Billy Bob Walker Got Married

by Lisa G. Brown

For a long, horrible moment, Billy thought about what this morning was supposed to have been, and what it had become instead. He was going to jail and he didn't even know how it had happened. Then he felt his mother's agony as she stepped toward him, and he made his feet move.

  "All right," he said hoarsely. "Just get it over with, this questioning."

  The door with the smooth, empty panel peculiar to patrol cars slammed behind him with a force that jarred; the metal screen between him and the sheriff blurred his vision. He had to blink to clear it.

  Just as T-Tommy started to pull out, Ellen ran to his window. "There's a girl. She's in this somewhere, I know. Make him tell you. Please."

  "Now, Ellen—"

  "Stay out of this, Mama. Go on, T-Tommy. You came after me. You got me. So let's go. Now,"

  He tried not to look at his mother or his grandfather or the house. He tried not to think of Shiloh, waiting for him, or of what she was going to do when she heard about this. Walk, maybe. Any other woman would, away from him and the trouble that dogged him.

  He wouldn't give T-Tommy anything that could lead to her getting mixed up in this mean little nightmare— not unless he had to.

  Something was out there, whispering through the crowd, spreading in little concentric circles.

  Shiloh didn't notice it at first, too wrapped up in her disbelief and misery. Billy hadn't shown up, even at the parade. What had gone wrong?

  Even his grandfather's stand remained closed. Was the old man sick again?

  Once or twice, she even thought she caught Billy's name on the wind as she waited on the platform for the parade to begin.

  The sun blazed overhead, making her blink and frown.

  "I need to get out of the sun," she told the man beside her. She thought he was the principal of the high school.

  He grinned at her cheerfully. "Don't worry. It's not that important. The big deal is to be back this afternoon."

  A group of men stood in a circle under the trees nearest the fruit stand.

  "... they say he laid there in his own blood."

  "Clancy claims that he saw Billy out in his truck at two o'clock this mornin'. Now you tell me, what's he doin' at that hour?"

  "Wonder what'll happen if this man dies?"

  Shiloh spoke, her voice clear. "Why is Mr. Walker's stand closed?"

  They looked at one another. The one with a heavy, hot-looking beard said reluctantly, "He ain't comin' in today."

  "He's sick?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "Then what?"

  The black beard hesitated again before he answered. "There's some trouble in his family."

  She knew it before she asked. "Billy Bob? It's Billy?" Nobody moved.

  "I heard you talking. He's hurt, isn't he? There was an accident?" Icy dread seeped into her heart.

  "Nothin' like that," answered another one, soothingly. "He's just—over at the jail, that's all."

  "At the jail!" She almost laughed in her relief, except they all looked so serious. "What for? A fight?"

  "He was in a hit-and-run accident early this morning. Around two." The black beard spoke abruptly. "They think Walker was DUI and hit some stranger and left him there. The man nearly bled to death."

  Shiloh felt her face going white, her body numb. "W—What?" she faltered.

  "Now, wait a minute," the second man interrupted testily. "They don't know any of that. They just think it."

  "But why? Why Billy?"

  "The other driver described him, picked him out of some pictures. And somebody saw him here around town in his truck this mornin' at the right time."

  "But that's because—" She broke off; she would tell it to somebody who could help. She would tell it to T-Tommy.

  Even the jail had red, white, and blue banners strung across it, like a beggar that had donned bits and pieces of cast-off finery along with his own ragged clothes.

  Inside, they kept Billy waiting while T-Tommy dealt with several phone calls, apparently from Juliard's family in Arkansas. Then he locked Billy in the same cell he'd had weeks ago, while he went to the hospital.

  The deputy brought Billy lunch at last, but he didn't talk or tease or tell an ancient joke as he was usually prone to do.

  Billy didn't eat. He didn't move.

  Where was Shiloh? When was this going to be over? When was the real culprit going to turn himself in?

  When T-Tommy got back, he came straight to Billy's cell and unlocked it, Davis hovering in his wake.

  "You're gonna need a lawyer, Billy," he said somberly. "J.C.'s outside. He's offered to help you out for a few days, free of charge."

  "That's good of him."

