you one more time. Did you see Tommy Miller that night?”
Holmes looks nervously over his shoulder into the trailer.
“Let’s talk out in the yard,” he says, and he closes the door and starts down the steps. We walk over to my truck, about thirty feet away.
“I might have seen him,” Holmes says, “but I can’t be getting involved in no murder.”
“Please. His life could depend on it.”
“I could lose my job.”
“Why would you lose your job for telling the truth?”
“I need my job, man. It don’t pay shit, but it’s all I got, and I have to take care of that baby in there.”
“I’m a lawyer, Mr. Holmes, and I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help you keep your job. If you get fired because of this, I’ll give you a job. You can work out at my place. I have ten acres, and there’s always something that needs to be done. And I’ll pay you more than you’re making at the convenience store.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “No joke? You swear on your life?”
“I give you my word.”
“Okay,” he says. “I don’t want to see nobody get hung for a murder if he didn’t do it. Your boy showed up at the store about eleven o’clock that night. Business was slow as hell, so I was taking a bag of trash out to the Dumpster. I’m walking back around the building, and I see this little white Civic pull in, but it stops about three, four feet from the pump. I’m wondering whether the hose will even reach that far. Then your boy gets out, and he’s wobbling all over the damned place. I see plenty of drunks during my shift, but this dude was really shit-faced. I walk on back into the store and turn the pump on, and I’m telling myself that he ain’t gonna be able to pump no gas. So I’m standing there watching him, laughing, you know? He gets the nozzle off the pump, but it takes him a while to figure out which grade he wants. He finally pushes the button and staggers over to the car. He opens the lid where the gas cap is, but then he loses his balance and starts backing up like a crab. He runs into the pump and gets his balance back. About this time, I decide I’d better go on out there and help him. So I’m coming out the door, when I see him start pumping gas. But he forgot to take the damned gas cap off, so gas goes flying all over the place. By the time I get to him, he’s freaking soaked. I’m afraid he’s gonna blow the whole damned place up. I get the nozzle away from him and lean him up against the side of the car. He’s so drunk he can barely talk. I ask him if he has any money, and he can’t even answer me. So I pull his wallet out of his back pocket. He’s got about fifty dollars, so I fill his car up. Twenty-five dollars’ worth. I take the money out of his wallet and stick it back in his pocket. By this time, he’s leaned over the hood and passed out. So I open the back door and wrestle him into the backseat, and I’ll tell you something-it wasn’t no easy task. He’s a pretty big dude. Then I park his car next to the building, take his keys, and leave him out there to sleep it off. I check on him every hour or so to make sure he ain’t choking in his own puke or something. Along about four in the morning, I see him stirring in the backseat. I figure he’s sober enough to drive by that time, so I take the keys out and put them in the ignition.”
“So he left around four?”
“Nah, he didn’t leave until after five. My relief, this dude named Oscar, came in at five. I shot the shit with Oscar for ten, fifteen minutes before I left. I saw your boy pull out of the parking lot as I was walking out to my piece-of-crap car.”
“You’re sure it was after five when he left?”
“Yeah. Positive.”
I want to pick him up in a bear hug and kiss him. Tommy has been telling the truth all along, and this proves it. But I know better than to get too excited. The TBI isn’t going to let Tommy go based on the word of a convenience store attendant. They have a signed confession in hand.
“Why didn’t you tell this to the TBI agent when he came out here?” I say.
“He didn’t say nothing about the boy facing no murder charge,” Holmes says, “and I didn’t want him coming back to the store and snooping around.”
“Why not?”
“You remember that twenty-five dollars I took out of his wallet to pay for the gas?”
“Yeah.”
“It didn’t exactly make it all the way to the cash register.”
49
The next night, I walk into the Chop House in Kings-port and look around. Her car is in the parking lot, but I don’t see her. I walk through the tables quickly. She isn’t there. When I get back to the lobby, I look into the bar. She’s sitting at a small table in a darkened area of the room. I walk in and sit down across from her. She smiles seductively.
“Damn, you look good in those jeans,” she says.
“Thanks. You look pretty hot yourself.”
She’s wearing a bloodred dress that matches her hair. The neckline dives so deeply that it reveals all but the bottom portion of her large breasts. She’s leaning forward on the table, which makes matters even worse. Or better, depending upon one’s point of view. She’s rubbed cream on her skin, and it shimmers in the candlelight. Her face looks as though it’s been made up by a professional. Her lips are full, her cheeks high, her jaw strong and angular.
Rita Jones, the receptionist at the DA’s office, is one of the sexiest women I’ve ever known. I’ve asked her to do me a favor-a huge favor-and she’s agreed, but with Rita, there’s always a price. Tonight, the price is dinner. She’ll do her best to seduce me, but both of us know it isn’t going to happen. She’s been trying to seduce me for fifteen years, since the very first time I met her. It’s become more of a joke these days than anything, but I’ve been around her long enough to know that if I drop my guard for a second, she’ll have me out of my clothes and into her bed before I’ve realized what’s happened.
“Did you tell your wife where you were going?” she says coyly.
“No. I value my marriage.”
“But isn’t that deceptive?”
“I’d rather think of it as prudent.”
“Are you going to get drunk with me?”
“Not likely.”
“Aren’t you at least going to have a drink?”
A waiter stops by the table and drops off two menus. I order a vodka martini, as much to quiet my nerves as anything else. I’m worried that someone will see me here with Rita and tell Caroline. I’m worried that someone from the office might walk in. I would have never picked this spot to meet, but she insisted.
“This is wonderful,” Rita says. “My favorite restaurant and my favorite man.”
“I’m glad you’re having a good time. Were you able to do what I asked?”
“Of course.”
“Where is it?”
“Not until we’re finished.”
I spend an hour eating and talking with Rita. She regales me with stories of her many conquests and bemoans the fact that she can’t stand the man she’s dating now, a personal injury lawyer named Steve Willis. When I ask her why she’s with him, she gives me an answer that’s pure Rita: “He’s loaded, and he’s hung like a horse.”
She’s funny, down-to-earth, and beautiful, but as she starts on her fourth glass of wine, her eyes begin to glaze over and her speech becomes slurred. The change is sudden, and it isn’t attractive.
“So whaddaya gonna do with this stuff?” she asks.
“What stuff do you mean?” I’m wondering whether there’s a sexual connotation to what she’s saying. There usually is.
“This stuff I brought you.”
“I’m sorry, Rita. I can’t tell you.”
“Well, I hope you nail his hide to the side of the barn with it. He’s a fucking pervert, you know.”
