Roggins stood. “Let me put it this way; Travis won’t be coming home any time soon. I’m sorry.” She moved past him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He watched her hurry away, her auburn hair swishing across the back of her black suit jacket. If Travis’s own lawyer couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help him, what was James supposed to do? He noticed the clerk looking back at him. He shrugged at her, and she gave him a quick, but sympathetic, smile.

~*~

“Don’t go there, Jimmy,” Duane warned as they crossed the parking lot to the Sheriff’s station.

“Why not? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Go there? Get the facts?” Rage simmered just below the surface. Why did no one want to help Travis? Maybe he had confessed, but Duane should know better—had grown up with Travis, just like James. He should know that Travis wasn’t capable of such a thing.

Duane pulled up short and spun to face James directly.

James reeled back to keep from running into Duane.

“We got the facts,” Duane yelled. “He was there! He and Pearce didn’t get along. Everybody knew it. He snapped, and then burned the place down to get back at the man. Then, he confessed. End of story!” He turned and headed on to the office.

James hadn’t had the urge to curse in years, but a few choice expletives ran through his mind. He tamped them back knowing that profanity would neither diffuse the situation nor get him closer to answers. Why was everyone just accepting what Travis said? Had anyone interrogated him, tried to piece it all together? Or did they just accept it and let the case close, less work, more time to deal with other crimes?

He followed Duane inside and out of the cold. “So that’s it? Case closed? You don’t look for other, I don’t know what you call it, ‘scenarios’?”

Duane let out a heavy sigh. “Jimmy don’t do this. Do not come back here and do this. You’ve been gone half a lifetime and a lot’s changed. Everything has changed. Yes. Case closed. There are no other scenarios.”

Momentary silence hung thick, and then the phone pierced the bad air between them.

Duane grabbed the receiver. “Yes?” he barked.

Trying not to eavesdrop on Duane’s conversation, and irritated by the interruption, James’s attention wandered the room. In the corner, a bank of filing cabinets beckoned to him. They contained all the answers Duane wasn’t willing to divulge.

Duane hung up the phone. “I’m asking you, Jimmy. Stop.” He moved around the table. “I’m begging you,” he said in James’s face. “You gotta let this go.” He continued past James and out the door.

The blast of cold air grabbed hold of James’s bones, and a feeling of helplessness held the chill there. He held his breath until the door had fully closed behind Duane, and then, with only a slight twinge of guilt, he slowly crossed to the filing cabinet. As he pulled open the drawer marked I-R, the thought crossed his mind that the end doesn’t justify the means. “That’s true, God,” he mumbled aloud. “It doesn’t, but what choice do I have? No one will cooperate.”