Page 99 of This is Why We Lied

“I heard.”

“Delilah’s a wicked bitch. Got nothing to do with what she does in the bedroom. She’s just wicked.” Penny strangled the shotgun again. “She made Mercy jump through all kinds of hoops just to have visitation with her own child. It was wrong. Nobody stood up for Mercy. They all thought she was gonna fail, but she stayed off the liquor and heroin so she could get Jon back. That took real grit. Gotta admire her for battling those demons. Especially since she didn’t get a lick of help.”

“What about Dave?”

“Shit,” Penny muttered. “He was working at the blue jean factory. That was a good job before they moved the whole thing to Mexico. He was rolling in dough, buying drinks down at the bar, living it up.”

“What was Mercy doing?”

“Sucking dick on the corner so she could pay for a lawyer to get custody of Jon.” Penny studied Faith carefully, looking for a reaction.

Faith didn’t give her one. There wasn’t one thing she would not do for her own children.

“The only job Mercy could get was at the motel, and the only reason that happened is the owner wanted to piss off Papa. Nobody else would hire her. She was poison down here. Papa made sure of that.”

“You mean Cecil?”

“Yeah, her own damn daddy. All he ever did was punish her and punish her all of her damn life. I watched it happen. I’ve been cleaning rooms at the lodge since I was sixteen. Let me tell you this.” Penny pointed her finger at Faith like this part was important. “Mercy took over the place after Papa had that bike accident, all right? And all I know is before Mercy was in charge, they could just about make payroll. Then she’s running the place and they’re hiring a fancy chef from Atlanta and another waiter from town and then Mercy tells me I can go to full-time cause they need a bartender for cocktail hour before supper. What do you think of that?”

“You tell me.”

“Papa never understood that people wanna drink when they’re on vacation. He served one glass each of that cheap-ass mulberry wine, and if guests wanted more, they had to pony up five dollars cash right then and there.” She snorted a laugh. “Mercy brought in the top-shelf liquor, started advertising special cocktails, letting people run tabs. Some of those corporate retreats, they’ll pay cash cause they don’t want their bosses seeing they’re basically alcoholics. Just do the math. At full capacity, they got twenty adults ordering enough hooch every night to justify a bartender.”

Faith was excellent at math. Restaurants generally doubled the shelf price of liquor, but they bought it at wholesale pricing. Two cocktails a night times twenty people could net anywhere between four and six hundred dollars profit in a single day. And that didn’t include wine sales and whatever they took back to their cottages.

“Mercy raised the rack rate twenty percent and nobody blinked an eye. She fixed up the bathrooms so you didn’t get a fungus from taking a shower. She was bringing up high-dollar guests from Atlanta. Papa couldn’t stand it.” Penny looked back at the house. “Any other daddy would’a been proud, but Papa fucking hated her for it.”

Faith wondered if Penny was offering up another suspect. “Cecil was badly injured after the bike accident, right?”

“Yeah, he can’t get around no more, but he sure does run that hateful mouth of his.” Penny’s anger had leveled out. She let the shotgun rest against the dashboard. “I’m gonna be real with you, mostly cause you probably already run my record, but my license was permanently pulled.”

Faith knew what she was really saying. Penny had gotten so many DUIs that a judge had passed down a lifetime ban.

“I know what you’re thinking. Makes sense that an old drunk like me is a bartender. I’ve been sober for twelve years, so you can get off your high horse.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Faith said. “Your father was still the sheriff twelve years ago. He had a lot of power. It must’ve been hard for him to not pull any strings to help you.”

“You’d think so, right? But he loved it. Made sure I couldn’t go anywhere without his permission. Had to beg him to take me to work. To the store. Or the doctor. Hell, I should thank him. Made me learn how to ride a horse.”

Faith read between the lines again. “The only job you could get was at the lodge.”

“You got it,” Penny said. “Daddy had me up there so he could keep me under his thumb.”

“He’s friends with Cecil?”

“Those two bastards are cut from the same cloth.” Her tone had turned bitter. “All him and Cecil ever cared about was being the motherfuckers in charge. Everybody thinks they’re so great. Pillars of the community. But I’ll tell you what, they get you under their thumb and …”

Faith waited for her to finish the and.

“They see a woman with high spirits—maybe she likes a drink, maybe she wants a little fun—and they tear her down to the ground. My daddy broke my mama so hard she ended up in an early grave. He tried to break me, too. Maybe he succeeded. I’m still here. Living in this shithole. Cooking his dinner. Wiping his bony ass.”

Faith saw the haunted look in Penny’s eyes as she stared at the house. The dog shifted in the back seat. He rested his snout on the console.

Penny’s hand reached back to pet him as she continued, “You wanna know why the old men in this town are so angry? It’s because they used to control everything. Who had to spread her legs. Who didn’t. Who got the good jobs. Who couldn’t earn an honest living. Who got to live in the good part of town and who got stuck on the wrong side of the tracks. Who could beat his wife. Who would go to prison for drinking and driving and who could end up in the mayor’s office.”

“And now?”

She huffed a laugh. “Now all they’ve got is Food Network and adult diapers.”