by Scott Smith
But was it? If there was an anxiety which plagued me at that time, it had nothing to do with being caught, nothing to do with the money or the memory of my crime. It had to do with Sarah. Would Sarah understand what I had done?
I could feel a draft coming through the window. There was a plastic sheet of insulation sealing its outside frame, but it was torn and flapped loosely in the wind. I watched the mourners talk for a bit in the parking lot. They clustered around Ruth Pederson, hugging her one after the other. The men shook one another's hands. Finally they all climbed into their cars, pulled out of the parking lot, and started slowly down Main Street toward the western edge of town.
They were going back to the Pedersons': I could imagine it well enough. They'd eat lunch around a big wooden table in the kitchen -- casseroles and three-bean salads, cold cuts and potato chips. There would be warm drinks -- tea, coffee, hot chocolate -- in Styrofoam cups and for dessert they'd have Jell-O, carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies. Ruth Pederson, changed now out of her black dress, would sit at the head of the table. She'd watch the others eat, making sure that everyone had enough. People would hover around her, speaking softly, and she'd smile at what they said. Everyone would go out of their way to help clean up, washing dishes and putting them back in the wrong cabinets. Then, as the afternoon wore on into evening, the light fading westward toward the nature preserve, they'd slip off one by one into their own lives, until at last Ruth was left all by herself in the empty house.
I could picture this in my mind -- could see her sitting there, the house sunk in shadows, the guests gone, their well-meaning tidiness leaving her nothing to busy herself with except her grief -- but, though I knew that I ought to, I felt no remorse at the image, no guilt, only an abstract sort of empathy, distant and subdued. I'd taken her husband from her; it was not something I would've thought I could ever live with. Yet, there I was.
I pulled shut the blinds, finished my coffee, dropped the empty cup into the wastebasket. Then I sat down at my desk, turned on the little light there, pulled a pen from my shirt pocket, and set to work.
ON MY way home from the feedstore that night, I took a long detour, so that I could drive by the nature preserve. I circled above it, then came in from the west, moving slowly along the park's southern border. It was just beginning to get dark, and I drove with my high beams on, scanning the edge of the road for our tracks. There was nothing there; all the signs of our passage, even the gouge Jacob's truck had cut into the snowbank, had been erased.
When I drove by the Pederson farm, I could see several lights shining through the windows of the house. The collie was sitting on the porch. It didn't bark this time though; it simply stared at my station wagon, its ears erect, its thin, angular head rotating slowly on its shoulders as the car drifted past down the road toward the bridge over Anders Creek.
A FULL week passed. I spoke twice with Jacob on the phone but didn't see him. We talked only briefly, both times about Pederson, reassuring each other as to the success of our cover-up. I didn't speak to Lou at all.
Thursday afternoon I was working in my office when Sarah appeared. Her face was flushed from the cold, making her look angry, and there was a busyness about her -- her eyes shifting rapidly from spot to spot, her hands reaching up to touch now her hair, now her face, now her clothes -- which told me that something bad had happened. I stood up quickly, came out from behind my desk, and helped her take off her jacket. Beneath it she was wearing one of her maternity dresses -- a fleet of tiny sailboats floating across a sea of pale blue, cheap-looking fabric. The dress molded itself to the swollen dome of her belly. I couldn't help but stare at it; it reminded me of some giant fruit. There was a baby inside her: whenever I saw her now, the thought jarred me, gave me an uneasy feeling in my own stomach.
Sarah dropped heavily into the armchair beside my desk, the chair customers sat in when they came to ask me for an extension on their bills. Her hair was pinned up around her head, and she was wearing dark red lipstick.
"Lou's told Nancy," she said.
I went over and shut the office door. Then I sat down behind my desk.
"I saw her at the grocery store," Sarah said. "I came in to buy some applesauce, and I was digging through my purse for a coupon I'd cut out of the paper when she came up behind me and asked why I was bothering with it."
"With the coupon?"
Sarah nodded. "She said with our New Year's present I shouldn't have to worry."
I spread my hands out across the desk, frowning.
"She said it right in front of the cashier. Like she was commenting on the weather."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. I pretended I didn't understand."
"Good."
"But she knew. She could tell I understood what she was talking about."
"We couldn't really expect Lou not to tell her, could we?"
"I want to burn it."
"I mean, she had to find out sooner or later."
"We've made a mistake, Hank. Admit it. We're in over our heads."
"I think you're overreacting," I said. I leaned forward to take her hand, but she pulled it away. I stared across the corner of the desk at her. "Come on, Sarah."
"No. We're going to get caught. I want to burn it."
"We can't burn it."
"Don't you see, Hank? How it's going to get out of hand? It was all right when just the four of us knew. But everyone feels like they can tell someone else. There're five of us now. Pretty soon there'll be more. It'll just keep growing like that until we get caught."
"We can't burn it," I said again.
"It's a small town. It won't take that long. We have to stop it while we still can."
"Sarah," I said slowly. "It's not as simple as it was at first."
She started to protest, but then she saw my face. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Do you remember seeing the story about Dwight Pederson on the news? The old man whose snowmobile went into the creek?"
