Delusion

by Peter Abrahams

  Clay nodded.

  “There he is,” said the sheriff.

  The two men gazed at the body. Clay glanced over and saw Nell watching. She didn’t say anything, just thought the thought. He bent over, closed the open eye, drew the sheet back up.

  “Plus we got this,” said the sheriff, taking a misshapen, lead-colored slug from his pocket and holding it up to the light. “Just the one so far,” he said, “turned up over there.” He pointed to the spray-painted circle. “Looks like a thirty-ought-six to me, but I’m no expert.”

  “Me either,” said Clay.

  “We’ll let those good old lab boys worry about it.”

  “Belle Ville lab’s at your disposal.”

  “Much obliged,” said the sheriff. “We’ll take a swing at it up here, all the same with you.”

  Clay gave a slight nod. “Where did the shot come from?” he said.

  “Little bump in the road on that one,” said the sheriff. “The ladies didn’t hear a shot.” The sheriff held his hand out toward Nell and Lee Ann, almost like an MC encouraging celebrities to take a bow. “But from where they all were standing, angle of entry, flat-out guesswork, we’re—”

  Someone whistled in the woods.

  “That’ll be L’il Truman,” the sheriff said. “You know L’il Truman?”

  “No,” said Clay.

  “Best tracker in the county. They say it’s on account of he’s one quarter Cherokee, but I don’t buy that kind of thing.” The sheriff’s eyes were on Clay, maybe trying to see where he stood on the question of genetic predispositions, but Nell saw no sign on Clay’s face, actually didn’t know the answer herself.

  Two minutes later, Clay and the sheriff were examining a brass cartridge.

  “Thirty-ought-six it is,” Clay said.

  “Lucky guess,” said the sheriff. “Pace that distance off, Truman?”

  L’il Truman, dressed in T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, said, “Yes, boss. Two hundred and fifty-six yards.”

  Everyone gazed back into the woods. “Two hundred and fifty yards, possible silencer, southwest breeze, one shot,” said Clay.

  “Not a beginner,” said the sheriff. “I’d estimate there’s no more’n three or four thousand hunters in the county could have done it.”

  Lee Ann stepped forward. “Surely this wasn’t some hunting accident.”

  The sheriff turned to her.

  “You’re aware that Ms. Bonner’s a reporter, Sol?” Clay said.

  “We touched on that—got no problem with the media,” the sheriff said. “Not calling it a hunting accident, ma’am, just pointing out the level of shooting ability around these parts—kind of like at the Olympics.”

  “I get that,” Lee Ann said. “But won’t the motive help narrow things down?”

  “We got a motive?” said the sheriff.

  “Napoleon Ferris was supposed to testify in the Alvin DuPree hearing,” Lee Ann said.

  “Don’t know much about that,” said the sheriff. “But I do know something about this cabin.” He took an envelope from an inside pocket. “Which is why I picked myself up a warrant on the way up.”

  A uniformed cop moved in with a battery-powered lock picker but they didn’t need it; the door was unlocked, swung open when the sheriff gave a little push. “After you,” he said.

  They went inside—Clay, the sheriff, Nell, Lee Ann. A small cabin, no real space for hiding things, and no one had tried: bags of marijuana were stacked everywhere. Also out in the open were two shotguns, a handgun, and a long-bladed knife.

  “What we’ve had in the county,” the sheriff said, “past year or so, is what amounts to a war between these two drug gangs, one Mexican, one black. This here’s black territory. Not saying your man was involved in the dealing. Might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, got caught in the switches.”

  “Ferris had two drug priors,” Clay said. “One for possession, one for dealing, marijuana both times.”

  “Interesting,” said the sheriff.

  “But not as good a story,” said Clay.

  Lee Ann said nothing. A uniformed woman came in and started taking pictures.

  Nell and Clay drove home in the back of the cruiser. The driver pressed the button that made the screen slide up, sealing off the front seat.

  “Sure you’re all right?” he said.

  “Yes. Are you angry at me?”

