Bull Mountain(37)

“Not personally, but I know of him. He was one of the golden boys around here for a while before getting called up to the big leagues. Goddamn super-cop, from what I understand.”

“Is that right?”

“Yup.” Finnegan cleared his throat and Clayton imagined the hefty GBI agent leaning back in his straining office chair, stretching his legs out under his desk, settling in to pass on some gossip. “The way I heard it, he was some hot-shit beat cop down around Mobile, Alabama. He did some digging outside his job description and ended up doing the local narco detectives’ jobs for them. Got himself a big collar. Some local kingpin down there by the name of Fisher. You heard of him?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you know how these things get built up into legend around here, but apparently your boy Holly bent a few rules and ignored a few important people, and made Dauphin Street a decent place to take your family to again. You ever been there?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Used to be a shithole. Now the place is pretty nice. Like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but clean and less crappy jazz music.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“Right. So anyway, Holly’s bosses were sitting pretty, taking pictures for the papers and such, but he didn’t make any friends with all the local cops he made look incompetent. If he hadn’t got the collar, they’d probably have found him in a ditch somewhere. But anyway, he did, so he dipped out on the locals and made the jump to the Alabama Bureau. Pissed off a bunch of folks over there, but was getting it done, so out come the federal headhunters and it was onward and upward to better things, leaving all us state levels in his wake.”

“You said he was a golden boy around there. Was Holly GBI, too?”

“Nah, we’ve done some interagency operations that had him working out of our offices, but as far as I know, he’s never been one of ours. Listen, Clayton, if this guy is interested in Halford and what’s going on up that mountain of yours, I’d say it was worth listening to, just to see what he has to say. He’s a little squirrelly, but he seems like a smart cop.”

Clayton scratched at his beard. “Is he good people?” he asked.

“I couldn’t tell you if he calls his mother on Sundays, if that’s what you mean, but I can tell you he’s a good fella to have in a foxhole. The guy gets it done.”

“Well, I guess that’s what I needed to know. I appreciate your help, Charles.”

“No worries, Sheriff. Is there anything my office should know about what you got cooking up there?”

“According to Holly, your office will be one of the first to know if the whole thing goes south.”

Finnegan sighed heavily through the phone. “We normally are, but keep me in mind all the same. We could use a win or two around here. Our darling director has us chasing dogfighting rings of the rich and famous.”

“Dogfighting?”

“It’s a long story. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it on the news.”

“Of that I have no doubt, Charles.”

“When you gonna bring me some of that famous hooch of yours? I was the most popular man in the building when I had a jar of that Georgia Peach in my desk.”

Clayton stared down into his empty coffee cup. “I haven’t touched a drop in over a year.”

“No shit?”

“Kate says it ain’t doing our marriage any favors. I tend to agree with her.”

“I heard that. A happy wife is a happy life.”

“Words to live by.”

“All right, then, you call me if you need a few more boots on the ground.”

“I’ll do that. Be safe out there.”

“You, too, Sheriff.”

Clayton clicked the phone down in the cradle and looked at his watch. Two o’clock. Not even close to quitting time, or Miller time for that matter. Man, he missed Miller time. By five-fifteen every day like clockwork, he would be warming a seat at Lucky’s and warming his throat with happy-hour bourbon. Clayton’s mouth started watering right after Finnegan mentioned that jar of peach in his desk. He stood up and filled a Dixie cup with cold water from a plastic cooler by the door. He watched the big bubble break on the surface of the water in the jug and laughed a little when he thought about how alcoholics remember only the good times. It was true he’d enjoyed himself at Lucky’s back when he was a five-o’clock regular, but the rest of the scenario wasn’t much to be proud of. He’d get home around nine to nine-thirty on a slow night, to a cold supper on the table, covered in plastic wrap, and a colder Kate on the sofa, covered in a blanket. They’d go a couple rounds of the who-can-say-the-most-hateful-shit game, then she’d take the bed and he’d take the couch in the den—sometimes the floor. They would spend the next morning circling each other in silence, her waiting around for him to apologize and him taking his sweet time figuring out that he had to. He wasn’t stupid. He knew his drinking made him as mean as a copperhead, but he never hit her or threatened to leave, as if those were flags to be rallied around, and so he always just assumed that the next drink would have a different outcome. He never understood how the buzz that made him happy at the bar turned to piss and vinegar at home, but it did. It always did. The movies always have the drunk turn it around after some kind of traumatic event. That’s not always the way it happens in real life. Clayton’s drinking wasn’t a wildfire turning his life into a blazing inferno, it was a fine layer of rust slowly decaying and dissolving his marriage. She never told him to stop. She didn’t have to. He knew Kate would leave before she rusted completely through. Some things are worth fighting for, so he set it down and never looked back. Well, not as often anyway.