Damage

by Mark Feggeler

  "Maybe I'm just being paranoid," Ray whispered as he watched the black car pull away and leave the parking lot.

  The pretty nurse cleared her throat. They turned to see her standing in the doorway with a perturbed expression on her face. She gestured vigorously for them to leave the room. Ray caught a last glimpse of Correen Wallace unconscious in her bed before exiting. He left Hussey to contend with miss pretty britches while he retreated to the elevator. The lobby was empty. Harold had gone home for the evening and a tent card propped atop the welcome desk announced the station would be staffed again at seven in the morning. The few clouds in the sky were painted magnificent shades of red and purple by the sun that shone up at them from low over the horizon. As he lost himself in the colors, he thought about Jake and Correen Wallace. He couldn't conceive of two less likely people to have crossed paths. The idea seemed ludicrous to anyone of a reasonable mind, but Ray had to keep reminding himself Jake might not have been of reasonable mind when the crime was committed.

  Many questions buzzed in his head. He wanted to question Billy more about the details of Sunday afternoon. What had Jake told him about the job interview with Evan Wallace? Had Jake made any specific threats that correlated to the ways in which the Wallaces were attacked? And why had Billy shown up at Marco's to bring Jake home when Amy said he was supposed to be pulling the first half of a double shift down near Oxton almost twenty miles away? The last time Ray knew the two of them to have been in close proximity of each other, Billy was trying to express his feelings toward Jake with a Louisville slugger. Why the sudden interest in Jake's welfare?

  Wednesday, Part I

  Paranoid or not, when Ray left the hospital he inventoried the interior of his car to make certain nothing was missing. He drove directly home from the hospital and tried to watch television, but found it impossible to concentrate. Each time he allowed his thoughts to wander he ended up with images of the dead or dying people he had met in the past few days. Sometimes, he would envision Jake's grotesquely bloated face, some times Evan Wallace's mannequin-like body, and other times Correen Wallace lying in the bushes with her leg against the foundation of the house at a nauseating angle. Turning off the TV didn't help, and he didn't feel like listening to music, so he left messages for Becky and Emily on their voicemails and busied himself tidying the small apartment until two in the morning. He carried his laptop with him from room to room to check the weather and keep up with news from around the world. Apparently, it was a slow night everywhere. He peeked out the window several times to see if he could spot the black Camry.

  The idea of going to work for a few hours fleetingly crossed his mind before he disregarded it. There was no way he could accomplish anything meaningful if he had to sit at his desk and count down the minutes Jake's funeral at eleven o'clock. Jake's family had decided to forego a church service and instead hold a viewing at a local funeral home halfway between Glen Meadows and Oxton, near where Jake had grown up. By the time Ray showered, dressed, ate breakfast and cleaned the dishes, it was time to get in the car and head out. The mysterious black car was nowhere in sight.

  To his surprise, he had trouble finding a parking spot at the funeral home once he found it. At least thirty cars filled the small parking lot, and more sat in the grassy shoulder of the rural road.

  The interior of the funeral home was just as carefully appointed as the exterior grounds were manicured. He hadn't set foot in a proper funeral home since he was a kid. This one was more modern, less austere and certainly less religious in tone, than he expected it to be. When his grandfather had died there were crosses and paintings of hippie Jesus all over the place. This funeral home looked more like an oversized Carolina room that just happened to have a casket surrounded by flowers stationed at the far end.

  "Thank you for coming," Emily told Ray when he reached her. She gave him a familiar hug, then introduced her husband.

  Jake's other sisters, Irene and Ally, were dismissively cordial. They were already teenagers when Jake and Ray became friends and had little need for their annoying brother and his awkward friends. Irene had several small children hovering around her who peppered her with comments about wanting to eat and being bored. Ally was pregnant with her first child.

  From the look of them, many of the attendees were there out of respect to Jake's parents, many of them likely old friends who waited in line to console Jake's increasingly confused mother. When it was his turn to speak with her, Ray knelt in front of her so they could talk face to face.

