The Backwoods by Edward Lee Page A

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.