Where the Broken Lie (17 page)

…He knew he was innocent, and yet he felt guilty when he found out about Tucker’s daughter missing. He always felt complicit when he heard stories like that. Like he was part of some dirty brotherhood and was somehow a little bit responsible for every child’s disappearance. Every child’s death. Logically he knew it was beyond his control—all of it. Even Katie. Yet the goodness in him brought out that guilt. Jekyll couldn’t be blamed for the actions of Hyde, but he was still guilt-ridden.

And now, his very own Hyde—long slumbering—was fully awakened again. It had caught a whiff of something sweet and familiar. Something sugar and spice and he couldn’t stop sniffing at it.

A great many things have happened in the blink of eternity’s eye that is my lifetime. Space travel, the pet rock, microwave ovens, the birth and death of the VCR, post-it notes. And all of it happened as Alvin Keller sat perched atop his Cub Cadet, rumbling through the streets and yards of Willow Grove, Illinois.

Of course, the Old Man had been a young man for some of those things, but something tells me that the Old Man was probably an old man even when the Old Man was a young man.

Without the growing green grass, Alvin couldn’t have eaten, and wouldn’t have survived or evolved into the Old Man. He would have slept in a chicken shack and died young without ever having achieved the strange sort of small town celebrity that he had earned because of that Cub Cadet.

No less so than some grazing animal, like some wild goat, Old Man Keller needed grass to survive. But the Old Man had more in common with goats than a grassy subsistence. He had the face of a goat. Wispy white hair on a long chin, narrow eyes that revolved in sockets on the side of his narrow head, next to alert triangular ears. A face shaped by years in the wind, the way a river shapes a canyon.

The Old Man was a simple man living a simple life, and while he did carry himself with a barely detectable air of superiority, it was almost self-deprecating. Aware that he’s King of some mountain that nobody cares about.

The Old Man’s Cub Cadet growled and grumbled through every summer of my youth. Sometimes loud as guilt, sometimes quiet as shame. Always there, but like the hum in your head, not always noticed. A distant memory vibrates.

Old Man Keller has a more prominent spot in my memories than he deserves and it’s all because of that Cub Cadet. All because of grass.

From a distance I can see that Swinging Girl is back on her perch, which relieves me. But I also see that she is not alone.

It is not another child with her but rather—of all people—Old Man Keller. He stands next to her as she swings and the sight of them together makes my stomach lurch. He moves behind her and his clingy little wrinkled hands clasp around her hips and I think about that dirty-secret look on his face from the day before.

I am about a block away, but my eyes zoom and lock on the greedy little fingers he has clenched around her waist. As I approach, I can see his beady gray eyes, watch him moisten his dry lips with a thick wet tongue.

He gives her a big push on the swing and when his hands release her, his fingers hang in the air, wriggling slightly as if savoring the residual taste of touching her. They reach out longingly, those touching, tasting fingers.

Suddenly, the Old Man closes his hands into fists that he tucks away into his overall pockets and marches back across the street where his Cub Cadet sits in the Pullman’s front yard. He gets on the lawnmower and makes his getaway.

“Hello, Swinging Girl. It’s been a while. Where have you been?”

“I do have a life, you know. And there’s more to it than just swinging.”

As I’ve done before, I take a seat on the swing farthest from hers. I don’t want her thinking it’s ok for strangers to get too close.

As she coasts in for a landing, I ask, “Do you know that man you were talking to?”

“Sure I do. He’s Lawn Mowing Man.”

“Yes, he is. He’s the lawn moving man. Alvin Keller is his name.”

“Okay.”

“What were you two talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Not really.”

“Well, you must have talked about something.”

“Nope.”

“Can you tell me what he said? Please?”

She rolls her eyes at me.

“He said, ‘
You’re sure a good swinger.
’ I said, ‘
Thanks
.’ He said, ‘
How about a push, beautiful girl
?’ I said, ‘
Okay
.’ And that was it.”

Beautiful girl … 
where I had I heard that before? Who had said that?

“He called you ‘beautiful girl’? Those were the words?”

“Yes.”

“He shouldn’t have said that. That’s not right.”

“You don’t think I’m beautiful?”

“What? No. I mean, yes, you’re beautiful. It’s just, old men shouldn’t talk like that to little girls.”

“Well, my Grandpa is an old man and he tells me I’m beautiful.”

