Dead Even Read Free Page A

plunked down half of it for a week’s lodging at the Rock Road Inn—a small, privately owned motel right off of the interstate that had been built in the early forties. Most of its tenants were down on their luck, low on money, and in need of the cheapest lodging they could find.
    That first night, Audra had bolted her door, pushed the dresser over in front of it, and cried herself to sleep. She was twenty years old, broke, alone in a strange town, and she felt there wasn’t a person on earth who cared if she lived or died.
    The next morning she showered, dressed, and went to the small office to ask where the employment agency was located. The thin, wrinkled lady sitting on a stool behind the desk had looked her up and down before answering. “If you’re willing to work, I could use some help around here.” And with those words, Bess Truman entered her life. “And, no, before you ask, I ain’t no relation.” Bess had smiled a toothless grin at her. “If I’d knowed marrying my Billy would of caused me so much aggravation, I might’ve thought twice,” she had winked broadly at Audra. “We always did say it was just a good thing his momma didn’t name him Harry.”
    For some reason, Bess Truman was exactly what Audra needed at that particular juncture in her life. Bess chain-smoked, talked nonstop, gummed her food when she would finally remember to eat, and sipped on diet Coke all day, occasionally lacing it with rum. But she worked hard, had a heart of gold, and seemed to know everyone in town.
    By the end of the first month, she had moved Audra into her small house located on the west side of the motel. “There’s just no reason you stayin’ at the motel, not with me havin’ all this room over here. Besides, you know how I like to talk—why, you’ll be doin’ me a favor.”
    It was six months before Audra told Bess about the attack. Bess had listened, silent, while Audra poured out all of her frustration and fears, then gave her better advice than all the psychiatrists she had seen. “Well, child, I say screw that son of a bitch all to hell.” Audra had looked at her blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. “You’re absolutely right, Bess. Screw that son of a bitch all to hell!” It was the first time she could remember laughing in three years.
    It hadn’t been easy, but gradually she had put the incident behind her. Though it was always there, lurking in her memory, she got on with her life. When she had confided to Bess that she had planned to become a teacher but now thought it impossible, Bess had chided her gently. “Ain’t nothin’ impossible, Audra. We have a fine university here in town—one of the best teachers’ colleges in the state, or so I’ve heard. They got lots of ways to help kids like you—scholarships—grants—student loans. Ain’t no reason you can’t go back to school.”
    Audra would most likely have let the whole idea drop there, but Bess had been persistent and immediately began making plans. “I know the dean and a few others at the college, even the president. I’ll just run up there this afternoon and see what can be worked out.”
    The thought of Bess—dressed in baggy slacks and a plaid shirt, her gray hair fashioned carelessly into a ponytail by a blackened rubber band salvaged from the newspaper—walking into the president’s office and flashing her toothless grin, had made Audra smile and touched her deeply. People like Bess, thank God, had no concept of social barriers or invisible lines drawn between certain segments of society. Bess would always be as much at home talking with a transient down on his luck as with the president of the United States—or the president of Fort Hays State University.
    Somehow, it hadn’t surprised Audra much when Bess had returned from the college with an array of