Wings In Darkness

by Gregory Kay

  I’ll be damned if I’m going to tell him Dad caught me with my boyfriend’s hand down my blouse! And that bastard ran for his life and left me behind to face the consequences!

  “Relax,” he told her, holding up both hands, “I’m just making a point here. Joe is old school – just like your daddy, it sounds like – and he loves that girl and wants to see her grow up right. The TNT is the public hunting and fishing area, sure, but it’s also the local love nest; if a couple are out there alone without a fishing pole or a shotgun, there’s only one other reasonable explanation.”

  “Okay, I can see that, but don’t you think he overreacted just a bit?”

  He put the car in park and turned off the engine.

  “Maybe, but not from his point of view. In his mind, she’ll always be his little girl: his only child who he loves more than anything else in this world.” Nodding at the house, Luke continued, “She, his wife Kathy, and this place are all he’s ever had, and they mean a lot to him, especially considering his past.”

  Not getting out immediately, she asked, “Tough childhood?”

  “Oh yeah. He grew up in Leon, down the road a ways along the Kanawha, and his mom and dad were both violent drunks. He took after them for awhile, drinking all the time, and he’d fight anybody at the drop of a hat. He was damned good at it too, quick and strong as an ox; by the time he was twenty, he was one of the men you you’d have to fight if you wanted a reputation. Then he met Kathy.

  “Who’s Kathy?”

  “A girl – a woman now, of course – from up in New Haven; she’s Allie’s mother.”

  “Connecticut?”

  “No,” He shook his head with a smile, “not hardly, although her mother is from somewhere up north, I think. New Haven, West Virginia; it’s right here in Mason County, just up the river. Anyway, she and her family moved there from some little mining town over in the eastern part of the state. They were all hard-core teetotaling Baptists.”

  Fiona laughed, picturing the situation.

  “That must have made for some interesting dinner table conversations.”

  “No doubt,” he told her as they exited the car, “Anyway, her dad had heard all about Joe, and, needless to say, he wasn’t any too keen on the idea, to the point where he threatened to shoot him if he kept sniffing around his daughter. Thing was, Joe was head-over-heels in love, and he told her dad, while the old man was standing there with a pistol in his hand, ‘You’re a damned poor excuse for a Christian; you won’t even give a man a chance to prove himself!’ That kind of stung, I guess, so he told Joe he could see Kathy three times a week; he could pick her up and bring her to church Sunday mornings and Sunday and Wednesday nights, and then bring her straight home afterward.

  “Joe took him up on it, and, a month or two later, I’ll be darned if he didn’t fool around and get saved himself. He’d still fight anybody dumb enough to aggravate him too much, but his drinking and running around days were over, so he took away the old man’s main objection to him, and, a year later, he and Kathy tied the knot.”

  She was smiling broadly with enjoyment when she told him, “That’s a great story! How do you know these people?”

  “Kathy was the photographer and statistician for the high school baseball team I played on, and Joe was a volunteer coach on both it and the wrestling team, as well as being a friend of Granddaddy’s. I used to attend the same church when I was a kid; in fact, I had both of them for my Sunday school teachers off and on. Come on.”

  “Luke!” Kathy exclaimed, opening the door before he could even reach for the doorbell, “How are you?” This was followed by a big hug, which Luke willingly returned.

  As soon as he could disentangle himself, Luke introduced the two women, and, as they shook hands, Fiona took the time to covertly study her.

  The reporter guessed that Kathy Parks was at least twenty years her senior, but somehow the motherly woman seemed much younger. It wasn’t her classic East European features or slightly olive complexion, or the short dark hair cut in an intentionally mussed look, Fiona decided, but rather her warm green eyes that twinkled and crinkled at the corners when she smiled, something she was obviously used to doing a lot. Even without that, the Jetsons hospital scrub shirt she was wearing would have been ample evidence of that kind of personality.

  Not at all what I pictured a hillbilly Baptist to look like!

