by Tim Garvin
“What time?”
“Morning. Maybe ten.”
“What about?”
“Did he want to sell his land and that lodge. He did not.”
“Where was he when you saw him?”
“Down in a well. Then he came up and started pulling up buckets of dirt.”
“How long did you speak with him?”
“Five minutes. I don’t waste time, and his no was no.”
“You see anybody else at the lodge?”
“I did not.”
“Any cars?”
“There was a pickup. Old-timey.”
“Did you go into the house?”
“No. He emptied the buckets and went back down in the well.”
“Why was he digging out the well?”
“No idea. I guess he wanted a well.”
“He didn’t say?”
“And I didn’t ask. I dropped my card, and away I went.”
“You dropped it into the well?”
“No, I tossed it on the ground.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was a white business card. Landman Realty. Which is me.”
“Mr. Sackler was killed around one o’clock yesterday. You got an alibi?”
“Let’s see. Yeah. I was over in Duplin County talking to Jason Stillson of Stillson Farms. I’m driving, or I’d get you his number.”
“I can get it. How long were you over there?”
“Oh, say three hours. Twelve to three, thereabouts. I had lunch with him and his wife and kids. That’s fifty miles from Leo Sackler.”
“Business meeting?”
“Yep. He’s putting part of his farm on the market.”
Seb told DeWitt he might have been the last person to see the victim alive and asked him to drop by investigations tomorrow at his convenience and make a statement. He received an Oh, Christ, then an okay.
Queeny
Queeny Barker was in the last bed of the long open infirmary ward. The other occupant was a snoring bulbous mound in the first bunk. Queeny had her bed cocked and was sitting up studying an iPad on top of a pillow. She looked up when she felt his approach. On her right cheek, her brown skin had rippled with a pink rash. At the foot of the bed, a leg shackle emerged from the sheet.
Queeny, using her unmodulated man voice, said, “So here you are at last.”
“Here I am.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“Hell, no.”
“Yes, you do. You couldn’t no more hold a grudge on me if your life depended on it.”
In high school, Seb Creek, the jock, had taken Queeny the queer, then Kevin, under his protection. And had been summoned to bars three times in the last year to arrest her for soliciting.
Queeny said, “It breaks my heart to see you. I don’t know why. I’m very emotional right now. Very very.”
“They said you have cancer.”
“Yes, it’s all spread out, tip to toe, no going back. Satisfactory, my dear Watson.”
“I will miss you, Queeny.”
“Of course you will. Friends miss friends.” After a moment, Queeny said, “I wasn’t letting nobody fuck me, by the way. It was blow jobs, pure and simple.”
Seb said, “I know it was.”
Queeny said, “I will say hello to my mama for you.”
“Please do that.”
“I can feel her waiting. I believe as you grow closer to death you lighten up, and the other world can approach. I feel that and believe it’s true.”
“I must be a long way from death then.”
“Oh, you are. You got a full charge of man force coursing through your veins. That’s why I fell for you. Do you forgive me, really?”
“Of course.”
“You know why I did it?”
Seb waited.
“Pure self-hatred. And being drunk. But isn’t that peculiar? The man who loves me, and that I love, I’m going to plant a hundred dollars on him? Oh, I was ready for you. I had that bill folded over my fingers. I don’t deserve any love at all, is what that is. I listened to that bad imp in my head, and you know why? I think it was boredom. I wanted to get back connected with you. And here you are.”
Seb smiled.
Queeny said, “You know what I’m sitting here doing? I got this iPad from the nurse, who’s my new best girlfriend. I’m studying on near-death experiences. Ever since you told me, I been wanting to, and now my blessing is I can. If I was a youngster, I don’t think I would leave my bedroom if I had YouTube. Everything is on YouTube.”
“It’s a new age.”
“It is. If we get to choose, I’ll be coming back as a rich white woman.”
“Be sure to look me up.”
They smiled. Queeny’s eyes moistened, and a tear broke loose. “You know what else the nurse told me?”
“What?”
“That you beat up some poor soul and got yourself investigated. That’s why I told the truth, to get them off you.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Am I going to have to worry about you when I’m on the other side? I don’t want to be looking down here and worrying. I’ll haunt your dumb ass.”
“I was making an arrest, and it got physical. He got hurt by accident. I didn’t lose it.”
“Truth now?”
“Well … my bad imp might have used the occasion.”
“Well, I’m going haunt you. If you feel some sweetness, that’ll be me.”
Seb held out his fist, and they tapped knuckles. Seb said, “I got to go. I got the singers.”
“They give me a month about. Do come again.”
The Light Beneath
the Cesspool
The VFW hall where the singers met overlooked the inlet three blocks from the sheriff’s office. Seb followed the sidewalk that wandered through the small inlet park. The idea for the singing group had come to him when he delivered a prisoner to the county jail. Three older black prisoners were harmonizing on “The Midnight Special” in the dayroom. The young guys surrounding them wore skeptical expressions but were rapt. The next day he spoke to psychological services on the base, then to Captain Delmonico at the brig. The singing group began to form, at first drawing military males, then military women. Now the sopranos included three female rape victims, all civilian.
