Indelible

Chapter Nineteen

Sara was sitting in a chair on Nell's front porch as Jeffrey pulled into the driveway. He had exchanged Robert's truck for her BMW, and she was glad to see it back in one piece. She walked toward him as he got out of the car, but something about his expression stopped her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," he told her, though he was obviously lying. "Let's go to Robert's house again."

"Okay," she agreed. "Let me go tell Nell where I'm going."

He grabbed her hand, pulling her back toward the street. "She'll figure it out."

"Okay," she repeated, wondering what was going on. He held on to her hand as they walked down the street. There was a slight breeze in the air, which made the day more bearable, but it was still hot on the black asphalt, and Sara could not help thinking back to two short nights ago when she had run down the street trying to get away from Jeffrey. Maybe he was thinking about the same thing, because he squeezed her hand.

She asked, "Are you okay?"

He shook his head, but did not elaborate.

"Why do you want to look at the house again?"

"Something's not right," he said. "It doesn't add up."

"What did Robert say?"

"Nothing new," Jeffrey told her. "He's still taking the rap for it. Taking the rap for everything." His jaw tightened, and he was quiet a beat. "He's lying about Julia. It makes me wonder what else he was lying about."

"Like what?" Sara said, thinking that it was pretty clear what had happened in the bedroom that night. "All the evidence backs what he's saying."

"I just want to look at it again," he said. "I want see for myself that it works out."

"What specifically do you think doesn't add up?"

He let go of her hand as they approached Robert's house, not answering her question. The yellow clapboard looked freshly painted and the white picket fence gave the place a surreal effect, like it was a Hollywood version of what a home should be.

There was a bright yellow strip of police tape on the door. Jeffrey took out his Swiss Army pocketknife, prying up the blade with his fingernail. "He was attacked last night."

"In the jail?"

He nodded.

"By whom?"

Jeffrey sliced through the police tape. "He won't say."

"How could Hoss let that happen?"

"It wasn't Hoss," Jeffrey told her, closing the knife. "Robert won't say who put him in general population, but I have a feeling it was Reggie."

"Why didn't he just paint a target on his back?"

"If I see that stupid redneck fuck again, I'm going to rip his head off."

Sara had a hard time reconciling Reggie with these actions, but Nell had said he was not to be trusted.

She asked, "Is Robert all right?"

Jeffrey opened the door and stepped back, letting Sara enter the house first. "I tried to get him to talk to me, to tell me what went down, but he wouldn't."

"Was he badly beaten?"

"It's not that I'm worried about," Jeffrey said, and she read everything on his expression in a moment.

"Oh, no," she said, putting her hand to her chest. "Is he okay?"

He closed the door behind them. "He says he's fine."

"Jeffrey," she said, wrapping her hand around his shoulder. He looked down the hallway, not at her, and she could tell he was struggling to maintain his composure.

"Possum was down there this morning to bail him out," he said. "I didn't even think about doing that."

"How could he make bail?"

"Hoss must have pulled some strings," Jeffrey told her. "It's not like he's a flight risk. Where would he go?"

"I'm so sorry," she told him, feeling his sadness wash over her.

He put his arms around her, and she held him, trying to offer comfort when she knew there was little else she could do.

"Oh, Sara," he breathed, burying his face in her neck. His whole body relaxed, and despite all that had happened, she felt an overwhelming sense of happiness knowing that just by holding him she could bring him such peace.

He said, "I just want to get away with you."

"I know," she told him, stroking the nape of his neck.

"I want to take you dancing," he said, and she laughed because they both knew she had the coordination of a just-born colt. "I want to walk on the beach with you and drink piña coladas out of your belly button."

She laughed again, pulling away, but he would not let her. Sara kissed his neck, letting her lips linger on his skin. He tasted salty, like the ocean, and she could smell the musky odor of his aftershave. "I'm here," she said.

"I know," he told her, finally breaking the embrace. He gave a heavy sigh, indicating the house with a toss of his hand. "Let's just get this over with."

"What are we looking for?" she asked, following him into the living room.

"I don't know," he said, opening one of the drawers in the coffee table. He rummaged around inside, then closed it. "Where did he keep his backup gun?"

"I think he said the living room?" Sara said, more of a question because she could not remember.

"There should be a safe," he said. "If he was telling the truth about where he kept it."

Sara was not sure if anything Robert said could be trusted, but she opened the doors on the television cabinet. Except for a large TV and a bunch of videotapes, she saw nothing. She bent down to go through the drawers, saying, "They don't have kids in the house. He could've just kept it in a drawer."

"Robert knows better than that," Jeffrey said, getting on his hands and knees to look under the couch. "Hoss taught us both that you always secure your weapon." He sat back on his heels, a sad look in his eyes. "Robert coached Little League," he said. "He probably had kids in here all the time. He wouldn't have left a gun laying around."

"Jessie had an episode," Sara told him. "Nell told me around the miscarriage she took too many pills."

"Another reason for him to keep it hidden," Jeffrey pointed out.

Sara rummaged through a stack of instruction sheets for every piece of electronic equipment in the house. She found several old remote controls, a few spent batteries, and a fingernail file, but no gun safe. She asked, "Where do you keep your backup?"

"By my bed," he answered. "When I'm home, my service piece is in the kitchen."

