“Abby?”
“You heard me,” Helene says.
“Wait,” he says. “Roof’s girl is dead?”
Roof’s girl.
I’m on my way in there as soon as the words are out of his stupid, bloodied-up mouth.
NINETY-EIGHT
I GIVE ONE rap on the door. Eli opens it. Helene immediately gets out of her chair and gets between me and them.
“Sit down, Silas,” she says quietly.
She turns to Eli now and says, “Let’s us give Silas the room.”
“Hold on,” Lonnie says, nodding at me. “I don’t have to talk to him.”
“Think of it as a favor to me,” Helene says.
Eli holds the door open for her.
“Lady, wait!” Lonnie says to Helene. “Say I help you out here. Will you cut me and the boys a break?”
“Absolutely!” Helene says, almost cheerfully. “But first you have a quick chat with Silas and maybe give some thought as to whether you’re more afraid of him or Briar Crockett.”
I wonder if the door closing behind Helene and Eli sounds anything to Lonnie and the boys like a jail cell being slammed shut.
“What did you mean there when you called Abby Roof’s girl?” I ask.
I watch him swallow hard. His top lip already looks as if somebody pumped air into it like it’s a bicycle tire.
“Not gonna ask again,” I say.
“I just know they were hooking up, is all,” Lonnie says.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to imagine Abby Wells with Roof Crockett if this weasel is telling the truth about them. But I can’t imagine why Lonnie would be lying.Roof’s girl.He had spit it right out.
“Hooking up for how long?” I ask.
“I don’t fucking know!” he hisses. “Swear. There was just this night at Rowdy’s, after he and Lynyrd had a few too many, like they do, and he said something about how he might have it both ways, have Abby Wells under the covers and undercover with old 109 at the same damn time.”
“You’re telling me that Roof had Abby watching me?”
He leans forward now. “I just told you what he said,” Lonnie says. “And all he said.”
“Did Roof kill her?”
“Killher?” he asks. “Are you stupid? I know he’s a Crockett and all, but Abby Wells is… was… the best piece… the best-looking woman I’ve ever seen him with.”
I stand up suddenly. Lonnie shrinks back in his chair as I do, nearly making the thing tip over, as if I’m about to belt him the way Helene just had.
“One more question that I’ll ask before Helene does,” I say. “You know anything about who’s been taking those girls?”
Lonnie is almost violently shaking his head. “No way,” he says. “None of us working for… none of us do. We just hear that whoeveristaking them might have some kind of side hustle going and might be selling them off somewheres.”
I turn and look at the window, knowing Helene is watching me from in there.
