Indelible (22 page)

Jeffrey said, “I hid the necklace from her.”

“Why?”

“Because I've got enough people in town telling her I'm some kind of animal without proving it.”

“What does this prove?” Robert asked, handing the necklace back to Jeffrey. No one wanted to keep the damn thing, and Jeffrey was irritated that it kept coming back to him.

Jeffrey said, “It's going to stir up all that shit all over again. Jesus, I hate this fucking place.”

Robert stared at his hands. “Everyone said she just ran away.”

“I know.”

They were both quiet, each of them probably thinking the same thing. For Jeffrey's part, he had a sick feeling in his gut like his life was about to turn upside down and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Robert said, “You know what they do to cops in jail?”

Jeffrey felt his throat close. “We're not going to jail,” he managed. “Even if they found something . . . some way to connect us to this . . . it was such a long time ago—”

“No,” Robert said. “I'm asking you. I have no idea except what I've seen on television, and that's enough to make your blood turn. What do they do to cops in jail?”

“Robert—”

“I'm serious, Jeffrey. What do they do to them? What should I expect?”

Jeffrey looked at his friend maybe for the first time since the other man had entered the room. Except for a few lines around his eyes, Robert looked the same way he had in high school. He was still fit and a little lanky, but the way he slouched into the chair and bounced the heel of his shoe up and down was new. On the football field, Jeffrey had known every thought going through the other man's mind, but now he had no idea what Robert was thinking.

Jeffrey finally asked, “What are you trying to say, Bobby?”

“I'm not trying, I'm telling. I shot Luke. I shot him in cold blood.”

Jeffrey was sure he had heard wrong.

“He was having an affair with Jessie.”

Shock stopped Jeffrey for another moment. “What are you—”

Robert's tone was matter-of-fact, like he was talking about killing ants in his garden instead of the death of another human being. “I went to the store to pick up some things, then I came home and found them together. He was . . . shit, I guess you know what he was doing with her.”

It was too much; Jeffrey couldn't handle anything else today. “Robert, why are you saying this? It's not true.”

“I got out my gun and shot him.” He shook his head. “Not like that. I saw them first, then I went back to get my gun. I came back into the room and Jessie screamed. I asked them what the hell they were doing. He tried to make excuses and I just pulled the trigger.”

Jeffrey stood up. “Don't say anything else to me.”

“His head . . . it just exploded.”

“Robert, shut the fuck up. You need a lawyer.”

“I don't need a lawyer,” he said. “I need something to wipe this out of my mind. I need something that'll help me forget what it was like seeing his head just—”

“Robert,” Jeffrey interrupted, making his voice firm. “You don't need to tell me this.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do. I'm confessing. There wasn't a break-in. The second piece is my backup. I used it to shoot myself. Sara knows, she saw where I held the gun. Jesus, that was stupid, but I did it. I wasn't thinking. I didn't have a lot of time. The lights were already turning on next door. You get called out on these things as a cop and you think, ‘Christ, what a fucking idiot,' but the truth is when it happens to you, you don't have time to think. Maybe it's shock or fear or some kind of stupid thing that just kicks in, but you make mistakes. You don't
want
to get caught, but you can't think how not to.” He indicated the chair. “Sit down, Jeffrey. You're making me nervous.”

Jeffrey sat. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because it's not right,” he answered. “I talked to Hoss this morning, gave him my statement just like I told you last night. It's like back when we were in school. Any old story we reel out, he bites.”

“He doesn't know any of this?”

“No, I wanted to tell you first. I owed you that much.”

“Robert,” Jeffrey said, thinking the man had done him no great favor. Despite the sense it made, Jeffrey could not believe the story. He had grown up with this man, spent countless hours listening to records with him, talking about girls, planning the cars they were going to buy when they turned sixteen.

Robert said, “I've got to take responsibility for my actions. That man is dead because of me, because I couldn't control myself—all my anger and hatred and . . . everything. It just came up to the
surface and the next thing I knew, he was dead on the floor.” He started to tear up. “I killed him. He's dead. He was screwing my wife and I killed him.”