She nodded. "On New Year's Day."
"He didn't die accidentally."
Sarah didn't seem to understand. She gave me a vacant stare.
"He saw Jacob and me at the nature preserve, and we killed him." Saying this, I felt a weight shift from my shoulders. Without having planned it, I was confessing. I was coming clean.
Sarah sat there, trying to grasp it.
"You killed him?" she asked. Her face had a strange look to it. It wasn't horror, which was what I'd dreaded most; it was something closer to fear -- apprehension tinged with perplexity -- and beneath it all, just the slightest hint of disapproval, sitting there like a seed, waiting to learn more before it sprouted and grew. Seeing it, I hesitated, and then, without even thinking, so that when I heard myself speak I was astonished by the words, I began to lie again.
"Jacob did it," I said. "He knocked him off his snowmobile and kicked him in the head. Then we took him down to the bridge and made it look like an accident."
My confession lay between us, stillborn, draining blood onto the papers scattered across my desk.
"Jesus," Sarah said.
I nodded, staring down at my hands.
"How could you let him do that?" she asked. She said it, I could tell, not out of admonition but merely from curiosity. I didn't know how to answer her.
"Couldn't you have stopped him?"
I shook my head. "It happened so fast. He just did it, and then it was over."
I glanced up at her, met her eyes. I was relieved by her look; it was calm. There was no horror in it, no grief, simply confusion. She didn't understand what had happened.
"He was tracking the fox," I said. "If Jacob hadn't killed him, he would've found the plane, and seen our tracks around it."
Sarah considered that for a moment. "We can still burn the money," she said.
I shook my head again. I wasn't going to do that. I'd killed for the money; if I were to give it up now, it would mean that I'd done it for nothing. The crime would become s
enseless, unforgivable. I understood this but knew I couldn't say it to her. I frowned down at my desk, rolled a pencil slowly across its surface beneath the palm of my hand.
"No," I said. "We aren't going to burn the money."
"We're going to get caught," she said. "This might be our last chance." Her voice rose as she spoke, and I glanced toward the door. I held my finger to my lips.
"If we burn it," she whispered, "Jacob'll be all right. There'll be no motive, no reason to connect us with Pederson. But if we wait to get caught, Carl might put things together."
"We're okay," I said calmly. "We're not in any danger. And if it begins to look like we're in danger, we can just burn the money then. It's still the only evidence to show that we've committed a crime."
"But now it's not just stealing, it's murder."
"We're the only ones who know about this, Sarah. Us and Jacob. It's our secret. There's no reason for anyone else to suspect a thing."
"We're going to get caught." She sank backward into her chair, her hands on her stomach.
"No," I said, with more conviction than I felt. "We aren't. No one else is going to know. Not about Pederson, and not about the money."
Sarah didn't say anything. She seemed close to tears, but I could tell that, at least for the moment, I'd held her off. She was going to let things stand as they were; she was going to wait and see what happened. I got up from my chair and moved around the desk to her side. I touched her hair, then bent down and hugged her. It was a graceless movement: she was sitting slouched away from me, her belly protruding between us, and I had to lean over the arm of the chair to reach her, but it had the desired effect. She let her head fall toward my shoulder, reached her arms up around my back.
My phone started to ring. It rang five times and then stopped.
"I promised you, Sarah, didn't I? I promised I wouldn't let us get caught."
She nodded her head against my neck.
"And I won't," I whispered. "I'll talk to Lou about Nancy. It'll be okay. Just wait it out, and it'll be okay."
THAT NIGHT, as the feedstore was closing, I heard Jacob's voice in the lobby, arguing with the cashier. I got up quickly and moved to the doorway of my office.
Jacob was standing at the checkout counter, his jacket zipped up to his throat. He was gazing beseechingly at Cheryl Williams, a squat, thickly rouged older woman who was a part-time cashier. Cheryl was shaking her head.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mitchell," she said. "I just can't do that. You'll have to go across the street to the bank."
"Come on, Cheryl," Jacob pleaded. "They're closed."
"Then you'll have to wait till the morning."
"I can't wait till the morning," he said, his voice rising. "I need it now."
There was something about how he was standing, some visual clue in the way his feet were positioned beneath the bulk of his body which made me sure suddenly that he'd been drinking.
"Jacob," I said, cutting off Cheryl's reply.
They both turned toward me at the same time, identical expressions of relief on their faces.
"She won't let me cash this," Jacob said. He had a check in his hand, and he waved it at Cheryl.
"We're not a bank," I said. "We don't cash checks."
Cheryl, who'd gone back to counting out for the day, let a smile slip quickly across her face.
"Hank--" Jacob started, but I cut him off.
"Come into my office," I said.
He walked across the lobby to my office, and I shut the door behind him.
"Sit down," I said.
He lowered himself into the same armchair Sarah had sat in earlier that afternoon. It made a creaking noise beneath his weight.
I went to the window and opened the blinds. The sun was nearly set. Lights were coming on in the town. The church and cemetery were already submerged in darkness.
"You've been drinking," I said, not turning from the window. I heard him stir uncomfortably in his chair.
"What do you mean?"
"I can smell it. It's not even five o'clock, and you're already drunk."