"Why there?"

"I've never thought about it," he said, running his hand under the coffee table. "Just seemed logical. One upstairs, one downstairs."

"Where in the kitchen?" Sara asked, walking toward the back of the house.

"Cabinet over the stove," he called, then, "Shit."

"What?"

"Got a splinter."

"Try to be a little more careful," she advised him, walking down the hall. The bedroom was directly across from the kitchen, but she did not let herself look. The stench of dried blood was overpowering, and Sara knew that it would linger in the house long after Robert and Jessie found someone who could clean it. She could not imagine how Jessie could go on living here after what had happened.

Sara opened the cabinet over the stove, finding a stack of Tupperware bowls with their lids neatly piled beside them. She stood on the tips of her toes, peering all the way to the back, but there was nothing even resembling a gun. She went around the room, opening and closing all the cabinets, with the same results. She even checked the refrigerator, which had a full gallon of milk, juice, and the usual staples, but no gun.

"Find anything?" Jeffrey asked. He stood in the doorway with one hand cradling the other.

"Does it hurt?" Sara asked.

"Not much," he said, holding out his hand. She turned on the light and saw a thick splinter in the palm of his hand.

"They must have some tweezers," she said, opening the drawers. A quick search found nothing but common kitchen utensils. "I'll check the bathroom."

She headed toward the master bathroom but stopped when she caught sight of a sewing basket sitting on the highboy beside the dining room table.

She told Jeffrey, "Come in here, the light's better," as she searched the basket. "These will work," she said, finding a pair of straight-edged tweezers among the pins and needles.

"You want me to open these?" Jeffrey asked, but he was already twisting the rod to open the blinds. He looked out into the backyard, saying, "It's nice here, huh?"

"Yes," she said, taking his hand in hers. She wore glasses sometimes at work, but she had been too vain to bring them along on the trip. "This might hurt."

"I can take it," he said, then, "Ow, shit." He jerked back his hand.

"Sorry," she said, trying not to smile at his reaction. She held his hand closer to the window, taking advantage of the light. "Just think about something else."

"That won't be hard," he told her sarcastically, wincing as the tweezers grew near.

"I haven't even touched it," she said.

"Are you this mean to your kids?"

"Usually they're a little braver."

"That's nice."

"Come on," she teased him. "I'll give you a lollipop if you're good."

"I'd rather give you something to suck on."

She raised an eyebrow, but did not respond. Slowly, she worked at the splinter, trying to get it to come out in one piece.

Jeffrey asked, "Did you notice something weird about Swan?"

"Weird how?" She groaned as the splinter broke.

"Like…" He made a hissing sound as she dug into the skin. "He's the exact opposite of Robert."

She shrugged. "Maybe that was the point. She wanted something different. A change."

"Am I different from the guys you usually date?"

Sara worked on the splinter, trying to come up with a good answer. "I can't say that I've given it much thought." She smiled as the splinter came out. "There."

He put his hand to his mouth, something Sara saw kids do at the clinic, as if some genetic imperative convinced them that their mouth could cleanse a wound.

"Let's look in the bedroom," Jeffrey said.

"You think he was lying about keeping a backup in the living room?"

"I don't know."

"He could have kept it in his truck."

"Maybe."

"What else is bothering you?" She decided not to let him brush it off. "I'm not stupid, Jeffrey. Something's bothering you. Either tell me or not, but don't keep denying it."

He put his hand on the windowsill. "Yes, something is bothering me. I just can't talk about it."

"Okay," she agreed, glad that she had at least gotten him to admit it. "Let's finish in here. Maybe then we can go back to Nell's and try to make some sense of all this."

The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and the hinges squeaked when she opened it. Light was streaming in through the windows, and Sara was surprised to find that her memory of what the room had looked like the night Swan had been shot was completely skewed. Somehow, her mind had exaggerated everything so that whenever she tried to imagine the room, she saw blood everywhere. In actuality, except for the splatter fanning out to the door and ceiling and the pool of blood and matter where Swan had lain, the room was clean.

Jeffrey opened the armoire and searched the shelves as Sara went to the bedside table opposite the side Swan had been shot. Everything in the room had been dusted for prints, black powder showing specks of dirt and ridges on every available surface. She assumed Reggie had lifted whatever evidence he needed, but still Sara tried not to touch the black powder on the cabinet door, knowing from experience how difficult it was to wash off. She opened the door from the top, stepping back as a baby-blue vibrator fell out onto the floor.

Jeffrey was looking over her shoulder. "That explains a lot," he said in a knowing tone.

"What does it explain?" Sara asked him, taking a tissue to use as she returned the machine to its resting place. "Every woman I know has one of these."

He seemed surprised. "Do you?"

"Of course not, honey," she joked. "You're more than man enough for me."

"I'm serious, Sara."

"What?" she asked, glancing in the cabinet before shutting the door. There was a small tube of personal lubricant, but she thought better than to tell Jeffrey. She said, "It doesn't mean anything. Sometimes couples use them. What sort of smoking gun are you looking for here?"

"I don't know," he said, sounding defeated. "He's not telling me the truth. We've got to either prove he's lying or prove he's not." He shrugged his shoulders. "Either way, I'm going to support him through this."

Sara told him, "Sometimes when people lie, they sprinkle in the truth so that it sounds believable."