  "I'm so sorry for your loss, Ms. Jackie," he said, taking her hand.

  The elderly woman smiled softly at him. Her silver hair was shorter than the last time he had seen her and styled beautifully for the day. She wore a dark blue dress suitable for the occasion. It took a minute for Ray to understand just how confused Ms. Jackie might be. She smiled at him with a look in her eyes like she was trying to figure out how she knew him. He smiled back at her.

  "You look beautiful, Ms. Jackie," he said.

  "Thank you," she said, pleased at the compliment. She pointed to a potted rhododendron on the table next to her. "Somebody brought me flowers."

  "And they're almost as lovely as you are." Emily was right, he thought. It was a blessing Ms. Jackie didn't understand why she was there.

  A group that also didn't quite comprehend the purpose of the function was huddled together in one corner of the large room. Seven fraternity brothers, three of whom Ray had kicked out of Jake's house the day before, were talking loudly and occasionally breaking out in bursts of laughter that quickly died down when enough frowning faces turned their way. Billy hovered outside the perimeter of the tight circle of friends while his wife, Amy, sat talking to Irene as her oldest daughter and Irene's three children played together at their feet. Amy held the younger of her two daughters in her lap, letting her use her swollen belly as a pillow. Billy's attention had been captured by a nearby monitor showing a video collage of photographs from various stages of Jake's life.

  It never ceased to surprise Ray how impressively official Billy appeared when dressed in his deputy's uniform, yet how uncomfortable and out of place he seemed in a plain shirt and tie. Ray walked around the frat brothers and joined Billy to watch the pictures fade in and out on the monitor. They were in no particular order. There was a shot of Ms. Jackie and her husband, Augie, proudly walking their toddler son along a sidewalk with each of them holding one of his hands. Next came a picture of Jake at a recent birthday celebration for his mother. It was difficult to believe the unshaved, sunken-eyed man in the tattered t-shirt had ever been that pudgy faced little boy from the previous picture.

  Billy had avoided talking to Ray ever since Monday night. Ray kept waiting for a call from the Sheriff's Department to discuss in greater detail the reasons he and Billy had gone to Jake's house that night. The wake might not have been the best place to talk about details of recent events, but he had an opportunity to talk to Billy, and he might as well seize the opportunity.

  "I want to ask you something," Ray said in a hushed tone. Billy gave him a look that clearly indicated he did not feel like talking. Ray pushed ahead, anyway. "Why do you think he killed himself?"

  Billy looked down at his shoes and shifted. After a couple false starts, he shook his head and mumbled. "I dunno."

  "Come on, Billy," Ray chided. "Are you going to pretend our conversation the other night never happened? You know what we were both thinking when we went looking for him. Have you told Sheriff Redmond about it yet?"

  Billy shook his head.

  "You're gonna have to sooner or later. You know that, don't you? What happens if someone finds out about that pocket knife you lifted from the Wallace's house?"

  "You weren't there when the Wallaces were attacked," Billy said. "Anything could have happened. If the sheriff is happy saying the wife shot her husband and then jumped, who are we to argue? Who's to say what Jake might have done to those people?"

  "Might have done? You said it you
rself. He was blind drunk and ranting about getting even with Evan Wallace for ruining his life. He had plenty of time to drive out there, drive home, and walk over to my apartment. Somebody spotted his car near their house, you found his pocket knife in the Wallace's living room, and he had cuts on his hands from broken glass. That's a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence, don't you think?"

  "Your hands are cut up, too. Does that make you a murderer?"

  Ray stared at Billy. He could understand wanting to defend their friend, wanting not to believe the worst about someone they'd known most their lives, but Billy's desire to avoid the inevitable conclusion bordered on delusional.

  "What are you thinking, Billy, that you can just wish this all away?" Ray asked. "You want to save his good name? Don't waste your time because he doesn't have one. He's spent the better part of two decades finding new ways to disappoint everyone he's ever met. Look over there at his sisters. You look at their faces and tell me they're sad to see Jake gone."

