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Wayne exited the freeway heading into Decatur, Alabama. It was one of those cold days that show up frequently in January. He stopped the car along a street and Tony got out, patted the top of the car, and loudly proclaimed, “Keep in touch, mate. We’ll have a large number of beers when this is over.” He turned and walked away.
Wayne pulled into a parking spot in front of the Decatur Sheriff’s Department, got out, and introduced himself to the desk sergeant, who sat just inside the front door. After taking a seat and waiting a few minutes, Wayne was greeted by a tall, slightly overweight man with thinning white hair and a sheriff’s badge, who walked up to him with his hand out. “I’m Sheriff Banks. You must be Agent Roberts?”
Wayne took the man’s hand and they shook. “Yes, I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The sheriff put his hand in the middle of Wayne’s back and angled him toward the back of the room. “Let’s talk in my office – everybody doesn’t need to know our business.”
The office was what you would expect for a Southern sheriff. The head of a 10-point buck was displayed prominently on one wall, and a wild boar’s head on another, plus pictures of fishing and hunting trips with numerous different people. Wayne heard the door close behind him. “I see you do a lot of hunting and fishing.”
The sheriff pointed at one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat, Mr. Roberts. As for the pictures, you go where the votes are at, and I run for office every four years. Even though I don’t give a shit about hunting and fishing, friends count a lot around here.”
Sheriff Banks paused. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but with the ‘white nationalist’ problem I’m having here, why does Harris keep sending you black fellows? Is he trying to get us both killed? That Mr. Rivers stepped on some toes when he was here, toes that belonged to the kind of people who don’t forget easily.”
It hadn’t crossed Wayne’s mind that outside Memphis he was in the Deep South once more, the South of 1860. “I’ll try to stay out of their way. Blake sent me because the victims were black or Mexican. He felt the minorities in and around Decatur might speak more openly to me. I’ll try to keep a low profile.”
The sheriff picked up some papers and handed them to Wayne. “This is the report that the Rivers fellow left. Although he says it’s a serial killer, I still say it’s the Klan.”
Wayne smiled and handed the report back. “I have a copy already. Blake believes you’re both half right and someone in the Klan, as you call it, is the serial killer.”
Banks put the papers back on the stack in a tray on his desk. “You may be right, but if that’s the case, we may never find him. They look out for their own.”
“And you may be right, Sheriff, but I’ve seen stranger things happen. I was wondering if you had a deputy who was more my shade of color who could be my guide? I might attract less attention that way.”
The sheriff pressed the button on his intercom. “Gladys, is Bo still here? If he is, tell him he’s working with Agent Roberts for a few days.”
A voice came back: “He’s out back. I’ll get him.”
Wayne stood up, and the sheriff fumbled with his pen for a few seconds before putting it down hard. “There’s no way for me to say this without sounding racist, so here it is. There’s a hotel across the street, but it refused to give your friend Rivers a room. I told him he would do better getting a room at the Roadway Inn by the freeway, but he wasn’t having any part of it. He walked across the street and demanded a room. Demanding made no difference. So, please, stay at the Roadway Inn. It’s a very nice, clean motel, with a bar and a good restaurant.”
Wayne opened the door to leave. “Don’t worry about me, Sheriff. I was born in Mississippi. I know how the game is played down here.”
Bo was waiting for him at the sergeant’s desk. He was eyeball-to-eyeball the same height as Wayne, but he was much darker and broader across the shoulders. He would have been a handsome man but for the broken nose that had been set badly. He put out his hand and introduced himself as Deputy Evans.
Wayne looked at the hand for a moment and then shook it. “You can call me ‘Wayne’ or ‘Roberts,’ but never use ‘Agent’. I know how these people feel about the Feds.”
Evans stopped for a second. “You think there’s anyone here who doesn’t know another Fed’s in town?”
Wayne laughed. “Maybe one or two.”
They walked toward Wayne’s rental car. Blake insisted they never take their own car on out-of-town trips. He claimed it was too easy to trace it back to where they lived. Wayne agreed, but he also knew that a rental car could be traced.
“Have you been a deputy long?”
Evans waited for the passenger door to unlock and then opened it. “I’ve been with the department for 20 years. This is my second sheriff to work for.”
Wayne started the car and headed toward the freeway. “You married, got kids?”
Evans stared hard at Wayne, and then returned his gaze forward, talking to Wayne without looking at him: “Listen, to me, you’re just another out-of-town nigger passing through. You stir up shit and go back to where you came from, and we black folks who live here have to pay the price for your bullshit. I ain’t looking to be your friend. My life – and my family – are my business. You want a guide, you got a guide, but don’t think we’re going to be kicking back drinking beer together.”
Wayne glanced at Evans, who was still staring straight ahead. “I’m going to check into the Roadway Inn and then I want to see where the bodies were dumped.”
Without turning his head, Deputy Evans answered with a simple “Yes sir! I hope you brought a thick coat. We’ll be on the water, and that wind will eat right through you.”
“I’ve got one in the trunk.” Wayne parked in front of the Roadway Inn. “I’ll be right back.” He was thinking as he walked into the lobby how Rivers had pissed off the entire town in just three days. It sure wasn’t making his job any easier.
