Read Online What the Dead Men Say by Ed Gorman - Free Book Online Page B

holding Tess to his leg. She was so small, she scarcely touched his thigh.
        “Will you bring me ice cream?”
        “I’m afraid I can’t tonight, hon.”
        “How come?”
        “I have some business to take care of.”
        “What kind of business?”
        He laughed. “Dora, don’t you think it’s time you put your little girl to bed?”
        Dora got up from the rocker and came over. She leaned down and picked up Tess. Tess held tight to Betty.
        Dora said, “How about a kiss for me, too?”
        Griff obliged. He held her longer than he meant to and he closed his eyes as he kissed her. He knew that she knew something was wrong. He’d told her that Kittredge wanted to talk to him about some haying later on in the fall, that the hay man wanted an answer tomorrow morning. But she knew. All during dinner he’d felt her eyes on him. Gray, loving, gentle eyes. Now, holding their youngest, she touched him and the feel of her fingers on his forearm made him feel weak, as if he were caught up in some kind of reverie. He wanted to be younger, back before the holdup and the little girl getting killed. How stupid it all seemed now, being so concerned about not having a job, feeling so afraid that he’d been pushed to such extremes. Hell, he didn’t have nearly as good a job even now but they were making it and making it fine.
        “You don’t have to go, you know,” Dora said. A tall woman, not pretty but handsome in her clean purposeful way, she tugged on his shirtsleeve much as Tess had done earlier. “You could always tell Kittredge you just weren’t interested.”
        “Could be some good money. You never can tell.”
        She said, “Is Carlyle going to be there?”
        “Carlyle? Why would he be there? I haven’t seen Carlyle in a long time.”
        “It just feels funny, tonight.”
        “What’s ‘feel funny,’ Momma?” Tess said.
        He leaned in and kissed them both again. “I won’t be too long,” he said, and then he was gone.
        
***
        
        Long before there was a brick-and-steel bridge near the dam, Griff used to go there as a boy and throw his fishing line in and spend the day. He’d always bring an apple, a piece of jerky, and enough water to last the long hot day. Other boys would come but
        Griff always managed to stay alone, liking it better that way. But much as he liked it during the day, he liked it even better at night, when the water over the dam fell silver in the moonlight, and when fishermen in boats downriver could be seen standing up against the golden circle of the moon, casting out their lines and waiting, waiting for their smallmouth bass and catfish and sheepshead and northern pike. In the war, where he’d served in the Eleventh Infantry under General Ord during the siege of Corinth and the occupation of Bolivar, he’d lain awake nights thinking of his fishing spot, and the firefly darkness, and the rush and roar of the dam, and rain-clouds passing the moon.
        He was hoping to be a little early tonight so he could appreciate all this before Kittredge and Carlyle got there, but as soon as he left the main path over by the swings he saw two figures outlined against the sky and he knew that tonight there wouldn’t be even that much peace.
        Kittredge said, “Good thing you got here now. Carlyle’s gone crazy.”
        “Crazy, hell,” Carlyle said. “I’m just sayin’ we should take care of him before he takes care of us.”
        Griff sighed. Things hadn’t changed any in the years the men had been apart. Kittredge and Carlyle had never gotten along; it had always been up to Griff to keep things smooth between them. Tonight was especially bad. Even from several feet away, Griff could see and smell that Carlyle was drunk.
        “Plus we’ve got some complications,” Kittredge said. “And I don’t mean just the little girl’s