Divine Evil

like it.” He snagged a bowl of peanuts off the bar and began cracking them with his good hand. He wanted to show he was pissed but not scared.
    “Neither do I, so why don't you tell me so we can both get back to enjoying our beer?”
    “If you got to know, I was over to Charlie Griffith's, working in his garage on his Cavalier.” He glanced over his shoulder at Skunk. “I ain't supposed to do side jobs, and if it gets out, I could get canned.”
    “Nobody said it had to get out. I'll have to check with Charlie, though.”
    “Go right the fuck ahead. Now if you don't mind, Sheriff, I'd like to drink in peace.”
    Cam took his half-full mug and wandered toward the back room. Cops lost friends—he knew it too well. It was better to lose them this way than by a bullet.
    Sarah was shooting pool with Davey Reeder, a lanky, bucktoothed carpenter with good hands and a weak brain. Over the years Davey had joined Cam and Blair and some of the others on their jaunts into the woods. He was olderby a couple of years and hadn't graduated until he was twenty. He'd knocked up one of the Lawrence girls and been married and divorced by the time he was twenty-two.
    Cam was aware that Davey was one of Sarah's regular customers. He wasn't sure which of them he felt more sorry for.
    “Hey, Davey.”
    “Hey.” He smiled his beaver smile and kissed the three ball into the side pocket. “Want to play for beers?”
    “Last time we did that, you got drunk and I got poor.”
    Davey whooped in the girlish way he had, then speared the four and five into opposing pockets. “I could spot you.”
    I'll pass.
    Sarah smiled and ran her hand deliberately, seductively, up and down her cue. “Got another game in mind?”
    “Shit on Sunday.” Davey missed his next shot. “You're up, Sarah.”
    “It's gloomy in here without the juke.” Cam pulled some bills from his pocket. “Why don't you get some change, Davey, pick us out some tunes? Get another beer for yourself while you're at it.”
    “Sure.” He sauntered out.
    “Well…” Sarah leaned, long and slow, over the table, sighted in, and shot. “It's nice to know you'd spend five bucks to be alone with me.” She tossed her hair back, tilted her head, then ran her tongue along her top lip. “Wanna play?”
    “Straight questions, Sarah. And I want straight answers.”
    “Ooh, that official talk makes me hot.”
    “Cut it out.” He grabbed her arm and jerked her upright. “What the hell did you mean the other day about me not knowing this town?”
    She walked her fingers up the front of his shirt. “You were away a long time, baby. Things change.”
    “You're bullshitting me, Sarah. It didn't have anything to do with me being away.”
    When she shrugged and started to turn, he pulled her back.
    Her eyes lit. “Go ahead. I like it rough. Remember?”
    “You threw out that bone about Parker. What do you know about why he left?”
    She slid her leg intimately between his. “What should I know?”
    “Give me an answer, Sarah. Things are happening here that shouldn't be.”
    “Your stepfather gets himself beat to death. Your girlfriend runs a woman down. What's it to me?”
    “Answers, damn it. Stick with Parker. Why did he leave?”
    “Because he got sick of the town, I guess. How should I know?”
    “You do know, and you were mad enough to almost tell me. Did he used to visit you upstairs?” He caught her hair and held her still. “Did he come up the back stairs for twenty a pop?”
    “What if he did?” She shoved Cam away. “What's it to you who I fuck?”
    “Did he talk to you—after he'd rolled his fat body off yours, did he tell you things?”
    “Maybe.” She pulled out a cigarette. When she struck a match, her hands were shaking. “Men tell women like me all kinds of things—like they'd tell a doctor or a priest.” She laughed and blew out smoke. “Something
you
want to … tell me?”
    “After almost sixty years in this town, more than twenty-five as sheriff, he packs up and leaves. Why?”
    “Because the bitch he was married to wanted to move to Fort Lauderdale.”
    “He isn't in Fort Lauderdale. He isn't anywhere that I can find.”
    “Parker's old news.” She picked up Cam's beer and drank deeply. “Don't you have enough to worry about? You still got a murder on your hands, don't you? Or are you letting that slide?”
    “What do you know?” he asked softly. “Who told you things he shouldn't have told you upstairs in that bed?”
    “I