Boy Who Shoots Crows (9781101552797)

by Silvis, Randall;

  He was finished doing what he had to do, yet he felt there was more to be done, though he had no idea what it might be. “I know how hard this must be for you,” he told Livvie. She was seated now at the little kitchen table against the window, her arms crossed atop the table. “It’s not, really,” she said. “I just don’t want him around me anymore.” After a few seconds she leaned forward and laid her head atop her arms and closed her eyes.

  Charlotte said, “Why don’t I get her back into bed?”

  Gatesman said, “I’ll wait for you out on the porch.”

  He stood for a while on the edge of the porch looking off toward the mountains. The day had become clear and bright, a perfect spring day. Except that there’s no such thing as perfection, he told himself. Not as long as there’s a human in the picture.

  He took his tape recorder and clipboard to his vehicle and placed them inside. Then he sat for a while on the car seat with the door open and his feet on the ground.

  He thought, This job would be a piece of cake if I just had a couple of switches inside my head I could shut off.

  When Charlotte came out onto the porch, he stood and crossed to the bottom of the steps. She had changed out of her torn blouse and now wore a dark blue knit shirt with long sleeves. He could see that she had been crying, and in his imagination he pictured the two women upstairs, Livvie lying in bed and Charlotte sitting beside her, holding her hand; Livvie sleeping peacefully because of the Vicodin and the soporific effects of trauma, Charlotte softly weeping on Livvie’s behalf. He told himself that he could probably love this woman if only she would let him. He felt a powerful tenderness for Livvie as well, wished that he could enfold her in his arms and take away all of her pain, but for Charlotte there was something else as well, something whose name he had never learned.

  “Well that was a surprise, wasn’t it?” he said.

  “That they were never married? I guess so.”

  He nodded, smiled, asked himself what else he should say.

  “So what happens now?” Charlotte asked.

  “Now I give my report to the DA; he swears out a warrant for Rankin’s arrest. We keep looking for him until we find him.”

  “Does this . . .” she said, “I mean what he did to Livvie, and to me . . . this proclivity for violence . . . does it suggest to you that maybe he is responsible for the boy?”

  Gatesman took a slow breath, released it through his mouth. “I wish I had an answer for that. For that and a lot of other things.”

  She studied his face, then smiled softly. “Did you ever think that maybe this isn’t the right job for you?”

  “Hourly,” he said. “But nobody’s offered to pay me to catch trout, so here I am.”

  She continued to stand there just outside the screen door. He pictured himself striding onto the porch, then abruptly stopped that image and made a small turn toward his car.

  He said, “She’s probably going to want to go back to her own place as soon as she wakes up. In my opinion that wouldn’t be a very good idea.”

  “I’ll keep her here,” Charlotte said.

  “I’m sure you’ll take good care of her.”

  “You don’t know Livvie. An hour from now she’ll be trying to take care of me.”

  “Either way sounds good,” he said.

  47

  WHILE Livvie slept, Charlotte found little things to do and tried to keep her thoughts focused only on those activities, on mopping her muddy tracks off the kitchen and mudroom floors, on washing out the morning’s tea and coffee mugs, drying them meticulously, setting them neatly in the cupboard, then rearranging the cups in a more orderly fashion. She swept the tiles in the foyer and her studio’s hardwood floor and thought about running the vacuum in the living room but was afraid it would wake Livvie. She wanted Livvie to lie in the soft bed with the goose-down coverlet for as long as possible, to luxuriate in the warmth and softness and be unable to resist comparing it to the bed in her trailer, the tight quarters there, everything made of plastic or vinyl or molded fiberglass, a place where the windows frosted up so badly in winter that she couldn’t see outside without scraping a circle in the frost, a place whose security was always at best tenuous, where the roof probably leaked and the propane tank heated unevenly and where the bedroom in the summer was a sweatbox. She wanted Livvie to awaken in the spacious perfumed bed and think, This is the nicest bed I have ever been in. She tried to put herself in Livvie’s place and wondered if Livvie would feel the same envy and longing that she, Charlotte, would feel if their positions were reversed.

