“That seems quite possible, yes. After his telephone call, Helen rushed out here to prevent his suicide, but she wasn’t in time, and I suspect her guilt about that caused her to return to try to find some indication, however slight, that her precious son hadn’t committed suicide.”
“He didn’t,” Helen moaned, “he didn’t, he called me, he was coming to me, he wouldn’t have, somebody killed him.” She hammered her thighs with her fists and the ground with her feet.
“Stop that nonsense this instant!”
“It may not be nonsense, Mrs. Duffy. The kid was suicidal, but somebody helped him.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“No. And now I’ll never know.”
“You don’t seem angry?”
“I’m long past that,” I said, watching Helen weep with her head on her knees. Behind her the sun broke into silver ripples in the creek. In a moment, as soon as my legs recovered, I would rise and go to her. That was how it would be. “Long past anger.”
“It is a pleasure to meet a man with your equanimity. How many men did you say have died?”
“I didn’t say.”
“How many?”
“Nine men, I think, including one twelve-year-old boy. But she didn’t kill any of them.”
“How many did you kill?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“My current lover is a retired military man. He says that a man never forgets the faces of the men he killed. Is that true?” she asked, boring in with a quiet intensity that made Jamison seem like a piker. “How did you feel?”
“I can take it or leave it.”
“Don’t be glib with me, young man.”
“I haven’t been young in a long time, lady, and killing men makes me feel disgusted and terribly sad, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Helen.”
“You don’t feel betrayed? You can forgive everything? Marry in love and live happily ever after?” she asked.
“Lady, I’m more interested in being forgiven myself and having a soft place to lay my head,” I answered, and it made me feel good again, feel like things would work out. “That’s all.”
“Perhaps you are really that rarest of men, a forgiving man,” she mused, then sipped at her drink.
We watched each other again, our eyes working at each other. She smiled, but when I tried, my face was too stiff.
“Was there something else?” I asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“That shit-eatin’ grin on your face.”
“You can be rather tiresome when you choose, can’t you?”
“Lady, that’s just the beginning.”
“Yes, well, there was one other thing,” she said, glancing pointedly at her silver watch.
“Spit it out.”
“Certainly, if you insist. I’m just afraid that you might find this additional fact rather burdensome, and I do hate to be so blunt, but—”
“I can tell.”
“Yes, well, are you aware of the fact that while you’ve been out doing whatever it is you do, even while you were recovering from the terrible beating you received from those thugs, that Helen and your friend, Mr. Diamond, have been, shall we say, dallying in your house—were you aware of that? Even this afternoon while you were killing that poor man?”
She allowed me a few moments of silence, allowed me to look at Helen’s face, stricken with the truth, her wide frightened eyes, her fist knuckled into her open mouth.
“Strike home?” she inquired politely as I looked at Helen, my lady, my love. I found that smile.
“Fuck you, lady, and your fucking facts,” I said softly. “Just get your shit and get your ass outa my house and my town, and take your…” I paused. “Take your shit-eatin’ grin with you.”
“That’s clever.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling all right now. I wasn’t clever but I had endurance.
“Come, Helen, we’re going.”
“She stays.”
“Oh, I’m afraid I couldn’t allow it.”
“You can’t prevent it,” I said.
“Oh, you poor foolish man. Helen agreed to go home with me several hours ago,” she said, smiling lightly as she stood up. “Come, Helen, it’s time to go.”
“Then what the hell was this all about?” I asked, looking around me as if I could find the answer in the thick grass of the lawn. “What the hell…”
Helen rose again from her stone, discarded her twig, and scuffled toward her mother, her hands tearing at each other under the watch of her lowered eyes, walking slowly across the lawn out of the setting sun.
“What the hell—was this all about?”
“Oh,” she answered, her smile widening. “It seemed the thing to do at the time.” She paused, then added, “Say good-bye to your friend, Helen.”
My lady raised her face, her pale freckled face framed by the warm red hair that flamed in the sunshine like a halo of blood and fire, but the eyes that met mine briefly were as opaque as last winter’s ice, as cold and dim. I stood up, she nodded once, then followed her mother to the back door of my house.
As I stood there, the blunt shadow of the western ridge advanced darkly to the verge of the creek. I sat down, heard the sound of a car driving away, I drank my beer, and forgave her.
About the Author
JAMES CRUMLEY was born in Three Rivers, Texas, and spent most of his childhood in South Texas. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso and summers in Missoula, Montana. His works include a novel of Vietnam, One to Count Cadence, and three detective novels: The Wrong Case, The Last Good Kiss, and Dancing Bear.
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The Wrong Case Page 29