Hoss’s boots smelled like he had worn them ankle-deep in fish guts. Considering the dried scales stuck to the soles, Jeffrey guessed that was exactly what he had been doing in them. Steel-toed with leather uppers, they were hot as hell and heavy as lead. Jeffrey did not even have to look at them to hate them. If he could have gotten away with not wearing anything, he would have gladly gone barefoot.
Growing up, Jeffrey had always been forced to wear hand-me-downs or used shoes and clothing bought cheap from the Baptist church’s quarterly yard sale. He hated wearing other people’s stuff, and when he was old enough, most of his shoplifting was done at the Belk’s in Opelika. Sometimes when the shoe department got busy, the clerks were not able to keep up with who got what, and Jeffrey’s first pair of new shoes that actually fit had been part of his most brazen shoplifting stunt ever: he had walked out of the shoe department bold as God, a pair of gleaming new fifteen-dollar black loafers hugging his feet, the soles so new he nearly slipped on the polished marble floor. His heart had been beating like a snare drum the whole time, but showing up at school the next day looking and feeling like a million bucks had made it all worthwhile.
In Hoss’s shoes, Jeffrey felt like he was wearing two blocks of cement. Loose blocks, since they were a size and a half too big. There was already a blister working on his heel, and the arch of his foot felt like it had a piece of grit stuck in it, probably something from a fish.
Reggie drove the car through town just as slowly as before, managing an irritating crawl as they got stuck behind a tractor for what seemed like a hundred miles. He kept his scanner turned down low as he listened to country music on the radio, one hand on the wheel, one hand on the center console, lightly tapping along with Hank Williams.
Jeffrey chanced a look at the other man as they headed up Herd’s Gap toward Jessie’s mother’s house. Reggie Ray was of average height, but he was a little on the scrawny side. He could not have been more than twenty-five or -six, but his dirty brown hair was already receding at the temples. A spot in the back looked a little fluffier than it should have been, and Jeffrey guessed he was combing over to hide a thinning area. Reggie would probably be bald by the time he reached his mid-thirties.
Jeffrey ran his hand through his own hair, thinking the only good thing his father had ever given him was a full head of hair. Even at close to sixty, Jimmy Tolliver still had the same thick, wavy hair he’d sported in high school. He still kept it in the same style that was popular at the time: a slicked-back variation of a pompadour. In his prison stripes, he looked like an extra from an Elvis movie.
Reggie said, “What’s so funny?”
Jeffrey realized he had been smiling at the memory of his old man, but he was not about to share that with Reggie, especially considering the mark Jimmy had left on the Ray family.
He said, “Nothing.”
“Those boots smell like shit,” Reggie said, rolling down the window. Hot air sucked into the cab like a furnace. “What happened to your shoes?”
“I left them with Sara,” he said, offering no further explanation.
“She seems like a real nice woman.”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey said. Then, to beat him to the punch, he added, “Don’t know what the hell she’s doing with me.”
“Amen,” Reggie agreed. He tilted his hat back as they crested a hill. In the distance, Jeffrey could see people standing out on the golf course at the Sylacauga Country Club. Jeffrey had caddied a few times for some of the players, but he had quickly grown irritated by the condescending way the rich men treated him. Besides that, he had never understood the lure of golf. If he was going to spend a few hours outside, Jeffrey would rather be running and using his muscles for something other than chasing a little white ball around in a tiny clown car.
Reggie cleared his throat, and Jeffrey could tell it took something out of him to ask, “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why’s Robert wanna talk to you?”
Jeffrey was honest but only because he knew Reggie would not believe the truth. “I don’t know.”
“Right,” Reggie said, skeptical. “Why’d Hoss want me to drive you out instead of him?”
That was a good question, one Jeffrey had not considered when Hoss had volunteered to help Sara back at the cave. That was more the type of scut work Hoss usually gave to his deputies. Hoss would normally be more likely to drive out to see Robert with Jeffrey than trek through the forest looking for Sara. Maybe he thought he would be able to distract her somehow. Jeffrey wished him luck, but he knew Hoss was bound to fail.
“Slick?” Reggie prompted.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Jeffrey told him, knowing even as he said it that Reggie would now call him Slick until the day he died. “Hoss went back to find Sara.”
“She lost?”
“No.” Jeffrey did not debate long on whether or not to tell Reggie what was going on. The deputy would find out soon enough. “She found something. We found something. There’s this cave near the quarry—”
“The one with the boards over it,” Reggie said. He must have noticed Jeffrey’s surprised look, because he added, “Paula told me about it.”
