by Jeff Abbott
“Not this instant,” I said. “Too far off. We won’t get rain for a little while.” Glass clinked as he reached for another beer. He sat up and took a deep swig from the long-neck.
“You’ll get a lot of rain in Houston, Jordy. You’ll be walking to classes in knee-deep water. It floods there all the time.” His voice sounded as far away as the thunder did.
“Don’t tell Mama, she’ll buy me waders.” I sat up and opened another beer. The crickets chirped through the night air, sounding their brief trumpets before the approaching storm drowned them out. Whoever said nights in the country are quiet don’t know what they’re talking about. The air felt humid, as languid as a girl’s caress, and in the purplish darkness I could barely see Trey sitting next to me. I could see him tip the bottle to his lips, the moon reflecting off the curve where label ended and glass began.
“You ain’t gonna have no horses to ride in Houston,” he observed.
“No. I’ll have to come back here for that.”
“And you ain’t gonna get cooking as good as your mama’s. I bet that university kitchen don’t make good biscuits and cream gravy on Sunday mornings. Probably give you something nasty, like yogurt.”
“Probably.”
“And Marcia Tatum ain’t gonna be around ’case you get a tad horny.”
I laughed. “No, Marcia won’t be in Houston. ’Course, she’s not too pleased I’m going away, period. I don’t think she’d be granting me her favors even if I stayed.”
“Shit,” Trey scoffed. “Your first weekend back she’ll be as hot for you as you are for her.” He stood and stretched, and walked to the back of the truck. His boot heels made an eerie clang against the metal.
“Face it, Jordan, you ain’t got many reasons to come back here. Houston’ll suit you real well. You’re smart. There’ll be a lot of new things to hold your attention. You won’t need Mirabeau again.”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course I still need Mirabeau. My family’s here. My friends are here.” I paused. “You’re here, man. You think I’m going to forget about you?”
“For the first time in your life, you’re going to be around a lot of people that are as smart as you are. Or even smarter. The people you meet at Rice are gonna make the rest of us look like dipsticks. Future doctors and lawyers and such.”
“That’s crap, Trey. Quit saying that you’re not smart.”
He laughed and sipped at his beer. “I don’t say I’m not smart. The teachers say I’m not smart.”
“The teachers here are stupid, then.”
“Brave words from the valedictorian. All I’m saying is, go. Go out there and make what you can of yourself. Don’t look back.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said uncertainly. I didn’t care for the way this conversation was going. The thunder sounded again, closer, wilder. “Of course I’m coming back home.”
“And do what? What are you going to do with your fancy degree here in Mirabeau, young Mr. Poteet? Be a lawyer in your crazy uncle Bid’s practice? You can’t stand him. Become mayor? You ain’t exactly a politician. Teach at the school? Won’t pay you diddly to clear them big student loans. Or maybe you’ll just end up serving Dr Pepper floats at the Sit-a-Spell.” His voice had grown harsh.
I stared up at him in the darkness. “Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t want you to think that Mirabeau is the whole world, like our numbnut friends do. I don’t want you to waste the chance you got.”
“I’ll come home if I want. I’ll live here if I want.” I stood and the wind surged, making me feel unsteady. Trey seemed an indistinct figure in the night. “Why are you being so shitty to me?” I hollered.
“Because you’re gonna do all the things in life I wish I could. Because you’re the brother I never had.”
Lightning split the sky and I saw the Trey standing before me was not the Trey of our careless eighteenth summer, drinking beer with me on the next-to-the-last night before I left for college. He was the Trey that had died, his face gaunt and drawn and bearded in the momentary white light.
“Then help me! Tell me who killed Clevey! Tell me who killed you!”
“Killed me?” he asked.
“Yes! You’re dead! Who killed you?” I screamed into the wind.
He collapsed against me and my hands felt the warmth of his life’s blood. His voice creaked like a coffin’s lid. “You are. You’re killing me, Jordy.”
A cry caught in my throat as I wrenched up in bed. I slapped the palm of my hand over my mouth and bit my fingers. Nightmare’s sweat adhered the sheets to my body and I kicked them away. They felt like shrouds.
