Paul sat on the arm of a vinyl chair that folded out into a twin bed.
“I don’t know if you know this,” his father began, “but you’re having marital problems.”
“Yeah? I don’t know a married couple that’s not.”
“This is different. This is a crisis.”
Paul was too tired to get excited about his father butting into his marriage. “What are you talking about, Pop?”
Max lifted his left arm and pointed to the bandage on his head. “Your friend Marshall didn’t do this.”
Paul sat up straight. “Who did?”
“Your wife.”
He blinked in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”
“I need to tell you a quick story. Wait till the end before you start asking questions.”
Paul shifted on the arm of the chair, but he forced himself to remain silent.
“You know how I’ve been missing baseball practice lately?”
“Yeah. I thought you were working.”
Max nodded. “It started that way. About six days ago I missed practice to ride out to the Zurhellen acreage and meet one of the heirs. You remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I was going pretty fast, and I came up on Jet’s Volvo out on Highway 36. From a couple hundred yards back I saw her turn on Blackbird Road, near Marshall’s place, the old Mendenhall farm. For some reason I followed her. He’s got a security gate out there on his private drive. Well, I saw Jet open that gate without fully stopping, like with a remote switch. I pulled up afterward to make sure the gate doesn’t have some kind of automatic opener on it. It doesn’t. That means she had a remote in her car.”
Something fluttered in Paul’s chest, like a skipped heartbeat.
“I left that day,” his father went on. “But it bugged me. So the next day, before practice, I parked out near that gate. Sure enough, there came Jet, headed in the same direction and right back through the gate. Well, I locked my truck and walked through the woods to Marshall’s house. I saw them together on his patio and filmed them with my phone.”
“Are you the one who sent me that picture of them hugging?”
Max sighed with irritation. “I am. But let me finish. I went back the next day because I couldn’t really believe what was going on. I had to be sure.”
“Why didn’t you just show me that damn picture? Why email it anonymously?”
“I wanted to warn you without making you too mad. Wake you up to what was going on, make you pay attention.”
“Dad, you’re stirring up shit over nothing. Jet and Marshall have been working on stories and cases ever since he got back. She recruited him into her crusading bullshit.”
Max’s face hardened. “Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not?”
“All right,” Paul said, filled with irrational anger.
“I staked out that gate for three days. She’s been going out there every day. Usually during Kevin’s baseball practices, when you and I are a hundred percent distracted. Out of the way. Remember how many practices she came to last year? Most of them. This year?”
“Almost none.”
“Busy working, right?”
Paul thought about it. Before he could get very far, his father said, “Open the email I just sent you.”
“What?”
“Check your Gmail account.”
Paul took out his phone and opened his email. A lot of messages had accumulated in his inbox, but the most recent was from his father, and it had a file attached. Paul clicked on the file and waited.
An image much like the one he’d received yesterday appeared, a long shot of Marshall’s back patio, probably filmed from the tree line—only this image was video. At first Paul saw no one, but the whole image jiggled due to the shooter’s unsteady hand. Then the frame zoomed a little, and he discerned a figure lying in a chaise on the patio. Just as Paul decided the figure must be Marshall, his wife walked into the frame naked. He recognized a once-familiar rocking of her hips, something he’d seen less and less over the years: the sexual arrogance and confidence Jet displayed when she was eagerly anticipating sex.
Paul felt like his father had handed him a venomous snake that he knew must bite him, but which possessed some hypnotic power that prevented him from dropping it. He was doomed to watch the writhing of the oily scales in his hands until the fangs sank home.
On the tiny screen Jet paused in front of the chaise, apparently talking to the man lying on it. Then she turned her back to him and reached around her hips, taking the cheeks of her behind in her hands. The camera zoomed to the limit of its power, and the image went grainy. Paul felt the fangs dig into his flesh as Jet pulled her cheeks apart. From his angle, he could see only her breasts and the dark tangle at her pubis, but he knew exactly what Marshall was seeing. Something moved at the level of the chaise. An article of clothing flew away.
Jet placed a foot on either side of the chaise and lowered herself onto Marshall’s midsection. She went down smoothly, almost without hesitation, then began rising and falling above him, working with a powerful rhythm that Paul had once known like the rhythm of his own heart.
“What’s it look like she’s working on there?” Max asked. “A newspaper story?”
Paul barely registered the words. He was thinking that for Jet to go down so smoothly—without even a hint of foreplay—she must have already been wet. Purely from anticipation. Not just moist . . . but wet. He couldn’t count how many years it had been since the prospect of sex with him had produced that response in her. In fact, the last woman he’d caused to get that way was a young waitress from the Twelve Bar, about three years back.
“You see how it is,” Max said. “Can I talk, or do you need some time?”
It took Paul a few seconds to find his voice. “At least I have something concrete to take action on now. Evidence.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Max said. “This situation’s far more complicated than you realize.”
“How’s that?”
“Because of custody. Who gives a shit about the marriage? Wives come and go. It’s your son that matters. Kevin.”
“What are you saying, Pop? Surely you have enough power to get me a clean divorce and guaranteed custody.”
“There’s a wrinkle in this situation.”
Paul’s bowels were churning down low. He tried not to let his father see how upset he’d become. “I’m listening.”
“You know I like Jet,” Max said. “I’ve protected her from the club’s retaliation for years. When she got Dave Cowart sent to jail, then went after Dr. Lacey’s license, I kept the club from hitting back at her. And they didn’t appreciate that, I can tell you.”
“Dad, for God’s sake—”
“I talked to your mother about this before she passed.”
Paul blanched. “You didn’t.”
“Had to, son. Sally saw a lot, and I wondered if she’d suspected anything. Turns out she did. She’d been worried about Jet leaving for a long time. She’d even talked to her about it, like women do. What she found out, I can hardly bear to tell you. But you have to know. Because who knows what they might be planning now? Look what they did to me. They’re desperate now. They’ve got to be worried I’m going to tell you everything.”
“Are you telling me this has something to do with Mom killing herself?”
Max gave a somber nod. “No doubt about it. Your mother was already depressed about her illness. I didn’t know she was sick, but I knew Sally. She dreaded any affliction like that. But this affair with Marshall . . . she worried it would drive you to suicide. She didn’t know you like I do, Paul. I know you’re going to do what’s necessary, after we talk. This is why I had to tell the cops that bullshit story about Margaret Sullivan. I didn’t dare tell them what really pushed your mother to the edge.”
“Mama thought I’d kill myself over Jet having an affair?”
“No, no, hell no. Listen, son. You’ve got to steel yourself for this. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever have to face in your life.”
Paul had no idea what could push his father into this kind of mood. “I’m ready. What is it?”
“Kevin isn’t your son. Not biologically.”