We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

  They arrived in the town of Sadler, lines of neat, shoveled driveways.

  The Price house sat on a street of identical ten-year-old homes. Theirs was painted a shade of putty so bland it was as if the developer was ashamed to blight such beautiful land with it.

  “Here we are. You alright with Mr. and Mrs. Price?” Shelly asked that often.

  “Yes,” Robin said.

  “And Henry and Mary Lou?”

  The Price children, close enough in age but a world apart. Church polite in front of their parents, but Duchess heard them talking amongst themselves, about Hal and what happened, how they should not go near the girl because rumor had it she chased down a man and fired a shotgun at him. And what kind of girl does that.

  Obviously too sheltered to know of outlaws.

  “They’re fine,” Duchess said.

  They said goodbyes and took hugs. Duchess led Robin up the Price path. Shelly waited till Mr. Price opened the door then waved again and deserted them.

  Duchess went to help Robin with his smart shoes but he moved away from her and did it himself.

  Mr. Price said nothing, did not ask after the funeral, just turned his back and left them to it. Duchess could not claim they were mistreated, just left far behind. Dinner on different plates, drinks in plastic beakers instead of glass. They were left with the television set in the playroom while the Prices sat in the den. Here but not.

  Duchess followed Robin through to the kitchen, white units and marble, Henry’s report cards on the refrigerator, Mary Lou’s artwork framed and hung above the dining table. Robin stood at the doors and looked out. The yard. The snowman was large, Mr. Price and Henry rolled more and more.

  Mrs. Price and Mary Lou crossed snow with sticks, broke them to the right length for arms. Henry said something and they laughed.

  “You want to go out?” Duchess said.

  At that moment Mrs. Price looked up, saw them, then turned and went back to her own. She placed an arm around Mary Lou, protective, defining.

  Their room was the converted attic. Duchess followed Robin up the stairs. They had a small bath to themselves, a basin and tub and toothbrushes in a cup. Some dog-eared books on a small shelf, Famous Five, a selection of Dr. Seuss.

  “You want to change out of your smart clothes?”

  He lay back on his bed and rolled away so she could not see him cry. His shoulders shook lightly and she went over and sat beside him. When she placed a hand on his arm he shrugged her away.

  “You shouldn’t have even come today. You hated Grandpa. Even when he was kind you said mean things to him because you’re just mean all the way through.”

  He stared at the skylight above them, snow drifted down, borrowed shelter all that kept them from the wilds now.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You always say that.”

  She poked his ribs. He did not smile.

  “You want to read a book?”

  “No.”

  “You want to throw snowballs at Mary Lou’s face? I could make them out of pure ice.”

  Almost a smile.

  “Or I could nail Mr. Price with one. Break a tooth. Spear Mrs. Price with an icicle. We could make Henry eat yellow snow.”

  “How do you make yellow snow?”

  “Piss in it.”

  He laughed then. She pulled him in.

  “Will we be alright?” he said.

  “We will.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll—”

  “You can’t look after us. And I don’t think Mr. Price wants us here.”

  “They get twelve hundred bucks each month to look after us.”

  “So they might keep us for all that money.”

  “No. This is just foster care, remember what Shelly said. She’ll try and find us a decent family to stay with forever.”

  “With a farm and animals?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And we can go do Grandpa’s ashes soon.”

  “When they call Shelly.”

  “So we’ll be alright then. Everything will be alright.”

  She kissed his head. She did not like lying to her brother. In the bathroom she found small scissors and cut his nails. “I should’ve done this before.”

  He watched her. “You look like Mom again. You should eat.”

  She rolled her eyes. He smiled.

  That night they ate mashed potatoes and sausage, together in the small room, in front of the television set. They still wore their funeral clothes.

  “She knows how to cook at least,” Robin said as he ate. “I could eat two of these sausages.”

  Duchess moved to knife her sausage onto his plate but he pushed her hand away. “Not yours. You need to eat too.”

  “I’ll go see if I can get you another.”

  She grabbed her plate and walked slowly down the hallway, Robin shut in, cartoons playing. On the wall were family photos, one at Disney with Henry and Mary Lou wearing mouse ears, one at Kennedy, another at the Canyon. Mr. Price and Henry wore matching ball caps.

  There was a sign, BLESS THIS MESS, a caricature of Mrs. Price by the water, her smile way bigger than Duchess had ever seen it.

  She stopped by the kitchen door and heard them at the dining table, Mr. Price asking Mary Lou about her test, then Henry about softball. She waited till Henry started talking then slipped into the kitchen.

  “Duchess.”

  She turned. Silence as they looked her way.

  “I just … Robin liked the sausage so I was looking for another.”

  “All gone,” Mr. Price said.

  “Oh.”

  She glanced at Mary Lou’s plate and saw she had three.

  Duchess turned and left them, forked her own sausage and held it out. As she got back she passed it over to Robin.

  “You ate yours already?” he said.

  “Yeah. They were good.”

  “Told you.”

