Free Revelations by Laurel Dewey Page A

fantasize about tying him to the bumper of a trailer and taking him for a scrape down the road, or burnin’ down his little log cabin on the river…”
    “Is that why he lives outside of town and doesn’t drive a car?” Jane asked.
    “I don’t know. I’m not his real estate agent. I’m just the guy who’s hired to make sure we don’t find him tits up, DRT on the side of the road.”
    Jane hadn’t heard the cop term DRT for dead right there in a long time. “So you’ve protected him for two years,” Jane said.

    “I protect everyone in this town. Everyone . People don’t move to Midas to live in the spotlight. They come here to lay low and live out their lives in peace and quiet. And it’s my job to make sure they get their peace and quiet!”
    “Do you keep their secrets?” Jane asked.
    Bo was caught off guard. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
    “One that could use an answer!” Jane wasn’t about to back down.
    Bo stood up, leaning his large gut over his desk. “I protect people!”
    Vi put her hand gently on Bo’s back to calm him down. “Bo…”
    Bo retreated and sat back down, cringing as his large ass hit the chair. He snapped up his cigar and puffed several times on it. “You got that tape cued up, Vi?” Vi nodded. “Let ‘er rip.”
    Vi depressed the PLAY button. The video between Jordan Copeland and Bo Lowry began. They sat across from each other at an empty table. Jordan appeared seriously disheveled. His straggly, curly salt-and-pepper hair was matted with cakes of dried mud; his grey beard and mustache sported the same filthy look. His face—although mostly hidden by his beard and mustache—looked ravaged by time and regular beatings. The crystal, enigmatic, nearly translucent blue eyes that stared back at Jane from the mug shot in 1968 were now dim, clouded by prison and a grim, lonely existence. He wore an oilcloth duster that brushed his mid-calf and was draped with threads of mud. While she couldn’t be certain, Jordan’s large hands looked to still have the remnants of the blood Weyler mentioned. As a whole, Jane had to admit that Jordan Copeland did indeed look like a giant human trash bag.
    “It don’t look too good for you, Jordan,” Bo’s voice rang out tinny on the video. “Where’d the blood on your hands come from?”
    Jane watched as Jordan’s body language reflected complete
condescension mixed with distrust of Bo. It was the way he pulled his shoulder away from Bo and the manner in which he glanced across the tiny room when he spoke to Bo instead of looking him in the eye.
    “I told you,” Jordan stated in a been here before tenor, “I was running outside along the riverbank and I fell.”
    “That explains the mud, Jordan. That don’t explain the blood.”
    “Well, I know it don’t. ” Jordan’s voice turned demeaning. “I can’t tell you where the blood came from…”
    “ Can’t tell me or won’t tell me?” Bo yelled.
    “ I don’t know ,” Jordan replied in a surly fashion. “I must have cut myself when I was running.”
    “Why were you runnin’ in the middle of a goddamn rainstorm? At night ?”
    Bo motioned for Vi to put the tape on PAUSE . “See, the thing is with ol’ Trash Bag here, he’s hardly ever inside his dingbat cave. He prefers to roam the woods around his property night and day.” He raised a judgmental eyebrow. “Reminds me of someone who’s been over-vaccinated!” Bo motioned for Vi to start the video again.
    “Why were you runnin’, Jordan?” Bo repeated the question to Jordan on the video. Jordan sat motionless. “Did Jake slip out of the noose on the bridge and fall in the river? Did you find him, Jordan? You pull him out of the river? Was he dead? Or did you kill him like you killed that poor little, retarded Danny Marshall forty-one years ago?” Jordan turned his body away from Bo. “You hide Jake’s body on your property? Are we gonna find that boy’s dead body under your goddamn bed