“Like so many others,” Naomi was saying, and it was her tone—brittle and shrill and so very, very quotidian—that dragged Hazard out of the white, burning past. “Like so many of these godless fanatics preaching tolerance, you show no tolerance of your own when it comes to others. Do you?”

  “No.” Hazard didn’t move, but he felt something moving inside him, some deep, internal musculature shifting like he might pounce. “No, I fucking don’t have any tolerance for your shit. Now tell me what happened out there. Right now.”

  Naomi wiped her eyes again. Her eyes, the color of dismal, scudding winter clouds, the kind that didn’t bring any snow and wanted to linger for days, weeks, lint-clouds, Hazard’s mother had called them, drifted to the door. “He was out there. Jesse.”

  “And?”

  “And he was hurting Lazarus. I shouldn’t have interfered.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Lazarus is a broken vessel. Do I not have power, the Lord says, to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? Lazarus is a vessel made unto dishonor, and it is our duty as Christians to reshape him. To make him better.”

  “And you’re going to do that by beating the hell out of him. Literally.”

  “All of us undergo mortification of the flesh. To subdue the body is the chief accomplishment of any true Christian. Cast off the old flesh, Paul tells us.”

  “Is that why Jesse hit you? Was he helping you with your own mortification?”

  “It was a misunderstanding. I—” Her eyes filled with tears, and the tears were the color of the same ugly clouds. “I shouldn’t have interfered. I know that what they do is for Lazarus’s benefit, but I forgot, and I spoke sharply to Brother Jesse. He was right to do what he did.”

  Still Hazard hadn’t moved, but again he felt that sensation of inner coiling, shifting, tensing. “And you still believe that Brother Jesse didn’t have anything to do with Walden’s death? It doesn’t seem suspicious to you that he came after Clyde, the only person besides Kelley Jane who might have seen the killer?”

  “Did Lazarus tell you that?”

  Hazard shot to his feet and strode towards the door. No, Lazarus hadn’t said anything like that. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Naomi.

  Outside, he found Somers on the mossy planks of the porch, hands in his pockets. The sky had gone pebbled and gray, and the rain smell was stronger.

  “Well?”

  “Swinney’s going to come pick us up. I think Moraes and Foley are coming to get Naomi; one of the patrol cars will come, anyway.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Do you want to spend a few more hours with her? I could call Moraes and tell him to forget it.”

  “Hell no. One more minute and I might punch her myself.”

  St. Elizabeth was a quiet place, Hazard realized in the next moment. There were birds in the trees—not singing, but flapping madly from branch to branch. And the house itself breathed certain shifting, settling noises. And there was Somers’s breathing, which sounded like home. And underneath all that quiet, those thunderheads were still crashing together inside Hazard’s chest, and that was loud, really loud, but it was a silent kind of loud—deafening, if that made any sense at all.

  “Why didn’t you come back in?”

  “I thought you wanted to talk to her.”

  “I did. But I—” He almost said can’t. He almost said, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep thinking about the sanctuary. I can’t keep thinking about the fasting. I can’t keep thinking about the paddles, and the slapping, and the fasting. I can’t because I buried all that shit, I buried it and I flattened the earth with my shovel and I let the weeds grow over it, and now it’s coming back. Hazard had to bite the inside of his cheek, and he didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry, but he knew he tasted blood. Yes, it’s coming back like a goddamn zombie. One rotting hand punching up through the ground, clawing its way back no matter how deep I bury it. That’s what I can’t do. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “That I’ve watched too many zombie movies with you.”

  It wasn’t an answer, not at all, but maybe Somers knew because he slipped an arm around Hazard and pulled him close, and he kissed his cheek, and he kissed his neck, and he kept his face there for a moment, pressed into Hazard’s shoulder, just the warmth of his breath and his skin, and then he let go, and he didn’t say anything else, and it was exactly the right thing to do, the only right thing to do, and nobody else could have done it except Somers.