  "Don't say things like that," Billy warned, his face growing red. He looked ready to cry.

  "Maybe it's a harsh thing to say, but that doesn't make it untrue," Ray said. "Emily's probably the only one who'll miss him, and you know her life will be a lot less complicated with him gone. It's the biggest favor he ever did for her."

  He was pushing too hard and he knew it. Billy's gentle giant exterior and simple manner often resulted in people underestimating his volatility. Ray knew better. He'd seen this bear angry and knew full well the kind of damage it was capable of inflicting before it calmed down enough to think about what it was doing.

  At that moment, a new round of laughter erupted from the group behind them. One of the fraternity brothers, wiping tears from his eyes as he finished guffawing, grabbed Billy's arm in an effort to pull him into their circle. Billy spun on him.

  "What the hell is the matter with you?!" Billy barked. He drew the eyes of everyone in the room. The sudden attention only fed his emotional state. He shoved hard and sent his fraternity brother reeling backward. "You should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you! Laughing about him and telling jokes when he's shut up in a box not fifty feet away from you."

  Dunforth, the lawyer from Raleigh and de facto spokesman for the group, approached Billy cautiously. Ray backed away, feeling guilty for having set Billy off at the funeral. Amy, like everyone else, stood stunned and watched the scene unfold.

  "Calm down, Billy," Dunforth said. "Nobody's intending any disrespect. We're just swapping stories, that's all."

  The brother Billy shoved wasn't satisfied with the subtle approach, or smart enough to realize how much shorter he was than Billy.

  "Don't think we don't know what you thought of Jake, Billy," the little man said. He stepped around Dunforth to get in the Billy's face. "We weren't the only ones sitting around the house every day bitching about what a screw up he was."

  "Shut your mouth," Dunforth ordered.

  "Why should I?" the little man demanded.

  "Because he can kick your ass from this side of town to the other without breaking a sweat," Dunforth said. "That's why."

  "At least I never had to spy on my girlfriend to make sure Jake wasn't banging her in one of the upstairs bed..."

  He never got the chance to finish his sentence. Billy drove his meaty fist into the center of the man's face, causing him to drop to the ground like a rag doll. No one else dared approach Billy. Ray saw him look at Amy, who remained frozen in place with wide eyes and her mouth hanging open. After a tense few seconds during which everybody stood perfectly still, waiting to see what would happen next, Billy stormed out of the funeral home.

  Out in the parking lot, Ray found Billy sitting in Amy's white sedan, engine running, staring blankly through the windshield and trying to control his breathing. Ray tapped gently on the window. Billy begrudgingly pressed the button to lower it.

  "I'm sorry," Ray said. "I didn't mean to upset you with all that talk. It's been weighing on my mind and, well, just the wrong place and time for it, I guess."

  Billy didn't say anything. He fidgeted with the steering wheel, like he was waiting for Ray to finish talking so he could leave.

  "Can you take Amy and the girls home for me?" Billy asked.

  "Yeah, sure," Ray said. "Where do you want me to tell Amy you're going?"

  "Just take them home for me."

  Billy unlocked the car doors. Ray grabbed the baby seats out of the back and stood aside as the vehicle backed out of the parking space. He watched Billy pull the car onto the street and drive off.

  Wednesday, Part II

  Back inside the funeral home, Billy's outburst was the buzz of conversation. Dunforth sat with his wounded fraternity brother in a side parlor adjacent to the main viewing room. Ray stopped just outside to eavesdrop.

  "It feels like he broke my jaw," the punched brother complained.

  "We should be so lucky," Dunforth told him. "You should've kept your trap shut when you saw how far off the deep end he was going. You didn't see any of the rest of us trying to pick a fight with him."

  "I know," the man whined. "I mean, no disrespect, or nothing, but it's just Jake."

  "Keep your voice down, dumbass," Dunforth said. "His family's in the next room. You start running your mouth again and I'll hold you down myself so Jake's sisters can kick your ass."

