"Not a lot of friends in there," I observed once we were in the quiet of the parking lot.
"You have no right!" he shouted. "No right!"
"Did you kill Cleetus McKee?"
All the fight went out of him, and he hung limply in my grasp, his eyes huge. "What? No! Of course not. I've been here all night! Somebody shot Cletus?"
I stopped walking and put him down to stand on his own feet. "How did you know he got shot? I never said that."
Skeeter rolled his eyes, completely unconcerned with my brilliant deductive powers. "This is Florida. Every other person has a gun. How else would he get killed?"
"Your boozy breath might killme," I muttered. "Okay, in the back seat. And if you don't behave, I'll tie you up and throw you in the back of the truck for the drive to the sheriff's office."
Miracle of miracles, he mostly kept his mouth shut, other than muttering dire threats beneath his breath. We dropped him off, told Andy Skeeter was his problem now, and started for home to get some sleep after the long, awful, exhausting day.
And we made it almost all the way to the dirt road that led from the main road to Carlos and Tess's houses before Tess's phone rang.
"I don't want to answer it," she said dully. "I'm too tired for any more of this."
But she answered and put it on speaker.
"Hey, Susan. What's up?"
"I'm sorry about this," Susan said. "But can you come back downtown?"
"Whatnow?" Tess asked indignantly. "We found Skeeter for you and hauled him in."
"Yeah, thanks for that. But I've got Bubba McKee here, and he wants to confess."
"No!" Tess gave me a shocked look. "I can't believe Bubba would shoot anyone, not even Cletus."
"Yeah. The thing is, he says he'll only talk to you."
23
Tess
Just before midnight on July 4th, at the jail
"Was it only this morning when we sat out by the pool? Feels like a hundred years ago."
Jack glanced over at me, and I could tell he was worrying.
"Stop. I'm fine. Just tired. And wondering why this keeps happening. All I wanted to do this week was sell taxidermied ferrets holding tiny little sparklers, but no. Here we are again."
"Why would Bubba want to talk to you?" Jack's voice was calm, but his hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
"I have no idea. Honestly, I have hardly spoken with Bubba in my entire life except to say hello to him, and suddenly I find out he wanted to marry me. Well, he was drunk then, but still. And he trusted me to hold his snake?—"
Jack snickered, and I pointed at him. "What are you, twelve?"
"I'm a guy."
"Huh. And now this. I cannot believe he would shoot Cletus, no matter what the provocation. It's just not in him. He's hot-tempered, but more goofy than murderous."
"You just said you haven't been around him much. And, as you like to tell me, people can change."
"Why do you think that's only true when it's a change for the worse?"