"I had a couple beers, Hank. I'm not drunk."
I turned from the window, leaned back on the sill. Jacob had to twist around in the armchair to see me. He seemed awkward, embarrassed, like a child called to the principal's office.
"It's irresponsible," I said.
"I really need the money. I need it tonight."
"You're worse than Lou."
"Come on, Hank. I had two beers."
"He's told Nancy, hasn't he?"
Jacob sighed.
"Answer me."
"Why do you keep harping on that?"
"I just want to know the truth."
"But how would I know that?"
"I want to know what you think."
He frowned, slouching into the chair. He wasn't looking at me. "She's his girlfriend," he said. "They live together."
"You're saying he told her?"
"If Lou asked me whether or not you'd told Sarah, I'd say--"
"Has Lou asked you that?"
"Come on, Hank. I'm just trying to show you that it's only me guessing. I don't know anything for sure."
"I'm not asking what you know. I'm asking what you think."
"Like I said, she's his girlfriend."
"That means yes?"
"I guess so."
"And do you remember what we said? How you're responsible for him?"
He didn't answer.
"If he screws this up, it's your fault. You'll be the one I'll blame."
"It's not like--"
"I'll burn the money, Jacob. If I think you two're going to screw this up, I'll just burn it."
He stared down at his check.
"You better straighten him out, and you better do it quick. You tell him that he's responsible for Nancy, just like I'm telling you you're responsible for him."
Jacob looked up at me, thinking. He worked his tongue along his teeth, sucking, as if he were trying to clean them. His forehead, wide and low, was spattered with pimples. His skin was greasy; it glistened in the light from my desk lamp.
"It's like a food chain," he said. "Isn't it?"
"A food chain?"
He smiled. "Lou's responsible for Nancy, I'm responsible for Lou, you're responsible for me."
I thought about this; then I nodded.
"So in a way," Jacob said, "you're responsible for all of us."
I couldn't think of anything to say to this. I stepped away from the window, walked over to my desk, and sat down behind it. "How much is the check for?" I asked.
He glanced at the check in his hand. He was still wearing his gloves. "Forty-seven dollars."
I reached across the desk and took it from him.
"What's it for?"
"It's from Sonny Major. I sold him my ratchet set."
I scanned the check, then handed it back to him along with a pen. "Sign it over to me."
While he signed it, I removed two twenties and a ten from my wallet. I gave them to Jacob in exchange for the check.
"You owe me three dollars," I said.
He put the money in his pocket, seemed to think about getting up, but then decided against it.
He glanced at my forehead. "How's your bump?" he asked.
I touched it with my finger. All that was left was a tiny scab. "It's healed."
He nodded.
"Your nose?" I asked.
He wrinkled his nose, inhaled through it. "Fine."
After that we sat in silence. I was preparing to stand up and guide him toward the door when he asked, "You remember Dad breaking his nose?"
I nodded. When I was seven, our father had bought a mail-order windmill, to help irrigate one of his fields. He'd almost finished putting it together, was up on a ladder tightening a bolt, when a sudden gust of wind set the contraption's aluminum sails spinning. Our father was hit in the face, knocked off his ladder to the ground. Our mother had seen it all from the house, and -- since he'd remain
ed on his back for a moment, his hand clamped on his head, rather than instantly regaining his feet -- she'd run to the phone and called an ambulance. Ashenville had a volunteer fire department, so it was our father's friends who came rushing out to the farm, and they kidded him about it for years. Our father never forgave her for the embarrassment.
"That windmill's still up," Jacob said. "You can see it from the road when you drive by."
"It's probably the only thing he ever built that actually worked," I said.
Jacob smiled -- our father's inadequacy as a handyman had been one of our family's running jokes -- but when he spoke again his voice came out sounding mournful, full of loss and regret.
"I wish they were still around," he said.
I looked up at him then, and it was as if a curtain were being dragged back from a window, giving me a sudden glimpse into the depths of my brother's loneliness. Jacob had been much closer to our parents than I had. He'd lived at home up until the year before the accident, and even after he moved out, he still spent most of his time there, doing chores, talking, watching TV. The farm had been his refuge from the world. I had Sarah, and now a baby coming, but Jacob's family was all in the past. He didn't have anyone.
I tried unsuccessfully to think of something to say. I wanted to reach out in some way, to tell him something reassuring, but I couldn't find the proper words. I didn't know how to talk to my brother.
Jacob broke the silence finally by asking, "What do you mean, blame me?"
I realized with a little jolt of panic -- a jolt that instantly subverted whatever empathy I'd been feeling for him before he'd spoken -- that if I wanted to control Jacob, I needed to offer some concrete threat rather than the simple, abstract idea of blame. It took me only a second to come up with one: it was the obvious choice, the only thing I really had that I was sure would frighten him.
"If we get caught because of Lou," I said, "I'll tell about Pederson. I'll say you murdered him, and that all I did was help you cover it up."
He stared at me. He didn't understand.
"I'll say I tried to stop you, but you pushed me aside and killed him."
Jacob seemed genuinely shocked by this. When he spoke, he had to search for his words. "You killed him, Hank," he said.