Nancy Pickard - The Scent of Rain and Lightning

“Don’t give him credit,” Chase growled. “He did it so he could say he heard us.”

“When? When was this hearing?”

“Last night in Topeka.”

“What? Last night? Who went? Did you all go?”

Meryl nodded, looking wary.

“Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t you tell me? You did all this behind my back?” She was furious. All of her life they’d protected her from hearing the worst; all of her life she’d had to fight for any bit of truth and information, until finally she thought they’d loosened up and started treating her as an adult. Obviously, that still wasn’t the case. “The governor needs to see me. I want to talk to him. I want to tell him what that man did to my life. Maybe I’d make him feel some sympathy. Why didn’t you give me a chance?”

“Mom and Dad didn’t want you to be there,” Chase said, his voice harsh. “They wanted to protect you. Dad was sure it was all for show, and he was right. The governor already had his mind made up, and there was nothing we could do to change it. They wanted to spare you.”

“They shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have!”

He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s done now.”

She glared at him with all the force of how infuriated, helpless, and frightened she felt.

“Don’t blame us.” He looked disgusted at the idea of it. “Put the blame where it belongs, on that kid of Billy’s. Like father, like son.” Finally, his own bottled-up rage burst out of him. “Liars, both of them!” He let his anger flow toward his brother. “Isn’t that damned coffee ready yet?”

Bobby answered by swinging his right arm into the coffeepot.

The force of the blow sent the pot full of water and coffee grounds flying into the metal sink, where it shattered. Chase and Meryl both jumped and Jody gasped with shock.

Bent over the sink like a man who might throw up into it, Bobby propped himself up with his one arm. “He’s moving back,” he said, as if the words hurt and sickened him to say. “That murdering bastard who killed my brother and took Laurie is coming back here to live as if he never did anything to anybody. We can’t let this happen.”

“Too late,” Chase said bitterly.

Jody got up from her chair, ran to Bobby, put her arms around his thick waist and hugged up against his back. It felt good to know they were all as upset as she was. It was a mark of just how bad things really were. She had rarely seen any of them lose control; Bobby’s outburst was a welcome revelation. “It’s not our fault, Uncle Bobby,” she consoled him. This time she didn’t cry. Anger at Collin Crosby had dried her tears.

It felt good to have someone to blame.

“PACK A SUITCASE, JOSEPHUS,” Chase told her before the uncles left her house. He had an unlit cigarette in one hand, as if he could barely stand to wait to get outside again so he could smoke it. “You’re coming to the ranch with us.”

“I’m not moving back there, Uncle Chase.”

“Yeah, you are. Mom and Dad want you to.”

They were all standing in the front foyer again, Jody and her uncles.

She had stopped crying. Her anger at what Collin Crosby was doing to her family by getting his father out of prison had rejuvenated her, giving her back some spirit and spite.

“But I don’t want to. I just moved in here!”

It wasn’t only that she’d only recently moved in, it was also that she’d done so much work to the huge house to turn it into her home-sanding and polishing its original wood floors, taking down ancient draperies and putting cheerful new curtains back up in their place. She had painted and wallpapered with the help of her aunt and her grandmother. They had all given hours to dusting, washing, shopping, tossing out and replacing things. It had been, Jody hoped, a restorative time for all of them as they began to transform a mansion of bad memories into a happy and beautiful house again. With every swab of a wet sponge, Jody had felt as if she were exorcising him. She was not going to let Billy Crosby force her out of her own home a second time.

“Do you want them to worry about you?” Chase demanded, the set of his face looking grim around his sunglasses. “Do you want them to lie awake nights thinking about how he’s only a few blocks away from you?”

“God, Uncle Chase, that’s so not fair.”

He shrugged. “Well?”

She gave in to her own concern for her grandparents’ feelings.

“All right. All right! But I’ll drive myself out there.”

“When?”

“When I’ve packed!”

“Six o’clock,” he told her in a tone that brooked no further argument. “Supper. Suitcase.”

Chase grabbed his cowboy hat off its peg and stalked out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind him. Within moments the smell of cigarette smoke wafted back inside.

Jody turned toward her other two uncles.

“Don’t you just want to kill him sometimes?”

“Frequently,” Meryl said with a brief grin as he grabbed his own hat, then gave her a passing hug. “Don’t you worry. He’ll screw up. He’ll end up back in a cell where he belongs.”

“Uncle Chase?” she managed to joke.

Meryl laughed. “I’ll see you tonight at the ranch.”

“I may still have questions.”

“Anything you want to know, honey. Just ask.”

He hurried out to his truck as if he had things to do and not enough time to do them.

When the other two were gone, Bobby surprised Jody by asking, “How are you?”

“Shocked,” she said, after taking a moment to consider it.

“Are you scared?”

That startled her. It was so unlike him to acknowledge that anybody might ever have a reason to be scared of anything. She lifted her chin. “Not in the least.” Then she admitted, “Okay, yes. It makes my heart pound just to think of ever seeing him around town.”

“Good,” he said, surprising her even more. “You should be scared of him.”

“Uncle Bobby! Why?”

“Because we have no idea what he’ll do.”

“He just got out of prison! He won’t want to get into trouble, will he?”

“You heard Meryl. He’s Billy Crosby. Don’t expect him to have gotten any smarter. And remember that he hates us, he hates your grandparents, he hates Chase, and Meryl, and me, and probably even Belle. And I’m guessing he hates you, too.”

“Me? But why?”

Bobby shrugged, looking like his brother Chase when he did it, because they both had the same dismissive lift of their big shoulders. “Billy Crosby has never needed a good reason for what he does.” He stepped closer to her. “But listen to me, Jody. If there’s anybody who should be scared, it’s him. Billy Crosby should be looking over his shoulder every second of the time he’s here in Rose, because we will be watching him.” Bobby put his hat on his head. “That’s why you need to go out to the ranch until he’s gone. We don’t want to have to keep an eye on you, too.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“He won’t stay.”

“How do you know?”

“It won’t be comfortable for him here.”

On his way out the door he said, “I’m sorry about your coffeepot.”

“It’s okay, Uncle Bobby.” She smiled shakily at him. “You can buy me a nicer one.”

“And teach you how to make a decent cup of coffee,” he said gruffly, and was gone.

AFTER THEY LEFT, Jody didn’t know what to do with herself.

At first she wandered from room to room downstairs, looking at all the labor she’d put into them and regretting the need to leave them even for a day, much less for however long it took to put Billy Crosby safely away again. “Shocked” didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. Things that she had assumed were settled suddenly weren’t, and none of the reasons made sense at their deepest level. So what if none of that physical evidence held up? So what, even if the county attorney had withheld evidence from the defense attorney? So what if the local defense attorney hadn’t tried very hard? If Crosby did it, and everybody knew he did-because of his low character and because of all the events leading up to that night-then he was still as guilty as ever and nothing about his sentencing should ever change.