by Reed Arvin
Collier stared at Brown, looking at him from head to toe. “I seen you around. Who the hell are you?”
“A friend,” Henry said.
“I don’t like your friends,” Collier said, looking Brown in the eye. He turned to Henry and added, “I don’t like your client neither. This stinks of Boyd. Tell me somethin’, Counselor. Got any idea where the fruitcake was tonight?”
“If I did, you’d have to subpoena me to find out,” Henry replied.
The sheriff was about to respond when Brown interjected, “Whoever did this, it was a desperate move. Dangerous as hell. A million ways for it to go wrong.”
Collier looked up sharply. “How’s that?”
Brown shrugged. “A man would have to open a live valve, just wrench it open. The gas would flow out invisibly. He’d have no way to know how much or where. With the winds the way they are out here tonight, that would be damn touchy. He could be covered in it and not even know it. Then he’d have to light the flare and physically connect it to the well. Whoever he is, he’s lucky he didn’t go up in a fireball.”
Collier looked back at Brown insolently. “What are you, some kinda expert on starting fires?”
Brown stared silently back with a look of utter indifference. Henry said, “Mr. Brown is a geologist.”
Collier stared blankly for a moment, trying to process the idea of an educated Native American. At length he said, “Well, if he had gone up in smoke, at least we’d have some bones to identify. Right now the three of you are coming with me. We’re going to play questions and answers.”
“What’s being done about the blaze?” Henry said. “It can’t be left like this.”
“Containment company’s been called,” Collier answered. “They’re going to helicopter in, be here in a couple hours.” He spat at the ground, obviously disgusted. “Enough chitchat. Let’s go, Mathews. You and your friends ain’t gonna get much sleep tonight.”
Amanda stepped toward Collier. “We’ve got nothing to hide, Sheriff,” she said indignantly. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t like you either. You’re a fatuous little man with a power complex and badly in need of a shower.” She walked off ahead of the others, heading toward Henry’s car.
Henry gave Collier a thin smile. “You’ve really got a knack for getting along with people, don’t you, Sheriff?”
Collier grunted and followed Brown and Henry back toward the cars. As they arrived, the black-and-white’s CB crackled. The sheriff sat down heavily in his cruiser and listened. After several moments he climbed out of his car with a sallow grin. “Seems your client saved me a lot of trouble,” he said. “Boyd’s in county hospital. Looks like he won’t make it.”
Henry led Amanda and John into the Cheney County hospital twenty minutes later, with Collier right behind them. Boyd was in a room in the emergency trauma area. The second Henry saw him, he was stopped cold; there was a heavy bandage on Boyd’s arm, an oxygen tube in his nose, and two plastic lines dripping clear liquid into his veins. He was pale, and either asleep or unconscious. From Henry’s left he heard T. R. Harris’ voice.
“He wasn’t taking his medication,” the doctor said. “That’s obvious now. Why he wasn’t taking it, for God’s sake, I don’t know.”
Henry turned and said, “He had me fooled. But I think I know why. He needed his madness to get off the park bench and do this. He would never have had the courage without the visions and the passion.” His own breathing felt constricted. The awful white of the hospital room combined with the sight of Raymond lying still in the bedsheets gave him a sudden wave of nausea.
“Is he going to be all right?” Amanda asked.
“I don’t know,” Harris said. “The ER unit here did a hell of a job. But he practically cut his arm off there. He’s lost a lot of blood.” He walked over and looked intently at Raymond. “But he’s alive for now, and we’ll take it one miracle at a time.”
Collier pushed between Amanda and Brown, full of tactless, bothersome pressure. “This man’s a prisoner,” he said gruffly, “and it don’t make me no difference if he’s here or in jail. I got his ass nailed this time.”
At the sight of Collier, Harris’ face became a mask of irritation. “Get out, Sheriff,” he said bluntly. He gripped Collier by the arm and gave him a solid push toward the door. “Get out, all of you,” he said, and the group moved together into the hallway. Harris closed the door firmly and spun on the group. “Your little circus has almost killed that man,” he said angrily, “and he’s off the train ride, as of right now. You . . .” He pointed at Collier. “You will get your officious little fingers on this man when I say he’s healthy enough to talk to somebody of your idiocy. And that includes questioning. You’re in my world now, and what I say goes. And for the rest of you . . .” He shook his head, clearly tired and frustrated. “Look, it was a good idea, okay? It just didn’t work out. As soon as Raymond is able to be moved, I’m taking him to the psychiatric hospital in Kansas City. That’s if he survives the night.”
“If he survives tonight he’ll stand charges for sexual assault, criminal trespassing, breaking and entering, attempted battery, and fourteen other things I’ll add to the list,” Collier hissed. “We got ourselves a criminal here, Doctor. He was found at Ellen Gaudet’s. County sheriff got called over there when gunshots were heard. Turned out our boy here had a weird thing for bank tellers.”
Henry was about to unleash a torrent of legal hell on Collier, but stopped suddenly. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“County boys found a lean-to of some kind in Ellen’s backyard. Boyd’s been campin’ out back there, apparently. There was a change of clothes, bunch of papers and stuff.”
