Billy Bob Walker Got Married (27 page)

Neither she nor Shiloh looked at each other. Shiloh focused instead on T-Tommy's back and on his suddenly hawkish face as he finished his conversation and turned to them.

"That was Davis," he told the two women. "He says somebody answering Michael's description checked into a clinic on the edge of Memphis this morning. Is that where the judge is now, Mrs. Sewell?"

She swallowed. "You'll have to ask him."

"I mean to."

Judge Sewell beat them back to the jail. His silver Mercedes was in back where he'd entered from the bank parking lot. Discreet. Quiet.

T-Tommy laughed under his breath as he caught sight of the car.

"Well, well, well."

"They already knew what Michael had done," Shiloh said suddenly, a trace of horror in her words. "They thought—Lydia was certain that Juliard was dead. That way he could never have talked."

"You'll never be able to prove it," T-Tommy answered darkly.

"I don't have to. I know." Shiloh shivered, clasping her arms around herself. It wasn't from the chill of the air conditioner; it was from her narrow escape. "Why did you make me go with you? You didn't need me. And I didn't want to go back into that house, not ever again." She accused and condemned with her words.

T-Tommy grasped the steering wheel. "What you were doing with Billy and Michael, it made me sick ... and mad," the sheriff replied haltingly. "And I wanted to know if you really knew what you were talking about. You didn't back down, Shiloh, not when you gave me all those private club numbers, nor told me who to talk to and the questions to ask. And you hung in there facin' Lydia Sewell, too." He ran a tired hand over his face, then the balding top of his head. "Maybe I didn't believe it was Michael—not him, never him—until you went the distance. By the time we got to the Sewell's house, it was different. I knew. He was guilty." "You'll let Billy Bob go?"

"Yeah. But this ain't over. Not for you. There's no way in paradise Sam won't hear of it. It's all over Sweetwater now."

"And Billy—what's he so mad at me about?"

"Aw, that's hurt pride and worry talkin'. He stuck up for you fast enough when Davis put his big mouth in, didn't he?" T-Tommy patted Shiloh's arm awkwardly. "Come on. Let's go see the judge. Then I think you and Billy Walker better face the music. Tell your daddy, the both of you. An' I'll see you get real nice cemetery plots, side by side."

T-Tommy's humor, thought Shiloh, left a lot to be desired. And she was so tired, too tired to find anything funny.

"Where's Judge Sewell?" T-Tommy demanded the second he and Shiloh reentered the jail office.

Davis and J.C. looked up from the card game they were playing at a big desk.

"Well, now, it's the strangest sight I ever saw," J.C.

drawled, pulling a stubby pencil from behind his ear to mark a score, then leaning backward in the chair, balancing it precariously on its two back legs. "He's decided he needs to speak to Billy."

Shiloh stared. Had she heard this lawyer correctly?

"Say what?" T-Tommy sounded as incredulous as she.

"Yep. He's in there." Davis nodded toward the next room. The door had been firmly shut between the office and the cells. "He's been in there for—what? fifteen minutes? Just him and Billy Bob."

J.C. came lazily to his feet, his tie hanging limply, the loosened knot near his fourth shirt button. "Nothin' like a father-and-son talk. And Sewell got around to doin' it before his kid hit thirty. Ain't parenthood wonderful?" He swung his suit coat from the back of his chair. "Something tells me that Billy's not in need of a lawyer anymore. Wonder how Michael is fixed in that line?"

T-Tommy looked again toward the doors. "I hope—I hope Sewell's being decent to Billy. What in the world could they be talkin' about?"

"Whatever Billy wants, I figure. He's got this one beat. Davis, here's where the game ends, and you owe me eighty-three cents." J.C. gathered up the cards from under the deputy's nose.

Shiloh was vaguely aware of the conversation between the two of them. Her thoughts were on other things: on the mess Michael was making of his life; on the enmity this was going to cause between her and the Sewells; on Billy's irrational behavior this morning; on the incredible idea that for the first time in his life, his father had come to talk to him.