“But he’s your Grandpa. It’s okay for your Grandpa to call you beautiful.”

“Mr. Keller is old like my Grandpa.”

“But he’s not your Grandpa, Sweetie. That’s the point. He’s not your Grandpa so he shouldn’t talk to you that way. It’s not right.”

“Jeez, he didn’t mean anything by it.”

Jeez, he didn’t mean anything by it … something else I had heard before.

I leave my new friend on her swing and walk to the cemetery. I have things to ponder and I do my best pondering while walking. So I trek out there slowly so my suspicions of the Old Man can marinate a little longer.

“Jeez, he didn’t mean anything by it.”

Two little girls had said that to me in my life. One of them ended up dead. Charlie Skinner believed it was someone other than Slim Jim who had killed Katie Cooper.

Could it have been Old Man Keller who killed Katie?

How could I possibly find out so many years later? There is only one way and that’s with the help of the supposed Good Samaritan—Mr. Innocent.

Just like the first time, Mr. Innocent had placed the unaddressed and unsealed white envelope under the rock near James Johnson’s headstone. It had been several days since my return letter and I had all but given up on him, but here I was holding a new letter in my hand. Hopefully, there is more than one word this time.

There is.

You asked me how I know Slim Jim was innocent and I can’t tell you that, sorry. Maybe I am wrong but I don’t think so. I suppose it don’t matter much anyhow, been to long a time. Probably should not even said nothing been so long. Still innocent is innocent and guilty is guilty.

He sounded like a man who was done talking, which pissed me off. In clearing his own conscience, he had weighted mine down. Except I wasn’t going to let him wash his hands of everything quite so easily. I wasn’t going to let him sleep. I wasn’t going to let him get away with whatever the hell it was he was getting away with. Hell, for all I knew Mr. Innocent himself might be the real killer. He sure talked like a man who was guilty of something.

I suppose it don’t matter much anyhow, been too long a time.

Bullshit. Justice always matters.
That’s how I’ll start my next letter. Then I’ll tell Mr. Innocent how he has no right to a clear conscience. That he hasn’t earned one. Not yet anyway. I will tell him that if he doesn’t come forward with everything he knows that he is an accomplice to murder.

In my first letter I had been afraid of being too aggressive and scaring him off. That approach had not worked. This time I would attack. This letter would be loaded with threats and questions that required answers or caused insomnia.

How can you live with yourself?

You’re the real killer, aren’t you?

I’m going to find you. It’s just a matter of time.

Your letters are being scanned for fingerprints.

You better come forward before we find out who you are.

The next morning, I awoke before dawn and once again I march like a foot soldier to the Willow Grove cemetery. I have a book to read and another yellow envelope that I will place under the gray rock that rests near James Johnson’s grave. And this time, after delivering my letter, I will lurk.

I will hide in secret for as long as it takes for Mr. Innocent to come out, come out from wherever he is.

I settle into a small space between the evergreen bushes and the utility shed. From here I have a distant but clear sightline to the grave of James Johnson. Any car entering the cemetery will pass directly in front of me and over the first couple hours many did.

Turns out there’s a lot to be learned in lurking.

Sunnier than sunny, and the Widow Simpson is walking around the cemetery with an umbrella. She is using it as a walking cane, but I ain’t buying. I know the dour old crank wants a rainy world. I never used to understand how someone could choose to be so hateful, but I have come to learn. There is a kind of strength that is most easily reached from inside of hate. Makes you feel like you can take on almost anything you might come across.

We always called her the Widow Simpson, even though she’d never been married. Probably never even had a family, we figured. Probably just crawled out of the ground one day and started hating things. Turns out we were wrong. She was here to water flowers at what looked to be her parent’s gravesite.

I guess you never stop needing your mom and dad.

A little while after that, I watched Marylyn Jeffries stand before the grave of the little brother she had lost over fifty years ago and I learned that we never forget and that we live on for each other.

I also learned that the phenomenon of the Grave Letters was still going strong. From friend to friend, from brother to sister, from daughter to mother.

From father to son.

As if in a dream, I watch that shiny black Oldsmobile 442 slow to a stop in front of Ethan’s grave. For a moment, it looks as if Dad isn’t going to get out and I suspect that’s probably an internal debate he is having. But then the engine turns off and the driver’s side door slowly swings open.