McFall

by Scott Nicholson

“But we checked a dozen times,” a firefighter said to Fred Smoot. “Inside and out, even under the floor.”

  “Must have missed him,” came the solemn reply.

  “Or it could be suicide. Maybe he snuck in after we torched it.”

  “The person could already have been dead,” Mac offered, obviously eager for the simplest and least controversial explanation. “Some vagrant that crawled in there and died of a heart attack.”

  “You people stay back,” the sheriff said, waving the crowd to the edge of the graveyard. All earlier respect had been abandoned, and people stomped over long-dead McFalls and Abshers with abandon.

  Cindy made her way to Larkin, notepad in hand, camera dangling from a strap around her neck. “Mr. McFall, do you have any comment on the apparent death that occurred on your property?”

  Larkin cleared his throat and hoped he was appropriately pale. “I’m shocked and … shocked and appalled. Let’s just hope there’s a simple explanation.”

  “When was the last time you were in the church?”

  “I’ve never been in the church. I peeked in it once, and it was so unstable that I didn’t dare step on those rotten old floorboards.”

  “How will this affect the future of your housing development?”

  “You’re grilling me like a police officer, Miss Baumhower. Perhaps you’ve been spending too much time with the sheriff.”

  “What if someone who knew about the controlled burn used it as an opportunity to get rid of a victim?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer any more questions until I speak to my attorney,” Larkin said.

  As if on cue, Baldemar Francisco stepped between him and the reporter. “My client has no comment.”

  Larkin had not actually retained the tall, curly-haired Hispanic, but he liked the man’s suit. Sometimes, in a court of human law, that was all you needed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “What’s eating you, Ronnie?”

  Bobby pulled his Toyota pickup into the parking lot at Pickett High, down near the football field where the grandstand partially hid the students from view of the main building. It was the last week of school, but graduation had been pushed back because of all the snow cancellations during winter. The sun barely broke through the tops of the tall white pines.

  In the passenger seat, Ronnie crinkled his brown paper lunch bag. “This freaking peanut butter. Third time this week.”

  “I didn’t ask what you were eating,” Bobby said.

  “What do you think? Every time I turn around, a dead guy turns up.”

  Bobby gave a morbid laugh. “Yeah, Melanie says you’re cursed.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, at least I’m not a frigging vampire.”

  “Too bad. You’d get all the squeeze you wanted.” Bobby reached under the seat and pulled out a brown pint of whiskey he’d taken from the back of his dad’s truck. “Here. You could use some of this.”

  “No way. I got a math test.”

  Bobby twisted the cap and the smell of the sweet, heady spirits filled the cab. Old Crow. His old man sure was a connoisseur of the finest bottom-shelf rotgut. “Well, you’re twice as smart when you’re seeing double.” Bobby took a generous swig, gargling obscenely before swallowing. “Beats the hell out of Listerine.”

  Ronnie looked around, wary. Students streamed past them on the way to school, and the first bell was only five minutes away. “Don’t you have baseball practice today?”

  “I’ll sober up by then.” Bobby burped and made a sour expression. He jerked his head toward the window. “Hey, check out Amy Extine. Some sweet stuff, ain’t it?”

  “Not bad,” Ronnie said.

  Bobby actually thought Amy was a bitch. In ninth grade, she had poured Coke on Stephen Reynolds’s frog dissection, causing the organs to turn black. Stephen, one of the smartest boys in the class, had gotten a D because of it.

  But she was pure candy in her knee-high vinyl boots and tight sweater. She walked like she was well aware of it, flanked by a couple of her sisterly sycophants as she swished her honey-blonde hair from side to side. One of Amy’s oft-stated rules was to always be friends with fat chicks so that you looked better by comparison.

  “Maybe I’ll ask her to the dance,” Bobby said, gauging Ronnie’s reaction. He knew Ronnie liked—well, was in love with—Melanie. Bobby didn’t like to rub their occasional dates in his face. Senior year was tough enough already, especially for guys like Ronnie who were under academic pressure.

