“Sir? Ma’am? I’d like for you to please step back to shore.”
Irma looked like she’d been slapped.
“No …”
“Ma’am, please. I’m just asking you to clear the immediate area for a bit.”
She looked at her husband. Truax stared at the sheriff for a moment, then turned to Swope, awaiting instruction. Swope nodded once. Truax muttered something to his wife and gently grasped her upper arm with his good left hand. Chones beckoned for a deputy to conduct them away. Irma was shaking her head now, looking over her shoulder with that shrieking expression. When the Truaxes were beyond the dome of light, Chones nodded to the fireman at the oars, who picked up a yellow cord from the boat’s bottom. He tied it into a broad noose and handed it to the diver. He slid back into the water for a few long seconds. When he emerged the oarsman pulled the boat flush with the water-level platform, dragging the diver and his rope with him. Another fireman leaped down onto the platform, causing it to rock slightly. He took the cord from the oarsman and handed it up to the remaining firemen on the pier. They began to draw it in, leaning back into the pier’s pitch. Slack was quickly taken up. Effort was now required. After they’d reeled in about ten yards the line caught. The firemen prepared to give it a greater tug but Chones said something sharp. Everybody waited as the diver went back under. The cord shimmered for a moment, then went slack.
The firemen resumed pulling. After a few long tugs something appeared just below the surface, a mass that began to resolve itself into features. An arm, hair, a shoulder. Susan Truax. Her body broke through. The rope was looped beneath her arms, pulling up her shoulders into a shrug. Her limp hair was streaked with clay. As they lifted her clear of the water she swung round and Swope could see her face. Her big eyes were hooded and her mouth slightly agape, a tip of pale tongue lolling through perfect teeth.
The fireman on the platform kneeled to hoist the body, guiding it over his head balletically as the men on the pier redoubled their efforts. It didn’t take them long to get her up onto the pier. They placed her crossways, head above feet, so she wouldn’t roll back into the lake. Chones moved in, muttering commands. Water cascaded from Susan’s clothes and hair onto the wood. Some of it seeped through the cracks, hitting the lake below like rain. Her eyes were shut now. She looked beautiful, her face gathered into an almost pleasant expression.
And then the screaming began. Everyone turned to see Irma Truax running along the deck, her cork heels pounding unevenly on the angled planks. Her husband and the deputy followed, both holding up futile, beseeching hands. She ignored them. She ignored everything but the sight of the dead girl. She froze ten feet from the body and screamed again, a shrill exhalation that drowned out everything else. Truax caught up with her. He put his hands, good and bad, on her shoulders. She shrugged him off and lunged toward the body, stumbling on the slick and uneven surface. She landed heavily but did not stop moving, crawling the rest of the way on all fours, until she was close enough to collapse across her daughter’s chest.
The men on the pier were transfixed by her muffled, watery screams. After a few seconds she was able to raise herself high enough to see her daughter’s face. She grew suddenly silent, her eyes quizzical. She reached out and touched Susan’s hair, as if surprised to find it wet. Slowly, carefully, she began to untangle the first of its many knots.
And then Swope was moving. He flicked his Tiparillo into the lake, where it died with a quick hiss. When he reached Irma he hiked up his trousers and squatted, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Irma?”
She looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment and then she allowed herself to be raised to her feet. After one last look at her daughter she buried her face against Swope’s shirt, smearing it with snot and mascara. Behind her, a fireman took the opportunity to place a gray blanket over the girl.
“I’m going to take care of this,” Swope said to her in a clear, soft voice. “I promise you.”
A few minutes later Chones and Swope returned to the parking lot, leaving the Truaxes to stare at their daughter’s blanketed body. Teddy told the sheriff his story from the back of the Town Car. Swope stood nearby, his eyes never leaving his son. Teddy started his account with a small confession. He had, it seemed, lied to Irma Truax earlier in the evening, telling her that he was taking Susan to see the new Bond film when he actually planned to bring her down to the lake to make out. Teddy knew it was wrong. But they never got a chance back at the Truax house. After what happened with Joel, Susan’s parents watched her like hawks.
