A Simple Plan

by Scott Smith

  "I called the FBI," Sarah said.

  "And?"

  "And they said he was on field duty."

  It took me a second to absorb this. "They have an Agent Baxter?"

  "That's what they said."

  "You asked for Neal Baxter?"

  "Yes. Agent Neal Baxter."

  I stood there for a moment, frozen, the phone clamped against my face. I was shocked; I hadn't expected this at all.

  "What do you think that means?" I asked.

  Even over the phone I could sense her shrugging. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."

  I tried to force myself to believe this, but it didn't work.

  "Baxter's not that uncommon a name," she said.

  I could feel the pistol digging into my gut. It felt alive, like it was kneading my stomach. I repositioned it with my hand.

  "He might've even known there was a Neal Baxter," she said. "He might've picked the name on purpose."

  "So you're saying it's him?"

  "Think about what you just told me, Hank. About him not having a badge and all."

  "I didn't say he didn't have a badge. All I said was that he didn't show one to Carl."

  Sarah didn't respond to this. Behind her, in the background, I could hear Jacob's teddy bear singing.

  "Just tell me," I prodded her.

  "Tell you what?"

  "If you think it's him."

  She hesitated, and then, "I do, Hank. I really do."

  I nodded but didn't say anything.

  "Do you?" she asked.

  "I did," I said. I walked from my desk to the window. I lifted the blind and peeked out at the day. Everything was cloaked in mist. The cemetery's gate looked black in it, like a net, the tombstones beyond it gray and cold and indistinct.

  "I guess I still do," I said.

  "So you're coming home?"

  "No. I'm going."

  "But you just said--"

  "I got a pistol, Sarah. I borrowed it from Carl."

  There was silence on the other end, and I could feel her thinking. It was as if she were holding her breath.

  "I'm going to protect him," I said. "I'm going to make sure he doesn't get hurt."

  "Who?"

  "Carl. If it's Vernon, and he pulls a gun, I'm going to shoot him."

  "You can't do that, Hank. That's insane."

  "No," I said. "It isn't. I've thought it out, and it's the right thing to do."

  "If it's Vernon, it's important for us that he escapes. That way no one else will know how much money was on the plane."

  "If it's Vernon, he's going to kill him."

  "That's not our problem. We don't have anything to do with that."

  "What're you talking about? We have everything to do with it. We know what Vernon's going to try and do."

  "It's just a guess, Hank. We don't know for sure."

  "I can stop him if I go."

  "Maybe, maybe not. A pistol's not like a shotgun. It's a lot easier to miss with. And if you miss, he'll kill you both."

  "I'm not going to miss. I'm going to stay right up next to him the whole time. I'll be too close to miss."

  "He's a murderer, Hank. He knows what he's doing. You wouldn't have a chance against him."

  The bear continued to sing behind her, its voice slow now, shaky. I pushed the gun farther down into my belt. I didn't want to listen to her, wanted just to go, but her words settled into my mind like tiny seeds, sprouting pale shoots of doubt. I began to waver. I tried to revive my determination by imagining how it would feel to draw the pistol from beneath my coat, to crouch down like a cop on TV, aim at Vernon's chest, and pull the trigger, but what I saw instead was everything that could go wrong -- the gun snagging on my shirt; my boots slipping in the snow; the gun not firing, or firing wide, or high, or down into the ground at my feet, and then Vernon turning on me with his wooden smile.

  I realized with a shock that I was scared of him.

  "You have to think of the baby, Hank," Sarah said. "You have to think of me."

  My dilemma seemed simple: I could either go with them or stay away. To go would be the braver choice, I knew, the nobler one, but also the riskier. If it was really Vernon who was waiting across the street, then he was probably planning on shooting both Carl and me. By going home, I'd escape that. I'd leave Carl to his fate, whatever that might be, and save myself.

  I stood there pondering these two alternatives. Sarah was silent, waiting for me to speak. My left hand was in my pocket; I could feel some coins in there, my car keys, a little penknife that had belonged to my father. I pulled out one of the coins. It was a quarter, a bicentennial one.

  If it comes up heads, I thought to myself, I'll go.

