Crimes in Southern Indiana

  Praise For

  Crimes in Southern Indiana

  “How can I not love a writer whose work reminds me in a huge way of some of my favorite writers: Lansdale, Woodrell, Willeford, Thompson, and Faulkner? Crimes in Southern Indiana is a brutal, hilarious, honest, unforgettable book, and Frank Bill is the freshest new voice to emerge on the crime fiction scene in recent years.”

  —Jason Starr, author of The Pack

  “Crimes in Southern Indiana brings to light a major American writer of fiction, the prose equivalent of a performance by Warren Oates or a song by Merle Haggard or a photograph by Walker Evans. Tempting though it is to compare him to other writers, the fact is that five years hence every good new fiction writer to come into view will be compared to Frank Bill.”

  —Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest

  “When you’re composing your hardbitten pantheon—Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Big Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard—save room for Frank Bill, whose Crimes in Southern Indiana reminded me how thrilling and darkly vital crime fiction used to be and is once again.”

  —Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil’s Territory

  “Frank Bill does to crime fiction what a rabid pit bull does to his favorite chew toy. You’ll need a neck brace after whipping through these wild, wonderful, whacked-out stories.”

  —Derek Nikitas, author of Pyres

  This first one is for John and Ina Bussabarger,

  who raised me in the ways of the old. And my rock and

  my center, my wife, Jennifer.

  Contents

  Hill Clan Cross

  These Old Bones

  All The Awful

  The Penance of Scoot McCutchen

  Officer Down (Tweakers)

  The Need

  Beautiful Even in Death

  The Accident

  The Old Mechanic

  Rough Company

  A Coon Hunter’s Noir

  Amphetamine Twitch

  Old Testament Wisdom

  Trespassing Between Heaven and Hell

  A Rabbit in the Lettuce Patch

  Cold, Hard Love

  Crimes in Southern Indiana

  Acknowledgments

  Hill Clan Cross

  Pitchfork and Darnel burst through the scuffed motel door like two barrels of buckshot. Using the daisy-patterned bed to divide the dealers from the buyers, Pitchfork buried a .45-caliber Colt in Karl’s peat moss unibrow with his right hand. Separated Irvine’s green eyes with the sawed-off .12-gauge in his left, pushed the two young men away from the mattress, stopped them at a wall painted with nicotine, and shouted, “Drop the rucks, Karl!”

  Karl’s towline arms contorted in a broken epileptic rhythm. Dropped the two heavy military backpacks to the carpet. Irvine stood with his chest rising and falling in a hyperventilated rush and, sounding like a southern Indiana hick, he said, “This here is our deal.”

  Behind Pitchfork, big brother Darnel kicked shut the motel door and corralled the two buyers to the right of the bed, into the nightstand, slapped a leather blackjack down onto Dodo Kirby’s widow’s peak. Helped his knees discover the cigarette-holed carpet. Dodo’s little brother Uhl stepped forward, and his checkered teeth of bad dental mouthed, “What the shit, man, you can’t—” Darnel obliged Uhl with the blackjack. Beat his nose into chips of flint. Mashed his lips into blueberry stains. Slid the blackjack into his bibs, pulled a small coil of fence wire from his other pocket. Shook his head and said, “Can’t what? We never gave the go for this deal. We’s taking back what’s ours.”

  Pitchfork and Darnel had found several of their storage drums coming up short in the weight department after they’d been scaled for a customer who’d rescaled them and was none too happy. They’d their suspicions of who’d skimmed the dope, considering the hands to be trusted were a select few. They passed the word to the Harrison County sheriff, Elmo Sig, who’d been on their payroll for the past ten years, letting them use the only motel in town to do their trade. The man also gave the DEA leads in other counties, detoured their noses out of his own. Sig had his own eyes and ears, who went by the alias AK, running through the surrounding counties. AK delivered some chatter that he’d overheard about two twenty-somethings with some primo weed. Needed to turn it to cash quick. Wanted to set up a deal at the same motel where they’d watched Darnel and Pitchfork make theirs.

  Darnel kneeled down. Pushed a knee into Uhl’s blue flannel spine. Started weaving tight figure eights with the wire through Uhl’s wrists. Pulled a pair of snips from his back pocket. Cut the wire.

