If Catfish Had Nine Lives(44)

            “Where’s here and there?” I wasn’t ready to give up.

            He shrugged. “Around.”

            I sighed. “Am I still in danger?”

            “I honestly don’t know, Isabelle.”

            “You’d be gone if I was safe, right?”

            “I’m not sure. However, I don’t think you’re in imminent danger. Maybe I’m still here because there’s a killer on the loose. Maybe I’m just here to make sure you’re careful.”

            “Okay. I can be careful. I’m pretty careful by nature.”

            Jerome looked at me and gave me an honest-to-goodness smirk. I could see it clearly even though he was mostly transparent in the passenger seat next to me.

            I smiled. “Come on, tell me where you’ve been.”

            He thought a moment and then said, “I’ve been on my property. Well, what used to be my property.”

            “Oh. Where is it?”

            “Just outside the other end of town. You can’t get there by any modern, newfangled road, but there used to be a dirt road coming in and out of it. It’s all covered over with brush and weeds now.”

            “What made you want to see it?”

            “I’m not sure,” Jerome said as he looked back out through the windshield again.

            I tried to inspect his profile, but between the side view, all the sunlight, the cowboy hat, and the facial hair, it became difficult to read his expression.

            “Jerome?”

            He seemed to try to shake himself out of whatever trance he’d fallen into. He looked at me again and smiled. “I’m sorry, Isabelle, but for some reason this time back I’ve been overwhelmed with a whole barn full of memories from my life. They’ve come at me so fast that I’m having a hard time putting them all in a respectful order in my head.”

            “Are they painful memories?”

            “No, not like that. There are some good ones, some bad ones, too, but the good ones break my heart a little and I’ve never experienced that before. It’s unsettling and . . .”

            “And?”

            “And.” He paused a long moment. “It’s like this, Isabelle—I can’t figure out why I’m remembering. I can’t understand the point of it all. I’m gone. Everyone from then is gone, too. There’s nothing I can do about any of it.”

            “Tell me a memory,” I said.

            He exhaled through his nose. There was no air, but the sound was distinct. “Well, all right, I will, I suppose.”

            I waited silently while he either sifted through the memories or worked up the guts to talk about one of them.

            “Elsa.”

            “Your wife?”

            “Well, we were never married,” he said quietly, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

            “That’s right. I forgot. That’s not as unusual nowadays as it was back then, Jerome. Lots of couples simply live together; even have kids together.”

            “I wish we’d married, but . . . well, the circumstances were beyond our control. Anyway, she saved me from a snake once.” He laughed. “I’d been working the small herd of cattle I had and was exhausted, almost passed-out asleep in the small cabin we lived in. I was awakened by a scream and the vision of Elsa coming at me with a shovel. She brought the shovel down on a rattler that was about to bite into my foot that was hanging over the edge of the bed. I was shocked into silence as my brain figured out that she was saving my life, not killing me. I remember as clear as day—she held the shovel with one hand, wiped her forehead with the other, and said, ‘Saved your hide, old man.’” He smiled into the past.