Page 77 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Not great.” Dylan sounded surprised by the question. “Both of his parents are in jail.”

Emmy looked down at the ground. Her mind kept playing tricks on her, separating Gerald’s death from the fact that both Hannah and Paul had been arrested for his murder.

Dylan asked, “How’s Cole?”

“Not great,” she said. “His grandfather is dead. His grandmother’s lost her mind. His mother’s kind of a raging bitch.”

“Kind of?”

Emmy’s laugh got caught in her throat. The tears were back. The shakiness threatened to take over. She closed her eyes, and she could see her father again. The waxy white of his skin. The dark blue of his lips. His last request, his final order, to tell a woman who couldn’t remember his face that he was sorry.

“Mi amor.” Dylan came closer. The sound of his voice was so soothing that she could almost feel her heart lurching out to him. He gently laced his fingers behind her neck. “Let me be here for you. Just this once.”

Emmy felt the pull of his warmth, the ache to be folded into his embrace, to go back to his house, the house that they used to share, and lie in bed and feel the safety of his closeness.

She’d broken it off with Dylan six months ago when Myrna’s night terrors had started to get really bad. Emmy had told herself it was too difficult feeling stretched in two different directions,but in truth, it was too hard keeping herself together around Dylan. She had started crying over sappy commercials and clinging to him like a child when she got home from visiting her parents.

Now, Emmy was nearly overcome with need for him. Would it be so bad if she told Dylan what she was feeling? That every step was agony? That she could barely hold up her head? That she still loved and needed him so fucking much? Or would giving in to her emotions, letting it all come out, leave her so empty that she wouldn’t be able to go on?

“Okay.” She slipped out of Dylan’s reach and walked back into the building. The bright overhead lights made her eyes water. She saw Cole at his desk. “Anything?”

“Six thousand black trucks. I need to know what Elijah means by older model.”

“Ask him,” Emmy said. “Go talk to him. See if he’s more likely to open up to a man. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Emmy grabbed her jacket off the hook. She watched Cole as he pecked on the keyboard. He’d changed into a fresh uniform. His collar was buttoned. Hair neatly parted.

After Gerald had been killed, she hadn’t just laid into her son. She had razed him into the ground. They’d been sitting inside her cruiser. Emmy had been numb. Covered in her father’s blood. Shaking with grief. So was Cole. His uniform was soaked through where they’d clung to each other over Gerald’s body.

Then she had screamed at him about not strapping down his vest like she had fucking told him.

Emmy slid on her jacket. She walked behind Cole. She pressed her lips to the top of his head. Then she walked out the front doors of the station.

The lights along Main Street were off. The storefronts were dark. The dress shop. The wine store. The café. She could see the floodlights shining up at the courthouse. The American flag and the State of Georgia flag had been lowered to half mast. She turned around and looked at the sheriff’s station. Both flags on the roof were at half mast, too.

Emmy turned away. She took in a mouthful of air, felt it settle into her lungs like a fog. She hadn’t realized it was cold out.She zipped up the front of her jacket. Her watch glowed in the darkness. Emmy touched her finger to the crown. Then she walked a few blocks down the street until she was standing outside the funeral home.

The lights were on in the front lobby. Another illuminated flag was lowered to half mast on the pole outside the building. She wondered about the other flags outside veterans’ halls and Highway Patrol stations and the governor’s mansion on Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta. All of them lowered halfway to honor the life of her father.

Emmy slid her hand into her pocket but didn’t pull out her phone. She wanted Tommy to explain his thumbs up. Was he going to meet her at the funeral home? Was he staying with Myrna to help ride out her night terrors? Either choice was understandable. Gerald was dead. Myrna was still alive. Their mother was often too much for Celia to handle on her own. It was reasonable for her brother to stay with his wife.

Even if his little sister really needed him.

Emmy took her hand out of her pocket. She skirted around the side of the one-story building. When she was on patrol, Emmy had made her share of late-night trips to the funeral home. In Georgia, the position of coroner was elected. Milo Kinley, the funeral director, had run uncontested for nearly forty years.

Not just that. He’d gone to high school with her father. They’d played cards every Saturday with Virgil and Louis Singh for as long as Emmy could remember. Milo had buried most of the Clifton family’s dead. And after the medical examiner was finished cutting open Gerald’s body to document his murder, Milo would be the one who prepared him for his grave.

The light was on in the back office. Emmy didn’t have to knock on the door. The building was never left unattended. Usually, there was an intern from the mortuary college working the phones in case a body needed to be retrieved, but tonight, Milo was sitting at the desk inside the doorway. He was writing something when she walked in. Emmy thought about walking into Gerald’s home office yesterday morning. He’d been writing a letter, too.

“Emmy Lou.” Milo stood up to greet her. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

She felt her teeth grit as he gave her an awkward hug. She told him, “The medical examiner is on the way. Should be here soon.”

“I’ve already spoken with her. Everything is taken care of. Georgia Highway Patrol is on standby to escort him to GBI headquarters.” Milo raised his hand toward the embalming room. “I’ve got him laid out for you and Tommy. Take all the time you need. I’ll just need you to sign some forms before you go.”

Again, Emmy realized that she hadn’t let herself think that far ahead. There was always paperwork, chain of custody, all the things that she’d learned at the academy but never once considered she would do for her own father. Even with Myrna’s crushing march toward death, Emmy had assumed that Gerald would handle everything.

She said, “I need to talk to Tommy about what he wants to do.”

---