"Meaning?"

"Robert might have told us a bit of information that we're just not hearing." Sara suggested, "Let's take it from the beginning and go over what Robert and Jessie said happened the first time."

"You mean what they told us when Luke was shot?"

She nodded.

"All right," he said, looking around the room. "Let's take it from the top. We were in the street. I heard the shots and ran through the backyard to here." He stood in the doorway. "I saw what had happened, or at least saw the dead guy. Robert groaned and I turned around. He was here," Jeffrey pointed behind the door. "Jessie was over here," he said, indicating the area by the window.

"Then what?"

"I asked Robert if he was okay, then I went to get you."

"All right," Sara began, taking up the narration. "I came in and you went to call the police. I checked Swan's pulse, then I went to help Robert."

"He wouldn't let you look at the wound," Jeffrey provided. "Jessie kept interrupting while I tried to get the story."

"Which was," Sara took over, "they were in bed. Swan came in through the window."

Jeffrey walked over to the window. He looked out into the backyard. "Someone could have sneaked in through here."

"Did Robert ever say he knocked the screen out?" She clarified, "As part of his new story where he says he did it. Did he say that he knocked out the screen?"

"No."

Sara glanced around the room, trying to remember how things had looked that night.

"So, Swan has a gun," Jeffrey said, picking back up on Robert's first explanation. "He crawls to the bed. Jessie wakes up and screams. Robert stirs and Swan shoots at him."

"He misses," Sara provided. "Robert runs to the armoire and gets his gun." She stood in front of the armoire. "He shoots at Swan, but the gun hangs."

Jeffrey finished, "Swan shoots him, then Robert's gun goes off and shoots Swan in the head."

Sara looked down at where she was standing. The blood-spray pattern did not point to the armoire.

She said, "He would've had to have been here," walking to the door and lining herself up with the pattern. "Look at this," she said, indicating blood in the carpet where Swan had fallen. "Robert had to have been standing here."

"Why?"

"He shoots," she said, holding out her hand with her thumb and index finger forming the shape of a gun. "The bullet hits Swan in the head, and there's backsplatter from the bullet. It's basic science: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. The bullet goes in, the blood sprays back. Look at the pattern of the blood."

Jeffrey stood beside her, looking at the carpet. "Okay," he said. "I see it. He was standing here."

"Hold on," she told him, leaving the room before he could ask why. She got the sewing basket and came back, saying, "This isn't exactly scientific."

"What are you doing?"

She found a spool of yellow thread, thinking that would show up best. "Blood's subject to gravity, just like anything else."

"So?"

"So," she said, opening a box of straight pins. "You can tell from the shape of the drop which way the blood fell. If it was splattered, if it fell straight down." She pointed to the bullet hole behind the door. "See?" she told him. "You can tell from the pattern that Robert was standing near the wall when the bullet exited his body. The blood drops are almost perfectly round except at the top, where you can see they've got a slight teardrop shape to them. That means the bullet was on an upward trajectory."

"But it looks scattered," Jeffrey said, pointing to the hairline ribbons of red radiating from the circular drops.

"The blood hit the wall straight on, but it still splattered back." She used a straight pin to point this out. "This is where the bulk of the impact took place."

"All right," he agreed, though she could tell he still did not buy it. "What can the rest of this tell us?"

"Watch," she told him, picking at the end of the thread. She pulled it out a few yards, then bent to the carpet to match it to the blood. "I'm just guessing at the angle, and of course I'll have to adjust it – probably up – for the parabolic, but I -"

"What are you talking about?"

"Basic trigonometry," she answered, thinking it was obvious. "I really don't have the right equipment, so this is just a hunch, but the formula goes something like, the ratio of width and length of the bloodstain equals the angle of impact…" She had lost him again, so she said, "Go find some tape."

"Masking? Duct? Scotch?"

"Anything sticky."

While Jeffrey searched the house for tape, Sara went about lining up the thread. She used the pins to attach the ends to the carpet and spun out the thread in lengths of ten to twelve feet.

"Will this work?" Jeffrey asked, handing her a roll of electrical tape.

"It should," Sara said, peeling off strips of tape and sticking them to her arm. She found the major splatters on the bedside table, careful not to touch the chunks of flesh that remained. She wished she had put on a pair of gloves before starting this, but it was too late now.

She told Jeffrey, "Stand here," pointing to the foot of the bed.

"What are you going to do?"

"There's nothing to attach the thread to on this end," she said. "I need to use you."

"Okay," he agreed, and she went back to each piece of thread, probably thirty in all, and judging the angle as best she could without the proper instruments, she followed the angle of the splatter, pinning the ends of the thread to Jeffrey's clothing. She used the black tape to highlight where the yellow threads crossed. By the time she had finished, Sara had worked up quite a sweat in the closed room, but it was well worth the effort.

"His head was here," Jeffrey said, indicating the point at which all the string converged. The black electrical tape represented the area of impact, like some sort of forensic spider on a web, showing the exact spot where the bullet exploded out blood, bone, and brain.

Sara had already gotten her jeans dirty crawling around on the bloody carpet, but she was hesitant to put herself where Swan had been kneeling when he was shot. He must have been a few feet from the bed when the bullet hit. She said, "He was a little shorter than I am, so his head must have been about here, give or take a few inches because of miscalculations on my part."

