Blood Relations

by Rett MacPherson

  “That’s no excuse. For something like this, you make time.”

  “Whatever,” he said, and waved me off. “Okay, string me up. I’m guilty. Just get it over with and go home.”

  I walked slowly toward him, until I stood a mere foot away. “No, Dad, I’m not going to string you up. This is your sin,” I said. “You live with it.”

  I stepped through his door into the gray world outside, the clouds heavy with snow. I felt better. I had confronted him and I hadn’t let him give me any crap. I hadn’t let him become a martyr, nor had I let him weasel his way out of any guilt. And I hadn’t forgiven him, either. Because it would do no good to forgive him for a sin he hadn’t actually taken responsibility for. Not yet anyway. He would, though.

  And then I’d forgive him.

  Twelve

  Rudy, Collette, the kids, and I had all just finished eating pizza at Velasco’s, otherwise known as Chuck’s. It was Sunday evening and the snow was coming down in big fat wet flakes, quickly accumulating on the road as well as on the grass. Collette and I stood at the window with the kids, looking out upon the fluffy white stuff, just as enthralled as the kids were, while Rudy took care of the bill.

  “Let’s walk home,” Collette said.

  “Yeah!” Rachel said, backed up by Mary, who was squealing with delight.

  “No, Rachel, you were complaining about a sore throat yesterday,” I said. “Not a good idea for you to walk home.”

  “Can I walk home alone with your mom?” Colette asked the girls. “I’d like some time to talk with her.”

  This was news to me. I wondered if she’d found something in the files at my office. I glanced at her quickly, but her expression gave nothing away.

  “Oh, all right,” Rachel said, her lower lip thrust out in a pout.

  I looked back at Rudy just as he was waving good night to Chuck. “See you Tuesday,” Rudy said to him. They bowl on the same team. Chuck waved to all of us as we went out the door. Rudy fished the keys from his pocket.

  “Hey, why don’t you and the kids go on home,” I said. “Collette and I want to take a walk in the snow.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Be careful coming up the hill.”

  “If the road is slick, we’ll just walk through the grass. We should be fine.”

  He gave me a quick kiss, and then we loaded up the kids and he drove away. I stood there a moment with my face toward the sky, feeling the snow land on my cheeks, light as a feather. Snow is a good example of the power of numbers. Because just one snowflake is soft and harmless, but put a bunch of them together, and they have the power to grind civilization to a complete halt.

  “So, what’s up?” I asked her as we began walking.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I just wanted to walk home in the snow.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “Collette, you hate the elements. You hate nature. You’d be perfectly happy if the whole world was covered in concrete and it was seventy-five degrees and sunny every day.”

  Our voices sounded weird in the muffled air. Everything was hushed and quiet because of the added insulation the snow provided. I heard the train go by, the usual seven o’clock freight train on Sunday evening, slow and methodical as it made its way up the tracks. A kid came by on his bike, a streak of metal, a flash of orange windbreaker, his wheels slipping and sliding on the snow as he fought for control of the bike.

  “Justin!” I yelled. He looked back at me, an expression of bewilderment on his face. “Does your mother know you’re out?”

  He just kept on going, disappearing behind a snow-covered car.

  “Do you know everybody in town?” Collette asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “How do you do that?”

  “Well, you know,” I said. “My job is sort of a public relations–type thing. I’m involved with so many people in the town on a weekly basis, plus there’re the kids and all the people they know. PTA, Rudy’s friends, my mother, the sheriff. I mean, if I didn’t know everybody, I would find that more peculiar.”

  “Don’t you ever just want to leave?”

  “Leave?” I asked. “No. Why would I want to leave? Well, I could do without a few of the residents. The mayor, for one. But I love this place.”

  Collette laughed because she knew the history the mayor and I had. In these parts, the feud we had had over whether or not I could have chickens was as notorious as the Hatfield and McCoy dispute. We turned the corner and headed toward the river. We weren’t really walking straight home, by any means. We were taking the long way.

  “So … I say again, why did you want to get me alone? And don’t tell me it was because of the snow,” I said.

  “You’re good at this, you know. You should be a reporter.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I have enough to do.”

  “I think there was more to Captain Thibeau than meets the eye.”

  “Captain who?”

  “The pilot, the captain of The Phantom.”

  “You don’t say,” I said, pulling my gloves out of my pockets and proceeding to put them on. I don’t usually bundle up, but I had a feeling we were going to be out in this for a while.

  “I read one of the survivor statements,” she said. “This was a child, mind you, so I’m not sure how accurate his memory would be. But he said that he heard arguing coming from inside the pilothouse just before the boat turned sharply and was overcome by water.”

  “Really,” I said.

  “I’m wondering if the captain was having an argument with somebody and there was a struggle and that’s why the boat turned so suddenly,” Collette said.

  “Could be,” I said. “What about the other survivors? Did anybody else say they heard arguing?”

  “Well, I didn’t get to go through all of the statements. But at least two other people mentioned that just before the boat flanked and the water came up over the sides, they had heard what sounded like angry conversation. These, of course, were people who were either standing directly under the pilothouse or who happened to be up on the very top deck, next to the pilothouse.”

