17

The next day, I looked up Eleanor Walsh online and found her number. I wrote it down on a sheet of yellow lined paper and laid it out on the table while I was eating breakfast. Calling her shouldn’t have been a difficult proposition. Based on the records I’d seen on Blevins’s computer, she was the logical next step. I needed to find out why she’d been referred to Argent and what he’d told her.

Yet …

I shook my head and touched the paper with my right hand, sliding it away from me slowly. Part of me wanted to just let this all go. So far, I’d heard nothing about the young man I’d found in my yard. No one had come looking for him. No one seemed to even miss him. I’d checked headlines on my phone each night before going to bed, and I had yet to see anything. Wasn’t the hard part over now? His body was gone, his car hidden. Wouldn’t it be easier to just let it ride? Keep my nose out of whatever nonsense was brewing over there at that school?

The reality of the situation was clear to me. The more I pushed into the school and tried to connect it to the dead man in my yard, the greater chance I’d have of being implicated in the murder, or at least the cover-up of a murder. I’d been burned by Jeb Walsh before, and as much as I’d have liked to finally take him down, and as much as I’d have liked to help those boys (there was obviously something not right at the school), I felt compelled to consider the wisdom of just letting it go.

I picked up the notebook paper and balled it up, tossing it aside. I didn’t need this. Hell, I’d already put up my best fight against Walsh and Argent when I’d run for sheriff. I’d lost. Maybe it was time to admit that.

I pushed my bowl of cereal away and made some coffee. When it was finished, I poured a few fingers of whiskey into it and walked outside to the ridge.

The morning was still relatively cool, which for this time of year just meant you could walk outside without starting to sweat immediately. I sat down in one of the chairs, ready to stop thinking about the school, about Walsh, about anything except slowly getting drunk.

But I couldn’t. My mind—of its own accord—turned back to what Ronnie had shared with me in the truck. Something about Indians and a boy’s sister? I also thought about the weird kid who’d caught me on Blevins’s computer. Something had been off about him. Come to think of it, something was off about all the boys I’d encountered there. The ones in the grass out back, in the classroom, all of them. They didn’t seem like the kinds of boys you’d expect to be in a place like that.

I knew from experience that stereotyping criminals was a mistake. They came in all shapes and sizes, colors, and genders. But nearly all the ones I’d known carried the same angry chip on their shoulder that was hard to miss. Sometimes it manifested itself in the way they walked. Other times it was in the way they kept their heads down and would not meet your gaze. Most of the time, you could see it in their eyes. Eyes could never lie. The rest of the body was always capable of deceit, but the eyes were different. They always told the truth.

Finishing my coffee and whiskey, I pulled out my phone and called Mary. She didn’t answer. Probably too early out there for her. I stood up and walked to the ridge, peering down at the trailer that I noticed was looking a little better now. The woman had cleared away a lot of the kudzu that had been growing on it and gotten rid of some of the junk from the front yard. Her car was there, and I wondered what she was doing right now. Eating breakfast? Still asleep?

At just that moment, the door to her trailer swung open. She came out, dressed in a pair of cutoff blue jeans and a blue, tight-fitting T-shirt, cut low enough to reveal the tops of her freckled breasts. She was carrying a round red water cooler.

I watched as she walked to the road and started up it toward my place. Not wanting her to know I’d been watching her, I returned to my chair and sat down, picking up my empty coffee cup. I tried to look contemplative.

“Hey,” she said.

I feigned surprise. “Morning.”

“You said if I ever needed something to come on up. I don’t have a well yet. They’re supposed to come next week to dig it, so I was hoping I could fill this up?”

“Sure,” I said, standing up quickly. I smiled at her, trying not to look at her breasts, but damn, it wasn’t easy.

She grinned at me knowingly. “I’m Daphne, by the way.”

“Earl,” I said.

“I know. You told me the other night. You like to spend a lot of time on this ridge, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “When it’s nice out.”

“Well, I guess I better remember to keep my blinds closed when I’m prancing around naked, huh?”

I froze, not sure how to respond to that. She gave me an intense look, so hard to read but not hard to feel. There was something deeply sexual in her gaze.

“I haven’t ever …”

“I’m kidding, Earl. Lighten up. Besides, I’m not one of those feminist types or nothing. I like to be appreciated by a man.”

I’ll bet you do. I almost said it. But I managed to stop myself. That would have been the wrong thing to say. All of this felt wrong suddenly. In fact, I felt a little dirty just being in her presence, but I had to remind myself it wasn’t her fault I felt like that but my own.

“Well, let me get you the water,” I said, and reached for the cooler.

She pulled it away from me.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Earl Marcus?”

I swallowed hard, hesitating. Why was I hesitating?

“Yeah. Her name is Mary.”

“Where is she? I don’t see her?”

“She’s …” Shit. Did I really want to tell her Mary was across the country? But why lie? Why was I afraid to tell her the truth? Was I that fucking weak?

“She’s in Nevada for a while.”

Daphne nodded. She had green eyes that knew how to look at a man, how to gaze and pout and flash. Shit. She was trouble. No, I reminded myself. I was responsible for my own actions. I was the one who was trouble. Always had been. With Mary I’d managed to keep myself on the straight and narrow. But now she was gone. I was down. Way down.

“I think I’d better get that water for you,” I said.

“Sure thing, Earl,” she said, grinning the kind of grin that makes a man feel things he probably would be better off not feeling.

*   *   *

After Daphne left, I went to the trash and found Eleanor Walsh’s number. Sure, it would have been easy to let it go, but I was pretty sure I needed something to keep me moving, to keep my mind occupied. As much as I dreaded dealing with Jeb Walsh’s ex-wife, I’d never been too good at life without danger. The danger had a way of blotting out all the pain and doubt inside me, the stuff that broke me over and over and made me feel like a failure. I’d take my chances doing what I’d always done: trying to make a difference, even if it meant beating my fists against the door of an empty room.