The Guilty (Will Robie 4)

“He done okay. But what he needs to do is get outta this here place.”

“Think he can?”

Billy nodded. “Got me a life insurance policy. Premium’s all paid so’s they can’t screw me now. Get him some money. Angie too. They be good.” Billy touched his forehead. “Little Bill’s smart. Good with computer shit. Ain’t nothin’ he don’t know ’bout computers. Don’t know where he got that from. I don’t even know how to turn one on.”

“Same with me.”

Billy looked him over. “You look like you done good for yourself. Where you livin’?”

“East Coast. Job’s okay. Nothing special. I go to an office, push paper around. Pays the bills.”

“You lit outta here right fast after high school.”

“Just wanted something different.”

Billy looked around the Airstream. “Ain’t we all?” He picked up a plastic bucket and spit mucus into it. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe and looked back at Robie.

“Know why you come back. Your daddy.” He pointed to a pile of newspapers on the floor. “Been keepin’ track of it. Ain’t got much else to do.”

“I guess not. Angie seems very nice.”

Billy nodded and looked away. “She wants me to come live in the house.”

“Why don’t you?”

“So she can look at my big beautiful face every day?” He swiped a hand through his hair and said, “Man, you think I want her to ’member me like I am now?” He started to cough so hard that Robie helped him sit up some more and poured out a glass of water from a pitcher on the small kitchen sink.

After Billy drank the water and had settled back down Robie said, “I think if you don’t have long to live you should spend it with people who love you.”

Billy shook his head. “I’m a drain on ’em, Will. Soon as I kick off they can get on with their lives.” Before Robie could respond he added, “How’s your daddy doin’?”

“Well since he’s in jail for murder, not too good.”

“You ’member Sherm Clancy?”

“Yeah, when he was a dirt-poor farmer.”

“He got him a good ride, all right.”

“Gas on his property?”

“Oil, gas. Somethin’ like that. But then he really hit it big with the casinos when they come in.”

“How did he get in with people like that?”

Billy shrugged. “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that. But he done it. Then he was rollin’ in money. Built that house. Bought himself that car. One he died in.”

“With a neck slit maybe by a Ka-Bar blade.”

“Like your daddy had. I ’member seeing it when we was kids.”

“Good memory.”

“But I got me one of them knives, too.”

Robie studied him. “How?”

“My uncle was in the Marines over in Nam. He left it to me when he died.”

Robie nodded. “They find the actual knife that killed Clancy?”

“Not so’s anybody done said. And I been readin’ ’bout it every day. Like I said, all I got to do now.”

“What about Janet Chisum?”

Billy struggled to sit up more. Robie rose and helped him, adjusting the trash bag pillow to support him.

“What ’bout her?”

“If Clancy didn’t kill her, who did?”

“He was screwin’ her. Paid her to do it. What the papers say. That come out at his trial. Disgustin’. He was old enough to be her damn granddaddy.”

“And my stepmother provided the alibi.”

Billy nodded. “And your daddy maybe killed him ’cause of that.”

“You know Victoria?”

“Naw. Seen her around and all. But after you left I never spoke to your daddy no mo’. He just sort of curled up on life, so to speak. Didn’t see nobody. Just worked. He won that big case. Then he come back with Victoria and they bought the Willows. Like to knock everybody in town over with a stick when they done that.”

“And they have a little boy.”

“He ain’t talk none, so’s folks say.”

“I know. He doesn’t.”

“So you talked to your daddy yet?”

“Don’t think he wants to see me.”

“You left a long time ago. You ever talked to him over the years?”

“No.”

Billy fell silent and looked at his old friend. “Hell, Will, my daddy done beat me, too. Lots of daddies do that shit. I swatted Little Bill on the ass couple times is all when he was small. But I never hit him with my fist. Never took a switch or a tree branch to him. Never busted no beer bottle over his head. My daddy did that to me. And mo’. Lot mo’. Told myself I ain’t never doin’ that to my kids.”

“That’s good to hear, Billy. Kids have enough shit to deal with without somebody who is supposed to love them beating the crap out of them.”

“So was there somethin’ else then, Will? What made you leave?”

Robie ran his eye over the oxygen tank.

“Who’s the doctor that diagnosed your cancer?”

“Doc Holloway.”

“Is he an oncologist?”

Billy made a face. “A what?”

“A cancer specialist.”

“Oh, naw, he ain’t that. But he a good doctor. Took care’a all of us over the years. Everythin’ from a broken arm to some of Angie’s female problems. Kind’a jack’a all trades.”

And master of none, thought Robie.

“Do you need anything, Billy? Money?”

Billy waved this off. “I’m good, Will. But thanks.”

Robie rose. “I’ve got to get going. It was good to see you. If you think of anything you might need, will you let me know? I’m staying at the Willows.”

Billy nodded, looking pensive. “Hey, Will, you think maybe you might come back and we have a beer or two, talk some more ’bout the old days?”

“Sounds good, Billy. And I’ll bring the beer.”

Chapter

24

IT WASN’T HARD to spot them. In fact, Robie was sure they had wanted him to see that they were back there. It was three men inside the car. It wasn’t Pete Clancy and his buddies. It looked to be a far more formidable force.

They were all about his age and wearing suits and carrying hardened expressions. And if Robie had to guess, they had guns under their jackets.

Robie kept his speed steady and also kept gazing in the rearview. The road he was on was macadam sprinkled over dirt and wound in and out of tree lines. It was also empty except for the two cars.

The sedan sped up and passed him, then pulled over and slowed to a stop.

Robie could have whipped around it and kept going, but he decided not to. He pulled over, too, right behind the other car.

The three men climbed out of the sedan and walked back to him. One on the driver’s side, the others on the passenger.