Authors: Jeffrey Lent
H
E HEARD THE
popping of the needle on the turntable and went down and lifted the arm and replaced the album in its sleeve, knelt to slide it away and paused, then pulled free another record and put it on. Walked to the kitchen just as Hank yelped I’ll never get out of the world alive. The sink was piled with dishes and he thought about going to look for Jessica but stopped—he had no desire to explain anything she’d overheard or Julie’s departure. He turned back to the sink and washed the dishes, dried them and then scrubbed the countertops and range and scoured the sink. Murphy-soaped the kitchen table. When he was done it was near dusk and he walked out on to the porch. The Volkswagen was gone. He wondered if she’d left during or after the aborted passion from above, then recalled the stylus on the turntable and decided it was before. In her shoes he’d have done the same thing. She had plenty of places to go, people to visit. He wasn’t certain but thought she’d made friends with one of the young guys who worked for Roger. He stood watching as fireflies came out dancing and winking in the flower beds and smiled into the night, hoping she was having a better time than he was. And then thought, I’m fine. I’m just fine. And walked out barefoot in the dark to the mailbox and collected several days’ worth of mail and brought it back into the house, leafed through it on the kitchen table but there was nothing of interest or pressing need. He snagged a beer and went down the hall, wanting to hear the other side of the Hank Williams record.
A
T MIDNIGHT HE
was up among the apple trees. All he wanted was an immaculate Volkswagen chugging up the valley and into the
yard. He was no longer certain why, except his chest hurt and he knew it would stop if she drove in. There was a sweep of loathing once more not for what had happened with Julie but how and that passed, because he’d treaded water enough times already to know there had been no malice, certainly no intention for the timing with Julie. His honesty with her was all it had been and nothing more. He’d worked hard already trying to determine if he could’ve done it differently but couldn’t see how. Even if he’d considered deceit his body hadn’t allowed it. After a time, suddenly tired all the way down to his toenails he rose and made his way down the hill. At the house he turned on the light over the stove for when Jessica did return and in the dark made his way upstairs and in the dark undressed and bent over his bed and in the starlight smoothed the sheets and climbed in, smelling the faint broth of sex and then pulled up the light blanket and lay for a bit with his head on the pillow. Way up on the hill, far along the ridgeline he heard a yelp and then an answer and a short trill of coyotes singing.
He was up early and didn’t need to check her room to know she wasn’t there but did anyway and at least the mounds and stacks of her clothing remained. He went to the forge and worked hard until late morning and when he came out he was soaked right through his jeans with sweat, his head a skullcap of wet hair and the Bug was in the yard. He stalked past the car, grouchy and glad she was back. He walked up the brook to the pool to swim and then had no choice but to pull back on his clammy jeans. The house was quiet as he made a sandwich of leftover lamb and eating it, walked through the lower house, finding her in one of the chairs in the red room, her feet curled under her, head fallen against one shoulder and a book tumbled in her lap. There was mustard and black grease on his hands. He leaned toward the book, a collection of poetry. It wasn’t one from the library off the living room. He was curious where she’d found it, who’d given or loaned it to her and for what purpose.
Too much thinking, he thought. Leave yourself alone.
He climbed the stairs in sockfeet. It was the middle of the day and hot but the shroud of fatigue from the night before was fully upon him. In the bathroom he scrubbed down, again with cold water. He crawled into bed, pulling the top sheet to cover his hips and groin. A fly trapped against the screen came floating and found him and twice he snapped up to slap at it. The sharp brush of wings and greenback as it droned away. Then he slept.
T
HAT EVENING OVER
canned clam chowder and salad they were both punchy and off-kilter. Hewitt thought perhaps there was some mild jealousy about but decided to downplay the mess with Julie.
He said, “You went to the bookstore?”
“Yup. I was feeling antsy and decided to get some books. I haven’t read much the last couple of years. And just so you know, last night I wandered around Hanover and got talking to some guys and ended up at a party out in the country somewhere and had a real good time.” She shot her eyes at him and back to her soup. “Don’t worry, no strange boy’s going to be mooning around here. I had fun and got what I needed. It’s been a while.”
“Sure.”
They ate a little more and then she said, “I like your friend Julie.”
Hewitt nodded. “It’s doubtful we’ll be seeing her again anytime real soon.”
She looked at him. “What happened?”
