The Devil's Right Hand - J. D. Rhoades [41]
Her car was parked at the end of the street near the corner. Keller pulled over and rolled down his window. “Marie,” he called to her.
She turned around. Her face hardened. “Shit,” she said. “It’s you.”
“I need to talk to you,” Keller said.
She opened the car door. “You’re not helping me, you know,” she said savagely.
“I can,” he insisted. “I’m the only one besides you who knows what really happened. I’m the one who can prove Wesson’s death isn’t your fault.”
“Oh, great,” she said, tossing her cap onto the front seat. “That’ll make me REAL popular.”
“Like you are now?” Keller said.
She sat down in the car, but left her feet on the pavement and her legs outside. “I can make it back from this,” she insisted. “It’ll blow over. But not if I keep getting seen with you.”
“It’s not going to blow over, Marie,” Keller said. “I’ve seen this shit before. You’re getting shafted.” He took a deep breath, hating what he had to say. “You’re gone, Marie. It’s over. But you don’t have to go quietly.”
Marie looked up the street. Cars were beginning to pull away from the curb. She swung her legs into her car and closed the door. “C’mon,” she said. “I can’t be seen with you. Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Keller said.
“My place,” she replied. He backed up slightly to allow her to get out, then followed.
Marie Jones lived in a small one-story house with a two-car garage in a development full of nearly identical one-story houses with attached two-car garages. The houses were clustered around cul-de-sacs off a central street, in an attempt to make neighbors out of the strangers who moved in, stayed a few years until the next transfer, then moved out. Each house had a concrete-slab driveway where the cars were actually parked. The garages had no room for actual vehicles; they were full of lawnmowers, bikes, tool benches, and boxes of things that the families in the houses never actually got unpacked because they were of little use, but never discarded because they were too valuable. Keller parked behind Marie’s car in the driveway after she got out and moved a plastic Big Wheel from the center of the drive. He followed her inside.
Inside, the house was small and neatly kept. The front door opened up into a small living room with a couch, a recliner, a TV/VCR combination sitting on an old footlocker, and a pair of low plastic bookshelves. A few plush toys were scattered here and there.
“Wait here,” Marie said. “I need to change out of these blues before I drop over from heatstroke.” She went off down the hallway, leaving Keller alone.
Keller sat down on the couch. After a few moments, he got up and walked slowly around the living room while he waited. He stopped to look at the pictures that completely filled one wall. In one of the photographs, an obviously much younger Marie was standing, holding a rifle confidently on her hip. She was standing next to a smiling gray-haired man. Another photo showed her cradling a soccer ball in one hand, standing next to the same man. In this picture, the man was in a police uniform. They were both smiling. In another photo, obviously a professional portrait, she was dressed in an Army Class-A uniform, looking serious against a cloudy silver