  Sweat bathed the garden of red and pus-white acne bumps across Karl’s forehead as he yelled, “We helped harvest, dry, weigh, and package them crops when you all was busy! We deserve a piece of the profit.”

  Pitchfork’s briar-scarred right arm pulled the Colt away from Karl’s brow an inch. Thudded the barrel into his forehead. Karl hollered, “Fuck!” Pitchfork told the boy, “You deserve what you earn.”

  Behind Pitchfork on the other side of the bed, Darnel finished with Dodo’s wrists. Stood up. Told Karl, “You’d been a smear on your mama’s leg I hadn’t wanted me a boy to carry on my line. Course, I don’t know if you deserved that.”

  Darnel stepped toward Karl and Irvine, said, “Turn around. Tired of lookin’ at all your stupid.” Karl and Irvine turned around, faced the yellowing wall. Pitchfork slid the Colt into his waist. Held the sawed-off down at his side. Shook his bone-shaved skull, told the boys, “Two shit birds didn’t even check the parkin’ lot for extra men. This time a night they coulda rushed you like we did. Hell, we’s sittin’ over off in the shadows in the ’68.”

  Karl turned to Irvine and said, “Told you we shoulda checked the damn lot.”

  Pitchfork stepped away from the boys, watched Darnel coil the wire over and under Irvine’s wrists, and Darnel asked Irvine, “Who vouched for these two scrotums?”

  From the other side of the room Karl whimpered, “Eugene Lillpop.”

  Darnel laughed his carburetor laugh. “That inbred shit has got one hand in his pants, the other up his mama’s skirt. His word ain’t worth the phlegm he lubes his palm with.”

  From the floor, with hair matted to his face, Uhl whimpered and spit from swelled lips turning purple. Talked in his toughest tone. “Sons of bitches best let us be. Know who our ol’ man is?”

  Pitchfork stood disgusted by Dodo’s question. “Sure I know backstabbin’ Able Kirby. Shoulda been buried beneath an outhouse for rattin’ out Willie Dodson years back. Course you all run in a different county. Shit like that don’t fly ’round here, your kind is used for fertilizer.”

  Uhl coughed and protested, “Our daddy’s a good man. Didn’t never rat Willie out.”

  Darnel finished with Karl’s wrists. Put the wire and snips back in his pocket. Grabbed the two rucks Karl had carried in. Slung one over each shoulder. Smelled that honey-thick odor. Told Uhl, “Son, I know for a fact it was your ol’ man ’cause Willie worked for me. Crossed counties to meet with your daddy and some of his people way down in Orange Holler. When the shit went down your daddy walked away clean as cotton.”

  Pitchfork laid the sawed-off on the floor. Opened Uhl and Dodo’s ruck. Reached in and dug through the bundles of bills, all Benjamins banded around identical-sized blank cutouts on the bottoms. Then he felt the weight of steel, pulled out two nickel-plated .38 revolvers. Looked at the boys and said, “You two dick stains didn’t even check to see if they’s packin’ heat or the right amount of cash? Fuckin’ greenies.”

  Darnel dug his hands into Karl’s and Irvine’s hair. Told them, “Could at least used a different motel room or another county. Don’t matter no way. You two got a lesson to learn.�
�� Then he guided them to the door by their greasy heads of hair. Opened it.

  Pitchfork put the two .38s back in the leather ruck. Slung it over his shoulder. Grabbed the sawed-off. Pulled Dodo to his feet. Then Uhl, who begged, “Let us go. We won’t say shit.”

  Pitchfork stared through Uhl and questioned, “Keys?” Confused, Uhl said, “Keys?” “Motherfucker, how’d you get that rape van out yonder, hot-wire it?” Uhl stuttered, “F-F-F-Front pocket.” Pitchfork patted Uhl’s front, pulled the van keys from the pocket, sneered, and told Uhl, “And we know you ain’t gonna say shit ’cause where we gonna take you, won’t nobody hear a word.”

  Darnel loaded Uhl, Dodo, and the ruck of dollar bills into Irvine and Karl’s Impala. Pitchfork loaded the boys and the rucks of marijuana into the bed of his ’68. Left Uhl and Dodo’s van with the keys in the ignition, payment beneath the driver’s seat for Sheriff Elmo to scrap over at Medford Malone’s salvage yard. Then they drove to the Hill Clan Cross Cemetery. A place where bad deals were made good and lessons were buried deep.

