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“Shotgun blast to the face.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“Makes me think there ain’t one,” Deebo said. “It’s a cruel world. I spent last night with the parents of a kid who OD’d on heroin and choked to death on her own vomit. Wasn’t no higher power looking out for her.
“You gonna eat that sandwich or peck it to death?” he asked, his attention on her po’boy.
“Help yourself,” Annie said, shoving her lunch toward the edge of her desk as she stood up. “I’m going over to the jail…and then to the morgue.”
—
She thought of B’Lynn as she walked across the yard toward the jail. What would her reaction be if the news was that her son had run afoul of someone with a shotgun? Shock? Sadness? Disappointment? Anger? Relief? All of the above? In the last ten years she had probably braced herself for the worst outcome many times, only to have hope restored, only to have to start the cycle all over again. No wonder she looked wrung out.
Three trustees were washing sheriff’s office vehicles outside the garage. Annie glanced at them as she passed. They all had mothers somewhere, just like Robbie Fontenot. Just like Deebo’s dead junkie from the night before. Too bad Hallmark didn’t make a Mother’s Day card forSorry, Your Kid Screwed Up.
She had called ahead to the jail and asked that Rayanne Tillis be taken from the holding cell to an interview room to wait for her. Annie watched her now on a video monitor down the hall, reading her body language. Rayanne paced around the small white room,restless, anxious, looking like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin and melt under the door to escape. She sat down at the little table that was bolted to the wall, stood up, turned around, did another circuit around the room, then stopped to pick at the acoustic foam on the back wall.
She would be thinking about how much she wanted to get high, and thinking about how that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, and starting to panic a little bit. She hadn’t asked for an attorney yet. Annie suspected she had held off in order to make sure she got fed lunch. That timing could work to Annie’s advantage if she was lucky.
Don’t say the L word. Don’t say the L word…
Rayanne went back to the chair, sat down, pulled her feet up on the seat, looked up at the camera, and gave it the finger.
Annie went down the hall, paused outside the interview room, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
“Don’t say anything!” she said as she walked in. She held up a hand as if that might forestall any statement from her prisoner.
“I ain’t gotta talk to you!” Rayanne shouted, popping up from the chair.
“That’s exactly right. Don’t say anything. Listen for a change.”
“I don’t gotta do that, neither!” she said, jutting her chin out defiantly. “I know my rights!”
“Before you repeat them back to me, do you want to get out of here?” Annie asked.
Don’t say the L word, don’t say the L word. One mention of a lawyer and their conversation would be over.
“I can get you out of here,” she said, “but you have to shut up and listen for a minute.”
Rayanne squinted at her. “You done arrested me! You ain’t gonna let me go! You’re full of shit! You’re just messing with me, bitch.”
“I’m not,” Annie said. “You can shut up and listen to me for a minute, or I can turn around and walk out of here and you can stay a guest of the parish. Your choice, Rayanne.”
She took a step backward toward the door. Rayanne shifted her weight from one dirty foot to the other, her expression wavering between suspicion and belligerence.
“Why would I trust you?” she asked.
“You got nothing to lose by listening, so why wouldn’t you?”
Rayanne wrapped her hands in the stretched-out hem of her Fuck Your Feelings T-shirt and rocked side to side, thinking. “This is some kind of trap.”
Annie shook her head. “No trap. This is just us talking. Maybe something good comes of it, maybe not. Up to you.”
Rayanne glanced up at the camera on the wall above the door. “Who’s watching us?”
“Nobody’s listening in,” Annie said. “Why would they? We’re talking about a petty burglary. You haven’t even been charged with anything yet. Maybe you won’t be. Mrs. Fontenot got her TV back. And there wasn’t any sign you broke into that house—”
“I didn’t break in!” Rayanne insisted. “I just went in the back door. It was open.”
