"Don't have to account to nobody," the Songster said.

  "Maybe you have to account to us," Buck said.

  "Yeah," Niles said.

  "Yeah," Buck said. "Maybe that's what this is all about after all. Maybe it's time you owned up and did a little penance."

  "Did what?" Niles asked.

  Everybody ignored him.

  "It would do you good," Tulie said, seeing the perfect opportunity to turn the spotlight full force on the Songster.

  "I ain't telling you guys nothing."

  "Maybe you keep doing it because you don't tell nobody nothing," Niles said.

  "Bullshit."

  "C'mon, Songster," Tulie said gently. "Confess. Get it off your chest."

  "Sure. Like I could trust you assholes."

  "Sure you can," Tulie said.

  "You can trust me, Songster," Niles said.

  "Well, I don't think you can trust me," Buck said. "I say you should be tried for killing those other two women."

  "Songster on trial," Niles said. "First tell us about the woman you did time for, Songster," Niles said.

  Silence hung thickly.

  "Were you friends?" Tulie asked.

  "She was a whore."

  Nobody spoke.

  "I picked her up on the street. She was really ugly, you know, I mean I can't imagine anybody wanting to fuck a woman who looked like that. And that's when I wanted her. She wanted fifty dollars."

  "Fifty dollars!" Niles couldn't imagine a fifty-dollar lay.

  "And we went to her room in this lousy hotel, you know the kind."

  None of them knew the kind.

  "We got up there and she started to get stupid."

  "What do you mean?" Niles asked.

  "I mean she had a bad mouth. I didn't want any bad mouth. I wasn't in the mood for any stupid remarks from an ugly whore."

  "Like what, Songster?"

  "It doesn't matter, Niles, Jesus." He rearranged himself on the car seat, and for a moment, Tulie wanted to stop everything. She didn't want to hear it, didn't want to know it. Drop the subject, Songster, she wanted to say. Let's have some fun instead. "Hey, what the hell am I doing, anyway?" The Songster said. "I don't want to tell you guys this stuff."

  "Yes you do, Songster," Buck said.

  "Don't you want to make up for it, Songster?" Niles asked. "Don't you feel bad?"

  "I'm not proud."

  "What drives someone to murder somebody, that's what I want to know," Buck said, pissed off and wanting to cut to the chase. "What could be so threatening that someone would kill somebody else?"

  "When you get there, you'll know," the Songster said, his voice back to that low, menacing whisper.

  "I thought we were going to put the Songster on trial," Niles said.

  "I can't judge him," Buck said.

  "I'll be the judge," Tulie said. "I'm the woman."

  "I'll be the lawyer that asks the questions," Niles said.

  "Guess you'll have to be the executioner, Buck," the Songster said. "Maybe you'll find out what it takes."

  "I need tequila," the Songster said. Buck passed the bottle to him, he drank, opened the car door and threw the empty bottle out. Cold wind blew snow inside, and Tulie hoped it would blow a little sanity, a little reality, a little normalcy inside, but then he closed the door and coughed and the thick air closed around them again.

  Niles cleared his throat. The trial was about to begin.

  Chapter 12

  Elise stopped halfway down the hall. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Her right fist opened and closed as she willed her breathing to slow down, willed her heart to return to normal. If she didn't take it easy, she was going to pass out from hyperventilating. All she could think was, I can't believe I shot him. I can't believe I shot him.

  She resisted the temptation to slide down to the floor and lie there. She closed her eyes, squinted hard, then opened them. She ran a hand across her forehead. Cold sweat. She'd heard about that, read about that, but this is the first time she'd ever experienced it. Her teeth began to chatter and she wondered if she were going into shock.

  She straightened up, and felt momentarily dizzy. This is not the time to get weak and feminine, Elise.

  All four doors in the hallway were closed. She pushed on the first one and it led to a bathroom. She turned on the light. A bare bulb illuminated the small stark room. The broken light cover sat on the toilet tank. It was a bachelor's bathroom, with no toilet paper and a heap of smelly, mildewed towels in the corner by the tub. The shower curtain hung off half its hooks and the sink probably hadn't been cleaned in the year that Ross had lived there by himself. Elise went inside and looked at herself in the toothpaste-speckled mirror.