He read books on group therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous, and choir training. An ethos of effort and honesty developed. In the talk sessions after each practice, they reported changes in attitude and behavior. Eventually even the men became unashamed of tears. They were invited to perform, both on the base and in town. Psychological services on the base videoed them from time to time as part of a training film for PTSD therapy.
It was Seb’s custom on practice days to come early and sit for a while at the park table under the overpass. The loudening-softening shush of traffic above and the green-gray water below were human and ordinary and steadied him. Now, as the table came in view, he saw it was occupied by Squint Cooper, seated on top, slouched over his knees, head down, a cigarette canted in his wide mouth as he peered sideways at Seb.
“Got your spot, I know it,” he said. He removed the cigarette, blew the ember clean, dabbed it against his tongue, then pinched it out with a thumb and forefinger. He tucked the cigarette into the breast pocket of his denim jacket. He said, “I hear on the news where Leo Sackler has gone from suicide to murder, and I expect you want to talk to me, so I come early to make myself available. Am I right?”
“You’re on the list, as his only neighbor.”
“I come to say I can’t help, sorry. Never met the man, or saw him either. I’m busy as hell at the farm. We’re installing a new system. Guess what? We’re going to generate electricity out of hog shit methane. I got a handful of grants. The Department of Energy’s
going to make me a star.”
“Does that mean you’re going to cover your lagoons?”
“One of them anyway, to start.”
“Cover the one closest to the Lands.”
“We’re covering the other one.” Squint delivered an appraising look. “That’s an engineering decision, not mine.”
“I was over at Josie Land’s today.”
“Oh, you were?”
Seb let silence provoke.
Squint said, “Well, I run a hog farm. I offered to buy them out. They’d rather sue.”
Seb knew the history. Squint had not offered much, and the suit was recent, a last resort.
Seb said, “I better get on.”
Squint said, “Wait a minute. I got a topic to discuss.”
“Bring it up after the—”
“No, this is for you. I had a dream, and I believe in dreams. Will you listen?”
“Go ahead.”
“I dreamed there was a cesspool under my house, and I could look down and see raging currents of shit. I couldn’t get it cleaned out. Too many loose boards or something. Everything tilted. Bad footing.” He thrust large hands before his face. “It’d be way boring to bring out I’m a shit farmer. This dream is symbolic. And, oh, Brother Sebastian, it ain’t just me. Each one lives in shit or just above and can see it reeking from below, if they ever look, which they don’t. We hold our noses.” He pinched his nose with one hand and pointed a finger empathically. “Which is repression of self and sets hypocrisy loose as simple ordinary.” His expression intensified as Seb’s face set in a neutral smile. “You of all people must listen and understand. Then you must answer. For here you are, digging in the heart with song. Digging into those who have been rubbed and drug in death and blood. Can you dig to light, is my question? Can you dose a man with truth and expect good consequences? Or will truth run off his back like water?”
Seb opened his mouth to speak, but Squint continued, holding his thick hands aloft in imprecation. “The problems of life are two—death and desire. Formidable ills, and the prescription is the choking pill of religion, or else, if you’re highfalutin, the chicken broth of morality. Well put, Mr. Squint. Then you die and what the fuck. So what is your offer? Sing with Seb and die deeper?”
Beneath Squint’s flamboyant egoism, Seb could sense need. But the flamboyance was off-putting, particularly since he had just been with Queeny. He said mildly, “Under the cesspool is light. I testify.”
“You testify?”
“Yes.”
Squint got nimbly from the tabletop and came to his full height. He said, “Embrace me, Seb. Deep and true as only you can do.”
Seb let himself be enfolded, the scent of the tobacco-and-hog-stenched denim part of his general distaste. Squint thrust Seb back and held him at arm’s length. “I’ve taken heart. My fate has been slaughter. The slaughter of the young soldiers of Viet Nam—and some were women, not that it matters if they’re throwing grenades. And now I live by the slaughter of hogs.” He released Seb, propped his butt against the tabletop, and folded his arms. “Did you talk to that fucker Peter Prince?”
Seb said, “I did talk to him. He mentioned you could get a drone with a net hanging down, and you guys could dogfight.”
“If he confessed, you must arrest him.”
“It was hypothetical. He was not confessing. Also, you best stop shooting at his drone. If you hit it, you have to pay him.”
“Says who?”
“Says the FAA. According to Prince.”
“Okay, fine. Now then. I want you to ask my son, Cody, to join the singers.”
“I talked to him today. He wasn’t interested.”
“Charlene make you?”
“She asked me.”
“Well, she’s god-awful persistent. She’s why I’m talking to you. Cody’s down in my cesspool, no doubt. Swirling around down there and peering up in accusation. I must sing past him to the light. There was a fellow here earlier. I may have run him off with my conversation. He was pensive and hesitant, and that inspired me like a white sheet of paper. He has since fled.”
“You get his name?”
“I can’t recall it.”
“Was it Tom Rogers?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Where is he?” Seb half turned, ready to start up the steps.
“He went into the hall. He’s helping Jose set out the chairs.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Pretty much what I said to you. About the cesspool of the human mind. I was practicing my delivery.”
