SEVENTY-TWO
ONE WEEK LATER
THEY SAY BURT WEBB’S funeral is the biggest in Cross Rivers since my father’s. A tent is set up outside the First Congregational Church for the overflow crowd, as if this were some kind of competition.
In the immediate aftermath of Burt’s passing, Briar Crockett tried to step up and offered a reward, half a million dollars, for information that might lead to the arrest of Burt’s killer. Same as he had after my father died. Maybe inflation is why the price has gone up.
Briar had brought the offer of a reward to Helene Mayes personally, showing up at Nash Hader’s old office.
The meeting, as she described it to me later, didn’t last but a minute or so.
“That bullshit might have worked when Silas’s father died,” she’d told him. “But as far as I’m concerned, you can take that money and put it into small bills and see how much of it you can shove up your ass.”
“You’re letting your feelings about me get in the way of something that might help,” he said.
“Only helps you,” she said. “Now get out of my office.”
I’ve spent some time with Taylor over the past week, but not much. Her choice, not mine.
“You’re the one who told me that alone wasn’t the best idea in the world,” I’d said.
“Not for you, it wasn’t,” she said. “When I’m ready for some company, I promise you’ll be my first call.”
Mostly what I’ve done since Burt Webb died is spend even more time in the gym, as if I’m back doing preseason two-a-days at UNC.
I go at it this hard and this often even knowing there’s no workout ever invented that can free me up from all the rage I’m carrying around inside me over his death, along with the frustration I’m feeling because Helene still hasn’t come up with any solid leads about who the shooter was. Her peopledidfind the Ford Fairlane a couple of days ago, what was left of it anyway, burned to a crisp at the side of a deserted back road over in Parsons.
No witnesses to that, either.
Charlie Hall has given me the week off, saying I need some room, assuring me he doesn’t much need me for field work right now.
“It’s nice of you to put it that way,” I tell him. “But you never needed me, Charlie.”
Abby is giving me time and space to grieve, too, saying she’ll be there for me whenever I’m ready. But really the only people I’ve spent time with since the funeral are EJ and Vince.
And I get with Taylor when she allows that.
She may have allowed herself to cry when I’m not around.
Just not when I am.
I’ve been telling EJ about this tonight, the two of us in the wicker rocking chairs on the front porch. I’ve long since finished the beer I’d been nursing while she’d been sipping her way through her old-fashioned.
“Everybody grieves in their own way,” she says.
“I just don’t think it’s healthy for her to keep everything bottled up.”
“Look who’s talking,” EJ says.
We both go back to rocking. She takes another sip of her drink.
“I should have asked this sooner,” she says, “but what’s going on with these workouts, hon? You plan on joining the Marines as one of those free agents?”
“I doubt they’d have me,” I say.
“That’s not nearly an answer.”
“It’s just maintenance, is all, now that it takes a hell of a lot more maintenance than it ever did to make me feel as if I’m in shape,” I say. “And maybe it helps me take my mind off Burt, even if it’s only for an hour or so at a time.”