  A pale, freaked-out version of herself looked back at her. She used the toilet, fishing a used Kleenex out of the overflowing wastebasket to use for toilet paper. Then she splashed cold water on her face and grimaced as she used the only towel hanging on the loose towel rack. It was damp and smelly.

  She gingerly touched the blue swelling at her wrist. It didn't hurt very much, although it would. When she settled down, it would hurt like holy hell.

  The face that looked back at her from the mirror was now a little more like the standard version. She took a deep breath and felt better. She could cope. She could engineer an escape for her and Rebecca.

  Rebecca.

  Elise turned off the bathroom light and stepped back into the hallway.

  The room across the hall from the bathroom had a weight bench and some boxes in it. The next room was completely empty, except for a cable hookup that snaked out of the wall and coiled in the middle of the room.

  Ross' bedroom was behind the last door. She pushed it open and saw Rebecca and Dennis asleep on a single mattress on the floor. They both still had their clothes on. There was a pile of Ross' laundry in the corner, a lamp on a stack of books, and a stained yellow blanket with its edging coming off hung over the empty curtain rods for privacy.

  A full-length mirror was mounted on the opposite wall, and Elise started at the sight of herself. At first she thought it was someone else. She hardly recognized the thin, wasted thing in the tiny dress. She looked terrible.

  She wanted to go home. She was ready for a good cry.

  She said a short prayer of thanks that the shot hadn't wakened Dennis. She went over and grabbed Rebecca by the arm. Rebecca's eyes opened and rolled around and then closed.

  "Rebecca, wake up, come on, we've got to go."

  "What?" Rebecca focused on Elise. "Oh, hi," she said.

  "Come on. We've got to go. Don't wake up Dennis."

  "Why? Where?" Rebecca sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Is it morning?"

  "No, we're going anyway. Come on." Elise found Rebecca's shoes by the door and handed them to her. Rebecca stood up, unsteadily, then leaned against the wall to put her shoes on.

  "What's going on?"

  "Nothing. Just hurry." Elise went back into the living room and found her coat. She picked up her purse, put the gun back in it. When she turned around, Rebecca stood in the hallway, her eyes wide open and fixed on Ross.

  "Better get Dennis' jacket, or you'll freeze."

  "My God, Elise, is he dead?"

  "I think so." Elise turned and looked at Ross again. He was slouched sideways on the couch. He had that look, that Eddie look, that bluish-gray pasty look. The wound in his chest no longer oozed blood.

  "Did you shoot him?"

  "Yes, now let's go."

  "You shot him? My God." Rebecca walked over to the body. "He didn't bleed much."

  "Rebecca, we've got to go."

  "Yeah, no kidding."

  "Go get a jacket."

  Rebecca obediently went to the back room while Elise walked over to Ross and felt in his jeans pockets for his keys. When she wrestled to put her hand in the pocket to fish them out, Ross slipped over sideways.

  The back of the couch was covered in blood.

  She felt the acid rise up the back of her throat. The blood smelled raw. It looked thick, reddish black. She stood up, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she looked again at the lump of keys in Ross' jeans and went after them.

  When she pulled them out, she whirled around and found Rebecca right behind her.

  "My God," Rebecca whispered.

  "Dennis still asleep?"

  Rebecca nodded.

  "Let's go."

  "Shouldn't we call someone?" Rebecca asked.

  "Let's just go," Elise said.

  They went out the front door into the softly falling snow. Elise unlocked the truck and got in, then slid across and unlocked the passenger door. She turned the key and the truck roared to life. She let it idle for a moment while she thought things through. She wanted to peel out of that place and drive a hundred miles an hour back to Eugene, but she couldn't do that. She couldn't do that. She had to be calm. She had to be in control. She had to have a plan.

  What about going back to the bar for the Camaro?

  Bad idea.

  She put the truck in reverse and backed gently out of the driveway, adrenaline racing her heart like she wanted to race the truck. She turned on the lights and the heater and headed slowly and inconspicuously out of town, hunched over the steering wheel, one eye on the speedometer. She did not want to be stopped.

