“Mistakes happen,” I replied.
“Thank you for not killing us,” Clayton said.
“Yeah, thanks for not killing us,” his friend echoed.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
I watched Clayton and his friend walk away with their fish. It was a strange thing for a couple of teenagers to say, but I thought I knew why they had. Chatham was filled with dark secrets. And when the townspeople broke those secrets, they paid for it, sometimes with their lives. I picked up the cooler and carried it to my Legend. Linderman grabbed the shotguns and joined me.
“I want to go back to town, and find out what’s going on,” I said.
“Do you think that’s wise?” Linderman asked.
If wisdom was my guide, I’d never have become a cop, or did the work that I did now. The fact was, I wasn’t leaving Chatham until I found Sara Long, and discovered what the hell was wrong with these people.
“Time will tell,” I said.
CHAPTER 50
It was dusk when we pulled into Chatham. The streets had come alive, with cars and pedestrians and signs of life not seen that morning. An eatery on the main drag called The Sweet Lowdown looked promising. I parked beneath a sign that warned the space was for restaurant loading only. As I got out, an overweight man wearing a grease-stained apron came out the front door, and started to berate me.
“Sweet Christ, can’t you read the sign? You can’t park your car there,” the man said angrily. “Find another spot, or I’ll have you towed.”
“You the owner?” I asked.
“Damn straight I am,” he replied.
I went around to the back of my Legend and popped the trunk. Curious, the owner followed me. I proudly showed him the cooler filled with flathead catfish. Before my eyes, the owner’s hostility melted away.
“Would you look at those. You fixing to sell them?” he asked.
“Heck, no, I want you to cook them,” I replied.
“You boys don’t think you can eat all of these, do you? There must be thirty-five pounds of meat here.”
“Whatever we don’t eat, I was going to let you keep,” I said.
“That’s mighty generous of you,” the owner said.
“My friend and I are only in town for a couple of days,” I explained. “It would be a crying shame to see these beautiful fish go to waste.”
The owner wiped his hands on his apron, then stuck out a meaty paw. “I’m Gabe. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I shook his hand, and so did Linderman. If Buster had been standing there, I had a feeling Gabe would have shaken his hand as well. Free food did that to people. I grabbed the cooler and followed Gabe inside the restaurant.
Gabe treated us like kings. We were seated in a table by the front window, where we could eat our dinner and watch the world pass by. Our catfish were put on ice and displayed in the restaurant’s other front window. A waitress put a pitcher of beer on our table, and said it was on the house. She asked us how we wanted our fish cooked.
“Fried,” I said.
“The same,” Linderman said.
She filled two glasses with beer and left. The beer looked tempting, but I wasn’t in a partying mood. I looked around the restaurant. Mounted deer heads hung from the walls, along with old Florida license plates and sepia- toned photographs of the town from years ago. I glanced out the window at the street. Pedestrians meandered by, as did cars on the main drag, no one moving particularly fast. It was the quintessential picture of small-town life. Only I knew it wasn’t. Something was terribly wrong here.
Our dinners came. Our plates overflowed with fried catfish, hush puppies, and fried okra. To wash it down, our glasses were poured with all the sweetened iced tea we could drink. Linderman tried each item on his plate hesitantly. Deciding the food wasn’t poisoned, he dug in.
“Giving him the fish was a smart idea,” Linderman said.
“It bought us a few hours,” I said.
“What do you think is going on?”
“I wish I knew.”
I ate my meal. Knowing that I’d caught the fish myself made it taste that much better. As I raised my fork to my mouth, I stopped. A white-haired couple had entered the restaurant, and stood by the hostess stand waiting to be seated. Both wore leather pants and leather jackets, and were carrying motorcycle helmets. They were normal- looking, except that the man’s left arm was missing, the sleeve of his shirt tied in a knot. The woman was missing her right foot, and walked with a carved wooden cane. They returned my gaze, and I lowered my eyes to my plate.
“Something wrong?” Linderman asked.
“See that couple at the hostess stand?”
“What about them, besides the fact they’re both missing limbs?”
“The manager at our motel is missing his hand, and the woman who waited on me at the pharmacy this morning was missing her foot.”
The couple walked by our table with a hostess. The armless man stopped to kick the leg of my chair. I lifted my eyes, and was greeted with a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. The armless man was tall and broad-chested, with a flat face and shoulder-length yellowing hair that was more nicotine than ivory.
“You got no right to stare at us,” the armless man said.
“Sorry if I offended you,” I said.
“If I was you, I’d finish my dinner and move on.”
“I’ll do that,” I said.
“And don’t come back.”
“No, sir.”
The armless man joined his wife on the other side of the restaurant, and sat down at a table. I caught my waitress’s eye, and she hurried over.
“Everything okay?” our waitress asked pleasantly.
“I’d like to buy that fellow and his wife a drink,” I said, pointing to where the armless man and his wife were sitting.
“You mean Travis Bledsoe and his wife? Sure,” the waitress said.
She crossed the restaurant and spoke to the Bledsoes. I’d never liked people who burned down property and killed harmless animals, and I gave Travis Bledsoe a hard look. Bledsoe returned my gaze with a dark, burning stare.
The waitress came back to our table.
“He’s not interested,” the waitress said.
“Thanks for asking,” I said.
“You’re welcome. You want some dessert? We’ve got delicious homemade blueberry pie.”
“Sounds like a winner,” I said.
She took our plates and left. Linderman leaned in close, and lowered his voice. “Bledsoe is carrying a gun around his ankle. I spotted the bulge.”
“Anyone else in the restaurant armed?” I asked.
“Two guys up at the bar are carrying as well.”
I glanced at the pair of good ole boys holding up the bar. They’d been drinking boilermakers and talking college football since we’d come in.
“Ankle holsters?” I asked.
