Freedom's Child: A Novel Read online

  In her eyes, Virgil did what he had to do.

  The mosquitoes seem attracted to Mattley’s body odor. And while he’d love nothing more than a hot shower after the fifteen-hour train ride from Oregon, he can’t sit still in his skin knowing that Freedom might be in trouble. Between the Delaney brothers and the authorities back in Painter, Mattley hopes to get to her before anybody else does. What he’ll do when he does finally get to her, he doesn’t know.

  On his night shifts, when he’d practically carry Freedom up the stairs to her apartment, all the drunken ramblings about her children, the constant reminders of the letters to her children that she’d show him…Mattley knew who Mason was and it only took a little asking around to find out where he lives, since Freedom’s letters were addressed to some church in Goshen.

  The yellow light of the porch hums when he rings the doorbell. His stomach growls, his lower back aching from sitting in both the train and the hired car. He swears he’s lost ten pounds just between Painter and Louisville. The sun sets beyond the trees behind him, just enough so his shadow grows on the front steps of the house. A woman answers the door.

  “I’m sorry to be bothering you, ma’am,” Mattley says, keeping his mouth as closed as possible, as he hasn’t brushed his teeth in more than a day. “Is Mason Paul around?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” says the woman. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is James Mattley. You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve come a long way.” He reaches in the duffel bag that hangs on his shoulder. He pulls out a photo, a mug shot. “I was wondering if you could tell me whether you’ve seen this woman?”

  Violet inspects the photo of Freedom, puzzled by the unexpected visit. “I’m sorry, I haven’t.” She hands the picture back him.

  Mattley sighs, frustrated after a long trip and no answers waiting for him at the other end. “Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you, miss.” He turns to leave.

  She calls after him, “Is this about Rebekah’s disappearance?”

  He stops dead in his tracks. “Disappearance?” It’s news to Mattley, and he figures that it would soon be news to Gumm and Howe as well.

  “Well, sure.” She crosses her arms and leans against the frame of the front door. “Mason’s sister. He’s all torn up about it.”

  “In Louisville?”

  “Goshen.” Violet turns off the lights and steps out to the porch, activating the alarm system and locking the door behind her. “Don’t y’all talk to one another? You’re the third cop here in the past couple of hours.”

  “Sure,” he lies. “In fact, I’m on my way back to Goshen now.” But if I don’t get something in my belly soon, I’m going to faint, he thinks to himself.

  “Please let us know if you hear anything,” she says as she walks toward her car. “I’m on my way to meet my friends at Metro Police to see if they’ve got anything yet.”

  “Here, let me walk you.” He stares off at a dying sun, thinking of how he’d like to leave there as soon as possible to see what he could find out, in reference to the discovery of Rebekah’s disappearance. But play it cool. Don’t alarm the woman. Keep the urge to kick a lawn ornament to yourself.

  This couldn’t have been Freedom. Could it? The Delaneys? The same men who are after Freedom? The thoughts run rampant in his head.

  “Shit, I forgot my phone,” Violet says as she hurries back to the house.

  Mattley waves as he rushes to the rental car. “Have a good evening.”

  Two women scream outside through the arms of juiced-up bouncers, drunken slurs about home-wrecking and baby-mama drama. The cold night doesn’t stop them from wearing skirts that hug their cellulite-filled legs and stiletto sandals that squeeze their old toes to kingdom come. Too much lipstick, too much cake face. Mason can’t help but smile as they cross the dirt lot together toward the entrance. Not much recovery has been done to the Bluegrass since the storm, except a little duct tape and cardboard over the windows, already graffitied with those tribal S’s junior-high-schoolers draw on their notebooks. Ah, the twelve-year-old vandal.

  Mason holds the door for Peter and a million stares shoot in their direction. Beer guts held fastened by suspenders, the smell of hot wings in the air. Mason blows into his hands to warm the chill of October from outside while “Lay Down Sally” reverberates through the alligator-skin boots and denims and wools.

