by Attica Locke
He wasn’t.
He sipped the soda and belched.
“When word got up to Wiley that my mama shot my daddy, you know those girls threw me off the AKA line without even giving me a chance to explain. I just kind of fell apart after that, couldn’t keep up with my grades, nothing. That’s why I didn’t finish. I didn’t flunk out or anything. I was just too ashamed. It’s bad enough I had to tell Rodney it’s just gon’ be Grandmama at the wedding. His daddy offered to walk me down the aisle, but that ain’t proper.”
Darren dropped his napkin on top of the bones on his plate, staring at the grease soaking through the paper as he said, “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“There was a story on it in the Houston paper,” Faith said, genuinely confused when she added, “I thought you knew,” as if a one-inch piece in the back of a Houston newspaper would have caught and held Darren’s attention.
A few years ago, Faith said, her mother, Mary Sweet, snuck up on her husband, Joe, soaking in the tub. There was only one bathroom in the two-bedroom house Faith grew up in, an A-frame wood cabin about a half of a mile from Geneva’s cafe. The bathroom was at the back of the house, and Mary was able to sneak up on Lil’ Joe without his hearing a thing over the radio that was sitting on a chair next to the bathtub. She was holding a pistol and a grudge, and she was prepared to force a reckoning. Lil’ Joe was stark naked, and Mary was wearing one of Lil’ Joe’s Houston Rockets T-shirts like a dress. What followed could be trusted only to the degree that you were willing to believe a convicted felon.
Mary pointed the pistol at her husband’s forehead while grabbing the radio by its handle. She held it over the water, making sure the cord was still plugged into the wall. The gun in one hand, the radio held over the water in the other, she said, “Which way you want it? ’Cause either way, I’m through.”
Lil’ Joe, who was fair-skinned, like Faith, and had a tiny gap between his front teeth and dark brown curls that were damp and sticking against his neck at the water line, smiled at his wife of twenty years, misreading the moment as emotional theater. He’d been sleeping with the other woman for more than a year, and Mary hadn’t ever done a thing about it, never did more than suck her teeth behind his back. He had a cigarillo clamped between his back teeth, and he didn’t bother to remove it when he told Mary point-blank, “Well, I guess you better go ahead and shoot me, then.” He talked tough, but the second Mary dropped the radio on the pink bathroom rug and cocked the .22, Lil’ Joe jumped out of the water and knocked Mary down as he ran toward the front of the house. He had gotten almost to the front door when she shot him three times in the back.
After her mother was arrested, Faith cleaned up the scene herself, weeping on her hands and knees, because there was no one else to do it for her. Geneva was so shattered by the loss of her son so soon after her husband, Joe, had been shot in a cafe robbery that she closed the restaurant for a week, something she hadn’t done when Joe was killed. They had to sell the house anyway, with Lil’ Joe and Mary both gone. And since she’d left school, Faith had been living in the trailer with her grandmother. “Rodney says after the wedding we gon’ find a little place all to ourselves.”
“Why’d she do it?”
“Daddy took up with a white girl,” Faith said. “He used to hang out at Wally’s place, the icehouse up the way, before it got to be so much hate coming out of there, and the two of them used to run around some, parking on FM 19.”
Darren remembered Huxley’s sage words. Lil’ Joe used to hang around that bar, and look what happened to him, he’d said. And on their heels, he heard Lynn’s husky condemnation of Missy talking to Michael. Some folks never learn.
Their voices landed in harmony in his head.
“And the white girl?” he said, even though by then he’d already guessed.
“Missy Dale.”
Faith picked up Darren’s plate and took it through the kitchen door. Darren stood off the vinyl-topped stool and walked around the counter to follow her. The water was running in the sink, and Faith used a ratty sponge to hand-wash Darren’s plate. He was momentarily at a loss for words. “He thought he was slick, Daddy did,” Faith said. “Sometimes men act like they don’t know who washing they clothes.” She set the plate and fork on a drying rack and said, “Speaking of which, you get out of those pants and shirt and I’ll clean ’em.”
“Did you know her?” he asked. “Missy?”
“No. We were the same age, went to the same high school in Timpson, but I never said a word to her. She never spoke to me; our worlds never crossed,” she said, ignoring or not realizing the irony of what she was saying. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and thanked him for fixing her grandmother’s door.
Darren realized that he’d never seen a picture of Missy Dale, just a tail of blond hair peeking from beneath the white sheet that had covered the body on the morning he rolled into town. “Was she a pretty girl?” he asked.
Faith shrugged and said, “They don’t always have to be.”
Darren didn’t get more than two hours of sleep, trading guard shifts with Dennis until the sun came up. When he woke for good, he found his clothes, still warm from the iron, pressed and resting on the arm of the corduroy love seat in Geneva’s living room. The trailer was still and silent, no sign of Geneva or Randie, and outside, the braided nylon lawn chair was empty. He’d woken up thinking about the kid, Keith Jr., who was, it seemed, living in Wallace Jefferson’s house. Now that he knew about the relationship between her son and Missy Dale, there were questions he wanted to ask Geneva. But overhead, clouds were rolling in from the east, thick and threaded with charcoal, threatening rain. If he wanted to dust the Chevy for prints, the time was now. He should have done it last night; there was a lot about last night he should have done differently. He wasn’t hungover, saved by the greasy pork chops he ate after midnight, but there was a haze at the edge of his memory, not so much in his recall of the events—the blood and the shooting and the confrontation in Wally’s house—but rather in his access to roads not taken, ways he could have handled himself better.
