Page 119 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Riding shotgun when Martha smashed head-on into Bubba’s truck.” Virgil put his hand under her elbow to help her up the steepest part of the slope. “The crash happened a little while after Henry died. Tommy was trying to fill his brother’s shoes, but he couldn’t keep up with Martha. Nobody could.”

Emmy had no doubt that Tommy had tried. She said, “They never told me what happened to Henry, just that he drowned in the Flint.”

“Back then, kids liked to go drinking up at the Falls. Sound familiar?”

He waited for Emmy to smile again, because kids until the end of time would drink up at the Falls.

“Martha and Henry sneaked out of the house real late. Gotdrunk. She passed out. Henry either went for a swim or fell into the water. He was a good swimmer, but his blood alcohol was off the charts. Had some coke in his system, too. But you probably know the next part. Took six long days before they found his body. Tore your parents apart. Myrna was on fire. Gerald was knee-walking drunk every second of the day. But I wasn’t surprised that they blamed Martha. Henry was a good kid until he wasn’t. Martha was always a bad seed. If you’d asked me back then, I would’ve said she would end up dead or in prison or both.”

Emmy heard an edge of bitterness. She couldn’t square the girl who’d lost her brother with the woman who’d spent most of her career trying to bring children home to their parents. Then again, it was hard to see Gerald as the type of man who would turn his back on his own daughter.

She asked, “What was Dad like when he was drinking?”

“Tommy never told you?”

Emmy’s laugh was genuine this time. “No, Tommy never told me.”

“Well,” Virgil sighed out the word. “I’ll tell you the same thing I said to your daddy when we talked about it. Back when he was drinking, Gerald Clifton could be the meanest son of a bitch you ever met.”

Emmy felt taken aback. She had never heard anyone speak so negatively about Gerald. Even Myrna, who could find fault with everything, had never been so blunt.

“Some men, it’s easier for them to look at the bottom of a bottle rather than look somebody else in the eye. Gerald earned a hell of a lot of respect from me changing his life around the way he did. I would’ve followed him through fire. It was the honor of my life serving under him.” They had reached the driveway. Virgil lifted his foot and rested it on the back of the trailer. “You can’t put a person in one box, Emmy Lou, especially when they get older. You’ve gotta judge them by the totality of their lives. You do bad shit when you’re young that you regret. You do good shit when you’re old that you hope makes up for it. In the end, Gerald was a good man who did some bad things. He learned from his mistakes. He didn’t make the same ones with you.”

She remembered telling her father twelve years ago that she couldn’t imagine him making mistakes. Now, she gave Virgil the same response Gerald had given her. “I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

Emmy was even more glad to let the conversation drop. She followed Virgil to the back of the house, a brick ranch with a walk-out basement. She’d spent countless hours in Peggy’s salon reading books while Myrna got her hair done. Emmy knew that Peggy had gotten new equipment when she’d set up shop in town, but it felt strange seeing the old stuff pushed up against the wall. The beehive hair dryers and the two barber’s chairs with their cracked vinyl seats. Even the old first aid kit was still hanging on the wall. Rust had chipped away at the red cross on the door. Emmy could still remember Peggy getting a Band-Aid from the box when she’d accidentally cut her finger on the scissors.

“Peggy was gonna sell all that stuff on eBay, but then she got too busy to deal with it.” Virgil reached above the doorjamb and found the key. He had to kick the door at the bottom to make it open. “I tell clients they can get a case solved here, but if they need a perm, they’ll have to go into town.”

Emmy forced another smile as Virgil pulled back the curtains on the door and the two large windows that overlooked the backyard. She switched on the fluorescent lights. His desk and two folding chairs were on the left-hand side where the rinse sinks used to be. Several file boxes were stacked at the back of the room beside a set of metal storage shelves. Emmy counted a total of twenty-one. They were sealed with Clifton County Sheriff’s Department tape. She recognized her own handwriting on the labels.

DALRYMPLE, M.

BAKER, C.

HUNTSINGER, A.

LOUDERMILK, D.

Her gaze skipped along the sub-headers. Call logs, autopsies, statements, police reports. She looked at the metal shelves. Therewas a thin layer of dust covering everything. An ancient dot-matrix printer, an early 2000s Dell desktop, and a desktop copier that was so old the glass moved along the top. Dozens of dilapidated file boxes were packed tight into an open closet. Virgil had always been incredibly organized, but Emmy got the feeling the space hadn’t been tidied in a while.

She asked, “Did the cleaner call in sick?”

“Yeah, I’ve kind of let things go.” Virgil’s face flashed with embarrassment as he studied his hands. His fingernails were rimmed with grease from working in the barn. “We didn’t want it getting out, but Peggy left me a while back. Supposed to be a trial run, but looks like it’s gonna be permanent. We got rid of the horses last month. I’ve let work taper off. Been thinking I might move to Florida to be closer to the grandkids.”

Emmy felt a sudden pang of sadness. She wasn’t surprised the news hadn’t made it around town. Peggy had worked at the hair salon long enough to know how to keep a secret. “I’m sorry.”

“I think the job took more out of me than I thought.” Virgil gave her a weak smile. “Cautionary tale.”

Emmy lifted one of the boxes to give herself something to do. Virgil grabbed two from the stack. They were both silent as they made the trips back and forth, loading up the cruiser’s deep trunk, then using the back seat. She was thinking that she should’ve parked closer to the basement, when Virgil wedged the last box into the passenger’s seat.

“All right,” Virgil said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Emmy smoothed together her lips. Gerald’s plan had been for all four of them to go over the case together. He would ask the questions. Virgil and Emmy would provide the details. Cole was going to play devil’s advocate. “I know it’s asking a lot, but nobody knows the paperwork on this case better than you do.”

Virgil glanced back at the barn. “Got a fella coming by later to look at taking the rest of the hay off me. Don’t want mold to set in.”

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