Reed Coleman - Gun Church

The sheriff said, “We know for a fact your client didn’t kill Petrovic. Fact is, the only person your client did kill, deserved killin’ and that was Trimble himself. Seems it was Trimble that killed Petrovic and my deputy too. All we want is for your client to tell us his side of things so we can corroborate some details.”

I didn’t wait for permission and just started talking.

About a year ago, I heard from my lawyer. It seems that the evidence Renee left behind included hours of voice recordings she’d made of herself and Jim in which Jim, in the course of their conversations, confessed to just about everything but the Brink’s job and the sinking of the Lusitania. She’d also left behind a written statement detailing her role in things and explaining why she’d made the voice recordings-to protect me-and to fill in any gaps in the narrative.

“I can probably arrange for you to hear the tapes and get a copy of the statement,” he told me.

“No, thanks,” I said.

For a long time afterwards, I’d wanted to give Renee credit for being smarter than either Jim or me. That she was brilliant for seeing how badly things might turn out. Just lately, however, I’ve had a change of heart on the matter. One day it struck me that voice recordings and hidden evidence had Jim’s signature all over it, that he must have known he was being recorded, that these recordings were a testament to him, an insurance policy to make sure he got credit one way or the other, alive or dead.

But who knows anything, really? Did Jim know Renee was making those tapes? Was it Jim’s idea in the first place? These days the only looking behind me I do is in the rearview mirror. I try not to look too far ahead either.