Unspeakable (35 page)

"Hey!" he said with false cheerfulness. "You're up mighty early."

"What are the policemen doing, Jack?"

Jack pushed back his hat brim with his thumb and glanced first at one of the deputies, then the other, as though noticing them for the first time. "They just came to talk to me."

"Are you going with them?"

"Hmm."

"Where?"

"Downtown."

"For how long?"

"I don't know."

David began to look worried. "Are you coming back?"

"I hope so."

"Today?"

"I might be away longer than that."

"Do you want to go?"

"Sure," Jack said. "I've been looking forward to it." He had hoped to reassure David that he was all right, but he might have overshot his mark.

The boy's chin drew up and tightened. His lower lip began to tremble. "Are you mad at me?"

"Of course not."

"Didn't I do my jobs good yesterday?"

"You did everything fine. I couldn't have asked for a better helper. It's just..." Jesus this was hard.

"It's just that I've got to go now."

"Can I come?"

" 'Fraid not."

A tear rolled down the boy's cheek. "When will you be back?"

The damaging effect of a false promise would be worse than the truth. " Come on, son, don't be acrybaby. Like I told you, I'm only leaving to finish up some business, but I'll be back. And thistime I'll stay. We'll be together all the time. I promise. " With his father's lying words echoing in his head, Jack said, "I might not be back, David." The boy began to cry harder, His shoulders shook. "Go ahead then and leave!" he shouted. "I hate you." Kneeling, Anna drew her son to her. He threw his arms around her neck and buried his face in her shoulder.

Jack took a step forward, but the deputies shouldered in, halting his progress. "Let's go," one said in an undertone. They walked him to the pickup, then one veered off in the direction of the patrol car.

The pickup's keys were in the ignition. As Jack started the motor, his companion said, "I'm trusting you, Sawyer. Don't do anything stupid."

"I want this cleared up worse than you do. Don't worry."

"I'm not worried." He hitched his chin forward. "Take off." Jack took one last glance at the front porch, where Anna was still comforting David. Dejectedly he engaged the truck's gears and drove out the gate, the patrol car practically in his tailpipe.

CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE

"I
'm sorry, Mrs. Corbett. You can't see him right now. He's behind closed doors with Sheriff Foster."

"Did you tell Jack I was here?"

"No, son, I didn't," the clerk replied, smiling kindly at David. "He's awful busy right now."

"Not too busy to see me."

"Sorry, son, the answer's no."

David turned to Anna. "I want to see Jack and tell him I'm sorry." Usually well behaved, David had been acting bratty since his crying jag on the front porch. Feeling sorry for telling Jack that he hated him, he wanted to apologize. He had nagged her with a million questions for which she had no answers.

When was Jack coming back?

Was Jack coming back?

Did Jack know he didn't mean it when he said he hated him?

Had she been mean to Jack? Is that why he looked forward to leaving?

Why was he going with the policemen?

Were they putting Jack in jail?

And so it went until Anna thought she would go mad. What was she to tell him? That Jack had left of his own accord and was happy about it? Or that he was being arrested and had no choice except to leave?

Either way, her son would be devastated. She tried to console him, but nothing worked. He wouldn't let the matter drop and he wouldn't be distracted from it. When he became so misbehaved, she reprimanded him for crying more over Jack's leaving than he had over his grandfather's death, although that scold stung her conscience. She had lived in the same house with Delray for years, but the regret she had experienced upon watching Jack being escorted away under suspicion of a crime had been sharper and more intense than what she had felt when she walked away from Delray's grave the day before.

Unwilling simply to wait for whatever happened next, she decided to pay a visit to the sheriff's office and see if there were any concrete answers to be had. However, to salve her conscience, she had stopped at the cemetery first. Delray's grave was disturbingly fresh, but the flowers were beginning to wilt in the unbearable heat. She suggested to David that they divide them among Grandpa, Grandma Mary, and Daddy's graves. " Don't you think Grandpa would like to share hisflowers with them? " she asked. Sullenly, David nodded.

The task took the boy's mind off Jack temporarily, but Anna's was spinning around the question of whether or not Jack could have done what the authorities obviously suspected him of doing. They wouldn't have come for him unless they believed he was responsible. Did they have evidence linking him to the poisoning? How could he have done something like that? And for what reason?

She searched for a possible motive, but came up empty.

Jack had looked her in the eye and denied the accusation, but was he lying? Ordinarily she could read people very well. Had her attraction to Jack blinded her? Had she missed something in his face, his eyes, his mannerisms, that would have signaled an unsavory inner character?

If he were completely innocent, why had he acted so skittish when Ezzy Hardge came to the house last evening? As soon as she identified the caller at the door, Jack had told her he had things to do and had left through a back door.

She had hoped he would return after Ezzy left. She had hoped they would resume what had been started before the former sheriff's inopportune visit. She had hoped Jack would kiss her. Last night when she finally gave up hope of Jack's returning, she had resented Ezzy's bad timing. Perhaps it had been a blessing. It might have prevented her from becoming involved with a man who was cruel, heartless, and devious enough to poison a rancher's herd. But she couldn't believe it of Jack Sawyer. She wouldn't believe it until he confessed it to her. She wanted to ask him point blank if he had done this horrible thing, and if so, why. She wanted to ask him herself while looking into his eyes. She wanted to know. She had to know. But the clerk at the reception desk in the sheriff's office was being uninformative and inflexible. He was polite but firm in refusing her and David's request to speak to Jack, telling them only that Jack Sawyer was unavailable, and that he didn't know for how long he would be held. She also got the distinct impression that he was talking down to her because of her handicap. She had written everything out on a notepad, not wanting to rely strictly on David's interpretation for something this important. The man spoke to her as he would to a child—a child who wasn't very bright.