  “Thank you,” Hazard said.

  “You’re welcome.” Then Somers smiled. “And just so you know, there’s no such thing as too many zombie movies.”

  It was impossible to respond to that kind of idiocy, so instead, Hazard told him what Naomi had related.

  “So that’s that,” Somers said. “We start looking for Clyde.”

  “We’ve got a murder to work. We’ve got—”

  “We’ve got nothing, Ree. We’ve got a whole lot of nothing. Except Jesse came looking for Clyde, and no matter what Naomi says, I don’t think Jesse came because he had Clyde’s immortal well-being at heart.”

  “He came because Clyde knows something.”

  “Or because he’s afraid Clyde knows something.”

  Hazard’s hands tightened into fists. “If Jesse is the killer, he’s going to kill that boy.”

  Somers nodded. “He might. I don’t know how he killed Walden, though. Sirkaa Hastback just said he was at her house all day, and she’s a solid alibi.”

  “Fuck that. He could have done it. He could have found a way.”

  “There’s another thing too, Ree.”

  “Clyde wasn’t the only one at the house when Walden was murdered.”

  “Kelley Jane.”

  “Maybe she’s working with Jesse. Maybe that was her plan all along: she kills Walden, inherits the money and land, and plans on seducing Clyde. Somehow she gets herself locked in the loft, and she’s got the perfect alibi. Now, though, he’s out of her hands. She can’t control him, so he’s a threat. She tells Jesse, and the two of them decide to eliminate him.”

  Hazard shook his head. “In front of cops, though. Why the hell would they be that stupid?”

  “I don’t think Kelley Jane is dumb. Brother Jesse, on the other hand—” He dropped the sentence into a shrug.

  “All right. So we find Clyde.”

  “And you, as a conscientious police officer, take Jesse into custody without beating him to a pulp.”

  “Sure.”

  Somers sighed, slipped his arm through Hazard’s and leaned his head against Hazard’s shoulder. “You’d be a lot more convincing if you weren’t still making fists.”

  THE REST OF THE DAY WAS A WASH. Hazard and Somers had to wait for Swinney to come pick them up, but she caught a flat on the way to St. Elizabeth, pushing back her arrival almost forty minutes. By the time Hazard and Somers had picked up Hazard’s ancient Jetta, it was well into the afternoon, and in spite of the threatening rain clouds, the skies remained closed.

  They drove to Walden’s house in town, still sealed with police tape, and checked the house and the barn. No sign of anyone. Then they tried the farm, where they found Sister Claudia and Sister Anna still mucking shit, and Sister Naomi resting in a drafty room that smelled like mold, but there was no sign of Jesse or Clyde or Kelley Jane.

  As they drove back to Wahredua, Hazard’s head pounded. It wasn’t one of the thunderclap headaches that had lingered over the last few months, the aftereffects of being clubbed in the head. Those, for the most part, had passed. This was pure tension, his whole body compressed. Something was going to set him off, he knew. It was going to be something small, and Hazard knew that already and he hated it. A trigger. A trigger was small, inconsequential, nothing. But it set everything else in motion, and when that something hit Emery Hazard, all that kinetic energy was going to explode outward. Rubbing at his head, he took slow, even breaths. Experts said that was supposed to help. Experts didn’t know shit.

  He shifted, and his hand knocked against Somer’s knee, and that sent the dull pulse of arousal through him and still managed to piss him off. He was a detective. He was a professional with a good job. He’d gone to college. He was smart. They went around a curve, and Hazard downshifted as they came up behind a truck loaded with enormous concrete pipes, and his hand rubbed along Somers’s thigh, and there it was again, that throb just below his belly, just from touching the other man, never mind that they’d been fucking like rabbits for months now, a throb like Hazard was pressing on an old bruise, and that pissed him off. It pissed him off how much he wanted Somers, still. It pissed him off that he drove a crap car that was about ten sizes too small for them. And Clyde. The boy’s bloody face flashed through the other thoughts, and Hazard shoved it away, and when he shifted the next time, the transmission squealed and coughed.

