Lena supposed Deacon had considered himself a rebel, that when his gray braid slapped against his back as he drove his ancient Harley to the bar, he had thought he was making some kind of statement against society. He still looked every inch the Hells Angel he'd been in his younger days: Handlebar mustache. Confederate flag on the T-shirt stretching across his gut. Leather chaps over faded jeans. Even in the 1970s, he had looked like someone caught in a time-warp, an old hippie whose slow speech and delayed reasoning proved that you didn't quit being a pothead no matter how many years ago you stopped lighting up. Like Hank, Deacon was wrapped up in AA and NA and any A that would have him. Unlike Hank – please God, hopefully unlike her uncle – Deacon was dead. Now, leaning over the man's body in Hank's attic, Lena guessed Deacon had been beaten to death. His face looked more like a bruised plum, his sunken cheeks caked with dried blood. His lip had been broken open, the split cutting into his mustache so that it hung off like an actor's prop.
What do You think about A Grant County Collection?
