Three Rivers (16 page)

“How do you know this man?” Atul's voice was sharp and accusing.

“He's an old friend. We went to school together.” In fact, there was a time she might have married Randall, but no sense telling Atul that. She'd broken Randall years ago, back when she was not much older than Chandra. That's what he told her when she said she was marrying Bruce. “I'm broken,” he said. “I'm in pieces.” As she knew he would, he'd pulled himself together and married an average, pretty woman. They raised two average, pretty children. Yet Randall never got over Geneva. The few times they'd crossed paths over the years, he'd looked at her with those moonstruck eyes, called her Genie. When she needed him, he was there. That time she'd poisoned Bruce, an incident that got blown way out of proportion in her opinion, Randall was the one who'd convinced the judge she was fragile and not dangerous.

“Chandra needs to come with us.” Geneva picked up her purse and checked to make sure her keys were in the front pocket. “She really should have reported this right away.”

“She was scared,” Atul said.

By the time she was Chandra's age, she'd been scared plenty. She was just about Chandra's age when she lost her own mother, something she still didn't like to think about. Chandra needed to learn that fear could be the source of great power. Chandra needed to go see Pisa.

They drove out into the wet morning. Atul insisted on riding with her, even though it would be a far sight quicker if she didn't have to take him back to the motel later. He was afraid she would abandon him. It was a reasonable fear. She parked the car in front of his sister's home. “Turn it off,” he said. She killed the engine. He took the keys from her and walked up the front steps, where he pressed a doorbell. Geneva saw a curtain flutter in one of the windows, but it might have just been a breeze or a trick of the light. He knocked. Knocked again. The door remained shut and Atul returned to the car. His hair dripped with rainwater. “She isn't home.”

My ass, Geneva thought. “It's seven o'clock in the morning. Where could she be?”

“My sister works at the hospital. She often goes in early.”

“I'm talking about Chandra. That girl is in there sleeping or ignoring you. You need to go in and get her.”

Atul returned to the front door, knocked again, and then banged on the door with the side of his fist. The curtain moved. It was no trick of the light. Geneva got out of the car, followed Atul up the front walk.

“Atul, this is ridiculous.” She reached past him and tried the door handle. The door flew open. “There—” Geneva gestured at the entryway. “—go get her. I'll just wait here in the rain.”

From where she stood on the front porch, Geneva saw an overstuffed floral sofa worn thin along the arms, a shelf filled with an ungodly number of ceramic cows, and an empty brass umbrella stand. She could use an umbrella right about now.

Atul walked past the cow display and disappeared down a dark hallway. Rain fell harder now. It would get worse before it let up. She should have listened to Pisa and gone straight home. Now she'd be stuck driving in the rain, and it would take twice as long.

Chandra skulked out behind Atul. She wore a pair of baggy blue shorts and a gray T-shirt with
OLE MISS
scrawled across the front in red letters, a navy baseball cap pushed down low over her forehead, a pair of plastic flip-flops on her feet. This generation seemed to believe flip-flops were actual shoes and not just something you slipped on to avoid getting foot fungus at public pools. Geneva led the sorry procession back to the car, flinching at every
slap, slap, slap
of the dreadful flip-flops. Chandra slid into the backseat and sat slumped down, arms folded across her chest, jaw clenched.

Atul slid into the passenger seat. “She doesn't want to do this. Maybe we should let it go.”

Geneva glanced at Chandra in the rearview mirror. “Your father says you saw a man kill someone. Is that true?”

“What do you mean, is it true? Do you think I'm a liar?”

Geneva cranked the car, pulled away from curb. She wanted to reach back and slap the girl, yank the stupid hat off her head, and tell her to sit up straight. Instead, she drove. The rain fell in large, heavy drops. Geneva turned on the windshield wipers. “Your father says you were out by the river. Which river?”

“The Tallahatchie, I think.” Chandra said. “I don't know, maybe the Yazoo.”

“What were you doing out there at night? It's not safe.”

“I was camping,” Chandra said. “I went for a hike and I got turned around and was out later than I expected.”

