“It’s one of the big social events of the year. Most people will go. It’ll be this big bash in the high-school gym, where too many people will get drunk, and some people will have happy memories.”
“If your father is well enough for Scott to take some time away, I’d like to go to the reunion with Scott.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if this town, or any like it in the South, is ready for that yet.”
The hostess seated us in a booth near the back. I wondered if this was accidental, but then decided I was getting paranoid.
A ham hand landed on Mary’s shoulder. The massive fist of bulging flesh belonged to an overweight man, about five feet eight, in pink knit pants, a white belt, and a yellow shirt with the words “Al’s Bowling Alley—Open Every Day” emblazoned across the front. His gleaming smile matched his outfit for brightness.
“Sorry about your dad,” he said. “Heard Scott’s back in town.”
Mary thanked him for the sentiment and introduced me to Al Holcomb. He smiled ingratiatingly.
He did not own the local used-car dealership, as I’d suspected, but I was close. He owned an insurance agency. Al leaned over toward me and confided, “I’ve been to college up in Kentucky. I’m not prejudiced like these other people. Don’t like it when these homosexuals parade around, but I don’t mind ’em as friends. I knew one in college. A nice guy. Did a great drag show. He was real popular.” I kept myself from thanking him or hitting him.
The waitress taking our order briefly stopped his largesse. When she was gone, he switched topics to talk cheerfully and at some length about how great it was that Mr. Carpenter was fully insured.
Mary looked pained when Al started and awful as he got going. He seemed oblivious. Finally I said, “We need to eat and get back to the hospital. Perhaps later we can talk about it.”
After several glad hands and guffaws, he left.
“Who the hell was that?” I asked quietly.
“Al is the head of the local Ku Klux Klan.”
I turned to get another look at him. I felt a shiver as I saw him sitting at a table with four children under the age of twelve and a woman in a polyester outfit in different shades of pink.
“He doesn’t look frightening. How do you know he’s the head of the Klan?”
“We may all be too polite to mention things in public, but we all know each other’s secrets.”
I discovered eating bar-b-que meant having pork ribs smothered in a thick sauce. They were the best I’d ever eaten. When we finished dinner, we stood on the sidewalk outside Della’s for a minute. Lights from store windows nudged at the night. A police car cruised past us slowly.
“Was that the sheriff?” I asked.
Mary squinted toward the car. “Couldn’t tell.”
The vehicle continued north and then pulled in front of a building with three other cop cars parked in front. Two bright floodlights illumined the parking lot. The building itself was two and a half stories of dark red brick matching that of the courthouse. Across the street from where the car pulled to a halt was a squat beige brick building with barred windows on either side of the front door.
I pointed. “What is that?”
“Burr County Jail and Eyesore.”
“It looks like the kind of place where they had a lynching just last night.”
“Hasn’t been one of those in decades,” she said.
I stared at the building a few minutes. Beyond it a sward of grass studded with enormous trees and soft streetlights sloped down to a small stream.
Mary said, “We better get back.”
“It’s always this humid, isn’t it?” I asked as we retraced our steps.
“It’s usually worse. We haven’t had a lot of rain this year.”
“Don’t hurricanes come through here?”
She laughed. “We’re too far from the coast. We get lots of rain, but we don’t have to evacuate. Supposed to be a big storm coming in from the Gulf in the next twenty-four hours. Farmers are hoping.”
The hall outside the CCU was a bedlam of activity. Nathan and Shannon were near tears. Hiram talked anxiously into the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Mary asked. “Is he … ?”
“We aren’t sure,” Shannon said. “They called and said to get here. They said he had another attack. We don’t know what’s happening.”
Minutes later Scott appeared in the hallway. He addressed us all. “Daddy’s heart monitor went into an arrhythmia; he had more severe chest pain. They’re going to do an angioplasty to try and clear any blockages. It could kill him, but if they don’t do it he’ll probably die.”
“Should we move him to a bigger hospital?” Hiram asked.
“Burr County General has everything a big city hospital would have,” Nathan said.
“It’s a hick town with barely enough facilities,” Shannon said.
They looked at Scott, who looked at Mary. “If he should have been moved, it’s too late now,” Scott said.
“Dr. McLarty is a heart specialist,” Mary said. “They put the hospital here so it could serve several counties. This one specializes in cardiac cases. The one two counties over has all the experts on diabetes. They divided it up like that all over this part of Georgia. An Atlanta hospital might be able to specialize in a lot of these, but we’ve got just as up-to-date heart facilities right here. It’s the best around.”
“It’s pointless to fight and second-guess,” Scott said. “He’s getting the best care. We’ll just have to wait.”
The hours barely moved by. Fortunately I’d brought Carolyn Hart’s Dead Man’s Island as a backup to the D’Amato book. I barely looked up at the passing scene. Siblings paced; more cousins and in-laws appeared and disappeared. Scott insisted his mother lie down.
After nine Scott and I took a break outside the doors of the hospital. No traffic passed on the street. Bugs began to sample our skin. I told him about dinner and the people I’d seen and met.
“You saw old Violet?” he asked.
“Yeah. You really dated her?”
