Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

“You know, Terry, you did something more than humiliate me to the world. You humiliated me to me.”

“You know I’m innocent.”

“Of the children, I believe so. But how innocent are you of Donna Mason?”

I watched her sip her coffee. There are times when a man wants to crawl down a hole, and times when he is the hole. This was one of those.

She chuckled. “You can tell me I’m wrong and I won’t bring it up again. I’m not after confirmation. I’m past that, to be honest.”

“Well, yes. There is that.”

“How long?”

“A few months.”

“I’d flattered myself that it was more recent. I suspected. When I saw the interview I realized she was in love with you. I just knew. So, when were you going to get around to telling me?”

“I’d been thinking about... how to do it.”

Her face was flushed now, but Melinda still had the interrogator’s calm that had worn down so many creeps over the years. “Noble of you, not to rush things.”

“The same way you thought before you left Ish. I hurt you, Melinda. I cheated and I lied. But you’re not righteous either. Nobody is.”

“I feel very put in my place. I apologize for asking you when you were going to tell me you were cheating on me. I stand corrected.”

“I was wrong in what I did. I know that. I wasn’t expecting what happened.”

“And what, exactly, happened?”

“I just met her and fell. I thought we’d be right together. I fought it. I did what I could because I knew someone was going to get hurt. I did fight...”

“For whom?”

“You and me.”

We were quiet a moment while Melinda stared at me.

“What about us? Were we right?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Don’t. Don’t start listing my faults.”

“Most of them were mine.”

“I’ve got no interest in them, now.”

“Do you want me to get up and walk, or sit here and bleed?”

“Sit and bleed, sonofabitch, because I’m not done with you yet.”

My turn to offer the olive branch:

“More coffee, then, hon?”

“Sure, cakes. ”

When I got back with fresh cups, Melinda had her knees up and her arms wrapped around them and her head sideways on her kneecaps. Her ponytail hung down behind them. I walked into her field of vision to set down the cup, then walked back out of it and sat down again.

“I knew we weren’t right, too,” she said. “I knew it from the first. But I did it anyway. That sounds like I settled for something less, but really it was just the opposite. I was getting more than I thought I deserved. I thought you’d make me feel young and beautiful and happy again. I thought you’d wrangle me into having another kid, even though I told you I wouldn’t. I felt old, Terry, when we started seeing each other. And I do again, now. I feel old as owl shit. I look in the mirror and I see a face made out of old, dry owl shit. For a couple of months you made me feel like a woman again, then it was just back to being dried-up old me. You’re one of those men that gets older and a little crazier, maybe, but you hold your looks and your body keeps up with your desire, and you do okay for yourself. I knew the drinking would pass. And when it did, I knew your vision of me would pass, too, and you’d see me for what I was. Owl shit. So, no, I’m not arguing with you when I say we weren’t right. We weren’t. Of course, then, nobody is, really, especially at our age.”

“God, Mel — you talk like you’ve got a foot in the grave.”

“I feel that way, Terry. Sometimes. I really do. How can’t you, in the kind of work we do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I do.”

“And maybe you compensate with a twenty-eight-year-old television bombshell from Dixie.”

“West Virginia stayed Union.”

“Who gives a shit what West Virginia did?”

I watched one of our neighbors — former neighbors — driving along the gravel road. She craned her neck, having seen my car out front, trying for a look at a real child molester, the kind of guy they’re going to start chemically castrating in the golden state of California soon. (As head of CAY I was in favor of the old-fashioned, actual castration, but it is considered cruel and unusual. As an accused child molester with a trial date not yet set, I had to admit to some uncertainty on this issue.)

“Maggie brought me cookies the day she found out you’d been arrested. There was a plate of them for you, too.”

I said nothing. Melinda unwound from her pensive position and leaned back against the railing of the deck.

“So, sign the papers, Naughton. I’ll let you say good-bye to Penny sometime, but I don’t want to make too big a thing out of us leaving. I’m putting a happy face on it. And I’m determined to look happy if it kills me, which it might. I’m talking to Wade and the personnel people tomorrow. Thought I’d give you the scoop. Is that what Donna Mason called it, when she sat you down for that interview?”

She actually waited for an answer. “They call it an ‘exclusive,’ I think.”

“Well Terry, you’d just had sexual intercourse with her, a few minutes before, so you must have felt pretty exclusive, yourself. It was written all over your pathetic little face.”

“Mel.”

“Mel fucking what? ”

“Enough.”

“Yeah, enough. Take a hike, old friend, but sign the papers first. See you in the next life.”

I signed the papers.

On my way back to the apartment all hell suddenly broke loose. Very quietly, but it broke loose just the same.

First was a call from Loren Runnels:

“Terry, they’ve got Tim Monaghan from the FBI here to talk about those photographs. Will’s flying in from Boise, should be landing in an hour. I can’t get a read on Zant, but he wants to see us at three, up at County with Wade and the photo boys.”

“Holy, holy, shit.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

Next was a call from the second-to-last person on earth I expected to hear from:

“Terry, this is Jim... Jim Wade. I’ve got some people we need to talk to at three today. You’ll be here, won’t you?”

“You know I will.”

“How are you?”

“I was worse the day my son died.”

“We’ve got some things to talk about. I’ll see you then.”

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel my chest knocking against the shoulder restraint. The luck was back, man: the stinking Irish luck was coming back to me. I felt it. I knew it. I was it.

So I called Johnny and got him at the Gayley crime scene.

“Anything good there?”

“Skin and blood under her nails, hair all over the place, fingerprints galore — who knows whose. He’s made at this end, Terry. All we need now is a suspect. We could use your eyes, boss. It was bad, what he did to her.”

“The Bureau’s here to pow-wow with me and Wade. I’m smelling the finish line.”

“I’ll say a prayer for you.”

Then I called Vinson Clay at PlaNet and wouldn’t stop talking to his secretary until she put me through.

“I need Shroud,” I said.

“Naughton. Look... we’re considering. I took it to committee. It’s the only way to cover our own asses around here.”

In committee. Lawyers, lawyers, lawyers.

I went back to the metro apartment to shower and shave before my meeting with the FBI and the sheriff. And there was part three of all hell breaking loose, a user-group posting from I. R. Shroud:

Mal — Sorry for delay. Been busy as a bee. If you’re going live, call Chet for the feed. He’ll direct. It’ll be worth every penny you donated. Tee-hee-hee.

And that’s when I realized who the girl in the photographs was.