by Strnad, Jan
She went to the door and was there when Brant knocked. His appearance was no surprise to her. He'd approached her before, when she was a murderess, but she'd refused to say anything for fear that the first word would be like the first tiny rock in the dam to give way, and that after that would come the torrent of abuses and complaints bottled up over twenty years of marriage. She didn't want to complain then, and she sure as heck wasn't going to get into it now.
***
Brant studied the Duffy place as he walked from the car to the front porch. It was shabby, not quite ramshackle but needing a lot of tender loving care. He knew from the gossip that tender loving care was a rare commodity in the Duffy household.
Madge answered his knock. Brant had no idea how he was going to get this ball rolling considering her sphinx-like silence when he'd tried to interview her in her cell, but he hoped that talking to her in her own home would be more productive.
He couldn't imagine how Duffy would respond, but Brant was prepared to duck.
"Hello, Madge," Brant said warmly.
Madge returned his "hello" but didn't invite him in.
"I guess you know why I'm here," Brant said.
"I expect it's about John," Madge replied.
"It's a big story. I thought he might want to tell it from his point of view. I'd like to talk to you, too, of course."
"There's nothing to tell." It was John Duffy's voice, and it had an edge to it. He'd appeared from the kitchen. The grim look on his face made the hammer in his hand seem more like a weapon than a tool.
"Must have been quite an experience," Brant said, trying to sound conversational. When Duffy didn't take the bait, Brant dropped another worm into the water. "Waking up in the morgue like that, must have been a shock."
"It's over and done with," Duffy said, advancing. He put his hand on the door as if to slam it shut.
"Maybe for you," Brant said, "but all of Ma's Diner was debating the principles of the thing this morning. Darn near started a riot. Any light you could shed—"
"It just happened, that's all."
Brant sighed and scratched his head. "Well, if that's the quote you want me to run...."
Sometimes the best way to get a subject to talk is to just shut up and let the silence become a void that they feel compelled to fill with words. As the seconds ticked by, Brant got the impression that he could stand on that porch for seven days and seven nights without John Duffy ever uttering another syllable. Madge, though, was another matter.
"He's changed," Madge said, almost without moving her lips.
Duffy whipped his head around and glared at her like a rattlesnake suddenly aware of a descending boot. Madge knew that glare even without actually seeing it, but the test of John's redemption had to come sooner or later and so maybe this was it. "I don't know what he saw on the other side," she said, "but it changed him."
"In what way?"
Madge chose her words with great care. Practically everybody in town knew her and John's history, but there was no need to splash it all over the front page for those who didn't. On the other hand, she wanted people to know that he was reformed, and having it reported in the Times made it somehow truer.
"For the better," she said at last, and then added, "and that's my last word on the subject."
Brant opened his mouth to speak but the door swung suddenly toward him and shut with a finality that told him the interview was over. He turned away from the Duffy place and got back in his car and drove off, not knowing that behind those walls John Duffy had just knocked his wife to the floor.
Nine
"You're shitting us," Darren said. He looked from Galen to Tom, desperate for a sign that this was all some kind of sick joke. A smirk, a snicker, a twitch of the lip. Anything. Finding nothing.
"It's true," Tom said. "Haws is alive."
"Again," Galen added.
Darren regarded Kent and Buzzy. Kent sat on the fender of Darren's Satellite looking so sunken and morose he barely seemed to be breathing. Buzzy sat beside him, his leg twitching nervously, his mind working a mile a minute.
"I don't believe it," Darren said.
"You heard about Duffy," said Tom.
"Yeah, I heard. And I don't believe that crock of shit either."
Galen paced like a caged hyena, his teeth clenched, his breath huffing through flared nostrils. He turned on Darren and punched a palm hard into his chest.
"Fucking believe it!" he said.
"Hey!" Darren protested.
Galen was in his face.
"I saw the asshole! I woke up in the back of his fucking car! The fucker is alive!"
