“That’s what Myrajane wants everybody to believe,” Neal said. “She didn’t even have Lamar buried here in the Cowan plot she’s so damned proud of. He was cremated out in California. The pile of ashes probably wasn’t this high,” he said, indicating a space of about two inches with his hands. “I heard he didn’t weigh a hundred pounds at the end.”
He laughed. “Christ, can you imagine what the funeral was like? It must have been a sideshow—a bunch of fairies sitting around sniveling. “Oh, dear me, I don’t know what I’ll do without my precious Lamar,’ ” Neal said in a singsong falsetto.
Donna Dee shot to her feet. “You are, and always have been, a prick, Neal Patchett. Excuse me.” She left the room again. Seconds later, they heard the bedroom door slam.
Neal rolled his tongue in one cheek. “Your old lady’s a barrel of laughs, Hutch.”
Hutch glanced in the direction of Donna Dee’s angry exit. “I’ve been having to work some overtime, and she doesn’t enjoy being alone at night.”
The only job Hutch could find when he mustered out of the navy was at the soybean plant. Donna Dee resented his working for the Patchetts, although he didn’t want to tell Neal that. Going back to college had never been considered. Even if he had the money, he lacked the initiative.
Donna Dee was working as a receptionist in a gynecologist’s office. One of the benefits was that she got free treatment and advice. They’d been married almost ten years, yet she had still failed to conceive. She fought her barrenness with a fanaticism that bewildered Hutch.
Over the years he had tried to reason with her about it. “You don’t understand!” she would scream at him. “If we don’t have a baby, then there’s no reason for us to be together.” He failed to see the logic in that, but didn’t pursue the argument because it always resulted in a fight that left him feeling rotten. He figured it was a female hormonal thing that men weren’t equipped to understand. His own mother had suffered from the same malady because she had wanted more kids.
At least once a week, Donna Dee came home from work with an article about a new reproductive technique for infertile couples. Invariably, the revolutionary method of fertilization would involve him in some demeaning and embarrassing way.
Either they would screw until his balls ached, or he’d have to jack off in a plastic bag, or she would walk around with a thermometer in her mouth, and when the time was right, she would say, “Now,” and he’d have to perform whether it was the middle of the night or during Sunday lunch. Once she had even caught him while he was taking a crap and had knocked on the bathroom door, saying, “Don’t bother pulling your pants back on. It’s time.” He thought her tactics hardly romantic.
Hutch supposed he shouldn’t be judgmental of her obsession. He wasn’t the one who was malfunctioning. His sperm count was fine. Every doctor they had consulted had said the same thing: Donna Dee couldn’t make a baby. But Donna Dee was damned and determined to make one. It was as though she had to prove to the world, to him, and to herself that she could. What he feared was that her baby mania had something to do with the Jade Sperry incident. He didn’t want to know for certain that guilt was Donna Dee’s propellant, so he had never suggested it.
Neal drained his glass of bourbon and set it on the edge of the coffee table. “You married too early, Hutch. Didn’t I tell you so? But you wouldn’t listen. Now you’re stuck at home with a wife who’s got a burr up her ass, and I’m still out catting around.” He smacked his lips with satisfaction. “A different pussy every night.” Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. “Come along with me tonight. We’ll raise some hell, just like old times. I can’t think of a more befitting send-off for our pal Lamar.”
“No, thanks. I promised Donna Dee we’d go to the picture show.”
“Too bad.” With a sigh, Neal got up and sauntered to the door. Hutch ambled after him. “By the way,” Neal said, “my old man told me to ask after your mama. How’s she doing?”
“As well as can be expected. She finally sold the house and got her a smaller place. She does a lot of work at the church, filling time, you know, since she doesn’t have Daddy to take care of.”
A year earlier, Sheriff Fritz Jolly had been investigating a burned-out building when a beam collapsed. The fall had broken his hip. He was hospitalized for months. Even after returning home, he never regained his original strength and developed one complication after another until he died of an infection.
“Tell her my daddy said that if she needs anything to holler.”
“Thanks, Neal. I’ll give her the message. She’ll appreciate it.”
“Looking after her is the least he can do. Your daddy did a lot of favors for mine. You know…” He reached out and tapped the pocket of Hutch’s shirt. “It never hurts to have an open-minded man in the sheriff’s department. How well do you like working in the factory?”
“It stinks like shit.”
Neal chuckled and lightly socked Hutch on the shoulder. “Let me see what I can do.”
Hutch grabbed Neal’s sleeve as he tried to leave. “What do you mean?”
Neal removed Hutch’s hand. “Better go see to your old lady. Apologize for your prick of a friend. I’ve never run across a woman yet who didn’t cream over an apology.”
Hutch shook his large, rusty head like an irritated dog. “Tell me what you meant about my job at the plant.”
Neal frowned as though he were reluctant to impart a secret. Lowering his voice, he said, “It’s time somebody did some creative thinking for you, Hutch. The sheriff who took office after your daddy died is so tight-assed, he squeaks when he walks. My daddy thinks the department needs some new blood. Now do you see what I’m getting at?”
“Me?” Hutch said, lowering his voice to match Neal’s conspiratorial tone.
Neal smiled broadly. “Think how tickled your grieving mama would be if you followed in your daddy’s footsteps.”
“I applied for a deputy’s position when I left the navy. They weren’t hiring.”
Neal placed his hands on his hips and shook his head as though annoyed with a dim-witted child. “Your problem is that you’ve got no faith, Hutch. Have the Patchetts ever failed to do something we wanted to do? A word here, a word there—we
can make things happen.”