"Jessie was in bed," Jeffrey said, not moving because of the string. "Swan must have been on his knees in front of her."

Sara saw what could have been an outline of a handprint. "Here," she said. "Do you see this?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Swan must have had his hand there. Maybe he was leaning against the bed, using it for balance."

"He was facing this way," Sara said, indicating the bed. "The bullet entered the side of his head, here," she put her fingers to the space above her ear. "It came out low on the other side." She indicated the glob of flesh still stuck to the bedside table. "This is his earlobe."

"So it fits," Jeffrey said. "Robert was standing over here about where I am and Swan was kneeling beside the bed, doing whatever."

"He was facing Jessie."

Jeffrey's shoulders slumped, and the string went with him. "What he said was right, then. He didn't even give him a warning. He just shot him in cold blood."

"Let's get these off," Sara said, meaning the pins. "This doesn't tell us why."

"The why is clear enough," he said, helping her with the pins. "He saw another man fucking his wife. I'd feel the same way."

"You wouldn't shoot someone."

"I don't know what I'd do," Jeffrey said. "If I saw you with somebody else…"

"Robert saw them first," Sara said, still trying to think it through. "He wasn't carrying his gun when he walked in the first time."

"No," Jeffrey agreed. "He must have gone back out into the room or his truck or wherever the fuck it is he keeps his gun."

"Then he came back," Sara continued. "That's premeditation."

"I know," Jeffrey said, dropping some pins into the plastic box.

She wound up the string, wondering what they were going to do now. Robert had already confessed. Their purpose here had been to try in some way to break his story. They had done nothing more than proven he had shot the man with premeditation. It was the difference between ten years with early release and death row.

Car tires screeched outside, and Jeffrey said, "I wonder what -" just as a door slammed. They both walked to the front of house to see who was there. Jeffrey threw open the door just as a woman was raising her fist to bang on it.

"You!" she screamed, her voice reminding Sara of a gravel truck. "You fucking bastard, I knew you'd be here!"

Jeffrey tried to close the door but the woman inserted herself in the house. The smell of her hit Sara first, the metallic tinge of menstrual blood, though the woman was well past that time in her life. She was enormous, probably a hundred pounds overweight, with a face that was a mask of sheer rage.

"You fucking pig!" the woman screamed, punching her hand into Jeffrey's chest.

"Lane -" he began, holding up his hands to stop her.

"You killed my daughter, you murdering bastard!" she bellowed. "You and your fucking friends aren't going to get away with this!"

Jeffrey tried to push her out the door, but she was able to keep it open by sheer force of weight. She punched her hands into Jeffrey's chest again, this time hard enough to knock him back into the house. The door flew open as he fell to the floor.

Sara went to him, telling the woman, "Stop!" before she could help herself.

She turned on Sara, giving her the kind of up-and-down appraisal that she would probably give a leper. "I heard about you," she said. "You fucking slut. You don't even know what kind of trash you're with."

Jeffrey had managed to stand, but he was breathing hard, and Sara wondered if the force of the punch had broken one of his ribs.

Sara hissed, "Who is this?"

"Eric!" the woman called back into the yard. "Get in here. You, too, Sonny."

Jeffrey leaned hard against the wall, like he needed help to stay up. Sara was about to ask him what was going on when she saw two young boys walking up the porch stairs. They were pitiful creatures, undernourished and filthy. Sara was reminded of two baby birds who had fallen out of their nest and been abandoned by their mother, and she felt angry just looking at them. What sort of person could allow such neglect? Who could treat two children this way?

The woman grabbed one of the boys by the back of his neck and thrust him toward Jeffrey. "Say hello to your father, you little bastard."

Sara caught the boy before he fell. Under his dirty gray shirt she could feel his ribs poking through.

The woman said, "This is the asshole who raped your mama."

Sara felt as if her throat had closed. She looked at Jeffrey but he would not meet her gaze.

"Rape?" Sara managed, the word echoing in her head like a bell.

"You pig," the woman told Jeffrey. "Be a fucking man and take some responsibility for once in your pathetic life."

"Please," Sara said to the woman, trying to concentrate on the things she could control. "Don't do this in front of the children."

"Don't do what?" the woman demanded. "Boy needs to know his father. Ain't that right, Eric? Don't you wanna meet the man who raped and killed your mama?"

Eric looked up at Jeffrey, curious, but Jeffrey's face was stone, and he did not even glance at the child.

"Are you okay?" Sara asked the boy, using her fingers to push his dirty hair out of his eyes. He was tall enough to be Jared's age, but there was something sickly about him. She could see odd-looking bruises on his arms and legs. She asked, "Are you sick?"

The woman answered for him. "He's got bad blood," she said. "Just like his piece-of-shit father."

"Get out of here," Jeffrey growled, his voice a warning. "You don't belong here."

"You're gonna let Robert pay for this," she said. "You fucking coward."

"You don't know anything about it."

"I know I got medical bills out the ass," she yelled back. "Nobody on my side of the family's ever had this kind of shit." She gave the boy a look of pure hatred, like she could not stand being near him. "You think I'm made of money? You think I can afford to rush this'un up to the hospital for a transfusion every time he falls down?"

Jeffrey warned, "Get the fuck out of here before I call Hoss."