  I tossed the coin into the air, caught it in my palm.

  It was heads.

  "Hank?" Sarah said. "Are you there?"

  I stared down at the quarter with a pit of fear in my stomach. I'd wanted it to be tails, I realized, had been praying for it with all my heart. I debated flipping it again, going for two out of three, but I knew it didn't really matter. I'd just keep doing it until I got what I wanted. It was only a trick to soothe my conscience, a way to escape responsibility for my cowardice. I was too scared to go.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm here."

  "You're not a policeman. You don't know anything about guns."

  I didn't say anything. I flipped the coin over in my palm so that the tails side was facing up.

  "Hank?"

  "It's all right," I said quietly. "I'm coming home."

  I CALLED Carl and told him that the baby was vomiting, that Sarah was in a panic.

  He was full of concern. "Linda's here now," he said. "She's done some nursing in her time. I'm sure she'd be willing to drive out with you if you need some help."

  "That's awful nice of you, Carl, but I don't think it's that serious."

  "You sure?"

  "Positive. I just want to get her to a doctor to be safe."

  "You head straight home then. I'm sure we can manage on our own. You didn't really see anything anyway, did you?"

  "No. Nothing at all."

  "You said you heard it on the south side? By the Pederson place?"

  "Just a little ways past it."

  "All right, Hank. Maybe I'll give you a call when we get back, let you know how it went."

  "I'd like that."

  "And I hope everything's okay with the baby."

  He was about to hang up. "Carl?" I said, stopping him.

  "What?"

  "Be careful, okay?"

  He laughed. "Careful of what?"

  I was silent for several seconds. I wanted to warn him, but I couldn't think of a way to do it. "Just the rain," I said finally. "It's supposed to get colder later. The roads'll ice up."

  He laughed again, but he seemed touched by my concern.

  "You be careful, too," he said.

  I COULD see Carl's truck from my window -- it was parked in front of the church -- so I waited there, hidden behind the blinds, to watch them leave. They appeared almost immediately, walking side by side. Carl had on his dark green police jacket and his forest ranger's hat. The rain was falling in a thick mist now, forming puddles in the gutter and adding a rawness to the day, a cold, aching feeling, which I could sense even through the window.

  Carl's truck was like a normal pickup, except it had a red-and-white bubble light on its roof, a police radio hooked to the underside of its dashboard, and a twelve-gauge shotgun hanging from a rack on the rear window. It was dark blue, with the words ASHENVILLE POLICE written in bold white letters on its side. I watched as he climbed in behind the wheel, then leaned across the seat to unlock the agent's door. I heard the engine start, saw them put on their seat belts, then watched the windshield wipers begin to slide back and forth, clearing the glass of rain. Carl removed his hat, smoothed his hair once with his hand, and put the hat back on.

  I stood there, crouching beside the window in my darkened office, until they pulled out onto the road and
headed off toward the west, toward the Pederson place and the nature preserve, toward Bernard Anders's overgrown orchard and the plane that lay within it as if in the hollow of a hand, awaiting, while the rain freed it from its veil of snow, their imminent arrival.

  Before the truck disappeared down Main Street, its brake lights flashed once, as if in farewell; then the mist fell in behind them, leaving just the town beyond my window, its cold and empty sidewalks, its drab storefronts, with the rain running over everything, beading and pooling, and hissing as it fell.

  I DROVE home.

  Fort Ottowa was quiet. It was like entering a cemetery -- the winding roads, the empty lawns with their mounds of dirt, the tiny, cryptlike houses. The children were all inside, hiding from the rain. Occasional lights dotted the windows; televisions flickered bluely behind drawn curtains. As I made my way through the neighborhood, I could picture Saturday-morning cartoons; card tables littered with jigsaw puzzles and board games; parents in bathrobes sipping mugs of coffee; teenagers upstairs sleeping late. Everything seemed so safe, so normal, and when I reached my own house, I was relieved to see that -- at least from the outside -- it looked exactly like all the others.

  I parked in the driveway. There was a light on in the living room. Mary Beth was sitting beneath his tree in the rain, Buddha-like, his fur plastered wetly to his body.