“How’d she find out?” Jeffrey asked, knowing he had never taken Reggie’s sister to the cave. It was an unwritten rule between him, Robert, and Possum that no girls were allowed. Except for that one time, he knew that they had all kept to it.
Reggie shrugged, not giving an answer. “What’d you find?”
“Bones,” Jeffrey said, trying to gauge the other man’s reaction. “A skeleton.”
“Well.” His jaw relaxed, and he glanced over at Jeffrey. “This ain’t your week, is it, Slick?” He gave a raspy chuckle that turned into a full-on laugh. “Oh, me,” he managed through laughter. He even slapped his thigh.
“That’s real professional of you, Reggie,” Jeffrey said, relief washing over him as they turned onto Elton Drive. Jessie’s mother was out in the yard watering some flowering plants. Behind her was a two-story white house with large columns holding up a second-story balcony. Jasper Clemmons was probably retired by now, but he had worked in senior management at the local mill and his home reflected his position. The first time Jeffrey had seen the place, he had been reminded of something out of Gone With the Wind. Now he thought it looked more like a low-rent Tara. The place had been kept up, but to Jeffrey’s more seasoned eye, he understood that the house was trying too hard. Considering Jessie’s family, it was a perfect fit.
Faith Clemmons had never liked Jeffrey. Despite popular opinion, Jeffrey had not dated every woman in town, and Faith seemed to take it personally that Jeffrey had passed on her daughter. There was no denying Jessie had been gorgeous—hell, even now she was still a beautiful woman—but there was something about her that was too desperate for Jeffrey’s liking. He did not like clingy women, and even as a teenager, he had recognized Jessie for what she was: a bottomless pit of need.
At first, Jeffrey had been worried when Jessie set her sights on Robert, but now he knew that they were a perfect couple—if you could call two people who needed each other more than they loved each other a perfect couple. Robert liked rescuing people. He liked being the good guy and feeling like he was doing the right thing. Jessie, a constant damsel in distress, was the perfect excuse for him to get on his white horse and come to the rescue. Some men liked that kind of thing, but the thought of it made Jeffrey feel like he had a noose around his neck.
“Hey, Faith.”
“Jeffrey,” she said, spraying water on the plant bed between them. “Robert’s inside.”
“Thanks,” he answered, but she had already turned her back to him.
Reggie gave a tight grin, murmuring, “Another one of your fans.”
Jeffrey ignored him as they walked to the house. The blister on his heel was starting to throb, but Jeffrey would be damned if he limped around Reggie.
To take his mind off the pain, Jeffrey thought about Sara back at the cave. Hoss had probably shown up by now. What was he telling her? What story was he weaving to try to protect Jeffrey? Sara would get sick of this, he knew. She wasn’t the type of woman who put up with being lied to, and last night’s business had nearly chased her away forever. Soon, she would probably start to realize that there was some truth to what everyone was saying. The part that hurt most was that it was Jeffrey’s own damn fault. Bringing her here had been like swallowing a live grenade. Jeffrey was just waiting for it to explode.
Through the screen door, Jeffrey could see the long hallway that ran to the back of the house. The place had been built back when mansions were the real thing: something for the elite to own and not just big empty boxes that echoed when you walked into them. Jeffrey had only been to Jessie’s house a handful of times, but he remembered there was a formal parlor as well as a sitting room, on either side of the front hall, with a dining room, kitchen, and huge family room at the back. He raised his hand to knock on the door just as Jessie came out of the kitchen. She had a glass in her hand and he guessed from the color of the liquid and the clinking ice as she walked that she was drinking straight scotch.
Reggie noticed, too. He made a show of looking at his watch. “Barely past noon.”
Jeffrey started to make an excuse for her, but stopped himself at the last minute.
“Hey, boys,” Jessie said. She was a good drunk in that she never slurred her words or turned sloppy. As a matter of fact, drinking did nothing but sharpen her edges. Underneath Jessie’s flawless skin and perfect figure was a bitter woman who saw only the bad in things. Alcohol brought the acid to the surface.
Jeffrey asked, “Is Robert here?”
“Not like we could go home,” Jessie said, pushing open the door. She stepped to the side but still blocked the doorway enough so that Jeffrey had to brush past her to get into the house. Reggie was denied the same treatment. She cut him off at the door, saying, “Y’all can wait in the parlor. I’ll go get Robert.”
