Chapter 12
DAD IS RIGHT. When we get to the casita, there’s a fat diamondback curled up on the porch like it owns the place. It must be four feet long and as thick as my wrist. Its scales are dusty gray and reddish brown and are arranged in the signature diamond pattern.
The snake raises its head, exposing its white underbelly, and it shakes its rattle at us. Then it seems to reconsider its stance, and it slithers down the steps of the porch and into the grass.
“Better shoot it,” Dad says, “or it’ll be back. You don’t want it crawling into bed with you at night.”
I take a deep breath.
“I just don’t know if I can shoot anything right now,” I say.
“That’s okay, son. I can do it.”
I hand over my pistol and Dad raises it and points it toward the retreating snake. He holds the gun with both hands, but he can’t keep the sight steady enough to shoot.
I’m struck again by how old my father looks. His once muscular arms are withered imitations of what they used to be. And his skin, usually brown from working all summer, is pasty and pale.
“Dad,” I say, “are you okay?”
The snake slips out of sight, and Dad sighs heavily and lowers the gun.
“No, son, I’m not.”
We go through the door and sit on the futon inside.
“Don’t tell your mother or brothers,” he says, “but I’ve got a tumor on my lung the size of a hickory nut. I don’t want to worry them yet.”
I put my head in my hands. First, Anne is murdered; now, my father is dying.
“How long have you known?”
“I’ve been taking chemo pills for about a month,” he says, removing the toothpick from his mouth and holding it in his hand, as if the effort to chew on it is too much. “Your mom thinks I’ve had a bad case of the flu.”
“And the chemotherapy is going to cure you?”
“It’s supposed to shrink the tumor,” he says. “Then I’ll need surgery to remove it.”
“Why are you keeping this a secret, Dad? You’re going to have to tell everyone eventually.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “I’ll say something when I’m ready. I just thought your mom had enough to deal with.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“You.”
“Me?”
“She’s been worried about how you’re doing down there in McAllen, all alone. Every day she wonders how you’re coping with the controversy, whether you’re staying safe. And, well, she’s been worried about how you’re dealing with the shooting. Whether you got that PTSD.”
I have been feeling rather depressed lately, banished by my job to a place I don’t want to live, alone down there with no friends. I think often about the shooting, reliving it at night while I lie awake, unable to sleep. But I was coping fairly well, from what I could tell, knowing that the feelings of sadness and loneliness are normal. And temporary.
I had no idea people I love are so worried about me.
“And now,” Dad continues, “this thing happening with Anne. Your mom’s dealing with too much stress right now as it is. It’s not the right time to tell her that her husband’s got cancer.”
Again, Dad asks me to promise not to tell anyone. I don’t want to commit to the promise—my father taught me to always keep my word—but finally I agree.
“It’s your news to tell them in your own way,” I say. “But I think you should tell everyone. Today. Don’t wait. That’s just my opinion.”
“Your opinion is duly noted,” Dad says, and then changes the subject. “Now, what do you think of your new home?”
The Sheetrock walls have been spackled and sanded but not painted. The plywood flooring is bare and needs carpet, but it’s nothing a hard day’s work can’t fix. There is a small refrigerator, a two-burner stove, and a sink in the kitchenette. At the end of the row of appliances, a five-gallon bucket serves as a makeshift garbage can. There’s no light fixture over the single bulb in the ceiling.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say.
In truth, I’m barely registering my surroundings. My mind is racing with thoughts of Anne’s death, my father’s cancer, my own life that’s been thrown into limbo. I feel as if some divine power has put me in a vice and is squeezing. How can I continue bearing the pressure without imploding?
“Thank you, son,” Dad says. “For listening and for keeping my secret.”
“You’re welcome,” I say, trying to sound as good-humored as possible even though every muscle in my body feels tense.
When we open the door to return to the main house, the rattlesnake is back, sitting on the porch. It raises its head and looks at us with its bottomless black eyes.
My hand acts before my mind can even think about what I’m doing. In a flash, I draw my gun and blow the snake’s head off.
Chapter 13
IT’S THE DAY before Anne’s funeral, and I go into town to meet with DeAndre Purvis.
“I can’t share everything about the case with you,” Purvis says. “But, as a personal courtesy, I’ll tell you what I can. I know how much you cared about Anne, regardless.”
We sit in Purvis’s office. The desk is a mess with stacks of paper and manila folders strewn about, with no apparent organizational system. The disorder makes me fear that Purvis will never be able to solve the case, and that even if he does, he won’t be able to acquire enough evidence for the DA to prosecute. It takes meticulous organization to put together a murder case, and DeAndre Purvis doesn’t seem to have it in him.
I cut to the chase. “Did Cal do it?”
Purvis shakes his head. “He’s got a solid alibi.”
“What is it?”
Purvis explains that Cal was on a road trip, hauling freight on a regular run he does: first to Amarillo, then Oklahoma City, then on up to Detroit, and eventually over to New Jersey.
