Shifty's Boys E-Book

Chris Offutt

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 289

Beschreibung

Mick Hardin is an Army CID officer home on leave, recovering from an IED attack, when a body is found in the centre of town. It's Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see his death as an occupational hazard. But when Barney's mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it seems there's more to the killing than it appears. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers and getting out of town - and most of all, staying out of the way of his sister Linda's reelection as Sheriff - but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he's getting shot at himself. A dark, pacy crime novel about grief and revenge, with surprises hidden below the surface, Shifty's Boys is a tour de force that confirms Chris Offutt's Mick Hardin as one of the most appealing new investigators in fiction.

Leseprobe

Praise for Shifty’s Boys

‘These books are as thrilling and funny as a great crime show yet still exhibit the scraped, lean vernacular sentences readers of Offutt’s short fiction have come to admire. Here’s hoping Hardin rides for a good long while’ – JONATHAN LETHEM, author of The Arrest

‘With The Killing Hills and now Shifty’s Boys, Chris Offutt has launched a fantastic and compelling new crime series… A vivid portrait infused with insight and wisdom, humanity and affection. I eagerly await the next Mick Hardin!’ – JONATHAN AMES, author of A Man Named Doll

‘Shifty’s Boys is a tale of vengeance that asks difficult questions about the nature and value of honor, every line delivered with the relentless efficiency of a wolf stripping meat from a bone’ – CHRISTOPHER YATES, author of Grist Mill Road

Praise for The Killing Hills

‘Pitch-perfect in tone, this is what Jack Reacher wants to be when it grows up’ – TIMES (Thrillers of the Year)

‘Wonderfully atmospheric thriller’ – MAIL ON SUNDAY

‘If Lee Child and Daniel Woodrell collaborated on a hillbilly noir, the result would probably read a lot like this: tough, laconic, emotionally engaging and blackly funny, The Killing Hills makes for a very satisfying read’ – IRISH TIMES (Crime Books of the Year)

‘A riveting example of Rural Noir’ – TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB (Pick of the Week)

‘One hopes Offutt will bring Hardin back; he is a hell of a character!’ – CRIME TIME (Book of the Month)

‘More than just a murder case, it’s a voyage into rural backwoods Kentucky that doesn’t shirk from the darkness to be found there, and unfolds with drive, noir style and wry humour’ – HERALD

‘Quite aside from being one of our finest storytellers, in his first crime novel Chris Offutt reminds us as always of how much we’ve pushed away from us – the natural world, kindness, community – and that the time will come when we reach again and it’s no longer there for the asking’ – JAMES SALLIS

‘The Killing Hills is as poignant and powerful as they come’ – CRIMEREADS (Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021)

‘With wonderful descriptives of the wildlife and the people, this is fantastically stripped back, pared down storytelling with such superbly written depth and sense of place, I’m going to call it; this is Kentucky Noir, it gleams dark, is as hard as anthracite and Offutt is its undisputed Pappy’ – LOVEREADING

‘It’s genuinely thrilling to read and written with a propulsive momentum, a poet’s eye for the small detail and an expert plotter’s feel for twists and turns that come naturally, rather than bolted on out of the blue. Fantastic stuff’ – BIG ISSUE

‘Offutt writes gently and movingly about the people and the land, the history and the present, and the interior landscapes of his carefully and convincingly wrought characters’ – QUIETUS

For Sam Offutt

These hills don’t change.

– Cesare Pavese

Chapter One

At age eight, Albin decided to be a race-car driver when he grew up. He assembled model cars, cobbling together pieces from various kits to make his own hot rod – number eleven, painted in green and white. He imagined himself as the youngest winner of the Brickyard 400, with enough money for ice cream every meal. It never occurred to him that at twenty-two years old he’d be driving a cab in his hometown of Rocksalt, Kentucky.

Half the job was sitting in the car waiting for dispatch to call. The rest was driving roads he’d traveled thousands of times in the past eight years – blacktop, dirt, and gravel. A county map was imprinted on the inside of his skull. All he had to do was mentally glance at it to know the best route. He had a few regular fares, severely inebriated men leaving the only two bars in town. The bulk of his customers needed a ride to a doctor’s office or home from the hospital. He relied on them for income and felt momentarily disappointed when they recovered, which he knew said something awful about himself.

