The Far Empty (22 page)

R u okay?

She wondered then about the real reason for her being in Murfee. Like that thing with her address in Austin and the notes he’d sent; all his calls to a cell number that she’d changed more than once in the last year. She could, with only a little effort, trace a faint but nearly straight line from their first meeting in that steakhouse in Austin to that call from Dial Johnson to this moment right here, right now, sitting in the truck with the sheriff. She struggled with the improbable idea that he’d somehow planned this all along, made it happen through sheer force of will—
his will
. Imagining too just how long he must have been thinking about it, thinking about her, while biding his time. And as crazy as it all sounded, now that she’d let those awful thoughts loose, she couldn’t catch hold of them again, remembering each handwritten note and each call and each wave hello. His eyes kept hidden behind mirrored sunglasses but still watching her, and how she’d caught a glimpse of someone she thought was the sheriff sitting outside in the dark outside her house. Remembering, finally, the way he’d looked at her in Austin all those months ago, not long before his wife disappeared . . .

Murfee wouldn’t be a new start for her even if she’d really hoped it could be. It was never going to be an honest chance to leave Austin and Lucas Neill behind, free and clear. She hadn’t guessed it until
now, but the sheriff had been the price of escape all along. As bad as she wanted right at that moment to get out of the moving truck, to run and put miles of desert emptiness between them, there was nowhere to go. Not now, not until the end of school. She had committed to being here, was committed to seeing it through. She had no good choices, just like she had no good excuse for Thanksgiving, either, which left her probably stopping in for dinner, at least for a little while. There was no polite or easy way to avoid it, but of course he knew that already, like he seemed to know so many other things about her. As long as she was here, she didn’t want to anger him or upset him, even though she couldn’t exactly say why. She didn’t want him staring at her through his sunglasses, waiting outside in the night. But after the holiday, she’d do her best to pleasantly avoid him and finish up the last of the school year and then get the hell out of Murfee and Texas altogether. She was finally done, and she almost laughed out loud just to hide how badly she wanted to cry.

Is this how Evelyn Ross felt?

“Of course, I’d be happy to come up to the house for Thanksgiving.”

CALEB

A
mé once asked me about the last moment I remember with my mom. Was she worried, sad? Afraid? Was there any hint of what was going to happen next?

You can’t live in my house, with my father, without sadness, without fear. It comes with the territory. She struggled with all of those things, and so do I now. Always. But that last morning I saw my mom, I saw none of that. She chatted with me, asked me about the upcoming week. She volunteered at school, but it wasn’t her scheduled day. She said she had errands to run, might meet my father for lunch. She hummed in the kitchen, and early sunlight, not quite bright, fell on her face when she turned away from me.

I remember it so clear . . . how young she still looked with the sun on her. It lit her face, her eyes closed, lost in thought. It looked unreal.
She
looked unreal—beautiful, like a painting. Then I got up and grabbed my books and headed out and never saw her again.

But if I really concentrate on that last moment, and if I’m really honest, I can’t say that she was afraid or sad, angry or hurt. If anything, in that moment—with light on her face and her eyes closed—she looked relieved.

•   •   •

Ms. Hart is avoiding me. I know she saw me after school yesterday, but she made a U-turn and headed out the other door to the parking lot. The day before, she saw me near her house and instead of parking, drove on down the street, disappearing, making sure not to look at me as she went by, and still hadn’t come home an hour later. Today I tried to hang back after class to speak with her, but she stayed close to the other teachers and there was never a good opportunity. Later, she even spent a half hour talking to Principal Tanner, waiting me out.

Maybe she thinks it has to do with her having dinner with my father in Artesia, and in all the wrong ways, she’s right. I need her to get Chris Cherry to meet with me. If I can make him see the truth about Rudy Reynosa, maybe he’ll see all the truths about my father, too. Something has to happen soon. For Amé, for Ms. Hart, for all of us.

•   •   •

There was one moment after my mother was gone I thought about hurting myself. I got the Ruger out of the gun locker, put it deep in my mouth, making sure my arms were long enough to reach the trigger. The barrel tasted nothing like metal. I was still there with that gun in my mouth, my stolen shells chambered and tears on my face, when my father drove up to the house.

The garage door went up, loud, and the engine of his truck echoed
like thunder below me. I had enough warning to take a position at the top of the second-floor stairs; crouched down, on one knee, the Ruger steadied against the wall. Back in the shadows, I was invisible. I had clear aim down the stairs, nearly into the kitchen. But for a man who’s never been late to anything, he took too damn long in the garage, messing around, and I never found out what he was doing in there. That was my moment to
handle my business
, our horrible family business. But with so many minutes to think about it, I got scared and didn’t do anything at all. I had more than enough time to slip the gun under my bed, leave it there for later, when I could get it back safe into the gun cabinet.

