Page 6 of Confessions of the Dead

Buck leaned to his left, lifted his leg off the stool, and let out a fart loud enough to turn several of the closest heads. “You brought that upon yourself, Deputy.”

Two stools over, Mr. Wheeler from the deli was staring at them both, his face twisted in a grimace. Matt paused a beat before saying, “You don’t let up on the drinking, and your body’s gonna give up on you.”

“Ain’t nothing givin’ up. I’m fine.” Even as Buck said this, sweat trickled down from his brow, streaking the dirt with salty lines.

“You don’t look fine.”

Buck stabbed at a potato wedge, missed, and tried again. “I slipped up last night, is all. Won’t happen again.” He managed to impale a slice and carefully maneuvered it to his mouth. “Didn’t mean to burden you with my shortcomings, Deputy.”

Matt took a sip of his coffee. They’d had variations of this conversation more times than he could count. Sheriff Ellie Pritchet had taken her share of failed runs at getting Buck some help, and her father before her when he’d been sheriff. The best they could all come up with was to put Buck on the town’s payroll doing odd jobs. Try to keep him busy. The truth was, Buck had been putting away his share of drink for the entirety of Matt’s twenty-nine years on the planet, and then some, but that didn’t mean Matt couldn’t try to get Buck to stay sober. “Tell you what. I’m barbecuingtonight at Gabby’s place. Burgers, hot dogs, couple of nice sirloins she handpicked down at McKinnon’s. Why don’t I pick you up, drop you off after? Get another meal into you, maybe watch some football. Between Gabby and her daughter, Riley, I’m outnumbered over there. The place could use a little more testosterone.”

Buck choked deep in his throat and took a drink of water. “I don’t think your girlfriend wants the likes of me in her home. You best run that by Gabby.”

“Run what by Gabby?”

Gabby had slipped back behind the counter. She was scooping grounds into the large coffee maker with one hand while filling a glass with Coke from the soda fountain with the other.

“I invited Buck here over for dinner tonight.”

A lock of brown hair broke free from her ponytail and fell over Gabby’s right eye. She blew it to the side and grinned at the old man. “Absolutely! We’d love to have you.”

“You’re awfully kind, the two of you.” Buck ate a strip of bacon, then wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Excuse me a minute? I need to use the head.”

He eased off the stool, took a moment to steady his legs, then hobbled off. Matt watched as he walked right past the restroom and pushed through the kitchen door at the end of the hallway.

Gabby watched him, too. “He’s not coming back, is he?”

Matt shook his head. “He’ll sneak out the kitchen and up the mountain, head for home.”

Gabby frowned. “I don’t get it. He must be so lonely.”

Matt picked up his fork and started on his own breakfast. He’d let it go cold. “I guess some people prefer their own company.”

“He always seems so, I don’t know, sad.” Gabby lowered her voice and nodded at a booth on the far side of the diner. “Henry Wilburt told his wife if Buck’s trying to drink himself to the grave, he’s doing a piss-poor job of it. Thenshesaid someone should give him a gun and tell him to stop pussyfooting around.”

Matt fought the urge to twist around on the stool for a look. Henry Wilburt’s wife ran the bake sale at the elementary school, knitted winter scarves for the homeless, and volunteered two days a week at library story time. “Corine Wilburt saidthat?”

Gabby nodded. “Don’t let the gray hair fool you. That woman is malvada.”

Matt considered that. “Evil?”

Gabby beamed. “You’ve been practicing!”

He held up his thumb and index finger. “Un poquito.”

Addie Gallagher had come in while they were talking and managed to sidle up next to Matt and drop her purse on Buck’s empty stool. “Practicing what?”

At the sound of her voice, Matt twisted a little too fast—coffee spilled over the side of his mug and dripped down his shirt.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you! Let me get that—”

Addie tugged a paper napkin from the dispenser, moistened it in Matt’s water glass, and blotted at the growing stain on his uniform. “You’ve got to get it while it’s wet, or it will never come out.” She looked over at Gabby. “Do you have any white vinegar?”

Her hand drifted to Matt’s shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze.

Oh boy, Matt thought.Here we go.He really didn’t want to start the day with some kind of territorial pissing contest.

Back in high school, Addie had been the girl Matt called twenty minutes after dropping his real date off at home. Friends with benefits. Fuck buddies. Nothing more than an alcohol-fueled grab-and-go. When she started getting a little too clingy, he’d put an end to it. And when he found himself dialing her again after partying a little too much, he’d put an end to that, too. They’d completely lost touch when he went off to UNH and she went off to wherever. He hadn’t given her a second thought until she reappeared in Hollows Bend last summer, hoping to rekindle things. Matt had made it clear he was with Gabby and those days werein the past. Addie’s return had been the fuel behind his first real fight with Gabby and the spark behind the others that followed. Matt didn’t keep secrets from Gabby, but maybe that had been a mistake, because sometimes not knowing was better than knowing. Her relationship with her last boyfriend ended when she caught him cheating, and once that taste found its way into someone’s mouth, it didn’t wash out.

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