“Excuse me,” Robert Earl said. “I need my money. If she did it, she did it.”
“Shut up!” Leonard and Shirley yelled.
“Jesus!” Ida said. “I’m ready! Take me! Right now, Jesus. I’m ready!”
Leonard massaged Ida’s shoulders. “Shirley, you can’t shoot your sister. You shouldn’t even be thinking of such nonsense. Stop talking about it. You’re upsetting Mother.”
“I’m sorry, Momma,” Shirley said, tears cascading down her face. “I didn’t intend for you to find out about any of this.”
“Shirley,” Robert Earl said, “it would be very hard for you to bust a cap in your sister’s butt without Momma finding out about it.”
Shirley stopped crying and gave him a cold look. “The first time I’ve heard you say anything that made sense.” She started to leave the kitchen; Robert Earl gave her a wide berth.
Leonard said, “Promise me you’re not doing something stupid. Something you’ll regret, Shirley.”
Shirley stopped in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Leonard.”
“Grab her, Robert Earl!” Leonard shouted.
Shirley turned slowly and stared at Robert Earl, who hadn’t moved an inch. “Don’t be a fool,” she whispered.
Robert Earl swallowed and said, “Hadn’t planned to be.”
Shirley walked out of the kitchen, her footsteps creaking against the hardwood floor in the living room, and then they heard the sound of the front door opening and closing.
“Go catch her, Robert Earl,” Leonard said. “Catch her before she does something we’ll all regret.”
“You go catch her!” Robert Earl said. “I’ll watch Momma and you run out there and catch her. She’s overweight and out of her mind—someone you give plenty of leaving alone. You heard her. ‘Don’t be a fool!’” Leonard shook his head. Robert Earl ignored him. “Momma, would you like me to get you something? Something to eat? Drink?”
“Arsenic,” Ida said.
Robert Earl looked at Estafay. “Honey, do we have any arsenic?”
Estafay rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t know what it is.”
“What is it, Momma?” Robert Earl asked. “If we don’t have it I’ll go get it.”
Ida muttered something.
“Say again, Momma, I didn’t hear you.”
“Poison,” Ida said. “Poison!”
Chapter 25
“You’re not going to hurt me, are you, Lester?” Ruth Ann said, regretting the question the second she’d asked it. She, while underneath the bed, was at his mercy. No way could she get out quickly enough if he decided to… Her mind raced with possibilities and stopped at the worst-case scenario: Lester setting the bed afire.
Lester scooted to the far wall and sat with his back against it. “Is it true?”
“No! It’s a misunderstanding. A major, misinformed misunderstanding.”
“All those nights you said you were with your girlfriends, with your folks, you were with him, weren’t you?”
“No, Lester. No, no, no! It’s not true.”
“While I was here alone, waiting for you, worried something might’ve happened to you.” He closed his eyes and bounced his head against the wall.
“Lester, honey, you got it all wrong. It’s a major misguided misunderstanding.”
“You know what’s stupid? I convinced myself I was lucky to have you. I thought you were doing me a favor because of this scar on my face.”
“Listen to me, Lester. Sheriff Bledsoe—I mean, we—not we… me… I… I thought…” She forgot what she intended to say.
“Why wouldn’t you allow me to touch you months at a time?”
“Wait a minute,” starting to crawl out. She could think better on her feet. “Let me get out from under here.”
She was halfway out when Lester said, “I really think you should stay under there. I’m afraid what I might do if you come out.”
Oh-oh, Ruth Ann thought as she quickly pushed herself back under the bed.
“Today,” Lester said, “when we were making love—no, when I was making love to you, your mind wasn’t in it. I can’t remember the last time your mind was in it. Your body was there, mind wasn’t. I wonder if you display the same level of enthusiasm with Eric as you do with me. Probably not. Tell me, do you love him?”
“Lester, please! Don’t be ridiculous! You know I couldn’t care less about that man!”
“Then it was only about sex. You could have gotten sex from me and saved the motel fare.”
“What motel fare, Lester? You’re letting your imagination run wild.”
“Three months ago I found a motel receipt in the trash.”
“Hello! We’re investigating trash now?”
“You goddamn right!” Lester shouted. Ruth Ann stiffened. “Don’t bitch-play me! It’s not working this time! My so-called wife gone hours at a time every other night, won’t sleep with me—
The silence that followed seemed more portentous than his outburst.
Loud music from a passing car out front flowed through the window. Al Green’s
Calmer, Lester said, “Wasn’t I good to you?”
Ruth Ann didn’t respond; yes or no, she knew, would aggravate him.
“Busted my ass night after night pulling overtime at that damn paper mill ’cause you said, ‘Lester, I want this. Lester, I want that.’ Like that damn Expedition out there—you didn’t need it and I can’t afford it. All the while you’re fucking a fifty-cent nigger can’t buy you a nine-nine-cent burger.” He shook his head in disgust.
“Lester, I—”
“Shut up!” Lester snapped. “You can save the lies.” A long moment he glared at her. Ruth Ann tried to hold his gaze but couldn’t. “Tell the truth, it’s the burn mark, isn’t it?” Ruth Ann shook her head. “You a damn lie!” Lester shouted. “Don’t lie to me! You’ve lied to me enough, don’t you think? Is it the goddamn burn mark on my mouth?”
Ruth Ann closed her eyes. No way could she answer that.
“Would you like to know how I got this mark you detest so much?”
She only wanted to escape from underneath this bed, put on some clothes and seek shelter in another state or country. “If you need to tell it, Lester.”
“Yes, I need to tell it!” He bounced his head against the wall again and then spoke in a low voice.
“You had someone call Tina and tell her we were at the motel in Lake Village. No way could she have known where we were. You unlocked the door after I locked it. You made damn sure she caught us and she did. She left me, just like you’d planned… just like you’d schemed. At first I tried to convince myself I’d traded up, replaced my chubby, church-going wife with a hot, sexy eighteen-year-old.
“It dawned on me I’d tossed a good woman away for a girl. Tina can’t hold a pole to you in bed, but Tina is a woman, a real woman. She listened, really listened, to what I had to say, and she cared. She really and truly cared about me. Me! When someone loves you, truly loves you, you can feel it, you can feel it in your bones.”
He paused, tears dripping. “I realized I’d made a mistake, and I knew I had to get my wife back. I got down on my knees and begged Tina to come back. She wouldn’t even consider it. ‘A little girl, Lester! A little girl!’ was all she’d say to me. I hurt her.
“Then she refused to see me at all, stopped taking my calls, told her family to tell me the marriage was over. When the man served me with the divorce papers, I lost it, just couldn’t take it. Somehow I had to win her back, let
