with long brown hair and, of course, the black hat, pants, and jacket of an Amish man. He suspected he could probably walk into the sheriff’s office and ask for directions and no one would pay him a second’s mind.
“How long are you staying?” Martha asked as Bone took the lantern and walked to the back of the cabin. They had barely spoken on the buggy ride from Lawrenceburg to Ethridge. Martha, having been raised Amish, was not a big talker anyway, which to Bone’s way of thinking made her the perfect companion.