The hazard lights flashed on and off with an audible click. To the front, the gravel road was lit with an orange glow, and red to the rear. Emily Mills sat listening to the radio, some poppy country tune she didn’t care for but didn’t quite mind either. Tyler had gone to his daddy’s house a few miles up the road but had been gone a little longer than she thought he should’ve been. She wasn’t worried yet, but she was getting there. Tyler was a big guy. Tyler could handle himself. Tyler had played linebacker on varsity. Tyler put folks down with just one punch, her included.

Click. Orange in the front. Click. Darkness. Click. Red to the back. Click. Darkness.

There was static coming across the radio. It squelched and fuzzed for a moment before clearing. The first few bars of Willie Nelson’s version of “Crazy” came on and Emily’s thoughts went to her grandmama. She didn’t want to think about her grandmama. Of all the people in the world, she didn’t want to think about her. It was their favorite, even if Willie himself preferred Patsy’s. 

I’m Crazy...

Click. Orange in the front. Click. Darkness. Click. Red to the back. Click. Darkness.

Try as she might, Emily couldn’t stop the flood of memories flashing in and out of existence. The stark white of the hospital room. Sanitized beds and hands and language. The small and frail figure of her grandmama fading in and out, slightly further each time she went away. Grandmama was the only person that didn’t treat her like a prop in her whole life. To Grandmama, Emily was good simply because she was Emily. 

Crazy for feeling so lonely...

Click. Orange in the front. Click. Darkness. Click. Red to the back. Click. Darkness.

A sadness welled up inside her as the process of death played out. Grandmama’s paper skin turning shades of purple and black at the slightest touch. Emily hadn’t even been able to hug her one last time. The pressure would have caused more pain in Grandmama than it would have relieved for Emily. Out there in the darkness, she could see someone moving. They drew closer and the memories grew clearer. The small blade Tyler kept in the glove compartment found its way into her hand.

Crazy for feeling so blue…

Click. Orange in the front. Click. Darkness. Click. Red to the back. Click. Darkness.

It was Tyler walking down the road. All six foot five inches of him. Long strides carrying him closer. Grandmama, however, continued to slip further away. He walked all wrong as he came to the distant edge of the orange glow. He wasn’t alone. Grandmama was. Granddaddy had remarried less than a year later and never visited her grave out back of their house anymore. Emily’s vision blurred with tears. Tyler was closer, Grandmama further. 

I’m crazy for cryin’…

Click. Orange in the front. Click. Darkness. Click. Red to the back. Click. Darkness.

The windows of Tyler’s truck had been rolled down. She could hear the scuff of foot against gravel getting louder. Grandmama hadn’t been able to speak there at the end. Emily could tell it was part of what was killing her. Goodbyes help the hurt. There was another sound that came with scuff. It was hard to define. The gentle beating of wings. Maybe the bending of trees in the wind. There was red flashing and flowing. Reds that came and went with the clicks. Shades that came in slips and slivers and slashes. 

I’m crazy for thinking my love could hold you…

Click. Orange in the front. Click. Darkness. Click. Red to the back. Click. Darkness.

Tyler was there beside her, in the truck, half in orange, half in red, half in black. He was and wasn’t there. His eyes were black as the space between the clicks. Grandmama was gone now. She’d watched the last of her turn an unsettlingly sick version of purple and choke on her last breath. Nobody aside from Emily gave a damn. Nobody ever had. Grandmama would’ve told her to leave Tyler. She’d have told her to run. Run through those clicks of red and orange. Grandmama would’ve told her to pull her hands away from the black downy hands holding hers. Tyler smiled with a mouth that held no teeth, only a deep black hole. Grandmama would’ve said, run. But Grandmama wasn’t here. Hadn’t been here for a long time now. Emily missed her in a way she hadn’t for a long time. Missed her in a way that made her want to go to where Grandmama was. The Tyler that wasn’t Tyler was really only helping her get where she was already wanting to go. Grandmama wouldn’t tell her to run from that, would she? Nah, Grandmama would be waiting on the other side of forever for Emily. And so...Emily went to where she was.

And I’m crazy for lovin’ you…

I don’t like seeing death in this way. I don’t like seeing death in any way, really. Times are best when I don’t have to do my work at all. Folks don’t like seeing me at their doorstep because it means I’ve got something to say they ain’t gonna want to hear. Sadly, my work has to be done. People don’t like seeing me at their door. I don’t like seeing people at their door, if I’m being honest. I’m one of the least liked people in all the county but, people need their closure. People need to know what’s been done and how I’m gonna do my work to make things right.

Folks say, Wilhelmina Hope Hodges, why the hell you do the work you do? I can only tell them it’s because folks need it done. There ain’t no two ways about it. Bad shit happens. Bad shit needs to be explained. It don’t change that it happened. It don’t bring their family back. But I can promise you, it makes the loss that much more bearable. Not knowing hurts like hell.

It still hurts no matter what.

The truck was found out on Warren Road. The far end where a lot of people don’t like going even when they call that end home. A grandma walking her dog, a little, yappy, long haired shit of a lap sitter, found the truck. Folks from the forensics lab didn’t really care for having to process the vomit left in the blood on the passenger side. They really didn’t like that part of the job. They told me as much when they’d joke about it through puffs of cigarettes that made the work easier to take. When they made their jokes, it wasn’t out of a lack of respect for the dead, it was how they coped with what they saw. You had to do something to make it through the day, and that was their way of tending to their sanity.

