The Quiet Streets of Winslow Read Online Free PDF Page A

about somebody you never met, never talked to, never spent time with.”
    â€œWell, you’re right about that,” I said. “And so far you knew her better than anyone I’ve spoken to, which is why it’s useful to me to have you here. It would be a help if you could stick around. Your dad said he would pay the rent on your RV until you were able to get back to Chino Valley.”
    â€œHe told me.”
    â€œSo just stay close, if you would,” I said.
    â€œFor how long?”
    â€œI don’t know. Two or three weeks, maybe longer. We’ll have to see. Can you do that?”
    â€œDo I have to?”
    â€œI was hoping you’d want to help.”
    The expression in his dark eyes was troubled, nervous, both resistant and compliant. He hesitated too long before answering.
    â€œI’ll stay as long as I can,” he said.

chapter seven

    NATE ASPENALL
    I COULD ALMOST SEE her lying there, that was the eerie part. Like a dead bird with its wings spread out, or a deer lying still and whole on the side of the road. Lee didn’t walk down into the wash with me, but Sam did, shadowing me with his large frame and big, plain face, and I put my hands on the ground, feeling the rocks and gritty sand, hoping I could feel something of her, her soul or spirit or whatever it was that didn’t want to leave the earth. The dog stood beside me, and I thought, Pete, you’ve got gray in your muzzle and you’re slower than the last time I saw you. Travis and Damien are going to have a hard time losing you. But everything brought into the world is taken out again.
    I read the Bible for a class in college. I also read philosophy, history, literature, psychology, and science. I don’t mean just what I was assigned, but whatever I could find in addition. That’s how you got educated, I believed, outside of what you were taught, outside of what you were supposed to learn. You read in order to figure out what questions to ask, never mind if you couldn’t find the answers.
    â€œWhen will the funeral be?” I said.
    â€œThat hasn’t been determined yet,” Sam said. “It will be a private Catholic service in Holbrook. The mother wants it that way.”
    â€œThat seems selfish.”
    â€œIt’s her right to be selfish,” Sam said. “It’s her decision.”
    In a strong wind we walked back along the wash, and I looked to the south at the small houses and mobile homes of Black Canyon City, the town split in half by the interstate, with Mud Springs Road running underneath it like a river. I used to describe the town to Jody and explain to her about Lee and his second family, where they lived and what they did and how old the boys were and what we did together and where I stayed, when I was there. I used to think about Lee’s family a lot—what he had versus what I had. I think it’s natural to want whatever has been put in front of you. “Once you find Hannah,” I used to tell Jody, “she can live here with us and we’ll call us a family.” I pictured the three of us in my RV, with Jody and me together as a couple, maybe married. It was the first thought I had when I found out she was dead—that my dreams were gone. It was like I missed them, at first, almost more than I missed her. Everybody comes with attachments.
    B ACK AT THE house, in the patio chairs under the corrugated roof, Sam Rush asked me questions and told me about the photograph Mike Early had of Jody in his robe. I hadn’t known about it and it shocked me and I tried to act as if it hadn’t. But I knew better than anyone how many men were attracted to Jody, and I also knew that she knew that and used it. I might have told Sam that if he were not so hard on her, not so judgmental and cold. I could have told him about the men at the restaurant who watched her, stared at her as she came out from behind the counter and crossed the room. One of