  “Why would I be?”

  “I don’t know,” Nell said. “Going off with Lee Ann like that. I had no idea we’d end up where we did—she got a tip.”

  “Who from?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Clay said. “As long as you’re unharmed.”

  Nell thought of the gentle way Clay had closed Nappy’s eye. She leaned against him; she loved that gentleness, the gentleness of a strong man who kept his power in reserve. “All she wanted was to hear about how Johnny died. I haven’t talked about that in a long time.”

  “And?”

  “It’s still awful, but far away now.”

  Clay kissed the top of her head. He did that sometimes, had done it on their second date. That was a year after the DuPree trial, dinner at one of the shrimp places at the beach, now wiped out by Bernardine. He hadn’t tried to kiss her lips or her cheek; just that one kiss on the top of the head, quick and shy, after he’d walked her to her door.

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” Nell said.

  “I know.”

  “Do you think Nappy Ferris made the fake tape?”

  “Would have been nice to find out,” Clay said.

  “Will there still be a hearing?”

  “Probably.”

  “But now he can’t win, can he?”

  “He never could,” Clay said. She put her arms around him, kissed his lips.

  They crossed the Belle Ville line. Almost right away, Nell smelled that Bernardine smell.

  “It’s all polluted in the bayou where the pier used to be,” Nell said. “Kirk Bastien came for a look while we were there.”

  “He did?”

  “With a couple assistants. He was furious with them.”

  Clay was silent for a moment. Then he said, “He should turn some of that anger on himself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Clay shrugged.

  “Because he didn’t handle the hurricane well?” Nell said.

  “Yeah.”

  “But it was so huge, so out of scale with anything people can do.”

  Clay shook his head, didn’t answer. The cruiser went by a car in the next lane. The driver glanced over, saw the roof lights, got an expression on his face Nell had seen many times, then hit the brakes and dropped back out of view.

  The cruiser drove up Sandhill Way, swung into the cul-de-sac. Another cruiser was already sitting in front of the house. Clay parked in the driveway. A rookie patrolman Nell recognized from the Christmas party Clay gave every year jumped out of the cruiser and hurried over.

  “What’s up, Timmy?” Clay said.

  Nell expected some reply about Nappy Ferris, but that wasn’t it. Timmy’s eyes went to Nell, back to Clay. His face pinkened.

  “Minor accident, sir,” he said. “Fender bender, all it was, nobody hurt.”

  “What accident?” Clay said.

  “Southbound on Guyot, just past the Exxon, corner of National. I’d been tailin’ her for half a mile or so, on account of some weaving, nothin’ too too bad but—”

  “Oh my God,” Nell said. “Norah?”

  “She’s inside, ma’am,” Timmy said. “Sleeping it—resting. That little Miata of hers, I had it towed to Yeller’s Autobody. Yeller don’t think—”

  But Nell missed whatever Yeller did or didn’t think. She was already in the house, running down the hall and upstairs to Norah’s bedroom. At the same time, a woman was leaving a message on the kitchen answering machine. “…please call the dean’s office at your earliest…”

  Norah’s bedroo
m sat over the garage, a big, bright space. Nell knocked on the door. “Norah?” No answer. Nell turned the knob, went inside.

  It was dark and stuffy in Norah’s bedroom, shades drawn, windows closed, AC off. In the shadows, Nell could see Norah in her bed, face to the wall, stuffed animals on a shelf above her. Higher up, three stuffed monkeys dangled from the ceiling, put up there by Clay long ago to look like they were swinging from branch to branch.

  “Norah?”

  Nell approached the bed. After just a step or two she smelled booze, a smell that got mixed up with Nappy’s, and made her feel sick. She sat on the edge of the bed, reached over to raise the shade an inch or two. A ribbon of light came slanting in, cutting across Norah’s face. Her eyes were closed; in sleep, she looked so young, almost the way she’d been in eighth grade. And beautiful: seeing her own flesh and blood re-formed into something this lovely—even though the fair coloring and fine features were all Johnny—still often stunned Nell. Even now, the makeup smeared on Norah’s face, the sweat dampening her blond hair, the bruise on her neck—all of that barely registered.