Jeffrey pressed his fingers into his temples, not knowing what to say.

“Did you know Jessie had a miscarriage a few months ago?”

Jeffrey tried to talk past the lump in his throat. “No.”

“Would've been a boy. How do you like that? It's the one thing that would have finally made her happy, and God just wouldn't let it happen.”

Jeffrey doubted seriously anything could make Jessie happy, but he still said, “I'm sorry.”

“It was my fault,” Robert said. “Something about me . . . I don't know, Slick. Something about me never works for her. I'm just poison.”

“That's not true.”

“I'm not a good man. I'm not a good husband.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I've never been a good husband. People stray for all kinds of reasons, I guess, but in the end . . .” He looked up. “I haven't been much of a friend to you.”

“That's not true,” Jeffrey repeated.

Robert just stared at Jeffrey, a kind of despair on his face. He slumped back farther in the chair as if he did not have the strength to sit up. He kept staring at Jeffrey, his eyes moving back and forth like he was reading a book.

“It was me,” Robert finally said. “It was all me. I killed Swan and I killed Julia, too.”

Jeffrey felt like all the breath had been sucked from his lungs.

“All that other stuff—I did that, too.”

“No, you didn't,” Jeffrey insisted. What the hell was he talking about? There was no way Robert had killed anybody.

“I used a rock to hit her in the head,” Robert told him. “It was pretty quick.”

“You didn't do that,” Jeffrey said, either anger or fear making his voice waver. This was just too much. “Everyone thought she ran away. You said it yourself less than five minutes ago.”

“I lied,” he countered. “I'm telling you the truth now. I threw the rock in the abandoned quarry. You'll never be able to find it, but my confession should be good enough.”

“Why are you saying this?”

He stood up, wincing from the pain in his side. “Go get Reggie.”

“I won't. Not until you tell me why you're lying.”

Robert knocked on the window and motioned Reggie inside. “I want Reg to take me in.”

“That's not—”

“It's better this way, Slick. Simpler. Now we've got everything tied up all neat. It's finally over and done with.” Robert wiped his eyes. “Look at me crying like a girl.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Reggie sees me like this he'll think I'm some kind of pansy.”

“Fuck Reggie,” Jeffrey said, just as the deputy walked in. Reggie's eyebrow shot up, but for once, he kept his mouth shut.

Robert held out his hands to the deputy. “You need to cuff me.”

Reggie looked back and forth between the two men. “This some kind of stupid joke?”

“I killed Luke Swan last night,” Robert said, putting his hand in his front pocket. For some reason, Jeffrey's first thought was that he was going to pull out some type of weapon. Instead, Robert showed them a spent bullet.

Reggie examined the casing. “Federal,” he noticed, just like the bullets Robert had in his Glock.

Robert told him, “It was just sticking out from his head.” He put his index finger to the area beneath his ear. “Just the tip of it, right here. You wouldn't think a bullet would be like that, just peeking out like someone put it there, but it slid right out. I didn't even have to pull much.”

Reggie still wouldn't buy it. He handed the bullet back to Robert, but Robert wouldn't take it. “Y'all are shitting me, right?” He snorted a laugh. “This one of your practical jokes, Bubba? You trying to get me in trouble with Hoss again?”

“Stop dicking around, boy,” Robert demanded, his tone harder than Jeffrey had ever heard it. Robert was Reggie's superior, and he was giving him an order when he said, “Cuff me and read me my rights. Do it by the book.”

Jessie came in, her drink topped off to the rim. “Y'all want something to . . .” Her voice trailed off as for once she noticed that she was not the center of some drama. Her eyes locked onto Robert's, and in the split second before she managed to control herself, she looked terrified. She recovered quickly, but still put her hand to the doorjamb like she needed something to keep her from falling over. “What did you tell them?”

Robert's eyes watered again, and his voice was
full of regret as he said, “The truth, baby. I told them the truth.” Again, he held out his hands to Reggie. “Luke Swan was having an affair with my wife. I came home and found them together, and I shot him.” He shook his hands. “Come on, Reggie. Get it over with.”

