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Danny sets his cup down with a bang. “Did they catch him? The guy who killed her?”
“Not that good, I’m afraid,” Ball says. “The bad news is that it’s not just Plains Truth anymore. You’re in the Telescope, the Wichita Eagle, the Kansas City Star, and the Oklahoman. Along with your picture.”
“Fuck,” Danny says.
“The good news is the picture they’re running has got to be ten years old. You’ve got hair down to your shoulders and a biker ’stash. Looks like you’re standing in front of a bar, but I might only think that because you’re holding up a bottle of beer in each hand.”
“Probably the Golden Rope in Kingman. Before I married Margie I used to do a lot of drinking there. I think it burned down.”
“Don’t know about that,” Ball says cheerfully, “but that photo doesn’t look anything like you now. You ready for the best news?”
“Lay it on me.”
“It came from a friend who’s a clerk in Troop F of the Highway Patrol. That’s in Kechi, near Wichita. I used to date the lady in question, but that was in another life. She knows you retained me. She called last night and said Frank Jalbert is taking a leave of absence. Rumor is he’s going to retire.”
Danny feels a big grin break over his face. It’s the first real one since he woke up after that fucking dream. Jalbert has haunted his thoughts. Not even talking to Stevie can get the inspector entirely out of his mind. He reminds Danny of some animal—maybe a wolverine?—that supposedly won’t unclamp its jaws from whatever it’s bitten even after it’s dead.
“That really is good news.”
“Want to go out to Dabney’s to celebrate? Big breakfast, I’m buying.”
Dabney’s is two towns over and should be safe enough, especially if the picture the newspapers are running is from the days when Danny wanted to look like Lonesome Dave Peverett from Foghat.
“Sounds good. I might bring a friend. The kid I used to work with.”
But Jesse says he can’t, as much as he’d like to. He punches in at eight. “Also, my mom was pretty mad that I went out to help you yesterday. I told her you didn’t do what they were saying and she said that didn’t matter, because I was a young Black man and you were… you know.”
“A white man accused of murder,” Danny says. “I get it.”
“Well, yeah. But I’d go anyway if I didn’t have to work.”
“I appreciate that, Jess, but your mom is probably right.”
He goes out to Dabney’s. Ball is there. They order huge breakfasts and eat every bite. Danny offers to split the check but Ball won’t hear of it. He asks Danny what comes next for him. Danny tells him about his plan to go to Colorado to be near his brother, who’s on the spectrum but has a gift a psychologist who examined him in his late teens called “global recognition.” Basically, he sees where everything is. They talk about that for awhile.
“Got something in mind,” Ball says as they leave the restaurant. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since our first go-round with that hairball Jalbert, but then I got reading the comments in the Eagle and the Telescope and I thought yeah, maybe, might work.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What comments?”
“I guess you don’t read them. It’s the equivalent of letters to the editor in the old days. After you finish reading the story, you can comment on it. There are lots of comments on the stories about you.”
“Hang him fast and hang him high,” Danny says.
“There are some like that, sure, but you’d be surprised how many people believe you actually did dream where the body was. Everyone—those that believe you, I mean—has a story about how their grammaw knew the propane was going to explode and got everyone out of the house, or that the plane was going to crash so they took a later flight—”
“Those are premonitory dreams,” Danny says. He’s done some reading. “Not the same.”
“Yes, but there are also comments from people who dreamed the location of a lost ring or a lost dog or in one case a missing kid. This woman claims she dreamed a neighbor boy fell down an old well, and there he was. It’s not just you, Danny. And people love stuff like that, because it gives them the idea that there’s more to the world than we know.” He pauses. “Of course, there are also people who think you’re so full of shit you squeak.”
That makes Danny laugh.
At Danny’s truck Ball says, “Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. It might be a way to get a little money, but that’s really secondary. It would be a way to fight back.”
“You’re thinking… what? Filing a lawsuit?”
“Exactly. For harassment. Someone hucked a brick at your trailer, right?”
“Right…”