  Once Kathy ushered them inside, Fiona reflected that Joe Parks was more like the image she had in mind – unfashionably short dark blond hair running to gray, a burley, blocky body, and a suspicious expression on a face that matched his build, with the bonus of a swollen nose, a slightly purple mouse under his left eye, and his right hand and wrist encased in a green fiberglass cast.

  After the second introduction had been made and they had been informed that Alison – ‘Allie’ they called her – had just gotten home from school and was in her room changing, Kathy served glasses of sweet iced tea, so sweet Fiona was visibly startled when she took a sip, and her hostess laughed.

  “My mother was originally from New York too, and she said Southern style sweet tea was one of the things in West Virginia it took the longest time to get used to. ‘Diabetic shock in a glass,’ she called it.”

  “Oh, it’s good,” Fiona assured her, taking another sip and swirling it around in her mouth to show her appreciation, “It surprised me at first, that’s all. I’ve always had a sweet tooth.”

  Kathy grinned and said, “Honey, you’re not big enough to have a sweet tooth! Now me, I’ve obviously got one!”

  “Must not be very much of one,” Luke told her with a wink, and earned himself an affectionate shove on the arm.

  “Liar!” Turning to Fiona, she added, “He’s always been like that; chock-full of crap, but always seeming to know the right thing to say to make you feel good. It’s going to be a lucky woman that ends up with him!”

  Fiona didn’t miss the meaning in that last familiar expression; she couldn’t have, because it had been loaded so intentionally and with so much enthusiasm it was filled to the brim, spilling over the top, and running down the sides, but Joe spoke before she had to think of an answer.

  “So, you’re a reporter for The Arrow, is that right?”

  She nodded, said, “Yes sir,” and, remembering Luke’s warning, added, “but that’s only part of my job; I’m also the primary paranormal investigator for the paper.” That much was true; as Assistant Paranormal Editor, she usually did the leg-work, the research, and wrote the outlines, then Sidney’s suck-ass Joe Shapiro wrote his articles off her best stuff and left her with the shit.

  “You work with Ouija boards and such?”

  She didn’t fail to catch the hint accusation in his voice, but she diffused it by telling the truth.

  “No, I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in all that stuff, and anyway, it would literally kill my parents if they thought I was dabbling with something occult like that. I do hard investigatory work only; I interview witnesses, photograph the scenes where sightings have occurred, research accounts, and correlate information.”

  He nodded his satisfaction, warming to her, very slightly.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Miss Pelligatti – “

  “Fiona, please, Mr. Parks.”

  “Alright, Fiona; it sounds like your parents raised you right. Like I was saying, I’m glad to hear it, because if you were one of those devil-worshipping, witchcraft-practicing, voodoo weirdos like on TV, I wouldn’t allow you anywhere near my daughter, no matter what Luke says. She’s in enough trouble already!”

  Kathy moaned in exasperation.

  “Let’s not start that again!”

  “Start what?”

  Joe’s wife threw up both hands.

  “You know good and well what! Alright, she admitted she was wrong and now she’s grounded! She’s been punished for it, and, frankly, I’m sick and tired of hearing about it! That’s all you’ve talked about for the past few days!”

  “And I i
ntend to keep talking about it, as long as I have to sit here with a broken hand!” Looking at Luke, he said, “Do you believe they made me take a desk job at work until it heals? Do I look like some desk jockey to you?”

  Pointing an accusing finger at him, Kathy told him, “That’s your fault, not hers! Nobody told you to haul off and punch that boy in the face!”

  Fiona realized that both she and Luke looked as though they were watching a verbal tennis match, their gaze swinging from one member of the arguing pair to the other, every time one side fired a volley.

  “He’s lucky I didn’t knock his damned fool head off! He shouldn’t have interfered!”

  “You tried, and of course he interfered! You’d have done the same thing with my father and you know it!”

  “I would not! I was respectful!”