“There’s a restaurant outside of Amarillo that Cal stops at regularly. The waitress and the manager both vouched for him. Said he ate a late dinner there and spent the night in his truck at the truck stop next door.”
“Any security cameras to verify his location?”
“Yeah, but they weren’t recording anything,” Purvis says. “Manager at the truck stop says the cameras are pretty much just for show. They don’t bother to put tapes in the recorders anymore.”
“Have you searched his truck?”
Purvis nods. “He voluntarily let us search. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but it’s an absolute mess. He’s been living out of it ever since he and Anne broke up.”
I think for a minute.
“The witnesses could be lying,” I say. “If they like Cal, they could be covering for him.”
Purvis scratches his head. “Rory, you and I both know that when you’ve got two employees independently verifying the same story, that’s pretty convincing evidence that will hold in a court of law. We’re not crossing Cal off our list just yet, but I’m inclined to look elsewhere.”
I don’t quite believe the alibi, but I don’t want to pressure Purvis with my doubts.
Yet.
“Who else is on your list?”
Purvis says, “Did you know Wyatt Guthrie had a brother?”
I feel my blood go cold. If Purvis is bringing up the man I shot, then there’s a chance Anne’s murder could be traced back to me.
“His name’s Corgan,” I say slowly. “He’s been in prison for the past four years. Everything Wyatt knew about breaking the law he probably learned from his big brother.”
“He’s out on parole,” Purvis says. “Could be he wanted some payback for his little brother.”
“When did he get out?”
“Last week.”
I shake my head. “Anne told me she was getting threats for a couple weeks.”
“I know,” Purvis says. “The time frames don’t quite match up. But we’re taking a good hard look at him.”
I ask if Corgan Guthrie has an alibi.
“His mom,” Purvis says, “which, in my book, is no alibi at all. We both know that whole family hates you like a hemorrhoid.”
We sit silently for a few seconds. I suspect Purvis will go through the motions of the investigation and do all the things he’s supposed to by eliminating the obvious suspects. But he doesn’t seem to have any passion for this case. There’s no hunger for the hunt.
Of all the cops in this town who knew Anne and adored her, the police department had to assign the case to an outsider. For once, I miss the good ol’ boy ways of the past. In the Texas of my father’s generation, the community wouldn’t stand for a crime like this, and they wouldn’t put an outsider in charge of an investigation this important to the people.
“Did you know Anne?” I ask.
Purvis says he met her at the high school last spring during a say-no-to-drugs fund-raiser.
“She kept your last name,” Purvis says. “So I knew she was your ex right off.”
“I’m glad my marital problems are such common knowledge.”
“It’s a small town.”
I start to rise to leave, but then I ask about the recovered bullets.
“We’ve got good samples,” Purvis says. “Clear-cut striations from the rifling in the barrel. If we find the gun, we can match it.”
“What’s the size?”
Purvis tells me the bullets were .45 caliber.
“That narrows things down nicely,” he says sarcastically. “About 90 percent of the people in Texas have that gun.”
“So at this point,” I say, “you’ve got a suspect list with about twenty million names on it?”
“Pretty much,” Purvis says.
Chapter 14
I RIDE TO the funeral home with my brothers. Our parents and my sisters-in-law will come later with the children. But I want to be there early to have a few minutes alone with Anne. Walking to the entrance, I have my acoustic guitar slung over my back, and I’m wearing a black suit I borrowed from my brother because all my clothes are still down in McAllen.
Anne’s mother sees me and hugs me. She asks if I’ll sit with them. I agree and the funeral director puts another note on a chair in the section reserved for the family, in the front row.
I set my guitar in the corner and approach the casket. Anne is wearing a light-blue summer dress. Her skin is pale but her lips have been painted to give them some color. The mortician repaired the crater in Anne’s face, but the body in the casket still doesn’t look like the woman I loved. It looks like a plastic imposter. Even her honey-blond hair seems fake, plastered with so much mousse that it looks like a wig.
I put my hands on the edge of the casket and begin sobbing. My brothers come and put their arms around my shoulders, and then they take me into a privacy room off to the side where I can collect myself.
When the people in the town start to show up, I join Anne’s parents at the entrance, just as I would if Anne and I were still married. Her mother takes my hand and gives it a squeeze.
I know most of the people who arrive: Freddy Hernandez, the medical examiner; Darren Hagar, a high school friend who owns a bar outside of town now; practically everyone from the school where Anne taught. DeAndre Purvis and a dozen other cops are here as well.
The editor of the local newspaper, Jeff Willemsen, shows up and sidesteps the receiving line where I’m standing with Anne’s parents. Willemsen has a small point-and-shoot camera hanging around his neck. I glare at him, remembering the editorials he wrote about me after the Wyatt Guthrie shooting. I’m tempted to ask him to leave, but I’m afraid anything I say might be quoted and splattered across tomorrow’s front page.
I turn my attention back to the real mourners, and as I’m shaking hands and giving hugs, the pretty face of an ex-girlfriend appears in my peripheral vision.
“I hope it’s okay that I’m here,” Patty says, giving me a tight, tender hug.