“God,” breathed Amanda.
“Tell me everything they said,” Henry said. “Every word.”
“Go to hell,” Collier said. “It’s my questions got to be answered.”
Henry glared. “I have the right to know everything that those county deputies found.”
“Subpoena me and I’ll give you a deposition,” Collier answered, staring Henry in the face. “Should be able to get to it in two or three days.”
Henry barely suppressed his desire to tear the sheriff apart. “What about Ellen?” he said. “Where is she?”
“We don’t know, damn it,” Collier said. “She was gone by the time the county boys got there.”
“Then how do you know what happened?” Henry demanded.
“It ain’t rocket science,” Collier spat. “He was there to rape her. She was armed, and got away. Bullet hole in the wall.”
“And what about Boyd’s wrist?”
“He’s insane, in case you hadn’t noticed. How do I know? He didn’t get laid, so he wanted to kill himself.”
For the second time Henry had to restrain himself from punching Collier in his self-satisfied face. “After tonight, there’s going to be nothing but chaos in that courtroom,” he growled. “There’s a good chance this time tomorrow there’s not going to be anything left to fight over.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Collier asked.
Henry looked at him. “You really have no idea what’s going on here, do you?” He turned to Harris and said, “Everything in me wants to stay here. But I can’t. Things have changed. You’ve got my number.” Harris nodded and disappeared back into the hospital room. Henry looked at Amanda. “Let’s go,” he said brusquely. “We’ve got to find some people.”
* * *
By the time Henry and Amanda arrived back in Council Grove it was nearly two in the morning. They sat in the car outside Henry’s office. “What the hell was Raymond doing at Ellen’s?” Henry asked morosely. “God, why did he have to do that?”
“Does it ruin everything for him? Was Collier right about that?”
“I don’t know. I still don’t know what actually happened. But it was bad enough when it was just Crandalls versus Raymond. If it’s going to be Crandalls versus a rapist, God help us.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t believe he wanted to hurt her.”
“I don’t either. I’m talking about perceptions. But the only two people who can prove what really happened aren’t talking. Raymond’s unconscious, and that leaves Ellen.”
“Collier will be looking for her, too. She’s a loose end.”
“After tonight anything might happen. Did you see those flames? It was like Armageddon. Sulfur and fire, he said. The judgment hand of God.”
The two sat in silence for a moment, until Henry suddenly slammed his fist down on the dashboard. “Damn it, there’s something happening here, something inside of Raymond. He’s only ventured out twice on his own. First, when the bird got killed. It must have taken something even bigger than that to drag him on foot to the wells. And God only knows what would make him actually break into Ellen’s house.”
“What do you make of the suicide attempt?”
“I hate it, but I assume it’s real. That’s what so tricky about all of this. I know Raymond. I know he wouldn’t hurt Ellen. But I also don’t know Raymond, because unfortunately he’s out of his mind. So whether or not he might get it into his head to cut his own wrists is beyond my comprehension. How can you work with a client like this?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m trying to save him,” Henry said. “Damn it, I’m trying to save him, if he would just stop being insane for a minute.”
She repeated herself, her voice level and lower. It gave him a place to settle himself, and when he looked back at her he had regrouped. “Sorry,” he said. “Something’s torturing Raymond and I want to make it stop.”
“I understand. What happens tomorrow in court?”
“This isn’t about court anymore. Ten seconds after the fire containment team arrives, the whole scam is public knowledge. I have to assume some of the farmers in the area could work it out even on their own. As soon as the fire’s put out, that whole area is going to get torn up. Hesston and Durand are at their most dangerous now. I have no idea what they’ll do backed into this kind of a corner.”
“The truth,” Amanda said quietly. “God, it messes things up.”
Henry nodded. “I should be out looking for Ellen right now. But if I don’t have a half-dozen motions on Raymond’s behalf in the morning, Collier will have him for lunch. We know he wasn’t trying to hurt Ellen, but circumstantially . . . God, it looks like shit.”
“The lean-to was creepy,” Amanda said. “To think of him hiding back there, staring.”
“I know,” Henry said, waving his hand. “It’s bad enough without talking about it.”
“Sorry. Why don’t you go work for a while, get those motions started. I’ll look for Ellen, meet you back here. How long do you need?”
“At least two hours,” Henry said. “What time is it?”
“A little after two,” she said. “What a night.”
Henry picked up his briefcase and got out of the car. “Just take my car. Call me if you see anything.”
Amanda drove off, turning west onto Chautauqua. Henry entered the office and sat heavily in his chair. He looked out the front window, the dim lights of the square struggling against the dark.
Now was the time to pray, certainly. There was nowhere else to hide but in the unpredictability of God. But to what end? Was Raymond safe in Amanda’s school, the nun’s prayers protecting him? Or was he farther north, ready to be destroyed by a merciless wind?
