“You walked out on Della and took up with Brandi.” Laverne couldn’t stop herself from saying it even though she knew she shouldn’t. “I never thought you’d do that either.”
“Are you saying you think I started that fire?”
She shook her head. “I’m saying I can’t rule anything out. I’m sorry.” She meant it as she always did when she investigated a case: sorry that circumstances were such that they required her attention, sorry for what people’s lives could come to. “I have to look at everything, Ronnie.” She paused a moment and then asked him again. “Did you put that trailer on fire?”
He wouldn’t answer. He just kept rocking back and forth in his chair. “You just have to trust me,” he finally said.
“Ronnie, I want you to understand something.” Laverne was patient. She explained to him that it was her job to make sure the girls were safe. She let the silence settle around them. Then she said, “If the court thinks your girls are in danger, I’ll have to take them out of your and Brandi’s house and put them in foster care.”
“I don’t want my girls in foster care. I know what that’s like, and you should know too. If you want my girls safe, you won’t do that to them.”
Laverne knew that he’d moved in and out of foster homes after his mother died and his father wouldn’t keep him. She also knew that, hard as Children and Family Services tried, they couldn’t always ensure that each foster home was ideal.
“I’ll do my best by your girls,” she said. “And you should know I’ll get to the truth. I was your teacher, Ronnie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can’t hide from the truth. No matter what you choose to say or not say.” Laverne waited for her words to sink in. She hoped that Ronnie would say something, anything that might save him, but when enough time had passed to make it clear he wasn’t going to let her know anything else, she said, “The truth always finds us. I taught you that in Sunday School.” She stood up from her chair, eager to find Irene Piper to tell her she was finished with her office, anxious to get to Brandi’s house to talk to the girls. But first she had a last word for Ronnie. “I’m disappointed that you don’t seem to remember what you learned from me.”
Then she left him to think about that.
_________
Shooter lifted his head, looking up the long slope to where Missy stood, feeling her heart in her chest. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to explain why she’d come looking for him. It was something about everything she felt, the miscarriages, the trailer fire. All the sadness, all somehow contained in the sight of Shooter leading that goat across the field and into the woods.
“I saw you,” she finally said, meaning of course that she’d seen him from the house.
“That goat was sick.” He shouted up to her. He waved his arms about, his open barn coat flapping at his sides. “Foot and mouth disease. There’s no cure, you know, and it spreads fast. What choice did I have? I had to put him down.”
“I know it was a hard thing.” Missy was struggling to find the words that would say all she felt. “I know how Captain loves those goats.”
Shooter nodded. He wiped his sleeve across his face. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell him.” He bent over and put his hands on his knees. Then he straightened and said to her, “Methuselah was his favorite. It’s going to break his heart.”
“Did you come out here so Captain wouldn’t see?”
“Sometimes when something’s sick like that, all you can do is put it down.”
He went to the goat and before Missy knew he was going to do it, he stooped and pushed against the goat’s stomach, shoving it toward the lip of the gulley.
She couldn’t watch anymore. She’d already turned to start back toward home when she heard the snapping of branches, the thump of the body, dead weight falling.
Laverne hoped that Ronnie wouldn’t follow her to Brandi’s house. She’d call for the sheriff if he tried to make trouble. Not that she thought he would. He’d been devastated when he’d left the school. He’d been pulling away from the curb in his Firebird when she came out from saying goodbye and thank you to Irene Piper. Not in his usual rambunctious way, foot heavy on the accelerator, but slow and easy. She watched his brake lights come on at the stop sign where Cedar intersected with Main, and she held her breath as he sat there and sat there though there was no traffic coming, before finally making a left-hand turn. It was like he was thinking about what his next move should be, and that was enough to worry her.
Brandi was alone with the girls when Laverne got to her house. It was dark now, nearly five o’clock, and Brandi was getting supper on the table.
“Sarah’s school play,” she said, when she let Laverne in the door. “With so much going on, I forgot all about it.”
Laverne thought for a moment how it could have been an ordinary evening, and this, an ordinary family — Brandi dishing up food so the kids could eat, Ronnie about to walk in any minute, saying he was sorry he was late, couldn’t be helped. Then everyone eating as quickly as they could so they could get to the school because Sarah was the voice of the bridge in The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
“Ronnie said he never meant to hurt you with that knife,” Laverne said to Brandi. The girls were in the kitchen helping with supper, and Laverne and Brandi were standing just inside the front door. Laverne kept her voice down so the girls wouldn’t hear. “Do you think he meant to come at you with it?”
Brandi had on a red bib apron, and her stomach swelled beneath it. “Come in here with me.” Brandi’s eyes were wide open, urgent. She took Laverne by her elbow. “I’ve got something to show you.”
Laverne followed Brandi back to her and Ronnie’s bedroom. A stack of baby books teetered on the bedside table, clumps of used Kleenex scattered over it. A pair of house shoes with the faces of sock monkeys on them peeked out from under the bed. A yellow bathrobe with red hearts on it had fallen onto the floor. The bed hadn’t been made that morning. The top sheet and a purple blanket were twisted into a wad. The flowered comforter spilled over the end. It was the bed of a woman who’d had a night of trouble.
Brandi’s purse was on the dresser. She opened it and took out a black T-shirt. “Look at this,” she said to Laverne. She showed her where a strip of the shirt had been torn away. “Smell it.” Brandi held the shirt up to Laverne’s face. “Go on. What’s it smell like?”
“I’m not sure,” Laverne said.
“Take another sniff.” Brandi offered the shirt again. “Gasoline?”
“I’d say so. Yes. Is this Ronnie’s?”
Brandi nodded. “I found it in his car right before you got to the school. What do you think it means?”
So they’d come to this: everything meant something. Laverne knew that was the point where living stopped seeming natural and everything became a struggle. That’s where Brandi and Ronnie were now — that place where each little thing was suspect.
“I don’t know what it means,” Laverne said, and it was true. She didn’t. “But I think Sheriff Biggs should know about it.”
Brandi put her hands on her swollen stomach. “Here I am less than five months away from my delivery.” She put her hand to her mouth and choked down a sob. “This was supposed to be such a happy time for Ronnie and me.”
“Don’t give up on happiness yet.” Laverne patted Brandi’s arm. “This story isn’t over.”
“But I talked to Missy. She wants the girls. I told her I thought that would be best. I can’t be home to take care of them. She can.”
Laverne knew that Missy’s heart was good. She loved those girls and wanted to do right by them, and now the threat that Ronnie seemed to present had given her the chance to step in.