Jeffrey watched her go. She was teetering on heels so high that it did not seem possible she could walk in them. How she managed to accomplish the balancing act three sheets to the wind was beyond the laws of science.
Reggie cleared his throat. He had his arms crossed over his chest like a disapproving schoolmaster. Of course he had taken Jeffrey’s appraisal of Jessie the wrong way. “She’s your best friend’s wife.”
Jeffrey ignored him as he walked into the front parlor. Like the rest of the house, nothing had changed much here. Two long couches covered in burgundy-and-white-striped silk faced each other, a spindly coffee table between them. Wingback chairs framed a large picture window at the front of the room, facing a massive fireplace you could roast a small man in. All of the furniture looked delicate enough to fall over with a sneeze, but Jeffrey knew better. He sank into one of the couches to wait for Robert while Reggie stood at the door with the same snide look on his face.
Jeffrey stared at the white carpet, which looked like it had been vacuumed to within an inch of its life. He could see his footprints making a pattern toward the couch, and wondered if the odor in the air was from the dead fish on Hoss’s boots or the bowl of potpourri on the coffee table. He thought again of Sara and what she was doing now. He wanted to be with her, to try to control what she was thinking, to make her believe he wasn’t a monster. If only it was within his power, he would snap his fingers and they would magically be somewhere, anywhere, other than here.
Reggie asked, “You got a thing with the mother, too?”
“What?” Jeffrey realized his gaze had ventured out the window to where Faith Clemmons was watering her azaleas. “Jesus Christ, Reggie. Lay off it, okay?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Or what?”
Footsteps slowly padded down the stairs, and Jeffrey felt all the steam go out of him as Robert entered the room. He had looked bad this morning, but now he looked as if he had been hit by a truck. His shoulders were stooped and he kept one hand to his side, much the same way he had the night before.
Jeffrey stood, not knowing what to say. He settled on “Why don’t you sit down?”
“I’m okay,” Robert said. “Reggie, can you give us a minute?”
“Sure,” Reggie answered, his tone slightly guarded. Still, he tipped his hat before leaving the room.
Robert waited until the screen door had shut before he spoke. “You found her body in the cave.”
Jeffrey was stunned by Robert’s certainty. He had not asked a question; rather, he had made a statement. Her body had been found.
“Hoss called me,” Robert said, carefully sinking into one of the wingback chairs. “He thinks it might be some bum or something—fell and hit his head. You know it’s Julia Kendall.”
The name brought a heaviness to the room. Jeffrey felt sweat break out on his brow despite the air conditioning. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the necklace with the heart-shaped charm. “I found this by the bench seat.”
Robert reached out for the necklace and Jeffrey gave it to him. Using the nail on his thumb, Robert pried the locket open and looked at the photographs. “Jesus. Julia.”
Jeffrey looked out the window to where Faith had turned off the hose and was talking to Reggie. They were probably having a good time comparing notes on what an asshole Jeffrey was. Reggie might even be telling her about Julia. News would be around town before Jeffrey even had a chance to tell Sara. She would get the story from somebody else, somebody who would get it all wrong. He slumped back into the couch, thinking he could not take it if she looked at him again the same way she had last night.
Robert asked, “What did you tell Sara?”
“Nothing,” Jeffrey said, feeling remorse wash over him. That would have been the time to tell her, in the cave. He wasn’t sure if she had seen him find the necklace and put it into his pocket. He should have said something right then and there instead of acting like he was guilty of something.
Jeffrey said, “I hid the necklace from her.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve got enough people in town telling her I’m some kind of animal without proving it.”
“What does this prove?” Robert asked, handing the necklace back to Jeffrey. No one wanted to keep the damn thing, and Jeffrey was irritated that it kept coming back to him.
Jeffrey said, “It’s going to stir up all that shit all over again. Jesus, I hate this fucking place.”
Robert stared at his hands. “Everyone said she just ran away.”
“I know.”
They were both quiet, each of them probably thinking the same thing. For Jeffrey’s part, he had a sick feeling in his gut like his life was about to turn upside down and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Robert said, “You know what they do to cops in jail?”
Jeffrey felt his throat close. “We’re not going to jail,” he managed. “Even if they found something…some way to connect us to this…it was such a long time ago—”
“No,” Robert said. “I’m asking you. I have no idea except what I’ve seen on television, and that’s enough to make your blood turn. What do they do to cops in jail?”
