Dangerous Undertaking Read online

  I ignored the pain and ran to her side. Her face was white, and her fingers trembled on the controls. In a few seconds, the others gathered around us and silently stared at the monitor. Slowly, Dodson backed up the camera, meticulously adjusting the focus so that no rock escaped her scrutiny.

  A blurred shape passed directly in front of the lens.

  “There,” Dodson whispered to herself. She racked the focus sharply to the foreground.

  A human hand filled the screen.

  Chapter 11

  Dr. Phillip Camas and his EPA team weren’t prepared for a corpse. Their textbook approach to identifying and containing toxic waste disintegrated with the discovery of the body. Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins encountered little protest as he took control of both the priorities and resources at hand. He radioed for a rescue crew and boat, declared the rail spur off-limits until it could be searched for evidence, and commandeered the vid-cam for closer study of what lay beneath the pond’s murky surface. Dr. Camas was left free to continue with his tests and make plans to siphon out the rising water into secure containers.

  I stood silently beside Tommy Lee as we watched Dodson track the underwater camera.

  The hand and arm stuck out from under a barrel that appeared to be at least fifty gallons or more in size. As the camera drifted over its curvature, a gaping hole crossed the screen out of which drifted swirls of a dark gray liquid.

  “What’s that?” asked Tommy Lee.

  “I’d say it’s what all the fuss is about,” said Dodson. She moved the camera through the liquid, racking the focus as the spotlight was blocked by the dense fluid. “Can’t tell the color, but it looks concentrated and diffuses into the water fairly quickly.”

  She maneuvered the camera down the other side and into a clearer field of water. The spotlight illumined the silhouettes of more of the containers. Dodson panned the lens 360 degrees. Some of the containers had streams of gray liquid leaking from them. The camera continued its arc and for a few seconds only rocks and stones were visible. Then a length of jean-clad leg appeared. No one said a word; no one breathed. Dodson inched the camera forward along the tattered pieces of cloth. A bare streak of flesh was visible beneath the torn clothing; part of an exposed calf had been eaten away by the harsh chemicals, the bone and cartilage distinctive against the darker flesh.

  A severely scuffed boot drifted off screen as Dodson moved on to show more of the sunken drums.

  I heard Tommy Lee whisper beside me, “The only person I know missing in the county is Dallas Willard.”

  I tried to recall if the boot and jeans matched what Dallas had worn in the cemetery. All I could remember was the shotgun.

  The light faded quickly as the sun sank behind the mountain ridge. We had spent several hours at the site, using the camera and rescue boat to retrieve the body. The toxic acid had made identification difficult, but the hair coloring left no doubt in my mind that we had found Dallas Willard.

  Tommy Lee bypassed the limited skills of coroner Ezra Clark and requested transport of the corpse to the Asheville morgue and a forensic medical examiner. He left Reece in charge at the scene, where Dr. Camas began procedures to extract the drums from the quarry.

  “You know what this means,” Tommy Lee said as we got in his patrol car.

  “Since Dallas’ pickup was by the railroad tracks, he walked to the quarry and either fell in or jumped in. You’re probably looking at an accident or a suicide.”

  “And he just happened to disturb some chemical drums,” said Tommy Lee. “I don’t like coincidences, Barry. But, we won’t know anything definitive until there’s an autopsy on what’s left of him. I hope we can get the report sometime tomorrow.”

  “Well, at least the county can breathe a little easier,” I said. “I know I will. And Bob Cain can stop screaming so loud about a crime wave.”

  “That I don’t believe,” said Tommy Lee.

  When we came to the main blacktop, he asked, “You in a rush to get back?”

  “No.”

  He headed away from town.

  “I don’t like it when I don’t know what’s going on,” he said.

  “And I don’t like it when you don’t know what’s going on,” I agreed. “Particularly if I’m involved. Where are we headed?”

  “To notify the next of kin that Dallas is dead. You’re going to meet Talmadge Watson, the heir to the Willard land.”

