heels as they made their way to a wide stone desk that curved around an attractive woman wearing a black pinned-on hat.
When she looked up she saw Sunset, but quickly shifted her gaze to Hillbilly. Hillbilly smiled, and Sunset could see the woman swallow, and she had an idea how she felt in her stomach because she felt that way herself the first time she saw him.
Sunset explained her purpose, law business, but didn’t go into detail.
The badge and Hillbilly’s looks did it. The woman walked them down a long corridor, and on either side of the corridor were laced-up boxes. As the lady walked, her hams shifted beneath her black dress in a way that made Sunset think she might be trying to throw her ass out of her clothes.
Sunset noted Hillbilly was watching this with appreciation, and she gave him an elbow. He gave her a grin.
“Everything you want is in these rows, and there are some tables and chairs in the back. You can look at whatever, but you can’t take anything. You don’t plan to put anything in that box, do you?”
“We got some law business in the box,” Sunset said. “I’m not going to put anything else in it.”
“All right, then. You are the law. But I had to ask. That’s my job.”
The woman went down the corridor, and Hillbilly watched her go. So did Sunset. It was an impressive departure that warranted the music of a marching band, certainly plenty of bass drum.
At the table in the rear, Sunset opened the tin box and took out the two maps. At the top of each was a letter and a number. One read “L- 1999.” The other read “L- 2000.”
Sunset used the pad and pencil on the table, wrote the numbers down, put the maps back in the box. They went down the corridor looking until they came to a row low down containing boxes with those numbers written on them. They each took a box to the table. There were strings attached to a clasp, and these held down a cardboard flap. They removed the strings and opened a box and poured the contents on the table.
Inside were maps that looked like the maps they had.
Almost.
They were marked up different. Hillbilly said, “I can’t make head or tails of this.”
“It’s the same maps.”
“I know that. But so what?”
“It must mean something, or why else would Pete have put them in the grave. Wait a minute. Same maps, but they’re marked different. See this. It doesn’t quite match. The land is cut up different by this red line.”
“Maybe the reason there are two maps is someone bought a piece of the land, cutting it up.”
“Could be.”
Sunset opened the other box and studied the papers inside. There were numbers written on the papers too. She studied these and studied what else was in the cardboard box, similar papers.
“This is giving me a headache,” Hillbilly said.
“Look here. These numbers are the same on the maps, they’re cut up different on the courthouse maps, but the names of ownership are the same.”
“Where are you seeing that?”
Sunset showed Hillbilly some papers she had gotten out of the cardboard box. “The names are Zendo Williams for one piece of property, and for the other a list of names: Jim Montgomery-he’s the mayor of Holiday. Or was till he disappeared. Well, I’ll be damned. Henry Shelby.”
“From the mill?”
“One and the same. John McBride. I don’t know him.”
“What’s it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said the mayor disappeared. To where?”
“No one knows. Some think he ran off with a woman. It’s anybody’s guess.” Sunset frowned. “Now my head is starting to hurt.”
Sunset studied the maps, studied the dates on the papers that declared ownership.
“They charged Zendo more an acre than was paid for this other land, which is right next to him. See?”
“So?”
“They charged him more because he’s colored.”
“That happens,” Hillbilly said.
“It shouldn’t.”
“World is full of shouldn’ts, dear. Most of the time what goes on is what folks can get away with. That’s my rule of thumb.”
“Something else. Zendo’s land shows two hundred and seventy-five acres. That’s how it’s drawn out on the map from the grave. But on this other map, it shows a piece of Zendo’s land being part of the land owned by Henry, the mayor and this McBride fella.”
“Maybe Zendo sold it to them.”
“Maybe. But the dates on all the papers are the same. Looks to me, Pete had the originals in the grave, and these are the replacements, and they’ve slightly altered Zendo’s land.”
“Wouldn’t he notice?”
“Buy a chunk that big, someone else wants it, white men, they could have had it surveyed the way they want. That way, Zendo wouldn’t know they shaved off what looks like twenty-five acres. It’s all trees along the border there, or mostly, so he could get fooled. He’s pretty much got to take their word for things anyway. They robbed him with some little red flags and a marker on a piece of paper, and he probably doesn’t even know it.”
“So this whole map thing is about stealing some nigger’s land.”
“Looks that way-Hillbilly, don’t call Zendo that. ‘Colored’ is polite.”
“Whatever you like. But I still don’t see why your husband was hiding this in a dead baby’s grave.”
“Me either.”
Sunset folded up the maps from the cardboard boxes and put them in the tin box.
“You lied,” Hillbilly said.
“Law business. I’m not going to bother to explain to Miss Pendulum. I don’t want any more folks knowing about this than need to know. Whatever it means.”
“You are a sneaky one.”
“And pretty too. Plug says so.”
“Plug is right.”
Sunset laced the cardboard containers up, put them back in place, and left, Hillbilly carrying the metal box from the grave.
23
When Clyde got out to Zendo’s place, most of his anger had gone away. He could see why Sunset would prefer Hillbilly to him in the looks department, but she wasn’t considering his worth. Course, he had a burned-down house and an about-to-fall-apart pickup and was living under a tarp, but inside he was as good as anybody and better than most. He had plenty of goddamn worth. He was certain of that. Or pretty certain. Certain enough.
He drove with the windows down so that the wind blew away some of his stink. The night before he had slept under the tarp on a pallet on the ground, and during the night he had rolled off of it and gotten