“Robert—”
“I’m serious, Jeffrey. What do they do to them? What should I expect?”
Jeffrey looked at his friend maybe for the first time since the other man had entered the room. Except for a few lines around his eyes, Robert looked the same way he had in high school. He was still fit and a little lanky, but the way he slouched into the chair and bounced the heel of his shoe up and down was new. On the football field, Jeffrey had known every thought going through the other man’s mind, but now he had no idea what Robert was thinking.
Jeffrey finally asked, “What are you trying to say, Bobby?”
“I’m not trying, I’m telling. I shot Luke. I shot him in cold blood.”
Jeffrey was sure he had heard wrong.
“He was having an affair with Jessie.”
Shock stopped Jeffrey for another moment. “What are you—”
Robert’s tone was matter-of-fact, like he was talking about killing ants in his garden instead the death of another human being. “I went to the store to pick up some things, then I came home and found them together. He was…shit, I guess you know what he was doing with her.”
It was too much; Jeffrey couldn’t handle anything else today. “Robert, why are you saying this? It’s not true.”
“I got out my gun and shot him.” He shook his head. “Not like that. I saw them first, then I went back to get my gun. I came back into the room and Jessie screamed. I asked them what the hell they were doing. He tried to make excuses and I just pulled the trigger.”
Jeffrey stood up. “Don’t say anything else to me.”
“His head…it just exploded.”
“Robert, shut the fuck up. You need a lawyer.”
“I don’t need a lawyer,” he said. “I need something to wipe this out of my mind. I need something that’ll help me forget what it was like seeing his head just—”
“Robert,” Jeffrey interrupted, making his voice firm. “You don’t need to tell me this.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do. I’m confessing. There wasn’t a break-in. The second piece is my backup. I used it to shoot myself. Sara knows, she saw where I held the gun. Jesus, that was stupid, but I did it. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t have a lot of time. The lights were already turning on next door. You get called out on these things as a cop and you think, ‘Christ, what a fucking idiot,’ but the truth is when it happens to you, you don’t have time to think. Maybe it’s shock or fear or some kind of stupid thing that just kicks in, but you make mistakes. You don’t want to get caught, but you can’t think how not to.” He indicated the chair. “Sit down, Jeffrey. You’re making me nervous.”
Jeffrey sat. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s not right,” he answered. “I talked to Hoss this morning, gave him my statement just like I told you last night. It’s like back when we were in school. Any old story we reel out, he bites.”
“He doesn’t know any of this?”
“No, I wanted to tell you first. I owed you that much.”
“Robert,” Jeffrey said, thinking the man had done him no great favor. Despite the sense it made, Jeffrey could not believe the story. He had grown up with this man, spent countless hours listening to records with him, talking about girls, planning the cars they were going to buy when they turned sixteen.
Robert said, “I’ve got to take responsibility for my actions. That man is dead because of me, because I couldn’t control myself—all my anger and hatred and…everything. It just came up to the surface and the next thing I knew, he was dead on the floor.” He started to tear up. “I killed him. He’s dead. He was screwing my wife and I killed him.”
Jeffrey pressed his fingers into his temples, not knowing what to say.
“Did you know Jessie had a miscarriage a few months ago?”
Jeffrey tried to talk past the lump in his throat. “No.”
“Would’ve been a boy. How do you like that? It’s the one thing that would have finally made her happy, and God just wouldn’t let it happen.”
Jeffrey doubted seriously anything could make Jessie happy, but he still said, “I’m sorry.”
“It was my fault,” Robert said. “Something about me…I don’t know, Slick. Something about me never works for her. I’m just poison.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m not a good man. I’m not a good husband.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I’ve never been a good husband. People stray for all kinds of reasons, I guess, but in the end…” He looked up. “I haven’t been much of a friend to you.”
“That’s not true,” Jeffrey repeated.
Robert just stared at Jeffrey, a kind of despair on his face. He slumped back farther in the chair as if he did not have the strength to sit up. He kept staring at Jeffrey, his eyes moving back and forth like he was reading a book.
“It was me,” Robert finally said. “It was all me. I killed Swan and I killed Julia, too.”
Jeffrey felt like all the breath had been sucked from his lungs.
“All that other stuff—I did that, too.
“No, you didn’t,” Jeffrey insisted. What the hell was he talking about? There was no way Robert had killed anybody.
“I used a rock to hit her in the head,” Robert told him. “It was pretty quick.”