Jessie murmured, “Oh, Jesus.”

Robert said, “Cuff me.”

Reggie put his hand to the back of his belt, but he did not get his handcuffs. “I'm not cuffing you,” he said. “I'll take you to the station to talk to Hoss, but no way I'm putting handcuffs on you.”

“Reggie, I'm ordering you.”

“No fucking way,” Reggie said. “Not that I wouldn't love to see you riding in the back of my car, but I ain't gonna have Hoss come down on me for something you did.” He added, “Not this time, anyway.”

“You need to do this by the book,” Robert told him.

Reggie would not relent. “I'll go crank up the car, let it cool down a little. You come out when you're ready.”

“I'm ready now,” Robert said. When Jeffrey moved to follow them, he held up his hand. “No, Jeffrey. Let me do this alone.”

Jessie was still in the doorway, and Robert had to pass his wife to leave. Jeffrey watched as Robert kissed her cheek, saw the way Jessie flinched away from his touch, try as she might to pretend she wasn't. Jeffrey wanted to grab her and shake her, to throw her to the ground and throttle the life out of
her, for treating Robert this way. There was no way he had killed a man. Jeffrey did not buy it. Something was not right here.

Still, when Robert asked Jeffrey, “Look after Jess for me, will you?” Jeffrey nodded.

He told Robert, “I'll be up at the station later.”

“Jess,” Robert said. “Give him the keys to my truck.” He managed a sad smile. “I don't guess I'll be needing it for a while.”

“Don't say anything to them, not even Hoss,” Jeffrey coached. “We need to find you a lawyer.”

Robert left the room without responding. Seconds later, the screen door popped shut.

“Well,” Jessie said, then took a long drink. The glass had been nearly full when she started and she had left little more than the ice cubes. Jeffrey watched her throat work as she drank it all down, wondering how she could appear to be so calm with her husband on the way to being charged with murder.

Jessie sucked an ice cube into her mouth before dropping it back into the glass. “This must be the best day of that old hick's life.” She waited for Jeffrey to say something, but he did not oblige. “Reggie's been waiting like a hawk lo these many years, looking for the day Robert stumbled. I'm sure he's planning on swooping in tomorrow and getting that promotion that has so long eluded him.”

“Doesn't sound like Robert's the one who stumbled to me,” Jeffrey told her, letting all the bile he felt rise out in his tone. This was her fault. She had brought this down on Robert. She had brought this down on all of them.

“Oh, that's just perfect, Slick. So damn typical. He shoots and kills a man and somehow you manage to paint me in the black.”

“Why'd you cheat on him?” Jeffrey demanded. “Why?”

She shrugged like it was a casual thing. There was something nervous about her, almost twitchy.

“He was good to you.”

“Now, don't go getting on your high horse, Jeffrey Tolliver. You're forgetting who you're talking to.”

“I never cheated on anybody,” he said, disgusted by the knowing look she gave him. Jeffrey might have done his share of fucking around, but he made certain the women he was involved with knew exactly what they were—or were not—getting into.

He said, “When I make a promise to someone, I keep it. I sure as shit wouldn't run around on my wife.”

“Easy to say now,” Jessie said, sucking the liquor off another ice cube. She smacked her lips. “You're the worst kind of cheat because you think you're too good to let it happen.”

“Don't you even care that he's going to jail? This is a death-penalty state, Jessie. He could end up getting a needle in his arm.”

She looked down at her glass, swirling the ice around.

“How'd it start?” Jeffrey demanded. “Were you buying drugs from him?”

“Drugs?” She looked startled. “Robert?”

“Luke Swan,” he said. “He was using. Is that how it went down?” He grabbed her arm, looking for
needle marks. “You two shot up together and it went from there?”

“You're hurting me.”

He pushed up her sleeve, checked the crease of her elbow and under her arm.

“Stop it!”

He checked her other arm, spilling ice onto the floor. “What made you do it, Jessie? What?”