by Lisa Unger
“Sarah,” she whispered, as though trying to rouse her from sleep. “Sarah?”
Then she looked up at them, her face a mask of sorrow and fear. Her words were just an exhaled breath. “She’s-she’s not breathing.”
“No,” said Jones. “That’s not-No.”
He went to kneel beside Sarah as well and saw the unnatural angle of her neck, the strange stillness, the odd cast to her skin.
“Oh, my God.” He felt the first grip of true fear he had ever known.
“I never touched her.”
They both turned to look at Travis, who started to back away, his lips parted, head shaking. Then Travis took off in a sprint, disappeared up the path to the main road.
It was that night that Jones realized your body was a thing that could be broken on impact through careless action, broken like a branch left in the road. She was wrecked before him, ruined, ended. There was just one moment between her life and death, just one breath drawn and not released. He thought about the sound it made… that final, soft noise of flesh on stone, the crackle of breaking bone. It was so quiet.
Then, years later, there was a dawning, a slow and terrible dawning that he, too, would die. Even he would one day draw a breath and not release it, or release a breath and not draw another. He would cease to exist, cease to draw the world in through his senses, though it would go on without him. A grim dread, accompanied by a petulant rage, settled on him. It was all so damn fragile. It shouldn’t be. Something so important should be stronger. How were we all supposed to bear it? he wondered. How could anyone really live, knowing that they were going to die? What was the point?
That night, and every awful thing that followed, was there between them in the Explorer as they drove to find Marshall. It was always there, wasn’t it? But the years had buried it all deep, covered it with the fallen debris of ordinary days. Jones wanted to say, Is it still with you? Do you still dream about it? But he didn’t. He knew the answer, could see it in the shattered expression Travis had worn that night and how that face, hollowed with fear and regret, was just beneath the surface of every other face he wore. That’s what Jones saw when he looked at Travis, not the fearsome bully everyone else seemed to see.
Travis lit another cigarette without asking, rolled down the window, letting the cold air sweep in. Jones drove from The Acres and took the main road through the center of town, passed the coffee shop and the independent bookstore, Pop’s Pizza and the Om Yoga Studio. A sharp right after the last light put them on Old Farmers Road, which started as a paved road but devolved into little more than a rocky path, completely impassable after a heavy snowfall.
Chief Crosby (everyone still called him that, thought of him that way, though he’d retired long ago) owned the surrounding hundred acres, thick with hemlock and pine. Rumor had it that he’d had offers from developers-huge offers-that he’d summarily turned down. Every winter Jones fully expected to have to find a way to haul the chief’s giant corpse out of there. But every spring he emerged in his big red pickup truck, looking a bit slimmer, like a bear emerging from hibernation.
“My old man is never going to sell this land, not even a sliver of it,” said Travis. “It’s worth a fortune.”
“He won’t live forever,” said Jones.
“We’ll see,” said Travis, flicking his cigarette out the window.
As they turned onto the drive, Jones saw Marshall’s car parked on an angle beneath the glow of a spotlight that shone from the garage. There was a low crescent moon, and a field of stars he didn’t usually get to see in the brighter light of town. The Crosby house was built from field-stone, a massive chimney reaching up through the red and white pine; it was still and dark, sure of itself to the point of being contemptuous, like the old man himself.
Off down to their right, a stone carriage house tilted in the landscape, its boards splintered and gray, its roof caving in. Jones exited the vehicle and approached the Chevelle, got stiffly to his knees, joints and lower back protesting, and spotted the dark puddle on the ground beneath it.
When he stood up again, he was surprised to see Travis directly behind him. He hadn’t heard the door open and close, had assumed the other man was still sitting in the warmth of the vehicle.
“What are you doing, Crosby?” said Jones, taking a step back. He felt the urge to rest his hand on the gun he carried in a shoulder holster. He knew, though, that a move like that, slipping your hand inside your jacket, was one of antagonism for another cop. He didn’t want to overreact, but the sight of Travis unnerved him. Shadows had settled on the hollows of Travis’s face, in the valleys under his eyes, in the deep lines around his mouth.
“Do you ever think we should have just owned up to what happened that night?” Travis said.
Jones drew and released a deep breath. Here it was, clawing its way up from the dirt beneath their feet. “Why are we talking about this now?”
Travis turned up the corners of his mouth in a mirthless grin. “Come on, Cooper. We all died that night. We’re just ghosts in our lives, aren’t we? Everything is rotten, decayed.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt her. Not… kill her.” His voice shattered on the last words.
“I know that. I do.”
“I just keep thinking that if it had just stopped there, if I’d just had the courage to own it…,” Travis said. He let the sentence trail and his eyes drift over to the old house, the place where he’d grown up. “The thing is, I wanted to be a better man than my father, a better father than he was. I just never knew how. You can’t build a house without the right tools, you know.”