He worked from a kit he kept inside the truck, moving in silence around the Chevy as he dusted, focusing mostly on the driver’s-side door handle, especially the area around the lock, which had been expertly disabled. He was just moving to the passenger-side door, picking up a few latent prints that belonged to either Randie or persons yet unknown, when the first drops began to fall. He locked the kit and evidence cards he’d collected inside his truck and ran across the parking lot to Geneva’s front door. The cardboard patch was damp but holding under the slight overhang of the cafe’s roof. Inside, the place was packed—more customers in Geneva’s than Darren had ever seen, including Huxley and Tim, on his return trip from Chicago, as well as faces he’d never seen before. The booths were all occupied, so that the only open seat Randie could find was in the barber’s chair on the other side of the cafe. Isaac was not in his usual spot, nor did Darren see any sign of Faith. He asked about her, speaking to Geneva over the countertop, hoping to work his way toward their conversation last night, the news he’d learned about her late son and his romance with Missy.
“Sleep,” Geneva said in response. She had her hands full, turning out order after order from the kitchen, and aside from nodding once to the patched-up front door and saying “’Preciate that, son,” she ignored him completely. There was no way to get her alone to talk about something so sensitive—unless Darren were to use his badge to compel her to talk. He’d rather approach her as a friend, one to whom she wanted to confess her son’s affairs. And anyway, when Randie saw him enter, she hopped off the barber’s chair and came quickly to his side, asking to get out of there. She wanted a ride to the motel so she could shower and change her clothes. The talk with Geneva about Lil’ Joe and Missy would have to wait.
Once they were outside and in the truck’s cab, which still smelled of bleach, Randie buckled her seat belt and said, “Was that real?” She had twin half
-moon shadows under her eyes. “Did any of last night really happen?”
“All of it,” he said.
He let her use the shower first. If he had to, he could make do with only a few splashes of cold water on his face, running a finger of toothpaste across his teeth. There was a toothbrush sealed in plastic that came with the room, but Darren made sure to save that for Randie. Instead he washed his hands and scrubbed his face with a small pink bar of soap, aware of the door between the sink and the bathroom, which was cracked open. He heard the water behind the curtain, felt the hot steam drifting across the few feet that separated him from the woman in the shower. He felt things he wasn’t proud of, felt a stirring in a place that was less sordid than it was tender, a warmth beneath his breastbone. Right or wrong, he was embarrassed by his affection for her. He felt an intense obligation to shield her from harm that was equal to his commitment to avenge her husband’s death. He wanted to make her wrong about Texas, wanted her to know it as a place that did not fell black men and get away with it. He dried his face on a rough towel, folding it back neatly so Randie could use it, too.
His phone was ringing on the edge of the queen bed.
It was Wilson.
He had a time and a place for the Dale interview—two o’clock at the sheriff’s office in Center, per Darren’s request—along with explicit instructions. Darren was to do his job thoroughly while offering due deference to local law enforcement at all times, which meant backing off questions of which Sheriff Van Horn disapproved. The murder of Missy Dale remained solely under the sheriff’s purview until adequate evidence arose that linked it to the death of Michael Wright. “Not gon’ get that if I can’t talk to the man,” Darren said.
“Nobody saying you can’t talk to the man. I respect Van Horn for not blocking you on this, and you owe him a little back. Just be mindful we got to work with these local departments long after this is over. Rangers can’t afford to get a reputation for not respecting their authority. And if I’m supposed to go to bat for you with the higher-ups at headquarters in Austin, I need to be able to tell them that you’ve toed the line, that you’re not a loose cannon.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I know you, that’s right. And I’m asking you to respect your limits out there. The thing with the local girl is delicate. Preliminary results came out of the medical examiner’s office early this morning that’s changed some things.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“But you know?”
“When and if the time is right, Van Horn promised to share the findings.”
“Have you seen it?” Darren asked. “The autopsy?”
Wilson fell silent on the other end. Darren heard the water turn off in the bathroom, heard the screech of a tight faucet handle as Randie’s shower ended.
“There’s a concern about your connection with the woman who runs the black cafe out there. Ginny’s or Genevieve’s, is it? Older black woman?”
“Geneva. What does Missy’s autopsy have to do with her?”
“When and if the time is right,” Wilson said. “Van Horn promised.”
Darren hung up the phone just as Randie was coming out of the bathroom, reaching as quickly as she could for the towel resting on the edge of the sink and wrapping it around herself before she stepped out fully from the bathroom. Darren turned his head, mumbling, “I’m sorry.” Randie said she could dress in the bathroom, but Darren said that wouldn’t be necessary. He stepped outside and watched the rain that was falling now in fat gray drops, streams of it twisting like ropes as it ran off the eaves, splashing the asphalt in front of the spot where his truck was parked and dotting the toes of his boots with water. He dialed Greg’s desk phone at the Bureau, listening as it rang.