I staggered to the window. Another storm swept over Mirabeau, headed for the Gulf, and the glass felt cool against my palms. What was happening to me? Why did I feel like this world was the dream and those memories with Trey were the reality? I shut my eyes and took a long, sobering breath.
I shrugged into my terrycloth robe and sat again on the bed, listening to the quiet of my house. Many nights Mama was restless in the wandering way Alzheimer’s patients sometimes are, but tonight she was still. I heard the remote ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, like a colossal heart. Apparently I hadn’t called out; the house’s silence pushed oppressively on my ears.
I hungered for a comfort food. I didn’t want to stay in my bed; it was nothing but a trap full of memories. I remembered all the pies downstairs. My sweet tooth pulsed and I tiptoed down to the kitchen. I turned on all the lights; I didn’t like the dark anymore.
The pies looked tempting: pecan, peach, buttermilk, and apple, but I didn’t want a slice. Only two images from my dream could make me smile; Marcia Tatum and Dr Pepper floats. Marcia had been my senior-year girlfriend, a buxom, funny, sly-eyed brunette, and she’d served up the best Dr Pepper floats in the world at the old Sit-a-Spell Cafe. Trey had kidded me plenty that I’d had more Dr Pepper floats after school than any other boy in Mirabeau history. He’d follow me to the cafe and chatter at me and Marcia as she made my favorite fountain concoction while I watched her with vast-eyed devotion.
He loved to tease.
I pulled a gallon of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream from the freezer.
Give him an extra scoop now, Marcia, Trey would say, eyeing Marcia’s own scoops under her bright pink uniform.
I found an icy cold can of sugary, original Dr Pepper in the back of the fridge and popped the top.
Don’t you be skimpy with that Dr Pepper, Marcia. Jordy needs all the sweetness he can get. Don’t you, Jordy?
I pulled the ice-cream scooper out of a drawer and rinsed it with hot water. I found a thick, tall glass in the cabinet and set it on the counter.
Marcia, sugar, you ought to give Jordy a large float but charge him for a small one. Don’t you care none about this poor boy?
Dragging the scooper across the pristine plain of ice cream, I pared free a globe of white sweetness. I jiggled it above the glass and the scoop fell in, leaving a creamy smear along the side. Again, another scoop. A small one to top it. Then the Dr Pepper, the fizz of its pouring the only sound I heard as it frothed above the ice cream. The can felt like a deadweight in my hand.
Ah, that’s his favorite there, Miss Marcia. He likes those floats even better than he likes you or me.
“Jordan?” Candace, standing nearby, watched me.
“I’m making a Dr Pepper float,” I announced, and my voice broke. Candace looked sort of blurry.
“I can see that, honey.” Her voice was cottony soft. “You okay? You’ve spilled it everywhere.”
I glanced down at the kitchen counter; the soda can was empty and my glass sat in a puddle of bubbling brown.
I looked back up at Candace and I could see her heart breaking. “He’s dead.” I heard my voice. “He’s really, really dead. Trey is dead. God!” A sob escaped from me, like air long trapped underwater then bursting to the surface. I felt her arms close around me.
I didn’t want to cry. No, not in front of her. I d
idn’t want her to see me that way. I put my fingers over my face and they were wet and sticky with Dr Pepper.
“Why? Why?”
“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know why he died,” she murmured into my chest.
“Not him dying! Why did he leave us?” I buried my face against her disarrayed hair. “He left me. I was like his brother and he left me. He left Sister and Mark and Mama and Daddy and his own father, but why did he leave me?” I pulled in a badly needed breath. “We were as close as brothers. What could have happened that he couldn’t tell me? If he was going to run away from here, why didn’t he come to Boston? I would have helped him, no matter what the trouble was. Didn’t he know that? What did I do wrong? Why’d anyone want to kill him? Why? Why?”
I was conscious of her taking me to the sink, washing the soda from my hands and my face, toweling me dry. She led me back upstairs to my room and laid me on my bed. She held me in her arms and I talked, I babbled like a mute just given speech, telling her all the idiocies and kindnesses that Trey and I had done in our reckless, vanished youths, our time when we thought we were immortal. It didn’t make, I’m sure, for a cohesive monologue. But she laughed at all the funny stories, and she smiled sadly at our tragedies. She stroked my hair and kissed my face and gave me all the strength in her heart. I took it like the precious gift it was. I never loved her more in my life. I told her so and she kissed me gently.