“You didn’t do that,” Jeffrey said, either anger or fear making his voice waver. This was just too much. “Everyone thought she ran away. You said it yourself less than five minutes ago.”
“I lied,” he countered. “I’m telling you the truth now. I threw the rock in the abandoned quarry. You’ll never be able to find it, but my confession should be good enough.”
“Why are you saying this?”
He stood up, wincing from the pain in his side. “Go get Reggie.”
“I won’t. Not until you tell me why you’re lying.”
Robert knocked on the window and motioned Reggie inside. “I want Reg to take me in.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s better this way, Slick. Simpler. Now we’ve got everything tied up all neat. It’s finally over and done with.” Robert wiped his eyes. “Look at me crying like a girl.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Reggie sees me like this he’ll think I’m some kind of pansy.”
“Fuck Reggie,” Jeffrey said, just as the deputy walked in. Reggie’s eyebrow shot up, but for once, he kept his mouth shut.
Robert held out his hands to the deputy. “You need to cuff me.”
Reggie looked back and forth between the two men. “This some kind of stupid joke?”
“I killed Luke Swan last night,” Robert said, putting his hand in his front pocket. For some reason, Jeffrey’s first thought was that he was going to pull out some type of weapon. Instead, Robert showed them a spent bullet.
Reggie examined the casing. “Federal,” he noticed, just like the bullets Robert had in his Glock.
Robert told him, “It was just sticking out from his head.” He put his index finger to the area beneath his ear. “Just the tip of it, right here. You wouldn’t think a bullet would be like that, just peeking out like someone put it there, but it slid right out. I didn’t even have to pull much.”
Reggie still wouldn’t buy it. He handed the bullet back to Robert, but Robert wouldn’t take it. “Y’all are shitting me, right?” He snorted a laugh. “This one of your practical jokes, Bubba? You trying to get me in trouble with Hoss again?”
“Stop dicking around, boy,” Robert demanded, his tone harder than Jeffrey had ever heard it. Robert was Reggie’s superior, and he was giving him an order when he said, “Cuff me and read me my rights. Do it by the book.”
Jessie came in, her drink topped off to the rim. “Y’all want something to…” Her voice trailed off as for once she noticed that she was not the center of some drama. Her eyes locked onto Robert’s, and in the split second before she managed to control herself, she looked terrified. She recovered quickly, but still put her hand to the doorjamb like she needed something to keep her from falling over. “What did you tell them?”
Robert’s eyes watered again, and his voice was full of regret as he said, “The truth, baby. I told them the truth.” Again, he held out his hands to Reggie. “Luke Swan was having an affair with my wife. I came home and found them together, and I shot him.” He shook his hands. “Come on, Reggie. Get it over with.”
Jessie murmured, “Oh, Jesus.”
Robert said, “Cuff me.”
Reggie put his hand to the back of his belt, but he did not get his handcuffs. “I’m not cuffing you,” he said. “I’ll take you to the station to talk to Hoss, but no way I’m putting handcuffs on you.”
“Reggie, I’m ordering you.”
“No fucking way,” Reggie said. “Not that I wouldn’t love to see you riding in the back of my car, but I ain’t gonna have Hoss come down on me for something you did.” He added, “Not this time, anyway.”
“You need to do this by the book,” Robert told him.
Reggie would not relent. “I’ll go crank up the car, let it cool down a little. You come out when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now,” Robert said. When Jeffrey moved to follow them, he held up his hand. “No, Jeffrey. Let me do this alone.”
Jessie was still in the doorway, and Robert had to pass his wife to leave. Jeffrey watched as Robert kissed her cheek, saw the way Jessie flinched away from his touch, try as she might to pretend she wasn’t. Jeffrey wanted to grab her and shake her, to throw her to the ground and throttle the life out of her, for treating Robert this way. There was no way he had killed a man. Jeffrey did not buy it. Something was not right here.
Still, when Robert asked Jeffrey, “Look after Jess for me, will you?” Jeffrey nodded.
He told Robert, “I’ll be up at the station later.”
“Jess,” Robert said. “Give him the keys to my truck.” He managed a sad smile. “I don’t guess I’ll be needing it for a while.”
“Don’t say anything to them, not even Hoss,” Jeffrey coached. “We need to find you a lawyer.”
Robert left the room without responding. Seconds later, the screen door popped shut.
