I said, “Care to put that into English?”
He looked truly shocked. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That coon friend of yours, that Greene fella.”
“What about him?”
“He broke into the house a little while ago and then managed to get Frazier out here somehow. Now he’s got a gun on Frazier and won’t let him go ‘til he confesses to killin’ Susan.
He brought Frazier to the winda a while ago and shouted it out to Sykes over there. You know, about Frazier bein’ the killer ‘n’ all.”
My stomach got worse. I looked around at the faces of the gawkers and knew what some of them were so excited about now. These weren’t the good people of the town; they were the haters. The good people far outnumbered them, but they were not here.
There was likely going to be a killing tonight. That was excitement enough. That the dead man might be an uppity Negro like Darin Greene made the prospect of death even more agreeable.
I stalked away from Jr. and went over to Cliffie. He looked to be in his glory. The bullhorn was a nice touch. The western-style holster rig seemed to ride ever lower on his hips, just the way Wild Bill would have worn it seventy years ago, when he was turning himself into legend.
There was press and they were notably excited, too. Not often small-town reporters get a story like this. This was drama, unlike most of the violence they covered-some farmer killing his wife and then himself in the middle of the night for reasons nobody would ever quite understand, faint, vanished cries lost to the lonely winds around the prairie farmhouse. Three cameras were working constantly, the flashbulb light brief and ghostly.
Up here, at the edge of the driveway that faced the windows of the living room and then dipped below the main floor into the garage, people were passing thermoses around. Apparently, they were expecting a long siege. The sharpshooter deputies didn’t take any coffee. They looked reluctant to put their weapons down at all.
Mist and fog and swirling red emergency lights the color of fresh blood only enhanced the drama. Cliffie had finally gotten himself into a movie.
I said, “I want to go in there.”
He’d been sipping coffee from a thermos cup and staring at the house. He turned slightly and took the cup from his mouth. “You think my luck could be that good? Gettin’ rid of three of the most obnoxious people in the valley? Greene, Frazier and you?”
“Now that’s a responsible comment, Chief. Why don’t you share it with the press?”
“Hell, I’m not afraid of those dipshits.
I give ‘em a piece of my mind whenever I feel like it. Them reporters don’t like any of my family, and I could give a good moose turd.”
“I’m serious. I want to go in there.”
“For what?”
“To bring them both out alive if possible.”
He took another sip of coffee. “I’m not sure you’d be doin’ the coon any favors.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “Nope. That’s not the kind of boy who takes to bein’ locked up. And that’s where he’s gonna be for a long, long time after tonight.
Unless he kills Frazier. Then we’re gonna hang him, come fall.”
“I want to go in there.”
“What if Greene decides to kill you?”
“Then he kills me, I guess.”
“But you’re bettin’ he don’t because you’re such a good friend of the colored.” He’d perfected his smirk by the time he was five: it was a masterpiece of malice.
I looked around at the crowd. The decent people of the town, who were in the majority, wouldn’t turn out to revel in somebody’s grief the way these people had.
“I don’t see anybody else volunteering to go in there.”
“Maybe they’ve got more sense.”
“Or maybe they’re just spectators. As long as it’s somebody else’s blood being spilled, they can just relax and enjoy themselves.”
The smirk again. “Careful now, McCain, you wouldn’t want me to tell the press boys your opinion of the common folk, now would you?”
I nodded at the gawkers. “These aren’t common folk. These are vampires. They feed on other people’s trouble.” I was starting to hear some of Judge Whitney’s imperiousness in my voice.
She didn’t particularly like anybody but white Anglo-Saxon Protestants but, by God, she’d defend anyone’s right to live and prosper in this country.
“I’d like to let you go in there, McCain. I really would. Because I think Greene’d blow your ass off, but I can’t. I’m the chief of police and I’ve got to use good judgment and good judgment says I can’t let you try and pull off some grandstand stunt like that.”
I looked at him a long moment, shrugged, then turned and started walking down the gravel driveway to the house.
“McCain! You get back here!” Cliffie started shouting over the bullhorn.
I think he even ran after me a few feet.
Then he stopped, as I figured he would. Because even Cliffie could figure out that he really could get rid of Greene and not be charged with anything.
If those three or four shots happened to take down the esteemed Robert Frazier, so be it-he was an old fart who’d frequently warred with the Sykes clan, and a rich bastard like him would just make for a juicier news story, anyway.
“You want me to grab ‘em, Chief?” one of the deputies shouted.
“Shoot him!” a man in the crowd cried.
“Shoot him good!” cried an older woman.
The fog and mist were heavier as I neared the house. The mist was damp on my skin. The crowd, like a great hungry beast, had roused itself once again, salivating, trembling, shuddering with anticipation. A good evening had now turned into a great one.
A rock caught me on the side of the head.
Not a big rock, but one sharp enough and heavy enough to stun me. Several people laughed. I didn’t give the bastards the satisfaction of touching the wound to see if I was bleeding. Oh, yes, the beast was definitely roused up again.
The front window was empty. The curtains were open and I could see edges of the couch and an armchair. The rest was darkness. Nobody had reported hearing any gunshots yet so I assumed Greene and Frazier were still alive.
I walked up the six steps that led to the small porch and the front door. I tried the knob. It was locked. I could stand here and argue with Greene to let me in, but that could go on for hours.
I reached in my back pocket and took out my clean, white handkerchief. I wrapped the hanky around my fist and broke out one of the panes in the door window. A buzz went through the crowd. They couldn’t see what I was doing. But whatever it was, the sound of breaking glass and all, it had to be exciting. The beast was not only roused, it was excited.
I reached past the jagged remnants of the pane and groped inside for the knob. It turned easily. I pushed the door open and went inside.
Living room. Hallway. Dining room.
Dark. It seemed even colder in here than outside. The heat had been off for a while now.
I could smell a cold fireplace and stale cigarette smoke. I heard nothing.
I decided there were two likely places Darin Greene would be holed up: bedroom or basement-they would be the most difficult for the police to reach without a shoot-out.
I was going to call out Greene’s name but decided against it. He wasn’t going to be happy to see me no matter how friendly my voice sounded.
I walked over to the head of the hallway, my footsteps heavy and loud. I was sweating.
Maybe Cliffie was right for once. Maybe I was a fool for coming in here. Maybe all Greene would want me for was target practice.
I started down the hallway. More smells came to me. The chemicals the police had used on the crime scene. The seductive hint of perfume, probably from one of the bedrooms down the hallway. And cold-cold has a smell.
Jack London always talked about it in his Alaska stories. For the people in his stories, the smell of cold was too often the smell of death.