  “Fuck.”

  “You’re about to lose it, right?”

  Hazard jerked his chin in a nod.

  Spreading his legs, Somers slouched in the seat. “Tense?”

  Hazard made a noise that might have been assent.

  “All sorts of frustrated energy knotting your muscles?” His hands flattened the fabric on the inside of his legs, and suddenly the wool hugged his crotch tightly.

  “Quit messing around.”

  Somers guided his hand to the inside of his thigh. “Here’s an idea. We go get dinner. Take out.” With a frown, he slid Hazard’s hand up his leg. “We go back to the apartment.” He slid Hazard’s hand higher. “We work out all this . . . frustration. And then, when your mind comes down from outer space, you eat dinner and feel normal.”

  “I said quit.” Hazard yanked his hand back. “Jesus, fuck. I forgot.”

  “You forgot that you shouldn’t talk to your boyfriend like that?”

  And that was almost it. That was almost the trigger, almost enough to let the rest of it loose. But Hazard took a deep breath, just like the experts said.

  “No. I forgot about dinner. With my dad.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Hazard heard the trap in the words and chose not to respond.

  Over the thrum of the tires, Somers added, “The dinner I’m not invited to.”

  “That’s not what this is.”

  “Well, it’s a dinner. Right? And I’m not invited to it. Right? So I’d say my description was pretty accurate.”

  “All right, fine. That is what it is.”

  “Ouch.”

  Hazard shrugged. The tension wasn’t just in his head, he was realizing. It was around it. Like a metal band tightening. Like a vise. And this, this pointless conversation, was tightening it. Every word twisted the clamps shut.

  “I know he doesn’t like me. I can figure that much on my own, Ree.”

  Hazard fixed his gaze on the glass. On the left, furrows wrinkled a freshly planted field. What would come up there? Corn? Soybeans? Wheat? Christ, did they even plant wheat around here?

  “Is it because of all the stuff I did to you? Can you tell me that much at least? Can you tell me if he just hates me because I was an asshole?”

  Brake lights flashed ahead, and Hazard grimaced because he was going to have to shift, because he was going to touch Somers, and he thought about all the ways this conversation could go, all the ways he had feared it would go, and he’d never imagined it this way. Not with the cement pipes, in the cramped Jetta, with a gear shift that was about six inches away from a hand job, Jesus Christ.

  “All right,” Somers said, dropping back into the seat. “It’s something else. Oh my God.” He bit off something he might have said and put his hands to his eyes like blinders. “Oh my God. You’re embarrassed of me.”

  “Will you drop this already?”

  “You are. You’re embarrassed of me. Oh. My. God.”

  “I’m not embarrassed of you, all right? Now can we drop this?”

  Somers didn’t seem to have heard him; he stared out the window like he was somewhere else, somewhere entirely new. Like he was roving across Mars, that’s what it looked like, and he didn’t remember how he got there.

  “I’m embarrassed of my dad.”

  Blinking, Somers turned. “Huh?”

  “I’m embarrassed of him. He’s blue collar. No, that’s not really what I mean. He’s—he’s like Al Bundy. Something like that. Like this caricature of a blue-collar guy. You know what he can talk about? Tits and ass. And beer. And the Cardinals. And that’s on a good day. That’s when he’s being conversational.”

  “I love the Cardinals.”

  “Will you be serious about this?”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten worked up. You don’t have to—”

  Ahead, the cement pipes loomed in Hazard’s vision, and he thought maybe he could just disappear down one of them like Mario, just slide through one of them and come out somewhere else. But life wasn’t like that. Life wasn’t an NES classic. And if it was, those pipes ahead of him, they would have had those snapping plants in them, and they probably would have gnawed off Hazard’s balls if he tried anything. Because that’s how today was going. That’s how this week was going. And he kept staring at those pipes, imagining, and he knew he was stalling and he hated himself for it.