  “You can’t ask her to the dance,” Ronnie said. “Your band’s playing.”

  Bobby hit the pint of Old Crow again and tucked it back under the front seat. “I’m not asking her to the dance, you idiot. I’m asking her.…”

  Ronnie looked at him as if he had no idea what came next.

  Poor guy. No wonder Melanie is worried about crushing his heart.

  “Yeah, well, I guess I’ll be pretty busy,” Bobby said. “But once the dance is over, the real dance begins.”

  “Five more days,” Ronnie said, gazing up the hill at the ugly brick building with its institutional glass. “If we can hang on that long. Then good-bye, Pickett High, where brain cells go to die.”

  “What really happened, Ronnie?”

  Ronnie gave him that confused look. “When?”

  “When you were younger. You know, in that old church.”

  “Nothing,” Ronnie said, in a way that meant plenty.

  “Melanie said you saw ghosts there.” Bobby’s eyes stung from the alcohol and his head already throbbed a little. Whatever pleasant effects it had imparted had now congealed into an acidic fireball in his stomach.

  “I don’t want to talk about any stupid old ghosts.” Ronnie’s hand tightened around his lunch bag. “I have real problems. Come on. I heard the bell.”

  “Maybe you are cursed, Ronnie. Think about it. How many bodies have you found?”

  Ronnie looked up at the school. “Four.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”

  Ronnie turned, exploding with a ferocity that fogged the truck’s windshield. “Of course it’s goddamned weird. But you were there when we found Darnell. Half the town was there when they found that guy cooked in the church fire. It’s not like I’m murdering these people or anything.”

  Bobby gripped the wheel as if he were driving to nowhere. “But if you connect the dots, you’re the common denominator.”

  “Not the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “McFall. Every single time, there’s been a McFall around.”

  “You mean that slick asshole who drove off while we were on the bridge? The one Dex was practically slobbering over?”

  “You can be tardy if you want.” Ronnie opened the passenger door. “You’ve already secured your scholarship. Me, I’ve got to finish strong.”

  “Nice try, Mr. Smooth.” Bobby wanted another drink bad, but damned if he wanted to end up drunk by noon like his old man. Besides, he really did have practice, and Coach Harnett had been busting his balls as they advanced deeper into the playoffs.

  Ronnie sighed. “I think the McFall family is behind all this.”

  “You think he cooked that body they found in the church?”

  Ronnie shook his head. “I don’t know. I used to think the first one—Archer McFall—wanted me. Like as a disciple or something. My mom got all brainwashed by their little cult, and she tried to drag me and Tim into it.”

  Bobby gave in and pulled out the Old Crow. This time it didn’t burn as it went down. When he held out the pint to Ronnie again, his friend grabbed it this time and took a dainty swallow. Ronnie coughed and stuck out his tongue. “Where did you get this snake oil?”

  “Stole it.”

  “Maybe God will overlook your sin this one time. If it’s for a good cause.”

  “If it keeps me from murdering old geezer Stribling in English, I’d say a higher purpose has been served,” Bobby said.

  “The rising seniors might thi
nk differently.”

  Bobby grew solemn. “You get into the religious stuff after that Archer McFall thing?”

  “Maybe,” Ronnie said. “I just didn’t like being alone. With God, I know there’s always somebody on my side.”

  “I’m on your side, man.”

  “Not all the time. You can’t be there like God can.”

  Bobby looked at the polished leather baseball glove lying in the seat between them. He had a won-lost record of 13-2 as a starting pitcher for the Pickett High Pioneers, and he’d never once asked God for help with an inside fastball. Hell, maybe he could have gone 15-0. Maybe a little praying would have added fifty points to his batting average.

  He giggled. Old Crow felt like battery acid going down, but it did the job. So why did he feel like crying?

  Somebody banged on the driver’s-side window. Bobby turned to see Dex McAllister’s distorted face pressed against the glass. He was wiggling his eyebrows like a maniac, and the tip of his nose was smeared with mucus. Bobby rolled down the window.

