'You and everybody else,' Tim said.
'But,' Cantuck continued, 'he was in my jail, and I put a prisoner in my jail, he's supposed to be safe. People work for me are supposed to make sure he's safe. They don't, and I find out they didn't, then I'm gonna want to see they get a trip to the death house, get that needleful of shit in the dead man's place. I don't allow that kind of shit.'
'Does Reynolds know you don't allow that kind of shit?' I said.
'I reminded him this mornin' after that body come up missin', and I told him if he had his fingers in any of this, well, I was gonna see they got cut off.'
'How'd he take that?' I asked.
Cantuck paused. 'Nervous. I thought he looked a little nervous when we went out to the gravesite, for that matter. And damn relieved when the body wasn't there.'
'So, you think Reynolds was surprised it wasn't there?' I said.
'I don't think nothing.'
'Meaning, he didn't move the body,' Leonard said.
'Meaning nothing,' Cantuck said. 'I'm sayin' he looked nervous, then relieved. That could mean somethin', and it could mean diggin' up corpses don't give him a hard-on. Then, knowing he wasn't going to have to see a dead body after all, it cheered him up. I'll tell you, seeing a body don't give me no hard-on neither, so I can understand that. Fact is, ain't nothin' gives me a hard-on anymore.'
'Not even chickens?' I said.
'Not even chickens,' Cantuck said. 'But I don't know, I look at them little pin feathers around a chicken's butthole long enough, maybe I'd heat up.'
'Still,' I said, 'you're suspicious, aren't you?'
'Maybe.'
'You went far enough to talk to Reynolds about it,' I said.
'I did it to see if the water rippled or splashed. It might have rippled a little, but it didn't splash. Then again, Reynolds ain't easy to read, and if I had my druthers I wouldn't work with him. 'Sides, he's fuckin' ray secretary, and she's a married woman. I don't like a man workin' on a married, and I don't much care the woman don't mind givin' it up. She's got kids and a good husband. I had concrete evidence I'd fire 'em. And her a big churchgoer. You say shit, she acts like you just gave her a mouthful, and I know she's fuckin' that big sonofabitch every goddamn chance she gets. Can't prove it, but I know it.'
'You sound jealous,' Tim said.
'I am a little. I don't feel good about that, but I guess I am. I've thought about her some myself. I'd like to get my fingers in that hairdo. But I'm a married man, and a married man ain't supposed to do stuff like that, so I don't. Bible said it was okay to go around pokin' any hole you wanted, I might look at it different, but it don't say that.' · '
'Nice of you to tell us all about your office problems,' I said. 'Come in here and shit all over your deputy.'
'Yeah,' Leonard yelled. 'That's damn white of you.'
'Can't help myself,' Cantuck said. 'I just plain don't like Reynolds. I don't like my secretary either.'
'You don't like them, fire them,' I said.
'Not that easy. Charlene needs the job. She's got them kids. And Reynolds, I didn't hire him in the first place. Town pushed him on me. Actually, Brown pushed him on me through the Mayor. That's the way politics are played, so I ended up taking him on. He's good enough at what he does, but he ain't all that fair about things. He's crafty, but he lets personal get in the way.'
'You think Brown has Reynolds in his pocket?' I asked.
'Not his front pocket, right next to his dick, but his hip pocket maybe. Mainly Reynolds is just Reynolds. He does what he wants 'cause he wants to, and a lot of what he wants ain't all that good.'
'Certainly nice of you to drop by and tell us all this, Chief,' I said. 'Why?'
Cantuck considered a moment. He laid his hands on the back of the chair and leaned back. As he did, a shaft of red sunlight poked through the curtain and landed on his left eye. He jerked his head from the light and leaned forward again, said, 'Reckon I should have taken this colored gal's missin' more serious.'
'And maybe you want us to feel so warm toward you we'll go home and forget all this mess. Just leave it to you. Trust you to do what's right.'
'Could be,' Cantuck said.
Bacon brought coffee in, two cups at a time. One for himself. He stood by the television and sipped his.
'What about all those guys jumped us?' I asked.
'Your word against theirs,' Cantuck said. 'Draighten and Ray say they got into it with you two on their own. Claim there wasn't no one else involved but them, and it was just y'all caused the ruckus.'
'You believe that?' I said.
'Don't matter what I believe. We get through sortin' it all out, it'll come down to you two fought them two, and it'll be your word, and Maude's and her boys against all them other folks who saw it and say it didn't happen way you say it did.'
'What if we press charges?'
'They'll press charges back.'
