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“Why are you telling me this?” I said, growing more uncomfortable.
“Because beating up on clerks isn’t Dixon’s style. A woman, probably Bertha Phelps, was with him. You have any idea what they might be up to?”
“Dixon knows he’s Love Younger’s illegitimate son. He may be going to Younger’s cabin on Sweathouse Creek.”
“How long have you known this?”
“My daughter just told me. She found out from a third party. But all of what I’ve told you is speculation, Sheriff. How about easing up a little bit?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Robicheaux. Before this is over, I think you’re going to be charged.”
“With what?”
“I’ll check with the district attorney and get back to you. By the way, he was stationed at Fort Polk and hates the state of Louisiana.”
“It’s not for everybody.”
“Is there anything else you’ve concealed from this office?” he said.
“Surrette may be on Flathead Lake. Somewhere around an orchard, close to the water. Maybe there’s an amphibian close by. I’m going up there in a few minutes.”
“You’re not going to do a goddamn thing, Mr. Robicheaux. I can’t express how angry you make me—”
Molly pulled the receiver from my hand and put it to her ear. “Listen, you simpleton,” she said. “My husband has dedicated his life to law enforcement. He doesn’t need a tobacco-chewing pinhead lecturing him on legal protocol. My husband was also in the shit. Do you know what that means? He’s the recipient of the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Do not call here again unless you have something worthwhile to say. If you try to harass him again in any way, you’ll hear from me.” She slammed down the phone, her cheeks flaming.
“I don’t think he chews tobacco,” I said.
“Whatever,” she said.
WYATT TURNED OFF the engine but left the headlights on. There was a silver skull on the tip of his key chain, hollow-eyed and buffed smooth, like old pewter, and it swung back and forth under the dash. When it stopped, he popped it with his thumb and index finger. There was no other sound inside the cab. He looked out the side window and saw lights in the sky.
“You still haven’t told me what you plan to do,” Bertha said.
“Maybe I’ll kill me an old man. I ain’t decided yet.”
“It won’t be prison this time. They’ll execute you.”
He reached behind him and took the vintage Winchester from the rack and placed the butt on the floorboards, the barrel resting against the seat. He clicked a switch on the headliner that would prevent the interior light from turning on when he opened the door. “This one ain’t gonna make the jail,” he said. “No matter how it plays out.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Wyatt.”
“There’s three thousand dollars taped in envelopes under my dresser drawers. There’s a quart jar of silver dollars buried under the rosebush in the flower bed. In my footlocker, you’ll find my championship buckle and a Nazi dagger with a pearl handle that’s got a ruby swastika set in it. You listening to me?”
“Let it go.”
“It ain’t me that’s doing all this. Time’s done run out. When that happens, people ain’t got no say in things.”
“We can just drive away. Leave the nasty old man to himself.”
“I saw some pictures in my mind this evening I ain’t told you about. I would have told you before, but I didn’t know they was there.”
“Pictures of what?”
“Something that happened in a piney woods. It was summertime and real hot inside the trees, so hot I couldn’t hardly breathe. I could smell sap running out of the bark. I never been inside a woods that smelled that raw, like the smell that comes off a buzz saw when you run a fresh-cut pine through it. Pap and my mother was there, looking at me. From the ground, I mean. They was both looking up into my face.”
“What are you telling me?” she asked, her voice starting to slip.
“I ain’t sure. I told them to get up, but there wasn’t no doubt they was dead. Somebody made sure of that. In the pictures in my head, I’m fifteen. That’s when I left home for Big D, riding on a side-door Pullman. I always knew I was gonna get on that train again. It’s been waiting for me all these years.”
