Elmer Conway had indeed been asleep, but a fat mosquito had taken blood from his forehead and awakened him in the process. He saw lights, a car was approaching rapidly, he turned on his radar. It took almost four miles to get the funny little foreign job pulled over, and by then Elmer was angry.
Ray made the mistake of opening his door and getting out, and that was not what Elmer had in mind.
"Freeze, ass**le!" Elmer shouted, over the barrel of his service revolver, which, as Ray quickly realized, was aimed at his head.
"Relax, relax," he said, throwing up his hands in complete surrender.
"Get away from the car," Elmer growled, and with the gun pointed to a spot somewhere around the center line.
"No problem, sir, just relax," Ray said, shuffling sideways.
"What's your name?"
"Ray Atlee, Judge Atlee's son. Could you put that gun down, please?"
Elmer lowered the gun a few inches, enough so that a discharge would hit Ray in the stomach, but not the head. "You got Virginia plates," Elmer said.
"That's because I live in Virginia."
"Is that where you're headed?"
"Yes sir."
"What's the big hurry?"
"I don't know, I just - "
"I clocked you doing ninety-eight."
"I'm very sorry."
"Sony's ass. That's reckless driving." Elmer took a step closer. Ray had forgotten about the cut on his hand and he was not aware of the one on his knee. Elmer removed a flashlight and did a body scan from ten feet away. "Why are you bleedin'?"
It was a very good question, and, at that moment, standing in the middle of the dark highway with a light flashed in his face, Ray could not think of an adequate response. The truth would take an hour and fall on unbelieving ears. A lie would only make matters worse. "I don't know," he mumbled.
"What's in the car?" Elmer asked.
"Nothing."
"Sure."
He handcuffed Ray and put him in the backseat of his Ford County patrol car, a brown Impala with dust on the fenders, no hubcaps, a collection of antennae mounted on the rear bumper. Ray watched as he walked around the TT and looked inside. When Elmer was finished he crawled into the front seat, and without turning around said, "What's the gun for?"
Ray had tried to slide the pistol under the passenger's seat. Evidently it was visible from the outside.
"Protection."
"You got a permit?"
"No."
Elmer called the dispatcher and made a lengthy report of his latest stop. He concluded with, "I'm bringin' him in," as if he had just collared one of the ten most wanted.
"What about my car?" Ray asked, as they turned around.
"I'll send a wrecker out."
Elmer turned on the red and blue lights and pushed the speedometer to eighty.
"Can I call my lawyer?" Ray asked.
"No."
"Come on. It's just a traffic offense. My lawyer can meet me at the jail, post bond, and in an hour I'm back on the road."
"Who's your lawyer?"
"Harry Rex Vonner."
Elmer grunted and his neck grew thicker. "Sumbitch cleaned me out in my divorce."
And with that Ray sat back and closed his eyes.
Ray had actually seen the inside of the Ford County jail on two occasions, he recalled as Elmer led him up the front sidewalk. Both times he had taken papers to deadbeat fathers who'd been years behind in child support, and Judge Atlee had locked them up. Haney Moak, the slightly retarded jailer in an oversized uniform, was still there at the front desk, reading detective magazines. He also served as the dispatcher for the graveyard shift, so he knew of Ray's transgressions.
"Judge Atlee's boy, huh?" Haney said with a crooked grin. His head was lopsided and his eyes were uneven, and whenever Haney spoke it was a challenge to maintain a visual.
"Yes sir," Ray said politely, looking for friends.
"He was a fine man," he said as he moved behind Ray and unlocked the cuffs.
Ray rubbed his wrists and looked at Deputy Conway who was busy filling in forms and being very officious. "Reckless, and no gun permit."
"You ain't lockin' him up, are you?" Haney said to Elmer, quite rudely as if Haney were in charge of the case now, and not the deputy.
"Damned right," Elmer shot back, and the situation was immediately tense.
"Can I call Harry Rex Vonner?" Ray pleaded.
Haney nodded toward a wall-mounted phone as if he could not care less. He was glaring at Elmer. The two obviously had a history that was not pretty. "My jail's full now," Haney said.
"That's what you always say."
Ray quickly punched Harry Rex's home number. It was after 3 A.M., and he knew the interruption would not be appreciated. The current Mrs. Vonner answered after the third ring. Ray apologized for the call and asked for Harry Rex.
"He's not here," she said.
He's not out of town, Ray thought. He was on the front porch six hours ago. "May I ask where he is?"
Haney and Elmer were practically yelling at each other in the background.
"He's over at the Atlee place," she said slowly.
"No, he left there hours ago. I was with him."
"No, they just called. The house is burning."
With Haney in the backseat, they flew around the square, lights and sirens fully engaged. From two blocks away, they could see the blaze. "Lord have mercy," Haney said from the back.
Few events excited Clanton like a good fire. The town's two pumpers were there. Dozens of volunteers were darting about, all seemed to be yelling. The neighbors were gathering on the sidewalks across the street.
Flames were already shooting through the roof. As Ray stepped over a water line and eased onto the front lawn, he breathed the unmistakable odor of gasoline.
Chapter 35
The love nest wasn't a bad place for a nap after all. It was a long narrow room with dust and spiderwebs and one light hanging in the center of the vaulted ceiling. The lone window had been painted sometime in the last century and overlooked the square. The bed was an iron antique with no sheets or blankets, and he tried not to think about Harry Rex and his misadventures on that very mattress. Instead, he thought of the old house at Maple Run and the glorious way it went into history. By the time the roof collapsed, half of Clanton was there. Ray had sat alone, on the low limb of a sycamore across the street, hidden from all, trying in vain to pull cherished memories from a wonderful childhood that simply had not happened. When the flames were shooting from every window, he had not thought of the cash or the Judge's desk or his mother's dining room table, but only of old General Forrest glaring down with those fierce eyes.
Three hours of sleep, and he was awake by eight. The temperature was rising rapidly in the den of iniquity, and heavy steps were coming his way.
Harry Rex swung the door open and turned on the light. "Wake up, felon," he growled. "They want you down at the jail."
Ray swung his feet to the floor. "My escape was fair and square." He had lost Elmer and Haney in the crowd and simply left with Harry Rex.
"Did you tell them they could search your car?"
"I did."
"That was a dumb-ass thing to do. What kinda lawyer are you?" He pulled a wooden folding chair from the wall and sat down near the bed.
"There was nothing to hide."
"You're stupid, you know that? They searched the car and found nothing."