Jones saw the other man begin to cry and cast his eyes away. He didn’t want to see Travis break down. His hand was itching to reach for the gun in its holster. It’s too late for all of this, Travis, he wanted to say. We’re too far gone. All our mistakes, everything we’ve done wrong. It is just part of who we are now. There’s no such thing as redemption. Two people are dead because of all the things we did and didn’t do. Your tears mean nothing. But he was pretty sure that was not what Travis needed to hear. He wished Maggie were here; she’d know what to say to him. She always had the answers.
“I know I can’t undo the things I’ve done. I can’t go back and be a better father. But I can protect my son right now. I can do that.”
When Jones looked back at Travis, the other man had a gun in his hand, a.38-caliber Smith & Wesson, his old service revolver.
“What are you doing, Travis?”
“What I have to do.”
“What’s he done, man? We can work it out.”
Jones thought about Maggie and the things she’d said, how angry she’d been at him tonight, the accusations she’d leveled against him. And he saw now that she was right about everything. And Travis was right, too, about them all being ghosts in their lives-not living right, not at rest or at peace, just howling at the fringes.
“Hiding the truth isn’t the same as protecting someone.” Even as he said it, he knew what a sad hypocrite he was. “What good did it do any of us?”
But Jones could see the blank determination in the other man’s eyes. He knew instinctively that he wouldn’t have time to draw his weapon now. He’d waited too long.
He lifted his palms in a gesture of surrender; when he saw Travis relax, Jones rushed him, hoping that Travis’s reaction time was slow because he was drunk. But before he could reach Travis, the explosion of the firing gun opened up the night.
22
He was a coward. Charlene was right about him. He was a mama’s boy, because that’s where he wanted to be, at home with his mom. Instead he was driving around The Hollows, flirting with the entrance to the interstate that would take him into the city. But he couldn’t quite get himself to drive up the on-ramp. He’d passed it three times already. He could drive to New York, and then what? Go to a club, hope to bump into her? He didn’t know where anybody lived. Would he wander the streets,
looking at every girl who passed?
He ran one hand through his hair. It felt as hard and spiky as Astro-Turf from all the gel he used to create that carefully messed-up look. The action caused his arm to ache. He wasn’t sure a tattoo was supposed to hurt this much; the skin beneath the ink looked red and raw. He’d dabbed away a little pus. That was all he needed, for the stupid thing to get infected. That would really send his parents off the deep end.
She uses people. She used you. Earlier he’d been so sure that something had happened to Charlene. But now he wasn’t sure of anything. Whose car had she gotten into? Where had she gone? Why did his father believe he’d done something to hurt her? Or that he was lying? On the seat beside him, his phone started ringing again. Mom calling, the screen blinked anxiously. He didn’t answer. As much as he wanted to pick up and talk to her, he didn’t.
He was tired, pulled into a deserted gym parking lot. He’d already been through the drive-through at Taco Bell, had an Enchirito and nachos while he drove. Then he went through Starbucks and got a venti Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino with extra whipped cream and chocolate sauce. So, for a while, he was wired, his mind buzzing with one grand plan after another. Now, crashing hard, Rick just wanted to go home. But he couldn’t stand the thought of them-his father’s accusations, his mother’s worried frown. If he went home, they wouldn’t just leave him be; they’d be up all night fighting. He wondered what it was like to live in a family where people didn’t feel compelled to talk all the goddamn time about every little thing. Not that this was a little thing. It was a big thing, the biggest thing. The girl he loved was missing. His father thought he had something to do with it.
He brought the car to a stop and killed the engine, sat in the deserted parking lot. It was after midnight, and he hadn’t seen another car in an hour. He rested his head against the window, started to doze, and immediately began to dream. He dreamed that he was swinging a bat, and as it connected with a ball pitched to him by his father, it made a sharp crack, the bat splitting in two. The sound startled him awake. Then he heard it again.
Carried on the night air, it sounded like the firing of a gun. His dad had taught him the difference between gunfire and the backfiring of an engine. The sound of gunfire had a crack to it, a report, whereas the sound of a car backfiring was more explosive. He listened for it again, but he only heard the wind through the leaves. He rolled down the window and caught the scent of cut grass and something else, the faintest odor of skunk. He kept listening for a while, hoping to hear it again, but there was nothing. Then his phone started ringing again.
Sitting there listening to it, wondering if he should finally answer, Rick felt his fatigue and sadness become unbearable. He couldn’t sit alone in the dark anymore. He turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life. He knew where to go, someplace where he could rest and be left alone.
He drove back through town and made a right, followed the road past Hollows High, and turned onto Blacksmith Bluff, his grandmother’s street. He pulled into her driveway, putting the car in neutral and drifting in the last fifty yards, like he did at home not to wake his dad. But as he stepped out of the car, he noticed that the light in his grandmother’s bedroom was on.
He used the key he had on his ring and pushed the front door open, stepping into the foyer. He flipped on the light and moved inside.
“Grandma?”
He saw a light shining down the stairs from the hallway on the second floor. He didn’t want to give her a heart attack. He didn’t want to wake her if she was sleeping, either. But when he heard a low and distant moaning, he broke into a run up the steps. Elizabeth was on the floor beneath the attic access, her cane toppled beside her.
