Karin Slaughter - Indelible

Robert continued, "All these years…I really thought some of those men were my friends, that I had proven myself." He paused, obviously trying to control his emotions. "I had a wife. I was part of a family. Hell, I even coached Little League. Did you know that? We got to the quad-A championship last year. Liked to won but one of the Thompson boys overthrew to home." He smiled at the memory. "Did you know that? We made it to the big stadium over in Birmingham."

Jeffrey shook his head. He had grown up with this man, spent every day of his boyhood with him, yet he knew nothing about his life as an adult.

"You just never know what people think about you, do you?" Robert asked. "You go to ballgames and picnics and watch their kids grow up and hear about their divorces and affairs and it doesn't mean shit. They smile to your face while they're stabbing you in the back."

"You should've called Hoss last night," Jeffrey said. "He would've come down and straightened all of this out."

"It'd just make things worse the next time."

"Worse?" Jeffrey said. "What's worse than getting the shit beat out of you?" His mind answered his own question, and he sunk down in the chair beside Robert before his knees gave out. "They didn't…?"

Robert's voice sounded like it was coming out of a dead man. "No."

Jeffrey put his hand to his stomach, a hot sickness churning in his belly. "Jesus…" he whispered, as close to a prayer as he had come in twenty years.

Robert's hands started to tremor, and Jeffrey noticed the handcuffs keeping them together. His fingers were as beaten up as his face, deep gashes on his knuckles where his fists had met something hard. He looked as if he had fought for his life last night.

Jeffrey asked, "Why are you cuffed?"

"I'm a dangerous criminal," Robert reminded him. "I've killed two people."

"You didn't," Jeffrey said. "Robert, I know you didn't do this. Why are you lying?"

"I can't do this," Robert said. "I thought I was strong enough, but I'm not."

Jeffrey put his hand on Robert's shoulder, but pulled it away when the other man flinched. He wondered if Robert was telling him the truth about last night, though if he really thought about it, Jeffrey did not want to know a damn thing.

Jeffrey said, "We'll get you a lawyer."

"I don't have any money," he said. "Jessie's family wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire."

"I'll pay for it," Jeffrey told him, even as he racked his brain to think of where he could find that kind of money. "I don't have enough equity in my house, but I've got a retirement plan I can cash out. It's not much, but it'll be a retainer. Between me and Possum, we can find a way to do this. I'll work security, get another job if I have to." He cast about for something concrete. "I can move back to Birmingham and drive down on the weekends."

"I can't let you do that."

"You don't have a choice," Jeffrey told him. "You can't spend another night in jail."

Robert shook his head, an overwhelming sadness filling the room. "I've never had much of a choice about anything, Jeffrey. I'm so sick of living this life. Just plain dog tired of everyone and everything in it." He closed his eyes. "Jessie's finished with me. She was finished with me a long time ago."

"Is this because of the miscarriage?" Jeffrey asked, thinking that was enough to put a strain on any relationship. There had to be a reason Jessie went out on her husband. People did not cheat for no reason.

"It goes back further than that," Robert said. "It goes back to that day Julia came to school, saying I raped her. She never trusted me. Not after that."

Jeffrey felt all of his senses strain. "Did you tell Jessie what happened?"

"She never asked," Robert said. "There's things she knows in her head, but she never asks the question. Why don't people ask the question?"

"Maybe they don't want to know the answers," Jeffrey told him, thinking he was just as bad as Jessie. Still, he said, "Jessie didn't believe those rumors. Nobody who really knew you believed it was true."

"They believed it about you," Robert said. He looked up at Jeffrey, his eyes watering. "I let them think that all this time."

"Think what?"

"That you raped Julia," he said, his eyes shifting around, like he wanted to take in every part of Jeffrey's reaction. "I let them think it was you in the woods. I let them think you raped her."

Jeffrey felt all the saliva in his mouth go dry.

"I was just protecting myself," Robert said. "You went away, but I had to stay here, had to live with them all bearing down on me, thinking they knew my nature." He looked away. "Every Sunday at church, I could feel Lane Kendall staring a hole into me, like she could see what was going on, like she knew what happened that day."

"What happened, Robert?" Jeffrey waited, but he did not answer. "Tell me what happened," he repeated. "I've never asked you before because I believed you were innocent. If you're saying you're guilty now, then tell me what happened."

Robert cleared his throat a few times, then reached out with both hands to get a cup of water off the desk. He took a sip of water and winced as it went down, his Adam's apple jerking in his throat. Jeffrey saw the bruises around his neck and knew that someone had tried to strangle him. Or had they put their hands around his neck to keep him from calling out? The bruises darkened as they wrapped around the front of his neck. Had someone stood behind him, squeezing his throat shut? What were they doing that was so bad they needed to make sure Robert could not call out?

"Robert," Jeffrey whispered, trying to find his voice. "Tell me what happened."

He shook his head. "Go home, Slick."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Go back to Grant County and marry Sara. Start a life. Have some kids."

"I'm not gonna do that, Robert. I'm not gonna leave you a second time."

"You didn't leave me the first time," Robert said, anger flashing in his eyes. "Look, I raped her. That's just what I'm going to tell them: I took her to the cave and I raped her, and she started screaming, saying she was going to tell everybody. I panicked, just like I panicked the other night. I took a rock and smashed the side of her head in." He gave Jeffrey a hard look. "Does that satisfy you?"

"Which side?" Jeffrey asked. "Which side of her head did you hit her on?"

"Hell, I don't know. Look at her damn skull. It's the side that's broken."

"You didn't kill her," Jeffrey said. "She was strangled, she wasn't beaten."

"Oh." Robert could not hide his surprise, but he recovered quickly. "Yeah, I strangled her, too."

"You didn't."

"I did," he insisted. "I strangled her just like this," he said, the cuffs clinking as he wrapped his hands around an imaginary neck.

"You didn't," Jeffrey countered.

Robert dropped his hands, though he would not admit defeat.

"I was just talking to her at first, trying to be nice," he said, his voice getting smaller. His eyes glazed over as he went somewhere else, and he spoke so softly that Jeffrey had to strain to listen "When she looked away, I hit her in the head, and when she fell over, I got on top of her, behind her. She screamed, and I started choking her to shut her up." He used his hands again to illustrate. "She wouldn't stop screaming, and it got me mad just hearing her, and it got me excited, too – excited like I don't know. I kept one hand on the back of her neck." He put his hand palm down, like he was there. "I knew she was scared – terrified. I was scared, too. I thought somebody would come, somebody would see me like that, like some animal. And I couldn't stop. I couldn't get anybody to help me. My throat…" He put his hand to his neck. "My throat felt like I swallowed a handful of tacks. I just couldn't breathe. I couldn't even make a sound more than a whimper, but in my mind, I could hear them laughing about it, egging me on, like it was some kind of game to see how far I could go before I broke." He let his hands drop to his lap, his breath coming in sharp rasps. Jeffrey did not know if he was talking about Julia anymore or what had happened to him last night. "I just wanted to go somewhere in my head, somewhere safe where I was okay, but it was all so horrible that I couldn't do anything but bite down on my tongue and pray to God it would be over soon." His lips trembled, but there were no tears.