by Gregory Ashe
Hazard studied the man. Upchurch’s face showed a mixture of disappointment and anger, and Hazard sympathized with him. It wouldn’t feel good to have your old partner come back and say, more or less, that you were now an outsider. At the same time, though, Hazard remembered how easily Upchurch had turned on Somers, talking about Somers behind his back.
“Let’s not get emotional about this,” Hazard said. “It’s a simple request. We’d like the names of people in the Ozark Volunteers we can talk to. You have those names. You have an obligation to help with an ongoing investigation. More than that, you should—”
At that moment Hazard’s phone began to ring; he tried to ignore, but then he thought of Billy. His resolve crumbled, and he slid the phone from his pocket. Billy’s name was flashing on the screen, and Hazard glanced at Somers.
Somers looked at Upchurch’s face and waved towards the street. “Take it. We’ll figure this out.”
Upchurch didn’t look particularly interested in figuring anything out—the hurt and anger on his face said the contrary—and Hazard hesitated. If he stayed, if he helped Somers lay on the pressure—
“Go,” Somers said.
Hazard’s resolve broke, and he trotted down the driveway. “Hey,” he said, putting the phone to his ear.
“Hey,” Billy said. “I thought it was going to go to voicemail.”
He was drunk. Not just a beer or two. He was hammered. Hazard checked his watch; it wasn’t even three-thirty yet. Hazard slowed when he reached the street; this was a quiet neighborhood, with old homes and older residents. Maple trees lined the sidewalk, their shade offering a break from the sun, leaves rustling as a squirrel skittered along a branch.
“You’re getting started early,” Hazard said, fighting to keep the edge out of his voice and losing.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind. How was the show last night?”
A long silence answered, and then Billy said, “You know we don’t have shows on Monday, right? I told you that like a million times, so you know, right?”
“Yeah, right. Sorry. Are you—”
Hazard cut off; in the background of the call, a man’s voice said something.
“Am I what?” Billy asked.
Hazard didn’t remember what he’d been going to say. He wanted to ask who was with Billy. He wanted to ask if it was Tom. No, correction: he wanted to ask if it was that mother-fucker Tom who couldn’t keep his eyes and hands off Billy, not even when Hazard was in the same fucking room. That’s what Emery Hazard wanted to say. He fought, though, to keep his tone even.
“Are you doing ok?” Hazard managed to ask.
“What?”
“How are things going?”
“Fine.”
“I miss you.”
“Oh, yeah. I miss you too. That’s why I’m calling. Because I missed you.”
From the other side of the line came a roar of laughter, and Hazard said, “It sounds like you’re having a lot of fun for Tuesday at three in the afternoon.”
Another long silence. “Jesus, you’re such a fucking Puritan. Yeah, I’ve had a few drinks. Is that really what you want to talk about?”
Let it go, a part of Hazard was saying. Let it go, it’s not worth it. “A few drinks? Really? It sounds like you cleared out Tom’s wet bar.”
“Who the fuck said anything about Tom?”
“I assume that’s who I keep hearing in the background. Am I right?”
“He’s my friend, Em. He’s our friend. I’m fucking lonely with you gone. What do you want me to do? Sit around the apartment all by myself?”
“I don’t think I have to worry about that.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Whatever you want, Billy. Take it however you want.”
Another long silence, this time broken by trembling breaths. Hazard couldn’t quite tell if they were his own or if they belonged to Billy. Then Billy said, “You know what? You’re being a real bitch right now. I’ll talk to you later.”
And the call disconnected.
Hazard’s fingers tightened around the phone until he heard the plastic squeal in his grip. He forced himself to relax the muscles in his hand; he took deep breaths; he stared at the horizon, dusky blue and broken by the three Tegula smokestacks, like he could see all the way to St. Louis, all the way into the brick walk-up in Lafayette Square that belonged to Tom Gerard. Fuck, he stared into that horizon like he could see into Billy Rolker’s heart—but all he saw was Tegula smoke and a whole lot of heartache.