“What happened with Joel?” Chones asked quietly.
Teddy explained how Joel and Susan had been caught having sex in her bedroom. At this, Chones stole a quick glance at Swope, who gave him a terse nod. Teddy explained how he’d gone to see Susan to console her and they soon found themselves attracted to each other. Tonight was their first date. But Joel must have been spying on the Truax house or something, because he’d followed them, to find his ex-best friend kissing the girl he’d been forbidden from seeing.
He set upon them. Wordlessly. Like an animal. With sudden and absolute violence. He attacked Teddy first, striking him in the stomach with such force that he fell backward into the lake. The wind knocked out of him, Teddy almost drowned. Just as he finally struggled to the surface he saw Joel shove Susan. As she fell her head hit the side of the platform with a dull thud. Her body sank faster than he ever thought a body could. And then Joel was gone, racing back down the pier. Teddy frantically searched the murky water for Susan, diving time and again. But it was no use. Finally, realizing that there was nothing more he could do, he headed home to raise the alarm.
Chones was deeply impressed by Teddy’s story. As was Swope. The boy’s composure was remarkable. His grasp of detail and his sense of timing impeccable. By the time he was done Swope knew that Joel’s contradictory, uncorroborated testimony didn’t stand a chance.
Chones turned to one of his deputies.
“Go pick up Earl Wooten’s boy,” he said, his voice level and low.
30
Wooten was fast asleep when the eagle-head knocker on his front door called, four sharp reports that sounded like a hunter’s rifle on a frozen morning. He sat up before he was fully awake, wondering for a moment if the noise were part of a forgotten dream. But then it happened again. Four imperious knocks, more than a second between each of them. Woo-ten looked for his bedside clock but could only see unfamiliar things. He remembered that he was in the guest room. It took him a moment to find his watch. The luminous hands said that it was almost one.
He pulled his pants over his pajama bottoms and threw on the work shirt he’d worn earlier in the day. Yesterday. He listened for movement upstairs as he made his way toward the front door. It was quiet. That was good—the knocking hadn’t woken anybody. There’d been enough disruption in this house recently. As he neared the door he could see a broad-brimmed hat hovering in the fan of windows, like a flying saucer in a UFO movie. Wooten recognized it right away as standard issue of the Cannon County sheriff’s department.
Vota, he thought. Son of a bitch called the cops.
He opened his front door to two deputies. Their prowlers were parked on the circular drive. The cop on the porch was tall and fat. His shirt was too small, exaggerating the mounds of flesh beneath it. His hat had been pulled down so firmly that it seemed to shift his face right to the bottom of his head. The second cop was tall as well, but skinny. His hat rested on his long head like a bottle cap that hadn’t been screwed on right. He remained in the driveway, one bony hand resting on the handle of his pistol.
“Gentlemen,” Wooten said.
“Earl Wooten?” the cop on the porch asked.
“That’s right.”
“We have to see your son.”
Wooten hesitated, totally unprepared for the cop’s words.
“My son?”
The fat cop on the porch was doing all the talking.
�
�We’re going to need to take him down to Cannon City.”
“Why?”
“Because the sheriff asked us to.”
“No, I mean, what is it you want him down there for?”
“We’re not at liberty to discuss that. Sheriff just told us to bring the boy in.”
“Well, that’s simply not good enough.”
Wooten’s words came out more vehemently than he’d intended. The two deputies stiffened.
“Mr. Wooten, we will arrest your son unless you get him. Now.”
Arrest. The word turned Wooten’s blood cold. He shook his head, less in defiance than disbelief.
“Now hold on a minute. You can’t just barge in here without a better explanation than that.”
