by Jen Blood
He went back out, careful to wait till Rick—his twin brother, the good son—and Ida, the baby of the family, were out of the way. He cruised past the grove of birches and the horse barn and the creek, ignoring the howl of the dogs and the threat of rain. Just keep moving, he kept saying to himself. He was seventeen now. Too old to cry; too young to go off and get blisterin’ drunk like his college buddies. At least, not right now, with his family around. Maybe later.
Instead, he kept going till he reached the old treehouse his daddy built him and Rick when they was just kids. He climbed the rickety wooden rungs nailed into the trunk of a solid old oak, pushed open the trapdoor, and went on in.
You hadn’t oughta leave your mama alone on a day like today, he imagined his daddy saying. Danny pulled a joint from his back pocket and fetched a lighter from a cubby hole built into the treehouse. He sat back, knees just about to his chin to make room in the cramped space, and leaned his back up against the rough bark. You got a lot of nerve, boy, smokin’ dope today.
“Quiet, old man,” Danny growled. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. His throat hurt, a lump in there he hadn’t been able to get rid of since his mama broke the news.
A branch snapped somewhere below. Danny opened his eyes. The weed was already taking hold, taking the edge off just enough.
“That you, Ida?” he hollered down. “I thought you was off somewhere.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” a girl’s voice called up to him. He smiled, relief washing over him like warm summer rain. “It’s just me.”
Half a minute later, Casey Clinton poked her head up through the hatch. Casey played bass in Danny’s band. She was a couple years younger than him, about a head shorter, and she was about the only person he could talk to these days about…well, anything, really. Music, family, life, school… He could say anything to Casey. It didn’t hurt that she was the prettiest girl in the sophomore class—not that there was anything going on between them, of course.
She pulled herself up through the hatch and settled across from him. He passed her the joint.
“They lookin’ for me over at the house?” he asked.
“Nah. I had to scoot, though, in case your mama saw me.”
Danny’s mother hated Casey—said she come from trash and was all about devil music. They’d fought about it too much over the years. Now, Casey just kept her head down whenever his mama was around.
“What about Rick?” he asked.
“He saw me, but he won’t say anything.”
“You sure about that? If he thinks it’ll earn him more points with Mama…”
Casey took a good long drag and held the smoke in before she passed the joint back to him, shaking her head. “You oughta go easy on him—he ain’t so bad as you make him out to be. What’s he ever done to you?”
“Nothin’,” he said. “The kid just bothers me is all.”
It came out sulky. It felt like most of his life he’d been standing off on the sidelines doing his own thing while his brother couldn’t take a leak without their mama wanting to throw a parade. Rick was the highest-ranked high school tennis player in the state. He got the lead in all the school plays and only dated girls their folks liked and already knew where he was headed to college, when Danny wasn’t even sure he’d graduate.
Casey bumped her leg against his and he jolted back to the here and now. “How’re you doin’, anyway?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“After Mama died, I didn’t feel much like talking for a couple months,” she said. “Everybody was always on me, though: ‘You gotta talk about your feelings.’ Thought I’d go crazy, everybody hounding me so much.”
Danny nodded. “They want me to go see Ms. Guilford. Like talking to the guidance counselor’s gonna help anything. I been dodging her so far, but I don’t know how much longer I can do it.”
“Just get it over with. Make up some shit about dealin’ with your feelings, maybe talk about a dream, and she’ll get off your back. Otherwise, you’ll just spend the rest of the year on the run.”
“Okay,” he agreed. Casey’s mother died in a car accident a couple years back. This whole thing was old hat for her.
Another branch cracked down below—this one right under the treehouse.
“Dangit, Ida, leave me be for two seconds, would you?” Danny hollered down.
Casey poked her head down the hatch. “There ain’t a soul down there. Weed’s makin’ you paranoid.”
Danny shook his head, his shaggy hair flopping in his eyes. For the first time, he felt a little clutch of fear. Casey kept her leg against his, jostling it a little like she knew he needed the reminder: they were okay.