  “Norah? Wake up, honey.”

  Norah didn’t wake up. All at once, from Norah’s stillness, and the heavy, dead air in the room, Nell got a bad feeling. She bent forward, held the backs of her fingers just under Norah’s nose; and felt her breath.

  “Norah.” Nell laid her hand on Norah’s shoulder. “Norah. Wake up.”

  Norah’s eyes opened, or at least the one Nell could see. It shifted, took in Nell, filled with some deep, unhappy emotion, and closed.

  “Norah. Sit up. We have to talk.”

  “Later. Gotta sleep.” That eye stayed closed.

  Nell shook Norah’s shoulder, not hard. Norah groaned. “Why aren’t you in school?” Nell said.

  “Please.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I said please.”

  Nell shook Norah’s shoulder again, harder this time. Norah wrenched herself free, squirmed closer to the wall. “Fucking hell.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that.” Nell took hold of the covers and pulled them down. Norah was fully dressed, even had her red leather sneakers on, the ones Nell had given her for Christmas.

  Norah sat up, grabbed at the covers.

  “How much did you have to drink?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I can smell it.”

  Norah was silent.

  “What’s wrong, Norah? What are you doing here?”

  Norah looked Nell in the eye, if only for a brief moment. “This isn’t home anymore?”

  “Of course it’s home.” Nell heard her tone sharpen. “But you’re supposed to be in school.”

  “Friday’s classes got canceled. I decided to come home for the long weekend. I drove all night, Mom. I’m tired.”

  That sounded convincing except for one thing. “Today’s Tuesday,” Nell said. Her tone sharpened some more.

  Norah got a faraway look in her eyes. “It is?”

  “What’s wrong?” Nell said. She repeated it, not so loud. “Tell me.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Is there some problem at school? More than the academic probation thing?”

  “I just need a break, Mom. School’s fine.”

  Clay spoke from the doorway. “Not according to the message on the machine,” he said.

  “Oh, great,” Norah said. “The Man.”

  “Don’t talk to your father like that.”

  “He’s not my father.”

  Nell got off the bed. She felt disappointed in her daughter, real disappointment, and for the first time. “You sound so childish right now. No one ever deceived you about that, not for a second. But as you know very well, he’s your real father in every way except biologically.”

  “The exception that proves the rule, Mom and Dad,” Norah said.

  “There’s no excuse for this rudeness,” Nell said. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing,” Norah said. Her eyes closed. “Everything’s hunky-dory.”

  There was silence in the room. Light from the hall glinted in the eyes of the stuffed animals—bear, lions, tigers, elephants, a giraffe. Higher up, the monkeys began to move in a current of air.

  “Let her sleep it off,” Clay said, his voice quiet. “We can talk later.”

  Downstairs, Nell listened to the answering machine, called the dean. He’d expelled Norah for cutting all her history classes, thus violating the terms of her academic probation.

  “History?” That made no sense at all. History had always been Norah’s favorite subject; she’d won the history prize, a biography of Samuel Adams, in her senior year at Belle Ville Academy.

  “She’s actually been missing all classes in all subjects,” the dean said. “The history professor’s report happened to come in first.”

  “Is there any way she could get a second chance?” Nell said.

  “This was her second chance,” said the dean. “There was a similar violation last semester, not quite as pronounced. Didn’t she tell you?”

  Clay watched her across the counter. Nell didn’t answer.

  “Norah’s eligible to apply for readmission in the fall,” the dean said. “She’s obviously very bright.”

  “What—” she began, stopped herself, then blurted it out: “What’s happened to her?” A crazy question for the mom to ask the dean.

  There was a long pause. The dean said, “Some kids, um, just need a little more time to find themselves.”

