The Covenant Read Free Page A

the curious onlookers at bay. A chopper circled overhead—at first, I thought it was a news chopper, until I noticed the black-and-gold colors of the Fayette County sheriff’s department.
    The Mobile Command Center was a luxury motor home about eight blocks long. Officer Lorio led me across the street to it, where a granite-faced footman in paramilitary black uncoiled the tattooed pythons of his arms and opened the armored door. Seventy-degree air poured out, smelling of new carpets, expensive electronics, and English Leather. The uniformed rack of meat sitting behind the mahogany desk was Sheriff Roy Stegall.
    Roy Stegall had been elected despite his lack of law-enforcement experience, but in his own estimation that didn’t make him any less of a Law Man. Born in McNairy County, he fancied himself a modern-day Buford Pusser.
    â€œClose the door,” he said without looking up from his laptop. A flat-screen television on his desk played some cable news program with the sound muted. The bank of monitors on the wall behind him showed front, rear, and side views from the top of the MCC, as well as a live feed from the helicopter camera. A cell-phone earpiece hung like an apostrophe from the cauliflower pasted to the side of his enormous head.
    I sat in a leather chair while he finished pecking at his computer. Lorio stood at ease in the corner, fingers laced behind his back, his eyes nowhere. Finally, Stegall closed his laptop and pushed it to the side. “Sorry about that,” he said to Lorio. “Mickelson’s due in town this evening. You know how it is.” Senator Mickelson was Tennessee’s senior United States senator, but it wasn’t election season.
    â€œNow, about this witness,” Sheriff Stegall said. He picked a notepad from the jumble of papers on his desk. Lorio came to life like somebody had flipped his switch. He removed a pen and notepad from his pocket and waited. “What’s her name?”
    â€œJackie Lyons,” I said.
    Stegall looked at me as though he didn’t care for what he saw. “Address?”
    â€œDeertick Motel. Room 102.”
    â€œDeertick? Where’s that?”
    â€œHighway 70,” I said.
    â€œI think she means the Detrick Motel,” Lorio suggested.
    â€œThat’s the one,” I said.
    â€œNo permanent address then?”
    â€œTimes are hard,” I said.
    â€œAre you on food stamps, Mrs. Lyons?”
    â€œI don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
    â€œI was just wondering if my tax dollars were buying all your expensive toys.”
    â€œToys?”
    He flipped through a folder on his desk. I guess it was my dossier, because he read out of it. “Camera, laptop. Says here you had a cell phone but you lost it in the lake. You also have a car. Times don’t sound too hard if you have a car.” He closed the folder. “This country is getting sick of supporting moochers like you. One of these days the tit will run dry.”
    I shrugged against the cables of nervous tension tightening across my back. “I work out of my car. I sell my car and I can’t work, then I really will be on welfare.”
    â€œWhat about your cell phone?”
    â€œI don’t work if people can’t call me.”
    â€œAnd were you working today?”
    I told him how I was supposed to meet a preacher about a job. “Strange place to meet a preacher,” he chuckled. “Maybe it was a blow job. You’re not a hooker, are you, Mrs. Lyons?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Don’t worry, I won’t bust you.”
    â€œEspecially if I give comps, huh? I bet you got a nice bed in the back of this thing—tinted windows, soundproof walls, the whole shebang.”
    Instead of getting mad, he smiled and folded his hands on the desk. He was going to humor me now, feed me enough rope to hoist myself by my own petard. “So you’re here to meet a preacher