He looked away, out the window above the sink, over her head. He said, “It’s complicated.”
Jessica waited and when it was clear he wasn’t going to elaborate, stood and gathered her soup bowl on top of her salad plate, circling the table to not pass behind him. Hewitt sat and watched her small tight back as she washed her dishes and the pot used to heat the soup. He ate a crust of bread and drank from his beer. Then she turned from the sink and took up what was left of her beer, walked to the hall and stopped at the jamb and looked at him. She said, “I wonder if you
ever stopped to count up the number of ways that woman Emily has fucked up your life.” And went down the dark hall.
Hewitt watched her go. Then, riled at this puncture of his privacy he called in a soft voice, “You don’t know anything about it.”
He couldn’t see her but her voice came floating back, soft and friendly to loving. “I know enough.”
F
IVE DAYS LATER
ninety-two-year-old Emmett Kirby was found dead. It was George Contrell found him, going in to talk about the scant second cutting of hay the drought was sending up. But it was Rob Dutton who stopped by Hewitt’s to break the news—Hewitt already alerted by the racing ambulance and then the county sheriff and state trooper cruisers running hard past his place, sirens off but lights flashing. But Emmett’s place was far enough up the road so Hewitt had no idea what the tragedy was, the road going all the way to Bethel and then Randolph and on from there. It could’ve been anyone. Some kid on an ATV with a broken leg for Christ sake.
He was up out of the forge late morning when he heard the truck turn in and seeing it was Robbie knew right away it was much closer to home.
Rob Dutton was a cool man, sharp-eyed with a slow temper far back beneath his assessment of the range of catastrophe that came his way. He was fire chief and town constable both. He stepped from his truck red-faced with anger, wearing his shoulder pistol outside his shirt and Hewitt knew without looking there were at least two more in the cab of the truck, one under the seat and another in the glovebox and all loaded. Along with a deer rifle in the window rack.
Jessica had been puttering in the flowerbeds growing alongside the barn since the first ambulance siren blast alerted them, as if she did not want to get far from Hewitt. But when Robbie got out of his truck he looked at her once and said, “I need to talk to Hewitt, here. Could you go on to the house or something.”
She frowned at Rob and Hewitt simply said her name. She looked at him and turned and walked up into the high flower gardens where she could see them but not possibly hear.
Robbie was direct. “It was the worst thing I ever saw, Hewitt. Whoever it was, tied him snug into that chair of his by his stove. There was cigarette burns on his arms and face and his hands were busted with a chunk of stovewood and we know it was stovewood because there was splinters stuck in the backs of his hands. Not to tell that we found the piece of wood on the floor dropped next to the chair. But not before that fucker battered his head in. His skull broke open two or three places. Shit.” Robbie paused and swallowed several times.
“I thought I was gonna puke again just telling you. Nothing touched except one kitchen cabinet left open and the top shelf empty. I guess you know what was missing. Shit. It wasn’t a secret old Emmett had a stock of painkillers. Heavy-duty stuff, I don’t know what all. The state boys said they’d find out. There was a empty bottle dropped on the floor. They’ll get some prints from that. But the way it looks whoever it was, once they hurt him so bad he told em where to find it, they swallowed some down and then finished him off. Goddamn motherfucker. I mean, he was all fucked-up and most likely it was a gift when that asshole raised up that stovewood and busted his head open. Most likely Emmett was already gone. What was done to him would stop the heart of a man half his age. Fuck all. It’s outa my hands and I probably broke some kind of law coming here and telling you but you known him since you were a boy and, well, I thought you ought to know. The state boys’ll be by to talk to you, see if you heard or saw anything out of the usual. And everybody knows you got a houseguest who’s a stranger. Fuckin A, Hewitt.”
“Jesus Christ,” Hewitt breathed.
“Yeah, well. I guess He was otherwise occupied a couple mornings ago.”
Hewitt nodded. “You know anything else yet?”
“Nope. But the ambulance had to take him to Hitchcock for a autopsy and then I guess Chris Maxham’ll be taking care of things. Likely there’ll be something in tomorrow’s paper.”
“You hear, let me know.”
“I will. I will, Emmett. Holy shit I just called you Emmett, didn’t I? Idn’t that something.”
The two men were quiet a bit. The day seemed to be seeping the news into itself and holding it. After a bit Hewitt said, “Hey Robbie?”
“What?”