I felt her fingers lightly brushing my hair. “You know what?” she whispered. “I think you loved him very much. I think he loved you, too. And it’s okay to say that, and it’s okay to be sad. It’s normal.”
“You sound like one of them therapists on TV,” I rasped, sticking my face in my pillow.
“I don’t care what I sound like. I’m just glad you’re grieving,” she said. I opened one eye at her.
She ran a finger inside the cup of my ear. “I’m serious. I was about sick of watching you pretend that Trey Slocum’s death hadn’t affected you in the least. It wasn’t natural, not to someone that cares as much as you do. I was about ready to kick your butt if you didn’t start acting like a human being.”
I watched the translucent blue vein in her wrist as it moved barely above my face. “I was mad at him for so long. I didn’t know how not to be mad at him.” I closed the one eye I’d opened. “Now I can’t tell him I’m sorry. He can’t tell me if he’s sorry for what he did.”
“I’m starting to wish I’d known Trey Slocum. He must’ve had some virtues thrown in with the vices.”
I wished she had, too. I felt exhausted, as though I’d run a marathon with a weight on my back. I pulled her to me, feeling a sudden, intoxicating need for her. Candace responded, her lips seeking mine, her fingers tangling in my hair. My hands framed her face like a precious treasure.
The phone rang, shattering the three a.m. silence. I jerked in surprise. Candace rolled over, grabbed the receiver, murmured a quick “Hello, Poteet residence,” and listened.
“Oh, my God. Oh, no.” Her face crumpled with shock as she handed me the phone. “It’s the police station. Junebug’s been shot.”
11
Ice water in your face is a sobering slap.
I’d had two friends die by violence-and I’d tried wrapping myself in denial like it was one of my grandmother’s quilts, a cocoon against the sharp pain of loss. I’d stumbled along, hardly like myself, numbed and slack-jawed, ruminating at a snail’s pace.
Now my eyes were wide and clear and fueled by hot anger. I wanted to catch whoever was destroying my friends and strike at them with viciousness. I felt restless and shivery as I paced the hospital hall.
The Monday-morning hours found Sister, Mark, and me sitting in a large, crowded waiting room at Mirabeau Memorial. Clo had volunteered to stay with Mama and Candace had gone to open the cafe. It was now eight in the morning and we hadn’t been told anything by Franklin Bedloe, the acting police chief, except that Junebug’d been shot twice, was out of surgery, and was still unconscious. Junebug’s mother, Barbara Moncrief, a big-boned woman with a heart to match, was in with her son. Well over a dozen of the Moncrief clan and their friends were crammed into the chairs, talking quietly, mindlessly turning pages of back issues of People while we waited. The rest of the Mirabeau police force seemed to be patrolling the hospital, their faces set in sorrow and anger, and I wanted to scream at them; Why aren’t you out catching the asshole that did this? But I didn’t.
I am always amazed by the strength of women. I don’t think I ever appreciated it until Mama got sick and her vitality ebbed away in cruel fashion. Sister has that same vigor. I watched her cast her face in iron as she waited for Barbara Moncrief to come back so she could go in and see her man. She held my hand, her fingers twitching occasionally as we sat. We didn’t talk. I’d tried to comfort her with reassuring words, but she turned monosyllabic on me, and I retreated. After a while she got up and paced fiercely, as though the excess energy in her would explode if not given release.
Davis and Ed had appeared after I’d called them, their voices still creaky with sleep. Both looked exhausted and pained. I felt the same way; as though I’d been pummeled in the stomach for the past three days. Except I felt ready to punch back. They sat in the far corner of the lounge. I couldn’t decide if they were avoiding me or they were trying to give us privacy. Davis was impeccable in his lawyer’s suit, as though nothing of consequence had happened and it would be another day pushing wills and real-estate closures around his desktop. Unshaven Ed looked rumpled in wrinkled khakis and a Patty Loveless tour T-shirt. He looked like a confused child tumbled out of bed. I felt nearly sick looking at Ed. Of us all, he reminded me most of those long-ago boys. Every now and then his eyes met mine, asking the unanswerable question as to why our friend lay struggling for life.
