that. Meanwhile, though, I think I should try to find Neil.”
Aggie nodded agreement and returned a wan smile. “If the police don’t find him first.”
~*~
THIRTEEN
Four hours, fourteen minutes before the shooting
Buck found Smokey sitting in front of his trailer in a folding metal chair, drinking a beer. It was only ten in the morning, and Buck was surprised to find him awake. He left the squad car parked behind a rusted-out Pontiac and a Jesus van on blocks and picked his way around a smattering of old tires, metal fire barrels, the remnants of a sofa, and an electric stove without an oven door. He kept a wary eye out for Smokey’s pit bull, who had a tendency to charge first and bark later, and rested his hand on his gun holster, just so Smokey could see it.
When he was ten or fifteen feet away, he stopped and called, “Morning, Smokey. Where’s your dog?”
Smokey had let himself go to seed since getting out of prison, not that he’d been much of a fashion model before that. He had a gut on him that wasn’t flattered by the stained wife beater tee shirt and motor-oil splattered jeans he wore, and the scrub of beard that sagged on his face was bristled with gray. He narrowed his bloodshot eyes, drank from the can, and replied when he was ready. “Dead.” He had a long, low bayou accent—his people were from the swamp country of Louisiana—that made the word sound like “dayid.” He spat on the ground and added, “Got hisself rattlesnake bit last August.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Buck proceeded toward the trailer.
“You got issue with me, officer?”
“Just a friendly visit.” Buck looked around until he found a plastic lawn chair that looked as though it would hold him and tilted it forward to drain a puddle of water leftover from the rain shower two days ago. He found a level place in the ground a few feet away from Smokey and set the chair there. He sat down, noticing as he did a flutter of the ragged dishtowel that served as a window curtain behind him. “Who’s in the house?”
“Nobody.”
“Ask Nobody to come out.”
Smokey glared at him for a minute, then bellowed over his shoulder, “Jolene! Bring me another beer!”
In a moment the front door opened and a horse-faced woman in an ill-fitting house dress and animal print slippers came out. She kept a suspicious eye on Buck as she moved past him, giving his chair a wide berth, to hand Smokey the can of beer she brought. Nonetheless, Buck half rose in his chair and gave her a polite nod. “Morning, ma’am.”
“I didn’t do nothin’,” she muttered and scuttled back into the trailer. Buck heard the lock click on the door when she closed it.
Smokey drained the first beer, crumpled it in his fist, and dropped it on the ground. He popped the tab on the second. “That all you come out here for, Deputy? To see who was in my house and what happened to my dog?”
Buck let the mistake in his title slide. Smokey had been away for a while and didn’t know, or care, about his promotion. In a way, that was a good thing. “Just being cautious,” he replied. “Considering the last time I was out here you pulled a gun on me, I figured that’d be smart.”
Smokey grunted. “I had a right.”
“I reckon.”
Smokey took a long draw of his beer. “You got something to say to me, you’d best get on with sayin’ it. I got things to do.”
Buck said, “I’ve always been fair with you, haven’t I, Smokey?”
The other man drank his beer, not looking at him, not talking.
“I never hunted you when I could have. I never hassled you over small stuff, and I let one or two things slide when you know well and good I could’ve put you in County for a month or two if I’d ever had a mind to.”
Still, Smokey said nothing.
“So all that considered, I thought there might not be any harm in a couple of old friends like us having a conversation.”
“I got friends. You ain’t one of them.”
“All right. Acquaintances, then. How’d you like it upstate at Marion?”
Smokey slithered a beady glance at him, held it steady for a minute, and then looked away. “Wadn’t so bad. No picnic, but I’m here, ain’t I?”
“Make any new friends? Maybe get reacquainted with some old ones?”
Smokey said nothing.
“Do you remember a fellow by the name of Jeremiah Allen