Your Eyes in Stars by M. E. Kerr Read Free Book Online

supposed to see him. He’s cleaning out the shed with my husband.”
    I said, “How come Daddy let him be off grounds so soon? I thought an inmate wasn’t supposed to get any away time until he’d been here a year.”
    “If you ask me, rules don’t apply to that boy,” said my mother. “Daddy lets him get away with murder.”
    Elisa and I giggled at that, and my mother got red. “You know what I mean. He’s Daddy’s pet.”
    Elisa was at the window. “Jessica…I see him! I see him.”
    I followed her to the dinette window.
    “Look!” Elisa said. “The prisoner’s playing with the stray cat.”
    “The prisoner loves that little stray,” said Mother. “I’ve looked out to see him holding it and talking to it like it was a baby. You girls come away from there now.”
    Elisa and I couldn’t see the prisoner’s face well. He was wearing the blue cap with the white B on it. Only band members had the B on their caps. He had the peak pulled down over his eyes. We just had a side view of him. He looked very thin and young. He looked like a kid.
    My father was sitting on the wooden garden bench while Slater Carr stood talking to him. The kitten was rubbing its face against the prisoner’s pants leg.
    “We have to call the SPCA to come for the kitty,” my mother said, getting to her feet. “I’ll see if I can capture it.”
    She started out the kitchen door, saying over her shoulder, “You girls stay put! You’re not even supposed to look at anyone from The Hill.”
    That was the moment the small wire-haired brown dog appeared, running at the kitten, which headed for the nearest tree. I ran out to stop the dog, and Elisa followed.
    My mother turned around and held up both hands, like a traffic cop rerouting cars. “Go back!” she shouted at Elisa and me.
    “My heart beats rapidly,” said Elisa. “We almost saw Slater.”
    “I thought you didn’t fancy criminals.”
    “You have made Slater intriguing to me,” said Elisa, “and he’s a musician too. He killed only one person, Jessica.”
    “Most of our murderers killed just one.” I’d never told her Slater was an accomplice, not a murderer. I figured my story of a crime of passion was more intriguing than the truth, and the truth wouldn’t change anything now.
    “But Dillinger killed more than one,” she answered.
    “He’s different. He’s a bank robber.”
    “I think Slater would be better for you to think about than John Dillinger.”
    “ You think about him,” I said. “I give him to you.”
    A time would come when I would remember saying that to Elisa and regretting it with all my heart.

12
SLATER CARR
    A T FIRST W ARDEN Myrer and the prisoner didn’t talk, just smoked and looked around at the town, or the lake if Carr was doing away work up there, wherever he was, because Myrer had started picking him up to take him back to The Hill.
    Eventually they talked some, mostly about music. Except for Miss Purr of Peachy, Georgia, Carr didn’t know anyone who knew that much about bands and good songs for them to play. After the warden heard that the prisoner could sing, he’d say Carr should do that, too, when The Blues were performing. He’d keep after him. “What song do you like, Mr. Carr?”
    “‘Till Times Get Better.’”
    “I don’t know that one.”
    “It’s a song Jabbo Smith sings.”
    “I never heard of him, either.”
    “Because I’m making it hard for you. He’s out of Georgia. Did you ever hear of Roy Eldridge?”
    “The trumpeter. Sure.”
    “Jabbo Smith bested him in a cut session. That’s how good he is.”
    Silence for a while, and then the warden said, “One thing I like.”
    “What?”
    “Relaxing like this. Talking about music. I never talk with anyone about it.”
    “You got kids?”
    “Neither of them cares about it. My wife does, sort of, but her musical knowledge doesn’t go that deep.”
    “Jabbo Smith is like me,” Slater Carr said.
    “How come?”
    “We were both born on Christmas