“For more than a year.”
“I believe the polite term for her appearance would be ‘voluptuous.’”
“She hasn’t changed much. She was nice and smart, though. Lot of that was an act.”
“Did you … ?” I hesitated.
“Did I what?”
“You and Violet.”
I got a shot of blue-eyed amusement. “Do you really want to know?”
I shrugged. “I guess not.” Actually I did, but some things are best left unsaid (and probably unasked).
We went back upstairs for more waiting. Around eleven I walked down to the food machines in the basement.
I took the stairs instead of the elevator. It would take more time and give me a little exercise. As I strode down the silent corridor, I heard soft voices ahead, already at the machines. When I heard my name, I slowed down. I caught the middle of a conversation.
“You mean Mama said they could stay in the house?”
“That’s what Scott said. I think his buddy slept in my old bed.”
“How can she let him bring that fag into the house? Somebody’s going to have to talk to them.”
“Who? You’re next to Scott in age.”
“But you were always closest to him. You were his pet. You’re the youngest. He won’t get mad at you, or if he does, he won’t hit you.”
“He wouldn’t hit you. Anyway, you’re big enough now to fight back.”
“I wouldn’t want Mama to know we were fighting at a time like this. He has hit me. Remember the time in high school?”
“You were kids, and you did leave his favorite baseball mitt at the park along with his lucky bat, and they both got stolen because of you.”
“How many times do I have to say it wasn’t my fault?”
“Scott blamed you.”
“And beat the shit out of me.”
“I thought Daddy was going to beat the shit out of him.”
“He didn’t, though. He always did like Scott best.”
“Will you give it a rest? We have to decide what to do about him going around town with that faggot. Did you hear what happened at the Waffle House this morning?”
“The whole county knows and half the people between here and Atlanta. I wish the sheriff could run that queer out of town. I’d beat the shit out of him myself if I wasn’t afraid of Scott.”
I decided I’d heard enough. I stepped back a few paces in the hall and then walked forward making loud sounds with my feet. The voices stopped. I rounded the corner and smiled at Hiram and Nathan. Their bland faces revealed nothing about the mayhem they’d been contemplating. They said nothing as I inserted coins in the machine, punched my selection, and retrieved my RC cola. I smiled at them and left. They kept silent as I walked away.
Back upstairs, I read for a while and then began to doze when, around midnight, Scott whispered to the family who were there. “The doctor’s back.”
I stood next to Scott as the family gathered in the hallway. Dr. McLarty took off his green cap and wiped his forehead. He spoke directly to Mrs. Carpenter. “The procedure itself was a success. We’ve cleared as much of any blockages as we could find. We still don’t know the extent of the damage that has been done. We’ve done what we could, but we just won’t know for a while. Time will have to pass. He is breathing on his own, which is good.”
“Can we see him?” Hiram asked.
“You can sit up with him, but you can’t speak with him. And only two at a time.”
“Mama?” Scott said.
“I’ll go,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “You come with me, Scottie.”
The remaining brothers and sisters discussed their father until Scott and his mother returned half an hour later.
“Mama should go home,” Scott said quietly. Mrs. Carpenter looked gray and tired. She made no protest.
“I’ll take her,” Mary said.
They discussed familial logistics. It was unlikely Mr. Carpenter would awaken before morning. All of them were tired, but Scott insisted he wanted to stay. I volunteered to stick with him. Hiram and Shannon began to protest at that, but Mrs. Carpenter said, “I think that’s a good idea. Scott and Tom should stay. We’ll all be fresher in the morning.”
“How’d your dad look?” I asked as we watched his family leave.
He shook his head.
“How are you holding up? You haven’t had much sleep in the past few days.”
“I’m okay. I’m awfully glad you came with.”
We reentered his father’s room. Scott sat next to the bed and held his dad’s hand. I sat in a chair and read.
As the first hints of gray dawn appeared Scott said, “I want to stay here for a while. Can you go back to the house? Maybe get my shaving equipment, change of underwear? I don’t want to leave.”
“You should get some sleep.”
“I want to be here if he wakes up.”
“I’ll stay if you want.”
“Bring me back that stuff,” he said. “I need you now as I never have before.” We hugged. I could feel his tension as I held his shoulders.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said.
“You remember the way?” Scott asked.
“As long as it’s daylight, I should be okay. The turnoff from the highway is the first left after the second crumbling gas station?”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s the third dirt road on the left?”
“On the right.”
No nurse was on duty as I left the CCU. I walked down the muted and empty corridors and this time took the elevator down. The hospital doors swung open automatically. I stood in the entrance for a few minutes, stretching my arms. I realized I’d left my book upstairs. I turned to go back, but then figured I’d be back in a while anyway. The air was damp and almost cool. Tendrils of fog drifted about four feet above my head. The nearly empty parking lot looked eerie: clear visibility at ground level, and then these wisps of fog, and then above them a dark sky to the west but faint grays and the first blues off to the east.
I ambled to the car. The lights in the parking lot flicked off as I approached our rental. I saw a dark figure in the backseat of the car. “Now what?” I muttered.
