Skink didn’t answer.

“Well, if she was so much in control, how could she have ever let it happen? How could she have miscalculated so? Unless she didn’t and he didn’t. Tell you what I think, I think he was in thrall to her to the very end. I think he was too whipped to kill her.”

“Or maybe he fooled her like he fooled you. He’s a harder piece of work than he lets on. You should a seen how viciously he cut down the claims of the poor injured wretches what fell in his path. Not an ounce of mercy. He left his wife and kids at the drop of a skirt and stole a million in the process. That bastard is capable of anything. You was right from the first. It was Guy what done it.”

“Nope, it was someone else. And I have a pretty good idea where I need to go to find who.”

“Where’s that?”

“You much interested in history?”

“Julius Caesar?” said Skink. “The bloody fall of the bloody Roman Empire?”

“No, the recent past. Hailey Prouix’s past. I’m taking a trip, and that’s where I’m headed.” I stared at his ugly mug for a moment, thought of his story and the tenderness behind it, and then said softly, “You coming?”

Skink tilted his head.

“I was looking through what you left me in the briefcase,” I said. “Keepsakes from her past. I have some questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“The usual. An idyllic childhood that might not have been so idyllic. An accidental death that might not have been an accident.”

“And you think all that has something to do with what happened to Hailey?”

“Now that you’re no longer a suspect, maybe I do. That’s what I’m taking the trip to find out. You coming?”

“Where to?”

“Pierce, West Virginia.”

“Her girlhood home.”

“You coming?”

“You won’t find nothing.”

“Sure I won’t.”

“It’s been too long.”

“Far too long.”

“Nobody no more knows nothing.”

“You coming?”

Skink sucked his teeth for a moment. “I charge two-fifty a day.”

“A hundred.”

“Two hundred.”

“One-fifty. Plus expenses.”

“I’ll need a retainer.”

“You got thirty thousand already.”

“Did I?”

“I need to settle a few things first. Take care of Beth, do some trial prep. But then it’s West Virginia ho. You coming?”

He paused a moment, reading my face as if reading the newspaper, and then he broke into a gap-toothed smile as wide as the Mississippi and reached out his hand.

I took it and shook it, but before I let go, I turned it over and checked the knuckles. Rough and hairy, each as ugly as a slag heap, but no scrapes, no bruises. Still holding on, I said, “How’d you know the safe-deposit key was missing from her house?”

“Private sources.”

“You weren’t the lug in black who beat the hell out of that police technician?”

“Me? Nah, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“You understand if you work for me, your mouth stays shut. Our little secret remains our little secret.”

“Vic, sweetie, if we’re going to be partners, we need to trust each other.”

“I already have a partner,” I said as I finally let go. “And the idea of trusting you is enough to get my stomach roiling.”

“I seem to have that effect on you, don’t I?” said Phil Skink with a laugh. “Don’t worry, Vic, I’ll play it your way, all buttoned up, while you convince yourself that your friend really done it and deserves whatever he gets. Now, take care of the check and we’ll go on up and have ourselves a time. What say I teach you how to play craps?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Not to worry, Vic. We’re sporting our lucky jackets. How can we lose? And better than that, I gots myself a system.”

Part Four. Black Holes

29

I HAD never imagined, before driving into it, how amazingly beautiful was West Virginia. The steep mountain faces, the slender valleys carved by winding rivers, the roads twisting like snakes, the lovely white churches sitting beyond every bend. When Skink and I dropped south out of the long left arm of Maryland into West Virginia, it was like dropping into the landscape of a purer age. Even the sound track was purer – all we could get on the car radio was gospel stations. There were houses all along the route, some fine, some trailers beautifully maintained, some out-and-out hovels, but all seemed to flow naturally from the contours of the landscape. We followed the main road as it crossed a green metal bridge and twisted low through a fertile valley dotted with livestock and then turned off onto a smaller route that started a slow, inexorable climb into the mountains.

The car struggled until it reached the top of Point Mountain, with its inevitable white church just off the peak, and then fell as the road switched back and forth down, down. After a few minutes, to our left, we could catch glimpses through the leaves of something green and narrow and far beneath us, something that seemed, from that distance, more legendary than real. A valley, busy with farms and houses and lumber mills, isolated and lovely in its crevice in the western reaches of the Appalachians. We shared the road with pickups and beat old logging trucks as we continued down into the heart of that valley. Here and there, where the map showed a town, were mere scatterings of houses, a church, a lumber mill, clouds of sheep, another lumber mill, a collection of commercial buildings, a food mart, a Laundromat, a Chrysler-Dodge dealership. This was not a wealthy county, and there was the occasional shack, the rusted-out frame of a swing set, the boarded-up store, but still it was undeniably beautiful.

And then the valley widened and the road rose from the tumbling river and we saw a wooden frame, studded with the signs of the Lions Club, of the Kiwanis Club, of the Chamber of Commerce and the VFW and the various and sundry churches. On the frame, beneath the signs, the following words were affixed:

WELCOME TO PIERCE, POPULATION 649.

H.

I don’t want you to be thinking to all the crap that Tina she spits out. She’s just that way, always stirring up the pot once it stops a boiling. I like you, sure, like I like a lot of others, but I don’t think you’re like special or nothing, not like she says. Everyone knows that you’re with Grady and he’s with you and I don’t want you thinking nothing like what Tina says. I like hanging out with you, is all. It’s bad enough with Grady always on my ass. I don’t be needing you to get all weirded out too or anything. You looked at me yesterday like I was some alien from Mars or something and that’s why I’m writing this.

I maybe have a hard time talking about things. I find it easier sometimes to say what I feel when I’m alone with my mom’s old L. C. Smith. Face to face it’s harder, it’s like my tongue twists in on itself and I get all stupid. I’m not the sharpest spade, I know, as Mr. Perrine makes sure to tell me in front of everyone, but I’m not as dumb as I sound when I talk which is why I’m writing this instead of talking to you at school or on the phone or something.

That time in the quarry I wasn’t leaving cause I was sad or anything. I was just tired, I don’t know. And I feel weird when everyone starts lighting up. I know you say it’s cool that I don’t and no one says they mind but I feel weird. It’s like suddenly everyone’s at a party that I’m not invited to. And when everyone starts to laughing I don’t like that I don’t see nothing funny. I feel less alone sometimes when I’m alone, if you know what I mean. That’s why I up and left. And Grady saying all them things and making jokes about my leaving, that’s all right. I know Grady, he’s just like that, but I only wanted to be alone. Which is why when I first saw that you were following me maybe I wasn’t so nice and all. But I was glad finally that you did.