The thought might have been a catalyst: the second she paused to wonder why Sewell was here, the door between the rooms opened and he emerged. His face was ravaged with anger and worry, and his clothes were unnaturally rumpled. No suit coat, his tie crooked, even some sort of stain on his pocket. It was almost like looking at one of those what's-wrong-with-this-picture scenes, Shiloh thought, surprised.

The judge glared at her, then ignored her presence.

"I worked most of the night on my campaign plans. I've had little or no sleep in forty-eight hours. But on my way home from my meeting, Mrs. Sewell called me on my car phone, Farley, nearly distraught. What did you say to her?"

"I imagine she told you."

"Some wild-eyed story about my son. She says this . . . this man in here"—Sewell's head jerked backward, in the direction of Billy's cell—"could well be the guilty party."

"He's got an alibi."

"If it's some lowlife from that honky-tonk—"

"I'm his alibi." Shiloh couldn't bear the contempt in Sewell's voice. How dare a man like him speak of Billy in that tone? "He was with me."

His body jerked a little in a quickly contained reaction. "At one o'clock in the morning?" he ground out, twisting to confront her.

"And at two."

Exactly what she was confessing turned his face into a red mask of fury. "You little slut. You cheap little tramp. From my Michael, who would've given you anything, to that—that—" he stalled for words.

The words hurt, even coming from him under these circumstances.

"That'll be about all I want to hear of that," T-Tommy said sharply.

"Michael's not guilty of what you're accusing him of. Isn't that what you need to hear? I'm telling you."

"He'll have to stand right here and tell me himself. I mean it, Judge."

Judge Sewell stiffened before he finally said, "For God's sake, Farley, this is an outrage!"

"But maybe he can't come in. Maybe he was hurt in a wreck and he's in a clinic just this side of Memphis. Maybe he didn't get out of this scot-free."

The judge sucked in his breath; his face paled. Then he choked out, "It was a one-car accident. Sheer coincidence that it should happen at the same time as this Arkansas man's. Why do you suppose I wouldn't let Michael talk to anybody here? He hit a ... a telephone pole, but he was able to drive the car to a Memphis service station. He collapsed there. Some people called an ambulance."

"And he was admitted to a clinic, for all the world to hear about. It's a good thing those people came along," T-Tommy said ironically. "I'm gonna want to see that car, too, and those medical records."

"If there's the least attempt to accuse him, or publicize this, you'll regret it, Farley. It was a simple collision, and he had a simple injury. We both know that Walker is your man, no matter what
she
says." Sewell motioned furiously toward Shiloh. "She hates Michael. She'd do anything to break him."

"Davis, you take Shiloh back there and y'all open that cell. Billy's free to go," T-Tommy said calmly, but his eyes glittered as he focused on Sewell. "And take your time. I got a few things to say to the judge."

♦
♦
♦

Billy was lying deathly still on the narrow cot as Shiloh approached the cell; he had a pillow crumpled under his head, and his hand was under that.

Nothing unusual at all about the way he lay.

So why did it seem too quiet here? As though a stupendous explosion had occurred and left behind destruction and a deadly, frozen silence?

A statue might have been on that bed instead of a flesh-and-blood man, but the stiffness didn't come from sleep. His eyes were wide and blue as he stared up at the ceiling. Maybe he hadn't even heard their approach.

Davis felt the blanketing quiet; he was subdued as he unlocked the cell door and barely audible as he spoke. "C'mon, Billy. You can go. Sheriff says so."

Billy made no movement at all; not even his eyes blinked.

"Did you hear me?"

Shiloh stepped through the doors, stopping just inside. "Billy, let's go. It's all right."

He turned his head at her words, the blue, unwavering brilliance focusing on her. "You're still here." The observation was blank.

"Because you are. But we don't have to stay anymore. Come on, Billy. I don't like it in here."

He considered that for a minute, his eyes the only thing about him alive as he scanned her from head to toe. "Maybe I do. Maybe I don't want to go out there."

What was wrong with him?

"They know you didn't do it. They know it was Michael."