Galen had indeed come to in the back seat of Haws' patrol vehicle and stared up at Haws' red neck, and then Haws had turned around and grinned at him and Galen had figured he'd died and gone to Hell. "Feeling better?" Haws had asked, and all Galen could do was lie there on the stinking seat while his brain performed its impression of the Lost In Space robot blowing a fucking fuse. Haws had reached over and jacked open the door behind Galen's head and said, "Be home tonight" and then told him to get the hell out of his patrol vehicle. Galen had scrambled out of the car without even sitting up, just scooted out like a lizard and flopped onto the pavement and Haws slammed the door shut and drove off, his back tires spinning and spraying Galen with road debris. When he'd stopped shaking, Galen had called the guys and told them to get their asses out to the reservoir pronto, some serious shit was going down.
"You'd better believe it," Galen said, resuming his pacing. Then he yelled out "Shit!" and kicked the fender of Darren's Satellite hard enough to leave a dent.
Darren leaped at Galen and gave him a shove before his good sense had time to stop him.
"Asshole!" Darren yelled and Galen whirled on him and grabbed the front of his shirt and muscled him over against the car and backed him against the window.
"Who are you calling asshole, asshole?" Galen demanded.
"You dented my fucking car!" Darren yelled back.
Galen and Darren faced off for a few seconds and then Galen glanced over at the fender. He looked at the dent as if seeing it for the first time.
"Shit!" he said, giving Darren a shove as he turned loose of his shirt. "Shit shit shit shit!" It looked as if he was going to kick the car again but some force restrained him.
"If Galen says he saw him, he saw him," Buzzy said.
"I saw him, too," said Tom. "He's alive."
"So Galen didn't kill him."
"No, but we sure as hell buried the fucker," Kent said.
"So why didn't he arrest us when he had the chance?" Tom asked. "He saw me there. He didn't even arrest Galen. He just loaded him in his car and let him go."
"He told me to be home tonight," Galen said.
"But he didn't arrest you. He didn't do shit to me. He didn't go after Darren or Buzzy or Kent. Why? What's he waiting for? Maybe you didn't kill him but you put a bullet in his stomach! You think he's just going to forget that?"
"Shut up!" Galen yelled. "How can I think? Shit!" He kicked at some dirt and everybody gave him some time to wind down.
"We're fucked," Buzzy intoned.
"This isn't real," Darren insisted. "This is fucking Twilight Zone shit."
"It's real," Tom said, "and we have to figure out how to deal with it. And we can't do that until Haws makes his move."
Tom felt abnormally calm. After the nightmares and the shock of seeing Deputy Haws alive at the diner, a strange resignation had settled over him. If Haws was alive, they hadn't killed him. So no matter what revenge Haws tried to take, it wouldn't put them in jail for life with no chance of parole. They faced the unknown, but it couldn't be worse than what they'd faced before. It just couldn't.
"I hate this shit!" Galen said.
Galen paced and Tom thought, This is it, Galen, the moment you've been hurtling toward for the past eighteen years. The moment of truth.
He'd often wondered what force of nature kept somebody like Galen Ganger in Anderso
n. He'd thought that Galen's rage would have taken him somewhere else long before this. Ironically, he realized, Anderson's provinciality, against which Galen struggled and cursed and railed, was the glue that held him fast. The town was like the forced perspective room in a funhouse that makes giants of midgets. Viewed against any larger backdrop, Galen Ganger would diminish. He might even disappear.
And now, something enormous had come to Anderson, and Galen had set himself against it. It dwarfed him utterly. It was roaring over him like an avalanche. To defy it was useless.
"You going to be home tonight like Haws wants?" Tom asked.
"I don't know!" Galen snapped.
"I think you have to."
Galen stopped abruptly at the words, his back to the other boys, his eyes on the water. The air was heavy and still. Tom felt his palms moisten—Galen did not like being told what to do. He looked at the others and noticed how carefully they avoided his gaze.
After several moments of leaden silence, Galen looked over his shoulder at Tom.
