TWENTY-NINE

Jonathan locked the front door and flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED. Dusk had deepened into darkness, and Little Jump Off had dispensed its last six-pack of the day. He turned off the store’s overhead lights, then walked upstairs to the apartment. Lena Owle stood at his kitchen counter, having changed from her jeans and gingham apron into a tight black dress. She poured white wine into two slender glasses.

“Something smells good.” Jonathan flopped down at the kitchen table, letting the heat from the small stove warm his backside. He stretched back in the chair and flexed his shoulders. Ever since the Harold Hobart helicopter fiasco, the day had soured like milk left in the sun. Nothing he’d undertaken had gone right, from refletching an arrow for Bill Landing to his mini-repair job on the wheezing ice-cream freezer. Now Lena stood here smiling, expecting him to be good company for dinner and even better company afterwards. He sighed. He should feel lucky, he supposed. So why didn’t he?

“That’s the cassoulet.” Lena handed him a wineglass. “As soon as the bread is done we’ll eat.” She nodded at a thick stack of newsprint on the table. “I brought you a Sunday paper from town. You can get started on the crossword if you want.”

“Thanks.” Jonathan took a sip of wine and picked up the heavy Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Clarion. He skimmed the front page, then turned to the op/ed section, where, according to the editorial writers, Atlanta should enact stricter handgun laws, Republicans should not think the state of Georgia is in their back pocket, and traffic snarls on 285 had better be addressed, and fast. Jonathan yawned, then a moment later snapped the paper to attention in front of him.

“Hey,” he said. “Here’s an article about Mary Crow. She’s just sent up some rich guy named Whitman.”

“Really.” Lena clattered a pan in the sink.

“Yeah . . . It says that Atlanta’s lucky to have such a dedicated young assistant DA . . . ‘who comports herself with grace and passion in the courtroom. The recent Whitman case showed her to be a prosecutor of the first rank. It would be . . .’ ” Jonathan turned the page, “ ‘hard to find another like her, said District Attorney James Falkner.’ ”

Lena sniffed the cassoulet and laughed. “Well, I hope it won’t be too hard for Billy. He needs the thousand dollars.”

Jonathan looked up over the paper. “Huh?”

“The thousand dollars that man’s paying him to find Mary.”

Jonathan frowned. “Fill me in here, Lena. We must not be on the same page.”

Lena smoothed a wisp of dark hair back from her forehead. “I thought you knew. Yesterday a man from Mary’s office drove up to Billy’s picture stand and offered him a thousand dollars to take him to Mary Crow. Tam was thrilled. It was all she could talk about last night at bingo.”

Jonathan refolded the paper, then asked, “Was this man a cop?”

“I don’t know. Tam didn’t know, either. She said Billy was packed up and gone in five minutes.” Lena bent to check the French bread browning in the oven. “Just think, Jonathan. Billy might finally be able to get his fiddle back.”

Jonathan sat back in the chair and stared into his wineglass. Lena made some joke about the stove, then slipped onto his lap and kissed him, her tongue teasing against his lips. He kissed her back, but just barely. He was thinking about Mary. Something was not right. If someone from Atlanta needed Mary Crow, they’d contact Stump Logan, the county sheriff, who would probably contact him. He’d worked with city cops before, even the Feds. Nobody in legitimate law enforcement would just drive up and hire Billy Swimmer in his Sioux war bonnet. He gave Lena a disengaging peck, then shifted backward in the chair. “Have we got a couple of minutes till dinner?”

“A couple.” Lena raised a wary eyebrow. “Why?”

“I think I might walk over to the trailhead and see what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on, Jonathan.” Lena seemed to press down harder in his lap. “Somebody just needed to find Mary. Somebody hired Billy to help. What’s the big deal?”

“It sounds odd. I’d like to check it out.”

She stood up quickly and folded her arms. A flush of irritation pinkened the bridge of her nose. “Should I wait dinner?”

“No. I’ll be back by the time the bread gets done.”

Jonathan hurried downstairs before Lena could say anything more and wove through the darkened store to the front door. Outside, the cool air felt good against his skin, the breeze a crisp relief from the suddenly cloying aroma of simmering stew.

He hurried off the porch and strode west, where the Little Jump Off Trail began. Mary had taken up a lot of space in his head since she’d stopped by the store two days ago. Every time he passed the Coke cooler he thought of when they’d sat and washed salted peanuts down with two small-sized Cokes. Often he could hear her laughter echoing through his room, and for the past two nights he could almost feel the warm weight of her body on the bed, as if she lay beside him instead of his old pillow. If only , his thoughts would crank up like a chorus of manic cicadas. If only you’d just walked her home that afternoon. What then? He would never have had to see that terrible look in her eyes, nor would he have ever felt Stump Logan’s official wrath pointed straight at him like the barrel of a shotgun.

I understand you and Mary Crow were together when the murder occurred. Jonathan had nodded, his eyes downcast. “Have you got anybody who can testify to that?” Jonathan’s mouth felt like the inside of an old cornhusk; he could only shake his head. Stump’s eyes bored into him. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what you two were doing?” Jonathan looked straight at him then. There was not a man on earth, white or Cherokee, who could pull that answer from him. Stump stared back, then the very ends of his mouth twisted up in a sardonic smile.“Well, boy, that kind of puts you right at the top of the suspect list, don’t it?”

“Let it go,” he whispered, turning away from the twelve-year-old tape that played inside his head. “You can’t change history.”

He lengthened his stride, hurrying to the trailhead. No point in making Lena any madder than she already was. As he walked, the moon began to peek over Little Haw Mountain, illuminating the shallow, rushing river that tumbled along the left side of the road. Jonathan could hear the splash of trout as they leapt against the current, and along the bank one die-hard bullfrog bellowed a hopeful love song to a breeding season long past.

“Better get buried fast, buddy,” Jonathan called to the frog. “Or your ass is gonna be ice cubes.”

The road curled away from the river in a tight curve through the mountains, then the trailhead came into view. Jonathan pinged a rock against the grapeshotpeppered sign that read SCENIC OVERLOOK and turned from the highway up onto the narrow access road. His footsteps crunched in the gravel as he walked to the small, flat area that had been graded off to accommodate cars. He stopped and looked around. At one end of the tiny lot sat three cars, near a Park Service garbage can. The red Beemer Mary had driven up in glowed burgundy in the moonlight. Beside it stood the battered silhouette of Billy’s rusted-out truck. Next to that sat a gleaming white shape Jonathan did not recognize. He walked toward it, his steps making not a sound.

The driver had backed in, revealing only a front license plate from a car rental agency. Jonathan approached the car carefully, then recognized the lines of a new Ford Taurus. He touched the hood with one finger. The finish felt like silk.

“Damn,” breathed Jonathan. “I bet this car doesn’t have a thousand miles on it.”

The doors were locked, so he peered inside the driver’s window. All he could see was a crumpled gas receipt and a manila envelope on the passenger seat. He cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed his face against the glass. Then his heart stopped. On one corner of the envelope, printed in bright red letters, was the name Whitman.