I had my process. Jerry Paulson, my partner, usually let me do my thing when we got to a scene before he’d move in. Walk the outer edge. Get the wide shot. Concentric circles taking me closer to the part nobody cared to look at. Blood was always the part nobody wanted to look at. The local PD’s responding officer had thrown up when he got there. Forensics hadn’t cared much to see that shit either. Still, it all has to be taken in when the sun rises and people see what the night’s left behind. 

Death in the light of day ain’t pretty. They look asleep when the violence doesn’t touch their face but sometimes it does. She’s pretty. Probably the prettiest girl in the county, if I’m being honest, but she ain’t nobody at the end of the day. She’s just the girl hooked on the arm of the former star varsity linebacker, a boy that folks know ain’t worth a damn if he didn’t come with the right name. Unfortunately, that name don’t mean much when the bad shit comes calling. It takes without care for who you are or where you come from. 

I don’t like lookin’ in on the bad shit. Nobody really does. I do it because it has to be done. I look in on it because somebody needs to look. I look because the people left behind the bad shit need somebody to look for them. What I saw at that truck was about as bad as bad shit could be. No matter what name was attached to the person having the bad shit done to them, they didn’t deserve it being done. Not the girl in the cab of the truck. Not the boy near the grill. 

If you were going to call it from the far circles of the scene, you’d say it was a murder/suicide. If you were going to call it from the outer circles. But I don’t ever call it from the outer circles. I don’t ever call until I’m up close to what’s been done to the people it’s been done to. They deserve that much. If they deserve anything at all. 

The boy’s family is already here. Probably got the call even before I did. They’re out there past the place where the outer circles begin. They ain’t waiting patiently. They’ve got voices that carry weight. They’ve got names that do the same. They use both to get what they want. I don’t have one of those names. All I have is a badge and gun, and an eye to figure the things they ain’t able to figure. They’re wanting the answers I ain’t ready to give. But they don’t have the kind of names that take kindly to waiting around for nobody. 

Her wrists are cut deep. I don’t care to be detailed in the description but it’s the kind of deep that don’t leave much left. She don’t have a family with a name, and the family that’s here ain’t here for her. Her family’s up the road, at the very end of it but, they ain’t coming down to look. Nobody’s told them yet, I’m sure.

When I get close, in those circles that bring me close enough to smell what’s been done, I can see where the tears ruined her clumsily applied mascara. I can see the tears fell like rain and streaked her cheeks with black. I don’t think she wanted to do what was done. She might’ve done what she did, but I’ve got my questions. There’s a reasonable doubt. 

The boy is another question altogether. What’s been done to him ain’t coming by his own hand. I’ve seen folks take a knife to their heart twice, three times, maybe, but he’s been done up in a way that says he didn’t do what’s been done. At least, I’ve got my questions. There’s more than a reasonable doubt. 

Next to his body there’s prints. Footprints. There’s been some kind of scuffle. Maybe it’s just him. Maybe it ain’t. But lookin’ in on the bad shit that’s been done says it wasn’t this boy’s doin’. Somebody else had a hand in all of this. 

Daddy’s big money. Old money. Old name. You don’t get far in this town without payin’ some kind of notice, some kind of kindness, to the people with those names. I’ve had to, we’ve all had to. Turn an eye. Let a bygone be bygone. It happens, just like the bad shit does. Had to turn an eye to this same boy’s hands being put all over this girl in the cab. She slipped, they said. It was an accident, he said. All the same, it went unnoticed. 

This wasn’t gonna go unnoticed. People were gonna hear about it, and soon. 

The reporters, mostly local. Tomball. Magnolia. Conroe. Houston. Maybe even Dallas if somebody started talkin’. They were all gonna have a version of the same headline. Former Football Star and Girlfriend Found Dead, Police Stumped. The press have to get their digs in where they can, I guess. Gotta sell ad space and papers.

Don’t matter how it really is, only matters how they make it look. And they can make it look real bad when they want to.

The knife she used and the wrench that was used on him are bagged and tagged. The pretty girl from forensics, Carla-something, will pull whatever prints she’s able and send them to Jerry and me later in the day, maybe tomorrow. It’s early so, there’s hope for a quick turn. If they were what was used, they’ll work’em up quick.

She’s still pretty, he’s not. If I’m being honest, knowing Tyler and his family as I do, he never was to begin with. Momma died when he was young, daddy took to drinking but still had that old money to make it work. Didn’t like the girl his boy went around with but didn’t care enough to put a stop to anything. Old man probably figured he’d get tired of her when he made it to college but that’s not gonna happen. He’s been out of school for a few years now. I guess broken dreams don’t just stay to one side of the tracks or the other. All folks got their hard times. 

Jerry comes in when I’ve done my part and gets the Tomball folks taking pictures, bagging what’s needed, and taking the bodies away. I don’t care much for that part of things so, Jerry takes care of it for me. We’ll talk about it over dinner, and compare notes. He’s a good man but, people around here don’t like the idea of us being a thing so, we keep it on the down low as they used to say. I never really said it that way. 

The daddy’s gettin’ loud when I come to the outer circles. He’s got a lot of names for me that don’t sit well. I’ve heard’em all before so, I don’t let on that it bothers me. I can smell the drink on his breath. I know he don’t mean what he says when the drink has him, I’ve talked to him sober to know that. He won’t remember what comes out today or, if he does, he’ll apologize more than’s needed. If I’m being honest, the daddy’s not a bad guy in the way the boy is...was, I guess. I try not to judge, the way my granny taught me after daddy passed. 

The truck’s taken away a little after the bodies. Jerry and I hang around to answer the questions we can and take shit for the ones we can’t. Again, they don’t mean it, they’re just hurting because of what’s been done to the ones they love. I can understand where they’re coming from. I’ve been there before, and that’s why I’m here, lookin’ at the bad shit for them.