  “Bullshit!” the Sunday school teacher loudly declared, startling everyone, her husband most of all, “The only reason you were respectful to him is because he had a gun in his hand and would have shot you right between the eyes if you’d been anything else!”

  Joe could still get a little loose with his language on occasion, but that was the first time in almost twenty years of marriage that he’d heard his wife use profanity, at least in front of company, and Joe was still gaping in shock, trying to think of what else to say when a soft, almost inaudible voice came from the other side of the room.

  “I’m ready, Deputy Carter.”

  Alison was standing nervously, biting her lip and biting back the tears at the same time, clutching her purse protectively in front of her with both hands, red-faced and humiliated, and obviously so uncomfortable with the subject of the argument she simply wanted to die.

  Fiona was surprised when Luke stepped over to her and hugged her tight.

  “Since when am I ‘Deputy Carter’ to you, Allie?”

  The girl squeezed him hard in return and he looked at her mother.

  “Kathy, why don’t you take Allie and Fiona to the car; I need to talk to Joe for a minute.”

  Both mother and daughter shot him a grateful look, Alison whispered, “Bye, Daddy,” and the door closed behind them, leaving the two men alone.

  “Don’t you start!” Joe warned, trying to point at him with his right hand only to belatedly realize his fingers weren’t going to obey inside his cast. Luke ignored his bluster and sat down across from him.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, because I’m about to tell you something you need to know.”

  “I don’t want to hear it!”

  “I don’t really give a damn what you want to hear,” Luke told him, flatly and calmly, “You need to hear it, and you’re going to listen, or else I can haul you downtown for obstructing an officer during a possible domestic violence call. All that hollering and carrying on you two were doing a minute ago...I’m sure the neighbors heard it, and that, along with that fight with Johnny the other day, will provide my probable cause.” Pointing a finger at the stocky man’s swollen nose, he warned, “Don’t think for a minute I won’t do it, either.”

  Joe had known Luke all the deputy’s life, and he knew damned well the younger officer would do exactly that.

  “You little smart-ass son of a bitch!” he declared, lapsing into his old vocabulary now that there were no ladies present.

  “Yeah, and you’re an old, crabby son of a bitch, but I’ve pretty much gotten used to that over the years. And now you’ve even managed to piss Kathy off, and I’ve never seen that before. She just about scared the shit out of me!”

  Joe’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared. He bared his teeth and then, suddenly blew out his breath, visibly relaxing, almost deflating in the process, and almost managed a grin.

  “I never could stay mad at you.”

  “Good; maybe you shouldn’t stay mad at Allie either.”

  “Do you know what she did?”

  “Yep, I know.”

  “I reckon you must have talked to that little snot-nosed boyfriend of hers. So what am I supposed to do? Just let her run around and do whatever she wants?”

  Luke leaned forward.

  “Of course not. You’ve already done what you were supposed to, Joe.” He started counting on his fingers. “You verbally reprimanded her – yelled at her, in other words – you grounded her, and you would have busted her hind-end if Johnny hadn’t had balls enough to stand up to you. You embarrassed the hell out of her with that last part, by the way; if you’re going to whip a girl that age, you ought to do it in private, not in front of her friends and surely to God not in front of her boyfriend. That was way wrong and you know it!”

  Joe sighed, and seemed to sink still further down into himself under the weight of the guilt, and Luke knew that this wasn’t the first time Alison’s father had thought back on something that had happened and regretted his actions.

  “You think I don’t know it? I was just so blasted mad that they would do something like that!”

  “I’m sure you never tried to do anything like that with Kathy.”

  Luke spoke the words with studied, intentional casualness, and could tell from the way his target squirmed guiltily he had hit the bullseye. Although it remained unsaid, the Bible verse about the one without sin casting the first stone hung so plainly in the air between them, both of them could almost see it, just as the Deputy had intended.

  Now that I’ve got him on the ropes, it’s time to finish him off.

  “What was it you told Kathy’s father when he wouldn’t let you see her? About not being much of a Christian if he wouldn’t give a man a chance to prove himself?”

