“That’s Bill.” Charlie turned on the giant television. “He’s my lover.”
Sam leaned against the arm of the couch. This was exactly the kind of shocking thing Charlie used to say when she was ten. “Possums can transmit leptospirosis, E. coli, salmonella. Their scat can carry a bacteria that causes flesh-eating ulcers.”
“We’re not into the kinky stuff.” Charlie flipped through the channels.
Sam said, “That’s quite a television.”
“Ben calls her Eleanor Roosevelt, because she’s big and ugly but we still adore her.” Charlie found CNN. She muted the sound. Captions scrolled up. Sam saw her eyes quickly scan the words.
“Why are you watching that?”
“I want to see if there are any stories about Dad.”
Sam watched Charlie watch the news. There was nothing they could tell her sister that Sam could not provide. Without doubt, she knew more than the reporters. What their father had said. What he was likely thinking. That the police had been called. That Rusty’s body had been left in the chair for over an hour. Because he had been stabbed, because his injuries had likely contributed to his death, the Bridge Gap Police Department had been called.
Fortunately, Sam had managed to remove her Kelly Wilson list from her father’s robe pocket before the police had arrived. Otherwise, the girl’s secrets would have been at Ken Coin’s fingertips.
“Shit.” Charlie unmuted the sound.
A voice-over was saying, “… exclusive interview with Adam Humphrey, a former student who attended Pikeville High School with Kelly Rene Wilson.”
Sam watched a plump, pimply young man standing in front of a beat-up old Camaro. His arms were crossed. He was dressed as if for church, a white button-up shirt, skinny black tie and black pants. A smattering of hair suggested a goatee on his chin. His glasses had visible fingerprints.
Adam said, “Kelly was all right. I guess. There were things people said about her that weren’t nice. But she was—okay, she was slow, all right? Up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “But that’s okay, you know? Not everybody can be on the honor roll or whatever. She was just a nice girl. Not real bright. But she tried.”
The reporter came into the shot, microphone under his chin. “Can you tell me how you met her?”
“Ain’t no telling. Maybe going back to elementary? Most of us know each other. This is a real small town. Like, you can’t walk down the street without seeing people you know.”
“Were you friends with Kelly Rene Wilson in middle school?” The reporter had the look of an animal that had smelled fresh meat. “There have been rumors about indiscretions during that time. I wondered if you—”
“Nah, man, I ain’t gonna get into that.” He tightened his crossed arms. “See, people are wanting to say bad things, like that she was bullied or whatever, and maybe there was some people who were mean to her, but that’s life. Life in school, at least. Kelly knows that. She knew it back then, too. She’s not stupid. People are saying she’s stupid. Okay, she’s not bright, I already said that, but she’s not an idiot. It’s just how things are when you’re a kid. Kids are mean. Sometimes they get mean and stay mean, and sometimes it stops when they graduate, but you roll with it. Kelly rolled with it. So I don’t know what set her off, but it ain’t that. Not what you’re saying. That’s a falsehood.”
The reporter said, “But with Kelly Rene Wilson, did you—”
“Don’t be trying to John Wayne Gacy her, okay? It’s just Kelly. Kelly Wilson. And what she did was a hateful thing. I don’t know why she did it. I can’t speculate or nothing. Nobody can, and nobody should, and if they try to, then they’re a bunch of liars. What happened is just what happened, and nobody but Kelly knows why, but you—you people on the TV—y’all gotta remember it’s just Kelly. Folks that went to school with her, too. It’s just Kelly.”
Adam Humphrey walked off. The reporter did not let the absence of an interview subject slow him down. He told the anchor back in the studio, “Ron, as I said before, the typical profile of a shooter is male, a loner, generally bullied, isolated, and with an ax to grind. With Kelly Rene Wilson, we’re presented with a different possibility, that of a young girl who was ostracized for her sexual promiscuity, who, according to sources close to the Wilson family, terminated an unplanned pregnancy, which in a small town—”
Charlie muted the set. “Unplanned pregnancy. She was in middle school. It’s not like she kept a fucking fertility calendar.”
Sam said, “Adam Humphrey would be a good character witness. He clearly didn’t want to denigrate her like some of her other friends have.”
“Friends don’t denigrate you,” Charlie said. “I bet you could get Mindy Zowada on TV and she’d talk about love and forgiveness, but you read the shit she’s posting on Facebook and you’d think she was two seconds away from grabbing a pitchfork and a burning torch and heading to the jail to pull some kind of Frankenstein shit.”
“People understandably feel that she’s a monster. She murdered—”
“I know who she murdered.” Charlie looked down at her hands as if she still expected to find Lucy’s blood on them. “That Humphrey kid better get a good lawyer. This ‘femme fatale’ angle is going to catch on quick. They’re going to hog-tie him to Kelly whether he had anything to do with her or not.”
Sam refrained from commenting. She felt guilty for unburdening herself to Lenore at the diner last night when she would not break privilege for her own sister; however, unlike Lenore, Charlie would definitely be called to the witness stand. Sam did not want to put her sister in the position of having to choose between perjuring herself or providing evidence that might cause a jury to vote for execution.
This was one of the many reasons Sam did not practice criminal law. She did not want to have her words lead to the literal difference between life and death.
Sam changed the subject, asking Charlie, “What now? I assume we have to make arrangements for Dad.”
“He already took care of that. He pre-funded everything, told the funeral director how he wants it to go.”
“He could do all that but couldn’t draw up a will or a DNR?”
“Rusty always wanted to make a good exit.” Charlie looked at the clock on the wall. “The service starts in three hours.”
Sam felt sucker-punched by the news. She had assumed she would be looking for a hotel today. “Why so quickly?”
“He didn’t want to be embalmed. He said it was beneath his dignity.”
“Surely one day wouldn’t matter?”
“He wanted it to be fast so that you didn’t feel like you had to come, or for you to feel guilty because you couldn’t make it.” Charlie turned off the television. “It’s not like him to let something drag out.”
“Unless it was one of his stupid stories.”
Charlie shrugged rather than making a pithy comment.