“Well,” Jessie said, then took a long drink. The glass had been nearly full when she started and she had left little more than the ice cubes. Jeffrey watched her throat work as she drank it all down, wondering how she could appear to be so calm with her husband on the way to being charged with murder.
Jessie sucked an ice cube into her mouth before dropping it back into the glass. “This must be the best day of that old hick’s life.” She waited for Jeffrey to say something, but he did not oblige. “Reggie’s been waiting like a hawk lo these many years, looking for the day Robert stumbled. I’m sure he’s planning on swooping in tomorrow and getting that promotion that has so long eluded him.”
“Doesn’t sound like Robert’s the one who stumbled to me,” Jeffrey told her, letting all the bile he felt rise out in his tone. This was her fault. She had brought this down on Robert. She had brought this down on all of them.
“Oh, that’s just perfect, Slick. So damn typical. He shoots and kills a man and somehow you manage to paint me in the black.”
“Why’d you cheat on him?” Jeffrey demanded. “Why?”
She shrugged like it was a casual thing. There was something nervous about her, almost twitchy.
“He was good to you.”
“Now, don’t go getting on your high horse, Jeffrey Tolliver. You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”
“I never cheated on anybody,” he said, disgusted by the knowing look she gave him. Jeffrey might have done his share of fucking around, but he made certain the women he was involved with knew exactly what they were—or were not—getting into.
He said, “When I make a promise to someone, I keep it. I sure as shit wouldn’t run around on my wife.”
“Easy to say now,” Jessie said, sucking the liquor off another ice cube. She smacked her lips. “You’re the worst kind of cheat because you think you’re too good to let it happen.”
“Don’t you even care that he’s going to jail? This is a death-penalty state, Jessie. He could end up getting a needle in his arm.”
She looked down at her glass, swirling the ice around.
“How’d it start?” Jeffrey demanded. “Were you buying drugs from him?”
“Drugs?” She looked startled. “Robert?”
“Luke Swan,” he said. “He was using. Is that how it went down?” He grabbed her arm, looking for needle marks. “You two shot up together and it went from there?”
“You’re hurting me.”
He pushed up her sleeve, checked the crease of her elbow and under her arm.
“Stop it!”
He checked her other arm, spilling ice onto the floor. “What made you do it, Jessie? What?”
“Goddammit, Slick,” she screamed, pushing him away. “Where the hell do you get off?”
“I don’t have time for this,” Jeffrey said, thinking if he did not get away from Jessie right now he’d really hurt her. With Sara last night, the thought repulsed him, but now he wanted nothing more than to smack some sense into Jessie.
He said, “Give me Robert’s keys.”
She held his gaze for a second longer, then said, “They’re in my purse in the kitchen.” She waited a beat, like she wanted to make sure he knew she was making a choice. “I’ll go get them.”
Jeffrey paced in the doorway as he waited for her. He was sick of this crap. It was one thing for Reggie to break his balls, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to take it from Robert’s cheating wife.
“Here go,” Jessie said, coming back from the kitchen with a full drink in one hand and the keys in the other.
“You’re some piece of work,” he said, holding out his hand for the keys.
She gave him a strange look that he could not quite read. “I should have married you.”
“I don’t recall asking.”
She laughed like what he had said was the funniest thing she’d heard all day. “You watch, Slick.”
“Watch what?”
“That Sara of yours sure seems to have you tied around her little finger.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“Why, because she’s better than me?”
It was true, but Jeffrey didn’t want to get into it. He had learned the hard way that you could not reason with a drunk. “Give me the damn keys.”
“You’re gonna marry her, and then you’re gonna fuck around on her.”
“Jessie, I’m only going to tell you one more time.”
“There’s gonna come a day when you realize you’re not the center of her world anymore, and then you’re gonna run out sniffing around for something new. Mark my word.”
Jeffrey kept his hand out, forcing himself not to speak.
She held the keys over the palm of his hand and dropped them as she said, “Come see me in a couple of years.”
“I’d rather watch my dick rot off.”
She smiled, holding up her glass in a toast. “Until then.”
Robert’s truck was the same piece-of-shit ’68 Chevy he had been driving since high school. The gears were temperamental, and the whole truck groaned each time Jeffrey tried to shift. There had to be some art to making the truck move, but that knowledge was lost on Jeffrey. At each stop sign, he lurched like a sixteen-year-old kid just learning to drive, the engine cutting out more often than not as he tried to get the damn thing into first.
