Indelible

Jeffrey could only stare at her, his mind making conclusions that turned a knife in his gut. "What if someone gets nosebleeds a lot?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Who are you thinking about?"

"Just answer, Sara. Please just answer."

"It could be," she said. "Nosebleeds, bleeding gums. Cuts that won't stop bleeding."

"You're sure it's genetic?"

"Yes."

"Shit," he whispered, thinking that as bad as everything seemed a few minutes before, it had just gotten worse than he could have ever imagined.

"What are you -"

They both looked up as the door opened.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get here," Hoss told them, taking his keys out of his pocket as he walked toward his office.

Jeffrey could not move.

Hoss looked at Sara, obviously taking in her cuts and bruises. "I would've never thought Robert was capable of hurting a woman," he told her. "But I guess he wasn't nearly the man I thought he was."

"I'm fine," Sara answered, a tight smile on her face.

"That's good," Hoss said, unlocking his office door. He went in, turning on the lights as he walked to his desk and rummaged through some papers. "Come on in so we can get this over with."

Sara gave Jeffrey an inquisitive look, and he returned the question with an affirmative nod.

Hoss noticed Jeffrey still standing in the doorway. "Slick? There a problem?"

Sara put her hand on Jeffrey's shoulder. She asked him, "Do you want me to wait outside?"

"That's okay," Hoss said, obviously thinking she was talking to him.

"I'll wait outside." She squeezed Jeffrey's shoulder again, and somehow, her confidence that he would do the right thing gave him the strength to walk into the office.

The door clicked shut behind him as he sat in the chair opposite Hoss.

"Guess she's had a hard time of it," Hoss said, obviously thinking Sara was in a delicate state. He picked up a report and sca

"We still don't know about Julia."

"Robert confessed."

"He confessed to a lot of things he didn't do."

"Don't know that I can trust his word after what we know about him."

"You're saying because he's gay, that makes him capable of murder?"

"Makes him capable of anything in my book," Hoss said, turning the page over to read the back. "Might open a few of his cases and see what he was really up to."

This more than anything else sparked Jeffrey's anger. "Robert was a good cop."

"He was a fucking queer," Hoss said, still staring at the report. He picked up his pen and signed the bottom. "No telling what else he was doing. We had a missing boy here a few years back. Robert worked the case like it was his own son."

Jeffrey managed to speak through clenched teeth. "You're saying he's a pedophile now?"

He picked up another report. "Goes hand in hand."

Jeffrey could only stare at him.

"He coached the Little League," Hoss said. "I've already called some parents."

"That's bullshit," Jeffrey spat. "Robert loved kids."

"Yeah," Hoss agreed. "They all love kids."

Jeffrey tried to sum it up for him, to show Hoss how wrong his thinking was. "So, he's a pedophile, has a thing for boys, but he killed Julia when they were both teenagers?"

"No telling what a sick mind like that will do," Hoss said. "Choke an i

Hoss's words echoed in Jeffrey's head, and finally he saw it all laid out like a puzzle. "I don't remember telling you she was strangled," he said quietly.

Hoss shot him a startled look. "Your lady told me."

"Did she?" Jeffrey asked, making to get up out of the chair. "You want me to go ask her when?"

Hoss faltered. "Maybe I heard it in town."

Jeffrey couldn't believe how silent the room suddenly was. Everything fell into place. "You know he didn't do it."

Hoss looked at Jeffrey over the report. "I do?"

"Eric Kendall has a bleeding disorder."

He looked back down, eyes moving as he sca

"He's your kid, isn't he?"

Hoss did not answer, but Jeffrey saw a slight tremor in the report he held.

"You told me once how you tried to join the Army after your brother died, but they wouldn't take you on medical grounds."

"So?"

"Why wouldn't they take you?"

Hoss shrugged. "Flat feet. Everybody knows that."

"You sure it wasn't something else? Something that would keep you off the force if it got out?"

"You're just talking crazy now, boy," he said in a tone that ordered this conversation to be ended.

Jeffrey did not obey. "You get nosebleeds all the time. Your gums bleed for no reason. I saw you get a paper cut once and it bled for two days."

He gave a weak smile. "That don't mean -"

"Don't lie to me," Jeffrey demanded, anger boiling to the surface. "You can say anything you want right now and it stays in this room, but don't you dare lie to me."

Hoss shrugged, like it was nothing. "She was loose. You know that."

"She was only sixteen years old."

"Seventeen," Hoss corrected. "I wasn't breaking any laws."

Jeffrey felt disgusted, and it must have read in his face, because Hoss tried a different tack.

"Look," he said. "Times were different. That girl needed someone to look after her."

Jeffrey felt sickened by his words. As a cop, he had heard that same excuse a thousand times from dirty old men, and to hear it now from Hoss was like a slap in the face. "Looking after her doesn't mean screwing her."

"Watch your tone," Hoss warned, as if he still deserved Jeffrey's respect. "Come on, Slick. I took care of her."

"How?"

"Kept her daddy off her, for one," Hoss answered. "Plus, you think her mama paid for her to go off and have that baby?"

"Your baby."

He shrugged. "Who knew? Coulda been mine, coulda been yours."

"The hell you say."

"Coulda been anybody's, is what I'm getting at. She went with half the damn town." He took a wad of tissue out of his pocket and blotted at his nose. "Coulda been her daddy's, for all I know."

Jeffrey could only stare at the telltale trickle of blood coming from Hoss's nose. He had always seemed so tough, but thinking back on it, every time the old man got stressed, his nose bled.

Jeffrey said, "You gave her that locket, didn't you?"

Hoss looked at the tissue before putting it back to his nose. "It was my mama's. I guess I was feeling generous that day."

Jeffrey wondered how Hoss had really felt about the girl. If you were using someone to get laid, you didn't give the woman gifts, especially something that had belonged to your mother. He pressed, "Why didn't you marry her?"

Hoss laughed at the suggestion, a tiny spray of blood escaping around the tissue. "Wake up, Slick. You don't marry something like that." He pointed toward the door, toward Sara. "That's the kind of woman you marry." He dropped his hand. "Somebody like Julia, that's the kind of woman you fuck and hope to God she don't give you something you need a shot of penicillin to get rid of."

"How can you talk about her that way? She's the mother of your child."

"Pretty ballsy coming from you."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing," he answered, though Jeffrey was certain he was holding back. "Look, we just had a good time."

"She was too young to know what a good time was." Jeffrey stood up, thinking he had sat idly by long enough. "Did you kill her?"

"I can't believe you're asking me that."

Jeffrey kept silent. He had seen the answer in Hoss's eyes. Everything was turning upside down. The man he thought was good and decent was actually the kind of punk that made Jeffrey glad he was a cop who could put them away. If he had Hoss back in Grant County, shut in the interrogation room, he would be doing everything he could not to haul off and hit the fucker.