“Your uncle comin’ in today?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’s what I hear, anyway. Should be around anytime now. You’ll like Diggs—he knows music like you wouldn’t believe. And he’s been everywhere. Done just about everything.”
“He’s a looker, too,” Casey said. She blushed when he looked at her. “You showed me them pictures, remember? You’ve talked about him enough—I reckon it’ll be good, meetin’ the man behind the myth.”
They got quiet for a little bit after that, the outside of her leg warm against the outside of his. Danny pocketed the roach when they were done smoking, but he wasn’t ready to go yet. He felt that fear come at him again.
“You think they’re gonna find who did it?” he asked Casey. He didn’t have to explain what he meant.
She shrugged, looking sad. Casey always liked her daddy—Danny used to be a little jealous of the two of them, the way she took to talking to him whenever she had troubles.
“I still don’t know why anybody’d want to go after a man like Dr. Durham,” she said. “He was just about the nicest man I ever met.”
But you know why, don’t you, boy? Danny imagined his daddy saying. Clear as you please, he pictured Wyatt Durham sitting across from him in the treehouse. A wrinkle in his forehead, eyes sadder’n a hound dog on his worst day. You know there’s only one reason anybody ever would’a wanted me dead, his daddy said evenly. And that’s you.
Chapter Three - Solomon
The Durhams lived in a little white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Like, literally. I left Einstein in the car until I could be sure he wouldn’t be devoured by the family dogs, of which there seemed to be half a dozen. Diggs and I went in without knocking, and were immediately besieged by well-meaning relations. I stayed on the outskirts of the action, watching as Diggs was welcomed back into the fold.
It took a while before we were able to wade through the first wave of greeters to get to the inner sanctum, an overcrowded parlor filled with family photos: Wyatt on a sunny summer day, swimming with his twin boys; studio portraits of the kids from toddler-hood on up; a candid of those same twin boys, now teenagers, at what I assumed had been their high school prom. In the prom picture, one of the boys looked like he was straight out of a Mormon recruitment flyer: short hair and a standard-issue tux, bright white smile, a bland blonde girl with braces laughing beside him. The other brother was more my speed, in a suit jacket over an anarchy t-shirt, the girl on his arm every good mother’s nightmare: pierced eyebrow, dyed black hair, plaid miniskirt and combat boots.
The Mormon poster boy sat on the couch now beside his sister, a blonde-haired girl of six or seven missing her front teeth. I saw no sign of the shaggy-haired rebel. There was a playpen in the corner of the room, from which a pudgy blond toddler of indeterminate gender peered out at us. Wyatt’s wife, Mae, sat on an overstuffed sofa at the center of it all.
She got up as soon as she spotted Diggs, and he gathered her in his arms and held on tight, swaying gently, while Mae cried. Wyatt’s son looked down, his shoulders tense, while the girl watched with that fifty-yard stare you see on kids sometimes when the world’s shifted in incomprehensible ways and they’re still trying to regain their footing.
Diggs whispered something in Mae’s ear and they finally parted, Ma
e laughing, wiping at her tears. She was short and plump, country pretty, with healthy pink cheeks and that rural efficiency that suggested she could handle anything from pickling preserves to breach births. Since the only thing I know how to pickle is my own liver, I always feel a little out of my element in the presence of such competence.
All the same, Mae beamed when she saw me. She pulled me close and held on tight. “Thank you for finding him,” she said in my ear.
I felt a wash of sadness of my own, and managed a mute nod. The kids descended from there, but before hellos could be exchanged or regrets conveyed, a tall, lean brunette appeared in the doorway. The toddler gurgled with what I assumed was pleasure. Diggs looked up, forced a smile, and walked up to the woman.
Ashley Durham—my least favorite of Diggs’ three ex-wives. And that’s saying something.
“I’m so sorry, Ash,” he said.
The whole room looked on curiously. Ashley’s not high strung, necessarily, but she’s not exactly sunshine and puppies, either. The last time I’d seen her in the flesh, she was threatening Diggs’ manhood with a grilling fork for an all-nighter he pulled with me while he was supposed to be vacationing with his lovely wife. In other words: a beat-down wasn’t out of the question. After a tense minute or two, she gave a sigh of concession and they hugged it out.
