by John Rector
I parked my truck next to the house and went in through the back door. I took a bottle of Johnny Walker from the cabinet above the refrigerator. I needed to clear my head, or to at least give myself a little more time to calm down before I talked to Jessica.
I stood in front of the kitchen window, drinking, and looking out at the cottonwoods rising out of the grove, their leaves rustling nervously in the breeze.
Eventually, I felt myself relax.
I took another drink then capped the bottle and carried it with me, out the door and across the field to the break in the rows.
As I walked, I went over what I wanted to say in my mind. It needed to sound casual. I didn’t want to accuse her or attack her, just get to the truth.
I came around the corner and saw my tractor still in the ravine. Again, the knowledge that I was asking for trouble by leaving it out bit at me, but I pushed it away.
I’d take care of it tomorrow.
Today I was going to talk to Jessica. Everything else could wait—
Something in the grove flashed in the sunlight, and I stopped. From where I stood, I couldn’t see anything but shadows through the cottonwoods. I stepped closer, squinting against the sun.
It flashed again, and this time I saw what it was.
A man was standing in the grove.
He was carrying what looked like a long knife in one hand, the blade flashing a dull gold in the sun. With the other hand, he was holding the bottom of his T-shirt folded against his chest.
He didn’t see me, and for a moment I couldn’t move at all.
I watched him walk in a slow circle, first one way, then stopping and coming back, his head down. I tried to see his face, but I was still too far away.
I crouched low and started toward the ravine. The downed stalks were loud and they cracked under my feet.
I cringed with each step.
When I got closer, the man stopped circling and squatted next to Jessica’s body. He was facing away from me, but I could see his army khaki pants, cut off at the knees, and a blue number eight on the back of his T-shirt.
I figured that once I got around the trees I’d be able to get a better look at him. I’d see his face, and if he tried to run I’d be able to follow.
I’d heard about killers returning to the scene of their crimes to relive the rush. Was that what was happening here? If so, then why the knife?
Jessica hadn’t been stabbed. She hadn’t been hurt at all as far as I could tell. There were no marks on her body. She was perfect.
And what about Megan? Where did she fit?
It didn’t make sense.
I’d made it halfway around the ravine when the man leaned forward, slid the knife under the front of Jessica’s skirt, and lifted.
He ducked lower and looked in.
I stood up and shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”
The man turned toward me. His eyes were wide, and I saw it wasn’t a man at all. It was a kid, twelve, maybe thirteen years old, and I recognized him immediately.
Jacob Tolliver.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Jacob let go of his shirt, and several ears of corn fell at his feet. He started to bend to pick them up, then glanced down at the body and backed away.
“Don’t move,” I said. “Don’t you fucking move.”
I picked up my pace, but it was too late. Jacob dropped the knife then turned and sprinted through the field toward the hills to the north.
I followed, but I knew right away that I didn’t stand a chance of catching him. I didn’t have the angle. By the time I got halfway through the field, I saw him cresting the hill and disappearing down the other side.
I stopped and bent forward, bracing my hands against my thighs. My lungs roared in my chest. Electric black flowers exploded behind my eyes. I dropped to my knees, then turned and collapsed onto my back, staring up at the pale blue sky.
Jacob Tolliver?
I stayed there for a while, letting my breath ease and my heart slow, trying to think of what to do next.
My options seemed limited.
Eventually, I pushed myself up and headed back across the field to the grove. As I got closer I saw Jessica pacing around the corn, her arms folded over her chest.
When she saw me she stopped and stared at me.
We had a lot to talk about.
CHAPTER 19
“Where the hell did he come from?”
I motioned toward the north. “He lives on Ezra’s property, just over those hills. The whole family is over there. They’ve got a trailer.”
“Ezra?”
I nodded. “Ezra Hays. Been there forever.”
That wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Ezra was long past eighty, and he’d lived in the same house, working the same land, for as long as I could remember.
The Tollivers were new, came with the spring.
I don’t know how they’d met Ezra, but I knew he’d agreed to let them park their trailer on his property in exchange for helping with odd jobs around the farm.
I doubted this was working out for Ezra. Frank Tolliver was a drinker. They’d been on Ezra’s property for a little over three months, and Greg had been out to their trailer several times already. He never told me why, but on the two occasions I saw Dorothy Tolliver, she’d had fresh bruises on her face. It wasn’t hard to guess.
I thought there were two kids, both boys, but I wasn’t sure. The only one I’d met was Jacob. He’d come by once or twice looking for extra work. Normally I would’ve been impressed—it’s not too often you meet a kid who is willing to work hard—but there was something unsettling about Jacob.
At first I thought it was the way he constantly fidgeted, or the way he wouldn’t look me in the eye when he spoke. I knew he was just a kid and that was how kids acted, but it was more than that.
Watching Jacob was like watching something dirty.