Once he drove out of Herd’s Gap, he did not know where to go. Sara was probably at the funeral home going over the bones. Hoss was at the station booking Robert. Jeffrey could go home, but his mother would be there for lunch and the last thing he needed was to watch his mother fortifying herself with cheap vodka before she started her second shift at the hospital. Dealing with one alcoholic a day was enough. He was heading toward Nell’s, thinking she’d probably already know about Robert’s arrest by now, when he remembered Possum.
That was the way it had always been with Possum: he was an afterthought. Unlike Robert, who was on the football team with Jeffrey and could carry his own socially, Possum was a third wheel, someone who tagged along as a buffer between his two ultracompetitive friends. He laughed at their jokes and kept score between them. Not that Possum was completely altruistic. Sometimes he got lucky and managed to snag some of Jeffrey’s and Robert’s castoffs.
Nell was definitely one of Jeffrey’s castoffs, and one he had been glad to get rid of. Even as a teenager, she had known exactly what she wanted and was not afraid to speak her mind. That her mind was usually focused on what she saw as Jeffrey’s many faults was the biggest problem he had with her. She was very outspoken and could be down-right nasty when it came to giving her opinion on his latest transgressions. If not for the fact that she was one of the few respectable girls in school who still put out, he would have dropped her after their first date.
Jeffrey would be the first to admit that he liked a challenge, but Nell was the sort of person you could never win with. In the end, he had to admit that Possum was a better fit for her—he didn’t mind being told what to do and gladly accepted any sort of criticism at face value—though Jeffrey had been surprised to learn the month after he left for Auburn University that they had gotten married. It made him wonder what had been going on behind his back. Nine months later, he realized exactly what had been going on. If he let himself think about it, it still stuck in his craw, but in all fairness, he had told Nell they should date other people when he moved away. The problem was, he had imagined her pining away for him, not jumping into the sack with his best friend.
Jeffrey forced the truck into second as he turned into the parking lot of Possum’s store. The place was still run-down and depressing, with faded Auburn flags banking either side of the door. Signs in the windows advertised cold beer and live bait; two things essential to any small-town country store.
The bell over the door clanked loudly as Jeffrey entered the building. Wooden floors that had been installed back during the Depression squeaked underfoot, dirt from sixty years of wing tips and work boots and now sneakers filling the grooves.
Jeffrey walked straight to the back and pulled out a six-pack of Bud from the walk-in cooler. Before the door closed, he pulled out a second six-pack and walked to the front of the store.
“Hello?” Jeffrey called, putting the beer on the front counter. The cash register was the older kind that didn’t take much to get into, and there was a coin dispenser with around a hundred dollars in change ready for the taking. Typical Possum to rely on other people’s honesty.
“Possum?” Jeffrey said, taking one of the beers out of the cardboard pack. He used the Coca-Cola opener on the side of the counter to open the bottle. The beer was bitter, and Jeffrey tossed it back, trying to bypass his taste buds. He walked around the counter, looking at the photographs Possum had taped up around the cigarette displays. Like Robert, he had a lot of pictures from their high school days. Unlike Robert, there were photos of kids at various stages in life. Jennifer went from a red face in a bundle of blankets to a precocious girl. Jared grew from a little baby to a tall and rangy-looking kid. Jeffrey guessed he was about nine now, and felt genuine empathy for the kid; at that age, Jeffrey had been all hands and feet, like a colt just learning how to walk. Jared had dark hair like Nell and the same haughty tilt to his chin. There was nothing about Possum in the kid, but Jennifer was very much her father’s daughter. She had his eyes, and her shoulders were hunched in that good-natured, nonthreatening way that had saved Possum from getting his ass kicked on more than one occasion.
Jeffrey took a healthy swig of beer, his tongue anesthetized to the taste by now. He thought about Robert, and what hell he must have gone through when Jessie lost their kid. Marriages were perplexing animals, always changing, sometimes gentle, sometimes vicious. When Jeffrey was a beat cop, he had hated domestic disturbance calls because there was always something, some indefinable connection that attached a husband to a wife and turned them from wanting to kill each other to wanting to kill whoever was interfering, in this case the cops. One minute they could be wailing on each other, calling each other every name in the book, the next minute they could be throwing themselves in front of the squad car to keep their spouse from going to jail.
