Page 68 of The River We Remember

“If he thought that, why did he kill him?”

“That’s a very good question, Scott. And I intend to ask him.”

Hector drifted over, and Scott knelt down to pet him. “Good boy,” he said. “You’re a good boy.” He wanted a dog himself, but his grandmother was allergic to them and to cats as well. He’d had turtles and fish and he’d had a canary once, but they weren’t the same as having something with soft fur that you could run your hands over, and when you talked to them, they looked at you as if they were listening and understood.

Then a question popped out of his mouth that he didn’t even realize was coming until it was too late. He said, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

The question seemed to startle the sheriff, and the boy was immediately sorry he’d asked. But it was done. Scott watched as so many painful changes crossed the man’s face. “That’s okay, you don’t have to answer,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s all right,” Brody said. “And the answer is yes. And also the answer is that I would undo it all if I could.”

“That was in the war, right?” Scott said.

“The war,” Brody confirmed.

Scott knew that Brody had come back a hero. Everyone in Jewel knew. He didn’t know the whole story, but it had something to do with a daring escape from a Japanese POW camp in the jungle somewhere. He longed to hear the story, the true story, but he knew that would be asking too much. So he simply nodded as if Brody’s response—the war—had been enough.

“I better see if Mr. Bluestone’s finished,” Scott said and returned to the cellblock.

Bluestone slipped the tray through the slot in the door. “That was good. Thank your mom for me, okay?”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

Bluestone smiled at him, then looked toward the window. When Scott passed through the office on his way out, the sheriff was staring out a window, too. And Scott had the sense that these men were looking at things he didn’t understand yet. But no matter how awful those things might be, he wanted to know what they were and to understand them, too. And then maybe, even with a hole in his heart, he might feel like he was finally a man complete.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

BEFORE THAT EVENING, Charlie Bauer had seen Kyoko Bluestone only from a distance. When she arrived at the Bluestone farm, the sun had already set, and although the land was lit only with a peach afterglow, Charlie found the woman still working in one of the fields. Until the old Saint Bernard rose from where he’d been lying in the dirt, Kyoko didn’t notice the lawyer’s approach. When she looked up from her hoeing, her face was so calm and so beautiful Charlie was actually startled. She was much younger than Charlie had imagined, mid-twenties at most. She wore dungarees and a faded blue work shirt and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Her eyes were amber.

“Mrs. Bluestone, I’m Charlotte Bauer. I’m your husband’s lawyer.”

“My husband has a lawyer?”

“He needs legal representation, and I’ve offered my services. He’s accepted.”

Kyoko Bluestone waited, her face a picture of patience.

“I’d like to talk to you, if I may,” Charlie said.

“We should go inside then. Come, Fuji,” she said to the dog.

She walked back toward the house and outbuildings, Fuji and the lawyer following. She laid the hoe against the barn and crossed the yard. From the branches of the tall Dutch elm came the song of a meadowlark, but Charlie knew it was too late in the evening for that. Kyoko stopped and listened.

“Mockingbird,” she said. “It pretends to be so many things it isn’t.”

Inside, she invited her guest to take a seat. She washed her hands and prepared tea and only when she’d poured two cups did she finally sit and say, “How do I know this to be true?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You told me that you are my husband’s lawyer. I didn’t know my husband had a lawyer. I didn’t know that a woman could even be a lawyer. So I am asking, how do I know this to be true?”

In those days, Charlie Bauer had an old leather satchel, worn and scuffed, that she carried with her on business. She opened the satchel and took out a folded note that Noah Bluestone had given her to deliver. He’d told Charlie his wife would be distrustful and the note would explain everything. He’d asked Charlie not to look at it, and she had respected his wishes.

While Kyoko read what her husband had written, her face showed no emotion. Then she raised her amber eyes and said simply, “Yes.”

“Your husband is being charged with a very serious crime.”

“The killing of James Quinn.”