“Grandma,” he said, kneeling beside her.
“Ricky,” she said. “You need to tell them.”
She looked pale and withered lying there, so helpless. Beneath his hand, her shoulder felt tiny and frail. It scared him. She was a powerhouse, as strong and permanent as the old oak tree out in the backyard.
“Grandma, it’s okay.” He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911, though his first instinct was to call his mother. He knew enough not to try to move his grandmother, though he could easily have scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom.
“You have to tell them, Ricky.” She clutched his wrist, her grip urgent.
“I need an ambulance at 173 Blacksmith Bluff,” he said to the dispatcher. “My grandma fell. She’s hurt.”
“Ricky,” Elizabeth said. “She was already dead when he found her.”
Rick didn’t know what she was talking about, tried to focus on the dispatcher’s voice while giving his grandmother a comforting rub on the arm.
“She’s disoriented,” Rick said, holding her gaze. “Can you contact my father, Jones Cooper? He’s the head detective at the Hollows Police Department.”
The dispatcher told him to stay on the line until the ambulance arrived. Rick tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Grandma.” He heard the dispatcher requesting the ambulance. Arrival in four minutes. Hang in there.
“She was already dead, Ricky. He didn’t kill her.”
“Grandma… I don’t understand.” He felt a tingle of panic. Was she talking about Charlene? Did she know something? “Grandma? What are you talking about?”
But her gaze was glassy and distant, staring through him. She released a sigh and relaxed her hold on his arm. In the distance, he heard the wailing of sirens.
After calling Ricky several times to no avail, Maggie found herself at a loss. She considered calling her mother and then, when she noted the time, decided against it. She wouldn’t “keep looking,” as Jones had urgently requested, nor would she go out after Ricky and drive aimlessly searching for him. She couldn’t think of anything more crazy-making.
So she found herself paralyzed, staring at the cordless phone in her hand, trying to figure out an appropriate course of action-one that was reasonable and productive, not the unhinged move of a frantic mother, or the fearful action of an overly obedient wife. Even if Jones didn’t know their son, she did. He would call or come home, and he would do it sooner rather than later. Or so she hoped.
But then the phone was ringing in her hand. She answered it without glancing at the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Cooper?”
Her heart sank to hear an unfamiliar voice. “Yes, this is.”
“It’s Angie Crosby.” In the current chaotic context, it took Maggie a moment to place the name. Marshall’s mother.
“Oh, Angie.” Maggie’s worry about Marshall returned to the forefront of her mind for a moment. And she was ashamed to note that she was almost glad for it, the distraction from her personal crisis.
“It’s late,” said Angie. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s quite all right. I’m up,” Maggie said. “What’s wrong?”
There was silence on the other line and then a muted weeping.
“Angie?” Maggie said. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry I hung up on you before. I didn’t want-But now I’ve been thinking.”
“What’s happening?” Maggie felt a flutter of fear and something else she wouldn’t have admitted, the relief of being on solid ground, of knowing what to do, what to say.
Angie issued a few more shuddering breaths, then, “He came here earlier today.”
“Okay,” Maggie said. “And something happened between you. Tell me about it.”
Stop shrinking, Jones would say to her. You use those benign questions and leading statements as a shield, Maggie. Always calm, always in control, always looking for a way to “help.” But where are you? What do you need? What do you feel? He was right, in a way. It was always so much easier to help others than it was to help yourself. But what was wrong with that? It was her job.
“Something’s happened to him,” Angie said. “He’s changed.”
Maggie opted for silenc
e. Sometimes that was a better way to draw things out than the affirming statement or coaxing question.
“He said that Travis was right,” Angie went on after a moment. “That all women were whores and users. Especially me.”
Maggie realized she was gripping the phone, leaning so hard against the table that the edge was digging into her rib cage. She forced herself to lean back and breathe. When the other woman didn’t continue on her own, Maggie said, “Did he hurt you?”
More muffled crying. “He pushed me, hard against a wall of shelves. I hit my head on a corner-hard enough to black out.”
“I’m so sorry, Angie. Are you all right?”
“I am. But when I came back around, Marshall was gone.”
Maggie wanted more details about how the encounter had started and what had happened to make it escalate to violence, though she saw from Marshall’s actions in her office earlier that there was a simmering rage there, just waiting for an opportunity to boil over.
“When I talked to you earlier, I was upset about what happened between Marshall and me,” Angie went on. “I figured I’d change my locks and not be so quick to answer the door to him next time. I didn’t want him to get in trouble, you know. So much of what’s wrong with him is my fault, Dr. Cooper. I know that. I left him to Travis.”
Angie started crying again. Maggie felt her own eyes tear; she could hear so clearly the pain and frustration in the other woman’s voice.
“So what’s changed since last we talked?” Maggie asked. “Did he come to your house again?”
“No, no. After I talked to you and pulled myself together, I had a horrible thought. I keep guns here in my house. A revolver and a semiautomatic weapon. I have a license and am trained to use them.”