The River Widow(24)

Adah nodded. “I’m sure.”

“No shame in letting the men do it for you.”

“I have to see for myself.”

The coroner looked reluctant for a moment and then gave a single nod. “Alright, then.”

She stood with Jesse and Buck on either side of her now, clamping her in as if with a wrench, as the coroner pulled back the sheet, exposing Lester’s head and upper torso. Again, the smell of death hit her, and she rocked back on her heels. And then there were the open glassy eyes, waxy skin the color of a pale bruise, and lips an opaque purple, almost black. But his face! Oh so dreadfully familiar. Yes, it was her husband, or what was left of him. The man she had once loved, the man she had grown to despise, the man she had killed.

As if someone had reached down and pulled the pins out of her knee joints, her legs gave way and she sank into herself, slumping down, down, down, a sickness in her stomach, until a pair of arms lifted her back to her feet. Jesse released her while expelling an almost-silent disgusted snort. She had momentarily stopped breathing. Quickly she sucked in big lungfuls of air. Blinking against white stars swimming and dipping in her vision, she realized that the Branch men had identified Lester, and, taken together with her visceral response, the coroner had determined that the task required of them on this day had been completed.

A policeman escorted her to the truck and made sure she was alright before leaving her alone. Still gasping, Adah reentered the world in which she had committed the worst of all crimes. Her secret, her cross to bear. She had somehow managed to put it out of her mind most of the time, but now it was back with the fervor of a pouncing wildcat. Her humanity was in question, her very essence.

Over the course of her life, she had learned that people could hold inside the brightest peaks and the darkest pits, and there were those who straddled the break—half of them drawn to evil, half drawn to beauty. Those people could step from one side to the other and back again as if the line were as thin as a strand of hair. Her husband had been one of those people. Was she one of them, too?

She sat for what felt like hours, gazing out at the sunny, slightly breezy day, at boys riding bicycles, women strolling by pushing baby carriages, and working men eating lunches out of paper bags. A scene as peaceful and promising as this new spring day. The still-bare trees made a mesh of shadow and light on the brown ground, which was urging toward green. It seemed impossible to grasp what had happened, what she’d done.

But the world would go on and waited for no one to catch up. She would have to go on, too. And Lester’s body having been found west of Paducah on the floodplain after the water receded left no reason to ever doubt her story. The facts surrounding the discovery of Lester’s body had been revealed to them when they’d first arrived at the police station. It had all worked to her advantage. She should’ve been relieved. She should’ve felt safer.

So why were Jesse and Buck staying so long inside the police station?

A crushing sensation in her chest brought on rapid breathing and threatened the return of the swimming white stars, but Adah told herself to stay calm. Knowing the Branch men, they probably wanted every detail about how and where Lester’s body had been found, details she didn’t care to know. And still, she had the urge to lurch from the truck and go back inside the station, to bear witness to what was transpiring instead of waiting exposed and alone, a sitting duck. If anything suspicious had come up, would the policeman have led her to the truck? Would he come back with handcuffs and tell her she was being charged with murder?

Adah talked herself out of another episode of near panic. Minutes elongated, and the inside of the truck cab grew warmer, but she kept telling herself not to worry. The police would’ve included her if they’d had anything further to say. She was going to get away with murder.

And yet when the Branch men finally emerged, Buck’s face was bloodred, and he wore a look not of grief but of rage. Jesse looked little better.

They slid inside the truck cab without a word, and Buck drove away. Adah glanced at her father-in-law once and saw that beads of sweat had gathered on his upper lip even though it was pleasant outside. Something other than the weather had clearly pervaded Buck with a mad heat.

The spring warmth was only just beginning to urge life back to the land, and the scenes beyond the window were as bleak and barren as Adah’s thoughts, and yet as they drove away from the station, she started to relax.

Until halfway back to the house, when Buck let out a long stream of air Adah could feel on her arms and said, “That was quite an act you put on in there.”

She gulped silently, panic already beginning to grab on to her gut again. How quickly could only a few words or a look from one of the Branches toss her like a small boat surrounded by angry seas. “What do you mean?”

“Nearly fainting and all that. Yeah, that was damn good.”

Adah remained facing forward and didn’t move a muscle.

“You might have fooled some idiot in there, but don’t you go and think you’ve fooled me and Jesse.” Buck released an angry huff. “What I saw in there sure weren’t no comfort. No, sirree. Do you know what I saw back there?”

She shook her head.

“Any ideas? Any guesses?”

She shook her head again.

“You of all people know what I saw. What I saw looked like my son’s head had been bashed in.”