  The two vehicles were silent except for the crack and pop of night air cooling the engine blocks. Headlights from the Impala and ’68 Chevy outlined the profiles of Dodo and Uhl, their features now wet and swollen hues of yellow and purple turning darker with the night. Blood peeled like three-day-old biscuits. The shovels they’d used to dig the eight-by-eight grave left their hands unsteady at their sides as they stood looking down into their handiwork.

  Pitchfork stood behind Dodo and Uhl, the .45 pressed into one head, the sawed-off into the other. Karl and Irvine kneeled off to the left, taking in the three silhouettes. Behind them, Darnel made his cigarette cherry with a final inhalation as he flicked it to the ground and told Pitchfork, “It’s time.”

  Pitchfork asked the two buyers, “How old you say you was?”

  Dodo slobbered, “We didn’t.” Hoping the nightmare would end and they’d be released, he said, “I’s thirty-five, Uhl’s—”

  Pitchfork cut him off. “Well, least you ain’t gotta worry about cancer or achin’ bones like your mama.” Then he squeezed the .45’s trigger. Dodo’s skull exploded into the beams of light, disappeared into the air. His body thudded forward into the grave.

  With Uhl’s ears ringing, his crotch found warm fear as he screamed, “No, no! Oh God, please! Please!”

  Pitchfork said, “Ain’t you the whiniest chickenshit I ever did hear.”

  Darnel said, “His ol’ man was the same way, don’t you remember that time over at Galloway’s fish fry? Grabbed Galloway’s daughter’s ass. Got all wet-eyed when Galloway was gonna stomp him into cornmeal.”

  Pitchfork said, “Sure I remember. Galloway’s daughter was only fourteen at the time.” He told Uhl, “Your ol’ man’s ’bout a sick son of a bitch.”

  Uhl’s face contorted. If skin could chatter, his would have. He said, “Let me go. I can pay triple.”

  Pitchfork growled, “With what? You knock over an armored vehicle full of one-dollar bills?” Shook his head. “Ain’t just about money. It’s about blood.”

  From behind Karl and Irvine, Darnel said, “These two boys need to know they can’t steal their own kin’s means to provide. Two of you was packin’ heat, I know you’d have done somethin’ just like this to them in that motel room we hadn’t showed up. Tonight everyone’s got a lesson to be learned.”

  Karl and Irvine watched with their faces damp. Their wrists were free but aching from the wire that had cut into their skin.

  Uhl’s weakness turned brave as he spun around, knocked the sawed-off out of Pitchfork’s left hand, only to have the .45 add another split of pain to his head. Uhl fell flat and mumbled, “You bastard.” Pitchfork pressed his boot down into Uhl’s neck, pointed the pistol at his head, said, “Didn’t think you had any fight in you, kinda impressed.” Then he pulled the trigger. Uhl’s complexion disappeared across the soil. Pitchfork slid the .45 into his waistband, kneeled down, and rolled Uhl’s body into the grave.

  New tears warmed Karl’s and Irvine’s cheeks. Pitchfork stepped away from the grave and sat on the Impala’s hood.

  Darnel’s hands gripped Karl’s and Irvine’s sweaty hair. Pulled them to their feet. The boys’ insides tightened while their minds burned with a revelation: never steal from your father and uncle’s harvest to sell on the side, because in the end, whether it’s spilled or related, blood is blood.

  Stopping the boys in front of the grave, Darnel reached into his pocket and gripped the Colt. Raised it. Dropped Irvine, then Karl, in quick succession. Listened to them hit the bottom of the grave.

  To Darnel’s right, Pitchfork leaned off the car hood and asked, “Think they broke anything?”

  Darnel shoved the pistol into his pocket, turned and walked over to Pitchfork, said, “Hope they did.”

  The ’68’s truck door squeaked. Pitchfork reached inside, pulled a couple of iced bottles of Falls City from a cooler. Handed one to Darnel, asked, “How long you think it’ll take ’fore they wake up?”

  Darnel pulled a chipped red Swiss Army knife from his pocket, used the bottle opener. “Don’t know, but we got plenty beer till they do.”

