Dead of Night (Dead of Night 1)

“I know who you are,” she cut in. “I’ve seen the TV. ”

Swell, Trout thought, this is my demographic?

He kept his smile in place. “I’d like to ask you a few questions. ”

Selma Conroy studied him with that fierce green eye, then opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. She was thin and old, but Trout could see that beneath the wrinkles was a woman who was probably very beautiful before life and her own bad choices had chopped her down. She wore a faded blue frock under a thick gray bathrobe which she cinched tight as she came to the edge of the porch. “Questions about what?”

“About your nephew,” Trout said. He didn’t say the name and wanted to see how she would respond.

Selma’s cold eyes went colder. “All my family’s dead,” she said.

“I understand you had a sister and she had a son. ”

She gave a brief, bitter shake of her head. “My sister’s long dead. And I’ve got a ticket for the same train. ” She turned and spat off the porch into a row of withered roses.

Trout put a foot up on the bottom step of the porch.

“But you do know about your nephew. ”

Selma said nothing, but she cut a single brief look toward the car in the turnaround. Trout noted it but didn’t know how to approach that subject.

“What about him?” Selma asked quietly.

“You arranged to have him brought here to Stebbins. ”

She said nothing.

“With,” Trout continued, “the intention of having him buried here on the family farm. ”

“How do you know about that?” she demanded.

“Does it matter?”

“You’re not supposed to know about that. No one’s supposed to know. The judge and the prison guaranteed it. ”

“I don’t think anyone knows but me,” said Trout as he stepped up onto the first riser and put his foot on the second. Selma held her ground.

“That’s a bullshit statement,” she fired back. “You’re here for a story and whether I say anything or not, you’re going to tell the world. That’s what you reporters do. You find people who have been hurt and you dig into their wounds. What’s that expression? ‘If it bleeds, it leads?’” She shook her head. “Why would I want to talk to someone like you?”

“Okay,” said Trout, “fair enough. Reporters trade in pain. It sells papers. Everyone knows that. And this story will get out, no doubt about it. ” He stepped up so that he was almost eye level with her. “It’s your call, though, as to whether it gets out with your voice and opinion included … or not. ”

“Is that a threat?”

Trout spread his hands. “It’s journalism. ”

“You’re a shit. ”

“And you’re an ex-whore,” Trout said flatly, dropping all pretense. “Let’s start there and see if we can get somewhere interesting. ”

Aunt Selma folded her arms across her breasts and studied Trout with the frank coldness of a butcher appraising a side of beef. Then she smiled. It was small, just a curl of one corner of her mouth.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s have a talk. ”

But before Trout’s smile could blossom on his face, Selma pointed a sharp finger at Goat. “Not him, though. This doesn’t go on the camera. I got about a spoonful of self-respect left and I can keep that intact if I can say that it’s your word against mine. No pictures, no video, no tape recorder. ”

Trout thought about it, then nodded. He turned to Goat. “Wait in the car, okay?”

“Sure,” said Goat. He turned and trudged down the lane and vanished behind the Explorer.