The Blackstone Commentaries by Rob Riggan Page A

to hurt him. No one was more surprised and disbelieving than she was at the idea that she, wild Drusilla Conley, would take up with a lawman, the first one in a long time tough enough to get respect from the people up around New Apex, her people. By the day she saw him that first time in front of the courthouse, he was regaining his belief in himself and a world he liked and thought he could improve. He really believed that, she knew now. He really liked people and thought they all should be treated fair, and the only mechanism for that was the law. After a while, it became clear to everyone that he would help them in any way he could. She watched it happen. In time, they came to feel that not only did he not despise or look down on them, but he actually expected more of them than they were accustomed to, and they feared they might disappoint him. That went right back to Alabama, she knew.
    After the courthouse, she heard he’d come looking for her in the bank where she worked and just about burned a hole in the floor when he found she wasn’t there and felt everyone was looking at him. And they were looking at him because he already had a reputation, and he just stood there in the middle of the lobby for almost ten minutes. Anyhow, they finally met months later in a snowstorm up at the New Apex gas station and store, where she let him see her smile at him, then kidded him a bit about being tongue-tied. He was never tongue-tied again, not with her. Lord, no! They talked all the time to each other, and just the memory would make her smile. My, how we did talk , she’d recall, like we were friends .
    He was proud, no matter his being poor. He was big and strong, and of course she liked that, and he had hands that had worked all his life doing hard things. He did everything but the mining, which he hated and his uncle wouldn’t let him do anyhow, and his hands were almost too big even for him, and she liked that, too. He would come up behind her and rest those hands on her hips, and they were like pillows, holding her softly to the earth while her heart flew. Because he was tough, but in a good way, heencouraged a toughness in her, not the meanness she’d come to feel with Lonnie, and even before that while growing up, always wanting to hit back somehow or other.
    He had taken a seat on the little chair by the dresser and was bent over, holding his head in his hands. “None of the killings, of which we have far too many in a county this small,” he said, “and the assaults, the beatings and affrays, with the exception of that murder-suicide with the doctor and nurse last year out at the veterans’ hospital, ever involve educated people or people financially well off, have you noticed? The law isn’t about them, Dru. The law has never been about them.”
    She didn’t reply. She knew better than to push. He would come to her when he was ready, and she would comfort him, but now there was too much choked up in there, and it made an almost physical barrier for him to tear through before he could reach her. She’d learned that a piece of him was like an animal that was still half wild, and it took patience.
    â€œThis wasn’t even murder, tonight. But it’s the damn Titanic , I tell you! It was her hand, Dru, a woman’s hand just like yours, pale and feminine and soft, reaching after me as I climbed out of Junior’s cruiser after talking to her and checking on the kids. She wasn’t even looking at me, but it was like she wanted something from me I once felt I had to give. It would be Pemberton who’s supposed to be involved.”
    That’s when she first felt the alarm. Until then, for all she knew, it was just another bad night. “What’s Martin got to do with this?”
    â€œAnd Eddie saying, ‘Back off, Charlie!’ just like that, the moment we were alone in the car again. You know Eddie doesn’t use my first name unless he’s