“So, how are things at the fire station?” I asked.
“Not bad,” Jeff replied. “We had a house fire Thursday. I went in the ambulance, and we had a couple of cases of smoke inhalation. And there was a wreck on 295 yesterday. Routine stuff, other than that.”
“You getting a lot of calls?”
“Quite a few. Not as many as in the summer. We’re selling T-shirts to raise money for another thermal imaging camera.”
“Great. Bring me six.”
His gray eyes, so like Jennifer’s, widened. “Six? Just like that?”
“Sure. Jenny, Abby, Leeanne, Travis, Randy, and me.” Travis and Randy were their younger brothers, still in high school.
“What colors do you have?” Abby asked.
Jeff smiled. “Blue or blue.”
“Then I guess I’ll take blue,” she laughed.
“Make mine extra large. I’ll sleep in it,” said Jennifer.
Jeff gave me a strange look.
“What?” I asked.
He said in a low tone, “I thought new brides wore skimpy lingerie at night.”
I laughed. “I don’t think Jennifer would know what to do with it.”
“What are you guys whispering about?” Abby asked suspiciously.
“The size for the T-shirts,” said Jeff. “What do you want?”
“Medium, I guess.”
Jeff looked at me pointedly.
“How about Beth?” I asked.
“Oh, I didn’t know I was getting one,” she said.
“Sure, why not? We’ll make it seven.”
“I was going to get you one,” said Jeff.
Beth smiled. “Thanks. I’m with Jennifer, I think. Extra large.”
I gave him the look. Eddie started laughing.
“What is it with you guys?” Abby’s voice rose with a tinge of paranoia.
“Just buy yourself one and wear it few times, then give it to her,” I said to Jeff.
“Come on,” Jennifer said with a smile. “I need to sit down for a while. You guys can build up the fire.” She went with Jeff and me into the living room and curled up in an armchair. Eddie stayed in the kitchen, claiming he was now an expert in putting away dishes at our house.
Jeff insisted on making the fire up, so I just picked Jenny up and sat down with her on my lap. She didn’t complain, but Jeff turned a couple of shades of red, or maybe it was the reflection from the fire. We sat, watching the flames leap.
“Can I talk to you sometime, Harvey?” Jeff asked.
“Sure. You can talk to me right now.”
Jennifer turned her head toward her brother. “Is this a guy thing?”
“Well, uh, not really, but...”
She stood up. “Go on, you two. It’s quiet in the study.” I got up, and she wrapped an afghan around her and sat in the chair again.
Jeff followed me into the study, and I shut the doors to the living room and the hallway. “Have a seat.”
He took Jennifer’s swivel chair. “So.” He nodded firmly and swung around to face me. “Harvey, something happened to me.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t picking up any clues yet, so I just waited.
He let out a big breath. “It’s been eating at me, and after what happened to you last week, I’m wondering if I’m hanging on to the past too much.”
I swallowed hard. Personally, I didn’t think I was the right guy for someone to ask these kinds of questions. I’d blown it royally with Jennifer.
“What sort of thing?” I asked.
“Maybe Jennifer’s told you.” He darted a glance at me, then looked away. “When I was a kid, my best friend was killed. Murdered.”
I felt a little sick for him. I’ve handled plenty of murders, but when it affects someone I love, it hits home hard.
“No, Jenny never mentioned it.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure it didn’t affect her much. She was only five when it happened.”
I sat up, doing the math. “How old were you?”
“I was eight.”
I nodded slowly. That would make a huge impression on a kid, usually one that lasted a lifetime. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
He picked up a pen Jennifer had left on her desktop and clicked it a few times. “I haven’t ever really told anyone about it. Not all of it.”
“You don’t have to now unless you want to.”
“I want to. Because I want to know if God holds me responsible.”
I hadn’t expected that.
“Okay, just start at the beginning. Tell me about your friend.”
“His name was Philip Madder. The kids all teased him about his name. They’d say he was madder than a hornet, or … whatever. I called him Flip.”
I nodded. Jeff’s eyes had a hollow look as he remembered.
“He and I hung out all the time. We were in the same grade, rode the same school bus. We lived half a mile apart, and that summer we rode our bikes all over. You’ve seen where we lived. There are lots of farm lanes and cottage roads. We sneaked out at night a few times.” He looked over at me. “We wanted to go swimming together. There was this pond.” He stared, his eyes unfocused, at the desktop.
“What happened?”
Jeff drew in a deep breath. “We’d agreed to meet at eleven o’clock. I knew my folks would be in bed by ten. But that night Leeanne was fussing. She was the baby that year.” He gave me a rueful smile.
“So your mom was up with her?”
“Yeah. I had to wait until she settled down. I was fifteen or twenty minutes late, getting my bike and riding over to the pond.”
I didn’t know what to expect, unless he told me his friend had drowned, but he’d said murdered.
“Was Flip there waiting for you?”
Jeff inhaled carefully. “His bike was there. Flip wasn’t.”
A searing grief swept over me for eight-year-old Jeffrey.
“I’m so sorry. What did you do?”
