by Ken Oder
Tall and thin with silver hair and a beard, he looked older than the thirty years he’d added since Cole saw him last. He wore a heavy blue coat that came down to his knees. The .357 Magnum that killed Carrie rode in one of its large side pockets, Cole guessed.
Cole raised his service revolver and put the gunsight on Jim’s chest, but his hands shook so badly he couldn’t hold it there. He lowered the gun, breathing hard.
Jim reached inside the truck and backed out of it with a stick in his hand. He leaned heavily on it and caned slowly to the stoop, barely able to put weight on his left leg.
Cole raised the gun again, but again he couldn’t hold it on target.
Jim climbed the steps and went inside.
Cole dropped the gun to his side and wiped sweat off his brow, his hands shaking violently.
A light came on in the little room behind the sanctuary and poured out the window, casting a wedge of amber over the hood of the truck.
Calm down. Control your rage. Use it to your advantage.
He stood at the edge of the forest for five minutes. When the adrenaline had ebbed, he walked across the churchyard to the stoop and stopped in front of it, the pain pulsating at his iliac crest. The hell with the pain. He climbed the steps and looked at the door, now green, and the doorknob, now plain metal, smooth. Cole looked at the window. Years had passed; the world had turned ten thousand times; but what he had seen in that window would never fade away.
He kicked the door in, crashing it against the wall. Jim sat on the bed, a bandage on his arm, his pants leg rolled up above the knee, an ice pack on the bed beside him, his winter coat draped over the back of a desk chair ten feet from him. He looked up at Cole, startled.
Cole crossed the room in three quick strides and put all his might into a sidelong slashing blow with his service revolver to Jim’s head just above the ear. Blood flew across the room and splattered on the wall. Jim fell over on the bed. Cole put the barrel to Jim’s temple, gripping the gun with both hands, and pushed his head down hard against the mattress.
Kill him! Kill him now!
Jim shoved him backwards. Cole stumbled, righted himself, and thrust the gun at Jim with a two-fisted straight-armed grip.
Jim sat up on the bed slowly, trembling, blood sliding down his face. “Pull the trigger!” he shouted. “Do it!”
Cole took a step back, breathing hard, still holding the gun on Jim. “Why did you kill her?” he choked out.
“You’re the one who killed her. You killed her when you wouldn’t let her go.”
“She didn’t want to go with you,” he said. “She chose me over you.”
“She didn’t choose you. You threatened to take Peter away from her. She chose Peter over me.”
“She wanted to stay with me,” Cole said, his voice breaking. “She loved me.”
“She hated you! You and your almighty quest to become sheriff!” Jim placed his bloody hand on the bed to brace himself, struggling to stay upright. “She loved me,” he said in a low voice.
Jim’s words struck Cole like a hammer blow to the heart. He backed up to the desk and put his hand on it to steady himself. An image of Carrie from thirty years ago, even more painful than his memory of her and Jim in the window, came back to Cole—Carrie sitting at their kitchen table, her head down, weeping softly.
“Look at me,” Cole had said.
She had looked at him, her big brown eyes full.
“Do you love him?”
Tears had streamed down her cheeks. “Yes.”
Her answer broke Cole’s heart back then, and in the little anteroom thirty years later, his heart broke again. He sat down heavily on the desk chair. “She loved me before you came along,” he said, his voice low and quavering. “She loved me again after you left. Even more than before.”
Jim smirked. “She hated you. For good reason. You loved only yourself.”
They were quiet for a long while. Cole thought about all he had gone through. Jim stole Carrie’s love from him. He had won her back. Thirty years later, Jim had returned to Selk County to kill her. Cole had to know the reason. He pointed the gun at Jim. “Why did you kill her?”
Jim put his bloody hand over his eyes. After a long silence, he said, “They fired me. I was sixty-two. No wife. No children. No life.” He dropped his hand into his lap and gave Cole a menacing look. “All because you wouldn’t let her go.”
