The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“You have no memory of where you were or what you did? I’d better get this down.” He felt his pockets as though he didn’t know where his pencil and pad were, then removed them from his shirt pocket and began writing, pressing the pencil hard into the paper, dotting an “i” as if throwing a dart.

“I know I didn’t cut anybody’s tires,” I said.

“If you were in a blackout, how do you know what you did?”

He had me.

“Would you set fire to a car?”

“No, that’s crazy.”

“Because that’s what somebody did. Cutting the valve stems wasn’t enough.”

“Loren Nichols says I burned his car?”

He looked at what he had written on the pad. “One step at a time. You did or did not cut his tires?”

“There’s a girl in the Heights I wanted to see. Maybe that’s why I was in the neighbo

rhood. Her name is Valerie Epstein.”

“You were chasing some new puss? That’s why you were in the Heights? It’s coincidence you were seen in proximity to the Ford, owned by guys you admit to having trouble with?”

“You don’t have the right to talk about Miss Valerie like that.”

“Get up.”

“Sir?”

He ripped the chair from under me and threw it against the wall, spilling me on the floor. “You think I came from downtown over a burned car owned by two punks who were in Gatesville? Are you that dumb?”

I pushed myself up, swaying, my knees not locking properly. “You didn’t have the right to say what you said.”

This time I held his stare and my eyes didn’t water. He picked up the chair with one hand and slammed it down in front of the desk. “Sit down.” When I didn’t move, he opened a desk drawer and removed a telephone book. “I’ll take your head off, boy.”

I sat down but never took my eyes off his face, even though I couldn’t stop blinking. He removed a five-by-seven black-and-white photo from his coat pocket and set it on the desk. “You know this girl?”

“No.”

“Look at the girl, not me.”

“I don’t know her.”

There were two images on the same sheet of paper, a side view and a frontal of the same young woman. She was wearing an oversize cotton jumper with gray and white stripes on it. At the bottom of the frontal photo was her prison number. She was hardly out of her teens, if that. Her hair was awry, like thread caught in a comb. Her eyes seemed to well with sadness and despair.

“You never saw her anywhere? You’re sure about that?” he said.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“You didn’t decide to try some Mexican poon?”

“Why are you asking me questions like this?”

“Her name was Wanda Estevan. She was a prostitute in Galveston.”

“Was a prostitute?”

“Somebody broke her neck. Maybe she was thrown from a car. Or maybe somebody broke her neck in the car, then bounced her in the street. About two blocks from where the Ford was torched.”