"Fuck," he said flatly. He looked at Buzzy and Kent, both studying the ground, and at Darren who glared at him, still mad about the dented fender, then fixed his eyes on Tom.
"When you're right, you're right, Einstein," Galen said. "It's me and him. That's what it comes down to. Me and him."
Tom nodded.
"Yeah," he said, "pretty much."
It wasn't just Galen and Deputy Haws, of course. It was all of them, and it was something much bigger than the bunch of them put together. He didn't see any use in pointing that out, though, not yet.
They'd find out soon enough.
***
Brant wondered if he should contact the Associated Press.
He hadn't had a story go out over the AP wire since he'd moved to Anderson, and the way news traveled over the grapevine somebody in the outside world would hear of Duffy's rise soon enough and he'd be scooped in his own backyard. On the other hand, he didn't want to be branded a kook and the facts in the case were as wonky as a shopping cart. Doc Milford could be counted on for a solid "no comment" and the Duffys certainly weren't talking.
No, if there was a story here, it'd take more digging to unearth it. At least, those were his thoughts as he drove by Carl Tompkin's house and saw him crawl out from under the foundation in coveralls and a filter mask and dragging a five-gallon stainless steel sprayer.
Brant pulled onto the wrong side of the street and rolled down his window and hollered at Carl.
"It's the damned cockroaches," Carl explained. "I've done everything, but with all the cats...I don't want to complain, but you know how it is. Cat food left out all the time, and they eat like pigs. Bernice tries to keep the place clean but...twelve cats. Jeez!"
Brant asked Carl if he'd thought about tenting the house.
"No, that's for termites," Carl informed him. He hoisted the sprayer into view. "I've sprayed with everything in the store, even stuff I'm not supposed to sell without a permit. I thought I had them licked there for awhile, but...." He shook his head. "I could swear I heard them in the night, in the walls, under the floor, made a helluva racket. Regular cockroach jamboree down there. Joists were thick with them when I looked this morning. Damn brazen, too. I shined the light on them and they just stood right there looking back at me like to say, 'What the devil do you want down here?' They're dead now, though. Bernice threw a fit about the poison. Say, you wouldn't want to keep a cat or two for a couple of days?"
Brant said "No, thanks," and wished Carl luck and drove on to the hospital.
He had to wait to see Doc Milford. Annie Culler was having trouble breathing and Doc suspected fluid in her lungs. They'd taken her in for x-rays and Doc had a few minutes while waiting for the results. Brant told him about his interview with John and Madge Duffy.
"It sounds to me like they just want to put the whole thing behind them," he said.
"I wish it was that easy for me," Doc replied. "Did you get a look at him?"
"Just as you said, not a mark on him."
"You're not a religious man, are you, Brant?"
Brant acknowledged that he wasn't.
"Neither am I," Doc said, "not in the strictest sense. Still, there isn't a doctor living who hasn't had a miracle case or two in his career. Someone who shouldn't make it, does. Someone who shouldn't wake up, wakes. The little Culler girl, for instance. I'd bet a dollar to a donut that she never regains consciousness. If she were my own daughter, I'd have pulled her off life support months ago. But Peg has faith, so who am I to say that Annie won't be that one in a million who pulls through against all odds? She could go on to be a normal little girl and a sullen teenager and the mother of three and the first lady President of the United States for all I know.
"But John Duffy, he's something else. Duffy's right up there with multiplying loaves and Sunday strolls on top of Lake Erie. It couldn't happen, but it did."
Doc Milford chuckled.
"I even tracked down his birth record," he said, "to see if he might have been twins. You know, somebody pulling a switch on me. No such luck. Not even a brother or a sister. So, there is no rational explanation for John Duffy whatsoever. Unless you believe in miracles."
Brant shifted uncomfortably in his chair. If Doc was talking miracles, there might be something to it, and that meant the inevitable interview with the local guru. "I guess I'd better see Reverend Small this afternoon," he said. "Come with me."
"Why? Do you need help finding the church?"