Seb started up the steps, then turned and fixed Squint with a look. “Don’t be swinging your club for exercise, Squint, not in this group. I will ban you.”
Squint let his head fall, then bob in a series of nods. “Tell you what. Tell Cody I’m quitting the singers. If he comes, I’ll go. That’s why I joined, you know. But when I did, he wouldn’t. Which learns us the medic’s lesson. Tend your own wounds first.”
Oh, Honey
Keisha said, “Guess what? I got my period five days ago.” She was behind the wheel of her mother’s station wagon, driving Cody to the surplus store.
Cody said, “Are you telling me that because you want me to know you’re finished with your period or because you thought I was worried about I might have to marry you?”
This tickled her. She leaned across the wide seat to backhand his thigh. “How ever does your mind work! I never can guess, half the time or any of the time.”
Cody felt a wave of love for this pixie with the small laughing face and blue nipple-rippled T-shirt—worn for him, no doubt, and delicately illumined in the dashlight glow. They were on the way to purchase the components of Cody’s thermal-scope-defeating inspiration—duct tape, three Mylar blankets, and a wide umbrella. He intended to come in from the ocean side and cross the island to the burial site under a Mylar canopy. The bad part of the idea was that if they grabbed him, he would be excuseless. He had considered just driving the boat back to the site, make a fire, roast some weenies, maybe bring some toot, and if they were watching, hey, just hanging out, officers, like I used to do back when. Then, if they were not watching, dig fast and gone. Bad chances though, since even if they only questioned him it could lead to his Venus flytrap record, and maybe they had found the dug-up pods. That kind of coincidence would break out the metal detectors in a hurry.
So it was the Mylar blanket umbrella cave and a slow, patient sneak from the ocean side. Move ten feet, stop and sit. Move ten feet. Probably take an hour, but definitely take the hour and definitely do not be stoned. Then an hour-long trip back across the dunes carrying the case and the missiles, the missiles in a big enough backpack which he would also have to buy, so add that to the list. And some cord to bind the missiles together so no sound. And a little blanket to muffle them, so add that.
When they got to the surplus store, Keisha would ask, what in heaven’s name are you needing these items for? and he would answer, oh, it’s a new kind of deer blind I’m trying to invent, where a hunter can just pop it open in a tree and hunker undetected. Since he was a tinkerer after all. He could even say certain theories have deer seeing thermally, which she might believe. Which would be cruel though, to lie extraly to her friendly mind, and which repulsed him to think about.
She warmed him. Charlene liked her too, had made her a cup of coffee when she came to pick him up. They had chatted about her working at Walmart, discussed about Walmart being evil and good, then about Keisha signing up for business classes at Swann County Community College. As he followed Keisha out to the car, Charlene had given him a raised eyebrow, go-get-her-boy face.
So Cody had two fine, kind women pulling for him. As he headed toward lifetime incarceration.
At the surplus store, they loaded the items in a cart. When Keisha inquired, he told the planned-out deer-bl
ind lie, then had to shrug off her undeserved admiration.
Outside, as she was backing up, she said, “Want to go park?”
He lifted her right hand from the back of the seat and cupped it around his face, a palm kiss. He said, “I do.”
She headed up Highway 17, then took a road toward the inlet, then a country road, then a brush-clogged road to the water. It was dusk now, and the headlights flared a tobacco barn in a shrub-grown field, then an old cabin with an inlet view. They parked behind the cabin, facing the darkening void of water. She said her high school boyfriend took her here a year ago. Sadly she had broken up with him that very night, and no, he did not get any farewell poontang.
She said, “Let’s get in the back seat, want to?”
He pushed himself into the back, listened to her rustling, and when she came over the seat she was naked. She straddled him, and they kissed. She held his head between her hands and kept pulling away and kissing him, then pulling away again and kissing him again. Then she worked his buckle and fly, and he stripped his pants to his ankles and pulled up his T-shirt, and they were naked to naked and kissed and kissed. Then she slid him inside, and they stopped moving and kissing and held for a long time, her fingers delicate on his neck, his hands delicate on her back.
When he began to cry, his chest heaving and bucking against her, she stroked thumbs across his eyes and said, “Oh, honey. Oh, honey.”
The Inner Being
Everyone had done their homework and thought the Shaun Davey version of “The Parting Glass” excellent, even the whooping at the end, and how about, someone said, throw a few hats into the air, which, when he considered it, Seb agreed added off-the-wall exuberance, plus humor, so bring hats to the next practice. They would make it the final song in their upcoming performance on the base.
Seb divided them up, the bagpipe-emulating drone singers among whom he placed the newly introduced Tom Rogers, to the other end of the room to practice a lower octave plus fifth with Lieutenant Fernando, while he took his experienced on-pitch unison singers, three women and seven men, through the chorus, truing them from the piano keyboard. He had emailed four of the men and Gloria, their big-ranged soprano, a harmony of thirds and fourths, sung a cappella by himself, and now took them through it together, and found they had all memorized it. He added the five melody singers, two women and three men, and when they were blended brought the drones over, and they ran through the chorus three times. It was only trifling muddy. They saw they could do it. They were pleased and happy.