He turned his face away to stare at the wall beside him.

Finally alarmed, Shiloh glanced first at the baffled deputy, then stepped closer to look down on him, on the sprawled long legs, on the half-opened shirt, on the taut line of his throat. Billy.

The unspoken word was full of a sudden longing, of a wild, sweet mixture of compassion and passion; she reached out without thought to touch the heavy rumpled hair and brushed his cheek instead.

"It's Judge Sewell, isn't it?" she asked quietly. "What did—"

But the man under her fingertips exploded into life, as if her fingers had detonated a violent charge inside him. He sat up in a rush and pushed himself off the cot to stand. Shiloh pulled away, hurt by his rejection but unable to say anything in front of the deputy.

"I want my personal things back," Billy said to Davis.

"Okay. They're outside."

"And I can just walk out?"

"Sheriff says so."

"All of a sudden, everybody believes me."

"She's spent most of the day makin' sure they do," Davis retorted, nodding toward Shiloh.

Billy contemplated Shiloh a long moment. Then he bent to scoop up his cap from the bed before going out the open door of the cell. Shiloh moved at last to follow him.

He was acting like a spoiled brat, she thought in a flash of resentment. Hurt pride, as T-Tommy had said?

At the entrance to the office area, Billy stopped cold, blocking the way. Over his shoulder, he shot Shiloh a startled look of warning that was at least an improvement over the blankness of his face up until that moment.

"Are you sure," he asked her ironically, "that you really want to be my knight in shining armor, Shiloh?" 'What?"

"Nothing, except I think we've just met another dragon." With that cryptic remark, Billy twisted sideways in the door and motioned her through. Glancing up at his set jaw, Shiloh didn't see Sam Pennington standing in the office until Billy nodded toward him.

Stopping as sharply as if she'd hit a glass wall, Shiloh had only time to register one thought: her father's expression looked like Billy's.

"You didn't show up at the awards ceremony at three," Sam said tonelessly. The dark red plaid of his cotton sport shirt and its matching solid tie made a hot, vivid splash of color as he stood in the dingy office, like a gash of blood in the tans and browns of the other men. "So I called home, and Laura tells me some things I don't know. Some things that the whole town's talking about."

Nobody moved.

"I want to know"—his voice gained power—-"how is it that my only daughter can take up with Billy Walker, and nobody ever breathe a word of it to me? Not one damn word."

"We meant to tell you today."

Sam stared at Shiloh as she spoke, then laughed, an ugly, disbelieving sound. "Well, there's something I had to look forward to and didn't even know it. Big fool that I am, I thought you were gettin' over Michael, that that was why you'd been so quiet. But not you. Laura says you've been runnin' with
him
for weeks. That he came to the house like a sneakin' thief while I was gone."

"That was my fault. I was too afraid to tell you. Billy wanted to. It was wrong."

Sam swallowed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "What are you doin' with him? I said it four years ago. He's not the man for you. And I'm not even going to try to talk about it. You've ruined yourself with Walker today. They're sayin' you were with him most of last night . . . God." He pulled at his collar, then moved abruptly. "Get whatever you've got here. We're leavin'. I don't like airin' my dirty laundry in public." He glared at J.C. and Davis.

Shiloh didn't know whether or not Billy wanted her at this minute, but she did know one thing: if she didn't come through now, she'd never have another chance. Once before, her father had commanded and she'd followed. It had taken four long years and these last few weeks of agony to get back to this point again, but here it was—a second chance.

Billy wasn't speaking or touching or even breathing, it seemed. But she felt it anyway, the dark wave of tension that emanated from him.

This was the moment of truth.

"I'm not going with you."

The clear words dropped into the thickness of the room, as certain as death. Sam froze. "What?"

She took a step backward from his furious, stunned glare, until her shoulder brushed the front of Billy's shirt as he stood sideways behind her. But Billy didn't reach for her; this was her fight.

"I'm staying with Billy."

"You either come with me or I swear before God, you'll stop being my daughter. I'll cut you off like I never knew you."