  For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, Charlotte’s mind raced with such thoughts, even when she was thumbing through her cookbooks and especially when she was lying stretched out on the sofa and trying to concentrate on the soft music coming from the speakers, Taj Majal on continuous repeat, the soft Hawaiian vowels, Lele, lele e nā manu . . . Paint my mailbox blue . . . Please take off your shoes, I slice me some sashimi . . . And all the time her mind kept racing, racing, growling like an overheated engine, like the engine of a high-performance race car flying around the track at top speed, the throttle full-open, pedal to the floor. How many more laps can it take at this speed? she wondered. How many more miles before the whole thing blows apart?

  It was midafternoon when Livvie finally stirred. Several hours beyond the time when Charlotte thought she would surely go mad with all this waiting. Charlotte’s head had been throbbing so insistently that she feared another migraine might be coming, a real migraine this time like the ones she used to have in her hotel room in the weeks after leaving her husband, when every fear and worry was multiplied tenfold. But then she heard the toilet flush upstairs and she immediately leapt up from the sofa and turned the volume very low on the CD player and stood there listening. Water running in the lavatory. The soft scrape of feet.

  Charlotte went to her desk in the corner of the room, sat down and jiggled the mouse to awaken the monitor. She opened her e-mail, and for several seconds after she heard Livvie at the threshold, she remained staring at the screen, pretending to be reading.

  Then Livvie said, “Is it okay if I come in?”

  Charlotte turned away from her desk. “Oh, hi. You’re up. Come in, come in and sit down.”

  Livvie remained standing just inside the threshold. “Did I really sleep for five hours?”

  “You really did.”

  “And it was this morning we talked to the sheriff? Not yesterday?”

  “Same day,” Charlotte said with a smile. The pounding inside her head had stopped. Livvie stood in the wide archway with the afternoon light from the kitchen filling the space behind her, and all around her, tiny motes of dust moved up and down in the yellow light, rising and falling in their unpredictable orbits.

  “Thank you for everything,” Livvie said.

  “For what? I didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s a lot to me.”

  “Well . . . I’m glad to hear that. And you’re very welcome.”

  Neither woman spoke for a while. Charlotte sat there smiling, watching Livvie, who appeared deep in thought. Then Livvie said, “Is that Hawaiian music?”

  “By way of Beverly Hills,” Charlotte said. “Hawaiian, calypso, a little reggae thrown in . . . Do you like it?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll make you a copy.”

  Livvie smiled, but Charlotte could tell that the young woman’s thoughts were already elsewhere. Then Livvie said, “I think I’ll head back now and get things straightened up.”

  “You can’t go back there,” Charlotte said.

  Livvie only looked at her.

  Charlotte swung around fully in her chair. “Is the trailer in your name?”

  “No,” Livvie said. “Why?”

  “You don’t own it and you’re not really married. So legally you have no rights there. Legally he could have you arrested for trespassing if he wants to.” Charlotte knew that this was not wholly accurate, that Livvie and Denny�
��s relationship could be considered a common-law marriage, but she saw no reason to discuss those points.

  “But the sheriff said he’d put a thing out for him. An APB.”

  “That’s just it,” said Charlotte. “Let’s say he slips back here and goes to the trailer and finds you there. Do you think he’s going to be pleased to know that you filed charges against him?”

  “But everything I own is back there.”

  Charlotte thought for a moment, then stood. “We’ll go back together. You get everything you need, we come back here, and in a day or two, when we know he’s in jail and not getting out, then maybe we can find some way to get you back into your trailer.”

  “I’m the one who paid for it,” Livvie said. “I give Denny money every month.”

  “Wait a minute,” Charlotte said. “You’ve been living there thirteen, fourteen years? And you’re still paying on that trailer?”

  “Denny had to borrow against it. When he bought his truck.”

  “That’s what he told you?”

  Livvie nodded. “The payments are three hundred dollars a month, he said.”

