When Reeve thought back on the ungainly grunting struggle that followed, as he was doing right now, sitting across from Sofia, he thought of how the gun had felt once he had it in his hand, the foreign coolness of the grip soothing him in that steamy shop in the wilds of this steamy county, the gun’s perfect balanced weight and perfect incuriosity. Barn was slobbering, vanquished and separated from his pistol, gathering himself as well as he could, staggering, spitting. Reeve watched him read the situation, injured and beyond all reason, watched him grab an outsize wrench off his worktable and lumber forward, grinning now, saying Reeve would never do it. Reeve remembered wondering if Barn was right, the man raising the wrench overhead into the dusty air of the shop, his intent simple and evil, and then there was a bright roar all around them, a shudder running through the walls.
Reeve had regretted the act immediately. He’d regretted the entire feud, regretted leaving Jacksonville, regretted letting his wife walk away. His entire past was a mess. He could smell blood through the sour gunsmoke. He should’ve gotten the hell out of the shop the second he had possession of the gun. But he hadn’t. He’d wanted to be dared, had wanted to stand the ground he’d gained, to push his advantage. Reeve had stalked onto another man’s property, a native’s property, half expecting an altercation, and that man had wound up dead.
He wiped off the weapon as he’d seen done in a thousand movies and returned home and scrubbed his kitchen. He dusted every piece of furniture in his house and swept his garage. He kept washing his hands, he didn’t know why. He started a commonplace grocery list — eggs, milk, bread.
Now he had to hope the animosity between himself and Barn was not unearthed. He’d been asked nothing about his dog, Salvatore, who was still missing. Reeve wasn’t aware that Barn was mixed up with criminals. He could easily get away with this, but he didn’t know that. His mind was a stew of worry but he looked to Sofia like a man on a demanding vacation, a man who’d ordered a complicated drink and was awaiting its arrival. He was a murderer, this guy across the table. He’d taken a man’s life.
After the interview, Sofia drove out along the Hargreaves Trail, toward Barn Renfro’s place. She’d driven past it before, maybe a half-dozen times — the nondescript boat shop that was twice the size of the house it sat next to, the lake you barely caught a glimpse of as you passed. There was a wide spot in the gravel just past Barn’s spread, and Sofia parked her Datsun and got out. The air was laden with the odor of burnweed and the only animal life present was the many varieties of small dark birds — on the fences and power lines and pecking about like chickens near the road. Sofia could feel the heat from the gravel right through the soles of her shoes, her keys jingling in her hand. She turned up Barn’s drive and headed straight for the shop. The front of it was hung with a single orange ribbon, across the regular door and the big bay doors. The structure was very tall now that Sofia was close to it, to accommodate the boats Barn worked on in there. Used to work on. Sofia figured the door was locked. She didn’t want to try the knob. She just needed to see inside, so she kept on around the side of the shop, looking for a window, and when she saw one she went up and rested her fingertips on it.
The surprise would’ve been if this wasn’t the place she’d seen in the interrogation room, but when she pressed her nose to the glass it was all there. Right on the other side of the window was the table where Barn had grabbed the wrench. Same table. It was covered with iron files and sockets and screwdrivers and pliers. Beside the table was some sort of press — Sofia couldn’t tell what it was for but she remembered it. She kept her face where it was and after a minute she could see more, a familiar red toolbox, and a miniature fridge. A bookshelf full of manuals. A rack of fishing rods suspended from the rafters. She turned her head and checked behind her. Everything was quiet. The pines that marked the other edge of Barn’s property were perfectly still. She imagined Reeve’s dog running out of those pines, bounding toward her and barking lightheartedly. She had no clue what had happened to that dog. Maybe Barn had happened to the dog. Or maybe the world had simply taken it away.
She turned and peered again into the shop, more familiar details coming into focus. This was the place she’d seen in her vision, and she ought to have been feeling satisfaction over that. Her ability had been proven, the question answered — the reason she’d gotten involved in all this in the first place. Reeve, composed and accomplished, in good shoes and a sport coat, a recent retiree, was a killer. This was a fact. But satisfaction wasn’t coming. There was a corkboard on the far wall where a half-dozen boat keys were hanging. Beneath that, an air compressor. There was a big clean spot in the middle of the dusty floor, Sofia saw. It had to be where Barn had fallen dead, where his blood had been mopped up. No, satisfaction was nowhere close.
That evening, Sofia sat with Uncle Tunsil on the front steps. He had a glass of whiskey resting on his leg. Through the branches of the nut tree the sky was pink.
“The smart money’s on an out-of-towner.” Uncle Tunsil straightened his back until it produced one hollow crack. “Smart money’s been on an out-of-towner from the start. Bookie or dealer or something. Oh, well. Poor old Barn.”
Sofia nodded.
Uncle Tunsil took a nip from his glass and his face tightened. “I should get better bourbon. I go through about a bottle a year.”
Moments earlier, Sofia had looked her uncle in the face and lied to him about Reeve, had said she’d gotten nothing. She had lied to her uncle and now was finding it hard to speak to him. She couldn’t be responsible for Reeve getting punished, couldn’t be the one to decide a man be tried for murder. She had a talent, but that didn’t make her anyone’s judge. If anything, she’d seen how far from black and white these matters could be, how presumptuous it was to think she ought to intervene, how presumptuous, even, to think that anyone ever really got away with anything.
Sofia looked over at her uncle, gently rocking the liquor in his glass, squinting into the thick-aired evening. Sofia felt she was sparing him something too, by keeping quiet. He wasn’t cut out for nailing unfortunate people to the wall. He was a big, tough innocent. Still, she felt disloyal. She’d wanted to help him and now she was working against him. Lying to him. He’d hear grumblings in town, might even lose some respect in some people’s estimation. He might not care about that, but Sofia did. There was a foul nagging in her chest.
She wasn’t going to worry him anymore about her gift. That was for sure. He didn’t deserve a psychic in his house. She was going to let him think the matter had been resolved.
“I got more to look into before I shelve the case,” he said. “The guy the state sent is heading back to Tallahassee. He can’t wait to get out of here. He told me when he runs over his hundredth snake he’s going back home, and he’s got about a dozen to go.”
Sofia wanted to ask her uncle for a pull of his whiskey, but she knew she would hate the taste. Her stomach was roiling gently. There was still no breeze, no cars on the road that ran past the house. The only sound was the rising chant of insects. Sofia thought she could smell the lemons on the little tree in the yard.
“You know,” her uncle said. “You should quit giving that boy of yours a hard time.”
Uncle Tunsil hadn’t been looking at her and now he was. It was out of the ordinary for him to say anything to her about James.