Read Online November Mourns by Tom Piccirilli - Free Book Online Page B

curling white hairs. “You got wit. Your pa ain’t got any of that wag.”
    Shad didn’t exactly find it so witty, telling the truth. “He’s got some.”
    “And what happened to this warden? I can see by the way you’re leaning that there’s more you got to say on him.”
    He looked down and saw she was right, he actually was leaning. No matter how hard you worked at it, you always had a tell. A way for them to see inside you.
    “A bank robber named Jeffie O’Rourke used to work for him in the office. As a secretary, an assistant sort of, but really they were lovers. Jeffie used to write him long, affectionate letters. They both liked to paint. The warden did seascapes, masted ships on the ocean. Jeffie did watercolors of children. Puppies. Flowers. The warden would tell him about the garden in his backyard, the hot tub, and the satellite dish. How he’d introduce Jeffie to the family when Jeffie got out.”
    “How you know all this?” M’am asked.
    “I was his cellmate.”
    She let out a disapproving grunt. “Oh, you must’ve seen a lot.”
    “No, nothing like what you mean. But the warden fell for a new inmate, a straight guy called Mule. Mule was doing time for statutory rape, but he used to brag about how he would beat women, how much he hated them. The warden wasn’t only gay but a misogynist too, and Mule appealed to him. He liked hearing the stories. He thought he could sway Mule’s preference, bring him around. One night he came by the cell to break it easy to Jeffie and tell him it was all over. He probably did love the kid, in his own way. Didn’t want to hurt him, said he’d help with his parole and hoped they could still be close friends.”
    “Uh-yuh.”
    Thinking back, Shad’s voice dipped. “Jeffie O’Rourke had an easel with a self-portrait of himself looking serious. Fist under his chin, thoughtful, with his eyes very dark and deep. Maybe it was supposed to be sexy. He was painting it for the warden’s birthday, which was coming up in a couple of days. He took the news about Mule poorly. Snapped his paintbrush and jammed it through the warden’s eye and into his brain. Took half a second. Killed him on the spot.”
    Her disproportionately large head bowed to the right and the furry white chin bobbed, as if she’d heard the story many times before and was being tolerant by listening one more time. “What happened then?”
    “They carried Jeffie away to solitary and he vanished.”
    Shad let it hang in the air like that, unsure of which way M’am Luvell might take it. Sounded like he was saying the guards killed Jeffie and buried him in secret. But the reality was, Jeffie truly had disappeared. He’d broken three prisons before and probably could’ve gotten out of this one anytime he wanted. He’d only stayed locked up because he was in love.
    “And what lesson do you get from that?” M’am asked.
    “I’m still working on it,” Shad said.
    A weighty silence passed between them, but neither looked away. It was a comfortable moment upset only when she beckoned him closer.
    “And what if you find out it was Zeke Hester that done harm to that sweet child? Or some other mad dog fool on the loose?”
    “I’ll kill him.”
    “Without no regret?”
    “Not too much.”
    He’d already decided that if events repeated themselves, he’d lie this time and do whatever he had to do to stay out of the joint. He considered any further dealings with Zeke to be an extension of what had already gone on before. He’d paid his price and wouldn’t give up anything more.
    “Without feeling?” she asked, prodding him a touch.
    “There’s always feeling.”
    “Not everybody can say that.”
    “Not everyone would want to.”
    She trembled at that, holding in the rancid laughter, but that sharp, clacking noise still rustled and rattled from her chest. Her hands came up in small balled fists and made him think of an excited child wanting candy. “But what if nobody killed your baby