workbench and got down a bottle of Four Roses bourbon and an eight-ounce water glass. He poured about two fingers into the glass, then brought it to Luther. “Drink this. Gulp it down without breathing in.”
Luther did as he was told, and the liquor hit him with a warm force that jolted his thoughts. He did breathe in now and immediately regretted it, inhaling the alcohol fumes and almost choking.
“Keep breathing deep, Luther.” Wilde’s hand was back on his shoulder. “You gotta show ‘old man booze’ who’s in charge.”
Luther sat with his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, breathing as Wilde had instructed. Gradually the choking sensation went away as he sucked in the cooling scent of the bourbon. It was clearing his head like a breeze on a warm night.
He was better now, had his self-control back. Control. Control was so important. “I’m okay now, Tom.”
“Good. Let’s talk. Things usually aren’t as bad as they first appear. And whatever’s wrong, maybe I can help.”
“Nobody can help me now,” Luther said in a flat voice.
“Lots of times people think that and they’re wrong. I’m your friend. Try me. See if I can help. You’ve got nothing to lose. Where’ve you been staying since you had your falling-out with Milford?”
“I been with Cara.”
“Cara? You mean Cara Sand?”
Luther nodded.
“I don’t quite understand,” Wilde said.
Luther watched him walk over to the workbench, pour some bourbon into a glass for himself, and down it in one gulp. It didn’t seem to affect his breathing. He gave Luther his worn, wise smile.
“Cara Sand, huh? Okay, I’m ready. You can tell me, Luther.”
And Luther did, in his new, flat, so very calm voice.
When Luther was finished talking, Wilde went over to the workbench and had a second drink.
“I don’t wanna doubt you, Luther, but you sure you didn’t dream all this?”
“I’m sure.”
“How about we drive back to the Sand place and you can show me?”
Luther stood up. “I don’t wanna go back there! I can’t!”
Wilde looked at him and nodded. “Okay. Mind if I give them a call?”
“Go ahead. They won’t answer.”
Wilde used the phone on his cluttered desk and stood listening to the ringing on the other end of the connection, looking at Luther.
“They oughta be home, this time of morning when it’s not even light out.”
“They’re home,” Luther said.
After a good three or four minutes, Wilde hung up the phone.
He stood chewing on the inside of his cheek for a while, the way he did when he was thinking hard. Then he rolled the desk chair over near Luther and sat down in it so they were close and facing each other.
“You need to go to the police and turn yourself in,” Wilde said. “I’ll go with you, and I’ll see you get a good lawyer.”
“I can’t. I told you what I did. They’ll execute me or I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison. You know that’s true, Tom. You promised you’d be honest with me.”
“Yeah, you’re right, that’s what’d happen if all you told me’s true.”
“It’s all true. I’m not giving myself up!”
“Then what you’ve gotta do,” Wilde said, “is get outta Hiram, go far away. You won’t do that in Milford’s car. The highway patrol’ll be looking for it and nail you within hours of the bodies being found.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it of unwelcome thoughts. “You need to go to a big city in another state, where you can change your name and make a new life. I know that won’t be easy, but unless you want to turn yourself in to the law, that’s your one and only chance. You’ve gotta become somebody else. A different you. It might not be much of a life, after what’s happened, but at least it’s something.”
“That’s all I’m looking for, a chance. Something. Because right now I’ve got nothing. I don’t care what the odds are, Tom. Worse comes to worse, they’ll catch me and I’ll be right where I’d be if I gave up now.”
Wilde smiled sadly. “Very logical, Luther.”
“Ain’t it?”
“It’ll be dark for a while yet. You drive Milford’s car a few miles outside of town and park it well off the road. I’ll follow in the pickup and drive us both the rest of the way.”
“Rest of the way where?”
“To where my fishing boat’s tied up. They’ll be looking for Milford’s car, but not a boat.”
Luther didn’t like the idea of being all alone in a small boat out on the wide, dark river. Still, he’d be safe there from everything but the river.
“You take the boat downstream. I’ll give you some tackle and a casting rod so it’ll look like you’re fishing, if anybody takes note of you.”
A boat… The idea was growing on Luther. For the first time he felt a twinge of hope. Maybe he could escape this, after all, get away clean from what he’d done, somehow start over, make it right. Make his whole life right.
“You’ll be with the current, so you can get pretty far downriver before daylight. Then, when it’s light, when you see a likely spot, you dock the boat and…”
“What?”
“Then you’re on your own, Luther. I’ll have helped you all I can.”
“What about you, Tom? I don’t wanna get you in any trouble. Won’t you be suspected as an accomplice?”
“I don’t think so. Nobody’ll notice my old boat’s missing. And I sure won’t bring it to their attention. If it is found downstream, it’ll look like it came untied and drifted away. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Luther swallowed. He looked ready to begin sobbing again. “Tom-”
“Don’t thank me, Luther. Do it by going somewhere and creating a good life for yourself. That’ll be my thanks.”
Wilde stood up from the desk chair.
“It’s not the end of the world, if we won’t let it be, Luther. Let’s get moving while it’s still dark out.”
Wilde kept his small wooden rowboat pulled up on the bank, near a deserted A-frame cabin built by a weekend fisherman years ago. The cabin had been abandoned after flood damage. The receding water left what remained of a small wooden dock, and a narrow, rutted dirt road that ran from the county highway almost to river’s edge. The road was overgrown and disappeared in spots, and even after a light rain, it was muddy and almost impassable.
As Wilde parked the pickup near the A-frame, Luther could see why nobody would notice the boat was missing. Hardly anyone other than Tom must come back here. The only place that there was a break in the trees was a low, marshy stretch of ground that was a breeding pool for the mosquitoes that closed in on the two men as soon as they got down out of the truck.
Wilde slapped at one of the voracious insects on his arm and reached into the pickup’s rusty bed for his heavy metal tackle box.
Luther went to the back of the truck and got the casting rod, another tackle box, and a net. With both hands full, he felt a mosquito sting the back of his neck but couldn’t slap at it. “Damned bloodsuckers!”
“Aren’t they, though?” Wilde said, and led the way down the steep mud path toward the boat and the sloping riverbank.
The boat was pulled up about twenty feet from the water. It was a wooden fourteen-footer with a couple of oars lying in the bottom beneath three plank seats. Its hull was mud-streaked and rotted in places and had once been a light green with a red stripe around the waterline. Now it was mostly a weathered gray color, and the waterline stripe was hard to make out except near the bow. Though it was far from the water, this was flood country and sometimes inaccessible, so a thick, slack rope ran from a cleat on the bow and was knotted around what looked like an old automobile axle driven into the bank.
“You sure this thing floats?” Luther asked seriously.
