"What did Hoss have to do with it?"
Nell put down her fork. "You know why Jeffrey's called Slick?"
"I can take a wild guess."
She snorted a laugh. "Yeah, he's slick, I'll give him that, but the name came because no matter what kind of trouble he got into, he was real slick at getting out."
"What kind of trouble?"
"Oh, not anything big when you consider what kids get up to today. Stealing things from the five-and-dime, borrowing his mama's car while she was passed out on the couch. The same kinds of things his daddy probably did when he was that age. We're talking ten or twelve. You gonna finish that?" Sara shook her head and Nell reached over with her fork and took the last bite of pancake. "Jeffrey'd probably be where his daddy is if Hoss hadn't come along."
"What did Hoss do?"
"Made him cut the grass at the jail instead of spending a couple of nights locked up in it. Sometimes, he'd take Jeffrey back in the cells and make him talk to some of the guys who were hard cases. Basically, he scared the shit out of him. Robert, too, but he didn't need as much scaring. He's always been more of a follower, and with Jeffrey straightened out, you got Robert, too."
"It's a good thing Hoss came along."
"Sometimes I wonder," Nell said, sitting back with her coffee. "Jeffrey's got a tender heart. I guess you noticed."
Sara did not answer, though she wondered if Nell had an accurate picture of him. A lot could happen in six years. A lot could happen in one night.
"I always saw him ending up teaching, maybe coaching football at the high school. After Jimmy went up for life, he changed. Maybe Jeffrey thought joining the force and being a cop would make up for the fact that his daddy was a criminal. Maybe he thought it'd make Hoss happy."
"Did it?"
Nell pushed away her plate. "Like you wouldn't believe."
Sara saw Jeffrey walk by the kitchen window and she stood from the table, telling Nell, "I should get dressed."
Jeffrey opened the back door. He seemed surprised to find Nell and Sara eating breakfast.
Sara said, "I was just going to get changed."
He gave her a quick glance, saying, "You look fine," even though she was still in the pajamas she had been wearing when she ran out of his mother's house last night.
Nell asked, "How's Jessie and them?"
"Like you'd think." He indicated their cleaned plates. "That smells good."
"I didn't marry Possum to cook for you," she said, standing up. "There's plenty of batter left in the bowl and the eggs shouldn't be too cold. I've gotta go check-see if those stupid dogs have knocked over their water bowls yet."
Nell took all the conversation with her when she left the room. Not knowing what else to do, Sara sat back down at the table. She felt like the pancakes she had eaten were expanding in her stomach. The coffee left in her cup was lukewarm, but she managed to swallow it.
Jeffrey chewed a piece of bacon as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He put the pot on the warmer, then took it out again, holding it up to see if Sara wanted more. She shook her head no, and he put it back, eating another piece of bacon as he stared at the kitchen faucet.
Sara took up her fork and traced it around the syrup in her plate, wondering what, if anything, to say. Really, the burden to speak was on him. She put down the fork and crossed her arms, staring at Jeffrey, waiting.
He cleared his throat before asking, "What are you going to say today?"
"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "Or are you going to threaten me again?"
"I shouldn't have done that."
"No, you shouldn't have," she told him, her anger coming back in sharp focus. "I'll tell you this right now, between the way your mother talked to me last night and your threats, I could leave right now and never look back."
He looked down at the floor, and she could feel his shame without seeing it. His voice caught as he tried to speak, and he cleared his throat before he could manage, "I've never hit a woman in my life."
Sara waited.
"I'd cut off my own hands before I did anything like that," he told her, his jaw working as he obviously tried to fight the emotions welling up inside. "I watched my daddy beat my mama every day of my life. Sometimes she pissed him off, sometimes he did it just because he could." He kept his face turned away from her. "I know you don't have any reason to believe me, but I would never hurt you."
When Sara did not answer, he asked, "What did my mother say to you last night?"
Sara was too embarrassed to repeat it. "It doesn't matter."
"It does," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I brought you here to this…this place." He chanced a look at her, and she could see his eyes were bloodshot. "I just wanted you to see…" He stopped. "Hell, I don't know what I wanted you to see. Who I really am, I guess. Maybe you're seeing that now. Maybe this is who I really am."
She felt sorry for him, and then she felt stupid for doing so.
He pulled out the chair Nell had vacated, dragging it a few feet from the table before he sat. "Bobby wouldn't talk to me this morning."
Sara waited for the rest.
"I walked in the room and he was getting dressed to go home." Jeffrey paused, and she sensed rather than saw his feelings of helplessness. "I told him we needed to talk and he just said no. Just like that, 'No,' like he has something to hide."
"Maybe he does."
He tapped his fingers on the table.
"Was Jessie with him?"
"No. She wasn't even awake yet when I dropped by the house to check on her."
Sara chewed her lip, debating whether or not to tell him what she had seen.
"Go ahead," he said. "Go ahead and say whatever it is that I'm not seeing." He slammed his palm against the table, frustrated. "Jesus, I'm not doing this on purpose, Sara. No matter how many years have passed, he's still my best friend. It's not exactly easy for me to be a cop right now."
Sara took a deep, calming breath. She had flinched when he hit the table, and her first response had been to get up and leave. Just because he came from a violent family did not mean Jeffrey was a violent man, but she could not help but see him differently now. His broad shoulders and well-muscled body, which she had once found so attractive, only served to remind her of how much stronger than her he was.
He must have sensed this, because he moderated his tone. "Please don't look at me like that."
"I just -"
When she said nothing, he prompted, "What?"
Sara tucked her chin into her chest, not ready to have this conversation. She directed him back toward the problem at hand, saying, "I want to see Robert's gunshot wound again."
"Why?"
"I'm not sure, but…" she began, but even as she said it, she was sure. "There was a sear mark at the bottom of the wound."
"You're not sure?"
"I don't want to be, but I am."
He gave a humorless laugh. "He kept covering it with his hand."
"He used the shirt to stanch the blood."
"Did he let you see the shirt?"
She shook her head. If the gun had been held at contact range, the sear mark as well as soot would be on the shirt.
He said, "They probably threw it away at the hospital."
"Or he did."
"Or he did," Jeffrey conceded. He shook his head again. "If he'd talk to me, try to explain what'd happened…"
"What are we going to do?"
He kept shaking his head. "Why won't he talk to me?"
Sara did not volunteer the obvious answer.
He said, "Luke Swan could have been going for him. His body was only a few feet away."
"Probably three or four feet."
"Robert pushed him," Jeffrey said. "Swan would have been crouched or on his knees."
"Could have been."
She could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to explain it all away. "Swan could have heard Robert getting his gun. He moved toward him. Maybe he held his gun up and in front of him." Jeffrey illustrated, holding out his hand, his fingers in the shape of a gun. "He shot Robert, then Robert shot him."
Sara tried to see the holes in his theory. "It's possible."