That’s when he saw the other car in the parking lot. It was a gray Buick sedan, and there was a white man in his thirties, with close-cropped dark brown hair, behind the wheel. He was parked near to the motel lobby, but the nose of his vehicle was pointed at the door in front of which Darren was standing. He’d watched Darren come out of Randie’s room, and now the man’s driver’s-side door opened. Darren put his hand on the butt of the Colt and called for him to halt his approach. The man either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, because he kept walking. The young man wore a plaid button-down shirt underneath a brown sport coat. He had Rockports on his feet. He was wearing glasses, but maybe he was due for a checkup, because it wasn’t until he got just a few feet away from Darren that he seemed to register the gun and the badge on Darren’s chest. The man stopped cold, dropping a scuffed leather messenger bag on the wet pavement. He was younger than Darren originally thought. There was no way this kid had seen three decades.
He reached for something behind his back, and Darren felt all the blood in his body rush to his trigger finger. He felt a shooter’s high, a power that made him feel trippy, that made his senses of sight and sound sharpen and reason recede into the distant gray. He made a quick scan: the messenger bag, the ill-fitting khaki pants. Darren lowered the gun at the exact moment the man pulled a leather billfold from his back pocket. Darren let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, felt his heart explode with relief. The man produced identification before Darren could ask for it. When Randie stepped out of the room a few minutes later, Darren introduced her to Chris Wozniak of the Chicago Tribune. The outside world had arrived in Lark, and it had some questions.
16.
IF CHRIS WOZNIAK was at all curious as to why the Texas Ranger investigating Randie’s husband’s death had walked out of her motel room at nine o’clock in the morning, he kept it to himself. Twice he looked at Randie and asked, “And you’re the widow?” as if he had to make sure. He offered his condolences and said he’d like the chance to interview her as well. “You know Teresa Martin, my editor said.” Randie nodded but didn’t make eye contact.
“We were at SAIC together. The Art Institute of Chicago,” she added for Darren’s benefit. She was wearing a pair of black pants and a crimson, crepe-paper-thin T-shirt. She was shivering and had her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Darren had an impulse to go inside the room to find her white coat, but this was October in Texas, and it would be eighty degrees before noon.
“I know the school,” he said. “I lived in Chicago for a few years.”
She looked at him strangely, as if the information didn’t line up with the boots and badge the man in front of her was wearing. “You did?” she asked.
Darren nodded. “I went to law school at U of C.”
Law school didn’t fit, either. But the mention of it made her smile.
“Michael went to U of C,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wozniak said. “I want to get into all that. The victim’s background…and interesting that you guys have that in common,” he said to Darren as he reached into the messenger bag for a pen and pad. He jotted down a quick note, then turned back to Darren, who was shocked that he seemed so callous in front of the dead man’s wife. “Look,” the reporter said. “I’ve got a camera crew coming. Later today, I hope. And I’d love to get a sense of the basic facts at this stage, not to mention a sense of the lay of the land, so to speak. There was something about some redneck bar in town.” He glanced at Randie. There was more he wanted to poke at here, but not in front of her. “I can drive.”
He had a digital camcorder in his rental car and wanted to get pictures of the crime scene as soon as possible, thought Darren could fill him in on the drive over. But Darren wanted to get back to Geneva’s, wanted to dig around this newly discovered deeper connection between Missy Dale and the world of Geneva’s cafe. It felt as revelatory as the fact that Michael had likely spent his last hours at Wally’s icehouse. These two establishments, on opposite ends of town and separated by a quarter mile of highway, were like twin poles in the story of these two murders: it was impossible to understand one without the other. And now Van Horn was holding some new piece of infor
mation that involved Geneva. Darren didn’t know what that could be.
He didn’t like the idea of leaving Randie alone with this dude. But more than ever, he felt that the rifle shot through Geneva’s cafe last night was meant for him. The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas had an enemy in Shelby County, and he might actually be putting Randie in danger the more time they spent together. As he looked out across the parking lot—empty save for his truck and Randie’s and Wozniak’s rentals—he scanned the slick highway running in front of the motel, rainwater sluicing into weed-choked ditches, and came up with a plan. He was not about to share any piece of the puzzle with a reporter until he understood how it fit into the bigger picture. And right now he didn’t have the bigger picture. He wanted to know more about Missy and Lil’ Joe, Geneva’s son. A thought had been forming in his head since last night. If Keith Dale knew about his wife and Lil’ Joe, who’s to say he didn’t take out on Michael Wright the fury he never got a chance to take out on Lil’ Joe? It offered an explanation for the sequence of the killings that felt right to Darren. Keith comes upon Michael and his wife leaving the icehouse on the farm road, and he kills the black man he thought was messing with her. Two days later, he murders his wife in a fit of rage. Both bodies found in the same muddy water. Why Keith waited two days to kill his wife Darren couldn’t say. But he’d get into the timeline when he had Keith in the box at the sheriff’s office later.