  Tommy Lee cut on the headlights and fell silent. I left him alone with his thoughts.

  “Look for a dirt road down here to the right,” he said. “Three eyes are better than one.”

  After another quarter mile, I noticed a break in the roadside mountain laurel. We swung off on a single lane that was more gully than road. Low spots were still muddy, and Tommy Lee tried to keep up a steady momentum to avoid getting stuck. The tall hardwoods soon swallowed us up, and the blackness of the moonless night weighed down like a collapsing tunnel that pressed ever closer.

  The road twisted and turned. I soon lost all sense of direction, certain only that we were climbing.

  “Are we going to be able to turn around?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We should be near the bridge.”

  The car hit a sudden dip that dropped the road out from under us. Tommy Lee braked and we slid down a muddy slope until the hill bottomed out and the tires grabbed hold of packed dirt.

  With shock absorbers creaking and the headlight beams bouncing up and down in the trees, the patrol car came to an abrupt stop.

  “Maybe the county ought to buy you some tires with tread,” I said.

  I peered over the car’s hood at a split-log bridge spanning a black void. The sound from a whitewater creek rose up from its depths. There were no safety railings and the width couldn’t have been more than a foot or two wider than that of the car.

  “You call that a bridge, huh?”

  “Gets us from one side to the other,” said Tommy Lee. “It’s not more than twenty feet above the water. Wanna take the wheel? Anybody who can drive around the expressways of Charlotte shouldn’t give it a second thought.”

  I declined the offer. The timbers groaned and the washboard surface racked every joint of me, but the bridge held. When we stopped on the other side, I remembered to breathe.

  “Tell me we don’t come back this way,” I said.

  “Not unless you want to walk back to town. Relax, we’re just going to the top of this hill.”

  I counted four hairpin turns where the road snaked back on itself to make it to the top. When we reached the crest, Tommy Lee stopped the car and killed the engine. He left the headlights burning and pointed to a soft, yellow glow shining through the woods off the side of the road. “There’s our man. Get out with me slowly, and then stay visible in front of the headlights.”

  I followed his lead. We walked about twenty-five feet in front of the patrol car where the low beams converged in a broad pool of light. Tommy Lee held his hands out to his side and turned once around, then he faced the yellow glow in the woods. I mimicked the action, raising one arm and turning so that the lights caught the empty sleeve of my wounded one. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I saw the outline of a window with a thick brown shade that diffused the light behind it.

  A sliver brightened as someone pulled the shade back a few inches. I stood still with my face angled to the headlights so that whoever was inspecting us would have a clear view. The shade was released, and a few minutes later, a ball of light started moving toward us.

  I made out the shape of a kerosene lantern. Its reflector plate threw its beams forward and shielded the bearer in the night shadows.

  “Who you done brought with you, Sheriff?” The voice croaked out like aged timber bending in the wind.

  “This here’s Barry Clayton. He runs the funeral home in Gainesboro.” Tommy Lee shot me a glance to keep quiet.

  “Jack Clayton’s boy?” he asked me.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, hoping it counted for something.


  “What happened to your arm?”

  “Dallas Willard shot me at his grandma’s funeral.”

  “He did, huh. All them Willards is a strange lot.” He made the statement as if it explained everything. “Ain’t seen your Pa since Lottie passed over. That’s been nigh onto six years. Jack’s a good man, for an undertaker.” With that judgment pronounced, the speaker crossed into the light and walked up to me. He said nothing, merely nodded and waited. Tommy Lee knew to provide the formal introduction.

  “This is Talmadge Watson. I been knowin’ Talmadge long as I can remember.”

  I caught how Tommy Lee eased into the mountain dialect, but I knew if I tried to follow now, I would make it mockery. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Watson.”

  “Talmadge,” the old man corrected.

