The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,81

at the redwood table in the backyard with all my pets in attendance. It was strange how they seemed to know when I needed them. Major lay spread out with all fours in the shade, his belly and dong pressed into the grass. Bugs and Snuggs and Skippy sat on the tabletop, which they had crosshatched with seat smears since they were kittens. Jenks was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and kept lifting his forearms from the redwood and wiping them without realizing the source of the gelatinous material on his skin. “Is that a mulberry tree back there?”

“I think it is.”

He wiped at his forearm again, his face a question mark. “When are your folks due home?”

“Hard to say. They’re at the grocery. My mother doesn’t drive, so my father has to take her.”

“Does your father believe in home protection?”

“Yes, sir, that’s fair to say.”

“What kind of firearm does he keep?”

“He’s never been big on firearms.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I thought it was.”

“You should have been a baseball pitcher,” he said. “Did you ever see a pitcher pull on the brim of his cap or fix his belt just before the windup? That’s what you make me think of.”

“I put Vaseline on baseballs?”

“I can come back with a warrant. Or somebody a lot less sympathetic can.”

“You asked Valerie if I was lying about my spells.”

“Yes, I did. Do you think you’re capable of killing someone like Clint Harrelson while you’re in one of them?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“Can you say that again?”

“I can smell a killer. Men can kill other men, but that doesn’t make them killers. A killer comes out of the womb with a stink on him that never goes away.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I went to the gun store where your father bought the army forty-five. That’s the same caliber weapon used to kill Mr. Harrelson.”

“You think my father would commit a murder? That’s insane.”

“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” Jenks said. “Sometimes the state doesn’t care who gets head-shaved and has cotton stuffed up his colon before he’s strapped down and bucked through the ceiling. Sometimes they don’t care if it’s a woman, either. As long as somebody rides the bolt, the average person doesn’t give a shit. You think cops are your problem, son. You’re wrong.”

“I’m not going to talk to you anymore, Detective Jenks.”

He had opened his notebook on the table but had not written one word in it. The wind was blowing the pages on the metal rings. “You know who Jack Hemingway is?”

“Ernest Hemingway’s oldest son.”

“I jumped with him behind German lines on D-day. He was shot and captured by the SS. The SS didn’t take wounded prisoners. Jack was going to be executed, but an SS colonel who’d skied with Jack’s father had him transferred to a hospital. True story.”

“What happened to you?”

“I escaped.”

“Why tell me this?”

“Because you kids in Southwest Houston read a couple of books and think you know it all.”

“Why don’t you stop lying, sir?” I said.

He was wearing his fedora, but the darkness in his face was not from the shadow of the hat. He closed his notebook and lifted his forefinger. “I’m not above hitting you. I’ll do it.”

“You never told me you were a cop in Nevada.”

He got up from the bench, a gray odor like nicotine and antiperspirant and beer sweat wafting off his body. He dropped his business card on the table. “Tell your father to call me. He’s not a suspect. We found his name in a journal kept by Clint Harrelson. Evidently he considered your father a subversive and was going to report him to Harrelson’s fellow paranoids in Dallas. Tell your father I need to ask him a couple of questions so I can eliminate him from the investigation.”

“Was Miss Cisco your girlfriend?”

He didn’t seem to hear me. Or he pretended not to. Instead he sniffed his forearm. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I still think she has qualities. Maybe her life would have been different if she’d gotten a break or two.”

“Kid, you deserve everything that will probably happen to you. By the way, a vice officer told me your friend Bledsoe is dealing goofballs in the Heights. If you see him, tell him he’d better find me before I find him.”

Chapter

21

SABER’S FATHER HAD gotten a job with Jolly Jack ice cream. I suspected it was a terrible humiliation. The Jolly Jack carts were pedal-powered and usually driven by teenagers who had dropped out of school.