The deputies looked at each other and it was wordlessly decided that the skinny one would move onto the porch as well. Wooten stood his ground, wondering if he was really about to try to fend off two cops. But before anything further could happen there were footsteps on the stairs. Everyone looked. It was Ardelia. She stopped at the bottom step, pulling her robe close around her neck.
“Earl? What is it?”
“They want to talk to Joel.”
“Joel? What on earth for? He’s asleep.”
As she spoke her eyes traveled from Wooten to the deputies. She noted their stony resolve.
“Maybe we should call Austin,” Ardelia said, her eyes fixed on the strangers.
“Ma’am, there’ll be time for calling people later,” the fat deputy said. “Right now we need your son.”
Wooten could see by his wife’s expression that she’d read the situation. She may have been the owner of a five-bedroom house in an exclusive neighborhood, may have been the vice principal of a richly funded high school. But Ardelia Wooten was also a black woman born in prewar St. Louis. She knew how quickly this sort of thing could go from bad to irretrievable.
“Earl, go get Joel.”
She was right. It was the only thing to do. He turned back to the deputies.
“Wait here,” he said in a voice that told them the subject wasn’t open for debate.
As he climbed to the second floor he heard Ardelia speaking to the men. Inviting them in. Asking what this was all about. Wooten hesitated outside his son’s door, listening for anything that would warrant this late-night intrusion. But it was silent. As he knew it would be. Chones was going to hear about this in the morning. He pushed into the bedroom without knocking. Though the light was off, the moonbeams that cut diagonals across his son’s bed provided enough illumination to show that it was empty. Fully made. Undisturbed since morning.
The fear gathered in him now. He switched on the bedroom light and felt his heart leap when he saw Joel standing in the far corner, next to the window overlooking the backyard. He was wide awake and fully dressed. His sneakers were tied, his belt buckle fastened. There was a trapped look in his eyes.
“Joel, what are you doing? The police are here and they want to—”
“They found out, didn’t they?”
His voice was charged with emotion. This wasn’t what Wooten had been expecting to hear. Not at all.
“Joel, what’s going on? Have you been out tonight?”
The boy simply stared at him.
“Son, listen to me—the police want to take you down to Cannon City. You’ve got to tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
Wooten felt a presence behind him. He turned. It was the fat cop, filling the room’s doorway with his girth and his equipment and the musky, impatient odor of a long shift. His eyes were hard and merciless.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stop talking to your son right now.” He turned his attention to Joel. “Young man, come with me this moment or I will put the cuffs on you.”
“Now wait a minute …”
As he spoke Wooten raised his hands, palms forward. It was a gesture intended simply to suspend this whole process long enough to make some sense out of it. But the cop took it the wrong way. He moved quicker than Wooten would have guessed him capable, pulling his billy club from its sheath and placing the tip of it against Wooten’s broad chest.
“Stand aside,” he said.
Wooten kept his eyes on the stick, afraid what might happen if he looked the man in the face.
“You best take that wood off my chest less you want to use it as a toothpick,” he said quietly.
The cop hesitated. Wooten could have taken away the man’s stick in a heartbeat if he wanted. The question was where they went from there.
“Stop it,” Joel said in a querulous voice.
The two men looked at him.
“I’ll go. All right?”
He was moving through the door before Wooten could respond. The cop pulled back the stick to make room for him to pass, then sheathed it as he set off close after the boy. Wooten was left to bring up the rear. Ardelia and the second cop waited silently in the front hall. Pleasantries had been exhausted. She searched Joel’s face as he walked down the steps. Wooten could tell by her expression that he wasn’t returning her gaze.
“What is it, honey?” she asked.
Joel walked right past her, leading the fat cop through the open front door. The second policeman fell in behind them. Wooten pursued them out into the night, desperately trying to figure out a way to stop this.
“Let me drive down with him,” he said at the backs of the cops’ heads.
It was the skinny cop who answered this time. As he spoke he never took his eyes off Joel.
“You’ll have to arrange your own transport.”