  I risked a glance up and down the mountaineer. His face was covered with stubble and his leathery lips were drawn tight, masking whatever teeth he had. He wore no shirt; only the upper half of his long-johns covered his chest. He had skipped a button hole and the yellow fabric was bunched up where the mismatch created an extra fold. Cigarette ashes stained and splotched the front. Brown suspenders hoisted dark baggy trousers over his scrawny waist, and the scuffed work boots made his feet look too big for his body. But the most prominent feature about Talmadge Watson was the rifle resting in the crook of his right arm.

  “Talmadge,” I repeated. I sensed a handshake was not expected.

  The mountaineer turned back to the sheriff. “Reckon this ain’t a raid,” he said.

  “Now you know I believe in live and let live,” Tommy Lee said. “But, Talmadge, it is official business. I got some bad news. Earlier this afternoon we found Dallas Willard’s body at the bottom of Hope Quarry. It lay with some dumped chemical drums. We don’t know what happened.”

  Talmadge took a sharp breath and looked away. For a long moment, there was no other sound except for the night crickets and the distant hoot of an owl. “Live and let live,” he said. “Seems like there’s been more dying than living lately. You know Martha Willard was my sister.”

  “Yes,” said Tommy Lee. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, things have a way of gettin’ said by people too stubborn to take them back. Me included.” He shook his head. “You boys want a swallow?”

  “That would be fine,” said Tommy Lee.

  “Wait here.”

  Talmadge stepped out of the light and walked back to the cabin. He returned a few minutes later, and I noticed he had exchanged his rifle for a long, gray coat.

  “Give this to your pa,” said the old man. He held out his hand and stuffed a wad of bills in my palm. “Tell him my cash money’s as good as anybody’s, and I won’t hear it no other way. Now, Sheriff, we’ll have to get it from the creek. You boys turn your car around up in the yard, and I’ll meet you at the crossing.”

  Before he started the engine, I asked Tommy Lee, “What’s this money for?”

  “I’d say it’s for Lottie’s funeral. She was his wife. Talmadge probably didn’t have money for the burial, and your father didn’t charge him much, if at all. Talmadge knows that and is going to pay what he thinks is fair if it takes the rest of his life. Now, you don’t argue with Talmadge, and you don’t keep him waiting. We’d better get to the creek.”

  Tommy Lee eased the cruiser down to where Talmadge stood with his lantern in his hand and signaled us to park just short of the log bridge. He waved us out of the vehicle.

  “I’m gonna show you boys the spot in case you come by and I’m huntin’ or cookin’. Not that there’s a still around here.” He stepped down the bank to a narrow footpath that ran along the water.

  I walked right behind him as we traveled single-file upstream from the crossing. After no more than forty yards, the creek took a sharp bend, and the car, headlights left burning, was lost from sight. Talmadge swung the lantern’s beam into the woods.

  “There’s a couple of sittin’ rocks for you. They’re what attracted me to this place.”

  The way he said it sounded like he was describing a favorite restaurant. Tommy Lee and I did as he instructed and sat down on two dry boulders. Talmadge set the lantern on the creek bank and grabbed a tangle of vines that grew out from a base of exposed pine roots and formed a thick mesh at the edge of the stream. He lifted them like a loosely woven carpet and revealed a backwater eddy notched into the bank.

  A rusted chain looped around one of the tree roots and disappeared into the water. Talmadge reeled it in, careful to raise the links straight up so that whatever was tied to the submerged end would not be dragged across the rocky bottom of the stream. There was the clink of glass as Talmadge lifted a wire net out of the water.

  “Nice and cold. Don’t need no refrigerator. Good thing too cause I still ain’t got no electric.” He untied a line that cinched the top of the netting so that it formed a closed sack. He removed what he wanted, secured the line again, and lowered his cache back into place. He spread the vines over the hidden pool and joined us.

  I saw he carried a mason quart jar, the metal lid a bit rusty from its underwater storage. A liquid just tinged with amber refracted the light of the kerosene lantern and cast a mosaic of dancing shadows across the face of the mountaineer.