  "Seems like we ain't doing this right. But I never thought—well, never mind. But Davis here, he's gonna read you your rights. Then we'll do the standard stuff. You want J.C. in here for all of this?"

  Billy swallowed. "I guess so. Whatever he thinks."

  J.C. took his place in the jail cell, nodding at Davis, reaching out to slap Billy on one shoulder reassuringly, and it made everything horribly clear. I could go to prison for this, Billy thought suddenly as Davis reeled off his rights. The idea shook him so much he was barely aware that Davis searched him as he stood spread-eagled against the concrete wall.

  "A pocket knife, a wallet," Davis intoned.

  He was going to have to tell about Shiloh.

  Then the deputy took matters out of his hands as he slapped his chest and hit the ring. "Here, turn around. Face me," he ordered. "And one—what is this?—one ring. On a chain," Davis added curiously.

  "It's got nothing to do with this," Billy told him dangerously. "Leave it alone."

  Davis let his hand drop, staring curiously, but T-Tommy spoke suddenly.

  "I want to see that, Billy."

  "Look, T-Tommy—"

  "Are you gonna hand it to me, son, or am I gonna have to get help to hog-tie you and then take it off?"

  Billy's jaw clenched, then he gave the chain a hard jerk. It broke in two and the ring went rolling.

  "I'm still gonna see that ring," T-Tommy snapped, his temper soaring.

  Davis found it, eying it curiously as he handed it to the sheriff. T-Tommy was a little farsighted; he held the golden band out from him a little, frowning.

  "What's that say, J.C?" he asked at last.

  J.C. took it, read it, and his jaw dropped. "You're not gonna believe this," he said incredulously. "It's a ring from a college, and—"

  "Lawrence Evans University," T-Tommy said, his voice devoid of surprise or any other emotion.

  "That's right. There's a name inside it—"

  "Shiloh Pennington."

  Nobody said anything; Davis nearly choked on his surprise.

  Then T-Tommy reached out and pulled the ring from J.C.

  "I don't reckon I have to wonder anymore who the girl was that Ellen was talkin' about. Were you with her last night?"

  Billy stood indecisively, without answering. "None of your damn business," he managed at last.

  "Oh, yes, it is," T-Tommy snarled. "I've had enough of this. Davis, go get Shiloh. I don't care how you do it—"

  "There's no need to go get Shiloh." Her voice was husky, but so feminine in the circle of dark masculinity and threatening violence that all four men were startled as they turned.

  She stood in the doorway where she had struggled with the state trooper several weeks ago, the vivid blue of her dress a bright foil for her dark hair and wide eyes. They were fixed on Billy.

  "Don't say anything," he warned her brusquely. "Just turn around and leave. You don't need to be in the middle of this mess."

  "I think I already am. That is my ring. And I—I was with Billy last night—"

  "Shiloh, don't!"

  "—or this morning, whatever you want to call it. I met him at midnight at the fruit stand. We were there for ... for maybe two hours."

  There was a long, long pause, full of shock. Davis's mouth hung nearly as slack as J.C.'s.

  She bit her lo
wer lip nervously. Billy looked like death, his face grim and hard; he made a tall, stark, towering figure.

  "If I'd wanted you to rush in here and sacrifice your reputation for me, I'd have already said something," he said tightly. "But you've gone and done it, anyway."

  She stared at him in confusion. "It's no sacrifice. I wanted—"

  "I know what you wanted. Time. And everything done normally. Well, this sure screws that up. Sooner or later, something would have cleared me."

  "You can't know that." Her face was white as she clutched at the door facing.

  T-Tommy broke the tension between them, his face and demeanor disapproving. "Okay. That's enough. Even if I believe you were with Billy last night—"

  "I was."

  "—that doesn't explain how Juliard ID'd him. And who's to say this didn't happen after you two got through with your—your meetin'?"

  "Don't you know?" Shiloh asked unsteadily. "It wasn't Billy who hit that man. It was—it had to be Michael."

  T-Tommy looked at her blankly, his jaw as slack as a dead fish's.

  Billy's breath made a shivering hiss as he sucked it in, his eyes too blue, too stunned. Michael. He'd never thought once of Michael, who came to Sweetwater on such fleeting visits and so rarely that he didn't even seem to belong here.

