Tally shrugged. “Couldn’t prove it by me. I barely saw that guy in daylight, okay? I always thought Braz looked more like the pictures I’ve seen of my mother and grandmother when they were young.”

She took back the photograph and shook her head as she slid it into her billfold. “He was supposed to’ve taken out the rings and stud before he got to the photographer’s. When the proofs came back...” She shook her head. “Kids.”

“Yeah,” I said, both of us conveniently forgetting for the moment our own teen years of acting out.

From where I sat, I could see the whole length of the trailer and into the back bedroom. With the front wall popped out, it wasn’t much smaller per person than the spaces my brothers had shared growing up, but it appeared to hold only a single bed.

“He didn’t actually live with you?” I asked.

“Not when we’re on the road. He needed his own place. We fixed him like his own little room in a corner of the van. Mattress and box springs. A desk for his computer. A hookup for electricity. He’d shower over here, eat with us whenever he wanted, but most of the time he was pretty much on his own. It was what he wanted.”

I wondered how he and the younger boy had gotten along. An eight-year age difference with no linking siblings in between?

“It was the usual,” said Tally. “Val thought Braz picked on him. Braz thought we babied Val.” She shrugged and lit another cigarette. “And there were girls, of course. He was twenty-four, okay? A grown man. What could I say?”

Indeed.

“Dennis told me his face was smashed in. That his mouth was full of quarters. You’re the one found him like that, weren’t you?”

I nodded. “Why would anyone do that to him, Tally?”

“Polly said she saw a black guy hit him. Maybe he came back later.”

By the sudden set of her jaw, I knew there were things she wasn’t telling. Dropping the sodden paper towels into a nearby wastebasket, she went over to the refrigerator and pulled out more ice cubes to replace the ones that had melted while we talked.

“You said he wasn’t an angel,” I reminded her as she closed the refrigerator door. “They’ve already run his record, you know. It’s standard procedure.”

She dumped her ashtray and rinsed it out. “Your deputy friend tell you what they found?”

“Yes.”

Her back was still to me as she tore off another wad of paper towels, dried the ashtray, wiped a few stray drops off the counter, then wiped it a second time.

“He took against being on the road for a while, okay? Once he hit high school, he wanted to stay in Gibtown year-round. My friend Irene lived down the block from the new place Arn and me bought after Val was born. She said she’d keep an eye on him. She was like his grandmother, so I gave in and let him. Tell you the truth, it seemed easier than having him with us and listening to him bitch all the time, okay? He wasn’t a bad kid, but he could be a real pain in the butt when he put his mind to it.”