I tried to talk to Franklin Bedloe, the acting police chief, but he brushed me off to return to the crime scene. 2 DOWN had been the message at Trey’s murder scene. Had another profane scorecard been left as Junebug lay on the bloodied porch? I desperately wanted to know. But Franklin didn’t have time for me, and I didn’t try to detain him. He had a killer to catch, and I had a friend to stand watch over.
A heavy-eyed Peggy Godkin stumbled into the room, lugging a satchel. Peggy is the editor of The Mirabeau Mirror and possibly the only workaholic in town. She’s certainly the only achiever in the large Godkin clan that permeates every part of Bonaparte County. Most of the Godkins shuffle by on a day-to-day existence; Peggy got the recessive Puritan work-ethic gene, put herself through college, started as a cub reporter for the Mirror, and had moved up to editor in record time. She was now in her fifties, a handsome woman with dark hair marred by a thick, lacy-white streak that ran back from her forehead. Peggy nearly always played a witch at the high-school Halloween haunted house. It was definitely casting against type.
She saw us and waved. I gestured back feebly. Sister stopped wearing out the carpet and moved toward Peggy.
“Arlene, Jordan. I’m so sorry. How is he? Where’s Barbara?”
Sister shook her head. “He’s out of surgery. The bullet grazed his skull. Barbara’s with him now.”
Peggy gave Sister a fierce hug. Sister hugged back.
“What exactly happened?” Peggy asked.
I told her what little we knew; apparently Junebug had been working very late at his office, had come home, and while putting the key in his lock, was shot. Franklin Bedloe hypothesized-based on the trajectory of the wounds, he said, and I shuddered-that the gunman crouched waiting in the bushes on the far side of Junebug’s porch. One bullet creased his skull; the other one tore into his big frame, narrowly missing his heart. A neighbor, awakened by the shots, phoned the police. Franklin had called Barbara Moncrief and then our house.
Peggy shook her head. “My Lord. Two murders in as many days, and now an attempt on Junebug’s life. What the sweet hell is going on in town?”
I stood. “I don’t know. Peggy, let’s go down to the cafeteria and get
some coffee. Sister, Mark, y’all want anything?”
They said no. Peggy gathered her purse close to her and walked along with me. When we got to the end of the hall, I glanced back; Mark’s face was buried in his hands and Sister was watching me intently.
The cafeteria was sparsely populated. I got two steaming cups of coffee and sat across the Formica table from where Peggy had parked herself.
She sipped at her brew. “I’m so sorry about Trey, Jordan. I didn’t know what to say to Arlene and Mark. My policy is stay silent till you’re sure what’s going to come out your mouth.”
“We’re all trying to deal with it.”
She closed her eyes, smoothing out the laughter lines around them. “And poor Clevey. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to really talk to you at Truda’s house. I got cornered by his aunts.” She hesitated for a moment then plunged ahead: “I saw the argument between Trey and Arlene. I might’ve been tempted to whack him one myself. But I’m sorry Trey’s dead.”
I sipped at my coffee and considered how to proceed. “Peggy, I wanted to ask you about Clevey. I’ll be blunt. Be blunt back. Could he have been researching something for the paper that might’ve gotten him killed?”
Shock registered on her face. “My God, Jordan. What a suggestion!”
“What do you think?”
She saw my seriousness. “No. He was working on his usual assignments-the city council, the book-review section. And he was researching a feature on domestic violence.”
I thought of the hidden files on Rennie Clifton and her tragically short life. “No other special assignments?”
Peggy gave a tired sigh. “Clevey? Honey, it was all I could do to get him to finish his regular work. It sounds terrible to say now, and I’d never want his mama to know, but I wasn’t far off from firing Clevey.”
“May I ask what was wrong?”
“I don’t think I should say.”
“Peggy, I knew Clevey his whole life. I won’t repeat it. And what you say won’t hurt him now.”
