The Housewife(82)

I sit there, twisting my mouth, my arms crossed over my chest. “That’s a lie. She withdrew the complaint.”

She had to. After that horrible, evil ex-boyfriend tried to rape her at the slaughterhouse where he worked, she went to the police and accused him of assault. But my mother would have none of it. She screamed at Deb, told her it was her fault, she was a right slut so what did she expect? And how dare she bring shame on our family like that? As if it were remotely possible to bring shame on our family.

So, my sister went back and said she’d changed her mind.

“You want me to believe it was a coincidence that you happened to kill your sister’s ex-boyfriend?” Bates asks.

I raise a hand. “Slow down, Detective. A. I wasn’t driving that night, Beau was, and B. How would you know about it since she withdrew it?”

“I found a handwritten note in his file,” he says wearily.

“Why were you looking at his file?”

He runs a hand over his face. “We have systems, Jodie. Your conviction wasn’t relevant to Roy’s case, but it was brought up. I had to link everything up in the system. I requested the file and…I found the connection.”

I breathe slowly, deeply, just the way Deb taught me.

“I didn’t know,” I say finally. “Who he was, I mean. And I wasn’t the one driving, Detective, I swear. After I realized who he was—and I only knew because my sister told me later—I decided not to bring it up. What would have been the point?”

He nods throughout, his mouth pressed thinly, his eyebrows raised in a sorrowful shape. I shrug my shoulders up to my ears. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“You told me that it wasn’t you driving that day, the day of the accident.”

“It wasn’t. It was Beau. He made me say—”

“Jodie. Stop.”

He lifts the flap of the envelope and pulls out a single, large, grainy black-and-white photograph.

“I told you. Someone’s always watching.” He hands me the photograph.

I reach for it, and my vision blurs, just for a second, as I stare at a much younger version of me. Next to me is Beau. We are in Beau’s car. The photo was taken from a downward angle, and our eyes are red from the flash.

And I’m the one driving.

“Where did you get this?”

He rubs his hands down his face. “After I realized you knew the victim, I went searching. You would have gone through the Border Patrol checkpoint on I-8, so I checked with them. It was a long shot, but it paid off. You guys didn’t stop.”

I can hear myself breathe hard. Beau was paranoid because he’d had some weed with him. He asked me to play it cool, but I wanted to impress him. I wanted to be like Bonnie and Clyde. So when the agent signaled for us to stop, I accelerated through. To be fair, we both thought it was funny.

“Normally, they’d wipe the photo after a few weeks, but in your case, there was an incident report. ”

There’s blood pulsing in my ears. I don’t say anything.

“You ran that man over on purpose, Jodie.”

It had been years since the assault, years since my sister had gone out with him. He and I had no connection whatsoever. We didn’t go to the same schools or live in the same neighborhood. By then, Deb had long moved on from the whole sorry episode and so had he. The whole thing had been so short-lived that nobody, other than me, even knew his name.

And nobody made the connection before.

But when I saw him that night, it all came rushing back. How he’d tried to rape her, stalked her, and terrorized her for weeks.

He was walking on the side of the road, and as we drew near, he turned around, jerked his thumb to hitch a ride. I immediately recognized his ugly face, his crooked nose, and that scar under his right cheekbone. I didn’t even think about it. I jammed my foot on the pedal and swerved.

I think of my sister coming to the police station that night, her eyes red from crying, her features awash with misery. You shouldn’t have done it, Jo. I won’t be able to help you this time. I thought I’d be fine. I was going to serve Beau on a plate. There. Take him. He did it.

It wasn’t fine, but it was still worth it.

“For the record, he was a horrible man. A criminal,” I say.

“I know.”

“What’s going to happen now? Am I going to be tried again?”

He studies my face for a moment. “No. That would violate the prohibition on double jeopardy. You’ve been tried for the crime. You can’t be tried again. ”

I let out a breath. “Well, then,” I say, smoothing down my apron. “That’s that, then.”

I stand and extend my hand. “Thank you for stopping by, Detective.”

“I would be remiss if I didn’t tell my superiors.”

I sit back down. “What would they do?”

“I have no idea. It won’t be up to me.”

I sit there, staring at him, trying to think of the implications. Will they look at Roy’s testimony differently once they realize what I did to Deb’s ex-boyfriend? Will they look closer at the CCTV footage of Roy driving his car to and from Erin’s place the night she died?

I shudder.

“Did he hurt other women?” I ask.

“He was charged with rape and assault, yes. Several times.”