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“You can get treatment.” This was Cheryl Beth. Darlene lit another Camel and leaned forward to look at her.
“You sound like you’re south of the river, pretty eyed girl.”
“Corbin, Kentucky,” Cheryl Beth said.
“I got people down that way,” Darlene said. “Down by Bailey’s Switch?”
“I know Bailey,” Cheryl Beth said.
Will wished she hadn’t gotten Darlene off track, but then he changed his mind. He knew how they’d play it.
“Darlene, about that night, when
Theresa Chambers was murdered…”
“Yeah, yeah, Detective Will, you have a one-track mind.”
“It wasn’t really true was it?”
“What?” She hesitated just long enough.
“I didn’t think so,” Will said.
She twitched and huddled into herself. “He told me he’d kill me if I told you the truth.”
Will told her she would be safe, and that moment he thought he could leap up and dance along the Serpentine Wall. She had come right out and said it.
“I had to cover for him, don’t you understand?” She hugged herself tightly, staring down at the sidewalk. “He got me my stuff. I woulda died without it. He said he had a dealer under his thumb, that’s just how he said it. And if I didn’t do what he said, he wouldn’t bring me my fix. Then when you guys called, he said he’d kill me if I didn’t say things happened his way.”
“So he wasn’t with you that night?”
She shook her head.
Will asked her again and she nearly shouted “No!” then reached back in her coat pocket, pulled out the pack, and lit another cigarette. She was crying now. “Are you gonna arrest me? Take me to jail? I’m clean now. I got a baby now, Detective Will, please, God, don’t…”
“Just tell me the truth, Darlene.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Cheryl Beth said.
Darlene rubbed her nose and scrunched her face. “Who are you, girl? You don’t have a cop face.”
Will intervened. “What if I told you she was a witness.”
Suddenly Darlene seemed to age another ten years and her face turned bright red before losing its color entirely. Even the veiny damage from her boyfriend’s fist seemed to drain of blood. “Wha…? How is that possible? Oh, fuck. Bud said nobody could…” Her words became an unintelligible blubber with the occasional “they’re gonna take my baby” coming through. Will put his hand on her arm and she fell into his shoulder bawling. He fought not to tilt sideways into Cheryl Beth.
“Tell me how it happened, Darlene. This doesn’t have to go badly for you if you tell the truth.”
“He just told me to tell you that he was with me. He said the bosses were after him, trying to fire him. I never knew anything about his wife being killed…”
“So you covered for him.”
She nodded, kept crying. She was shivering and her teeth chattered from the cold. “But he said nobody would know, nobody would see us. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I swear to God, I swear to God…”
Every nerve tensed in Will’s body. He had used the word “witness” to describe Cheryl Beth. It had opened all the doors. He said, “So you didn’t think anybody would see. Don’t you want to tell your side of the story?”
She sat back up, miraculously avoiding leaving cigarette burns in Will’s overcoat. She leaned out again to stare at Cheryl Beth.
“Bud brought that boy home. Bud was a kinky one, you know? We did some weird stuff, you know? He really liked it. But no way was I goin’ to fuck some street nigger, much less a retard. Poor thing, looked scared as hell. Bud could do that to you. But he told us what to do.” She gently touched her black eye. “I’m cold, Detective Will.”