Children always made things worse, and as a patrolman, Jeffrey had done his best to keep them out of the fray. This was always difficult because most kids thought they could help take some of the heat off their parents by getting in the middle of things. Jeffrey had done this often enough with his own parents, and he knew what drove kids to get involved. He also knew how futile it was. There was nothing more horrible than getting a domestic call and going out to find some kid whimpering in the corner with a black eye or a busted lip. On more than one occasion, Jeffrey had set a father straight. He knew he was channeling some of his own fury when he took on an abusive parent, and up until a few years ago, Jeffrey had considered that to be one of the perks of being a cop.
Jeffrey dropped his empty into the trash and got out another bottle of beer. He used the edge of the counter to pop open the top and gathered from the scratch it made in the wood that Possum used the counter for the same thing.
He leaned his head back, taking a long swig of beer. His stomach grumbled in protest, and Jeffrey realized he had not eaten anything since the bacon he’d had at Nell’s that morning. At this point, Jeffrey did not care. He was halfway through the bottle when he heard a toilet flush in the back.
“Hey, Slick.” Possum came out of the bathroom, buttoning up his pants. He saw the beer. “Go on and help yourself.”
“Good thing I didn’t,” Jeffrey said, hitting the No Sale button on the cash register. The drawer popped open, showing neat rows of cash. “There’s at least two hundred dollars in here.”
“Two fifty-three eighty-one,” Possum said, taking one of the beers. He popped the top off on the counter and took a pull.
Jeffrey finished his beer and took another. Possum glanced at the two empties but held his tongue.
Jeffrey said, “Guess you heard about Robert?”
“What’s that?”
Jeffrey felt a sinking in his gut. He took a healthy drink, trying to push his brain to a point where none of this mattered anymore. “He turned himself in.”
Possum coughed as beer went down the wrong way. “What?”
“I was just at Jessie’s mama’s. He said he did it.”
“Did what?”
“Shot that man.”
“Luke Swan,” Possum whispered. “Jesus wept.”
“Jessie was cheating on him.”
Possum shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”
“You don’t have to believe me. Talk to Robert. He said he walked in on the guy banging her.”
“Why would she cheat on him?”
“Because she’s a slut.”
“There’s no need to talk like that.”
“Talk like what, Possum? The truth?” Jeffrey took another swig of beer, then another. “Jesus, you haven’t changed a damn bit.”
“Come on, now.”
“Possum,” Jeffrey said. “That’s what you are, playing dead until it all passes over and then coming out like nothing’s wrong.” He finished his beer, waiting for that buzz in his head that took away some of the pain. “He said he killed Julia, too.”
Possum leaned against the counter, his mouth slightly open. “That’s just crazy talk.”
“Yeah, it’s crazy. This whole damn town is crazy.”
“Do you believe him?”
Jeffrey was surprised by the question, mostly because Possum never questioned anything. “No,” he said. “Hell, I don’t know.”
“Damn,” Possum said.
Jeffrey reached for another beer. Possum’s hand caught his, and he told Jeffrey, “Maybe you oughtta pace yourself.”
“I’ve already got a mama.”
“She’s as good a reason as any to slow down a bit.”
Before he could stop himself, Jeffrey punched Possum in the jaw. His aim was off, but the power behind his fist was enough for Possum to lose his balance and fall back against the store safe.
“Ow!” Possum said, more surprised than outraged. He put his hand to his mouth and looked at the blood. “Jesus, Slick, you near about broke my tooth.”
Jeffrey raised his fist to hit him again, but the look in Possum’s eye stopped him. Possum wouldn’t hit back. He never hit back. He never got angry and he never thought anything Jeffrey did was wrong.
Jeffrey reached into his pocket and took out a couple of tens for the beer.
“No,” Possum said, pushing the money away even as blood dribbled down his chin. “Forget about it.”
“I pay my own way,” Jeffrey said, throwing the money on the counter. He picked up the remaining bottles and the other six-pack.
“Listen, Slick, lemme give you a ride—”
“Fuck off,” Jeffrey said, pushing him away.
Still, Possum followed him to the door, saying, “You don’t need to be driving like this.”
“Like what?” Jeffrey asked, opening the passenger door to Robert’s truck. He put the beer in and walked around to the driver’s side, his foot catching on a loose bit of pavement. He grabbed the hood ornament, keeping himself up.
Possum said, “Jeffrey, come on.”
Jeffrey climbed in behind the wheel, feeling his eyes blur as the world turned upside down. The truck turned over with a rewarding purr, and he pulled out of the parking lot, jerking the wheel at the last minute so he would not take out the gas pumps.