  Ray left his perch outside the parlor and rejoined the dwindling group in the main room. Jake's two older sisters were still in position near the casket, which Ray realized for the first time since arriving was closed. An eight-by-ten frame was propped on top of it displaying an old photograph of Jake taken when he was in high school. The family probably had to go that far back to find a decent picture of him. As Ray drew closer, he could see in the smiling, youthful face all the potential for a bright future that had been pissed away during the years that followed the snapping of the shutter. He wondered if the mortician had bothered trying to make Jake presentable for viewing, or if the damage done by the exhaust fumes had forever distorted his friend's features. He turned away to keep from fixating on the image of Jake's swollen face and bulging eyes.

  Amy, still holding her sleeping daughter, and Emily were seated next to each other on a sofa near the television stand. Amy locked eyes with Ray when she saw him walking toward them. She continued talking to Emily until he was close enough to join the conversation without shouting.

  "Where is he?" she asked, interrupting whatever Emily was about to say. Her voice betrayed a mix of concern and frustration.

  "I don't know," Ray said in an exasperated breath and pulled up a chair to face them. "He wouldn't tell me where he was going."

  "I can't set that boy straight this week," Amy said. "He's barely been home at all, and when he is he might as well be someplace else."

  "Has he said anything about Jake, or what we found at the Wallace estate on Monday?" Ray asked.

  Amy shot Ray an annoyed look. "I just said I've barely seen him. He never talks to me about work, anyway. I know everything there is to know about deer hunting, but all I ever get about work is 'fine' and 'okay.' If only it were something simple I was dealing with, like another woman, I could jerk his leash and straighten his ass out in a minute. I know you guys all think he's a big dummy..." Emily started to protest but Amy cut her off. "But he thinks deep about stuff and it gets him so damn moody sometimes."

  "Amy," Emily said, broaching the subject cautiously. "He has a temper. Has he ever..."

  "Ever what?" Amy asked, her mind slowly coming around to what Emily was suggesting. "Hit me? Darlin' if that man ever laid a hand on me in a way I didn't want him to he'd be six feet under with a bullet hole clean through the middle of his forehead."

  "What about when he chased Jake out of your house with a baseball bat last summer," Ray said. "Jake's high school track and field training came in mighty handy that day."

  Amy blushed and glanced at the floor. "That was a misunderstanding. It really wasn't all Billy's fault. He just over-
reacted."

  Emily shot Ray a knowing look. Perhaps he was dense, or his head was too full of thoughts about things that had happened that week, but the expression on Emily's face made him realize he'd missed a deeper meaning to Amy's words. The three of them sat together in silence, watching people say their farewells to the family and leave the funeral home.

  "I got your carseats off him before he peeled out," Ray offered. "I can bring you home when you're ready to go."

  Amy nodded. Ray took two-year-old Jordan out of her arms so Amy could stand with a little help from Emily.

  "When are you due?" Emily asked.

  "Another month," Amy grunted as she got to her feet. "April thirtieth. My other two came early, so I'm hoping this big guy does, too."

  Ray and Amy said their goodbyes to the family. Maddie, Amy's seven-year-old, had to be dragged away from Irene's kids who were trying to sneak up the staircase off the main lobby. Ray tried to install the carseats. Amy had to take over after it became obvious they would melt in the glaring spring sunshine before he figured out how to do it. Ray pulled his car to the skirt of the driveway and signaled a left turn, ready to bring Amy and the kids straight home. Amy put a hand on his arm.

  "I'm starving, Ray," she said. "And Maddie's over-hungry. She hasn't had lunch yet so she's gonna be a bear to handle. Can you run us through somewhere real quick?"

  Ray changed direction and headed off toward the commercial strip of highway where most of the fast food restaurants stood all in a row. Maddie quieted down with the first bite of a french fry. Half of Amy's cheeseburger was gone before they left the parking lot. Jordan slept soundly with her head cocked unnaturally to one side in her baby seat. Halfway to the house, it struck Ray what Amy might have been talking about when she said the fight between Billy and Jake at the cookout was a misunderstanding, and that Billy had overreacted.