For the past six hours he’d been on duty with no calls. He cruised the small college campus, worthless at night, but he was bored and getting desperate. Main Street was deserted. He drove by the new jail, another waste of time because nobody got released after dark. The bars were just getting active, and it’d be several hours before the drunks started leaving. He called dispatch to double-check that his cell phone was working and got chewed out for tying up the line.

Rocksalt had a few places that were suitable to waiting for a fare. A drugstore parking lot in the middle of town was best, but twice he’d been stiffed by pillbillies who’d spent all their money on legally prescribed opiates. It was time to find an isolated spot, take two hits off a joint, and enter his long-term fantasy of being a race-car driver. All it took was a big-shot promoter passing through to hire his cab and recognize Albin’s skill at the wheel.

He’d bought his first go-kart at Western Auto, a company that went out of business several years ago. Albin had loved entering the store from the rear and descending the steps to the sales floor. It was the only indoor vista in the county, one he’d marveled at as a teenager. Now the asphalt parking lot behind the store was pocked with holes, some deep enough to damage his car’s suspension. Fast-food bags littered the surface along with empty pop bottles. He carefully steered to his favorite place, snugged against the old door, its glass replaced by a sheet of plywood. The roof cast a shadow that would conceal his cab. An odd shape lay in a corner of the lot, and Albin flicked on his brights. Somebody was sleeping against the dilapidated fence, somebody who could use a ride home.

Albin left the car, something no cabbie liked to do, and walked toward the man, who lay on his back. One arm was twisted beneath him, the other outstretched as if reaching toward Albin. Dark splotches marred his clothing. Albin thought it was mud until getting closer and recognizing dried blood. He stumbled to his car and called 911. Then he hid the half joint in the cell phone charging slot built into the dashboard, glad he hadn’t smoked before the cops arrived.

Chapter Two

Mick Hardin awoke from a dream in which he lay in his childhood bed and couldn’t move. His eyelids felt weighted, and he wondered if he was already dead and someone had placed pennies over his eyes. The coins were supposed to hold eyelids shut and serve as payment to the ferryman who transported the dead across the River Styx. Mick lay awake remembering the IED attack that had sent him to an army hospital for three weeks. He’d been released and ordered to rehabilitate his leg, a grueling and painful ordeal. From bed he’d moved to a wheelchair, then shifted to crutches for three months. He’d graduated to a cane that embarrassed him in public.

His commanding officer, Colonel Whitaker, presented him with a special cane intended for soldiers. The lightweight aluminum was painted black, with a slogan down one side: ‘This We’ll Defend.’ Because the words were printed vertically, the apostrophe was a tiny pip, and the motto appeared at first glance to be ‘This Well Defend.’ Every time Mick used it, he remembered the old well at his grandfather’s cabin in the woods, the water cold enough to numb his gums. He rehabbed his leg until he could limp around the base on his own, then asked to go home for the rest of his medically mandated leave. His wife would look after him and could drive him to the nearest VA hospital, eighty miles away in Lexington. The colonel agreed and ordered Mick to keep his cell phone on and return all calls. Mick nodded and flew home.

Now he opened his eyes. He was in his mother’s house, not the cabin where he’d spent his formative years. He felt fatigued, his limbs heavy, a product of the pain medication. He’d gone from fentanyl on the battlefield to morphine in the hospital to Percocet upon discharge. He was still taking it, although the pain no longer required that level of management.

He’d lied to Colonel Whitaker. There was no wife to provide Mick’s care. They’d separated a year ago. The divorce papers were in Mick’s luggage, unsigned, along with his cell phone, switched off. He was waiting for a reason to complete the documents and sever himself from sixteen years of marriage. Despite the circumstances, it didn’t feel right. Neither did sleeping at his mother’s house in a spare room. Mick’s sister, Linda, had inherited the house when their mother died. Linda was at work. She was county sheriff, running for election, and he didn’t see her much.