Geneva did not believe that for a second. Chandra didn't look a bit like a girl who camped or hiked. There was nothing robust or outdoorsy about her. If anything, she looked sickly and pale. “Alone?”

“With a friend from school,” Chandra said. “But I was alone when it happened.”

“Where was your friend?” Atul twisted around in his seat to look at his daughter.

“See, I knew this would happen. I knew you would get mad.”

Geneva turned the car onto Highway 49. She increased her speed and flew past a tractor taking up the southbound lane. She barely avoided a head-on collision with a pickup truck traveling north. The driver of the pickup laid on his horn and raised his middle finger as they passed.

Chandra screamed. “Oh my God, she's going to kill us all!”

Geneva's stomach clenched. She had a flash of the three of them dead and bleeding on the side of the highway. She thought of the storm she'd seen in Pisa's eyes and then in Atul's. She slowed down and turned the windshield wipers up a notch. The road felt slick and unsteady beneath her.

“You can tell all this to the sheriff,” Geneva said. “You don't have to tell us.”

“I would like to know where your friend was when all this happened,” Atul said. “You told me that you were going camping with Debbie. I knew I should have met her before I let you go. I don't know anything about this girl or her family. You go to college and you come back with no hair and you wear clothes that look like they were plucked from the garbage and you don't talk to me and you disappear for days. I won't have it. I won't have a daughter of mine behaving like some common American slut.”

Geneva turned off the highway. The car bounced across railroad tracks. She bit her tongue, tasted blood.

“You can't make me do anything,” Chandra said. “I'm twenty years old. I'm an adult.”

“You're a child,” Atul said. “You are behaving like a child.”

Geneva pulled into the alley behind the county jail. Three trustees stood outside smoking cigarettes. “Lock the doors.” They walked past the trustees who nodded at them and blew smoke in their faces. Inside the building, Geneva shivered. She pushed her rain-soaked hair back and led Chandra and Atul down the dreary hallway to the main office. She'd spent a bit of time here when she was arrested for poisoning Bruce. She knew that the door to the left led to a dozen cells where inmates sat waiting for trial dates or transportation to a larger facility.

She told Chandra and Atul to wait for her, gesturing toward a row of plastic chairs underneath a wall full of Wanted notices. Atul sat, but Chandra stood looking nervous as a trapped rat. A deputy who looked no older than Bobby sat behind the only desk in the room. He looked up when they came in. “Wutcha nee?” The man's cheeks were bulging and he could barely speak around the wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. He spit a brown stream into a coffee mug, and removed the wet wad from his mouth with a practiced scoop of forefinger and thumb. “What do you need?”

“I'm looking for Randall.” Geneva pulled herself up tall and peered down on the insolent deputy. “Is the sheriff in?”

“Not today.” The deputy shoved the tobacco back into his mouth and resumed typing on an old computer.

Geneva adjusted her skirt, just to give her hands something to do. “Can you give him a call? I need to speak with Sheriff Randall.”

The deputy rolled his eyes and scooped the tobacco out of his cheek again. “If you need something, you'll have to deal with me. Otherwise, I need to finish up this paperwork.”

“There's no need to be rude,” Geneva told the man. “And, if you don't mind my saying so, you shouldn't be chewing tobacco if you can't even talk to people while you do it. It's a disgusting habit.”

“Look, lady.” He dropped the wad of tobacco onto a piece of plain white paper. A wet, brown stain bled out around it. “I'm trying to quit smoking. Up until about a month ago, I could smoke right here at this desk. Now, all of a sudden, it's a nonsmoking building. It wasn't my idea, but there you go. I don't really care for this chewing tobacco and I'll grant you I don't quite have the hang of it, but it's the one thing that is keeping me from climbing the damn walls. Can you understand that?”

“I suppose I can.”

“All right, then. The sheriff's daughter is getting married this week. He's got all sorts of family in town, and he left me strict instructions not to bother him unless it's a genuine emergency. Is this a genuine emergency? 'Cause if it's not, you're gonna have to deal with me.”