“I looked around, and I called his name a few times. I didn’t hear anything except frogs and wind in the trees. I waited half an hour or so, but the longer I stayed, the scareder I got.”
I nodded.
“I went home and got in bed. I told myself I’d see Flip in the morning and he’d tell me what happened. At that point, I guessed maybe his dad had followed him and made him go home, and they’d left the bike there. I couldn’t think beyond that. But … in the morning…”
“You learned Flip was dead.”
“Yeah.” He looked at me with questions in his gray eyes.
“I think I remember the case. It happened while I was at the Police Academy. We all talked about it.” The Academy was only twenty miles or so from the Wainthrops’ house. Time had dulled my memory of the details, but it was big news at the time.
“I was terrified,” Jeff said. “I guess I was in denial, too. Harvey, my folks tried to keep it from me, but I heard what that guy did to Flip.”
I leaned over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”
Jeff’s breath was shallow. “I heard Mom say to Dad, ‘George, that could have been our Jeffrey.’ And I couldn’t tell them.”
“That you’d been out there?”
“Yeah.” He made a small sound in his throat like a sob. “I never told them. Mom couldn’t handle it. But neither could I.”
“You never told anyone?”
He shook his head. “I was afraid if I did, they might put me in jail.”
I had heard stories like it before, and I knew it wasn’t unusual for a child that age to blame himself for a tragedy, especially when he’d been on the fringe of it.
“It wasn’t your fault, Jeff.”
“I was supposed to meet him, and I didn’t.”
“You couldn’t help it.”
He sat still for several seconds, then said, “I go round and round with it in my head, even now, twenty years later. If I’d gotten there sooner, if I’d obeyed my parents, if I’d gone back that night and told
my folks he was missing.”
“They caught that guy,” I said.
“Yeah. Finally.”
“He couldn’t hurt other kids after that.”
“I know. And I know he’s still alive, in the state prison.”
That was unfortunate, I thought. It might be easier for Jeff if the murderer was dead. The fact that he was keeping tabs on the prisoner told me Jeff wasn’t understating how much it had affected him.
“You asked me if God would hold you responsible.”
He nodded and turned wide, anxious eyes on me. “I want … I want to do what’s right now. Like you. I want to confess. Should I tell my parents now? Should I tell Flip’s family? What should I do?”
I thought about that.
“What brought this crisis on? Why is it urgent now?”
Jeff frowned. “I think it was you. And Beth. Both of you trying so hard to show me what God wants. And going to church and thinking about things. I’m not sure I can get rid of this thing, or that God will forgive me.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked.
He nodded.
I sat back in my chair and folded my hands in front of me. “Remember the first time you stayed with me at the apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“You asked me if I thought you were a sinner.”
“I remember.”
“And I said yes, not because of this thing. I didn’t even know about it. But because all of us are sinners. We do things all the time that don’t make God happy. I could tell you a thousand things I’ve done, not just the ones you heard about last week. For example, I used to swear all the time, and God doesn’t like that. It’s one of the ten commandments, but I did it a lot. And for a while there, I drank a lot.”
“But you got over it.”
“I didn’t get over it, Jeff. I repented and stopped doing it. That doesn’t make me perfect now. I still get angry. I still get jealous. You know that. And you’re like me and everybody else. You’ve got a ton of sins, too. Am I right? Lies you told, hurtful things you said to your sisters, cheating on a test, taking something that didn’t belong to you.”
He nodded.
“Any one of those makes you a sinner. And this awful thing that happened with Flip, well, I don’t know if your folks had specifically told you not to go out at night or what, but I’m guessing you knew it was wrong.”
“I sure did. Dad would have tanned my backside if he’d caught me.”
“Yeah. So you disobeyed your parents. God will forgive that, just like all the other sins. None of them is more horrible than another. But it seems that way, because your friend died.”
“But if I’d—”
“Enough with the ifs, Jeff. You didn’t kill Flip. You know that. If you’d gotten there on time that night, you might be dead, too.”
“I guess so.” His voice shook.
I patted his shoulder again. “Maybe you let your friend down, but if Flip had known what would happen, I’ll bet he wouldn’t want you there. He’d want you to stay away that night. And one other thing.”
Jeff looked up. “What?”
“You asked if you should tell your folks now, and maybe Flip’s parents, too. I don’t think that would help anyone.”
“But shouldn’t I tell them so they’ll know why he was out there?”
“They know what happened to their son.” I hesitated. “I’m not an expert on either theology or psychology, but it seems to me that would only hurt people and open those wounds all over again. The fact that you had planned with Flip to meet there doesn’t change what happened.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“You should tell God. Definitely confess it to God.” I felt like I wasn’t getting through. “You know what? I think Pastor Rowland would be a good person to talk to about this. He knows far better than I do what God expects of us. Would you feel comfortable talking to him about it? I mean, I know it’s not a topic that you’ll be comfortable with under any circumstances, but I think you should get another opinion. Because I can see that you really want to settle this and do it right, whatever that entails.”
He swallowed hard. “What about Beth?”