The bedside clock said ten thirty, and Mick knew she’d be home for lunch soon. He had enough time to walk his daily two miles for the reward of Percocet. He left the ranch house at the deadend of Lyons Avenue and set a strong pace. In several neighboring yards were clumps of forsythia that glowed yellow, cheerful in the spring sun, their fronds already tinged green along the edges. Jonquils were blooming. On the hill overlooking the street, he could see the haze of redbud and a few pink dogwoods. The hills were gorgeous in all seasons, especially spring, when the land offered such promise and hope. Its beauty plowed him under. Mick’s life had come undone to a great degree, and here he was licking his wounds under his dead mother’s roof, tended to by his tough sister. The absurdity of the situation cheered him momentarily.

A neighbor woman waved from her flower bed. Two dogs trotted around another house, the entire back half of their bodies wiggling a greeting. He gave them a walking scratch, reluctant to break his stride. His leg hurt, but it felt good to put his limbs to work. He was mostly healed. Daily exercise was the final stage of rehab, intended to rebuild the muscle mass he’d lost from lying for weeks in grim hospital beds. Across the street was Miller, the mail carrier, a man Mick knew from high school. His was one of the few federal jobs in the county, and more than four hundred people had applied. Everybody wondered how Miller had gotten the position.

Mick silently cursed his bad timing – now he’d have to chat with every person on the street who was retrieving their mail. Sure enough, Old Man Boyle lingered by his box, watching Mick approach. He wore creased trousers, tan loafers, and a shirt buttoned to the collar, as if he’d dressed for the occasion of leaving the house. Bull Boyle had served in Vietnam and lost a son in Iraq. He maintained a certain sympathy for Mick, wrapped in a shroud of resentment that Mick had come home more or less intact. Above each of Boyle’s ears was a large crescent-shaped hearing aid of a vague tan color. Mick recognized them as old-school VA issue.

‘How’s the wheel?’ Boyle said, pointing to Mick’s leg.

Mick slowed to an amble out of respect.

‘Getting stronger every day,’ he said. ‘Any good mail?’

‘Yeah, I won two thousand dollars. Got to go to the Chevy dealer to collect. They’ll give me a sales pitch, then a pair of earbuds. What the hell am I going to do with them? Side of my head’ll look like a hardware store with all manner of equipment hanging off it.’

Mick chuckled.

‘Your sister all right?’ Boyle said.

‘Yeah, she’s running me ragged. Only reason I do my walks is to get her off my ass.’

‘She’s a good lawman-woman,’ Boyle said. ‘I’ll vote for her.’

‘Linda said it’ll be close.’

‘That other feller’s no good. Thinks he’s shit on a stick and would be if he had a peg leg.’ He glanced again at Mick’s leg. ‘Didn’t mean nothing by that.’

‘I know it, Mr Boyle. I got to get on before it stiffens up on me.’

‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Catch you on the flip-flop.’

Mick increased his pace, listening for the faintly audible pop of his knee or the imaginary creak in his hip. As the crow flies, it was a quarter mile from his sister’s house to the first cross street, but Lyons Avenue followed a meandering creek off the hills and the route was ultimately a full mile. Twice he crossed the street to avoid people.

Their father died young, and Linda had stayed with their mother. From age eight, Mick had lived with his grandfather and great-grandfather in the woods twelve miles east. He’d never liked town. It wasn’t Rocksalt specifically but clusters of people in general. Town required a social patina he was no good at, an exoskeleton of politesse. People said one thing and meant another. They became offended if you dared to be honest and direct. It was as if saying what you thought was forbidden. He preferred the forthrightness of country people and army life.

Lyons Avenue ended at Second Street, a name that always amused Mick due to its lack of imagination. In big cities, such designations made sense because of multiple cross streets, but Rocksalt had only three: Main Street, First Street, and Second Street. Mick made his turn and walked back toward his sister’s house. Two cars passed, and he waved without looking. Sweat skimmed his back and legs. He was breathing easily enough to escalate his pace to a forced march, eyes straight ahead and alert to the periphery. His sister’s house came into view, and he double-timed it, counting cadence in his head, one hundred and eighty steps per minute, until he made it to the driveway.

Panting like a dog, he leaned against the exterior wall and drank from the garden hose, pleased with his progress. He was nearly strong enough to return to duty. His wife of sixteen years was living in another town with another man and their child. At best he considered it collateral damage from prolonged deployments overseas. At worst, he’d failed as a husband.

