“We’ll talk about it later. Just keep it down for now, okay? You’ll wake the boy.”

“The boy!” She scoffed. “You don’t have that brat hanging on you every damn minute when you get home from work. I’m tired, Toby. I’m tired of everything. Tired of this shit town.”

Tired of this shit town. Everyone sang the same song. Molly. Doris. Every other stud fresh out of high school with more balls than brains, off to conquer the world. They didn’t know what it was like out there. None of them did.

I pushed myself off the couch, went to the bathroom and took the tin star off my dirty Weezer shirt. It wasn’t really tin, I guess. That’s just something the chief said when he gave it to me. Here’s your tin star, Deputy. Back in my bedroom, I went into the closet, came out with a clean khaki uniform shirt, patch on the sleeve. I pinned the star over the right pocket. I put on a clean pair of jeans. Sweat socks and hiking boots.

I went back into the kitchen. Doris stood with her hands on the counter facing away from me. I took down one of the travel mugs with a lid, filled it with coffee and snugged the lid on.

“I’m going back out. Forgot to do a few things at the station.” And I couldn’t stay around when she was like this. Anywhere was better than here.

She didn’t say anything.

I went back in our bedroom, grabbed the straw cowboy hat off the dresser and wore it back on my head. Now I looked like the law.

Doris still leaned on the counter when I went back in the kitchen. By now she was usually yelling something at me. I didn’t know if I should be grateful or not. I put a hand on her shoulder to turn her around, and she let me.

Her eyes were wet and red, face snotty from crying.

“I want to go to my sister’s.” She said it like she hardly had any breath left. Like she might fall down any minute.

“I promise we’ll talk about it when you get off work. We’ll make some kind of plan.”

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t believe me.

I headed for the door. She worried me. “I’ll be back before you go to work.”

I left, closed the trailer door quietly, so I didn’t wake the boy. After I got into the Nova, I remembered I didn’t have my gun. Then I remembered it was under the seat. I fished it out and put it on the passenger seat. Hell, I hadn’t even locked the car door. I’d have to be more careful. I needed to pay more attention to things. And when the boy got older too. Can’t leave a gun around where a kid can find it.

The kitchen light didn’t go out, and I knew Doris was still up. The TV lights flickered. Maybe I should go back in there. I hated leaving her so upset, but what could I do? I couldn’t fix anything. Maybe that’s why she was crying. Maybe if we could just earn a little more money somehow.Maybe if I was a better man.

Maybe if I’d been a better musician. Maybe a lot of things.

I remembered when the band broke up. The lead singer’s dad got tired of his son screwing off. That’s what he called our band. Screwing off, like we weren’t serious about our music. Jerk. But he told his son he’d pay for college and there went our singer. The drummer joined the Army, and the bass player met some girl. A new course at the local police academy was about to start, and the idea of me with a gun on my hip and mirrored sunglasses suddenly seemed pretty sweet. Fourteen weeks of pushups and regulations. I graduated at the bottom of my class, but there I was ready to clean up some city like fucking Serpico, baby. All that stuff I learned about codes and violations flew out of my head an hour later. Pretty much how I got through high school.

Six days later I got the letter about Mom.

Hell.

I put the Nova in reverse and backed out. I drove out of the trailer park, back toward town. Maybe I could find the chief, apologize for my screw-up. He liked me. He wouldn’t protect me too far if I screwed up bad enough. He was a by-the-book man, and I’d have to take my lumps. But maybe we could work something out.

Thirty seconds later the headlights were back in the rearview mirror.

Perfect.

CHAPTER FIVE

Now I was getting pissed off.

No way this was a coincidence. Somebody was fucking with me.

I kept it at the speed limit all the way into town, the car on my tail about two hundred yards back. I couldn’t tell if it was the same car as before, but my gut told me it was. I drove along Main Street and parked in front of the station. As I got out of the car, I saw the Mustang turn right a block back.

I tried the stationhouse door. Locked. The lights were on, so I knocked, but nobody answered. I found the right key on my ring, unlocked the door and went inside. I called for Billy but didn’t get a reply. I thought about calling him or the chief on the radio but figured that might piss them off since I was supposed to be home. A car passed outside, headlights seeping through the blinds. I waited a minute but the headlights didn’t come back.

I went out the back door and into the alley, shut and locked the door behind me. I wondered if that dog was still around. Probably off someplace sleeping peacefully. Smart dog. I walked down the alley behind the hardware store and the fire house, all the windows dark. I cut up the next street and crossed Main after looking both ways to make sure it was deserted. I walked the couple blocks to Molly’s.

This time her stepdad’s Peterbilt sat in front of the house. Not the trailer, just the cab. He must’ve delivered his load ahead of schedule and come home. I hesitated under the big scrub oak in her front yard and wondered if it was safe to knock on her window. If her old man followed his routine he’d either be blitzed on Jim Beam in front of the TV or sleeping it off by now. Probably he was ragged out from a long haul, so I was guessing bed. I crept up to Molly’s dark window and knocked.

I gave her twenty seconds and knocked again. I almost gave up when she came to the window and lifted it open.

“Go on, Toby. Roy’s back.”

Roy. Didn’t that just sound like a drunken redneck stepfather name?

“He’s asleep, ain’t he?”

She glanced over her shoulder back into the dark of her room, thought about it. “Okay, but just for a little bit.”

She stepped back from the window, and I crawled in.

The clove smell had faded some. The room was air-conditioner cold and felt nice after being outside, but I could see gooseflesh on Molly’s arms in the light of the streetlamp, her nipples straining against the fabric of her black tank top. She wore that and white cotton panties. Her hair was a little mashed on one side, so she’d probably been sleeping a while.

“I’m getting back under the covers.” She crawled into

bed.

I stayed at her window, wondering if the Mustang would come down her street any moment, but I didn’t see anything.

“What do you want, Toby? I don’t want to fuck anymore.” Her voice drifted from a vague lump under the comforter. Her fat stepdad liked to crank the air down arctic style.

“I just need to hide out a minute.” I hesitated. “I think I’m in deep shit, Molly.”

“Why?”

“Remember, I told you Luke Jordan was dead?”

A pause. “You killed him?”

“No! Hell. Come on.”

“What then?”

“I lost the body.”

She laughed.

“It’s not very Goddamn funny.”

“Yes it is.”

“There are some guys after me, I think. They keep following me.”

She stopped laughing. “Maybe it’s Luke’s brothers.”

“What for?”

“Well, if you … Toby, if you killed Luke Jordan, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Why the hell would I kill Luke, for fuck’s sake?”

Her voice got real small. “No reason.”

“Anyway it’s some car I’ve never seen in town before. Big-ass, tricked out Ford Mustang. Mach 1 with a V-8 like a fucking rocket engine.”