Page 282 of Property of Whiskey

“How?”

“Old program paperwork. Church bulletin. His name kept showing up around the same properties.”

“So Crowley was already there.”

“Yeah. I just didn’t know he belonged in my case yet.”

“And now?”

“Crowley’s the face.”

“Meaning?”

“He keeps his hands clean.”

“You ever question him?”

“Once.”

“What happened?”

“He smiled.”

Whiskey mutters, “That bad?”

Daddy looks at him. “You ever met a man who smiles because he knows something you don’t?”

Whatever humor was left in Whiskey disappears. “Yeah.”

“Then you know.”

“What did Crowley say?”

“That troubled young people often invented stories about religious communities because they resented structure and discipline.”

Nausea rolls through me.

“About the girl?”

“Wouldn’t acknowledge her.”

“Ruthanne Peck?”

“Claimed not to know the name though she’s on the roster.”

I sit back and try to fit twelve years of rot into something my brain can process. A drugged girl wandering barefoot in a man’s coat. A blue room where girls cried. Somebody called the Reverend who has to be Crowley. Ruthanne Peck. A fake state worker named Martha Lane. Reports altered from inside the system. Montgomery money already moving through Pearly Gates interests. A photograph of me at sixteen used to scare Daddy into silence.

Too much. Still not enough.

Whiskey finally moves. Not toward me. Toward the coffee pot. He gets up, fills Daddy’s cup, then mine. He doesn’t ask or make some joke about it. He just sets the mug in front of me and takes his chair again.

Daddy watches him. Something changes in his expression. Not approval. Heaven forbid.

“You knew about some of this?” Daddy asks him.

“Pieces.”

“Which pieces?”