THE JUDGE

H
e didn’t
dream
, so much. But he remembered things that only surfaced at night. Conversations he might have had, things that had happened to him as a boy. Things he’d done. More and more he remembered her hair. She’d kept it pulled up and he hated that, figuring she did it up so often
because
he hated it. He loved it when it was down, when it hung around her shoulders, falling like daybreak. It was blond and not blond, there and not there, the color of distant desert lightning. Lightning that came alone, without rain. He was always afraid to run his fingers through it, afraid of how sharp and electric it’d be and how it might hurt him. She wanted to color it once, darker, and he told her he’d kill her if she did. His moods regarding such things were unpredictable. But he remembered her hair, now more than ever, and he couldn’t say why.

•   •   •

Dupree stank, sitting in the office chair across from his desk, a can of pop at hand. His eyes were deep in his head, lost, his skin paper-thin and greasy. If he hadn’t known Dupree’s history, he would have thought Dupree was coming off a three-day drunk, but his chief deputy had never taken a drop of alcohol. He was rank as a dead body, though—something someone had dug up and propped up in front of him.

He sat back in his chair, waited for whatever Dupree had to say. Dupree had caught him, trapped him. The other man rolled his eyes like marbles in his head, like he was trying to see backward through his own damn skull, casting around as if he’d never been in this office, in that chair. His fingers danced, did a little a jig, and he picked at invisible things on his shirt—dirt, maybe. Or blood.

“Been a while, you know? You and me, like this.”

He sighed, tapped a penknife. “Like what, Duane? Like what exactly?”

Duane lost focus on whatever was on his shirt, rubbed at it, and sat up straight like he was now paying full attention. “I thought we was friends, always thought we was the best of friends.”

“Have I done anything to make you feel different, Duane?”

Dupree laughed, little more than a giggle. “You don’t call, you don’t write. I was beginning to think you’d washed your hands of me, so to speak.”

He stared at Dupree, trying to back him down with a look that had worked so often on so many. But whatever Dupree saw behind his own bloodshot eyes was more sharp-edged and dangerous than he was. Then it fell together—the arterial cast to Dupree’s eye, and his
yellow skin. He wasn’t drunk or being crazy, he was
wasted
, burned out. How, and for how long, he didn’t know, but it looked bad, very bad. His chief deputy might have been getting it from Eddie Corazon, or anywhere, really. God only knew who he’d been talking to or who had seen him like this. Duane didn’t have the sense anymore to be afraid, not of the things that mattered.

“I understand, Duane.”

Dupree cocked his head, one eye shut like he was thinking hard. “Do you now, do you really?” He rolled his head the other way. “It seems to me you don’t even know the damn question yet.”

“Fair enough. You tell me, then.”

Duane grinned with teeth too big for his head. “You get a piece of that little teacher yet?”

He hesitated, not sure where Dupree was going. “What’s that got to do with—”

Dupree stopped him short, something he had never, ever done. “Seems to me you been spendin’ time trying to get in her panties, not paying sufficient mind to other things . . . important things.”

“Like what?”
Like you, Duane Dupree.

Dupree seemed to read his mind. “Well, like
me
, Judge. Like me.” Dupree cracked his knuckles, echoing like his entire body was breaking. “You know, Chris Cherry’s girl thinks he might be stepping out on her, maybe even with that teacher of yours. Pretty Melissa ain’t a happy camper, not at all. Lonely.” Dupree hung on to the last word for far too long, in some weird way making it echo in his own damn mouth. “Maybe you should sniff around
that
for a bit, or I should.”

He cut Dupree off. “Has Chris been spending time with Anne Hart?”

Duane grinned, happy, like he’d gotten blood from a scab. “Probably more than both of you might be comfortable with. You better slip in there before he does, if you get my meanin’. He’s a young buck. But you and I? We’re jus’ old. Young pussy don’t pay as much mind to us anymore, does it? Not willingly.”

“Is there a meaning here, Duane? Is there a point to all this?”

Duane leaned forward, breathing hot and heavy, grinding like a diesel engine changing gears. “There’s always a fucking point. You taught me that.
Always
a goddamn point.
”

“Then get to it, Duane, or get the fuck out of my office. Don’t come back until you don’t look like dog shit. Or don’t come back at all.”

Duane rose up, nearly knocking over his pop can. “You don’t talk to me like that now, not like that.”

