Page 87 of Poison Wood

I’m at a point where I have to keep going. I have to trust I’m doing what’s needed in order to get the answers. But there’s something else fueling me that’s even more powerful than the need for answers. Guilt. Guilt for claiming her brother was in those woods that night even though my memory was tainted by booze and weed.

I approach the porch as if it’s a ticking bomb. I have one hand in my tote on the stun gun. I find the switch to turn it on as I walk up the porch steps and cross the threshold into the mobile home.

It’s as clean as the property around it and smells like vanilla. The floors are engineered hardwood and covered in area rugs. A small white couch sits against the far wall, and two brown recliners fill up the space on the right, with a small table between them. There’s no trash or food lying around. There’s no stench. Nothing like Broken Bayou. This home is loved by its owner.

Clean dishes are on a rack by the kitchen sink. A small built-in desk sits between the living room and the kitchen, and it’s piled high with neat stacks of paper. A hallway leads off in the opposite direction as the kitchen.

This place was not cheap. It’s a manufactured home, but it’s a damn nice one.

Rosalie appears from down the hall no longer carrying the gun. She sits in one of the brown recliners and points to the sofa. I sit.

“I was wondering how long it’d take you to show up. I’ve heard about you. I think the word Pit Bull was used.”

I flinch. Last week, I would have considered that a term of endearment, but today it sounds like the insult it is.

She looks at my phone. “You gonna ask me if you can record this?”

I shake my head and Rosalie studies me with a look that says she doesn’t trust me.

“I’m not here as a reporter,” I say. When I record conversations, it’s to make sure I get the details right when I retell them, when I share the victim’s trauma or tragedy or whatever it is with the world. But in this private moment, I see it differently. I don’t see grief and despair as things that need to be shared. Something shifts in my bones or maybe it’s something settling into them. Something I’m not quite ready to acknowledge.

Rosalie smiles and pushes out of her chair. In the kitchen she grabs a glass and fills it with water. “Want one?” she says.

“Sure,” I say. “My mouth is quite dry after having a gun pointed at me.”

She fills a second glass and brings them both into the living area. She sets mine in front of me, then nestles back into her recliner. I pick up the glass and take a sip. The water tastes metallic, rusty, but I drink it anyway. No need to be rude to the woman whose land I’m trespassing on. That thought trips on something else in the back of my head.

“Rosalie, why were you at Poison Wood the other day?”

“My brother asked me to look for something.”

I move to the edge of my seat. “What?”

“None of your business.”

I sit back. It was worth a shot. “Did you follow me that day?”

She keeps her gaze on mine. She doesn’t flinch at all. “Yes.”

I exhale. “Did you follow me to Riverbend? To my father’s house?”

Her brow furrows. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Why are you here?”

I look around. “You’ve got a nice piece of property out here,” I say. “Do you mind me asking how many acres?”

“Six forty,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Six hundred and forty acres?” I say, shocked.

“Yeah. And Johnny’s got his six forty next door.”

Her head nods east as she says this. These two siblings have over twelve hundred acres of land, and one of them has been in prison for seventeen years.

“That must have been a lot to keep up with while Johnny was ... away.”

The set of her jaw changes, hardens. “Yeah, it was.”

I know the property taxes on the land my father owns, and it’s not nearly this much land. Rosalie has definitely had her hands full covering that bill every year.