I noticed she didn’t extend any such gesture my way, though.
◊◊◊◊◊
That night, after the rest of the family had retired to their respective corners, Diggs snagged me and announced there was someone I had to meet. It was cool and gray outside, a refreshing change of pace from the stuffy homestead. Einstein ran on ahead, peeing on trees and digging up toadstools as he went. It was ten o’clock. I’d promised Juarez I would call as soon as I could, but so far the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. I was surprised how much I was looking forward to hearing his voice again, though. No games, no pretenses, no torment; just a stable, interesting guy I liked, who seemed to like me back. Nice. Simple.
Diggs and I walked about half a mile, until we reached a log cabin in a wooded glade far from the road. There was a handmade wooden chair on the front porch beside a pen with three floppy-eared rabbits inside. Stein nosed at them curiously through the mesh as Diggs knocked on the door.
“Are you sure I should be here?” I asked. “I mean, maybe you should have this reunion in private. I could hang with Stein and the bunnies out here.”
“Relax,” he said. “I want you to meet this guy.” He pushed the door open without waiting for someone to answer. “George? You in here?”
Somehow, I’d been expecting a withered old man with a ZZ Top beard and no teeth. Instead, a tall, very bald, very broad-shouldered man in his sixties with a cigar between his teeth emerged from a door in back. Think Mr. Clean meets Hannibal from the A-Team. He paused, taking us both in as we stepped into the cabin. I thought we were in for a good old-fashioned southern lynching for a second there, but the hostility vanished once he realized who it was.
“Daniel?” he asked.
“In the flesh,” Diggs said.
The man broke into a wide grin, though a vestige of sadness remained as he limped across the cabin and enveloped Diggs in a bear hug.
“You cost me ten big ’uns, boy,” he said, patting Diggs heartily on the back. “Mae said you’d be here. I told her between Ashley, Harvey Jennings, and Jesup Barnel, there wasn’t enough tail in Hef’s mansion to bring you back to this part of the world once you was out.”
“If anyone could do it, it’d be Wyatt,” Diggs said. “I’m sorry for your loss, George.”
The man’s eyes misted over. He brushed at his tears roughly. “World’s a twisted place, son. Sometimes I don’t know which side’s up anymore, there’s so much wrong with it.”
“Wyatt was one of the good ones, though,” Diggs said.
George looked at him thoughtfully. “That he was,” he agreed. It looked like he meant to say more on the subject, but he turned his attention to me instead. “And who’s your pretty friend here?”
“This is Erin Solomon,” Diggs said. “An old friend from Maine. Sol, this is George Durham. Wyatt’s old man.”
George took a step closer, looking me up and down and up again. He had an undeniable magnetism about him, beyond the shining blue eyes and the square jaw—a man who had wielded a lot of power in his day, and still wore that power like a badge. He smiled.
“So, you’re the reason Daniel here married my Ashley, huh? You been quite the mystery to me all these years.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
Diggs glared at him. “Don’t listen to him,” he said to me. “He’s obviously gone senile since I saw him last.”
“Senile my behind, boy,” George said. He returned his attention to me. “He come ’round here back in… what, ’05? Nursing a broken heart—’course being Diggs he wasn’t much for sharing till you got a few sips in him. But as I recall, he did mention you that first night. Next thing I know, he’s up and asked Ashley to marry him. Lord only knows why she said yes—those two never could stand each other. I love my little girl, but she’s got about as much personality as an old toothpick. But here’s Diggs, sayin’ he’s ready to settle down. Be part of the family.”
Diggs eyed me with just a hint of desperation. “Seriously—it was a long time ago. Memories get twisted with time. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
I couldn’t even imagine an appropriate response—particularly since I remembered 2005 pretty damned well, and none of what George said fit into those memories in any way, shape, or form. The old man finally took pity on both of us and recanted.
