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Meryl glanced over at Chase, who still leaned silently against the counter, while Bobby banged around looking for Jody’s coffee and filters. Driven nearly mad by the clatter and tension, Jody yelled at him, “They’re in the left-hand drawer, Uncle Bobby!”
“I don’t have a left hand,” he growled.
It was a bitter reminder of one more thing Billy Crosby had done to them.
“This is where withholding evidence comes into play,” Meryl said, calling her attention back. “The county attorney withheld evidence from Crosby ’s defense attorney-”
“What evidence?”
“He had witnesses who said Billy lost his hat at Bailey’s and that it was your mom who picked it up.”
“What?”
“Hold on. There’s more. The county attorney also did not reveal that Doc Cramer-remember him, used to be our vet?-told a deputy that your dad had told him about some men he’d confronted in a car passing by the ranch the day before his murder.”
“What men?”
“Strangers. One of them threw a lit cigarette out of their car, and your dad got so mad he forced them to the side of the highway and then gave them holy hell for doing it. Your dad told Doc Cramer they looked like tough customers.”
“So what?”
“So they could have been suspects, Jody.”
“Oh, bull, Uncle Meryl!”
“Bullshit,” Bobby muttered at the sink.
“No doubt,” Meryl agreed, “but prosecutors are required by law to share exculpatory evidence with the defense, and they didn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
Meryl sighed. “So it couldn’t be used to try to establish reasonable doubt.”
Jody stared at him, and after a moment, she said, “Okay, I get it. I get all that. But none of that proves Billy didn’t do it.”
Meryl smiled slightly in approval of her quick analysis.
“Goddamn right he did it,” Bobby muttered, his back still turned.
“Why now?”
“What?” Chase interrupted.
She turned to look at him. “Why is all this coming out now? Why is this happening now?”
“Because that boy of his got out of law school, that’s why.”
“Collin.” She felt her face flush at the memory of him.
Over the years since that day at the Rocks, she had thought of him more often than she wanted to. Each time, she’d had to fight the impulse to keep thinking about him. Now she felt a molten flash of resentment and fury and humiliation as she recollected those moments and the “sorry” he had claimed to feel for her. She tasted gall as she thought, So this is his idea of sorry.
“This is really Collin Crosby’s doing?” she asked them.
“He went through law school with the governor’s son,” Meryl told her. “And apparently the young son of a bitch has been active in political campaigns since he was old enough to figure out how to get what he wants.”
“Paving his way,” Chase said.
“Working up to this,” Meryl agreed.
Jody thought about the boy she remembered-how quiet and self-contained he seemed, how carefully he moved through the streets of Rose and the halls of its schools, how hard he studied and what good grades he got, the scholarships he earned, the fact that he could have gone to college and law school in other places, but stayed in Kansas to do it. She thought about the day she’d seen him at Testament Rocks, about his climbing gear, his athleticism, his obvious ambition to surmount obstacles in literal and figurative ways. If any boy was going to grow up to be the man who accomplished what Collin had achieved on this day, it was that boy. Now, too late to stop him, it was clear what he was after all the time.
“Didn’t we-us, our family-get any say in this at all?”
The uncles exchanged glances again. “We got a hearing with the governor,” Meryl told her. “There’s not much statutory guidance on these things, so I’m not sure he had to do it, but it didn’t make any difference anyway.”
“Don’t give him credit,” Chase growled. “He did it so he could say he heard us.”
“When? When was this hearing?”
“Last night in Topeka.”
“What? Last night? Who went? Did you all go?”
Meryl nodded, looking wary.
“Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t you tell me? You did all this behind my back?” She was furious. All of her life they’d protected her from hearing the worst; all of her life she’d had to fight for any bit of truth and information, until finally she thought they’d loosened up and started treating her as an adult. Obviously, that still wasn’t the case. “The governor needs to see me. I want to talk to him. I want to tell him what that man did to my life. Maybe I’d make him feel some sympathy. Why didn’t you give me a chance?”
“Mom and Dad didn’t want you to be there,” Chase said, his voice harsh. “They wanted to protect you. Dad was sure it was all for show, and he was right. The governor already had his mind made up, and there was nothing we could do to change it. They wanted to spare you.”
“They shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have!”
He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s done now.”
She glared at him with all the force of how infuriated, helpless, and frightened she felt.
“Don’t blame us.” He looked disgusted at the idea of it. “Put the blame where it belongs, on that kid of Billy’s. Like father, like son.” Finally, his own bottled-up rage burst out of him. “Liars, both of them!” He let his anger flow toward his brother. “Isn’t that damned coffee ready yet?”
Bobby answered by swinging his right arm into the coffeepot.
The force of the blow sent the pot full of water and coffee grounds flying into the metal sink, where it shattered. Chase and Meryl both jumped and Jody gasped with shock.
Bent over the sink like a man who might throw up into it, Bobby propped himself up with his one arm. “He’s moving back,” he said, as if the words hurt and sickened him to say. “That murdering bastard who killed my brother and took Laurie is coming back here to live as if he never did anything to anybody. We can’t let this happen.”
“Too late,” Chase said bitterly.
Jody got up from her chair, ran to Bobby, put her arms around his thick waist and hugged up against his back. It felt good to know they were all as upset as she was. It was a mark of just how bad things really were. She had rarely seen any of them lose control; Bobby’s outburst was a welcome revelation. “It’s not our fault, Uncle Bobby,” she consoled him. This time she didn’t cry. Anger at Collin Crosby had dried her tears.
It felt good to have someone to blame.
23
“PACK A SUITCASE, JOSEPHUS,” Chase told her before the uncles left her house. He had an unlit cigarette in one hand, as if he could barely stand to wait to get outside again so he could smoke it. “You’re coming to the ranch with us.”
“I’m not moving back there, Uncle Chase.”
“Yeah, you are. Mom and Dad want you to.”
They were all standing in the front foyer again, Jody and her uncles.
She had stopped crying. Her anger at what Collin Crosby was doing to her family by getting his father out of prison had rejuvenated her, giving her back some spirit and spite.
“But I don’t want to. I just moved in here!”
It wasn’t only that she’d only recently moved in, it was also that she’d done so much work to the huge house to turn it into her home-sanding and polishing its original wood floors, taking down ancient draperies and putting cheerful new curtains back up in their place. She had painted and wallpapered with the help of her aunt and her grandmother. They had all given hours to dusting, washing, shopping, tossing out and replacing things. It had been, Jody hoped, a restorative time for all of them as they began to transform a mansion of bad memories into a happy and beautiful house again. With every swab of a wet sponge, Jody had felt as if she were exorcising him. She was not going to let Billy Crosby force her out of her own home a second time.