Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

  Mr Wakefield’s eyes squinted again, moustache curled on one side. ‘Up for re-election this year, right, Len?’

  He spoke slowly, as if each word was heavy and full like a water balloon Samuels had to catch.

  ‘I am.’

  Mr Wakefield nodded, released the sheriff’s hand and took his jacket from the back of the chair. The three of them stepped out of the office. Gloria kept her head down, her gaze away from us, only occasionally looking up to her father. My teeth clenched. I felt Jenny shift through the chair.

  ‘Good luck with it, Len, you know you’ve got my vote,’ Mr Wakefield said. ‘Let’s hope that poor girl and this whole sorry affair is put to bed as soon as possible. We can’t have anything derailing your campaign. An unsolved murder is a bitter pill for voters to swallow.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that, Mr Wakefield,’ Samuels said, smiling tightly. ‘This one’s a nasty case for sure, but cut and dry all the same. It’ll be easy to wrap up.’ Samuels clapped Mr Wakefield on the shoulder.

  Mr Wakefield folded his jacket over his arm, kept that smile and that squint. ‘That’s good, Len. Real good.’

  I looked at Jenny. Something sparked in me. Did they know who did it? Who killed Mora? Easy to wrap up. Maybe they already had suspects. Maybe they already had a guy in custody, behind one of those closed doors, and we were just witnesses. They just needed us to fill in some blanks so they could nail the bastard against the wall.

  I leaned in to Jenny, these new thoughts burning through me. ‘Everything is going to be okay.’

  She tried to smile but I knew she didn’t believe me.

  Mr Wakefield put his hand on his daughter’s back. ‘Time to go, honey.’

  Gloria finally looked at us, opened her mouth to speak, but her father made a soft zzt sound and guided her toward the door.

  Before they got halfway, the door opened and Pastor Jacobs strode in, straight to reception.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Drake. How is your Walt doing? I hear he’s finally got that ’39 Lincoln up and running?’ The pastor’s thick voice, heavy and rich enough for a church, filled the reception area.

  ‘Up, running, and bleeding us dry,’ she said.

  The pastor laughed, said something I didn’t catch but it must have been sweet as the Drake’s cheeks lit up red.

  ‘You called about John and Jenny Royal,’ he said.

  He saw us a second later, said his thanks to the Drake and walked over. He passed by Mr Wakefield, the man stuck in his spot since the pastor walked in. Their eyes met. Held. Then broke apart.

  ‘Well,’ Mr Wakefield said, then turned back to Samuels, ignored the pastor. ‘If there’s nothing else, Len. We’ll be going.’

  Samuels shook his head. ‘I’ll be in touch if there’s any follow-up.’

  Mr Wakefield left, Gloria trailed behind. No more parents, just the pastor. A swell of relief rose up in me. If Momma had burst through that door, we’d be ear-clipped and screamed at. We’d feel it worse when we got back to the farm. My kids, Momma would say, don’t end up in the sheriff’s station. My fuhking kids don’t go playing with dead bodies, I raised them right, I raised them good. And on and on. Jenny would get the worst. She always did.

  But it was Pastor Jacobs, here, now, for us.

  He knelt in front of Jenny, between Rudy and me, all concern in his eyes. ‘You two okay?’

  We nodded.

  ‘How about you, Rudy?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Rudy replied. ‘They called my old man.’

  Jacobs made a face. ‘They got through, huh?’

  ‘He’ll be here soon, I reckon.’

  Jacobs patted Rudy and me on the knee. ‘You hang tight here a minute, let me find out what’s going on.’

  He strode to Samuels. Low voices but sharp. I caught words like parental supervision, and questioning minors, a barked unacceptable.

  A film of sweat covered the pastor’s forehead, a huge slab of light tan skin made worse by dark hair cut too short. It was swelter outside and the poor man had to wear his black shirt buttoned up to the throat. He had a square jaw and stubble but somehow always looked neat and well-presented. He’d only been our pastor for two years, shipped over from somewhere out east, and right away shook things up. The young radical, some of the old ladies from the Gardening Society called him. Mrs Ponderosa said he was a dish and if she was ten years younger. Ladies like to think kids aren’t listening but we are. They file into the church hall after we clear out from Bible Study. They gossip. We linger. We hear it all. Mostly they say Pastor Jacobs is nice. Friendly. He even gave a good sermon on one of those few Sundays Momma got us up and dropped us off at service. You go to your church, John Royal, and I’ll go to mine. Then she’d gun the truck toward the interstate.

