Free Billy Bob and Hackberry Holland Ebook Boxed Set by James Lee Burke

River in summer, sometimes with shadows in them, the way the river was when it flowed under a tree. “You’re special,” I said.
    She pulled her nightgown over her knees and sat on top of me, then leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. I cupped her breasts, then heard her say “Wait.” She worked her gown over her head and I put her nipples in my mouth and ran my hands over her baby fat and felt my own hardness touch her stomach.
    I rolled on top of her, then she reached down and held me with her hand and placed me inside her, her knees widening, her face turned to one side, her eyes closing, then, slowly, her mouth puckering as though she were warming the air before she breathed it. Her skin was moist and pink in the glow of the moon through the window, then she began to come and I felt as though the two of us were dropping down inside a well that swirled with starlight at the bottom.
    She held me tighter, then even tighter than that, and made a sound in my ear that was like the cry of the loon, and I was sure in that moment no evil would ever touch our lives.

Chapter 6
    ON TUESDAY MORNING, when Johnny was about to be transported from the hospital to face the trumped-up attempted assault charges filed against him by Darrel McComb, he was formally placed under arrest for the murder of Charlie Ruggles and taken in handcuffs to a cell at the county jail. I caught Fay Harback at the coffee stand by the back entrance of the courthouse. “No,” she said, raising her hand prohibitively. “I don’t want to see you.”
    â€œThis is bogus, Fay. You’re being a dupe,” I said.
    â€œHow would you like to have this coffee thrown in your face?”
    â€œMy client is the victim, not the perpetrator. You’re helping a collection of assholes gang up on an innocent man.”
    â€œDid I ever tell you, you make my blood boil? I want to hit you with a large, hard object,” she said. People were starting to stare now. “Come outside.”
    We went through the big glass doors onto the lawn. It was cold in the shade of the building and the grass was stiff with frost. “Which collection of assholes are you talking about?” she asked.
    â€œI’m not sure.”
    â€œThat’s beautiful. You just slander people in public without knowing why?”
    â€œThe Feds are involved in this stuff. An agent tried to warn me off last night.”
    â€œLet me make it simple for you. American Horse’s tennis shoes matched a perfectly stenciled impression on the floor right next to Charlie Ruggles’s bed.” She raised a finger when I started to speak.
    â€œHear me out. Your client not only left behind a signature with his foot, he dropped a Jiffy Lube receipt on the floor. It has his name on it and his fingerprints. We found a pair of greens in a service elevator. They smelled of booze.”
    â€œHow could Johnny have gotten past the guard at the door? All the deputies know him,” I said
    For just a second, no more than a blink, I saw the confidence weaken in her eyes. “The deputy went to help an elderly man use the bathroom. It’s not his fault,” she replied.
    â€œWho said it was?”
    â€œJohnny was in a bar down the street from the hospital. He’s a mercurial, unpredictable man. He killed Ruggles. There’s no conspiracy here,” she said.
    â€œHell there’s not.”
    She looked into space, as though my words contained a degree of credibility which, for reasons of her own, she would not acknowledge. “I do my job. I don’t always like it. Don’t ever try to embarrass me in front of people like that again,” she said.
    Â 
    THAT AFTERNOON, I visited Johnny at the lockup. We sat at a wood table in a small room that contained a narrow, vertical slit for a window, through which I could see the old buildings and brick streets down by the train yards. Johnny wore a bright orange jumpsuit with the word