  I got out of the car and went into the garage. There was a small shovel hanging from a hook on the wall there, and I was just reaching up to pull it down when Sarah opened the door behind me.

  "What're you doing, Hank?" she asked.

  I turned toward her with the shovel. She was standing in the doorway, a step up from the garage. Amanda was in her arms, sucking on a pacifier. "I'm going to shoot the dog," I said.

  "Here?"

  I shook my head. "I'm going to drive him out to Ashenville. To my dad's old farm."

  She frowned. "Maybe this isn't the best time to do that."

  "I told Carl I'd return his pistol to him by this afternoon."

  "Why not wait till Monday? You can have a vet do it then, and you won't need the gun."

  "I don't want a vet to do it. I want to do it myself."

  Sarah shifted Amanda from her right arm to her left. She was wearing jeans and a dark brown sweater. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, like a girl's. "Why?" she asked.

  "It's what Jacob would've wanted," I said, not sure if this was actually the truth or merely a continuation of the lie I'd told Carl earlier.

  Sarah didn't seem to know how to respond to this. I don't think she believed me. She frowned down at my chest.

  "The dog's miserable," I said. "It's not fair to him, keeping him out there in the cold."

  Amanda turned to look at me when I spoke, her round head swiveling on her neck like an owl's. She blinked her eyes, and her pacifier fell out of her mouth, bouncing down the step into the garage. I came forward and picked it up. It was damp with her saliva.

  "I'll be back in an hour or so. It won't take that long."

  I held out the pacifier to Sarah, and she took it from me, grasping it between two of her fingers. Our hands didn't touch.

  "You aren't going by the nature preserve, are you?" she asked.

  I shook my head.

  "You promise?"

  "Yes," I said. "I promise."

  She watched from the front window as I untied Mary Beth and led him toward the car. Jacob's things were still loaded in the back, and when the dog got inside, he began to sniff at the boxes, his tail wagging. I climbed in behind the wheel. Sarah was holding Amanda up to the window, waving the infant's tiny hand back and forth.

  I could see her mouth moving in an exaggerated fashion. "Bye-bye," she was saying. "Bye-bye, doggy."

  MARY BETH slept the whole way out to the farm, curled up in a ball on the backseat.

  The weather didn't change. A fine drizzle fell from the sky, dissolving into the mist. Houses materialized around me as I drove, ghostlike beside the road, surrounded by barns and silos and outbuildings, their colors bleached, their eaves dripping, old cars parked haphazardly about their yards. The ground had already begun to appear in places, dark, muddy clumps rising like gloved fists through the snow; in some fields there were whole lines of them, marching parallel into the distance, the remnants of last year's furrows, their termini hidden by the fog.

  When I reached the farm, the dog refused to climb out of the car. I opened the door for him, and he backed away from me, growling and baring his teeth, his hair rising along his neck. I had to drag him out by the clothesline.

  He shook himself when he hit the ground, stretched, then jogged off ahead of me into the field.

  I followed him, holding the rope in my left hand and the shovel in my right. The pistol was holstered beneath my belt.

  The snow was melting rapidly, but it was still deep enough in places to rise up over my boots. It was heavy and wet, like white clay, and difficult to move through. My pant legs grew dark with its moisture, clinging to my calves so that I looked like I was wearing knickers and knee socks. The drizzle drifted down from the sky, falling lightly on my head and shoulders and sending a chill across my back.

  I flipped up the collar on my parka. Mary Beth moved in a zigzag course before me, sniffing at the snow. His tail was wagging.

  We headed out into the center of the field, toward the spot where my father's house had once stood. His windmill was off to the left, barely visible in the mist, its blades dripping water into the snow.

  I stopped near where I thought our front stoop should've been and dropped the clothesline and the shovel to the ground. I stepped on the rope with my boot, to keep the dog from running away. Then I removed the pistol from my waistband.

