“Startin to,” Boyd said.
“But didn’t hit the trailer you’re standin in front of. Where you suppose his shot went?”
“I don’t know,” Boyd said. “We both shootin at each other… I try to see what happened now, man, it’s all gunfire…”
“You know what I think?” Raylan said to Boyd sitting straight in his chair. “The old man died with a loaded gun. He didn’t get off a shot. Carol told you to fire the shotgun and you fired up in the air or off somewhere in the dark. But not at the trailer.”
“We didn’t stop to wonder,” Carol said, “why Otis didn’t kill us. I close my eyes and I see him hurrying, he must’ve been afraid, but now he couldn’t back down. He began firing…” She paused and said, “There’s no possible way you can link Boyd to the old man’s death, other than obvious self-defense. The man fired a gun at us and somehow he missed, didn’t he?”
Raylan said, “That’s what you told the sheriff’s people and they took your word for it.”
“I think it’s obvious,” Carol said, “the old guy didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Except old boys I’ve talked to, hunted with Otis, said he don’t miss with his shotgun.”
“Well, he did that night,” Carol said and told him, “No one’s perfect, Raylan. Not you or Otis or his buddies. Otis is in heaven, with his old pals from the deep mines. Coal miners get old and die from being coal miners.”
“But while they’re alive,” Raylan said, “they have a right to be alive.”
T he only conversation in the elevator was Boyd saying, “The man won’t let go of it, will he?”
They were out of the building, crossing to the parking lot before Carol spoke. “There’s simply no way he can prove you shot Otis.”
Boyd said, “ I didn’t shoot Otis. You did.”
She said, “What’s the difference? You’re standing there watching.”
Boyd paid for parking and got behind the wheel, surprised to see Carol in back. Coming here she’d sat next to him, less she was reaming somebody out as Miss Company, but never raising her voice. Sg hdth='1em' he still hadn’t given him nothin to do in his new job, head of Disagreements.
Boyd said, “You afraid I caught leprosy from bein in the marshals’ office?”
“I’m trying to recall,” Carol said, “when I told you to empty the shotgun, where you fired.”
“In the air. You saw me. I didn’t hear you tell me to hit the trailer.”
She couldn’t deny it. After a few moments she said, “I’m not going to any more interrogations. You know we were being recorded? No, you didn’t. They have all your stammering. You can act surprised and stammer a little, but only when you know what you’re going to say.”
“You happen to notice,” Boyd said, “I put the spent shells by Otis, for realism?”
Boyd saw her smile in the mirror. He believed she liked his carefree attitude, long as he didn’t take it too far. She was almost a nice person when things pleased her. When they didn’t, he’d see her gettin pissed off at him for some picayune thing and come near firing him. He didn’t think she’d try to blame Otis on him, knowing he’d turn around and drag her in. She’d be busy in court instead of doin her regular job, makin people’s lives miserable.
What he needed was a threat to hang over her head. Keep her from doing something nasty to him.
Boyd was wondering, Could he get Raylan to side with him without snitchin on Carol? Remind him of walking picket lines together, seein eye to eye when it came to coal companies fuckin over miners? Say to Raylan it was getting hard to work for Carol. Hell, it was like working for Duke Power again. Remember those days we stood up together? Say this working for Carol was tearing him apart.
Something along those lines.
He started the car and said to the mirror, “Where we goin?”
“The office,” Carol said. “You’re on your own the rest of the day, unless I need you.”
“So I should wait in the car.”
“You can’t help being a smart-ass, can you?” Now she told him, “What I’ve wanted to do all week is get Otis’s widow off my back, Marion Culpepper. Since you’re head of Disagreements you have her sign our agreement, where we pay her five hundred a month. Tell her we’ll get her Social Security bumped up and give her the deed to her new trailer home in Benham. Even has a hot water tank.”
“I have to go all the way down to Harlan?”
“She’s here in Lexington, in a nursing home we’re paying for. So we don’t have to drive to Sleepy Holler. Get her to sign and tell her I’ll stop by tomorrow, say a few kind words and wrap it up.”
Boyd said, “Like ‘I’m sorry I killed your hubby’?”
“You want me to fire you? Say that again.”
They stared at each other, Boyd coming close to saying it. Or tell her she can’t fire you, you quit. What he said was, “You know you ended a sentence with a preposition? You said, ‘She’s here in a nursing home we’re payin for.’ ”
“Caught being ungrammatical.” Carol staring at his serious face. “How should I have said it?”
“She’s here in a nursing home,” Boyd said, “for which we’re payin the costs.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Nichols got hold of Raylan and they responded to the scene in horse country: thoroughbreds grazing the pastures while the bodies of two girls shot to death lay in a thicket of trees.
“A guy driving past,” Nichols said, “saw crows swarming into the trees. He knew something was dead, stopped to look and got in touch with police. They had it posted: look for Kim and Cassie, who’d skipped when we went to pick ’em up. That fast, while Jane’s safe in custody.”
They were looking at the bodies now-cops standing around-looking at clothes torn from parts of their bodies and their faces pecked to the bone by a murder of crows. “They still have their teeth,” Nichols said, “but no eyes. You notice? I bet they were dark. No ID on either one.”
An evidence tech watching them said, “We’re lucky we got here before the coyotes. Be nothing left but bones.”
Raylan stooped over one of the girls and the evidence tech told him not to touch their clothes. “That blood can give you HIV positive, you get it on you.” Raylan picked up the girl’s hand, a phone number in black marker witten on the palm, before it was smudged with blood.
He said to Nichols, “She did have your phone number.”
“She hung up on us,” Nichols said. “I’m surprised she wrote it down.”
“But no second thoughts about calling you,” Raylan said. “She had, she might still be alive.” He stood up and thanked the con='judth='1em' ps standing around for securing the scene and told them the two girls were Kim and Cassie. “I don’t know their last names. You might have them on file for prostitution. I believe they were exotic dancers before they became bank robbers. I thank you for helping us out.”
One of the officers said, “Detectives are coming out from downtown. You guys beat ’em to it. You want to wait and talk to the guys? They’ll be working this one.”
“I think we ought to pick up the shooter, you understand, before he knows we’re on to him?”
The cop said, “You know who it is?”
Raylan said, “Yes, we do,” and told them, “Delroy Lewis.”
The cop said, “You can’t identify the bodies, but you know who they are and who killed them.”
“We’ve got another one of his bank robber girls. She told us about him,” Raylan said. “Thanks, fellas, I’ll be in touch,” and walked away with Nichols.
“What if it isn’t Delroy,” Nichols said, “but some other mutt?”
“It’s Delroy,” Raylan said. “I can see him running a gang of girl bank robbers. Making money, maybe surprised it works. Surprises everybody.”
“What’s his buddy say-he happens to have one-‘The girls go down, you go with them’?”
“Delroy says, ‘What girls? I don’t have no girls. Man, I stay far afield. Maybe get the girls a limo for the bank job.’ ”
“He’s showin off.”
“Showin how cool he is. That’s the guy. A limo, everybody knows is his. He takes a few risks,” Raylan said,
