*
She’s giggling, driving too fast on purpose to confuse him. He hates her when she’s this way.
“And do you know what she told my mother? She said the day the Apollo spacecraft landed on the moon Wesley wouldn’t leave the television, even to eat.”
“What’s so funny about that?”
She’s steering with her left hand, and she’s right-handed. There’s a yellow warning sign, but she’s going too fast to notice.
“Some people don’t laugh in the face of progress,” he adds, gripping the dashboard.
“Wait! Let me tell it.”
She’s looking at him instead of the road.
“So later that afternoon Mrs. Dutton heard Wesley pacing. She looked in his bedroom and there he was walking around with two big squares of foam rubber tied under his shoes. He’d cut up the pillows!”
Why did he agree to this ride? Every time the car cuts around a curve he’s sure he’s going to die. Now they’re on a road he’s not familiar with. Neither is she. She throws the gearshift into reverse and they’re back on the main road.
“Where was the accident? I’m confused now.”
“What accident?”
“Sam might make fun of you for going deaf, but he should know you’ve gone stupid too. The murdered woman.”
They’re going around another curve. A car approaching clicks its high beam on and off.
“Is it one of the roads over top of that hill?”
They’re at the top before he has time to answer. Bob Nails is sure she’s going to kill them. “Yeah,” he agrees immediately. “That road, I think.”
She turns and slows down. “This can’t be it. There’d be some markings.”
“Why are you looking for it? What do you care?”
“I just want to know,” she says.
“Know what?” Bob Nails says.
“Listen,” Jeannie says, slamming on the brakes. “You always were after me because I wanted to find out about things. You hate books. You’re glad I came back. You don’t want me to find out about anything. You don’t want me to find out about you.”
“Me?” he says. “What are you talking about?”
They’re sitting in the dark and the car has come to a stop, not quite in the middle of the road. She’s stretched her neck toward him so she can scream in his face. There’s a surprised look on her face.
“What?” he asks.
She looks away, through the wheel. “I just wanted to see it. I’ll bet lots of people are driving there to look.”
“Sure,” he says, relieved that she’s talking quietly. “We just found the wrong road is all.”
She smiles at him and starts to drive again, carefully. Bob Nails begins to feel better, thinks about suggesting a drink. Which way is she headed … what’s closest?
“But we’ll find it,” she says evenly. “Is it this road?”
Bob Nails and Jeannie leave the bar. It’s almost midnight — Jeannie’s mother won’t stay awake any later with the babies, and she refuses to sleep in the spare bed. Bob Nails never liked Jeannie’s mother. She’s been at his mother’s house almost constantly since the funeral, when his father died after his second heart attack. Bob Nails drives the car because Jeannie’s drunk.
“Would you be mad if I still wanted to see where the accident was?”
“Why do you keep calling it an accident? She was murdered,” Bob Nails says.
“What’s the big deal about being so precise?”
“You’re the one who always thought you had to understand everything in detail,” Bob Nails says.
“You’re drunk. You always want to fight when you’re drunk.”
“I don’t know what I want. I’m sorry you’re having a bad time. I should of planned something.”
He looks over to see if she agrees, but she’s just smiling prettily. Her face is pretty even if her hair is messed up.
“Then if you don’t have anything planned why don’t we do what I want to do?”
“Hell,” he says, accelerating, “I’ll find the goddamn place.”
He makes a turn and drives a few miles. This is all familiar ground — where he and Tom Dutton used to hunt pheasants when they were young. He tries to remember what he read in the newspaper. Peterson’s old farm, he guesses. Around the corner he coasts to a stop.
“Okay,” he says.
“Where?” she asks, sitting forward.
“Must of been here somewhere …”
He turns the car onto the shoulder and the headlights illuminate a patch of field.
“Quiet,” she whispers, sliding close.
“Quiet? What for?”
Jeannie lights a cigarette and tosses the match into the ashtray. “How do they think it happened?”
“I don’t know. They figured she picked up a hitchhiker and he shot her.”
“She was riding along the road,” Jeannie says, before she hears his explanation, “and she picked up a man who stabbed her in the neck.”
“I thought he shot her.”
“Bang!”
Bob Nails’s hands tighten on the wheel. “What the hell was that for?”
“If you were her you’d be dead.”
What’s she doing now? What’s she starting to laugh about? But she isn’t laughing. She’s just the way she was. He shivers, feeling her finger on the back of his neck. She shivers too. Something is moving — an animal, trying to get away from the headlights. He’s not sure this is where it happened, because it could have been the other side of Peterson’s farm. He thought there would be a NO TRESPASSING sign, but there isn’t. He thought it was an animal, but it isn’t. It’s Wesley Dutton.
“Wesley?” Jeannie whispers. “What’s Wesley doing here?”
Bob Nails opens the car door. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” Wesley says.
It’s cold outside. Hunching his shoulders against the wind, Bob Nails walks into the field. Wesley has on his winter coat, a hat, and a scarf double-knotted at the throat. His hands are dirty and he’s holding something out to Bob Nails. Pictures. He’s been putting them in the ground, he tells Bob Nails. Why? Wesley tells him about a man in a movie who misses a dead lady and goes to her grave to put his picture in the ground there. Wesley’s eyes fill with tears. He sits and rubs his hands over the dirt. He says he just found out from people talking at the train station. They said it was Peterson’s farm.
Bob Nails gives Wesley a hand and tells him he’ll take him home. Wesley squats to pick up the remaining pictures.
“Hello, Wesley,” Jeannie says when he climbs into the back seat.
“Good evening,” Wesley says.
“Why were you out there?” she asks.
Wesley smiles politely. In a moment his expression changes. He remembers. He hitched a ride. He smiles triumphantly.
They ride the rest of the way to Wesley’s house in silence. When they pull up, it’s dark inside.
“Don’t worry, Wesley,” Bob Nails says, opening the car door. So Wesley’s mother won’t hear the door slam and wake up, Bob Nails drives off holding it shut. At the end of the block, closing the door, he notices his watch and sees that it’s two in the morning.
“She’ll stay with them. She just tells me to come back to bluff,” Jeannie says.