  She did not want to be stopped.

  "We should go to the police," Rebecca said.

  "I know we should. But I have to think about it first."

  "Think about what? If we don't go to the police, and they come after us, we'll go to jail."

  Elise didn't know what to do. "They'll throw me in jail anyway," she said. "Nobody would ever believe it was self-defense."

  "Was it?"

  "Of course." But the way she said it wasn't convincing. She knew Rebecca wasn't convinced, and she didn't think she was convinced either. She could have gotten out of the situation without using the gun. She could have let Ross screw her, for one thing. That would have handled the situation just fine. That's why she couldn't go to the police. They'd talk to Farley, that horse's ass, they'd talk to Dennis. There's no way she was innocent. No way. Especially since she screwed one of Bend's finest and tried to charge him.

  Nope. No way.

  Her parents would shit. Paul would hire the best attorney money could buy–maybe that would work. The prosecutors in a jerkwater town like Bend might not be a match for a high powered, expensive Minneapolis attorney.

  She drove slowly through the darkened, snow-silent town, keeping her bad wrist in her lap, trying to imagine the one phone call she would be allowed to make. "Hi, Daddy?"

  "Hi, baby."

  "Daddy, I'm in trouble. I'm in jail for murder."

  Paul would never let on that he was shocked. He would scarcely miss a beat. "Did you do it?"

  "Yes, Daddy, but it was self-defense. He was trying to rape me. I shot him with the .38 you gave me."

  "I'll be right there, baby. We'll get you out and then we'll talk about this."

  He would come, bail money in hand, as fast as United Airlines could get him there. And she would have to face him. And tell him. She'd have to tell him what she had been wearing, what she had been doing. The cop. She'd have to tell him about the cop. She'd have to tell him about the guys in the bar, about leaving the Camaro and going to Ross' house with him. She'd have to look her daddy in the eye and tell him all those things and it would be just like Eddie coming back to haunt her, only it was worse, it was far worse, because she had actually killed Ross.

  Elise's heart pounded so hard and so fast she thought she was going to faint. She slowed down, knowing she couldn't drive too slow or she'd get stopped.

  She did not want to be stopped.

  This was her karma. She ran out on a dead guy once before, and now she was doing it again. Maybe this was her chance to get straight about it all. Turn herself in. Confess. Break the chain.

  "We've got to go to the police, Elise," Rebecca said quietly. She seemed lost in that sheepskin jacket. "What you've done is wrong, and not reporting it is worse. It's a sin."

  That was the last thing Elise wanted to hear: Mormon crap out of the mouth of a thirteenth-grader. "Like you've never sinned," Elise said. "Like what we came to Bend to do was not a sin in the eyes of your stupid church."

  Rebecca started to cry. "Please, Elise, let's not make this worse. Let's go to the police. Please."

  "Shut up, you silly bitch," Elise said. "I'm trying to think."

  Rebecca probably had a loving, forgiving family and church congregation who would hug her and kiss her and cry for her and listen to her confession. They would lavish praises on the prodigal daughter who had seen the error of her ways and come back into the fold. Not only that, but Rebecca hadn't pulled the trigger.

  Elise had pulled the trigger. And she had no such support group. They would fry her as sure as shit–if not the state, then her family. She had no right to spit on everything they stood for and then expect them to spend all their money on her defense in a murder trial. Especially when she was guilty.

  She wanted to drive off the nearest cliff. She wanted to pull the .38 out of her pocket and put a bullet in her head. She wanted to dump Rebecca by the side of the road and take off for Canada. She could be in Vancouver by noon.

  She looked at the speedometer, and lifted her foot off the gas. Too fast for such a cold night. Don't want to get stopped.

  She looked over at Rebecca who was crying softly, her head turned toward the window.

  It didn't really matter what she did, Elise realized. Rebecca would call the police at her first opportunity. There was no outrunning this.

  "Okay," she said.

  "Okay what?"

