“Can’t you give him something for the pain? Look at him.”
“Sir,” a woman’s voice said. “Let us do our job. The sooner we get him looked over and in the bus, the faster he gets what he needs.”
“Come on, Jackson. We need to figure out what you’re gonna tell your detective friend about Carl’s little accident.”
“An accident?” Jimmy said, his tone implying he didn’t believe it for a second.
Jackson shrugged, glancing over the railing of the Serendipity Motor Lodge to the once empty pool below that now contained the bent and broken corpse of Carl whatever-his-name-was. “I mean, I suppose he could have jumped. It was all a bit of a blur once my guys got him outside. He was fighting to get away. They said it looked like he tripped.”
“If my boy said it was an accident, then it was an accident, Jimmy.”
Jackson’s gaze jerked up to see his mom marching towards him, dressed in a green dress and mustard yellow sweater, her hair pulled back off her face in a casual style that told Jackson she’d had no intention of leaving the house that day. Beverly Avery was always dressed to the nines when she left her house. She always quoted Coco Chanel, ‘Dress like you might meet your worst enemy today.’
“Mama? What are you doing here?” he asked.
“That boy called me. The pretty one who’s married to Lincoln. He said Day was in the hospital and you were here with the police, so I came straight over and sent your sisters to the hospital to watch over Day until we get there.” She looked over the railing and sucked her teeth. “That him? That the one who hurt our Dayton?”
“Yeah, Mama. That’s him.”
She made a disgusted noise before turning on Jimmy. “You giving my boy a hard time, Jimmy?”
Jimmy shifted on his feet, looking contrite. “Of course not, Bev. You know you’re family. We just need his account for the official record. That’s all.”
“And it couldn’t wait? His boyfriend is in surgery and you’re asking him foolish questions about how the man who put him in the hospital came to be lying in the bottom of a swimming pool? Seems to me he is exactly where he belongs.”
Jackson had never needed anybody to plead his case before, but he leaned against the railing and folded his arms across his chest, giving the man a hard look.
Jimmy’s partner, a young, copper-skinned man with honey-brown eyes named Detective Graves, gazed over the railing with casual disinterest. “You say you got this guy on tape admitting to being a pedophile and a child killer?”
Jackson gave a single nod.
Graves shrugged, his boredom obvious. “Looks like an accident to me, Jimmy. Are you thinking anything different?” Graves asked.
Beverly crossed her arms just as Jackson had, her brow arching at Jimmy.
“No. No, of course not. We’re good. You should get to the hospital and check on Dayton. Tell him we’re all rooting for him at the station when he wakes up.”
Jackson couldn’t help the look of surprise he gave Jimmy. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Okay. I’ll do that.”
Jackson’s mother waited until they were walking down the steps of the dilapidated building, far from earshot, when she asked softly, “You do that to him?”
Jackson knew she was asking if he’d put that man in the bottom of that pool. He had. He hadn’t even felt bad about it. By the time Jackson had made it up to the motel room, Day’s face had been almost unrecognizable. The swelling. The blood. And all Day had wanted was to explain to Jackson how he hadn’t let Carl touch him. It shattered Jackson’s heart into a million pieces. If there hadn’t been an ambulance and three officers down below, he might have taken his time with Carl, made him feel everything Day had and then some, but he’d only had a small window of time to make a quick decision. He’d decided Day’s mental health was more important than his vengeance. Day would only have peace with Carl dead.
Jackson believed in the justice system. It was more than possible that, after a long drawn out trial, a jury would have found Carl guilty of aggravated battery or something equally infuriating. It was likely that winning that verdict would mean Day being forced to relive every trauma this man had put him through starting when he was just fourteen years old. It was likely that a defense attorney would force Day to admit he was a sex worker. He would insinuate that, despite Day’s age when Carl’s abuse began, it was an arrangement and Day had not only wanted it but instigated it to negate getting a ‘real job.’
If convicted, Carl might get a slap on the wrist, a few years in prison, but he wouldn’t get the death penalty. Those other boys, whoever they’d been, wouldn’t get justice, even with Carl’s mediocre confession. No bodies, no crime, and Carl had no incentive to give up any names of the others.
In the end, tossing Carl over that railing had been as easy a decision as loving Day had been, and he’d never regret either. “Yes, Mama.”
She nodded, patting Jackson on his shoulder. “Good boy. Good,” she said again with another firm nod. “I’m driving.”
Jackson looked at his five-foot-nothing mother with wonder. She was literally the strongest person he’d ever met. He thought about his sister and her request to finally tell their mother the truth so that Jimmy no longer had this hold over him. “Mama. Can I tell you something?” he asked once they were sitting in her SUV.
She gave him a look at the seriousness in his voice. “Is it that you’re gay? I figured that out when you were twelve and I caught you out back with that Roger boy from down the block.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “No, Mama. I’m being serious. I need to tell you something. Something about Dad.”
For the first time in as long as Jackson could remember, his mother looked wary. “If you’re about to tell me your dad cheated on me or something, please don’t. I don’t want to know that. It’s best things are left where they are.”