  They spot the man right away, the one from the surveillance tapes who was seen rubbing all over Rebekah the night she went missing. He wears the same New Orleans Saints football cap, black with a gold fleur-de-lis, and leans on the side of a pool table. He chalks his pool cue and holds a lump of tobacco in the side of his cheek. Peter sees him first and points him out. The man makes eye contact with Mason as they approach him. He picks up a coffee can from a makeshift shelf on the column beside him and spits out his tobacco. He leans his cue as his game ends and pulls a can of menthol Skoal from his jeans. “Why you eyeing me like that?” he says as he pulls the fresh tobacco apart and tucks it under his lip, not looking at either one of them.

  “Actually,” Mason says, suddenly feeling out of place for the first time since he strolled in, “I was hoping you might help me with something.”

  “Well, I don’t know what it is you all are looking for, but my help doesn’t come without a price.” The man looks up from his can and eyeballs Peter as if he’s never seen a man in a wheelchair before.

  “I’m looking for a young woman named Rebekah Paul. Do you know of her?”

  “You mean that spicy redheaded firecracker they’ve been showing all over the news?” He grins. “I never saw her before. And even if I did, what’s it to ya?”

  “She was in here a few nights ago, but we think she might have cut her hair and dyed it blond.” Mason steps closer to him. “A little birdie in my ear said you might have seen her.”

  The man hocks a wad of phlegm and swallows it. “Yeah, I saw her, so what?”

  Mason grabs his shirt and pulls him near. “Listen, you inbred pig-fucking redneck, I’m not kidding. That girl is my sister and I swear to God, if you don’t help me out here, I’m going to drag you out back and take this nice, shiny pool stick of yours and…” Peter grabs Mason’s arm. Everyone at the bar watches. Mason smooths out his white button-down and clears his throat.

  “You don’t gotta make a goddamn scene about it.” The man raises his arms to assure the witnesses that everything’s under control. “Follow me to my truck; we can talk there if you like.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. You can say whatever you have to say right here.”

  But the man leans in to Mason’s ear. His voice an octave deeper. His southern twang gone. His words no longer sound like those of a stupid hillbilly. “Not here. Shut up and just follow me.”

  They pass the bouncers and cross the parking lot to where dozens of freight trucks cool down in the light of a full moon. With the stranger ahead, Mason puts his hand on Peter’s chest to stop them as the man goes to walk through a long aisle of trucks alone in the dark. They both give each other that look that says Maybe this ain’t such a good idea. When the man hears them stop he turns to them. “I’m not up to anything sneaky. Do you want to know about your sister or not?” His steps echo between the eighteen-wheelers, giving the truckyard a haunted feeling.

  Mason’s spine is replaced with a rod of ice, sending slivers of frost to each one of his nerve endings. Every cell in his body tells him to turn around, but this is the closest he’s been so far to finding Rebekah. The thought that this man was the one responsible for beating Gabriel and taking Rebekah comes to him as a terrifying possibility. But he keeps his focus on the back of the man’s head to avoid letting the fear consume him. Peter’s electric wheelchair whirrs beside him when the man fuddles with his keys and uses them to poke around in a lock on the back of a truck labeled REDINDELLY’S PRODUCE with plates from Virginia.

  “You never saw this, you understand?” the stranger says, to which Mason nods. The door of th
e cargo trailer clatters as it rolls up, a strip of faint light coming from the opening. Peter has to sit as erect as he can to see inside, Mason poking his head so the light whips across his eyes. At the far wall are several screens with black-and-white pictures on them, too far away to make out from outside the truck. There are several men inside, including a skinhead with a large swastika tattooed on his arm who shaves with an electric razor and paces, while the others look at Mason and Peter with headphones on their heads. “It’ll be tough to bring him in too.” He points to Peter.

  “I’m fine out here,” Peter assures Mason.

  The bang of the door slamming behind Mason travels up his spinal cord.

  “What the hell is this?” asks the skinhead as he holds up a handheld mirror to examine his shaved head.

