Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You by Laurie Lynn Drummond

really. But your business is your business.” The last wisps of his hair flip-flopped willy-nilly in the breeze.
    I’d nodded, looking at the tree, thinking how Andy would have hated this kind of chore; we’d divorced just before I joined the police department eight months ago. Maybe one of the guys on my shift would lend me a chainsaw, show me how to use it. Or my sister’s husband, a man who seemed born to hold a hammer and pound a nail. A chainsaw, a gun: What’s the difference? They’re both just tools to be mastered. I’d flexed my fingers, imagining the quivering machine clamped between my hands, the crisp, cool cuts I would make, smoothing out the lines of the tree. A task that, when finished, would actually show the effort.
    But George had other ideas. Despite my protests, he was back in ten minutes with his chainsaw, his whole body tense with delight.
    â€œAt least show me how to do it, George,” I’d begged.
    He’d brushed off my request. “No need for that,” he responded, a smile skittering quick as a mouse across his lips. “My contribution to public service. This’ll be done right quick. Won’t take but half an hour.”
    I relent, and he is happy.
    As he works, George tells me things. Actually he tells me something for fifteen minutes, then cuts for five minutes, then tells me something else for twenty minutes, and so on. I glance at my watch,stifle a yawn. This is not going to be a right quick job. I have to be on shift in less than two hours.
    He tells me about the weed eater stolen from his driveway. “Hell, if they’d of asked, I woulda given it to ’em. But stealing. Sheesh.” He shakes his head in disgust. “But I don’t have to tell you, Liz, do I?” And he fires up the chainsaw, cuts another limb.
    He stares at the ground or the tree as he talks. He tells me about mowing the lawns of three neighborhood widows, relates the deaths of their husbands: heart attack, pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer’s. “Fine women, a real shame.” About the history of his German chainsaw. “Don’t make ’em like this anymore. Never breaks, not like that stuff they sell you these days, lemme tell you. People think they can save money, buy something on the cheap, then it breaks on them six months later. Ha!” About the property he’s bought outside Baton Rouge in Greenwell Springs. “Thinkin’ of movin’ there. Real soon. City living has gone all to hell. Anybody steals from me, I can shoot ’em, no problem.”
    I don’t know whether he’s trying to get a rise out of me or whether he really believes this, but I can’t let the comment pass. So I keep my tone neutral and mention that I believe shooting somebody is a problem no matter where you live, whether that somebody is stealing from you or not.
    His lips fold inward, his jaw juts forward, and he glares at the police unit parked in my driveway before he starts in on another limb high above his head. The inverted Y appears again, a much deeper view. Swear to God, it’s all I can do not to giggle. This will be a good story to tell the guys at work.
    After the limb thuds to the ground, he turns and looks me straight in the eye. “Lemme tell you something. I killed somebody once. Over in Vietnam, was there three years. I killed Vietcong, yes. But I’m not talking about that.” George moves closer, and I smell the rankness of his body. It takes all my willpower not to step back.
    â€œI’m talking about putting a gun upside someone’s head and pulling the trigger. An American. Army fellow like me.” His cheeks expand like a chipmunk, and he expels a long breath. “Was raping a little Vietcong girl, no more than eleven or twelve. Just a little girl that never did no harm to nobody.” His gaze drifts away. “Couldn’tabide by that. So I killed him. And lemme tell you, I may have