Jody took the milk to the checkout counter.

“Hi, Byron,” she said to the red-faced man who stood behind one of them. She put the sloshy containers down on the conveyer belt. It was hard to keep antagonism out of her voice, so she grabbed the first superficial topic she could think of, even if it must have sounded like a non sequitur to Byron. “My grandma’s making gravy tonight.”

He looked apologetic as he said, “I hear your grandmother makes the best gravy in five counties.”

“And my mom made the best piecrust.”

She looked him in the eyes.

Byron’s face flushed even redder. “I can’t claim I ever had any of it. But that’s certainly what I always heard.”

Jody didn’t say out loud her contemptuous thought as she took her change from him. You believe things you don’t know anything about, don’t you, Byron? You believe what anybody tells you?

“Where’s Valentine today?” she asked him.

He looked both sad and embarrassed as he said, “She stayed home.” He busied himself with packing the milk into plastic bags. “To get ready.”

Jody swallowed. “Is he in town yet?”

“I don’t know, Jody. I’m keeping my distance.”

“Probably a good idea for all of us,” she replied, and realized she sounded like a self-righteous version of her grandmother.

“I hope you weren’t offended by-”

“Not at all,” she lied, with a bright smile.

But then she heard her grandmother’s voice in her head.

If you don’t get down off that high horse, you’re going to have a very long way to fall, young lady.

Jody’s false smile wavered. A smaller, truer one took its place. Byron couldn’t help it, she realized. He was in love, and sometimes love wasn’t only blind, it was also stupid. Maybe that wasn’t a kind thought, but it was the best she could do at the moment.

“’Bye, Byron,” she said quietly.

“’Bye, Jody. Thanks for coming in.”

When she got back into her truck, she pointed it in the opposite direction of the ranch.

28

WHEN SHE WALKED into Bailey’s Bar & Grill, the scent of beer and fried food was overwhelming, as it always was. Sometimes she thought she’d go to her grave with the scent of Bailey’s cheeseburgers still clinging to her hair and clothes. After every meal she’d ever eaten there, she went home and scrubbed, even if she had loved every fatty bite. Before Bailey outlawed smoking-because he wanted to quit-it had been even harder to wash out the stink.

The place was even dimmer than the grocery had been.

A few early diners had their suppers in front of them, and a couple of them raised their hands to her in greeting. Bailey had installed a pool table years ago, and now it was bracketed by men with pool cues in one hand and bottles of beer in the other.

Bailey himself, standing in front of a neon sign behind his bar, looked up and gave her a nod. He was wearing one of his Denver Broncos T-shirts, she saw. On game days between the Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs, Bailey’s tavern could get rowdy. As usual, he had his beloved country-western music playing too loud, because as Bailey got older and deafer, he kept turning the music up, until enough of his customers complained about it. People wondered what the magic number was to get him to turn it down-three customers? ten?-and joked about running an organized test on that someday.

Jody went over and hoisted herself up onto one of the chrome and red vinyl bar stools.

“Rascal Flatts?” she asked, not recognizing the song.

“Yeah. My boys. Want a beer while you wait?”

“I’m waiting for something?”

“Aren’t you? Friends? Your family?”

“No, I came to see you, Bailey.”

He quirked a bushy eyebrow.

Over the years, Bailey had become a man of fewer and fewer words. He poured your drinks, cooked your steaks, took your credit card, and tossed you out on your ear if you broke his house rules, which consisted of: don’t upset me, my waitresses, or my other customers. Most people knew he was sick of running his tavern; he wanted to move to Florida, but for years now his business had dropped off so drastically that he was lucky to pay his bills on time, with nothing left to save for retirement.

Jody reached for a handful of peanuts, shelled one of them and ate it.

She raised her voice to be sure he heard her.

“I hear you don’t think Billy Crosby killed my dad.”

She could be very direct herself, as encouraged by her family. As Chase liked to say, “Life is short. If you have something to say, either spit it out or forget about it.” It had been hard for her to ask Phyllis Boren in the grocery store about opinions that conflicted with her family’s, and hard to face a man who held such opinions, and her heart was still pounding too fast, but the questions she had to ask were coming easier now.

Bailey didn’t look fazed by her blunt question. He gave her a long look and then confirmed it. “No. I don’t think Billy did it.”

“Why not?”

He put down the shot glass he’d been wiping dry. “Too drunk.”

“That’s what Red Bosch says, too.”

“Red’s right.”

“Then how come he got convicted and sent to prison, Bailey?”

He shrugged.

“No, really.” She dumped the rest of the peanuts back into their bowl and brushed her hands together to get the shell dust off. “If he didn’t do it, how could he end up in prison for it?”

This time Bailey gave her a look that made her feel as if she was the stupid one in Rose. It was a look that said, What? You think that never happens in this country?

“I’ve read the trial transcripts, Bailey. You didn’t testify.”

“I told the cops what I saw. They never called me back.”

Jody started to say something, but Bailey wasn’t finished.

“Didn’t matter to me,” he said, “Billy needed to go to jail and stay there. He was bound to do something similar someday.”

“Bailey,” Jody said to him, “the system’s not supposed to work like that.”

He shrugged again. “It wasn’t supposed to let him out this soon, either.”

“He might say twenty-three years isn’t soon.”

“And I say it’s not long enough.”

Jody, feeling a little shell-shocked by all the opinions she was hearing for the first time from people she thought she knew, said, “May I have that beer now, please?”

“Are you going to eat something with it?”

“No, I’m due out at the ranch for supper.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You can’t have a beer.”

She gave him a look that said, Why not?

“Because you’re too little to absorb the alcohol that quick, and your grandpa would kill me if I let you drive out of here tipsy.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Bailey.”

She whirled around on the bar stool, hopped down and stalked out, even though she knew he was right.

JUST OUTSIDE the tavern’s front door her cell phone rang.

When she saw who was calling, she punched Talk and said, “I’m on my way, Uncle Chase.”

“What’s taking so long?”

“I had to pick up some milk for Grandma.”

“Did you go clear to Topeka to get it?”

People were coming up the walk toward her, so she stepped to one side and turned her back. “No, I didn’t go to Topeka,” she said with exaggerated patience. “It just took a little longer than usual, that’s all.”

She felt her left arm being squeezed and turned in that direction to see who had done it. It was the mother of a girl she’d gone to school with. The woman smiled sympathetically at her and then went on inside with her husband. Jody turned back toward the shrubbery.

“What? I didn’t hear what you just said, Uncle Chase.”

“I said, why did it take longer than usual?”

Jody heard a man say loudly, “If I want a goddamn pork tenderloin for supper, that’s what I’m going to have.” She was turning to look to see who was saying that so unpleasantly when the same raspy voice said, “I’ve waited twenty-three goddamn years for one of Bailey’s pork tenderloin sandwiches. You can goddamn wait one more night to cook your damned spaghetti.”