“You got any pull with those state boys?”
“Not much. Why?”
“I know they’ve got to come down and talk to me. And I know they’re going to want to talk to Jessica too. That’s the girl. But … well, she doesn’t work things through the same way you or I do. She’s not crazy, not dangerous crazy at least. And she never even met Emmett. Had no idea of what he might’ve had stashed away in his house. You hearing me?”
Rob Dutton looked at Hewitt and said, “I’m not protecting anybody, Hewitt.”
“Fuck you, Dutton. Those county and state boys have their ways and you know what I mean. It’s the kind of shit could let me come out one morning and find her sucking the exhaust pipe of her car. You understand that?”
Rob looked at Hewitt a long time. He said, “Tell the truth Hewitt. You have any reason to even suspect the tiddliest she might have been involved in this business?”
Hewitt thought slowly over the past few days. There were gaps certainly but not even the faintest of flags. He said, “Not a cunt hair of a possibility.”
Rob studied him and then said, “I’ll do what I can. But no promises.”
“Thanks, Robbie.”
Dutton got back up into his truck. He looked out the rolled-down window and said, “If you’re fucking with me I’ll come and put a hole in your foot, you hear me?”
Hewitt nodded and said, “You’re welcome to it, it comes to that. That’s how sure I am.”
H
E WALKED UP
in the garden and told Jessica as simply as he could what had happened and what they might expect. She sat through his telling but wrapped her arms around her ribs and rocked slightly back and forth. When he was done she kept rocking until he touched her shoulder and she stopped like a stone, looked at him and whispered, “Sonofabitch,” and stood and walked toward the house.
He spent a long afternoon waiting for the police, state or county, to arrive. But they never did. Hewitt reckoned the cops had something else to sniff out. Late in the day he went back to the smithy to clean up from his suddenly disturbed work. He came out into dusk and saw her, waiting for him by the barns. She had her old sleeping bag under one arm and a paper sack gripped in her other hand.
“Well, now,” he said. “Going camping?”
“I don’t want to be in the house just now. It’s too small. I’m going to walk up and sleep out in the woods.”
“Woods can be spooky at night.”
She pointed. “There’s a fair bit of moon. And it’s warm enough. If I find a cranny amongst those big trees I can sleep fine and be hidden and hear anything coming before it sees me.”
He wanted to touch her face. He felt she was sliding and didn’t even know it. He said, “I’d say you’re right, at least as far as people. But the creatures, they’ll smell you even if you lie still as the tree you’re sleeping under. It’s a nice night to sleep in the woods. You have some supper in that sack?”
“Extra clothes. I’m not hungry.”
“Sure. Neither am I.”
“I’m sorry about that old man.”
“Me too. I knew him all my life.”
“There isn’t any safe place, is there, Hewitt?”
“I guess not.”
She paused and then said, “Those police never did show up.”
He nodded. “I think we’re pretty much written off as suspects. You want me to grab my bag and come sleep in the woods with you?”
“No. You stay at the house. One of us has to not look crazy in case they come.”
“Jessica.”
Then a long pause. She hitched up her gear and turned to look up the hill toward the ridgetop and then back to Hewitt. She said, “There’s been twice I really thought I was going to die. The once I ended up with a black eye and being raped. The other time I got the shit beat out of me by one of those boys I was talking about, one of those nighttime big-ass boys. That was the worst. They’re real smart about beating a woman so she feels it all over except on her face. But I didn’t know that—I just thought he was going to kill me. It scared the crazy right out of me. I just rolled up in a ball, cut my cheek on a piece of broken glass on the pavement. He just kept working me over, kicking the backs of my legs and my butt and my back. I felt like my insides were breaking apart. When he finally quit it was all I could do to walk. And I peed blood for two weeks. Every part of my body was black and blue. It was a bad time and I was near broke but I inched my way out of that town. I couldn’t drive but a couple of hours before I was hurting too bad. I finally found a back road that ran along a river with a place to hole up for a few days. It was last summer so it was warm. I ate food out of cans so I didn’t need a fire. I swam in the river and that helped. Mostly I slept. Some old fellas come along fishing and surprised me but they was kind, gave me some food and left me be. Although as soon as they left I headed out. It was enough of a break so I’d quit blaming myself for what had happened. Quit believing I deserved it. Goddamn Hewitt, the world’s an ugly place.”