  “He’s looking for his sister,” says the man that Mason followed. “The name’s Joe.” With his back toward Mason and Joe, the skinhead uses his mirror to give the man a cold look. In the reflection, the light tinges his skin silver and blue; his eyes look like solid black marbles.

  “Well, I’ll be,” says the skinhead without turning around, tilting the mirror so he can see Mason. “If it isn’t the Virgin Mary’s big brother.”

  “Sorry?” Mason is as confused as ever.

  The skinhead smirks. “Yeah, I know all about you, Mister Hot-Shot Attorney.”

  “Do I know you?” Mason wishes he were still a little drunk, a current of red wheat to wash through his guts and flush with it the fear that makes his voice tremble. The skinhead turns his razor off and calls out to one of the others, “Sammy, you have the one for the chest?” A man near one of the computers at the back wall of the truck reaches in his drawer and pulls out a long piece of paper and walks over to the skinhead with a bottle of water. “Almost forgot this one.” Sammy grabs a rag off the floor and wets it, before lining the fake tattoo across the skinhead’s collarbones. He looks right at Mason. “We were just as shocked to hear about your sister as you.”

  “What are you guys, Feds?”

  “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Department of Justice,” says the stranger who brought Mason here.

  “So how do you know who I am?”

  “Mr. Paul, you wouldn’t pass us off as a few inbred pig-fucking rednecks who don’t know anything about the direct kinships associated with our targets, would you?”

  Mason can’t help a breath of half a laugh. “Rebekah? There’s no way she could have been a target for anything you guys are working on. She’s never so much as cussed her whole life, let alone…wait, what the hell are we talking about here? A skinhead operation?”

  The skinhead laughs. “Not quite.” Sammy peels off the paper to reveal wet, fake ink with symbols sporting pride of the Aryan race.

  “Somebody tell me what the hell is going on, or I swear I’m marching back into the bar and telling all your bigot friends that you’re an undercover pig, I swear to Christ. Where is Rebekah?”

  “Sadly, that had nothing to do with us,” answers the stranger who was trying to take her home. “No one knew anything was wrong until it was too late. That was when I found that kid Gabriel in the back.”

  “C’mon, tell me something that can help,” Mason pleads. “No offense, but someone like Rebekah just doesn’t chop and bleach their hair and wind up in a place like this.”

  “Ha!” the skinhead barks. “Virgin Mary was here every Sunday, like clockwork.”

  “Will you stop calling her that?” Mason shouts. “Just tell me why she’s on your radar.”

  The skinhead’s shoulders straighten. His jaw barely moves when he says the words. “Virgin Mary is one of the most proficient gunrunners in the God-fearing South.”

  It’s the kind of silence that people allow when facts can’t settle comfortably in thick air. Mason’s grin twitches with nerves. “Well, that’s a relief. You guys have the wrong girl.”

  “The daughter of Reverend Virgil Paul of the Third-Day Adventists, whose face is plastered on every news channel in Kentucky?” asks the stranger. “No, Mason. We don’t.”

  “OK, not sure if any of you guys have actually met Rebekah in person.” It pains Mason to say this. “But her intelligence quotient borderlines on mental retardation; I really don’t think she’s capable of something like gunrunning.”

  “How else you think your church is getting all those guns?” says the stranger.

  “What church?” Mason is more convinced that they’re talking about someone else.

  “When was the last time you went home?” Mason doesn’t answer. “Oh, I guess that twenty-acre property was still rolling hills and bluegrass when you were there last.” The stranger stuffs his hands in his pockets and keeps his voice low, eyes aimed at one of the screens across the space. “That was before Daddy the reverend had the church members build their own little commune there and seal themselves off from the rest of the world.”

  “You’re talking about a cult,” says Mason, not realizing the severity of it until the words are said out loud.

  “And they’re not getting their guns from Jesus.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Mason squeezes his head between the palms of his hands. “Guns for what?”

  The skinhead jumps to answer, but the stranger makes it a point to interrupt him. “We have our suspicions that your father’s leading some radical movement, maybe one that’s leaning toward something antigovernment.”