  Jacobs broke away from Samuels and came back to us, stood right in front of Jenny again. ‘He just wants to ask a few questions. You feel up to that? I’ll be right there with you.’

  Jenny looked at me. Rudy looked at me.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, all my nerves and worry gone.

  ‘Good.’ Seriousness cracked, relief shone through. ‘Jenny, would you like to go first?’

  She nodded and Jenny, the pastor and Samuels went into the office. Door closed. And me and Rudy were alone. He hopped into Jenny’s empty chair.

  ‘This is messed up, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Sure is.’

  Rudy shuffled in his seat. ‘Spill, Johnny. Why’d you go back to the Roost?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s stupid.’

  ‘Try me.’

  I sighed through my nose. A little lie, that’s all it would be. I couldn’t really explain what Jenny was thinking last night because I didn’t know and Jenny would hate me to be telling tales about her, even to Rudy.

  ‘Momma was drunk,’ I said and he nodded. ‘We didn’t much want to be at home, figured we’d sleep down at the Fort like normal. But it was weird there, you know, with the body. I was afraid animals would get to her before the cops so we stuck around. I don’t know, we just fell asleep.’

  Rudy nodded along with me as I spoke. ‘Makes sense. I thought about doing exactly the same. Perry, man, he was being a Grade-A asshole last night, kept flicking his cig ends at me, still burning too, the fucker. Crushed a beer can on my head an’ all. I could’ve gone for a night under the stars. Should’ve. Felt hinky though. You’re braver than me, Johnny.’

  Then he started talking about something else. Riding in the cop car or what would happen when Bung-Eye got here. I wasn’t listening. I had all my attention on Jenny. Through the window, sitting where Gloria had sat. Pastor Jacobs had his hand on the back of her chair, angled himself toward her, head going from her to Samuels and back.

  ‘Johnny, earth calling Johnny.’ Rudy waved his hand in front of my face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was saying I hope they question my dad.’

  ‘Why?’

  He laughed but only half because nothing to do with Bung-Eye was wholly funny. ‘Because if anyone knows anything about some dead girl, it’s him. Shit, that bastard probably did it and dumped her there himself.’

  ‘That’s dangerous talk for a place like this,’ I said, lowered my voice. ‘Your dad would whip you bloody if he heard it.’

  Rudy threw up a hand, slumped back in the chair. ‘Screw him. Like he’ll even show up. I’m going to be here all day.’

  The office door opened and Jenny stepped out. No tears. No red eyes. No fear tensing up her body. She was okay.

  ‘John? You’re up, buddy,’ the pastor called and I went. I’d tell the truth, at least most of it, and what’s there to fear in that?

  Jenny took my seat next to Rudy. Her feet dangled and she kicked them back and forth like she did in the river, lazing on the bank, face turned to the sun. All calm now.

  Inside the office, I took the chair across the desk from Samuels. The pastor rested his hand on the back of it like he had with Jenny. Like he would his own child, if he had them.r />
  ‘Am I in trouble?’ I said because nobody else was speaking.

  Samuels’ too-small eyes darted between me and the pastor, landed on me. ‘Should you be?’

  ‘Come on, Len,’ the pastor said, looked at the sheriff like he was looking at a tiresome child. I liked him more and more.

  Samuels picked up a pen. ‘All right, let’s start with an easy one. Why were you on Hayton Briggs’ land?’

  ‘Mr Briggs’ name is Hayton?’

  Samuels straightened, cocked his head to the side. ‘That funny to you, boy?’

  I shrank. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘No, sir, it ain’t. Now answer the question.’

  ‘We were just you know, hanging out. The Roost – I mean Mr Briggs’ valley – is just where we go sometimes. It’s not farmland, so Mr Briggs doesn’t mind. I don’t think he minds.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ scribble on the notepad. ‘What were you doing down there yesterday?’ Same tone. Round, piggy eyes blazing.

  ‘I … we were just going for a swim, some fishing too. It was hot, you know.’