  Rallying a bit, Joe declared, “Johnny proved he was willing to take my only child out there in the TNT and try to get in her pants!”

  “And what did you prove before you had your little talk with Kathy’s dad? You’d already proved you were a hoodlum, a drunk, a fighter, a fornicator, and a general hell-raiser, didn’t you? Hell, you probably have kids scattered all over three counties. What would have been your reaction if someone just like you were back then had wanted to date your daughter?

  “Johnny isn’t like you used to be; he’s a good kid. Sure, he messed up, but which one of us hasn’t? One thing about it, he’s proved he loves your daughter enough to fight the guy with the reputation as one of the toughest men in Point Pleasant for her, and take a beating for her, so that ought to count for something, shouldn’t it?”

  The subtle stroking to Joe’s ego in the middle of the deputy’s reprimand calmed him a little, just as Luke had intended.

  “Yeah, maybe, but still...”

  “Look, I can’t make you do this, and I wouldn’t if I could; she’s your daughter, and it’s your decision. We’ve been friends for a long time, though, and I’m just asking you to please, consider giving him the same chance Kathy’s father gave you. Now you were absolutely right to ground her, and I think she should probably stay that way for at least a few weeks, considering what she did, but you ought to let him take her to church and come see her here, where you and her mother can supervise. Give the boy a chance to prove himself. What do you say?”

  Joe sat there in silence for a long time, then finally nodded his head in agreement.

  “Alright. If I don’t, Kathy’s going to stay pissed off and God only knows what Allie will do when she turns eighteen in a couple of months.”

  “You do this, and I’ll tell you exactly what she’ll do; she’ll thank you and probably give you a big hug, and then she’ll finish high school and go to college like you want her to instead of running off and getting married instead, maybe just to spite you. Play this right, both those kids will have learned a lesson, and you’ll have peace in the family again. That would be worth a lot, I would think.” Suddenly laughing, he added, “Besides, like I said, Kathy scares the hell out of me when she starts yelling like that. I’m not used to it.”

  “Neither am I,” Joe assured him, “and I don’t want to have to get used to it either.” Eying the Deputy, his expression softened a
bit more, all the way to sadness.

  “You’re good with people, Luke, way better than most preachers I know. Why don’t you come back to church?”

  Luke got to his feet, shrugging uncomfortably.

  “I think you know why.”

  Rising as well, Joe put his good hand on the deputy’s shoulder.

  “Don’t hate God for what happened, son.”

  Luke laughed once, completely without humor, the sound of his single, sharp exhalation sounding like punch in the gut.

  “I don’t hate God, and I still believe He exists. I just don’t know whether He listens to us or not, whether He cares about us, or whether He even knows we’re here.”

  “Oh, He does, Luke; He does. He knows, He cares, and you’d better believe He listens, but most times we don’t let ourselves hear His answer even when it’s right there in front of us.”

  As Joe walked him to the door, Luke wondered which of them the older man was referring to.

  “So,” Kathy was asking her, “What do you think of Point Pleasant so far?”

  Fiona spread her hands.

  “What can I say? It’s very different from what I’m used to; everyone seems to be unusually friendly and outrageously polite, but things are just so...different.”

  “I expect so.” After glancing both ways, Alison’s mother leaned in closer and her daughter instinctively followed suit in order to hear the conspiratorial whisper she knew was coming. “What do you think of Luke?”

  That wasn’t any of the woman’s business, but she couldn’t exactly tell her that, so she settled with, “He seems very professional and highly competent, and he’s very much a people person.

  Kathy raised a knowing eyebrow and ran her tongue over her teeth behind lips that were tugging upward at the corners.

  “I know that; I mean, what do you think of him as a man?”

  Fiona was beginning to panic just a little; she didn’t want to offend these people, but this was something she wasn’t even ready to discuss in depth with herself, let alone two strangers.

  “Well...he’s very manly. He’s in good shape, and he’s good-looking, I suppose.”