“What about her?”
“Should I tell her?”
I sighed. My first instinct was to say, “Are you nuts?” But then I remembered how healing I’d found it to confide in Jennifer about an incident that had haunted me for years. “Jeffrey, talk to the pastor. Ask him these questions. And then, after you settle up with God, if you think Beth needs to know about it, tell her. But if she doesn’t need to know, I can’t see the point of telling her something painful.”
After about ten seconds, he said, “You may be right.”
“I can call the pastor right now and make you an appointment.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.” I took out my phone immediately, because I didn’t want Jeff to have a chance to change his mind or to blurt it all out to Beth before he’d settled it in his own heart. The pastor was happy to make an appointment, and I handed Jeff the phone and went out to the sunroom.
Jennifer, Abby, Eddie, and Beth had started a Trivial Pursuit game, and I sat down with Jenny.
“Want to play?” she asked. “You can be on my team.”
“Only if Jeff can be on mine,” Beth said. She was looking past me, toward the doorway.
Jeff came in and handed me my phone. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” I took it and stuck it in my pocket. “I think you’re joining Team Beth.”
Abby gave up her seat on the wicker settee for him and sat on a chair beside Eddie. We had a rousing game, and Jeff perked up considerably. An hour later, the three guests headed out.
“See you at church,” Eddie said.
Beth kissed Jennifer’s cheek. “Thank you. You too, Harvey.”
I smiled at her without a hint of sarcasm. “You’re welcome here anytime.”
Jeff stuck his hand out. “Thanks, brother.”
I clasped his hand. “You going to make it to church tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m off duty, so I’ll see you there.” He and Beth went out together.
As soon as the front door closed, Abby pounced.
“Is Jeff okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Oh. I thought maybe something was wrong.”
I winked at Jennifer. “Your brother may be a little lovesick.”
“Well, we knew that,” Abby said. “I’d better get ready for work.” She went up the stairs.
Jennifer was eyeing me closely. “Now tell me.”
“Okay. He’s worried about something, and I helped him set up a talk with Pastor Rowland.”
She nodded, watching me with big, gray-blue eyes. “Anything I should know about?”
I shook my head. “Just something he needs to work out for himself. And if he does, I think we’ll all be happy. Him, you, me, Beth. Even Abby.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” I put my arms around her. “When I married you, I knew I was getting a big family, and that made me happy. But I didn’t realize how rough it can be sometimes.”
“So, it’s something bad.”
“No. I mean, he hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s something that’s been bothering him, but I think God will work it out for good in his life.”
“I hope so.”
She didn’t ask me for the details, and for that I was grateful. I didn’t like to say no to her, but I realized she would take Jeff’s sorrow to heart if she knew how deep it went, and Jennifer already carried a weight of sadness for me. I didn’t want to add to that.
I bent and got a good grip on her and stood up, lifting her and rocking a little to keep my balance. Being able to pick her up and carry her gave me an inordinate feeling of strength and, okay, masculinity—not that I wanted to enter the Wife Carry at the next lumberjack’s competition or anything.
“Where are we going?” Jenny asked, holding tightly around my neck.
>
“You need to rest.” I carried her through the sunroom. Abby was just coming back downstairs.
“Are you going to bed?” She sounded disappointed. “I guess it’s Me and Bogey until time to go.”
“Goodnight, Abby,” said Jennifer.
“You guys are rotten hosts. Kidding.” She turned on the TV.
I’d just set Jennifer down on the bed when my phone rang. I grabbed it.
“Harvey? It’s Greg.”
“Hi! Where are you?” I asked.
“At home.”
“Home? As in New York?”
“Yes. Listen, would it be all right with you if I called your wife’s sister?”
“Which one?”
“Abby.”
“I guess so. She’s here, spending a boring evening with Humphrey Bogart until her eleven-o’clock shift at the hospital. Can I ask you something, though?”
“Sure, anything.”
I glanced at Jennifer, and she was listening, frowning. “Well, this is a little bit delicate. I don’t want to insult you.”
Greg gave a nervous laugh. “You want to know my income?”
“No. It’s just…well, we don’t know you very well, and I’m sort of standing in for her father, since she’s living with us now.”
“So?”
“So, you’re not married, are you?”
“No. Is that all? I…I was engaged once. It didn’t work out.”
“I’m sorry. Jennifer and I don’t want to be nosy, but we felt like we ought to know, or at least that Abby ought to know, if you were interested in her.”
“So, I pass muster?”
“As far as I’m concerned. Want me to see if Jennifer has any more questions? She’s great for asking personal questions.” Jenny swatted at me with her hair brush.
“Would you like to talk to Abby now?” I asked. “She’s out in the other room.”
“Uh, that would be good,” Greg said.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you call back on the other phone, and I’ll ask her to answer out there.”
“Okay.”
I gave him our landline number. We hung up, and I raised my eyebrows at Jennifer, with a smile.
“You always were a sneak,” she said.
The house phone rang. I walked over to the doorway and yelled, “Abby, can you get that?”
Found Art (Maine Justice Book 3) Page 12