Free Hush My Mouth by Cathy Pickens

serious, but I kept my voice gentle. “You’re going to have to talk to me. I can’t help you otherwise.”
    “She left. She said she thought I had a girlfriend. I swear I didn’t—don’t.”
    “Okay. How long have you been separated?”
    “Six months?”
    “And?”
    “Then she got the restraining order.”
    Restraining orders aren’t granted on a whim, as his prison buddy Dells could tell him. Tolly Mart’s wife would have had to show evidence of threats or abuse to get the initial order, as well as present evidence of its violation to have him arrested. He wasn’t telling me everything.
    “Who’s your divorce lawyer?”
    “I don’t have one.”
    My turn to look surprised. “And hers?”
    “Jackson Spurlock.”
    I knew him only from his ads on the back of the phonebook. His main office was in Greenville, an hour’s drive away, but he apparently wallpapered all the small towns for a sizable radius, offering to handle car accidents, personal injury, divorces, and other ills that may befall.
    “Why didn’t you get a lawyer?”
    “Because I didn’t want a divorce. I thought she’d come to her senses. No need wasting that money twice.”
    “Twice?”
    “I’d already paid her lawyer.”
    “Is she still living in your house?”
    He nodded.
    “And you’re living where?”
    “I’m renting a room over at the tourist home.”
    I had no idea it was still in business. Renting a bedroom with a shared bath in a lady’s house, with breakfast and dinner included, seemed a nostalgic concept.
    “For the last six months?”
    He nodded. He looked slightly sick at his stomach. Could he really be this dim? Or was he really good at acting dim?
    “Mr. Mart, look at me.”
    His brown eyes locked on to mine like he hoped I’d toss him a treat.
    “You’ve been calling your wife, harassing her.” It was a statement, not a question. A tried-and-true cross-examination technique.
    His eyes moistened, but he didn’t blink. “I swear.”
    “What kinds of calls does she claim you’ve made?”
    “According to the warrant, she told the police I’d called her a hundred times, mostly in the middle of the night.”
    My turn to blink. Would a judge issue an order just on a wife’s say-so? I had to admit I didn’t know, but I couldn’t imagine that even a mass-production lawyer like Jackson Spurlock wouldseek an order based on nothing more than a soon-to-be ex-wife’s say-so.
    “Why did your wife think you had a girlfriend?” I circled back to that topic, hoping to catch him by surprise.
    His gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t know.”
    I pretended to study the legal pad where I’d scribbled scarce few notes. He’d gotten a recommendation for a lawyer from a guy who’d been helped into jail by that very lawyer. He had a naivete that, inside the concrete block walls of an interview room, almost had to be a lie. But who’d make up a story that weak? He didn’t look like a kook.
    “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
    I went into the hall and got the attention of the young officer who was keeping watch over the prisoner.
    “Is Rudy Mellin in this morning?”
    “I don’t know, ma’am. I can check for you.”
    Ma’am
. For Pete’s sake, if I was looking that old, I needed more rest.
    I stood in the hall while he walked down to a wall phone. I needed to think for a couple of minutes, away from Tolly Mart’s moist brown puppy eyes.
    The officer strolled back down the hall. “Chief Mellin can see you now, if you’d like.”
    I was surprised Rudy was in his office and not in a booth at Maylene’s, hunched over sunny-side-up eggs with sides of bacon and sausage.
    “Can you keep Mr. Mart in there for a while longer?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t act like my concern was unusual—or misplaced. Probably saved him some paperwork.
    “Thank you.”

    Rudy’s office was around the corner, past the main entrance and information desk, and down another short, nondescript beige-green hall.
    “Hey.” He