Cul-de-Sac
Page 26
“I intend to keep this elephant,” she said.
Camel didn’t comment.
“Growler claimed it was worth three million dollars.”
“Yeah, that’s what Elizabeth Rockwell said too.”
“It’s mine now.”
“Actually it’s not.”
She knew it was futile to argue a point of ethics with him but Annie stubbornly said, “I’m keeping it just the same.”
Camel was back to thinking about Parker Gray, whom he’d shot with McCleany’s .38 …
I’ll say McCleany did it. I’ll say the reason I slipped away from that trooper at the hospital is because I didn’t trust anyone with the state police, not after I discovered Parker Gray and Gerald McCleany had framed Growler for a murder that McCleany committed. The former partners must’ve had a falling out because McCleany killed Gray, that’s what I’ll say. If necessary I might even claim I saw him do it. I’ll say that after murdering Gray, McCleany used his own .38 and Gray’s 9mm to put two rounds in Growler. Jake Kempis isn’t around to contradict me, I’ll lie my way out of this.
Camel hadn’t looked at the eleven snapshots in his pocket yet but from what Elizabeth Rockwell indicated they probably included some prominent men who seven years ago were screwing a seventeen-year-old girl who then became a murder victim … this whole affair will be like something the cat coughed onto the carpet in polite company, everyone’s going to want it cleaned up and cleared away with a minimum of comment.
All I have to do is tell the lies people want to hear.
When Annie leaned against him he put an arm around her shoulder.
“I feel so guilty that Paul got himself involved in this for me,” she said. “I don’t understand why, I never nagged him about money, I always tried …” She wept.
“Don’t put yourself on the line for any of this,” Camel told her. “Paul did what he did, he’s responsible.”
She wiped at her eyes. “I wish I could be so sure of everything the way you are.”
He didn’t feel sure of anything.
“Always so hard,” Annie continued. “Telling that dying man he was going to hell … that was a hard thing to say.”
But Camel didn’t feel hard, he felt soft and weak. “What do you think you’ll do now?” he asked.
She said she didn’t know. “I’ve always wanted to travel.”
“Travel’s good.”
They watched as flames showed themselves in a whole bank of Cul-De-Sac’s windows.
Annie asked him what he intended to tell the police when they got here.
Lies, he thought, lots of them.
“Teddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I mean about this elephant. I know better than to ask you to lie for me.”
Go ahead, he thought … I will. Ask me to travel around the world with you, I’ll do that too.
“But I am asking you not to mention it one way or the other, give me a shot at keeping this elephant for myself … or do you consider that the same as lying?”
He thought it probably was the same as lying but he didn’t tell that to Annie.
She rested her head on his chest. They were both watching when the building’s windows shattered from the intense heat sending glass like hard sharp tears down the front of Cul-De-Sac, freeing smoky yellow flames to leap from those windows as if they’d been dying for air.
She asked him if he would ever lie about anything.
He said he never would.
“Then tell me this, do you love me?”
Before answering, he gently turned her head so she could see his face.
Arabel, all the way
ALSO BY DAVID MARTIN
Tethered
The Crying Heart Tattoo
Final Harbor
The Beginning of Sorrows
Lie to Me
Bring Me Children
Tap, Tap
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Martin is the author of The Crying Heart Tattoo, Final Harbor, Tethered, The Beginning of Sorrows, and three international bestsellers: Lie to Me, Bring Me Children, and Tap, Tap. He and his wife, Arabel, operate a working farm in West Virginia.