“That night, Jessie’s bleeding from the mouth, the old man turns to me and says, ‘Get out.’ Jessie stares at me, her eyes pleading for me to leave. So I did.”
“You left her there, you fucking bastard.” Dylan didn’t hide his outrage.
Brian shot forward and pounded his fists on the table. “What did you want me to do?”
“Save her.”
“Every time I’d tried he hurt her worse. I felt the fury in him that night. I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t want to be the cause of her getting hurt worse if I stayed.” Brian fell back in his seat, the drunken grogginess returning to his eyes. “Walking out that door is the hardest thing I’ve done, but living with the guilt of knowing what happened after I left eats away at me every second of every day.”
You deserve it. And so did Dylan for that matter.
“I spent most of that night at the high school bleachers, planning a new future. I’d take classes in the fall at the junior college. I’d get away from the old man and make something of myself. Maybe start my own business. I had it all planned out. I’d never have to watch him hurt her again. I’d get away from him and the guilt I carried every time I looked at her, knowing what I didn’t do. Then, I went home.”
Picking up his glass for another swallow, Brian thumped the empty mug back on the table. His eyes roamed the room as if he’d just remembered the other people. He spotted the waitress and held up his empty mug. He waited for her nod. His eyes caught Dylan’s, and he almost seemed surprised Dylan was still there.
Dylan reached across the table and grasped Brian’s arm, his fingers digging into muscle. “What happened when you got home?”
“Nothing. The house was quiet and empty. I walked through the front room and headed into the kitchen to grab something to eat.” His focus on the table, he shuddered. “I can still see it as clear as the day it happened.”
“What? What did you see?”
“Smeared blood on the linoleum and a bloody knife.”
Dylan couldn’t believe the words stumbling out of Brian’s mouth.
“She wasn’t there, just a bunch of blood on the floor and that knife.”
As impossible as it seemed, Brian’s silence drowned out the music and people around them. Dylan released Brian’s arm and fell back against the booth seat.
“The old man came home the next morning with a nice shiner and blood on his shirt and pants. I sat on the couch right where I’d been all night. He came in and went to the kitchen and stopped short in front of the blood, like he was surprised by the sight of it. He fisted his hand in his hair and shook his head like he was trying to remember something.”
Eyes still on the table, Brian traced a finger over the scarred surface. “He found a bucket, filled it with soapy, hot water, and scrubbed the floor clean with a rag. Tossed the knife in the garbage, like it didn’t mean anything. He changed his clothes, came back out with the bloody ones and burned them in the fireplace. He turned to me. I couldn’t even speak, I was so scared. He said, ‘Time to go to work,’ like nothing happened. He never said a word about that night or Jessie. Not that day, or any day since. I never asked. I didn’t want to hear the truth.
“He took to drinking even more. Only after that particular night, he drank in the kitchen. He’d sit at the table and look at that spot on the floor and he’d drink. He’d stare at that spot like he was waiting for something. I think he couldn’t remember if he killed her or not.”
Possible, if Buddy blacked out, then passed out somewhere in his truck, and woke up the next morning with a raging hangover and no recollection of how he got there.
“But you think he did kill her.”
“They were fighting when I left her there. When I got home, they were both gone. Only one came home,” Brian slurred. “Add it all up, Sheriff, and I’m sure you’ll come up with the same thing I did.”
Dylan didn’t want to come up with Jessie dead. He grieved for her all these years, but always held out hope she was still alive despite the rumors that painted just as gruesome of a picture as Brian’s story. Maybe she’d been hurt and simply left. Wishful thinking. At this point, maybe that’s all he had left to hold on to. He sure as hell didn’t have Jessie.
“Why didn’t you go to the cops and report what you saw right away?”
“He threatened me. If I said one word about the blood and clothes, he’d kill me. With Jessie gone, I believed him. First chance I got, I moved out of that house. Every time I saw him, he’d give me this look, like if I ever told, I’d pay.