Page 36

“It’s a 2011. I park around back by the school buses.” Where they haven’t seen it, but they know the make and model. And he knows what the picture will show even before she shows it to him. It’s his truck, in the lot of the Dollar General where he bought the phone. The license plate is clear.

“Security camera?”

“Yes. I have others with you in them. Want to see?”

Danny shakes his head.

“Okay, but here’s one that might interest you.” This time it’s a high-rez black-and-white photo of tire tracks on the cracked tarmac of the Texaco. “When we compare these to the tires on your truck, will they match?”

“I guess they will.” He never thought he might’ve left tracks, but should have. Because beyond the tarvy, County Road F is dirt. It occurs to him that you can be damn careless about covering your tracks—literally—if you haven’t committed a crime.

Davis nods. “Also, a farmer named Delroy Ferguson saw a white truck parked in front of that gas station. Same day you made that call from Thompson. He called the Highway Patrol, said he thought it might be someone scavenging. Or a dope meet.”

Danny sighs. He could have sworn that farmer never took his eyes off the road as he hauled his trailer of barnboards north along the otherwise deserted county road. He thinks again, I’m caught.

“It was my truck, I was there, I bought the phone, I made the call. So why don’t we cut through the bullshit? Ask me why I was there. I’ll tell you.” He thinks about adding you won’t believe it, but wouldn’t that be stating the obvious?

He thinks Davis is going to ask just that, but the man in the black coat cuts in. “Funny thing about that phone. It was wiped clean of fingerprints.”

“Yes, I did that. Although from what you’re telling me, you would have found it anyway.”

“Yup, yup. On the other hand, you paid cash for it,” Jalbert says, as if just passing the time. “That was smart. Without the security camera video, we might have taken quite awhile to find you. Might not have found you at all.”

“I didn’t think it through. I told you that.” The library is cool, but he’s starting to sweat. Color is rising in his cheeks. He feels like a fool. No good deed goes unpunished is exactly right.

Jalbert watches Pat Grady pull out, engine blatting and bad-valve oil shooting from the tailpipe. Then he trains his somehow dusty gaze on Danny. “You wanted to be caught, am I right?”

“No,” Danny says, although in his heart he wonders. Jalbert’s gaze is powerful. I know what I know, it says. I’ve been doing this a long time, Sunny Jim, and I know what I know. “I just didn’t want to explain how I knew that woman was there. I didn’t think anyone would believe me. If I had it to do over again, I would have written an anonymous letter.”

He pauses, looking down at his hands and biting his lip. Then he looks up again and says the truth.

“No. I’d do it the same. Because of the dog. It got at her. It would have gotten at her some more. And maybe other dogs would have come, once it had the hand and arm out of the ground. They would have scented the…”

He stops. Jalbert helps him. “The body. Poor Miss Yvonne’s body.”

“I didn’t want that to happen.” He is still getting used to her name. Yvonne. Pretty name.

Ella Davis is looking at him like he has a disease, but Jalbert’s somehow dusty eyes never change. He says, “So tell us. You knew it was there how?”

So then Danny tells them about the dream. About the sign defaced to read CUNT ROAD FUCK, the moon, the tinka-tinka-tinka of the price signs tapping on their pole. He tells them about how his legs carried him forward of their own accord. He tells them about the hand, the charm bracelet, the dog. He tells them everything, but he can’t convey the clarity of the dream, how it felt like reality.

“I thought it would just fade away like most dreams do after you wake up. But it didn’t. So finally I went out there because I wanted to see for myself that it was just some crazy movie in my own head. Only… she was there. The dog was there. So I made the call.”

They are silent, looking at him. Considering him. Ella Davis doesn’t say Do you really expect us to swallow that? She doesn’t have to. Her face says it for her.

The silence spins out. Danny knows he’s supposed to break it, supposed to try and convince them by giving more details. He’s supposed to stumble over his words, start to babble. He keeps silent. It’s an effort.

Jalbert smiles. It’s startling, because it’s a good one. Warm. Except for the eyes. They stay the same. Like a man uttering a great truth, he says, “You’re a psychic! Like Miss Cleo!”

Davis rolls her eyes.

Danny shakes his head. “I’m not.”

“Yes! Yes, you are! By God! Three! I bet you have helped the police in other investigations, like that Nancy Weber or Peter Hurkos. You might even know what people are thinking!” He taps one sunken temple, where a snarl of little blue veins pulse.

Danny smiles and points at Ella Davis. “I don’t know Nancy Weber or Peter Hurkos from a hole in the ground, but I know what she’s thinking. That I’m full of shit.”

Davis smiles back without humor. “Got that right.”