“He’s right,” he said. “Don’t listen to me. It’s just the ramblings of an old man’s just lost his only son. Come on in here. Have a drink with me.”
“We’ll visit awhile, but I’m gonna take a pass on the drink,” Diggs said. “I’m trying to keep my nose clean these days.”
George actually pouted. “Well, that’s a damn shame. How ’bout you, darlin’?” he asked me. “I got some rotgut back there with your name on it.”
“That sounds great,” I said, “but—”
“No buts!” He hot-footed it to the back of the cabin. I looked at Diggs. His cheeks were still burning.
“Sorry about that. I don’t know what he’s talking about—I don’t even remember mentioning your name around him.”
I nodded, still trying to figure out how to react. Thankfully, there was a knock on the front door before we had any more time to dwell on it, and Mae let herself in. A man I hadn’t seen at the house followed her.
“You find him all right?” Mae asked Diggs.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s getting the whiskey.”
“Good,” she said. “God forgive me, but I could use a belt myself about now.”
Einstein had been relegated to the front porch with the bunnies, but he let himself in with the others and settled at my feet. George came out, saw everyone, swore, and went back to haul out another jug. Introductions were made.
“This is Deputy Holloway,” Mae told me of the man beside her. He was about Diggs’ age, smaller and leaner, with dark hair and the kind of wide, genuine smile that makes the bearer about three times more attractive than they might seem otherwise.
“Everybody calls me Buddy, ma’am,” he said.
We shook hands. George returned and set us up with glasses all around while Diggs grabbed a soda from the fridge.
As soon as we were seated around the table in George’s kitchen, Mae slammed back a mug of what, as far as I could tell, was pure lighter fluid. She gasped, coughed, and then looked Diggs in the eye.
“I need to ask a favor,” she said to him. I got the feeling she’d been waiting for this moment to present itself.
“Mae,” he began.
She held up her hand. “Don’t you ‘Mae’ me—you owe Wyatt this much, and you know it. I just want you to ask around—”
“We’re working with KSP, Ma
e,” Buddy said.
I looked at Diggs. “Kentucky State Police,” he whispered. I nodded.
“None of them are gonna want some Yankee reporter poking around in this,” the deputy continued. “Never mind what Sheriff Jennings has to say about it once he knows Diggs is back in town.”
“There’s no reason Harvey Jennings needs to know anything about this,” Mae said. “And no offense to you or him or the Kentucky Police, but I want somebody I trust askin’ questions. Somebody I know won’t stop till he figures out the whole story.”
George frowned. “She’s right, you know,” he said. “Nothin’ about this makes a lick of sense. And you know it.”
“What the hell happened?” Diggs asked—the question I knew had been plaguing him since he first got the news.
Buddy looked at Mae unhappily. “You shouldn’t be goin’ over this right now.”
Mae shook her head with stark determination. “I’m all right, sugar. If I owe Wyatt anything, it’s at least this. I mean to find out who did this, and see that they answer for it.” She sat down, her eyes never leaving Diggs’. “That last night, Wyatt went out to Roger Burkett’s farm—Roger used to live ’round here, but he packed up and left for San Francisco back about ten years ago.
“Then he shows up a couple years back with some skinny city girl plucked right out of a fashion magazine. Roger took over the farm after his daddy passed. Bought a herd of Alpines—milking goats,” she explained to me. “Half Wyatt’s calls this past year’ve been over there, taking care of one damn fool problem after the other. Wy says all Jenny Burkett does is fuss over them goats and lounge around in her skivvies watching reality TV. She teaches a couple classes over to Smithfield—political science. Thinks she’s better than anybody here in Justice.”
“You think they did this? The Burketts?” I asked, trying to get her back on track.
“I don’t know. Roger’s nothin’ to write home about, I’ll tell you that much—a snake oil salesman’s got more scruples. And I never much cared for the way his wife looked at Wyatt. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had something to do with it.” She looked at Buddy. “You think maybe you can take Diggs through some of the pictures and some of your notes tomorrow, while the sheriff’s outta the office?”