She stood her ground. "Bring him on! Bring him on right now and we'll settle this once and for all."

"There's nothing to settle," Jeffrey shot back. "Nothing's changed, Lane. You can't do anything now."

"The hell you say," she told him. "Everybody knows you raped her."

"The statute of limitations on that ran out three years ago," he told her, and the fact that he knew this sent a cold shiver through Sara's spine. "Even if you had something, they couldn't touch me."

The woman shoved her fat finger into Jeffrey's face. "I'll fucking kill you myself, you goddamn bastard."

"Ma'am," Sara tried, keeping her hands on Eric, not wanting to let him go. He seemed a million miles away, as if he was used to adults behaving this way. The boy who remained in the yard was playing with a plastic toy truck, his lips making engine noises. Still, Sara said, "Let's not do this in front of the children."

"Who the fuck are you?" she laughed. "Just who the fuck do you think you are?"

Sara stood up, anger compelling her to speak. "I know that this child is sick. He's filthy. How can you let him get like this?" She indicated the other boy. "Him, too. I should call child services on you."

"Go ahead and call them," she said. "You think I give a shit? Two less mouths to feed." Still, even as she said this she reached out her hand, indicating Eric should come to her. The boy followed the command, and Sara reached to stop him, her fingers brushing his arm. She could feel raised welts where the black and blue marks riddled his skin.

The woman told Sara, "Your boyfriend here raped my daughter."

Sara felt light-headed. She put her hand out to the wall to keep herself steady.

"He raped her and got her pregnant, and when she asked him for help, he killed her, and left me to raise his little bastard of a son." The woman shoved her finger back in Jeffrey's face. "This isn't over."

"Yes," he said. "It is."

"You tell that fucking buddy of yours if I see him in the street, he's a dead man."

"Why don't I tell Hoss and he can run you in for making threats?"

"You fucking coward," she said, her lips twisting into a sneer as she coughed in the back of her throat. Before Jeffrey could move away, she spit on his face.

"This isn't over," she repeated, grabbing Eric by the wrist. He already had bruises up and down his arm, but the child did not protest. The other boy in the yard trotted back to the car, looking for all the world as if his mother had told him they were going for ice cream.

Jeffrey took out his handkerchief and carefully unfolded it. He patted his face, wiping off the spit.

Sara took several minutes to find her voice. She kept hearing the woman's accusation over and over in her head. Finally, she managed, "Do you want to tell me what that was about?"

"No."

She threw her hands into the air, feeling angry and vulnerable. "Jeffrey, she said you raped her daughter."

"Do you believe her?" he asked, looking her right in the eye. "Do you believe I raped somebody? That I killed somebody?"

She had been too shocked to let her mind fully consider the possibility. The accusation had hit her like a hammer, knocking her senseless.

"Sara?"

"I don't…" She shook her head. "I don't know what I believe anymore."

"Then we don't have much to say to each other," he told her, walking away.

"Wait," she told him, following him down the driveway. "Jeffrey." He did not turn around, and she had to run to catch up with him. "Talk to me."

"Looks like you've already made up your mind."

"Why won't you tell me what happened?"

He stopped, turning to face her. "Why won't you let it be, Sara? Why can't you just trust me?"

"It's not a matter of trust," Sara told him. "My God, that woman says you raped her daughter. She says you have a son."

"That's bullshit," he snapped. "You think I could have a kid and not know it? There's no way."

Sara remembered Jared, and bit back the urge to throw Nell's secret in his face.

"What?" he demanded, mistaking her reticence for something more sinister. "You know what? Fuck this." He continued to walk down the street, obviously exasperated. "I thought you were different. I thought you were somebody I could trust."

"It's not an issue of trust."

" 'Issue,' " he repeated. "Fuck that."

"Oh, that's really mature," she said, mocking him. " 'Fuck that.' "

She tried to grab his shoulder to stop him but he jerked away, advising, "You wanna leave me alone right now."

"Why?" she asked. "Are you going to rape me, too? Strangle me?"

He had been angry before, livid, but she read his hurt like an open book, immediately regretting her words.

Sara tried to take it back, but he shook his head like he did not trust himself to talk. He held up his finger to her, as if to make a point, but still he said nothing. Finally, he shook his head again and continued down the street, walking toward his mother's house.

"Shit," Sara whispered, tucking her hands into her hips. Why did everything have to be so difficult between them? The minute things were going well, something – usually someone – came along and ruined it. Rape. She could handle anything they said about him but this. Why had he not told her before? Why hadn't he trusted her? Probably for the same reasons she did not completely trust him.

Nell was sitting on the front steps when Sara walked up to the house, and she stood, holding her hand out to Sara, saying, "I saw Lane Kendall's car up at Robert's. What did that old cow say to you?"

Sara opened her mouth and to her surprise burst into tears.

"Oh, honey," Nell said, leading her into the house. "Come here." She pulled Sara toward the couch. "Sit down."

Sara sat, and Nell hugged her. She felt ridiculous and grateful at the same time, and her words came in jagged murmurs between sobs as she let everything out that she had wanted to tell Jeffrey. "Those poor children."

"I know."

"They looked so dirty, so hungry."

Nell shook her head, tsking.

"I don't want to feel this way."

"Oh, now," Nell said, stroking her hair. "Shh…"

"What happened?" she begged. "Please just tell me what happened."