“Everything all right?”
Hazard composed himself, as best he could, before turning to face Somers. He must not have done a good job, though, because he saw the worry on Somers’s face. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing.”
“What’s going on? Where’s Upchurch?”
Somers studied Hazard for a moment longer, and then he twirled a piece of paper. “A name. And an address. We’re supposed to meet in an hour.”
“Just like that?”
“I had to smooth his feathers—he didn’t like being left out of the loop—but yeah, just like that.”
Hazard marched towards the Impala. “What are we waiting for?”
When they were settled in the car, and when Somers had shifted into drive and inched away from the curb, Somers stopped and fixed Hazard with a penetrating look.
“What?” Hazard said.
“Your hand is bleeding.”
Hazard looked down; his fists were clenched so tightly that the gashes on his hand had opened, and blood had soaked through the bandages.
“You want to see a doctor about that?”
“Just drive the goddamn car.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“You know what’s going on. We’re going to meet the Ozark Volunteers. And I’m really looking forward to it.”
Somers groaned as he pulled into the street. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
IT WAS GOOD THAT THEY WERE GOING to meet these human pieces of shit. That’s what Hazard kept telling himself. As Somers drove them out of Wahredua and into the rolling hills, densely green and alive, that’s what Hazard told himself: it was good that they were going to see the Ozark Volunteers because Hazard needed to punch somebody—badly—and he figured the Ozark Volunteers wouldn’t be slow to give him an opportunity.
As they left the city behind them, the Missouri countryside closed around them. This close to the Ozarks and the Grand Rivere, the ground rolled and sloped and flowed. Hardwood forests—oak, mostly—grew on both sides of the road, and tangles of honeysuckle and kudzu closed the sides of the state highway. The effect was suffocating for Hazard, like sticking his head into noose. When the branches reached out over the car, only a thumbnail of blue still showed overhead. Through the car’s vents came the wet, mossy smell of the woods. That was how the bluff had smelled the night Jeff Langham swallowed a bullet. Hazard yanked at his tie; it was strangling him.
“Bad news from home?”
“Wahredua’s my fucking home now.”
They drove for another five minutes, deeper into that green maze, with that mossy smell blossoming inside the Impala. Then Somers cleared his throat. He scrubbed at the back of his head, making the blond bristles stand up, and then gripped the wheel with both hands.
“You, uh, heard what Eldora said. About my wife.”
Hazard fought a flood of anger. He knew what Somers was doing—trying to build a relationship and, in doing so, draw out Hazard’s confidence. Hazard’s instinctive reaction was to shove Somers away. Hazard struggled with that instinct. He had promised he was going to change. If that meant listening to Somers’s story, if that meant letting Somers talk about his personal life, then Hazard could do that. For a little while, at least.
“Yeah,” Hazard said.
“You asked me what she meant.”
“It’s none o
f my business. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Nah,” Somers said with a flash of a smile. “You’re saying that now because you don’t want to talk about Billy. But you want to know. It might even make you feel better, right? Knowing that I’ve fucked up my life royally?”
Hazard couldn’t say no, so he didn’t say anything.
Somers chuckled. “Yeah, it’ll make you feel better. And I should have told you. I mean, everybody in the whole town knows. They’re all laughing up their sleeves at me. Why shouldn’t you know too?”
“You can tell me if you want. But you don’t have to. And I won’t laugh at you.”
“If anybody deserves to laugh at me, if anybody deserves to get a kick out of seeing me fuck myself over, it’s you.” Hazard opened his mouth, unsure of how he could respond to that, but Somers spoke over him. “I . . . cheated. I know, that makes me the worst fucking tool in the entire world.”
For the next minute, the only sound between them was the purr of the Impala’s tires on the asphalt. Then Somers punched the knob on the stereo, and a CD whirred to life, and a moment later a woman’s voice filled the car with quiet, country music. A moment passed, and Hazard punched the knob and the car went silent.
