The Ranger - Ace Atkins [48]
Quinn took a hot shower and shaved and dressed in an old flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, his mother warming up a plate lunch for him. She’d gathered leftovers from his homecoming party, ham and potato salad, some sweet-potato pie from Thanksgiving. He thanked her and sat at the kitchen table, Jason in a high chair across from him, working on small bits of ham and green beans, chugging down some apple juice, and then staring at Quinn until something about Quinn’s face tickled him a great deal. Quinn winked at him. And that made the situation somehow even better.
His mother finished cleaning up a bit around the sink, a local radio station playing some old-time gospel, and she sat down by Jason, wiping his face with a damp rag. She smiled at Quinn. Quinn had seen that look before, the sadness before he’d leave.
“Do people say things about me? About how I’ve been gone so long?”
“People in Jericho have little to do but gossip.”
“But they say things about me, about the way I feel about my family.”
“I don’t pay it a bit of mind.”
“They’re wrong, you know.”
“Believe me, they know about every trip I’ve made over to Columbus, Georgia, to see you. They know everything you’ve been doing.”
Not everything.
“I don’t like it.”
“Shush,” Jean Colson said, leaning back in her chair, looking much older than the mother he’d seen in his mind for so long. Lines on her face, creases around her eyes. “Just wind.”
“It’s not because I don’t care about you or Caddy.”
Jean looked across at her son and reached for his hand. He met her halfway.
“A man does what you do and you got to put up some barriers, some walls. Your grandfather had to do the same thing. I know who you were protecting.”
Quinn smiled at her. Jason tossed the plate of food down to the floor with a clatter, laughing.
“Guess he doesn’t care for my cooking,” she said.
“I’ll be back,” Quinn said. “Sooner this time.”
“You take care of you. I got things here.”
16
Latecia Young wasn’t happy to see Quinn, and was even less excited when he mentioned Keith Shackelford’s name. She just kind of hung there in the doorway of her project apartment, arm propped on the frame, looking Quinn up and down, and then walking back to her kitchen, not saying come in but not telling him to get lost, either. Quinn entered, removing his baseball cap as he did, and followed her, where she was heating up a cold plate of mac and cheese. She ate the mac and cheese standing up, twisting open a half-drunk bottle of Diet Coke while they talked, nodding and agreeing with what he said, like she really didn’t have any choice in the matter. Quinn was pretty sure she thought he was with the sheriff’s office, but he never said that, only said that his uncle had been the sheriff.
“And you haven’t seen Keith all year?”
“Nope.”
“You know where he’s living?”
“Las’ time we talked, he’d been staying with Jett. I don’t know where he went after the fire.”
“You seen him since?”
“Don’t want to, neither,” she said, shaking her head. “Heard it fucked him up real bad.”
Latecia was muscular and thin, light-skinned, wearing a threadbare T-shirt and faded jeans without shoes. A light blue maid’s uniform hung on the back of a bathroom door.
“He call you?”
“Sometimes.”
“But you don’t answer?”
She shook her head.
“Can you call him back now?”
“You want me to lie?” she asked, resting her arm on a refrigerator. She’d been inked with a blue tattoo on her bicep of praying hands. “Play games? Hadn’t been for that fire, I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten away from him. You ever had someone grabbing you so tight while you know they the one drownin’?”
“Why was he drowning?”
She shrugged.
“Just call and say you have something he may want. Tell him you’re gonna drop it off.”
“Shit, no.”
“Will you give me the number?”
She looked Quinn up and down again and then stared at him for a beat, thinking and trying to decide how this whole thing would shake out. “I got myself clean. I haven’t had a drink in six months. I don’t even smoke.”
Quinn nodded.
“I keep my job for another three months and I get my