  I thought about the implications for a moment. “I’ll take a look at the accounts tomorrow,” I said. “The problem is, I’m not sure, since it occurred eighty years ago, if we’ll ever really know what happened.”

  “Oh, I know that,” she said. “It’s just going to make a really interesting story. I’m thinking I might get the front page of the ‘Everyday’ section.”

  “Possibly.”

  “So, how’s your mother adjusting to married life?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “You know, she’d been single for so long, I think it was a bit of an adjustment for her. But—”

  “But what?”

  “Oh Lord. I was just about to say that Colin is a great guy and she really loves him. Was I really going to say that?”

  “I remember when you used to call him ‘the Toad,’” she said, laughing.

  “Oh my god. Okay, Colin is not a great guy, but he’s great to her. How’s that?”

  “Sounds much more like you,” she said.

  “They … get along great.” And that was the truth. They were much better matched than she and my father had ever been.

  We both navigated toward the river. Funny how that river just sucks you in, regardless. We looked both ways on River Point Road and then crossed it. All the way down at the end of the street, on my right, was the Murdoch Inn, looking lovely in its new blanket of snow. Eleanore had put little electric lights that looked like candelabra in all of the windows. She always takes down the obvious Christmas decorations, but she leaves the candelabra and the greenery around the posts on the front porch until March.

  “I want to go down and look at the wreck,” Collette said.

  “Oh no,” I said. “I promised Colin I wouldn’t go messing around down there, and I meant it.”

  She rolled her eyes at me just as we reached the bank of the river. “You’ve made him a million promise
s that you never kept.”

  “Yeah, but I meant this one. Besides, it’s dark.”

  “Come on, Torie,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun? What if we slip on the snow and end up in the river?”

  “Like that’s gonna happen,” she said.

  “You know, you only snoop around where you’re not supposed to—to learn something you’re not supposed to know. Not because it’s fun. You need to learn the rules to this stuff,” I said.

  “That’s the problem with you, Torie. You never did know how to have fun.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said. “I know how to have lots of fun.”

  “Okay, not counting your trips to the zoo with the kids.”

  I stammered a bit. “I … love snowball fights.”

  “Oh, okay, like you get to do that more than twice a year.”

  “I…”

  “Yes?”

  “You know, the things I enjoy are just different from the ones you do. I happen to think curling up with a good book is fun. I enjoy going through courthouse records for eight hours immensely. So there.”

  She laughed at me. I mean really laughed, all the way from her belly. “Oh sure, and you like those hay rides, too. Whoo hoo.”

  “Hey, you know what?” I said. “You can shut up anytime now. And if you don’t, I’m going to make you sleep in the chicken coop.”

  Collette gave me a serious look. “I just worry about you. You don’t get out. See the world.”

  “I get out plenty.”

  “Yeah, in your safe zone of New Kassel.”

  “New Kassel isn’t all that safe anymore. It’s obvious you haven’t been down here too much in the past few years.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, letting out a deep breath.

  “We’re just different,” I said. “How did we ever become friends anyway?”

  “Tommy Barker had put smashed-up worms in my gravy at school and you beat him up,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. Maybe Rachel had just been following in her old mom’s footsteps. “Well, anyway, I go places. I went to West Virginia last year.”

  “Year before last.”

  “Whatever.”

  We were both quiet awhile, just listening to the rush of the river and watching the snow fall. It was dark outside, but there was enough illumination from the streetlights to see. Although when I looked out at the Mississippi, I could not see the Illinois side. Halfway out, it was just pitch-black. In fact, I could barely see the railroad tracks that separated us from the river.

  In the silence, I thought I heard something. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Sounded like somebody moaning,” I said.

  We both stood completely still, holding our breath, waiting to hear the sound again. When you’re trying to hear something in particular, you end up hearing all the things that you never really paid attention to any other time. Like the lapping of the water on the bank, the dog on the next street over barking like mad, the clanking of Charity’s gate in the yard across the street.

  “Look,” she said, pointing downriver. “I think it was just that tugboat.”

  I looked down the river, and way in the distance was a light on a vessel coming upriver. “No, that’s too far away,” I said. “That’s not a tugboat anyway. That’s a barge.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can tell by how high the light sits from the river.”

  “Good Lord, you do need to get out of this town. Come up to St. Louis with me,” she said. “We’ll eat exotic foods.”

  “And I’ll get indigestion.”

  “We’ll go hear some reggae.”

  “And I’ll have an asthma attack from those clove cigarettes everybody smokes at reggae shows.”

  “Drink some Jaegermeister…”

  “Oh, and I’ll end up getting killed. Last time I drank that stuff, I was chasing cars in the street.”

  “I know,” she squealed. “That was so much fun.”

  “Collette,” I said. “Stop. I make it up to St. Louis to see the symphony a couple of times a year, and I go to every play of the Shakespeare Company’s summer season. We usually go up for Mardi Gras festivities in Soulard. I get out plenty. Just not as often as you.”

