“No, call me Deenie. It’s okay.”
“Deenie, then. You know that Mrs. Knott in human resources is my sister-in-law, right?”
“She is? No, ma’am, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, she is. And she tells me you’re one of her best workers.”
“I am,” she said, pride in her voice. “You could eat off’n my floors.”
“She also told me that Martha Hurst was once a good friend to you back before she went to prison.”
“Yes.” Her eyes met mine with less frequency.
“She’s going to die for something she didn’t do, Deenie, unless you speak up to help her.”
Silence. Her shoulders hunched in on themselves more than ever.
“I know she didn’t kill Roy, Deenie, and you do, too.”
“You do?” Her head was down but she didn’t sound belligerent, only curious.
“I do. But I can’t prove it. You can, though, can’t you? Roy was your boyfriend. You were seeing him. You saw him after that Sunday, didn’t you?”
“No, ma’am!” Her head came up and her eyes met mine. “No, ma’am, I didn’t. Honest.”
“But you know who did, don’t you?”
Her head went down again.
I waited quietly and she shifted uneasily in her chair.
At last she said, “I’m not saying I know anything about how Roy got hisself killed, but if I
“For telling the truth and saving Martha’s life? Oh, no, Deenie. Nothing like that would happen. Not if you didn’t have anything to do with Roy’s death. Did you?”
She shook her head vigorously and her hair swung back and forth like a curtain in front of her lowered face.
Again I waited quietly until she couldn’t bear the silence any longer.
“You gotta promise he won’t hurt me.”
“He who, Deenie?”
“I don’t know why he had to go and get so mad about it. I was growed. I was sixteen. Already working here. Mom won’t but fourteen when I was born. He ain’t my real daddy anyhow.”
“Who?” I asked again.
“Pa. He’s the one killed Roy ’cause Roy got me pregnant and won’t going to marry me like he promised. He come home that night with blood all over his shirt. On the front of his pants. On his shoes. He throwed the shirt away and made Mom wash his pants. She liked to never got all the blood out of ’em. He said I’d brought shame on him and Mom, and after they went to bed, I sneaked out and got the shirt out of the garbage bag. I thought I was going to keep the baby and I thought that would be all he’d ever have of his daddy. His daddy’s blood. But then later, everybody said so much, and with Martha and all? So I got the doctor to take it.”
“What night did this happen, Deenie?”
“It was a Monday. Pa’d worked late and was coming home and he seen Roy’s car and followed him out to Martha’s trailer. I think he just walked in behind him, grabbed up one of Martha’s bats, and never even gave him a chance to talk. He said he smashed his privates to mashed potatoes so he couldn’t never do to another girl what he done to me. And he said he’d do the same to Mom and me if we told anybody. Well, Mom’s dead now and he’s took up with another woman and I ain’t seen him in I reckon two years. Good riddance, I say.”
Even after all her emotional outpouring, it still took me several minutes to convince Deenie to come with me to the sheriff’s department. “No charges will be filed against you,” I said. “You’ll even be a hero for getting Martha out of prison.”
A split second after she agreed, Dwight called.
“You ready to go home?”
“I’m at the hospital,” I told him.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Nobody’s hurt, but see if you can find Kayra and Nolan and tell them to meet us in your office. His mother was right. Martha Hurst didn’t kill her stepson.”
“I can’t go now,” said Deenie when I ended the call. “My shift’s not over.”
“That’s okay, Mrs. Knott will make it right with your supervisor.”
“Well, let me go get my coat and pocketbook out of my locker.”
We went out into the hallway and I told her I’d meet her in the front lobby as soon as I found Amy and the children.
As we parted at the elevator, she hesitated. “Should I bring the shirt?”
“Shirt?”
“Pa’s shirt with the blood. Should I bring it?”
