As when Max spoke from the heart, truth has its own ineffable power. Paul’s face goes from that of resigned executioner to a man tortured by the fires of hell. He stops moving toward me, and in this odd lacuna of time and intent, my eye is drawn to the white rectangle of notebook paper on my kitchen table.
My breath stops.
“Paul,” I say, pointing at the note. “Where did you get that?”
“What?”
“That note was in my bedroom dresser for the last three months. Either you broke in here and stole it or Max did. Which is it?”
“Max gave it to me at UMC. Today.”
Epiphany washes over me like blessed grace. “I think I understand! Max was lying about sex with Jet. Put your gun down for two minutes. That’s all I ask. Come to my bedroom. I’m almost certain about this.”
I can’t risk moving out of the shooting lane between them. Instead, I reach back and catch hold of Jet’s wrist, then spin and push her up the hall before me, as I’ve done so many times during these past weeks, anticipating hours of sex.
“Stop!” Paul warns, but I ignore him.
His heavy steps follow us up the hall.
Pushing Jet through the bedroom door, I hit the light switch and walk up behind her, to be sure I stay between them. Then I glance back and see Paul walk in, his eyes fixed on my chaotic, unmade bed.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks.
“Max watched us,” I explain, looking high into the corners for a wireless camera or even a small hole in the wall.
“What are you looking for?”
“We’ve all assumed that patio sex video was the first time Max watched us. But why?” I catch Jet’s eye. “Didn’t you tell me he’d been stalking you?”
She nods, and something in Paul’s face tells me this makes sense to him, too. Even so, I see no sign of any surveillance gear. Keeping Jet in front of me, I move around the room, but nothing stands out as unusual.
Paul is still staring at my bed. His jaw works steadily, flexing and relaxing like he’s chewing a piece of leather. I’m starting to wonder if coming back here was a mistake. In his mind, Jet and I are flailing naked on that bed, and she’s screaming with an ecstasy she never experienced with him.
“I could shoot you both in this room,” he says. “No jury in Mississippi would convict me.”
He’s right about that. Jet knows it, too. But even as I try to think of a graceful way out of here, she steps away from the protection of my body. She walks to the threadbare curtains covering the picture window that the old farmer who sold me this place cut into the wall after he became confined to his bed. Reaching out, she runs her right hand down the curtain, creating a wave in the thin fabric.
“Analog,” she says. “Not cameras. The oldest recording device in the world: the human eye.”
“We never thought about privacy out here,” I realize. “Because of the acreage . . . and being behind the gate.”
I walk to the door to the right of the window, turn the bolt, and yank it open. The scent of impending rain fills the room. I walk out into the dark. Jet follows, Paul on her heels.
The picture window is blocked by huge Elaeagnus shrubs, nine feet tall at least. But the light streaming through the bedroom curtains silhouettes the branches behind the thick leaves. Taking out my iPhone, I switch on the LED and push between two of the bushes.
Behind the outer layer of foliage, I see a sort of doorway consisting of broken branches. Somebody has created a comfortable “hide” outside my window, the way snipers do in the field. And from where I stand, I can see every detail of my bed through the thin curtain.
“Where are y’all?” I ask. “Come in here.”
“What is this bullshit?” Paul asks in a warning tone.
“Just get in here, damn it. You’ll see why.”
He violently pulls aside the brush, then he and Jet push into the shrubbery. It only takes Paul one glance to pick up the broken branches. Then Jet sees them. Switching on her LED, she drops to the ground, like a young Miss Marple searching for footprints.
“I don’t see any shoe prints,” Paul says. “The ground’s pretty hard, but we ought to see something. And I don’t.”
“There is something here,” Jet says. “It looks like dog poop. Or maybe . . . some other animal? A fox, maybe?”
“Get out of the way,” Paul says, crouching in the darkness at the base of the brick wall.
He switches on his own light and illuminates what Jet was talking about: small brown clumps that look like animal scat. As I watch in disgust, Paul picks up a clump and crumbles it between his fingers. Then he lifts it to his nose and sniffs.
“Wintergreen,” he says. “That’s Skoal.”
With one sweep of his gun arm, he pulls a mass of branches away from the wall. We all shine our lights on the exposed bricks, revealing a long brown line of dried splatter.
“He was here,” Paul says. “Dipping. He spit behind these bushes to hide it.”
“I told you!” Jet cries angrily. “I’ve watched Max suck that nasty stuff at the baseball field a thousand times, spitting in a cup or a Coke bottle.” She shudders in revulsion. “I can see the outline of that little round can in the back of his Levi’s, or on his truck dash. Gross.”
I almost feel Max standing with us, a chilling incarnation of lust and envy. “Well,” I say softly. “Here goes nothing.”
Inhaling deeply, I lean close to the window glass and exhale a rush of warm air against the pane. Out of the condensation appears the ghostly outline of a nose and forehead, leaving eerie spaces where the eyes should be. To the left and right of this ghostly face float the outlines of splayed hands.
A soft gasp escapes Jet’s throat. “That sick fuck.”
“Goddamn,” Paul mutters.
Though Max Matheson lies dead in my house, his essence is alive here, staring back at us like a demon summoned by my breath. Radiating from the silhouette on that glass is pure obsession, the desire to possess Jet in whatever way he could. How many days and nights did Max stand here watching us make love in blissful ignorance, in the full glare of the bedroom lights?
“This is how he knew,” Jet says. “My God. I told you. I told you both.”
I’m shocked and shamed by the relief I feel.
She turns to Paul. “I told you, damn it. I’m not the poison in the family. He was.”
“Great,” says Paul, bulling his way out of the shrubbery. “Such a relief. I guess I’m supposed to be happy it was only Marshall’s finger up your ass instead of Max’s?”
Jet glares at him with fiery indignation, then pokes him hard in the chest. “Yes. And fuck you for believing otherwise.”
Here we stand, three people stripped of illusions. Three people who have known one another since childhood and now face a future that seems unimaginable. Exhaustion gives Paul’s face a haunted look, and surely mine must look the same. As I try to think of what to do or say next, the clouds open up, and the rain finally comes. Cold, heavy drops smack into my scalp and shoulders, making me want to run. But Paul stands oblivious, his gun in his hand, like a soldier assigned sentry duty. For him the rain doesn’t exist. He probably does feel some relief, but the losses he endured tonight will never be made up. In his mind, he is utterly alone in the world.