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The car was a Chevy, a black Monte Carlo, and it waited at the roadside, both of the girls stuck down between the gulley and the road. Diane grabbed Lori’s hand and told her to be quiet and just walk, and they followed the road as the Monte Carlo drove slow alongside of them. Revving the motor every few seconds, Diane now scared, scared as hell, because she didn’t know this car or the driver and knew they were still a good ways from Varner’s, where they could call someone, or scream near some trailers, and not be hanging out here in the night. She couldn’t even imagine what her daddy would say if she told him.
The passenger window rolled down. She could not see the driver but caught part of his face when he fired up a cigarette and said, “You little dolls want a ride?” In half shadow, he was black and wore a beard, she could see, a jean jacket collar popped around his neck, something wrong with his skin, as if some of it had been burned at one time. The lighter went out and the girls kept walking. She held Lori’s hand tighter. The younger girl was trembling and staring at the ground. That proud, sexy strut from the Square was gone; now it was fast and shameful and following that barbed wire path, her muttering that she should never ever have taken those joints, that they shouldn’t have been drinking and messing about.
“Hush,” Diane said. “Just hush.”
The Monte Carlo revved. The man followed them slow but didn’t say another word. Diane thought maybe they could run, but ru
When an old truck passed them on the road, one headlight busted out, and heading to town, the girls ran up to the side of the road and waved and yelled, but the truck just kept on puttering by them, leaving them full out exposed in the headlights of the Monte Carlo and caught in the high beams. As the old truck disappeared over the hill, there was still the sound of the big party, a mile away, playing some Tanya Tucker. “Delta Dawn.”
Diane held on to Lori’s hand tighter.
The driver’s door opened and the shadow of the man appeared behind the lights. Diane tried to shield her eyes and yelled for the man to get the hell away from both of them. Lori was crying. And that made Diane madder than anything. “What the fuck do you want?”
The man had a gun and was upon them faster than Diane would have thought possible, snatching up a good hunk of her hair and forcing her back to his car. She screamed as loud as she could. Lori could have run. She could have run. Diane yelled so much she felt her lungs might explode.
The car door slammed behind them just as the fireworks started above, coloring their windshield in wild patterns, and the man sped off to the west. The soft crying of Lori in the backseat.
Lori was only fourteen.
I’ve always wondered, Qui
“Caddy and I went out to Hollywood a couple times when we were really young, back in the eighties,” Qui
Stevens leaned back into his chair, his office filled with historic photos of Jericho, Mississippi’s last hundred years, from its days as prosperous lumber mill and railroad town to the day last year when a tornado shredded nearly all of it. One of them was a picture of Jason Colson jumping ten Ford Pintos on his motorcycle back in ’77. The office seemed to have remained untouched since then, windows painted shut and stale air locked up tight, dust motes in the sunlight, the room smelling of tobacco, whiskey, and old legal books.
“Maybe the reason you joined the Army?” Stevens said, smiling a bit, motioning with his chin.
Qui
“You liked all that danger and excitement like your dad?”
“I liked the Army for other reasons,” Qui
Stevens smiled and swallowed, looking as if he really didn’t know what to say. Which would be a first for Stevens, known for being the best lawyer in Tibbehah County when he was sober. And the second-best when he was drunk.
He was a compact man, somewhere in his late sixties, with thi
“OK,” Qui
“Honestly?” Stevens said. “Pretty fucked-up.”
“You really think they’ll take our case to the grand jury?” Qui
So
“What’s to study on?” Qui
“And you shot them?” Stevens said, staring out the window.
“I shot Leonard. Lillie shot the other officer.”
“Can you step back a little, Qui
“That convict Esau Davis kidnapped my sister and nephew, Jason,” Qui