CHAPTER 29
“So DeAndré Stone was in the chapel the night Nicole was murdered?” Anna asked.
“According to an inmate,” Merrill said.
“Actually, according to the control room logs,” I said.
His eyes grew wide. “Oh, my damn.”
It was lunchtime. Anna, Merrill, and I were at Rudy’s in a booth next to the front window.
“And why exactly did Coel and Whitfield fail to mention this?” Anna asked.
I followed her gaze across the diner to a table in the far corner where Coel and Whitfield sat together.
“They say they never saw him,” I said. “Even after I showed them the logs.”
“Is that possible?” Anna asked.
“Just ask him,” Merrill said, jerking his head toward me. “Anything’s possible.”
During the day, Rudy’s was the quintessential small town diner. Its lunch buffet was a Pottersville standard, evidenced by the trucks parked out front like horses tied to hitching posts. All the meals at Rudy’s, like the people who prepared them, were country-fried, and the smell of old grease hung in the air like heavy humidity. The smoking section in Rudy’s was flexible-it shifted with the pass of an ashtray-and most of his patrons smoked while they ate, probably because it killed the taste of the food. The waitresses were young girls with nice backsides poured into Levi’s jeans, both of which seemed to be job requirements.
“Did he come in with the Caldwells?” Anna asked.
“A good bit later.”
“And you never saw him?”
I shook my head.
“So what was he doing inside?” she asked.
“Not protecting Nicole,” Merrill said.
“You gonna add him to your suspect list?” Anna said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Near the top.”
Rudy’s was filled with a variety of people ranging from the president of the local co-op to a couple of pulpwood truck drivers. Several staff members from PCI were at a table together and a smattering of brown correctional officer uniforms could be seen throughout. I wasn’t sure if Merrill felt it as forcefully as I did, but he was the only African-American in the entire establishment.
With Carla in school, our food was brought to us by Rudy himself-he was cook and waiter today. We had ordered off the menu rather than getting the buffet, in an attempt to be more healthy-a failed attempt, we realized, when the food was placed before us. We had ordered grilled chicken and baked potatoes. The chicken had been grilled in butter and the potato was filled with butter and sour cream.
“Here’s to our arteries,” Merrill said after I asked the blessing. “Just like Mom used to make.”
Anna and I both laughed as we raked the small mountain of sour cream from our potatoes. The diner was set up with booths against the plate glass windows in front and a bar with built-in stools wrapping around the open galley. In the corner, a jukebox came alive with a country song that made me feel like drinking.
“I’ve looked at the files of the inmates in the hallway the night of the murder,” Anna said. “Abdul Muhammin’s a cold-blooded killer. What’s he doing working in the chapel?”
“He’s the one they sent when I said I wanted a well-behaved, knowledgeable Muslim clerk.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like him being up there so close to you,” she said. “Watch him closely.”
“I will,” I said.
“And now I will, too,” Merrill said.
“The best of them is Dexter Freeman. Then it’s a toss up between Paul Register and Cedric Porter. But just because they’re not violent inmates doesn’t mean they couldn’t’ve done this.”
The bell above the entrance door rang as Dad and Jake walked in. Dad waved, Jake nodded and they took the only open booth, which was on the opposite side of the diner from us.
“Jake sure looked relieved when he saw a booth open in the white section,” Merrill said. “I reckon he rather starve than eat in the colored section.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“Well, me, too,” Merrill said.
Anna looked confused.
“We don’t want there to be no colored section,” Merrill explained.
From various tables around the room, I could hear sound bytes of southern living.
“They say that every year,” one of the truckers said of the paper mill in Panama City closing.
“But it’s just to make us grateful for our jobs and make sure we don’t ask for a raise. It’s not gonna shut down. It’s just a rumor.”
The other trucker shook his head. “You used to say the same thing about the one in Port St. Joe, and look what happened.”
At another table someone in a suit was saying, “Affirmative action is just unconstitutional. There’s no two ways about it. I’m for fairness. Give the job to the person who deserves it. It’s unfair to do anything else.”
The most amusing conversation came from the booth just over my shoulder where a man in blue jeans was trying to convince another man in a telephone company uniform to take out his exwife. “I know the two of you would hit it off. She’s really great.… Really.”
“I don’t know,” Telephone Company Man said.
“Just tell me you’ll think about it,” Blue Jeans said. “She really is great. And this alimony shit is killin’ me.”
As I scanned the room, I felt someone staring at me, and I turned to see Colonel Patterson glaring at me from a stool at the counter. Our eyes locked briefly, but then from shame and embarrassment over how I had behaved following Nicole’s murder, I looked away. I hadn’t told anybody what had happened-not even Merrill and Anna. It was just too humiliating.
Unable to bring myself to take another bite, I dropped my fork onto my plate.
“That’s about all of that I can take,” I said, pushing my plate toward the center of the table.
“You don’t need to eat that shit anyway,” Merrill said. “Your body’s the temple of the Holy Spirit.”
“So is your-”
“I’m not so sure about mine,” he said.
I smiled.
“Any headway with the Caldwells yet?” Anna asked.
“Dad’s working with NOPD on it,” I said. “And I’ve asked to meet with them.”
“That’s it?”
“Except for rumors on the compound,” I said. “And you know how reliable those are. But I have heard one over and over.”
“Yeah?” Merrill said. “What’s that?”
“That Bunny has a thing for black men,” I said.
“Well, who doesn’t?” Anna asked, winking at Merrill.
Vigorously nodding his agreement, Merrill said to her, “He’ll get to them. He’s got a secret weapon.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” she asked.
“Me,” he said with a broad smile. “I a brother. And Bunny love herself a brother.”
As I walked out of Rudy’s, I spotted Tim Whitfield heading toward his new sports car parked in a pasture across the street.
Jogging to catch up with him, I noticed there were plenty of spaces in Rudy’s lot.
“Nice,” I said, nodding toward his new car.
“Thanks,” he said. “It was a gift.”
“A gift?” I asked.
“From God,” he said.
Directly? I wondered, or through Bobby Earl?
“He wants his children to have the best.”
The lonely old highway running in front of Rudy’s was straight and flat and empty, stretching away for