“That’s a reason to hate me, not Carrie.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
Jim touched the wound above his ear, looked at the blood on his hand, rubbed it between his fingers. “When you found out about us, she cut me off. She wouldn’t talk to me.” He took a kerchief out of his pants pocket and pressed it against his wound. “I went to your house when you were at headquarters. Forced my way inside. She cried. Said she loved me but she couldn’t leave Peter.” He swayed, put his hand on the bed to hold himself up, and sighed heavily. “She said it hurt too much to be near me and not be with me. She begged me to leave, to go far away and never come back. She told me to put her out of my mind and move on with my life.” He tossed the bloody kerchief on the floor and rubbed his hands on his thighs, his eyes full. “I went away. For her sake. But I couldn’t put her out of my mind.”
“That all went down thirty years ago,” Cole said. “You killed her long after.”
Jim’s tired eyes settled on Cole. “I loved her through all those years. I had no one else. Cared for no one.” Jim looked down at his knee and rubbed it. “After they fired me, I called her. Asked her to meet me. She refused. I wrote her a letter. Poured my heart out. Begged her to run away with me and make the most out of what time we had left.”
He stopped rubbing his knee and looked at Cole. “Her answer came in the mail. Two sentences. ‘I don’t love you anymore. Don’t ever contact me again.’” His face grew hard. “I didn’t blame her when she pushed me away the first time, but this last time around, Peter was long gone. She shouldn’t have shut me out.”
“You killed her because she turned you away after thirty years?” Cole said, his anger almost strangling him.
Jim glared at Cole. “I planned to kill you, but she came home first. She looked at me like she hated me. ‘I told you to stay away from me,’ she said. Hard-hearted. Cru—” His voice failed him. He swallowed and cleared his throat. “All the years of trying to forget her. The loneliness. The heartache.” He put his hand to his eyes. “I lost control. I don’t even remember firing the gun.” He dropped his hand and glowered at Cole. “She would have run away with me if you hadn’t taken Peter hostage. You forced her to stay with you against her will. You broke her and turned her into someone hard and cold. I didn’t kill her. You did.”
“You’re lying to yourself,” Cole said. “You killed her because she didn’t love you anymore. You killed her because you couldn’t have her. You’re a Judas. You betrayed me to steal Carrie, and when she rejected you, you betrayed her. You’ll burn in hell for what you did to us.”
Jim’s face hardened into a mask of pure hatred. They glared at each other for a long time.
Then Cole noticed a gradual shift in Jim’s demeanor. A subtle change, Jim’s hatred morphing into something less malevolent, but still lethal. A determined look came into Jim’s eyes and his body tensed.
He’s looking for an opening, Cole thought. Jim, the chess player, in check for the moment but ever vigilant. Cole suspected Jim’s handgun was in the pocket of the coat draped across the back of Cole’s chair, but Jim always had a backup plan.
This is it, Cole told himself, the moment of reckoning. Give him a chance and he’ll seize it.
Pretending he was so distraught that he’d lost his focus, Cole bowed his head and slumped in the chair, relaxing his gun arm, allowing it to dangle toward the floor.
In a swift, fluid motion, Jim reached under the bed, withdrew a rifle, and pointed it at Cole.
Cole raised his gun and fired one round.
The bullet hit Jim in the forehead, dead center. As the force of the bullet knocked him backward, Jim’s rifle exploded, blowing a hole in the beadboard just above Cole’s head. Jim fell back on the bed, blood and brain matter spraying the windowpane behind him. The rifle lay across his chest still in his grasp. His legs twitched and went still.
Cole kept his gun trained on Jim for a long time. Then he stood slowly, walked over to the bed, pried the rifle out of Jim’s hands, and looked down at his corpse.
“She loved me,” Cole whispered. “She loved me.”
Chapter Forty
The Passenger
July 22, 1967, Saturday morning
Four months after Cole Grundy killed Jim Lloyd, Deputy Toby Vess turned his old blue Ford pickup off Whiskey Road onto a dirt driveway and stopped. Someone had staked a sign beside the mailbox. Black letters on a white field: For Sale by Owner.
