Lesser Evils

by Joe Flanagan

  Sibley came over to Warren. “So how about the book? Would you be willing?”

  “I don’t want to be the subject of a book, Mr. Sibley.”

  “You wouldn’t be the subject . . .” Mike reappeared at Sibley’s side and the reporter moved to put Warren between him and the boy. “Christ, Warren. Did you teach this kid how to give the third degree? I’ve never seen a kid ask so many questions in my life.”

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Warren asked him.

  “Thanksgiving?” Sibley looked shocked. “I never do anything on Thanksgiving. I haven’t done anything for Thanksgiving for the past five years.”

  “If you want to come here on Thanksgiving, we’re having dinner. The Grady Pope trial starts next week, so there’s not a whole lot I can say.”

  “Preliminary,” Sibley said. “That’s all. Preliminary discussion.”

  Grayson came up the walk with the mail. “My goodness,” he said. “A convention.” He handed a thick envelope to Warren, who glanced at the official-looking print and froze once he made the words out: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC. He held the envelope down by his leg and introduced Grayson to Jenkins, Sibley, Jane, and her fiancé. “Are they all coming for Thanksgiving?” Grayson asked.

  “I’ll be with my family,” Jane said. “But I can come afterward.”

  Grayson took her by the arm. “You’d better, darling. I don’t want to be the only pretty face at the table.”

  Mike said, “What’s in the envelope, Dad?”

  “Kid asks more questions than Joe McCarthy,” Sibley muttered. “What is in the envelope, Warren? It looks official.”

  “I applied to the FBI some time ago,” Warren said. “It’s probably a rejection letter.”

  “Rejection letters don’t come in envelopes like that.”

  Jenkins walked over and shook Sibley’s hand but did not look at him. “Jail not agree with you, Sibley?’

  “You’re Detective Jenkins, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I remember you from the East End Lodge.”

  Jenkins nodded. “Hell of a thing. Bad bunch of bastards you got on the wrong side of.”

  “I heard about the Kismet.”

  Jenkins did not respond. “What are you doing now?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” said Sibley. “Listen, are you coming to this Thanksgiving thing?”

  Jenkins squinted. He looked at Warren. Sibley said, “Well, I hope you do come. I’d love to sit down and talk with you.”

  “Come on, Ed,” said Warren. “Bring Gladys and the boys.”

  Jenkins said, “I don’t suppose I could convince you to take the chief’s job, could I?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “They asked me but I don’t want it. You take the chief’s job, I’ll come for Thanksgiving.”

  Jane walked up, reaching into her purse for something. “Mr. Warren, I almost forgot to give this to you. I was reading it at your house. How I wound up with it, I don’t know.” She took out the small yellow book. Warren snatched it out of her hand a little too eagerly. “I have to go now,” Jane said. She kissed Warren on the cheek, then Jenkins. She shook Sibley’s hand. “Goodbye, Mr. Sibley.”

  “Bye.”

  “Will I be seeing you all here on Thanksgiving?”

  Warren said, “We’ll be here.”

  “You too, Jenkins?”

  “Yeah, kid. I’ll be here with the missus.”

  She left then, she and her fiancé driving off. The three men looked after her. “Pretty girl,” Sibley said. He looked over at the book that Warren was holding, along with the letter, so that its title wasn’t visible. Sibley didn’t need to see the title. He looked out across the road and muttered, more to himself than anyone else, “Pictures of the Gone World.” He shook his head quickly. “Whew. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you on Thanksgiving.”

  When he was gone, Warren walked Jenkins to his car. “So, you’re doing good?” Jenkins asked.

  “Yes. I’m doing fine.”

  “Jury selection for the Pommering trial starts next week.”

  “The Pope thing’ll be going when they start that.”

  “We’re going to be busy,” Jenkins said.

  Warren watched his friend, whose face was closed yet intensely occupied, like he was trying to figure something that eluded him. He followed Jenkins’s gaze up the drive to where Mike was talking with Grayson and James. The detective fidgeted with his keys and looked down at the ground. “It’s been a crazy time, hasn’t it?”

  Before Warren could speak, Jenkins said, “Think about the chief thing, will you?” And with that he got into his car, avoiding Warren’s eyes. He drove off and held a hand up in parting.

  Warren took the envelope back to the barn and placed it on a weathered old table that stood just inside the door. He and Mike walked through the former apple orchard, stepping around the fruit that lay on the ground, its smell rich and intoxicating, carrying with it some old quality of autumn, a brief reappearance, in the burnished sunlight, of the past, a suggestion of promise. They wandered to the edge of the herring run. Mike said, “Do you think there are any fish in there?”

  “Not this time of year. Wait till the spring. It’ll be full of them.”

  Warren sat down on the bank and watched his son play at the edge of the stream. The swift moving water made glinting arcs and crystalline spouts as it flowed over boulders and branches, its liquid sound delicate and alluring. It glinted beyond Mike’s form so that Warren could only see him as a silhouette, ageless, featureless, simply a presence. There was an object in his coat pocket that he had assumed was a piece of Kleenex, except that now he felt a string. He pulled it out and discovered that it was the St. Jude scapular that Sister John Frances had given him. He was sure he had stuffed it into the ashtray of the car. “Mike,” he called. “Did you put something in my pocket?” He held the scapular up. It swung from his fingers. He could not see his son’s expression. Mike spoke as if a figure in a dream. “It’s for you, Dad.”

  Warren lay back on the grass and closed his eyes. What was this feeling? He was changed, freed, grief and suffering no longer in his blood, though he would always have a religious devotion to these things. At night he saw Ava. The dead children spoke to him. He paced the house at General Patton Drive in some perpetual extreme hour that never ended. But morning brought this new life, consistently, without disappointment. His son. The miracle of his son. The word he would never utter to a single soul: Miracle. The blood in his veins, the warmth of his own bed. Warren closed his eyes and lay silent and still. For a moment he thought he felt sleep stealing over him, its soft narcotic grip, friendly, welcome, but it wasn’t sleep. He interlaced his fingers over his chest, opened his eyes. He looked up at the sky and understood that he was overwhelmed with gratitude.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Joe Flanagan was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts. He has worked as a freelance writer, a speechwriter, and a magazine editor. His fiction has appeared in the anthology Glimmer Train. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.