The Plot, Jean Korelitz [read e books online free txt] 📗

us.” He peered at Jake. “You did say you knew the family.”

“I knew the brother of the woman who died, but I never asked him about it. And he died a year after this.” He gestured at the campground.

“Yeah? Bad luck in that family.”

“The worst,” Jake had to agree. If it was luck. “Do you think the coroner would talk to me?”

“Don’t see why not. We’ve come a long way since Deliverance. We’re pretty nice to outsiders now.”

“You’re … what?” Jake said.

“Deliverance. They shot that movie a couple miles from here.”

That sent a chill through him. He couldn’t help it.

“Good thing you didn’t tell me before!” he said, with what he hoped would pass for a backslapping kind of tone.

“Or you wouldn’t have driven out to the back of beyond with a total stranger and a phone that won’t work.”

He couldn’t tell if Mike was joking.

“Hey, could I take you both out to dinner, to say thanks?”

Mike seemed to give this more consideration than it deserved. In the end, however, he agreed. “I can give Roy a call and ask him.”

“That would be fantastic. Where should we go?”

It was a very New York question, needless to say, but in Clayton the range of options was not extensive. He arranged to meet the two of them at a place called the Clayton Café, and after Mike dropped him back at the store to retrieve his car, Jake found a Quality Inn and checked in for the night. He knew better than to phone or even text Anna. Instead, he lay on the bed watching an old episode of Oprah in which Dr. Phil advised a couple of sixteen-year-olds to grow up and take responsibility for their baby. He nearly fell asleep, lulled by the groans of audience disapproval.

The Clayton Café was a storefront on the town’s main street with a striped awning and a sign that said SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1931. Inside were tables with black-checkered tablecloths and orange chairs and walls covered with local art. A woman met him at the door, carrying two plates piled with spaghetti and tomato sauce, each with a wedge of garlic bread balanced on top. Looking at them, he was reminded of the fact that he hadn’t eaten since grabbing an English muffin for the road, that morning in Athens.

“I’m meeting Mike,” he said, belatedly realizing he’d never asked Mike’s last name. “And …” He had forgotten the coroner’s name completely. “One other person.”

She pointed at a table at the other end of the room, under a painting of a forest grove very like the one he’d visited a few hours earlier. A man was already there: elderly, African-American, wearing a Braves sweatshirt. “Be right over,” the waitress said.

The man looked up, just at that moment. His face, as was probably appropriate to his profession, gave away nothing, not even a smile. Jake still could not remember his name. He crossed the room and held out his hand.

“Hello, I’m Jake. Are you … Mike’s friend?”

“I am Mike’s neighbor.” The correction seemed highly consequential. He gave Jake’s outstretched hand an appraising look. Then, apparently concluding that it met his standard of hygiene, he shook it.

“Thank you for joining me.”

“Thank you for inviting me. It isn’t often a complete stranger decides to buy me dinner.”

“Oh, that happens to me all the time.”

The joke landed about as badly as it could have. Jake took a seat.

“What’s good here?”

“Pretty much everything,” said the coroner. He hadn’t picked up his own menu. “The burgers. Country fried steak. The casseroles are always tasty.”

He pointed at something beyond Jake’s shoulder. Jake turned to find the specials board. Today’s casserole was chicken, broccoli, and rice. He also saw Mike enter, nod at someone seated just inside the door, and make his way across the room.

“Mike,” said the coroner.

“Hi, Mike.”

“Hello, Roy,” said Mike. “You two getting acquainted?”

No, thought Jake.

“Yes, indeed,” said Roy.

“Mike really put himself out for me today.”

“So I understand,” Roy said. “Not sure why he troubled himself.”

The waitress came. Jake ordered what Mike was having: poppy seed chicken, mashed greens, and fried okra. Roy ordered the trout.

“Do you fish?” Jake asked him.

“I’ve been known to.”

Mike shook his head. “He’s a maniac. This man has a magic touch.”

Roy shrugged, but he was up against his own considerable pride. “Well, I don’t know.”

“I wish I had the patience for that.”

“How do you know you don’t?” Mike said.

“I don’t know. Not my nature, I guess.”

“What is your nature, would you say?”

“I’d say, to find things out.”

“Is that a nature?” the coroner said. “Or a purpose?”

“They merge,” said Jake, becoming annoyed. Was this guy only here for a free dinner? He looked as if he could afford his own damn trout. “I’m very curious about the woman who died up there at the campground. Mike might have told you, I knew her brother.”

“Their brother,” said Roy.

“I’m sorry?”

“They were sisters. Ergo, the brother of one would have been the brother of the other. Or am I missing something?”

Jake took a breath to steady himself. “You sound as if you might share some of my questions about what happened.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” said Roy mildly. “I have no questions. And I don’t see why you should have any, either. Mike here says you’re a writer. Am I being interviewed for a publication of some kind?”

He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

“A newspaper story? Something that’s going to wind up in a magazine?”

“Absolutely not.”

The waitress was back. She set three plastic glasses of iced tea on the table, and left.

“So I don’t have to worry about looking over the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me on the plane and seeing myself in a book.”

Mike grinned. He’d probably have liked nothing better, himself.

“I’d say not.”

Roy Porter nodded. He had deeply set eyes and wore a blue polo shirt, buttoned up the neck, and an oversized watch on a wide leather band. He also radiated a deeply discomforting power. All that death, Jake supposed. All those terrible