Bailey himself, standing in front of a neon sign behind his bar, looked up and gave her a nod. He was wearing one of his Denver Broncos T-shirts, she saw. On game days between the Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs, Bailey’s tavern could get rowdy. As usual, he had his beloved country-western music playing too loud, because as Bailey got older and deafer, he kept turning the music up, until enough of his customers complained about it. People wondered what the magic number was to get him to turn it down-three customers? ten?-and joked about running an organized test on that someday.
Jody went over and hoisted herself up onto one of the chrome and red vinyl bar stools.
“Rascal Flatts?” she asked, not recognizing the song.
“Yeah. My boys. Want a beer while you wait?”
“I’m waiting for something?”
“Aren’t you? Friends? Your family?”
“No, I came to see you, Bailey.”
He quirked a bushy eyebrow.
Over the years, Bailey had become a man of fewer and fewer words. He poured your drinks, cooked your steaks, took your credit card, and tossed you out on your ear if you broke his house rules, which consisted of: don’t upset me, my waitresses, or my other customers. Most people knew he was sick of running his tavern; he wanted to move to Florida, but for years now his business had dropped off so drastically that he was lucky to pay his bills on time, with nothing left to save for retirement.
Jody reached for a handful of peanuts, shelled one of them and ate it.
She raised her voice to be sure he heard her.
“I hear you don’t think Billy Crosby killed my dad.”
She could be very direct herself, as encouraged by her family. As Chase liked to say, “Life is short. If you have something to say, either spit it out or forget about it.” It had been hard for her to ask Phyllis Boren in the grocery store about opinions that conflicted with her family’s, and hard to face a man who held such opinions, and her heart was still pounding too fast, but the questions she had to ask were coming easier now.
Bailey didn’t look fazed by her blunt question. He gave her a long look and then confirmed it. “No. I don’t think Billy did it.”
“Why not?”
He put down the shot glass he’d been wiping dry. “Too drunk.”
“That’s what Red Bosch says, too.”
“Red’s right.”
“Then how come he got convicted and sent to prison, Bailey?”
He shrugged.
“No, really.” She dumped the rest of the peanuts back into their bowl and brushed her hands together to get the shell dust off. “If he didn’t do it, how could he end up in prison for it?”
This time Bailey gave her a look that made her feel as if she was the stupid one in Rose. It was a look that said, What? You think that never happens in this country?
“I’ve read the trial transcripts, Bailey. You didn’t testify.”
“I told the cops what I saw. They never called me back.”
Jody started to say something, but Bailey wasn’t finished.
“Didn’t matter to me,” he said, “Billy needed to go to jail and stay there. He was bound to do something similar someday.”
“Bailey,” Jody said to him, “the system’s not supposed to work like that.”
He shrugged again. “It wasn’t supposed to let him out this soon, either.”
“He might say twenty-three years isn’t soon.”
“And I say it’s not long enough.”
Jody, feeling a little shell-shocked by all the opinions she was hearing for the first time from people she thought she knew, said, “May I have that beer now, please?”
“Are you going to eat something with it?”
“No, I’m due out at the ranch for supper.”
“Soon?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You can’t have a beer.”
She gave him a look that said, Why not?
“Because you’re too little to absorb the alcohol that quick, and your grandpa would kill me if I let you drive out of here tipsy.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Bailey.”
She whirled around on the bar stool, hopped down and stalked out, even though she knew he was right.
JUST OUTSIDE the tavern’s front door her cell phone rang.
When she saw who was calling, she punched Talk and said, “I’m on my way, Uncle Chase.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“I had to pick up some milk for Grandma.”
“Did you go clear to Topeka to get it?”
People were coming up the walk toward her, so she stepped to one side and turned her back. “No, I didn’t go to Topeka,” she said with exaggerated patience. “It just took a little longer than usual, that’s all.”
She felt her left arm being squeezed and turned in that direction to see who had done it. It was the mother of a girl she’d gone to school with. The woman smiled sympathetically at her and then went on inside with her husband. Jody turned back toward the shrubbery.
“What? I didn’t hear what you just said, Uncle Chase.”
“I said, why did it take longer than usual?”
Jody heard a man say loudly, “If I want a goddamn pork tenderloin for supper, that’s what I’m going to have.” She was turning to look to see who was saying that so unpleasantly when the same raspy voice said, “I’ve waited twenty-three goddamn years for one of Bailey’s pork tenderloin sandwiches. You can goddamn wait one more night to cook your damned spaghetti.”
In one chaotic moment Jody heard her uncle call her name over the phone, dropped the cell phone onto the cement walkway, and realized she was looking straight at Billy Crosby, who was coming up toward Bailey’s with Valentine and a tall good-looking man who could only be their son Collin.
“Dad,” the younger man said, “we’re here, aren’t we?”
Jody bent to pick up her phone and saw that she had cracked its case. She opened it with fumbling fingers and said, “Uncle Chase, I’ve got to go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She clicked the phone shut before finding out if it was even still working.
She didn’t know what to do next.
They were coming closer.
He looked about five foot ten and muscular, as if there’d been a weight room at the prison and he had used it often. His hairline was receding at his temples but his hair was still dark with no visible gray. It was a shock to see he looked no older than her uncles. She realized that in the last few years she’d started picturing Billy Crosby as an old man, worn-down and neutered by prison. This man coming toward her was nothing like that; he looked full of hunger, anger, and testosterone. She’d heard he was considered good-looking by some women, and she supposed the same kind of woman would think that now, too, but all she saw was a top-heavy man with big shoulders and biceps and a pinched, aggressive expression on his face. He had on sneakers, blue jeans, and a black T-shirt, and it all looked new.
Collin looked up and saw her standing there.
He put a restraining hand on his father’s arm, but Billy shook it off.
Collin was taller than his dad, Jody saw, a bigger man altogether, and he didn’t look overjoyed to have his father home from prison. Jody barely noticed Valentine.
She had eyes only for the father and the son.
“What the hell is she looking at?” Billy said, nodding toward Jody as they came closer still. “People think I’m some kind of fucking tourist attraction? Like them rocks you wouldn’t take me out to see!” He put on a falsetto, like a crazily enthusiastic girl, and waved his hands in the air: “Fly your freak flag, Billy!” Then he raised an eyebrow
