trouble that would not go away or ease up, like grief did.
“I can’t talk to you about this,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “You know it wasn’t me. I’ve never been violent beyond a fight or two in a parking lot over some woman.”
I touched his shoulder, let my hand drop when he didn’t respond. “I never thought it was you. I never will. I’m sorry I was fool enough to call 911 yesterday. If I’d realized that wasn’t your blood, I’d have taken you into Sam’s trailer and cleaned you up and burned the tape. I was just so scared that was your blood.” And I felt my eyes fill. This was no time to cry, though, and I tightened up all over, feeling my face tense. Jason’s mind was a mess, like a mental pigsty. In it bubbled an unhealthy brew compounded of regrets, shame at his sexual habits being made public, guilt that he didn’t feel worse about Amy being killed, horror that anyone in the town would think he’d killed his own grandmother while lying in wait for his sister.
“We’ll get through this,” I said helplessly.
“We’ll get through this,” he repeated, trying to make his voice sound strong and assured. But I thought it would be awhile, a long while, before Jason’s assurance, that golden certainty that had made him irresistible, returned to his posture and his face and his speech.
Maybe it never would.
We parted there, at the courthouse. We had nothing more to say.
I sat in the bar all day, looking at the men who came in, reading their minds. Not one of them was thinking of how he’d killed four women and gotten away with it so far. At lunchtime Hoyt and Rene walked in the door and walked back out when they saw me sitting. Too embarrassing for them, I guess.
Finally, Sam made me leave. He said I was so creepy that I was driving away any customers who might give me useful information.
I trudged out the door and into the glaring sun. It was about to set. I thought about Bubba, about Bill, about all those creatures that were coming out of their deep sleep to walk the surface of the earth.
I stopped at the Grabbit Kwik to buy some milk for my morning cereal. The new clerk was a kid with pimples and a huge Adam’s apple, who stared at me eagerly as if he was trying to make a print in his head of how I looked, the sister of a murderer. I could tell he could hardly wait for me to leave the store so he could use the phone to call his girlfriend. He was wishing he could see the puncture marks on my neck. He was wondering if there was any way he could find out how vampires did it.
This was the kind of trash I had to listen to, day in, day out. No matter how hard I concentrated on something else, no matter how high I kept my guard, how broad I kept my smile, it seeped through.
I reached home just when it was getting dark. After putting away the milk and taking off my suit, I put on a pair of shorts and a black Garth Brooks T-shirt and tried to think of some goal for the evening. I couldn’t settle down enough to read; and I needed to go to the library and change my books anyway, which would be a real ordeal under the circumstances. Nothing on TV was good, at least tonight. I thought I might watch Braveheart again: Mel Gibson in a kilt is always a mood raiser. But it was just too bloody for my frame of mind. I couldn’t bear for that gal get her throat cut again, even though I knew when to cover my eyes.
I’d gone into the bathroom to wash off my sweaty makeup when, over the sound of the running water, I thought I heard a yowl outside.
I turned the faucets off. I stood still, almost feeling my antenna twitch, I was listening so intently. What . . . ? Water from my wet face trickled onto my T-shirt.
No sound. No sound at all.
I crept toward the front door because it was closest to Bubba’s watch point in the woods.
I opened the door a little. I yelled, “Bubba?”
No answer.
I tried again.
It seemed to me even the locusts and toads were holding their breaths. The night was so silent it might