"Come on," Nell soothed, taking a Kleenex out of the box. She held the tissue to Sara's nose and said, "Blow."

Sara did as she was instructed, feeling silly for her outburst. She sat up, wiping her eyes with another tissue. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

"It's a wonder you haven't broken down before this," Nell said, taking another tissue to wipe her own eyes.

"Those children…" Sara murmured. "Those poor boys."

"I know. It makes my stomach ache every time I see them."

"Why can't anyone do something?"

"Don't ask me," she said. "I'd put an ad in the paper if I thought someone would take them."

Sara tried to laugh, but she could not. "What about children's services?"

"You wanna know something funny?"

Sara waited.

"She used to work for them."

"No," Sara said. She could not believe it.

"She did," Nell confirmed. "About fifteen years ago she was a caseworker at the Department of Family and Children's Services. Then she got into a car accident on the way to do a house visit and sued the county and the state and anybody else she could get her hands on. Between her disability and whatever she got from the settlement, she's not hurting for money."

"Where does she spend it?"

"Not on any of her kids," Nell answered ruefully. "The upshot is, she knows all the rules. She knows how to get around having those kids taken away. D-FACS is scared of her. If it wasn't for Hoss making drop-bys every now and then, she'd probably put those two boys in a closet and throw away the key."

"What's wrong with the youngest?"

"Some blood thing," Nell said. "He's always having to get transfusions."

"Hemophilia?" she asked, thinking Nell probably meant infusions. Even in a town as small as Sylacauga, the doctors would know better.

"No, something else like that, but not hemophilia," Nell told her. "State pays all the bills, I'm sure."

Sara sank back into the sofa, feeling an overwhelming exhaustion. The two women sat there in silence, and for some reason Sara told her, "I was raped."

For once, Nell did not respond.

"I've never said that out loud," she said. "I mean, the actual words. I always say I was attacked or I was hurt…" She pressed her lips together. "I was raped."

Nell let her take her time.

"It was when I worked in Atlanta," Sara said, adding, "Jeffrey doesn't know." She picked at a piece of string on the cushion.

Nell gave Sara a moment before saying, "I guess we've each got our secrets from him."

"I've never felt like this with a man," Sara said. "Not about anybody." She tried to find a way to articulate it. "I feel totally out of control, like no matter what my brain tells me, there's this little thing in the back of my head saying, 'No, don't listen to them. You can't live without him.' "

Nell repeated, "He has that effect on women."

"I just want…" She threw her hands into the air. "I don't know what I want." She picked at the string again. "I can't even tell him to his face that I love him, but every time I see him or even think about him…"

Nell took another tissue and handed it to Sara. "I never believed it," she told her. "What they said about him and Julia."

"What exactly did they say?"

"That Jeffrey and Robert raped her in the woods."

Sara bit her bottom lip. Nell had said the words matter-of-factly, but they still had power. The word "rape" in and of itself was the most obscene sort of profanity.

"She was a slut," Nell said. "Not that that's any excuse. Hell, my sister Marinell was a bigger slut, but she knew better than to brag about it."

"Tell me everything," Sara said. "Jeffrey won't."

Nell shrugged. "She did things with boys. I don't know, it sounds like no big deal today, but back then, you just didn't put out." She amended, "Well, you did it, but you sure as shit didn't let everybody know about it."

"I remember," Sara said. Fear had kept her from giving in to Steve Mann, and shame had kept her from really enjoying it when she finally did.

"Julia wasn't pretty," Nell said. "She wasn't plain, either, but there's a quality girls like that have that makes them ugly. I guess it's some sort of desperation, where they grab onto anybody they think can make them feel better about themselves." She stared at the pictures of her family that lined the wall. "I look at Jen and it just makes me cringe sometimes because I see this need in her. She's not even a teenager yet and she's got this unquenchable thirst for approval."

"Most girls are like that."

"Are they?"

"Yes," Sara said. "Some are better at hiding it."

"I try to tell her she's pretty. Possum's just crazy about her. Went to the father-daughter dance with her at the end of school last year. My God, but that man can carry off a baby-blue tux like nobody you've ever seen."

Sara laughed, imagining Possum in the tuxedo.

"She's doing sports now," Nell said. "Basketball, softball. It's making a difference."

Sara nodded. Girls who participated in sports had more self-confidence; it was a proven fact. She said, "I look back and thank God I had my mother." Sara laughed at herself. "Not that I ever believed a word she said, but she was always telling me I could do anything I wanted to do."

"Obviously, part of you was listening," Nell pointed out. "You don't get to be a doctor just because you're pretty."

Sara felt a tinge of a blush at the compliment.

"Anyway," Nell said, folding and unfolding the tissue. "Julia was kind of loose. She didn't make a secret of it, either. She thought it meant something that the boys would go with her, like they thought she was special or they loved her. Like blowing them behind the gym after school made her some kind of special. She actually bragged about it."

"Did she ever go with Jeffrey?"

"The truth?" Nell asked.

Sara could only nod.

"The truth is, I can't tell you. I don't see why he would. I was giving it to him pretty regular then." She laughed at herself. "You never know with boys that age, though. A sixteen-year-old boy is gonna pass up on getting laid? Hell, most grown men wouldn't pass that up. Sex is sex, and they'll do just about anything to get it."

