Indelible

Sara sat back, trying to absorb what he was saying. "Did you tell him that her skull was broken?"

"No."

"Then how did he know?"

"He might have gotten it from Hoss. Why?"

"Because that's not how she died," Sara said. "The skull fracture came at least three weeks before she died."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Sara told him. "Bone is living tissue. The fracture was already healing when she was killed."

"It looked like she'd been hit in the head."

"That was from something else. Maybe a rock fell in the cave or an animal…" She did not want to tell him what the animals could have done. "Absent scalp and tissue, I can't tell you whether or not she was hit in the head immediately before she died, but even with that, her hyoid bone was broken."

"Her what?"

"The hyoid," she said, putting her fingers to her throat. "It's here, a U-shaped bone in the center. It doesn't just break on its own. There has to be significant pressure there, some sort of blunt force or manual strangulation." She watched Jeffrey, trying to gauge his reaction. "It wasn't just fractured, it was broken in two."

He sat up. "Are you sure?"

"I'll show you the bone if you want."

"No," he said, tucking the necklace back into his pocket. "Why would he say he killed her when he didn't?"

"That was my next question."

"Maybe if he's lying about that, he's lying about the other night."

"Why?" Sara asked. "Why would he lie about either?"

"I don't know," Jeffrey told her. "But I've got to find out." He indicated the sink. "Can you finish this?"

Sara looked at the mess. "I guess."

He started to leave, then turned around. "I meant it, Sara."

She looked up. "Meant what?"

"What I said last night," he told her. "I do love you."

Despite the horrors of the last few days, she felt a smile on her face. "Go talk to Robert," she told him. "I'll finish this and meet you back at Nell's."

Chapter Eighteen

Tuesday

Jeffrey pulled down the visor of Robert's truck, trying to get the sun out of his eyes. He was not exactly hungover, but a small headache was sitting right behind his nose like a hot dime. Like her husband, May Tolliver had passed on one thing to her son for which Jeffrey was grateful: unless he got rip-roaring drunk, he never got hungover. It was a gift as well as a curse. In college, while Jeffrey had been able to drink anyone under the table and still be able to perform at football practice the next day, most of the guys had stopped their heavy drinking by the end of the first quarter for fear of getting kicked off the team. Jeffrey had taken a few years more. After waking up in a hospital outside of Tuscaloosa with his hand in a cast and no memory of how he had gotten there, Jeffrey had decided to bring his drinking days to an end.

Reggie Ray was sitting at the front desk when Jeffrey walked into the sheriff's station. He said, "What are you doing here?"

Jeffrey did not have time for pleasantries. "Fuck off, you little pissant."

Reggie stood so fast his chair fell over. "You wa

Jeffrey had walked past the desk, but he turned around. "I thought I already had."

They both waited in that stupid game of chicken that men were supposed to outgrow by this age. Even knowing this, Jeffrey stood his ground. He was sick of being treated this way. No, it went further than that. He was sick of letting people treat him this way. Talking to Sara, Jeffrey had finally realized after all these years that the guilt and shame he had experienced had been his own damn doing. Sara did not see him as his father's son. Even now, hearing the worst she could from all kinds of people, she stood by her original view of him. She had known him the least amount of time, yet she seemed to know him better than all of them rolled together, even Nell.

Jeffrey crossed his arms, asking Reggie, "Well?"

"Why is it every time you're in town something bad happens?"

"Luck, I guess."

"I don't like you," Reggie said.

"Is that all you can come up with?" Jeffrey asked. "Well, guess what, you little shit, I don't like you, either. I haven't liked you since you walked in on your sister giving me a blow job in your father's garage."

Reggie took a swing, but Jeffrey caught his fist in the palm of his hand. The impact sounded harder than it was, making a loud smack in the empty room. Jeffrey squeezed Reggie's hand until the other man's knees bent.

"Asshole," Reggie hissed, trying to get his hand back.

Jeffrey jerked the other man forward, banging him against the desk before he let him go. The front door opened and Possum walked in, glancing at Reggie, who was doubled over, before giving Jeffrey a friendly smile as if nothing had happened the day before.

"Possum," Jeffrey began, feeling like a total bastard when he noticed the bruise ru

Possum held his friendly smile, just like always. "No big thing, Slick," he said, patting Jeffrey on the back. "I got your change from yesterday. Don't let me forget to give it to you."

"No," Jeffrey said, thinking he had never felt so bad in his life.

Possum moved on. "You talk to Robert?"

"I was just going to try."

"Bail was set this morning," Possum said, taking a thick envelope out of his pocket.

Jeffrey saw a wad of cash in the envelope and took Possum a few feet down the hall. Not that Reggie Ray wasn't listening, but he felt better having some distance from the other man.

He said, "Possum, where'd you get that money?"

"Borrowed it against the store," Possum said. "Nell about had a heart attack, but we can't leave Robert locked up like that."

Jeffrey felt his shame return. He had not even considered the possibility of Robert making bail, let alone helping out. "Jessie's family's got plenty of money," he said. "You should let them do this."

"They already said they won't," Possum told him, and for once he looked angry about something. "I tell you, Slick, it hurts my heart the way she's treating him. No matter what was going on, he's still her husband."

"Did you talk to her?"

"Just came from there." He lowered his voice. "She was drunk as a mop and it's not even noon yet."

"What did she say?"

"Said he could rot in hell for all she cared," Possum told him, his tone as bitter-sounding as possible in such an affable man. "Can you believe that? They've been together longer than dirt, and she just writes him off."

"She was having an affair," Jeffrey reminded him.

"How long?" he asked, and Jeffrey thought that was a good question. "It doesn't make sense to me, is the thing. Mean as she could be, how could she tool around town making the nasty and nobody ever finds out and tells Robert?"

"Maybe somebody told him," Jeffrey said, giving Reggie a glance. The deputy was staring at them with open hatred, and Jeffrey wondered if he was about to snap.

Possum must have noticed this, too. He put himself between the men, asking Reggie, "Where do I pay bail?"

"In the back," Reggie said. "I'll take you."

He shifted his gun belt as he walked toward Jeffrey, his hand resting on the butt of his gun like he wanted to remind him he could do something with it. When he bumped his shoulder against Jeffrey, Jeffrey let it go, thinking he had started enough fights lately without getting into it again so soon. When the two men were gone, he knocked on Hoss's office door, not waiting to be asked in.

"Hey," Hoss said, standing up from his desk. Robert was sitting in front of him, hands on his lap, shoulders rolled in like he was waiting for the executioner.

"Possum's here bailing you out," Jeffrey told him.