Chapter LII
CHAPTER LII
Deputies Wen, Schuler, and Negus were lined up in front of the barn. Facing them was a quartet of Dolfes, three men and one woman, with more almost certainly on the way because the Dolfes came in packs: one for all and all for one, like hillbilly musketeers. Unfortunately, right now this felt to Wen less like a scene from Dumas and more like the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He didn’t think the Dolfes would be foolish enough to use the weapons they carried, not without provocation—but with them, it didn’t take much incitement.
Yet the Dolfes were not ignorant. Hard, yes, and intolerant of outsiders, but their children all finished high school, and some even progressed to college. Wen had only once been up to the big house, which was still home to the patriarch, Donald Ray, and was surprised to find one room fitted out as a library, complete with a ladder on rails. Elsewhere, he’d spotted statuary, antique vases, and a plethora of Native American artifacts, while the walls were adorned not only with a gallery of Dolfes, living and dead, but also with more general subjects, including a smattering by Virginia artists whom Wen recognized, among them a dog study by Thomas Verner Moore White and a pair of landscapes by Horace Day.
But balanced against this perhaps unanticipated display of artistic appreciation was that family history of violence, proven or suspected. The three deputies were currently facing Donnie Ray’s eldest son, Roland, his daughter Clementine, or Clemmie, and two of his nephews, Joe Dunn and Andy, the latter more commonly known as “Stomper” after a fondness for using the heel of his boot in fights. The three men were armed with pistols. Clemmie carried a Winchester rifle. For the moment, the pistols remained holstered, and Clemmie’s rifle was slung on her shoulder. All four Dolfes were in their thirties, Roland and Clemmie being products of Donnie Ray’s second marriage, his first having ended childless after that wife, Missy, died in a stable fire that had left Donnie Ray with lifelong scars, physical and psychological.
“You’re trespassing, officers,” said Clemmie. “Unless you have a warrant, in which case you ought to have served it before entering our property.”
Although Clemmie was younger than Roland, the latter routinely deferred to her, as did the rest of the Dolfe family, Donnie Ray excepted, and even he paid attention when she spoke. Clemmie wasn’t married and had so far shown no urge to alter that status. If she was wedded to anything, it was to the family and their land.
“This isn’t your property,” said Wen.
“As good as,” said Roland.
“?‘Good as’ cuts no ice with the law,” said Negus.
Wen noticed that Negus had tucked his thumbs into his belt, his fingers forming a V around the bulge of his crotch. At least it would give Clemmie something to aim at.
“Stow it, Howie,” said Clemmie. “What you know about the law could be shat out on a square of toilet paper. Even your fucking uniform doesn’t fit right.”
Negus opened his mouth to respond, but couldn’t come up with anything better than “Fuck you too, Clemmie,” before adding, “And it does so fit.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” said Wen. “Whatever claim you have on this land hasn’t been signed off on, and now it’s a crime scene.”
“What kind of crime scene?” asked Stomper. His eyes were too big for his face, giving him the appearance of one constantly surprised by life, though Stomper would have been surprised by a word with more than two syllables. It was a miracle he hadn’t yet killed anyone, even if Wen was aware of one victim who’d been left mildly brain-damaged after one of Stomper’s assaults.
Schuler spoke for the first time.
“You know anything about what’s in that barn, Clemmie?”
“Not unless you tell me, or let me see for myself.”
Wen wasn’t about to let Clemmie Dolfe or anyone else from her clan take a look at what was in there, not unless he fancied a career handing out parking tickets in purgatory. But as before, he doubted that anyone in the Dolfe brood—even down to some of the extended family who didn’t function at the higher intellectual level of Clemmie or Donnie Ray—would be fool enough to kill a man in one place before taking him to another property next to their own, a property to which they were, additionally, laying claim. He decided to test the waters.
“Someone left a body in there,” he said.
Stomper’s eyes couldn’t have grown any larger than they already were, but Clemmie’s certainly did.
“Whose body?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Wen replied, “but just a few moments ago you were laying claim to this acreage, which presumably includes the barn as well. I think you and your kin are going to be answering some questions when the detectives arrive, because let me tell you, Clemmie, that boy in there went out screaming.”
Clemmie considered this.
“I have to make a call,” she said.
It wasn’t as though Wen could stop her, so he just shrugged.
Under similar circumstances, a lot of folk would have contacted their lawyer. Clemmie Dolfe called her father.