Chapter Three

Sheriff Linda Hardin drove the county vehicle home for lunch with her brother. She loved Lyons Avenue, where she’d grown up. She’d learned to ride a bicycle here, gone door-to-door selling Christmas candles to raise money for her grade school, and later sneaked out for furtive cigarettes with a neighbor girl. Linda knew all the neighbors, none of whom would have predicted that she’d be the first female sheriff in county history. A natural lead foot, she always drove slowly on her own street so everyone could see the big SUV with the official decal emblazoned on the doors and a light bar across the top.

She’d had a busy morning that amounted to nothing – an empty car parked on a dirt road off Big Brushy, unintelligible graffiti on a barn, and four wild dogs chasing a loose cow. She had a court appearance in the afternoon. Not a bad life for a single woman with a good paycheck. The only drawback was her brother, who seemed to be recovered from the IED attack in Afghanistan but was still taking pills and rarely leaving the house. His presence was a palpable force, as if he filled the entire space with his wounded psyche. She loved him but preferred living alone.

She drove into her driveway and saw him leaning against the clapboards, spraying the back of his head with the hose. Water formed a cone around his face like a veil. It was as close to a bath as he’d had for days.

‘Hey, Mick,’ she said. ‘Glad to see you’re cleaning up some.’

He nodded, making the fan of water shiver like a shower curtain. She went into the house for a towel, noting with a grimace that they were all clean and folded, as they had been for a week. She took it outside.

‘I don’t want you dripping in the house,’ she said.

He turned off the hose and nodded his thanks.

‘Been meaning to ask,’ she said, ‘how come you quit taking showers? Your leg?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Well, it’s getting on my last nerve.’

‘Wish you’d told me that three or four nerves ago.’

She chuckled.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘why not?’

‘I took a shower every day in the army, sometimes twice. Part of it was dust in the desert. But the real reason was never knowing when I’d have access to plumbing again.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘You’ve always got running water. Knowing I can take a shower anytime means I don’t have to.’

‘That doesn’t make a lot of sense, Big Bro.’

‘No, I guess not,’ he said. ‘Not much does anymore.’

‘That’s your pills talking. Why’re you still on them anyway?’

‘Because I’m stuck here living with you instead of my wife. And it’s better than drinking whiskey.’

‘Maybe it’s time to go back.’

‘To whiskey?’

‘No, to Germany and the base. The life you like.’

‘Not yet,’ he said.

He walked away, rubbing the towel briskly over his head. Linda watched him go. She worried about him, but he was a big boy, and she was more concerned with her career. Several years ago, Linda had become a dispatcher for the sheriff’s office. To her surprise, she liked being part of something bigger than herself, something that was good for the county. When a deputy resigned under a sexual harassment scandal, she was offered the position. The county politicians thought the first female deputy would help offset the negative publicity. Linda reluctantly agreed, mainly for the bump in pay. The sheriff died suddenly, and she was promoted past the senior deputy, a lazy and incompetent nitwit who worked part-time at a landfill, where he’d managed to wreck three dump trucks, no easy task. He quit the force, and Linda appointed Johnny Boy Tolliver as deputy and learned the job.

She’d never intended to run for sheriff. Her plan had been to fill the post until the election, then ask the winner for reassignment back to dispatch, but a sexist moron had thrown his hat in the ring. Keeping him out of the job was crucial to her. If he won the election, it would vindicate all the men who thought a woman shouldn’t have authority.

Most important, she was good at the job. Everyone knew her family history – father a drunk, mother a shut-in, brother with personal problems and hard to get along with. In Eldridge County this public information made her trustworthy. She believed she could win the election as long as her brother didn’t cause social friction. On the surface he was calm and calculating, but she knew he was capable of sudden action based on intuition. Nobody could control him. Maybe she should confiscate opiates from a dealer and make sure Mick had plenty. Drugged, he wouldn’t be at risk of interfering in the election. Ideally she’d arrest him for possession and ship him back to base. Grinning to herself, she went inside.

Mick had made lunch – turkey and Swiss sandwiches with potato chips and pop. A slight tension tinged their silence. He ate as if in a mess hall, arms protecting his plate, eyes on the food. Linda searched her mind for a subject to ease things, difficult because so many crucial topics were forbidden – his wife, his wounds, the drugs, now even his damn hygiene.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Some local news I need to tell you.’

He nodded, chewing.

