Hoss asked, "What the hell happened here tonight?"
"Let me take you back to the room," Jeffrey told him, not exactly answering the question. "Sara and I were in the street when we heard Jessie scream." He chewed the inside of his mouth as they walked down the hallway, lies of omission eating a hole in his stomach.
As usual, Hoss saw right through him. "Something wrong, son?"
"No, sir," he answered. "It's just been a long night."
Hoss slapped Jeffrey hard enough on the back to make him cough; it was his way of showing other men affection. "You're tough. You'll get through this." He stopped outside the door of the bedroom. "Christ a'mighty," he muttered. "What a mess."
"Yeah," Jeffrey answered, trying to see the scene the way Hoss was, for the first time. The ceiling fan overhead was still whirring, but he could tell it had been off when the man was shot; the blades had interrupted the blood spray pattern on the ceiling. There was a streak of blood where the switch for the fan had been turned on, probably by Robert. That made sense. He would have turned on the lights to see how badly he was wounded after the gunplay. It also made sense that there would be a lag between the last two shots. Robert had been handling guns since he was eight. He knew better than to fire into the dark. He had probably let his eyes adjust, tried to tell where Jessie was. Knowing her, she was standing helpless in the corner. It would be just like Robert to take his time.
Hoss looked out the window, saying, "Screen's been knocked out." Jeffrey didn't know if he meant from the inside or the outside, but Jesus Himself could not drag him back into the room. Jeffrey would look around outside when Hoss was gone.
Hoss asked, "What'd Robert say?"
Jeffrey tried to think of how to answer, but Hoss waved him off. "I'll get it from the horse." Jeffrey's expression must have registered his surprise, because he added, "You can give your statement tomorrow when you bring your girl in."
From the way Sara was looking at Jeffrey when she left the house, he was not sure whether or not he would have a girl tomorrow, but he did not volunteer that information. Instead, he watched Hoss walk around the room, felt his gut constricting every time he thought about what he was keeping back. This was the main reason Jeffrey had never seriously pursued a life of crime. Unlike Jimmy Tolliver, guilt could and did keep Jeffrey up at night. He hated lying – maybe because his childhood had been riddled with lies. His mother would not admit his father was ever guilty of the crimes that put him in jail, and his father denied his mother had a problem with her drinking. Meanwhile, Jeffrey had told some whoppers of his own to anybody who would listen. He had left Sylacauga so he could stop being that person. The minute he got back, he had returned to his old ways. It was like slipping back into a pair of familiar shoes.
"Son?" Hoss said. He was still by the window. Jeffrey noticed he was standing on one of Jessie's bloody footprints. A few of her little white pills had been crushed under his heel.
"Sir?" Jeffrey said, thinking Hoss must have been as distraught as he was. Everybody showed it in different ways.
"I said it looks pretty straightforward to me," Hoss said. He nudged the dead man's foot with the toe of his boot, and Jeffrey felt like he had been kicked in the gut seeing the casual way Hoss was dealing with this man's death. That was how it had always been for Hoss, though. There were good guys and bad guys, and to protect one, you did what you had to do to the other. He had always been hard on Robert and Jeffrey, but he was the only man in town allowed to say anything bad about them.
Hoss squatted down, looking at the corpse. Greasy blond shoulder-length hair covered most of the face. Still, Hoss asked, "Recognize him?"
"No, sir," Jeffrey said, kneeling down for a better look. He was still in the doorway, and down close to the carpet, he could see backsplatter fanning from the body. The edges of the fan led to where Jeffrey knelt. Robert must have been trying to find the light when he was shot.
"Luke Swan." Hoss stood, looping his thumb in his belt.
The name was familiar to Jeffrey if not the face. "We went to school with him."
"He dropped out before y'all graduated," Hoss said. "Remember?"
Jeffrey nodded, though he didn't. His high school life had been spent in an insulated clique of football players and cheerleaders. Luke Swan was hardly the athletic type. He looked like he weighed ninety pounds wet.
"Been in and out of trouble ever since," Hoss said, a sad note to his voice. "Drugs, alcohol. He's slept off more than a couple of good times at the station."
"Did Robert ever arrest him?"
Hoss shrugged off the question. "Hell, Slick, we only got eight deputies on the street any given shift. All of us have seen the boy one time or another."
"He ever do anything like this before?" Jeffrey asked. When Hoss shook his head, he added, "Armed B amp;E is a big step up from just getting in and out of trouble."
He crossed his arms. "You saying something? Should I be concerned?"
Jeffrey looked at the body. He still could not see all of the man's face, but the thin blue lips and small build gave him a youthful quality. "No, sir."
Hoss came toward him, not bothering to look where he was walking. He told Jeffrey, "That lady of yours seemed like she had something to say."
"She's a coroner in our town."
He gave a low whistle, impressed, but not for the obvious reason. "Y'all can afford a full-time coroner?"
"She's part-time," Jeffrey told him.
"She charge much?"
Jeffrey shook his head, though he had no idea what Sara made. Judging by her house and her car, she made a hell of a lot more money than he did. Of course, it was a lot easier to make money when you came from it. Jeffrey had seen the truth of that his entire life.
Hoss tilted his head toward the body. "Think she'd do this one for us?"
Jeffrey felt his chest tighten again. "I'll ask her."
"Good." He turned back around, looking at the room. He said, "I want to get this mess cleared up and Robert back on the street as soon as possible."
Then, as if to put an end to any further discussion, he reached over and turned off the light.
Chapter Nine
Sara woke in a sweat, her head spinning as she sat up too fast. She looked frantically around the room, trying to remember where she was. The Auburn memorabilia was almost comforting. Even the orange and blue blanket Nell had given her last night was a welcome sight. She sat back on the couch, tucking the blanket up around her neck as she adjusted to the quiet sounds of the neighborhood. Coffee was brewing in the kitchen, and somewhere, a car horn beeped.
Sara pulled her legs up, resting her chin on the top of her knees. She had not dreamed about Atlanta in a long time, but seconds ago, she had been back there – back in that bathroom at Grady Hospital where she had been raped. Her attacker had handcuffed her arms behind her and defiled Sara in ways she could still feel if she let her mind stay there long enough. Then he had stabbed her in the side and left her to bleed to death.
At the memory, her throat constricted again, and Sara closed her eyes, trying to breathe through her emotions.
"You okay?" Nell asked. She stood in the doorway with a cup of coffee in her hand.
Sara nodded, trying to find her voice.
"Possum's gone to open the store. Jeffrey went to check on Jessie. He's a fool if he thinks she'll be out of bed before noon." She paused when Sara did not respond. "He said to tell you to be ready to go at eight-thirty."
Sara looked at the clock on the mantel. It was half past seven.
Nell said, "Coffee's ready when you are," and left Sara alone in the room.
Sara sat up, hitting her toe on her suitcase. Jeffrey had put it there a few hours ago while she pretended to sleep. He had sneaked in like a thief, and she had watched him go, wondering exactly what she had gotten herself into. Jeffrey Tolliver was not the man she thought he was. Even Cathy Linton would have been surprised by his behavior last night. Sara had felt threatened, and at one point she had been frightened enough to think that he would actually hit her. She could not let herself get involved with someone like that. There was no denying that she had feelings for Jeffrey, maybe she was even in love with him, but that did not mean she had to put herself in a situation where she was afraid of what might happen next.