  “You guys making out in here?” Dex said. “The windows are all fogged up.”

  “Thinking about skipping out,” Bobby said. “What about you?”

  Dex yanked his newest addition to his roster of girlfriends, Louise Weyerhouse, close to the truck so he could wrap an arm around her. She smiled shyly, not used to being with the popular kids. “Nah,” Dex said. “I need to pass algebra or I’ll be sitting in summer school. Dad says I can’t manage the alley if I fail.”

  “Need any help studying?” Ronnie asked, leaning across the front seat.

  Dex grinned. “Louise helped me study last night.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek as she blushed.

  The second bell rang, and Bobby said, “Sweet. Another tardy on the record.”

  Ronnie climbed out of the truck. “Thanks for the ride. See you in History.” He hurried up the hill, his backpack banging against his thighs.

  Bobby thought about offering Dex some whiskey, but then he’d have to take another drink himself, and there was a long day ahead.

  “Come on,” Louise said, tugging on Dex’s arm, clearly anxious about being late. She was in that shadowy group known as the “good girls,” the ones who did their homework, weren’t in Homecoming Court or on the cheerleading squad, and went to Meredith College or the University of North Carolina, where they married well and were never heard from again. Bobby had no idea why she was hanging around with Dex, a notorious bad boy and player.

  Maybe it was true that girls always went for the bad boys. A Beatles fan he’d dated had told him that all the birds went out to dinner with Paul but ended up going home with John. Not that it was any of his business. He couldn’t even manage his own relationships, much less solve other people’s problems.

  “You going to skip or not?” Dex said, looking around the rows of silent cars.

  “Haven’t decided.”

  “Got a quiz in first period, so I’d better roll,” Dex said. “See you at band practice.”

  Bobby nodded. As they walked away, Dex doing something to cause Louise to squeal in protest, Bobby got out of the truck and stretched. He popped a TicTac to hide his booze-breath, locked the truck, and stooped to look under the engine compartment to check on his latest leak. A black circle of oil had already collected, and a fat drop hung from the oil pan. There went another hundred bucks.

  Bobby started around the grandstand, where a paved path led to a set of concrete stairs. Nobody but the nerds and teachers used the stairs. A dirt path offered a more direct but steeper route to the main building from the parking lot. The gymnasium was set partially into the side of the hill, and beyond that was the baseball diamond. While the football stadium held crowds of thousands, the metal bleachers behind the backstop might play host to two hundred on a sunny day.

  Bobby passed the stairs and continued to the baseball field. He’d played all the major sports—linebacker on the football team, small forward in hoops—but he was most at home on the diamond, and it showed. It was where he’d earned his athletic scholarship, after all. The outfield grass was cropped close, greener than the rest of the school’s lawns, dew glinting in the dawn. The foul lines were freshly chalked and as precise as anything in Mrs. Matheson’s geometry class. A grid was scratched in the dirt around home plate, which Coach Harnett obsessively raked.

  Bobby sat down on the bottom bleacher, just behind the backstop. He imagined a scout sitting here watching him pitch and wondered how he would grade out on mechanics, ball movement, and those obscure “intangibles” that ranged from the way he glared at the batter to the subtle way he worked the umpire.

  “Beautiful field, isn’t it?” came a voice from the dugout.

  The low sun cast the concrete-block dugout in severe shadows, making it hard to see. Bobby thought he was busted, that Principal Gladstone had sent out the Goon Squad to bring in stragglers. But the voice continued. “But it’s the game within the game that matters.”

  Bobby walked to the edge of the dugout to see who it was. As he got closer, he realized it was the McFall guy, the one from the bridge. The man was sitting on the wooden bench, wearing a jacket and tie, legs crossed as if he had all the time in the world.

  What’s he doing here on a school morning? If Gladstone finds him without that cute little visitor badge, he’ll call the cops.

  “You’re Bobby Eldreth,” McFall said. “The plumber’s son.”

  “Yeah. You were at the bridge that morning.”