  “I’ve never taken anybody home.”

  “What do you—oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  Somers slid his hand around Hazard’s neck, his fingers cool, massaging at the knots and corded tension. “Come on, Ree. You could have just told me.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “Nobody?”

  “No.”

  “All right. That’s all right, that’s all you had to say. I get it.”

  Hazard shook his head. Somers didn’t get it. Somers couldn’t get it, not really, because Somers was Somers. Because he’d been married. Because he had a child. Because everything was different for Somers.

  “Honest, Ree. I’m not mad.”

  “All right.”

  Somers leaned over and kissed him.

  “All right,” Hazard said, elbowing him back into his seat. “Do you want me to crash?”

  “I told you what I wanted,” Somers said with a leer. “But you’ve already got dinner plans.”

  “You weren’t planning dinner.”

  “If I eat sushi off your naked body, it counts as dinner plans.”

  Dear God, Hazard thought, and suddenly he might as well have been eighteen again, or sixteen, or fifteen, at the thought of Somers’s mouth on him like that, and he thought he might pop off right there.

  “Maybe I’ll pick up ice cream,” Somers said, his fingers still kneading Hazard’s neck. “Maybe when you get home, you can have an ice cream sundae. You know. Ice cream. A banana. Nuts.”

  Hazard’s breathing sounded like cloth ripping. “Pervert.”

  “Oh. Is that a no?”

  Hazard tried to straighten out the Jetta. He felt like the steering wheel was putty.

  “Ree, I just wasn’t sure what you meant. Do you want a sundae—a banana split? Or don’t you?”

  It was a good thing this stretch of road was straight. It was a good thing they had that truck ahead, that they were going slow, that there was nowhere in hell that Hazard needed to get in a hurry.

  “Ree?”

  “Quit being such a fucking tease.” Hazard shifted, accelerated, and passed the truck with the cement pipes. “And you damn well better buy whipped cream too.”

  AS USUAL, HAZARD FELT BETTER after talking to Somers. Not all the way better. Not a hundred percent. But better. After dropping his partner at home, Hazard drove towards Jefferson Street, towards City Hall and the sheriff’s department and the stretch of nicer restaurants frequented by politicians and bureaucrats. And as he drove, he thought about what he had said. He had told the truth. He had never taken anyone home to meet his parents. With Alec, Hazard had been too ashamed. And Billy had never wanted to meet them. But Hazard hadn’t told the full truth. He hadn’t told Somers why it mattered so goddamn much.

  The Real Beef was a steakhouse on Jefferson. It wasn’t as good as Tyrone’s, out on Route 17, the best steakhouse in fifty miles. It was, however, still damn good, and it was right here in Wahredua, and it was, as far as Hazard knew, one of his father’s favorite places to eat. If tradition held true, Frank Hazard would order the porterhouse, rare, and The Real Beef’s signature side: a baked potato stuffed with butter and cheese and the burnt ends of brisket. With a tradition like that, Hazard wasn’t quite sure how his father had avoided a massive coronary for so long.

  Inside, The Real Beef struck a balanced chord between fancy and accessible. It was a steakhouse—a nice steakhouse, with good silver and china and candles—but it wasn’t the Ritz. Hazard was glad about that. He felt a real hell of a fistfight brewing, and if he had to punch out his old man, he didn’t want to do it in the Ritz. He wanted to do it in The Real Beef. He wanted to do it where some of Frank Hazard’s old friends might see it. Hell, where they might at least hear about it.

  After a quick glance at the wait staff—Hazard’s ex had a friend who worked here, and Hazard didn’t want a loogie on his steak—he spotted his father in a booth at the back. Of course he was at the back. It didn’t matter that the booth was next to the kitchen doors, that a frantic hub of voices poured under the vinyl sweeps, that the lighting was poor and the seating cramped. What mattered, as far as Frank Hazard was concerned, was that the booth was as far back as possible. He was, after all, having dinner with his faggot son.