“All the other kids are going.”
“Well, you’re not all the other kids.”
He was silent then, staring rapt at the cartoon blaring from the television. As she entered the kitchen he said, “Mom?”
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“How did I get sick?”
She stopped in the doorway, looked back at him. He hadn’t looked away from the TV.
“I don’t know, Danny. No one knows. It just happens.”
“I’m tired of it.”
“I know.” She came back into the living room, sat cross-legged beside him, touched his thinning hair. He didn’t respond. She leaned close, kissed the top of his head. “We’ll get you well,” she said. “I promise.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, baby, I do.”
She got up then, turned away, not wanting him to see her cry.
In the kitchen she got a pan down from the cabinet, hamburger meat from the refrigerator. The sound of cartoons filled the kitchen as she busied herself, set the pan on the stove, got the heat on. Focusing on what she was doing, shutting everything else out of her mind. The patties sizzled as they met the pan.
“Mom?” he called from the living room.
“Yeah, hon?”
“I’m not a baby, you know. Not anymore.”
She laughed, used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes.
“I know, Danny,” she said. “I know.”
Monday at noon, she drove out to Billy’s house. For no reason she could name, she took the long way, across the freight tracks and into the Libertyville section of town. Big Victorian houses, most in disrepair, some boarded up. She passed tree-shrouded overgrown yards, a street-corner Baptist church.
The neighborhood had been founded by freed slaves after the Civil War and had once boasted a flourishing black business district, a response to the segregation in the rest of Hopedale. But neither history nor architecture had been enough to keep people here. Most of the houses she saw were condemned or for sale. No gentrification here, just a neighborhood left to die, families moving out the first chance they got. Driving through now, she couldn’t blame them.
She caught the county road, took it southwest. Once she passed the old drive-in, there was nothing but farms and fields. Ten minutes later, she turned down Billy’s driveway, pulled the cruiser up behind his truck in the front yard. Lee-Anne’s old Camaro was parked in the carport. Sara sat there for a moment, wondering if she should turn around, go back. Since when have you let that bitch scare you off?
She got out of the cruiser, switched on the handheld radio at her belt, plugged in the shoulder mike. No calls yet today. Finally catching a break.
She went up the steps, knocked on the screen door. She could hear music inside, reggae. She knocked again, heard noises, then the inside door opened. Lee-Anne looked at her through the screen.
“It’s you,” she said.
“I came to check on Billy. See how he was doing. It’s my lunch break.”
Lee-Anne looked past her to where the cruiser was parked. She wore a sleeveless black Jack Daniel’s T-shirt, breasts loose under it, nipples visible through the material. Her long blond hair was braided and beaded on one side, and she wore low-slung jeans that showed an inch of skin, a navel ring. A barbed-wire tattoo circled her left upper arm.
“This police business?” she said.
“No.”
“Billy,” she said without turning, “that woman’s here.”
Sara looked past her into the living room, saw clothes on the floor, smelled the sweet tang of marijuana. Lee-Anne didn’t move.
“You’re looking butch these days,” Lee-Anne said. “That uniform and all. That ain’t no way to get a man, pretending to be one. Though I guess there’s some might like that.”
Sara felt the heat in her face.
“I’ll be outside,” she said and went back down the steps.
She was standing by the cruiser when Billy came down, tucking a white T-shirt into jeans. He looked happy to see her.
“Hey, girl. I thought you were staying home today.”
“Sheriff offered, but I turned him down.”
“Why in hell would you do that?”
You wouldn’t understand, Billy. You never did.
“People would talk,” she said. “Say I was getting special treatment.”
“Bullshit. Nobody’s ever given you any special treatment. If they did you wouldn’t take it anyway.”
He got a pack of gum from his pocket, offered her a stick. She shook her head. He took a piece, rolled the wrapper up, and flicked it away.
“You drop a specimen?” she said.
“What, for Elwood? Yeah, soon as Boone got there. Why?”
“Was it clean?”
“Sure. Why do you ask?”
She lifted her chin at the house.
“That’s just Lee-Anne,” he said. “Can’t get her to stop. She doesn’t do it too much these days, though.”
“Secondhand smoke can make you test positive, too.”
“It’s not a problem, Sara. What’s up?”
“Just came by. See how you were doing.”
He shrugged, leaned back against the cruiser. “Sheriff wants me to see a counselor, man works for the county.”
“Probably a good idea.”
“I may not have a choice, the way Hammond puts it.”
“Even better,” she said. “Keeps you from having to make the decision yourself.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“Sometimes.”
He looked away, squinted. “Elwood called me a little while ago,” he said.
“About what?”
“He told me you’d been in there. That your story matched up.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know. You never know what people are going to say in those situations.”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” she said. “I talked to the sheriff again this morning. He said there’s still some paperwork to do, but it looks like they’re going to rule it a clean shoot.”
“He really say that?”
She nodded.
He blew air out, seemed to sink back against the cruiser, letting it take his weight.
She looked up, saw Lee-Anne at the kitchen window, watching them. “I don’t think she likes me very much,” she said.
“Lee-Anne? Well, you know the way that goes. It’s a woman thing, I guess.”
“I guess,” Sara said. She got her keys out. “I need to get going, run by the market while I’ve got time.”
“Thanks for coming by.”
They stood there a moment, the silence awkward between them. Her radio crackled.
“Eight-seventeen?” Laurel, the day dispatcher. “Eight-seventeen?”
Sara keyed her shoulder mike.
“Eight-seventeen here.”
“Eight-seventeen, please respond to Bell Hardware, Tupelo and Main, for possible shoplifter. Units already on scene.”
“Responding,” she said. “Ten-four. Out.” She looked at him. “Gotta go. That’s what passes for major crime around here. Guess I won’t make it to the market after all.”
The screen door opened. Lee-Anne stood there, arms folded.
“Looks like you’ve got to go, too,” Sara said.
Billy looked back toward the house. “Then I better,” he said. Looked at her again. “It was nice last night,” he said. “Seeing you again. Outside work. Felt like old times.”
“I know,” she said.
“It did.”
He started toward the house. Lee-Anne disappeared inside. He went up the steps, stopped, and looked back at the cruiser. Sara paused, the driver’s door open. He looked at her for a long moment, then went in. Lee-Anne spoke to him-Sara could see their outlines through the screen-then caught the edge of the inner door and slammed it shut.
It was a little after five when she got back to the Sheriff’s Office. She left the cruiser in the garage, turned in her keys and paperwork. As the only female deputy, there was no locker room for her to use. She either changed in the ladies’ room or went home in uniform.