  ‘And which one of you found the body?’

  ‘Gloria. It … she … was tangled up in the sycamore roots.’

  ‘And whose bright idea was it to move her?’

  I opened my mouth, gaped. Couldn’t remember. ‘All of us. We all decided it would be … nicer for her.’

  Samuels looked up from the paper, to the pastor, then back down. He wrote something else.

  Pastor Jacobs put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re doing fine, John. Just tell the truth.’

  Samuels shot a look to Pastor Jacobs.

  ‘Tell me something, kid,’ Samuels leant on the desk, blue shirt straining against his bulk. ‘Why didn’t you and your friends tell anyone about it until the next morning? Why didn’t you march straight down here and knock on my door and say, sheriff, we’ve found a body? Huh?’

  My eyes darted around, trying to land anywhere but Samuels. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Samuels sat back in his chair, one hand on the desk, tapping the pad with the pen, growing a field of black dots with every strike.

  ‘Most people,’ he said, ‘would call 911 when they witness a crime. You know what kind of person don’t call 911, boy?’

  Nerves bunched up and crackled inside me. All sense of calm gone. I knew where this was going. I tried to swallow down a dry lump in my throat but it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Guilty people,’ Samuels carried on. ‘See, I don’t get why you and your friends wouldn’t have said something. Makes me think you four have something to hide. Now, I can’t see Miss Wakefield or your little sister doing anything to that girl, but you? The Buchanan boy? Well now, that’s a whole ’nother ball game.’

  ‘Sheriff, I don’t—’ Pastor Jacobs started but Samuels held up his hand.

  I opened my mouth to say, no, you’re wrong, but nothing came out.

  ‘Why’s your shirt ripped, son?’ the sheriff said.

  The question came out of nowhere and stunned me. My t-shirt. Ripped? I looked down and saw a swatch torn out.

  ‘That’s blood right there.’ Samuels pointed with his pen to a small smear of reddish brown at my side I’d not noticed. ‘If I test that, is it going to be the dead girl’s blood?’

  All words stuck in my throat except one. ‘Jenny.’

  ‘John?’ Pastor Jacobs put his hand on my shoulder and snapped me out of it.

  ‘It’s Jenny’s blood. She … she fell over and cut her leg. I tore a piece off my shirt to clean it up.’

  ‘Well ain’t that convenient,’ Samuels was relentless. ‘We found you by the body, with blood on you. Can you see what that looks like? Maybe you slept down there to make sure no one else found out what you done? That sound about right to you? You and the Buchanan boy plan it together? Was he going to come back in the morning and watch her today? Were you going to bury her?’

  ‘No!’ I leaned forward in my chair. ‘This is crazy. I didn’t do anything, neither did Rudy. We just found her in the lake. That’s it. We didn’t do anything. We found her like that. Jenny has a cut on her shin, go check for yourself.’

  My heart beat frantic in my chest and my eyes jumped from Samuels to Jacobs and back and forth and to that stupid notepad and those lies he was scribbling and I wanted to lunge at them, rip them up and make him write the truth.

  ‘Len,’ Pastor Jacobs said, firm enough for the sheriff to lean back in his chair and raise up his hands in mock surrender.

  ‘We have to explore all kinds of theories, son, you understand.’ He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘Do you know the dead girl?’

  ‘No,’ I said, just as firm as the pastor. ‘Never seen her before. Who is she?’

  He ignored my question. ‘You live in that farm, huh, the old Mitchell place before they upped it and headed east, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘That’s about a mile from the valley. Were you “hanging out” down there on Monday evening?’

  Monday.

  Monday?

  My mind emptied of anything useful. The day was blank in my head and Samuels was staring and waiting, his brow scrunched up, blotches of red blooming on his neck and sweating. My crackling nerves stung, wrapped around my bones and tightened. It was only a few days ago. Come on, Johnny boy, get your head together, the sheriff is going to throw you in a cell if you don’t.

  ‘It’s okay, John,’ Pastor Jacobs said, leaned into me. ‘I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning. If the sheriff here asked me, I’d be looking just like you are. I find it helps to start at something you will remember, like, what was your last lesson at school on Monday?’