  J.C. gave a crack of disbelieving laughter. "I swear to God, I believe she means Michael Sewell, the judge's Michael. And not twelve hours ago she was kissing him."

  "I didn't want to," Shiloh flashed. "Please, T-Tommy, listen. He drinks too much. Nobody much knows it, but he does. I've been with him when he was way over the line. And he—he stormed out of here last night. We—I broke the engagement. Don't you see? It has to be him."

  "You're asking me," the sheriff said slowly, "to bring Sewell in for questionin' in a case like this? He's Judge Sewell's son. If he's not guilty—"

  "You brought Billy in," she pointed out angrily. "And he's the judge's son, too."

  She had done it: spoken the unspeakable publicly. Nobody moved for a few seconds. "Except it couldn't be Billy," she continued more calmly. "He was with me."

  "Doing what, now, I wonder?" Davis drawled with a smirk, in an audible aside to J.C.

  Billy Bob moved suddenly and his big right hand shot out, shoving the deputy violently. Davis stumbled backward, falling against the wall and down to the ground with a surprised grunt of pain.

  "You keep your dirty mouth to yourself. Your dirty mind, too," Billy snarled down at him.

  T-Tommy stepped between the two men. "You can't rough up a policeman, Billy, not in my jail."

  Davis scrambled to his feet, glaring balefully at the big blond man threatening him. Then T-Tommy put a hand on each one's chest, pushing them apart.

  "You, Davis, start calling hospitals in this area. Chances are good that the other driver got hurt in this accident, too. See if somebody answering Billy's description checked in anywhere. Billy, it looks like maybe you've got an alibi. But the law says I can hold you a little longer, and I mean to, until I get to the bottom of this. Shiloh—since you put yourself right in the middle, you can help me, and you damn well better like it hot because we're gonna visit the judge."

  "I want to see Billy Bob for a minute. Alone."

  She needed to know what he wanted her to do. Was she supposed to tell all? He'd once said there were people he needed to talk to before they confessed this marriage. And what was he so angry with her about?

  But Billy turned away from her. He didn't want her pity and her charity; he didn't want her to have to save him and ruin everything she wanted to hold on to. He didn't want the guilt. Didn't she understand?

  "Well, you ain't goin' to," T-Tommy advised her roughly, herding her through the door into the other room. "I can't give you time to talk to him and make sure your stories jibe. It won't help him."

  Shiloh stared, hurt. "You think I'd deliberately plan a lie? I'm telling the truth."

  T-Tommy sighed. "Yeah, sure. I don't know what to think about you anymore, Shiloh. You're engaged to one man, but you're meetin' his brother on the sly. That's low and dirty."

  Shiloh stood still a minute before she moved away. She could tell him, but not until she talked to Billy. "You could try trusting me, T-Tommy," she said coldly. "You're going to find out that I'm telling the truth."

  "We're gonna find out, all right. There's gonna be hell to pay at Sewell's."

  14

  'I just need to know where your son is," T-Tommy repeated stubbornly.

  "And I told you. I don't know." Lydia's voice dripped ice, but there was panic in her gray eyes and in the long, patrician lines of her face.

  The room in which the three of them stood was a formal front parlor, far more ornate and elegant than anything Sam owned. It reflected Lydia's excellent—and very expensive—taste, a taste that had whittled away at the Sewell money for years.

  The two-story brick Georgian house sat on a fifty-three-acre farm ten miles north of Sweetwater; once the farm had rolled for four hundred acres, but that was before Lydia, too.

  And before Michael, who had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.

  "We've called his office in Memphis. We've had his landlord check his apartment. We've called his health club, his country club, his racquet club. Only the country club is even open today. It's a holiday for most people. He's at none of those places. We checked 'em all."

  "How dare you! To invade Michael's life like this!" The woman quivered with rage, her nostrils white and pinched. "This—this girl drove him away with her vindictive lies. She broke the engagement and broke his heart. Surely there's no need for her to inflict more damage on my poor son." She glared at Shiloh, who hung behind T-Tommy, needing protection from Lydia's venom. "And I certainly wouldn't tell you anything if I did know, not when you won't even tell me what you want with him."