  Nell hung up. They got in the car—not the cruiser, but Clay’s pickup, since this was personal business—and drove to Yeller’s Autobody for a look at the Miata, Norah’s high-school-graduation present, bought brand-new less than two years before.

  “I wouldn’t call it totaled,” Yeller said. “Your daughter wasn’t hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Then no harm done, I always say. I’ll get the adjuster over in the morning.”

  They drove home. “She hit a parked car before Timmy could pull her over,” Clay said. “Then she tried to take off again. The kid would have cuffed her, been anyone else.”

  “Oh, God.” And then Nell had a thought. “What are you saying?”

  “Chargeable offenses,” Clay said. “At least three, and that’s not counting DUI.”

  “He gave her a Breathalyzer?”

  Clay shook his head. “He didn’t write her up at all.” He glanced over. “I won’t count it against him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what’s right.”

  “Oh, Clay—you saw her, how vulnerable she is right now. She couldn’t take charges, going to court, anything like that.”

  “But if she was anybody else…”

  “I know. And I know how…how upright you are—who knows better? But you’ve told me yourself, as a practical matter, there’s always room for discretion.”

  “A very little bit, and only up to a point.”

  “She’s never been in an accident before. And of course we’ll take her license away ourselves, for as long as you say.”

  Clay was silent.

  “And no one got hurt.”

  A vein throbbed in his neck.

  “I’m worried about her, Clay.” Her worry for Norah had a physical manifestation, an airlessness, as though she were drowning.

  “So am I,” Clay said. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “She’s my daughter, too.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Scuff, scuff, scuff. Pirate, on his bunk, picked up the sound, a sound he liked; it reminded him of a drummer he’d played with long ago. He knew the sound meant the Hispanic guard with the salt-and-pepper mustache was on the way, but his mind preferred to dwell on the drummer, whose name would not come although Pirate remembered the brass knuckles the drummer had sold him and the exact price: twenty-three dollars. The chords to “You Win Again” went E, B7, E, A.

  Scuff, scuff. Then, from the other side of the bars, the voice of the Hispanic guard: “Hey
, Pirate.”

  Pirate, face to the wall, fingering the gold tassel, made a little grunt, or thought about it.

  “That hearing of yours? Forget it. Nappy Ferris got his head blowed off.”

  Nappy didn’t speak. Wasn’t he at peace? Yes. And peace in this situation meant silence.

  “And guess what?” said the guard. “Word is the Ocho Cincos ain’t too happy with you. How come is that?”

  “I have no quarrels,” Pirate said. But at the same time, he covered his good eye with his hand, couldn’t help it.

  “Wanna put in a request for the protective wing?” the guard said. “Just in case some of them boys got quarrels with you?”

  Protective meant twenty-three hours of solitary every day; much harder to be at peace in solitary. Pirate remained silent, exercising what he had finally learned was the most important right. He kept his good eye safe under the palm of his big strong hand.

  “Yeah,” said the guard. “Prob’ly wouldn’t get it anyhow.”

  Nell swam in the lap pool: one of those days when she found her rhythm right away, didn’t have to make herself feel the water or picture herself riding up high. Everything just happened, freeing her mind to wander, and it soon wandered to a painting at the museum, one of her favorites in the whole collection: Fortune Teller, by Caravaggio. A fortune-teller is reading a man’s palm. You can see in her eyes that she has a big premonition about his future, but is it good or bad? Nell could never make up her mind about that, had gazed at the painting so often that her mental image of the fortune-teller’s eyes exactly matched what was on canvas. Today, gliding along, uncounted laps piling up, she felt that the young man’s future was good.

  Nell took one last lap, going all out on the first length, lungs bursting, then ramping down on the second. She climbed out of the pool, still breathing hard, and saw Norah sitting on a chaise longue. Norah wore boxers, a man’s shirt, sunglasses; she was reading the paper.

  “I didn’t know you were up,” Nell said.

  “I’m up.”

  Nell crossed the patio, toweling her hair.

  “Feeling okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The water’s nice if you feel like a swim.”