"Did you ever ask him about what happened?"

"I didn't have the guts," Nell said. "I wouldn't have a problem now, but you know how it is when you're young. You're scared to say something that might piss him off and make him leave you for the next hot thing."

"Who was the next hot thing?"

"Jessie, I thought, but in retrospect I know that he never would have done that to Robert." Nell tucked her feet under her legs. "I don't think he did, if you want my gut reaction. Even then, Jeffrey had this thing about him, this sort of guide that let him know the difference between right and wrong."

"I thought he was in trouble all the time."

"Oh, he was," Nell said. "But he knew he was wrong. That's what I kept after him about. He just knew better than to do the crap he did. He had to get to that point where he made the decision to listen to his gut." She added, "Your gut's a lot smarter than you think."

Sara thought of her conversation with her mother yesterday. "My gut tells me to trust him."

"Mine, too," Nell said. "I remember when Julia came to school the next day after she said she was raped. It was horrible. She told anybody who would listen. The details just filtered through so that by lunchtime we were all thinking she was bruised and battered." She paused. "Then I saw her in the hall, and she didn't look that upset to me. She seemed to be enjoying the attention." Nell gave another shrug. "The thing was, she lied all the time. Lied for attention, lied for pity. No one believed her. She probably didn't even believe herself."

"What did she say exactly?"

"That Robert took her to the cave, gave her some beer, loosened her up."

"Where does Jeffrey come in?"

"Later," Nell answered. "The story took on a life of its own, just like these things always do. He swore up and down he was with Robert when it happened, and she said sweet as you please that, by the way, Jeffrey was there, too. Said they both took turns on her."

"She changed her story?"

"From what I heard, but gossip goes both ways. She could have been saying they were both involved from the beginning and I just heard it wrong. It was a mess. By the end of the day there were rumors she'd been gang-raped by a group of boys from Comer. Some of the football team was talking about going after them. People just go crazy with that kind of thing."

"Were the police -" Sara stopped. "Hoss."

"Oh, yeah. Hoss was called. Some teacher at the school overheard Julia crying about it and they called in Hoss."

"What did he do?"

"He interviewed her, I guess. God knows he knew where she lived. Right before her father died, Hoss was there every weekend breaking up a fight between him and Lane."

"Did he interview Jeffrey and Robert?"

"Probably," Nell said, not sounding certain. "Julia backed off the story real quick after Hoss was called in. Stopped talking about it at school, stopped acting like the injured party. People tried to get her to say something – not because they were concerned but because it was a good scandal – but she wouldn't talk. Wouldn't say a thing. She was gone a month or so later."

"Gone where?"

"To have that baby, I'd guess," Nell said. "Fat as Lane is, no one made a connection when she told everybody she was pregnant again. Her husband had just died and we all felt sorry for her." Nell paused.

"Now, there was a blessing, that old man dying. He was a terror, worse than Lane ever thought to be. Worse than Jeffrey's dad, I'd say. Just a mean, nasty piece of work."

"How many children did she have?"

"Last count, six."

"Is the one I saw today – Sonny – her youngest one?"

"He's a cousin. I don't know why she took him on. Probably for the extra money the state gives her."

"That's unbelievable," Sara said, wondering how anyone could allow that woman to raise a child, let alone two.

"Julia came back nine or ten months later and there was Eric, her new brother."

"No one said anything about the timing?"

"What were they going to say?" Nell asked. "And then a few more weeks later, she was gone again. It was just easier to say that Lane was the mother and Julia had run off somewhere. Dan Phillips, one of the boys who'd been on the football team, ran off around that time. There were all kinds of rumors, but they died off pretty quick. It made it easier for everybody, I guess."

Nell sat up on the couch and took a photo album out from under the coffee table. She thumbed through some of the pages until she found what she was looking for. "That's her, there in back."

Sara saw a photograph of Possum, Robert, and Jeffrey standing in the bleachers of a football stadium. They were all wearing their letterman jackets with their last names stitched on the front above their football jersey numbers. Jeffrey had his arm around Nell, and she leaned into him like a love-struck young girl. Inexplicably, Sara felt a stab of jealousy.

"Bastard never would give me his jacket," Nell said, and Sara laughed, but felt secretly relieved for some reason. In high school, wearing a boy's letterman jacket was right up there with wearing his class ring. It was not so much a symbol of the boy's love, but a way for the girl to make the rest of her friends jealous.

As if reading her mind, Nell asked, "Whose ring did you wear?"

Sara felt herself blush, but more from shame than anything else. Steve Mann's class ring had been a hulking chunk of gold with a hideous chess knight on the side – nothing like the football and basketball rings the athletes wore. Sara had hated wearing it and took it off as soon as she moved to Atlanta. Three months passed before she got up the nerve to mail it back to him along with a note explaining that she wanted to break up. To her credit, she had apologized to him years later, but Sara wondered if she would have given it a second thought had she not been forced to move back to Grant after what happened in Atlanta.

Nell took her silence for something else, probably assuming someone like Sara had not dated much in high school. She said, "Well, it's stupid anyway. Jeffrey didn't have a class ring – couldn't afford it – but all the other girls wore theirs like a damn wedding ring." She laughed. "The only way they could get them to fit was by wrapping half a roll of tape around the band."

