thought, and almost instantly corrected himself: She's younger than I am. Years had been beaten into her, aging her far more swiftly than the passing of time.
He motioned toward one of the uniformed officers hanging in the rear of the trailer, behind a kitchen partition.
'Fred,' he said quietly, 'got a cigarette for Missus Collins?'
The officer stepped forward, offering the woman his pack. She reached out while mumbling, 'I'm trying to quit.'
Brown leaned across and lit the cigarette for her. 'Now, Missus Collins, take it slowly and tell me what happened when Buck came here after the late shift.'
There came a popping sound from outside and a small explosion of light. Dammit, he thought, as he saw the woman's eyes go panicky.
'It's just a police photographer, ma'am. Now, how about a glass of water?'
'I could use something stronger,' she replied, hands shaking as she lifted the cigarette to her lips and took a long drag, which ended in a brief spasm of coughing.
'A glass of water, Fred.' As the man brought the drink, Brown heard voices outside. He rose abruptly. 'Ma'am, you just get ahold of yourself. I'll be right back.'
'You ain't gonna leave me?' She seemed abruptly terrified.
'No, just got to check on the work outside. Fred, you stay here.'
He wished Wilcox were with him as he looked down at the woman's eyes fluttering about the room, on the verge of breaking down and wailing again. His partner would know instinctively how to reassure her. Bruce had a way with the poor fringe folks that they were forever dealing with, especially the white ones. They were his people. He had grown up in a world not too far removed from this one. He knew beatings, cruelty, and the acid taste of trailer-park hopes. He could sit across from a woman like this and hold her hand and have her spilling the entire incident out within seconds. Tanny Brown sighed, feeling awkward and out of place. He did not want to be there, trapped amidst the silver bullet-like shapes of the airstreams.
He stepped from the trailer and watched as the police photographer angled about, looking for another shot of a dark shape sprawled on the thin grass and packed dirt outside the trailer. Several other policemen were measuring the location. A few others were holding back the other inhabitants of the trailer park, who craned forward with curiosity, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman's late and estranged husband. Brown walked over and stared down at the face of the man on the ground. His eyes were open, fixed in a grotesque mask that mingled surprise and death, staring at the night sky. A huge splotch of blood remained where his chest should have been. The blood had settled in a halo about his head and shoulders. On the ground, where the impact from the shotgun blast had tossed them, were a half-empty bottle of scotch and a cheap handgun. A couple of crime-scene men laughed, and he turned toward them.
'A joke?'
'Quickie divorce proceedings,' said one man, bending over and bagging the bottle of scotch. 'Better than Tijuana or Vegas.'
'Guess old Buck here figured he could wallop his woman whether they were married or not. Turns out he was wrong,' another technician whispered. There was another small burst of laughter.
'Hey,' Brown said brusquely. 'You guys got opinions, keep ' em down. At least until we clear the location.'
'Sure,' said the photographer as he popped another picture. 'Wouldn't want to hurt the guy's feelings.'
Brown bit back a smile of his own, a look which the other policemen caught. He waved at the men working the body in mock disgust, and that made them grin, as they continued to move about the scene.
He'd seen plenty of death: car wrecks, murder victims, men shot in war, heart attacks, and hunting accidents.
Tanny Brown remembered his aged grandmother laid out in an open casket, her dark skin stretched brittle, like the crust of an overdone bird, her hands folded neatly on her chest as if in prayer. The church had seemed a great, hollow place filled with weeping. He recalled the tightness in his throat caused by the starched white collar of his new and only dress shirt. He had been no more than six and what he remembered most was the sturdy sensation of his father's hand on his shoulder, part direction, part reassurance, guiding him past the casket. Whispered words: 'Say goodbye to Granmaw, quick now, child, she's on her way to a better place and movin' fast now, so say it fast while she can still hear you.'
He smiled. For years he had thought the dead could hear you, as if they were only napping. He wondered at how powerful a father's words can be. He remembered being overseas and zipping the bodies of men he'd known equally briefly and intimately into black rubber bags. At first he would always try to say something, some words of comfort, as if to steady their trip to death. But as the numbers grew and his frustration and exhaustion spiraled, he took to simply thinking a few phrases and finally, when his own tour dwindled to weeks and days, he gave up even that, performing his job with bitter silence.
He looked down at his watch. Midnight. They're walking into the room. He pictured the nervous sweat on the lip of the warden, the ashen faces of the official witnesses, a slight hesitation, then the hurried motions of the escort party as they pulled the straps tight around Sullivan's wrists and ankles.
He waited one minute.
First jolt now, he thought.
One more minute.
Second jolt.
He imagined the doctor approaching the body. He would bend down with his stethoscope, listening for the heart. Then he would raise his head and say, 'The man is dead,' and glance down at his own watch. The warden would step forward and face the official observers and he, too, would speak by ritual. 'The judgment and sentence of the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of the State of Florida has been carried out according to law. Now God rest his soul.'
He shook his head. No rest for that soul, he thought.
And none for mine, either.
He walked back into the trailer. The woman had quieted completely.
'Now, Missus Collins, you want to tell me what happened? You want to wait for your attorney? Or you want to talk now, get this straightened out?'
The woman's voice was barely more than a whimper. He called me, you know, from that damn Sportman's Club, where he went after getting off work at the plant. Said he weren't gonna let me do this to him. Said he was gonna take care of me without no judge and divorce lawyers, no-sir.'
'Did he tell you he had a weapon?'
'Yes, sir, Mr. Brown, he did. Said he had his brother's gun and he was damn straight gonna use it this time on me.'
'This time?'
'He came over on Sunday, not so drunk that he was falling down, but plenty liquored up, and shot out the lights outside. Laughing and calling me names. Then he started to whale on me, yessir. My biggest, he's only eleven, got his arm busted trying to pull him off. I thought he'd kill us all. I was so scared; that's why I sent the kids off'n to their cuzzin's. Put all three of 'em on the bus this morning.'
The woman picked up a small fake-leather photo album from a side table. She opened it up and thrust it across at Tanny Brown. He saw three well-scrubbed faces, school pictures.
'They're good kids,' she said. 'I'm glad they weren't here for this.'
He nodded. 'Why didn't you call the police on Sunday?'
'Wouldn't do no good. I even had a judge's order telling him to stay away, but it didn't do no good. Nothing did no good when he'd been drinking. Except maybe that shotgun.'
Her upper lip started to quiver and tears began to well up again in the corners of her eyes.
'Oh, Jesus, sweet Jesus,' she whimpered.
'The shotgun? Where'd you get the shotgun?'