Toby urged his truck over the rutted road and emerged from the brush and scrub pines into a clearing. He parked in the driveway and looked at the house.
The metal stake still stood beside the stoop with a chain snaking away from it under the house. Toby looked over at his passenger, who had his head held high, his jutting chin emphasizing his severe underbite, his yellow eyes fixed on Toby. Toby got out of the truck and looked back at the dog. He didn’t move. “You’d best come on now.”
The brindle pit bull hopped across the seat and out the door to land at Toby’s feet. He sat on his haunches and looked up at Toby. Toby squatted beside him and scratched the soft spots around the stubs where his ears had been before the sons a bitches cut them off with a pair of scissors so the dogs they made him fight couldn’t get a jaw-grip on them. The pit bull closed his eyes and groaned.
The door to the house opened. Walt Ballard stepped out on the stoop, leaning heavily on a cane.
Toby stood and faced him.
Walt came off the stoop awkwardly and limped through the weeds toward the truck. He stopped about ten feet from the dog and Toby. “Buck,” he said.
The dog stood up, furrowed his brow, and wagged his tail.
Walt leaned over and patted his thigh. “Come, Buck.”
Buck looked up at Toby and then at Walt.
“Go ahead,” Toby said.
Buck trotted over to Walt and looked up at him uncertainly.
Walt offered his knuckles. Buck sniffed the hand, tentatively at first and then with growing enthusiasm. His tail wagged furiously. He barked and jumped up on Walt. Walt steadied himself with his cane and laughed. He patted Buck’s big flat head that was now adorned with a crimson scar that parted his short hair down the middle.
Toby watched the pit bull jump around on his hind legs while Walt played with him. He took a deep breath and walked over to Walt and the dog.
Walt knelt on his good knee with his bad leg stretched out stiff to the side and put his arm around Buck’s shoulders. Buck licked his face. Walt laughed. “I missed you, Buck, you old rascal, you!”
“Is that his name?” Toby said. “Buck?”
Walt struggled to stand. Toby helped him up. Walt leaned heavily on his cane. “Buck’s what I named him. What do you call him?”
“I call him P.D.”
“What do the letters stand for?”
“Nothing. They just seemed to fit.”
Walt laughed. “He looks good, Toby. Looks like you fed him plenty. He’s put on weight. I can’t thank you enough for taking care of him. Cole told me the pound was twenty-four hours away from putting him down when you stepped in and took him home. You saved his life.”
Toby watched P.D. prance around Walt with his tongue hanging out and his powerful jaw slack in a wide dog-grin. “It didn’t seem right,” Toby said in a sandpaper voice. “He didn’t do anything wrong, but they said they had to put him to sleep because no one would take him.”
P.D. continued to jump around Walt, as happy as a puppy. Toby turned toward his truck, squinted up at the sun, swiped at his eye, and looked down at the ground. “Anyway, he’s back with you where he belongs.”
“Thanks, again,” Walt said.
Toby waved his hand in the air and walked back to his truck, doing his best to resist the urge to look back at the dog. He opened the truck door and hesitated, trying to come to terms with the end of his time with P.D. As he stood there, the pit bull brushed by Toby’s leg, hopped up in the truck, and sat on his haunches by the passenger window with his head held high and his underbite exposing his two lower canine teeth, his yellow eyes fixed on Toby.
Toby looked back at Walt and then at P.D.
Walt caned over to the truck. He looked at Buck for a long moment. He ran his hand across his mouth and looked off at the scrub pines bordering the clearing. When he turned to Toby, his eyes were full. “I wasn’t gonna ask you cause I know it ain’t fair to you, Toby, but I need a big favor.”
Toby faced Walt.
“I reckon you heard I’m selling the place and moving in with Reba.”
“I saw the for sale sign. I didn’t know about Reba, but I’m mighty glad y’all are getting back together.”
Walt looked down at the ground. “Had to get myself damned near killed before she decided to take me back. It’s a hard way to court a woman. I don’t recommend it.”