  When the house was sleeping she moved silent down the stairs and into Mr. Price’s study. All wood, neat stacks of books on finance and currency. At the computer she searched “Vincent King” and read all she could about the case. It confused her, that Vincent didn’t plead it out and cop life when his guilt was clear like that. The newspapers said he still didn’t speak, not at the arraignment, and still had not instructed a lawyer.

  The D.A. was slick, she was going to bat for Star Radley and her orphans. Those poor children.

  She spun quick when she heard someone at the door.

  “You’re not supposed to be in Daddy’s office.”

  Mary Lou. Well fed, hair brushed daily by Mrs. Price, skin mottled by acne. She was fifteen and Duchess guessed she was the kind of girl that would one day wear a purity ring before losing it the first time she drank liquor.

  “I had to use the computer.”

  “I have to tell him.”

  Duchess loaded her voice with childlike fear. “Oh please don’t tell Daddy on me.”

  “You should watch it.”

  “Or?”

  “You think you’re the first kids we had here?”

  Duchess stared at her.

  “I heard you talking to your brother. You think you’ll get placed?” Mary Lou laughed.

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Well, Robin might. He’s young enough, decent enough. But I heard Daddy talking about you, all your troubles, who’s going to want you?”

  Duchess took a step forward.

  Mary Lou took a step forward. “You want to hit me, don’t you? Lash out. That’s what kids like you do.”

  Duchess clenched her fist.

  “Do it then.” A smile, knowing.

  Duchess felt the adrenaline kick, the fire burn. And then she looked back, at the computer screen. A picture of the scene that night, the small house on Ivy Ranch Road, a blur of neighbors and reporters. And the picture beside, Cape Haven PD. Walk. Smiling. Her reminder of everything good.

  She slipped past Mary Lou, took a breath,
and went back up the stairs.

  30

  WALK WOKE AT HIS DESK, sunlight found strewn papers.

  He struggled to straighten, the pain so bad he almost cried out. He found pills in his drawer and swallowed two without water.

  He’d had Leah order new pants, shirt, jacket. The scales told him he’d lost twenty-five pounds.

  The knocking, he didn’t know how long it had gone on for but there was something frantic in it.

  He staggered to his feet, tried a stretch and almost puked with the pain. He sucked down a breath, pushed his chest out and stepped from his office, and then slumped a little when he saw it was just Ernie Coughlin from the hardware store.

  “Morning.” Walk opened the door to him but Ernie didn’t cross the threshold.

  “The butcher. Where is he?” Ernie barked it, hands tucked into a brown apron.

  Walk shook the confusion away.

  “The butcher,” Ernie repeated. “It’s after seven now. He gets back from vacation, same day every year, why hasn’t the shop opened up?”

  “Hunting. Archery, right? Maybe he’s taken another day.”

  “Dumb bastard, chasing turkeys all over. Twenty-two years, Walk. Since he took over from his father. Twenty-two years I’ve been buying breakfast sausage from him. I take it over the road and Rosie cooks it up. Three pancakes, syrup, two cups of strong coffee.”

  “Can’t you just eat the sausage Rosie buys in?”

  Ernie looked at him with something like disgust.

  “You see the newspaper? New homes on the edge of town.They’ll ruin this place. I take it you’ll vote against.”

  Walk nodded, yawned, tucked his shirt into his pants. “I’ll go see him.”

  Ernie shook his head once and then turned and left.

  Back at his desk he dialed Milton but got the machine. Then he went right back to watching security tapes from Cedar Heights. Moses, on the gatehouse, had given them up without much of a fight, didn’t even ask for the kind of paperwork Walk did not possess.

  There was almost no movement, but the quality was so bad he had to focus hard in case anyone left on foot. He didn’t know the timescales involved so he faced up to days of recording. He watched the day pass, the mailman, the neighbor with the Ford.

  Another hour before he saw something. He slowed it right down and ran it three times. He knew the old truck well, the Comanche. He squinted and could just about make out the shape of the bumper sticker, the silhouette of a blacktail. Milton.

  He watched with interest as the barrier lifted, then he searched real slow. Three hours later, the angle worse as he left. There was no doubting it was the same truck.

  Three more hours before he found the sedan, a close enough match for the two men seeking Darke.

  Ten minutes and he watched them leave.

  It took nineteen minutes to get Boyd on the phone, but only a couple for him to shoot down Walk’s request for a warrant to search Darke’s place. Walk mentioned the guys looking for Darke, felt like a rookie asshole when Boyd asked for the plates but Walk couldn’t get a clear read.

  When he hung up Walk loosened his tie, then leaned forward and banged his head on the desk, hard enough to hurt.

  “I feel like I should intervene here.”

  He looked up, saw Martha and managed a smile. She carried her case, laden with files.

  “You got any booze in this place?” She parked herself in the seat opposite.

  He reached for the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of Kentucky Old Reserve, a gift from one of the vacationers for checking her place during the winter months. He found a couple of coffee cups and poured them a measure each.

  He watched as she drank, already waiting for the subtle flush that crept into her cheeks, the same flush she got when she was angry or excited. Martha May, he still knew everything about her.

  “I got nothing,” she announced with exaggerated fanfare.

  “You came all the way over here to tell me that?”

  “Maybe I wanted to see you.”