He didn’t move, he didn’t blink—just pointed a quick finger at Duane’s chest. “Goddammit, you sit down, or I’ll whup your ass the way your daddy once did.” He wiped his hands on his pants, like he was wiping Duane off them. “You do remember how your daddy wasn’t just plum crazy, but liked nigger dick, too? Hell, everyone knew it. When he was drinking bad, he’d give up his ass for a few dollars to buy his next bottle. He was popular in Van Horn, down in Stratton. That was
your
daddy, Duane, crazy and sucking nigger dick or a whiskey bottle, it didn’t make any real difference because deep down inside he was equally partial to both. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was whupping
your
ass because you weren’t worth a nickel and change. He put your mother in an early grave with his antics, and nearly you as well. It all runs deep, Duane, and if I hadn’t stepped in, kept an eye on you and damn near treated you like my brother, like my son, you’d be crazy or already dead or sucking nigger dick, too. So, you raise up out of that chair again? It better be because you’re
going to kill me. Otherwise, keep your ass planted and your goddamn mouth shut.
That’s
the point, Duane, the only point.”

Duane hung in the air, propped up by hands turning white on the desk. He looked as if he’d been struck, whatever fury and anger having built up in him suddenly spent, gone, drained all out on the floor. Slowly Duane sat back down, still shaking.

It was a risk pushing Dupree in his state, a monstrous risk—the exact size of it difficult to judge, like looking up at a mountain from its shadows, but it had to be done. He couldn’t let Duane blow sky-high right here in the office, within earshot of the world. “Now, I assume there’s a real reason you’re here. Whatever it is you really came to say. So say it respectfully, and then get the fuck out of my office.”

Duane nodded, ran a sleeved hand across his mouth, left a wet trail on his cuff. “Yeah, yeah, there’s a reason, a damn problem.”

He raised his eyebrows, waited.

“You need to open your damn eyes, Judge. Stop messin’ with that teacher. I think we have a problem right here, right now, with Cherry.”

“
We
don’t have problems. Indian Bluffs? He’s nearly off that. Not paying any more attention to it. No one is. There’s nothing to find.”

“Not that, the other thing. Those two who were here . . . who got burned.”

Tense. “Who says that, Duane? Who says they were here in Murfee?”

Duane stared ahead,
right through him
, eyes dark and bloody at the same time. Shark eyes, dangerous. Yes, it had been risky to push Dupree, and the Judge wouldn’t do it again.

“
That’s
the problem, Judge . . . what I found out, when I was talking to Melissa . . .”

•   •   •

Duane was long gone, the office empty, except for his stink, hanging over the chair he’d occupied.

He got up and went over to one of his favorite pictures, black and white and very old, of a man in a small white hat, playing faro in a saloon in Pecos, one hand poised near where he wore a gun. In that old stained photograph the saloon looked hot, noisy, full of commotion, but the man in the center sat calm. It was one of the only photographs taken of James Brown Miller, known as “Killin’ Jim” or “Killer Miller”; later “Deacon Miller” for his habit of attending the Methodist church and wearing a long black overcoat even in the worst of a Texas summer. Miller had been polite—a God-fearing man, a family man. He didn’t drink or smoke, but was a wizard with a scatter-gun. He killed his first man, his brother-in-law, in 1884, with a shotgun blast to the head. He took to wearing metal under that long frock coat for protection, and was responsible for the deaths of at least twelve people, although Miller himself claimed he’d killed more than fifty. He’d killed for sport or for money, charging about one hundred fifty dollars a head. An angry crowd finally lynched Miller in Ada, Oklahoma, and his last words were, curiously,
Let ’er rip
, as he stepped off the scaffolding.

•   •   •

He lifted up Miller’s picture, careful. Hidden behind it was a small safe. He spun it open, reached deep into its snake mouth, where there were two small cellphones. One was older, given to him by Chava’s people, the one and only time he ever met them in person. After that, they talked to him only if he called from that phone, refusing to
answer if he called on anything else. They were shadows. But they’d stopped calling since things had gone south—all thanks to Rudy Ray.

There hadn’t been a card game back in Jim Miller’s day that hadn’t involved a little sleight of hand, accusations of it. That’s why in his one known photograph, Miller was playing with one hand on his gun. It was the nature of the game and everyone knew it: gain an edge, take an edge, or be cut by one.

The second phone was newer, but the same as the other, more or less—just different voices, different shadows, on the other end; just someone else dealing out the cards in the same crooked game. He turned it over in his hands. Deacon Miller had killed for sport and money. He’d killed for those reasons too, and a few others. The reasons never made it easier. Just doing it enough did.