  Charlotte crossed to her and put her arms around her and held her close in the yellow light. “We’ll get it all straightened out,” she said. Livvie stood with her hands at her sides but leaned her head close, and Charlotte laid a hand to Livvie’s hair, pressed the side of her head against Livvie’s. “Don’t worry, okay? I’ll get it all straightened out for you.”

  48

  CHARLOTTE went into the trailer first, walked from the front to the back, and looked into every room. Then she returned to the front door, where Livvie stood waiting. “It’s okay,” Charlotte said.

  The first thing Livvie did was clean up the bloody tissues she had left crumpled on the sofa. She carried them into the kitchen and put them in the trash. Then she noticed a dirty plate and cup and fork on the kitchen table. She put them in the sink and turned on the hot water and reached for the bottle of dish detergent. Charlotte stepped up beside her and took the bottle of orange liquid from her hand. “I’ll clean up. You go pack your things.”

  Livvie stood motionless for a few moments, then turned away and started for the bedroom. Then she remembered something and came back to the kitchen and opened a cabinet. She took out a blue plastic cup, looked into it, and placed it back on the shelf.

  “He took Jesse’s lunch money,” she said.

  “How much?” Charlotte asked.

  “It was only ten dollars or so. But if he took the rest . . .” She turned away and walked quickly toward the rear of the trailer. Charlotte shut off the water and dried her hands and followed.

  When Charlotte came to the doorway of Jesse’s room, Livvie already had the twin mattress lifted halfway off the bed. “Can you hold this up for me?” she asked. Charlotte put both hands on the mattress and lifted it higher. Livvie dropped to her knees, ran her hand back and forth over the top of the box spring mattress. Then she checked the bottom of the twin mattress to make sure nothing was sticking to it.

  Charlotte asked, “What are you looking for?”

  Livvie did not answer but went to the other side of the small bed. “You can let it down now,” she said, and after Charlotte did so, Livvie raised the other side and looked between the mattresses. When she finally dropped the mattress into place again, she stayed on her knees and leaned her forehead against it.

  Charlotte asked, “How much was it?”

  Livvie leaned back a few inches but continued to stare at the mattress. “Four hundred and twenty.”

  “What were you saving for?”

  Livvie shrugged. “Anything. Christmas, Jesse’s birthday . . . He’ll be a teenager this year. July seventeenth. I wanted to get him a really good art set.”

  A slowly twisting pain worked its point around inside Charlotte’s chest. She felt the frame of the doorway closing in toward her, pushing the breath from her lungs. She knew she should excuse herself, say something like, I’ll wait out here while you gather up your things, but she could not open her mouth or she would vomit, all the blackness would come spewing out, so she turned away, and with a hand to the wall, made her way back to the living room, back to the kitchen. She leaned against the sink and fumbled for the Hot lever and turned the water on, gushing into the basin. She leaned close to the water and sucked in the air and kept blinking and gasping until she could see the water and could feel it splashing against her face. And even after she smelled the heat and felt the sting of the tiny droplets, she remained in that position until certain she would not pass out, would not fall to her knees and start blubbering, would not bring what little was left of the world crumbling and crashing in a landslide atop her.

  49

  IN the bedroom directly across the hall from Charlotte’s, they deposited Livvie’s clothes and the bags and one suitcase she had packed at the trailer. “This is actually the biggest bedroom,” Charlotte told her. “I only picked the other one because I like the sun in the morning. But you can sleep late in this one. And it gets the afternoon sun, so it will always be nice and warm when you come to bed.”

  Livvie nodded and offered a small smile but said nothing. She had spoken very little at the trailer or on the ride back to Charlotte’s house. Now, after emptying her hands, she stood nearly motionless. Across the bed lay a dozen pieces of clothing on wire hangers, two grocery bags full of shoes and socks and underwear, and a small, brown pasteboard suitcase.

  “Can I help you put things away?” Charlotte asked.