  Taking the opener from Darnel, Pitchfork said, “Just hope they learned their lesson.”

  Darnel turned the bottle of beer up and crystallized foam burned his throat like acid as he swallowed, then he said, “Yeah, I’d hate we had to kill our only two boys.”

  These Old Bones

  It was as if God himself had shot the son of a bitch from the sky. But the good Lord had done no such thing to Able Kirby.

  His body lay facedown, ears still ringing from the small-caliber gunfire that dotted his upper back, chest, and gut. Blood etched a path behind his work boots, leading all the way to the flaked wooden screen door of the house from which Able had stumbled.

  He pressed his palms into uneven earth. Steadied himself. Tried to push his chest up as if doing a push-up only to fall flat, smelling cinder and soil with a sideways glance, remembering all the bad he’d done in this life.

  He’d burned his father’s home for insurance money. Shot Esther MacCullum’s dog dead in front of him for a debt he owed. Forced himself upon Needle Galloway’s fourteen-year-old daughter. Opened Nelson Anderson’s skull in the Leavenworth Tavern with a hammer for saying he’d ratted out Willie Dodson on a cross-county dope deal, even though he did it for the local law.

  And today he’d sold his granddaughter, Knee High Audry, to the Hill Clan to whore out. Needing the extra cash to help pay for his wife Josephine’s cancer medications. Yeah, he thought, I’s a son of a bitch.

  Josephine stood in the kitchen smelling the spoiling skin that hung loose and gray like dry rotted curtains on a rusted rod, wishing she’d stopped Able before it got this far. Thinking of how she lay in bed, night after night, listening to him worm from beneath the cloth, cross the floor, the squeak of hinges to the bedroom where their granddaughter slept. Jo would work her way out of bed, inhaling hard and grunting, and Able would be in the kitchen getting a sip of beer by the time she passed Knee High’s bedroom and made it to the kitchen. Seeing her, Able would say, “Couldn’t sleep, needed me a swallow.” That’s why she began sleeping with the Ruger beneath her pillow. A .22-caliber pistol she’d wielded to remove varmint and snake from the chicken house and garden. She knew she’d grown too weak to physically do damage.

  Over the years Jo pretended not to notice the glints Able made at county fairs or the grocery, eyeing the young and their parts that had taken shape. He started with Knee High while she prepared supper, did dishes, fed the chickens and gathered eggs. Jo would question him about staring and he’d told her, “She’s just become womanized awful quick like. Remember a time when you’s that pretty.”

  His tone had bored a lump of disgust in Jo’s gut, making these comparisons of the flesh. Then came the rumors about Galloway’s daughter.

  Fearing the answer, Jo questioned Able about the girl. He didn’t deny his actions. Reaffirmed his m
otivations. “Shit you think, woman, girl like that, man such as myself. She was lookin’ to me first. I’s just offering is all. You bein’ the shape you’re in, man’s got needs you can’t possibly meet.”

  Thirty-five years of matrimony and his words carved into the bone, panging worse than her cancer. With age, the man had been molded into a sickness she’d ignored far too long, didn’t know how to deal with. And moments before, Able had come into the bedroom with a devil’s grin igniting his chicken-neck face. He laid a small brown sack loaded with crumpled bills on the bed. In his crusted eyes was a wilted cellophane glow. Their granddaughter had supposedly ridden to town with him to run an errand, and she asked, “Where’s Knee High?”

  Standing, Able rubbed his palms together, a trickle of sweat spitting from his brow. He tongued his lips. Looked Josephine in the eye, said, “Hear me out, Jo. You and me been strugglin’ here with your cancer meds and the boys disappearin’. Knee High needed to put more of her fair share in the coin jar. So I hocked her for cash to Pitchfork and Darnel to help pay for your meds. Let her work off the cash. Come home when all is square. Didn’t see no other way ’round it.”

  Josephine’s jaundiced eyes cleared. She pulled out the Ruger, fingered the trigger, and buried a round in his belly.

  Should have done this long ago, she thought, could have protected her own. Her mind wondered about consequence for a split second, too late, and realized this was his and her consequence. Short of breath, propping up her old bones from the bed with the ping of joints and the lactic ache of muscle, Jo quipped, “No other way around it? Oh, they’s ways around it, only I waited too long for direction.”