“Why was he out here?” Jessica asked.
“Supper, it looks like.”
The knife he’d dropped turned out to be a rusted lawnmower blade. I assumed he’d been using it to cut the ears away from the stalks.
“Do you think he’ll say something?”
I shrugged.
“OK,” Jessica said, nodding. She crossed her arms over her chest and went back to pacing along the edge of the grove. “Then we have to get a plan together.”
I took the bottle from my pocket and drank.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t tell anyone.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Did you see the look on his face when he ran? He was terrified.”
I didn’t think so.
I’d startled the kid, sure, but I hadn’t terrified him. With a father like Frank Tolliver, it would take a lot more than me yelling to terrify him. This I knew firsthand.
“You think he’ll tell someone, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
She stopped pacing and sat on the dirt with her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. “Oh my God.”
I took another drink.
“What are we going to do?”
“What can we do? Wait, I guess.”
“For him to tell the police?” She shook her head. “No, there has to be something.”
I didn’t answer. My mind was somewhere else.
She watched me for a moment. “What’s wrong with you?”
I looked up. I wanted to tell her what I’d heard, but the words wouldn’t come.
“We have a big problem, and you don’t seem to care.”
“I care.”
This time she was quiet.
I could feel her studying me, her eyes searching my face. It was a terrible feeling, like bugs crawling over my skin. I couldn’t stand it.
Finally, I told her.
I didn’t leave anything out, and I didn’t try to make it sound casual. I told her about the sheriff and the ketchup bottle and how Megan had smiled when
she’d told me. I told her about how I felt like the air had been kicked out of me, and how I didn’t want to believe it, but I had to hear it from her.
When I’d finished, Jessica was silent for a long time, staring past me toward the body in the corn.
Then she smiled.
“I hope she tells the entire town.”
“Is it true?”
She looked at me. “Of course it’s not true.”
I closed my eyes.
“How could you even think—”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I just needed to hear you say it. I knew, inside, that you wouldn’t do that kind of thing, especially with that guy.”
“Paul,” she said.
I waved the name away. “Doesn’t matter.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said, still smiling. “You want to know what he used to do?”
I wasn’t sure I did, but she didn’t wait for me to answer.
“He would quote the Bible to me all day; then when he’d pass me in the kitchen, he’d run his hand across my ass and grunt. It was disgusting. He didn’t even try to play it off as an accident or anything. He wanted me to know it was intentional.”
“Did you say anything?”
“I almost did, once, after he cornered me in the store room and wouldn’t let me out. He stood over me, not saying a word, just staring and blocking me every time I tried to get by.”
“Jesus.”
“I started to cry, and I think he got scared and let me go. When I went out, Mrs. Colton asked me what was wrong and I almost told her.”
“But you didn’t?”
Jessica shook her head. “I was close.”
I thought about her and Paul alone in a storeroom. Then I tried to imagine what he’d look like dead.
Jessica must’ve seen something on my face because she slid over next to me and said, “He got what was coming to him.”
“It’s not enough.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to deal with that kid.”
“There’s nothing we can do about him,” I said. “If he’s going to tell someone, he’s going to tell someone. We can’t stop him.”
“They’ll take me away.”
I took another drink.
Jessica watched me, then said, “You could stop him.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what she meant; then I looked up and saw it in her eyes.
I shook my head. “No.”
“You’ll be alone.”
“I can’t do that.”
Jessica didn’t say anything else. After a while, she stood up and was gone.
I stayed in the grove, drinking, watching the sun sink toward the horizon. Then I got up and crossed the field toward the hills to the north.
When I got to the top, I looked down and saw the Tollivers’ trailer on the other side. It was parked at the end of a gravel path, surrounded by weeds and garbage. Alongside the trailer was a rusted green pickup truck. All four tires were flat, and an engine block sat heavy in the back. The shocks sagged under the weight. There were no other cars around.
I stayed for a while, watching the trailer for movement while the sky burned red.
THURSDAY
CHAPTER 20
When I got to town, I drove past the Riverside Café but didn’t stop. The lights were off, and there were no cars in the parking lot. I took it as a sign. Jessica might think it was all in my head, but I knew it would look suspicious if I kept showing up every day and asking questions. I’d decided to give it a couple days to cool down.
Then again, if Jacob Tolliver called the police, looking suspicious wouldn’t matter anymore.
But I wasn’t ready to think about that.
With the café closed, I drove to the grocery store and went inside. Liz had always done the shopping, and I had no idea where to start. In the end, I went for what was easy: frozen dinners, macaroni and cheese, bologna, bread, and so on. I also picked up two bottles of wine and a bottle opener.
When I’d finished, I pushed the cart up to the register and started unloading everything onto the conveyor belt.