As I approached, the bulk didn’t move. A few seconds later I was close enough to recognize, despite the deep shadows, the grinning face of Peter Woodall, the sheriff. I unlocked the front door and flipped the lock for all the doors. An unpleasant odor mixed with the new-car smell. I guessed it had something to do with the nearby forests, swamps, and farms. Odd I hadn’t noticed it when I walked out of the hospital. Maybe the wind had changed.
By the time I wrenched open the back door, I’d completely lost my temper. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, you son of a bitch. I’ve never done anything to you. I just want to be left alone. As soon as Scott’s father is better, we’re leaving. I wouldn’t want to stay in your goddamn county anyway.”
Woodall just kept staring forward and grinning.
“Look, asshole,” I continued, “maybe you’ve got some score to settle with Scott. Maybe you should fight a duel or do whatever it is macho guys do in the South, but why don’t you leave us the hell alone until that can be arranged?”
He grinned some more.
I leaned further in. Most of his body was shrouded in darkness. The odd smell was almost overwhelming. “Look, shit-for-brains, maybe you can hide in the backseat of people’s cars in this part of the country, but—”
The grinning face slowly leaned toward me and then continued past my startled expression and slumped all the way over.
I grabbed the body before it could fall out of the car. It was cold. The front of Woodall’s shirt felt damp and sticky. “Shit.”
I shifted his bulk so he was sitting up. The light was dim, and I could still barely see. I looked at my hand. The sticky dampness I’d felt was blood.
I lifted Woodall’s head up to feel for the carotid artery, although I figured it was quite useless. I’d held dead bodies in the jungles of Vietnam, and this one felt just like those. Checking the carotid was indeed pointless. Moving his head gave me the cause of his death. His throat had been slit.
4
I’m afraid that the vision that flashed across my mind was that of my father. One Saturday afternoon he was showing my brothers and me how to fix something on his car. He’d just toggled some switch or other and started the car when a puff of smoke and a tongue of flame rose from inside the engine. My father stood there for a minute. We boys backed away a few steps, wondering if the car or my father would explode. He just stood there with his hands at his side, staring into the engine. All he said was, “This is a revoltin’ development.”
My sentiments exactly.
I looked at the body. I held out my blood-covered hands. With nothing to wipe them on I tried using the floor of the car as the nearest dry surface. I got most of it off, but stray smears and small patches of stickiness remained. Touching the body had also gotten blood on the front of my shirt and pants.
I looked around to see if there was anyone in the vicinity to call to for help.
Nobody. I didn’t need to be involved in a murder investigation in the South. Who knew what lunacy might be perpetrated?
I hesitated to go for help. The only other person who had been here was the murderer. The crime scene could hardly be more pure or better preserved. With the light at hand I did some examining. Woodall’s shirt was bloody, but the car itself had very little blood on it. With that kind of wound more than his shirt would have gotten soaked; the area around the body would be saturated. The pavement surrounding the car had no visible signs of blood, either. Obviously, he’d been killed somewhere else and brought to this spot. Why our car? To implicate me? Scott? Both of us? Or maybe every killer looks for a handy spot to plop a dead body, and our rent-a-car happened to be it.
I didn’t see signs of a struggle. His clothes s
eemed to be in order, not tugged or pulled out; his gun was in its holster, his hands lay by his side, and I couldn’t see any signs of abrasions or bruising. Whoever did it either was very clever—maybe drugged him—or was powerful enough to hold him still with one hand while slitting his throat with the other. A very powerful person—or several people. Of course, there could be all kinds of signs of restraint that I missed. I ran my hand along the floor, then under and on the seat as well as under the sheriff. I found nothing.
I looked back toward the hospital. As yet no one had emerged onto the parking lot. It was at the back of the hospital, away from the street, although I doubted if much traffic existed anywhere in Brinard in the early morning hours. Even now I heard no sound of activity. There were two other cars within a hundred feet of this one and another clump of cars closer to the street. I presumed these belonged to the hospital workers. Possibly we hadn’t been singled out. Maybe the killer or killers had simply picked this one because it was farthest from any light.
I wished I could just get in the car, take the body, and dump it off the nearest bridge. I presumed no one had seen the murderer but half the town would be on hand to see me try to surreptitiously slip the body into the nearest swamp.
I sighed. There really wasn’t much else to do. I walked back into the emergency-room entrance.
The nurse saw the blood on my clothes and jumped to her feet.
“I’m fine,” I said. “The sheriff is in the backseat of a rented white Oldsmobile about two hundred feet from the front door. It probably won’t do any good, but you should send some medical personnel out there.”
“Why?”
“His throat has been slit.”
She swung into action. She pressed a button with one hand and reached for a phone with the other. I stopped in a john down the hall and washed the rest of the blood off my hands. By the time I got outside, the wisps of fog were gone, and it was full daylight.
A blue police car with white lettering saying “Brinard County” sat about ten feet from our car. The cop car had its Mars lights rotating. A blond guy, who fit his brown polyester uniform pants very nicely, stared into the backseat of my rental car. Three white-coated emergency-room workers stood in a clump about five feet from the body.
Rust on the Razor Page 5