‘Claude!’ she rasped. ‘We got a visitor! It’s the State Patrol! Better come on around here and see what he wants!’
Claude was in the weedy backyard of the little shotgun house, taking in wash off the line and folding it neatly into a wicker basket. Ma’s washing machine was all right, but the dryer had shit the bed shortly before he arrived, and these days she was too short of breath to hang out the clothes herself. He meant to buy her a new dryer before he left, but kept putting it off. And now the THP, unless Ma was wrong, and she probably wasn’t. She had plenty of problems, but her eyes were fine.
He walked around the house and saw a tall cop getting out of a black-and-white SUV. At the sight of the gold Texas logo on the driver’s side door, Claude felt his gut tighten. He hadn’t done anything for which he could be arrested in a long, long time, but that tightening was a reflex. Claude reached into his pocket and gripped his six-year NA medallion, as he often did in moments of stress, hardly aware he was doing it.
The trooper tucked his sunglasses into his breast pocket as Ma struggled to rise from her rocker.
‘No, ma’am, don’t get up,’ he said. ‘I’m not worth it.’
She cackled rustily and settled back. ‘Ain’t you some big one. What’s your name, Officer?’
‘Sipe, ma’am. Corporal Owen Sipe. I’m pleased to meet you.’ He shook the hand not holding the cigarette, minding the old lady’s swollen joints.
‘Same goes right back, sir. This is my son, Claude. He’s down from Flint City, kind of heppin me out.’
Sipe turned to Claude, who let go of his chip and held out his own hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Bolton.’ He held onto Claude’s hand for a moment, studying it. ‘Got a little ink on your fingers, I see.’
‘Got to see both to get the whole message,’ Claude said. He held out the other hand. ‘I did em myself, in jail. But if you’re here to see me, you probably know that.’
‘CANT and MUST,’ Trooper Sipe said, ignoring the question. ‘I’ve seen finger tattoos before, but never those.’
‘Well, they tell a story,’ Claude said, ‘and I pass it on when I can. It’s how I make amends. I’m clean these days, but it was a hard struggle. Went to a lot of AA and NA meetings while I was locked up. At first it was just because they had doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, but eventually what they were saying took hold. I learned that every addict knows two things: he can’t use and he must use. That’s the knot in your head, see? You can’t cut it and you can’t untie it, so you have to learn to rise above it. It can be done, but you have to remember the basic situation. You must but you can’t.’
‘Huh,’ Sipe said. ‘Sort of a parable, isn’t it?’
‘These days he don’t drink nor drug,’ Lovie said from her rocker. ‘He don’t even use this shit.’ She cast the stub of her cigarette into the dirt. ‘He’s a good boy.’
‘I’m not here because anyone thinks he’s done something bad,’ Sipe said mildly, and Claude relaxed. A little. You never wanted to relax too much when the State Patrol swung by for an unexpected visit. ‘Got a call from Flint City, closing out a case would be my best guess, and they need you to verify something about a man named Terry Maitland.’
Sipe brought out his phone, diddled with it, and showed Claude a picture.
‘Is this the belt buckle the Maitland fella was wearing the night you saw him? And don’t ask me what that means, because I sure don’t know. They just sent me out here to ask the question.’
This was not why Sipe had been sent out, but the message from Ralph Anderson, relayed to Sipe by Captain Horace Kinney, was to make sure everything stayed friendly, with no suspicions aroused.
Claude examined the phone, then handed it back. ‘Can’t be positive – that was a while ago – but it sure looks like it.’
‘Well, thank you. Thank you both.’ Sipe pocketed his phone and turned to go.
‘That’s it?’ Claude asked. ‘You drove all the way out here to ask one question?’
‘That’s the long and short of it. I guess someone really wants to know. Thank you for your time. I’ll pass this along on my way back to Austin.’
‘That’s a long drive, Officer,’ Lovie said. ‘Why don’t you come in first, and have a glass of sweet tea? It’s only from a mix, but it ain’t bad.’
‘Well, I can’t come in and sit, want to get home before dark if I can, but I’d take a taste out here, if you don’t mind.’
‘We don’t mind a bit. Claude, go in and get this nice man a glass of tea.’
‘Small glass,’ Sipe said, holding his thumb and finger a smidge apart. ‘Two swallows and I’m down the road.’
Claude went in. Sipe leaned a shoulder against the side of the porch, looking up at Lovie Bolton, whose good-natured face was a river of wrinkles.
‘Your boy treats you pretty good, I guess?’
‘I’d be lost without him,’ Lovie declared. ‘He sends me a ’lotment every other week, and comes down when he can. Wants to get me in an old folks’ home in Austin, and I might go one of these days if he could afford it, which right now he can’t. He’s the best kind of son, Trooper Sipes: hellraiser early, trustworthy later on.’
‘I heard that,’ Sipe said. ‘Say, he ever take you out to the Big 7, down the road there? They make one hell of a breakfast.’
‘I don’t trust roadside cafés,’ she said, taking her cigarettes from the pocket of her housedress and clamping one between her dentures. ‘Got ptomaine in one over Abilene way back in ’74, and like to die. My boy takes over the cookin when he’s here. He ain’t no Emeril, but he ain’t bad. Knows his way around a skillet. Don’t burn the bacon.’ She dropped him a wink as she lit up, Sipe smiling and hoping there was a tight seal on her tank and she wasn’t going to blow them both to hell.
‘I bet he made you breakfast this morning,’ Sipe said.
‘You bet he did. Coffee, raisin toast, and scrambled eggs with plenty of butter, just the way I like em.’
‘Are you an early riser, ma’am? I only ask because, with the oxygen and all—’
‘Him and me both,’ she said. ‘Up with the sun.’
Claude came back out with three glasses of iced tea on a tray, two tall ones and a shortie. Owen Sipe drank his in two gulps, smacked his lips, and said he had to be off. The Boltons watched him go, Lovie in her rocker, Claude sitting on the steps, frowning at the rooster-tail of dust marking the trooper’s progress back to the main road.
‘See how much nicer the cops are when you ain’t been doin nothin bad?’ Lovie asked.
‘Yeah,’ Claude said.
‘Drove all the way out here just to ask about some belt buckle. Think of that!’
‘That wasn’t why he came, Ma.’
‘No? Then why?’
‘Not sure, but that wasn’t it.’ Claude put his glass down on the step and looked at his fingers. At CANT and MUST, the knot he had finally risen above. He stood up. ‘I better get the rest of those clothes off the line. Then I want to go over to Jorge’s and ask if I can help him out tomorrow. He’s roofin.’
‘You’re a good boy, Claude.’ He saw tears standing in her eyes, and was moved by them. ‘You come here and give your ma a big old hug.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Claude said, and did just that.
12
Ralph and Jeannie Anderson were getting ready to go to the meeting at Howie Gold’s office when Ralph’s cell phone rang. It was Horace Kinney. Ralph spoke to him while Jeannie put on her earrings and slipped into her shoes.
‘Thank you, Horace. I owe you one.’ He ended the call.
Jeannie was looking at him expectantly. ‘Well?’
‘Horace sent a THP trooper out to the Bolton place in Marysville. He had a cover story, but what he was really there for—’
‘I know what he was there for.’
‘Uh-huh. According to Mrs Bolton, Claude cooked them breakfast around six o’clock this morning. If you saw Bolton downstairs at four—’
‘I saw the clock when I got up to pee,’ Jeannie said. ‘It was 4:06.’
‘MapQuest says the distance between Flint City and Marysville is four hundred and thirty miles. He never could have made it from here to there in time to make breakfast at six, honey.’