“Billy’s been fucking our neighbor behind my back. For, I don’t know, a year. Something like that.”
“Jesus.”
“You first.”
Somers ran his fingers over the back of his head again. “Yeah. About a year into college, I married Cora. Cora Malsho, I don’t know if you remember her, but she—”
“You guys were prom king and queen senior year.”
“God, don’t remind me.” Somers paused, lost in thought for a moment. Honeysuckle flashed past the car, and its sweet scent filled the air. “We were young and stupid. That’s not really an excuse, but we both went to Mizzou, and we were still together after our first year, and that seemed like a sign. Soul mates, you know. Something like that. So we got married that summer, back here in Wahredua.”
“What was that like?”
“Her parents were thrilled. Mine were furious. My mom almost didn’t come to the wedding; she still barely speaks to Cora, and the only reason she’ll have anything to do with her is because of Evie.”
Hazard nodded, not particularly surprised. Grace Elaine Somerset—John-Henry’s mother—was, in many ways, the social queen of Wahredua. Her husband, Glennworth Somerset, had enough money to buy the town outright, pave it over, and turn it into the biggest Shoney’s south of the Mason-Dixon line. That had made Grace Elaine a ferocious mover and shaker in Wahredua’s high society.
Once, Hazard remembered, his own mother had come home from the Methodist Ladies’ Quilt and Supper Circle. Aileen Hazard had worked long hours at a sewing machine for most of her life; her brows and eyes were perpetually furrowed, as though she were constantly straining to see the eye of a needle, or a dropped stitch, or some other minuscule detail, but she had a bright laugh and she had many friends. And that night, Aileen Hazard had come home and sat in the easy chair, her heels hanging from one hand, her cheeks red, her breathing difficult, like she had God sitting on her chest and giving her Indian burns. She never went back to the Ladies’ Circle again, and it would be years later before Hazard learned that Grace Elaine Somerset had made it clear that the mother of a degenerate was not the right material for the Ladies’ Quilt and Supper Circle. That was the kind of power Grace Elaine had wielded, and that was the way she had wielded it. It was no wonder, Hazard decided, that she had been furious when her son decided to marry Cora Malsho, daughter of a convict and, allegedly, an ex-prostitute.
“Anyway, we graduated college without a happy accident, which probably surprised my parents, and we came back. I started at the force, you know, just uniform work. I was patrolling Smithfield. We had Evie—that’s my daughter. She’s two now. And after Evie, things changed. Cora was always tired. We were both always tired. We worked different shifts, and Cora’s parents helped with Evie, but money was thin. We were fighting. A lot.” Somers blew out a breath. “We got married too young. You know what that’s like? It’s like a piece of you is frozen. And the rest of you keeps growing and changing and maturing, but that piece of you, it stays the same, and you can’t shake it loose.”
“Sounds like a lot of bullshit. You married her. You could have divorced her instead of cheating.”
A rare flash of anger showed in Somers’s face, but after a moment his handsome features relaxed. “You’re right.”
“So? What’s the rest of it?”
“I got a big bust. There was a commendation. Cravens started talking about moving me up to detective—I don’t know if you remember Ed Rue, but he was getting ready to retire. I was hot stuff. Newspaper articles, all of that. And then I’d go home, and I wasn’t anything but the guy who had to unclog the toilet or shuffle bills or call his dad for another loan. I started going out.”
“You started drinking.”
“Yeah, but that really took off later. The cheating, it was just a one-time thing. A stupid mistake. It was my fault, I’m not saying it wasn’t, but it wasn’t an affair, it wasn’t like I was looking for it. Or maybe I was. Who knows.”
“So?”
“So she was young and blond and she told me she was visiting a friend. I didn’t know her friend was Cora’s sister. It all exploded. Cora was furious—rightly so, I’m not saying otherwise. She kicked me out. You know the rest.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I live in an empty apartment, my wife won’t talk to me, and I don’t see my daughter. I can’t even get Cora to divorce me. That’s how angry she is. That’s the rest of it.” The last words sounded like they’d been wrung from Somers, and they were bitter.
