Heartwood (Billy Bob Holland 2)

“Nothing,” he answered. He looked down the alley at a banana tree moving in the breeze.

“You just drive up to Deaf Smith to hang around with Jeff?” I said.

“How’d you know I been with Jeff?” he asked.

“I saw you and Esmeralda with him at Val’s Drive-In,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and nodded absently. “Look, my uncle don’t want me taking off too long.”

“Some gangbangers caused the death of an accountant down in Houston. You and Cholo hear anything about that?” Temple said.

“I don’t get to Houston much. Anyway, I’m signing off on this stuff. So excuse me and maybe I’ll see you some other time,” he said.

“Cholo got Esmeralda out of jail. You didn’t want to be there for her yourself?” I said.

“We’re not getting along real good right now,” he replied.

Then I took a chance.

“Is Jeff getting next to your girl? She got busted out by his house,” I said.

He looked at the tops of his hands, his face impenetrable.

“I heard you took some whacks for her. That’s the only reason we’re talking now. But anything between me and Jeff is private business. I don’t mean nothing personal by that,” he said.

He untied the bandanna from his head and shook it out and walked back into the garage.

Temple watched him go back to work on the shell of a 1941 Ford, the flats of her hands inserted in her back pockets.

“That kid’s a piece of work. You see him throwing two guys off a roof?” she said.

“With about as much emotion as spitting out his gum,” I said.

That afternoon I walked over to Marvin Pomroy’s office in the courthouse. His secretary told me he was at the Mexican grocery store that was located just off the square. When I cut across the lawn toward the store, I thought I saw Skyler Doolittle walking on a side street, in his Panama hat and wilted seersucker, his upper torso bent forward, as though he wanted to arrive at his destination sooner than his body could take him.

I found Marvin Pomroy at a table under a wood-bladed fan in the back of the store, eating a taco while he read a book.

“I hope this is about baseball,” he said.

“Was that Skyler Doolittle out there?” I asked.

“He came by and gave me a book. About Earl Deitrich’s great-grandfather. Evidently the great-grandfather was an Alsatian diamond miner and slaver for the Belgians,”

A uniformed deputy sheriff came in and bought a package of Red Man at the counter. He gave both of us a hard look before he went out.

“Esmeralda Ramirez isn’t bringing sexual battery charges against Hugo’s office, provided they don’t charge you for punching out the deputy. Did you know that?” Marvin said.

“No, I didn’t,” I said. Marvin lifted his eyes into my face when I pulled out a chair and sat down without being invited. “Cut Wilbur Pickett loose.”

“The state attorney’s office seems to think he’s a guilty man. I’ve gotten calls from a few other people, too.” His eyes left mine and looked at nothing.

“Tell both them and Earl Deitrich to get lost,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, that kind of statement makes people with money and power go away every time,” he said.

We stared at each other in the silence. The breeze from the overhead fan ruffled the pages of the book he was reading. Marvin Pomroy was a good man who believed the system represented a level of integrity that somehow transcended the people who constantly manipulated it for their own ends. No amount of arguing or the personal battering of his soul had ever affected that faith. I knew nothing I said now would change that fact.

“Why’d Skyler Doolittle give you the book?” I asked.