The Familiar Dark(42)
Cal pulled his wallet and his badge from his back pocket, threw some twenties on the bar. “You know, she’s the reason I became a cop,” he said, rubbing his fingers over his badge. “Mama.”
“Because you were hoping that someday you’d get to arrest her sorry ass?”
Cal smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “You and I both know, she’d kill me with her bare hands before she let me fasten cuffs on her wrists. Nah, I did it because I wanted to go a different way. Prove to her, and myself, that she doesn’t know everything about the world. That not everything is ugly. Not everyone is bad. That I could still do some good.” He heaved himself off his stool, shrugged away from my hand when I tried to steady him. His laugh was like a cracked branch as he staggered toward the door. “Turns out it was a colossal waste of my time. Because that old bitch was right. About all of it.”
“What happened to Junie wasn’t your fault,” I said to his retreating back. Because even if he wasn’t saying it, I knew what this bender was really about.
Cal stopped, looked at me over his shoulder, gaze skating from me to the newspaper he’d left on the bar and back again. “I wasn’t talking about Junie,” he said. “I was talking about you and me, Eve. Turning out exactly how Mama raised us.”
SEVENTEEN
I was well aware that showing up at Jimmy Ray’s compound without an express invitation was something akin to suicide. But I had to find a way to speak to Matt alone, without the protective cover of the strip club, where he could have me tossed out or simply walk away. I’d spent the last couple of days trying to come up with alternative ideas, but I needed to catch him off guard if I had any hope of getting him to talk. I did think about calling Land, letting him know what I’d discovered. But I had a feeling the cops were already privy to my information and that there was a less-than-nothing chance they’d been able to get Matt to say a single word. I had serious doubts I could get him to talk, either. Would probably leave this encounter with a black eye or some broken fingers, if I was lucky. But I had to try.
I wasn’t so far gone, though, that I went in blind, with no hope of rescue if things went completely sideways. Cal sounded harried and exhausted when he answered the phone. We hadn’t talked since I’d driven him home from the bar two nights ago. I’d been waiting for him to contact me first. I wanted to give him a chance to decide how he’d play it, suspecting he’d prefer to pretend his moment of weakness had never happened. He wouldn’t want to be reminded that he’d needed me for a change. Or that memories of Mama still had such a hold on him after all these years.
“Hey,” I said, pinning the phone between my ear and shoulder. I rolled up my car window as I drove, silencing the roaring wind.
“Hey,” Cal said. “Everything okay?” He sounded a little surprised, and I realized I never called him anymore. Before Junie died, I’d talked to him at least twice a day, to shoot the shit, check in. But that lifelong routine had stopped along with my daughter’s beating heart. Truth was, I didn’t have anything to say and didn’t have the energy to pretend to care what anyone else said, either, unless they were telling me who’d killed my girl.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I lied, half my brain calculating how far I was from Jimmy Ray’s versus how long it might take Cal to get where I was going. “But listen, I got a lead on the guy Izzy was fooling around with and—”
“Eve,” Cal said, sharp and loud. “What are you doing?”
My teeth clattered together as my car jounced over the uneven ground toward Jimmy Ray’s compound. It was starting to get dark, and I felt spotlighted and vulnerable, my headlights and choppy engine announcing my arrival. “Don’t worry,” I told Cal, his disbelieving gust of breath telling me how likely that was. “I’m fine. I won’t do anything dumb.” The lies were rolling off my tongue like water now. “I wanted you to know I’m out at Jimmy Ray’s, in case anything happens.”
“No,” Cal said. “Turn around right now. Eve, I’m serious. Turn—”
I hung up on him, powered off my phone, and threw it onto the passenger seat. I figured I had thirty minutes, maybe, before Cal caught up to me. That would be enough time, because Matt was either going to talk or he wasn’t.
Up ahead I could see the tiny guard station Jimmy Ray had built out of plywood and scrap metal. It stood on the edge of his property, and there was no way to drive down his lane without passing it. A spotlight shone from its lopsided roof, and the whole jury-rigged look of it would have been funny if not for the armed redneck I knew waited inside.
But when I pulled to a stop next to the guard station, it was empty. I’d been practicing my speech in my head, the collection of words I’d hoped would get me past this barricade, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself now that they weren’t needed. The thick metal chain that usually barred entrance to Jimmy Ray’s compound when the guard station was unmanned lay coiled in the brush. The apparent ease of my entry left a hissing snake of worry in my gut. I’d never known Jimmy Ray to be careless with security. But a trap didn’t seem like his style, either. Jimmy Ray wasn’t sneaky. He didn’t plot out ruses to get at you sideways. He came full throttle and right in your face. Maybe the guy manning the entrance had to take a leak and forgot about the chain. Maybe something at the compound required his urgent attention. Which might end up working in my favor. If everyone was distracted, that gave me more time with Matt.