Kisscut

Lena stroked the back of his neck, trying to soothe him. "What happened, Mark? Why did she end up hating you?"

"You think she hates me?" he asked, his eyes searching hers. "You really think she hates me?"

"No, Mark," Lena said, pushing his hair back out of his face. He had switched to present tense, something people often did when they could not accept that a loved one had died. Lena had found herself doing the same thing with her sister. "Of course she doesn't hate you."

"I told her I wouldn't do it anymore."

"Do what?"

He shook his head no. "It's all so pointless," he said, still shaking his head.

"What's pointless?" Lena asked, trying to make him look up at her. He did, and for a shocking moment, she thought he might try to kiss her. Quickly, she moved back on her heels, catching herself on the arm of the chair so she wouldn't fall. Mark must have seen the shock in her expression because he turned away from her, taking another tissue. Mark looked at Jeffrey as he blew his nose. Lena looked at neither of them. All she could think was that she had somehow crossed a line, but what that line was and where it had been drawn she could not figure.

Mark spoke to Jeffrey, and his voice had more authority to it. The kid who had broken down moments ago was gone. The surly teenager was back. "What else?"

"Je

Mark shrugged.

Lena said, "Was she interested in other cultures, other religions?"

"What the fuck for?" Mark countered angrily. "It's not like we're ever go

"That's a no, then?" Lena asked.

Mark pursed his lips, almost as if he was going to blow a kiss, then said, "Nope."

Jeffrey crossed his arms over his chest, taking back over. "Around Christmas, you stopped being friends with Je

"Got tired of her," he shrugged.

"Who else did Je

"Me," Mark said. "Lacey. That was it."

"She didn't have other friends?"

"No," Mark answered. "And we weren't really even her friends." He laughed lightly. "She was all alone, I guess. Isn't that sad, Chief Tolliver?"

Jeffrey stared at Mark, not answering.

"If you don't have any more questions," Mark began, "I'd like you to go now."

"Do you know Dr. Linton?" Jeffrey asked.

He shrugged. "Sure."

"I want you at the children's clinic tomorrow by ten o'clock to give that blood sample." Jeffrey pointed his finger at Mark. "Don't make me come looking for you."

Mark stood, wiping his palms on his pants. "Yeah, what-ever." He looked down at Lena, who was still on the floor. She was at his crotch level, and he smiled, more like a sneer, when he noticed this.

Mark raised one eyebrow at her, his lips slightly parted in the same sly smile he had given her before, then left the room.

Monday

Chapter Eight

Around six o'clock in the morning, Jeffrey rolled out of bed and fell onto the floor. He sat up, groaning at the pain in his head as he tried to remember where he was. The trip to Sylacauga had taken him six long hours last night, and he had tumbled into the twin bed without even bothering to take off his clothes. His dress shirt was wrinkled, the sleeves pushed up well past his elbows. His pants were creased in four different places.

Jeffrey yawned as he looked around his boyhood room. His mother had not changed a thing since he had left for Auburn over twenty years ago. A poster of a cherry-red 1967 Mustang convertible with a white top was on the back of the door. Six pairs of worn-out sneakers were on the floor of the closet. His football jersey from Sylacauga High was tacked to the wall over the bed. A box of cassette tapes was stacked high under the room's only window.

He lifted the mattress and saw a stack of Playboys, that he had started stockpiling at the age of fourteen. A much-loved copy of Penthouse, purloined from the local store down the street, was still on the top. Jeffrey sat back on his heels, thumbing through the magazine. There had been a time in his life when he had known every page of the Penthouse by heart, from the cartoons to the articles to the lovely ladies in provocative poses that had been the focus of his sexual fantasies for months on end.

"Jesus," he sighed, thinking some of the women were probably old enough to be grandmothers now. Christ, some of them were probably eligible for social security.

Jeffrey groaned as he slid the mattress back into place, trying not to push the magazines out on the other side. He wondered if his mother had ever found his stash. Wondered, too, what she must have thought of it. Knowing May Tolliver, she had ignored them, or made up an excuse that allowed her to block out the fact that her son had enough pornography under his mattress to wallpaper the entire house. His mother was good at not seeing things she did not want to see, but then most mothers were.

Jeffrey thought about Dottie Weaver, and how she had missed all the signs with her daughter. He put his hand to his stomach, thinking about Je

Jeffrey rubbed his eyes, trying to push out this image. He let his gaze travel back to the Mustang, taking it in the way he had every morning of his teenage life. The car had represented so much to him when he was growing up, chief among these things being freedom. As a teenager, he had sometimes sat in bed, his eyes closed, imagining getting in that car and taking off across country. Jeffrey had wanted so much to get away, to leave Sylacauga and his mother's house, to be something other than his father's son.

Jimmy Tolliver had been a petty thief in every sense of the term. He never stole big, which was a point in his favor, because he always got caught. Jeffrey's mother liked to say that Jimmy couldn't break wind in a crowded building without getting caught. He just had that look of guilt about him, and he liked to talk. Jimmy's mouth was his biggest downfall; he couldn't stand not taking credit for the jobs he pulled. Jimmy Tolliver was the only person who was surprised when he had ended up dying in prison, serving out a life term for armed robbery.

By the time he was ten years old, Jeffrey knew practically every man on the Sylacauga police force by name, because at some time or another, one or all of them had come to the house, looking for Jimmy. To their credit, the patrol cops knew Jeffrey, too, and they always made a point of taking him aside whenever they saw him. At the time, being singled out by the police had a

Jeffrey owed these cops a lot, not least of all his career. Watching the fear in his father's eyes that last time the cops had come to the house and slapped the cuffs on Jimmy, Jeffrey had known then and there that he wanted to be a cop.

Jimmy Tolliver had been a drunk, and a mean one at that. To the town, he was a bumbling crook and a sloppy drunk, to Jeffrey and his mother, he was a violent asshole who terrified his family.