Part 3
The water bottle had gone warm in Tessa’s hands before she finished spelling her name for the sergeant.
“I need your statement at the post,” Keene told her. “Start with what you saw at five-forty. Don’t leave things out because they seem small.”
“I said I don’t have identification.”
“You don’t need a card to tell me what happened.”
Tessa looked toward the county cruiser.
“The last deputy I talked to woke me up at a rest stop. Said I had to go. Followed me to the county line.”
Raymond stood just beyond the sergeant’s shoulder.
“We’ll be outside,” he said.
Hours later, at the post, Tessa read a printed page beneath fluorescent lights. Keene set a second sheet beside it.
“The cruiser was stationary from six-oh-four until six-eleven. Right in that turnout.”
“I wrote six-oh-five.”
“Maybe you needed a minute to find your pen.”
Tessa signed where the sergeant pointed.
“Where will you sleep?” Keene asked.
“My camper.”
“Investigators need that area undisturbed until Wednesday. There’s a women’s shelter in Linford. I can call.”
“They’ll ask for ID.”
Keene hesitated over the telephone.
“Am I allowed to leave now?” Tessa asked.
The clock above the door showed two in the morning. Outside, motorcycles still occupied a long row of spaces. Raymond got out of a folding chair when she appeared.
“Why are you still here?”
He handed her a card with his number written across the back.
“If somebody tries running you off, let them talk to me first.”
“Court’s at nine.”
“I know how to be tired.”
“They won’t let me back to the camper.”
“Stitch’s wife fixed up her spare room. Breakfast goes on at six. Grits, whether you want them or not.”
Stitch lifted his chin. “She doesn’t negotiate breakfast.”
By the courthouse steps, cameras were already waiting. A reporter recognized Tessa from Brute’s recording and came toward her with a microphone.
“What made you step in front of all those—”
Raymond put himself beside Tessa, not quite blocking the camera.
“You can ask another day. She’s done answering for now.”
Inside, his hands wouldn’t stay still. He folded the card from his pocket, unfolded it, then put it away.
“Eight months I’ve gone over my testimony,” he said. “At four this morning I was reciting it to the ceiling.”
Tessa sat beside him on the hard bench.
“What do you remember?”
“Dark red pickup. Alabama plate. Five-two-K, six-eight-one-four.”
“Give them that.”
A well-dressed man stopped in front of her knees. An attorney stood at his elbow.
“Excuse us. Some people have business here.”
Tessa recognized him from the photograph Raymond had shown Keene: Victor Harlan.
She moved her feet but didn’t get up.
“You never counted me, sir.”
Keene came through the entrance behind him.
“Victor Harlan. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. Thirty-one counts.”
His attorney stepped forward. “My client is attending his son’s trial.”
“The warrant was signed at seven. Turn around.”
Raymond watched the cuffs close, then rose when the courtroom doors opened.
When the prosecutor asked what he’d witnessed on the night of February sixteenth, Raymond kept his hands flat in his lap.
“A dark red pickup hit Micah. Alabama registration. Five-two-K, six-eight-one-four.”
The jury took less than forty minutes. Owen Harlan was convicted on every charge.
At the repair shop afterward, case papers accumulated beside the parts invoices. Rusk agreed to a deal; Jesse would testify. A grand jury indicted Victor Harlan and Deputy Talley.
Tessa moved the papers out of an oil stain before opening the inventory book.
“Clutch cable for the big touring bike?” Stitch called from the service bay.
“Bin seventeen. Two left.”
“Thirteen,” he corrected.
She looked over the top of the book.
Stitch wiped his hands and went to check. He returned carrying a cable from seventeen.
“Forty years doing this without writing every little thing down.”
“You ordered the same head gasket three times in August.”
He hung the cable over his shoulder and went back into the bay.
That evening, Raymond led her down a hallway and stopped at a bedroom door. The paint smelled faintly new. A clean quilt lay folded at the foot of the bed.
“Micah’s,” he said. “Finally painted it last week.”
Tessa stayed in the hall.
“What was he like?”
“Loud. Couldn’t wash a motorcycle properly. Sang in the shower like he was getting paid. Neighbor called once to ask me to make him stop.”
Raymond rubbed a spot of paint off the door hinge with his thumbnail.
“Kept it closed most of these eight months.”
“I can’t pay rent.”
“Stitch keeps our inventory in his head. His head’s fifty-two years old. You keep the book straight, that covers it.”
She stepped inside. There was a dresser, an empty closet, a window that shut all the way.
Raymond pointed to the small lock above the knob.
“You control that.”
He left the door in her hand.
The first riding lesson began in the shop lot, with Tessa learning how gently two fingers could work a brake lever. Raymond made her release it and try again whenever she grabbed too hard.
Later, when they were ready for the road, he handed her Micah’s helmet. She fastened the strap and climbed onto the seat behind him.
“Follow my lean,” he told her. “Don’t pull the other way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Parson.”
“Parson.”
At the edge of town, the road curved beside harvested fields. Tessa loosened her shoulders, kept her feet on the pegs, and went with him into the turn.