“All right, damn it,” Henry said to the walls. “So I pray because there’s nothing else to do. I pray for some injection of hope, however irrational. I pray to the God who lets hurricanes come ashore. I pray to the God who spares some and lets others fry. I pray to the God . . .” He choked for a moment, suddenly overcome with an emotion so powerful it swept him down, submersing him. He had resisted this moment for more than five years, and when it finally pushed through, grief covered him utterly. “I pray,” he said through tears, “to the God who let my parents get killed by a drunk that never knew their names and couldn’t have cared less.” He looked up at the ceiling. It was out now. “Do you hear me?” he cried. “To the God who let my parents be smashed into pieces. And they’re dead. And what did they do that was so wrong? Are you listening to me? What was their sin? My father was a good man!” He was sobbing now, grieving openly. “All he did was work like a dog and help poor people try to hang on to a shred of dignity. But you let that truck hit them, didn’t you? Would it have killed you to have just waved your hand and stopped it? Would it? Would it have disrupted your sense of order in this universe to have saved two people that I loved?”
He laid his head on the table, weeping quietly now, with no sense of time. Minutes passed, his breathing catching, letting himself go like a child. He cried for a long time, finally settling into a dull quiet. He didn’t know if minutes passed or hours. But at some point, he found words forming in him. He didn’t know where they came from, but he was certain they didn’t come from within himself. They had no beginning or ending. They just were.
This is what I wanted, the words said. The truth between Me and you. And now you know what I’ve known for a long time. Now you know that you hate me. Nothing can heal without beginning with the truth.
Henry lifted his head. The words drifted away, moving through and past him. He sat still a moment, his eyes closed. He exhaled deeply, relief flooding through him. “I hate You,” he said to the air. “I hate You.”
At some point, he turned on his laptop and began to write. Henry didn’t know how much later it was when the door opened. It was Amanda.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Henry took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think.”
“Your eyes are red.”
“I’m all right. What did you find out?” She looked at him, and to his enormous gratitude, she had the grace to release him without hovering or questioning. She merely took in his pain, and left him alone with it. It was in that second that he thought he might love her.
“I found nothing,” she said. “Of course it’s dark on such a horrible night. But I don’t think she’s in Council Grove.”
“Then where?”
She looked out the window. “It’s getting light. You have court in three hours.”
“What a circus that’s going to be. There’s going to be press there. I mean real press.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“The well fire took care of that. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the networks in there tomorrow.”
“How can Durand stay out of it now? It’s the end for him, isn’t it?”
Henry shrugged. “Lawyers,” he said quietly. “The real modern miracle workers.”
“You can’t believe he’ll get off from this.”
“Who knows? He can say that it was done without his knowledge. He can say Crandall did it. It was more than twenty-five years ago. It’s like dealing with ghosts.” He exhaled deeply and stood up. “I have to change clothes.”
“You’re playing the card about the wells today, though, right?”
“Yes, which means I need to find John Brown. He’s going to have to testify.”
“I have his number.” She rummaged through her purse, which had been left sitting on Henry’s desk. “I don’t know if he can be there by ten.”
“It’s all right. I’m going to get Hesston and Brackman in a private counsel anyway. I’m laying my cards on the table. We’ll see what happens next.”
“All right. What can I do?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“Then I’ll stay with you.” She walked toward him. “I called the hospital. Nothing definitive on Raymond.”
“Did you talk to Harris?”
“No. He had gone home hours ago. Nothing to be done, evidently. Anyway, he’s a psychiatrist, not an internist. But the nurse said Raymond’s condition was still critical.”
“You could go to him. It would be good to have someone there Raymond knows when he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up,” Amanda said. But she shook her head. “I’m staying with you, at least until court. There’s nothing I can do at the hospital anyway.”
He put his arm around her, and she kissed him on the cheek, a motion he found impossibly tender. She continued her kisses, tasting the salt residue from his dried tears. He closed his eyes and let her bring him back to life, her lips a kind of transfusion of tenderness. She brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead. “I have clothes in my car,” she said. “So I’m okay. Meanwhile, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Henry locked up the office; light was just glimmering to the southeast, out over the Crandall property. He could see a thin trail of smoke from that direction even though the fields were miles away. He had no doubt the fire was still raging.
Back at the motel, he felt his exhaustion as a dull, numbing ache. He looked at the bed longingly, then turned away. He heard her start the shower, and stood motionless as she came to him and began to unbutton his shirt. She undressed him, the only light spilling out from the bathroom, and he let himself be taken care of in a way he never before experienced. She led him, naked, to the shower, and he stepped in, feeling the warm water for a long time, watching it stream down his body in a kind of relaxed, numb stare. After a while she returned, wrapped him in a towel, and dried him. He stood, arms out, watching her touch his body through the cotton, feeling the pressure of her fingers as they kneaded his back, pushed down his thighs. “I’m not sick, you know,” he said quietly. “I can do this myself.”
“I know.”
He followed her out to the bedroom, and saw a suit laid out on the bed, with socks, belt, shoes, and a tie. He dressed quietly while she sat and watched him from a chair. “You make me happy,” she said as he buttoned his shirt. “I just want you to know that.”
He walked to her and she stood, accepting his kiss as naturally as if they had been lovers for as long as they could remember. He picked up his coat. “Do you think Collier’s been able to find Ellen?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”