‘A body was found two days ago.’

‘Just the one?’

‘That’s right, smart guy. Thing is, you know him.’

She waited for him to display curiosity about the world beyond his concerns. Instead he looked at her, waiting.

‘It was Fuckin’ Barney,’ she said.

‘He still moving heroin in?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘not as of two days ago.’

His quick grin was like a sudden burst of sunlight emerging from behind a rain cloud then vanishing. She felt triumphant.

‘Who do you like for it?’ he said.

‘Nobody. It’s city cop jurisdiction. He was behind Western Auto. Shot three times.’

‘Thought it was closed.’

‘It is,’ she said. ‘This ain’t about the store.’

‘What’s it about, then?’

‘Dope,’ she said. ‘What else? Now wash them dishes for me, will you? And take a damn shower. I’ve got court.’

She stood up from the Formica table, adjusted her equipment belt, and left. Mick wondered what she was riled up about. A good soldier, he followed her orders, then took a Percocet and lay on the couch. He had one more pill left. He could save it or take it now. He took it. He’d regret it tomorrow when he wanted one, but the regrets were piled up like cordwood everywhere he looked. His medical leave ended soon. Better if he was off the meds then anyhow. Still, the days would pass even more slowly without pills.

The opiates hit him – not nearly as hard as he’d like but enough to flatten his sense of time. The light through the window was pretty to look at.

Chapter Four

Four days later Mick felt ninety percent healed. The daily fog of fatigue had faded with the absence of Percocet. He’d squelched the wanton cravings, not so much for opiates or whiskey but for escape itself. Mick supposed he was lucky – he liked to drink, and now he knew he enjoyed narcotics, but he lacked the addiction gene. He could turn it off like throwing a switch. The first couple of days were tough. Much tougher was the knowledge that the switch was always within reach, ready to be flicked back on.

Inactivity was his nemesis, and he walked twice a day for a longer distance, getting in three miles, then five and six. His leg hurt only at night. He tidied the house and showered daily, which improved relations with his sister. Everyone else in their family was dead. Neither of them had kids. It was just them, and he may as well get along with her. He decided to try television, but it was all sex and zombies, serial killers and sad cops. The comedies weren’t funny. He found a documentary on Atlantis, a place that might have existed but nobody knew where. It consisted of a great many shots of the ocean, and he wondered how it qualified as a documentary.

Someone knocked at the front door, an anomaly since most people used the side entrance off the kitchen. Mick paused the TV show and opened the door to Mason Kissick. They appraised each other in the way of country men in town, neither quite comfortable with the circumstances, both waiting for the other to react. Mason lowered his chin in greeting.

‘Mick,’ he said.

‘Mason.’

With the initial phase over, another minute passed while Mick tried to figure out why Fuckin’ Barney’s brother was here. Mason stood as if he were a tree with not a care in the world.

‘Heard you got shot over there,’ Mason said.

‘Naw, I got blowed up. An IED.’

‘Damn. I had a girlfriend with one of them in her. Didn’t know they could blow up. Hurt your peter any?’

‘It’s a kind of bomb, Mason. What do you want?’

‘Ain’t me, it’s Mommy. She wants to talk to you.’

‘Well, bring her in, then.’

‘She won’t come to town. Sent me to fetch you out to the house.’

‘The last time me and her talked, it wasn’t on good terms.’

‘She said to tell you that’s done with now.’

‘What’s on her mind, Mason?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘She said she’ll tell you her own self.’

Mick considered the expedition. The only times he’d gone anywhere was the drugstore or the hospital. He’d made one trip for clothes to his old house, empty after his wife moved out. He became so morose he swore never to return. Driving to the far side of the county might do him some good.

Mason operated his Taurus with great care, clearly new to the complexities of driving in town. His way of dealing with stop signs was to sneak up on them gradually with a few tentative halts, then a long wait at the sign itself. Fully satisfied that he was safe, he entered the intersection with sudden acceleration, then a quick application of the brakes as if to avoid any last-minute vehicle that had escaped his vigilance. Mick stared out the window. He’d driven with worse drivers in the army. The absolute worst were civilian contractors in Iraq.

