Instead of the heavy Goth make-up and black clothes, Kelly was wearing one of her rainbow pony T-shirts from the closet.
The photo disappeared and was replaced with live footage of Rusty leaving the Derrick County Hospital. He scowled at the reporter who shoved a microphone in his face, but he had left by the front doors for a reason. Rusty made a visible show of reluctantly stopping for the interview. Charlie could tell by the way his mouth was moving that he was offering a cavalcade of southern-y sound bites that would be played on a virtual loop by the national stations. This was how these high-profile cases worked. Rusty had to get out in front of the talking heads, to paint Kelly Wilson as a troubled teenager facing the ultimate punishment rather than as a monster who had murdered a child and her school principal.
Ava whispered, “Is a revolver a weapon?”
Charlie felt her stomach drop. She led Ava away from the house and stood with her in the middle of the track. “Do you have a revolver?”
Ava nodded. “Ely keeps it in the glove box of the car.”
“The car he drove to work today?”
She nodded again.
“Does he own the gun legally?”
“We don’t steal things, ma’am. We work for them.”
“I’m sorry, what I mean is, is your husband a convicted felon?”
“No, ma’am. He’s an honest man.”
“Do you know how many bullets the gun holds?”
“Six.” Ava sounded certain enough, but she added, “I think six. I seen it a million times, but I never paid attention to it. I’m sorry I can’t remember.”
“It’s all right.” Charlie had felt the same way when Delia Wofford was questioning her. How many shots did you hear? What was the sequence? Was Mr. Huckabee with you? What happened to the revolver?
Charlie had been right in the middle of it, but fear had dampened her recall.
She asked Ava, “When was the last time you saw the revolver?”
“I don’t—oh.” Ava’s phone was ringing from the front pocket of her pajamas. She pulled out a cheap flip phone, the kind that let you pre-pay for minutes. “I don’t know that number.”
Charlie knew the number. It belonged to her iPhone, which Huck apparently still had. “Get in the car,” she told Ava, motioning for Lenore to help. “Let me answer this.”
Ava gave Lenore a wary look. “I don’t know if—”
“Get in the car.” Charlie practically pushed the woman away. She answered the phone on the fifth ring. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Wilson, this is Mr. Huckabee, Kelly’s teacher from middle school.”
“How did you unlock my phone?”
Huck hesitated a good, long while. “You need a better password than 1-2-3-4.”
Charlie had heard the same thing from Ben on numerous occasions. She walked up the track for more privacy. “Why are you calling Ava Wilson?”
He hesitated a second time. “I taught Kelly for two years. I tutored her a few months when she moved up to the high school.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I spent four hours answering questions from two assholes with the GBI and another hour answering questions at the hospital.”
“What assholes?”
“Atkins. Avery. Some ten-year-old with a cowlick and an older black chick kept tag-teaming me.”
“Shit,” Charlie mumbled. He probably meant Louis Avery, the FBI’s North Georgia field agent. “Did he give you his card?”
“I threw it away,” Huck said. “My arm’s fine, by the way. Bullet went straight through.”
“My nose is broken and I have a concussion,” Charlie told him. “Why were you calling Ava?”
His sigh said he was humoring her. “Because I care about my students. I wanted to help. To make sure she had a lawyer. That she was being looked after by someone who wasn’t going to exploit her or get her into more trouble.” Huck abruptly dropped the bravado. “Kelly’s not smart, Charlotte. She’s not a murderer.”
“You don’t have to be smart to kill somebody. Actually, the opposite is usually true.” She turned back to look at the Wilson house. Captain Isaac was carrying out a plastic box full of Kelly’s clothes.
Charlie told Huck, “If you really want to help Kelly, stay away from any and all reporters, don’t go on camera, don’t let them get a good photo of you, don’t even talk to your friends about what happened, because they’ll go on camera or they’ll talk to reporters and you won’t be able to control what comes out of their mouths.”
“That’s good advice.” He let out a short breath and said, “Hey, I need to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“B2. Ben Bernard. Your husband called you this morning. I almost answered.”
Charlie felt her cheeks flush.
He said, “I didn’t know until one of the cops told me. This was after I had talked to him, told him what we’d been up to, why you were at the school.”
Charlie put her head in her hand. She knew how certain types of men talked about women, especially the ones they screwed in their trucks outside of bars.
Huck said, “You could’ve warned me. It put us all in an even worse situation.”
“You apologize, but really, it’s my fault?” She couldn’t believe this guy. “When would I have told you? Before Greg Brenner knocked me out? Or after you deleted the video? Or how about when you lied in your witness statement about how my nose got broken, which is a felony, by the way—the lying to cover a cop’s ass, not the standing around with your thumb up your ass while a woman gets punched in the face. That’s perfectly legal.”
Huck pushed out another sigh. “You don’t know what it’s like running into something like that. People make mistakes.”
“I don’t know what it’s like?” Charlie felt shaken by a sudden fury. “I think I was there, Huck. I think I got there before you did, so I know exactly what it’s like to run into something like that, and not for nothing, but if you really grew up in Pikeville, then you know I’ve done it twice now, so fuck you with your ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’”
“Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
Charlie wasn’t finished. “You lied about Kelly’s age.”
“Sixteen, seventeen.” She could picture Huck shaking his head. “She’s in the eleventh grade. What difference does it make?”
“She’s