  T-Tommy hesitated, tracing the scrollwork on the baby grand beside him with the fingers of one hand. "Mrs. Sewell, are you aware that Michael has been escorted home on several occasions by personnel from his club because he was drinking too much for them to let him drive himself?"

  Lydia paled. "Please leave, before I call somebody, Mr. Farley. You may be the law in this backwater county, but neither you nor Shiloh will be allowed to make unfounded accusations against Michael. Get out. Do you understand that language?"

  T-Tommy raised his left hand in protest. "There's no need for you to get on your high horse. But the fact is, I need to talk to Michael."

  "What for? I demand to know!"

  "There was a hit-and-run accident on 25 before dawn this morning. We've got reason to believe the driver who left the scene is someone who looks like Michael. I pulled in Billy Walk—" Too late T-Tommy realized what his words were saying; there was an implicit knowledge of Billy's paternity in them. He hadn't meant to hurt or embarrass this woman if he could help it, but the damage was done now.

  Lydia paled further, her skin nearly ashen as she sank slowly into the emerald-and-scarlet striped chair at the corner of the piano. "That name is not spoken in my house."

  T-Tommy took a deep breath. "Look here, ma'am, truth is truth and I'm gonna have to speak it. Billy says he didn't do it, and he's got a pretty convincing alibi. That leaves Michael. He's a—he's nearly—they look, ah, hell, they're nearly as alike as two peas in a pod if you really look at 'em, before they talk or move. The other driver described one or the other of 'em to me," the sheriff finished in blunt aggravation.

  "The man—the driver—is alive?" Lydia's voice was husky, shocked. And suddenly, she was frightened.

  "That's right."

  T-Tommy looked back at the silent Shiloh; her eyes had widened at Lydia's words. The older woman stared at the nearby window a long moment, then spoke.

  "He'll live, in spite of everything?"

  "In spite of the wreck, yes, m'am."

  Lydia took a long breath, "I see." Then she stood, impressive in her black sheath dress. "Please go, Mr. Farley. My husband will be i
n touch with you. But you need to remember two things: my son is not a criminal to be pawed over by you, and Robert Sewell will be governor in the near future. It behooves you to remember especially the latter."

  She was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Lydia ignored its shrill sound for a moment, then walked to the tiny table where it jangled insistently.

  "The Sewell residence," she said jerkily, then held it out to T-Tommy. "Someone for you, Mr. Farley." Her words held resentment.

  Neither she nor Shiloh looked at each other. Shiloh focused instead on T-Tommy's back and on his suddenly hawkish face as he finished his conversation and turned to them.

  "That was Davis," he told the two women. "He says somebody answering Michael's description checked into a clinic on the edge of Memphis this morning. Is that where the judge is now, Mrs. Sewell?"

  She swallowed. "You'll have to ask him."

  "I mean to."

  Judge Sewell beat them back to the jail. His silver Mercedes was in back where he'd entered from the bank parking lot. Discreet. Quiet.

  T-Tommy laughed under his breath as he caught sight of the car.

  "Well, well, well."

  "They already knew what Michael had done," Shiloh said suddenly, a trace of horror in her words. "They thought—Lydia was certain that Juliard was dead. That way he could never have talked."

  "You'll never be able to prove it," T-Tommy answered darkly.

  "I don't have to. I know." Shiloh shivered, clasping her arms around herself. It wasn't from the chill of the air conditioner; it was from her narrow escape. "Why did you make me go with you? You didn't need me. And I didn't want to go back into that house, not ever again." She accused and condemned with her words.

  T-Tommy grasped the steering wheel. "What you were doing with Billy and Michael, it made me sick ... and mad," the sheriff replied haltingly. "And I wanted to know if you really knew what you were talking about. You didn't back down, Shiloh, not when you gave me all those private club numbers, nor told me who to talk to and the questions to ask. And you hung in there facin' Lydia Sewell, too." He ran a tired hand over his face, then the balding top of his head. "Maybe I didn't believe it was Michael—not him, never him—until you went the distance. By the time we got to the Sewell's house, it was different. I knew. He was guilty." "You'll let Billy Bob go?"