The pale green of spring lay over the land, each recent bud straining toward the sun. There was a palpable energy in the hills from the trees still in flower, the opening leaves of softwoods, and the infant animals – fawns and kits and naive young snakes. The light had a gentle quality, the sky pastel. Mick felt good to be out of the house and in motion, to have a destination, even if it was Mason’s mother. The last time he’d seen Mrs Kissick, they’d both been armed. She was a hard woman.

Mason left the blacktop for the dirt lane that led to his mother’s house.

‘Hey,’ Mick said. ‘Should’ve told you before. I’m sorry about your brother.’

‘Thanks,’ Mason said. ‘Just so you know, Mommy don’t want us calling him Fuckin’ Barney no more. He’s Barney now. Just Barney.’

Mick nodded. Death was a force of social leveling in the hills, a provider of intricate respect. He recalled a woman who’d married a man her parents despised in life. When he died young, they’d buried him in their family cemetery.

Mason drove into the yard and parked near the three board steps to a porch that spanned the front of the house. The holler received less light than town, and the yard oak held a few blossoms. Grass was scanty. They climbed the steps and entered the house.

Shifty Kissick sat in a reclining chair with a lever repaired by duct tape, antimacassars draped over each arm. On a low table beside her were an ashtray, a cup of coffee, and a small pistol that lacked a front sight to avoid snagging on clothes. Mick had seen her friendly and threatening but never the way she was now – dour with pain, her eyes blazing like a blast furnace. He waited for her to speak. Instead she gestured to a chair.

‘Mason,’ she said, ‘get the man some coffee.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs Kissick,’ Mick said.

She nodded, so accustomed to hearing the platitude that it slid past her like grease. She’d lost two of her five kids, both boys, one to a car wreck many years back, and now Barney murdered. Mason brought a cup of coffee, black and steaming, in a mug emblazoned with a cheerful cow. Out of respect, Mick held it in a way to conceal the bovine smile. The front room was tidy, containing a couch, two chairs, a wide-screen TV with a gaming setup, and a paint-by-numbers depiction of The Last Supper in a filigree frame. Another wall held a faded color photograph of Shifty and her late husband. They looked happy. Mick sipped the harsh coffee and nodded, waiting.

‘You still in the service?’ Shifty said.

‘Yes, ma’am. On leave till my leg’s good.’

‘How much longer?’

‘Depends on the doc. But not too long, a week or so.’

She nodded, and he understood that she knew all this already. She probably knew about his wife and the baby, too. He wondered if she knew about the Percocet. He sat quietly, waiting. Hill culture didn’t traffic in the surface tedium of chatting nicely with people. She’d sent for him. He was here. It was on her now, and he’d wait until she got to the reason behind the summons.

‘I need some help,’ she said.

He nodded, surprised. She was down a boy, but Mick wasn’t about to step into the drug-dealing gap left by the death of Fuckin’ Barney. He glanced at Mason, her youngest son, a man who required precise instructions. Perhaps she needed some work done on the land. It would be good exercise, and Mason could drive him around.

‘What kind of help, Mrs Kissick?’

‘Find out who killed Barney.’

‘You need to talk to the city police.’

‘I done did,’ she said. ‘Till I was blue in the face. They’ve got their mind made up.’

The pupils of her eyes had constricted with anger. Her right eye focused on his right eye, a sign of aggression. Mick nodded and studied the coffee cup.

‘What did the police tell you?’ he said.

‘To stop aggravating them.’

‘What about going through a lawyer? They’ll know the right way to talk to the cops.’

‘I can’t,’ she said.

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Both but mostly can’t.’

‘Sounds kind of tricky.’

‘It is,’ she said. ‘Barney always was, even dead. I’ll pay you good money.’

He leaned back and opened his posture, focusing his left eye on her right to ease her off a little. His voice was modulated low and slow.

‘Mrs Kissick,’ he said, ‘I can’t agree to anything until I know more.’

‘Like what?’

‘What the cops said. Why you don’t believe them. Who you think killed your son.’

Her silence manufactured a rigidity that hung in the air. She looked about the room like a wild animal trapped in a corner. Shifty was in her late fifties with long dark hair. Two streaks of gray ran along her temples and converged in the back. She leaned forward, and Mick prepared for a sudden attack. Instead she sprang to her feet, agile as a child.

‘Outside,’ she said. ‘Mason, you stay in here.’