The kid behind the register didn’t look much older than sixteen or seventeen, and when he saw the wine he shook his head and said, “I’ll have to call a manager. I can’t sell alcohol.”
While he picked up a phone and called for a manager, I reached for one of the gossip papers in the rack by the register and pretended to read about some stranger’s affair and impending divorce.
When the manager showed up, the kid stepped aside. The manager ran my wine bottles over the scanner then stared at me for a moment and said, “Dex?”
At first he didn’t look familiar, then it came to me.
“Hey. Eddie Sears.”
Eddie shook his head. “Goddamn, you’ve gotten old. How’ve you been?”
“Been worse,” I said.
Eddie laughed. “Haven’t we all.”
At one time Eddie had been married to a girl named Mindy. She’d been a close friend of Liz’s from college, and they’d even come over to our house for dinner a few times when Clara was a baby. Nice couple.
Eddie watched me for a moment then stepped aside and let the kid scan the rest of my groceries. “How’s Liz? You two holding up?”
“By a string,” I said. “You and Mindy?”
He shook his head. “Afraid not. I managed to drive that marriage into the dirt a long time ago. I take it Liz didn’t tell you.”
“She might’ve. I don’t keep up.”
Maybe Liz had said something about him losing their savings on the craps tables in the casinos across the river, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to say anything in case I was wrong.
We were both quiet for a while, then Eddie said, “Listen, it was good seeing you.” He motioned toward the back of the store. “Have to get to work.”
“Take care, Ed.”
“Tell Liz I said hello, will ya?”
I told him I would, and he disappeared between the aisles. I was never good at small talk, and the entire meeting gave me a sick feeling in the center of my chest.
I wanted to leave.
I thought about Jessica and about the Tolliver kid and wondered if he’d told anyone about her yet. It was a big secret, probably too big for him to keep to himself, and I was sure it would only be a matter of time before it came out.
I felt helpless, knowing there was nothing I could do.
Well, almost nothing.
“That’s a lot of macaroni and cheese.” The kid finished bagging my groceries and smiled. “You must really like it.”
I grunted at him and handed over my credit card. He took it and ran it through.
“I’m the same way.” He returned my card. “I’d live off the stuff if I could.”
I picked up my bags and muttered, “You’re a fucking liar.”
I didn’t think I’d said it loud enough for him to hear, but I didn’t really care. I’d had enough. I wanted to get home.
I walked out the front doors to the parking lot.
When I got to my truck, I set the bags in the front seat and went around to the driver’s side. Someone had stuck one of Jessica’s flyers under my windshield wiper. I pulled it out and folded it in half. When I got in, I set it on the seat by the groceries and started the engine.
CHAPTER 21
I wasn’t surprised when I turned up my driveway and saw Greg’s cruiser parked next to the house.
I’d been expecting this.
I stopped halfway, and for a moment the idea of turning around and going back was almost overpowering. If I’d wanted, I could’ve gone by the bank and cleaned out my savings account. There wasn’t much in there, but it would have been enough to get me a long way down the road.
I glanced out toward the grove and wondered if he was out there right now and what I’d say to him when he came back.
It wouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t believe me.
Again, the desire to turn around and disappear hit me in the center of t
he chest. I felt myself reach for the gearshift and move the lever to reverse.
I stopped.
I wasn’t going to leave her.
I pulled the rest of the way up the driveway and parked next to the cruiser. I opened the door, then reached for the grocery bags next to me. As I got out, I heard Greg’s voice.
“Thought you were going to sit there all morning.” He was standing on the porch, leaning against the railing, smoking a cigarette. “You surprised to see me?”
“Nope,” I said. “Not at all.”
He tossed the butt into the driveway and said, “You need some help with those?”
“I got ’em,” I said, walking up the steps to the porch. “But you can get the door.”
Greg pushed it open and I walked past him into the house.
“You’ll be happy to know I didn’t go inside.”
I set the bags on the kitchen table and said, “Why would I care about that?”
“You mentioned it last time.”
I nodded. “Right. When you stole my clip.”
“Temporarily confiscated,” he said. “Protecting you and the community.”
“It’s a .22, Greg. How much damage did you think I’d do?”
“You don’t think a .22 can do damage?”
I had a feeling I knew where this was going, and the last thing I needed was a lecture on gun safety.
What I wanted was to get this over with.
“Did you come by to return my clip?”
“No, I told you to pick it up at dinner on Saturday, and that still stands. Have you decided if you’re coming?”
“You’re here to ask me about Saturday?”
“That’s right.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to say.
“You drove out here for that?”
“And to see how you were holding up, yeah.”
I started unpacking the groceries onto the table.
“What the hell’s so funny?”
“What?”
“Why are you smiling like that?”
I hadn’t realized I was, and forced myself to stop.
Greg came up next to me and pawed through the boxes of macaroni and the frozen dinners. He stopped at a bigger box and held it up.