  He smiled. “Really?”

  “Course not. I brought you a dish.” She opened her bag and pulled out a Tupperware container.

  “Dare I ask?”

  “Just some leftover pasta.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  He blinked, waiting.

  “Cubanelle,” she said finally. “Weak-ass frying pepper. You need to eat, Walk. You’re getting all skinny. I’m worried about you.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  She stood, paced, told him things he already knew, then sat again. And then he told her about Darke, and the tapes.

  “Your theory is?”

  He rubbed his neck. “I don’t have one. Not yet. I want to look in Darke’s place. And I want to know who he’s paying all that money to. If I can’t get him for Hal, or Star, I want him for something. I want him off the street.”

  “If he was the one, in Montana, there’s a chance he’s dead.”

  “We put him there and we can establish a link to Star. Maybe the boy heard something, Darke wants him dead. We can use it. I just need my angle.”

  “The bank payment?”

  “I called the manager, he won’t say anything without a court order. No surprise.”

  “First Union. You need to aim a little lower. A teller, maybe.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “What, you think I don’t know how to hustle? I’ve got all these deadbeat fathers hiding their income, so I go straight to the source.”

  “And that works?”

  “Not always, but I call in favors, and I lend them too. Life of a lawyer. So, you know the whole town, Walk. There must be someone you can lean on.”

  He walked up Main, head down, ignored greetings, stopping only when Alice Owen blocked his path, the dog in her arms.

  “Could you watch her for a moment, Walk. I just have to run in—”

  “I have to be somewhere.”

  “Literally, one minute.” She thrust the dog at him, the fucking snappy bastard of a dog, then headed into Brandt’s Deli. He watched her inside, small talk with the girl behind the counter, no doubt ordering some kind of soy bean monstrosity from the new machine while she deliberated over the twenty-dollar cheeses.

  He looked down at the dog and watched the teeth bare, and then back to Alice, who’d run into Bree Evans and was talking animatedly.

  And then he looked at his badge, and he thought of his days, his fucking, soulless perfect days.

  He set the dog down, unclipped the leash and dropped it into the trash can beside.

  The mutt looked up at him, confusion in its bulbous eyes. And then, tentatively, it took in the wild around, channeled its inner animal and began to trot its way down Main.

  Walk left, cut through a vacant lot, massaged his hands and straightened his back. This was his act now, his side to the world. Pill rolling, slowed down, hard to concentrate on anything at all.

  He stood outside the small house and stared. He hadn’t seen the men work, didn’t even know the old place had been remodeled. It had come to him an hour after Martha headed home, when he was reading interviews for the hundredth time.

  Dee Lane.

  She’d met Darke in the bank, First Union, where she’d worked as a teller as long as Walk could remember. He called Leah when he realized they didn’t have an up-to-date address for her, felt his heart sink a little when Leah told him Dee still lived at the house on Fortuna Avenue, the same house Darke owned and served notice on.

  But it was tired no longer; new windows, new porch. The wood stained fresh and the paint shone, the yard, new grass and flowers planted. There was a gate, a fence, pride in place of despair.

  She met him at the door, before he could knock, small smile as she stood aside and he went into the house.

  Inside was mostly the same, instead of the cardboard boxes he saw a life unpacked, the photos and the furniture all in their place again. She went to make coffee. He asked i
f he could use the bathroom then headed up the stairs. He saw the elder girl’s room, Yale pennant, long time off but Walk heard both kids were smart enough. And then the younger’s, painted pink, new throw on the bed. Not obscene money but there was a new television and computer. He used to know both kids’ names but found them just beyond his grasp.

  Back down and Dee led him out to the yard, where they sat at a small table.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

  “I’m just glad Darke let you have your old place back. I thought it’d be pulled down by now, make way for the millions and all that.”

  She sipped her coffee and watched the water like it was brand new, not just newly unveiled.

  “It’s a view.”

  “Sure is. I almost don’t believe it, when I wake up. Early now, maybe five. I like to watch the sunset, you seen it over the water, Walk?”

  “Sure.”

  She lit a cigarette and breathed it like it was all that kept her from screaming out. He knew what she’d done, she knew it, yet there were still lines to run, practice for the most tiresome of plays.

  “So, you were with Darke that night. Star. That night when she was shot dead.”

  Dee flinched at that, like it was not necessary. “We’ve been through this.”

  “We have.”

  “You look tired, Walk.”

  He steadied his hand, buried it beneath the table, pulled on his sunglasses as clouds moved in.

  “He was here, that night. What were you doing? Remind me.”

  “Fucking.” She spoke without emotion.

  A while back and he might’ve blushed. Instead he smiled a sad smile, but he got it. There was no hatred there.

  “I worked my whole …” She held the smoke deep. “I paid my taxes, raised my children, didn’t murder my cheating husband. I never took anything from anyone.”

  He sipped his coffee, too hot to taste.

  “You know how much money I make in a year, Walk?”

  “Not enough.”

  “He doesn’t pay child support. Is that fair? He hides it all so he doesn’t have to pay for the girls he brought into the world.” She looked down. “The Radley kids. Are they—”