“Still.”
“Like I said. I could have done better, too.”
Lying through my teeth all over again. Somehow being in the same room with Briar Crockett makes it seem perfectly natural. Like I’m playing on the same field as he is, and by the same rules.
“So is that why you’re here, to put that particular incident to bed once and for all?” he asks.
“It’s not, as a matter of fact,” I say. “I wanted to talk to you about a visit Leamon Ridenour paid to the farm the other day, asking for any help I could give him in finding his missing daughter. Now I’m asking for yours. Help, I mean.”
“Did Leamon ask you to come here today?”
Somehow Briar’s voice has gotten even softer. If it gets any harder for me to hear him, he’s going to have to hand me note cards to hold up his end of the conversation.
“No, sir, he didn’t,” I say. “I’m here on my own.”
He leans forward now, frowning. “Did Leamon suggest in some way that I might know something about his girl?” he asks. “Or any of those other girls?”
“He didn’t,” I say, maybe too quickly. “And I’m frankly not sure why you’d think that.”
“More something I intuited.”
“Well, he didn’t suggest anything of the kind.”
The more you lie, the easier it gets.
“But you being the most powerful man in these parts,” I continue, “he thought you might have heard something, anything, the police haven’t. Is all.”
From somewhere else in the house, I hear a landline ringing until it stops.
“And if I had heard something, as you put it, did Leamon have a good reason why he thinks I wouldn’t have already shared that information with the police?”
I take a deep breath and then show him a little bit of a smile. “Leamon’s afraid of you,” I say. “The way most people around here are, frankly.”
“Your father sure wasn’t.”
“He wasn’t afraid of much,” I say. Another smile, trying to lighten the mood. “Other than Clemson football, of course.”
No reaction.
“He was stubborn, your father, God rest his soul,” Briar says. “And I mean that with respect.”
“I wish I hadn’t inherited as much of his stubbornness as I have,” I say. “Along with an almost complete inability to back down.”
“The way you didn’t back down, or back up, with my sons over at Rowdy’s.”
“I guess.”
“Blood is blood,” Briar Crockett says, “even when I know they were the ones in the wrong.”
“Longfellow also wrote that we get judged by things we’ve already done,” I say.
Now he smiles across at me. “Didn’t know just how literate you are.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t judge each other,” I say. “Might save us a lot of time.”
He leans back slightly in his chair, clasping his big hands together on his chest.
“I’m sick about those poor girls, and not just Leamon’s,” he says. “In this second family of mine—which is the way I think of it, as my second family—I’ve got those two beautiful daughters of my own. So I’m telling you, man to man and as someone who’s always been a huge fan of yours, that I don’t know anything about how they went missing. And don’t know anybody who does.”
