33

The next evening, I arrived at Jessamine’s an hour before the Bluegrass Mountain Cult was scheduled to begin. Ronnie was at the bar, drinking a beer with a woman I didn’t recognize, so I sat down at one of the tables and ordered a Coke.

Jessamine’s was the place to come for night life in Coulee County. By day, it was a meat and three style diner, but at night they cleared out most of the tables, opened the bar, and turned down the lights, converting it into one of the loudest—and most dangerous—honky-tonks I’d ever had the pleasure of visiting. It was still relatively early, so the place was mostly empty except for the band and a few other folks.

The waitress brought my Coke, and I looked at it, disappointed. Would a beer hurt? Probably not, but I didn’t want to risk it. Not with Rufus being gone. I needed to be alert. I needed to think. Unfortunately, at this moment, I wasn’t feeling up to either one. All I wanted to do was have half a dozen beers and enjoy a night of what I hoped would be good music.

I nursed the Coke as the band began to set up and people gradually filed in. I recognized a lot of them, from Jessamine herself—she sat over by the window with her husband—to Mindy, the secretary from the Harden School who sat at the bar alone. I was on my way to join her when the mood shifted almost imperceptibly in the bar. The place, nearly full now, went quiet. I looked to the door and saw Jeb Walsh coming in along with Sheriff Argent and Mayor Keith. They settled into a table in the corner, removing the large sign from the tabletop that said Reserved.

Argent was dressed in stiff, dark blue jeans and a short-sleeved button-down. He wore his badge attached to his belt and a holstered .22 on the other side of his waist. He looked around the room with a self-satisfied grin.

Walsh sat down across from Mayor Keith. They were dressed almost identically: tan slacks, golfing shirts, and brown loafers. Walsh nodded to Argent and pointed at the bar. Argent took their orders like he was a waiter instead of the sheriff.

I sat down next to Mindy and turned away from Argent. “Hello,” I said.

She looked a little confused, but then she recognized me and smiled. “Bob Jenkins, right?”

“That’s right.”

“You caused quite a stir the other day.”

“I did?”

“I overheard my uncle telling Mr. Harden about it. Said you were snooping around upstairs.”

I shrugged.

“Is it true?”

Before I could answer her, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Excuse me,” I said. I turned, expecting it to be Argent with some smart remark, but instead it was Ronnie.

He embraced me tightly, patting my back. “Thanks for coming, Earl.”

I hissed at him, trying to warn him Mindy was there and he was blowing our cover, but Ronnie didn’t catch on.

“I’m dedicating our first song to the one and only Earl Marcus,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” Mindy said. “Earl Marcus?”

I sighed and sat back down on the barstool. Ronnie said, “Oh. Shit. My bad.”

I held my hand out to Mindy. “Earl Marcus. Private investigator. Nice to meet you.”

*   *   *

After that, the night went well. Surprisingly so. At least for a while. The best part was that Argent and Walsh kept their distance. If they noticed me at the bar, neither showed any sign. Nearly as good was Mindy’s reaction to me being a detective: she was fascinated.

By the time the Bluegrass Mountain Cult played their first song—a raucous number with a call-and-respond chorus that sounded like you got yours, but I got tore up repeated over and over again—Mindy and I were deep into a conversation about the school.

She wanted to know what I was investigating. I told her about Weston Reynolds, being careful to leave out anything that might relate to Joe.

“I’ve been wondering about that too. Why the secret identity, though?”

“I’ve got a reputation around the county,” I said. “There are some powerful people who don’t like me.”

I had to resist the urge to turn toward Walsh’s table when I said it. Mindy nodded. “Right. Well, what can I do to help?”

“Have you seen or heard anything about the boy’s death?”

“Just rumors,” she said.

The Bluegrass Mountain Cult ended the song with a sudden crescendo of guitar, drums, and driving bass, and the bar erupted in applause.

