Warily, Red drawled, “Yeah, I did. And I wasn’t impressed and I never went back. It’s not like he changed in prison into a saint, ’cause believe me, he didn’t. I’m just sayin’ it wasn’t right what they did, even if they thought they were doin’ it for the right reasons.”
“‘They’ being my family?”
“They being everybody but me, I guess.”
“You and Collin, apparently.”
He blinked, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“What do you mean he didn’t change into a saint in prison?”
Red glanced behind him, back toward the dirt road leading into the Rocks. “Jody, you need to leave here now.”
“Leave? Why?”
He looked back up at her. “Like I said, I went to visit him that one time. He told me if he ever got out of jail the second thing he wanted was a pork tenderloin from Bailey’s. The next thing he wanted was to get laid. But the first thing Billy wants is to see this place.”
“Why?”
“Because it means, like…” Red struggled to find what he wanted to express, and finally said, “… home.”
Jody didn’t want to understand that, but she did. Because there was nothing like them anywhere else, the Rocks meant home to most people who lived near them. When people from Rose got a glimpse of them after being away, they knew they were back. She didn’t want to share that feeling with a murderer-an alcoholic, wife- beating, animal-abusing, lying, ex-convict murderer.
She dropped her face into her hands.
What if he wasn’t all of those things?
“Jody?” Red stepped forward, concern on his face.
When she looked up, she was leaking tears again. “Oh, Red. Everybody I know-except you, I guess-believes he killed my parents.”
“Yes, they do. I know.”
“But you’re telling me they’re wrong. I’m wrong. We’re all wrong.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. I suppose you don’t have to believe me.”
She stared at him, knowing he was a man who’d always rather tell the truth than not. Of the two of them, she was the one who felt most comfortable with the lies they told so they could keep playing together. If he’d had his way, and even though he’d scampered like a scared weasel out of her bedroom that very day, Red might have taken his chance with the truth. She knew that was because he thought that much of her and of her family.
“Why’d you run out of my bedroom today, Red?”
“Why’d I what?” He laughed a little at her unexpected question.
“Did you run off just because of your job?”
“I left ’cause if they’re goin’ to find out about us, it’s not goin’ to be like that.”
Out of consideration for her. That’s what he meant.
Maybe she wasn’t the more mature of the two of them after all, she thought.
She dropped her face into her hands again. “Oh, dammit, Red.”
“What’s the matter, babe?”
This time the wry laughter was hers. “What’s wrong? Red, I don’t want to have to be fair. I don’t want to start believing what nobody else that I love believes.” She didn’t see the flinch that passed across his face at those words. “I don’t want you to be right.”
She sighed, every fiber in her resisting his story.
“Listen to me, Jody. One thing you have to believe right now is that you’ve got to get out of here.”
“Why? What’s he going to do to me if he shows up and I’m here?”
“That’s the thing, babe. I don’t know. I just know he was angry when he went into prison and he was angry that time I saw him and he’s had more years since then to build up an even hotter head of steam.”
Old anger burst out of her again. “As if he has any right to it!”
“Jody. That’s what I’m saying. He has a right to it.”
She felt emotionally exhausted, scared of what he’d told her, and confused by it.
“I’ve hated that man for twenty-three years, Red.”
“Babe, it doesn’t matter if you hate him. It only matters if he hates you.”
That sent a shiver down her spine.
“He’s for sure coming back today?”
“They let him go this morning.”
There was increasing urgency in Red’s tone.
“I suppose his son is driving him back.”
“So I hear.”
Red looked back toward the road. Nervously, he shuffled his boots in the white dust. It was about a five-hour drive from Lansing, where the prison was.
“Come on, Jody. I’m not leaving unless you do.”
She thought about staying, on the chance of getting a look at Billy Crosby, but the only defensive weapon she had with her was her backpack. “I find it really hard to believe he’d make a special trip just to look at the scenery,” she said, with an edge of sarcasm.
“Maybe not. I’m just tellin’ you what he told me.”
“Criminals like to return to the scenes of their crimes, though.”
“Babe.” He shook his head at her. “Come on.”
“Go on ahead,” she said, working up to her feet. “I’ll follow you into town.”
Appearing satisfied with that, Red turned to go, but she stopped him.
“I’m not saying I believe you.”
“You believe me they didn’t give him a drunk test, don’t you?”
“Yes. I mean, I guess. I’ll find out for sure from Uncle Meryl.”
“Do that. Do you believe me when I say he couldn’t have done it?”
“I don’t know what I believe right now, Red! But I do believe that you believe that.”
He let out a breath of relief at that admission from her.
She made it better by adding, “I’m sorry I didn’t let you explain.”
Red made a gesture that brushed away hurt feelings. “Not a problem.” And then suddenly he was scrambling up the rocks to where she sat, using his bare hands and the toes of his boots to get to her.
“Wha-” she started to say, when he planted a kiss on her lips.
Then he plunged down the slope again, making her hold her breath for fear he’d break his neck. Once on the ground, he kept moving. When Red was halfway to his truck, he turned back to yell, “You’re coming, right?”
“I promise!” she yelled back at him.
Jody stared at the back of his truck until it was well on the way out.
It was strange to think of Red, when he was only sixteen, being so intimately involved with what happened that night and the next day. He’d been right there in the house with Billy, and he’d been there when the sheriff showed up in the morning. It must have been a lot for a kid like him to take in, Jody thought. Maybe he had devised his theory about Billy’s drinking because it was too frightening to think he’d been in the house with a murderer. Or maybe Red couldn’t bear to wonder if he might have stopped Billy and prevented it all from happening. What if he hadn’t picked Billy up? What if he hadn’t taken him home? Could that have changed anything? And then on top of everything, he’d gone to work full-time for the family of the murdered man and missing woman.
Breath test or no, there were all sorts of reasons he could be wrong.
But what if he was right…
Almost everything in her resisted the idea. And yet…
Come what may, I have to know what happened to my mom.
Jody stood up on the haunches of the Sphinx, shaded her eyes and looked in every direction as far as the huge rock formation would allow. Only the scenery at her back remained blocked from her view.
Why do I keep coming here for searching and solace?