Sara allowed a smile. She had done the same thing.

Nell returned to the photo album, saying "There" as she put her finger beside a blurry image of a young girl standing behind a picture of Possum and Robert. "That's Julia."

Sara had been expecting something horrible from Nell's description, but Julia looked like any other teenage girl from that time period. Her hair was straight to her waist and she was wearing a simple dress with a floral pattern. She looked sad more than anything else, and as sudden as her previous stab of jealousy, Sara felt a sharp sense of sympathy for the teenager.

Nell leaned over to look. "Now that I'm seeing her again, she wasn't that bad. You really can't judge personality in a picture, can you?"

"No," Sara agreed, thinking the girl was fairly attractive. Yet, that had not been enough to help her transcend the circumstances of her family life. She asked, "Was her father abusive?"

"He beat the crap out of them."

"No," Sara said. "The other way."

"Oh, you mean…" Nell seemed to think about it. "I have no idea, but it'd make sense."

"Do you know who the father of her child might have been?"

"No telling," Nell said. "If you wanted a list of everybody she'd been with, it'd end up being half the town." She gave Sara a pointed look. "Reggie Ray included."

"He was younger than her."

"So?"

Sara conceded the point, then said, "From what Lane said, it sounds like Eric has to go to the hospital a lot to get treatments. So he has to have some sort of clotting problem with his blood." She tried to think of other possibilities. "There has to be an autosomal recessive or dominant transmission." She saw Nell's perplexed expression and said, "Sorry, it means that the disorder is genetic. It has to do with one of the two proteins that make up clotting factors."

"Is that supposed to make sense?"

"Bleeding disorders are passed from parent to child."

"Ah."

"Do you know if Julia had anything like that?"

"I wouldn't think so," Nell said. "I remember one time during home ec, she sliced her finger open pretty bad with a pair of scissors. Whether or not it was an accident, I don't know, but she didn't seem to bleed any longer than a normal person would."

"If she had something like von Willebrand's disease, then having a child without proper medical supervision would have been life-threatening," Sara said. "There would also be other people in her family who were affected, and Lane pretty much said that wasn't the case."

"So you're saying it had to come from the father?" Nell asked. "I can't think of anyone in town with that kind of problem." She added, "Not Robert, especially. He got pretty banged up on the football field and never seemed the worse for it."

"Jeffrey, too," Sara said. She remembered drawing his blood sample. The puncture had bled no longer than usual. Even as she considered this, Sara felt ashamed. She had never genuinely thought Jeffrey could be guilty of either crime, but some part of her was glad that there was irrefutable proof.

"I could ask around," Nell offered.

"It comes in degrees," Sara said. "Some people have it and don't even know it. It's not as easy for women because of their menstrual cycles. Generally, they know there's a problem. My bet would be it came from the father."

"A needle in a haystack," Nell pointed out. "Who knows, maybe Dan Phillips has it." She reminded Sara, "The one who ran off about the same time Julia did." She reached over and paged through the album. "Here," she said, indicating a young man standing in the back row of the football team photo.

"He doesn't look like a football player," Sara said. Phillips was on the thin side and his dark hair was combed straight back off his head. He looked healthy enough, though one photo could not give the full story.

"He mostly played tackle dummy," Nell said. "Just being on the team and wearing the letterman jacket was all most of these guys wanted. Go down to the hardware store on game day and you can still hear them talking about it like they were in the damn Super Bowl."

"Glory days," Sara said. It was the same in Grant. She turned the page, looking at the other pictures. There was a black-and-white snapshot of Jared from a few years back, and she said, "He's growing up to be a handsome boy."

"You're not going to tell Jeffrey, are you?" Nell tried to smile. "Don't answer that." She put the album back under the table. "You still leaving town?"

"I don't know."

"Stick around." Nell patted her leg. "I'm making cornbread tonight."

"Where's Robert?"

"Possum took him to the store to buy him some clothes," she said. "Robert didn't want to go back to the house and God only knows what Jessie did with the stuff at her mama's."

"What about Robert?"

"He'll be okay."

"No," Sara said. "Robert. We've only been talking about Jeffrey. Did you ever think he was involved in what happened to Julia?"

Nell took her time answering. "He was always secretive."

"About what?"

"Maybe 'secretive' is the wrong word. Makes him sound shifty. He's just private. Doesn't talk about his feelings much."

"Jeffrey doesn't, either."

"No, not like that. Like he doesn't want anyone to get too close to him." She sat back on the couch, her back slumped into a C. "Everybody thought it was Possum who was on the outside, but I think it was Robert. He never seemed to fit in. Not that Jeffrey treated him that way, but it's that same thing we were talking about earlier. He always waited to see what Jeffrey did before he acted."

"That's not uncommon for teenagers."

"It was more than that," Nell said. "If Jeffrey got into trouble, Robert would take the blame. He was like Jeffrey's safety net and Jeffrey let him do it." She looked at Sara. "The minute Jeffrey left, Robert did the same thing with Hoss. He'd take a bullet for either one of them, and I'm not exaggerating."

Sara debated before telling her, "Robert is saying that he killed Julia."

Something in Nell's face shifted, though Sara could not pin down what. Her voice had changed, too. "I don't know about that."

"No," Sara said. "Me neither."