The Guilty (Will Robie 4)

He glanced at Reel as he walked past bearing the coffin. They exchanged a telling look that might have been interpreted as:

When our time comes, will we even get a funeral?

A black minister spoke, and then Angie and Little Bill said a few words.

The coffin was lowered into the dirt and folks started drifting away.

That was the way it was, the burial ritual. You set them in the earth and walked away to keep living, until it was your turn to be left behind.

Dr. Holloway was waiting for Robie at the line of cars parked along the quiet interior street of the cemetery.

“It was a nice service,” said Holloway.

“Yeah,” said Robie. “As nice as it can be, considering the purpose.”

“Will you be stayin’ on much longer here?”

“Unfinished business.”

“Clancy and the Chisum girls?”

Robie nodded as Reel joined them.

“Anythin’ I can do to help?” asked Holloway.

Robie was surprised by this but said, “Not unless you have a miracle or two up your sleeve.”

Holloway smiled weakly. “I don’t think that I do, sorry.”

Robie stared at him for a few moments and then decided it was worth a shot. Holloway was an educated man. “Does ‘L 18’ or ‘Calvin’ or ‘ROH’ mean anything to you?”

Holloway frowned. “Not ‘Calvin’ or ‘ROH.’ But ‘L 18’? In what context?”

“That’s the problem. We don’t know,” said Reel.

Holloway thought about it for a few moments. “Well, it’s not normally referred to in such a shorthand way, but if the context, for instance, is religious it might mean Leviticus chapter eighteen.”

Both Robie and Reel tensed. He said, “Leviticus—you mean from the Bible?”

“The Hebrew Bible, yes.”

“Do you know what it refers to?” asked Reel. “My biblical knowledge is a little rusty.”

“To the commands given to Moses on Mount Sinai.”

“Regarding what, exactly?”

“Well, the Holiness Code. It lists certain sexual activities that are considered unclean and therefore prohibited. Verse twenty-two of the chapter has caused all the controversy regardin’ homosexuality, you know, that man shall not lie with mankind as with womankind.”

“You don’t happen to have a Bible with you, do you?” asked Robie.

“I have one in my car. You’re welcome to it.”

They went to Holloway’s car, and he gave them the copy of his Bible.

“I’ll bring it back to you,” promised Robie.

“No, keep it. I try to give them out to people as often as I can. I consider it a way of payin’ it forward. I don’t agree with everythin’ in there. I mean we must all come into the twenty-first century. But just the golden rule and its progeny would certainly make the world a better place if more widely followed.”

“Thanks,” said Robie.

“And don’t forget about your arm, I was serious. You don’t want permanent damage.”

Holloway drove off while Robie flipped to Leviticus chapter eighteen. He read down the passages.

“Anything strike you?” asked Reel.

“It deals with homosexuality, like he said. But it also talks about something else.”

“What?”

“Incest.”

“Incest? What kind?”

Robie read a bit more, then looked up at her. “Between brother and sister for one.”

Reel gazed at him. “So do you think…?”

“Emmitt and Laura?” Robie grimaced.

Reel said, “He was older, she was younger. Her own brother having sex with her might make her depressed and confused and want to get the hell out of town.”

“But I never would have thought that Emmitt—”

“Robie, you said people can justify anything they do, whether it’s incest”—she paused for a moment—“or killing people.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Are you talking about us with that last part?” he said quietly.

“Maybe I am.”

He looked back at Billy Faulconer’s grave and all the air seemed to go out of Robie. He turned back to Reel. “Then let’s go get a drink and get out of this damn heat before we wade too deeply into the crap inside our heads. We might never get back out.”

They drove to a local bar, ordered beers, and sat at the back table where a wall AC unit was blasting away.

People were staring at them from all corners of the place.

“I love being in a place where I’m so popular,” Reel said dourly.

“Cantrell is just that kind of place.”

“What kind of place?”

“One you don’t visit. But if you do people will stare at you until you get the hell out.”

They each had another beer and the afternoon slowly gave way to evening.

Reel pulled out her phone and started tapping keys.

“What are you doing?” asked Robie.

She held up a finger and then finished typing.

“I just Googled incest and ROH, the term from the back of the photo we found.”

“Did you get a hit?”

She stared at the screen. “This one looks promising.” She read over the article. “Okay, ROH stands for ‘runs of homozygosity.’”

“That explains a lot,” said Robie sarcastically. “What the hell is homozygosity?”

Reel read some more. “It’s related to genetics. Inbreeding results in big upswings in homozygosity. The article says that means that identical chromosomal segments by descents are basically paired off together. That’s a bad thing, obviously. It leads to lots of undesirable things happening to any offspring of an incestuous relationship.”

“That’s what happened with the royals, right? Bluebloods and ‘mad kings’ syndrome? They kept marrying close relatives to keep their bloodlines pure, but they were really screwing them up. It’s why doing that’s now outlawed.”

“Yes. And that ties in with Leviticus eighteen, which deals with those sorts of incestuous situations.”

“And Jane Smith?”

“Could be the result of that,” answered Reel. “Not that she was the product of an incestuous relationship, of course, which is what ROH refers to. But if Jane is Laura, twenty-plus years of shame and loathing and emotional scarring could change anyone, Robie. Anyone. Even damage their minds. I’m surprised she’s not even more screwed up.”

Robie looked confused. “Okay, But ROH comes from the product of an incestuous relationship, like you just said. The offspring. So why would someone have written ROH on the back of a family photo if it didn’t have some relevance?”

Reel said, “You’re right. But Jane Smith is forty. She can’t be Laura and her brother’s child. She has to be Laura.”