Mick followed her to the porch. They sat on wooden chairs facing the road and Mason’s red Taurus. She lit a cigarette and cuffed her jeans for an ashtray.

‘Smoke?’ she said.

‘Naw, I quit. I do miss them, though.’

‘They’re no good,’ she said, ‘but a comfort at times. About like Barney.’

‘What did the cops say?’

‘Drug deal gone bad.’

‘Maybe it was.’

‘Nope, not in town. He was smart that way. Did all his business out in the county.’

‘Girlfriend. Girlfriend’s husband. Somebody’s ex?’

‘He didn’t have nobody regular. Didn’t want anything complicated. He had a few lady friends he’d visit. Regular ones. He wasn’t a hound dog like some.’

A slow blush rose from her neck and suffused her face. The subject of physical intimacy was uncomfortable.

‘He talked to you about that?’ Mick said.

‘Once. He was drunk and smoking on the weed. He apologized for not giving me no grandbabies. I told him it didn’t matter, his sister’s got four kids. But he felt bad about it. My oldest boy’s got a Mexican woman in California. No kids. Mason, he had one girlfriend five or six years ago, didn’t last a month. Barney thought it was on him to carry the Kissick name. He wanted me to know why he was single.’

‘What was it he said?’

‘My husband died young, and it was hard on the family. Barney didn’t want to do his wife and kids that way. He was going to make his money and get out. He liked wrestling, that WWE stuff. He talked about organizing some fights. He could have done that. Had the mind for it.’

Her voice trailed off. She stubbed the cigarette against the gray slats of the porch and lit another. A robin with a piece of bright moss clenched in its beak flew to an old woodpile in the yard. It landed on the thick bark of a hickory, jerked its head as if checking for surveillance, then stepped into a space between two logs.

‘They build a new nest every year,’ Mick said.

‘I know it. I seen them feed other birds’ young. They’re a generous bird.’

‘What I like, they sing all year long.’

They watched the woodpile for a couple of minutes. A cloud passed in front of the sun, dimming the light like gauze. Mick felt comfortable sitting with her. She blew smoke that caught a breeze.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Will you do it?’

‘I know it’s hard, Mrs Kissick, and you’re upset about it. What I don’t understand is why you don’t just leave it to the police.’

‘Far as they’re concerned, Barney was a drug dealer who got what’s coming to him.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yep. A boy in the Rocksalt Police Department used to date my daughter ten years back. He told me the case is open, but they ain’t looking for nobody.’

‘What’s the cop’s name?’

‘Nope.’ She shook her head. ‘I ain’t a snitch.’

‘Was Barney?’

She jerked her head to him, her gaze a flat wind leveling everything in its path. Sunlight reflected from her eyes like sparks off flint. Her voice was harsh.

‘Snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches shitting their britches.’

Mick nodded. He sat quietly to let her anger pass. She put the cigarette out and lit another.

‘If you want my help,’ Mick said, ‘I have to ask questions like that.’

She gathered a long breath, exhaled, then sucked on the cigarette.

‘That mean you’ll do it?’

‘Why me?’

‘I don’t trust the law.’

‘I’m an army cop, ma’am. Special agent in the CID.’

‘I don’t see no army around here.’

‘You’re not answering the question,’ he said. ‘Why me?’

‘I half trust you,’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t care.’

Mick thought about that. She was right – he didn’t care about her son or the law. Murder in the hills led to more killing, and he only cared that people had the chance to live, not die.

‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ll dig around a little. If I think there’s something off, I’ll look more. But if I don’t, I’m done. And I don’t want you getting mad about it. You understand what I mean?’

‘Yes, I understand. I’m a damn grieving mother, not some kind of stupid idiot.’

‘Who do you think did it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, voice suddenly forlorn. ‘That’s all I set here thinking about. But I can’t think who.’

Mick stood and nodded to her.

‘Thank you for the coffee. Will you get Mason to run me home?’

She called her son’s name and gestured to his car. Mason slowly negotiated the dirt lane and reached the main road to town. The lush spring buds of softwood trees rose beyond the ditch, the oaks and hickories still in blossom.

‘Who do you think killed Barney?’ Mick said.

‘What’d Mommy say?’

‘She didn’t know.’

‘I don’t either.’

Mick nodded, recogni