"No, but I'd like a doctor there in case I break out in boils. Got a free hour?"
"I'll make one."
***
Brant did not break out in boils or burst into flame when he set foot inside the First Methodist Church, but his stomach did flip-flop and he felt his forehead bead up with sweat. He wondered, because of his obvious aversion to all things religious, if he weren't suppressing memories of being molested by a church leader as a child, but since he hadn't been raised Catholic he didn't think that was likely.
Reverend Small was setting out hymnals for the next day's services when Brant and Doc walked in. The sanctuary smelled, well, like a sanctuary, and the scent was probably what triggered Brant's gastronomic response. It was the unforgettable mixture of wood and Pledge and holiness that defines middle American churches from east coast to west, from North Dakota down to Galveston Bay.
They exchanged greetings and quickly got down to business.
"You have a very spirited community here," Small offered, and Brant smiled.
"You mean that little fracas at Ma's this morning? That was nothing. Wait'll an election year and you'll see some real fireworks."
"What do you make of the Duffy situation, Reverend?" Doc asked. "Are we talking 'miracle' here?"
"Well—and no offense intended, Doctor—but it's either that or gross medical incompetence. Not having been at the hospital...."
Doc whipped a set of prints of the Duffy photos out of his inside jacket pocket with a speed that would have dazzled a gunfighter. To his credit, Reverend Small was noticeably unsqueamish as Doc led him through the photos one by one, describing Duffy's state in medical terms that led inevitably to the same conclusion: Duffy was as dead as a holiday ham when they wheeled him down to the morgue. If his death was a hoax, it had taken the participation of John Duffy, his wife, the Sheriff, Doc Milford, Nurse White, and Curtis Waxler the janitor (who had eventually turned up at the grade school playground on top of the jungle gym with no recollection of how he got there) to pull it off. Not to mention the able assistance of a top special effects makeup team.
And for what? If John Duffy were a glory hound of some sort, it might make sense. But why stage such an elaborate hoax just to retreat and clam up like an indicted Senator?
"For one," Reverend Small said, "I'm perfectly willing to accept the notion that the Good Lord, in His generosity, chose to smile upon the Duffy family, if not for John Duffy's sake, then for his wife's. Miracles happen. After viewing your photos,
Doctor, I'd say I'm convinced. Thank you."
"For...?"
"For giving focus to tomorrow's sermon. Congregations don't respond well to ambiguity. They worship conviction. A minister who isn't sure about things soon finds himself without a flock."
"Like a shepherd with no sense of direction," Brant suggested.
"That's a good analogy. May I use it?"
Brant nodded his assent. "Myself, I've always been skeptical of people who had all the answers," he said. "Take the good doctor, here. I'm sure he'd freely admit to certain gaps in his knowledge of medicine."
"Medicine often seems to be more gaps than knowledge," said Doc. "Everything we learn somehow raises more questions."
"So it stands to reason that when it comes to comprehending the basic forces of the universe—God, in other words—we pitiful little human beings would be as much at a loss as, say, a housefly to understand Wall Street, molecular physics, or the federal income tax. Yet we're surrounded by people—the holy men of every denomination—who claim to have the inside scoop." Brant shrugged. "I'm skeptical."
"As well you should be," Reverend Small replied. "Nonetheless, your fellow houseflies demand such answers, and we clergy do the best we can to provide them."
"Even when you have to make something up."
"Unlike reporters, you mean." The preacher smiled.
Doc Milford had been regarding the exchange with amusement. "What strikes me," Doc said, "is how this 'miracle' occurred fewer than two weeks after your arrival. I guess if a preacher wanted to impress his new town, a resurrection's one way to do it."
"Well," Small replied, "with Anderson, I wanted to hit the ground running."
"Maybe I wasn't kidding," replied Doc.
"Maybe I wasn't, either."
The sanctuary fell deathly quiet for some moments. Then Brant's bowels gurgled and he suggested that they'd taken enough of the Reverend's time.