  “You’re talking domestic terrorism?” asks Mason, to which the stranger looks down and nods. He continues: “Why are you telling me this? How do you know I’m not a part of it?”

  “We’ve been watching you,” says the skinhead as he puts on his bomber jacket.

  “What you mean is that you have me bugged, don’t you?”

  “We know you’re not a part of any of it, that’s the main thing.”

  “I believe you when you say you only want to find your sister,” says the stranger. “And I really wish we knew more.”

  “Where were you guys when she went missing?” Mason paces with a knot of apprehension that forms between his shoulder blades.

  “We don’t have surveillance in the back alley,” answers the stranger. “Like I said, it was too late. She was already gone by the time we realized anything amiss was happening.”

  “Well, then who sells her guns?”

  “That’d be me and my boys,” says the skinhead. “It’s complicated, but we had a strong case against your father and his operations when she was buying from another undercover. Only now he’s in some private rehab for meth and so anything he claims is inadmissible. He was too messed up to even compile a simple profile on her. It all turned to shit.” He stomps and huffs to the back door of the truck. “We had to start from scratch last week. It was going to be my first meeting with her. But she disappeared before I could even meet her.”

  “Wouldn’t one of the other skinheads look good for her disappearance?”

  “You’d think so, but they were all accounted for. They were with me in the cellar where they manufacture the guns. Still building a case against them too, but I can tell you straight in the eye, they’re not the ones who took your sister and did that to the cook.”

  The stranger finishes, “We had this information relayed to the sheriff of Goshen when we realized she’d been missing. But you know small-town cops…”

  “What was his name?” Mason asks, although he already knows the answer.

  The skinhead and stranger both look to Sammy, who looks it up on his laptop and answers, “Don Mannix. Still waiting to hear back from him. The guy keeps ignoring us.”

  “I’m afraid that’s all we have about your sister.” The stranger spits the chewing tobacco into his can. “God, I really hate this Skoal shit.”

  “And no one has any idea what they’re going to do with these guns? I mean, are we talking a lot?”

  “Not sure.” The skinhead zips up his jacket and cracks his neck. “Could be aiming for a mosque, a synagogue. Perhaps s
omething as sinister as what we saw in Oklahoma City. We’re talking hundreds of firearms this year alone.”

  “You guys have to stop them,” Mason orders.

  “Legally, we can’t.” The stranger removes his hat and shakes his hair. “We’d have better luck getting inside Mother Teresa’s panties than we do getting into the Third-Day Adventists. Rebekah was really our only shot. They won’t even have anything to do with you, their own son, let alone us. They stopped recruiting last year, right when we caught wind of the guns.”

  Mason sighs with frustration. He slowly walks back toward the doors, only just remembering that outside, Peter waits. “Please, I beg you. Please let me know if you all hear anything?”

  For the first time, the stranger seems sincerely sympathetic. “Same for you. Listen, we know the kind of person Rebekah is; we don’t think anything in a court of law could even be held against her. But someone’s got the reins on her, and finding out who is all we’re really after.” He holds his hand out and shakes Mason’s before he leaves. Mason already knows they mean his father, Virgil.

  He jumps down to Peter as the skinhead slams the rolling door after him. He’s fast in his pace, Peter rolling the best he can to keep up toward the Bluegrass.

  “You find anything out?” Peter stutters.

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “On the way to where?”

  “To Goshen.” Mason stops to light a cigarette. “We’re going to visit the sheriff.”

  In Goshen, Officer James Mattley puts a quarter in the old jukebox at the end of the table and presses F11 to hear a staticky rendition of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” play throughout the roadside diner. If he hadn’t stopped for food, he’d have been useless. He plans on shoveling it down as fast as he can before continuing with his investigation. He blows into his third cup of black coffee, the tar-like substance left at the bottom of the pot, and pokes at his chocolate chess pie. “Homemade,” the waitress said. Only Mattley can taste the plastic from it sitting too long in the store-bought box, but he says nothing about it.