Geneva looked over her shoulder at Atul and Chandra. Of course it wasn't an emergency. The girl didn't even want to be here. She glowered at Geneva. Her eyes were glassy and red, her skin sallow to the point of jaundice. She looked like she'd been on a bender. Geneva turned back to the tobacco-chewing deputy. “We need to report a crime. Sheriff Randall is an old friend of mine. If he can't help me himself, I'll count on you to act on his behalf.”

The deputy stared at her. She was afraid he would pop the nasty wad back in his mouth and ignore her. Instead, he stood up and offered her his hand. It was the same hand that had been digging around in his mouth since she walked through the door. “Buster Boggs.”

She stared at the hand, the spit-stained forefinger a shade darker than his other fingers.

He laughed. “I don't reckon I'd shake that hand, either.” He wiped the nasty digit across the thigh of his pants. “All right, tell me what the problem is.”

Geneva waved Atul and Chandra over. Boggs pulled out chairs for them and settled back into his own chair behind the desk. He rested a pencil on a yellow legal pad. “What happened?”

“My daughter witnessed a murder,” Atul said.

Boggs looked at Chandra. “Is that true? When did this happen?”

“Saturday night,” Chandra said. “I'm not sure about the time. Maybe ten? Maybe midnight? Near where the rivers come together.”

Boggs scribbled on the legal pad. “Why didn't you come to us then?”

“I was scared.”

Atul leaned forward. “We don't trust you. You did nothing when my wife was killed. You don't care about us.”

“Whoa,” Boggs said. “What's this about your wife?”

Geneva touched Atul's hand. “It was years ago. A car accident.” She turned to Atul. “That was in Tallahatchie County. These people would not have been involved.”

“Okay, okay,” Boggs said. “I'm sorry about your wife, sir, but let's get back to the business at hand, so to speak.” He turned to Chandra. “Why don't you walk me through what happened. Start at the beginning.”

Chandra looked at her father. “I was camping with a friend.”

“Friend's name?”

“Debbie,” said Atul.

“I need her whole name,” Boggs said. He looked at Chandra.

“I don't want to get anyone in trouble,” Chandra said.

“No one's in any trouble,” Boggs said. “But I am going to have to speak to everyone involved.”

Chandra looked down at her lap.

“Tell him,” Atul said. “What is the matter?”

“It's just that…” Chandra kept her head down. She spoke so softly Geneva had to lean in to hear her. “I wasn't with Debbie.”

Atul stood. “What do you mean? You said you were going camping with Debbie. You told me you were with Debbie. Now you say you were not? What is the truth?”

Chandra looked up, her face pale and tear streaked. “I was with friends, but they are boys and I knew you wouldn't let me go.”

Atul slapped Chandra across the face. “You filthy whore.”

“You are the one who's filthy,” Chandra said. “You think I don't know that you cheated on my mother with this woman?” She pointed at Geneva. “You think I don't know that she's married? That she has children?” Chandra shouted, her voice thick with anger.

“I am your father.”

“Big deal. It isn't all that difficult to get someone pregnant.”

“This is what you learn in college? To speak to your father like this? To spend the night with boys? I am sending you to live with your grandparents in Mumbai. You think I am strict? Wait until you spend a few months with your grandmother. You will be lucky to leave the house. You will not date. She will choose a husband for you. That is, if she can find one who will accept a woman of such loose morals.”

“Atul!” Geneva touched his arm. “She's not a child. You have to let her make her own decisions. This is America.”

Atul spit on the floor in front of her, a wad of stringy, yellow mucus. “That is what I think of America.”

“Okay, okay.” Boggs came around the desk and wiped up Atul's spit with a wad of tissue, as if cleaning up bodily fluids were something he did every day. “Let's all just calm down. Let's all just take a minute and calm down. Sir,” Boggs said to Atul. “I understand that you're upset, but you can't be slapping people right here in the sheriff's office. If it happens again, I'm going to place you under arrest. Do you understand?”

Atul held his arms out, wrists together. “Arrest me. I don't know how things could be any worse. You might as well arrest me.”

Boggs looked at his wad of tobacco with longing. “Why don't you go get a cup of coffee or something while I talk with your daughter? It might be easier if we could talk in private.”