The Backwoods

“Speaking of scumbags . . .” Sutter noticed a copy of the town’s weekly paper, the Agan’s Point Messenger, and the blaring headlines: LOCAL MAN MURDERED. He picked it up and scanned over the short article about the mysterious death of Dwayne Parker. “Damn near forgot about this. Feel so bad for Judy—the poor dumb girl don’t even realize that Dwayne wasn’t no good for her.”

“Wasn’t no good for anyone or anything,” Trey pitched in. “There’s a bad seed in every crowd.”

Sutter read more of the article. “This came out the day after they found the body; it don’t say when the funeral is. Hey, Pappy? You know when they’re holdin’ services for Dwayne Parker?”

The name seemed to slap Halm’s age-lined faced. His eyes lit up in a furor. “Dwayne Parker! That no-good, low-down rat bastard! Ya ask me, they can’t bury that fucker deep enough. He ain’t worth the lumber it takes to build the coffin! Ain’t worth the elbow grease it takes to dig the hole, nor the fuckin’ air ya gotta breathe whiles yer gettin’ the job done.”

“They ain’t buryin’ him,” Trey said, skirting the point. “Crematin’ him is what I heard.”

“Then fuck it! That cracker ain’t worth the gas it takes to burn him. Ain’t worth the effort it takes me to grunt out a whiskey-piss into his urn. Cryin’ shame the . way that prick treated Judy, broke her damn heart, slappin’ her around like that. You ask me, any man who beats his wife should have his own ass beat twice as hard.”

Sutter nodded, chewing a cream-filled. “We’re not in disagreement there, Pappy. But I wanna show my face and offer my condolences to Judy. When’s the funeral?”

“You ask me, they shouldn’t even have a funeral for that worthless piece a’ shit. He pulled up here one night all pissy drunk, and I could see in the car he had a woman with him, and that woman sure as shit wasn’t Judy, and he walks in all stinkin’ a’ beer and talkin’ loud, grabs himself a twelve-pack and just looks at me ‘n’ says ‘Put it on my wife’s tab, ya old fuck,’ and then walks back out. Hocks a big looger on my front winder ta boot. That son of a fuckin’ dirty mutt. I ever tell you about the time he—”

Trey slapped a hand down on the counter. “Pappy! Chief wants to know when the services are!”

Halm blinked. “Oh, yeah. Saturday noon, at the Schoenfeld Funeral Parlor. I’ll be there, fer Judy a’ course— but not fer that rat bastard.”

Sutter rolled his eyes. Gee, I guess he didn’t think much of Dwayne.

“Hearin’ some damn funny stuff, since we’re on the topic,” Trey said in an aside.

Sutter put the paper down, listening.

“Funny ain’t the word,” Halm said. “Nonstop fucked-up is more like it, since the day they found that fucker dead.”

Shit . . . Sutter asked with some hesitation, “What’s fucked-up, Pappy?”

“The talk about Dwayne is what. You fellas are the cops, fer Christ’s sake. Ya musta seen the body.”

“We didn’t get the call; Luntville EMTs did,” Sutter said quickly.

“Well, ya musta heard that somebody cut his head off.”

“Aw, we all heard that, Pappy.,” Trey stepped in. “That ain’t the half of it. I know some of Luntville’s EMTs—they’re buddies of mine—and they said there was something really fucked-up about the way he lost his head . . . but they didn’t say exactly what. Something really screwy, though.”

Sutter frowned through an uncomfortable tremor in his belly. “Don’t listen to every rumor you hear, ‘specially in a hick burg like this. Stuff gets all blown out of proportion.”

“I don’t know, Chief. I went down to the county morgue to take a look myself and they wouldn’t even let me in. Why’s that? I’m a police officer in the jurisdiction of the murder. It was our crime scene. Ain’t our fault we weren’t the first responders.”

“Trey, it ain’t even positive yet that it was a murder. Could’ve been an accident. See? Folks start talkin’ without knowin’ all the facts and they jump to conclusions. County didn’t let you in ‘cos I’d already been there to ID the body.”

Trey stalled at the information. “Shit, Chief, you didn’t tell me that.”

“Right, I didn’t tell no one except Judy, because she’s the official next of kin. She wasn’t up to seein’ the body, so I went in there on her behalf.”

Halm and Trey both looked at him.

“So?” Halm asked.

“Was his head really gone?” Trey finished.

Sutter sighed. “Yeah, Trey.”

“And they never found the head,” Halm added. “Somebody cut off his head and run off with it. That ain’t murder?”

“We still get gators,” Sutter hedged. “It coulda been a gator. He could’ve fallen down the bluff and lost his head on the rocks. Fuckin’ truck could’ve been barrelin’ around the bend and knocked his head off with the rearview. It could’ve been anything. So relax ‘n’ stop talkin’ shit, ’cos that just makes the rumors worse. We don’t want all this weird talk getting back to Judy. She’s bent out of shape enough as it is.”

Trey and Halm quieted but only for a moment.

Trey began, “Was there anything screwed-up about the neck wound?”

“No, Trey,” Sutter replied, aggravated. “His head got cut off. Simple. It happens. It was a decapitation. Said so in the autopsy report.”

This was Chief Sutter’s first lie.

Pappy popped some chaw in his mouth: Red Man. “They’re also sayin’ it was Squatters who killed him. Everd Stanherd’s people. Makes sense.”

Jesus, Sutter griped. These boys won’t get off it. He couldn’t tell the truth about it, could he? He didn’t even understand the truth himself. “It makes no sense, Pappy. Ain’t no reason for Squatters to kill Dwayne Parker. You don’t kill the husband of the woman who keeps your ass out of the welfare line. And you seen these people. I’ll bet the biggest of the men don’t even stand five-six. Dwayne was six-three and was still packin’ all them muscles from working out in the joint all those years. Shit, there ain’t ten Squatters who could take down Dwayne Parker.”

“There are if one of ‘em had a machete in his paw,” Trey pointed out.

I just can’t win here, Sutter thought.

Pappy spit brown juice into a Yoo-Hoo bottle. “And ain’t it funny ‘bout how Dwayne gets his ticket punched right in the middle of all this talk about some Squatters disappearin’. Like maybe he had somethin’ to do with it.”

“Or done it himself,” Trey said.

Now Sutter was grinding his teeth. “Done what himself, Trey?”

“Offed some Squatters. Dwayne hated the Squatters; everyone knows that.”

“Listen to me, both of you.” Sutter’s voice hardened. “There ain’t no Squatters who disappeared. It’s bullshit.”

“Nearly a dozen’s what I heard,” Pappy offered.

“Here one day, gone the next,” Trey said.

This was getting hairy. “You two boneheads listen up. Ain’t nobody’s disappeared ‘round here. It’s a free country. Some of these people think they can do better some-wheres else than here . . . and that’s their right. There ain’t nothing wrong with Squatters just’cos they’re a little funny-lookin’ in the face. They’re just as smart as anyone else and just as able to work. Some of ‘em get tired of crabbing, so they move on. Like anywhere.”

Sutter’s sensible explanation didn’t seem to convince the others. It was true that an unusual number of Stanherd’s Squatters had left their abode on the Point, some quite suddenly. Stanherd himself had reported it several times, but even he admitted that they probably did just leave town of their own accord. Sutter did know of the anomaly regarding Dwayne Parker’s death, but of missing Squatters? He knew nothing, nor did he believe any foul play was involved. I swear to God. Gossip mouthpieces like Trey and Pappy Halm just make my job harder. . . .

“So I don’t want to hear no more crap about Squatters disappearing into the night and Dwayne’s fuckin’ head