  “I’ve read your clippings. You threw a two-hitter in the first round of the playoffs.”

  “Just got lucky, I guess.”

  “I know, I know, it’s the jock thing to say you couldn’t have done it without the help of your teammates, the support of the fans, blah blah blah,” McFall said. “But when you’re out there on the mound, with a full count and the other team’s star slugger digging in against you, where’s the crowd then? You don’t even know anyone else is there, do you?”

  Bobby swallowed. The whiskey headache hit him hard in the temples. “I … I guess I never thought about it.”

  “You have a special talent, Bobby. You’re in luck, because it happens to be one that the world values. I hear your dad is a skilled plumber, but do they televise his toilet installations or when he roto-roots a sewer line? Does anybody care if he has to wade through a mile of shit for a paycheck?”

  Bobby wasn’t sure whether McFall was praising him or shooting down his dad. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

  “Sit down.” McFall patted the bench beside him and Bobby wondered if the guy was some kind of pervert.

  “I’m supposed to be in class.”

  “Me, too,” McFall said, smiling. If he was a pervert, he sure broke all the stereotypes. He had a smile that must have cost ten grand and a fat golden wedding ring. “But the best education is found outside the lines, don’t you think?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Big game coming up tomorrow, right?”

  Bobby nodded and looked back at the mound. He couldn’t even count the number of times he had banged his cleats against the pitching rubber to clear the mud. McFall was right. Out there, the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was a zone where he dwelled alone, him and the batter. In a way, even the opponent didn’t matter, because ultimately it was Bobby against his own limitations.

  “What if I could guarantee you a shutout win? Pickett would advance to the state playoffs, you’d headline the sports section in the local papers, and I’m sure Amy Extine would go to the dance with you.”

  Bobby’s fists balled involuntarily. “How do you know about Amy?”

  “Relax. I’m friends with her dad. She’s mentioned your name and … well, believe it or not, I was young once, too.”

  “What do mean by ‘guarantee’?” The guy was obviously loaded. Was he going to bribe the umps or something? Nobody took bets on high-school baseball games, and he’d never heard of Pickett County having bookies.

  “Let’s j
ust say it’s a philosophical question. You’ve spent a lot of your life practicing, and you know success takes sacrifice. I believe your coach employs the highly unoriginal motto of ‘No pain, no gain.’”

  “I play mostly because it’s fun.” Bobby’s eyes burned from the liquor. McFall appeared to be studying him.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Bobby. When you’re holding the ball and everyone’s watching, you’re the lead singer. You’re the rock star. You like the high and you like the power and you like the acclaim. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.”

  “I don’t care if we win or lose,” Bobby said. “If we lose, the season will be over. No more pressure.”

  “Sure, you’ve already got your scholarship either way.” McFall stood and dusted his hands, like a baseball manager getting ready to call in a relief pitcher. “Okay, so you don’t care about the game within the game. But what if I could make your band a success?”

  The dim mists instantly evaporated from Bobby’s brain. “How did you find out about The Diggers?”

  McFall laughed and held up a palm. “No conspiracy theories. I know Dex’s dad, too. It’s a small town.”

  If the guy has money, maybe he wants to get in on the glory. Just like with baseball—the only time Dad gives a damn about me is when his fat ass is parked in the bleachers and the other dads are patting him on the back.

  Bobby thought about what Ronnie had said—weird things happened when McFalls were around.

  “What, are you going to try and get us a record deal or something?” he said. “We’re not that good.”

  “Just like with baseball, Bobby. Practice. No pain, no gain.”

  “The band is not just me. I’d have to talk to the others before making any decisions.”

  “You do that.” McFall eased past him, his faint cologne overwhelming the scent of cut grass. He walked across the diamond, choosing a path—deliberately, it seemed—that left scuffed footprints in Coach Harnett’s anal-retentive rake work.

  Bobby started toward the school building. He took his time and was twenty minutes late for first period.

  All the while his brain was buzzing with McFall’s words: It’s the game within the game that matters.