Free The Clinch Knot by John Galligan Page A

Instead she released a weighty exhalation that made her son look up from the sawdust pile.
    “You’re the tramp’s father?” she said. “Or the brother. The ex?”
    “I’m a friend.”
    “That whole episode is over,” said Charlotte Gray. “Hendy and I have worked it out. He has made his apologies and explanations. This girl came after him because he is a lawyer and she wanted something. That’s what he said. He made a mistake and it won’t happen again. That’s his story, and I’ve elected to believe him. It’s over. He’s told her to stay away and she has.”
    She bent between her legs, beat her child to a roofing nail that had surfaced in the pile of sawdust. Once more he yowled at his loss. Charlotte Gray extended the nail. “Here,” she said. “You’ve got pockets. Be useful. And tell me what you want.”
    “Do you know where your husband was last Wednesday?” I said.
    “I told you. It’s over.”
    Sure, because Jesse is dead,
I was about to say.
    “We saw a counselor at Park County Mental Health. Henderson promised it was over and he would never do it again.”
    Gray’s wife opened her arms, and the boy, angry and over-tired, toddled into them, released two punitive fistfuls of sawdust into her crotch. “What could I say?” she asked me. “He said he was sorry. He said he would never see the little bitch again. He promised.”
    “And these last couple of days he’s been just like always? Things are normal again?”
    “What do you mean? I’ve hardly seen him,” she said. “He’s so busy at work. Wednesday? I think he worked all day, probably went for a long run, came home late, had a scotch and a power bar, read Peter a story and went to bed. Is there a problem?”
    I waited a long time before speaking again. I watched the Canyon Ferry smoke balloon up and spread, besotting the entire easterly sky until Gray’s impressive roofline cut off the view.
    “Well—”
    “Well what?” She gathered red-cheeked Peter into her saw-dusty lap. “What is it you want from me?”
    I was confused. I said finally, “It almost sounds as if you don’t realize that Jesse is dead.”
    She fairly dropped the kid out of her lap. She sputtered at me, “
Jesse?”
    I nodded.
    Again, louder—
“Jesse?”
—the kid, still slipping, grabbed at her shirt, yanking it open to expose exhausted breasts. She didn’t care. Her voice became a croak, a snarl, and a sob.
    “I was talking about
last year.
I was talking about
Ally Browning,
his old receptionist.” Her eyes filled fast. “All this time you were talking about
now,
with Jesse, Jesse Ringer? He was screwing Jesse? The dead girl?”
    I nodded. Yes. Now. Jesse.
    “He was … that dirty lying … after all that we went through …”
    She grabbed her drink, seemed surprised it was empty. She began to shake. The boy fell between her legs, but I saw it coming and caught his little skull in the palm of my hand.
    “Missus Gray—”
    “Not for long.”
    “—I’m sorry.”
    As I let the little boy down safely, he looked at me, looked at his mother, and then he began to thrash on the fresh cedar planks between her feet, began to thrash, and thrash, and wail.

A Likely Sneed
     
    “Ms. Park-Ford?”
    “Yes, Sheriff.”
    “Get Russell.”
    “I will do that, Sheriff.”
    “Thank you, Ms. Park-Ford.”
    Sheriff Roy Chubbuck’s shaky hand lifted off the intercom button and went back to the business of writing out my ticket.
Driving with an expired license.
The tab came to three hundred and twelve dollars. I had fifteen days to pay the county. “Unless I catch you again,” the sheriff said, “in which case the fines double and must be paid within twenty-four hours. The third time I can put you in jail. And I will.”
    He handed the ticket across his desk. I ripped it in half and tossed the pieces back toward him.
    He showed me his tiny gray teeth. “You must have seen that on TV somewhere.” He folded the carbons into his shirt pocket. “It’s