Temple walked from behind Jamie's chair and put one hand on Jamie's shoulder, her fingers stroking the tattoo of a winged dragon.
'Let's talk about long-sleeve blouses, kiddo. What do you wear, like a medium or a ten?' she said.
After Jamie and Virgil had gone, Lucas sat down in front of my desk.
'It's my dad. He don't usually drink. But last night he sat out on the windmill tank and drunk durn near a pint of whiskey,' he said.
'This has been hard on him,' I said.
'That ain't it.' He turned around and looked at Temple.
'Go ahead. It won't leave this office,' I said.
'He wouldn't come in. He slept out there on the ground. This morning he showered and ate some aspirins and I fixed him some breakfast, and he sat there eating it like it was cardboard.'
I waited. Lucas pulled at his shirtsleeve and snuffed down in his nose, as though the room were too cold.
'He was talking about getting even with Vanzandt. I go, 'You mean Darl, 'cause of what he done at the country club?'
'He says, 'Darl does them things 'cause his father lets him. His father gets away with it 'cause he's rich. That's the way this county works.'
'I said, 'It's Darl. There's something wrong with him. It ain't his daddy's fault.'
'He goes, 'You're a good boy, son. You make me proud. Jack Vanzandt's fixing to have his day.'
'My father ain't ever talked like that before, Mr Holland.
His pistol, the one he brung home from the army, I looked and it ain't in his drawer.'
'I don't think your dad would kill anyone, Lucas.'
He looked around behind him again.
'You want me to leave?' Temple said.
I raised my hand. 'Go ahead, Lucas,' I said.
'He done it in the war. A lieutenant kept getting people killed. My dad threw a grenade in his tent.'
'Where is your dad now?'
'Getting a haircut down the street.'
I winked at him.
But my confidence was cosmetic. Neither I nor anyone I knew in Deaf Smith had any influence over Vernon Smothers. He believed intransigence was a virtue, a laconic and mean-spirited demeanor was strength, reason was the tool the rich used to keep the poor satisfied with their lot, and education amounted to reading books full of lies written by history's victors.
I was almost relieved when I asked in the barbershop and was told Vernon had already gone. Then the barber added, 'Right next door in the beer joint. Tell him to stay there, too, will you?'
The inside of the tavern was dark and cool, filled with the sounds of midday pool shooters, and at the end of the long wood bar Vernon Smothers sat hunched over a plate, peeling a hardboiled egg, a cup of coffee by his wrist.
I had rather seen him drunk. Under the brim of a white straw hat, his face had the deceptive serenity of a man who was probably threading his way in and out of a nervous breakdown, his eyes predisposed and resolute with private conclusions that no one would alter.
I waved the bartender away and remained standing.
'We found a couple of witnesses, Vernon. I think Lucas is going to walk.'
'You want an egg?'
'Jack Vanzandt doesn't have any power in that courtroom.'
'The hell he don't.'
'You won't trust me?'
'I trusted the people sent me to Vietnam. I come home on a troop ship under the Golden Gate. People up on the bridge dropped Baggies full of shit on us.'
'To tell you the truth, Vernon, I don't think you'd have had it any other way,' I said, and walked back down the polished length of the bar into the sunlight.
It was a cheap remark to make, one that I would regret.
I crossed the street to the courthouse and opened Marvin Pomroy's office door. He was talking to his secretary.
'Got time for some early disclosure?' I asked.
'No more deals. You've got all the slack you're getting,' he said.
'I'm filing a motion to dismiss.'
'I've got to hear this. I haven't had a laugh all day,' he replied.
I followed him into the inner office.
'I've got two witnesses who saw Lucas passed out at the murder scene when Roseanne Hazlitt was still alive,' I said.
'Winos?'
'A Mexican biker from San Antone who just passed a polygraph, and a gal who puts me in mind of a chainsaw going across a knee joint. By the way, I wonder what percentage of our jury is going to be Hispanic?'
Marvin leaned back in his swivel chair and pulled at his red suspenders with his thumbs.
'You feeling pretty good about yourself, huh?' he said.
'It's reasonable doubt. A kid who's so drunk three people can't wake him up doesn't suddenly revive himself and rape and beat someone to death.'
'Who says?' But he was looking into space now, and the conviction had dissipated in his voice.
'Why not cut your losses?' I asked.
'Because 'the people' are the advocate of the victim, Billy Bob, in this case a dead girl who doesn't have a voice. I represent them and her. I don't cut my losses.'
'Lucas Smothers is a victim, too.'
'No he's your son. And that's been the problem since the get-go. He lied through his teeth about how well he knew her. What makes you think he's telling the truth now? Go look again at the morgue pictures. You think she did that to herself?' Then his face colored and he rubbed a finger in the middle of his forehead.
'You're going to lose,' I said.
'So? For me it's a way of life. Say, what kind of rap sheet does your Mexican biker have? Or does he just use his hog to go to and from Mass?'
Pete and two of his friends had come over to ride Beau that evening. I saw the three of them, mounted in a row on his back, turn Beau up the embankment on the rim of the tank, then disappear through the pasture where it sloped down toward the river. A half hour later I heard Beau's hooves by the windmill, then on the wood floor of the barn. I walked out into the yard.
'Y'all didn't want to stay out longer?' I asked.
'There's a man fishing by that sunk car. He's standing in the water in a suit,' Pete said.
A boy and girl Pete's age sat behind him on Beau's spine. They both kept looking back over their shoulders, through the open doors behind them.
'What color hair does he have, bud?' I asked.
Pete pulled his leg over Beau's withers and dropped to the ground and walked toward me, his expression hidden from the others. He kept walking until we were on the grass in the yard, out of earshot of his friends.
'It's red. We was letting Beau drink. Juanita was up on the bank, pulling flowers. This man standing in the water says, 'That your girlfriend?' I say, 'I ain't got no girlfriend.'
'He says, 'She's a right trim little thing. You don't get it first, somebody else will.'
'I said I didn't know what he meant and I didn't want to, either. I told him I was going back to my house. He says, 'Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher.'
'It was the look on his face. He kept watching Juanita. I ain't never seen a grown person look at a kid like that.'
I put my hand on the back of Pete's head.
'Y'all go inside and fix yourself some peach ice cream,' I said.
