Page 46 of The Bright Lands

“‘The gentlest soul on earth.’ Dylan really said that about Jamal?”

“To that effect. Christ, the sheriff’s department is hopeless. That fat deputy who arrested you fell off a horse so well it turned him from a pig into a vegetable—did you hear that?”

Joel’s stomach turned over at the thought of Deputy Grissom. “I heard.”

“The sheriffs must be up a real creek if they’re trying to hang this on Jamal goddamn Reynolds.”

Paulette made to lift the tray from the table but it slipped from her fingers. Cups scattered. Coffee threw itself over the carpet. Joel’s mother took one look at the mess and dropped herself to the sofa with a little wail of fury.

He took her hand in both of his. He sat with her a long time while she trembled all over. He was surprised to see that for the third day his mother still refused to weep.

A few words finally escaped her.

“You were right, you know. Years ago. There’s something wrong with this place.”

Joel watched her face, said nothing. He had a feeling of what was coming.

Paulette turned her eyes from the coffee at her feet to the son in front of her. She laced her fingers through his so hard he thought the knuckles might snap loose.

“Promise me you’ll fix this, Joel,” she whispered. “Don’t let them do to Dylan what they did to you.”

Joel met her eye. The truth was she didn’t even need to ask. Joel knew he wouldn’t be going back to New York anytime soon. He’d grieve later. Call it guilt, call it revenge, call it settling old debts: Joel had unfinished business in this town.

“Whoever it is.” Joel wiped a strand of hair from his mother’s face. He said, very softly, “Whatever it takes.”

CLARK

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“This case today ain’t nothing like Troy’s,” Mayfield said. “I know it may look that way on the surface but it ain’t. Troy never sent no messages to his girlfriend saying he was fine, the way Dylan did with his brother. And Dylan, far as we know, didn’t disappear holding the bag on eight grand of drug money.”

The ash fell from her cigarette. “He what?”

Mayfield sighed. “Eight-thou-oh-five, if memory serves. You didn’t realize? Troy was in the meth game bad, Deputy. Usingandselling. We found out pretty quick that he was stuck in the loop, borrowing money to buy product but only ever paying back the interest. Getting high on his supply, the works. Apparently Troy decided to use his last loan to buy himself a full tank of gas and split.”

Mayfield rubbed at a stain on his collar, pursing his lips at a sour memory. Clark couldn’t speak.

“Old Mr. Boone, the county attorney, he asked that we keep that little detail out of the files,” Mayfield added. “Boone figured—understandably, knowing the way this department leaks—that there wasn’t no point in besmirching your brother’s name. It wouldn’t do anyone any—”

“My brother owed a cartel eight thousand dollars for meth?” The words were so absurd they all but gagged her coming up.

“Not the cartel directly. One of their businessmen. Troy owed it to Benicio Dos, you remember him? Honest to God, Clark, we thought for sure your brother would come back any minute after they finally arrested that greasy fucker a few years back. The fact that Troy didn’t come home when the coast was clear makes us wonder if someone else found him first. I’m sorry about the whole business, I truly am.”

Clark’s back went stiff. She stared at the man. Her brother, a drug addict. A drugdealer? A man on the run from a Mexican cartel? She couldn’t imagine it. Troy had struggled with life after high school, she remembered that well enough—had drunk even more than their father in his prime—but by the summer of 2007 he had seemed to stabilize. He’d been living in Rockdale with his quiet girlfriend—a bland beautician named Hannah Szilack—for over a year. He’d gotten a welding license. He’d been talking about starting a family.

“You should have put that in the report,” Clark said.

Mayfield shrugged. “Maybe so. But really, what good would it have done? The money was gone. The man was gone. There weren’t no drug soldiers on our turf looking for him and we figured that was a blessing in itself. Mr. Boone’s shrewd like that, Clark. He may not seem like much but he is.”

Clark pushed open her door. A shrill whistle rose up from the field and the boys began to jog inside.

Mayfield said, “Where are you going?”

“Scratching an itch.”

“Deputy,” Mayfield said, leaning over in his seat to hold her eye. “We inherited this town. We all did. That don’t mean we have to love everything about it. I hope you can remember that.”

“I’ve got police work to do,” she said, and set off toward the school.