  “This ain’t corn. Cooked it from apple. She’s smooth, but the fruit will stay in your head if you drink too much.” He twisted off the top and handed the jar to Tommy Lee.

  The sheriff held the moonshine aloft in a ritual of admiration. “You’ve never lost the touch.” He closed his eyes and took two deep swallows, the gulps clearly audible above the sound of the rushing brook. His shoulders shook in reflex, and he let out a long sigh as he passed the jar back to Talmadge, who drew a steady swig before giving the communal cup to me.

  I knocked the jar back like it was a shot of Scotch, but I wasn’t prepared for the tidal wave that poured out of the wide-mouthed container and slammed into the back of my throat. The fire exploded into my nose and set my ears ringing. For a moment I was too paralyzed to even swallow, and I panicked that I would cough or gag. I handed the jar to Talmadge and hoped neither the old man nor Tommy Lee noticed the agony on my face. Just when I thought I could hold out no longer, the pain subsided, and I forced the potent brew down my throat, feeling every drop as it burned its way to my stomach.

  Talmadge again offered the jar, but both of us declined. The old man took another sip, then said more to himself, “All the Willards gone, a whole family gone.”

  “Talmadge,” said Tommy Lee. “We don’t know how it happened. Maybe an accident, maybe he killed himself.”

  “I heard the boy had gone crazed.”

  “He also killed Fats McCauley.”

  “Fats McCauley? That don’t make no sense at all.”

  “I know. I was hoping you’d see a reason. Was Fats connected to the Willards or the Watsons in any way?”

  “You mean like blood-kin?”

  “Blood-kin or even close friend.”

  “No. The McCauleys hailed out of Tennessee. They’ve always been town people.” He thought for a few seconds. “Why are you askin’ about the Watsons?”

  “Because the Willard land now comes to you.”

  “It does? What do I want with it?”

  If there was any suspicion that Talmadge was somehow even remotely involved with the killings, it evaporated with his question.

  “Well, it will get figured out,” said Tommy Lee. “But till then, I’m not gonna tell anybody you’re Martha’s heir. No sense having you pestered by the press.” He rose from the stone. “Thanks, Talmadge.”

  “Thanks for coming in person, Sheriff.” He turned to me. “Here.” He passed me the sealed jar of moonshine. “Want you to keep this. Sheriff’s runnin’ for office. I don’t want to cost him the election.”

  I slipped it into my jacket pocket.

  We returned to the car in silence. As I opened the door, I felt a firm slap on my shoulder.

  “You boys come back,” said Talmadge.


  After we reached the paved road, I said, “Talmadge is an interesting fellow.”

  “He’s an original all right. He likes you. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him take to anyone so fast.”

  “He hardly spoke to me.”

  “He slapped you on the back. Believe me, touchie feelie, he ain’t.”

  When we got back to the department, Tommy Lee pulled alongside my Jeep.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Take tomorrow off. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  As I grabbed the inside door handle, Tommy Lee added, “And thanks for indulging my drink with Talmadge. He and his sister may have been estranged, but family is family. I didn’t want him hearing the news any other way.”

  “I know,” I said. “Family is family.”

  I started the Jeep and felt the need to make my own visit.

  I let myself in through the back door and walked to the kitchen. As expected, the old white counters gleamed from Mom’s after-supper cleansing. An ironed blue-checked cloth covered the Formica table where I had eaten daily meals until I went off to college. Worn paths criss-crossed the gold-flecked linoleum, etched into the floor by the thousands of footsteps taken between sink, refrigerator, and stove. The hands of the round red clock above the table showed eight-thirty-five. I heard the murmur of voices coming down the back stairway. Mom was probably watching a television talk show since such a continuous conversation had not occurred between her and Dad in the past year. I didn’t want to startle her so I called up from the base of the stairs.

  She sat in the upstairs den, watching a gardening show on PBS, wearing an apricot-colored, quilted housecoat and holding her knitting needles and the beginnings of what looked like a new sweater in her lap. She looked up with a smile that could not quite chase the exhaustion from her face.