  Livvie turned to look at her. “I was supposed to be at Mrs. Shaner’s at one o’clock. I should call her and apologize.”

  “Let me call her,” Charlotte said. “What’s her first name? I’ll look up the number.”

  “It’s seven-four-two-two,” Livvie said. “Rosemary. Tell her I’m sorry, tell her I . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” Charlotte said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She started toward the door, but stopped when Livvie said, “He took my car.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “I have to work tonight. I need to call somebody, see if I can get a ride.”

  Charlotte moved close again and put both hands on Livvie’s shoulders. “You cannot work tonight,” she said. “It’s impossible. You get sick days, right?”

  Livvie nodded.

  Charlotte asked, “Who do I call?”

  “I don’t know for sure, I never took off.”

  “You’ve never taken a sick day?”

  “I can’t afford to.”

  “This time you will,” Charlotte said. “Tell you what. There’s a very comfortable chair right over there. Go sit by the window and get your breath back. I’ll make the phone calls, then I’ll be back to put your things away, okay?”

  Livvie’s eyes were frightened, her face without expression. “I feel so out of it,” she said.

  Charlotte said, “I’ll bring you something to help you relax.”

  50

  LIVVIE ignored her clothes and opened the little suitcase. From the suitcase she took a child’s backpack, a plastic picture of four turtles dressed like martial arts warriors on it. She zipped open the backpack and removed items one at a time and arranged them atop the heavy cherrywood dresser. A bendable Superman doll and a GI Joe. Four colorful, shiny miniature pickup trucks, all of them red. Two unopened packs of Topps baseball cards. One scuffed and dirtied baseball. A yellow miniature Tonka dump truck. A spiral pocket notebook.

  Against the dresser’s mirror she leaned a handmade valentine and a handmade Mother’s Day card, one at each end of the dresser. Between them she set a framed picture of Jesse, a copy of the same five-by-seven school photo used at the candlelight vigil. She set the empty backpack in the corner nearest the bed.

  From the bottom of the suitcase she removed several loose sheets of paper, the same four drawings from the corkboard plus five others. She picked them out of the suitcase one at a time, held each for several seconds as she gazed at it, smiling, the
n laid it atop her pile of clothing. The last item in the suitcase was a sketch pad. She lifted this out, looked at each of the first three pages, the only pages used, then laid the sketch pad atop the nightstand. Now she returned the loose sheets to the little suitcase, with its lid standing open, on the floor beside the backpack.

  Charlotte was fully inside the room, a bottle of Evian in one hand, an Ambien in the other, before her eyes fell on the dresser. The breath caught in her chest, and she turned away from it quickly, said “Here you go” to Livvie, and handed the water and Ambien across the bed to her.

  “Is this the same thing you gave me before?” Livvie asked. “’Cause I still feel really spacey.”

  “It’s just a mild sleeping pill if you need it. But if your cheek hurts, or your lip . . . the Vicodin is for pain. Would you like another one of those?”

  “No, thank you,” Livvie said. She set the water and Ambien on the nightstand.

  Charlotte reached for the first hanger on the bed, which held a pair of black chinos, and hung it in the closet. She wished she could stand there and gaze into the closet instead of having to look at the rest of the room.

  Livvie said, “I know I’m only going to be here for tonight, but I wanted to put my things out anyway. Jesse’s things. I don’t think I could relax without them.”

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte said. She turned toward the bed and reached for the next hanger and took her time placing it inside the closet.

  Livvie said, “I did something I’m not sure about now.” Charlotte found that if she kept her gaze low, sweeping across the floor, she could still turn to the bed to retrieve the hangers one at a time. “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I left a note for Jesse. On his pillow. Telling him where I am.”

  Charlotte picked up a hanger, felt the weight of the clothing but could not identify it, kept looking at the floor as she turned, and the piece of clothing swung slightly with the movement. She placed the hanger on the rail but left her hand there, held to the rail because she thought her knees might give out, thought the darkness deeper inside the closet might pull her in. She asked, “What aren’t you sure about?”