“Of course,” I tell her.
Patty and Anne were friends, and I dated Patty after the divorce. She moved to Redbud about five years ago and is a freelance technical writer who substitute teaches on the side. While I thought the world of her, I’d never been able to commit to her fully because I was still in love with Anne. Now she is engaged, and I am happy she’s found what I couldn’t give her.
Just as Patty and I are about to break from our hug, I hear another familiar voice.
“Can I get in on some of that love?”
I turn to see another ex: Sara Beth, my high school sweetheart and first love.
I hug her and Patty does, too. She and Anne weren’t close in high school, but when Sara Beth returned to town after years away, they ended up teachers at the same high school we all attended. There the two became fast friends.
I feel light-headed, thinking that the only three women I ever loved—or almost loved, in the case of Patty—are here in the same room.
But the true love of my life—the woman the other two could never measure up to—is the one lying in the casket with chemicals in her body instead of blood.
Chapter 15
THE FUNERAL PARLOR is packed, with every seat filled and people standing in the back and along the outer aisles. Family. Friends. Teachers from school. Dozens of students, all looking sick with shell-shocked disbelief. I glance around for Cal but don’t see him.
The pastor of the church we attended growing up starts by asking the group to pray. He quotes Job 19:25:
“For I know that my redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”
I haven’t been to church in years and it feels strange praying now. Ever since I became a Ranger, I’ve had a hard time believing in God. At first, seeing the bodies of so many murder victims—empty shells that once contained life—made me angry at God. Many Rangers and other law enforcement officers find solace in religion because it helps them live with the horrors they witness. It gives them hope.
Since the opposite is true for me, I’ve always been envious of those Rangers. After some time, the horrors I’ve witnessed make me doubt the very existence of God.
Which is why it feels weird when the pastor announces that I will sing a Bible hymn.
I pick up my guitar and sit in a folding chair next to the casket. I look out at the crowd and feel my hands shaking, my throat tightening. I feel even more nervous than if I was walking into a gunfight.
Suddenly it’s about more than singing words I don’t believe.
Now all I can think about is the fact that I haven’t sung in front of people in years.
There are so many faces.
So many friends.
So many people who rooted for our marriage to work and who now, despite all that happened between us, understand my loss.
My brother Jake is crying already. My other brother, Chris, has Beau in his lap, with his arms wrapped around the boy in a protective hug. Mom dabs her tearing eyes with a tissue. Dad has pulled himself together and, despite his recent frailty, looks like the strong, confident father I’ve looked up to all my life.
I try to draw strength from my father’s example—be stoic in the face of all obstacles—but then I think of his secret. My confidence evaporates like warm breath on a cold day. I imagine a similar scene in a year or two: another funeral.
This one will be my father’s.
I can’t do this, I think, and I blink back tears.
But then my eyes catch Sara Beth’s. She’s sitting in the second row with Patty. I look back and forth between them. They are offering sympathetic, supportive smiles.
All of these people are here to support Anne’s family, my family.
Me.
I know I can’t let them down.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and begin plucking gently at the guitar strings. I play a simple, slow melody and then begin to sing.
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
The emblem of suffering and shame
&nbs
p; How I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
I open my eyes and sing the rest of the hymn, taking in the moment. Everyone is silent, but I can see from their expressions that the music is moving them. Mom and Dad fight back tears. My brother Jake cries openly, and Chris holds his son tighter and kisses the top of his head. Anne’s father puts his arm around his wife, and she buries her face in his breast. Sara Beth begins to cry, and Patty reaches over and takes her hand.
It seems everyone in the room is reacting the same way.
I’m relieved as I pick out the last few notes and end the song with a final, soft strum of the guitar strings.
Then my eyes fall on a figure in the back of the room that I haven’t seen before.
Anne’s ex, Calvin Richards—Cal to everyone in town—stands at the back of the room. His eyes are fixed on me and the rage in them is discernible even from across the room.
Chapter 16
I LOSE SIGHT of Cal as the people file out of the parlor and onto the lawn. The pallbearers are all students Anne worked with at the high school. Anne would have liked that.
Once the casket is loaded into the hearse, everyone heads to their cars to drive to the cemetery.
It’s late morning, and the weather is just cool enough to be comfortable. The trees in the cemetery are lush with emerald leaves that rustle melodically in the breeze.
My brothers and I walk up the hill to the spot where Anne’s casket has been set. A mound of dirt is next to the casket, piled neatly, and the ground around the hole is covered with an unnaturally green swatch of Astroturf. The casket—its faux wood surface gleaming in the sun—has been positioned over the hole, ready to be lowered.
My brothers and I take a spot at the front. Sara Beth and Patty join us. I don’t see Cal. At least the asshole had the good sense not to show up at this part of the service.
But then, before the pastor begins his final proceedings, a loud semi-tractor pulls up in front of the cemetery, its engine chugging and its air brakes exhaling loudly as it rolls to a stop, parking illegally on a small residential street. There is no trailer attached, but the tractor itself is huge and out of place.
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