"I didn't mean to kill her! She just fell to the ground. She was fuckin' dead!"
Bo Cantrell seemed utterly distraught. But he was also utterly drunk and heavily armed.
"Did you see William?" Frank asked.
"I saw them go outside, then he came back in for a beer but he puked, so some of his boys said they'd take him home. So I went out back."
"You killed her, Bo. You've got to answer for that."
"The hell I do! It was a fuckin' accident."
"It was rape. And murder. You're going to prison, Bo."
"Fuck you."
He aimed his dark eyes and the big gun at Frank.
"I didn't mean to kill her!"
He really didn't. Things got out of hand, is all. He was still raging on the 'roids from the game. He always injected a big dose a few hours before a game, still did, so he'd be mean, real mean. He knew mean. He lived mean from birth. He sucked the teat of mean. Life in the backwoods of Louisiana is mean. It's a mean place inhabited by mean men. His daddy prided himself on being the meanest son of a bitch in Beauregard Parish and he sure as hell was, at least to his boys, drinking home brew and beating the hell out of Bo and his younger brothers damn near every day, to make them tougher, he said, otherwise they wouldn't amount to a hill of fucking beans and would end up in the state penitentiary just as he had on several occasions. So by the time Bo Cantrell left the swamps, he was damn mean.
But the 'roids took him to a new and exciting level of mean. Out of fucking body mean. Mean that took full control of his body. Mean that made him one of the best linebackers in the country. He played with a mean rage. On a football field, that was a real good thing; off the field, it often resulted in run-ins with the law. People think you can just flip a switch—"mean" to "not mean"—but it doesn't work that way. It's not on/off. It's more like one of those dimmer switches. It takes time for the mean to retreat. And the mean had made no retreat that night when he saw Dee Dee the stuck-up whore coming on to the UT players like a bitch in heat. The mean took control of his mind and body in that bar.
It was the mean that punched Dee Dee in the face. It was the mean that forced itself on her. It was the mean that choked her. When Bo had seen what the mean had done to her, he ran two blocks away and threw up. He went back to his hotel and cleaned up, sure the cops would bang on his door any moment. But they didn't. They never came. A week passed, then a month, then a year. No cops. No arrest. No prison. They said her murder was a cold case.
Bo was home free. And he meant to stay free. He couldn't give it all up now. He wouldn't give it up. The house, the vehicles, the stuff—he had amounted to something, sure as hell. He was a hero back in Beauregard Parish. How could he go home a murderer? How could he face the hometown folks and his drunk father? Course, he wouldn't go home. He would go to prison. How could he do that? How could he prove his daddy right after all these years? What if they gave him the death penalty? How could he let his drunk son of a bitch daddy sit on the other side of the glass when they stuck that needle in Bo and see him laugh and say, "I told you, boy, ain't never gonna amount to a hill of fuckin' beans."
He could not.
There was only one thing to do.
"Do it!" Frank said. "Go ahead, Bo, kill us. But it won't be an accident like Dee Dee. Now you'll just be a killer. A mean son of a bitch. Like your daddy."
Bo's face was clenched and red, his finger tight on the trigger … Frank waited for the gun to discharge and a bullet to slam into his chest … Bo's hand trembled, then shook as if the gun were too heavy to hold … and he took a step toward Frank.
"I'm not mean! I'm not like my daddy!"
Bo Cantrell swung the gun up, put the barrel to his own head, and pulled the trigger. He collapsed to the floor. They jumped up from the couch.
"Shit!" Chuck screamed. Then he smiled. "Hey, we didn't die."
He turned to Dwayne.
"Chest bump."
"I don't think so."
Dwayne stepped to Bo's body on the floor. One side of his head was gone, and blood oozed onto the carpet. Dwayne kicked the gun away just in case dead men could shoot.
"Three-fifty-seven Magnum," he said. "Makes a mess."
Chico stood over the body and made the sign of the cross.
"For him?" Chuck said.
"He was still a child of God."
"A mean, crazy, raping and killing child of God."
"True. And his soul will burn for eternity in hell for his sins."
"That sucks. Least we're still alive."
The four men stood over the body of Bo Cantrell, another victim in this tragedy called life.
"He confessed," Dwayne said.
"But he can't testify," Frank said.
"We can."
"Our testimony won't save William," Frank said. "I'm his father and you're my friends."
Chico held up William's cell phone. "This'll save him."
"His phone?" Frank said.
"I videotaped his confession."
"You can videotape on a cell phone?" Frank said.
"Man, you've got to get off that beach more."
Chico played the video. He had caught it all. Frank checked his watch.
"It's seven. He pleads at nine. How can we get that confession to the court?"
"Starbucks," Chico said.
"We got no time for frappuccinos."
"They got wireless. I can email this video to Billie Jean. She can take it to court, show the judge. Case closed."
Chuck grunted. "Not bad for four drunks."