Wayne checked in and came back to the car. “Which way do I head?”
Evans pointed toward the freeway. “Go out 72 until you see a sign that says ‘River Walk Marina’. I have a fishing boat out there. It’ll be easier to take to the site than this car.”
Wayne drove onto the freeway and headed west. The two men talked hardly at all before they got on the bridge. Evans said, “Get into the left lane. If you look over the side of the bridge you’ll see the marina.”
Wayne looked. “That’s a good-size marina. Is it the only one around here?”
Evans pointed up the river at some houses on the water’s edge. “Most people that live by the water keep their boat out in front of their home or in a boat shed – the rest of us dock here.”
Wayne parked in the marina, got his big coat out of the trunk, and they walked to Evans’ boat. Wayne had expected a flat-bottom, metal boat with two seats going across the inside, but it was a 15-f00t Bayliner with a 75-horse Johnson outboard. Wayne smiled as he spoke. “I thought you said a fishing boat. This is more like a ski boat.”
Evans got in, lowered the motor, and started it. “Throw off those ropes and jump in.” They raced across the water toward the railroad bridge.
Wayne’s face was going numb from the cold wind, but it didn’t seem to bother Bo. “I fish off the far side of the bridge when the kids aren’t playing with my boat. Most people take their boats out of the water in the winter, but once it turns cold I get more fishing days. There’s a sandy beach on the other side of the tracks to park a boat. We believe this is how the bodies were dumped. Whoever did it brought the bodies here by boat and then carried them down the tracks.”
Wayne thought for a second about carrying the bodies. “Wouldn’t that be a bloody mess? I mean the bodies were cut up pretty bad – the person carrying them would be covered in blood.”
Evans made a wide swing under the railroad bridge and cut back toward shore. “The bodies were taped up in sheets of plastic. You didn’t know that?”
Evans cut the motor and raised it out of the water. The boat ran onto the sandy beach and Wayne jumped out with the line and anchor. As he buried the anchor in the sand, he asked, “Evans, why is there nothing about the sheets of plastic in the report?”
Evans raised his shoulders. “It’s in my notes, but I didn’t write the final report. The sheriff did that.”
They climbed up the grade to the tracks. “Your sheriff thinks it’s a white nationist group like the Ku Klux Klan that is doing the killing. What do you think?”
Evans looked both ways before stepping into the middle of the tracks. “The sheriff knows more about such things than I do. His daddy was the sheriff before him and also the head of the Klan. Old man Banks was one mean S.O.B. I bet even the devil was sorry to see him coming.”
Wayne stopped walking. “Wait a minute. Are you saying Banks is part of the Klan?”
Evans never slowed his step. If anything, his step became faster, as though Agent Roberts were trying to take him down a path he didn’t want to go. At that moment a shot rang out. Both men fell flat on the ground, hoping the next shot would also miss.
Evans looked out over the water and pointed to a boat that was speeding away. “You can get up – they’re gone.”
They stood, both men staring at the dark speck racing away from them. Wayne asked, “Were they trying to kill you, or me?”
Evans laughed nervously. “Neither. These boys don’t miss. If they had meant one of us dead – we’d be dead. They were just welcoming you to Decatur and letting you know who runs this county.”
Wayne kept glancing over his shoulder as they walked down the tracks. “Hey, Evans, tell me the truth. Is the sheriff part of the Klan or not?”
Evans stopped and pointed at a spot. “This is where we found the first body. The others were found within a few feet of here. Two were on top of each other. In other words, this is as far as the bodies were carried.”
Wayne had lost interest in where the bodies were dumped. “Why won’t you answer me about the sheriff?”
Evans rubbed his head furiously, as though he felt a pain behind his eyes and really wanted this day to be over. “The sheriff’s business isn’t something I talk about or stick my nose into.” He started back down the tracks. “I believe we’re finished here.”
Wayne gave the crime scene a quick look and realized there was nothing left of it. He hurried and caught up with Evans. “I’m not letting this go. Don’t you realize how it impacts the case if the sheriff’s a member of the Klan?”
Evans pulled the anchor from the sand and laid it inside the boat. “That bullet that was fired at us – it had a message attached to it. It said, ‘You fuck with us and you’re dead’.”
The two men pushed until the boat was floating again. Evans jumped in and started the motor as Wayne stored the anchor and line.
“Just a yes or no,” Wayne said, “that’s all I need to hear from you.”
Evans had the boat turned around. He gave it gas and they slid across the water. “I live here, Roberts. If you don’t get me killed, I’ll be living here long after you’re gone. I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but all you’d be doing by attacking Banks is getting a lot of people hurt.”
Wayne gave up. “I’ll find my own answers – if not from you, then from someone else!”
| Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers |
Ed, of Wayne this chapter conveys that “It hadn’t crossed Wayne’s mind that outside Memphis he was in the Deep South once more, the South of 1860.” Your readers know to trust you when you evaluate the area of the United States you were sitting when you wrote the BODY COUNT novels....While other prolific writers are off writing in the Bahamas, you yet abide, and witness.
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