Diane was surprised that Tammy and Slick had made the deal so quickly. Gil Mathews said Tammy was the one who had collapsed-deflated after Frank told her he had found the money. It might as well have been a death blow. It broke her. Gil said Slick was still convinced they hadn’t done anything wrong.
Slick’s day was going to be a long one. After he showed them the two bodies he had discovered, he had to show the GBI where he had put the bodies of Tammy’s “patients,” as Slick still called them-that and “the old ladies.”
“Is it far to the cave?” Agent Mathews asked Slick.
“Not very far. About three miles,” Slick said.
“Three miles?” said Mathews. “Are you saying we have to hike three miles through the woods?”
“Well, yeah,” Slick said. “Like I said, it ain’t far.”
“You try anything and the deal is off,” said Mathews. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Like I ain’t been told a million times. Me and Tammy want our deal,” he said.
“Tell me again why we should believe you didn’t do anything to these two people,” said Gil Mathews.
Diane thought Gil was simply delaying the hike as long as he could.
“Well,” said Slick, “I wouldn’t be telling you about ’em if I had killed ’em. I’d have to be pretty stupid. I mean, they might of been murdered or something-not like Tammy’s old ladies.”
“Maybe you just thought we couldn’t
“I already seen how you can find out things I didn’t know you’d ever know. Tammy’s seen it too. Like I said, I just found these people. I got tired of digging holes to put Tammy’s patients in and remembered this cave. I thought it’d be a good place to just take them and leave them. But somebody else had the same idea, so I just kept digging holes in my pasture,” he said.
Mike, who was not familiar with the thought processes of criminals, stared at Slick, astounded. Neva tried not to smile and gave Mike’s hand a squeeze.
“Well, I guess we’d better get started,” said Mathews. He took out a can of insect repellent and sprayed himself down again.
Slick led the way, under the eyes of his guards. He quickly found a path that looked like it might be a deer trail, and they followed it.
Diane and her team carried rope and caving gear, two body bags, and an evidence kit.
About a mile down the deer trail, Slick veered off of it into the woods.
“Wait, Slick, where you going?” said Mathews.
“To the cave,” he said.
“The trail goes this way,” said Mathews.
Slick looked at him a moment. “Yeah, but the trail don’t go to the cave. The trail goes to a meadow about a half mile that way.”
“There’s not a trail to the cave?” asked Mathews, looking at the underbrush.
“No. The deer don’t go to the cave. They go to water or to meadows. They like to graze in a meadow near the woods.”
“Are you saying the deer made the trail?” asked Gil.
This brought a chuckle from several.
“I can see you are a city boy,” said one of the GBI agents. “Who do you think makes trails through the woods?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. I guess I thought people did,” said Gil. He laughed at himself. “You’re saying it’s animals?”
“Deer, fox, coyotes, bears,” said Liam.
“Bears?” said Gil. “Now I know you’re trying to get to me. We don’t have bears in these woods.”
“Sometimes we do,” said Slick, “but they’s usually more up in the hills.”
“You’ve heard about bear sightings in Atlanta, haven’t you?” said Frank. “Where did you think they came from?”
“The zoo,” said Gil.
They all laughed.
“I don’t suppose after all this we can go by Rolly Hennessy’s and see my dogs?” said Slick. “Mary Sue just had her puppies and I’d like to see ’em.”
“I don’t think so, Slick,” said Mathews. “Get him to send you a picture.”
“What kind of dogs you got?” asked one of the guards.
“Walker hounds,” said Slick. “The best in the world. They’s got the sweetest voices you ever heard.”
“What do they hunt?” asked a GBI agent.
“Raccoons,” said Slick. “They track ’em down at night and run ’em up a tree. You can tell when they’s running and when they’s treeing by the sound of their voices. You just set back and have a beer and listen to your dogs. The best kind of hunting.”
“That sounds good to me,” said a guard.
Liam smiled. “My uncle raises Walker hounds,” he said.
“Does he?” said Slick, interested. “Do I know him?”
“He doesn’t live around here,” Liam said. “He’s over in Louisiana.”
“Hey,” said Slick, “you the one I heard about? That was in the woods that night that fooled me?”
“What does that mean?” asked Gil.
Diane thought Gil probably enjoyed the talk. It took his mind off the trek. He was clearly uncomfortable.
It wasn’t so scary for her in the daytime as it had been that night in the rain. She had seen woods then only as dark, shadowy forms of trees, or in brief flashes from the lightning. It was far prettier in the daylight-with people around.
“I took Diane’s jacket and laid a false trail,” said Liam to Gil. “Then put it up a tree.”
“I heard my dogs on the trail and then their voices told me they had her treed-or that’s what I thought. But I also thought it was kind of funny; I mean, women don’t usually climb trees. Leastwise not up high like this one. When I caught up to ’em I could see the jacket way up yonder and I thought it was her. For a while, anyways. I tried to coax her down.” Slick laughed. “Bonnie Blue-Tammy named her for that little girl in
Even Diane had to laugh.
Slick led them through several turns during the trek and Diane was hoping, like Gil, that he was not trying to pull something. She tried to keep track of where they were going, watching for rock formations, characteristic trees, or creeks. Not that she would have to find her way out alone, but she wanted to develop a habit of knowing where she was. Mike, Neva, and Frank were far better than she at finding their way around-though Frank was better in a city environment. Still, he seemed to have a natural sense of direction.
“We’re ’bout there,” said Slick, as he led them over a log across a creek and through a thicket.
This was the densest underbrush they had been through so far. Diane heard Gil moan as he pulled his pant leg loose from briars that had entangled him. The thicket didn’t open up, but seemed to get even more dense.
“I swear, Slick Massey,” said Gil, “if you’re pulling something-”
“No, it’s right here,” said Slick.
They were in the midst of a thick copse of trees at the foot of a hill.
“You know, fella,” said one of the guards, “getting here with a body couldn’t possibly be any easier than digging a hole in your meadow.”
“I don’t see anything,” said Gil.
But Diane did. Then again, she knew what to look for. The cave was in the side of the hill-a small slit through crumbling rocks.
Chapter 46