“Thank you,” Ronnie said. He was sweating, and somehow he’d man- aged to get his Rolling Stones Steel Wheels T-shirt tangled up in his guitar strap, exposing his tattooed stomach. “That was for my buddy, Earl Marcus!” The crowd cheered. “Stand up, Earl!”

Mindy clapped and said, “Go on.”

Reluctantly, I stood. The crowd cheered again. Two things struck me then. One, Ronnie’s band was good. The place was eating them up. Two, I felt better than I had in a while. Not great. Probably not even good. But alive. I felt alive.

I was sitting back down as the band launched into their next number when I noticed Walsh out of the corner of my eye. He was laughing and pointing at me.

“Excuse me,” I said to Mindy.

As I walked across the crowded bar, I realized I was making a mistake. I realized how easy it would have been to ignore him, to pretend he wasn’t even there. I could have gone back to talking to Mindy, and I might even have found out something useful. But I couldn’t let it go. I hated Jeb Walsh. I hated him and what he was doing to this county. But that wasn’t why I was walking over to confront him. I was walking over to confront him because of my pride. Because I had to prove he didn’t frighten me, that try as he might, he would never intimidate me.

I had no idea if this was right or wrong, good or bad. I just knew it was what I had to do.

All three men saw me coming and began to smile. Walsh nudged Argent as if to say, can you believe he’s coming over?

On the way, I grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table and lifted it high into the air to clear the crowd. It felt good to see Jeb flinch a little as I brought it down to the floor. He recovered quickly—a real talent of his—and pointed at me.

“This asshole’s just going to join us, Press. Shouldn’t that be illegal?” Mayor Keith laughed nervously. Argent smiled as if he wasn’t sure how to take Walsh’s statement.

“Evening,” I said.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Mayor Keith said.

“Shut up,” Jeb said.

Keith bristled as if he was going to object to being disrespected but in the end said nothing.

“What do you want?” Walsh said.

“Just thought I’d say hi. Haven’t spoken to you assholes in a while.”

Walsh picked up his whiskey and threw it back. He placed the glass on the table, lightly, before turning to Argent. “Want to go get me another? The service in this place sucks.”

Argent hurried off for another drink.

“Now that the law is gone, I can say what I want to say.”

Mayor Keith stood up suddenly. “I have to go to the restroom.”

“Go already,” Walsh said.

Once he was gone and we were alone, Jeb slid his chair around until he was right next to me. The music was loud, but he spoke right into my ear, and I heard every word.

“You been sniffing around some stuff,” he said. “That’s going to get you killed.”

“Maybe so,” I allowed. “But I’m not going to stop.”

“Well, I wouldn’t expect nothing less of a man like you. How’s Mary?”

“Where’s Rufus?” I said, purposefully ignoring his question about Mary. He just wanted to bait me.

“Who?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

“You mean the old blind socialist?”

“Call him what you will. Where is he?”

“Hell if I know. Maybe you should report it to the sheriff.” He nodded at Argent, who was leaning against the bar, leering at Mindy.

“I’m going to win,” I said.

“I didn’t know we were playing a game.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed. “I heard the African Queen left you. I’ll bet a pale hand like yours ain’t no match for that tight little pussy.”

This is what he did. Every fucking time. I stood up, fists clenched, ready and willing to punch him.

But I never got the chance. The song ended, and with it, the tension that had been building inside me drained away. Mary didn’t need me to defend her. Not like this. The only way to defend Mary and all the women like her was to finally find a way to take Walsh down. Punching him would feel good, but it would only be for me.

So instead of punching him, I leaned forward and repeated what I’d said earlier. “I’m going to win.”

I didn’t wait for his reply. I walked out the door, into the night, and wondered how I’d ever win anything again without Mary, without Rufus, without the calming influence of whisky. Which is why I decided not to go back in. I knew if I did that I was going to get drunk, and if I got drunk, I might blow everything up.