Real Bad Things(58)
Gerry sat back, aghast, and then sort of laughed. “What?”
“Why are you with Diane?” Cry. “She’s a horrible person. A worse mother. She hates me. Wants me to die.” She choked back her drink and licked the insides to get the last drop. “You seem like a nice person.” Cry. “I just don’t understand, Gerry. I really don’t.” Cry. “Could you please explain it to me in terms I can understand?”
Even with the shitty lighting, she could see him redden. Laughter replaced her tears. The room shifted colors, volume.
“Oh, bless your heart.” She laughed, wiped her eyes, scooted her chair next to him, and slung an arm around him. “As good as the sex might be with Diane, it’s not worth it. Trust me. There are women out there who are just as good. I would know. I’ve been with a lot of women.” So many women. Anytime they wanted more, she said goodbye. How could she say yes to a future knowing that hers might be cut short by a conviction?
“Goodness,” he said and checked his watch.
“All I’m saying is . . .” She couldn’t complete her thought because she started to cry again. She couldn’t control it. “My mom doesn’t love me. And you seem nice. So how can you love someone like that?”
“Love?” Now his face was downright flaming. “Did she mention?” He stopped himself. Gathered his composure. Refocused on Jane, which pleased her. “That can’t be true,” Gerry said in the comforting old man voice she’d longed to hear so many times in moments of pure misery. Maybe her dad had been a nice guy. Tough, but tender. Ironic. She’d never know, though. Maybe she could get one of those DNA tests after all.
“I’m sure your mother loves you very much,” he said.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Trust me. You don’t know how she is. And then my brother? I mean, fuck that guy. All I’ve ever done is love him and protect him.” She poked Gerry to ensure he was listening. “I mean, really protect him. Like, above and beyond. And he just shits on me. Just like Diane. Like mother, like son. I fucking kid you not. What’s that saying about the apple and the tree?” Her thoughts fuzzed. “Whatever. The real takeaway here, Gerry with a G, is that I love them.” Her nose clogged, her eyes streamed. “And they don’t love me back. They really, really don’t.”
He petted her hand again. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.” His tone was kind, but his gaze wandered to the exit. Jane clapped her hand on his back to keep his attention on her. How needy. How drunk. How Diane.
“It is bad, Gerry. It’s real bad.” He offered her a napkin that smelled like sopped-up beer. “She loves my brother more than me. Even though I’m her firstborn.” On and on she went. Detailing her woe. Drinking all the while from the pitchers that kept arriving. Who had bought them? Gerry? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She drank what was offered.
He folded his hands on the table and paused until she stopped whining. “Is that why you killed Warren? Were you upset about your mother?”
Laughter pealed out of her mouth. The room got spinny. Her eyelids heavy. The sticky table invited her head and she accepted.
“I didn’t kill him,” she said.
Eighteen
GEORGIA LEE
Every morning since Georgia Lee had left the trailer park and remembered what she’d done, she’d gasped awake and flung the weighted blanket that had piled against her throat off her body. Today was no different. She sat upright and tried to flush a nightmare of drowning from her mind.
Two questions continued to haunt her: What did Jason remember? And why hadn’t he said anything?
Surely he remembered what had happened? Perhaps he’d blocked out the night as well? It had been traumatic, after all. Why hadn’t he said something by now? Would he let Jane go to prison? Would she?
Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. Exodus 23:7.
If only she could get that verse out of her mind.
The little bit of hope she marshaled every morning dwindled with each new post on Let’s Talk About Maud that drummed up Lezzie Borden fever. Finally, they’d united around something. People had nothing better to do than speculate on the means, the motive, and the opportunity of the murder of a dreadful man—even though Jane had already confessed! Everyone thought there was more to the story. Everyone thought they knew the truth. If they’d met Warren—which most had not—they would’ve seen that his fate was more than fitting and they’d not waste time on “justice” or whatever it was they were doing. Playing puzzles. That was all.
Even Diane had asked people to move on and do something more productive with their lives than harass her at home and work. Apparently, KMSM had taken to staking out her house for interviews. She’d even pleaded with the cops to come and arrest Jane. She told them Jane was sitting right there on the couch. The more everyone continued to insist there was more to the story, the closer they were to finding Georgia Lee.
She needed to get her plan together. To figure out what on earth she could do to stop the train coming in her direction. But she’d been too panicked to think.
It didn’t help her mood that her poll numbers had declined even more since the last attack ad from Bollinger. In this one he yelled, “Georgia Lee Lane’s Greatest Hits!” and placed bull’s-eye targets on each supposed service or good business deal she’d killed. He even included a photo of the one pothole that had gotten missed in the annual street repair. One pothole! Often, on the drive to or from work or while conducting mindless inventory or washing vegetables, she’d fantasized about murdering Bollinger. She’d already committed the Big Sin, why not add one more? Truly, the election might be the thing that sent her to jail if Warren’s death didn’t. If prison was in her future anyway, then why not take a rock to Bollinger’s head as well?