  Mary Beth started to jog back toward the road but only got about ten feet away before the clothesline went taut and he had to stop. Beyond him, our tracks were dark and round in the snow, two wobbly lines connecting us with the station wagon at the edge of the road. There was an ominous quality to the view; the fog seemed to deny us retreat, to form a thick gray-white wall just beyond the car, imprisoning us in the muddy field. It was like a drawing from a book of fairy tales, full of hidden threat and terror, and I got a peculiar feeling looking at it, something close to fear.

  Carl could be dead right now, I knew. I wanted to believe that he wasn't, that, having spent the morning walking aimlessly around the woods, they were already heading back toward town, but my mind wouldn't let me. Against my will, I kept picturing the wreck. The snow would've melted from it: it would be impossible to miss. I could see it in my head, could see the crows, the wizened trees. I could see Vernon very calmly -- so that the gesture seemed perfectly innocuous -- pulling a pistol from beneath his jacket and shooting Carl in the head. I could see Carl falling, could see his blood in the snow. The birds would fly up at the sound of the shot. Their cries would echo off the side of the orchard.

  I bungled the shooting of the dog, transformed what I'd planned to be an act of mercy into one of torture.

  I got behind him and aimed at the back of his neck, but he spun toward me just as I pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him in the lower jaw, breaking it so that it hung down from his head at a grotesque angle. He fell onto his side, whimpering. His tongue was severed; blood poured from his mouth.

  When he tried to rise to his feet, I fired again, in panic. This time I hit him in the rib cage, just below the shoulder. He rolled over onto his side in the snow, his legs jerking out straight and freezing like that, rigid against the ground. His chest heaved in and out with a deep bubbling sound. For a moment I thought that it would be enough, that he was going to die, but then he started to struggle upward again, and a frightening sound emerged from his throat, something closer to a scream than a bark. It went on and on and on, rising and dipping in volume.

  I stepped forward and straddled his body. I was sweating now, my hands slick with it, trembling. I placed the gun's barrel against the top of his head. I shut my eyes, my stomach rising
into my throat, and pulled the trigger.

  There was a sharp crack, a muffled echo, and then silence.

  The rain increased slightly, growing into full-size drops, riddling the snow.

  Mary Beth's body was outlined in blood, a large, pink circle around his head and shoulders. It gave me a guilty feeling to look at it. I thought of my father, how he'd refused to slaughter animals on his farm, persisting in this compunction year after year despite the disdain and derision it had earned him among his neighbors. And now I'd violated his taboo.

  I stepped away from the dog, wiped my face with the back of my sleeve. The mist hung all about me, blocking out the world.

  I picked up the shovel and started to dig. The ground was soft on top, wet and muddy, but this only lasted for about ten inches; then it was as if I were attempting to dig through a slab of concrete. The shovel's blade made a ringing sound each time I brought it down; the earth was frozen solid. I used my boots, kicking at the dirt, but nothing happened: I could go no deeper. If I was going to bury the dog here -- which I had to, there was no way I could carry his bloody corpse back to the car -- it would have to be in a ten-inch grave.

  I grabbed Mary Beth by his legs and dragged him into the hole. Then I scraped the dirt back over him. There was barely enough to cover his body; I had to finish the job with snow, piling it up until I'd built a little mound. It was something that wouldn't last, I knew. If an animal didn't dig it up by the spring, then George Muller, the man who owned the farm now, would uncover it when he plowed the field. I felt a pang of remorse over this, imagining what Jacob would've thought if he could've seen how inadequate it was. I'd failed my brother even here.

  I CRIED on the way home, for the first time since Jacob's apartment. I'm not sure even now what prompted it. It was a little bit of everything, I suppose -- it was Carl and Jacob and Mary Beth and Sonny and Lou and Nancy and Pederson and my parents and Sarah and myself. I tried to stop, tried to think of Amanda, and how she'd never know about any of it, how she'd grow up, surrounded by all the benefits of our crimes without any of the pain, but it seemed impossible to believe, a fantasy, the happy-ever-after ending of a fairy tale. We'd romanticized the future, I realized, and this added a further weight to my grief, a sense of futility and waste. Our new lives were going to be nothing like we'd imagined: we were going to lead a hard, fugitive existence, full of lies and subterfuge and the constant threat of getting caught. And we'd never escape what we'd done; our sins would follow us to our graves.