Walt was quiet for a few moments. He seemed to be searching for words. Then, “Thing is we won’t have room in her trailer for a big smelly dog like Buck.” He glanced at Buck, then looked away at the brush again, and bit his lip. “I know it’s a burden, but I was hoping he could stay with you.” Walt looked down at his cane. Its walnut handle was a carved rabbit’s head with red glass beads for eyes. “I’d be forever grateful if you’d take him off my hands.”
Toby started to speak, but his voice caught in his throat. He licked his lips and said, “You sure about this?”
“I’m sure,” Walt said, still looking down. “It’s hard on me, but it’s the right thing to do for Buck.”
“It’s no burden on me. He’s a good dog.” Toby looked at P.D. “Gets lonely at my place sometimes,” he said under his breath.
He turned back to Walt. They shook hands.
Walt ran his sleeve over his nose, looked at Buck, and caned back to the stoop.
As Toby turned the truck around and drove out toward Whiskey Road, P.D. looked back at Walt standing on the stoop until the scrub pines closed around the old Ford and blocked his view. Then he turned and looked out the windshield at the road ahead. Toby reached over and rubbed his big shoulders.
Chapter Forty-One
The Bracelet
July 22, 1967, Saturday morning
That same morning, Cole sat at his kitchen table, thinking about Carrie.
On warm summer nights, she and Cole used to sit in their Adirondack chairs in the front yard, drinking iced tea and talking. She called it their quiet time. Three weeks after her funeral, sitting alone out there on a moonlit night, he saw a shadowy movement in the woods at the edge of the yard and heard the faint sound of Carrie’s laughter. He went down to the trees and looked. No one was there.
A few weeks after that, he awoke in the dark in bed, and he heard her whisper his name. He reached out for her. His hand fell on her pillow. It was warm. He got out of bed and turned on the light. Her side of the bed was undisturbed.
She came to him again and again. He felt her breath on his cheek. He heard the murmur of her voice in the silence before dawn. He felt the light brush of her fingertips on his brow. He heard the soft tread of her step on the porch in the night.
His doctor said these experiences were common among widowers. Cole’s subconscious perception hadn’t caught up to the reality of Carrie’s death. Give it time, he said.
And so it went. As time passed, she came to him less frequently. She hadn’t visited him in more than a year when the jay called from the big white pine on Bobcat Mountain and he lurched to his left and the shooter’s bullet whizzed by his jaw. For a few days, he thought maybe Carrie’s spirit gave breath to the jay’s c
ry at that crucial moment to save his life.
When he learned Jim Lloyd had fired the shot, he changed his mind. He didn’t know if she would have intervened to save him from Jim. He hoped so, but he wasn’t sure. That was when he decided he had to try to come to terms with her death.
Mabel Lucas sat at the kitchen table across from Cole that Saturday morning. “Every closet and dresser drawer in this house,” Mabel said, “is chock full of her things. Dresses, blouses, sweaters, winter coats, jackets, shoes. Even the bathroom cabinets are filled with her cosmetics and medications. You’ve kept everything she ever touched. It’s as if she still lives here.”
Her tone was sympathetic, but Cole felt defensive. “She does live here. In a way.”
Mabel reached across the table and took his hand. “You know that’s not true, Cole,” she said gently. “That’s why you asked me to help you go through her things.”
Cole looked down at his coffee mug and said nothing.
She squeezed his hand and released it. “I called Goodwill. They’re sending a truck on Monday.”
He tightened his grip on his coffee mug and kept his head down.
“You don’t have to part with everything,” she said. “Is there anything special you want to keep?”
He paused, thinking.
“What about her rings?” she said. “Her wedding band? Her engagement ring?”
“They’re on her hand.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice.
He put his hands over his eyes and rubbed them. “There’s a bracelet,” he said. “Silver. With our names engraved on it.”
“Where is it?”
“Top left-hand drawer of the bureau in my bedroom in a black leather case.”
She pushed her chair back from the table and got up. Cole watched her walk across the kitchen to the hallway. Tall, strong, plain. Galumphy saddle shoes, white athletic socks, a shapeless, billowy black dress designed to swallow up her big-boned frame.