ON MONDAY MORNING HE WAS AWAKENED BY A KNOCK ON THE door. He sat up straight in the bed as if startled from an anxious dream. The light came full in the windows and he could tell that he had slept well into the morning. He put on his shirt and jeans and he opened the bedroom door and walked toward the front door where the knocking continued. He reached through the broken window and peeked around the blue tarp and saw the sheriff’s department cruiser parked in the driveway. He walked back into the bedroom and with his foot pushed the shotgun under the bed and then he unlocked the front door and Boyd was standing there.
“Hey there,” Boyd said.
Russell squinted at the sunshine. Moved his head around to stretch his neck and then he stepped back and told Boyd to come in. Boyd stepped into the living room and he walked around the sofa. Russell asked him if he wanted some coffee and he said no but Russell went into the kitchen to make some anyway. As he made the coffee he could hear Boyd walking around with lazy steps. He left the coffee to drip and when he walked back into the living room Boyd was looking at the Playboy.
“Shit,” Boyd said. “Been a while since I looked at one of these. Is it me or have they got better?”
“Hard to tell,” Russell said.
He tossed the magazine onto the couch. “Don’t guess pretty girls are any prettier now than they used to be.”
Russell rubbed at his eyes. His neck. His forearms. He was sore all over. Felt like he could lie back down and sleep the rest of the day. He sat down on the couch and stretched out his legs and Boyd leaned against the wall.
“What is it?” Russell asked. “You got a shitty poker face.”
Boyd laughed a little nervous laugh. “I was just wondering where you been.”
“I been right here.”
“Not yesterday. Or Saturday.”
Russell shrugged. “Wherever, Boyd. It’s not a big place.”
“Your daddy tell you I went out there looking for you?”
“I got an idea, Boyd. We can play grabass for a while or you can tell me what you really want.”
Boyd moved over to the couch and sat on the other end. “Thing is we got a dead man and we got only one thing to go on. I’m telling you what I’ve been told and not what I think and I probably ain’t supposed to tell you that but I am. But when you rode up that night in the middle of nowhere and you had that shotgun in the truck we had to look at you. I know it’s not the gun that did it but you’re still riding around with a loaded twenty-gauge for whatever reason. A fact that I have kept to myself so your ass isn’t on the first bus back to Parchman. So that’s what I’m doing now. I told the sheriff I wanted to come over here. Not him. Told him I’d find out. Then it took me a day and a half to find you. I guess you can see why I got to ask you about some things. And one of them is where the hell you been?”
Russell sat still and listened. The coffee seemed to have stopped. So he got up and went into the kitchen and brought back two cups.
“If you got to know I met this woman down at the Armadillo. Caroline, I think. Don’t know. I was pretty drunk. Ended up over at her house and you know the rest. It’s been a while, Boyd. I wasn’t in a rush to get out of there the next morning. And that’s why my daddy didn’t know where I was.”
“Hot damn. That didn’t take long. I know boys down at the office who ain’t got lucky in a couple of years.”
“Right place right time.”
“I guess it’d check out, huh?”
“Don’t see why not.”
“Now what about the other night at the scene?”
“Like I told you then, I was riding around. Got nothing else to do. You know how it is. Go out riding and end up God knows where. I’ve been locked up for eleven years.”
“I know it.”
“And that’s all. I don’t have nothing else to give you. I hate y’all are so stuck.”
“Stuck ain’t the word. If we had the pistol I’d swear he shot himself. But we got nothing. Only thing in the ballpark is some woman from the shelter downtown called the cops the other night about a woman staying there who had a gun with her and she took off with it. But we hear shit like that all the time. I don’t even think the sheriff wrote down the woman’s name. Might end up chasing after that one some, though. He don’t want us to look bad but it’s heading that way.”
“You still think he was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing?”
“Considering there was no call and no reason for him to be out there and he’s filled up with bullets from his own gun, I’d say yeah.”
“Everybody think that?”
“Mostly. Still, somebody did the shooting. Don’t matter if he was screwing around or not. I don’t guess you saw anything that night that might be worth mentioning. A car or motorbike or something.”
Russell shook his head. “Wish I did.”
Boyd took a few quick sips of the coffee and then he set the mug on the floor. Russell leaned back on the sofa. Stared at the spot on the mantel where the picture of Sarah had been.
“What happened to your windows?” Boyd asked.