  "Okay, let's go get Tulie and then we'll go home and call the police."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. I can't run from this." Elise felt tears tickling down her cheeks. Funny, she couldn't feel them coming out of her eyes. She laughed, a harsh bark, and suddenly she did see the tears and she could barely see anything else, as the everything haloed and the snow came down harder and faster. "I've been wondering what to do after school," she said, and then the tears began to choke her. "Guess I'll go to prison." She sobbed then, and even she couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying.

  Rebecca lay a calm hand on Elise's leg, and then she said one of those stupid things that people say to other people when they don't know what else to say. "You've got to find the Lord, Elise," Rebecca said.

  Elise coughed, sniffed, rubbed the wetness off her face and from under her nose with her bare hand. "Yeah," she said, the only suitable response to a statement that lame. She'd been right. Rebecca would call the police at her very first opportunity.

  Well then, Elise thought, that narrows the choices, doesn't it? She pressed the pedal to the metal, felt the big truck roar in response, and they headed for the campground.

  Chapter 13

  Niles was the last child born to Audrey Griffin, the pregnancy and birth that put paid to her childbearing years. He had eight predecessors. When Niles was born, the oldest boy was fifteen. Audrey was only thirty-six. None of the children had ever known a father.

  When the obstetrician told Audrey that her baby factory days were finished, she was thrilled. She wasn't dumb, but somehow always failed to make the connection between those hot, urgent passions in the dark with another nine months of belly. She never could remember to take the pills or don the diaphragm. To never have to think about that again gave her a newfound and dangerous sense of freedom. She stuck a bottle in the baby's mouth and smiled. Three weeks later, she was hitting the bars, depending on the kids to see to each other.

  Clementine was eight when Niles was born. She claimed her baby brother as her own, and the other kids throught that was just as well. Clementine stopped going to school; she stayed home and played with the three youngest kids, Niles and the two sisters just older than he. But Niles was Clementine's. She changed him, bathed him, scrounged food for him and played mommy. The role suited her well. She and Niles lived in a pleasant fantasy world that included none of the roughness and violence of their crowded conditions, their neighborhood, their mother's behavior.

  When Niles was four, he woke up in the middle of the night to hear his mother yelling. He moved over in the bed, but Clementine wasn't there. Men were in the house, and loud footsteps. Then Clementine screamed and began to beg and cry. Niles pulled the covers over his head and cried.

  In the morning, Clemmy was gone. One of the older kids said that her father had taken her to live with him, and all the other kids were jealous. They didn't know that any of them had fathers, not really.

  But Niles didn't care anything about fathers. Clementine was his real mommy, and he wanted her back. He wanted her back so bad he couldn't eat, sleep, cry or get to the toilet in time.

  And he was beaten, humiliated and tormented regularly for not being able to do those things.

  He dreamed about Clementine. He dreamed that she was there, her long black hair pulled back from her face and fastened with bobby pins, her bangs shining, wearing that flannel nightie, the one she'd found in the poor box and mended herself. In his dream, she smiled at him and reached up with her soft little hand to touch his cheek. Then big, rough hands came around her waist and pulled her from him. She screamed and cried, reaching for him. . .

  Niles always woke up crying. "Clemmy?" he'd say, "Clemmy!" he'd yell to the night, and one of the older kids would throw a pillow or a shoe at him. He'd stick his thumb in his mouth and pull on the frayed edge of the pillow while he tried to muffle his hiccing. Tears leaked out of his eyes and ran across the bridge of his nose.

  Occasionally, one of the older ones would lean down, pat him on the head and say, "Don't worry, baby, she'll come back for you some day."

  Everybody in the family fended for themselves, and they expected him to as well. Eventually, he did.

  It wasn't until Niles himself was around twelve years old that he became aware of his surroundings as they related to others of his age. The Griffin family, such as it was, lived in an old mobile home behind an abandoned sawmill in a little backwater Montana town. Someone, probably one of the older brothers, told Niles that the mill and the property their home sat on used to belong to their grandfather, their mother's father. She inherited it when he died, so all she had to do was come up with enough money every month to pay the electricity and the taxes, which weren't much.

 

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