“Why not?”
He put down the shot glass he’d been wiping dry. “Too drunk.”
“That’s what Red Bosch says, too.”
“Red’s right.”
“Then how come he got convicted and sent to prison, Bailey?”
He shrugged.
“No, really.” She dumped the rest of the peanuts back into their bowl and brushed her hands together to get the shell dust off. “If he didn’t do it, how could he end up in prison for it?”
This time Bailey gave her a look that made her feel as if she was the stupid one in Rose. It was a look that said, What? You think that never happens in this country?
“I’ve read the trial transcripts, Bailey. You didn’t testify.”
“I told the cops what I saw. They never called me back.”
Jody started to say something, but Bailey wasn’t finished.
“Didn’t matter to me,” he said, “Billy needed to go to jail and stay there. He was bound to do something similar someday.”
“Bailey,” Jody said to him, “the system’s not supposed to work like that.”
He shrugged again. “It wasn’t supposed to let him out this soon, either.”
“He might say twenty-three years isn’t soon.”
“And I say it’s not long enough.”
Jody, feeling a little shell-shocked by all the opinions she was hearing for the first time from people she thought she knew, said, “May I have that beer now, please?”
“Are you going to eat something with it?”
“No, I’m due out at the ranch for supper.”
“Soon?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You can’t have a beer.”
She gave him a look that said, Why not?
“Because you’re too little to absorb the alcohol that quick, and your grandpa would kill me if I let you drive out of here tipsy.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Bailey.”
She whirled around on the bar stool, hopped down and stalked out, even though she knew he was right.
JUST OUTSIDE the tavern’s front door her cell phone rang.
When she saw who was calling, she punched Talk and said, “I’m on my way, Uncle Chase.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“I had to pick up some milk for Grandma.”
“Did you go clear to Topeka to get it?”
People were coming up the walk toward her, so she stepped to one side and turned her back. “No, I didn’t go to Topeka,” she said with exaggerated patience. “It just took a little longer than usual, that’s all.”
She felt her left arm being squeezed and turned in that direction to see who had done it. It was the mother of a girl she’d gone to school with. The woman smiled sympathetically at her and then went on inside with her husband. Jody turned back toward the shrubbery.
“What? I didn’t hear what you just said, Uncle Chase.”
“I said, why did it take longer than usual?”
Jody heard a man say loudly, “If I want a goddamn pork tenderloin for supper, that’s what I’m going to have.” She was turning to look to see who was saying that so unpleasantly when the same raspy voice said, “I’ve waited twenty-three goddamn years for one of Bailey’s pork tenderloin sandwiches. You can goddamn wait one more night to cook your damned spaghetti.”
In one chaotic moment Jody heard her uncle call her name over the phone, dropped the cell phone onto the cement walkway, and realized she was looking straight at Billy Crosby, who was coming up toward Bailey’s with Valentine and a tall good-looking man who could only be their son Collin.
“Dad,” the younger man said, “we’re here, aren’t we?”
Jody bent to pick up her phone and saw that she had cracked its case. She opened it with fumbling fingers and said, “Uncle Chase, I’ve got to go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She clicked the phone shut before finding out if it was even still working.
She didn’t know what to do next.
They were coming closer.
He looked about five foot ten and muscular, as if there’d been a weight room at the prison and he had used it often. His hairline was receding at his temples but his hair was still dark with no visible gray. It was a shock to see he looked no older than her uncles. She realized that in the last few years she’d started picturing Billy Crosby as an old man, worn-down and neutered by prison. This man coming toward her was nothing like that; he looked full of hunger, anger, and testosterone. She’d heard he was considered good-looking by some women, and she supposed the same kind of woman would think that now, too, but all she saw was a top-heavy man with big shoulders and biceps and a pinched, aggressive expression on his face. He had on sneakers, blue jeans, and a black T-shirt, and it all looked new.
Collin looked up and saw her standing there.
He put a restraining hand on his father’s arm, but Billy shook it off.
Collin was taller than his dad, Jody saw, a bigger man altogether, and he didn’t look overjoyed to have his father home from prison. Jody barely noticed Valentine.
She had eyes only for the father and the son.
“What the hell is she looking at?” Billy said, nodding toward Jody as they came closer still. “People think I’m some kind of fucking tourist attraction? Like them rocks you wouldn’t take me out to see!” He put on a falsetto, like a crazily enthusiastic girl, and waved his hands in the air: “Fly your freak flag, Billy!” Then he raised an eyebrow and smirked in Jody’s direction. “I see the girls have gotten better lookin’ since I was here. You know that girl, Collin? She’s lookin’ at you.”
“Shut up, Dad. For God’s sake, shut up.”
Such a powerful surge of reaction went through Jody that she thought if she’d had a gun she would have used it. Every bit of information she’d heard that day that purported to exonerate this man fled from her brain and her heart. All she could remember at this moment was how he had haunted her nightmares, how she had grown up hating him, how one violent night had devastated her family, and how terribly much she missed and longed for her parents. Her next impulse was to turn and run. No, she thought, and stood her ground until the trio were only a few feet away from her. She stepped to her right then so that she was in the center of the sidewalk, blocking their path into the tavern. Any warnings she’d heard that day, any fear she’d previously felt, vanished as if they had never happened. He wasn’t getting by her without acknowledging her. He wasn’t.
“You the bouncer?” he joked, right in front of her.
“Jody,” Collin said, and then, “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m not the bouncer,” she said, looking straight into eyes that hurt her to see. “I’m Hugh-Jay and Laurie’s daughter. I’m Jody Linder.” She raised her eyes to look at Collin. “Why did you do this? Why?” she asked him.
“You’re a Linder?” his father said, stepping even closer.
“Dad, you touch her and I’ll kill you myself.”
“I’m not gonna touch her.”
“I’m not ‘a’ Linder,” she said to him. “I’m ‘the’ Linder. I’m the kid you left without any parents.”
“I didn’t do nothin’ to either of your parents.”
She wanted to beat on him and scream at him, What did you do with my mother? Instead, she stared as he looked threateningly at her.
“You tell your wicked old grandfather that I don’t forgive. Him and those sons of his put me in prison for things I never did, just ’cause they could. You tell them Billy Crosby ain’t never going to forgive or forget.”
Jody looked from him to his son as coolly as she had it in her to do.
“I’m never going to forgive or forget, either,” she said, staring straight at Billy Crosby’s son.
Praying she wouldn’t trip, praying her legs still worked and would carry her, Jody slowly turned and walked at a steady pace to her truck. From inside of it, she watched the three of them go into the tavern. For a moment Collin hung back, looking at her, and then he followed his parents inside. She thought bitterly that Bailey would probably be happy to serve them pork tenderloin sandwiches for dinner. Since business was so bad, even murderers were welcome if they brought cash.