On her pad she wrote, "I don't wish to press charges against Mr. Sawyer. Not until I've spoken to him and am convinced that he's guilty."

"It's not for you to say, Mrs. Corbett."

"But it was my cattle," she wrote. "My father-in-law chose to handle the incident himself."

"Don't matter. If Sawyer broke the law, it don't matter none what you want to do about it. The state'll prosecute him."

Her usage of English was far superior to his; that made his condescension even more infuriating. He used an incoming telephone call as an excuse to tell her that she would be notified of any progress on the case. He suggested that she "go on home now"—"like a good little girl" being implied. Then he started speaking into the phone and ignored her as though she weren't there. Anna left, practically having to drag a protesting David along with her. Outside, the heat was intense, but she stood on the sidewalk and considered what to do next. There seemed to be nothing she could do for or about Jack Sawyer. David was cranky and whiny. A long afternoon spent trying to entertain him in his current frame of mind held no appeal. A movie? She checked her wristwatch. Too early even for the matinee showings. Lunch? Still too early. As Anna glanced up and down the street indecisively, something caught her eye. She had seen it before, of course. But now it leaped out at her like a gaudy neon sign, luring her inside. Giving David's hand a firm tug, she marched smartly down the sidewalk.

The shop was cool, quiet, and well maintained. Keeping a close eye on David to see that he didn't meddle with the expensive merchandise, Anna shopped the new generation of cameras and lenses.

The store had opened several years ago. Anna had been curious about it, although until now she had never ventured inside. She had barely allowed herself to glance at the display windows, fearing the temptation would be too strong to resist.

Because it was the only store in Blewer that specialized in photographic equipment, the inventory was extensive and pricey. The array of gadgets and accessories was mind-boggling. She longed to test the cameras locked inside the glass display cases, but knew they were priced well beyond her budget. Until she was earning some money with her photographs, she must be content with her outdated equipment.

Her only purchase was a few rolls of black-and-white film and a recently published book on technique.

"...have to send that film off to be developed," said the man attending the cash register. She hadn't caught his first words. "Can't get black-and-white film developed anywhere in Blewer any longer."

She nodded.

"I don't believe I've seen you in here before. I know most of my customers." She motioned David over and signed for him to explain to the man that she was deaf. When he did, the man wasn't embarrassed or put off as people frequently were. He didn't look askance and stammer an apology. Instead his face lit up around a broad smile.

"What's your name? You aren't by any chance Anna Corbett?"

Flabbergasted, she smiled and reached across the counter to shake his hand.

"Pete Nolen," he said, grinning from jug ear to jug ear while he pumped her hand. "I'll be switched, if this doesn't beat all. Wait'll the wife hears. Always wanted to meet you and thought I'd never get the chance. Come over here."

Rounding the counter, he guided her toward a wall where dozens of framed photographs were on display.

"Here you go! Right there!" He tapped a black-and-white enlargement of a photo Anna immediately recognized as one of her early works.

Making certain she could see his lips, he explained. "A year or so ago I was trying to sell some new equipment to the photography department up at the junior college. Spotted this hanging on the wall and thought it was excellent. I asked the professor if he knew the photographer, and he told me about you. About you being deaf and all? He said it was a shame you quit school, 'cause you had more talent in your little finger than most of his students could ever hope to have. It took some persuading, but I came away with this picture."

He gazed at the photo with obvious appreciation. The subject of it was an old house. It stood in silhouette against the overexposed western sky at sunset. It could have looked foreboding, except that light shone through every window and projected soft pools of it onto the front porch.

"It just says 'home' to me, 'cause I grew up in a farmhouse that looked about like that one. It's been on this wall ever since I got it. People respond to it. Relate, you know? It gets a lot of comment. I could've sold it a hundred times over, but it's my only Anna Corbett, so I wouldn't part with it. You ought to do more work."

She lifted the sack containing her purchases and shook it slightly.

He caught her meaning and grinned even wider. "Good! I'd like to see 'em when you shoot 'em." He plucked a business card from his wallet. "Number's right there. Here and home. You need anything in the way of supplies, call me. Or if you just want to talk photography, I never tire of the subject. Can't tell you how pleased I am to finally meet you, Mrs. Corbett."

***

Emory Lomax belched into his white paper napkin, wadded it up, and tossed it down onto the bone pile that had formerly been a slab of baby back ribs. "Was I lying about the food? This boy knows ribs, doesn't he?"

There were three of them, Connaught and two vice-presidents, sharing the booth with Emory. Connaught and one of the flunkies sat facing Lomax, while the third shared his bench. So uptight they squeaked when they walked, they murmured agreement that it was indeed superb barbecue. Playing his role of host to the hilt, he signaled the waitress and ordered another round of longnecks. Usually he didn't drink anything stronger than iced tea at lunch, but this was a special occasion. Beer wasn't a very sophisticated beverage. Not like the martinis and single malts they were probably accustomed to. But beer went with barbecue, and he had brought the suits to the best barbecue shack in East Texas.

They had flown up from Houston in a sleek company jet that looked like something the villain of a James Bond movie would use to flit around Europe. Emory picked them up at the Blewer County Municipal Airport, which was a clearing in the middle of what was, essentially, a cow pasture without the cows. It was nothing more than a buckled runway, a rusty tin hangar, and a cramped office with a couple of fuel pumps out front.

"This is one of the first things we'll need to revamp," Emory remarked as he escorted them to his car, his pride-and-joy Jag. "As soon as Phase One gets underway, I see us modernizing this airport for the weekenders flying in. What do you say?"