“You screwed up,” Hazard finally said.
“I know. I don’t need you—” Somers broke off, drew a breath, and said, “Look, I know, ok? I just thought you should know too.”
Hazard flexed his hands. He was thinking about the John-Henry he had known in high school and the one who was sitting next to him right now. He was thinking about—
—the locker room, the steam curling off tan, golden muscle—
—Billy and about Tom Gerard and about the brick walk-up in Lafayette Square. Hazard knew he could keep silent; he could let the moment pass and say nothing. But he also knew that he’d made a decision. He’d come to Wahredua to find out the truth about Jeff Langham. And Hazard had decided that to do that—and to do his job—he needed to work with Somers.
“There’s not really much more to say about Billy,” Hazard said. “I already told you what’s going on.”
“Are you sure? About what he’s been doing, I mean.”
“I’m sure.” That was all. Hazard didn’t need to tell Somers about the nights of following, the telephoto lens, the pictures, the phone records, the smirks on the faces of their so-called friends, the growing realization that everyone knew, that everyone had known, for so much longer than he had.
“Why?” Somers blushed and bit his lip. “That didn’t come out right. What I meant was, why are you still with him?”
“We haven’t talked about it.”
Somers didn’t say anything, but shock showed on his face.
“If I bring it up,” Hazard said, “he’ll leave. It’s as simple as that. Billy knows he’s got the upper hand. We fight about everything in the whole goddamn world, everything except about what’s really going on with Tom. I mean, Christ, by this point Billy has to know that I know. But it doesn’t matter. He . . .” Hazard didn’t know how to finish, so he trailed off.
“Um, maybe I’m missing something,” Somers said, “and pardon my French, but who the fuck cares if he leaves? Let him go. He’s an asshole—he’s been cheating on you for a year. You’re smart. You’re a cop. You’re hot—don’t give me that look, you are. You’ve got that whole long-haired, sullen, pouty thing going for you. That’s like the trifecta of gay wet dreams, right? Did you see how that guy was looking at yo
u yesterday? He just about jumped your bones right there, in the middle of an interview.”
Hazard shrugged. “There’s more to it than that.” And that was true, but he didn’t want to explain it: he didn’t want to tell Somers about Alec LaTourneau, who had beat Hazard with a belt just to get a boner. He didn’t want to tell Somers that he had let Alec hit him, that he had stayed because Alec had been his first real boyfriend—
—except for Jeff—
—and because it had been the first time that someone hadn’t been horrified by who Emery Hazard really was. Or maybe that wasn’t true; a part of Hazard still wondered if the hitting and beating had been because even Alec had been disgusted, deep down, by the real Emery Hazard. And when Hazard had finally left—and left Alec LaTourneau with a broken jaw—Billy had been there. Literally. Billy had been smoking at the bottom of the stairs, and he’d picked up Hazard like a fish out of water. They’d been together ever since. How did you explain something like that, all those years, all that time shared?
“You want me to beat him up for you?” Somers asked.
Hazard burst out laughing, and a moment later Somers joined him. It felt good, like weight falling off his shoulders, like a cool breeze cleaning him out. And when the laughter faded, the mood in the car shifted. It was instant, invisible, and unspoken: an electric tension in the air, raising the hair on Hazard’s arms, making his heart skip. Somers gave Hazard one sidelong glance, those tide-pool eyes pulling on Hazard’s bones, dragging him deeper. Somers smiled, and the smile smoked with its own heat. It was a knowing smile, a let’s-fuck-around smile.
And Hazard, to his surprise, found himself returning the smile and wondering, in the back of his head, what the hell had just happened between them.
They drove the last fifteen minutes in silence, and when Somers spoke again, his voice was rough. “Here we are,” he said as he turned off the highway and onto a gravel road that would take them to their meeting with the Ozark Volunteers.