“If y’all had tended to your job, she wouldn’t have been drinking in here in the first place.”
“Does the court still make you take those chemical cocktails?”
“I took them of my own free will.”
“I hear they cause blackouts.”
“Is the sheriff still at his office?”
“No, you’ll see him tomorrow.”
“You taking me in?”
“I’m not sure. Is it true you speak in tongues?”
“It’s common up on the rez. Some do, some don’t.”
“Sounds to me like you need to visit the hospital at Warm Springs again, see if your batteries need charging.”
“I got two other feed growers waiting on me. Hook me up or get out of my face.”
“We’ll see you at the courthouse at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow, Wyatt. The reason I’m not taking you in is I don’t think you’re worth shooting, much less wasting a cell on.” The detective put away his notebook and pen and stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He leaned over and raked a kitchen match across the tabletop, even though state law prohibited smoking in the bar. His coat touched Wyatt’s shoulder, an odor of dried sweat wafting off his body. He blew out the match and dropped it in Wyatt’s soda can. “I think we’re gonna have to do something about you, boy,” he said.
After Pepper had walked away, the uniformed auxiliary said, “I’m sorry about that. He’s had a bad day. Everybody has.”
Wyatt looked up at him. “Y’all found that Indian girl?”
“Six hours ago,” the auxiliary said. He glanced toward the front door, then at the women dancing on the runway. “Wyatt?”
“What?”
“You didn’t?”
“Didn’t what?”
“You know. With the girl, I mean. You didn’t have anything to do with—”
“Get out of my sight,” Wyatt said.
THERE WAS EITHER a malfunction in the furnace or someone had turned up the register too high, but when Alafair stepped through the door of the interview room at the prison east of Wichita, she felt a surge of superheated air that was like damp wool on her skin; she also smelled an odor that made her think of an unventilated locker room and pipe-tobacco smoke that had soaked into someone’s clothes. Asa Surrette was seated at a metal table, his wrists manacled to a waist chain, his khaki shirt buttoned at the throat. He had wide, thin shoulders, shaped a bit like a suit coat hanging on a rack, and a sharp bloodless nose that gave him the appearance of a man breathing cold or rarefied air. His eyes looked pasted on his face.
Alafair sat down at the table and placed her notebook and a pen and a recorder next to one another. Through the oblong windows in the door and the wall, she could see two correctional officers monitoring the hallway and the rooms that were usually reserved for lawyer-client meetings. “You have a degree in administration of justice?” she said.
He watched her pick up her pen. “I took writing courses, too.”
“But you were a criminal science major?”
“Yes, but I never wanted to be a policeman. I thought about it, but it wasn’t for me.”
“You had aspirations to be a writer?” When she tried to smile, her face felt stiff and unnatural. Also, there was a pain in her chest, as though someone had pressed a thorn close to her heart. She tried not to bite the corner of her lip.
His eyes shifted sideways, the manacles tightening against the waist chain. “I studied with a professor who claimed he was a friend of Leicester Hemingway, Ernest’s brother. Maybe he was just bragging. He wouldn’t read one of my stories in front of the class.”
“What was in the story?”
“I forget. Something that bothered him. He took it to the head of the creative writing program. I thought he was a silly guy. He said he’d published some novels. I think he was probably a fake.” He stared into her face as though waiting for her to confirm or deny his perception.
“What would you like to talk about?” she said.