'You mean when she said Roseanne thought it was me made her pregnant?'
'Yeah, that's part of it.'
'But the autopsy showed she wasn't pregnant,' he said.
'The jury just heard a story about a homicide victim who was sexually involved with only one individual-you. Five members of that jury are over sixty years old. Older people tend to listen to other older people. Are you with me?'
He set down the taco he was eating. The glare through the slats in the blinds made his eyes water. 'I ain't sure. I mean, if she wasn't pregnant-'
'It is also easier for the jury to identify with the victim when they believe the victim to be an innocent person, totally undeserving of such a brutal end,' I said. 'Then the jury gets mad and wants to bash the betrayer, the sexual exploiter, the predator in our midst. Marvin Pomroy is going to talk about Roseanne's innocence and your guilt, her vulnerability… her trusting attitude… and your depravity.'
Lucas nodded his head as though he understood. But his eyes were as clear as glass, and he had no comprehension of what a good prosecutor like Marvin Pomroy could do to him.
'We need to show the jury the videotape of Roseanne smoking a joint and taking off her clothes. They'll also see the kind of kids she hung around with,' I said.
He pushed his plate away with the heel of his hand, his eyes blinking.
'The tape simply shows the world she lived in, Lucas,' Temple said. 'Dope and booze and getting it on with lots of guys. We're not knocking her. That's just the way it was.'
'She might have done all them things you say, but that don't mean she wasn't a good girl,' he said.
'That's true. But somebody else killed her, Lucas. Maybe his face is on that tape,' I said.
His right hand was clenched on the back of his left wrist. His throat was splotched with color.
'I ain't going along with this,' he said.
'Excuse me?' I said.
'I was sleeping with Roseanne and told you I didn't hardly know her. That makes me a liar and a coward. I ain't gonna get myself off by seeing her tore down in front of all them people.'
'You really want to go to prison? Is that what you're telling me?' I said.
'Maybe I deserve to be there.'
'What?' I said.
'You say Darl doped me. Maybe I was just drunk. I'll never know the truth about what I done that night.'
He was bent over in the chair, his head hung forward. The glare through the blinds made strips of light on his back.
'Lucas, we need to clear something up here. There's only one person in this room running your defense,' Temple said.
But I motioned at her with two fingers. She looked at me with a puzzled expression, then chewed on the corner of her lip and stared silently out the window.
That evening I took off my shirt and hung it on a fence rail and raked out the chicken run and horse lot and dumped a load of manure and decayed straw in the compost pile, then filled a bucket with water from the windmill pipe and began digging a line of postholes so I could reset the rail fence and enlarge the lot for Beau. It was a lovely evening. The sun had dipped below the hills, its last rays breaking into pink wagon spokes against the sky. The wind was blowing in the trees and I could smell wildflowers in the fields and bream spawning under the lily pads out in the tank. I almost didn't hear Brian Wilcox's car crunching up my drive.
He got out of the car and walked through both sets of barn doors into the lot. Behind him, I could see the Mexican drug agent, Felix Ringo, sitting in the passenger seat of the car, the window down to catch the breeze, his tropical hat on the back of his head.
Wilcox's mouth was painted with an ironic smile.
'You hang a revolver on a fence post while you work?' he said.
'Some guys blindsided me out here one night. I hate repeat situations,' I said.
'You know what quid pro quo is, right, one thing for another?… I'm doing you a big one, Holland, but I want something in return.'
'Go fuck yourself.'
'That's kind of what I expected from you, but here it is, anyway. Mary Beth is coming back to give you the testimony you need, but you'd better not drag your shit into our investigation again.'
'Meaning?'
'Our sun-darkened friend out there in the car is a valuable man. He doesn't get compromised.'
I pulled the handles of the posthole digger out of the hole and knocked the dirt free from the blades, then tipped more water from the bucket into the hole.
'Nothing to say?' Wilcox asked.
'Yeah, that guy was at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning. Their graduates have a funny way of showing up in death squads and torture chambers.'
'So maybe I don't like putting my fingers in bean dip. But the object is to make the case, right? All you've got to worry about is leaving us out of your trial.'
Behind him, I saw Felix Ringo get out of the car and walk toward us.
'When's Mary Beth coming?' I asked.
'I thought I'd get your attention this time… Tonight, probably.'
'I don't think you arranged this at all. I think she's coming on her own.'
He pinched a breath mint out of roll and slipped it in his mouth.
'You're quite a guy,' he said.
Temple Carrol's car came up the drive and pulled around Wilcox's, disappeared beyond the side of the barn, then stopped by the windmill.
Felix Ringo walked up to Wilcox, ignoring me. He smoked a cigarette in a gold holder without removing it from his lips. 'You finished talking here? I got to shower and meet a lady for dinner,' he said.
I heard Beau's hooves thudding behind me. I turned and saw him spooking back against the fence rails, walleyed, his head tossing.
I stared at Felix Ringo. 'He knows you,' I said.
Ringo curved his fingertips into his sternum.
'Your horse knows me?' he said, his mustache winking.
'Beau never forgets children or a bad person. You've been here before, haven't you?' I said.
'I been here before? The horse knows I'm a bad guy or something, 'cause he's got this kind of computer memory?' Ringo's fingers gestured impotently in the air.
'You were one of the guys who attacked me. I thought the guy had a gold tooth. But it was your gold cigarette holder I saw.'
Ringo removed his tropical hat, with the green plastic window in the brim, and wiped out the inside with a handkerchief.
'I'll be in the car,' he said to Wilcox. 'This guy here, he's got a disease in his thinking, like clap or something. I don't want to be hearing it no more.'
He walked back through the open barn doors, the wind billowing his loosely buttoned shirt. The butt of a black automatic was pushed down in the back of his trousers.
'You got the wrong man. Felix works for us,' Wilcox said.
'That's the problem,' I said.
I thudded the blades of the posthole digger into the hole and expanded the handles and turned them in a circle, the grain of the wood twisting against my calluses. I could feel the sweat in my eyebrows, my heart beating in my chest.
Brian Wilcox continued to stare at me, his mouth still painted with that ironic smile.
'So maybe this is the last time I see you,' Wilcox said.
He's going to do it, I thought.
I lifted the posthole digger free and rinsed the blades in the bucket of water. The wind popped in my ears, as though it were filled with distant pistol reports. I opened and closed my mouth and pressed with one thumb under my right ear.
