Her momma’s body lay in a lump on the floor, over by the door that led to the back porch. The shotgun that had killed her, her daddy’s Remington Wingmaster, stood propped against the kitchen counter. Back in what had once been called the game room, the sheriff would find that somebody had pulled down all the guns — six rifles, the other shotgun, both of her daddy’s .38’s — and thrown them on the floor. He’d broken the lock on the metal cabinet that stood nearby and he’d removed the box of shells and loaded the Remington.
It was hard to say what he’d been after, this man who for her was still a dark, faceless form. Her momma’s purse had been ransacked, her wallet was missing, but there couldn’t have been much money in it. She had some jewelry in the bedroom, but he hadn’t messed with that. The most valuable things in the house were probably the guns themselves, but he hadn’t taken them.
He’d come in through the back door — the lock was broken — and he’d left through the back door. Why Butch hadn’t taken his leg off was anybody’s guess. When the sheriff and his deputies showed up, it was all Chuckie could do to keep the dog from attacking.
“She wouldn’t of wanted you to see her like that,” her daddy said. “Nor me either.” He spread his hands and looked at them, turning them over and scrutinizing his palms, as if he intended to read his own fortune. “I reckon I was lucky,” he said, letting his gaze meet hers. “Anything you want to tell me about it?”
She shook her head no. The thought of telling him how she felt seemed somehow unreal. It had been years since she’d told him how she felt about anything that mattered.
“Life’s too damn short,” he said. “Our family’s become one of those statistics you read about in the papers. You read those stories and you think it won’t ever be you. Truth is, there’s no way to insure against it.”
At the time, the thing that struck her as odd was his use of the word family. They hadn’t been a family for a long time, not as far as she was concerned.
She forgot about what he’d said until a few days later. What she remembered about that visit with him on Sunday night was that for the second time in twenty-four hours, he pulled her close and hugged her and gave her twenty dollars.
She saw him again Monday at the funeral home, and the day after that, and then the next day, at the funeral, she sat between him and her grandmother, and he held her hand while the preacher prayed. She had wondered if he would bring his girlfriend, but even he must have realized that would be inappropriate.
He apparently did not think it inappropriate, though, or unwise either, to present himself at the offices of an insurance company in Jackson on Friday morning, bringing with him her mother’s death certificate and a copy of the coroner’s report.
When she thinks of the morning — a Saturday — on which Wheeler came to see her for the second time, she always imagines her own daughter sitting there on the couch at her grandmother’s place instead of her. She sees Cynthia looking at the silver badge on Wheeler’s shirt pocket, sees her glancing at the small notebook that lies open in his lap, at the pen gripped so tightly between his fingers that his knuckles have turned white.
“Now the other night,” she hears Wheeler say, “your boyfriend picked you up at what time?”
“Right around eight o’clock.” Her voice is weak, close to breaking. She just talked to her boyfriend an hour ago, and he was scared. His parents were pissed — pissed at Wheeler, pissed at him, but above all pissed at her. If she hadn’t been dating their son, none of them would have been subjected to the awful experience they’ve just gone through this morning. They’re devout Baptists, they don’t drink or smoke, they’ve never seen the inside of a nightclub, their names have never before been associated with unseemly acts. Now the sheriff has entered their home and questioned their son as if he were a common criminal. It will cost the sheriff their votes come November. She’s already lost their votes. She lost them when her daddy left her momma and started running around with a young girl.
“The reason I’m kind of stuck on this eight o’clock business,”
Wheeler says, “is you say that along about that time’s when your daddy was there to see you.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now your boyfriend claims he didn’t see your daddy leaving the store. Says he didn’t even notice the MG on the street.”
“Daddy’d been gone a few minutes already. Plus, I think he parked around back.”
“Parked around back,” the sheriff says.
“Yes sir.”
“In that lot over by the bayou.”
Even more weakly: “Yes sir.”
“Where the delivery trucks come in — ain’t that where they usually park?”
“I believe so. Yes sir.”
Wheeler’s pen pauses. He lays it on his knee. He turns his hands over, studying them as her daddy did a few days before. He’s looking at his hands when he asks the next question. “Any idea why your daddy’d park his car behind the Safeway — where there generally don’t nothing but delivery trucks park — when Main Street was almost deserted and there was a whole row of empty spaces right in front of the store?”
The sheriff knows the answer as well as she does. When you’re with a woman you’re not married to, you don’t park your car on Main Street on a Saturday night. Particularly if it’s a little MG with no top on it, and your daughter’s just a few feet away, with nothing but a pane of glass between her and a girl who’s not much older than she is. That’s how she explains it to herself anyway. At least for today.
“I think maybe he had his girlfriend with him.”
“Well, I don’t aim to hurt your feelings, honey,” Wheeler says, looking at her now, “but there’s not too many people that don’t know about his girlfriend.”
“Yes sir.”
“You reckon he might’ve parked out back for any other reason?” She can’t answer that question, so she doesn’t even try.
“There’s not any chance, is there,” he says, “that your boyfriend could’ve been confused about when he picked you up?”
“No sir.”
“You’re sure about that?”
She knows that Wheeler has asked Chuckie where he was between seven-fifteen, when several people saw her mother eating a burger at the Sonic Drive-in, and eight-thirty, when the two of them found her body. Chuckie has told Wheeler he was at home watching TV between seven-fifteen and a few minutes till eight, when he got in the car and went to pick up Dee Ann. His parents were in Greenville eating supper at that time, so they can’t confirm his story.
“Yes sir,” she says, “I’m sure about it.”
“And you’re certain your daddy was there just a few minutes before eight?”
“Yes sir.”
“Because your daddy,” the sheriff says, “remembers things just a little bit different. The way your daddy remembers it, he came by the Safeway about seven-thirty and hung around there talking with you for half an hour. Course, Mr. Lindsey was in the back, so he can’t say yea or nay, and the stock boy don’t seem to have the sense God give a betsy bug. Your daddy was over at the VFW drinking beer at eight o’clock — stayed there till almost ten, according to any number of people, and his girlfriend wasn’t with him. Fact is, his girlfriend left the country last Thursday morning. Took a flight from New Orleans to Mexico City, and from there it looks like she went on to Argentina.”
Dee Ann, imagining this scene in which her daughter reprises the role she once played, sees Cynthia’s face go slack as the full force of the information strikes her. She’s still sitting there like that — hands useless in her lap, face drained of blood — when Jim Wheeler tells her that six months ago, her daddy took out a life insurance policy on her momma that includes double indemnity in the event of accidental death.