“Joel, don’t do or say anything until I get down there,” Wooten said. “You hear me?”
His son gave no sign of having registered the words as he lowered himself into the back of the cruiser. The fat deputy slammed the door; the skinny one headed back to his car, parked along the driveway’s curve. Wooten pointed his finger at the fat deputy’s chest before he could get behind the wheel.
“Tell Chones I’m coming right over. He is not to do a thing until I get there.”
The deputy stared at Wooten’s finger until it was withdrawn, then slid into the car. Wooten took a step back as the motors started, one after the other, sudden and piercing, like a nighttime cough. Ardelia joined him, gripping his arm as their son’s face flashed by.
“Earl?”
For the second time in a week, Wooten found himself calling Swope at a wrong hour. He used the kitchen phone this time. Sally answered, sounding wide awake.
“Sally, it’s Earl. Look, I’m sorry to call so late, but I need to speak to Austin.”
“He’s not here.”
Wooten checked his watch. It was just after one-thirty.
“Really? Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He went out a few hours ago.”
“All right. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Late. Oh. Well. It is late. Later. Shall I have him call you?”
“Yes. I’ll be down at the sheriff’s office. He can reach me there.”
“All right.”
“I’m sorry for bothering you so late, Sal.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice ominous. “I was already up.”
She hung up. Wooten tapped the phone against his hip for a moment. Ardelia was standing in the kitchen doorway.
“What did he say?”
“He wasn’t in.”
“Not in? Earl, what on earth is going on here?”
He replaced the receiver.
“I’m going to find out.”
It didn’t take him long to get to Cannon City. He sped the whole way. They can pick me up if they want, he thought. I’m going there anyway. It was a six-mile journey down rural county roads lined by squat, indistinguishable brick houses and double-wides with cinder-block foundations. Lawn art and American flags decorated the yards. He passed the Cannon Baptist Church, where a sign warned that GOOD INTENTIONS DIE UNLESS THEY ARE EXECUTED. Just beyond
that was the high school, home of the Bombardiers. Finally, he arrived at the town’s square, a two-acre tract of trampled grass and spiked cannon. Diseased trees lined its edges, their branches pruned, their trunks painted a styptic white. The marquee on the old cinema advertised a flea market; the Woolworth’s had gone out of business.
Wooten parked his Ranchero across the street from the two-story brick police station. There were three prowlers in the slant spaces out front. He knew this place well, having been here a half dozen times to help Chones catch a Florida gang who’d been rustling heavy machinery from Newton sites onto south-bound flatbeds. It was a building where he’d always felt welcome. But tonight, from the moment he stepped through the front door, he could feel the change of atmosphere, a barometric drop that warned of storms ahead. The duty sergeant, a short man with thick forearms and a shiny bald head, watched blankly as he approached the chicken-wired window. His expression suggested Wooten was a stranger, even though they had spoken cordially in the past. There was a puzzle book on the desk in front of him, something involving letters and boxes.
“I’m here to see my son.”
“You’ll have to take a seat and wait ’til the sheriff gets here.”
“And when will that be?”
“When he’s done doin’ what he’s doin’.”
Wooten looked into the open area of desks, cabinets and tacked-up posters behind the sergeant. There were several doors along the back wall. Two had the word HOLDING painted neatly across their heavy wood. Joel would be in one of those.
“Well, could you tell him to hurry it up, whatever he’s doing?”
The sergeant stared at him for a moment.
“No,” he said finally.
“Excuse me?”
“No, I am not going to tell the sheriff to hurry it up.”
Wooten felt his temper rise. First the deputy pulling his club back at the house. And now this. He was tempted to ream the man out. Ask him if he knew who he was dealing with. But that was the thing. The man knew exactly who Wooten was. As if to reinforce his insolence, the sergeant pointed his chewed pencil nub at a bench beside a candy machine with an Out of Order notice taped across its money slot. The tape was yellow, like an old person’s toenails.
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