Carnal Innocence

as gullible as the boy, Austin, and we’re going to see what’s what before he signs any papers or writes any checks.”
    Fists clenched at his side, Austin rose. “You saying my girl’s lying?”
    Della kept the shotgun sighted mid-body. “I’m saying Edda Lou’s never been any better than she had to be, and I ain’t saying I blame her for it. Now, you get the hell off this land, and if you’re smart, you get that girl to Doc Shays and have him see if she’s breeding. We’ll talk this through, civilized. Or you can come ahead and I’ll blow you apart.”
    Austin’s impotent hands clenched and unclenched. Blood ran unheeded down his cheeks like tears. “I’ll be back.” He spat again as he turned to Tucker. “And next time there won’t be no woman ’round to protect you.”
    He strode back to his pick-up, gunned around the circle of flowers, and rattled down the drive. Black smoke belched in his wake.
    Tucker sat in the ruined flower bed and dropped his head on his knees. He wasn’t getting up yet—no, not just yet. He’d sit a spell on the mangled blooms.
    Letting out a long breath, Della lowered the gun. Carefully, she propped it against the rail, then walked down, stepping over the border stones until she could reach Tucker. He looked up, the beginnings of thanks on his tongue. She smacked the side of his head hard enough to make his ears ring.
    “Christ, Della.”
    “That’s for thinking with your glands.” She smacked him again. “And that’s for bringing that Bible-thumping maniac around my house.” And another flat-handed slap on the top of his head. “And that’s for ruining your mama’s flowers.” With a satisfied nod she folded her arms over her chest. “Now, when you getyour legs out from under you, you come back into the kitchen and I’ll clean you up.”
    Tucker wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and looked down absently at the smear of blood. “Yes’m.”
    Because she figured her hands were about steady now, she tipped a finger under his chin. “Going to have a shiner,” she predicted. “But it looked to me like he was going to have a pair of ’em. You didn’t do too bad.”
    “Guess not.” Gingerly he got to his knees again. Breathing shallowly, he inched his way to his feet. It felt as if he’d been trampled by a herd of runaway horses. “I’ll do what I can with the flowers later.”
    “See that you do.” She slipped an arm around his waist, and taking his weight, helped him inside.
    Though he didn’t much care to get himself riled up on Edda Lou’s behalf, Tucker couldn’t quite get past the niggling sense of worry in his gut. He told himself to let crazy Austin worry about his crazy daughter—who’d more than likely gone to ground for a few days to avoid her daddy’s wrath and to stir up Tucker’s guilt. But he couldn’t forget what it had been like to find sweet little Francie floating, those bloodless wounds gaping all over her fish-white skin.
    So he stuck on a pair of sunglasses to conceal the worst of the sunburst bruise on his left eye and, downing two of the painkillers Josie took for menstrual cramps, set out to town.
    The sun beat down mercilessly, making him wish he’d just crawled off to bed with an ice pack and a long whiskey. That was what he was going to do once he talked to Burke.
    With any luck Edda Lou would be behind the counter at Larsson’s selling tobacco and Popsicles and bags of charcoal for barbecues.
    But he could see plainly through the wide front window as he drove past, and it was young, gawky Kirk Larsson at the main counter, not Edda Lou.
    Tucker pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office. If he’d been alone, he would have eased himself out inch by painful inch. Whimpering. But the three old coots who always planted themselves out in front, to chew the fat, curse the weather, and hope for gossip, were in position. Straw hats covered grizzled heads, wind-burned cheeks were puffed out with chaws, and faded cotton shirts had gone limp with sweat.
    “Hey there, Tucker.”
    “Mr. Bonny.” He nodded to the first man, as was proper, seeing that Claude Bonny was the eldest of the group. All three had lived off social security for more than a decade and had staked out the awning-shaded sidewalk in front of the rooming house as their retirement heaven. “Mr. Koons. Mr. O’Hara.”
    Pete Koons, toothless since his forties and no fan of dentures, spat through his gums into the tin bucket his grandniece