“One guy asked if I was a relative or friend. I told him I was just paying my respects. I guess you could call that lying.”
“You were in a difficult situation,” I said. I rubbed my forehead and sat down in a chair. I knew where we were going, and I wanted to get out of it as fast as I could. I started to speak again but didn’t get the chance.
“So the guy asks me where I knew Tillinger from. I told the guy I shot him.”
“Listen to me, Sean—”
“He didn’t say a word. He just stared at me with his eyes misting over. I never had anybody look at me like that.”
“You’re an honorable man. That’s why you went to the funeral home. Nobody has the right to condemn you. That man wasn’t there when Tillinger pointed a Luger at us.”
“I wanted to explain it to him.”
“There’re situations for which no words are adequate. This was one of them. I’m sure that fellow respects you for coming to the funeral home.”
I heard him take a breath. “I didn’t mean to pester you,” he said.
Through the window I could see lightning flickering on the oak trees in the yard, the door on Tripod’s empty hutch swinging in the wind. “I’d better go now,” I said.
“What I just told you ain’t the only reason I called. I could have dropped a guy tonight. I called you because I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not.”
“Could have dropped whom?”
“Somebody out by my barn. I called him out and he took off running.”
“Clear this up for me, Sean, and get it right. You say you could have dropped him. You drew down on him, you had him in your sights, what?”
“Lightning flashed and I saw somebody inside the barn. His skin looked real white. I think he had a rifle. I cain’t be sure. I had my piece out, but I didn’t raise it. He run out the back of the barn into the pecan trees.”
“Did you call it in?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want people to think I’m losing it.”
“Will you be there for the next fifteen minutes?”
• • •
SEAN RENTED A paintless termite-eaten farmhouse with a wide gallery and a peaked tin roof down by Avery Island. All the lights were on in the house when I pulled into his dirt yard and went up the steps with a raincoat over my head. He opened the door.
“Hate to be an inconvenience and general pain in the butt,” he said. “Want some coffee? It’s already made.”
“No, thanks.”
He was wearing a white T-shirt and starched jeans and flip-flops. Leaning by the door was a scoped rifle with a sling. A holstered revolver and gun belt hung on the back of a chair in the dining room.
“Miss Bailey get aholt of you?” he said.
“No, I’ve been looking for her.”
“That’s funny. She was just here.”
“What for?”
“She thought this Smiley guy might want to do me in ’cause of Tillinger being his friend or something.”