“What’s Trey Teepano got to do with it?” I repeated.
“Do I get some reward money or something if I talk?”
“I’m sure, yeah.”
“I’m not innocent, not entirely, but neither’s your brother, neither’s Trey.”
“What did you do, Runner?”
“Who ended up with all the money? Wasn’t me.”
“What money, we had no money.”
“Your mom had money. Your queen bitch mom had money, believe me.”
He was standing now, glaring at me, his oversized pupils eclipsing his irises, making his blue eyes look like solar flares. He tilted his head again, in a twitchy, beastlike way and started walking toward me. He held his palms outward, as if to show he wasn’t going to hurt me, which just made me feel like he would.
“Where’d all that money go, Libby, from Patty’s life insurance? That’s another mystery for you to think on. Because I sure as shit don’t have it.”
“No one got money, Runner, it all went to defend Ben.”
Runner was standing right on top of me now, trying to scare me the way he did when I was little. He was a small man, but still had a good six inches on me, and he breathed on me hard, his breath all warm, tinny beer.
“What happened, Runner?”
“Your mom, always keeping money to herself, never ever helping me, and I put years in on that farm, never seen a dime. Well, the chickens came home to roost. And your goddam mom brought it on herself. If she’d given me that money …”
“You were asking her for money that day?”
“All my life, I owed people money,” he said. “All my life, never able to get ahead, always owing. You got any money, Libby? Hell yeah you do, you wrote that book, didn’tcha? So you’re not really innocent either. Give me some money, Libby. Give your old man a little cash. I’ll buy me a liver on the black market, then I’ll testify to whatever you want. Whatever baby wants.” He poked me with two fingers in the middle of my chest, and I began slowly trying to back up.
“If you were any part of that night, that will be found out, Runner.”
“Well, nothing was found out back then, why should anything be found out now. You think the cops, the lawyers, everyone involved in that case, everyone who got famous from that case”—he pointed at me now, his lower lip jutting out—“You think they’re just gonna, what, ooops, our mistake, here you go, Benny boy, go ahead and enjoy your life. Nah. Whatever happened, he’s in there the rest of his life.”
“Not if you tell the truth.”
“You’re just like your mother, you know, so … cunt. Never go with the flow, always do things the hard way. If she’d just helped me once, in all those years, but she was such a bitch. I’m not saying she deserved to die …” he laughed, bit a hangnail … “but man, was she a hard woman. And she raised a goddam child molester. Sick fuck. Never, ever was that kid a man. Oh, and you tell Peggy she can suck my dick too.”
I turned to go at that, and realized I couldn’t get back up without Runner’s help. I faced him again.
“Little baby Ben, you really think he did those killings by his-self? Ben?”
“So who was there, Runner? What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying Trey, he needed money, he was a bookie who needed to be paid.”
“By you?”
“I’m not going to cast inpersions right now, but he was a bookie. And that night he was with Ben. How do you think he got into that shit-ass house?”
“If that’s what you think happened, if you think Trey Teepano killed our family, you need to testify to that,” I interrupted. “If that’s the truth.”
“Wow, you know nothing.” He grabbed me by the arm. “You expect everything, want everything for free, one big handout, me risking my neck for … I told you to bring money. I told you.”
I slipped his grasp, grabbed the mini-fridge and began dragging it over below the ladder, the thing rattling loud enough to drown out Runner. I climbed up on it, and my fingers were still several inches short of the top of the tank.
“Give me fifty bucks and I’ll get you up,” Runner said, assessing me lazily. I stretched to grab the edge, up on my tiptoes, straining, and then I could feel the fridge tilt beneath me, and I fell to the ground fast, hitting my jaw, biting the side of my tongue, my eyes watering from the pain. Runner laughed. “Jesus, what a mess,” he said looking down at me. “You scared a’ me, little girl?”
I skittered behind the fridge, keeping my eyes on him as I looked for things to pile on it, climb out.