  Samuels sighed, muttered something about wasting time. I thought back, the grey block of time in my head coloured, came into focus. Monday. Mr Alvarez.

  ‘History,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ the pastor smiled. ‘So after the bell went, what did you do?’

  ‘Uh …’ then it hit me, a freight train of a memory. All my words came out in one long stream.

  ‘We watched football practice after because Rudy always says he wants to play running back for the Lions when we start high school so he needs to study the plays. He’s going to be so famous, he says, people would be all, “Superstar Mark Easton, who?”’ I smiled, then caught the red glare from Samuels. Get to the point, that look said, or its bars and biscuits for you tonight.

  ‘After practice, the four of us went to Gloria’s house. Mandy … that’s Gloria’s housekeeper, she’d lit the grill and was in a pretty bad mood.’

  Samuels raised both eyebrows. ‘Why’s that?’

  I pictured Mandy, in Gloria’s back yard, hands on hips next to the flaming grill, plate of charred steak on the patio table. She filled up my flicker reel. As soon as she saw us, she threw up her arms, shouted that she’d had enough. Mandy was always fit to burst, full of hot anger. She was an Ozark mountain woman sprung right out of the stone, impossible to soften and you wouldn’t want to.

  ‘Mandy said that Gloria’s dad had asked for steaks for dinner for him and some of his work friends and he wanted it on the grill, ready for when they got back at six sharp. She’d done it but he hadn’t shown up and it was past seven. Gloria said he was probably caught up with a case. Sometimes, Gloria said, when her dad’s law firm gets a big case, he can forget the time.’

  Samuels scribbled it all down. ‘How long did you stay at the house?’

  ‘A while. Mandy let us have the steaks. Then we watched Bandstand.’

  ‘When did you leave?’ Samuels sighed out the question, getting impatient, writing it all down as if it would be useful one day.

  ‘Nine. Maybe a bit after.’

  ‘Had Mr Wakefield returned by then?’

  I shook my head.

  An exchange of looks between pastor and sheriff. A few seconds of silence.

  ‘Is … Did I say something wrong?’ I asked.

  Like a click of the fingers, Samuels chang
ed direction. ‘So what were you and your sister doing down at the – what’s that you kids call it?’ he checked the paper, ‘the Roost, last night?’

  Everything in me clenched, talons around soft marrow.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Samuels said, leant forward. ‘You were found sleeping beside a corpse, son. You really sitting in my office, trying to tell me that’s nothing? I’m the sheriff here, I’ll be the one deciding what’s nothing. Now you answer my question. Why in God’s name would you do something like that?’

  I wanted to tell him he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t get it. I didn’t get it. Only Jenny really knew, but I had a lie. I just hoped it matched Jenny’s.

  ‘John, are you okay?’ the pastor said.

  ‘We were making sure nothing happened to her. Animals, you know.’

  ‘Sorry, son, but that smells like bullshit to me.’

  ‘It’s true!’ Wasn’t it? Was that what Jenny had told him too? Oh God, what if she hadn’t? My bones felt like they’d crack under the tension, my muscles split and frayed like old rope.

  ‘Come on, son. You were all but spooning that girl. Did you get some kind of thrill out of it? Did you like being that close to a naked girl?’

  ‘Enough,’ the pastor shouted. Samuels stopped. I opened my eyes and he threw the pen onto the desk. ‘That’s enough, Len. He’s just a kid.’

  ‘I need answers to my questions, pastor, and you’ll do well not to interfere.’

  ‘Not to questions like that,’ the pastor said, as fierce as the sheriff, matching him for volume. ‘John didn’t have anything to do with this girl’s death and you know it. Yes, maybe he and his sister did something a little strange, but that’s not what this investigation is about. This isn’t a witch-hunt. He told you why they were down there, so did Jenny, and they’re both telling the truth. You got your explanation so we’re done here.’

  I stared at both men. Stunned. I hurt on the inside, bruised and shaken, but Jenny had told the right story and the relief soothed me like ice water on a burn.

  ‘If you say so, pastor,’ Samuels said in that careful, heavy tone Mr Wakefield had used.

  ‘I say so.’

  ‘Well I guess you and your sister can go.’ Samuels threw the pen down. ‘I’ll be calling on you, John, if I have any more questions.’