weren’t wearing suits at the time.”
I could imagine. The dress code at Duddy's ran to jeans so greasy you couldn’t see what color they were, boots that looked as if they’d been used to stomp rival gang members, and T-shirts bearing slogans so foul, you wouldn’t clean the bathroom with them. People said it wasn’t a matter of if Duddy's would get raided, but when.
“I don’t think,” Joy added carefully, “they saw her.”
“Wait a minute,” Ellie said, coming up behind us. “We didn’t find Merle till this morning. And it's six hours to get here from Augusta. I did think they made it pretty fast. But what were those two doing around here last night?”
“Who?” Victor wanted to know, appearing with thecoats. Willetta came along with him, sulkily. I had a flash of just what a burr under his saddle she must be, grumpy and seemingly ever-present.
“No one you know, dear,” Joy told him sweetly. “Why don’t you go out and get the car started, warm it up a little?”
“All right,” he agreed, and went.
“What kind of drugs are you feeding him?” I asked. “The change is miraculous.”
“We’ll see,” Joy responded, which was when I knew she understood what I’d been saying earlier: that Victor in the first, fine flush of infatuation was one thing. Long term, though, he was something else.
“Anyway, they’re sure not telling you everything,” she finished, meaning the state guys. “Better watch out for them.”
Which I’d already figured out, too. Still: last night?
“… incredible stuff people are selling,” Sam was saying to Tommy. “You can buy the right to perform a hit song in public, or a snow globe with Charles Manson's face glowing inside, or cancer drugs.”
On the Internet, he meant, from which I gathered that his semester-break independent study project was moving along okay. Entitled “Weird or Wired? E-commerce in the 21st Century,” it was an examination of exactly what he was saying to Tommy: the stuff people bought and sold on-line. Only secondarily and perhaps subconsciously was it a joke on his own dyslexia. I wasn’t even sure he’d noticed the anagram—yet.
Then in a final flurry of thanks and farewells, Joy and Victor were gone, along with Willetta. The investigators left soon after, proffering chilly handshakes. So I was free for postdinner analysis in the kitchen with Ellie.
“How can they be done already?” she complained. “Aren’t they going to dust for fingerprints, or look for hair samples, or…”
“Why should they? It's not like on TV, where every crime scene gets gone over with tweezers and a microscope. They’ve already got a suspect, so it's a matter of resources. And of confidence, which they’ve got, too.”
“I guess so,” she conceded reluctantly. “But…”
“And ‘no trial,’ my aunt Fanny,” I said, drying a relish dish. “Expert testimony gets bought and paid for like anything else, along with the expenses of the expert: travel, lodging, and anything else they can think of, to fatten the expense sheet. You get it if you can pay for it, and you don’t if you can’t. And Faye Anne isn’t going to be able to afford anything remotely like that, and I’m sure they know it.”
And nothing else, I felt sure, would induce the offer of a deal. “They just thought if they told us a lot of stuff that didn’t matter,” I said, “or that probably wasn’t so; like that business of her maybe pleading to lesser charges, we might say something that did matter. Make her look worse, and make their lives even easier than they already are.”
“It's true. I don’t think they start out by offering deals to people who chop people up and put the pieces in a butcher shop counter,” Ellie agreed disconsolately. “Besides, I know her. She’ll never say she did it if she didn’t.”
I’d been thinking more that Faye Anne didn’t remember. But:
“Never, ever,” Ellie finished, soaping a coffee cup. “So what did you
I could imagine. The dress code at Duddy's ran to jeans so greasy you couldn’t see what color they were, boots that looked as if they’d been used to stomp rival gang members, and T-shirts bearing slogans so foul, you wouldn’t clean the bathroom with them. People said it wasn’t a matter of if Duddy's would get raided, but when.
“I don’t think,” Joy added carefully, “they saw her.”
“Wait a minute,” Ellie said, coming up behind us. “We didn’t find Merle till this morning. And it's six hours to get here from Augusta. I did think they made it pretty fast. But what were those two doing around here last night?”
“Who?” Victor wanted to know, appearing with thecoats. Willetta came along with him, sulkily. I had a flash of just what a burr under his saddle she must be, grumpy and seemingly ever-present.
“No one you know, dear,” Joy told him sweetly. “Why don’t you go out and get the car started, warm it up a little?”
“All right,” he agreed, and went.
“What kind of drugs are you feeding him?” I asked. “The change is miraculous.”
“We’ll see,” Joy responded, which was when I knew she understood what I’d been saying earlier: that Victor in the first, fine flush of infatuation was one thing. Long term, though, he was something else.
“Anyway, they’re sure not telling you everything,” she finished, meaning the state guys. “Better watch out for them.”
Which I’d already figured out, too. Still: last night?
“… incredible stuff people are selling,” Sam was saying to Tommy. “You can buy the right to perform a hit song in public, or a snow globe with Charles Manson's face glowing inside, or cancer drugs.”
On the Internet, he meant, from which I gathered that his semester-break independent study project was moving along okay. Entitled “Weird or Wired? E-commerce in the 21st Century,” it was an examination of exactly what he was saying to Tommy: the stuff people bought and sold on-line. Only secondarily and perhaps subconsciously was it a joke on his own dyslexia. I wasn’t even sure he’d noticed the anagram—yet.
Then in a final flurry of thanks and farewells, Joy and Victor were gone, along with Willetta. The investigators left soon after, proffering chilly handshakes. So I was free for postdinner analysis in the kitchen with Ellie.
“How can they be done already?” she complained. “Aren’t they going to dust for fingerprints, or look for hair samples, or…”
“Why should they? It's not like on TV, where every crime scene gets gone over with tweezers and a microscope. They’ve already got a suspect, so it's a matter of resources. And of confidence, which they’ve got, too.”
“I guess so,” she conceded reluctantly. “But…”
“And ‘no trial,’ my aunt Fanny,” I said, drying a relish dish. “Expert testimony gets bought and paid for like anything else, along with the expenses of the expert: travel, lodging, and anything else they can think of, to fatten the expense sheet. You get it if you can pay for it, and you don’t if you can’t. And Faye Anne isn’t going to be able to afford anything remotely like that, and I’m sure they know it.”
And nothing else, I felt sure, would induce the offer of a deal. “They just thought if they told us a lot of stuff that didn’t matter,” I said, “or that probably wasn’t so; like that business of her maybe pleading to lesser charges, we might say something that did matter. Make her look worse, and make their lives even easier than they already are.”
“It's true. I don’t think they start out by offering deals to people who chop people up and put the pieces in a butcher shop counter,” Ellie agreed disconsolately. “Besides, I know her. She’ll never say she did it if she didn’t.”
I’d been thinking more that Faye Anne didn’t remember. But:
“Never, ever,” Ellie finished, soaping a coffee cup. “So what did you
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