Not One of Us(5)

“Your very presence bothers me,” I retorted.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Jori Trahern.”

His hard gaze didn’t flicker. My name meant nothing to him.

“Jackson Ensley’s cousin.”

His right eye twitched, and he raised an arm, breaking eye contact. “Waitress!” he called out with a wave, searching through the crowd.

“That’s right,” I scoffed. “Ignore me, you coward.”

“I ain’t no coward.”

“A murdering coward,” I reiterated. “You shot my cousin from the back.”

“It wasn’t me.”

I snorted. I’d have been more impressed if he’d owned up to what he’d done and shown even an iota of remorse. “You’re a liar too.”

“He was my friend. I didn’t kill him!” His voice rose, crescendos of lime squares. The crowd set down their drinks and openly watched us now. He lowered his voice an octave as he placed his hands on the scarred table and balled his fists. “Guess nobody in this miserable bayou will ever believe me.”

If he’d thought to intimidate me with his outburst, he was dead wrong. My temper rose at his loud indignation. “The evidence says otherwise,” I pointed out. My voice shook in anger, red heat shimmering across baked concrete.

“That shit was planted. Jackson was my friend. I had no beef with him.”

His defense flew in the face of what little my family had told me about the crime. It was one of those quiet tragedies no one liked to talk about but that shadowed us despite our best intentions to forget the past. “A drug buddy who owed you money, is what I hear,” I argued. “You were a small-town dealer peddling to your friends. Cops caught you with bags of pot and pills when they went to question you. They also found your fingerprints all over rolling papers in Jackson’s car. Not to mention your hoodie sweatshirt soaked with Jackson’s fresh blood.”

Hardness settled on his too-sculpted cheekbones, and he lifted one bony shoulder in a shrug. My eye was drawn to the tattoo of barbed wire encircling his upper-right arm. Judging by the haphazard lines and ashy color, it had been carved in prison by a minimally talented inmate artist. “I was set up,” he insisted, his mouth drawn into a childish, surly pout. “Somebody broke into my car and stole that stuff.”

“Righhht,” I drawled. “You were framed. Isn’t that what all criminals say?”

“I didn’t do it. Jackson had all kinds of enemies. Plenty of people weren’t sorry to hear he’d been killed.”

I shifted in my seat. This might be the first truthful thing Ray had uttered. Even all these years later, I heard the whispers. I’d seen the way Uncle Buddy and Mimi looked at each other when I’d heard rumors about my cousin and asked them if it was true Jackson was a bad person. Over the years, whenever Jackson’s name came up, a shadow had flickered in their eyes, and they’d immediately shifted the conversation to other topics.

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ray insisted. “This town’s dirty as hell. If you’re from the wrong side of the tracks, you ain’t got a chance. You’re the one who gets blamed for everythin’.” He scraped a bitter laugh as he twirled the beer in his glass. “At least I’m alive. Folks have a way of disappearin’ ’round here. Gator feed.”

My breath drew in sharply, and acute pain knifed my chest. Deacon. Just saying his name in my mind created waves of dark violet with tips of white froth at the crest. I leaned in toward Ray. “What are you saying? Are you talking about the Cormiers?”

He glanced around the bar with a furtive, feral air, as though he regretted the slip of tongue.

“Tell me,” I pushed, my voice rising. “Do you know something about their disappearance or not?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Gator feed. The words pounded through me, drumming despair. Not my Deacon. He couldn’t have met such a violent, cruel end. I grabbed Ray’s forearm. “If you know something, tell me.”

He shook me off and sprawled back into the booth. “Don’t. Touch. Me,” he growled.

Heat suffused my face. This man knew nothing, hadn’t even lived in the bayou for years. His innuendo about the Cormiers was just another theory, one of dozens I’d heard over the years. They’d vanished without a trace that same night I’d entered their abandoned home. It still haunted me, those empty plates on the table, the chicken left roasting in the oven, the fragments of the forgotten corsage under the couch.

Everyone had an opinion: The Cormiers were still alive and had fled the country to avoid legal problems. The Cormiers were murdered by the Mafia because Mr. Cormier had dealings with the underworld. The Cormiers were spotted on a Mexican beach, living the high life with stolen money. The tales grew more outlandish with every year.

At last, I found my voice. “I think your imagination went wild with all the free time you had locked up in prison.”

“Free time?” He snorted. “They work the shit out of you in prison. I worked eight hours in the kitchen every day and mopped floors at night.”

“Don’t expect pity from me. You ruined my aunt’s life. After Jackson died she lost her grip on reality, and then her husband abandoned her and left town. Just so you know.”