Дэвид Балдаччи - The Guilty

“How was Clancy killed?”

Priscilla pointed to her neck. “Slit from ear to ear. Newspaper say it was a knife like the military use.”

“And my dad was in the Marines.”

“Well, lots of folks down here served in the military. And lots of folks got them knives like that.”

“Where was he found?”

“In his car, down by the Pearl. He got himself one’a them Bentley cars. Only one hereabouts, I can tell you that. ’Bout a half mile from his house. Lonely old swamp road. Hell, what other kind’a swamp road is there?”

“TOD?”

“What?” she said looking confused.

“Time of death,” said Robie quickly, while Priscilla continued to stare at him suspiciously.

“’Bout one in the mornin’, paper said.”

“No other suspects? What about his family? Lots of time family members kill each other.”

“Well, he ain’t got no family in Cantrell ’cept for Pete. His children from his first marriage are all grown and moved off.”

“First marriage?”

She nodded. “He divorced his first wife, married another lady, and they had Pete. Then Clancy divorced her too, but Pete still lived with his daddy.”

“And the ‘junkyard dogs’ he did business with in the casinos? Could they have killed Clancy?”

She pointed a stubby finger at him. “‘Now that’s ’xactly what I done said. What ’bout them ? But I guess the police checked that out. And maybe they got themselves alibis. But they could’a hired somebody to do it. Maybe Clancy and them had a fallin’-out, or he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or they was doing somethin’ criminal-like, and he found out. Could be anythin’.”

“But they arrested my father?”

“Yes they did. Mighty quick, too.”

“Why? He’s the judge. On the cops’ side.”

“Well, I hear me some stories that Judge Robie made it hard on the police to get convictions. Especially if people’a color are involved.”

“You mean he was balancing the scales of justice?” said Robie.

She fingered her tea glass. “ I would say that. Others not so much.”

“Sounded like the case against Clancy for killing Janet Chisum was pretty strong. I heard he walked because he has friends and money.”

“Shoot, I can tell you ’xactly why he walked.”

“Why?”

Her expression changed. “Why you care ’bout all this?”

“My father’s been arrested for murder.”

“So? You been gone all this time. And now you show up out of the blue?” She shook her head and looked at him disapprovingly. “Can’t say I respect you for that.”

“I had my reasons.”

“Not good ’nuff, Will Robie.” She rose. “Now I got me work to do. Lotta house to keep clean.” She pointed toward the front door. “I ’spect you can find your way out. And then why don’t you go back where you done come from and forget all about your daddy? Shouldn’t be too hard. You done forgot ’bout him most’a your life, way I see it.” And she walked off.

As Robie watched her go, a part of him felt Priscilla was exactly right.

Robie walked back to his car, glancing once at the house where he, again, caught Priscilla eyeing him from an upstairs window. She didn’t look pleased, and he knew she was not happy with him. But then again, she seemed loyal to his father. And though he didn’t think much of the man, she apparently did.

He looked past the house to the rear grounds, where he had held Laura Barksdale in his arms on that hot, humid night in June.

They had sworn their undying love to each other in a way only the teenage heart could apparently manage. Robie had always intended to leave Cantrell, and when he shared his plan with Laura she had immediately asked Robie to take her with him. Everything seemed perfect.

Robie had his rusty Chevrolet packed with his few belongings. He had gone to the prearranged spot the next night. He had waited for Laura to come. He had waited for three hours. She never showed up.

Afraid that something had happened to her, he had driven his old clunker to this very place, parking well out of sight. He had snuck up to the front of the house, his eyes lifting to the second floor of the well-lighted façade till they came to the third window on the left — Laura’s bedroom. The light was on. Her silhouette was clear against that backdrop.

She was not coming. Her undying love had apparently lasted fewer than twenty-four hours.

Robie had gone back to his car, and — once more with the shortsightedness and accompanying stubbornness that came with being only eighteen years old — he got in his car and started driving. And he didn’t stop until the next morning. Then he ate, slept in his car, and kept driving until the Atlantic Ocean came into view.

He had written her over the next couple years imploring her to join him but had never received a reply. He had called the house, but no one had ever answered. He had left messages, but she had never called him back. Despite all that, he told himself that he would come back and get her. That they would be together.

But life had gotten in the way, and the love he held for her had slowly faded. The years had zipped by. And he had never returned to Mississippi.

Until now.

He started his rental and drove down the pebbled drive.

His father had remarried, and his new wife was Robie’s age.

And they have a young son named after me who doesn’t talk.

The one person he had not thought of while he had been here was his mother. He had come to believe that he had no reason to think of her. She had abandoned him. She had made a choice that had not included him, and had left him with the near-mad Marine turned country lawyer who fervently believed that boys were meant to be tough. And whatever method you used to make them tough was just fine. And if it came close to killing the boy, well, then even better.

Laura had her own family problems, though she had never made Robie privy to exactly what they were despite his pleading with her to confide in him. Her natural positivism had been often tempered by painful bouts of melancholy. Hence the plan to leave Cantrell and start their lives over somewhere else.

Only Robie had never envisioned driving halfway across the country alone.

In many ways he had been alone ever since.

He drove back into town on roads that had heat rising off them like mist from a warm pond on a cool morning. He cranked up the air-conditioning and let the cold air pound away at the sweat beads on his face.

There was still so much he didn’t know.

How Victoria had met his father and then married him. What her background was.

How his father had become the judge here.

How he could afford a place like the Willows.

He had no idea why Sherman Clancy had not been convicted. He didn’t know anything about the case against his father beyond the sketchy details Blue Man had provided. But he was hoping that Sheila Taggert would fill him in when they met at five o’clock.

He kept his car pointed back toward town and was there thirty minutes later. It wasn’t that far as the crow flew, but the roads here did not take the crow’s route. They were in poor condition and tended to ramble rather than run straight and true back to downtown Cantrell, as though the folks around here had all the time in the world.

And maybe they did.

He parked near Momma Lulu’s on Little Choctaw and started walking. He had a little time before he would meet Taggert and he needed a place to stay.

There had been a small hotel on Dubois Street when he was growing up here. He walked that way, his duffel slung over his shoulder. Dubois Street was still there, but the hotel wasn’t. In its place was a large hole in the dirt with a corresponding gap like a missing tooth in the establishments that ran the length of Dubois on both sides.