  There was that sound again.

  “Did you hear it this time?” I asked, the hair prickling on my arms.

  “Yeah,” she said, wide-eyed. “I did.”

  “It’s coming from down that way.”

  “Down by the wreckage,” she said.

  “Yeah. Come on.”

  I was four steps away from her when I realized that she wasn’t walking with me. “What?” I asked, turning back to her.

  “You sure we should go down there?” she asked.

  “Oh, now you don’t want to go down there,” I said. “Come on, loosen up. It’ll be fun.”

  “You know, you can be a real bitch sometimes,” said Collette.

  “So can you,” I replied, taking a few steps. “Come on.” Reluctantly, she followed behind me.

  “Watch your step,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. These shoes are Italian.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight in your purse, would you?”

  “No,” she said. “Should have known I’d need a flashlight. What about you? Don’t you carry a flashlight?”

  “My purse is in the car.”

  “I was joking,” Collette said. “You really carry a flashlight?”

  “Shh,” I said as we crept closer. The crime-scene tape that the sheriff had put up on Wednesday was still there, flapping in the wind. We were about ten yards from it when I remembered something.

  “Hey, give me your keys.”

  “What? What do you want with my keys?”

  “Just give them here.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she said. “Standing on the bank of the river in the freezing snow and she wants my stupid keys. Here!”

  On Collette’s key chain was one of those little minilights so that you can find a keyhole in the dark. It wasn’t big enough to put off any light from this distance. But up close, it might come in handy.

  “Shouldn’t I go call nine one one?”

  “And leave me here alone? I think not,” I said.

  We stepped over the crime-scene tape and walked toward the wreckage. “Crap,” I said.

  “What?”

  “There’re footprints here in the snow.”

  “So?”

  “So that means somebody is down here. Or was recently.”

  Just then, the barge came up close to us and flashed its light around in a circle. When it did, I caught a glimpse of something lying over the side of the visible wreckage. “Double crap,” I said.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Collette called after me.

  I took off at a pretty good speed and slid a little as I got to the wreckage. In the darkness, I saw what looked like a body. It was a body. About five feet from the bank, lying over the wreckage, somebody was splayed out on his back, his knees and feet hanging loosely in the water. I took Collette’s little key-chain light and flashed it on the body. I was still too far away to be able to identify anything.

  I stepped a little closer.

  “Torie, you crazy woman. What are you doing?” Collette called.

  “It’s a body!”

  “A body,” she said. “Then get the hell away from there.”

  The only way I could get close enough to see it was to step in the water. Oh well, my shoes were just ten-dollar Wal-Mart beauties anyway. It wasn’t as if they were Italian. I stepped into the water and gasped at how cold it was. I flashed the little bitty light at the man’s head and it illuminated the features enough for me to see that it was Jacob Lahrs. A dark red stain ran down the side of his face—blood, I assumed.

  “It’s Jacob Lahrs!” I said.

  “Is he alive?” she asked.

  “I’d have to touch him to find out.�
�

  “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do,” Collette said.

  “Mr. Lahrs,” I said. “Mr. Lahrs, it’s Torie O’Shea.”

  No response. He was either unconscious or dead. And judging by how still he seemed, I’d say he was dead. I stepped a little closer, and when I did, I must have stepped on part of the wreckage. My foot sank into it, and I felt wood scraping my skin. A creaking noise was the only warning I got, and not soon enough for me to move. The whole thing tipped and Jacob Lahrs just sort of spilled on top of me.

  My foot was trapped in the wreckage and I had a bleeding corpse lying on top of me. I screamed.

  Then Collette screamed.

  Okay, calm down, I thought. If he was indeed dead, he’d only been dead a few minutes. Somehow, a recently dead body pinning me to the snow wasn’t as disgusting as a day-old corpse pinning me to the snow. I had just heard him moaning not five minutes ago, so he had probably died as Collette and I stood up on the bank talking about Jaegermeister and the Shakespeare Company. Rigor had not set in yet, and he was still … fairly warm. Oh God. I was going to puke.

  No, I couldn’t puke. I was lying on my back, and if I puked, I’d choke and die. And wouldn’t that be difficult to explain to my husband. Well, Mr. O’Shea, your wife died when she choked on her own vomit, pinned by a bloody corpse in the snow. Yeah, that would be really stupid of me. I began struggling and moving around, trying to get out from underneath Professor Lahrs. I had to concentrate on the fact that I needed to get free of the wreckage, rather than needing to get free of a corpse. “Collette! Go get the sheriff!”

  “What?” she shrieked. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

  “Then get down here and get this body off of me.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Thirteen

  “Colin! Am I glad to see you,” I said. His flashlight shone brightly down in my eyes, and in the blinding light, he appeared taller than usual. Of course, that could have been because I was lying on the ground and he was standing over me with one hand on his hip, perilously close to his pistol. I had managed to wiggle out from under Jacob Lahrs, but he was still lying right next to me, because I had yet to free my foot from the wreckage. It had gone through the wood easily enough, but something had caught it, and I could not twist it in the right position to get free.