“Can you tell us about Byron?”

“Like what kind of stuff you want to know?”

“Everything,” Pinky says. “Anything. We got no idea what might help us find him.”

“Well…” She lights another cigarette, a Misty menthol. “Lemme see now. Byron was one of two children. At least, he was for a while. When Byron was ten and his brother, Joe, was about four, Byron saw – some say he watched – the younger boy drown in the municipal pool. It’s gone now, but it wasn’t but a mile from here. Real popular with the kids.”

Pinky looks at me. “This is what Vicky was talking about. His brother drowned in front of him? That’s terrible. Did he try to save him?”

“Well, that’s the thing – why I’m telling you this story. Everyone agreed it was a tragedy, but some people wondered if it wasn’t something even worse. On account of it happened at night, when Byron and his kid brother snuck out of the house. Doesn’t seem like that’d be little Joe’s idea, does it? Anyway, they were marauding around the neighborhood. Byron had a bright idea and helped his little brother climb over the Cyclone fence around the pool, which was closed, of course. According to what Byron said, the two of them were horsing around when little Joe slipped and fell into the deep end. Since neither of the boys knew how to swim, that was it. Byron couldn’t save his brother.”

“They didn’t know how to swim?” Pinky says. “Then why’d they sneak into the pool?”

“Well, you know, that was a funny thing. Marie – that’s Byron’s mama – used to take those boys to the pool. I’d see ’em settin’ out with their towels and their float rings and all. But when Byron said he couldn’t swim, Marie – she didn’t say boo.” Dora shrugs.

“So people thought – they actually thought Byron drowned his brother?”

“They were suspicious. See, there was this aluminum pole with a net attached? – that they used to remove debris from the pool?”

I nod my encouragement.

“Well, when the police arrived, it was lying on the apron. Dry as a bone. Hadn’t been touched. Byron was bone dry, too, and there was no water around the side of the pool. Now, Marie had read those boys a story and put them to bed just about an hour or so before Byron runs screaming down the street and nine-one-one is called. Yet when the Fire and Rescue guys got to the pool, everything was bone dry.”

“Hunh.” I don’t see the point.

“Well, it stuck in this one paramedic’s mind, see, bothered him, just didn’t set right. Down here it takes a long time for water to evaporate. Mildew and mold’s a big problem. Question was, it didn’t look like Byron so much as went to the edge of the pool and stuck his hands in. Didn’t look like he tried to reach out whatsoever. Why didn’t he use the pole? It was right there. So it just didn’t set right.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s a big jump from that to think the kid murdered his brother. Maybe he just froze. It happens.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Dora says. “After all, the kid was only ten. And that’s what Byron told the police: He didn’t see any pole. He didn’t think of reaching in. Then he cried and cried until they left him alone.”

“You’d think at ten years old, you’d get the benefit of the doubt.”

“Oh, even by then, that kid kinda scared people. And it wasn’t just that. There was a witness, a waitress coming home from the Shrimp Shack. She walked past the pool that evening. She said she saw Byron sitting at the end of the diving board – you know, Indian style – looking down into the water. There wasn’t anyone else around that she could see – and there certainly wasn’t any ‘horseplay.’ The scene was as quiet as a photograph. So where was Little Joe?”

“Hmmm.”

“‘In the bathroom,’ is what Byron said. But that was a lie, ’cause the doors were locked. What we all thought was – that little boy’s down in the water and Byron’s just up there on the diving board looking down on him. Like to ’bout creep you out, you know? After that, Marie wouldn’t let anybody near him. Said how they’re cruel, Byron felt bad enough, he’s cryin’ his eyes out. It never did amount to nothing; nobody out and out accused him of anything. I know the death was ruled an accident.”

Dora delicately touches a finger to one of her gleaming nails. “Know what?” she says, rising to her feet with a soft grunt. “I got plenty more to tell you about Byron, but I b’lieve I’m dry.” She rotates her hands in the air. “Why don’t we go down the way ’n’ see Ralph? Together we’ll remember more. He knew the family real well. Worked with Claude – that’s Byron’s daddy. They were out on the rigs together. And they were fishing buddies, too.”

She asks us to wait and comes back out, five minutes later, hair still in curlers but the pedicure sandals replaced by a gleaming pair of New Balance running shoes.

“Should we walk?” Pinky asks, looking at the shoes.

“Hell, no,” Dora says. “I want a ride in that car.”

Ralph insists on making iced tea. He distributes the glasses with elaborate care, then excuses himself to “fetch something.” We wait in a miniature living room crammed with furniture, and Ralph comes back with a couple of dusty photo albums. “I had the camera bug in those days,” he says, leafing through one of the albums until he finds the page he’s looking for.

“Here,” he says, and we lean in, looking at a three-by-five snapshot. “That’s Claude,” Ralph says, pointing to a handsome man with long sideburns, seated on a park bench. “And that’s Marie.” He indicates the demure-looking woman next to Claude. Her head is turned, and with a fond smile, she gazes at the handsome, well-scrubbed little boy next to her. The part in the boy’s hair is as straight as a ruler.

“And that there is Byron,” Dora says. “This was before little Joe came along. Oh, how she doted on that boy, Marie did. Isn’t that right, Ralph?”

“Oh, my, yes. He couldn’t do no wrong far as his mama was concerned.”

“Wasn’t nothin’ that boy wants, she doesn’t get for him,” Dora says. “Every toy and game, every bicycle. Nintendo machine. Guitar. Trampoline. Go-Kart. Two-hundred-dollar sunglasses, if you can believe it. Clothes… nothing’s too good.”

“Claude, now,” Ralph adds, “he loved that boy, too, but tried to give his son some discipline, you know, what kids need. Marie – she wouldn’t let Claude touch the boy. Nor even speak harsh to him. And look what happened.”

“I don’t hold with blaming the parents,” Dora tells us. “Marie was sweet as pie. And Claude was a good man, too. I just think that boy was born twisted.”

“Maybe so,” Ralph allows. He finds another snapshot, taken a couple of years later. Byron is seven or so. Dressed in a suit, top hat, and what looks like a cape, he’s got a curly mustache penciled onto his upper lip. Behind him, affixed to the double-wide is a handmade banner: BYRON THE GREAT.

I remember what Karl Kavanaugh said about magicians starting as kids. The photograph gives me chills.

“Oh, the magic shows!” Dora says. “I plain forgot about that. Byron would sell tickets for a quarter, and everybody was more’n glad to pay because Marie would fix lemonade and sandwiches and potato salad, so in the end it was quite a bargain.”

“She made a mighty fine potato salad,” Ralph says. “Although not,” he adds diplomatically, “not as good as Dora’s.”

“Remember?” Dora asks. “We’d watch the show on folding chairs Byron set up outside the trailer.”

“He got pretty good at it, too,” Ralph says, “for such a little kid. I never did figure out how he did some of the shit he did, pardon my French. He had this one trick – he’d put a few feathers and scraps of grass in a pan, say some abracadabra stuff, and next time he opens the pan a bird flies out. I looked at the pan, too. No place to put a live bird in there.”

A dove pan, I think, remembering Kavanaugh’s description.

“Tell me about the father,” Pinky says.